Light fixtures

Maris Sofra debtor, aka X.Y.Z. Debtor

2012-01-16T03:37:00.000-08:00

How about starting the New Year off right and paying me back my $4500? I still want it back. Forget the interest you offered - I never asked for that. Just pay me back. $50 a month would be fine. If you'd done that from the start, you'd have repaid me long ago

Maris Sofra

2012-01-16T03:31:00.000-08:00

Maris Sofra.

Ready to pay me back any of the $4500 you borrowed and haven't paid back?

X.Y.Z. Debtor = Maris Sofra

2012-01-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

Maris, it's been several years now. You still owe me $4500.

Doesn't your version of Christianity recognize repaying debts?

20 years since she died

2012-01-11T06:11:00.000-08:00

I was at library meeting tonight when someone mentioned the date of an upcoming event. I'm in charge of that event, so I paid attention.

It's Feb 18, 2012. I'll be manning the book sale on the 20th anniversary of Barbara Rose's death.

What would she think about that? She'd probably think that was okay.

I'm older than she was when she died. My years-younger partner is older than she was when she died. But she seemed so much older than anyone when I first met her - her history was so unbelievable. So unbelievably sad. But here she was, live, and goofy, and witty, and funny, and game, and sexy, and private, and sometimes not so private.

Barbara Rose was so much larger than life I couldn't believe she wanted to hang out with me. That's how you think when you're 23 and you meet someone with a tragic past and a fabulous sense of humor. She was so overwhelming I stopped keeping my decade-old journal. The last thing I wrote was, "I think I met someone who can be my friend!" But I'd fallen in love.

And she wanted me! The only thing we didn't want from each other was sex - tho we gave that a shot. I really don 't think she loved me as as I loved her - and as it turns out, her detachment was better for me than my love was for her.

How can Barbara Ann Rose, born Oct 18 1954 in Bethesda, died Feb 18 1992 in San Francisco, be regarded? By me, only with love. I still think of her every day. My life is divided by before her and after her. By now I don't think of her face, which I really don't remember (tho I have her self-portrait) , or her laugh or her voice. Maybe a little her voice - it was distinctive. She said it was because of the effect of the treatment her brain tumor had on her. Imagine getting treatment for a brain tumor in the late 60s. We watched "The excorcist" once, and the depictions of treatments the girl had to go through at the hands of the doctors reminded Barbara of her own. I have one cassette of Barbara's voice. We were drunk at my house and singing a really stupid country song. "Honey you just sorta / stomped on my aorta / you squished that fucker flat." I think we got this somewhere and improved on it.

Barbara's father killed her mother with a hammer. It has never occurred to me until just now to question whether this is the truth. Herbert Rose killed Josephine Cryan Rose with a hammer, and beat up his mother-in-law, and then jumped off the roof and broke his ankles. Or legs. This was in San Diego, ca. 1974. Barbara was the eldest daughter. I keep some of her memories of her parents, but I don't remember the names of all her brothers and sisters. After she died - which shocked everyone; why the fuck did she die after all that scholastic success? - friends said, yeah, we should call her sister. I said, well, she had two brothers and two sisters. What?!? Nobody else had heard of them at all.

Ah, that doesn't matter.

I was young when I met Barbara, and susceptible to tragic, vibrant older people. That's sort of a standard for anyone with a romantic bent. But I got pulled into this milieu of older people with horrendous histories. I liked getting pulled, and still don't think it was a bad choice. But what I was dealing with was sadness. I wish the older friends I made then had said, Hey, maybe you should date people your own age (something I've said to my younger partner since we've met.) Maybe it woundn't have mattered - living in San Francisco at that time, I wouldn't have done anything other than work against HIV. You could take you pick of desperation then.

Oh how grandiloquent. But that's where I was.

I met Barbara. She had lost her hearing because of a heroin overdose, and she'd been clean for five years. She was a nursing student. She was a brilliant student. In spite of her cut-rate hearing aid, she scored straight As even when the seriously acccented microbiology teacher mumbled. Her anatomy teacher - Barbara loved anatomy so much she got me to take it - allowed her to disect part of a human hand. He came to her flat for dinner (I cooked) and invited us to his home. Barbara's detailed and meticulous (also humorous) illustrated notes were the kinds of notes that should have been published. I loved her, there's no question I'm biased. But her takes on Gray's Anatomy were both helpful to a student and fun to see. My A in a very hard course was partly due to her.

She got a crush on a piece of bad work named Patrick. He jilted her: first at an xmas dinner, then on Valentines day. Her assistance dog, Caper, died. She was living on what the government allows disabled citizens: $600 a month. her rent was $300 a month. I was no help: she'd quit drinking but after I moved back to San Francisco she broke and got drunk again. It was a fun night when we left the Palace of the Fine Arts (I think) and she said, oh, what the hell, let's go get a drink! I said, Yeah! because I didn't know a think about enabling. We got drunk at a place called the Final Final and as far as I remember, that was the end of her sobriety. But there's a lot I don't know.

I think about her every day. Not in depth. But she's so hugely important - she is unforgettable. She made me feel valiant. She made a lot of people feel valiant. I have a piece of her art - I don't think she ever stopped making art; even her nursing studies goosed her to draw - it's a self-portrait. It's of her face, it's drawn in charcoal, and she said she made it to hang in the hallway of the flat on Grove Street. She didn't want to hang it in her room. After she died, I placed it in the hallway of my flat on Pine Street, then took it down. I've never put it on a wall here, in almost nine years.

I have always thought that I was not a good friend to her, but the older I get, the tenderer I feel to both of us. Barbara deserved a better shrink, for one - why did that guy she had for years not realize how intimidated she was by him? And she deserved a safer economic footage. $600 a month In San Francisco in the late 80s/early 90s went far further than is thinkable now, but the stress was incredible for her. I - not just I - got her under-the-table jobs so she could buy food and textbooks, but she couldn't manage comfort. A can of tuna was an expense.

And how could I understand a woman with such a horrendous past when I was so young? I knew about being poor - one of my memories of Barbara was us making a huge list of what the fuck I could do for a living, when I was about to be homeless - but as depressed and scared as I had every right to be, I didn't had the horrible history of her parents, or her kicked addiction, or her age. She might have tried to tell me that resiliency was a given of my age, but she never made a point of it. I don't think she realized that she was young too. I didn't think she was.

I haven't said anything about how fun she was, in spite of everything. Barbara was able to spot the absurd, and point it out, without being mean. She appreciated other people being mean, but she was too thoughtful for that herself. She could be funny at other people's expense, but never mean. (I was mean, occasionally, but she didn't laugh unless it was a pun).

One of my perfect memories of her is silly: she was recording the outgoing message at Pine Street (this was when households had only the one phone). She said a perfectly sensible sentence, "Tim, Barbara, Jason and John aren't home right now." And then I coughed, fucking up the nice recording. I felt bad, but Barbara coughed harder. Somebody else in the room caught the bug, and coughed even harder. Barbara went "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!" and we all kept "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACking" until the tape went out, and then we all kept doing it until we ran out of breath, and then we kept doing it until we left the house, and then we did it when got back home.

Silly. Joyful goofy silly. Who couldn't feel valiant for a goofy tragic art-making half-deaf hard-working nursing student, who liked to sing "ah-whoop" on rooftops along with Aretha's "Natural woman"?

Presents for the kids

2011-12-27T01:48:00.000-08:00

My nephew let out a yell when he saw his Judas Priest Tour 2011 t-shirt. He got even happier when I showed him that it had been signed. Then he saw that he got a genuine, bone-fide pick used by the band's bassist. He screamed!

He barely noticed the Harry Potter book at the bottom of the bag (I scored a clean copy of the Half-Blood Prince at our library sale the other week) . This is a boy who spent most of that day wielding a Potter wand - we traded LEVICORPUS and SECTUMSEMPRA curses before dinner. We got them confused.

Meanwhile, my niece loved her messenger bag. It's from Britney Spears's tour, though I really had no idea if Spears resonates with 11-year-olds. I called my sister-in-law and asked, will she like this? V. said, yeah, I think Spears is cool again. But I wasn't sure, so I filled every pocket of that messenger bag with costume jewelry, in velvet bags and pretty little boxes. My niece screamed with delight at everything.

This is worth spending xmas with the family!

I've always liked this part of the year - so unfashionable! But before I had a niece and nephew to make happy, I enjoyed watching neighborhood kids bust out their new bikes and skateboards. Beaches and parks are empty of people on this kind of holiday - that's always enjoyable. Plus, there's an assumption of reciprocal goodwill.

I don't see why there shouldn't be an assumption of reciprocal goodwill all year round. But that would make me a socialist, which sounds fine to me.

The UCDavis protestors

2011-11-22T20:02:00.000-08:00

I grew up on stories of protest. When I came of age, I protested.

What struck me about the UCDavis protestors was their politeness, their sense of boundaries, and their forgiveness.

I'm old enough that these protesters could be my children.

In the late 80s and early 90s, we weren't this polite. Maybe because we didn't grow up on notions of boundaries and good will the way these young people have, maybe because what we were protesting was so urgent - people were dying of AIDS, black men were being beaten nearly to death and the cops who beat them were exonerated.

Not to say that matters today aren't so urgent. I just wonder why the UCDavis protesters are so kind.

I wonder when people won't be so kind. UCDavis students have a lot to lose. Other people don't.

De-evolution of a newspaper habit

2011-11-11T05:22:00.000-08:00

From the time I was born, I was inculcated into the daily newspaper habit. Both my parents spread the paper on their breakfast tables and drank their coffee to it. My family moved to Los Angeles when I was five, so I grew up with the L.A. Times, along with coffee breath.

As I grew up, I eschewed coffee and parents, but read the L.A. Times. The front section, the Metro section, the Calendar section. The View section!

When I moved to Europe, I read the International Herald Tribune daily. When I moved to San Francisco, I had the Chronicle delivered, and read the NYTimes at the libraries I started to work at. Every Sunday, I'd walk my dogs up to Alta Plaza park and read the papers while tossing tennis balls. If I met a fella who didn't read the papers, I'd consider him a philistine.

Then I bought a house in Vallejo, aka the boondocks. The SF Chron wouldn't deliver to my ghetto. NOBODY would deliver to my ghetto. I couldn't do without my morning paper! It took me months to figure out that I could buy a NYTimes if I drove a half hour to a Starbucks (I still appreciate Starbucks for that).

This was 2000. I had a dial-up I used daily but there was no point, really, in getting newspaper-type news. That was the end of my newspaper habit. I moved to New York and read the New York Times if it was around; I moved to Los Angeles and tried to get into the L.A. Times habit again. But the Times had changed in good way (much more Latino-oriented) and bad (unreadable reporting) and by that time I was out of the newspaper habit. Lately I've tried to make a habit of looking at latimes.com daily.

My niecephew's parents and grandparents get the L.A. Times. Those kids are used to seeing adults blowing coffee breath over the skinny daily paper. Here's to that!

But the S.F. Chron, by denying me my daily paper fix in 2000, broke my habit. My daily morning paper is a habit I never wanted to break.

X.Y.Z. DEBTOR = MARIS SOFRA

2011-10-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

I took your name off this blog because you asked, but I still haven't gotten a penny of the $4500 you owe me. So.

X.Y.Z.DEBTOR=MARIS SOFRA, DEADBEAT & DEBTOR

Maris Elizabeth Sofra, born 1954

2011-10-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

Please pay me back. If you'd send me $50 a month since you'd borrowed the $4500, you'd have finished repaying me by now.

It'd be lovely to forget about you. I'll do that as soon as you get me back my $4500.

Shall I post all the e-mails you sent to me about the interest you'd pay on the loan? I kept them all.

"Maris Sofra Deadbeat"

This is so boring. I have papers to read. I have papers to write! Pay me back, you parasitic bitch. I'm not going away until you do.

Do you want me to post your social security number online?

SOFRA! Maris Elizabeth Sofra.

2011-10-09T02:01:00.000-07:00

I jettisoned all those posts, when you asked, but you still haven't paid back the $4500 you borrowed from me!

So, Maris Sofra, here are the facts: you borrowed US$2k from me in 2003 and then borrowed another US$2,500, and then you wrote me a couple of bad checks. You've never paid me back. You owe me US$4500.

You called and asked me to delete all this information, saying it prevented you from getting a job. Well, I deleted it all, but you haven't paid me back. Did you get a job? If so, you should have means to repay me the money I lent you!

Maris Sofra, you still owe me $4500. I don't care about anything but the principle; I don't care about the interest you promised.

There's no reason for you not to repay me. I know that you are the kind of Christian that thinks because I'm not saved, I'll go to hell, but I lent you money even tho you believed that. That was okay with me - I believed in your goodwill even tho you really hammered that "saved" crap at me. You took my money anyway, so I figured you were just talking. Plus, you were not living the way any good person should live. Taking a homeless kid for a lover?! What in the world were you thinking? And then getting high all the time, losing your job, losing your house, and taking money from me? I'm glad you seem to be over most of that.

But you still owe me $4500. Which you've admitted. I wonder why I agreed to jettison all the posts I'd made about you when you called me, Maris, except that I'm so used to accommodating you.

So, Maris Elizabeth Sofra, Maris S. Sofra (your handle when you were working in Pasadena for Kaiser) or just plain Maris Sofra, former resident of the Village Green and then Venice and then Oklahoma) - when will you pay me back?

Or shall I post a lot of your personal information?

More Maris Sofra

2011-10-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

Are you ready to pay me back the $4500 you owe me, Maris Elizabeth Sofra, aka Maris S. Sofra?

It's been nearly a year since you called me at home to ask if I would delete all the information I'd posted online about the four thousand you borrowed from me and haven't paid back. You said you wouldn't get a job if I left all that information online, Maris Elizabeth Sofra, aka Maris S. Sofra

So I deleted it. I hope you've got a job by now!

But you haven't paid me back the money you owe, Maris Elizabeth Sofra, aka Maris S. Sofra.

You remain a deadbeat, Maris Elizabeth Sofra, aka Maris S. Sofra.. It'd be lovely if you'd pay back what you borrowed.

It would also be lovely if you could explain to me how your deadbeatness meshes with your Christianity. You've told me you're sorry that I'll never get to heaven, because I'm not saved.

I laughed all that off, at the time - I've heard you say horrible things, while we've stayed friends - but you really meant it, didn't you? You think because I'm not saved, I'm damned? This, while you stole four thousand dollars from me. This, while you weren't exactly living by principles you now espouse.

Maris Elizabeth Sofra, aka Maris S. Sofra.
You owe me the four thousand dollars I leant you. You have no reason not to repay it.

More about Chris

2011-07-29T04:06:00.000-07:00

I can't remember exactly, but we hadn't seen each other in a while. When I came by his house - as I did sometimes - we talked for while, and he got nostalgic. I could tell it had nothing to do with me, so I found something to read and made myself sorta scarce. Chris called his sister overseas, which I think he hadn't done for a good while. They stayed on the phone for hours. It seemed as though they hadn't talked for months. Chris's face changed.

Walking around at night, female

2011-07-29T02:59:00.000-07:00

There's nothing better than walking around at night. The temperature is cool, one's more or less invisible, and you can spy or overhear little household vignettes through windows as you walk. It's great to be alone, on the move, making up stories about the things you see and hear.

For years I just went out any time I wanted to, with my big dogs, and felt totally safe. My big dogs have been dead for 5 and 6 years now, but I still head out at night and wander. Not as much. But I still feel safe, as if Brandydog and Sophie were by my side.

How is that possible? I guess because I've already been stranger-raped, and I figure the odds are against that happening again. And because I'm older.

This doesn't make sense.

When I was stranger-raped, I was taking time-release photographs of cars on the street outside my mother's apartment. I was trying to get the red and white lights of the cars as a streak, thinking it would make a good effect. It was maybe one or two or three a.m., and as I was walking to my front door a guy came up with a gun and raped me beneath my mother's bedroom window. When he was done, I ran inside and stopped myself from taking a shower - the absolute first thing you want to do. I called a rape hotline, a phone number I must have found in the phone book, and when it was answered by a man I said, incredulously, "Is this a man?" He answered, in a very tired tone of voice, "Yes," and I hung up and took a shower and went to bed. I kept it to myself.

I was newly sixteen when this happened, and it pissed me off. There was nothing that would keep me from walking at night, and tho I never sat on a corner taking photographs again, I walked as much as I fucking wanted to. I hitchhiked, even, tho never alone, with a switchblade in my boot.

Later I moved to a city much denser than the one I grew up in, and borrowed dogs from roommates to walk with. Eventually I got a dog of my own, and then was left another dog. I'd take Brandy and Sophie with me all over the place, and walk. Years later, when I bought a house in a ghetto, we'd walk everywhere together. I happened to know that tho Brandy looked like an overgrown pitbull, she had no protective instinct; meanwhile Sophie, who looked furry and benign, had a killer inside her. But the fact is I never trained my dogs to protect me. I trained them to heal off-leash and to sit and stay, that's it. I felt protected because they were on my side.

I still walk as if they're beside me. I am no more protected from stranger-rape than I was outside my mom's apartment when I was sixteen. But I walk as if I can't be fucked with, and maybe that's why I get away with this. And fuck the notion that I shouldn't, that I'm putting myself in danger if I dare. This sounds pompous but I live on this earth and in this city and it's my fucking pleasure to walk. I even believe I have the right to wander.

the Beatles "Day in the life"

2011-07-23T04:21:00.000-07:00

For no reason at all I started listening to the Beatles.

My favorite song when I was six was "Day in the Life." Which makes sense when you're raised by an opera singer. It's huge, symphonic, and impenetrable.

So here's what I thought of the lyrics as a kid. Which I spent tons of time trying to figure out.

"I read the news today, oh boy."

My parents read the paper daily. So yeah, okay, the singer reads the paper.

"About a lucky man who made the grade."

I figured someone had graduated to the next grade.

"And though the news was rather sad,
Well, I just had to laugh"

I didn't get this. If something was sad, why laugh? This dichotomy is what grabbed me. I loved paradox even as a youngster.

"I saw the photograph"

In Southern California, it was called a picture. I loved that someone was English and was so formal as to call it a photograph.

"He blew his mind out in a car;"

I took the word "blew" literally here, I think. Didn't get that it was a suicide.

"He didn't notice that the lights had changed"

As a Southern California child, I spent lots of time being driven around in cars, and sometimes the people who drove were drunk. I knew about people who might not notice that the light had changed.

"A crowd of people stood and stared, "

This was ominous. Who were these people?

"They'd seen his face before,
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords."

I didn't understand why lords, who as far as I knew were part of nursery rhymes, would have a house. This was fairy-tale land - a house of lords - and the music make it seem really sinister.

"I saw a film today, oh boy;"

Why didn't the man call it a movie?

"The English army had just won the war. "

I didn't know what an army was [I was six.] But I understood that a war was awful. But what was a war?

"A crowd of people turned away, "

Again, there's a crowd. This was scary.

"But I just had to look,
Having read the book"

What book? Is there a book? I loved books. Books were great, they explained things. Could I get the book?

"Woke up, fell out of bed,
dragged a comb across my head.
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,"

It sounded like someone doing a regular daily thing. But only rich people had stairs, so I didn't get what this guy was complaining about.

"and looking up, I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
made the bus in seconds flat"

Hats were what my mother kept in her trunk, and they were silly and pretty. Men didn't wear hats, and the singer was a man. Why is he talking about a hat?

"Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream."

Okay.

"Ah I read the news today, oh boy,
four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire"

Blackburn Lancashire sounded so sinister and foreign that I wanted my mom.

"And though the holes were rather small,
They had to count them all"

Why did someone have to count them? Why? It seemed a stupid and pointless exercise, and as an elementary school student, I knew all about stupid pointless exercises.This really bothered me. Why the fuck did someone have to count all those holes?

"Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall."

I understood that Albert Hall wasn't a person but a place. Why would Albert Hall be filled with holes? What's wrong? Why are there holes?

"I'd love to turn you on."

This meant nothing to me.

News of a death

2011-07-06T23:27:00.001-07:00

Tonight I was reading a BBS of which I've been a member (in its various permutations) for over a decade. In the music section, there's a thread for obituaries. Not just dead musicians, anymore - anyone noteworthy; and sometimes a post is about a members' family or friends. Lots of obscure people whom I never would have heard of and whose lives are interesting, so I check it out weekly.

Tonight I'm scanning it (deaths of Clarence Clemons, Gene Colan, Martin Harry Greenberg) and there's a name I don't just recognize but a person who I know. I can't even read the linked article beyond the news that he was found dead at home.

Goddamnit.

He was my first adult boyfriend. He was in a ride I scored from the O.N. Klub in Silverlake back to Santa Monica. I was on one side of a backseat in a car full of people I barely knew; he was on the other side, and made a critical comment about the Who. I took a look. Because of what he called his chrome-dome, he looked older than his age (and was older than most of that crowd). Not a handsome man, particularly, but articulate and with a wonderful, gravelly voice.

Some flirting must have happened between us before a party he held at his house a few weeks later. The house, which belonged to his mother and was occupied by Chris and several other surfing dudes, was a great ramshackly Craftsman two-story with a big backyard, near the beach in Santa Monica. I don't remember what band played that night, tho all the usual mod/ska/U.T. crowd were there - maybe the U.T.s played, but I don't think so. As the party was winding down I was sitting with Chris on his bed in his bedroom, which opened out to the backyard and was a conduit between the outside and the downstairs kitchen. We wanted to be alone, but couldn't yet. A friend asked me if a wanted a ride home. I caught Chris's eye and asked, "Do I want a ride home?" He shook his head. Everyone in the room got a dawning realization, and we were soon left alone. That's how I remember it.

A few weeks later I told my mother, with whom I lived (I was sixteen) that I'd be staying over with my boyfriend, and if she didn't like it, well, live with it. I spent a lot of time in his room. His played the soundtrack to "Harder they fall" a lot, and because he always went to sleep before I did (he got up early to surf, while I was a night owl) I'd watch the levels on his stereo in the dark while "Many rivers to cross," played. I can't have been satisfied with that, and probably did get up to read in the other room after he went to sleep. But I remember very clearly lying next to him in that bed several nights, watching the levels on his stereo, listening to Jimmy Cliff and to Chris's breathing, and being very comfortable.

He and I weren't in love, tho at my age I probably wanted us to be. But he wasn't sentimental or tender, plus he had other things going on: he was about to open his shop, on what was then called West Washington Blvd. (I think ) in Venice (right by a punk squat, IIRC) and is now called Abbot Kinney Blvd. Plus he had a health problem. My god, he had testicular cancer, didn't he? I completely forgot. Which fucked up his energy and money for the shop.

I have at least one picture of us in the shop. I'm all punk rock and making a sneery face while Chris grins and holds my chin.

Remembering always telescopes incidents. But I think my memory is correct here: he got it all together to open his shop - which he painted with wavelike musical scales and notation, using Two-Tune imagery, and on the walls of which he hung boards he'd shaped and airbrushed - and the cancer fucked it up.

By then we were friends with benefits, as they say. I don't think either of us had a huge yen for each other sexually but we liked each other, and we enjoyed each others' company. At least I think that's why we kept seeing each other. I'd bop over at midnight to wherever he was living and stay with him, and he'd tease me, and sometimes we'd fuck but mostly we'd just sleep together. He got all big-brother on me every so often - the age difference pretty much predicted this, plus I was a huge fuck-up - and I'd lash back. I hated big brother shit. We had what I can only call a lover's spat at a party once. Except we weren't lovers - maybe more of a sibling spat.

A few years later, after I'd moved to another city and he'd moved to another continent, we met up in France. He was shaping boards in Biarritz - ghostly fart of a town, far as I could tell, tho he had reasons for working there - and I stayed with him for a while. This must have been 1989. He was sweet, and welcoming, and gave me a big-brother lecture that I deserved and didn't resent.

I went home to San Francisco and he moved to Brazil and we lost touch, tho around this time, I'd visit his mother in his old house whenever I visited L.A. [I can never remember her name - Elaine? - but she was a hugely welcoming, goofy, hippie artist. I think she died in the early 1990s. Chris's sister, IIRC, was living in Norway then.]

In 2002 I came to L.A. to work a job for the summer. Somehow I found Chris. I had money, and took him out for an elaborate sushi dinner. He stayed with me at a friend's who had temporarily lent me her house; we tried to be lovers, but it wasn't really on. We went to see a documentary of which he was a part, and which he ctriticized. We got high a few times. He got high a lot. Knowing what he'd told me about his father, I remonstrated with him. But I never know what the fuck to say to friends who get high. It's not my job to say DON'T! and what would it matter if I did say DON'T?

He told me a long story that I won't repeat about an arrest. His face was so funny when he got to the punch line - oh, jesus, I'm going to cry again.

Our summer friendship ended badly. I was drinking a lot then, and was so uncomfortable staying in a guest bedroom far away from my own home, and was hugely concerned with my money situation as a homeowner newly without a permanent job. And at this point our positions had changed - I was doing okay (well, homeowner, professional job, etc) while he was fucking up, sleeping on a couch in a tiny shitty apartment. I big-sistered him a bit. That can't have felt good.

Anyway, I lent him money, then got pissed when he didn't pay it back. We got into a fight - or didn't; I no longer remember - anyway, it didn't end well. I went back home to the Bay Area after the summer and let it go. Being in Los Angeles and seeing old friends was a little too close to nostalgia for me, and I don't care for nostalgia.

A couple years ago I went looking for Chris on the web. I found a skateboarding website that knew him, and posted a question, asking how and where he was, giving an e-mail address that very soon after I lost the password for. Every so often I'd think to check the website, but was afraid that I'd learn that Chris was dead. This year I wrote part of a play about learning of his death. Fucking ghoulish, fucking awful. But I felt it was coming.

And now he is dead.

Well, fuck.

He was one of those people you carry with you. I should say, he was one of the people I carry with me.

Could I have helped him? I don't think so.

Three thousand dollar weekend, at least

2011-06-06T04:08:00.000-07:00

We got sported to a resort weekend down at Laguna Beach.

Neither of us had ever had this kind of experience.

We arrived in my beater car, and immediately felt that we'd fucked up when we couldn't get out of the valet parking line, when a couple nice men ushered us out and asked us if we were there for the day, or as guests. "We're guests," I said, and I was given a marker for the car. "Shall we take your bags?" No, thanks. . . and we wandered in to the lobby.

Reception said that our room wasn't ready yet, and we gave our cell phone numbers for contact when it was. Reception asked if they could contact our party. Everyone was so solicitous. While we waited for our party to meet us in the lobby, a movie star (Kevin Bacon) walked by.

We walked through the lobby to look out over the pool to the ocean. The site isn't singular but it's spectacular: a wide concave bluff leading down to pristine beach coves. It covers something like nine acres on a bluff leading down to a beach; it has three restaurants, a huge spa, a huge pool, rows of rows of chaises longues around the pool, lawns for weddings and lawns for dogs and lawns for groups of kids to hula-hoop in (that was fun to see one morning), three restaurants, gift shops, a huge piano lounge - I've never seen anything like it outside of magazines. My stepfather, who's a part of a legal team which generated this largess from a fella with very deep pockets, met us in the lobby with my mother, They'd already been there several days. "Now, I have to tell you about your spending limits," he said. "Aside from the room, and the spa, and the food, you can only spend a thousand dollars."

I started laughing so hard I had to sit down.

Next thing I know, Gentle Boyfriend and I are sitting in an outdoor patio restaurant with a gorgeous aspect, ordering crab cakes (excellent) and lobster sandwiches (okay). We couldn't stop laughing.

Then it was time for my massage. The room was tiled and large and pristinely clean, with a huge spray of orchids in one corner. The patio outside it was full of bamboo. Flutey music played. It could not have been more conducive to relaxation (and the spa shower beforehand - heavenly). When I lay down on the table and put my face into that circular thingie massage tables have, I looked down into a pretty pottery bowl in which floated several more orchids.

The masseuse, Suzanne, and I had an interesting conversation. My grandmother lived in the nearby town from 1970 to 1995, and I used to spend a few weeks in summer with her. Then, the town had a reputation of being a Southern California artists community. The resort replaced one part of that community, which my masseuse had been a part of. Wasn't it bittersweet to work for a place that had displaced her community? She said yes it was, at first. But the resort made a point of supporting the community that remained. I'm still thinking about her pragmatism.

Eventually we got our room, which faced west - I think all the rooms do - with a balcony. My partner and I kept jumping onto the huge bed.

The resort has evening activities for children, so the adults were able to have a three-hour dinner without the kids getting bored and distracting. I had the chef's tasting menu (Chef being one Craig Strong):

1. Strawberry/tomato gazpacho with squid and croutons
2. Foie gras with onion marmalade and rhubard confit and a swirl of horseradish sauce
3. ?? [Can't remember this course]
4. Duck breast with wilted chard in a sherry vinaigrette and lightly stewed cherries
5. Truffle brie w/fig jam
6. Milk chocolate cardamom mouse with orange creamsicle ice cream (this last is on the website; seems to be a standard).

Many of our party had the Spanish salad: mizuna in a sherry vinaigrette with spicy shrimp, serrano ham, manchego, and thin slices of pickled squash. I replicated this (except for the pickled squash) yesterday.

Ooh, that foie gras. Just a small slice but nicely crusted and creamy as heaven inside.

That night we were too full to walk down to the beach, so we went to our room and watched "True grit." Which was an interesting juxtaposition to our current, fleeting situation. We interrupted it to try to shop. To try to spend that promised thousand dollars. We suck at shopping. If only they'd had a gourmet food shop!

The next day I went back in to the spa to get a haircut. The stylist, Sophia, asked what I wanted. We went online to find pictures of the haircut Rachel Griffiths sported in season one of "Six feet under," and that's pretty much what she gave me. YAY! She razored off a foot of hair. I keep swishing my head around like a Breck Girl. I told her I was on someone else's dime, so to go ahead and load me up with product. I don't know how to use product, but she gave me a wonderful haircut. She also told me that I'd have to keep it up by getting a trim every four to six weeks. How much would that cost, I asked? Oh, about two hundred dollars, she said. But I have pictures of my haircut and will find someone local to trim when I can afford it.

The next morning, I was running a bath - Jesu christo, the baths and showers were awesome; not just the spa shower but the tub and shower in the humungous bathroom in our room. I guess a resort and spa is all about water and cleanliness - when our breakfast arrived. It was wheeled out onto our balcony, and we ate it in our pristine robes and slippers. When we were done, I went back to the bathroom to enjoy my bath, and it was still warm, somehow.

Then Gentle Boyfriend and I walked down to the beach. That was the interesting bit; walking on the rocks and looking at the tidepools. We got soaked by waves, staring at mussel beds.

We did NOT reach the stated $1000 limit, but we gave it a go. Gentle Boyfriend got a beautiful jacket and shirt, and I got a shirt, a straw hat ($255!), and two books. Also hair product. At some point my stepfather said, well, you'll have to buy jewelry, and I just fell down laughing.

Our bed was so huge I woke up in the night thinking GB had left. When they brought the car around upon our departure, it had two bottles of cold water nestled in the emergency brake groove. Oh - I forgot to mention the split of California champagne that welcomed us to our room.

The waste and innatention was incredible. I saw people order $35 sandwiches and take only a couple bites. And all that water! The worst part was when we went down on the beach Monday morning. A young surfer dude said, hey, be careful if you're going to go around that rock, there's an injured raccoon, he's got two broken legs. And we walked right past that poor fucker twice, inoculated with privilege.

Social media

2011-04-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have a LinkedIn presence, and occasionally get notifications, and occasionally check in.

It's amazing to me how a spider algorithm, if that's what it is, operates. Tonight LinkedIn found a woman who made what is said to be one of the first lesbian porn movies, in 1966. She's supposed to be connected to me somehow. I can't really figure how; I had friends who made lesbian porn in the '90s in San Francisco, but that was before widespread e-mail. I really can't even remember but one of their names and I'm sure none remember mine.

The next name made more sense. I worked for her in San Francisco in 2000, cataloging her firm's law library, and interviewed for her in 2008.

Another was sorta out of nowhere. I work temp at a college, and the director of something at that college, who I've never met, asked to be linked to me. I figure he searches LinkedIn somehow for the name of the college.

The last one was something else: a friend from elementary school. I last saw her in San Francisco over twenty years ago, and last talked to her around 1993. Yet, here she is, showing up on my possible LinkedIn contacts. How the fuck? We have no possible professional connection. My brother found her on Facebook last year, and my brother and I are in contact. But I have almost no Facebook presence: I set up an account a year or so ago, using initials rather than a full first name, coupled with my very common last name. I haven't logged in to Facebok this year.

A couple years ago LinkedIn suggested connecting to a man who owes my father thousands of dollars. I haven't seen this man since I was a teenager. I'd mentioned him in a e-mail to my father at some point, and I guess that's all it took.

This interconnectedness gives me the willies.

Leopold Stokowski

2011-04-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

One of the librarians I work with is eighty-three years old. Nobody fucks with her, and I suspect that nobody ever has. It's not that she's overbearing, it's that she's detached. Engaged to the work, certainly, but detached, in a
"Oh really, why bother," sort of way. I figure a few decades ago she'd have been the first one to pour a pitcher of Margaritas and spin out a pack of cigarettes, and say, it's a nice sunny afternoon, let's enjoy ourselves while the kids are in the backyard. She may do the same now, without the part about the kids.

The other week we were talking about music and she told me she was in Leopold Stokowski's All-American Youth Orchestra. She was a violinist (she's still a violinist); this would have been in the forties. She said he was kind but exacting (obviously, am paraphrasing). That he expected your best work and somehow he got it from you.

Mildred Lillie, lawyer and California appellate court justice

2011-03-31T00:56:00.000-07:00

I heard this story from a librarian who heard it from Justice Lillie.

Mildred Lillie, for whom the Los Angeles County Law Library is named, was riding the Red Car downtown. She was feeling fine, she'd just earned her J.D. and was a lawyer. Very few women had done so. But a woman on the Red Car, who was drinking her breakfast, didn't think much of future Justice Lillie. She took her measure and spat out:

"You're not such of a much!"

My partner would say D'oh!

2011-03-31T00:41:00.000-07:00

So the other day in the stacks at my judicial library job I noticed a woman I've never seen before wandering around the stacks, looking a little lost.

May I help you find something?

Yes, I'm looking for a Rutter Guide about mediation.

Hmm, let me think what color it is. . . that's how I distinguish the Rutter Guides. . . [I'm not the person who assists in finding materials, but everyone else was gone]. . . here we go ...

How do I check it out?

Oh, I'll just take the cards and do that for you. . . I assume you work here! (smiled at her).

(She extends a hand) I'm Justice [redacted].

D'oh! I shook her hand and introduced myself, then went back to the workroom and told one of the library staff who's been here for thirty years, who thought it was pretty dang funny.

I've met only a few justices in the three years I've worked off and on in this library. One came by for some chocolate once. She was imposing, though friendly. One had a retirement party in the library, and I listened to her staff and colleagues talk about her as she stood there. Now this tiny, polite person.

Bad manager experiences

2011-03-24T02:25:00.000-07:00

A new associate manager was hired at one of the libraries. I was told that he applied to fill one of the reference librarian slots, but his experience sufficiently impressed the hiring committee to encourage him to apply for the managerial position. He moved several states to take this position. He's dedicated.

I never had anything to do with him until recently, and recently he's become such a pain in the ass that I won't meet with him alone.

First he called me in to tell me I'd been "brusque." I took this as a sincere criticism, albeit second hand, and spent a good hour talking to him about the library department I'm part of. This was the first time I'd met with him, other than when I asked him what he expected of the statistics reports I'm supposed to produce but which I have no real idea how to compute. It was the first time I'd met with him alone.

Since then, our relations have become horrible. I don't really know why. I'm not brusque, now, suddenly, but emotional. "I see you pound your keyboard when I come to your office." As if I were a teenager and reduced to doing such passive-aggressive signifying. "Oh wow, your body language!" he said when I reacted non-verbally during one of his harangues.

Significantly, he hasn't criticized my work.

I love being a librarian

2011-02-12T02:51:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere about a person who elected "not to work." She did the math, and it was economically smarter for her not to take an academic job in a city. She'd gotten advanced degrees but realized that it was more economically feasible to work on her parents' farm rather than take a job.

Lucky her to have that option. But she's got me thinking it doesn't make sense to work in the competitive market anymore. I don't fit in for shit. Two petty tyrants have made my life hell in the past few years, for no reason other than they're petty, and they're tyrants, and I didn't have the required degree head off their workplace assaults despite knowing more than they did about the work. And I'll never will have that degree - I just can't afford it. It SUCKS to be this far down the educational and economic totem pole. So why be in that market at all? My skills are surely useful outside the market. Not that there's any "outside the market," at all.

I have no idea what I could do instead, but I'm still fairly young, and strong. The biologics mean that my psoriasis is no longer debilitating. I've got to be of use somewhere. Of course there's always going to be hierarchy, but maybe there's someplace where work, or a goal, is more important than hierarchy or positioning.

Not likely. There will always be petty tyrants. Maybe the best I can hope for is to work someplace where I don't stand out, so I won't have to get nailed in.

I thought I was in that place, though. I've aged out of pretty, so men don't have to worry that I'll reject them. I'm still smart and fast, but I'm circumspect and quiet. I have no degree to worry those above me that I'll usurp their places. But still, this week, some fella decided that I'm enough of a threat that he took the word of a sleep-deprived, volatile 2nd-year law student (a very stressed one) over mine.

I was accused of having "slammed my office door" while the student took her break. My office door does open into the workroom, it's true, and part of that workroom is the staff breakroom. I did close my door the other night, when the student was talking into her cellphone, loud enough to impact my concentration. The new associate director accused me of slamming the door on her. Which is crap. I closed my door rather than ask her to keep it down. Is that rude?

What's astonishing is that he's making a thing of it. He accuses me of harsh behavior, and doesn't want to speak to me again about it. Earlier in the day, he said I'd been "brusque" to someone. I didn't know it, and was concerned to hear it. He seems to have a certain idea about me. First he said was "brusque,"; now he says I'm "harsh." He hasn't witnessed any of this, and I don't know what he's talking about. Is he exercising his new management muscle on someone without power? I've seen that before, and I'm the one without power, here. I'm a temp. I have no standing.

Fuck this hierarchy. I don't want power, I don't want managerial status (oh boy, do I not want any managerial status). I do want to be believed, but maybe that doesn't matter. I want to exist somewhere where the work matters. Before this new associate director came in, I did exist there. But that's a fantasy. There's always going to be someone who wants to fuck you up.

I'm so sad about this. I loved working at this library. I love being a librarian. I love working for students.

Egypt protests

2011-01-29T02:08:00.000-08:00

There's an the idea from William James and Dostoevsky that Ursula K. Le Guin uses as a starting point in her short story, "The ones who walked away from Omelas." (which is easily google-able in its entirety).

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? (Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.)

I understand that my government has to be circumspect re the uprising in Egypt. It has to bet on the side of the winner, but no one knows who's going to be the winner. I'd prefer my government act on principle here.

I'm almost totally ignorant about Egypt. Watching Al Jazeera's live feed has been illuminating.

Seeing a government activating an internet kill switch is terrifying.

Hugely allergic

2011-01-22T02:16:00.000-08:00

Probably not hugely. I never had allergies until I moved from a very urban city to a blighted suburb full of untended foliage. My reaction was pretty extreme, and coupled with psoriasis, completely kerflummoxed the doctors in my new town. It was a Kaiser town, and since I wasn't on Kaiser, I got, perhaps, dubiously competent doctors. One saw my psoriasis and said I had scabies. My nephew had just been born then, and I almost cancelled a trip to visit him, because I didn't dare go near a newborn if I had scabies. Then I thought - wait - that's fucking absurd.

[Not to say that my dermatologists were any more helpful. I'll never forget one of them - not a fledgling, but a physician- looking at my new, bizarre outbreak and saying something like, "If you could just go to sleep for a couple of weeks, this will all be over!" Yes, and when I'm dead, I won't worry about rent. Idiot.]

Three years ago, when I still had health insurance, I saw an allergist. He had an assistant poke me up and down my back - ticklish and uncomfortable - and came back with my results: well, you're allergic to the outdoors! I appreciated the candor but not the diagnosis. At his recommendation, we got rid of all feather bedding, and that seemed to do the trick. But I saw the doctor in the winter.

Nowadays, I'm pretty miserable. And eating my words about architecture. I have generally disliked buildings that eschew openable windows. I love fresh air - the notion of sleeping in a room without an open window is uncomfortable verging on claustrophobic. But also, open windows means that a building isn't solidly closed, isn't completely dependent on forced air, isn't eating up resources for cooling or heating that should be managed by manually controlling airflow. And yeah, I realize how silly this sounds to anyone in extreme temperature areas, but I've lived always in temperate coastal climates. For the most part, windows make sense as indoor temperature control.

But now! Now, I love my various work places with their unopenable windows. I wake up at home, and feel horrible - asthma, snot, wheeze, nose, hack, foul, eyes eyes eyes scratch rub ow. I get to work and after an hour, I'm fine. The controlled environment, which has often made me feel hermetically sealed, and not in a good way, makes me bright-eyed and nose-okay. One of my jobs, the one I'm at the most, gives me an office. It's not big - maybe ten by twelve, with an old chipped desk and bookcases in maroon and metal. But it has two huge windows looking out on the neighborhood foliage - it's a suburban street in a city that cares for its trees - and above that, uncluttered sky. I got in at eleven today, and when I was due to leave, around a quarter to eight, I didn't want to go. By then I couldn't see out my big windows, but I was feeling fine. No asthma, no snot, no wheeze, no eyes, hack, foul, crud, or scratch.

Day with Nephew

2011-01-09T18:58:00.000-08:00

Nephew had a headache to start, which may have been trepidation. He's a sensitive soul, it was a rainy day, and here was his aunt, taking him miles away from his cozy bedroom.

He really didn't like it at first. I picked the day of our library branch sale, figuring he'd enjoy being in a room full of books. He did, eventually, but we're sorta shabby up here in the urban part of town, a little far away from his parents.

Midway thru the sale we went to a high-end market up the street from my apartment. I told him he could have anything he wanted (I reminded him that I'm not rich), as long as he thought he could eat it all. He chose mashed potatoes, cucumber sushi, and a strawberry cupcake.

I love that combination. It's such a kid's choice.

He loved having lunch at my house. Told me all about his science experiment, asked me questions, checked out our apartment, cuddled the dogs, and just blossomed with talk. He's such an empathetic kid. Later, back at the library sale, he asked a question about Richard Nixon (who apparently had recently been featured on The Simpsons as a member of a Rogue's Gallery). The patrons of the sale chipped in and told my nephew what they knew. Nephew kept asking for more information.

He's so sweet, my nephew. He's quite interested in other people, without being extroverted. He's empathetic and curious. He's, how can I say this - integrative. His interest enfolds other people's information, which he uses as fuel for more questions. He doesn't inject himself; he's seeking information for it's own sake.

I'm sure he will - that kind of sensibility and intelligence is bound to form a framework for assessing the information he receives. He'll be a teenager. He'll judge. Or maybe he won't - wouldn't that be amazing, if he can form values without judging.

Meanwhile, he's the most interesting kid in the world.

And affectionate. The other day, dinner at his grandmother's house, he was sitting next to his dad, who had slung his arm around Nephew's neck. Nephew nuzzled his head into his dad's wrist, idly kissed it, and sorta mumbled, "Daddy." No-one else noticed this, everyone was talking; it probably happens often. It was lovely.

Maris Sofra

2010-12-11T03:32:00.000-08:00

Old friend, I can erase your name, but nothing will erase the fact that you owe me money. You, however, can do that exact thing. Pay me back!

I took my blog offline, but your name was still there. I made this blog non-searchable, but your name was still there. There's nothing I can do to erase the fact that your name is tied to this little blog, which tells the fact that you've owed me $4500 for six or so years now.

[By the way, if you'd paid me $50 a month from the time you borrowed the $4500, you'd have almost paid it off by now. Not counting interest, but I wouldn't have cared about interest once you made a steady effort at paying me back. I don't care much about interest now.]

I'd love to post that you've done the right thing and paid me back.

Day with Niece

2010-12-04T02:30:00.000-08:00

Niece is ten, and she's dog-crazy. So for our first day alone together, Nov. 27, I brought her home to hang out with our Chihuahuas, then took her up the hill to the top of the canyon to a huge dog park. She swore she'd be interested, and she was. She petted even the biggest dogs, and told me the breed of every dog we saw. She was right more than wrong. She talked to a couple of the people who had tons of dogs ("Are these all yours?"). She was a delight.

At one point she wanted to go off and climb a tree. I promised her parents she wouldn't leave my sight, but I didn't want her to feel hugely guarded. So I said, yeah, go ahead, and kept a sharp but sly eye on her as she wandered off a hundred yard and went up the tree. She stayed there for a good while, enjoying the view.

Later, when we wandered by a wall with a wide stone fence, she clambered on to that. The drop was too high on one side, so I had to tell her, no, you can't do that. She said, yes I can! And of course she could, but she's not my little girl. So I had to use my stern voice. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because if you fall down and break, your mother's going to break ME,"

Niece giggled, and hopped off the wall.

Our next stop was a neighborhood video store that's closing. I wanted to scour the fire sale, and told Niece she could get one movie for herself. She took her time choosing one, and then spotted a title that her brother (who she "hates") would like. She liked hanging out with the video store guys (one's my partner). She's not a shy person.

Back at my house, she insisted we give one of the Chihuahuas a bath. I had suggested this earlier in the day because I was afraid she'd get bored at the dog park. She took the suggestion as the high point of her day. So we washed Ariel, and Niece was great at it. I reminded her that when she was three, barely walking straight, she helped me hose off my old dogs Brandy and Sophie.

The funniest part was when I brought her home. After telling me all day that everything was awesome and I was awesome and where I lived and the places I took her to were awesome, she waltzed right past her parents' question of "How was your day," with "Fn." I realized later it was because she was anxious to show her brother her video store loot.

This month I get her brother for a day.

Dinner with my father

2010-11-26T23:12:00.000-08:00

Had my father over today for a post-Thanksgiving dinner. Just the two of us. Dad was not sober when he showed up, but I've quit expecting him to be. I used to think he'd tipple beforehand because Gentle Boyfriend was part of the dinner party - a sort of pre-performance drink - but he knew GB would be absent tonight. I guess he just can't make it to 4:30 without wine.

First thing, while I'm managing three dishes and a sauce in the kitchen, he starts in on my cousin. He wasn't invited to the Thanksgiving dinner at my maternal-side cousin's last night, but there's no reason he should have been; he and my mother have been divorced for nearly forty years. He complains that Cousin and her husband never speak to him at my brother's functions, where they've met annually for several years, and what the hell can I say to that? Than he starts in on, "I should tell [Cousin] about the time I rescued her catatonic mother from that roach-infested apartment when [Cousin] was a toddler - " at which point I turned and said, Please don't start this. No. And don't do that.

We just stared at each other for a few seconds, and I could tell he was waiting for his anger to burst. I said, so Dad, what do you think of my new glasses? And smiled at him with a cocked head. This is what now is called a hack, and what used to be called manipulation, and before that, maybe it was called social tact. I think of it as employing tactics to good use that were ingrained in me as a child. He responded well - he took the out - and the evening went smoothly from there.

Except he was a crashing fucking bore, worrying his hobbyhorses one by one in a monologue he thinks passes for conversation, repeating things he's said in drunken conversations to me over the phone, and demanding my attention when I was clearly concentrating on the cooking. The meal went well - I cooked what he asked for, and I'll say this for him, he loves food and is generous with his compliments. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

What to do? I can have him over for lunch - a very early lunch; he told me once he starts drinking at 1 pm - instead of a very early dinner. There's no point in banning wine from the meal; he drank very little of the bottle he brought today. There's nothing I can do to made him a happier man. I could lay out articles on things I think he'd be interested in, and thus steer the conversation while I make the meal.

Get out of town, self!

2010-11-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

Dear Self -

Maybe it's time to get out of town for a bit. Expand your horizons a tidge. Clear some air.

If your partner won't go to the desert over xmas - and it looks like he won't, and maybe that's not such a bad thing - maybe think a little bigger. That old boyfriend who grows herbs in Hawaii could be lovely to visit, and there's that cousin on the other island, and his new wife, who'd love to see you (but who would drag you to church, which might be okay). You haven't gone up to the Bay Are in a year, and Andy in Guerneville always welcomes you. You haven't been to New York since 2003. You haven't been to Italy since 1989. You've never been to Boston or Philly or Baltimore or Washington D.C.

Here you are, working your ass off. You've got great credit. You're feeling a little trapped. This is what credit cards are for.

Think about it. Maybe it's time to be bold. Just for a week! It's not as tho you have a permanent job.

- me

Lunch today

2010-11-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

I went out to lunch today, alone, for the first time in months if not years. Went to Monsieur Marcel and got a table to myself, a waiter to myself - a smart waiter, too. I ordered the wild mushroom bisque and the chef's tart [poor girl], then asked how much food that would be, "because I'm not that hungry." "That's a lot of food," he replied. I thanked him and ordered the chef's tart alone, which was a eight x eight inch square of puff pastry with lardons, chevre, Roquefort, and carmelized onions baked in, with a heap of pear-vinaigrette-dressed arugula on top. Wonderful! Or maybe just really good, but wonderful because it was prepared and served to me while I did nothing but read my New Yorker (the food edition!).

The waiter got a forty percent tip for warning away from over-ordering. I even got a cafe au lait, and I never drink coffee. $20 total. Here's to eating out ALONE.

There's no reason that I haven't dined out alone in so long, except that it's expensive, I like to cook, I'm the cook in the household, and we like the food I cook. Lately, tho, it seems my partner prefers Subway and TJ ready-mades, which sorta hurts, and is probably indicative of something.

For reasons that belong to another post I learned to dine alone as a young woman. It was a purposeful getting-used-to, starting around age nineteen. I knew that when I traveled, I'd be traveling alone, and that I'd have to be comfortable entering a restaurant, asking for a table for one, ordering a meal and a bottle or half-bottle of wine, often in another language, all by myself. I knew that some people - particularly women - can find this difficult. So before leaving the country, I prepared. I went by myself to sit-down restaurants with which I was familiar. With a book to read and a notebook to write in, I'd order an appetizer and a entree (portions weren't so big then; I could eat these alone). The only time it felt odd was when I had to leave the table to go to the bathroom - I was afraid the lack of a body at the table would lead the waiter to conclude I'd skipped - so the book and notebook did double duty as an indication that the table was still occupied. Waiters did intimidate me sometimes (some waiters live to intimidate) but this preparation served me well once I left the country, and still does. I feel fine dining alone in public.

As to allowing my blog to be found and read by potential employers of my debtor

2010-11-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

"Let search engines find your blog?'

"NO."

"If you select "Yes" we will include your blog in Google Blog Search and ping Weblogs.com. If you select "No", everyone can still view your blog but search engines will be instructed not to crawl it. If there are links to your blog from other websites, search engines may still suggest your blog in response to queries."

Per the debtor's request, I chose NO. It seems, a week later, that my blog still comes up when one searches her name, and I'm not sure what I can do about that.

I'll keep this blog inaccessible until January. Then, I think I'll allow it to be viewed, if not web-searchable, again.

Tactile gathering; 4 1/2 libraries in one week; dad weeping

2010-11-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today D. and I, my mother and stepfather, niece and nephew went to an exhibition. It was arranged thematically in a series of small rooms. I rarely go to museums on weekends because crowds are too distracting, and this was an extreme case: the small rooms were packed. It was hard to see the exhibits and the placards explaining them; there was a lot of bumping shoulders and "excuse me"s. Halfway thru I noticed that this wasn't bothering me because the exhibit had faded behind something else: the near-constant touch of my family. D. and I are always in physical contact - we're a hand-holding, distracted-belly-rubbing, frequent-kiss pair. My mother and I often linked arms or stood close (so different from years ago). And my niece and nephew, who are ten and eleven now, were always coming up and leaning against me or holding my hand or grabbing me from behind. When one of them was near, I automatically put an arm around their shoulders or lifted them a little from the waist. It was lovely, and once I realized it, thought: oh, this is why humans began having families and communities. A totally banal and ridiculous observation - of course, mutual aid is the reason for families and communities. And I know that lack of touch is debilitating emotionally. Today the realization really hit me. Touched me.

4 1/2 libraries this week! Two days at the college, one day at a state court library in one county and another day at a state court library in another, one day in the small advocacy firm at which I volunteer. The 1/2 is the work I've been doing online for my local public branch. This will continue for the month (except next week when the half becomes a whole - we have our meeting, and the book sale I'm in charge of). It's exhausting - well, the travel is exhausting, I'm commuting over two hundred and fifty miles a week - and invigorating.

Dad weeping: once in my teens I saw my dad doing a scene study (I think it was from "A View from the bridge,") in which he had to cry and beg on a park bench. My father is a good actor - I think he enjoyed doing operas as much for the acting as for the singing - and I'd seen him on stage since I was a little kid, but always in that artificial opera world, and always as a supporting player, such as Goro in Madame Butterfly. Seeing him emotionally naked in Miller's play was very strange. I wanted to jump up from my seat and yell at his antagonist, "Stop hurting my dad!" He and I weren't getting along at all at the time, which made my protective reaction feel even stranger.

Nowadays my dad's calling me and crying in real life. He's drunk, sad, lonely, depressed, maximizing tiffs with me and with my brother so much he feels rejected all the time. It makes me feel, a little, valiant, as it did when he was acting, and it makes me feel, a little, guilty. I do things like find contact information for the (apparently retired) therapist he liked, and find free therapy for him at clinics I have heard to be very good, but he doesn't look into it. I find ways for him to check into selling a piece of property he owns, so he can get some money (he's on social security and is terrified the government will shut down and leave him stranded, as if my brother and his high-earning wife would allow that) but he doesn't follow through; I invite him over for dinner and cook what he asks for. But he arrives drunk even if I schedule dinner so early that's it's lunch. There are three messages on our machine and I'm avoiding them because it might be Dad, crying.

I don't know what to do. Continue what I've been doing, I guess, and think about what my responsibility is to him and what it isn't.

Strange equals goofy?

2010-11-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

I got a new pair of specs. They're square. I love them; they're very comfortable, and I think they're goofy.

My fella says, yeah, they're goofy! They're strange!

- Strange?

- Yeah! Strange is like goofy!

- Strange isn't goofy!

- Yeah, it is, kinda!

It is? We're agreeing that there's a Venn diagram that doesn't exactly meet here (Fella: But there's overlap!) but I'm not inclined to argue further because he's agreed to go to see mummies with my niece and nephew tomorrow, and for that he gets agreement plus kisses.

Seeing my dermatologist. History of a psoriasis patient

2010-11-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

I've had psoriasis since I was maybe six years old, and have gone through almost all tx but the all-day-long tar treatment, and methotrexate. It's gone on so long I can't even list the different treatments, but here's a try:

Ca. early childhood: Topical stuff (maybe early steroids?) smeared on the afflicted areas which were then wrapped in plastic at bedtime ("Don't scratch!"). Combatting a normal reaction to an itch all the time.

Ca. teenage through thirties: UVB light tx three times a week. UVA light tx twice a week, which was prefaced by a coldish bath with some particular kind of substance to make my skin more receptive to the light. Sometimes special light tx for my hands and feet. Too many different topicals to remember. Putting stuff on my skin - only on the affected areas - that was oily (at night) or creamy (in the morning).
On my back, on places I couldn't reach. Oh - when I lacked insurance, I enrolled in studies on the off-chance I'd get good meds. Which meant getting blood taken, often. Lots and lots of blood.

This is just tx, I'm not even talking about living with it.

Ca.2004, there came this beautiful new tx of biologics. Developed for another chronic ailment, they worked on psoriasis. I scored some via a charity hospital - my full-time job didn't offer health insurance, and I couldn't afford to purchase on my own, with this pre-existing condition - and it worked like magic. When that largess ran out, I went back to topicals and light machines.

Topicals never did a thing for me, and light machines were hard to find. I did find some, but it took hours to get to and from them, and they were open only during business hours. I didn't have a car and I had to work. I scored a job near them - lucky me! - and found they didn't do a thing for me. They never had, really. But when you're covered with lesions you get this hope.

Then I figured out how to get the biologics again, for free, via patient assistance. Getting that to work took weeks, and I worry for people who don't have the persistence or fuck-em attitude or English-language skills it takes to get that help. I ended up running between the dermatology clinic on the 2nd floor at the charity hospital and the faxing office in the hospital's basement, and back. And forth and back. It's hard not to lose your mind when you're trying so hard to get your medicine and you can be thwarted by an out-of-work elevator. You have to get the powers-that-be to fax it today! It has to get in today!

Eventually I got health insurance, and I balked at losing my patient assistance, because I figured this job was going to go belly up soon enough. It actually didn't, until the economy fell, by which time I'd found a decent private dermatologist. Applying for patient assistance via his office was a completely different experience: I filled out a form, then I got a call, asking where I'd like my biologic meds shipped. That's all. Easy as pie.

So for the past four years I've been injecting myself with a powerful drug, and my psoriasis has been more or less suppressed. I consider this the best that science can do, and I wish I could pay for the meds. But they're hugely expensive. Instead, I pay my current dermatologist $25/minute every few months to tell him I'm fine. Seriously: he sees me for three minutes, he continues my script, and I pay $75.

Anne Moody

2010-10-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I reread "Coming of age in Mississippi" by Anne Moody. My copy of this book is stored in a plastic bag, because I read it so many times after finding it in my mother's bookcase as a teenager that it fell apart.

I'm buying copies for my niece and nephew - whose black grandfather grew up in Kentucky in the forties and fifties - so they get a notion of what our country was capable of inflicting on its citizens.

The debtor, Maris Sofra

2010-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

I've looked over the posts I've made here and removed one sentence that mentioned her family.

I don't see a reason to remove any others. I'll go through them again, but the best thing, X.Y.Z. Debtor, would be for you to pay me back.

[edit] I haven't looked at the entirety of this blog in years, if ever. Doing a quick search for entries that mention this debtor took me back into places I didn't really care to revisit. This blog is a journal more than anything, but since it's online I guess I have to consider if it's an accurate version of my life since I began it, and of course it isn't; it's pieces. Probably I should keep a private journal on a flash drive now. Not sure if there'd remain an echo of the blog online; will look into it.

Cooking! And chopping off one's finger!

2010-10-26T23:47:00.000-07:00

I log the meals we cook elsewhere but IT'S BRAISE WEATHER! Even tho it's supposed to be 85 degrees tomorrow and the non-down (I've developed allergies) comforter is not quite on the bed, it's still BRAISE WEATHER!

I love a cookbook called Braises and stews by Tori Ritchie (ISBN: 9780811860550) from San Francisco. She mentions Tante Marie, a cooking school about which I know nothing except I used to run across Mary, said tante, walking her basset up at Alta Plaza park in the late 90's.

Anyway, Ritchie's book is short, good, and useful. I've cooked a dozen of her recipes and all but one have been good to wonderful. Last night we made her Thai Fish and Corn Curry (for the third time), with sufficient variations that I may post it here. Tomorrow D. is making Braised Sausages with Lentils.

As for chopping off one's finger: I'm surprised this hadn't happened before, as I never learned to curl my fingers inward when chopping and I've chopped near-daily since I was a kid. The hospital bill for this mishap - I don't have health insurance - is running about $1700, chopped down to $660. That's aside from the doctor's bill, which is about $450. I'm curious what costs what, as I got no stitches (it was determined that the part of the finger I chopped off wasn't much) or x-rays.

I kept the part of my finger, in a plastic baggie. The ER doc didn't need it so I brought it home and it's in a drawer with the old take-out menus. Which sounds kinda sick now. But I didn't just want to throw it out. Now I do.

Also, I wanted a nice day off

2010-10-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Besides the other bullshit brought up by the phone call I received from this debtor yesterday, it disturbed my peace.

I hold two paying jobs and two volunteer gigs; all this plus travel time means I have very long days. Friday was my day to lounge around with my partner (after taking the 19-year-old car in for repairs that proved to cost less than we feared - yay!) and read and watch movies.

I wanted nothing to disturb that day. Which is sorta foolish - there are always disturbances. But I didn't want to hear from this person! Unless she said, "Hey, I've got your money. I'm sending it now!" Which is the only thing she should have said.

X.Y.Z Debtor aka Maris Sofra calls

2010-10-23T19:30:00.001-07:00

Several months ago I mentioned to D. that I was thinking of taking down some of my blog posts about X.Y.Z. Debtor, aka Maris Sofra, the friend to whom I loaned $4500 and who has never paid it back. We discussed the ethics of her actions and of my posts, and what I wanted to achieve. I really wasn't sure about the latter, except 1. I suffered through her actions and thought it fair that she endure some suffering as well, though how that could happen I was unsure, since she's unrepentant; and 2. it's just a blog, I was angry, and sometimes my blog posts are about things that anger me.

I didn't make a decision, and frankly, forgot about it.

Re 1, I assumed that like everyone else on the planet with access to to the internet, X.Y.Z. Debtor aka Maris Sofra googled herself. I googled her every so often as well. I had no way to contact her without involving her family (a position I didn't want to put them in), and figured eventually an e-mail for her would show up in a search. I did try to contact her via LinkedIn but couldn't, though I didn't try very hard. And what would I say to her, anyway? Please pay me back? She knows she owes me money. So I figured, shoot, when she googles herself, she'll see my blog post and get uncomfortable for a while. Maybe uncomfortable enough to pay me back.

Re 2, it's just a blog. A blog that no one reads. I never advertise it or link to it; maybe six people have commented on it in five years. Even the two web friends with whom I began it haven't posted here for years. I have one "follower" because I made an effort to contact him (a former mentor) via a blog he keeps on this site. I consider this a online journal more than anything else - a journal in type and on which the ink won't fade, unlike the boxes of my pre-internet handwritten journals in my closet.

So I was surprised when X.Y.Z. Debtor aka Maris Sofra called me yesterday (really surprised - I haven't heard from her in five years) with some sarcastic comments and a couple of lies. The sarcasm isn't important, although if I were calling someone to whom I owe $4500, I might not have used it. The lies were that my blog posts are keeping her from getting work, and that she didn't even know about them until a recruiter told her my blog posts are what keeps her from finding work. And even that first lie isn't important (though it didn't made me want to listen to anything else she said after it).

So she posits that my blog posts keep her from finding employment, and THAT's why she can't pay me back? No. I lent her the money in 2003 or 2004; she wrote me bad checks in, I think, 2004 and 2005 (I still have them). She left this state for Oklahoma in 2005, at least sixty months ago. If she'd sent me a hundred dollars every month since then, she'd have paid me back by 2009. If she'd lost her job, along with me and millions of other people, back in 2008, a bulk of the debt would be paid. But it's only now that she can't find work? Because of my blog posts?

She didn't try very hard to say she couldn't find me, if she wanted to pay me back. I live in the same place, have the same phone number, continue to check the same e-mail address she used to send me a payment schedule years ago. And all anyone has to do to contact this blog is start one of their own here.

I know that her name is unique, or nearly so. I figured when she googled herself she'd see them. It did not occur to me that prospective employers would consider my blog posts a decisive factor in considering her, because, jesus, it's just a blog. One person's blog.

So. What is my responsibility here? What, according to my ethics, should I do with these blogs posts? I'm wondering, and talking it over with D.

X.Y.Z. Debtor aka Maris Sofra asked me to take them down. I said (and yeah, this was pompous), "You want me to take the truth off the internet." She replied, "It's not all the truth!" Isn't it? I'll read the posts over the next couple of weeks and evaluate them.

She really wants the posts deleted, and I suspect it's not for employment purposes. Nothing prevents her from creating content which highlights her professional achievements - she's been working since the 70s, in fields including health care and education - that could come up first on a google search. She has had many opportunities for networking, gathering references, and (probably) for mentoring others.

What my blog posts do is embarrass and shame her, and she should be embarrassed and ashamed. She borrowed money she didn't pay back. She wrote bad checks. She ignored the debt - never mind how it affected me ($4500 is a LOT of money to me). She's a thief. She's a thief until she pays back the money she owes.

Ari Up / instrument-wielding ugly GIRLS

2010-10-21T23:47:00.000-07:00

Maybe one of the reasons I was a young punk rocker was because there were GIRLS in punk rock. Not just the subject of songs but big, ugly, instrument-wielding GIRLS.

Who else was there in the late 70s/early 70s? Stevie Nicks. Who bored me to death. Joni Mitchell. Who bored me to death (then). The remainders of the Motown girl groups. Who bored me to death. There was Rickie Lee Jones, who seemed fine and had a bunch of fuck-you, but was all by herself.

When I was fourteen I loved Siouxsie Sioux, and Sue Cat-Woman, and Poly Styrene and the Slits. Women who were mean and who didn't give a shit and who were ugly on principle and on purpose.

These girls scared me, and I like to be scared, so I took them on as my gurus. They made great music, too.

Conditional parental love

2010-10-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

What an interesting thing, watching my parents react to their grandchildren.

I learned recently that my father is hugely disappointed that his grandchildren aren't special. His grandchildren are 10 and 11; I can't imagine what he's so disappointed about, except that they aren't musical prodigies.

"I wasn't special, Dad, was I," I said, just to hear his response.

"No, you weren't. . ."

It's interesting that he considers talent to be of primary consideration for affection. He loves the kids with musical ability more than the kids without, and his son, rather than I, got the musical talent (his son's kids aren't even encouraged toward music). His father was a very successful man - in journalism, in music, in life - and never gave my father the affection he thinks he deserved (I agree that my my father didn't get much affection). But my father thinks he didn't get affection because he lacked talent - and here he is perpetuating this kind of shit.

Whether young bullies are sociopathic, criminal, stalkers, or . . . ?

2010-10-14T01:01:00.000-07:00

[A friend questioned whether I knew what a bully is, and gave names.]

I think the term "bully" is NOT reminiscent of "good old schoolyard days." Maybe we're having a semantic argument? A bully is not benign, but most bullies are by definition weak.

I know some of the names you mention here [Michael Brewer, Sladjana Vidovic, Phoebe Prince, Carl Walker-Hoover, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Hope Witsell].

For what it's worth, I was bullied out of school by the age of fourteen, due to perceptions of race (I was neither latino enough for the latino kids, nor white enough for the white kids), and religion (I declared myself an atheist, and got hounded for it by the black girls). An entire grade was against me, and except for the one woman who ended up in a woman's prison, none were sociopathic, none were criminal, and probably none could have been considered stalkers. What they were, were kids who sensed a tender subject against whom they could test their nascent strength. They were kids who had no reason to consider empathy a strength.

One day I came to school, as I rarely did in the ninth grade, just to see what would happen, because I was on drugs and about to graduate and just didn't give a fuck anymore. It was 1979, when everyone hated Iran - people had Ayatollah dartboards. I walked out onto what passed for the quad in my junior high and everyone turned out to see what would happen. It was a toss-up who would beat my ass first - the latino girls, the black girls, or the white girls.

The Iranian girl - she always told everyone she was Persian NOT Iranian; I hate to think how lonely she felt that year - stood up next to me; then the kinda crippled kid who was my ex-boyfriend (everyone said his mom took acid when she was pregnant), then a couple black kids (boys, not girls; the girls still thought I was shit for publicly declaring myself an atheist). None of these kids had been by my side during the months my latino and white girl friends were telling people I was the worst piece of shit ever.

I swear to diety my memory is correct that these kids walked with me thru the junior-high equivalent of the quad. And the next day or week, I was okayfine with everyone that had bullied me.

None of my champions that day were great (tho I think they were); none of my detractors were bad. How I got to be the little guy, the one worthy of tormenting, I don't know. But none of my tormentors were criminals, or sociopaths.

Junior high is the shittiest of institutions next to prison. But shitty behavior in it doesn't make anyone a sociopath. The thing is, how often are junior-high-school kids asked to be brave and kind and empathetic? Less than they get to be total assholes. I think given the chance they CAN be brave and empathetic.

December 8, 1980

2010-10-09T03:28:00.000-07:00

My friend Lori Something, who'd been moved by her mom to Thousand Oaks, had sent me a letter. I was on the verge of leaving school but spent some effort to stay home sick that day. I wrote Lori back.

I was doing homework that night, listening to KROQ, when I heard that John Lennon had been shot. KROQ then played the Buzzcocks' "Orgasm addict." So I figured it was a joke.

It wasn't a joke. I knew who John Lennon was - I loved a few Beatles songs, and was enough of a budding leftist to consider him a piece of shit for saying that he'd felt taken for going against the U.S. Gov't "just because Jerry Rubin wanted a cushy job," as was reported in a TIME Magazine article.

But I was a kid. Somebody shot John Lennon. I went out and told my mother, and she said, "Who would bother?"

I wasn't alive or cognizant for any of the sixties killings: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, MLKing, Kennedys - all that happened before I existed or knew how to walk. But when you grow up with the notion that anyone can be shot dead, it isn't really a shock when it happens.

Not to say that it isn't easy to see why Evers and King were killed, and might be killed again today.

Crap thinking

2010-09-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

It seems that the new crop of right-wing politicians have decided abortion should be denied to rape and incest victims.

A couple people have posted, whew, well, at last, anti-abortionists are being consistent. That this consistency is, at last, something to respect.

My fuckin response:

I was leaning that way, too because I like things to make sense. But here's one thing: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, says Emerson.

Fuck yeah we're consistent! say Eric Rudolph and the murderers of Drs. George Tiller, Barnett Slepian, John Britton, David Gunn, and the people who supported them in their work.

Fuck yeah, we're consistent, said the KKK. The fuckers who flew into the towers and the Pentagon were consistent in their thinking. Hitler had some consistency going on.

Consistency in this context is fanatacism. Fanatacism is admirable because it's catchy and cocksure and absolute. It's never messy. Fanatacism never has to say, Well, maybe. Fanatacism doesn't admit nuance. It doesn't recognize humanity at all.

I think underneath Emerson's gentle phrasing (hobgoblins sound sweet, doesn't it, and he further sugared his axiom with "foolish" and "little") is a really bitter pill: knowing something FOR SURE means we don't know shit. Consistency denies everything human, because for humans, nothing is sure.

That knife you leant me is now indisputably mine

2010-09-09T01:08:00.000-07:00

Letter to my mother:

Dear Mum -

You know I don't buy into myths or significance of oddly coincident events, but something happened tonight which made me think otherwise, and I thought you'd like to hear it.

First, a sweet story: Years ago I bought a friend and budding cook, G.C., a nifty Japanese cleaver, as once had been done for me. She called me a couple weeks later: would I take her to the ER? She'd chopped of the top of one finger. I drove her through a really fierce rainstorm from the Inner Richmond to a small hospital in the lower Haight near Duboce Park. A nice Asian nurse at the ER, whilst bandaging her up, heard us talk about how the knife was my gift - what did it mean to harm her so badly, so quickly, when she was just learning to cook? We were goofing on this theme, mainly to relieve G.C.'s fear and pain. The nurse listened and then shushed us, and spun a tale: he told us that a good knife will always injure its owner once. He made it sound like a rite of passage or an old cultural truism. When we mentioned how new the knife was to her, he congratulated her: the knife had done what it needed to very quickly, and she'd be safe from now on. Something along the lines of: you and the knife now belong to each other. He spun this fable while bandaging her up and effectively distracting her from the pain. He also gave us something slightly profound to consider. We thought that was gracious, but it also made me think.

Second, some bloody reality: Today while chopping cilantro for a tuna sammich, I took off a piece of my finger with your Henckels chef's knife. It's not bad; I'm not maimed, tho I doubt that part of my finger will grow back again. The nail will grow back, though, and cover that missing bit of flesh.

I recently had that knife sharpened - it's the big chef's one, that you lent me after your husband got you the whole Henckels set. They say a dull knife causes more injuries, but I'm here to say that a sharp one can do damage too. ESPECIALLY when one doesn't curve one's knuckles as a guide, as one is supposed to. Which I just never have. Do you? Decades of chopping with my fingers flat straight out is a hard muscle memory habit to break! [My partner] says a metallic mesh glove is in my immediate future, and as he left work and ran home and drove with wheels screeching to Cedars ER, I'll concede he has every right to insist.

So your old knife has, according to the nurse in San Francisco, enacted a covenant with me. I made it taste blood and it's now tasted mine; consequently, we now are now truly comrades. You know I'm not one for myths but this one appeals. I think anthropomorphizing objects (say, telling lights "hello" when they come on, as we both do) is a goofy habit, but this notion of the knife now regarding me as a equal, where I had simply regarded it as a wonderful tool, seems to me an echo of when a craftsperson considered tools partners more than objects. As a musician regards the instrument.

I'd have preferred it if this particular tool didn't send me to [the hospital], with all the headache re payment will entail (I believe this time won't be as difficult as the last time, in 2005), but a knife can't know my Cobra had run out.

So your knife is mine now, by blood contract. Unless it took out a piece of you before you lent it to me, in which case, it needs to be demolished before it wreaks havoc on another generation of [family] women. Niece, when she sets up housekeeping for herself in eight years, should NOT get a vengeful knife.

I'm partly kidding here, mom, but actually, mostly not.

I'm fine, by the way. It hurt and it sucks and tending it will be awkward and we all agree pain sucks. But it's amazing that this is the worst injury I've sustained in years of near-daily cooking.

Your fanciful daughter -

[redacted]

[I lost touch with G.C. (I think you met her in SF in the early 90s) years ago; she's since become something of a big wheel on the web. I read her posts periodically and have been kinda gratified that she's become a foodie. When we met, she ate crap; years later, she posted about the moral and economic implications of dining at the French Laundry. I'm sure she still uses that knife.]

Old thread

2010-09-03T02:43:00.000-07:00

Or thread-ish. I looked at a board at which I was very active ca. 2002, 2003. It's still there! It hasn't been deleted.

One of the threads I started, in January 2003, was called "Happy." I was not happy at the time - I'd lost my job several months before, and was solely responsible for a mortgage. Since I was and am well aware that whatever wealth I'll ever accrue will be via my credit score and not via actual money, times were grim.

So I started a thread titled "Happy." My avatar was a llama, and the first things I posted were: Stevie Wonder. Warm socks. An ergonomic mouse. Whiskey. Money.

People joined in, and the thread goes on for over a thousand posts over several years, all of which I might read if I'm ever nostalgic or depressed enough. Tonight I just thought it lovely that it's still there.

Neighbor Chuck

2010-08-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

I took a dog out this morning and saw Chuck, who's lost a few more teeth and looks thinner. He's 78 now, he said. He's lost some oomph from when we first met six years ago, and I'm concerned. I keep asking him to please come to my house for dinner, but he waves that off. I think I'll start bringing him casseroles.

This season's temp job

2010-08-27T03:46:00.000-07:00

I won't name my temporary employer, but they're one of the for-profit ones recently slammed (the corp e-mailed us the government report, which it seems excepts this particular entity from egregiousness). As a for-profit, there's much more leeway for nontraditional hiring than, say, at UC, or in public library systems; this place is more like a law firm in not demanding a predetemined level of education. Also, this corp operates smaller campuses. So it's not likely that the job description is being written for someone within the organization. [I understand how that works. A job description at UCSF was written with me in mind; the specifics were such that a person would have had to have my name and dob to get through. There was a purpose to this - I'd worked as a contractor for a few years and my knowledge of the organization was necessary for the position - but I felt bad for everyone who scanned UC job listings and thought, OOh, I'll do everything I can to get that!]

Today the library director told me that instead of having specific positions to which she can allocate specific dollars, she's got a budget in which she can hire the open positions: associate director, reference librarian, head of public services, and cataloger.

With that many open positions, the library is currently hamstrung - not just by the lack of staff, but by the time it takes to interview the applicants. Director has also recognized that the procedures manual is inadequate. She doesn't want more flux, so I may get a job just by being efficient and able to write a good manual. [And, you know, just by being there for the past four months and grasping the library processes.] This is if she finesses the budgetary leeway.

I'm not counting on anything. My temp agency will demand a portion of my earnings - that's the contract - and Director may decide that's too much of the budget.

Marriage ceremony = time suck

2010-08-27T02:57:00.000-07:00

A volunteer I work with has been much less on the ball for several months because she's getting married. It seems to be her reason not to commit to involvement in the cause she chose.

I don't understand her focus. Marriage as display seems burdensome.

It'll be nice when gay folks get to marry - I look forward to that; there should be celebration here - but months of preparation to THE DAY? Who benefits?

I've never envisioned a wedding. Some friends and I have discussed marrying for green cards or insurance, and a few times I've been in love and wanted to rush over to the county clerk, but the notion of a wedding day, and a pageant, does not appeal. I don't get the appeal. And I've wept with joy at weddings - my mother's, my brother's. Which were very low-key.

Maybe they took months to arrange, as my fellow volunteer's apparently has.

Sick of this family

2010-08-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

My family has been unusually solicitous since I've raised the alarm about my father's inappropriately sexual comment about my niece.

I think they can all go to hell - other than my niece and nephew.

Letter to my niece's grandmother, who asked if I've talked to my niece's mother

2010-08-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

Of course. Besides whatever talk she and I had about the subject when I stayed with them in __________ years ago, I talked to her and to [my brother] after that xmas when drunk dad was cuddling Niece in a way that made some of the onlookers uncomfortable and wary, and we followed up with each other. This summer I e-mailed both [niece's parents] about dad calling Niece "sexy;" [her mother] was the one who e-mailed me back with appreciation for the head's-up, and we exchanged a couple e-mails after that.

I've talked my father, to you, to my brother, and to [sister-in-law], each repeatedly.

Look: my goal here is to keep Niece safe from whatever crap her grandfather is still capable of doling out. [Bro and sis-in-law], I believe, are excellent parents and their kids are the luckiest children on earth. But we all have blind spots, and as one little girl who suffered under dad's sexual attention, I believe the adults around Niece have a duty to protect her. Why my brother has a blind spot here is not too hard to fathom; I'm the only one who's stepped up to say that dad can be dangerous. [Brother] doesn't want to believe it, of course. I don't, you don't, nobody does. But the truth is that we all should know that he might be.

A call from nowhere

2010-08-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

We don't check our messages as often as we should, so periodically I get out a notebook and go through the several we have let accumulate, writing down this person's name and that person's number. I did this tonight and was surprised to hear my first boyfriend's voice on the machine.

His voice still gives me a thrill. He didn't leave a number - probably I'm supposed to have a phone that keeps numbers, and maybe we do, but we've never even programmed it to record the time accurately.

Here's one thing I appreciate about my lover: he doesn't get jealous. I sorta thrilled to the voice of my old boyfriend - just as if I was a teenager - and Gentle Boyfriend didn't seem bothered.

Should he have been? About this, no. I do wish he'd get bothered about a few other things.

Meanwhile, I just looked up Old Boyfriend's myspace page. He states his mood as uncomfortable. Maybe that's why he's calling old girlfriends. I'm sorry I missed his call, because I doubt he'll call again.

Could I be homeless again, part 2

2010-08-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

We went downtown today, to get a famous pastrami sandwich (at a place that turned out to be closed on Sunday) and to look at an apartment. While wandering around, we passed a lot of SRO places, and I mentioned to Gentle Boyfriend that I expected to live in one someday. He kinda guffawed.

God knows where he gets his confidence that he won't end up in a four-story brick SRO with a caged concierge just past the door downstairs, and all kinds of shit upstairs. Maybe he's never been upstairs in an SRO hotel. Does he think the government or his family will save him? I guess he does.

But god knows where he gets his confidence that that isn't where I'm headed. I'm nearly broke and have no savings to speak of - nothing that will keep me for longer than eight months. There's a 401k I can cash out to the tune of maybe 2k; that will keep me for another three months where we live now. After that, I'll have nothing.

After I run through that last bit of money, I can apply for something from the county or the state. But that award would take months, and where or how will I live in the meantime? It makes me think about finding a live-in-able van, because women in SRO hotels are so vulnerable. I could get mean enough to live in one successfully, as people do, but oh my word, I'd rather not.

Could I be homeless again?

2010-08-13T03:20:00.000-07:00

So, I've been homeless before.

There are several degrees of homelessness. The most severe kind - systemic, seasons-long, no shower, no privacy, no escape no clean socks homelessness - I have never been in (yet).

The couch-surfing, shower-available, no-privacy, constantly-apologizing, hungry kind, I've been in.

The this-is-kind-of-fun because we're teenagers and hitch hiking kind, and fuck food, we have cigarettes, kind, I've been in. I think Jennifer Egan just wrote a book about that kind.

There's another kind: I was walking down Haight St. with maybe five dollars and knew I could buy a potato, but wasn't sure I could find a place to cook it.

Homelessness didn't happen, really, until after Reagan took office, and I will piss on his grave when I get the merest chance that he made it part of the nation's makeup, of any poor person's fear. Homelessness - even the small ways I've experienced it - hurts, and makes one mean.

My niece and nephew are taught to give their toys to homeless children. I understand why, and sure, charity's great. When do I tell my niece and nephew that their aunt was homeless? And that toys wouldn't have helped.

And may be again. Goddamnit.

My father's childishness

2010-08-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a nice break from family recently. Most of them are in the Midwest for a vacation, while my father has been employing the silent treatment toward me since I called him out re saying his 9-year-granddaughter was "sexy."

Well, my father called me tonight. He sounded awful - his loneliness, doubled by not talking to me while his son's family is out of town, must be really hard on him. He's often drunk, but this evening he sounded guttural. Nevertheless, I was happy to hear from him. "Hi, Dad!" I said. I've missed him. He ploughed on in a monotone - wanted a cousin's phone number, because he has found something in one of his father's books that appears to be the title page to a recollection, in Spanish, of how his father escaped from Guatemala. "You mean that book with the gray cover, and dark brown lettering? I've looked at that - how did we miss it?!" I asked. Really - how did we?

Old dude acted as though he just wanted the phone number (which he no doubt has). It was as though I was an operator. He's obviously hurting. My god, if he wanted to talk to me, he could have just called, instead of cooking up this silly excuse.

He wouldn't let me finish a sentence, let alone invite him over for dinner. "Okay thanks goodbye," he said after I gave him the number, in sepulcral tones, and hung up.

I value my dad, and miss him. But I get impatient with this kind of crap.

Marian Seldes's view on eye contact

2010-08-10T20:35:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I read a piece on Marian Seldes, the actor and acting teacher, in the NYTimes magazine. In it, she mentioned that she always kept her eyes on her students, because if she didn't, "it could hurt them." In the same piece, the journalist wrote that Seldes kept her eyes on her (him?) during an hours-long interview. I couldn't tell if the journalist found this comforting or unsettling.

As a kid, when I was being lectured by an infuriated and unstable guardian, I learned to focus on one part of that person's face - looking away might get me a punishment. I chose to focus on the lips. That way, I couldn't be accused of looking away from the face.

In years since, I've kept that habit. If someone is lecturing, or boring, or just going off, and I'm compelled to pay attention (for whatever reason), I've focussed on that person's lips. It was a habit I was unaware of. [I should say this tendency is in my business relationships; in personal matters, I've preferred to look in the eye.]

Since reading the piece about Marian Seldes, I've shifted to focussing on a person's eyes. Am not sure that it's increased my understanding of what a person wants me to hear - though that's possible - but it seems to have increased his or her sense of my capability for understanding. And maybe it has. It seems different.

Nighttime wanderings

2010-08-08T00:50:00.000-07:00

I've always liked wandering around at night.

Tonight I met a fella outside a shuttered Whole Foods a little after midnight. The market apparently prefers to hire this man to sit outside all night with the crates of melons stored near the closed entrance, rather than hike the crates inside. He was bundled up - it's cold this summer - and sitting at a small table, with a laptop in front of him. I stopped to ask him why he was there, and we talked for awhile. He's not just there to prevent theft, he said - the vegetable shipment would be there around five. He implied he had something to do with that, but I know where the shipment comes in, and it's around the block. He's not there to sell melons - I asked if I could come by late at night to buy a melon, and he shook that question off.

In fact, it makes no sense that he was there at all.

If I had the ability to write a detective novel, I'd start it off this way. It seems portentous: a local resident wanders around after midnight, and encounters a man with a laptop outside a large anti-union (for such I understand Whole Foods to be) market. He gives cryptic answers to her innocent queries. Local Resident - a younger woman than I - is surprised not to be engaged by the man. She hides behind a crate of melons and overhears a dastardly plot. . .

What elder care takes out of women; Atul Gawande

2010-08-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

Atul Gawande has been making so much sense in his articles in the New Yorker in the past few years. A confluence of events - his most recent article, and a post (not here) by a friend - made me realize what a burden is placed on female family members and female workers in retirement homes and other senior health care facilities (jeez, do I hate that term, but that's another battle).

Of course women bear the burden of health care - we care for infants and we care for oldsters. We care for them without pay if they're family members and we care for them for low pay if we're hired. 'Twas ever thus (with exceptions - there are always exceptions).

What I didn't realize until tonight is that we bear the burden of the fear. Old folks are taken to doctor's offices for tests, which may have nothing to do with anything but covering the doctor's ass - who takes the oldsters to the doctor? A wife, a daughter, or a granddaughter. Who explains the test? Same person. Who tries to explain away the necessity of the test? Same person. Who tries to tell the oldster that "it's nothing - the doctor is just covering his ass" to a member of a generation which grew up on the idea that doctor = god? Same person.

I've realized this before, but only in a personal version. I did take care of my grandmother in the 90s, because I loved her, and because I recognized that her son wouldn't step up. Did I lose money or work time by caring for her? I don't think I lost much there. Did I accept the worry, and the boundaries on my time? Yep. Did I think it was fucked? Yep.

One effect of the patriarchy is not to question oppression, or the gendered separation of duty. I knew at the time that I was doing someone's else's job, but didn't realize I'd taken it on because of my socialization. If that sounds glib, well, I'll expand on it someday.

Stupid shit

2010-08-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

My father is apparently not speaking to me, since he hung up during a phone conversation in which I tried to explain why describing his prepubescent granddaughter as sexy was kinda fucked up.

I miss him. I'm sorry he's so angry that he won't talk to me. I sent him a letter about a court case he has an interest in, and he'll probably call eventually, but it seems he's too sore to talk to me right now.

He's a touchy man. So is my brother. I take this as an object lesson - I've been touchy, too, but certainly what experience teaches me is to put things in context. Did I intend to harm my father by talking about this? No - when he calms down, he'll realize that. Did he overreact and freak and yell and hang up? Yes.

Maybe my father will never talk to me again. I can live with that, tho I think it would be a shame, and as I said, I'll miss him.

Want a change

2010-07-31T02:05:00.000-07:00

My fella and I want to serve, and we figure there's got to be an organization who could use two eager, unencumbered* adults. I have no idea what use we'd be - we haven't been tested by anything other than poverty - but there's got to be some place we'd be useful.

Then again, we aren't young. We're not up to the kind of work twenty-year-olds can do. Or maybe we are. We used to going without, but our notion of going without compares only to our neighbors, not to truly sacrificing people such as Doctors Without Borders.

Yet, we think we're up to sacrificing. We certainly have nothing to keep us from it. I wish I knew of an organization who could use us.

*I'm encumbered by a chronic condition, but new drugs are available that alleviate it with a shot every three months.

Sexual harassment training

2010-07-30T16:50:00.001-07:00

About ten years ago I was required, as a new employee at Big Management Consultancy Firm X, to attend a sexual harassment seminar. The rest of the room was filled with young men - that month's other hires, mostly MBAs - and older women, mostly support staff. The former outnumbered the latter.

The lecturer was dull as he took us through what not to do. The end of his presentation was a series of hypothetical situations, asking his audience what would be the proper response, according to the company's directives, should we find ourselves in each of them. First, he described a standard setup: a boss makes a comment about his assistant's sexy skirt (or some such).

A new hire - male - raised his hand and answered as he should: go to the personnel manager and lodge a complaint.

I'd been quiet (frankly, bored; I'd been through these before) and was surprised to hear myself say out loud, "No."

"What? Why not?" the lecturer said, looking kind of stern.

I was reluctant to follow up, particularly given the gender composition/ hierarchy status of my fellows in the room, but I said something like this: Because the complaint will be treated with skepticism. Because the assistant will be seen as a troublemaker. Because documenting crap like this over time, and having a witness to it, is a better way to be taken seriously. Because the boss is probably a man and because the assistant is probably a woman.

In my memory, the reaction is akin to a cartoon, with the older female support staff nodding vigorously and the young male MBAs shaking their heads and dropping their jaws. But in fact, it was pretty much that reaction (minus jaws, minus vigor).

To his credit, the lecturer didn't automatically dismiss me. Even though I had put him off script, which is distressing in a pro forma situation like this, he responded by acknowledging that in fact I made sense. "But here, at Big Management Consultancy Firm X. . ." I tuned out again. He probably said the company was more enlightened.

We're all here

2010-07-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

Recently, while talking to some friends, what I've come up with is how long time is. I didn't exist for most of it, and will be dead for a very, very long time. So, what do I have? A tiny, tiny slice of existence. This makes even traffic jams - the most boring, time-wasting, ugly endeavors of the age I'm privileged to live in - sort of beautiful. I'm HERE! Soon, I won't be here. And then I won't be here for ever.

That's not an epiphany, exactly, but it's a small revelation. It makes me less afraid of death and braver about this tiny, tiny slice of life I have.

Fucking asshole, part two

2010-07-28T01:58:00.000-07:00

Apparently my brother doesn't care much if his father calls his nine-year-old daughter "sexy."

I do, and I haven't shut up about it. I told my brother and his wife that my dad called his nine-year-old niece sexy. After my sister-in-law responded, saying she really appreciated my e-mail and she didn't know what to think of my father's remark and that she's vigilant about her daughter, I responded by thanking her.

When I saw the family last Sunday (my nephew's birthday was coming up, and I had several books for him), I mentioned that my father and I had talked the other day, that he'd hung up on me after I said I didn't like what he said. (I had told my father that I didn't think he should call his granddaughter sexy; he responded by telling me I couldn't tell him what to do, and hung up on me.) My brother laughed. Oh, you two, he said, as if this was a folie a deux instead of me making sure his daughter didn't get the shit I got.

Is it really a short road from my niece's grandfather calling her sexy to saying the things he said to me when I was her age? My dad sat me down on his bed when I was ten or eleven and told me I needed to keep my cunt clean. He got the idea that my cunt wasn't clean because he made me sleep next to him in his bed, and he held me next to his naked body all night long. He never fucked me - I don't hold with the notion that I wouldn't remember it if he had - but I hated it. Hated him. He thought of me as a lover - talked to his friend, in front of me, as a lover! - and I was so ashamed and grossed out by this that I refused to have anything to do with him as soon as I got the guts.

I will NOT have him telling my niece that she's sexy. She's nine; she's strong, she's lovely and goofy. My brother thinks because I'm a feminist that I have no perspective. But his wife has an idea that I'm right here, and today I called my mother and reported it all. Someone has to say something, and my mother believes me when I say that my father was a fucking asshole. She told me a couple years ago that my father raped her during their marriage.

My father raped her during their marriage, yet she left me to spend unsupervised weekends and semesters with my father. I understand that marital rape wasn't a crime, or even a concept, when I was a child, but my god: she left me with a rapist.

My brother may not think this is a big thing, but I do, and I'm not keeping my mouth shut.

I should say that my father does not have the access to my niece that he did to me - she's much safer than I was. Even tho my brother thinks I'm an asshole, he's heard enough from me (I spoke out when I was 18, to all the family) to keep his daughter away from our dad.

I'm a little tired of all this, and want nothing to do with any of the family for a while. I left them when I was very young, and it's time to leave them again. Except I really like my niece and nephew.

Fucking asshole

2010-07-20T03:40:00.000-07:00

And then, my father described his 9-year-old granddaughter, in her "one-piece bathing suit" as "sexy."

I sent that information to her parents, then sorta shut down. Is my niece going to get seen as a sexual object by her own grandfather before even her peers start doing this shit to her?

My niece is a strong, athletic, capable, gung-ho kid. She's physically fearless and has been since she could walk. She'll try anything physical. She leads a cabal of other little girls whose mothers fill their heads with crap like "I'm too fat," and "I hate my thighs." My niece apes this crap, which is to be expected, I guess. But so far, tho she's been more or less indoctrinated into the notion that females hate their bodies, she hasn't actually been made to see herself as a sex object.

It's a bad day when she'll realize it. I hated that realization. I grew up thinking I was smart and strong, and then some asshole made me realize that all I was, was female. Something to be masturbated at.

It made me feel dirty and debased. I hope my niece doesn't get that kind of shit thrown at her from her family. She'll get it soon enough from random assholes.

What I'll remember

2010-07-20T03:32:00.000-07:00

Early the other morning when I took the dogs out, I noticed snails on top of a wide hedge. Not too many, but several, including tiny ones that could only have been baby snails. I leaned in to look, and they had no idea anything was menacing them. Ace and Ariel pulled at their leashes while I watched the snails.

"Grace" by Meshell Ndegeocello

2010-07-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

I still haven't seen her, but this gorgeous song is one that I send to all my friends. And it's certainly time enough that I sent a thanks to the artist.

I've never sent a thank-you to an artist. Starting from the time I could read, I always wanted to, but felt shy.

Volunteer labor; favorite song this year

2010-07-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

Spent six hours at the local library book sale today. I don't mind being in charge of it, but I do mind when buyers haggle over our prices, as nothing's over $2, and when a volunteer we count on shows up late. Hauling dozens of banker's boxes of books, each filled to the brim, is a bitch, and we need volunteers to show up on time.

We made $600 for the library but a third of that was from a volunteer who owns two bookstores. She says she's not selling anything, and therefore won't be buying anything - or volunteering at the sale - again.

Few people are buying. We junked over ten boxes of books today. It's just not worth hauling out the same titles when no one's buying them, so anything we saw that had been for sale two months ago was jettisoned. It hurt us all to do it, but we have no room to store books that won't sell. I'll call the VA and try (again) to get someone to accept free books.

I'd like to know about these people who come to a library book sale and haggle. I'd like to know what makes them think that it's even appropriate to bitch about price. The volunteer who handles the money, H., is an elderly British expatriate who with her husband ran their own company in Manhattan for years. So she has the experience to handle money and people well, and sometimes it's a treat to watch her deal with cheapskates. She'll give some people a break, but when a buyer comes on all aggressive about price, she'll dig her heels in.

H. and I have a good time together during these sales. We enjoy each other's company. She's wry; a good sport with a quick wit.

Otherwise: my favorite song for weeks now has been RJD2's "One Day." The soul-brother vocal and 70's-type guitar, coupled with the analog-ish claps and electronic effects, gets me. I don't know if it's correct to link to youtube from here, but in case I ever lose it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=druuSC3qBl0

What I'll remember

2010-07-14T02:23:00.000-07:00

Driving up the boulevard, I noticed a motorcycle cop by my side. He stepped off his bike and raised a hand and blew a whistle to the traffic behind me..

Another block on - I was driving up the boulevard to the freeway - I noticed another motorcycle cop. He stepped of his bike and raised his hand and blew his whistle.

And this is how it went for about a mile. Just as I cleared an intersection, a cop would stop in it, with his hand and whistle. I'd look in the rearview mirror and see another officer to the last one's right, gunning for the next light. Each cop was a black man. I wonder how many female cops there are on bikes?

Eventually, the police parade turned down an avenue, and that's the last I saw of them. They were escorting someone, I have no idea who. The symmetry of this was amazing. Reminded me of when Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace get tesseracted to Camazotz.

Birthday

2010-07-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

I always figured I didn't want to live as long as my longest-lived antecedents, some of whom just hated their lives in their last decade.

Perhaps a citizen will be able to end her life on her own terms when I'm the age I've determined my life to end, perhaps not. But I will find a way to make sure I don't end up with night terrors over and over, the way my grandmother did. I will find a way not to be immobile with a broken hip and dying in a hospital with no music to ease my way, as my Uncle Latif did. I trust the baby boomers to make a sacrament of suicide.

So today I'm half as old as I ever want to live. Half my life is over. It's a relief, in some ways, and terrifying, in other ways, and a big fat goad, in other ways.

New old neighbor

2010-07-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

I leashed up the dogs for their after-dinner walk and just a few steps away from the door came upon a fellow pedestrian over-laden with canvas bags of groceries. She came up to my lowest rib, maybe (I'm not tall), and was so stooped her face was parallel to the sidewalk.

I asked if I could carry a bag for her. The traffic was too loud for me to hear her unless I leaned directly into her face, but somehow she conveyed "yes" and I unwrapped one from her plainly arthritic fingers. We walked along, very, vvveeerrrrryyyy slowly, across the intersection and along the rest of the block. She told me her name and where she was going, but her voice was very low. I said, "Ma'am, I can't hear you with all this traffic. My name's [redacted], and I'd like to take that other bag from you and walk you home." She gave up the other bag - a pretty heavy one - from another arthritic hand, and we went, vvveeeeerrrrryyyyy slowly down the street, impatient dogs in tow.

When we turned down her sidestreet we had a chance for more conversation. After she said something about "three hours," my overly intrusive do-gooder side asked if she had someone to help her with groceries. She likes to shop for herself, she said. She asked what book I was carrying (I often bring a book along on dog walks). I showed her the cover and said it's a biography of a Victorian-era British woman named Mary Kingsley who traveled in West Africa. The cover picture shows the traveler in full Victorian-era dress, which the book maintains she kept during all her travels. I remarked that I'm glad women aren't required to dress like that anymore. and we sorta talked about that. I was wearing sweats and a thrift-store button-up loose shirt; my companion was wearing a pair of blue jeans, a crisp white cotton overshirt, huge shades, and a hat. I saw little of her face.

Her name is Aurie, and she came to New York - "Manhattan. 106th St." - from Puerto Rico in 1927. She moved to Los Angeles in 1952. Which did she like better? Oh, she liked them both. Had she ever been to San Francisco? Her sister lives (lived? it was hard to hear her) there, on Noriega. Oh, I said, I lived on Pacheco St.! Streets are alphabetical in that part of town - Pacheco, Ortega, Noriega. So her sister lived two blocks south of me.

My dogs were so irritated by our slow progress that each of them had backed out of its harness. Aurie asked me to put her canvas bags down near the gate of her apartment building. I did so, then asked if I could help her up the steps. No, she could do it herself. When I said goodbye I asked her again what her name was - it had been too loud on the earlier part of the walk for me to hear properly. "Aurie. A.u.r.i.e. Thank you, [redacted] " she said, using my name (obviously her hearing, or my voice, was strong). I said, "Aurie! As in Aurora?" She replied but I couldn't hear her.

Talking to a cousin tonight

2010-07-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

My cousin J. and I don't talk often, but when we do, it's for a couple hours.

Tonight he said, well, I'll tell you the short version of what's going on with me. I said, no, please give me the long version.

Upshot of which is: he's single. For the first time in his life, he's very gainfully employed (he teaches physics) and a homeowner. But he doesn't feel able to recommend himself as a potential lover, whether on match or to a woman he met at a garage sale in his town over the weekend, because, he says, he's bald, fat, and smokes.

Well, I said. I like bald men (I picked one out at sixteen - I love a chromedome. My lover is bald), I like men with meat on their bones (so much more to grab onto), so please, cousin, will you consider that a lot of women will like what you have to offer? Then I listed all the qualities he hadn't thought of - his soothing voice, his goofiness with language, his intelligence, his ability to cook and to play piano. I built him up so much that he thought he was able to recommend himself - "I'm loyal, too!" - but then he said: Well, what do I say? Or rather, what do I write, to this woman?

I get fed up with the notion that women are looking only for meal tickets or handsome fellas or big earners. In my best year I've never made more than 40k, and I've never dated anyone who made more than I. Not did I ever care, after the age of 20 or so, whether a person was gorgeous.

My cousin is lovely, if difficult and competitive. Two hours of conversation with him is worth a year's of most people's. He's sexy as hell, fat (if he says he is), bald (if he says he is), and bit gimpy, due to a bad bike accident in his late teens. He's kind, articulate, knowledgeable outside of his field, and loving. That he can't figure out a way to offer himself to a woman who obviously was interested in him is not right.

[addendum]

Cousin J. called me tonight to follow up on what to do about the woman he met at the garage sale.

He didn't do anything right, he thinks and I think, and I urged him again to just write her a letter. And then we got into another conversation, the conversation it was very nice NOT to have to have with him last night. Mostly, about his totally rejecting father (his father, my uncle, is the kind of rejecting parent one usually finds only in melodrama) his non-existent relationship one of his half-sisters (a cousin I like a lot), how so many of the women in his life - his other half-sister, his mother, his therapist, his ex-girlfriend - say the same thing as I do about this that and the other. And then I asked him well he'll get tenure. February. So how much money will he be making then? $85k. Shit, what will you do with all that? Buy another house. What about charity? Yeah, thinking about charity.

We talked for a while longer and then I just blurted out: well, I'm a decent charity. Would you support me while I finish the last two years of my BA? That's the hard part. Getting my MLS funded shouldn't be a problem.

Upshot is no - god know why I asked - and a weird pull-up-the-bootstraps pep talk that seems so strange from someone whose parents put him through school and gave (not lent) GAVE him 100k to buy a house.

I know I feel too sorry for myself for having been kicked out of the house young and having to do everything for myself from a very early age, all this whilst dealing with severe psoriasis and the kind of depression that made most of my waking thoughts center for years on suicide. Cousin asked why can't I just focus and do this, and that? I answered, but when one's focus is pulled to shit all the time, focussing on anything to do with thriving is sorta dissolved when one trying to just fucking survive. And defending oneself from that bootstrap stuff just makes me feel inadequate.

The UT's on youtube.

2010-06-30T02:06:00.000-07:00

I spent more time at gigs dancing to the Untouchables than to anybody else in my punk rock years, and it's lovely that their video of "Free yourself," is on youtube. The drummer is replaced (my friend Sally had such a huge crush on that drummer! I can't remember his name) as are several other members, but there's Chuck with his dreads, front and center in his natty white coat.

I don't remember all of them but: Kevin was a singer, he was white; Chuck's brother (X.Y.Z Debtor's boyfriend for a while) was called The Flea; Terry was white - his wife lived with my boyfriend for a while, we all used to take acid and watch cable at their apartment; Chuck was a reticent man; Jerry was huge, danced in front, and was Dani's boyfriend (he treated her in a way I thought abusive).

My own punk boyfriend thought I was wasting my time hanging out with the Mods rather than with the punks, but I felt comfortable around them. Punk gigs were scary and fun, but a girl could dance at ska gigs. And the mod/ska thing wasn't white. Most of the punk scene was white. And male. Those white male fuckers scared me.

Transitioning family members

2010-06-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

I learned recently that a cousin's husband has decided that he's a woman. Since I felt bad about not going to these cousins' housewarming, I might have overlooked this announcement (or because I sent my regrets months ago, didn't get it at all).

My brother and his wife did attend the housewarming, but didn't bring their kids, because (according to my father) they didn't know how to explain this change.

There must be websites with tips about this. Not to mention that my cousins have children of their own, about the same age as my niece and nephew. This is not uncharted territory. I wish my brother and sister-in-law had figured this out and been comfortable bringing their kids to see their cousins.

But it is newly charted territory. I think it's tremendous for cousins V. and J. to keep their family together while J. becomes a woman - surely a first impulse is to allow the family to fraction? But J. is remaining in the family and V. is adjusting to her husband's new gender.

I know nothing here. I've known few genderqueer/ transitioned/ transgendered people. Also, am not a parent. I do suspect that my brother might not have brought his kids to V. and J.'s housewarming precisely because the family is now queer. Queer, as in not the standard. Queer, as in gay. Queer, as in transgender. Queer, as in sexually suspect.

Surely my cousin could have told my brother how to explain how a husband is now a wife? Was she asked?

It's a lot for a parent to do, but now that we're getting used to the fluidity of gender - there's no reason to think that my niece and nephew won't know a genderqueer kid in their school, or be one - isn't having one in the family a smart way to introduce the concept?

Moving, maybe

2010-06-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

So,

[I read recently that that is a rather rude way to start a sentence. As if the speaker is summing up, for all parties. I always use it as a continuation device. Plus, isn't it the start of lots of jokes? "So" doesn't seem on-high to me. Anyway.]

So, I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, and grew up in a town that began as and still is a satellite to it. I never liked either place. Yeah, I enjoyed them, and rampaged thru them, and was sometimes fascinated by them - the city, certainly, frightened me in that very satisfactory way that a teenager feels when she's bopping out to test herself against the world. A colleague recently told me that he'd have loved to grow up here - how would I have liked to grow up in Midwest boondocks, where one could only meet up with people ("Girls, you mean," I asked. "Well, yeah," he said) by going to a miles-away drive-in or mall?

I'll echo him: Well, yeah. I might have hated it. Possibly I'd have hated growing up anywhere, it was such a shitty process. And I don't know a thing about the Midwest. But the satellite city felt as spread-out, and as isolated, and inbred, as possible. Waiting for buses to take me on a long ride to where other kids hung out. Nobody on the street. Mostly empty sidewalks. No nature to wonder around in, unless one counts the beach, with its fiercely stratified class system.

I think my grandma June was the one who said (when the family was investigating moving her up to the Bay Area from Laguna Beach) that she didn't want to live in Berkeley. It's full of university affiliates! and almost no-one else! Well, that's what I felt about the town and city I grew up in. Certainly there were lots of different types of people there, but it felt stratified and sterile to me. This had a lot do with with density (lack thereof) and architecture (lack of a vernacular).

So after I skedaddled from the satellite town to Europe and saw that there is a way to live without spending one's first hour of the day in a car on the freeway, it seemed right that I should move to San Francisco. San Francisco, where the buildings are gorgeous if often dirty, where housing density means one will bop up against all manner of people, even if one's just sitting on one's stoop.

I hadn't the wherewithal or money to move to New York, or the language (or guts) for Paris, and London and Rome and Madrid seemed just as lonely as the big city I'd sort of come from. Maybe I didn't have more guts than to stay in my home state. Which I have loved, being a third-generation native. My beloved grandma was born in Berkeley just two months after the 1906 earthquake - this meant something to me. My grandfather's family emigrated here from Guatemala. I'm Californian.

So, I spent over a decade in San Francisco. After buying a house outside of the city in 2000, and selling it in 2003, I moved back to this big city, because there were no jobs in the Bay Area.

Now, I think it's time to go back. I've spent seven years in this big city, and it's just not home, even tho I grew up here, and even tho my family (particularly my niece and nephew) are here. I think of San Francisco and the feeling I get in my belly is that of a new lover counting hours before the next tryst. Which is ridiculous - it's a city! It has no intrinsic character. But to me it feels as tho it does.

So I think I'll figure out a way to move home.

What I won't remember about today

2010-06-24T23:56:00.000-07:00

Twice a week I drive 70 miles round-trip to a job. On fuckin freeways. I try not to hate it, but I really fucking hate it.

On the other hand, it's everything despicable, and in that way, has a certain perverse, feral charm.

Shit. Not really. There's no charm here. I skedaddled at a young age from the large, car-dependent metropolitan area in which I grew up, and here I am now, a car-owner, spending 2 1/2 hours on the road per workday. My car is a 1991 Nissan, and gets shit mileage; it's all I could afford (I was very, very lucky to get it). And because I need health insurance, I'll ask the college to offer me a permanent position. If it does, I'll be spending 2 1/2 hours PER WEEKDAY on time, gas and resources to get there.

Or I can move down to the city where my workplace is. That means my partner will have to commute, and I'll have to live in a bohunk town. I get depressed living in places like that. No downtown, no center - no anything.

No thanks.

Not that it should mean much, but when I was twenty, I spent an hour or two driving to work and back every day. I found it absolutely awful and alienating. I quit my job and escaped to Europe that year, and found the way the Italians did things - bop down to the local café first thing in the morning, then walk to work - far more conducive to happiness. And that was not too far from what I found when I moved to San Francisco.

I did the smart thing when I left San Francisco - in the midst of the dotcom boom my landlords paid me thousands of dollars to vacate my rent-controlled flat. But I don't like living in this metropolitan area that demands I spent hours a day in a car. I hate it.

"X.Y.Z. Debtor"

2010-06-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Debtor: It occurs to me that maybe you've read this blog, and you don't know for sure that I'm at the same address. I am. You can repay me by writing a good check and sending it to me.

If you've lost my address or phone number - which are still the same - get a blog here and contact me. It's easy. I'd love to have this be resolved!

Edit:

So why is it so important to me to get the money I'm owed?

1. Because it's US$4500, which is a lot to me.

It was a lot to me then, too, but proportionately less of my net worth than before or since. I'd just sold my house. The amount I lent X.Y.Z. Debtor was about 1/6 of my net worth at the time. I felt rich then, but wasn't.

2. Because it's US$4500, which I needed back soon.

Which X.Y.Z. Debtor agreed to pay back soon. Oh, I have her e-mails, her bounced checks. The agreement was that she'd repay me soon.

3. Because I lent it as a friend.

To a friend I'd known for over twenty years. Of course, with a friendship that long, there will be twists and turns. I did find it odd when X.Y.Z. Debtor started telling me that I'd go to hell because I wasn't born again, but if she was still hanging out with me, how deep could that conviction be? I'd known her through several other twists: first, a mod girlfriend (we hung out in the same scene); then a roommate (she moved in with my mother and me when I was a teenager; she couldn't pay the rent); then a public school teacher; then an accountant functionary of some sort for Public Storage; and from there on through PriceWaterhouse and other companies. Meanwhile, sometimes she said she hated members of her family (I never believed her; she was just angry and spouting), sometimes she'd make sure she could house visiting relatives. She was changeable, yeah. And so have I been. Nevertheless. we'd always been friends. At times closer than at other times. When I lent the money, we were living in the same city for the first time in years and were hanging out together, along with our families.

4. Because I don't understand how a person can just TAKE someone else's money.

I get this in the abstract. But an agreement between long-standing friends, with agreements of repayment, and bounced checks, and then absolute silence, boggles me.

5. Because she knows that she owes the money, and that she's wrong not to repay it.

X.Y.Z. Debtor knows that there is no moral or ethical code in which she's not required to repay the money.

6. Because her family agree that she should pay me back.

7. Because I think she meant to pay me back.

Otherwise, what would the e-mail about payment schedules and the (bounced) checks have been for? X.Y.Z. Debtor is not a con woman. She meant to repay me. And then, at some point she thought it would be better not to do so, which was around the same time she became lovers with a homeless kid I introduced to her, and her neighbors at her rented house in Venice were suing her for the nonstop barking of her adopted dogs Emily and Natalie (the same dogs who got her barked out of her ownership of a condo at the Village Green). Things seemed to get away from X.Y.Z. Debtor around that time.

8. Because it's $4500, and it's mine.

There's no reason to think X.Y.Z. Debtor didn't use my money to establish herself in Oklahoma. I hope she - you - is firmly established there. Now I need my money back.

[Editing more: I'd completely forgotten that X.Y.Z. Debtor helped me with my abortion. I was a teenager, totally frightened, and without a car to get to and from the clinic (necessary from the clinic's point of view). Did she drive me to the clinic and wait for me at a diner across the street? Something like that. Thank you, X.Y.Z. Debtor.]

No vacation

2010-06-21T01:10:00.000-07:00

I'd like to get away. Not out of the country, just out of the region. Surely this is the right season to spend some money in Alabama or (even better) Georgia! I have little income but tons of credit, for which I worked my ass off. Since life has been grim lately, I figure now's the time to (moderately) spend.

My fella won't hear of it. Oh, we don't have enough money, he says. Well, yeah, we don't, but that's where my great credit comes in. And in the meantime, we have time.

Eventually I'll get a full time permanent job. That job will come with the two-week vacation normal to the U.S. Right now, I have some time, and my fella is owed time. Why shouldn't we go somewhere? My credit cards are all paid off; my low APR is waiting for me to use it. What is the point of just sitting here? Our downstairs neighbor will take care of the dogs.

He thinks it's foolish. "It's just the Southeast!" I say. "Not even Paris, or Florence!" I say. "I'll pay!" I say (I don't have money to pay, but I do have great credit, which has taken me a lot of effort to maintain). He's not interested.

I'll go on my own - I've always traveled by myself - but I wish he wanted to come too.

Chuck

2010-06-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

While walking the dogs this morning, I ran into my neighbor Chuck, who I haven't seen for months. He was limping. Chuck is the kind of age that's always been old, but aside from that poetic designation he actually is old.

He said he was fine, he's been sick, but he's fine. He launched into a long description of what he has to be grateful about - the roof over his head is due to a local landlord recognizing a kindness to an old lady. "Chuck, you'll never have to worry about having a place."

I know Chuck's life story, because a play was written about it - he gave me (me?!) the original, so I and "my friend in the theater" (Pat Loeb) could read it (which she did, and offered the asked-for criticism, but only to me, since Chuck declined my invitation to dinner). He was born to be discarded because his mother wasn't married. He was taken from the family he knew as a kid into an orphanage. From there into reformatories, from there into the streets of New York, from there into prison, and somehow into acting. He studied with Uta Hagen, and was in the original, or next to original, cast of "Short Eyes." From there to Los Angeles, where he spent the seventies shorting out on coke, both as a seller and addict.

He got clean via a Catholic church on the corner, which is where I met him - I used to walk Brandy and Sophie in its parking lot when they got too old for a proper walk. He liked my dogs, and he liked to talk to me, which I guess is why he gave me the play. He used to stop me with a huge bout of enthusiasm and tell me what movie I had to see.

Then, shortly after he gave me the play to read, he disappeared. I'd leave notes for him, but he never responded. So I was lovely to see him this morning, even tho he's limping (which he didn't address). The play's been rewritten, he said, and Joe Bologna's putting it on. He'll tell me more later, he said. Right now, he had to get to church.

Before he went, I reminded him that I still had his copy of the play. And I said - this was probably too much, but whatever - that it's lovely that he found grace. He reacted to that by talking about his mother. Then about his father, "even though I never met him." And offered me his hand. I shouldn't done this, but I took it like a cavalier, and kissed it. Why not?

I made sure he stopped in front of our door, so he'd know where I live, and told him that I cook a lot - he's always welcome for dinner.

Deadbeats

2010-06-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

The biggest deadbeat in my life is X.Y.Z. Debtor, who still owes me $4500 (and interest, tho I think I told her not to worry about interest when she borrowed). Jesus christ, my innocence. Nobody had ever asked to borrow that amount of money from me before, and I certainly didn't want her to think I needed interest. We'd been friends for years! I still have all her e-mails assuring me of payment, and her bounced checks.

I thought of her - my only debtor of note - tonight, when a man who owes my father 35k showed up on my radar.

My dad struck it rich in the mid-80's by helping to produce a proto-CAD program. He cashed in, and spent that money beautifully. He traveled - for the first time in his life - and he traveled some more. He took friends out to great restaurants, and then traveled. He made some investments. And he lent thirty-five thousand dollars to a friend.

That deadbeat never paid him back. For some reason, said deadbeat showed up on my LinkedIn contacts tonight, so I followed a trail and found him acting as a building contractor in Vietnam. After finding the homepage for his company, I e-mailed the family lawyer to ask if the civil judgment against him was still enforceable.

One semi-horrible thing: among the contacts on this deadbeat's homepage is my father's old girlfriend. I doubt she knows of the debt. She was a mother to me for years, and there she is, on the friends list of the man who she met though my dad, who owes thousands of dollars to my dad.

She has nothing to do with any of this. But still: how ugly!

Of course I'm going to mention any of this to my father. But who the fuck are these people who take a friend's money? How do they think? How can they rationalize it? X.Y.Z. Debtor did that to me, and tho I try to understand it, I can't. What goes on in the minds of such people? X.Y.Z. Debtor got saved at some point when we when friends; she used to say she was sorry I'd go to hell. I just blew that off. But after she wrote me bounced checks, I wondered if she thought that because I wasn't her kind of christian, I didn't deserve to be repaid.

The hubris that allows people to believe they deserve to keep a friend's money just boggles me.

Dear "X.Y.Z. Debtor": I'm still at the same address. You can send a check to me. You ought to, don't you think?

Angry man

2010-06-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

A man I used to know is very angry at me. Since we haven't had anything to do with each other for years, I have no clue why he's so angry. We were lovers for a moment, but neither of us had any interest in pursuing that relationship. We were friends for a while, but after he moved he cut off ties. I would have forgotten him, but I had a lot of affection for him, and he had something of mine I wanted back.

Lately he's resurfaced, with tons of vitriol toward me. Which baffles and scares me.

Men being angry is just the usual course of things, is what I learned growing up. I chose to reject or mitigate that by dealing only with men who'd channelled their anger toward better targets than women: mostly, these men were activists. Luckily for me, combatting the U.S. Government's disregard for AIDS victims in the 90s meant I worked alongside gay men, most of whom didn't hate women.

But the men I chose to be my longterm lovers - straight men - didn't have that visceral hatred of women either. So I never understood why some men simply hate women, or why their most heightened expression of anger would be toward women.

I'm sure my erstwhile friend has a reason he hates me, although he hasn't revealed it yet. Surely there's a reason he's expressing his vitriol and venom toward me, rather than towards his other friends (whom I remember being all men). Or maybe he's just a huge ball of rage, and it's easiest to throw his shit at a woman. He'd be within a long tradition.

The older I get, the less I feel inclined to get frightened by male anger. What terrified me as a kid and stunned me as a teenager and made me apologize as a twenty-year-old and led me to fuck when I didn't want to fuck - what led me to appease - has less of a hold on me now. This former friend frightens me. But he's no threat, really. It took only a couple hours (awful hours) to realize that. It used to take days!

I hope it takes my niece only minutes. By which I mean, she was born thirty-four years after I was; male anger is not the quotidian household factor for her as it was for me or for her female ancestors, and she's being raised to believe herself valuable. Feminism - her paternal grandmother's, in particular - has really made an impact on her family.

Perfect meeting

2010-06-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

Everyone hates meetings. They're unproductive, allow personal grudges to seep in, last far too long, and suck up time. Also, they're boring.

Today the director, associate director, acquisitions librarian, and I met to discuss the amount of detail I (cataloger) should include in the item level of the West's CA annotated code set. Each of these people, one on one, are garrulous. Yet we discussed and resolved the issue and set a policy, all in the space of a half-hour or less.

It's not as though one person made a decision. There was no fiat. And there was a lot to consider: I brought several examples of how other law libraries deal with this material. Opinions were expressed; counter-opinions were expressed. Secondary issues were brought up; tertiary issues were introduced.

And somehow it all got resolved. Swiftly resolved. From now on, my goal is to have every meeting be this efficient. This is the standard.

What I'll remember about this trip

2010-06-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

I drove my mother up to the mountains to see a friend of hers, and of mine, yesterday. I've know this woman - I'll call her P2- since she was a colleague of my mother's.

P2 was very kind to me when I was a child. I'd run away from home, and she'd take me in. She was never nonjudgmental, either toward my parents or me, and I knew she'd always return me to them. When a crisis came I went elsewhere.

We remained friends, and now she's legally blind, awaiting a hearing for disability insurance. Recently she moved herself and her ill brother from the city to the mountains, where, for one, it's cheaper to live, and for two, it's somehow better for him and easier for her to move around.

So I drove my mother up to P2's house in the mountains. This is the most time I've spent with my mother in eight years, and 30 hours in a mountain cabin with her and P2 and P2's brother was uncomfortable.

For me. I hope it wasn't uncomfortable for them. I made dinner and initiated walks and asked questions and petted cats and dog and kissed and hugged everyone. My mother and P2 talked about people about whom I was supposed to know. P2, up there for a year - most of that snowed-in - with her sweet but apparently witless brother, talked our ears off about people I was supposed to know but of whom I knew nothing. She went on about Joe and John and J.D. and John D., some of whom have somehow failed her, and April and Heidi and her cousin Anne.

Somehow, during this visit, I realized that I don't like to hear any person talk for longer than a few minutes at a time. That's a more profoundly anti-social, even anti-human, thought, than I've ever had, but it felt just about right.

A life's work

2010-06-05T02:26:00.000-07:00

That phrase sorta grabbed me last year. What is a life's work?

Most of us don't have the capability or wherewithal to do much in the world. So is a life's work a purely private endeavor?

Dazed and confused in Kevin B.s basement

2010-06-02T01:39:00.000-07:00

I forgot about Led Zeppelin. When I became punkrock, I rejected all that hippie shit. It didn't occur to me for years that I really liked Led Zeppelin. When it did, again, I was interested in the music they stole. Then I forgot about them again.

Tonight I'm listening to a youtube channel of this band. Dazed and Confused came on, and it puts me back in my friend Kevin's basement, when we were twelve. Kevin's basement was 70s spectacular, in a 7th grade way. It was a series of tiny rooms, carpeted, with blacklights. You could crawl in, and crawl in further, which me and my friends did, and make out. We'd get really stoned and listen to Led Zep, and a bunch of other bands whose names I don't remember, and make out.

I remember looking over and seeing some of my friends looking as tho they were fucking. I had a notion we were too young for that. I was astounded at how big one boy's penis was. It looked as big as the grown-up penises I'd seen (later my friends and I agreed that skinny guys have bigger dicks). He was trying to fuck either Lisa or Michele, and I thought it was scary. But I kept going to the basement, and getting stoned, and making out with Richie Mendez. It was scary, and fun, and romantic, and safe, down there.

As far as I know, none of us got pregnant - the girls hadn't gotten their first periods. I wonder what Kevin's parents were thinking of. They knew about it all; sometimes we'd meet them in the kitchen. We were all so stoned.

And where did we get the weed? We never lacked for it. I stole mine from my baby-sitting job; my friends, I think, stole from their parents.

My niece and nephew are almost the age we were then.

RJD2's "One day,"

2010-06-01T23:31:00.001-07:00

This song has so much scratchy analog stuff along with the 70's soul vocals, it just kills me.

Without health insurance

2010-06-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

My COBRA ran out June 1, 2010, at 12:00 am.

Let's see. As a kid, my parent took me to the free clinic on Rose Ave. in Venice, CA. My mother sported me on her Blue Cross for a few years when I was a teenager. I had health insurance via Kaiser, then via the University of California system for several years in the nineties, and since then I've been on various plans or no plans.

The worst was when I had something that I couldn't even diagnose for myself, and couldn't get down to the free hospital. Eventually I took several busses down to Harbor General, where my infection was so bad I was admitted (after several hours). It had to to do with psoriasis, but I could never get the same doctor twice to talk to me. After I was pumped full of anitbiotics I was discharged. I'll never forget an intern taking my blood pressure above my heplock - how fucking stupid!

It's been lovely having health insurance. In 2005, a dog I was fostering pulled me over a low wall and the pain was such that I thought my leg was broken. I went to Cedar's. Later, an incompetent new GP told me that I'd had a heart attack. I knew she was full of shit, but I had to wait to get insurance again before I saw my lovely Dr. David Frisch, who knew better. In 2008, I had a horrible ear infection, and Cedars ER fixed it on Labor Day weekend. Over the new year, recently, I couldn't breathe, and Cedar's emergency took me in almost immediately.

Compare that to Harbor General ca always, where I had to spend almost 24 hours in the waiting room before seeing a doctor. And god forbid I go to the bathroom, or outside, where I can't hear my name being called

So, here I am without health insurance again. I may get Patient Assistance for my psoriasis meds, or may not. If I think my leg's broken again, or if I have another ear infection (those can really fuck with you, ear infections), or if my skin breaks out into something I can't identify - which it is, right now - I get to go down to Harbor General, and wait, and wait, and wait. It's not the same hospital that allowed a woman to die in the waiting room, but it's not far off.

"Fuck this shit."

2010-05-30T00:21:00.000-07:00

We've been watching "Mad Men," which I think is an extended riff on how much the patriarchy and capitalism hurts everyone, whilst being hugely seductive.

The daughter of the main character is called Sally. She's eight or nine. When her parents tell her that they're breaking up, she rejects everything they have to say. She accuses her father of lying, of not saying what he means to say, of breaking promises. She accuses her mother of sending her father away. She stomps off, and when we saw this, my partner said, "Sally's going to go burn the house down."

His parents divorced when he was sixteen; mine did when I was six or seven. I remember the conversation recreated in "Mad Men:" my mother and father sat my brother and me down around the table. My mother was resolute and obviously angry, my father was hugely upset. My brother, who was nine or ten at the time, cried. I was interested in where I was going to live - little kids are practical that way. When the conversation was over, I volunteered to help my dad with the garden - a duty I generally shirked. He looked so sad! I wonder now about that empathy. Maybe I thought I'd never see my dad again, which frankly would have been okay with me.

Watching that MadMen show again the other day, I saw that Sally had a "Fuck this shit" moment. And I thought, well, that that's a great moment in a child's life. That's when you realize you have boundaries of your own. That's when you you shove away crap that is not helpful to you. The earlier a child has that moment, the earlier s/he claims an independence.

Spatchcock

2010-05-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

It's easy to spatchcock a chicken. After the bird was so done, I sliced a lemon and a mandarin orange and put the slices in the bottom of a 12" cast-iron pan, with some broth and butter and oil. I broke some carry-out chopsticks and put the bird (stuffed with rosemary) on top of them. Then I put a smaller cast-iron pan on top, to weigh the bird down. Maybe we should have put oiled parchment paper on top of it beforehand.

It's in a 400 oven for a half-hour. I think we'll take the pan off it, baste it, and let it cook for another twenty minutes.

Public transportation in San Francisco with an anarchist's help

2010-05-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

This wretched oil sill in the Gulf has made me think about my attitudes toward the energy I consume, the means by which I travel, and the ways in which it's all paid for.

Which led me to a memory: Barbara Rose's friend Gru[x], who in the late 80's, counterfeited monthly passes for the San Francisco Muni system. I assume since it was years ago and Gru[x] is not a real name, there's no liability to what I'm writing (if there is, shit, I made all this up. I'm fanciful). Other than Gru[x] telling me that the Damned were too commercial, and once him giving a lecture to Barbara on Pine St. about her drinking, I don't ever remember hearing him talk, so it might not have been him that I first heard giving a good lecture about how business ought to pay for public transport in The City. It made sense to me - all the Muni lines leading to downtown, who did they benefit? the businesses who got their workers there. Yet the workers had to pay to ride.

This did not apply to me, much, but the fee charged for a monthly pass was pretty crippling at the time. I bought the counterfeit passes. I didn't care if it was illegal, and I didn't care if it took money away from the bus system: I was so fuckin broke all the time. Paying $2 or $5 or however much for the fake passes, rather than $25 or $35 or whatever the legitimate passes cost, made a difference. For context, my rent was maybe $335/mon.

What else do I remember about Gru[x]? He lived across from, I think, Alamo Square, and had a huge bedroom in the back at the top. I went there with Barbara when she helped him make costumes for his bands (one of the costumes depicted Oswald getting shot). I thought him overcynical (I was getting over my cynical phase, and edging into romanticism). He was very dismissive of me - not because I struck a chord with him, but just as a general dismissiveness - and very concerned with Barbara. Barbara did tend to bring that out in people. I was impressed when she told me he'd had to fight to get a vasectomy. He was very young, and apparently doctors were reluctant to accept his dedication to never becoming a parent. As another person dedicated to never becoming a parent, I appreciated that he put his dick where his beliefs were.

I looked him up today, and he's still a performing artist.

Some kind of whites-only zone?

2010-05-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

Today I was reading William Finnegan's article in the May 31 New Yorker and realized that I never see any other than white people depicted in the cartoons of that magazine.

Can that be right? On the cover, yeah, there are people of color - even on this issue - but inside, none but what appear to be white people.

It's a small thing, but now I won't be able to un-notice it.

Unless I'm wrong. Huh.

What I'll remember from today / stimulation in work

2010-05-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

At my new volunteer job today, I and the librarian I'm replacing got into the expected shop-talk. We had a short-cut into it because she interns at the judicial library for which I work sporadically (as in, whenever the state can afford to hire me).

She just (last week) got her MLS and she's younger than I, but she's worked in a few libraries. We gently quizzed each other about our experiences. When I mentioned working at a think-tank library, and that it was "me, in a cubicle, with a computer," she reacted. She practically shuddered. [Actually, she's got what I've heard poker players say is a 'tell:' her right eye widened.] A cubicle and an ILS module is not what she has in mind for her library career.

She'd like to do reference at an academic library, preferably for undergraduates. I wondered if that might be a repeat performance after a while - the same request over and over. And then she mentioned that she was scared to work at a public library.

Now, I've never worked for a public library* (I volunteer for my local branch, but that's different). So I couldn't get on my high horse and say anything about, well, anything. But when we talked about all the different things one can do in a library, and how stimulating she finds public services, I opined that she could assist her branch by volunteering. The county just cut funds for libraries. Not that reference librarians should have volunteers come in - reference librarians should be well-paid for every second they put in - but if she goes in and shelves, or something, once a month, she might get over her apprehension.

Oh - as I was leaving today, I met the head of development, who here is a fundraiser. She asked where I came from. Not sure how to answer her question, I replied that I work at several places, and mentioned the current and most recent. Her response, I now realize, makes it plain that the woman I'm replacing was sponsored by a law firm. "So, how [in the world, in was intimated] did you hear about us?" SCALL, I said. And COLT, I should have said.

*Maybe it's time I took the civil service exam to work in a public library. But I suspect that because of my education level I'd get stuck somewhere very boring, because that system is so hierarchical.

Career development

2010-05-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

"Your resume is very impressive. So you like to work as a temp." Asked the law school library director.

"Yes, I like to work as a temp. Temp work is stimulating. It's a new place, new people, new problem each time, and I like to see the place, meet the people, and solve the problem."

"No, I dislike temp work, because it shorts the long-term goal. I may catalog here or fix a serials problem there, but collections management is not about the short-term. And there's no gain in temp work: I'd like to have health insurance, to be part of a library and to further its goals."

I could have given either of these answers. I didn't give either of these answers. I said, "I'm open to anything."

[Posting a few days later]

I posted the above at the jobs thread of my long-term BBS and was encouraged thusly:

"Maybe start with 'Sometimes. The upside of temp work is [insert what you said above], but there's a downside, to, [insert downside].'

If it's a long-term position, add 'I really look forward to a place where I can supervise a collection over its lifetime.'

If it's a short-term position, add instead 'I'm looking for a place with lots of challenges where I can jump right in.'"

I mused about becoming a consultant rather than working thru temp agencies, and was encouraged:

"This is really not a bad idea. Fact is, budgets often do not allow for new employees, but they can round up money for consultants. Consulting is temporary, so there is less resistance."

and

"As far as a great free resource to learn a bit about marketing yourself - look up a local SCORE chapter."

and

"In the independent consultant world, formal credentials mean shit compared to documentable experience. It's all about what you've done."

This last in reference to my lack of an MLS, vs. eleven years in libraries.

Thing is, I know myself. Self-promotion is not my bag. No matter how confident I am in my work, marketing myself feels bizarre. Not to mention, how does one go about doing this? Whilst trying for paying jobs from the temp agencies who I've worked through for eleven years? And without a graduate degree?

I write this all here to goad myself into learning more.

Making Thomas Keller Ad Hoc recipe

2010-05-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

What is this "boneless chuck short rib" that Keller recommends? He makes it sound as though it's a whole, but none of the three butchers I talked to could figure it out. I got sold what turned out to be 2 lbs of short-rib strips, which I tied together and treated as a whole for the purpose of the braise.

The braise was good. The meat was fine but the liquid, after reducing it for an hour or so into a sauce, was beautifully concentrated. Last night I made Gentle Boyfriend a burger with blue cheese in the center, and drizzled around it the sauce - it was wonderful. Not too salty, which is always a caution with braising liquid.

For the past year I've made notes in a book of what I've cooked. I really ought to make more notes here.

Going out tonight

2010-05-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

When I was fourteen or fifteen, I fantasized about being so local to the Whisky on Sunset that I'd get in just by greeting the doorman. I remember this fantasy very well: I'd walk down from my Hollywood apartment, show up, get waved in by the otherwise discriminating and usually vicious person at the little box office they had at the Whisky, and then I'd waltz past the frisking doorman. Saying, Hey.

[Now that I think about it, the doorman always did let me in, even when he thought he found firecrackers on me at a Dead Kennedy's gig.]

Tonight I walked down around midnight from my Hollywood apartment and paid ten dollars to see a cousin's band play at a big club. The doorman said, well, you're supposed to go in on the other side, but since you're here, go in this door and ask for Jackie. He gave a set of very convoluted instructions which I cut short by saying, "So I go this way, and follow my feet?" "Sure."

On my way down Sunset there were lots of people on the street. I asked one of them where I could buy cigarettes, and was ushered into a cigar store. Three big men were sitting on couches, looking very comfortable. I remember when I would have felt very shy, but tonight I just said, Excuse me, do you sell Nat Sherman's? The biggest man in the most comfortable chair rose and asked, MCD? Yes, I said, and when he gave me the price I remarked that I pay $2 less a mile away; could he give me a break? He didn't think so, so I asked him how far down was the House of Blues, and he took my arm and showed me out and pointed the way.

I am not a gorgeous young thing, nor was I dressed to attract. His courtesy was kind.

When I got to the House of Blues bar, I couldn't find a way in, but some fella who said his name was Andre got the bartender's attention, and got me a good drink. When I went into the room where my cousin's band was playing, some young women made room for me to sit down.

This is all contrary to my previous experience of clubbing. In punk rock days - even later - I'd fight my way up to the stage and dance hard and elbow motherfuckers out of my way. I lit some hippie's hair on fire once. I hit people and got hit.

Tonight, everyone was so polite. The clubgoers are taller now, and the women all dress sexy in super-short skirts and heels (god knows why; it's too dark to see anything). My cousin's mom was so happy to see me; we talked for a minute, and when she asked where the bar was, I said, "See my friend Andre." She sashayed up to him as if he was family, and it was only later that she discovered that he wasn't my boyfriend. Just a friendly fella. Just a friendly room, a friendly club.

So I guess what I wanted back then came true tonight. Glad I went! But it's not very interesting now. I don't plan to go again.

Looking around

2010-05-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

I used to love to look around, sexually. At gigs, at parties, at book stores, at the dog park - all the places I considered home in San Francisco. [Work and school not so much, tho there was a long year at each when I wanted someone from each.] I guess I knew that I was good-looking enough and young enough to catch an eye, and there were lots of eyes to catch. It was fun.

Then depression got me and didn't really care how I looked, and didn't care to flirt, and barely cared to deal with humans. I walked dogs for a living during library school; and dogs, and the women (it was mostly women) who walked them professionally were lovely companions. The women walkers were pragmatic and capable; and casually conversationally intimate. Most of the time we didn't talk much about anything but dogs.

Not sure where I'm going here. Will return.

Rocknroll cousin

2010-05-18T01:15:00.000-07:00

A cousin plays drums for a band that scored a midnight slot at a big corporate club. I guess it's a great chance - Friday night gig, big town, big place!

I don't know this cousin at all. When he lived with my mother and stepfather, I came by for Sunday dinner, and once ventured an opinion that Radiohead's drummer was great. Cousin sorta sneered and said he was a Coldplay fan. I didn't argue - he was maybe nineteen at the time.

His parents have asked that all the local family go to see Cousin's gig. I can't imagine that Cousin, who is maybe 25 now, particularly wants a group of relatives to be there, but even my mother, who hasn't been out of her zip code after midnight in thirty years, is going. The club is right down the street from me so I'll be there, as will will a cousin and a friend or two. Some of us were punk years ago but that can hardly count for shit with Cousin now.

I remember his dad - my Uncle B. - from when I was a little kid. Uncle B. was a hippie, or maybe just a lost parentless kid in San Francisco. A rocknroll uncle. He played with Montrose, which at the time was impressed upon me as being a big, big deal. [I'd look up Montrose, but don't really want to.] While I was punkrock, he came to visit his mother, and I played him the records I thought important. He had no interest - by that time all he cared about was to make a living. Uncle B. and I had nothing to do with each other until several years ago when my mother insisted we talk about books: Uncle B. had decided it was time to read. He and I spent an hour on the phone talking about Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Melville - all the big American male greats - and had a great time.

Now Uncle B. and Cousin's mom are coming down to see their son play, with all the family around them. I'm to make sure we all have a big table at a local café the next morning for breakfast.

When I was Cousin's age, the last people I'd have wanted to see at my gig were my family. I'd have wanted to fuck around all night with drugs and friends and lovers.

What someone will remember from today

2010-05-18T00:17:00.000-07:00

About 12:30 this afternoon it was a little chilly, overcast, but not rainy, and Gentle Boyfriend walked the dogs. "Ace looks disgusted that he got his paws wet. Such an indignity thrust upon a Chihuahua! Ariel just ran ahead and did her thing.

"The snails were out. [I never notice snails.] There's always snails around Sondra's building. The dogs never notice snails either. I crossed the street three times to avoid other dogs. Of course Ace is done with his walk after 40% of the entire walk. It is a little strange that after we turn back, Ace is ready to trot.

"Ariel was balky on the way back. Ace is the balky one, but Ariel wanted to sniff things."

What I'll remember from today

2010-05-15T01:51:00.000-07:00

The total success of fried risotto balls is one memory. But tho they came out perfect again tonight, it was really yesterday's triumph. One of today's memories was sitting around with a fella I'll never see again, talking about Scrabble, Josephine Tey, t-shirts, html, quotes from Coen Bros. movies, and tons of other things. I like that man.

The thing I'll record here is a weird exchange with a corner store clerk. I don't often get the urge to go buy cheap whiskey late at night, but when I do, I go to a place a block down, in a mini-mall, next to a Whole Foods. I've lived here for several years, and been a customer there maybe a dozen times. Tonight, the baby-faced clerk who got me my whiskey said, out of the blue, "You must be new here." I laughed. "I live up the street!" I didn't mean it to be dismissive, I was just surprised. He wandered around behind the counter, the way clerks do, but I thought it odd, so I craned my neck around the cigarette display case and smiled at him, "What's your name?" He told me, and I said it was nice to meet him, told him my name, and said good night.

He looked so young that it's possible I bought whiskey from that store before he was of age to sell it. I can't fathom his initial comment. There was a huge limo parked outside the store, but that's normal around here - was I not supposed to come in while moneyed or famous customers were inside? Is that what he meant by being new around here?

I'll never know, but I'm curious.

What I'll remember 5/11/2010

2010-05-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been working with a man with gorgeous snow-white hair. Ours is a brief professional relationship - he's training me to replace him - so I know little about him other than his good training method, kind manner, five academic degrees, and evident sweetness (also sexiness, but he's of a type that really appeals to me - modest, intelligent, verbally acute, empathetic, wry, unskinny, and a little messy. He likely doesn't think of himself as sexy. He really should know! Maybe he does).

Over the few days of training we're spending, we've been throwing out pieces of personal information to each other. At some point I learned his age. I was thrown - I'm sure everyone is - by his white hair, and the fact that heavy people don't show wrinkles. I assumed he was maybe my age. Nope: he was born the same year as my partner/lover/fella (I hardly know what to call Gentle Boyfriend these days), so: seveeral years younger than I. Which totally threw out the window the notion of my flirting with him.

Also: several years younger than I and he's had time to amass five fucking academic degrees! A BA, MLS, JD, MA, and he's working on a PhD. How the fuck can anyone afford to pay for all that before the age of forty? I'd assume he's a privileged motherfucker, but he appears to work for his living.

Anyway: what I'll remember for today, 5/11/2010 - first in a series! - is bending over the dual monitors on the desk while he showed me Westlaw's Linkbuilder. He couldn't remember how to do it right away, and while he clicked here and there, I said, what did we do before the web?

I remember pretty well what we did before the web, but sometimes that question comes out of me as a prayer from a Thomist: a "without god, how would we exist?" kind of thing.

What year were you born? I asked him, and he told me.

Got a job! And a volunteer job. And another volunteer job. And more work.

2010-05-09T02:33:00.000-07:00

I got a job. A temp, part-time job, which doesn't give me health insurance. But I'm happy because it's a cataloging job, and I love cataloging.

It's not so interesting here, tho. At this college, one scans the barcodes on the back of the book and loads the OCLC record. No alteration of the record. One doesn't even check the information in the crucial tags. Which takes all the fun out of cataloging. The departing cataloger (who is so sexy) tells me how to do the job, and I'll follow his lead. The director tells me she'd appreciate my input, but I know better than to trust anyone in power about that.

But it's a paid job. It takes me an hour and a half to get to, and to get home from.

Today I spent the afternoon at our local branch library, asking patrons to sign postcards addressed to the City Council. This effort was to stave off budget cuts aimed at libraries.

I came home pretty tired, and hoped to get some love from my partner, but that's not ever going to happen.

Oh - I scored another volunteer job - this one for a law advocacy group.

Tomorrow I'll meet up with my family for Mother's Day, and spend the day, as much as possible, with my niece and nephew. They adore me right now, and I adore them - they're so interesting.