It went totally dark on the bus. “ Let me off ta bus to go smoke a cigarette,” said the man in a deep baritone voice in the back of the bus. Probably about three rows behind us. “This is annoying,” said Abina. Yes, it was annoying, for today was the unluckiest day ever. I had moved back to New York three months earlier for no better reason than that was the plan I had made three months before that. Abina was visiting from Chicago where I lived for those three months.
“The mechanic is on the way,” the driver said.
I sighed, but knew it was only another step towards what ultimately would be my death. The lights flashed on and above our heads six televisions showed six different RGB settings of a Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant film. The total and complete lack of chemistry between the two made the film even harder to ignore, because I started to think about what they did during the filming that was obviously more interesting than the job on hand. Then it went dark on all parts of the bus.
A new bus arrived and we piled out and onto the second bus, it had been traveling for a long time. The smell of the puke didn't hit us until we sat down 3 rows behind it. Before we got on the second bus we saw a mass of black birds flying over the TA truck stop. I had made a list of all the bad things that happend that day. Here is the list.
12:00 AM QuickTime Edit Failure, lose 3 hours of work
1:00 AM Drag everyone out to bar
2:00 AM Harassed by "Bruce Willis" type bartender
3:00 AM Got stinking drunk
4:00 AM Stumble home - eat too much, lose Peter on the way
5:00 AM Wet bed - or seemed to
6:00 AM Throw back out
1:00 PM Leftovers were too cold, heartburn hot
2:00 PM Woke up with hangover again
3:00 PM Forced to make bacon and eggs omelets
3:10 PM Burned omelets
3:20 PM Forgot to put mushrooms in omelets
3:30 PM Informed Abina doesn't like olives in omelets
3:40 PM Dad expects us in Washington, D.C. by 3:00 PM
3:45 PM Missed 3:00 PM bus
4:30 PM While relaxing (sleeping) on can, repeatedly informed that it was 4:30 PM, with implication that we missed 5:00 PM bus
5:00 PM Close examination of skin/face
5:10 PM Attempt to install CD-R software to burn video "The 3rd Day" to disc fails
5:30 PM Sew button on jacket, then discover jacket is covered in stains
6:00 PM Computer CD-ROM drive stops working as a result of CD-R software instillation
6:05 PM After switching to Zip drives, discover all of my Zip discs are full of images that I need to copy to hard rive before deleting
6:10 PM Romantic fog turns to crappy rain
6:15 PM In Taxi, attempt to take photograph but battery dies
6:16 PM Replace battery but taxi stops at bus station
6:16 PM Step out of cab into puddle, sock wet
6:20 PM Buy ticket, experience awkward misunderstanding around "Belle" that denotes a cultural clash of aesthetics
6:25 PM Get in line for Silver Spring, Abina goes for water, line immediately moves forward to load bus- I curse "Where the fuck is she?"
6:30 PM Single TV on bus casting sickly purple radiation - it never turns off
7:30 PM Bus begins to stop every 20 minutes to wait on side of road for 20 minutes we never know why - driver ignores passengers
8:00 PM Attempt to write story "the most unlucky day" on laptop battery dies
8:15 PM Must pee
9:00 PM Interrupted every 5 minutes while trying to finish list
9:35 PM Bus finally collapses in truck stop, wait 30 minutes for new bus
10:00 PM Fight way on to new bus
10:15 PM New bus has a pile of vomit in last seat that is 3 rows back, everyone smells it
Abina made a list of all the things she thought were great about the day. It was half as long.
8/28/2004
I Get A Hair Cut
I ran around the block from work, thinking I can get a real cheap fix on my current hair problem. It was outgrown in all the wrong places, not giving the kind of impression I would like. I looked like a scrub. I had been there before. That time a 19 year-old barber palmed my head like a basketball while concentrating heavily on creating a perfect line while ignoring the greater whole. He spent 75% of the time on the "back." As in "how do you like da back?" I had picked up the term "natural" as a way of saying no geometric patterns.
He made a perfect line that delineated the connecting border between the back of my head and top of my neck while pushing my skull deeper into it. It was almost too much, between the vice grip on my head and the chisel work on my neck, I nearly freaked out. I didn't say anything to him about it though. I was scared. Or maybe I hoped he would hear and see my discomfort, somehow recognize me as being part of the same human community. I don't like criticizing people about their careers anyway.
I walked into the 6' by 25" room right next to a Juice shack that has a similar layout. I see new 19-year old kid reading the Daily News and a Slavic woman in her early 40's. No brainer. The women vacates her chair and I sit down. "Short on the sides, and if you could thin out the top." I guess I don't give off the most charming vibe when getting my haircut. I am strictly business. I don't chat, or attempt to ingratiate myself. My Social Anxiety Disorder prohibits such familiarity in a public space.
She begins very well, the way she lays out the apron, a gentle touch. I take my glasses off and practice my Clint Eastwood squinting. After the first pass with the electric razor, I sense something is about to go wrong. I start to get nervous. I smell beer on her breath. I am expecting the back/sides razor pass, then the ears and "back", then to the thin out the top with water, scissors, rush, then part and taming of the errant strands. She is stuck on the ears! Time is running out and she can't get past the ears. She goes from one to the other making the most microscopic advances to my hairline, as if it were a team of mountain climbers making a difficult ascent. Bit by bit.
I started thinking about good barbers. How they are gentle but strong. They are decisive. They understand the nature of hair and know how to work with it. They don't fear consequences. I am getting very nervous now, and know it will end badly. She doesn't seem to notice my growing anxiety until the owner of the barbershop comes in, puts on his smock and sits in the chair next to the one I am in. Now everything is tense, she speeds up. She gets past the ears and goes straight to the top with only the most perfunctory glance at the "back." Suddenly, I feel all the frustration of her life pouring into me through her fingers and implements for the next 60 seconds. She doesn't want to cut hair, she hates hair, and she hates the people whose hair she has to cut, she hates her boss, she hates the 19 year-old brat that has the better chair, she hates it all! She sets down the scissors and picks up the blow dryer, a signal that she is done.
I look retarded, I mean really retarded. The sides slope up like a grass hut with a radish garden on top, my bangs hang like a rusted collapsing rain gutter. Before she can yank the disposable fabric softener sheet like tissue from my neck, I ask if she can buzz the top. She goes back to the scissors and commences round two. My hair is losing the fight. I wait for a break in the melee to be clear that I would like it cut the same length as the sides. A tempest arises. Things are tossed around with disgust, then she shaves my head like a child erasing a drawing it was unhappy with, while exchanging terse comments in Czeck with the owner. "You szould have said four" is the final sentence of that conversation, she says directly at me, accusingly, "For next time, by number, four." The owner joins in now " If you want that hair cut."
At once, depressed and pissed off I respond, "I didn't want a number four." But now I have one. I went from scrub to County Jail escapee in under 20 minutes.
He made a perfect line that delineated the connecting border between the back of my head and top of my neck while pushing my skull deeper into it. It was almost too much, between the vice grip on my head and the chisel work on my neck, I nearly freaked out. I didn't say anything to him about it though. I was scared. Or maybe I hoped he would hear and see my discomfort, somehow recognize me as being part of the same human community. I don't like criticizing people about their careers anyway.
I walked into the 6' by 25" room right next to a Juice shack that has a similar layout. I see new 19-year old kid reading the Daily News and a Slavic woman in her early 40's. No brainer. The women vacates her chair and I sit down. "Short on the sides, and if you could thin out the top." I guess I don't give off the most charming vibe when getting my haircut. I am strictly business. I don't chat, or attempt to ingratiate myself. My Social Anxiety Disorder prohibits such familiarity in a public space.
She begins very well, the way she lays out the apron, a gentle touch. I take my glasses off and practice my Clint Eastwood squinting. After the first pass with the electric razor, I sense something is about to go wrong. I start to get nervous. I smell beer on her breath. I am expecting the back/sides razor pass, then the ears and "back", then to the thin out the top with water, scissors, rush, then part and taming of the errant strands. She is stuck on the ears! Time is running out and she can't get past the ears. She goes from one to the other making the most microscopic advances to my hairline, as if it were a team of mountain climbers making a difficult ascent. Bit by bit.
I started thinking about good barbers. How they are gentle but strong. They are decisive. They understand the nature of hair and know how to work with it. They don't fear consequences. I am getting very nervous now, and know it will end badly. She doesn't seem to notice my growing anxiety until the owner of the barbershop comes in, puts on his smock and sits in the chair next to the one I am in. Now everything is tense, she speeds up. She gets past the ears and goes straight to the top with only the most perfunctory glance at the "back." Suddenly, I feel all the frustration of her life pouring into me through her fingers and implements for the next 60 seconds. She doesn't want to cut hair, she hates hair, and she hates the people whose hair she has to cut, she hates her boss, she hates the 19 year-old brat that has the better chair, she hates it all! She sets down the scissors and picks up the blow dryer, a signal that she is done.
I look retarded, I mean really retarded. The sides slope up like a grass hut with a radish garden on top, my bangs hang like a rusted collapsing rain gutter. Before she can yank the disposable fabric softener sheet like tissue from my neck, I ask if she can buzz the top. She goes back to the scissors and commences round two. My hair is losing the fight. I wait for a break in the melee to be clear that I would like it cut the same length as the sides. A tempest arises. Things are tossed around with disgust, then she shaves my head like a child erasing a drawing it was unhappy with, while exchanging terse comments in Czeck with the owner. "You szould have said four" is the final sentence of that conversation, she says directly at me, accusingly, "For next time, by number, four." The owner joins in now " If you want that hair cut."
At once, depressed and pissed off I respond, "I didn't want a number four." But now I have one. I went from scrub to County Jail escapee in under 20 minutes.
8/26/2004
On the Radio
I woke up to NPR on the clock radio. As I moved up, the story I heard was about the US Army finding a depot of missiles, grenades and suicide belts. A suicide belt is a belt that has explosives around the waist that are triggered when the suicide bomber raises both arms above his head. They reported that one belt was found to have blood on it. The supposition is that an Iraqi insurgent was shot while wearing the belt, so he returned to the depot, discarded the belt and I assume went to go get help.
Later I thought who could this person be? This man, who when shot and bleeding, felt that it was not the time to blow up. What did his friends say? Did they taunt him for not having resolve, or did they try to console him with statements like, "There was no way you were getting close enough to that Hum V, it wasn’t worth the try" or " They would have blown you up, long before you got close.”
I was thinking these things when flossing my teeth. I had moved to the bathroom to begin the hygiene routine.
Flossing can change your life, and at this stage, when I feel like I am loosing all sense of control over mine, flossing has grown in significance and stature in my world. It is more than just a noble activity; it is a solitary process with obstacles and rewards built in. Like rock climbing. Flossing has tools, styles and methods. I use Original Glide Floss - 50m from W.L. Gore & Associates from Flagstaff, Arizona. It has a smooth waxing surface that slips easily between the hooks of my teeth. Most would laugh at this amateur product, made for trainees. The real pros I guess use thick round tough garroting wire.
What made me have these thoughts was the hole in my back upper left wisdom tooth. I had been told by my dentist and her fellow assistants that I was “losing bone.” To this day, I do not know what “losing bone” means, but she planted the idea that my wisdom teeth, which had given me only minor trouble for 35 years, had to go. To bad for her, it was another dentist that did the work, but all the while I was losing bone, so I began an assault on decay. With electric brush and miles of floss. I won’t lie and say I have been doing this all my life, only after I got an office job where I sat in a real office cubicle, doing real office things did I start paying significant morning time on these bits of bone. I have a set program like most people. I hit all four back corners for they are the most fruitful raising my arms and shoulders up as I reach to the back of my mouth. More like lunging. Then in between the canines, then past canine back to the back of my mouth starting the cycle over again. For the second round can be as bountiful as the first.
When I was younger I dreaded flossing because of the blood. The copious amounts of blood that would show vividly on the white porcelain. Each spit a slash of red. It was shameful. With each sporadic attempt I would literally cringe at the idea of someone walking in, of someone seeing the sink full of blood. I was reminded of this shame, as the radio description replayed in my head. “…Marines found blood on the suicide belts in a warehouse siege today…” I thought of a certain kind of belt. Like the UN peacekeepers wore in the movies in the 1950’s. They are white with a shoulder strap and large box like pouches along the sides, that I guess held ammunition. I see them in my head, made of white leather, shiny, bright and polished. With a splash of red and a man running away, cringing from pain, or shame.
Later I thought who could this person be? This man, who when shot and bleeding, felt that it was not the time to blow up. What did his friends say? Did they taunt him for not having resolve, or did they try to console him with statements like, "There was no way you were getting close enough to that Hum V, it wasn’t worth the try" or " They would have blown you up, long before you got close.”
I was thinking these things when flossing my teeth. I had moved to the bathroom to begin the hygiene routine.
Flossing can change your life, and at this stage, when I feel like I am loosing all sense of control over mine, flossing has grown in significance and stature in my world. It is more than just a noble activity; it is a solitary process with obstacles and rewards built in. Like rock climbing. Flossing has tools, styles and methods. I use Original Glide Floss - 50m from W.L. Gore & Associates from Flagstaff, Arizona. It has a smooth waxing surface that slips easily between the hooks of my teeth. Most would laugh at this amateur product, made for trainees. The real pros I guess use thick round tough garroting wire.
What made me have these thoughts was the hole in my back upper left wisdom tooth. I had been told by my dentist and her fellow assistants that I was “losing bone.” To this day, I do not know what “losing bone” means, but she planted the idea that my wisdom teeth, which had given me only minor trouble for 35 years, had to go. To bad for her, it was another dentist that did the work, but all the while I was losing bone, so I began an assault on decay. With electric brush and miles of floss. I won’t lie and say I have been doing this all my life, only after I got an office job where I sat in a real office cubicle, doing real office things did I start paying significant morning time on these bits of bone. I have a set program like most people. I hit all four back corners for they are the most fruitful raising my arms and shoulders up as I reach to the back of my mouth. More like lunging. Then in between the canines, then past canine back to the back of my mouth starting the cycle over again. For the second round can be as bountiful as the first.
When I was younger I dreaded flossing because of the blood. The copious amounts of blood that would show vividly on the white porcelain. Each spit a slash of red. It was shameful. With each sporadic attempt I would literally cringe at the idea of someone walking in, of someone seeing the sink full of blood. I was reminded of this shame, as the radio description replayed in my head. “…Marines found blood on the suicide belts in a warehouse siege today…” I thought of a certain kind of belt. Like the UN peacekeepers wore in the movies in the 1950’s. They are white with a shoulder strap and large box like pouches along the sides, that I guess held ammunition. I see them in my head, made of white leather, shiny, bright and polished. With a splash of red and a man running away, cringing from pain, or shame.
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