"i couldn't believe it. the most incredible thing in my life had just happened and i wouldn't be able to tell anyone, because how could i explain that i was deep in Queens late at night with a transsexual."
from "The Extra Man," by jonathan ames
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
11.26.08-post hal hartley, al wazir, eye of the hawk
am feeling a drive to consolidate.
don't know if it's the movie i just watched, the dinner i ate or the prospect of having the next four days off from work: i'm motivated to shed stuff. to pull out 150 cds, 30 t-shirts, the unused cafe table wedged between the filing cabinet and the wall in my sewing room, all the bits gathering dust from lack of use in my apt, and haul them out to the goodwill, cd trade in, wherever someone might find a use for them...
i struggle against my pack-rat tendencies: i don't want to save every scrap and clipping, just the odd ticket stub or note from a friend that will rocket me back to that time and place. last week during some deep apt. cleaning i looked through a collection of bits in a box on my bookshelf. i've had this box since 1985 and filled it with things when it was still a new thing in my life. most of the time i forget it's there. every couple of years or so i open it up and there it is: some of 1987. grateful dead ticket stubs, a nyc subway token, sea shells collected on long island, cat whiskers from a tom cat who moved into my apt, stones from some gem shop in los gatos.
i don't want to go through my life dragging trunks of relics from all my years, but i do like a few small things here and there. the polaroids on my fridge, a photobutton of a grade school friend, a mug sent to me by my sister the summer of 1990 when i was desperate to know someone was in my corner-even from hundreds of miles away...
it's the nature of acquistion that one has to make space for all this stuff. i don't want to make more room. and i don't want to out grow this apt. i'm tired of having to move things to clean under them.
so.
got to thin this stuff out. i'm also reluctant to put anything in a landfill. so, if it's at all of use, i want to find a home for it.
i know how this goes: i am swept up in the excitement of a new endeavor, try to tackle it from too many angles at once, get sleepy and never quite accomplish what it is i'd set out to do. i've got four days off. step one: establish a clean slate. start with the laundry. that will have me focused on cleaning out the closets. (is it too much to want all my clothes to fit into drawers and closets and not have ever revolving piles of shirts and sweaters that i move from place to place?)
and i'm going to play the piano this weekend. all that potential music in there. and my memories of playing that piano are directly tied to family holidays. i don't remember they were thanksgiving or christmas holidays: i just remember loading rolls in the piano in the basement of my grandparents' house while my brother, sisters and cousins played pool there. oh! i am just realizing now: this piano is the biggest artifact that i am toting around. and it is so heavy i can't even move it to clean under. ha!
man, i am a sentimental bugger. blindsides me sometimes. :)
a friend of mine used the word savor in a converstion we were having. (i've been trying to figure a way to relate the context, but it just gets too weedy). the minute she said it i could tell it was the idea i'd been looking for: i've got too much dross. (now this started as a writing about objects, possessions, stuff and clutter but one may apply it liberally to broader concepts as well. ;) )
ok. when i sat down to write this i put on grant-lee phillips nineteen-eighties album. it's done and the fab mix from my pal john in central fla. has just come on. laundry sorting music if ever there was!
feeding into this: tomorrow is thanksgiving. it's been raining off and on all day. hands down my favorite time of year. and how can a girl even think of sewing when she has to move stuff off the desk to even get to the sewing machine? honestly.
for the record: mentioned at the top of the letter: movie viewed: unbelievable truth, hal hartley, dir; dinner eaten: al wazir, shwarma plate; days off: thanksgiving holiday weekend :) woo!
and this is how it starts! good night!
don't know if it's the movie i just watched, the dinner i ate or the prospect of having the next four days off from work: i'm motivated to shed stuff. to pull out 150 cds, 30 t-shirts, the unused cafe table wedged between the filing cabinet and the wall in my sewing room, all the bits gathering dust from lack of use in my apt, and haul them out to the goodwill, cd trade in, wherever someone might find a use for them...
i struggle against my pack-rat tendencies: i don't want to save every scrap and clipping, just the odd ticket stub or note from a friend that will rocket me back to that time and place. last week during some deep apt. cleaning i looked through a collection of bits in a box on my bookshelf. i've had this box since 1985 and filled it with things when it was still a new thing in my life. most of the time i forget it's there. every couple of years or so i open it up and there it is: some of 1987. grateful dead ticket stubs, a nyc subway token, sea shells collected on long island, cat whiskers from a tom cat who moved into my apt, stones from some gem shop in los gatos.
i don't want to go through my life dragging trunks of relics from all my years, but i do like a few small things here and there. the polaroids on my fridge, a photobutton of a grade school friend, a mug sent to me by my sister the summer of 1990 when i was desperate to know someone was in my corner-even from hundreds of miles away...
it's the nature of acquistion that one has to make space for all this stuff. i don't want to make more room. and i don't want to out grow this apt. i'm tired of having to move things to clean under them.
so.
got to thin this stuff out. i'm also reluctant to put anything in a landfill. so, if it's at all of use, i want to find a home for it.
i know how this goes: i am swept up in the excitement of a new endeavor, try to tackle it from too many angles at once, get sleepy and never quite accomplish what it is i'd set out to do. i've got four days off. step one: establish a clean slate. start with the laundry. that will have me focused on cleaning out the closets. (is it too much to want all my clothes to fit into drawers and closets and not have ever revolving piles of shirts and sweaters that i move from place to place?)
and i'm going to play the piano this weekend. all that potential music in there. and my memories of playing that piano are directly tied to family holidays. i don't remember they were thanksgiving or christmas holidays: i just remember loading rolls in the piano in the basement of my grandparents' house while my brother, sisters and cousins played pool there. oh! i am just realizing now: this piano is the biggest artifact that i am toting around. and it is so heavy i can't even move it to clean under. ha!
man, i am a sentimental bugger. blindsides me sometimes. :)
a friend of mine used the word savor in a converstion we were having. (i've been trying to figure a way to relate the context, but it just gets too weedy). the minute she said it i could tell it was the idea i'd been looking for: i've got too much dross. (now this started as a writing about objects, possessions, stuff and clutter but one may apply it liberally to broader concepts as well. ;) )
ok. when i sat down to write this i put on grant-lee phillips nineteen-eighties album. it's done and the fab mix from my pal john in central fla. has just come on. laundry sorting music if ever there was!
feeding into this: tomorrow is thanksgiving. it's been raining off and on all day. hands down my favorite time of year. and how can a girl even think of sewing when she has to move stuff off the desk to even get to the sewing machine? honestly.
for the record: mentioned at the top of the letter: movie viewed: unbelievable truth, hal hartley, dir; dinner eaten: al wazir, shwarma plate; days off: thanksgiving holiday weekend :) woo!
and this is how it starts! good night!
Monday, November 24, 2008
11.22.08, postcard & letter medley
*this first bit is a postcard. i met the recipient when i was first learning to knit 7 years ago. she hosted a knitting group that i joined. this postcard is a bit weedy in the knitting content. if you're not a knitter it might just give you a little window into what i'm pondering while staring into space in the back of a cafe.*
Sat 11.22.08...9pm?
Sitting at the back counter @ Intelligentsia. Just about to dip into round 2: Americano. *heart*
It may be overstating it, but i'm feeling like a physicist who's just cracked an equation: i've been crunching numbers trying to alter a knitting pattern to make it bigger. Evidently the woman who designed this-quite lovely-beret has a noggin 6 inches smaller than mine. the math involves increasing the number o' sts to be picked up around he i-cord band (not ribbed), then calculating how many would result in the correct # o'sts after increasing, to follow the pattern repeat. i'm crediting, at least partially, the cappuccino. and the patsy cline songs on the stereo here. :)
I've been on a bit of a craft hiatus the last few months. work and concert travel have kept me busy.
However: the urban craft center is re-opening @ their new location on main st. in santa monica, so i can feel the craft wheels begin to turn in my head. hooray! writing to you has me wanting to start a knitting group...or maybe its the coffee...
**a letter written a few minutes later...**
11.22.08--saturday night, sitting at the back counter at the cafe with the best espresso in town. the best part: it's in my neighborhood.
been wanting to thanks you for the wonderful fall gift! the leaves you sent are sitting atop my piano. even if the weather here is slow to co-operate, i know what season it really is.
i've been a little low energy today. have guests in town. decided to bail on the movie we'd planned to see--ended up napping for 2 hours. perfect! am now skipping the concert i was planning to attend tonight in favor of a little cafe loitering. when the days get shorter here evening cafe sitting gets mellower. those long hot days keep all my fave places too busy to hang out for long. (the nerve. ha!)
jumping topics: this has been an odd employment year out here: the writers' strike last fall really made things very unstable. i've worked on 3 shows this year (after spending 4 mos. out of work.) am finally in a pretty stable situation. then this morning i heard news that the actors' guild is close to striking. this has been looming for months, but i've been hopeful that they would resolve the contract disputes w/o striking. there is just no goodwill from the other unions left after the writers' strike. and in this economic climate? i had some choice expletives this morning when i heard the news. i still feel that as a union member myself (4th generation) any strike should be honored b/c that is your power. but this is just too much now. i'm just happy to be working on a show that doesn't give me grief about billing for overtime that the show incurs.
ok. time to shift this again: for the record i bought this card @ an amazing coffee house in kansas city, mo. a couple summers ago. i was there for a wedding. one of my firends there found a hotel for me w/in walking distance of this cafe. turned out to be so hot & humid there, i walked once, ddrove the rest of the time i was in town. sometime i will tell you about the conversation i had w/a guy there that started with, "can i ask you a question?" a memorable day, that. :)
it's almost 10p. i'll head home & do the dishes while this espresso is still working.
ps. miss you like crazy and am itching for a road trip. good combo!
Sat 11.22.08...9pm?
Sitting at the back counter @ Intelligentsia. Just about to dip into round 2: Americano. *heart*
It may be overstating it, but i'm feeling like a physicist who's just cracked an equation: i've been crunching numbers trying to alter a knitting pattern to make it bigger. Evidently the woman who designed this-quite lovely-beret has a noggin 6 inches smaller than mine. the math involves increasing the number o' sts to be picked up around he i-cord band (not ribbed), then calculating how many would result in the correct # o'sts after increasing, to follow the pattern repeat. i'm crediting, at least partially, the cappuccino. and the patsy cline songs on the stereo here. :)
I've been on a bit of a craft hiatus the last few months. work and concert travel have kept me busy.
However: the urban craft center is re-opening @ their new location on main st. in santa monica, so i can feel the craft wheels begin to turn in my head. hooray! writing to you has me wanting to start a knitting group...or maybe its the coffee...
**a letter written a few minutes later...**
11.22.08--saturday night, sitting at the back counter at the cafe with the best espresso in town. the best part: it's in my neighborhood.
been wanting to thanks you for the wonderful fall gift! the leaves you sent are sitting atop my piano. even if the weather here is slow to co-operate, i know what season it really is.
i've been a little low energy today. have guests in town. decided to bail on the movie we'd planned to see--ended up napping for 2 hours. perfect! am now skipping the concert i was planning to attend tonight in favor of a little cafe loitering. when the days get shorter here evening cafe sitting gets mellower. those long hot days keep all my fave places too busy to hang out for long. (the nerve. ha!)
jumping topics: this has been an odd employment year out here: the writers' strike last fall really made things very unstable. i've worked on 3 shows this year (after spending 4 mos. out of work.) am finally in a pretty stable situation. then this morning i heard news that the actors' guild is close to striking. this has been looming for months, but i've been hopeful that they would resolve the contract disputes w/o striking. there is just no goodwill from the other unions left after the writers' strike. and in this economic climate? i had some choice expletives this morning when i heard the news. i still feel that as a union member myself (4th generation) any strike should be honored b/c that is your power. but this is just too much now. i'm just happy to be working on a show that doesn't give me grief about billing for overtime that the show incurs.
ok. time to shift this again: for the record i bought this card @ an amazing coffee house in kansas city, mo. a couple summers ago. i was there for a wedding. one of my firends there found a hotel for me w/in walking distance of this cafe. turned out to be so hot & humid there, i walked once, ddrove the rest of the time i was in town. sometime i will tell you about the conversation i had w/a guy there that started with, "can i ask you a question?" a memorable day, that. :)
it's almost 10p. i'll head home & do the dishes while this espresso is still working.
ps. miss you like crazy and am itching for a road trip. good combo!
Friday, November 21, 2008
11.20.08 Analog pleasures
*wrote this sitting outside a coffee bean on riverside drive in toluca take. i'd left work to send a package priority mail. am buying a concert ticket from a guy in indiana. (ahh, live music!) i am aware of the contrary nature of posting about "analog pleasures" in a blog. *
Thurs afternoon--on a break from work...post office run. :)
Waht times are thse that i find only a red pen & a sharpie in my backpack? I'm pretty good about keeping a pen handy, but i must have pulled it out & left it somewhere. alas.
Yesterday driving to work listening to Gillian Welch sing "Ruination Day" i wished i was on a road trip. i counted: it's been 8 mos. since my last driving trip: houston --> austin --> houston --> austin --> houston. ha! that's just about the usual time between trips. 8, 9 mos. (boy, this pen is a drag :| )
I have to tgo back to the office now--perhaps i'll find a better pen...
FRIDAY! 11.21: am at my desk w/headphones on listening to joe henry as the four guys behind me talk about all the cell phones on the market. i'm not technology averse but these kind of discussions make me want to put my phone in a closet and go somewhere...else.
Tomorrow is saturday. i'll get to walk to a cafe...sit in the sun and read. and knit. i've got some analog pleasures on my brain.
Thurs afternoon--on a break from work...post office run. :)
Waht times are thse that i find only a red pen & a sharpie in my backpack? I'm pretty good about keeping a pen handy, but i must have pulled it out & left it somewhere. alas.
Yesterday driving to work listening to Gillian Welch sing "Ruination Day" i wished i was on a road trip. i counted: it's been 8 mos. since my last driving trip: houston --> austin --> houston --> austin --> houston. ha! that's just about the usual time between trips. 8, 9 mos. (boy, this pen is a drag :| )
I have to tgo back to the office now--perhaps i'll find a better pen...
FRIDAY! 11.21: am at my desk w/headphones on listening to joe henry as the four guys behind me talk about all the cell phones on the market. i'm not technology averse but these kind of discussions make me want to put my phone in a closet and go somewhere...else.
Tomorrow is saturday. i'll get to walk to a cafe...sit in the sun and read. and knit. i've got some analog pleasures on my brain.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
CRAFT UP!
i've been in a sort of craft dull zone: wanting to start a new knitting or crochet project, but in need of an inspirational kick in the boo-tay.
currently am waiting for my pal petra to pick me up for the big felt club show at the shrine expo center. CRAFTACULAR!
it's not just about felt, it's all crafts. and there is food! and booze! and yarn! and fabric!
next installment is sure to be choc-full of inspired rambling! woo. i am getting giddy. or it could be that the americano is kicking in. :)
currently am waiting for my pal petra to pick me up for the big felt club show at the shrine expo center. CRAFTACULAR!
it's not just about felt, it's all crafts. and there is food! and booze! and yarn! and fabric!
next installment is sure to be choc-full of inspired rambling! woo. i am getting giddy. or it could be that the americano is kicking in. :)
Friday, November 7, 2008
it's what the kids call a barn burner!
**ok, so this isn't a letter. but i just got home from this fantastic fun night and wanted to add it to the page.**
worked a little late tonight *cough* but managed to get to the old crow medicine show only about 10 min late. they were playing two sets with no opener. i passed up the bar to get down on the floor. the place was packed and people were dancing. a lot! lots of whoops and hollers from all around. this crowd did not need any warm up time.
this band ripped it up! i danced my socks off and sang along. boy howdy.
here is the bonus bit: during the second set david rawlings came out to play with ocms. "wagon wheel" --> "tell it to me" --> "cc rider" --> two more songs i can't remember. holy cats.
then. for an encore: david, gillian welch and jakob dylan joined the band for "the weight." man alive, the whole room was singing. wonderful!
additional, side bonus: i was wearing a gillian welch tour shirt that doesn't have her name on it. it's a cool shirt, i get compliments on it, but no one has ever recognized it as a g.w. shirt. tonight 2 people at this show commented on it and one man said, "you must have been stoked tonight!"
yep!
fun facts from tonight:
--i made a friend! met another woman during the set break. we shared some hollers and high fives and looks of "hell yes!" when ocms pulled out some amazing songs.
--met a couple from tennessee who'd just moved to los angeles. they'd seen the band several times back in tn and were excited to their guys in their new town.
--the guy next to me dropped his full beer getting quite a bit of it on my arm, shirt and right shoe. i danced in a beer puddle the rest of the night. somehow, it seemed kind of fitting. :)
worked a little late tonight *cough* but managed to get to the old crow medicine show only about 10 min late. they were playing two sets with no opener. i passed up the bar to get down on the floor. the place was packed and people were dancing. a lot! lots of whoops and hollers from all around. this crowd did not need any warm up time.
this band ripped it up! i danced my socks off and sang along. boy howdy.
here is the bonus bit: during the second set david rawlings came out to play with ocms. "wagon wheel" --> "tell it to me" --> "cc rider" --> two more songs i can't remember. holy cats.
then. for an encore: david, gillian welch and jakob dylan joined the band for "the weight." man alive, the whole room was singing. wonderful!
additional, side bonus: i was wearing a gillian welch tour shirt that doesn't have her name on it. it's a cool shirt, i get compliments on it, but no one has ever recognized it as a g.w. shirt. tonight 2 people at this show commented on it and one man said, "you must have been stoked tonight!"
yep!
fun facts from tonight:
--i made a friend! met another woman during the set break. we shared some hollers and high fives and looks of "hell yes!" when ocms pulled out some amazing songs.
--met a couple from tennessee who'd just moved to los angeles. they'd seen the band several times back in tn and were excited to their guys in their new town.
--the guy next to me dropped his full beer getting quite a bit of it on my arm, shirt and right shoe. i danced in a beer puddle the rest of the night. somehow, it seemed kind of fitting. :)
Sunday, November 2, 2008
10.11.08--O! Fall!
Saturday 6pm?
Fall is here. so many indicators, but one that seals the transition: the light. Everything is illuminated in that warm gold that makes everything seem loaded and significant. It doesn't have the glare of summer--that direct light that makes me put on my sunglasses and look away. It's the vividness that I remember from those days of hallucinogens and first love. The clear sky so blue, blown free of stuff by the first of the season's Santa Ana winds.
It all seems a bit dramatic and overly romantic, going on like this, but I offer in my defense: Joni Mitchell's "The Last Time I Saw Richard" came up on my shuffle as I was pulling into the gas station. Her album "Blue" was given as a gift to me by a boyfriend who thought I might like it. So, good instincts on his part. That song, that association, this light...well, I'm a push over for the change from summer to fall.
Another sign of the times: my thought just turned to sewing...
After nearly a month of long work hours and concert travel every weekend, I'm trying to get a handle on my domestic situation a bit. Washed about 6 weekends worth of airport parking lot silt off my car this afternoon (to note: the spot-free rinse offered at the u-wash is anything but spot-free.) Bought hand lotion and toilet paper, did 3 loads of laundry...and my eyes and brain fixated on that light the whole time.
The sun has set now, the sky's softer and I can feel that intoxication of the afternoon lifting a bit. whew.
Also-the Talking Heads "Crosseyed and Painless" from Stop Making Sense is playing. Nothing to shake off a reverie and get a body dancing like this song. :)
**been carrying this intending to send. follow up penned: 11.1.08**
another letter started and not put in the mail. :) this is the first saturday since that weekend i've been @ home and without guests. on the docket: more laundry, dishes (oof. must address these) and a trip to a fabric store downtown. *heart* already done: pedicure.
we had our first rain fo the season this morning. it only lasted about 10 min, but the clouds have stuck around, which is nice.
odd tangent: my thoughts just turned to phil collins. !? i was thinking of a 30 Rock exchange:
"you like phil collins?"
"i have two ears and a heart, don't i?"
which led me to a story my neighbor told me about doing a recording session w/phil c. he said all the engineers wanted phil to play the big drum fill from "in the air tonight" and he did! apparently, the particular sound of the drums was cutting edge stuff when that record was made, so recording people are kind of geeky about it.
ok. when the letter runs from joni mitchell to phil collins (while kate bush is singing from my earphones) it's time to wrap this thing up and head to the fabric store.
ahh saturday. soo soo good. :)
Fall is here. so many indicators, but one that seals the transition: the light. Everything is illuminated in that warm gold that makes everything seem loaded and significant. It doesn't have the glare of summer--that direct light that makes me put on my sunglasses and look away. It's the vividness that I remember from those days of hallucinogens and first love. The clear sky so blue, blown free of stuff by the first of the season's Santa Ana winds.
It all seems a bit dramatic and overly romantic, going on like this, but I offer in my defense: Joni Mitchell's "The Last Time I Saw Richard" came up on my shuffle as I was pulling into the gas station. Her album "Blue" was given as a gift to me by a boyfriend who thought I might like it. So, good instincts on his part. That song, that association, this light...well, I'm a push over for the change from summer to fall.
Another sign of the times: my thought just turned to sewing...
After nearly a month of long work hours and concert travel every weekend, I'm trying to get a handle on my domestic situation a bit. Washed about 6 weekends worth of airport parking lot silt off my car this afternoon (to note: the spot-free rinse offered at the u-wash is anything but spot-free.) Bought hand lotion and toilet paper, did 3 loads of laundry...and my eyes and brain fixated on that light the whole time.
The sun has set now, the sky's softer and I can feel that intoxication of the afternoon lifting a bit. whew.
Also-the Talking Heads "Crosseyed and Painless" from Stop Making Sense is playing. Nothing to shake off a reverie and get a body dancing like this song. :)
**been carrying this intending to send. follow up penned: 11.1.08**
another letter started and not put in the mail. :) this is the first saturday since that weekend i've been @ home and without guests. on the docket: more laundry, dishes (oof. must address these) and a trip to a fabric store downtown. *heart* already done: pedicure.
we had our first rain fo the season this morning. it only lasted about 10 min, but the clouds have stuck around, which is nice.
odd tangent: my thoughts just turned to phil collins. !? i was thinking of a 30 Rock exchange:
"you like phil collins?"
"i have two ears and a heart, don't i?"
which led me to a story my neighbor told me about doing a recording session w/phil c. he said all the engineers wanted phil to play the big drum fill from "in the air tonight" and he did! apparently, the particular sound of the drums was cutting edge stuff when that record was made, so recording people are kind of geeky about it.
ok. when the letter runs from joni mitchell to phil collins (while kate bush is singing from my earphones) it's time to wrap this thing up and head to the fabric store.
ahh saturday. soo soo good. :)
radio love
so in the midst of transcribing letters here michelle shocked's song, "anchorage" just came on the radio. a song dear to my heart. don't know how to explain why with out sounding terribly drippy, so i'll skip it.
this is why this is my favorite music program on the radio. for the record: the open road: gary calamar, sunday nights on kcrw.
ok. back to it.
this is why this is my favorite music program on the radio. for the record: the open road: gary calamar, sunday nights on kcrw.
ok. back to it.
3.1.2008--written on a split open atm deposit envelope
3.1.2008 How things work out...
I was shuffling around my apt. debating just how to spend the next couple of hours: errand to bank, cappuccino, or stay in do some sewing...I finally decided to walk to the bank, gathered a few things and headed out. on a side street with little thru traffic i was stopped by a family looking for directions to Universal Studios. They had a map. It's a tricky neighborhood to drive in for the uninitiated. I gave them directions and we parted ways. I was walking in the direction they needed to go, so once they drove around the block, etc. they passed me as i walked over HWY 5. I watched their car as they missed the u-turn they need to get onto the HWY. I could tell they saw it (brake lights, but no chance to switch lanes.) I walked slowly, watching for their car to find it's way back to the on-ramp, but never saw them go by. I tried to steer them mentally, but to no avail. i hope they found the fwy & made it to the park.
When I got to the bank i discovered that I'd left my ATM card at home. It's late on saturday, so the bank is shut. So I walked back to the cafe. The fellow working is one of my 2 fave baristas in town. After I got my cappuccino order in he told me that today is his Last Day working. His 2 week notice is ending today. I was out of town, then out of circulation, so i didn't hear about it. he made me a stellar drink. that when he asked "regular milk" he meant whole, not 2%, and that you can balance a coin on top the foam he makes, makes me so sad to see him go.
as i walked outside to hang out i lamented that i decided not to bring any postcards to write about all this stuff. I looked in my bag and found the unused deposit envelope i'd grabbed at the bank.
so.
how things go. :)
And now the sun is officially down. I can pick out some of the deep blue sky behind the cloud cover. I'm going to have another cappuccino before this fellow leaves, then walk home and have dinner with the neighbors. :) *heart*
sometimes, life is just that good.
I was shuffling around my apt. debating just how to spend the next couple of hours: errand to bank, cappuccino, or stay in do some sewing...I finally decided to walk to the bank, gathered a few things and headed out. on a side street with little thru traffic i was stopped by a family looking for directions to Universal Studios. They had a map. It's a tricky neighborhood to drive in for the uninitiated. I gave them directions and we parted ways. I was walking in the direction they needed to go, so once they drove around the block, etc. they passed me as i walked over HWY 5. I watched their car as they missed the u-turn they need to get onto the HWY. I could tell they saw it (brake lights, but no chance to switch lanes.) I walked slowly, watching for their car to find it's way back to the on-ramp, but never saw them go by. I tried to steer them mentally, but to no avail. i hope they found the fwy & made it to the park.
When I got to the bank i discovered that I'd left my ATM card at home. It's late on saturday, so the bank is shut. So I walked back to the cafe. The fellow working is one of my 2 fave baristas in town. After I got my cappuccino order in he told me that today is his Last Day working. His 2 week notice is ending today. I was out of town, then out of circulation, so i didn't hear about it. he made me a stellar drink. that when he asked "regular milk" he meant whole, not 2%, and that you can balance a coin on top the foam he makes, makes me so sad to see him go.
as i walked outside to hang out i lamented that i decided not to bring any postcards to write about all this stuff. I looked in my bag and found the unused deposit envelope i'd grabbed at the bank.
so.
how things go. :)
And now the sun is officially down. I can pick out some of the deep blue sky behind the cloud cover. I'm going to have another cappuccino before this fellow leaves, then walk home and have dinner with the neighbors. :) *heart*
sometimes, life is just that good.
inaugural!
sunday night, post al wazir.
i don't like to spend much time on the phone. when the weather is nice, i'm never home. i can be remiss in returning email. unless there is a concert ticket involved, i'm reluctant to make plans. one thing that keeps my friends and family from thinking i've dropped off the face of the planet: i'm an avid letter writer.
i always carry a few postcards and writing paper in my backpack or stuck between the pages of whatever i'm reading. my letters tend to be a bit stream of consciousness, rambling affairs. my favorite places to write are cafes where i can sit outside.
cutting to the chase: often after i write a letter i think i'd like to share some of the bits with more than one person. so.
i'm going to transcribe some of my letters and cards here and see what comes of the whole thing.
for the record: the title "sweet cracker sandwich!" was written by darby conley, and appears in his comic strip, "get fuzzy." i had considered using as a title, "bologna sandwich on fire" which is a paraphrase of another of his lines: "setting a bologna sandwich on fire is not cooking." (damn. am now regretting not using the roz chast line, "little duck falling off a ladder." alas.)
i don't like to spend much time on the phone. when the weather is nice, i'm never home. i can be remiss in returning email. unless there is a concert ticket involved, i'm reluctant to make plans. one thing that keeps my friends and family from thinking i've dropped off the face of the planet: i'm an avid letter writer.
i always carry a few postcards and writing paper in my backpack or stuck between the pages of whatever i'm reading. my letters tend to be a bit stream of consciousness, rambling affairs. my favorite places to write are cafes where i can sit outside.
cutting to the chase: often after i write a letter i think i'd like to share some of the bits with more than one person. so.
i'm going to transcribe some of my letters and cards here and see what comes of the whole thing.
for the record: the title "sweet cracker sandwich!" was written by darby conley, and appears in his comic strip, "get fuzzy." i had considered using as a title, "bologna sandwich on fire" which is a paraphrase of another of his lines: "setting a bologna sandwich on fire is not cooking." (damn. am now regretting not using the roz chast line, "little duck falling off a ladder." alas.)
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