The Man with the Plan

I walked down to the bank this afternoon to get some money from the cash machine. I'd just come out of this long meeting that confused everyone. Here's my J.S. quote for the day, straight from the mouth of the head honcho: "Just lie, it's fine." I want to dismissively resolve issues like that some day, but I doubt if I'll ever be that important.

Anyway. It was nice to feel the sun after the long meeting in our would-be sterile conference room. There's always chocolate wrappers and stray bits of chocolate on the conference room chairs. You have to remember to brush off the chairs before sitting down, because otherwise the chocolate will melt on the seat of your pants and look very poo-like.

The bank is not very far from here. Usually there's nothing of note between the factory and the bank, just cars driving through this very industrial neighborhood. But today I saw this old dude sitting in a lawn chair at one of the most trafficked intersections in town (that's *car* traffic, not foot traffic). He had a baseball cap on and held this huge remote control that he directed at the traffic lights, leisurely pressing buttons every now and then.

I'm sure he was not controlling the traffic lights, but I have no idea what else he was doing. I wanted to ask him, but I didn't because I'm shy and a dork. Come to think of it, asking a stranger what he's doing with his giant remote control is pretty dorky, too, so I should have gone for it. I like to think he was there on the boring corner of Ashby Avenue and Seventh Street, pressing buttons and controlling things like weather, cloud cover, and how long the red lights lasted. Maybe it was God, maybe God comes down in the guise of this old guy in a lawn chair. He's the man with the plan, but I left him alone.

My Neighbor's Daughter Saw Me Naked

I didn't mean for it to happen. Our apartment complex is a pretty quiet place, set away from the traffic of the street. I get a little careless sometimes and assume that even if the curtains are agape, no one will happen to walk by and see the goings-on inside (me sitting on the sofa reading a magazine, Joe cutting strips of colored tape at the desk, me standing over the stove with an Aunt Jemimah rag in my hair).

There's also a little nudity, none of it racy. Some of the nudity has to do with grabbing clean towels from the hall closet, stuff liek that. Sometimes I stand around naked and do goofy dances to make Joe mad, which is funny. I was about ready to do this when our neighbor's daughter walkeed by and saw me head (and tits and etc.)-on. Our eyes locked for a second, but she walked on and out of sight, vanishing before I was able to register her reaction.

Her name is Nicloe, I think, and she' s about 14. Cute boys and lots of hyper girls stop by every now and then. Out of all the other people in our complex, I'd rather have her see me naked. But I bet she was creeped out, creeped out like a 14-year-old girl would be. I bet she thinks I'm gross. I mean, no one has to look inside our open windows--but justy try walking by an open window and not looking in! I always look in. I'm a big nosy snoop like that. Looking in is the best. But every now and then, you get some skin that you didn't bargain for.

Maff and Vic have been having it out on my blog. That's fine with me. In fact, I'd like to thank all 7 or 5 people who visit this blog. Thank you! You comments make Sneezy & Tacky worth reading.

Sleep = Waste?

This morning I wanted to get up early. It failed fantastically, but perhaps if I keep at it a breakthrough is inevitable. Sleeping in is okay for hangovers on weekends or weekdays tainted with illness, but come on. In bed this morning, the news droned on over the radio and the awfulness of the globs pourede into our little room. Yesterday I made new curtains that block out all of the light, a move I thought was smart until this cool box of artificial dimness sucked me in. People are out and about--working, exercising, dressing kids for school, greeting the world with eagerness and dread--and I'm in bed, wasting away in the fruitless luxury of half-sleep.

White Rabbit Steals Crown

We ate out last night at a Chinese restaurant. I had dry-sauteed asparagus (don't know why they call it dry, as it's coated in oil but very tasty) and Joe had Kung Pao chicken (too much Kung Pao, not enough chicken). A regular low-key dinner out for Chinese food, nothing more.

The waiter brought the check once out platters were cleared. Instead of the usual fortune cookies, they brought out White Rabbit candies. These are similar to vanilla Tootsie Rolls, only a bit more taffy-like. I think they contain milk--they are snow-white and very sweet. "Oh!" said Joe (I'm tired of calling hm Mr. Bir Toujour). "I love White Rabbit!" He unwrapped the candy and popped it in his mouth, chomping down as if it were cud. "Ah!" he gurgled with a mouth full of stale candy. "These are old!"

I poked the remaining White Rabbit; it refuesed to yield under its blue, white, and red wrapper. "No way I'm eating that," I said.

Joe kept at it, his jaw set and his eyes determined. There was a flash, felt but unseen, and then a tiny popping-crack. "By toofh!" Joe cried. A second later he pulled the White Rabbit--slimy but basically intact--from his mouth, and a tooth was stuck in it.

It wasn't his tooth, only the crown from a root canal a few years ago. Joe freaked. He's having it cemented back today. That stinks for him, but I say that's what you get fr biting down on a two-year-old White Rabbit.

Sometimes I Suck

I'm angry with myself again. Writing is a wonderful pain in the ass. Actually, it's not--life, then, is a pain in the ass, because life is what eats up the time I'd otherwise spend writing. Sleep, eating, purchasing food, wahsing clothing so you have un-filthy things to wear, showing up to work, exercising to keep from going stir-crazy...all of these things have to be done. I also like doing them, and there are only so many hours in a day.

Meanwhile, I'm also planning a wedding. This is not time intensive, but it sucks up a lot of energy. And my wedding is small! I can't imagine what a big wedding would do to a person.

The idea of living in a totally messy house, eating stale crackers at 9pm for dinner and waking up at 5am to complete something before go to the day job is somewhat romantic, but not realistic at all. I'm not sure where the compromise is between quality of life and quantity of writing output. I like having a steady paycheck and health insurance. But I also come here and realize that no one know the person I actually am. Sometimes this job makes me feel expendable and unskilled. Outside of the chocolate and salary, it might be a waste of time. Chocolate and a salary are two very important things, however.

Time for breakfast and coffee. Maybe some day I'll figure it all out, probably not. These struggles never reslove themselves, even for real writers.

Open Road (Oneida Part II)

We got to San Francisco and it was raining. It was also a bit later that I thought, and I was afraid that we'd have trouble parking and I'd miss part of Oneida's set (they were playing seconds). But Mr. Bir Toujour, who was driving my car, is an excellent finder of parking spots in crowded cities. We scrambled a few blocks through the Mission to the venue.

We'd bought tickets beforehand, and I thought it would be a simple matter of waiting a moment or two at will call. But we got to the club and saw a line of scruffy hipster kids stretching down almost half the block. We joined the line, the long long line. What else could we do? Most of them were there for will call tickets themselves.

Then it started raining. We all stood on the filthy Mission sidewalk, over a hundred young music fans in vintage jackets and tight jeans. Droplets of rain fell, making cigarettes soggy and destroying carefully tousled hair. Really, you see the most disgusting fashion in the Mission--THE WORST girl haircuts in the universe. This layered thing, a Mrs. Brady mullet meets Olivia Newton-John thing. My hair is not so hot right now, but that's because I am growing it out--that is, my hair looks like that for free. These girls pay to look like that. They should be asking for refunds.

The line was not moving. Mr. Joe and I didn't have our raincoats, so we and the other 98 kids in line were getting soaked. I looked up and saw the drops falling in the beam of the streetlight, and I felt so helpless. Vague but loud music spilled out of the open door of the club, and it drove me crazy. I wanted to see Oneida, and I wanted to see them RIGHT THEN. It was like rushing in bad traffic to an important appointment, only to arrive breathless and be told to sit and wait in a lobby with no good magazines.

There was a dirty white van parked in front of the club. "I wonder if that's Oneida's van?" wondered Mr. Bir Toujour. The thought thrilled me--Oneida's van! We are so close it it! But it repelled me, too; the van was filthy. It had a brittle-looking fiberglass extended roof, just like the van Mr. Bir Toujour's band used. Mr. Bir Toujour's van is not glamorous or extremely clean, but it's not gross. Even from the outside, this van looked sick--empty, broken cassette tape cases were piled up a few inches deep all along the dashboard, and an eviscerated stuffed animal hung from the rear view mirror. Along the front top of the fiberglass extened roof black letters spelled out "OPEN ROAD." That van didn't look like it would make it three feet down a closed road.

"That can't be Oneida's van," I said. "They drove all the way from Brooklyn, after all." Please don't let it be Oneida's van, I thought. Homeless men live in way better vans than that.

The line was by now moving about one foot a minute. The bouncer had to come out and make an announcement that the show was sold out, and anyone without a ticket should leave. The line didn't shorten at all; most all of us were waiting for will call.

This is getting boring now, I'll do a part III someday.

Customer Feedback

My car had been bothering me for a few months. The breaks made this thumping/squeaking sound, so I figured they needed work done--maybe new break pads, which is not a thing I do. In fact, I do very little to my car, except drive it. Occasionally, if I'm feeling especially handy, I'll put some air in the tires or check and add some oil.

My car's not junky, though. It's quite dependable, and I like to keep it that way. I'd been putting off taking it to the garage beacuse it makes me feel so helpless--helpless to not have a car, and even more helpless to not understand one thing about how a car runs, what mechanics need to do to make it run, and how much that shoud cost. Mechanics love schmucks like me. We pay for their kids' college funds.

There's no garage I go to regularly, mainly for the above reasons. I haven't yet found a place I trust here, like a friendly neighborhood auto shop. A few times I've taken my car to the Geminin Auto Care center, which is a mere 5 minutes' walk from my apartment. It's seductively convenient, but fishy. Once I went to pick up my car after they'd aligned the steering and, while waiting 15 minutes in the lobby for someone to assist me, saw what I assumed to be the shop manager. He was speaking loudly into his cell phone chewing out his daughter, who'd gotten into trouble at school and was, from what I could gather from his scoldings, in the principal's office. The situation made me feel uncomfortable: for me, for him, for his naughty daughter.

But I took my car there again anyway. It was a Sunday, the following day Martin Luther King Day. I dropped off my car in the late morning, and th lobby was empty except for the woman behind the counter. She was Asian and spoke with an accent I could not place. I told her I wanted the steering aligned, the brakes checked, and the tired rotated. She said they would call later to let me know if they needed to do anything special.

At home, I did regualr Sunday stuff--cooking, cleaning--and then I went on a nice, long run. The afternoon came, and no phone call. I thought of calling the garage, but figured they would get back to me soon.

They didn't. I had no special place to go, no special place I was dying to drive to, so it was not a big deal. *They* were the ones who called *me*, right? That's why I pay them, not vice versa.

At 5:45, the phone rang. It was the Asian lady. "You need to come get your car! We're closing in ten minutes," she said.

I did not care for her accusatory tone--I could have said, "If it's such a big deal, why didn't you call me before?" Instead, I said, "I'll leave right now. It's a short walk." Mr Bir Toujour walked over with me. I set the pace with brisk steps, imagining the staff waiting impatiently to lock up and go home.

A man was at the counter as we went through the door to the lobby. He was picking apart his bill with the Asian Lady. "What was this for? And this? And what was this for?" Not a good sign. The man had a little daughter with him. She sat on a stool next to the counter, playing with a motor oil display as he and the Asian Lady went back and fourth over his payment. For a kid, the lobby of an auto shop is the most boring place ever.

The squabbling went on for a few minutres. I spaced out, but just as the man and the Asian lady were coming to a head, the stool slipped and the girl fell, hittin her head on the stool. The man scooped up his daughter and the Asian lady freaked out. "Are you okay? Are you okay? Sorry! Sorry about that." The little girl took it all pretty well. I hate to see adults losing it, how that can make bad feelings feels worse.

Finally, the man and his daughter left. The Asian lady looked at me. "2000 Corolla?" she said. "Here's your bill. Steering alignment and tire rotation, so that comes to $117."

"And the brakes?" I asked. "You checked the brakes, and they were fine?"

The Asian lady blinked at me a few times. "I'm pretty sure we checked the brakes."

Mr. Bir Toujour, who had been losing his patience a bit during the exchange with the man, said "What do you mean, pretty sure? Either you did it or you didn't."

"Well," she replied, "we only have one mechanic today, and he's not very here, because today is the day his mother in the Philippines died. She's been very far away. He is excited. His mind is in another place." I couldn't quite get it all because of the Asian Lady's accent, but it sounded pretty tragic.

What are you supposed to say to that? Mr. Bir Toujour knew. "Then he shouldn't be working. We brought the car in to have the brakes checked, and we want t know if they were."

Mr. Bir Toujour's insensitivity embarassed me. This guy's mother died, and he had to come to work that same day? I put my hand on Mr. Bir Toujour's arm. "Hey!" I said. "Come one, now."

But he didn't look at me. He kept on with the Asian lady. "We don't care about your mechanics' personal lives. Just tell us if thre brakes were checked or not." By that point, I felt like the answer was pretty clear.

"I'll get the mechanic to go ask him," she said, and then she went off to the back. She'll get the mechanic to ask him? I'd thought she said there was only one mechanic working. Nothing made sense.

A few long minutes (filled with Mr. Bir Toujour swearing and me trying to hush him) later, a tall, burly mechanic came out with the Asian lady. "Yeah, he checked your brakes," he said.

"And there's nothing wrong with them?" I asked. "Because that's the main reason I brought the car in. The breaks have been making squeaking sounds, especially the right read one."

"I'm almost positive that he checked the breaks," he said. That he used the word "almost" convinced me that no, he did not know. "Look, bring your car in first thing tomorrow and we'll look at it then."

"Okay," I mumbled. The Asian lady rang up the work on my credit card, and Mr. Bir Toujour and I walked out the door.

"Are you going to bring the car back in tomorrow?" he asked.

"Hell no," I said. "That's why I brought it in today--so I wouldn't have to tomorrow."

"I can't believe that crap about the bride in the Philippines."

"What?" I said. "Bride? I thought she said the mechanic's mother died?"

"No, no," Mr. Bir Toujour said. "She said that he was doing a shitty job because today his bride is flying in, and he's been waiting for three years." What, like a mail order bride? I felt bad for getting mad at Mr. Bir Toujour for getting mad.

"I don't want to talk about it anymore," I said. Then I pulled my car out of the parking lot, and the breaks squeaked.

"You should write them an angry letter," Mr. Bir Toujour said. He's sent many an angry letter in the past, and they usually contain lots of phrases like "fucking idiot" and "total moron shithead."

"I'm not sure if it will make any difference. You see how inept they are. I'm not going to that garage ever again, and that's my customer feedback. "

But it wasn't. A few days ago, Mr. Bir Toujour and I went for a walk up Albany Hill. On the way back, we stopped at the drugstore so I could buy some dandruff shampoo. We walked home along San Pablo Avenue. "Look," he said,"it's your favorite auto shop." It was after 7pm, and the shop was closed.

There it was--Gemini Auto Care, a place I walk and drive by all of the time. Why was it suddenly pissing me off so much? Why did I right then feel the need to clear out my throat? I ran over and hocked a big fat loogie all over the plate glass of their front door. "There," I said. "That's my customer feedback."

Still Invisible

Dude, this sucks.