Damn Bicylces

They've gone and done it. The bicycle mafia has ruined - devastated, really - a street I travel regularly, and I've had it with them and their kind. Or with you and your kind if you ride a bicycle on my streets.
   Cordova, a street I use several times a week to get where I need to go, has gained a bike lane between Lake Avenue and Hill Street.
   'But Don,' you say, 'Cordova's a two-lane street, how could they possibly squeeze a bike lane in there?'
   Well, they didn't squeeze it in. They took out a lane to make room, one on each side. Bastards. What had been a nice two-lane road now is one-lane, with a big yellow-lined turn lane in the center that no one's ever going to use, all so the freakin' bicycle weirdos can have their stupid lane, when they had a perfectly good road to begin with.
   Now I'm going to get stuck behind some jackass going 20, with no way to go around them because there's a bicycle lane to my right and a yellow-lined turn lane to my left. All so bike riding douchebags can go to and from PCC on a road no bicyclists take to go to school in the first place.
   So here's what I'm gonna do. And no, it doesn't involve smashing my truck into bicyclists, killing's too good for their kind, and it would gum up my truck. No, I'm going to start walking in the bike lane. See, I figure the lane's got to be safe enough, and even though there's a perfectly good sidewalk I want to assert my pedestrian's rights to use a bike lane for my own purposes, even though I clearly don't belong in it. Eventually I'll get my own pedestrian lane in the road, so the city can make Cordova one-lane. Not in each direction, just one lane.
   Just makes me so mad...

An Earnest Visit

It was two in the morning, and night smells filtered through my open window. Earth, dew, the flinty sharpness from the concrete and asphalt of the city.
   An ember flared at the foot of my bed and showed briefly a man's lined, weathered face. White whiskers, brown eyes. A sharp, spicy waft of pipe smoke settled over me.
   "You're troubled, son." His voice was strong and tough. Raspy. A smoker's voice.
   "I suppose," I replied. "Enough to see ghosts."
   The ember flared and the man exhaled more smoke. "Not just anybody gets a visit from Papa."
   "I'm honored," I said, trying not to cough for all the smoke. "Sir."
   "Better to be honest," he said. "Explain yourself."
   "I wish I could," I said. "It's tough to put into words."
   "Let me guess," he said, lips wrapped around his pipe stem. "You want in the ring but there's no bull to fight."
   "Something like that," I replied. "More like I don't even know where the ring is or how to go about finding it."
   The orange ember moved up and down as he nodded thoughtfully.
   "I just wish… there's got to be something more I can do," I said.
   "You're being wasted where you are." He wasn't asking.
   "More like passed over," I said. "Passed by. I suppose I should feel lucky to have a job, but…"
   "It's not enough." His growl was a living thing that bounded across the room. "A man can die on his feet in a moment, or he can die a little every year sitting in an office chair. Which one are you headed for?"
   "I'd rather not die at all," I replied. "I'd rather accomplish something worthwhile. Make my mark. Let the world know that I do something that matters."
   "You want to toss in your line and fight a marlin for its life."
   I thought about that for a moment. "Yeah."
   "Then do it." Papa took a deep drag on his pipe, leaving his face illuminated long enough for me to see the spark in his eyes. "A man isn't alive unless he's testing his limits."
   I shook my head. Sighed. "The deck's stacked against me."
   "Don't let the house set the rules," Papa replied. "Play your own game. Make everyone else catch up to you. That's what I did."
   "How am I supposed to do that?" I hung my head. Hopeless.
   The ember flared and his eyes sparked again. "You'll figure it out. The smart ones always do."
The ember faded and the man faded. The pipe smoke remained.

Ancestral Judgement

Like most Americans, I'm kind of a Heinz 57 of nationalities. I'm for sure Irish and German and English, with probably a little bit of French thrown in somewhere back in the woodpile (yeah, I know...). Parts of my family came over to America centuries back, while other parts came in the most recent European mass migration about 100 years ago. These were men and women who gave up everything - literally - to make a new life. Some succeeded and some, no doubt, could have made a better go of it. But thinking about all these people, this huge unbroken line of hopes and dreams and aspirations and disappointments and tragedies that led to me being right here, right now prompted one question.

   What would my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather have thought about me?

   This is the guy about 160 years back, with my surname, who first decided he wanted to leave the coal mines or tin mines or chimney sweep academy or whatever terrible situation he endured in England and get on a leaky ship to cross the Atlantic packed in steerage with a bunch of his dentally-challenged countrymen. Whether he leapt at the opportunity the first he heard of it or whether he thought about it for a long time before boarding the boat, the fact remains that he did it. He took the gamble, he rolled the dice. He committed.
   He was almost certainly less educated than I am - they didn't know about galaxies or germs or Keynsian economics 160 years ago - but he was arguably far more courageous. So he wins that one. Which would you rather have in your family tree, a bookworm or someone who actually did something?
   Chances are good my modest apartment would seem like a palace to him, with its refrigerator, central air, and large flat-screen TV. And my truck would be a marvel. The internet and e-mail might seem like miracles, or wishes granted by a genie in a lamp. So I'm ahead of him there.
   But what would he think of the way I make my living? Would he think his time in the tin mines had been a vacation in comparison? And with all the opportunities in my world that he didn't have in his, would he wonder why I didn't take the same chances he did? Would he be proud of me or would he be utterly disappointed that I had squandered the gift he'd risked everything to give his descendants? Would he even like me or would he want to kick my ass? Because as tough as I am, that guy could still probably mop the floor with me.
   I think I have an obligation I'm not fulfilling to that guy. I have a responsibility to live up to my potential to prove to him that getting on the ship was the right thing to do.

Dumpster Diving Don

I had to get into the garbage bin in my apartment complex today.
   This was not a pleasure cruise, I had serious business. Vital business. The kind of crucial business that would make me jump into a dumpster filled with other people's leavings.
   I went down into the garage and emulated what I'd witnessed the garbage man do before. You see, you have to really put your back into it to move those things around, even though they're on wheels. They're heavy enough by themselves, but when you put a couple hundred pounds of...
   I'm sorry? What's that? What was so important that I had to crawl into the dumpster in the first place? Yeah, um... that's... uh... classified. Sure. Classified.
   So once I got the dumpster out of the little tiny space they keep it in, I pulled myself into it, right over the side like I'd been doing it all my life. Even landed on my feet. I made sure I was wearing nothing new, nothing that I wouldn't mind just leaving there in the dumpster if I needed to.
   Okay, you, with the hand raised, looks like you have something on your mind. What do you mean I didn't answer the question? Of course I did. I was in the dumpster on vital, classified business. Meaning, Mr. Smarty-Pants, that if told you what I was doing in there I would be in violation of all sorts of national security stuff. Secret clearance, all that.
   Excuse me? Yes, well... okay, you're right, my clearance did expire something like five years ago, but... I'm still bound by... there are some things that civilians... Okay. Fine.
   I was in the dumpster retrieving Lotto tickets for tonight that I'd accidentally thrown out this morning.
   There. Are you happy?
   What's so funny? Huh? Bet you'll all feel like chumps when I win a million bucks tonight. That'll make dealing with the garbage juice worth it.

Straight Arrow

I got my most recent check Thursday, again with two billing statements on it, enough that I'm now on the money-laundering watch list. I went to the bank today to deposit it, and it seems that Friday is the day to go to the bank and withdraw huge sums of money.
   I saw a lady with a blue bank bag get stack after stack of cash bound with that paper wrapper, the kind you see in movies about Vegas or crack houses. Or crack houses in Vegas. When I saw that I thought 'huh... she's certainly a trusting sort, to be taking that amount of money over the counter.'
   Then I saw the next guy in line getting three thousand dollars. I know this because I watched the cashier count out $100 bills in groups of five and then paper-clip them together in groups of ten. Three paper clips means three thousand dollars, I'm no dummy. And I thought 'what an odd coincidence, two high-rollers in a row.'
   I heard the next lady request $900. And the guy after her - just before me - got $1500. And here I was worried that I would be a Miracle Mile target because I was taking away $140. Compared to those other people I was strictly small-time, not worth the shoe polish it would take to kick my ass.
   And then I thought 'it's a good thing I'm not a crook, because I'd so seriously rob those people.' Really. If my switch was set to 'evil' I'd be at least $3000 richer right now, because I could totally take that guy. Or the five-foot tall woman with stack after stack of cash, I outweigh her by double, at least, I could just bump into her and grab the money as she rebounds.
   I have these thoughts sometimes. Most of the time. Like when that guy with a name like a sneeze tried to bomb Times Square, I spent a good ten minutes thinking about how he could have done it right. Every so often I'll be in a store and I'll think about the best escape route if I were to stick them up. Sometimes I even think about how I might commit massive institutional fraud and actually get rewarded for my irresponsible, incompetent business conduct, and then I realize that I worked for a company like that and they did it better then I ever could. So I go back to thinking about what I would do if I wanted to completely paralyze Los Angeles traffic. Worse than it already is, I mean. I never would do any of that stuff, but that doesn't keep me from idly considering how I might wreak all sorts of havok with impunity.
   It's just lucky for society that I had good parents and I'm an Eagle Scout. Otherwise all ya'll motherf*ckers would be in serious trouble.
   Just sayin'...

Metaphorical Elevator

I'm a pretty quick study, I can catch a clue like a major league outfielder, but sometimes... sometimes I'm a little slow on the uptake. Every so often it takes me a little while. Like maybe a few months. Let me 'splain.
   Regular readers my know the elevator in my building is broken. Has been for months, and it's been so long I don' t think the landlady has any plans to get it fixed. As a matter of fact, the elevator stopped working when I went back to Texas for my father's funeral, that same weekend, and I've been trudging up the stairs ever since I got back.

   It didn't strike me until yesterday that this is one big metaphor. Lugging my groceries, my fencing gear and everything else up the stairs day after day, week after week, month after month, it's the Universe letting me know how things are going to be from now on. If I want to achieve something, if I want to make my mark, I'm going to have to struggle one step at a time. No more easy ride, no more lift to the top.
   Not that I was at the top, mind you, but I was far from the bottom. I had it pretty good, a corporate job, cable TV, more than enough to eat. Waaaay more than enough. Comfortable. Too comfortable. I was on the elevator.
   But now that I've been 'between assignments' for a while - forced to use the stairs - I kind of like it. Sure, there's less security, but I've traded real achievement for security for far too long. Traded giddy risk for dull certainty. But you know what dull certainty gets you at the end of it all? Same thing giddy risk does, a one-way ticket to the other side. And I think I'd prefer my life's journey electrifying rather than stultifying, thank you very much. It's time to make my own way, time to forge my own path. Create jobs for others instead of begging for one myself. 'Cause that really sucks, let me tell you.
   Like playing the craps table in Vegas, the only way to win big is to bet big. Fortuna audaces iuvat, as the Romans said. 'Fortune favors the brave.'

After all, with my father gone, I am the man of the house now. Better start acting like it.

What Do You Think?

I'm a proud papa.
   As you may know I'm trying to get a novel or two or three sold, but in the meantime one of my friends and I came up with a kick-ass idea for children's book. It's an ABC book and the illustrations are pretty cool (see below). I can say that because I'm not the one who did them, that was my friend Denise. The idea is to mimic a child's collage, complete with cutout photos. I was wasting time trying to do this on the computer, but Denise was the one who thought 'why not just make a collage?'
   But the thing that sets this book apart is our pledge to donate 51% of our profits to animal charities. None of this 'a portion of the proceeds' crap, we're serious.

I couldn't wait to show people. I think these illustrations are great.

The 'A' Page


The 'B' Page


The 'E' Page


Come on, who wouldn't love those faces?

It's The Little Things

In case you haven't heard, I'm working now. It's a three-month gig, which if you're new explains the countdown at the bottom of this post. Now that I have money coming in again I'm starting to loosen the purse strings just the tiniest bit. No big extravagances ('cept maybe the book case, but that's an investment), I'm mostly just paying more on my regular bills. But there is one thing I'm looking forward to spending some hard-earned dough on.
   I'm gettin' me some new undies.
   My trusty old ones have been getting me by for a year now, and while they're holding up, I can't fight entropy forever. Underwear is a depreciating asset, after all.
   If you've been following me since the beginning you may remember that underwear is the deciding factor on when I do laundry, so I do keep track of my stockpile pretty closely. And, sure as a Wall Street Broker is cheating on his taxes, they're wearing out. My 'good' ones are becoming 'acceptable' and more of my 'acceptable' are edging towards 'workout.' And several in the 'workout' category are one good skid mark away from 'emergency.'
   So the next time Macy's has a sale - like, what? every weekend? - I'm going to walk in with my head held high, my credit card in hand, and say "A three-pack of your finest Jockey, my good man. I'm in the mood for a splurge."


COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 50 minutes to get to Burbank. You read that right, traffic was insane in the membrane today. I blame the Lakers.
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 20-something days, I'm losing track...

Empty

This is the first Father's Day I haven't had mine around. I thought the pain had gone but it was just hiding, a monster under the bed that nobody can chase away. I'm trying to keep busy today, moving around, not standing still for too long because that's when my mind wanders and my heart finds that empty spot that's never going to fill in.
   See? Did it just now. Crap.

Here's what I said at my father's memorial.

And here's what happened after his funeral.

Gotta keep moving...

My Drunk Barber

I've written before about how it's impossible for me to get a good haircut. Since the quality of the cut never seems to vary, I usually decide to go with economy. As cheap as I can get away with, short of paying kindergarteners to practice on me with their safety scissors. Which might not be a bad idea, come to think of it...
   Anyhoo, I have three regular places I get haircuts, I usually frequent one a few times in a row until I get the feeling that maybe - just maybe - I might be able to get a better cut at one of the places I haven't been in a while. And then I'll go there a few times in a row. You get the pattern.
    One of places is a for-real barber shop, a tiny alcove in the basement of the YMCA (really), complete with an ancient linoleum floor, barber chairs that are just as old, and barbers that are only slightly younger than that. I've been going there for years, since I moved out to SoCal.
   Out of the five barbers who work this place, one guy, Joe (really), is the worst. I know this because I've been avoiding him for years now. The first time I saw him he walked a little funny, like maybe he'd had a stroke or something, or had some sort of neuro-muscular problem. Either way, not the best candidate for a career as a barber. But I let him cut my hair anyway, mostly because I was next in line and his was the free chair. Guys, you know what I mean, ladies, just go with it for sake of the anecdote.
   I got him the next time I needed a haircut, and he wasn't walking so funny. The cut wasn't bad, still a little rough, but manageable. I got him the time after that and he was back to his stiff-legged stagger and I got a particularly bad haircut. I started to suspect something was up. Two or three haircuts after that I happened to be walking into the tiny barber shop as Joe was walking out. It's a good thing I wasn't carrying an open flame or we would have had a fireball in the doorway made from the Scotch on his breath.
   Dude was plastered. Blotto. Three sheets to the wind. Blitzed. Polluted. Hammered. Trashed. Loaded. Ripped. Stewed. Full of Irish courage. Which explains the stumbling and the varying quality of his haircuts.
   I learned Joe's schedule - Tuesday through Friday, 10 to 3. Not bad, if you're not into making a lot of money. I avoided the barber shop when I knew he'd be there and the years went by, me without a really good haircut, but with no really bad ones either.
   Fast forward to yesterday. I needed a haircut and I stopped in at the barber shop about 1 PM. On a Friday. And who was outside talking with one of the denizens of the YMCA? Joe. And who cut my hair yesterday? Joe. He was the one with a free chair.
   He wasn't drunk. I got an okay haircut. Not great, but not terrible either.

Everything I Need To Know

Everything I need to know about driving I learned from LA drivers.

Veer. Especially when there's no reason for it.
    If the space is too small you should still try to parallel park.
Buses can drag race.
    No matter what, always slow down and gawk at a car on the side of the highway. You never know, there might be something cool.
Don't get out of the way, especially if you're going 10 mph slower than the posted limit.
    Right-hand turns from the far left lane are a fantastic idea.
If you don't know where you are, stop in the middle of the street and look around.
    One-way streets are really just a suggestion.
It's okay to back into traffic from a driveway, other people will watch out for you.
    Fire trucks are like a good blocker in football, let them clear the way and you can follow behind.
Pedestrians are invulnerable, so you don't have to watch out for them at all.
    Your conversation with the person in the next car is more important than going when the light turns green.
After the red there's time for another three cars to turn left. (this is actually the only way to make a left in certain parts of LA)
    When it rains act like it's your first time behind the wheel, that way you'll fit in with everybody else.


COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 36 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 20-something days, I'm losing track...

Aw Man... Still?

Jeez... just when I think things are getting better I go out in public.
   So I had to go to the post office today - queries for a kick-ass children's alphabet book - and on the way back it happened to be lunch time. I was feeling a bit peckish so I stopped into a Baja Fresh. It was early and there weren't many people inside, only one person in front of me, a young black man. He didn't look like he was shaving yet, he was carrying a book bag, and he was wearing shorts, so using my Batman-like detective skill I deduced he was probably a high school student.
   The kid orders then pays with a $20 bill, which the clerk gives the once over something fierce, even puts it under the ultra-violet counterfeit detector machine. It's the first I've seen one of these things outside of Vegas, so I figure the place must have a problem with fake money, seeing as how the Miracle Mile is a few miracle miles away from a rough neighborhood.
   It's my turn, so I order and I also pay with a $20 bill. I'm all set to watch the process up-close, maybe even engage her in conversation about it. She shoves the $20 into the drawer and hands me my change.
   I was astonished. Gob-smacked. I didn't think this kind of thing happened still in the USA. The clerk makes double-sure the money the black kid gives her isn't counterfeit, but trusts the white guy is on the up-and-up. I felt like telling her that while young people steal, old people commit fraud. Like counterfeiting. If anybody should be profiled for passing fake bills, it should be the middle-aged white dude dressed like he works in an office.
   I don't know if the kid noticed, though it would have been hard not to. Hell of a thing to have to put up with in 21st Century America. Dammit.


COMMUTE - there - 33 minutes      back - 38 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 20-something days, I'm losing track...

The Illusion Of Progress

I feel like Michael Corleone in Godfather III, they keep pulling me back in.
   Had a meeting today. At work. A conference call. My nightmares are filled with conference calls, and whiteboards, and anti-ergonomic office furniture.
   Hell has speakerphones, I just know it.
   I like these people, really, they're far from the worst co-workers I've ever had. But I keep feeling like I should be giving lessons on how to conduct meetings. And how to speak up. And how to properly supervise a contractor.
   You ever have one of those meetings that probably could have been better conducted via e-mail? You ever spend an hour listening to people who weren't prepared to speak fumble around for the right words? You ever have a power spike trip the circuit breakers and send the phone system off-line right when someone was actually going to say something worthwhile?
   Me too.
   This is so familiar, I've been in this purgatory before. And I don't want to be there again. Better go double down on the Lotto tickets.


COMMUTE - there - 37 minutes      back - 41 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 20-something days, I'm losing track...

Ear Hair Is Next

I have, from time to time, discussed my impending old-man-ness. Usually the source has been my habits, my crankiness, or my general outlook. Now, though, it's physical.
   I found a huge hair on my right eyebrow. A great big one, thick and long, which I pulled out as soon as I found it. And then stuck to the mirror. Because I live alone and I can do what I want in the bathroom.
   And so it begins. Before too long I'm going to have a whole forest up there, waving back and forth like tube worms on the ocean floor. Or - for the more nerdy among you - like Thufir Hawat from the David Lynch version of Dune.
   What's next? Ear hair? Great big tufts blossoming from the side of my head? Inch-thick glasses? Suspenders and a belt? A coin purse? Herb Alpert albums? Werther's hard candies? An NRA membership? Dinner at Denny's at 4:30 PM?
   I could go on, but I'm getting a little depressed.

Tales From My Past - World Cup

Evidently it's time for World Cup Soccer again; I don't pay attention to this, as I've mentioned before. This time around the US news and radio is treating the whole business as some kind of event that I should concern myself with, which itself concerns me. Americans don't care about soccer - that's an established fact - so the media paying this much attention to it makes it seem like they're trying to set the agenda instead of reporting what's happening. It's a slippery slope when reporters set themselves up as arbiters.
   Anyhoo... years ago I happened to be in Italy for a World Cup go-round. Three American ladies and I were in Rome to get footage of Roman stuff for a distance learning Latin class. The first night we got there was the night Italy made the quarter-finals and the Italians went nuts. Bonkers. Cukoo. Pazza. The streets were crazy all night long with Italians on scooters, in cars, on foot, blowing horns and yelling and carrying on. A deafening riot that could have woken the dead.
   I didn't hear any of it because the ladies stuck me with an interior room, one that faced the courtyard, which was hot and close and unventilated. And oh-so-quiet. Score one for me.
   Fast forward ten days, the last day we'd be in Rome. We'd been filming antiquities for so long that I thought I would strangle someone if I saw another piece of marble. We were at the Capitoline Museums for one last night of filming. The place opened at 7 PM on a Tuesday - for some reason - and since in Italy hours of operation are just a suggestion the courtyard was slowly filling up with tourists. 7:05 came and went. 7:10. 7:15. 7:20. This was getting late even by Italian 'standards.'
   We heard a huge roar erupt out of a little tiny Renaissance-sized door at the far end of one of the buildings. The museum docents appeared, all thin little Italian men who had consumed a bit too much wine as they watched their national team make it into the semi-final round just minutes before. They opened the museum and rather cheerfully let us in as down the hill the horn-honking began again.
   One of the ladies I was with needed a shot of some marble busts. The room was filled floor-to-ceiling with Roman busts, but she wanted a shot of the very top row, easily 10 feet off the ground. So she pulled over the docent's stool and stood on it. One of the docents saw immediately and he came over speaking Italian too fast and too wine-slurred for me to understand. I thought for sure he was going to toss us out, maybe call one of the Roman police forces. Or all of them.
   Nope, still flushed with World Cup victory, he put his hands up to steady her. He waited patiently until she got her shot, helped her down, and put the stool back where it belonged.
   In a sense, the World Cup helped keep me from getting arrested in Rome. So I suppose it ain't all bad.
   I gotta tell you, though, even years later, if I never see another piece of Roman sculpture it'll be too soon.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned that I may forget how to read.*
   I'm not talking about being on the wrong end of a lucky punch and getting a traumatic brain injury, I'm not talking about some sort of slow-creeping dementia, I'm worried that one morning I'm going to wake up from a perfectly peaceful sleep, no different than I was eight hours before, except I won't know what those squiggles on paper mean any more.
   'That's crazy, Don,' you might say. 'Nobody just forgets how to read.'
   To which I respond 'oh yeah?' and 'sez who?'
   People forget stuff all the time, that's why there's such a thing as Lost and Found at the Wal Mart. People lose sunglasses, shoes, their wallets, even prosthetic limbs, believe it or not. Nobody's immune, we all do it. I forgot my truck keys in the refrigerator once. So it's not a stretch to consider that you might just 'misplace' a learned skill like reading.
   It would be so embarrassing, and I don't embarrass easily. I don't want to wake up, realize I forgot how to read, and then have to explain to people what was going on. No, I'm not a veteran, no, I wasn't in a car crash. I just forgot, okay? Back off, and tell me which of these is rat poison and which is flour.
   On the plus side, not knowing how to read would force me to cut down on my Internet time. Maybe I'd become a sculptor or something.


*     Unlike some of my other worries I know where this one comes from. Years back, when I worked for the government, I went on a trip to Japan. I flew international from Hawaii, landed in Fukuoka, and then had to go to the domestic side of the airport to fly from Fukuoka to Okinawa. When I passed that threshold I looked around at the riot of signs and pictures and magazines and realized I had absolutely no idea what anything said. In Japan I was functionally illiterate. Couldn't read a single thing, and there was no way I could fake it, like I could in Europe.
   I was completely freaked out for about five minutes, sincerely concerned for my own well-being, until I realized that there was no way I was going to learn Japanese before I got on the plane. I chilled out and just went with the flow.

What The Hell Was That?

Almost everything was red, I remember that much. There were faces, people with dark hair surrounding me, pressing on me, their red skin highlighted with orange. There was a dissonant pulse in the background, anxiety-inducing instead of soothing, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Foreign languages, harsh consonants, vile sibilants, unfamiliar breaks in the pattern. More pressing, louder voices I couldn't make sense of. A claustrophobic, helpless feeling. Loud. Red. Close to panic.
   And a child screamed.

That's when I woke up. It was ten minutes after I climbed into bed.
   The first thing I said - out loud - was 'what the hell was that?' I haven't had a nightmare since I was a kid, but I'm counting that as one. My heart was beating like I'd just run for my life and I was just a little disoriented. My mouth was dry.
   I tried to figure it out, what could be going on in my head that I would fall asleep and have that kind of dream almost immediately? I don't have an answer, but it kind of freaked me out. Usually my dreams, when I remember to write them down, are innocuous, sometimes nostalgic happenings. I'm in my old car, or at a pizza factory. Not some sort of hellish torture chamber designed to offend every sense I have.
   I kind of want it to happen again, though. I want to write it down, pick it apart, analyze it. I want to see if I can find out what's behind it.
   At least I'm pretty sure that's what I want...


COMMUTE - there - 33 minutes      back - 36 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 33 days

Were-Squid

You ever have one of those days where people just get too close?
   From time to time it's unavoidable that someone is going to invade your personal space. It happens. But there are days...
   Like today. Seemed like everyone was trying to determine what I ate for breakfast by what my breath smelled of. Five people in a tiny elevator, too many guys in a small bathroom, someone looming over me in a meeting room, people standing right off my stern when we shared pie. Even when I voted this evening the polling place workers got close enough to feel my aura.
   I want something to let people know they're getting too close. Aside from a solid punch to the solar plexus, that is. So I figure I'll cross my genes with a squid's. I'll fill my ink sacs with black fluid, and when someone gets too close - SPLAT! - I'll squirt them right in the face.
   ... make people think twice about invading my personal space ...


COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 40 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 34 days

Grateful But Not Complacent

I think I finally get it.
   After years of working for The Man, being a corporate drone, living and working in a manner I never thought I would just for the sake of a paycheck, I think at long last I understand how to get by. How to make it through yet another day doing something I don't want to do so that I can spend my free time working towards my real goal.
   I need to be grateful. But not complacent.
   I've heard 'be grateful' a lot, off and on, but I never really got it. Sure, I understand the word, I get the concept, but the real meaning never hit me until recently. Be glad of what you have, not your things but your family and friends and situation, because there are billions of people in the world who have it waaaaay worse than you. Maybe it's because my father died and I've been thinking a lot about what I'm going to do with the rest of my own life, or maybe it's because I've been 'between assignments' for a while. Maybe both. But I get it. I don't know any other way to explain gratitude than this: you fall asleep with a smile on your face.
   But just because I'm grateful doesn't mean I'm satisfied with things the way they are. Working for someone else sucks, and there's no way it's ever not going to suck. I'm grateful to have a job but that doesn't mean those people own me, or that I intend to stay there for the rest of my life. Having free will - if you believe in that sort of thing - means that I'm under obligation to make the best of my situation, and to help improve others' lot if I can.
   Grateful but not complacent. I get it now.


COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 45 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 35 days

Time To Be A Kid?

I overheard a phone conversation the other day, one of the ladies who sits near me at work was trying to coordinate her family getting places on time and in one piece. She's at that unfortunate age where she not only has kids to keep track of - and her husband, of course - but she also has to provide some care for her parents as well. She's got twice the family she thought she did.
   Anyhoo, she was trying to figure out how her daughter could get where she needed to go while also making sure her son made his appointment/practice/hearing/whatever. Lots of things going on, and I chalked it up to 'just one of those days.' Until it happened again. And again. Pretty much every day her kids have places to be and things to do and people to meet, several different activities every day. They're waaaay overscheduled.
   But her kids aren't alone. Most kids these days have all manner of practices and appointments and meetings and what-have-you. It's just crazy. Insane in the membrane.
   When I was in high school I had several activities and clubs I participated in, which mostly I used as an excuse to stay away from home. Teenagers need that kind of thing to find out who they are. But that's not what I'm talking about. These are elementary school kids. Practically babies.
   When I was in elementary school my only activity was playing the cello, and then later I did gymnastics. But I also had time to lay on the lawn and stare up at clouds. Which I did a lot. Or build model cars. Or run around the neighborhood with my friends trying to find the line between fun and vandalism*.
   I think it's a lucky kid these days who can loafe and spend a lot of quality time doing absolutely nothing. There needs to be more 'do nothing' time in schools. We don't need perfectly-behaved robots, we need imaginative, productive members of society. And we're not going to get those kinds of adults if we don't let kids be kids.
   Remember: every day your kid has more things to do than you have yourself, the terrorists win.



*     come to find out the line for fun intrudes well across the line for vandalism. It's fun to toss dead florescent tubes from the fifth floor of a church under construction. They explode good, real good. Makes you feel like Zeus.

Litterbug, Litterbug, Shame On You

Pardon the perspiration but I just lugged a 70+ pound book case up three flights of stairs - because the elevator STILL isn't fixed - and I'm sweating like a whore in church.
   Which is kind of my topic. Perspiration, that is, not whores. Or church. It's unseasonably warm in LA today, 80 degrees in Pasadena, and as I was driving home from work I noticed a lot of rolled-down windows with people's arms sticking out of them. A lot. Usually LA driving is hermetically sealed, unless you're in a convertible, everybody in their own little cocoon of metal and glass. But today people were becoming one with their environment, at least the part that jets by at 30 miles an hour. But there was something else I noticed a lot of. A lot.
   The people with their windows down were littering. Brashly and brazenly. Unapologetically.
   I noticed a bus driver lady first, flicking something off her fingers and out into the street. Took her a while to get rid of whatever it was. Not two stop lights later I saw a guy throwing a wrapper out his window. And a guy behind him tossed something out too, which bounced and rolled down Wilshire. I noticed debris-tossing about five more times on the way home, and then another five or six when I picked up the monster book case I mentioned before. All were people who had their windows down, sunning their left arms.
   So I figure one of two things is true:
a)    people who like to litter also like to roll their windows down when it's hot
OR
b)    having a car window down makes otherwise fastidious people into scofflaw litterbugs.

I'm guessing it's a) because I had my window down and I didn't toss one thing out of my truck. Didn't even spit.

COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 35 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 38 days

I'm Still Not Satisfied

I'm fickle.
   I've come to this realization slowly, but I think it's accurate. At least I'm fickle when it comes to work. Let me 'splain.
   I've been at my contract gig for about eight weeks now, and I've been largely unsupervised. Not that I'm slacking off, but what I do is so different from what the others in the office do that they don't know enough about it to give me effective direction. However, having been in charge of contractors before, I know I would do things differently.
   So I'm taking a point away from them for not supervising me or my work properly.
   But today one of the managers was starting to take an interest in what I've been doing, and giving me some minimal instruction and direction. And while I was pleasant and nodded and agreed with what he was saying (I was doing it anyway), in the back of my mind I was thinking 'dude, just leave me alone.'
   So I'm now taking a point away from them for trying to supervise me and my work.
   See? Fickle.
   Either I want them to treat me the way I treated contractors I was in charge of previously, or I don't. I can't have it both ways. But I want it both ways. I want to be unhappy no matter which way my fortunes turn. Can't they understand that?
   Now I'm going to practice for tomorrow. I'm going to resent having the TV on, then I'm going to turn it off and resent it not being on. I'm going to be dissatisfied with my un-brushed teeth, then I'm going to brush them and be unhappy with that too. And then I'm going to be upset with my sink full of dishes, and when I put them all in the dishwasher I'm going to resent the fact that I have to turn it on.
   Ahh... it feels good running a game no one can possibly win.

COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 40 minutes, it took me 20 minutes to go 6 miles. That just ain't right.
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 39 days

Vega$ Opportunity

So I was stuck in traffic today - crap, crap, crapitty, crap, crap - and I was thinking that it would be really cool not to have to drive to get where I wanted to go. Driving's for chumps. And then I got to thinking about how somebody like Frank Sinatra used to take a helicopter between LA and Vegas back in the good old days. And then I got to thinking that I could really use a helicopter of my own, except that I don't have anywhere to park it around my apartment.
   Then I got to thinking, why should I want to be like Frank Sinatra, when I could be him? Figuratively speaking, of course. Sure would beat what I've been doing for the past decade.
   See, back in the day Frank was Vegas and Vegas was Frank. Sure, he was mobbed-up, but even if they were killers, the Mafia kept Vegas running like a top. Now it's all corporate and weaselly and about the bottom line. What Vegas needs is another Frank to come through and clean house. Since Frank is gone, God rest his soul, I'm willing to take up the mantle.
   I look good in a tuxedo - really - and I like to hang out with my cronies and have a good time. I can't sing, not a note, but I'm not gonna let that hold me back. I'm gonna take Vegas by storm, you'll see posters of me where you used to see posters of Danny Gans.
   And I pledge to you, the first thing I'm gonna do as the new Chairman of the Board is put a stop to this whole Celine Dion madness. Somebody has to take charge and it might as well be me. No thanks necessary, it'll be my pleasure.

COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 45 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 40 days

Dirt

I saw a homeless guy today. Which is not unusual, especially in LA, where even millionaires try to look as slovenly as possible. But there was something about this guy that made me notice him. He was in the crosswalk at Third and Vermont, talking to himself as he made his way across the street. His face was deeply tanned - he'd obviously spent most of his time outside - and he was wearing a jacket in the afternoon sun of a 75 degree day. He was worn and weary and thin from what was probably years spent on the street. Again, not unusual. But his feet were.
   He was wearing flip-flops, and his feet were black. I'm not engaging in hyperbole here, they were black, as if he'd walked through coal dust, with paler bits showing through where the grime had scraped off during his wanderings. And I realized that even the filthiest homeless person I'd ever seen in Pasadena didn't have feet that dirty. This guy must have gone weeks without a shower, without either the opportunity or even the compulsion to clean off in a gas station bathroom.
   That's a guy who needs help. And he's obviously not getting it. He's out on the street right now, maybe huddled in the doorway of a vacant office building or hiding out by a dumpster, trying to keep warm when it gets cold after midnight.
   On the rest of the ride home I got to thinking about how I'm sometimes less than satisfied with my lot in life. Things could be better, sure. But I'm living like a king compared to that guy. I have money, a car, a job (for now), and people who care about me and who would help out if I started wandering the street muttering under my breath.
   I got to wondering what choices that guy made that put him where he is, or what choices others made for him. And then I got to wondering what he thinks about his desperate situation when he's talking to himself because that's the only company he has.
   Man, sometimes I wish I was less observant.


COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 45 minutes, stalled car on the 110
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 41 days