100 words a day

I am owned by the boat “Augablue.”  She took me to places I only dreamed about.  I skied behind her and scuba–dived beneath her.  I caught fish off her bough and stern.  I saw Bighorn Sheep, the Great Lakes and the lights off Catalina.  My friends and family played behind her, swam, floated, skied, tubed, wake-boarded and toasted her.

My daughter was conceived aboard her.

The “Augablue” gave desert romance to my best friend and her husband.

The “Augablue” means everything to me.

I am owned by that boat.

That boat has new friends and destinations to accompany me…finally.

I’m not a prude, but I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear me curse.  For some reason, I come across as socially conservative, especially in regard to colorful words.  I’m certainly not opposed to them; in fact, I think there are times when they are very useful, but there are other times when they are not appropriate.

My viewpoint is not informed by any specific religious dogma.  I simply have respect for the power of curse words, and I don’t like to dilute that power through overuse.

Unlike just about everyone on reality television, evidently.

I love cowboy films.  Watched one this evening on HBO called “Appaloosa.”  Great movie about everything right and wrong without a great deal of BS involved.  My father and I watched “Shane” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” a couple-dozen times along with “Unforgiven,” “Stagecoach” and ”Red River.”

My dad quietly and subtlety passed along every lesson those “westerns” tried to invoke.  I’m lucky enough to know how to ride, saddle a horse and throw a rope.

Cowboy skills I’ve learned don’t always come in handy.  Lessons learned from watching and listening to my father always do…always will.

The health care debate has degenerated into something one notch below “professional” wrestling.  Both are full of hot air actors and shills who merely play their parts for either money or ego or both.

The real health care issues are raging in my family and most likely yours.  My mother died after a long-time battle with cancer.  Her bills totaled in the millions.

My father is minus one kidney due to cancer and the disease attacks him each day.  He’s been prescribed a chemotherapy drug which will cost him $8,600 a month.  WTF?  Life is priceless, but $307.00 per pill?

Consider this something of a public service announcement. I had a client the other day who worked at a high-end lingerie shop. She took one look at my sorry Victoria’s Secret state of affairs and said, “You should really come in for a bra fitting.”

It’s comforting to have someone besides yourself in charge of making the most of your assets. She picked out bras for me, prodding, pulling and tightening. All harnessed in with my t-shirt back on, the girls looked like they did when I was 18 and I looked like I’d lost five pounds. Genius.

“Make sure you have a good roof over your head,” is one of the many points of wisdom my father’s generation coined.  His generation, you know the one which sacrificed the most, saved the world from evil men and built great products for the rest of the world right here in this country.

My dad is sick from cancer but his engineering mind couldn’t stop thinking about a good roof.  So, yesterday he bought himself a new roof for his 100-plus-year-old- home.  There’s a 30-year guarantee.  He wonders should he have upgraded to the 45-year shingles.  The “greatest generation,” period.

I’m hurtling along a street, racing for the library, when my overstuffed rucksack catches an elderly lady. She loses her footing, topples to the ground, cracking her head.

All is activity. Two passers-by and I get her to her feet. Someone fetches a chair, someone else calls an ambulance.

‘I bet you feel really guilty,’ whines a teenager girl as the paramedics take care of the woman (Sally).

Sally, though, is going to be fine. She waves away my apology from the back of the ambulance, gracious as a queen. Part of me thinks she is almost enjoying the attention.

I’m sitting in a bathroom stall and some guy comes in, talking on his Bluetooth headset.  Not a care in the world, he keeps talking while he does his business.

Is he going to flush? I wonder.  That would totally clue in the person on the other end.

He flushes and continues his conversation, bypassing the sink on his way out.

Ick, I think.  He must really know the person on the other end.  Either that, or neither of them have a sense of propriety.

Oh … pardon me, but I have to set the smartphone down.  Time to flush.

“How would you describe yourself?”  The question every human resource gnome, counselor, therapist, employer and even a serious date asks.  The answers range from typically canned to vague and mysterious, but they’re almost never honest.  The dumb answers to this even dumber question usually involve phrases like “people person, a team player, a listener, a go-to-person.”

On today’s job hunt, resumes are scanned for these ridicules key words and you might even score an interview if you use them enough.

I’ve given serious thought to describing myself and I am comfortable with my answer.  “I’m a hopeful cynic.  No, really.”

There was a point in my life and career when I actually made a living writing.  I’m trying to make that happen again, but there’s something I need to get off my chest.  I have a confession.  I just joined my first writer’s group – ever.

I’m ashamed to admit despite a kazillion published pieces and a sheepskin telling the world I can write, I’ve never sought out a community of fellow scribes.  The group I found has been around for years and is diverse.

And, I didn’t have to say “Hi, my name is Sharkboy and I’m a recovering writer.

I went to a great event the other night and saw Adam Savage, a Bay Area native of “Mythbusters” fame, read some of his writing. He stood up on stage in front of a packed bar (one of the other presenters remarked that only in San Francisco would a literary event be standing room only) and read a stack of notecards. They were 100 wishes. His first wish was “I wish I had a light saber.” His most poignant wish was “Napping on the couch with my dog - I wish every vacation was like that.”

Let’s all make our wishes.

I’ve lived in San Francisco long enough that very few things surprise me. Smoking marijuana in broad daylight in public? Meh. Par for the course. A man walking a chicken? I saw him last year at the Bluegrass Festival. A dad riding his tandem bicycle, jury-rigged so that his four-year-old could be his riding partner.

But on a run this morning, I faced a new scenario. Golden Gate Park. Approximately 10 am, in the Panhandle. Spotted: two homeless guys, not far removed from their pile of sleeping bags under a tree, fighting with swords. Like, REAL swords.

Remember the clover? Remember me wishing that 2009 would treat me better?

I didn’t think it would happen. I’m sorry to all the cynics with whom I have always kept company - I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.

It was at the gayest karaoke bar in the gayest neighborhood in the gayest city in the world. I found the one available, handsome, stable man there. He told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever talked to. Oh, stop. No don’t stop.

He has continued to treat me with the love, respect, and kindness I always dreamed I deserved.

I arrived at work, harried and rushed, half-drunk coffee in hand, to find that someone had booked a last-minute massage appointment. Full disclosure: doing massage is NOT my favorite part of my job.

We sat down in the lounge and chatted about how she was feeling, what was going on with her body, and what she wanted to get out of the massage.

She teared up. “Well, I just lost my husband six weeks ago. So…that’s been hard.”

My annoyance softened. She just needed some healing touch.

When she left, she was smiling. It was so rewarding.

My roommate, after a long-ish period of couch-sitting, video-game playing unemployment, got a job. He’s the assistant general manager at a new restaurant opening up in the Bay Area.

He’s arrived home each night exhausted, having worked 12+ hour day interviewing people - almost one hundred people each day. After interviews, it was time for the hiring calls. In this economy, I can’t imagine playing a more rewarding role: being the person giving someone the news that they have a job, that they can now pay their rent, feed their family, and that their future is secure.

I sat down on the 5 next to bald, white guy with a crazed look on his face.

“Hi, I’m Jerry! What’s your name?”

“I’m Violet.”

“You’re my first Violet! I’m not well, Violet.”

Awesome.  At this point, his attention was mercifully redirected to two guys who boarded, holding burritos.

“Excuse me gentleman, on behalf of the MUNI Burrito Confiscation Task Force, I’m going to have to ask you to hand over those burritos.” The guys just laughed.

“What type of burrito is it?”

My apartment is between two bus stops. I exited my gate and looked left – the bus was already boarding passengers. I made a break for the stop to the right, 1.5 blocks down. I was wearing a skirt and knee high boots:  not the stuff of track stars. I was halfway there when I noticed the bus trundling along 3 feet behind me, honking. The driver stopped in the intersection and opened the doors.

As I boarded breathlessly, a grizzled, toothless, man said angrily, “You know he only stopped for you because you’re cute. He wouldn’t have stopped for me.”

“So, I entered a raffle for a chance to win a date with Joey,” my roommate says.

“Joey…Joey from Friends?” I’m confused.

“Joey from the coffee shop.”

“What?”

“I’m a sucker for supporting independent arts. One of the baristas there is making an independent film. They’re raffling Joey off to pay the crew.”

“I wonder how Joey feels about this? What are you going to do if you win?”

“I’m not sure. He’s very boy-next-door and about ten years younger.”

“And anyone can enter?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I hope you win, or this could end very badly for Joey.”

Work day: completed.
After-work appointment: attended.
Kitchen: cleaned.
Jon Stewart & Colbert: watched.
Legs: shaved.
Dinner: made. (Fresh cherry tomatoes, home-grown basil, garlic-infused olive oil with shredded parmesean and balsamic.)
Robe and nightgown: Donned.
Kitty cats: snuggled.
Wine: poured.
Online shopping: done.

Now it’s time to write. Why is it that EVERYTHING becomes before writing? There are so many things in my life that I feel like I must do. When I feel like I’m just trying to keep my head above water, it doesn’t feel like a comfortable time to write. So I should do it anyway.

Last Saturday, I woke up with a terrible stomachache and blamed it on eating too much at Dinosaur BBQ the night before.  I could barely move.  I’m usually pretty independent, but so sick I had to send my boyfriend to the store.       

Canada Dry Ginger Ale.  NOT DIET.  Warm. 

Saltine crackers. The original box, classic recipe. 

He repeatedly tried convincing me to leave the bed and get a change of scenery on the sofa.

6:00pm:  Moved to the sofa.  First food of the day, four saltines.

7:30pm:  Change of scenery again, as I ran to the bathroom to throw up.   

I subscribe to various freelance writing websites, and always stop what I am dong to read emailed job ads.

I was greatly taken by one from this morning:

Horror torture scripts require someone with experience.

Wow, I think. Do they mean, like, someone with actual experience of torture and horror? I rack my brains. Some of past colleagues have been pretty awful. I lived in Birmingham for a while, once, and that was fairly tortuous. But, on the whole, I’m rather lacking in the torture and horror experience department, and don’t think I can apply.

I liked their ad, though.

Every time a commercial for “The Time Traveler’s Wife” comes on, I get choked up.  A few times, really bawling.

I couldn’t figure out why.  I had no interest in the book, and don’t even think the movie sounds so great.  I like Rachel McAdams, think Eric Bana’s cute, but why the tears? 

Then it hits me.  The song.  Lifehouse, Broken.  It’s one of my running songs. I listened to it repeatedly during long runs. 

It reminds me that this year, the NYC Marathon will be happening without me for the first time in five years, and that really sucks. 

So, here I am, Canary Wharf, the smart heart of London’s financial district. White towers soar up around me, big as mountains. I’m meeting some bankers for an article I have been commissioned to write for a magazine, despite not knowing a thing about syndicated loans. I am also very late. The bankers usher me into their plush meeting room. I tell them about my complete ignorance of all things financial, and can see by their faces that it’s all over.

There’s an email from my editor next morning. And a ‘kill’ fee in the post a few weeks later.

For some reason, I am really creeped out by my mailman.  I’ve lived here for over eight years, but every time I head down the steps and see that mailbag parked West of my building, I cross the street to avoid him. 

I know it’s entirely me.  The crux of our conversations has only been the very harmless “Hey Rose, how ya doing?”  but for some reason, I think he sounds creepy and pervy when he says it. 

If ever I do happen to bump into him, I pretend to be on the phone or furiously digging in my purse. 

It’s late, and I’ve just rolled off the train from London.

My bus home is leaving, so I stand in front of it, forcing it to stop. I have forgotten that, after midnight, the fare goes up to nearly £5. I have precisely £2.27 on me. I empty my pockets to show my lack of further funds, then try to play the lone female late-night traveller, but the driver remains unsympathetic and unimpressed.

I appeal to my fellow passengers’ sense of charity. They look away, as though in pain.

Finally, the driver screeches to a halt. Next to an ATM.

We got my mother an iPod for her birthday. It’s a blue Nano that brother loaded up for her with all the music he had she would like.  I offered to take care of it myself but after considering our respective musical tastes (him: late sixties - early seventies classic rock, me: late nineties angry girls with guitars), we decided his would be better suited.

She called me saying it ran out of juice.  “Do you understand what I’m saying if I say the letters ‘U’ ‘S’ ‘B’?” I ask.  She’s never heard of them.  We might be a while.

I’m waiting by the bus stop, and feeling twitchy. My usual afternoon transport is nowhere to be seen.

An elderly lady comes up to me, muttering something I can’t hear. I frown, and mumble back. Why can’t the old crone leave me alone? Then, suddenly, I understand. She’s offering a ride into town. I burn with shame. The last thing I suspected was a stranger’s kindness.

And so we ride together, and have a delightful conversation. She drives alarmingly before screeching to a haphazard halt. I get out smiling. She has given me a lift in more ways than one.

During an “intimate time” recently, I was distracted when I thought I smelled smoke.

I started a story about a man who is speaking to his sister on his way to his mother’s deathbed. She reminds him of a bicycle accident from their childhood when he fell off his bike and their father swerved to avoid hitting him and ending up crashing into a tree instead.

A version of this happened to me.  Minus the tree. I embellished because I’m creative.   My brother blamed me for breaking Dad and I cried for hours.

Recently I brought this up to my father, he remembered perfectly.  Apparently I didn’t.  Turns out there really was a tree.

What exactly are you looking at?

I know you’re not looking at the hottie on my arm with any sexual desire, because it’s just not that sort of look.

Your look is much worse than that.

Is it the insane height difference?  Or perhaps it’s the age difference that bothers you?  Oh, wait – is it because she’s Vietnamese and I’m Caucasian?

This is 2009, man!  It’s New York City.  If you want something strange to look at, you can definitely beat us.

Besides – I love her, and she loves me.

And you are going to lose that argument every time.

I’m not always on the cutting edge of new words and slogans, but I try.  A new one for me is “foundational friends.”  I like the meaning of the phrase the way it was explained to me.  So much of what I am and things that I believe in are because of these foundational friends.  Friends who know me and love me and will always be around.

My foundational friends aren’t necessarily my oldest (although a lot are).  Some have “only” been around 30 years and a few are fairly new.  A couple I’ve never actually met, although I will.

I wrote a story for my writing class of an estranged brother and sister who are reuniting after ten years.  When they finally see each other they don’t know what to say, so they end up ruminating about the weather.  And that’s how the story ends.  With small talk about a storm.    It’s a terrifically unsatisfying ending, the kind I hate to read but love to write.

A debate raged about it in my class (a debate I don’t dare enter).  My teacher liked it but recommended I “punch up” the last lines.  If only I knew what she meant.

At a former job with a really mean boss, I was ordering custom lampshades for the common areas in an apartment building.

My boss said to go up and down every floor, counting the lamps, before ordering the $1,200 per shade shades.

The doorman told me “Sixteen floors, two per floor.  No need to go up.”

I believed him. 

But while installing the lampshades (with my boss), there were no lamps on the first floor, no thirteenth floor in the building, and no lamps on the four owner-occupied floors.

I contemplated throwing the extra $14,400 in shades into the incinerator.

My housing association has laid on a day trip to the seaside, and I’ve come along for the ride. On the bus home, an envelope is being passed round. I realise I have no money on me, and no option but to feign sleep as the envelope makes its way up the rows of seats towards me.

Thankfully, no-one tries to wake me up.

‘Thanks for your contribution,’ says the organiser, raising the envelope, as I get off.

‘Oh, that’s OK,’ I say breezily.

As I head off, I realise I will know whether or not she was being sarcastic.

One December day in 1996, I was on the phone bickering with an admissions professional at F.I.T., about having to reschedule my portfolio evaluation because my grandmother died.

We were leaving for her funeral, when my sister Mary began furiously pounding on the bedroom door.  I started yelling at her too, when she interrupted to say, “There’s something wrong with Dad!” 

I dialed 911, and yelled down the hall to my sister Maggie, so she could tell me how to describe his condition. 

Before I even started explained it to the operator, I knew it meant he’d had a stroke.

I worked today (a rare occurrence),  and at about 2pm, logged on here and saw a lot of posts.  Then I realized that it must be the day we are posting 10 times.  My email address has been inconsistent and I guess I missed the reminder. 

I emailed Lytspeed to confirm, and wondered how long until I would be home and able to start writing.

The day ended up longer than I anticipated, and here it is 7pm and I’m one down, nine to go.  All dreams of an intricately woven collection of posts have unfortunately gone out the window.   

It’s wonderful to see my friend S, to see her looking so well five weeks after her kidney transplant from her father. Over the sausages and Pimm’s, she tells us about the operation, and how it all went far better than could have been dreamed of. It’s wonderful to hear how her previous symptoms, especially the tiredness, have all but vanished.

It’s rather less wonderful, when we leave, deciding to head off together. A London bus comes into view. Wow, I think, five minutes later. I officially run slower than someone who just had major surgery. How did that happen?

My wife is amazing.  She was forced out of work due to fibromyalgia.  She spent most of a year in bed, dealing with the fallout of missed commitments, eroding friendships, and guilt about not contributing to the household income.

Then she submitted an essay to the National Fibromyalgia Association and won a scholarship to their International Leaders Against Pain conference.  Empowered, she founded the Colorado Fibromyalgia Network, a grass-roots support group, which has now been chosen to host an educational event for several hundred people, one of only ten such events nationwide.

She’s found her calling, and she’s loving it.

Sunday morning and the day stretches ahead, kind of empty. I’m sniffly and weepy because I haven’t seen him in three weeks, and it’s kind of lonely. Even the nice weather seems a taunt.

Then, big stripes of colour run down my laptop screen. Oh, God. Panic runs through me. Where will I get it fixed on a Sunday? What the hell will I do all day?

I turn it off then on again, breath held. It’s fine. Now I can get on with the day. Hey, I think. I don’t believe in God. But did He just do that?

Friday night, we’re discussing where to meet, and there’s talk of pizza. A restaurant, I think. How marvellous.

Meet on top of the clock tower, he Skypes.

For some reason, I don’t register the sarcasm. Maybe I read ‘by’ the clock tower in my haste.

So I sit on the bench by the clock tower, and wait. And wait. Then I get frustrated. It’s Friday night, we should be drinking wine.

Where are you? I text. I’m by the clock tower. Seconds later, my phone beeps.

Doh, he replies. That was a joke. Come to the flat. Have pizza here.

Every two weeks,I walk into his apartment, smiling and waiting for the bear hug.

“How are you?” I always ask.

“Better now,” He always replies.

The routine that follows is soothing and unique and so unmistakably “Us”.  A bottle of whiskey is cracked.  Some delta blues is cranked.  A laundry list of projects materializes and before you know it power tools are screaming.

It wasn’t always this way.  We stumbled and fumbled and made mistakes and misinterpreted and overthought. But now, it’s friendship…pure and simple.  And it only took 15 years to figure it out.

Better late than never.

Three of the most important people in anyone’s life are their doctor, lawyer and mechanic.  Sounds silly but I’m serious.  Most people know their doctor’s name and maybe the name of his med school but nothing more about someone who could decide your ultimate fate.

People like to say “I’ll call my attorney,” when in fact they don’t even know an attorney.  Mechanics can and will cheat you worse than a contractor, especially if they’re related to you.

My surgeon, attorney and car-guy are not just on my speed dial; all three are friends and each one has saved me.

The story about the stabbing came in my RSS feed, with no picture.  They described the the attacker as being tall and heavyset, unshaven, with brown hair.  The description matches my first stepson (or at least it did the last time I saw him.)  I read further and find that the name is the same, too.

No, it wasn’t him, but it does set me to wondering.  This year, he turns the same age I was when I first met his mother.

There’s bad blood; I don’t really want to know how he his.  Yet, I can’t help but wonder.

I thought there was no way she’d be married before me.  Especially since it’s illegal in over 40 states for her to do so.  But it’s not in Canada, where she signed the dotted line.

She really wanted me there; to meet the family she’s formed out in Seattle.  The family she formed when she left.  I did consider it, but mostly I considered how I would say no.

I am happy for her. And her wonderful fiancée.

But a cross-country flight and a weekend in Seattle make for an expensive (and unnecessary) way to witness an ex moving on.

At least once a day, I have to stop myself from chucking my phone at the pavement as hard as I can.

I lusted after it for over a year.  Then I paid $200 for it, and almost another $100/mo just to be one of “them”.

And while I do admit it’s fantastically useful and addicting and pretty and impressive – it’s no where near what they’re advertising it as.

The battery sucks.  You have to reboot it often.  AT&T’s service is deplorable.

Best phone in the world?  Sure.

As long as you don’t actually want to use it or anything.

We went out to watch the Perseids last night, an activity I’ve long done with my kids.  Last night was the first time my wife joined us, though.  We leaned back and watched the sky, holding each other, overwhelmed.

There’s something about being out under the summer sky, with a breeze blowing and earthgrazers leaving streaks between the stars, that draws people together.  Maybe it’s the feeling of comfort we get from connecting with another against the vastness of the universe.  Maybe it calls up ancestral memories of pristine skies, kicking in primal instincts.

Whatever it is, it’s downright erotic.

A professor and mentor gave me a great bit of wisdom when he told me “make a decision and then make that decision work for you.”  Armed with that thought, I left my suit and tie gig, picked up a hammer and joined the ranks of tradesman.  The hotels and casinos I held press conferences in now had my sweat and toil building and remodeling them.

There were many times someone from my PR past would catch me at a jobsite in a hardhat and ask “is that really you?”

My broken down body sometimes misses those suits and ties.