Today, I ran an errand down by the airport. On my way back, I drove as usual, 5 miles over the speed limit, not wanting to get a ticket in my new hometown so soon. Some of the locals drive 70 when the limit is 50 and they don't like me blocking the slow lane of the four-lane freeway--how thoughtless of me. A beat-up blazer, held together by bubblegum, wire hangers donated by Mommy Dearest, and a whole lot of prayer, drove around me in a cloud of smoke while the driver spewed obscenities in my direction.
Then, a land boat made by Cadillac in the mid-80's eased its way around me going about 25 miles over the limit. The driver merged back onto my lane a bit too close, making me think he had intended to cut me off. I uttered the obligatory profanities under my breath, thinking him not merely rude, but dangerously so. Despite his going that fast, I caught up to him at the exit. He was the third car back on the second lane, waiting to turn left. Before I made it to the end of the left lane, he merged in front of me. Again I thought "how rude." But I was surprised by what he did.
It turns out he merged because there was a homeless old man at the corner. Before the light changed, he rolled the window down and handed the old man a bag with what I am assuming was his left-overs from lunch. The old man grabbed the bag, opened it, inspected the contents, put his sign down and started to eat with a big smile on his face. During the thirty seconds that remained before the light changed, I reevaluated my perception of the man in the big car in front of me.
We presume, from the briefest observations, to know the entire character of people we run into in our lives. We call these intuitions, first impressions--all euphemisms to mean assumptions. We do it when we meet a nurse, a priest, a republican, a Mexican. We think we know them because how far can each of them be from the norm we know, anyway?
It is only in the luckiest of cases that God gives us thirty seconds at the stop light to show us how truly stupid we can be--how truly stupid I have been. And I thank Him for it. I will try to do better.
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thence Home
These are the only two things I remember: It was a small, dark place. I remember people having to lower their head ever so slightly as they crossed the doorway from the dining room to the living room. Everything was made of a dark, reddish wood with intricate line patterns I used to follow with my fingers. Though I cannot remember why, the name “Santa Clara” or “Santa Rosa” come to mind when I think of this place. Somehow, I never asked my parents about that—and now I fear it might be too late.
Then there was a small, well-lighted place. Made of concrete, with plenty of windows, breezy, it was still a warm, welcoming place, the place that I should still think of as the place I am from, but it did not replace the first. I saw the war through its windows, and then when the war came inside, I saw its roof destroyed and a cloud of dust come from the kitchen as we left.
I was ten.
San Jose, San Francisco, San Bernardino, Redlands, South Gate, Lynwood—these are all places I've lived but none of them home. Home again didn't come until my daughter was born. And that was still not home. I'd made a home there, but too many bad memories came from the end of my marriage and my children and I have made many good memories away from that place.
I travel well because no place new is any less comfortable than the place I live. I've been gone for a month now and the only thing I miss is my pool friends. I like 9-ball better than 8, but it's all good. There's always a bar nearby where I can play.
Now, my sister's told me she rented out her house. They are moving up to Portland, OR. That is my favorite city. I remember the first time I went there, noticing a bumper sticker on a few cars. I asked the taxi-driver about it and he said the city had launched a campaign and was distributing that and a few others. It said “Keep Portland Weird”. That's my kind of town.
There is a little bar just up the street from the living room theater, where I play pool and listen to the karaoke singers. They are good, very good even. The city is mostly cool, sometimes rainy. And every now and then you get a wonderful, blustery day.
I think I will move with them.
But I have been in California most of my life—twice as long as I lived anywhere else, or rather all other places. I may still get lost on my way home. I may still relish the feeling of finding myself in a place I've never been, and keep a mental catalog of all the roads I've driven when I thought “this is a new place”.
Trish keeps telling me to do it afraid, to just do it, to not let the fear of the new get in the way of getting it done, whatever “it” might be. I'll probably have to change jobs, and this is not a time to be giving up a job. I'll have to give up my place, a place where I have lived six years, where I can walk with all the lights off and not run into a wall, where I know all the cracks, and all the neighbors, and all where I walk in the middle of a cold night, when I can't sleep, and smoke a cigarette and still get greeted by name by all the other insomniacs out for a smoke, too. My children still live nearby, and while I don't see them very often, I've gone over at four o'clock in the morning to greet them when they wake up. We've had some crazy adventures that started with no plan at all and now form the fabric of the memories they'll have of me when I am gone.
When I am gone.
Is this that time? Despite all the reasons to stay, I know deep inside I am leaving. I feel guilty they might think I am leaving despite them, because of them, like I have given up on them...
Am I doing this just for me?
I've told the story so many times it seems like something out of Death of a Salesman now. Like a made up story that gained reality just inside my head. My daughter, right out of the hospital, came home and my wife and I got her ready for her first bath. Everything was set so perfectly in place. The little yellow baby-bath my wife had used when she was a baby was on the sink, full of nice warm water. I put the baby on the counter, got her naked and picked her up like a new father picks up his new baby, most carefully, an arm under each end like she would break at the slightest motion. It was maybe two feet away from the little, yellow, baby-bath. By the time I set her down in the bath, she had pooped on my arm. I never knew such a little thing could make so much stinky stuff. It was black and sticky. It smelled to all the world like something that had been decomposing for nine months. Sugar and spice indeed!
When he was three years old, I noticed my son had the perfect skin tone. Perfect, that is, for California. I thought of him as a little surfer, with his honey-colored eyes and skin the color of cafe-con-leche that had just a little too much leche—just the way I liked it. But he had dark hair. It was light brown, dark sandy perhaps, not what I thought surfer hair should be. So my boyfriend and I cut his hair really short and bleached it. We got him a necklace made of shells. The effect was perfect. When his hair started growing again, there was a time he had the darker hair under a little cover of blond, and it was even better. My wife threatened me I'd never see him again if I dyed his hair before he was old enough for it.
Then, there was the time we went to Vegas for two hours, just to take pictures. Or the time we escaped to Tijuana for the weekend, just to have some steak. Or the time we went to see A Chorus Line and my daughter and an elderly lady were giggling like little girls all through Tits and Ass...
But that was when they were little kids. They are almost all grown now, with almost all full lives all for themselves, and often, I feel like I'm intruding when I go—like they have to give up something of theirs to spend some time with me. I know it is still a bit of guilt about having felt that way myself when I went to see them, or when they came to see me. Turn-around and all that.
Perhaps it will be ok. At this point, I think it is inevitable that I move again, giving up all the memories I've made thus far to make new ones in a new place. Perhaps they can come see me and spend more time, when they can, when I can, when we can. Ha ha ha... every new beginning is another beginning's end, right? Maybe we can build a whole new relationship, now as adults, unburdened by all the things that parents and children share when they stay in the same old places. We will draw new maps to new places for new adventures.
Maybe it will not be my last move, my last place—after all, avocado trees don't grow well in Portland.
Maybe, for a change, this will be home. And if it isn't, maybe it will be another dot I mark on the map on the way there.
May be.
Then there was a small, well-lighted place. Made of concrete, with plenty of windows, breezy, it was still a warm, welcoming place, the place that I should still think of as the place I am from, but it did not replace the first. I saw the war through its windows, and then when the war came inside, I saw its roof destroyed and a cloud of dust come from the kitchen as we left.
I was ten.
San Jose, San Francisco, San Bernardino, Redlands, South Gate, Lynwood—these are all places I've lived but none of them home. Home again didn't come until my daughter was born. And that was still not home. I'd made a home there, but too many bad memories came from the end of my marriage and my children and I have made many good memories away from that place.
I travel well because no place new is any less comfortable than the place I live. I've been gone for a month now and the only thing I miss is my pool friends. I like 9-ball better than 8, but it's all good. There's always a bar nearby where I can play.
Now, my sister's told me she rented out her house. They are moving up to Portland, OR. That is my favorite city. I remember the first time I went there, noticing a bumper sticker on a few cars. I asked the taxi-driver about it and he said the city had launched a campaign and was distributing that and a few others. It said “Keep Portland Weird”. That's my kind of town.
There is a little bar just up the street from the living room theater, where I play pool and listen to the karaoke singers. They are good, very good even. The city is mostly cool, sometimes rainy. And every now and then you get a wonderful, blustery day.
I think I will move with them.
But I have been in California most of my life—twice as long as I lived anywhere else, or rather all other places. I may still get lost on my way home. I may still relish the feeling of finding myself in a place I've never been, and keep a mental catalog of all the roads I've driven when I thought “this is a new place”.
Trish keeps telling me to do it afraid, to just do it, to not let the fear of the new get in the way of getting it done, whatever “it” might be. I'll probably have to change jobs, and this is not a time to be giving up a job. I'll have to give up my place, a place where I have lived six years, where I can walk with all the lights off and not run into a wall, where I know all the cracks, and all the neighbors, and all where I walk in the middle of a cold night, when I can't sleep, and smoke a cigarette and still get greeted by name by all the other insomniacs out for a smoke, too. My children still live nearby, and while I don't see them very often, I've gone over at four o'clock in the morning to greet them when they wake up. We've had some crazy adventures that started with no plan at all and now form the fabric of the memories they'll have of me when I am gone.
When I am gone.
Is this that time? Despite all the reasons to stay, I know deep inside I am leaving. I feel guilty they might think I am leaving despite them, because of them, like I have given up on them...
Am I doing this just for me?
I've told the story so many times it seems like something out of Death of a Salesman now. Like a made up story that gained reality just inside my head. My daughter, right out of the hospital, came home and my wife and I got her ready for her first bath. Everything was set so perfectly in place. The little yellow baby-bath my wife had used when she was a baby was on the sink, full of nice warm water. I put the baby on the counter, got her naked and picked her up like a new father picks up his new baby, most carefully, an arm under each end like she would break at the slightest motion. It was maybe two feet away from the little, yellow, baby-bath. By the time I set her down in the bath, she had pooped on my arm. I never knew such a little thing could make so much stinky stuff. It was black and sticky. It smelled to all the world like something that had been decomposing for nine months. Sugar and spice indeed!
When he was three years old, I noticed my son had the perfect skin tone. Perfect, that is, for California. I thought of him as a little surfer, with his honey-colored eyes and skin the color of cafe-con-leche that had just a little too much leche—just the way I liked it. But he had dark hair. It was light brown, dark sandy perhaps, not what I thought surfer hair should be. So my boyfriend and I cut his hair really short and bleached it. We got him a necklace made of shells. The effect was perfect. When his hair started growing again, there was a time he had the darker hair under a little cover of blond, and it was even better. My wife threatened me I'd never see him again if I dyed his hair before he was old enough for it.
Then, there was the time we went to Vegas for two hours, just to take pictures. Or the time we escaped to Tijuana for the weekend, just to have some steak. Or the time we went to see A Chorus Line and my daughter and an elderly lady were giggling like little girls all through Tits and Ass...
But that was when they were little kids. They are almost all grown now, with almost all full lives all for themselves, and often, I feel like I'm intruding when I go—like they have to give up something of theirs to spend some time with me. I know it is still a bit of guilt about having felt that way myself when I went to see them, or when they came to see me. Turn-around and all that.
Perhaps it will be ok. At this point, I think it is inevitable that I move again, giving up all the memories I've made thus far to make new ones in a new place. Perhaps they can come see me and spend more time, when they can, when I can, when we can. Ha ha ha... every new beginning is another beginning's end, right? Maybe we can build a whole new relationship, now as adults, unburdened by all the things that parents and children share when they stay in the same old places. We will draw new maps to new places for new adventures.
Maybe it will not be my last move, my last place—after all, avocado trees don't grow well in Portland.
Maybe, for a change, this will be home. And if it isn't, maybe it will be another dot I mark on the map on the way there.
May be.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Death
My children complain that I talk about death too much. Every now and then, having heard of another distant relative who’s passed on, I’ll go into my usual story of what I want done with my remains after my turn comes. I tell them exactly what I want done before and after, in reference or deference or commemoration of me—like I deserve any such celebrations. I have a playlist in my iTunes I’ve titled “Music For My Funeral”. I tell them they will miss me and that it’s ok; and I tell them they’ll stop missing me after a while, maybe a long while, and that that is ok, too. Too much, perhaps, but I have my reasons.
My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 76. My grandmother died of a heart attack when she was 65. My father died of a heart attack when he was 55. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was 42. My brother died of a heart attack when he was 36. I have a bad heart—and have spent plenty of nights under observation at the hospital while they stabilized my erratic heartbeat—so I keep telling the family that I feel I’m living on borrowed time.
My father spent plenty of nights sitting on a chair in the dark, out in the back yard, smoking a cigar and drinking a little cognac after dinner, supposedly waiting for the Martians he saw fly their saucer over a lake when he was 26 to come rescue him from the unjust punishment living on Earth must be. Life on Earth, I gathered then, was a punishment, a harsh sentence aliens paid for some crime they committed—we are a penal colony. This meant, of course, life is nothing to be terribly clung to, and (more importantly) that death is not an end, but rather a transition, a happy one, from this punishment to the real life from which we came, a parole from this prison. And so, when we found my father’s dead body on his reclining chair in front of the television, with a smile on his face, we cried as we should cry, but I thought that smile was all the message he could give me that they had finally come for him.
One day, it will be my turn.
That is the one truth no one can hide from: death will come. I don’t know what death is, what comes after, but I do know it will come, that it will be my turn to die someday, that my children will be left with the responsibility of doing something with the decaying remnants, this thing they used to call dad and for which they will mistakenly still feel love, not realizing that I, their real dad, have exited the train and simply chosen to use a different conveyance to reach points beyond. I don’t want them to feel what we felt when my father died: that we had never talked about death and that we had no idea what he wanted done for him, with him, to him. So I’ve engineered a terribly complicated ceremony to allow my children to feel they have done as I wish. Though I may be gone to the next step of the journey, I can give them some closure.
Still, it must be done in a way that will allow them to laugh. I want there should be fun. There may be a dead guy in the room, but that dead guy will be me, so we cannot make this a somber occasion. That will simply not do.
So this is what I’ve told them: go to my computer, get the music I’ve selected for my funeral, get a gathering of friends and relatives going—they know which ones—and get them all drunk remembering the good old times we all shared. In the morning, those who feel their lives would be improved by it should pray, but not unless they would have otherwise done so had I not died: I want no hypocrites on my side. Then, when my body has been cremated, gather up the ashes and take them to the hills. Find a sunny slope and bury them there with an avocado seed, somewhere such a tree can grow. Make sure, I’ve told them, that it is at a place that’s particularly hard to reach. I don’t want them to feel guilty for not coming to visit me past the third anniversary of my death. After all, that is not me: it is just a small pile of ashes.
When and if the tree should grow, wait until it can hold a sign, and then hang one from its branches that reads “EAT ME”, and should I feel the need to visit the little pile of ashes from wherever I have gone, you can be sure I will smile. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll do that. I’d rather visit my children, and their children, just to make sure they’re ok. That would be a much better use for the nearly unlimited time I presume one must have after death.
So then, to end, just to make sure the list is not lost if this computer should die before me, here is a list as of today. These are the songs. Each has a meaning, known only to me, and hopefully the one for whom I picked it. I don’t expect anybody other than my children will care, and while I’d hope they didn’t, I’m afraid their Judeo-Christian upbringing will require some action from them, so they should do something:
1 Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)
2 I’m In A Hurry (Alabama)
3 No Time To Kill (Clint Black)
4 Amarillo By Morning (George Strait)
5 Neon Moon (Brooks and Dunn)
6 Hechizo (Ana Gabriel)
7 Se Murio De Amor (Bobby Pulido)
8 Solo Los Tontos (Alacranes Musical)
9 Viviendo De Prisa (Alejandro Sanz)
10 Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas (Aleks Syntek)
11 Jamas (Camilo Sesto)
12 Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon)
13 Amor (Cristian Castro)
14 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
15 Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
16 Magic Dance (from labyrinth) (David Bowie)
17 Love Child (Diana Ross and the Supremes)
18 Mad World (Gary Jules)
19 La Mia Storia Tra Le Di (Gianluca Grignani)
20 Mi Historia Entre Tus Dedos (Spanish version of 19)
21 Una Magica Storia d’Amore (Gigi D’Alessio)
22 Que Alguien Me Diga (Gilberto Santa Rosa)
23 Kol Hatziporim (Harel Skaat)
24 Haruach Teshane Et Kivunah (Harel Skaat)
25 Fire And Rain (James Taylor)
26 The Origin Of Love (Hedwig and the angry inch)
27 I Should Have Been A Cowboy (Toby Keith)
28 Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
29 El Frio De Tu Adios (Olga Tañon)
30 Hasta Contar A Mil (Jotdog)
31 Burbujas De Amor (Juan Luis Guerra)
32 Dos Locos (Monchi Y Alexandra)
33 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
34 Solitary Man (Neil Diamond)
35 No Me Doy Por Vencido (Luis Fonsi)
36 Yesterday (Beatles)
That should give the guests about two hours of drinking time—enough for a buzz but not enough for a DUI, I hope. Thus does it stand for the time being, but I firmly believe that in death, more than in life, everything changes…
My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 76. My grandmother died of a heart attack when she was 65. My father died of a heart attack when he was 55. My uncle died of a heart attack when he was 42. My brother died of a heart attack when he was 36. I have a bad heart—and have spent plenty of nights under observation at the hospital while they stabilized my erratic heartbeat—so I keep telling the family that I feel I’m living on borrowed time.
My father spent plenty of nights sitting on a chair in the dark, out in the back yard, smoking a cigar and drinking a little cognac after dinner, supposedly waiting for the Martians he saw fly their saucer over a lake when he was 26 to come rescue him from the unjust punishment living on Earth must be. Life on Earth, I gathered then, was a punishment, a harsh sentence aliens paid for some crime they committed—we are a penal colony. This meant, of course, life is nothing to be terribly clung to, and (more importantly) that death is not an end, but rather a transition, a happy one, from this punishment to the real life from which we came, a parole from this prison. And so, when we found my father’s dead body on his reclining chair in front of the television, with a smile on his face, we cried as we should cry, but I thought that smile was all the message he could give me that they had finally come for him.
One day, it will be my turn.
That is the one truth no one can hide from: death will come. I don’t know what death is, what comes after, but I do know it will come, that it will be my turn to die someday, that my children will be left with the responsibility of doing something with the decaying remnants, this thing they used to call dad and for which they will mistakenly still feel love, not realizing that I, their real dad, have exited the train and simply chosen to use a different conveyance to reach points beyond. I don’t want them to feel what we felt when my father died: that we had never talked about death and that we had no idea what he wanted done for him, with him, to him. So I’ve engineered a terribly complicated ceremony to allow my children to feel they have done as I wish. Though I may be gone to the next step of the journey, I can give them some closure.
Still, it must be done in a way that will allow them to laugh. I want there should be fun. There may be a dead guy in the room, but that dead guy will be me, so we cannot make this a somber occasion. That will simply not do.
So this is what I’ve told them: go to my computer, get the music I’ve selected for my funeral, get a gathering of friends and relatives going—they know which ones—and get them all drunk remembering the good old times we all shared. In the morning, those who feel their lives would be improved by it should pray, but not unless they would have otherwise done so had I not died: I want no hypocrites on my side. Then, when my body has been cremated, gather up the ashes and take them to the hills. Find a sunny slope and bury them there with an avocado seed, somewhere such a tree can grow. Make sure, I’ve told them, that it is at a place that’s particularly hard to reach. I don’t want them to feel guilty for not coming to visit me past the third anniversary of my death. After all, that is not me: it is just a small pile of ashes.
When and if the tree should grow, wait until it can hold a sign, and then hang one from its branches that reads “EAT ME”, and should I feel the need to visit the little pile of ashes from wherever I have gone, you can be sure I will smile. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’ll do that. I’d rather visit my children, and their children, just to make sure they’re ok. That would be a much better use for the nearly unlimited time I presume one must have after death.
So then, to end, just to make sure the list is not lost if this computer should die before me, here is a list as of today. These are the songs. Each has a meaning, known only to me, and hopefully the one for whom I picked it. I don’t expect anybody other than my children will care, and while I’d hope they didn’t, I’m afraid their Judeo-Christian upbringing will require some action from them, so they should do something:
1 Take Me Home Country Roads (John Denver)
2 I’m In A Hurry (Alabama)
3 No Time To Kill (Clint Black)
4 Amarillo By Morning (George Strait)
5 Neon Moon (Brooks and Dunn)
6 Hechizo (Ana Gabriel)
7 Se Murio De Amor (Bobby Pulido)
8 Solo Los Tontos (Alacranes Musical)
9 Viviendo De Prisa (Alejandro Sanz)
10 Sexo, Pudor Y Lagrimas (Aleks Syntek)
11 Jamas (Camilo Sesto)
12 Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon)
13 Amor (Cristian Castro)
14 Space Oddity (David Bowie)
15 Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
16 Magic Dance (from labyrinth) (David Bowie)
17 Love Child (Diana Ross and the Supremes)
18 Mad World (Gary Jules)
19 La Mia Storia Tra Le Di (Gianluca Grignani)
20 Mi Historia Entre Tus Dedos (Spanish version of 19)
21 Una Magica Storia d’Amore (Gigi D’Alessio)
22 Que Alguien Me Diga (Gilberto Santa Rosa)
23 Kol Hatziporim (Harel Skaat)
24 Haruach Teshane Et Kivunah (Harel Skaat)
25 Fire And Rain (James Taylor)
26 The Origin Of Love (Hedwig and the angry inch)
27 I Should Have Been A Cowboy (Toby Keith)
28 Eleanor Rigby (Beatles)
29 El Frio De Tu Adios (Olga Tañon)
30 Hasta Contar A Mil (Jotdog)
31 Burbujas De Amor (Juan Luis Guerra)
32 Dos Locos (Monchi Y Alexandra)
33 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (The Platters)
34 Solitary Man (Neil Diamond)
35 No Me Doy Por Vencido (Luis Fonsi)
36 Yesterday (Beatles)
That should give the guests about two hours of drinking time—enough for a buzz but not enough for a DUI, I hope. Thus does it stand for the time being, but I firmly believe that in death, more than in life, everything changes…
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Porque solo los tontos...
Se enamoran igual que yo...
It’s raining in L.A. Cold, wintry winds drive shards of icy pain deep into my jacket as I smoke out by the lonesome little eucalyptus tree by the side of the building. It doesn’t mind the weather like I do. Youth, it seems, treats both trees and humans just the same, and Mr. Button’s case notwithstanding, I propound there’s nothing for the skin like youth, giving it both firmness and softness—both qualities long lost in mine. The bark of this little eucalyptus doesn’t mind the bending almost parallel to the ground in the strong wind; it loses none of its smoothness when it comes back up to challenge the wind yet again by bending ever so slightly into it. What mighty roots has this three year old tree! Wish that I had done in my four decades what it has done in a third of one.
So there are three of us now in the apt. Just now do I realize how much of a loner I really am: I like the noise to be nearly but not right by me, so I isolate myself a bit and let them do whatever it is young people do (which is usually noisy), while I play online, or watch TV, or read—though I’ve been doing that less and less these days. Lethargic by nature, I’ve gone into a semi-catatonic hibernating state these past few weeks, evidenced by my growing weight. Ugh! It’s time to start going to Bally’s again.
We’re working on a big project again. It’s a lot of fun to search out all the little bits of a large project and then assemble them all together as a puzzle, seeing the thing take shape from the bottom up. It is all for a quote, though, and I’m hoping we are significantly more attractive than the competition. A big project right about now would be good for the company—and all us little folk that work in it. It’s precisely what lets a small company weather the rough economy. Ora Pro Nobis!
Now, the new roomie listens to what we might rudely call chunty music. Brassy, very much like Polka, the music more typically heard in the Center-Northern states of Mexico is usually harsh, uncouth and unrefined, and for that reason sounds more honest, less an interpretation of the feelings, and more along the lines of a simple story told just the way it happened: truer. Trying to get past my cultural prejudices, I’ve started to listen to a couple, and ran into this song which reminds me of me: Solo Los Tontos. The version I heard is by Alacranes Musical, who play Duranguense music though they’re form Chicago (go figure!). It took me a while to get past the idea of the music and start listening to the song itself. I liked it. The guy’s a fool who falls in love with a smile and a look, and the girls take advantage of him—and seriously! Who doesn’t do that more often than they care to admit? I know I have, and probably will again. That’s how I met the new roomie in the first place. Go figure!
It’s raining in L.A. Cold, wintry winds drive shards of icy pain deep into my jacket as I smoke out by the lonesome little eucalyptus tree by the side of the building. It doesn’t mind the weather like I do. Youth, it seems, treats both trees and humans just the same, and Mr. Button’s case notwithstanding, I propound there’s nothing for the skin like youth, giving it both firmness and softness—both qualities long lost in mine. The bark of this little eucalyptus doesn’t mind the bending almost parallel to the ground in the strong wind; it loses none of its smoothness when it comes back up to challenge the wind yet again by bending ever so slightly into it. What mighty roots has this three year old tree! Wish that I had done in my four decades what it has done in a third of one.
So there are three of us now in the apt. Just now do I realize how much of a loner I really am: I like the noise to be nearly but not right by me, so I isolate myself a bit and let them do whatever it is young people do (which is usually noisy), while I play online, or watch TV, or read—though I’ve been doing that less and less these days. Lethargic by nature, I’ve gone into a semi-catatonic hibernating state these past few weeks, evidenced by my growing weight. Ugh! It’s time to start going to Bally’s again.
We’re working on a big project again. It’s a lot of fun to search out all the little bits of a large project and then assemble them all together as a puzzle, seeing the thing take shape from the bottom up. It is all for a quote, though, and I’m hoping we are significantly more attractive than the competition. A big project right about now would be good for the company—and all us little folk that work in it. It’s precisely what lets a small company weather the rough economy. Ora Pro Nobis!
Now, the new roomie listens to what we might rudely call chunty music. Brassy, very much like Polka, the music more typically heard in the Center-Northern states of Mexico is usually harsh, uncouth and unrefined, and for that reason sounds more honest, less an interpretation of the feelings, and more along the lines of a simple story told just the way it happened: truer. Trying to get past my cultural prejudices, I’ve started to listen to a couple, and ran into this song which reminds me of me: Solo Los Tontos. The version I heard is by Alacranes Musical, who play Duranguense music though they’re form Chicago (go figure!). It took me a while to get past the idea of the music and start listening to the song itself. I liked it. The guy’s a fool who falls in love with a smile and a look, and the girls take advantage of him—and seriously! Who doesn’t do that more often than they care to admit? I know I have, and probably will again. That’s how I met the new roomie in the first place. Go figure!
Sunday, December 07, 2008
December Rain
Sunday again, a rainy December afternoon in Los Angeles. Funny how time flies. We just came back from El Nido—a nicaraguan restaurant in Los Angeles which I highly recommend. Don't be afraid of the area, of La Brea less than a block north of I-10. Every time I go, I end up ordering two plates: one to eat and one to take home. Good food! Reminds me of the good old days. Even my mom (though quite reluctantly) had to admit the food was great when we went there—last year when we were all still on talking terms.
We started year-end physical inventory at work. It is a longer process than most companies take, as we only have a limited number of people who can count past 10—regardless of attire. I hope we're done by the long weekend coming up, with all the audits we have to do after we're done counting.
One of my roommates (I have two now) got this movie off Ebay called Girls Will Be Girls and we're getting ready to watch it my room. It is an insanely funny movie—I've seen it once before. It is both insane and funny... it is truly a guilty pleasure.
They're going to order pizza... how many meals do skinny people really need in one evening?
Well, that is it for now... nothing particularly consequential to report...
But I'll leave you with this link, which should take you to funnyordie.com where you can find a tiny little musical starring (among others) Jack Black. It is very funny indeed. I hope you like it.
Prop8Musical
We started year-end physical inventory at work. It is a longer process than most companies take, as we only have a limited number of people who can count past 10—regardless of attire. I hope we're done by the long weekend coming up, with all the audits we have to do after we're done counting.
One of my roommates (I have two now) got this movie off Ebay called Girls Will Be Girls and we're getting ready to watch it my room. It is an insanely funny movie—I've seen it once before. It is both insane and funny... it is truly a guilty pleasure.
They're going to order pizza... how many meals do skinny people really need in one evening?
Well, that is it for now... nothing particularly consequential to report...
But I'll leave you with this link, which should take you to funnyordie.com where you can find a tiny little musical starring (among others) Jack Black. It is very funny indeed. I hope you like it.
Prop8Musical
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