by Brian Andreas
"Writing is not a performance,
but a generosity."
- Brenda Ueland
Small stories from another minor life.
et tu?
by Brian Andreas | "Writing is not a performance, |
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September 8/31/00 - There is a man who plays the guitar in the Muni underground stations, at Powell or at Embarcadero station, depending on the day and time. Sort of a grizzled ex-hippie type, very tall and unhappily thin, with a long mane of yellow-gray hair and peculiar front teeth. He sits by the escalators, and he plays "Leaving on a Jet Plane." His entire repertoire consists of "Leaving on a Jet Plane": I know, because I get off at Embarcadero for work, and at Powell for various other reasons, and I see him three or four times a week, and he is always playing "Leaving on a Jet Plane." On two separate occasions I waited until the end of the song, at which point he paused, smiled beatifically, and launched into a rousing rendition of "Leaving on a Jet Plane," again. He does it quite well, he's a good guitar player and has a nice, mellow voice, but really I think there should be a limit on how many times one has to hear "Leaving on a Jet Plane" each month. Anyway, last night I went home from work, changed, and decided to go back to the Embarcadero to run along the waterfront. So I took the Muni back again, and when I got off at Embarcadero, there was the guitar man--and he wasn't playing "Leaving on a Jet Plane." He was playing something completely different. I couldn't identify it, but it may not have even been Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was totally new. I went running and pondered this new musical development, and when I went back down into the station to take the Muni home again, he was still there, and he still wasn't playing "Leaving on a Jet Plane!" It was something completely new! So I took the Muni to Van Ness, and got off, and as I was walking down 11th Street toward home, I realized I had a song in my head: "Leaving on a Jet Plane." I have a Pavlovian response to the guitar man now, apparently. 8/29/00 - St. John the Baptist's Day. I oughtn't have to explain that one, you heathens. There is some kind of global Wedding Conspiracy taking place, with me as its hapless victim. Early in the month, you will recall, I went to L.A. on business. The entire weekend in L.A., everyone I encountered there--waitresses, cab drivers, hotel employees, even our own store staff--called me "Mrs." "Mrs. Baker." That was distressing, but after a little while I moved past it. Then, last week on my return from Ireland, I got a package in the mail. It was a birthday gift, belated, from someone I love who had already sent me a birthday gift. But with this one, she enclosed a note: "I saw this and thought of you right away. I hope it comes in handy." And what was it? A sewing pattern. For a wedding dress. Last night I went to the grocery store. I got on line at the register behind two other twentysomething women; we all appeared to be about the same age, dressed similarly. The woman bagging groceries at the end of the conveyor thanked the first woman on her way out: "Thank you, Miss Smith." She thanked the second woman on her way out: "Thank you, Miss Jones." And then she thanked me on my way out: "Thank you, Mrs. Baker." What? What? What is this? Who are you people? What is going on? Annie, who thinks it now very funny to greet me in the mornings with "Good morning, Mrs. Baker" (it's funny until I threaten to stab her in the eye with my pen), suspects that I may be suffering from some kind of multiple-personality disorder. One of my other personalities took over my body temporarily and got married--and either announced it to everyone or did it in a very public forum, like Fox TV's "Who Wants to Marry an Imaginary Invisible Guy?" special--and then I returned to my own body and am now wandering around secretly married, unbeknownst only to myself. This being the case, I suggest my mysteriously absent husband un-absent himself, or declare his whereabouts or something, so I at least know whether my other personality has better taste in men than I do. Another malaise-y kind of day. But Fjggy is in town, and we will go out drinkin' to-night, maybe, and I suspect there are very few malaises that can't be cured by goin' out drinkin' with Fjggy, wearing your slinky new size-zero leather pants. Yes, I said leather pants. Y'all can go eat your hearts out. 8/28/00 - "And when I say you sucked my brain out the English translation is I am in love with you and it is no fun." - Ani DiFranco Ran 15 miles on Saturday morning. The first few miles, I ran with a woman named Kim. She is a teacher. I asked what she taught. "First grade," she said. "I was a volunteer teacher's aide in a first grade class one year," I said. "They were . . . um, rambunctious." Kim thought about this. "Yes. Mine are rambunctious, too. Rambunctious, and moist." We ran on in silence, pondering the mysterious moistness of first-graders. I had to buy a second pair of running shoes to-day, as the first are getting flattened and threadbare. I went to the Nike store downtown, where I got the first pair, hoping to acquire a second just like. No such luck. They have the same model yet, but no longer in blue: only gray. Well, I cannot wear a gray shoe for my race, as you well know. The salesman (surprisingly kind and helpful, for a Niketown employee, with his own marathon to run in Chicago, he tells me) finds me eventually another shoe I like quite well. I try it on in black, and when I decide I like it, I ask that he get me the blue version, like the one on display. Crisis: they don't have my size in blue. Only the black one. The nice salesman looks at me hopefully and says, "Is that okay? It's really a great-looking shoe." "Oh," I say. "Oh, it's not how the shoe looks, it's--it's . . . I have to have blue! I have to have blue shoes." Embarrassed, I lower my voice. "I'm, um . . . superstitious." What a mortifying admission--but it changes everything. The salesman springs into action. He is on the intercom, barking orders at someone. He is yelling down the stairs at another salesguy. He is doing something arcane with a computer. And suddenly: voila! Blue shoes. He grins at me. "Don't even ask about my superstitions." I am superstitious about the following: the color blue. The number 3. Crows. Time. Pennies. Stones. Lawrence has been shelved, temporarily. I am reading James Blaylock to-day, and trying not to eat any Jelly Belly jellybeans, which have played a prominent role in the last three days. Annie has got started at crankygirls, ranting and such, but I am still in a post-vacation way, not feeling much cranky about anything. I am cranky about ants. I am cranky about that whole Junior Mints packaging thing. I am cranky about the subway, and about that dreadful man at Erika's otherwise delightful barbecue yesterday. But I am not at all in a position to get righteously worked up about Politics and Morals and Issues. *sigh* 8/25/00 - People who leave giant boxes of Jelly Belly jellybeans in the staff kitchen should be horsewhipped through the town square. I have a sugar headache to make my teeth stand on end. Near Union Square this morning, a man on the sidewalk stood alone with his face pressed against the front display window of The Body Shop. He was reciting aloud the names of the products displayed within, in a deeply aggrieved tone: "Starfruit bubble bath?!" I wonder what grim offense a fruit-scented bath gel or organic shampoo once did this man. To-day I am reading D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love. I like it well enough, parts of it, so far, but here is Lawrence's description of Ursula Brangwen being startled when Birkin enters the room quietly: "She saw, in the shaft of ruddy, copper-colored light near her, the face of a man. It was gleaming like fire, watching her, waiting for her to be aware. It startled her terribly. She thought she was going to faint. All her suppressed, subconscious fear sprang into being, with anguish." Is that what happens when one is startled? Do all one's suppressed, subconscious fears and anguish spring into being? Or does this strike anyone else as a wee histrionic? I know, I know, sensual awakenings and all that, but Oy. I can only read about people's blood quickening and throbbing, or women suffering "keen paroxysms" and "strange transports" and "violent sensations" so many times, and Lawrence used up his quota on page 9. When I am tired of old D.H., however, I can always turn to the old pulp novel that Annie acquired at a thrift store while I was gone: The Wife and The Wanton, by John Carver--perhaps the only book I have ever encountered whose plot description on the back jacket employs the phrase "hot bitch." I leave you to draw your own conclusions about what the phrase "like a moist and mustardy poultice" describes. People are always kinder to me than I think I deserve. Bless you, Pandora. Other sources of daily keen paroxysms: Rilke, of course. Patty Griffin. My generous co-workers. The man in the cowboy hat and red sneakers. Cheese brioche. Diana, darling. 8/23/00 - For the 814th time in my life, I just opened a box of Junior Mints at the wrong end, the "Open Other End" end. I do this accidentally but with tremendous consistency, like (I am sure) millions of my fellow Americans each day. So why does Junior Mints bother? Why don't they just give up on the "Open Other End" end? This is a free country--we should be able to open our Junior Mints at whichever end we like, without fear of shame and humiliation, or the vengeful reprisals of Tootsie Roll, Inc., or the awkwardness of not being able to re-close the box properly (this awkwardness, of course, can be remedied by simply eating the whole box in one go, but Junior Mints give me a stomachache). And why the hell are they "Junior," anyway? Where are their progenitors, the Senior Mints? The Source Mints? The Ancestral Mints? Another slow day at the office. I was going to tell you all about Ireland and my beautiful vacation, but when I tried to type it up, it dissolved into a torrent of purple prose and I had to stop. Ireland is one of those lovely places that have that effect, I guess; witness the vast numbers of romance novels that are set there. (Not that I have. Ever. I mean, not that I would ever read a romance novel. Let alone one set in Ireland. I was speaking, you know, purely hypothetically, and with anthropological detachment.) But my sisters and my mother were taking another photograph every time I blinked, so there will be plenty of those. Photographs, I mean. Hopefully, Piglet will scan them and send them, and then I can share those with you. The most important issue, of course, is vacation reading. There must always be an array of books: trashy books for the plane, slow melancholy books for lazy afternoons, the odd bits you've been meaning to read for months. This time, they were: A.S. Byatt, Still Life; Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems; Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita; Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies; and (I am aghast, I am ashamed, I hide my blushing face) Harry Potter, volumes 2, 3, and 4. Yes, I read the rest of Harry Potter, damn his little fictional eyes. Airplane reading, I make haste to assert, but all the same. And yes, Piglet, yes, I liked them. Damn your little non-fictional eyes. I owe that little British wizardy nitwit an apology. And a pox on J.K. Rowling--hurry up and write #5, you slowpoke! The biggish news is: I am moving to France. Small daily happinesses: yellow sweet tomatoes, lucky pennies, people who hold doors for other people, graduate school viewbooks, zinnias, homemade jam, faraway correspondents. 8/21/00 - All right, I give up, I am back. It was a short respite for you, I know, but vacation is a miraculous device, and I am feeling vocal again. The non-saga carries on. I will have biggish news here, when I have a proper moment to write it. (I am at work now. I am trying to behave myself and, you know, work.) Puritan-self: 1 Exhibitionist: 1 *sigh* (hiatus) 8/4/00 - I have to stop doing this, at least for a while. I don't like being on display, and since I am only subjecting myself to it, I will stop. I am feeling gray and disgruntled and in need of some quiet. I will see you later; I will probably be back. Puritan-self: 1 Exhibitionist: 0 Isn't "qualms" an excellent word? Qualms. Qualms. Listen: Good As I Been To You 8/2/00 - A peculiar, insomniac night. It was hot in the city, for once, and the streetlights outside seemed oppressively bright. This morning my head aches. Yesterday's dreamy weightless feeling is gone, but not the happiness with it. This weekend, I have to fly to L.A. on business. Isn't that the worst sentence in the English language? "I have to fly to L.A. on business." Ugh. The Very Disgusting True Story of a Dead Rat and Some Maggots: Here is where I would relate to you the very disgusting true story of a dead rat and some maggots, except that you do not want to hear it. Trust me: I was there when it happened, and frankly I do not want to hear it. All I will say is this: in my own opinion, a rat is one thing, and all well and good (relatively speaking. I am not a standing-on-chairs-and-squealing kind of girl, and I once removed a [live] mouse from a bathroom by picking it up by its very startled tail and marching it out), but a dead rat is something else, and maggots are in another league entirely (now I am a standing-on-chairs-and-squealing kind of girl). Also, Sara is very brave but not stupid, and Annie is a chicken, and Alan is a hero beyond all measure. And we all deserved ice cream, which we got, except for heroic Alan who left, presumably to soak his entire body in some very strong disinfectant solution. Sara is living with us for these two weeks, and is the most perfect houseguest imaginable. I love Sara. Sara does the dishes, voluntarily, which means that I would marry Sara, were she male. (My list of spousal qualifications is very brief. There is, in fact, only one other, and for that she would need definitely to be male, and in vigorous health.) My favorite headline for to-day, from Reuters on Yahoo!: "Bush Roars Into Town; Ford Has Stroke" Last week and over the weekend, I was thinking about a Kay Ryan poem that I love, which ran in the New Yorker a year or so ago, and then yesterday evening (post-rat), I found it in a box of clippings: Relief We know it is close to something lofty. Simply getting over being sick or finding lost property has in it the leap, the purge, the quick humility of witnessing a birth-- how love seeps up and retakes the earth. There is a dreamy wading feeling to your walk inside the current of restored riches, clocks set back, disasters averted. My little brother Ducks has got a job, and I am glad. I think happiness and relief have made me a simpleton: listen to me talk. "Glad." "Very." "Love." I sound like a fourth-grade essay. But to-day is Wednesday, so maybe later I'll have something grim and sad to report, and I'll go back to sounding pretentious. Or maybe I'll just have another cup of coffee, and sit here in my cubicle swinging my legs and beaming happily at the walls. 8/1/00 - Happy August. July is done, and I am glad. I am wearing ballet flats to work to-day, rather than high heels. It's amazing how little 5'2" really is; one forgets, wearing heels in public all the time. On the subway, squashed in the middle of the car, I couldn't reach an overhead bar to hang on to, and stood swaying and staring into the shoulders of the people around me. An Indian gentleman at the farmer's market two weeks ago tried to sell me bitter melon: "Good for the heart!" he said. An Indian gentleman with x-ray vision. I haven't anything real to say to-day. Not for want of event: there is so much happening it makes me sleepy just to think about. Or perhaps I am just sleepy. I am having this weightless, happy, relieved feeling all day to-day, and it makes me dreamy and a little uncertain. Writing is good. Excellent. I was going to tell you about my Sunday, about errands and people and things, but I don't feel like it. Piglet writes to tell me she has found the old Willard Espy book I love. The middle has fallen out of it. Also, Prof. Bloom and I are in agreement once again, except that I don't say things like "epiphenomenon." To-day we sing: The Nields' "Just Like Christopher Columbus." Although at the moment I have got "The 59th Street Bridge Song" in my head. You will pay for that one, Annie, you will. Hey: I love you, Ducks. You, and peppermint tea. Please, please read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. July June |
Everything I remember from my childhood |
