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Germany, the summer before I left home for college.
NOTE: My Downtown Year was written in 2004. I will be using excerpts from My Downtown Year in a book about San Diego that I’m currently writing. For more context on its serial presentation on this blog, click here.
Smoked some grass, walked to the video store. Along the way, a homeless man was berating a portly fellow who had kindly enough invited the homeless man into his house. “You fat pig fucker. Bacon-ass bald-headed fucking cocksucker.” It was for the best really. What good could have come of the homeless man accepting Fatty’s invitation? One or both of them would have undoubtedly been disappointed by the encounter. At least this way, Fatty is able to feel martyred, and Homeless Man can put the remembrance of what it is to have a home back into the depths of his subconscious.
It’s really a positive turn of events for Fatty. He’ll never have to give another dollar to a pan-handler again. He will likely live the rest of his life feeling fully justified at looking into a sun-scarred, toothless, unkempt memory of a face and saying simply, “No thanks.” (Note: I meant to start writing earlier in the evening, but of course I had to choose music that would properly stimulate my writing. Obviously it’s all very strange music, stuff you’ve probably never heard of before, so I won’t bother “dropping” any band names.)
And so our lives become parenthetical to their own stories. In this free-market fascism, we are all identical, whether wearing Soviet grey or Gap khaki.
There’s a girl on the bed and it would be so very Hunter S. to say that I don’t even know who she is any more. But today, and for me, I know more about her all the time, but less about myself. And as I know her more, she knows me more, and both of us feel like we know our own selves less for the effort. But we will never know ourselves any more than we do now. We are the illegitimate love children of a failed revolution. And that was so Chucky P. of me to say.
500,000 marched against our Marlboro Man in the streets of New York City this week. The next day, I woke up and drove a fossil-fuel-powered automobile to work. I wasn’t making any more money. I was still tired. I still had to step over drunks and junkies to get to my car. Five-hundred thousand people screamed a collective “FUCK YOU!!!!” and two-hundred-eighty million replied with a resounding “Eh, whatever.” The Million Man March won’t be effective until it’s the One-Hundred-Fifty Million Man and Woman March Apathy is the ultimate mind control.
In rear-screen projection, the car appears to be traveling extremely fast, but in reality it never moves an inch. (Note: My apartment is quickly becoming a museum of Ramen noodles, styrofoam coffee cups and empty cigarette packets. I’m also out of rolling papers.)
Day 3: Our sensitivity has overwhelmed our political sensibilities. I was wrong yesterday when I said that 500,000 screamed a collective “FUCK YOU!” In reality, 500,000 whispered a collective, “fuck you, please?”
London, the summer after sophomore year. That's me with the camera.
After the rain, from the living room.
The most difficult thing about writing, for me at least, is sitting down to do it. It’s strange, because I enjoy writing so much once I’ve started, but I have a hard time clearing the time and physical space necessary to work effectively. One of the fatal errors I make over and over is failing to set my writing space apart from my living space in general. I’m writing this from the kitchen table.
This is a problem for my writing life, and my personal life. I start writing, but to Andrea, it looks like I’m just sitting at the kitchen table, surfing the internet or whatever. So she asks me the sort of inane question all people who live together ask each other, like whether or not I’ve seen her coat, and, in my feeble mind, she’s interrupting me in the middle of a torturous sentence. I lose my train of thought, I get mad, she gets offended, no good. Tomorrow, after my job hunt, I’m making myself a workspace in my grandparents’ bedroom, locked away in the unused back part of our borrow home.
The problem with setting up a dedicated workspace is that I share my writing instrument with Andrea and my other computing activities. Her computer’s on the fritz, so the problem is especially acute right now. I’ve been playing around with an old typewriter, but its quaintness and air of gravitas do not outweigh its inefficiency, at least not for me. So I’ll have to start kidnapping the laptop too. Sorry, baby.
This is a lot of bitching about the minor hurdles I have to deal with. Things are otherwise as good as they’ve been in a long long time. I’ve been vacationing in this house, where Andrea and I are now living, since I was a kid; these are comfortable surroundings for me. The house itself is beautiful, set on a beautiful piece of property with a creek in the back. The kitchen table is actually a great place to write from, I can see the birds pecking away at the feeder, at the food Andrea left out for them.
And here’s why I need to establish a good writing routine, a better life routine, in fact: I don’t want to write about San Diego. I mean, I want to write about, I want to get the story out of me, put it all on paper, sort it out, make sense of it all, put order to it, or write it off as a series of random events, but I hate to think about that city, and everything that happened to me there, and everything I did there, and the noise, and latent violence, heavy in the air as the humidity, as the smell of the ocean. I need the routine so that I can say I gave it my best effort. That I really tried to write that damned story. And if I still can’t pull a coherent story from the mess of my memories of San Diego, after I’ve really assigned myself to the task, well, then I’ll say, “It’s just too soon, I’m still too young.” And I can start writing a different story. But if I keep pecking at this book, writing when I feel like writing, instead of regularly, every day, I’ll be left with a pile of pretty vignettes and a knot of loose strands. That sounds much worse than having to borrow the laptop from Andrea.
Personal Note: Four days off the smokes and counting! Thanks Nicopatch! Kids, never ever start smoking. Ever. Seriously.
March 5, 2009
andrea. ojai. double rainbow.
Whew. Busy few weeks. Andrea and I just moved to beautiful Ojai, California, and between unpacking, cooking dinner, baking goodies and looking for a job, I haven’t had much chance to write. Also, I’m working on a new format, as, now that I’m settled here, this blog is going to be a repository for thoughts on my real project: a novel about San Diego. I’ll post excerpts when appropriate, but mostly I want to use this space to examine my process and to keep my story’s threads from knotting up in my brain. So. New posts coming March 1st, at which point I’ll have two weeks of work to dissect and discuss. Check back then (and before then) for more, and please please please leave comments! Feedback, love it.
February 24, 2009
You look hungry. Eat something.
The moon lies suspended in dark cerulean sky, silhouetting the ridge below. Outlines of treetops are a bushy head of hair on the ridge’s ancient head. The air is sharp brittle cold. I exhale steam and cigarette smoke in a plume like flamethrowers’ breath. I stub out my cigarette and put it with my hands into the pockets of my coat. I walk inside and throw the butt away in the cheap faux-stainless-steel flip-top trash can in the kitchen.
Andrea shakes a panful of ragout across the hot orange glow of the electric stovetop: ”Take that mozarella and throw it into a bowl with half of the ricotta that’s in the fridge, and like half of the gruyere.”
“The gruyere?”
“I mean the chevre. Why do I keep wanting to say gruyere every time I talk about cheese?”
“I keep wanting to say it whenever. Gruyere, gruyere, gruyere.”
I toss the mozarella and the ricotta and the chevre and the contents of an egg into a big plastic bowl. I take the old electric hand mixer from its drawer under the stove. I insert the metal beaters into their respective slots. I plug in the mixer, stick it into the bowl and turn it on low. The machine’s motor whirs to life with a clank and a low whine. The beaters spin slowly, churning the hunks of cheese into lumps and then into a smooth creamy mixture. I knock the mixture clinging to the beaters loose with a series of whacks against the side of the bowl. I press a lever on the mixer and pull the beaters out. I go to lick them clean, but I remember the raw egg and run them under the faucet instead.
“When I was a kid, my mom always used this kind of mixer when she was making cookies, and I would always lick the batter off these things.”
“Me too! I would spend so long, jamming my tongue into all the little nooks and hiding spots!”
“I love cookie dough.”
“Me too!” She gives me a quick peck on the lips. She shimmies her sauce around the pan. ”This is just about ready, will you get the noodles out?”
“Sure.” I take the box of no-boil lasagna noodles from the cupboard over the stove and open the box.
Andrea pours a thin layer of sauce across the bottom of a blue Pyrex casserole dish. Then she makes a layer of noodles. Then a layer of cheese, then sauce, then noodles, then cheese, then sauce, then noodles, then sauce. She puts the full casserole dish in the preheated oven. The warmth that escapes as she opens it feels good, and I follow the lasagna into the oven. I hold my face in front of its glowing red coils, let the heat roll against my skin. Andrea won’t let me turn on the heater. ”Not when you’re walking around in a t-shirt,” she said.
“Look out!” Andrea warns as she shuts the oven door.
“How long ’til it’s done?”
“Like forty-five minutes.”
”Wanna go play some video games?”
“Sure. Do you wanna rock and roll or kill Nazis? Or do you want to play the surgery game?”
“Um, let’s kill some Nazis.”
“Ok, let’s kill some Nazis.”
February 12, 2009
"Are you tired of eating this stuff yet?"
On my last day, I carry boxes of my things with me to the car as I head out the door to work. There’s a spot open in front of the shop, so I park there, feed the meter, and walk inside, mumble-singing the song from the radio, “Two step, and let your shoulda lean.” I say hello to Laura as I walk to the back of the shop. I set my backpack down in the back, grab an apron from the hook on the storeroom shelf. I walk into the bathroom. I look in the mirror, splash some water on my face and smile at my reflection. ”One more day.”
I wash my hands in the sink behind the counter. I wave my hand in front of the paper towel dispenser. It spits out an eight inch sheet of paper towel. I tear it off and wave my hand in front of the machine again. Another eight inch sheet. I tear it off and dry my hands with the two sheets. Laura is talking to someone who looks like her brother. Maybe it’s her boyfriend.
“Been pretty slow?” I ask her.
“No, it was really busy actually. It just slowed down.”
“Wow. Well, the weather’s pretty nice.”
“Yeah… Last day, are you excited?”
“Oh yeah. I can’t wait…”
“I bet.” She walks over to the table, under the pass-through window and starts packing her things.
I look in the gelato case: fresh pan of cannoli, fresh pan of tiramisu, fresh pan of malaga, everything else is about half full. I look in the sorbetto case: fresh pan of pineapple, fresh pan of tropical, fresh pan of pomegranate blueberry, fresh pan of lemon, everything else is running low. I take a spoonful of pomegranate blueberry. It’s cold and smooth, and as it warms the flavor melts across my tongue, sweet and a little bit tangy. I swallow it down.
Laura dons her backpack and walks out with her friend. ”Have a nice life,” she says with a smile as she puts on her scooter helmet.
“Nice working with you.”
She leaves and I scoop a little bit of chocolate sorbetto and a little bit of pomegranate blueberry sorbetto into a small green corn-plastic cup, into a cupcake-like mound. I sit at the little table under the pass-through window with my cup of sorbetto. I run my corn-plastic spatula-spoon over the humping purple-chocolate meridian. The schism smoothes and softens. I round off the hump into a lump, into a bump. I put the spoon, sorbetto-down, on the middle of my tongue, and pull it towards the front of my mouth, scraping the sorbetto from the corn-plastic spatula with my tongue. Each frozen bite slips down my throat like a candy eel.
I finish my sorbetto. I take off my apron and set it on my chair. I walk back to the storeroom and take an Altoids tin from the front pocket of my backpack. I take out one of the cigarettes Andrea left there for me. I put it behind my ear. I walk to the front of the shop. I pour myself a cold cup of coffee from the urn behind the counter. I heat it up with a splash of boiling water from the espresso machine. I walk out to the patio, set my coffee at the small table, in the back corner, and sit down. I light my cigarette. Across the street, I see the woman in the motorized wheelchair, rumbling towards me. ”Goddammit,” I mutter, stubbing out my cigarette, “Goddammit.”
January 31, 2009
You say tomato...
Inside its plastic sheath writhes fifty pounds of shit. The plastic warps as my fingers burrow for grip, threatening to tear and spill its contents prematurely. I grunt and strain and heave the bag of manure on top of two more just like it.
“Stuff smells like shit!” I look at Andrea and smile as I wipe my hands on the legs of my jeans.
“So do you!” She smiles back from on her knees in the loose soil.
I run to her and grab her by the hips and rub my face into the crook of her neck. She laughs and pushes me away, and I laugh and tousle her hair.
“Eeew!”
“Shush! You better get used to bein’ dirty, sweetheart!” I shoot her a grin.
“You’re dirty enough for the both of us!”
“That may be, that may be, but we both gotta spread this shit around.” I pick up the top bag again, set it on end, and tear a hole in the plastic along the bag’s top seam. ”Look out!” With the bag under my right arm, I start sifting forth its contents onto the churned soil. ”You did good baby,” I say, “this looks well broken up.”
“It should, I clawed the crap out of it!” She holds up her hand rake, tines towards me, “Rawwrr,” she says, clawing the air like a jungle cat.
“Rawwr.” I grin, dumping a fine layer of manure over her handiwork.
“Should I start spreading it out?”
“Sure, just don’t spread it too thin.”
“Make sure you dump enough out for me then.”
I empty the first bag, and open the second. Andrea grabs the larger rake and follows behind me, sweeping my scattered leavings into a consistent layer.
“Seeds?”
“Seeds!” Andrea runs into the house and emerges with the seed packets. She fans them out in front of me. ”What you want boo? I got tomato, I got corn, I got lettuce, I got eggplants, what you want?”
I grab the pack of heirloom tomato seeds. ”Tomatoes first.” I tear the top off the paper packet. I empty half the contents into my left hand, and the other half into Andrea’s. I kneel in the ripe top soil. With my index finger, in the corner of the yard closest to the house, where the shade of the eaves will fall near midday, I make a small divot in the layer of manure, in the firmer tilled soil underneath. I wiggle my finger in a small circle, widening my hole slightly. I drop the first tomato seed in the divot.
“How big do you think they’ll get?” Andrea asks.
“How big?”
“Yeah, how big?”
“I dunno, softball size? If we’re lucky…”
“That seems a little big.”
“Maybe baseball size?”
“I’d be happy with that.”
“I’m happy now.”
“You know what I meant.”
“I know.” I put my arm around her waist, and pull her close. She lays her head against my chest and I kiss the crown of her head. ”Let’s plant these seeds baby, it’s gonna get dark soon.”
She lifts her head from my chest and looks at me. ”I love you,” she says.
“I love you too.”
January 27, 2009
I lean my bike against the house and walk in through the sliding glass door. I pant for breath and my stomach churns. A dull ache goes through my teeth each time I inhale. My face is cold and wind stung, my back is sticky with sweat. I walk through the kitchen into the living room and see the back of Andrea’s head over the top of the couch. She’s petting the dog. Iggy stares into the orange glow of the directional space heater, obsessed. I toss my backpack on the scuffed hardwood floor. Thud. Andrea turns around.
“Hey baby!”
“Hey.”
I take the full ashtray from the black coffee table at Andrea’s knees and walk to the kitchen to empty it. The trash can is already overflowing with coffee grounds and pizza boxes and vegetable scraps.
“Fucking bullshit.” I growl.
“What’s wrong baby?” Andrea calls from the other room.
“Nothing.” I reply, “I swear to God, I’m the only person who ever does a God damned thing in this house.”
“Come here baby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I plop into the couch. ”I’m sorry, I’m just tired. Long day. That’s all.”
“Oh baby…” she massages my left shoulder with her right hand.
“I’m so sick of my job. I’m ready to leave. It’s the same thing, every day, I hate it. I hate all the idiots that eat there.”
She switches to my left thigh. “I know baby, but it’s almost done, one more month.”
“I know, I know. It’s so frustrating though. I just don’t care about any of these people I see all day.”
”Babe… You don’t have to be their friend or anything.”
“I know. I can’t even be polite anymore though. It’s getting bad. I feel like an asshole.”
“What did you do?”
”Nothing. Stupid shit, this guy was taking forever to choose a flavor, so I gave him like half scoops in his waffle cone. Not saying “goodnight” to people. Just snarky bullshit. But I hate people right now. I hate it.”
She smiles reproachingly. ”You gave him little tiny scoops?”
I smile guiltily.
”Baby…”
“I just feel so… Un-empathetic. I feel disconnected.”
“Baby, come here, come here.” She puts her right arm around me and gently pulls my head to her decolletage. With my left ear pressed warmly and comfortably into her sternum, she runs her fingers through my hair. ”I’m sorry you had a hard day baby. Just relax, let me pet you. We’ll get you some food, and something to drink… maybe a beer? Huh? And we’ll snuggle up in front of the heater with the pug and watch a funny movie, and I’ll rub your sexy little head. Ok?”
I exhale the day. ”Ok.”
“Ok. Now let mama get up so I can get you some food.” She lifts my head from her chest and kisses it: “Mwah!”
I lean back and close my eyes as she walks away. ”Baby…”
“Yes sweetheart?”
“Thank you.”
She laughs, “For what sweetie?”
“I dunno. For making me feel better. For taking care of me.”
“Oh baby.” She dismisses me with a wave of her hand, “I love you.”
January 12, 2009
At midnight, we stood in a room on the second floor and I emptied a bag of balloons onto the revelers in the courtyard. Then I kissed Andrea. I lifted her off the ground, with my arms around her waist, by her ass. She wrapped her legs around me and put her tongue in my mouth, and I put my tongue in her mouth. Everyone else in the room on the second floor was alone, and I felt bad kissing Andrea so long in front of them. But I kept kissing her anyways. We stopped kissing and I took her by her shoulders and looked in her eyes and told her I loved her. She said she loved me too. I was angry at everyone else in the room, in her room. I wanted to be with her alone.
We left her room and walked through the house. In the living room, a group of Brazilians sang karaoke to a ten year-old pop song. The line for the bathroom split the living room from the kitchen, so we pressed through it. In the kitchen people were talking and mixing drinks. I didn’t know any of them. We walked through the kitchen and out the door. In the narrow side yard were friends from college, leaned along the rickety bare-wood picket fence, smoking cigarettes, making jokes. I said hello to some of them as Andrea and I passed and they said hello in return. A couple I didn’t know passed us going the other way and said, “Happy new year.” I said, “You too,” and took Andrea by the hand.
In the courtyard were more people, milling about, drinking and smoking, talking and laughing. The balloons I had thrown from the window littered the floor, forgotten. Here and there were young men and women too drunk for polite company: the curly-haired boy talking too close to a strange girl, the French girl asleep on a couch next to the dance floor, dreaming a Rubens painting. The music was loud and the constant vibration of bass osmosed easily through the crush of sweating dancing bodies. Smoke and steam rose from the scrum. Through thin layers of fabric, sexes rubbed against one another, against thighs and asses. Andrea and I drifted into the flotsam and danced the jostle. She was beautiful, and we danced without touching, as we always do when the music is fast.
