Welcome to another collection of ramblings, musings, and miscellaneous stuff that I've managed to collect since the last issue (September 2005). Welcome to more crazy-man talk, basically. This one follows slowly yet surely almost a year later. I'd hoped to publish with greater frequency, but that would mean knocking other things out of sync -- my regular writing, full-time job, spending time with the wife and kid, playing tennis. Sometimes life comes at you like a swarm of African killer bees and all you've got is a fly-swatter. It's all about balance, trade-offs, and hysterically swatting at all the little things you think will kill you. Also, I wanted to get this latest issue out before we head off to Hawaii at the beginning of September.
Life here in downtown Fremont, California is quiet and uneventful. The bills are paid, food is in the fridge. The writing flows a little more smoothly. Bukowski was right: All writing should be easy. What he failed to mention is that much of the pain, angst, and exhaustion occurs with the rewrite -- second, third, fifth drafts. At some point, though, you just got to let it go and see what happens. So slap a number on it and call it issue #2.
A couple of mentions:
Issue #1 received an insightful and thoughtful (and I thought, overly-generous) review by Matt Fagan over at Meniscus Enterprises, which can be found in the latest issue of Xerography Debt #19. His comments were spot-on. Like a veteran ballplayer, he recognizes the weaknesses in another hitter's swing, especially one (me) who hasn't stepped into the batter's box for a number of years. In hindsight, issue #1 was basically crap, but in writing, you need to maintain that long-haul trucking mentality -- there are going to be bumps and grinds along the way, but there are also going to be a lot of cool things to see. Matt seems to be on that same journey and was able to call it for what it is -- just one more stretch of road to get over and through. (Wait...baseball and trucking analogies in the same paragraph...what have I become...?) In any event: Thanks, Matt!
So check out his website and order a few of his zines while you're at it: http://www.geocities.com/depotdevoid/meniscus/inside.html. He can also be reached via snail-mail at:
1573 N. Milwaukee Ave.
PMB #464
Chicago, IL 60622
The latest issue of Xerography Debt can be found at: http://www.leekinginc.com/xeroxdebt/xd19.htm. For a hard copy, send $3 to:
Xerography Debt
Davida Gypsy Breier
PO Box 11064, Baltimore, MD 21212 USA
Enjoy!
I wake before the morning birds start their chirping and singing. Since I quit smoking, I don't seem to need as much sleep. My last cigarette was on the morning of July 5, 2003. I left the house to play tennis (as paradoxical as that sounds) and didn't realize I'd forgotten my smokes back at the apartment. I was on a health kick and still smoking a pack a day. When the birds begin their singing each morning, I awake and begin my day as well. The sun hasn't yet risen. My alarm clock hasn't started beeping.
Gotta make up for lost time.
Throwing out and giving away a lot of stuff we don't need anymore. Nadjet took the bookshelf she bought for me as a Christmas gift a few years ago and gave it to the morbidly obese black woman who, a few months earlier, had asked me if she could borrow seventy-five cents as I was coming home from work and pulling the truck into our parking stall then angrily snorted and smirked and walked away without saying a word when I said I didn't have it; the woman who exclaimed, "So you're the ones who drink so much root beer!" when she saw Nadjet holding a can in her hand and smoking a cigarette outside the laundry room. When Nadjet asked her what she meant, the woman said she always finds our empty root beer cans out in the dumpster. This is the same woman who knocked on our door a short while back and asked if she could borrow two dollars. This woman annoys and disgusts me because I've seen the contempt in her eyes when she doesn't need to "borrow" anything. But Nadjet gave her our old bookshelf, anyway, and even helped carry it back to her apartment and thought nothing of it.
Here I am, reading all these books about Buddhism and unattachment from grudges and bad feelings and how important it is to forgive, and Nadjet is simply going about her business, living and practicing philosophies that I can only mouth-off about.
Bukowski scoffed at writers who carry around notebooks, yet he was a prolific letter-writer and somewhat of a poseur. He had a kind of high, whiny voice, almost timid if that was all you knew about him. Heard one of his recordings that I'd downloaded off the Internet. Kerouac sounded wormy, not a very strong vocal presence, either. Maybe that's why these guys became writers. Burroughs (William S.), however, sounded just as you'd expect him to sound, decrepit and ghastly, very creepy. Hunter Thompson also sounded just like his writing.
Cleaning out all the junk in our closets these past few weekends, I rediscovered my old diaries going as far back as 1981. Of course, my output hasn't been as consistent as it has been these last 10-15 years. And although I've tried to stick to writing in a single notebook at any given time, my notes are contemporaneously scattered across spiral-bound notebooks, backs of recycled sheets of paper, real "journal" books, Post-It notes, Mead notebooks, lab books, wherever I could write on whatever I could find at the time. I regret that much of my journal entries are only cursory glimpses of my life at the time, rarely diving beneath the surface, rarely touching on what I was truly thinking and feeling. In that regard, I believe I've failed. But who knows....maybe someday someone will come across these notes, these drive-by missives, and find some interest in them.
There is always the future, and there will always be more blank pages to fill.
Low-tech again. Listening to classical music on an old AM/FM transistor radio I picked up from the thrift store down the street from Grandma's old house on Blacow Road. Hitachi KH-966. Made in 1972, but I figured it to be much older with its faux leather casing, but what the hell do I know.
Sara taught herself to swim yesterday. She knows how to dog paddle now, and she's not afraid to duck her head under water anymore, either. She was all excited and had to call me on the phone to tell me the news as I was driving home from work. Then I passed her and Nadjet in the car as I was turning down Pennsylvania Avenue. "I know how to swim!" she yelled out the window.
Today they went swimming again, and I took more stuff to be donated to the thrift store -- two of those dark brown, hairy, itchy chairs that I got from work; an old collection of the "best" short stories that I bought on eBay a few years ago but never read; a few plates and miscellaneous dishes.
The old Filipino guy at the St. Vincent de Paul wouldn't accept one of the brown chairs because it had a few stains on it (it was the chair that Sara used when we sat at the table for dinner), and he refused my collection of the world's "best" short stories, so I drove those remaining items down to the Goodwill store in Milpitas just off Calaveras Road and Highway 237. The Mexican guy there took the short stories, but he too refused the stained itchy brown chair, so I backed the truck up to a dumpster on the other side of the store real quick and dumped it in there.
Some days are perfect for wandering around aimlessly (wish it could be every day), and today was one of them.
Afternoon now, riding my bike down Fremont Boulevard via the park where I sometimes play tennis (me vs. the wall), via the tract of housing with its own secret mini-strip mall consisting of a Qwik Stop and a laundromat, via the Amtrak station at Centerville, then straight down Fremont Boulevard, pedalling slow, meandering, taking my sweet time, trying to Buddha focus and feel the lackadaisical vibe of the universe. I cruise into American High. The band and the flaq squad are practicing their drills, and on the other side of campus, little league baseball plays out a typical Saturday afternoon. Baseball isn't really a team sport -- at any given moment, it is just one player versus the ball, trying to throw it, catch it, or hit it. It does nothing to build comraderie or sportsmanship -- unless you truly love the game, being a member of the team only serves to reinforce preexisting cliques amongst snot-nosed 10, 11, 12-year-old boys. If you're good, if you're popular, you'll do well. If not, if you find yourself sitting in that dugout against your will season after season, your memories of a springtime youth will be scarred forever.
And off in the distance, I see the teenaged girls turning their flags, moving in and out of formation, all to the rhythm of the marching band. Was a time I would leer lasciviously, but now I can only think: "Sara will be that age real soon."
I must be getting old.
Continue riding, and behind the Albertson's, I find a decent wall against which to smack a tennis ball, so I play for a few minutes before I realize the asphalt is reflecting too much of the sun's heat. I head back to the Amtrack station, retracing my route, and sit alone at one of the metal benches. The place is deserted. Cars ba-da-bump over the tracks just off to the side. The next train isn't due for another few hours. I sit for a few minutes. This is how Aaron Cometbus must feel when another Greyhound bus dumps him off in yet another strange town. Or how Kerouac must have felt when he was on the road and trying to find a way home. Me, I only catch a quick glimpse of it, that quicksilver feeling of moving and going, that "just passing through" mentality. Here today, gone tomorrow. I've had that feeling on business trips -- Ontario, Texas, Orange County. It's a good feeling to know that if you don't like a place, you don't need to hang around. But I did like those places, and I still couldn't hang around. So pack up that bag, check out of that hotel, and catch the next flight out. It's business, nothing personal. Karma is like a powerful magnet that pulls me back every time. Maybe next time.
Hadn't gone on any dayhikes all year. January to April, I was busy dealing with an asshole manager recently put in charge of the automation group at my old job, which is the main reason I left for my new job and why many of my coworkers left shortly after my departure. Started my new gig April 28th, right around the time Nadjet's mom went in for open-heart surgery, so there was all the incidental trickle-down stress to deal with from that. Not to mention the few stories in the press earlier in the year about mountain lion sightings, which stirred my paranoia about hiking alone in the hills, which to me is the best way to go hiking. So I ended up not going on any strenuous walks until today.
I figured if I waited for the weekend, waited for the nice weather, waited until I was in the mood to drive out to the San Mateo mountains or the East Bay hills, I'd never get any walking done, and I would be like any other fat-assed suburbanite driving everywhere in their SUVs, never walking except to waddle from the front door out to the driveway, then to the McDonald's drive-through for lunch, then over to the Wal-Mart where they'll circle three, four times looking for a spot closest to the entrance. Some will even park in the handicapped zone if they think they can get away with it.
Nobody walks in the suburbs, and it became quite evident to me shortly after I walked out the front door at 12:30 this afternoon. We were going to do our weekly grocery shopping at FoodMaxx in Newark on Cedar Boulevard just over the Stevenson overpass. I told Nadjet I'd meet her there. I'll walk.
We agreed she wouldn't leave until one hour after I had left to give me a headstart. I made good time getting there. I later retraced my route driving in my truck and discovered that the first part of the hike is only three to four miles long. I cut through Fremont Hub and angled through a residential neighborhood before coming out in front of Kennedy High on Blacow Road. I met my first real girlfriend there during first semester of my senior year in high school back in 1987. To this day, one of the best kissers I've ever known. Whole lotta Rosie. But anyway.
I headed over the Stevenson overpass, cars, SUVs whizzing by. It was a race just trying to get across the onramp, cars not stopping but speeding up to get onto the freeway. These roads are definitely not designed with pedestrians in mind. No one else walking on those empty sidewalks, just me and my two feet.
I got to FoodMaxx earlier than expected. When I called Nadjet, she wasn't planning on leaving the apartment for another ten minutes. Figure it took me forty minutes to walk roughly four miles. Ten minutes a mile.
When she and Sara arrived a few minutes later, I helped with the shopping, loaded them up in the back of the truck, then continued my way down Cedar Boulevard and through the old neighborhood where I grew up. Checked out our old house on Bluebell Drive looking fresh and remodeled, but still small and cramped -- that entire block seems too small and crowded now. And like a ghost town. No kids playing outside, no people in their front yards doing front yard stuff. No one at all. People all holed up inside with their home entertainment centers, their videogames, in front of computers, checking their email, chatting in cyberspace. I walked by the court where we used to play stickball. I saw a Chinese couple with their car parked on what used to be homeplate. They appeared to be house-shopping or something. The Chinese and Indians are buying up all the houses in Newark, Fremont, Milpitas, San Jose. Mostly Chinese and Indians now. The Asian invasion. Gone are the rednecks. Gone are the lower-class black and Mexican families. The ones that remain end up living in their parents' or grandparents' homes that were bought thirty or forty years ago, before "hi-tech" was even a word.
I didn't really notice the pain in my feet until I go to Moores Avenue. When I reached Birch Grove Park, I stopped twice to give my feet a rest. I'd forgotten how painful walking can be, especially when you haven't done any real walking in years and you suddenly go on an eight-mile jaunt around Fremont and Newark. My ankles were hurting and at times felt like they were going to give way. Imagine collapsing and dying right there in the middle of bumfuck suburbia. Of all the inglorious ways to die. Your last image of this great earth is a worm's eye view of someone's finely manicured lawn. I felt blisters beginning to form under the padding of each of my big toes. Should've worn better socks or brought along an extra pair, something I'll remember to do for future strolls.
Getting back onto Cedar, I made a right on Central, and from there it was a straight shot to Fremont Boulevard, then a short way home. That stretch of road couldn't have been more than two or three miles. Each step brought increasing pain and exhaustion. A little voice kept popping into my head: It's getting too painful. Why are you torturing yourself? Call Nadjet. She'll pick you up. You've walked for enough already -- what are you trying to prove?
But I kept going. I would not be defeated by this bleak suburban landscape on this day. Gotta get into shape. My eyes began roaming obsessively for good spots to sit, not as easy as it seems when everything is owned by somebody, and your only right-of-way is that narrow stretch of sidewalk. I wondered why the city even bothered. There was no one out there but me and a few homeowners tending to their investments. A city of tens of thousands and everyone keeping to themselves. Neighbors staying within the confines of their yards. People speeding by in their cars, trucks, and SUVs, door locked, windows rolled up with the air-conditioner running, everyone carrying on within their own insulated, isolated environments. Out there on the sidewalk in the middle of suburbia, I was on my own, left to fend for myself, alienated in this alien environment. The parks, the nature preserves are more crowded than this. On the weekends you can barely go half a mile on some wooded trail without running into a group of dayhikers with their daypacks, fanny packs and sun hats, chatting, babbling, laughing, scaring away the birds and the mountain lions. Here come the trail runners and the mountain bikers. Better get outta the way. Step to the side, or else. They'll run you down the side of the hill.
And that's if you can even get into those parks or those nature preserves. The parking lots are usually filled by noon by those same cars, trucks, and SUVs that sped by while I traipsed down those lonely abandoned sidewalks. I had found a wilderness of sorts. It was sandwiched between people's frontyards and the asphalt city streets, that place where no one goes anymore, lightly travelled, rarely, all but abandoned. Part of it is the sidewalk, but most of it is a state of mind. I began reciting in my head, "Nobody walks in L.A." Then I thought: Hell, nobody walks, period.
People talk about driving four or five hours to the mountains to "get away" when all they need to is step out their front doors and head down the sidewalk. You see more things, or notice them better, I should say. You can take your time seeing the things you see. And then suddenly you'll notice your neighborhood becoming populated with real places and things and not just blurred streaks just beyond the driver's-side window.
I reached home four hours after I had left, feeling beat-down and exhausted, limping around the livingroom like an old man, ankles hurting, throbbing, calves hurting, a slight pain in each step. I retraced my steps the following day and discovered that I had only walked a mere 8.8 miles.
Nadjet looked at me and shook her head. "Next time you should just drive."
Sometimes there's nothing worth saying. Sometimes it's better to just wait silently and listen to the universe respond. The skies move, invisible giants across the heavens. The oceans like a vast blanket cover your soul and masks itself. Sadness pain anxiety All life is suffering, I once spoke in a dream. All life is risk. And the black shadow haunts you in the corners of your mind. It whispers doubt.
We took Sara to the haunted house at Fremont Hub. There were two lines -- one for big kids and one for little kids, which had a "good" fairy escort. Sara said she's a big kid now and didn't need a good fairy escort. Plus we were all together, so the plan was that Nadjet would take the lead and attract all the bogeymen and ghosts leaping from behind corners or false walls and whatnot, get them to jump out at her instead of me and Sara. Of course, as soon as we get in there and turn that first corner and things start jumping out, Nadjet takes off running down the hallway screaming and in a panic, completely forgetting about me and Sara. I'm left holding Sara the whole way, and these little 13, 14-year-old kids dressed as ghouls and whatever are jumping out at us and Sara's crying, "Go back! Go away! You're ruining my day! You guys are really ruining my day!"
When we got to the end, tears were streaming down here face and she was a little shaken up. But the next day she wanted to go back, so she put on her witch costume and patiently waited next to the front door for us to take her again. This time, however, we stood in the "good" fairy line.
As an unsuspecting parent with a school-aged child, you find yourself obligated to attend all the various school functions throughout the year. Insidious little invitations and announcements arrive in the form of little red, blue, or yellow flyers planted amongst the miscellaneous papers that your kid brings home. Christmas play, spring chorus, bake sale, book sale -- all that nonsense. For some reason, most of that stuff is scheduled AFTER school hours. After all, they do want to include the parents, so instead of coming home from work and vegetating out on the couch or in front of the computer, we've got to drag our tired asses out to the kid's school and engage in the lunacy that is part of the public education experience.
I don't remember having to deal with any such hassles when I was in elementary school. Back then, school faculty weren't as perky and hyperactive as they seem to be today, where the social aspects of schooling takes higher precedence over the basics of just learning to read and write. This practice evidently carries over into high school, where barely literate kids are allowed to graduate simply to get their dumb asses out of an already over-taxed system and into the very sad and real world of minimum wage jobs -- warehouse engineering, fastfood service technicians, retail sales analysts.
I realize I'm sounding like a old geezer when I say "Back in my day," but so be it. I'm an old geezer. In the eyes of my 7-year-old, I'm nothing more than "fat, squishy Daddy, squishy old man." But back in my days, when we were done learning those most basic of basics, the teachers would kick our asses out onto the playground where we were left to fend for ourselves. Nobody cared. Yard duty teachers were only there to lend an unsympathetic ear to the rats and the finks. As for the rest of us: To each his own. The purest form of Darwinism took over whenever that recess bell sounded. With regard to your own ass, it was kick or be kicked. Maybe it was different for girls or those less prone to violence in the schoolyard. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was. The girls and the future homosexuals stayed near the blacktop playing four-square and twirling on the monkey bars, while fist-fights and all-out war was waged between the boys out on the soccer/football field. Alliances were formed and enemies were made that would last years, or at least until we made it to junior high.
I can't say that I was an antisocial child (that state of mind came much later). I was simply disinterested in socializing. All that stuff seemed geared toward the female mentality, anyway -- the socializing, the decorating, the party planning, dressing up all pretty and clean, going out and being seen in the scene.
It all came full circle the other day when I got home from work. There on the kitchen table, resting atop Sara's homework folder was a bright red piece of paper, a Christmas invitation, an invitation to the lighting of the Christmas tree at Fremont Hub, a little outdoor, half-empty shopping mall just down the street.
Nadjet was getting ready for work. She recently got a part-time gig at the Hollywood Video down the street. "Can you take Sara tonight?" she says.
"Where?"
"To her Christmas function. It's tonight at Fremont Hub. I told you about it the other day, remember? I told Sara I was going to take her, but I forgot I had to work tonight."
"Oh." I turn to Sara, who's also getting ready. "Sara, are you sure you want to go? It might be too cold."
"Yes!! Mommy can't take me, so YOU have to take me. All my classmates are going to be there!"
Damn.
We arrive a few minutes early. The festivities aren't scheduled to begin until six o'clock. The place is dark, literally, like someone forgot to switch on the lights when the sun went down. We could see shadows milling about in all the blackness, somewhat illuminated by the light leaking out of the few storefront windows.
"Are you sure there's something going on here tonight?" I say to Sara. "The place looks pretty empty."
"Yes!" she says. She's excited, eyes darting about, scanning, searching for her classmates.
Then we see a small gathering of shadows surrounding a much taller shadow, the Christmas tree that will presumeably be lit up. Metal folding chairs have been placed in front of it a few rows deep. We join the quiet crowd. People are just sort of standing around, expectant. Sara is busy searching every short person to see if it's someone she recognizes.
"There's Timmy!" she yells, standing just five feet away and pointing at him. He and his mother look at us and smile.
"I see Kyle!" "Look! There's Ms. Magnani!"
"I don't know any of these people." I say.
"Of course you don't." says Sara. "You're not in my class."
Off to the side, I see a band setting up their equipment -- a saxophonist, keyboardist, and drummer. Seasoned musicians, I figure. Tall, thin black guys, old and weathered-looking, session cats -- gonna be jamming to some Christmas tunes real soon, I think. These guys look like they really know how to play. The saxophonist taps on his microphone and addresses the crowd. He looks hungover and sounds as tired as he looks. Seems to have lived the blues more than played them. The band launches into an instrumental rendition of "Chestnuts Roasting Over An Open Fire". They're playing a few clicks too slow. The sax player and keyboardist aren't playing in the same key. It all sounds slightly off-kilter, kind of wobbly like the sax-playing band leader. I think, well hey, who else are you going to get to play for a half-hour on a Tuesday night in December?
The band starts playing "Jingle Bells." The band leader isn't really singing the song -- he's just sort of mumbling "Jingle bells...jingle bells...bum-bum-bum-bah-dum..." Then he pauses, the music comes to a hesitating stop, and he says into the mic, "Does anyone know the rest of the words?"
Huh? You hire a band to play Christmas songs, and they don't even know the words to "Jingle Bells"!? These guys must really need the money. And they really need to rehearse. I'm starting to think I could do better with my beat-up acoustic guitar and a kazoo. The band never fully recovers and they just kind of stop playing altogether.
A few moments later, a man steps up to the podium in front of the unlit Christmas tree. He says he's the director of something or other at Washington Hospital. A few people clap. Then he introduces the Mayor of Fremont.
"Look!" I whisper into Sara's ear. "It's the mayor of Fremont!"
"Really?" she says, looking around. "Where? Where?"
The mayor steps to the podium. He's a tall man, at least six-four, six-five. He is old and sleepy. They must have roused him from his nap at the retirement home. Hunched over, moving very slowly, deliberately like my grandpa -- every movement requires concentration and focused coordination between all body parts. He looks as if he's going to nod off right there at the podium. He says something about what a great city Fremont is and mumbles a few more words about Christmas and the unlit tree behind him before the director at Washington Hospital takes the mic and lets the mayor shuffle back to wherever he came from, probably bed.
"And now," says the director from Washington Hospital, "let's start the countdown."
5...4...3...2...1...click-click...there is a momentary pause where disappointment and failure begin to creep into everyone's mind. Then the lights go on. The crowd mumbles a flaccid "Yaayyy..." More a sigh of relief, really. Just plain white lights that aren't any fancier than tiny white light bulbs, about as impressive as watching a next-door neighbor switch on a porchlight. "The tree of life!" I yell. A few people turn to look at me. Nevermind.
Bell-ringers from one of the local high schools are scheduled to perform. They move into position in front of the tree as quickly as the darkness will allow (the dim lights on the tree aren't much help), fumbling and trying to stand in the correct order, low to high or is it high to low? The guy in the middle is safe. The ones on the ends need to switch.
They begin playing, but the bells are chiming too softly. We can barely hear them. They should have mic'ed each bell. Everyone sort of leans forward and inward straining to listen. The crowd closes in around the bell-ringers, trying to figure out what song they're playing.
Someone must have notified mall employees about the insufficient lighting. Two maintenance workers drag construction floodlights out to the area, strung along what appears to be a mile's worth of bright orange extension cord. They set up directly behind the bell-ringers and aim the lights right at the crowd. When they switch them on, the intense beam of light temporarily blinds the people sitting in the first few rows. The silhouettes of the bell-ringers stretch out across the crowd. Now instead of being too dark, it's too bright. People have to shield their eyes.
The bell-ringers continue to play, but the crowd still can't hear what they're playing and soon loses interest. People start talking and chatting, which drowns out the chiming even further. Small kids start tripping and playing with the bright orange extension cord. The crowd is beginning to disperse. A few have wandered down to the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Others are heading over to Target.
I pull out my cell phone and check the time. Just past 6:30. "Ready to go?" I say to Sara.
"Yeah." she says. "It's getting boring."
"Let's go home, then."
"Okay."
A half-hour night out on the town. I hope this continues all throughout her teen years, but I somehow doubt that.
Watched a segment on Dr. Phil about a schizophrenic woman who hears voices and sees the faces of demons transposed over the faces of people she passes on the street.
Sara was watching with me and didn't say a word. I thought she'd get frightened from all the graphics they were showing of people with blacked-out smeared eyes and weird moaning, but she didn't seem to have any kind of reaction, either way. When the segment finished, she quietly returned to playing with her toys on the couch.
But then a week or so later, I notice she's asking me or Nadjet to accompany her everywhere in the apartment. I asked her why she seemed so scared lately.
"You know, Daddy," she says, "remember when we saw that show about the lady who sees scary things from her 'magination? Sometimes I have an active 'magination, too."
"Really?" I say.
"Sometimes I see things."
"Like what?"
"Well, sometimes," she takes a deep breath like she usually does when she's about to say something very important, "if I close my eyes really hard and open them, sometimes I see the letter 'C'!"
I should've been clued in on how empty the place was. On the way home this afternoon, I was stopped at the traffic light in front of the Spoons restaurant across the street from our apartment. The place had been closed these past few years and suddenly reopened with little fanfare. Hmm. Let's go check it out, I said. We rarely go out anymore, me, Nadjet, and Sara. Every night is a cozy night spent indoors in our apartment. Nadjet prepares dinner. We eat, then get ready for bed. Same routine for months on end. We've rarely been at any of those restaurants across the street. That strip mall of hell, like any strip mall of hell --
Walking there, Sara was terrified of stepping on any worms.
I tried to order a beer from our waitress, a young black girl who didn't know what MGD meant and later apologized that because she isn't yet twenty-one, she didn't know that it was a kind of beer. No problem, I said, and ordered a Sam Adams. I asked her, how was the lobster enchiladas, not meaning to sound snooty or anything but realizing later that I probably did -- I just wanted to know if they served it with a special sauce or prepared it in a special way or anything. She squinched her face. "It's imitation lobster." she said. So I ordered the half-rack of baby back ribs. But for some reason they included a half chicken with the order and three pieces of ribs. Everything tasted like it was reheated, like something that just came out of a microwave.
Walking home in the dark. Cloud cover. Warm. It had been raining massively earlier in the day, but now everything was calm, quiet. Cars speeding down Mowry Ave. We were the only ones strolling down the sidewalk there in the dark. Sara afraid of stepping on any worms, constantly complaining about the worms.
But now I'm sitting here with a cool buzz. Downed a fishbowl glass of Sam Adams, and now I'm at home working on my second glass of Merlot. Vendange Merlot. Cheap red wine for cheap unpublished writers.
Big foot and hairy toe, not Bigfoot but a BIG foot and a hairy toe came crashing down through the sky. Billion-ton gray clouds pissing all over and across the land, smashing concrete skyscrapers crumpling like accordionesque piles of useless rubble.
"Watch out for the big toe! Watch out for the big toe!"
Sinners! Unbelievers! Skeptics!
All your lives have been lived in vain! All is for naught before the smashing crashing big toe!
Its giant toenail reflects the panic and fear like the face mask of a moon-man helmet.
Roads not travelled
Time not spent
Books unread
Movies not seen
Friends not made
Food uneaten
Mountains not climbed
Doors unopened
Apologies not made
Apologies not accepted
Hugs not given
Hands unshaken
A life
not lived
if
I
died tomorrow
Sara said to me one day: "I don't like Cathy. You know why?"
"Why?"
"Because when I first met her, I told her my name was Sara, and she said: Why?"
The years chug by like a passing train. I often find myself looking back to all those years I've left behind, we've all left behind, those of us who remain. I sift through the memories trying to find something. Don't quite know what it is I'm searching for. I just have the strong sense, whenever I'm contemplating the past, that I am searching for something.
It doesn't even have to be my own memories. Often it isn't. We watched "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" last night. The film was made in 1975. Jack Nicholson was in his late thirties and on the brink of becoming a major star. He probably didn't know it at the time, or maybe he did, but it doesn't really matter. What I'm curious about, what I was wondering was where was I in relation to Jack Nicholson in 1975? How do those two points connect? What might they have in common? Fact is, there is no connection. I was five years old in 1975 and probably starting kindergarten.
I hear the train in the distance, its horn like a lonely howl.
Where you going, train? Got room for one more? My bag ain't packed, and already I got too much baggage.
Cars swish by on the wet asphalt.
Rain again.
If I had spent all my time writing instead of spending it on the Internet, I could have written three books by now.
If I had spent all my time writing instead of drinking and whoring in my twenties, I probably would have written twenty books by now.
If I had spent all my time doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing instead of doing what I'd actually done, I wouldn't be the man I am today.
"Only when the mind is blissful, quiet, without any movement of its own, without projection of thought, conscious or unconscious -- only then does the eternal come into being."
-- J. Krishnamurti, "Total Freedom"
lips are for kissing arms are for hugging feet are for tickling kiss hug tickle see? hee-hee!
Took a daytrip up to San Francisco. Grandma called earlier in the week and asked if I could pick up a few silk purses/pouches from Chinatown. She wanted a specific size -- 2" x 2.5". So I caught BART up there and did a bit of wandering and meandering. Stopped by the Pinecrest Diner on Mason and Powell, the venerable, legendary Pinecrest Diner, and had one of their hamburgers, well-done. Best burgers in the city. Close runner-up would be Little Henry's over on Post and Larkin. Hit my usual stopover points -- the main library, the Goodwill on Geary and Larkin, then a quick walk up to Polk to that used-book store near Pine. Didn't go in, though. Too sweaty, hot and bothered from all that walking, and anyway, there are already too many books on my shelf that I haven't even begun to read. Had to remind myself that I shouldn't be buying anymore books. So turned around and headed down to 1051 Post Street, my first apartment, the tiny little 10x12 room where I became a man and realized my karma. Wrote many short stories while living there from 1991 to 1997 whose main character I had named Arimor Leunghessarian (later shortened to Arim Leunghessarian). I checked the directory listing on the front gate and looked up my old apartment, Apt. #3, out of curiosity to see who might be living there now, and I see listed one "A. Leung." Strange. I smile and laugh. My character has come to life and is now living in my old apartment. The circle is complete.
I got to BART thinking to catch the next train back to Fremont but instead hopped on the one headed for Daly City. Got off at Mission and 16th and strolled up to 21st before turning around. The smell of cheap beer and urine everywhere. Many Latinos standing around on a Saturday afternoon -- Mexicans, Guatamalans, Hondurans, Puerto Ricans -- all short, brown, nothing better to do. In their faces, I catch a glimpse of the Aztecs, the Mayans. How far their civilization has fallen, eking out an existence on the streets of a city run by gay white men.
Stopped in a thrift store/junk shop, more beat up and messy than your usual thrift store/junk shop. Things were simply piled to the left and to the right with a narrow walkway down the middle. Amidst all this mess, I happened upon a miniature copy of the New Testament. Bought it for $1. I've never been one to preach the bible, and I'm not about to begin now. In fact, the whole Christians versus Muslims versus Jews really just turned me off completely from reading any of their collective bullshit. I'll try to make up my own mind, thanks. I try to keep it in my mind that the actual force that we recognize as God transcends such idiotic notions as organized religion and its accompanying idiotic practices. Christians seem to mistake him for Santa Claus, sending prayers his way like Christmas wishlists and making assurances that they've all been good little believers. Fucking hypocrites. As if any of that shit really mattered, anyway. But skimming through a few pages of that little miniature New Testament, the words of our Lord, Jesus the Christ leapt out at me as I began reading the gospel according to St. Matthew. Hallelujah, muthafuckah!
It suddenly made sense to me, this bible stuff. It is as I suspected -- you don't need mega-churches; you don't need to put on your "Sunday best" and be seen with the rest of them; you don't need to shout your belief in the Lord in hopes of impressing and proving yourself to others, in an effort to out-shout, out-yell those who might believe differently. You only need to live quietly, humbly, like small animals in the forest. Keep to yourself and be happy. Be content in the knowledge that God will take care of each of us, which is just another way of saying that everything will work itself out in the end. What is faith but infinite patience and the ability to accept things as they are? This is really no different than what is talked about in Buddhist texts. They are all basically saying the same thing. We're all looking at the same cookie jar, only from different angles. I guess it's true what they say: Nothing really matters.
But in a good way.