Category: Uncategorized

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there

Why it feels amazing to do something about it.

There was no plane, no audience, no charter smile. In lieu of feeling validated—correct—there was a chancy wonder about, like being lost indefinitely. Boundless by a transitory doctrine, somewhere along 1988 and 2010, driven to Union, between Taylor and Jones, far away.

It’s June and I’m wondering, when will passing pay off? And yet, it felt amazing to do something about it, as though I dove into a dream of geography and curiosity and all their trimmings. Though as I tried to anatomize the last dealings back home, of Dad handing me cash and Mom wrapped in her own arms, the dog sick on the floor, the car packed, the color of the lawn, the front door open, waiting for it all to end, to linger back to calm—I could not recall a conclusion. I can hear Mom’s voice over the phone, Are you ready to come home? like she asked when I played at the neighbors years ago.

But this is the kind of playing you do when you’re trying to grow up and be young at once, and when you’re trying to do something about it. I might wake with speculation, but will later walk out the door without itinerary to any step. Streets become bright with chance. Signs suggest. Crosswalks trickle gravel bit to gravel bit, the buildings’ shadows escalate the contrast of inviting ways. It’s the going, going, going again, amazing, amazing to do something about it. It’s simply amazing.

Then step off the transfer, and I’m lost indefinitely.

SOME DAYS I BERATE myself for being so young, and feeling so young, and wanting to do young things. I am, after all, twenty-two. When my parents were my age they had settled together and began to plan a family, buy a house, set their eyes on future comings and responsibilities. They were two honest, modest young people with love and good intentions. And coming behind them, I saw myself on the same trail.

The path they took eventually lead them to where they are, and gradually, steered me to where I am: realizing that it’s too late for me to take that path. I’ll never be married as young as my parents (22 and 21, respectively), have a child at the same age my mom had her first (24), trading in the car for a minivan. Their lives had long been the stencil for my life, as I set my sights on guys as young as junior high, planning future forever after 9th grade. Options were nonexistent.

Now that I’m twenty-two and I still feel young (and too, näive) I’ve found my recipe is not the same as my parents’ model. While I respect and honor every step they’ve taken, and owe my utmost gratitude to them, I know my future will unroll quite dissimilarly. I’ve shattered my illusions—and perhaps theirs, too—of where I’m going.

It has always been the greatest disappointment to me that I haven’t found my other half. It has always troubled me, deeply, that I could never keep up a relationship as I’ve watched others advance. And it’s always surprised me that when I’m honest with myself—truly truthful—being with someone was never what I needed. Not until I meet myself.

Being in California has me on a kick, to keep rolling along in a future I feel is right for me. I hope to travel straight to my thirties, and if lifestyle allows, if I still feel young, to keep on moving. I want to live abroad before I get married, to spend time volunteering, to have an atypical lifeway, to drive across a country, to feel absolutely scared and exhausted and liberated and lonesome—a whole gamut of emotions that I can view in retrospect as the greatest moments of my youth. I want to feel that I’ve served justice to my intentions. And eventually, when love permits, I will alight.

What’s more is, there is no stencil for any of it.

Cash. That’s what I’m going to talk about for the next 5-10 minutes. Cash, where it fits in my life, where I’m going with it, how I’m strapped for it, looking for it, finding it, feeling it’s ever-present fury.

Somehow, I’ve managed to spend too much money in too little of a time frame. This could have been anticipated (e.g. feeling like I’m on “vacation” all the time) but alas, it’s pinching me more and more as the days advance. I have no job (I’ll get to that in a moment), no sugar daddy (yet), and no intentions of soliciting myself on Broadway to earn a dime. Shopping isn’t even fun anymore when you feel like you’re slitting your wrists to buy a secondhand sweater at “The Best Thrift Store in the World” (or so the sign said). Okay, I’m whining.

Here’s part of the story: When I arrived, I thought it was really cool to buy this $30 bag from American Apparel. I don’t even like American Apparel—they’re A) overpriced 2) overrated iii) over-trendy (really, there’s a point where the geek glasses are beyond ridiculous) and 4) you can’t walk into the store without seeing 12 ladybits poking out of short skirt/vinyl leggings/fishnets/questionable jumpsuit. Their ad campaigns make me sick, and I’m generally not bothered by that kind of thing. At the time I had $30 to blow…so I did. And now I don’t. Bottom line: Stupid.

So I had buyer’s remorse about the purse I purchased from AA. I felt like a tool carrying it around, it had an over-used typeface splattered all over it (read: Helvetica) and I felt like I had contributed to not only a repulsive company, but also a 17-year old AA employee’s paycheck that enabled her to buy (another) shiny rhomper. I’d already ripped the tag off and used the bag for an afternoon, but for my $30 back, there was definitely ways around that.

I got crafty. I affixed the pricetag back on the bag in a tactful way. Then I took the bag back into the store, slapped it on the counter with my receipt, and said “Refund, please.”

The kid that was helping me was, to say the least, ridiculous. I don’t want to judge anybody here—I’m certainly not one to judge—but in oversized yellow plastic “eyeglasses,” (prescription, no doubt) I couldn’t take him seriously. He told me my choices for the return were: EXCHANGE, or store credit.

I wanted to tell this kid—who was easily wearing $200 in AA purchases on his bony frame—that I didn’t want any more of the store’s exploited garbage, just my cash back that I paid for the item. That’s the reason why I was returning the bag in the first place: to buy things that I need, like toothpaste and food. Not to exhange it for some $26 deep v-neck crap. For crissake. He looked at me and asked if I wanted to shop around to exchange. I looked at him. And I felt like he should have felt silly at that moment, in his silly glasses—but it was me that felt downright foolish, and angry for good measure.

I lost. I walked out the door with store credit that I don’t know what I’ll do with. Still poor.

But there’s a happy ending. Yesterday I was walking up Union and craving a fresh peach, decided to cross the street and go to the market before heading home. After purchasing the fruit I continued up the hill, on the opposite side from where I usually trek. I looked down. There, right in my path, a crumpled $20 bill. Not a person in sight.

It was as though Jesus knew that American Apparel was going to screw me over today, and he wanted to prepare me for it.

In a round-about way, I win. And the AA store credit I received? It’s the last $30 I’ll ever spend there. The end.

And finally, I said I’d touch on my job situation. I’ve applied at a restaurant that will remain unnamed, shown up to the restaurant seeking employment five times, spoken with the General Manager twice, had three interviews with three different restaurant employees (they maintain I’ve only had two interviews, no one can figure out who the “Michael” is that interviewed me during my first “second” interview) wasted upwards of an hour of my time waiting for interviewers to show up/locate my application (only to find the interviewer is actually on vacation and not coming in to interview me) and finally, am now waiting for a phone call to have my second “third” interview (which will actually be my fourth interview). When they call—if they call—they’ll “let me know if they’re still hiring.” Needless to say, the whole place is bogus, but I’m broke and will put up with the place for a month and a half if it means redeeming myself financially. And if I don’t get the job? I’m going to lay into the GM. And I don’t do things like that.

Now that I’ve relayed more money talk than Suze Orman (minus the tan), I’ll leave you with this: I saw a tranny today.

Be well, friends.

She lay in bed all night watching the colours change She lay in bed all night watching the morning change She lay in bed all night watching the morning change into green and gold

Many lovely photographs taken this evening (all but last by Sir Adam) on the rooftop. Adam left for Berkeley tonight, so I’ll be on my own in the San Francisco loft for the remainder of summer. It’s going to be strange without him around, as we we’ve been travel companions and roommates for nearly three weeks. This morning we got up early (7:30) for mimosas to celebrate our final day living together.

Adam, when you read this, know that I’m holding myself back from calling and saying, “There’s something wrong. Nothing’s attached at my hip.” You will be missed!

That said, I’m going to call it an early evening (Friday even…kind of disappointing I’m not out clubbing) so I might wake early and make it to the Farmer’s Market at the Pier. I held back from buying produce tonight so I could snag some fresh picks at market. Then I’m off to my internship—which I’ll update on later. There’s a lot going on, kind of.

Take good care and be well, all—

j

I made this movie during winter vacation, 2009…and never finished it. Kind of sad because there was an entire adventure behind it where I braved the cold and six-foot drifts. Oh well, you get the idea.