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March 2, 2011
Tortilla Heights
So today, after work, I go to The Grove in the Marina on the motorcycle and the motorcycle is good for this. You can get around the city and park the thing and walk inside with a motorcycle helmet and there is this. There is this.
So now, I'm wandering around the Marina district and there is this little book store across the street and it's called Books Inc. Now, I've explained to them before that I'm a very famous local author and I'm interested in setting up a book signing. And I buy a copy of Tortilla Flats and ask for the contact for my book signing, as it's not progressing as I'd hoped. No one replied to my queries, as it were. And so, I'm in this book store again and the girls gets me a copy of Tortilla Flats and I walk across the street into the Grove to read it and of course, I'm very disappointed. It's one of those books that I started and never finished because it sucked so bad.
Always, when I start reading Steinbeck, I want it to be like The Grapes of Wrath. But never it is. Always, it's like Cannery Row or Tortilla Flats. Just slow dull painful death. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And less. Always less.
There is this and little else. So little else.
The Bike.
The bike is a dream. Or a nightmare. Take your pick. Opposite sides of the same coin. There is this.
I ride the bike into work in the morning but I take Larkin instead of Van Ness. This is obvious, is it not? The roads are much easier to follow. Stop signs at every intersection. One lane of traffic each way. This is much better for the ride in.
Van Ness is death death death. Buses and homeless and sirens and horns and rain and you just can't know. You cannot know.
When I hear a car horn, I'm not sure what to do. Sometimes I speed up. But why? Is it for me? Is it for someone else? I cannot know. Cannot know.
Work
Work is work and work is work. I am here and I am there and it's all the same. It's all the same. Work is so dull you just cannon know. I couldn't begin to explain. But think of this. The elevator breaks so often there's a pool on when it will break next. They installed a plastic/glass? frame/holder in between the elevators and they keep the sign at the ready. The sign says "the elevator has broken again. Line forms on the left.
This is where we are.
This is this.
Every street I go down. Every alley. Every corner looks familiar to me. I see the graffiti and some is new. Some is old. Always I'm surprised at the brain. The human brain and all it's quirks.
How is it that I have all of these memories. The roads and buildings and the art. It's all refreshed now. Like fresh paint filling in the cracks of an old painting. Nothing here is new to me. Very little.
Laurel Heights
Today, we go to a meeting at Laurel Heights. And, I mean, lets be honest. I'm not young. The brain doesn't work very well any more. Only, when the people in my office stand up, I stand up also. I can't really begin to fathom the work I've signed up for. I'm as mixed up as a squirrel in a blender.
So, when they stand up, I stand up, and I'm so retarded. You just can't know. You just can't know. But it's not pretty. There's no win here. There's no happy ending. Just a nightmare at the end of a pointed stick and precious little else.
Only, I stand up and act like I know what's going on. Turning like a pig to face the blades. "What now? Where are we going?" Always to some meeting where they grill me for hours about the application and I'm just shallow and sincere and translucent. A celophane wrapper around precious little.
Always, rooms of new people and me, at the center of this maelstorm, nodding and smiling and shaking hands. Always, they're so glad to meet me. And I'm just so stupid. So stupid you cannot know. I have only this...a bike with an expired plate...unkempt hair...coffee stains on my shirt...rotten Walmart shoes so that, anyone, at a glance, would think I was homeless. But somehow I'm not. Not yet.
Somehow, I'm the center of attention. And there are these presentations going on and now, it's my turn to present. And, of course, this is like a nightmare you can't wake up from. Sure. You need me to present? OK. No problem. I'm at bat? What inning is it?
And suddenly, I'm behind a keyboard and speaking in public, sort of. This huge project going on in California that I can barely grasp the dimensions of. Somehow, it's all going on in realtime all around me. And I'm just sort of...ah...um...ok...here's how it works.
Posted by Rob Kiser on March 2, 2011 at 8:54 PM
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