The Dark Awkward

Because of my wee  bladder,  I spend approximately half my life waiting in line for bathrooms.   But I don’t trip!   If I’ve gotta be there,  I will  find a way to have fun cuz that’s just me. Whether it’s doing a spirited dance to whatever music is playing, or  bragging loudly  to other women that I’m next in line, I always find a vibrant community in the bathroom line.  We are sisters in the struggle!

Except at the Royal Cuckoo one night, where I stood in line with a Total Bitch.

Now.  I use the word bitch quite liberally, to both men/women/children/pets alike.  Like “What’s up bitch, you want dinner?” (said to my cat.) or, …..”Hey bitches, you got any gum?” (said to a group of school kids). Or “You’re one sloppy-hot bitch,” (to my reflection in the mirror, every time I see it.)

My point: In my world, bitch is  always a term of endearment or joyful exclamation,  and never an insult. In fact, I encounter so few actual bitches that I don’t really even have a word for the woman at the Royal Cuckoo bathroom line.]

So, we’re both standing there, waiting in line to pee…Me, and this blonde lady who’s name is probably Kirsten or something.  It’s taking a really long time. So long that I surmised the person in the bathroom, was either shooting up, dropping a death deuce, or painting a fresco with lip-liner.

I leaned  back  against the wall and promised my  bladder sweet relief soon.  EXCEPT THE WALL WASN’T A WALL! It was some sort of flimsy divider thing.. (Sheet? Projector screen? Cardboard?)  This, of course, caused me to stumble backwards, baffled, knocking the screen sideways. Then I started laughing, imagining how it must have looked, because how funny is it when someone leans against a wall THAT IS NOT A WALL?

Kirsten, sensing a disturbance in the atmosphere,  glanced briefly back at me, and then back to the bathroom door. As I brushed myself off, still laughing,   I said to her  “God, what IS this thing anyway?”

Kirsten  then slowly turned her head, looked directly through me for a few seconds, said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and then slowly  turned her head back to the door.

Now, if she’d just ignored me, I might have just assumed she was deaf, and not taken it personally. But she turned, gave me a full look, AND THEN DECIDED I WASN’T WORTH ADDRESSING AT ALL.

Here is a list of things that could have been said, in answer to “God, what IS this thing anyway?”

1. I don’t know
2. It’s a schooner!
3. Appears to be muslin cloth, stretched between two fishing poles. I saw it on pinterest!
4. I don’t know, but I’m about 10 seconds away from kakking my jeggings.
5. It’s a privacy screen. Want to make out?
6. Heh. Beats me.
7. Whatever, hipster
8. (shrugs shoulders)
9. (nervous laugh)
10. (tears!)
11. A portal to another dimension?
12. Your mom
13. MY mom?
14. FUCK YOU, DEMON WITCH CHILD!

Any response would be infinitely better than what I got. Which was basically. “Oh, is a human voice speaking to me? Is it Siri? No, Siri is in my hand, she is always there. Does the speaking human look rich and equal/greater than me in status? No?  DISREGARD HUMAN VOICE IT IS LOWLY AND NOT WORTH ACKNOWLEDGING. COMMENCE TO QUIETLY KAKKING JEGGINGS AND STARING AT BATHROOM DOOR. 

And that’s all I’ve got. Thank you.

Everybody knows, there are no real hipsters left in San Francisco anymore. Only fake-ass hipsters.  The people who still listen to vinyl, collect manual typewriters, or have an autographed copy of The Boomer Bible, are all living in Oakland now. Why would we want to spend all our money on rent, when we could live more cheaply, and still have some change leftover for a jolt cola and a thrift store prom dress ?  Priorities, people.

Anyway. I live in the butt-crack between Temescal and Rockridge, in Oakland. Temescal is where all punk rockers and hipsters go to breed. Rockridge is where all the yuppies go to breed. This means, hella kids everywhere. And on Sunday mornings, they all converge at the Temescal farmers market, in the DMV parking lot.

Though I try my hardest to avoid children whenever possible because they freak me out, I can’t help but love  our small and mighty farmers market. The produce! The music!  The samples…

So, there I am, strolling along the farmers market promenade one recent Sunday morning, sipping on my locally-sourced  $7.00 wheatgrass almond smoothie water. Then, out of the blue, I  become enchanted by a bunch of rainbow chard, and some small purple carrots.  I don’t  know what I’d cook with them, but I know they must be mine! MUST HAVE THE PRETTY.

“Excuse me guys” I say to my friends. “Those vegetables are calling to me. I must fetch them now.”

I stand in line with my spoils, waiting to pay.  Then, I’m beckoned by the goth farmers market hipster cashier, to come forth and make my purchase.

“Chard, carrots…that’ll be a fouresy.” She says.

“A…fouresy? “

“Fouresy,” she repeated, winking at me.

(C’mon Arlene, think!)  With a wheeze and a cough, the gears  of my brain begin to slowly turn…..fouresy. Foursey. FOUR-ESY. FOUR…Oh, damn.  SHE MUST MEAN…..FOUR DOLLARS!

“Ah yes, a fouresy!” I say, chuckling.  “Of course.”

I dig into my wallet, and pull out a five dollar bill.

The goth hipster now has her hands out in front of her. One palm is turned up, one is turned down. (I notice she’s got some fabulous LEOPARD PRINT acrylic nails)…. Sensing that this (like many of my interactions with strangers)  has now turned into a comedy improv skit,  I place the five dollar bill on her upturned palm. She then puts  it in in the drawer, and places a 1 dollar bill on her down-turned palm.

I pluck  the 1 dollar bill from her palm, and wink back at her. (I’m cool! I get what a fouresy means!)

Then, as I start to walk away, she says “Psst. Hey.  Wanna see something?”

I nod my head.

Then, she takes out the five dollar bill I gave her, and points a leopard-print index finger at Abe Lincoln’s eye.

“See this?”

“Yeah,” I say.

Eye of the fiver,” she says.

I beam. ‘DUDE. FUCK YEAH IT IS!” I shout, seemingly  unable to respond in any way other than all-caps bro-down speak.

At once, I see  this is the wrong response. The goth hipsters face suddenly changes —from flirty, to…. concerned?     I turn around, and watch as the other customers in line clutch their tomatoes and fennel a tiny bit closer to their chests, giving me the same “do we need to call a hospital?” look.

Sometimes, I wonder if strangers assume I’m a  tweaker.  After all, I’m white,  with crooked teeth and a birthmark on my upper lip that looks like herpes OR A METH SORE. Additionally, I have a tendency, when flustered or excited, to get blotchy all over my face. Lastly,  seem to have but two distinct modes when out in public: withdrawn/observant, or REALLY SPASTIC.
“I—I’m okay!” I shout to the rest of the line.   (AS IF THIS IS REASSURING.)   “I’m okay. Just buying some vegetables!”  (“Definitely not on meth!”)

And then I run away.

On Monday morning,  a transformer blew up in El Cerrito,  and knocked out the power grid in a large chunk of the East Bay-including–my office in Berkeley!  

After I did my office-managerial  duty of  reporting the outage to PG&E (who said the outage was likely to last 3 hours or more) , I sat at the front of the office  with the rest of our staff, who were chatting, dozing, and gazing at their phones.

“Awesome” I thought, smiling to my phone.  “Nothing I can do now but get caught up on all of the latest news and gossip.”

Then, my boss came over. (cue the  sad trombone)

“Hey. I was thinking this  might be a good time for that  printer project” he said to me.

Even though what he said made made no actual  sense, I somehow knew what he meant. See, my  boss just had his second baby about a month ago, and has not likely slept since February.  Therefore, I’ve cut him a tremendous amount of slack for saying the occasional wacky thing.

What he meant to say was “Because the office is in complete darkness right now, we should probably move those heavy  file cabinets around–the ones we talked about rearranging  last week.”

“Yes,” I said,  grabbing my flashlight, and making my way to the server room, where our hand-truck lives. 

The next hour was spent pushing, and hauling heavy shit  around  in  near- darkness.   At one point, as we took a moment to catch our breath and  wipe the sweat from our faces,  my boss  said “You know…it’s funny how the eyes adjust to the darkness. I saw this documentary where they researched how people’s brains react to sleeping in a different bed for the first time. Turns out, half of your brain is always awake and that’s why it’s hard to sleep in a new bed.”

“Hmmm,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I  have no idea what that has to do with eyes,” he said. “Are you ready for the next haul?”

“Ready as ever.”

After about an hour, the electricity was turned back on, and I was left with the task of purging and  reorganizing all of the office supplies  I’d emptied from the file cabinet. So many things from the ancient days! Rolodex files, yellowing labelmaker tape, etc, etc. But by far, the greatest discovery, was the magnifier sheet I found between two old crusty hanging file folders, made by the now defunct company Market2Lead.

“Whoa!” I said looking through it. “Another dimension!”

Of course, it didn’t take me long to figure out that taking an instagram  selfie with the magnifier sheet  in front of my face is about the best way to take a selfie because it makes me look huuuuuuuge.

So,  I  “borrowed’ the magnifier sheet and took it home with me that night, to do some more photo experiments. More fun than a bag of expired fireworks! Sigh.  If only Market2Lead knew what joy they brought to my life for a short moment. And how much joy still remains. 

 NOTE: NONE OF THESE PHOTOS USE ANY KIND OF FILTERS! 

Sketch comedy that never happened.

An idea for a groovy 70’s musical.

Prompted by a late-night visit to a chinese restaurant, and my friends subsequent food poisoning from crab rangoon.

Though I haven’t actually written any new rap songs in several years, I still get inspired as hell.

This note is perhaps the biggest mystery of all.

Hypotheticals.

I’ve been violently scouring my iPhone for things to delete, because my storage is so shitty, and came across all these strange little gems in my iPhone notes. Some of them are ideas. Some observations. Some are conversations I had with my friends. Some I have no recollection of typing, and assume they were done under the influence of a substance.

So here. Enjoy a little glimpse into the everyday workings of the mighty pea that is my brain. (Note: this is the first in a series.)

Note: The next note refers to my birthmark, which has often been mistaken for oral herpes  BUT IT IS NOT.

Enter a caption

I visited a Sonoma  winery a few months back, for my friend Audrey’s birthday.   It was a dreamy Sunday  afternoon.  We wound our way around the countryside—stopping to pick apples at an orchard, petting goats  and eating cheese at a local creamery, and finally,  visiting a winery.

My friend Audrey doesn’t really drink.  She said she “just liked the idea of visiting a winery”  for her birthday.  She also went through great lengths to find a winery that was not too hoity toity or expensive for us. And so, there we were, four women,  standing at a table at the least hoity toity winery in Sonoma, while a man eerily resembling Mitt Romney poured tiny glasses of wine for us to try.

Audrey, who was standing to my right, took a teensy little  sip of each wine pour, but gave me her leftovers, which I gulped down with all of the gusto and elegance, of a frat bro at a beer pong table.  This also meant that, in the span of about six  minutes, I drank the tiny glass equivalent of about three full glasses of wine.

“Yummy!” I shouted, after swigging each one.  “Super grapey!” and “Ooh, that one is very nice as well. Good job!”

I love wine.  But, I’m  not a wine snob by any stretch. Usually, I wind up choosing a wine based on the bottle design, with a predilection  towards  animals, wizards, gypsies,  snowmen,  pretty ladies,  or colorful kaleidoscope swirls.  Red is red, white is white, and when they are coursing through my veins, I become aggressively friendly.

As we neared the end of our wine tasting, a question popped into my head, and just flew out my mouth.

“How many grapes does it take to make a full bottle of wine?” I asked Mitt Romney.

“Wow, uh….You know,  I’ve never been asked that before,” He said.

“I’m surprised! I would think you’d get this question all the time.”

“Nope, never.” He said.

I slowly  turned around, and fully  cased my surroundings.   Lots of white people with carefully cultivated tans. Old men who smelled like freshly minted money.  Burberry skirts, triple-lacquered mahogany toenails. Quiet, murmuring people. Sophisticated folk, who probably asked  questions like “What is the undertone of this bouquet?  Elderberry? Oh, marvelous.”   Or “This  chardonnay is simply stunning. I must have it for Ashton’s bris! What do you think, too bold? Maybe a grigio?”

“Hmm.” I said to Mitt. “I guess it’s a mystery.”

“I guess, about…a thousand grapes?” He answered, hoping this would satisfy me. It didn’t. But also, it didn’t matter because a new thought fell out of my mouth.

Hey, do you know what would be really cool?” I asked Mitt.   “If there was a winery where people could stomp their own grapes. Like, you stomp them, and come back in a year and then you can buy your own home-made wine! Don’t you think people would love that?”

My friends murmured their approval of my idea. They know me, and they know  that I have genius business ideas about every 3 minutes.   Mitt Romney, however, was not amused.  I’d apparently crossed his wackadoodle  line.  He then went on autopilot, and  refused to make eye contact with me, or acknowledge me  for the rest of the pouring.

“Wow, you really got on that guys nerves,” said Audrey, as we left the winery.

“I know! Now I really want to know how many grapes goes into a bottle of wine.”

“Let’s hit the next winery and ask!”

For a minute, I became enchanted by the idea  of hosting my own reality show—where I tour California’s wineries and ask the same dumb question, seeing how people react. Even though I might need to check myself into a Betty Ford clinic when the show is over, wouldn’t it be totally worth it?

(The answer is 687 grapes, by the way.)

So I’m laying face down on a table, at a massage clinic in SOMA.

It’s a rainy Saturday morning, a little after 10. The light in the massage room is gray. There are no himalayan salt lamps, no zen waterfalls,  no statues of buddha in the corner beckoning me to the land of relaxation. There’s no aromatherapy shit either.    The massage room smells  more like the DMV—of waiting lines, busted pens, and ink stampers. But what kind of ambiance do you expect of a $30.00 massage groupon, I ask you?  Perspective helps.

“So, I  have a statement, and a request,” says  Jeff, the massage therapist, clearing his throat.

“Sure,” I say.

“The statement is…. I don’t like new age music, so I’m going to play Andrew Bird.”

“Okay,” I say trying to mask my  slight disappointment. Though I would never buy New Age music, and make fun of Yanni whenever I have the opportunity,  I always hope for  some enya or tibetan bells  up in that bitch.

But I like Andrew Bird too. And believe it or not, I’m really good at just being quiet and listening to music. So, that is what I decide to do. Just remain silent, enjoy the music, and get ready for some deeply relaxing moments.

“Thanks,” says Jeff. “So the request is…Since we had a  bit of a late start (it was me that was late, y’all!)  I’d like you to get dressed quick like a bunny,  after the massage.”

“Like a bunny…” 

Maybe it was the  half-slurred, rusty delivery of the  words  “like a bunny”, but I was reminded, suddenly of Bobby Peru, the deranged criminal  character in the movie Wild At Heart (Played by the brilliant Willem Dafoe). His scene with Laura Dern in the motel  room  where he  says to her, in a husky voice while licking his giant rotting gums “I bet you can fuck like a bunny, huh?”  is pretty much the skeeviest scene in a movie EVER.)

Speaking of creepers. Yesterday,  I had a big work event. As our office event coordinator, it’s my job to make sure all of our speakers are rounded up and the program runs smoothly. In the span of about 15 minutes, at least two different guys, both of them high-ranking (and married!)  public officials,  got all  weird-ass on me. One guy held a hug with me for a little too long, and said I inspired him to play the trombone. (ruh?) The other guy, after negging  me hard  about not having an official podium for the speakers, tossed his head at the jazz band, and said “So which one of those guys over there is your boyfriend?”

I’d like to say I’m a an awesome feminist, and have a breezy way of asserting my boundaries and letting a guy know when he’s crossed the line with me. But I often am so surprised when it happens I have no response other than to laugh nervously, maybe spit something generic. Then, I  go home and disinfect the fingernail gouge wounds in the middle of my hand—born from the death-grip fist that is so often my trademark in situations like that.

“I’ve got another request,” says  Jeff. “Or, more like an observation than a request.”

I brace myself for something like “Did you know you’re kind of a chunkmeister? Or
“There appears to be a  necrotic pinky toe growing out of your shoulder. FYI.”

“So, it  appears that you actually didn’t get between the two sheets. ” Says Jeff.

“Oh.  I see. So I am.”

Seems a simple enough task.  Get between two sheets.  Readjust.  But as I feel my way around the massage table, I discover that, THERE ARE NOT TWO SHEETS. Just one really   craaaaazy  sheet with multiple corners.  How is this possible?

After about a minute, Jeff knocks at the door. “Hi. Are you ready in there?”

“Uh…just a moment,” I shout. Panic sweats break out on my forehead. Must solve problem!   The next 10 seconds whip by in a white blur as I wrestle, punch, throttle and thrash the sheet, willing it through the sheer force of my  sudden insanity, to become two sheets. Then, I wind my body around the sheet, and flop back down on my stomach, in defeat.

Jeff is silent for a moment when he walks in. This is because I’m probably  looking less like a massage client, and more like a hysteria patient from the 1800’s. (Or a really badly wrapped burrito—pick your metaphor.)

He tries, ever so gingerly, to help me get free of the tangled mess I’ve created out of whatever was left of the sheet. But it’s no use.  After a few minor adjustments,  I’m back to where I started five minutes ago: Under the big  weird sheet.

“Let’s just, uh…move on from here,” he says.

“Sounds good,” I say.

Once again, I try to relax, as Jeff starts kneading the area between my shoulder blades, where my sad lumps are the most abundant.

“You know…” says Jeff, pressing on my back. “I saw Andrew Bird once at the blah blah club in New York.”

“Hmm.” I say.

“Yeah. I even got to meet him once, at the something something festival. He’s cousins with my friends niece.”    

I’m hoping that Jeff’s slow gravelly  voice  will soon fall silent. I want peace. I came here for peace. PEACE!

“So…how about you? Do you have any allergies or anything?”  He asks.

I clear my throat, and say, into the pillow “Is it okay if I don’t talk during the massage? I’ve had kind of a rough week.” (which is no lie.)

I manage to relax just slightly, after Jeff shuts up. The only thing he says to me, for the rest of the massage, is this (as he’s holding both of my feet): “Oh, Arlene. You have no idea all the good things that are  coming your way.”  Which is kinda weird,  but hey,  I’ll take my blessings from wherever they are flung, thank you. 

Mystery Crud!!!!

My mind, it doesn’t whir so fast sometimes.  Black crud? What could it be?  Could it be…some sort of herbal concoction that Jeff added to his massage lotion? If so, why wouldn’t he ask me if it’s okay to use his freaky herbs on me? Black crud…. Was it something I had on me before I came to the clinic? Did I black out and roll in an ashtray at some point? Am I sprouting some kind of fungus? IS IT LEECHES?!”

I take a piece of the crud off my shoulder, and examine it carefully in the light.   I conclude, it’s definitely synthetic, and not vegetable or root based. Vinyl.

I look back where I’d been laying for the last hour, and see, aha! The  black vinyl massage table is disintegrating.  So….. Disintegrating vinyl, plus bare skin, plus massage lotion, equals me.

When I go to pay Jeff his tip for the massage, I notice he has an enormous booger hanging out of his nose. Damn. That’s the icing on the awkwardness cake right there.

And with these savory thoughts, and images  in my skull, I set out to the ferry building for some lunch.

I went to the San Francisco  ferry building on a recent  Saturday, around lunch time. Normally, it’s not my jam  to squeeze myself into throngs of slowly, or erratically moving people—especially if I’m hungry. When I’m hungry I’ve got no patience for jumpy kids, dawdlers, or senior shoppers with too many  bags.  CLEAR THE WAY! I always want to shout. MOUTH NEEDS URGENT FEEDING!

I was a little out of it.   A half hour earlier,  I got a really weird massage at a massage clinic in SF.  Not pervy! Just weird, awkward,  and terribly uncomfortable. (Story to come…) Suffice it to say, after the massage debacle, all I wanted to do was grab an overpriced lunch item from one of the many food vendors, smash it into my facehole, and jet back to Oakland post haste.

Because it was cold and rainy,  crowds at the ferry building  were thicker than usual. And since it was lunch hour, every single place had a long  line—except for this one place selling chili.

Chili! Always a sure win for me.

As I waited at the counter  for my chili bowl, I noticed one of the cooks kept  smiling at me.  He was a young, cute dude in his 20’s with twinkly blue eyes. Awww, I thought. The little dude must think I’m foxy! Too bad I’m not into young dudes anymore.

After a few more moments passed, the chili dude walked up to the counter. He had something in his left hand that appeared to be a wadded up napkin.  He carried it to me tenderly, like it was a baby bird or something.

“Hey,” he said, winking at me, and extending his hand. “Try this.”

I’ll admit, I’m not a lightning-fast real time processor. However, by cobbling together the few available  pieces of data on hand,  I was able to form a deduction about what was happening within a few seconds.  The deduction:  THE CHILI DUDE  IS GIVING ME A VERY SPECIAL TREAT concealed in a wadded up napkin. And the reason he is doing this, is because he thinks I’m foxy AND DOESN’T WANT TO MAKE OTHER CUSTOMERS JEALOUS by showing favoritism. Ha!

I grinned wide and gazed  at the napkin, then back at the chili dude. What could it be? A special chili dumpling? A piece of rare cheese? A chili bean in the shape of Elvis? His phone number??

I reached out my hand, and took what turned out to be nothing more than a cold, wet wadded up paper towel. No special beans, no rare cheese, and certainly no concealed romantic overtures.

I must have looked extremely crestfallen and/or confused, because the chili dude said “It’s for…your coat.”

“My…. coat?” I asked.

“Yeah, you got a little chalk on it.”

“A little chalk”…… was a gross understatement. On my black rain jacket was a COMPLETE CHALK MENU.  Which was especially strange, because the chili place didn’t have a chalk menu at all!  Meaning, I must have rubbed up against a chalk menu somewhere else in the ferry building, and was way too distracted by hunger, and dodging people, to notice. Awesome.

“Thanks,” I said, wiping the chalk off my coat, and feeling the old familiar flush rise to my face.

“No problem,” he said, winking again.

After I finished  off the chalk, the chili guy asked me if I wanted a dry towel to finish the job. By then, I had my chili, and just wanted to quickly, and quietly disappear to feed my face.

“Thanks!” I said, scurrying away.

About halfway through my chili bowl, I got  thirsty.  I suddenly  remembered I’d also bought a bottled water at the chili place, BUT IN MY HASTE TO LEAVE THE SCENE OF EMBARASSMENT I left it there on the counter.

I know it’s a dumb thing to do (especially since ferry building water runs about $5.00 a pop)   but I didn’t go back for the water. After the scene with the jacket, and my earlier awkward massage incident, I just wanted to get as far away from people as possible. Not to protect myself, but to protect them from my complete ineptitude at navigating the physical world.

I hopped the quickest train to Oakland.  When I took off my coat, I could still see a faint, backwards chalk outline for some kind of quinoa bowl. Hey, only $8.99! …….Or is that, $9.98?