tiny short short stories

Going There Alone

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I went to allende alone

i could have asked someone but I didn’t feel like it

buying tickets at the bookstore, I was surprised when asked “How many tickets?”

I said “oh, just me and my lonesome” kidding around ish.

 

I know how to park at that downtown oakland church.

You don’t go for the lot. it’s way too small

however the neighboring streets, particularly

the ONE WAY in the wrong direction from the entrance to the church

is usually an easy spot

and close

 

there it is

I am parking behind another car which has just parked

not exactly behind but on the other side of a driveway

I know the car type

older model and the too many bumperstickers

none of which I could disagree with

“AWAKEN” and such

 

The woman who gets out of the car is dressed in layers of dresses and baggy pants

She is messing around in and out of the car.

She is filling or emptying a water bottle

She wears a scarf

Finally she throws a guitar case over her shoulder and walks in the direction of the church

 

I am not wanting to be near her but I am not disgusted either

I realize that we are going to end up waiting together at the corner for the light to change.

She turns to look at me and there is a moment when I could have pretended I didn’t know but I didn’t do that

When she looked at me I said,

“Janet?”, “Janet Fowler?”

 

She usually sings at this church on Wednesdays In a room downstairs. Therefore, the guitar

She decides to see Allende instead at $15. without blinking an eye

Waiting for it to start we talk.

She has been homeless for a long time and she doesn’t seem crazy. Mostly she camps out.

 

Not needing more of her story,  I stand up , excuse myself and ask her to save my place.

She says, “Leave something”, so I leave my scarf and go look at the books for sale in the lobby.

 

The latino poet laureate of san Francisco

Introduces Isabelle and after some chatter

Alllelne reads from her new novel which is a mystery set in san Francisco amid teenagers.

 

She reads a gruesome description of a brutal murder discovered by children.

 

Immediately, abruptedly even, after the description Susan gets up and leaves.

I respected it and was relieved at the same time. It felt like she lived by different rules and would not allow herself to be in that dark atmosphere.IMG_1219

Like she couldn’t risk it

Or wouldn’t allow it.

Anyhow she left.

 

But when I got back to my car,

Her car was still there. Still across the driveway. Still saying “AWAKEN”

Never Enough

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The cashier is chatty so I join in.

“I have soo many hooks because each of my teenagers have a thousand sweatshirts from thrift stores and 500 of them are on the ground”, I explain.

She says, “I know. It’s the same at our house.”

That catches me as we are outwardly so different in lots of ways. Yeti it’s the same at her house.

We have longer than an moment of eye contact. I note her perfect eyeliner but mostly we look into each other’s eyes for a second or two. Then we look down at the hooks.

“No matter how many hooks I buy…” , I say.

“it will never be enough”, she finishes.

The Lenses We See Through

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After talking with Ilana, whom I’ve just met at a party full of eclectic people, I am starting to wonder about her glasses. I don’t have on my glasses because I am not reading but, truth is, I should be wearing those progressives all the time as there are quite a few subtleties passing me by.

Ilana, a wildly talented San Francisco Art Institute grad student is talking about her hispanic childhood in LA and how she devoted twelve years of her life to throwing the discus. She’s got the body for it. She’s funny and is rambling on in a I’ve-got-this-conversation-covered kind of way. I’m fine with that and enjoying the ride as are my two teenagers. It’s Christmas eve and even the food is eclectic because a lot of the party works at Rainbow grocery, one of the first large co-op health food stores in the nation.

I am feeling friendlier and friendlier with Ilana as we get smushed closer together when still others feel there is enough room to sit down on the large couch.

I become more suspicious and say, “Let me see your glasses!”
She shies away and says, “No, you can’t see my glasses!” but in a smiling way.
“Come on, take them off”.
“I can’t see without them”.

Close enough now on the couch for almost anything I grab her glasses. There is no glass in them!

I comment on this and she says, “I’ve got a pair of sunglasses at home just like these”.
I say, “But there’s no glass in them!”
I’m liking her more than ever when she says, “I Know. They’re prescription!”

Happy Holidays

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This isn’t the road I was on when it happened. This is the road I rode by bike after I got home to calm my nerves.IMG_1703
Christmas had started fine. More than fine was prepping my older teenage kids that we were taking consumerism to an all time low this year. I decided this not because I had to but because I was sick of meaningless stuff feeling a space.

We opened presents late and calmly. Everyone liked what they got.
Slowly I baked a cake and got together personal items to go down South a bit where we yearly spend Christmas with a 27 person odd group of alternative type friends, all ages.

It’s satisfying mostly because conversation is interesting, we are in the country surrounding by large trees and the food is deliciously plentiful.

Unfortunately I burn my right hand. I take the teapot off the wood burning stove and go to the sink to fill it. The teapot is hot hot from being on the stove empty so when I put the water in, it streams furiously and burns by hand. Though not dangerous, it is painful. Years ago when blowing neon, I learned to put a hand in cold water if burned. Despite everyone’s well intentioned advice for different methods, I keep changing the water to cold (no ice) until finally when I take my hand out, it no longer hurts. For me this cessation stops at 3 am., long after we’d finished with desert and caroling.

Tired, after breakfasting with more interesting slow conversation, Me and the teenagers set out on the long country driveway to the road to the highway home.

It happened on the highway. 880 north is as ugly as any with six lanes each direction. I didn’t see him in the lane next to me. He was in my blind spot and I wasn’t paying serious attention. All of a sudden I brushed up (at 60 mph) against the car on my right while starting to go in that lane.

There was nothing jarring or dramatic about it. However, it was still an accident, It took me a little while to figure out where to get off and talk as I knew we must. I was in front of him and pulled off on a large shoulder off the next exit. I stop. He stops behind me.

I get out and say, “How are you?” Looking at his truck which has ladders on top and miraculously, no damage.
He says, “Fine. How are you?” I say “Fine.. well a little a little scraped up but I’m not going to do anything about it…. It was my fault, right?”
He says, “Right.”
I say, “How about we give each other a hug, and wish each other a Happy New Year”
He says, “Okay” so we do that.
Then I hold his hand for a moment and say, “Thank you for being a person.”
It was kind of a stupid thing to say but that’s what came out. I think he knew what I meant.

I walk back to my car and get in. I wave as I drive away.

I continue until there is an intersection where I can turn around and get us back to 880. There is a beggar with a sign at the intersection as the cars stop. I give him a five. I can afford to.

Museum exhibit

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Walking through the exhibit at the museum, I have what I often have. An uneasy feeling.

I notice that the child gurgling is attracting more attention than the paintings, just for a second. Then the patrons go back to viewing the paintings. After the brief bleep of real life passes, art appreciation or faux appreciation, of art or faux art, resumes.

Two other children are with their parents in the exhibition. The goal of these kids is to move as quickly as possible. They are playing a game. Upon entering the new room, they look for the “EXIT” sign. As soon as parents allow, they follow it.

An older woman in a seventies medium brown pant suit severely limps. She steps with one leg and then drags the other one after her. She moves awkwardly along trying to catch up with her husband which she eventually does when he stops in front of a painting.

I am drawn to the work that is the early work. This work shows some artistic ability. The later work, before which people dutifully stand, seems to me not to deserve the stop of attention. It all seems like a case of the emperor’s new clothes.

I find myself at the end of the exhibit and I go backwards to the beginning. I see the exhibit a second time, to be sure of my judgement. I am giving the artist a second chance and I want to remember the few works that I do like. Having done that, I find I can not exit through the gift shop, therefore I go through the exhibit a third time. I stop a third time at the charcoal drawing of a seated woman in a striped dress which is my favorite work.

Upon this last viewing I realize this drawing reminds me of expensive clothing store ads from my childhood. Those days artists drew the objects for sale. They were good drawings.
The artists were not trying to prove anything. They were just making a living. They weren’t even called artists.

In the museum signage, the famous painter’s statement claims not to stop at the beautiful but to go deeper. To me deeper wasn’t deeper, it was just messier. No one else seems to feel this way. They stand reverently at what is presented to them by the esteemed institution.

In the museum rest room, while washing my hands, I peripherally watch a woman in front of the mirror. She keeps looking in the mirror like she is trying to fix something that can’t be fixed. She is looking at time in the mirror but can not see it. This is what she is doing.

Leaving San Francisco going over to Oakland in heavy traffic, I anticipate the change that happens after Treasure Island. The white wideness of the new half of the Bay Bridge is wonderful and uplifting to drive on. People on the side are walking and riding their bikes. It is a good feeling to like the new version more than the old. To be driving on a man made object that makes sense.

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Diversity

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I am in a cafe when this young fellow walks in with a jaunty step. He’s a lively guy and catches my eye.  My mind is in it’s habit of constantly sizing things up to put them in a place where it interprets in the hopes of understanding. Like any mind. Image

I am not sure whether this guy is hispanic, southeast asian, maybe middle eastern, turkish, philipino, south american or what.  I am lucky this way in that there are lots of people like this in the San Francisco bay area. My daughter can pass for a lot of ethniciities but in fact she’s just a white girl.

This young man has on a terrific shirt. It says, “Everything is Beautiful but Beautiful isn’t Everything”

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I get my coffee and as I am leaving I compliment the kid on his shirt. He responds to this and now I can guess his ancestry from his accent but it doesn’t matter.  Just like everything is beautiful, so is everywhere. Inside and Out.

Crutches

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After my son and I biked 600 miles in 12 days, he jumped off a wall he’s often jumped off and sprained his ankle.

That was a week ago because it takes a 16 year old a week to figure out it’s sprained by the fact that it isn’t getting better.

So we know. He needs crutches. Kaiser doesn’t sell crutches but at the doctor’s visit they’ll give them to you. So, a doctor visit is too much as usual, (due to high deductible) therefore we “google” “crutches”.

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I do this first and get offers of surprisingly pricey crutches. They are inexplicably expensive even in supposedly cheap places like Walgreen’s. When Noah googles “crutch”, he gets an entirely different response. He gets all this “church” stuff, referring to belief in god as a crutch.

I probably had the word “buy” in my search. Noah says he had nothing but “Crutch”. Maybe. Noah’s relationship since the get go with reading has been to guess the word first and recheck it later if necessary. It’s gotten him this far. He considers spelling yet another storefront the computer is making obsolete. So maybe his crutch is the computer.

I’ll take “god” over the computer. We ended up borrowing crutches from a friend.

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Magic in the classroom

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Discipline is not my strong point in after school ceramics: age 6 to 12. I don’t like to do it and I don’t do it often. Truth is I don’t mind a hectic atmosphere as long as all are busily creative. Early on the kids learn the rules, and then it’s a group studio. Kids sit next to who they want to and jabber along to each other side by side, across the table and even down the table a stretch. It can get louder and louder and louder. All in a good humored, fast paced, three ring circus sort of way.

Today, in the midst of what is now a lot of noise, suddenly two of the six fifth graders started playing their recorders together. The notes of a simple song being learned in school, sound like Japanese flute harmonies. Quickly the roar of the classroom stops. Everyone’s listening.

They were tamed by the music.

Seeing what is

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Not only do I get THE parking space in front of Kaiser (always preferable than going inside a building to park) but the old fashioned meter says “FAIL”.
(Yes)

I am not waiting long before the eye doctor calls me in. I have chosen him online by his name. Not really like guessing a horse for a race or being clueless in a voting booth but still relying a bit on intuition while scheduling my next visit to Kaiser. I chose him because he has the same name as a friend of mine. Never mind that I haven’t seen said friend in over a decade and last I knew he was living in Germany. Still, it’s a connection.

I have made it to the doctor this time. The other two times I made my eye appointment, when they asked for the copayment of $100. I just left surprised. Eye appointments are considered not part of one’s basic needs like Primary or OB/GYN. Hmmm. I’d take vision over sex organs but I’m not running the show so.. now, I am resigned to pay this on top of my insurance.

The doctor is my age and hip-ish, earring and all. He explains to me that my far sightedness is making me want to wear my reading glasses more. In other words, rather than just for reading, I’ll leave them on when I’m doing larger paperwork and such. Tell me something I don’t already know I’m thinking and what I want to know is do I need regular glasses. He does the normal sort of tests asking me to read small and smaller letters and its all good. I don’t really need glasses. I can keep my reading ones on for other things. I can go to the drug store and get different magnifications in different colors. He points out more than once that I can still see when I drive so there’s not much to worry about or do.

I ask him in the middle of all this non advice what I have paid my hundred dollars for but then he gets defensive so I back off and try to get something out of this appointment so I say to him (he’s got on an earring after all) “What about the Tibetan Eye Chart and eye exercises . . Do they help?”
He says, “Sure they help but whose got time for eye exercises?”

Going home, I run into a friend and tell him, “I just spent a hundred dollars to find out my eyes are fine”. He says, “That’s good. It’s better than finding out they are not fine”.

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