“my brother was killed by a funky cold medina.”
Archive for November, 2006
while i was in st. louis for thanksgiving, my parents and i went to see dale chihuly’s glass in the garden at the missouri botanical garden. i’d seen a chihuly exhibit before, but it wasn’t nearly as expansive as this one. my dad and i both took a lot of photos, while my mom looked at glass and plants and pointed at things for my dad to photograph. i think the photos i took are some of the best i’ve ever taken, so i thought i’d share.
(i put up some new jewelry at i like beads, too, which i also thought i’d share.)
for the past few months, i’ve been bringing maude to work about once a week. i ask ellen, the human resources person, for permission a day in advance; she always says yes, but i like to make sure that she knows beforehand and that there won’t be any clients in the office or anything. on the days i bring maude in, everyone seems happy to see her. throughout the day people take breaks to come say hi and pet her, and even the people who don’t pet her say “hey, maude,” when they walk by. the other day one of my coworkers gave maude a dog bed she’d knitted herself. for her part, maude enjoys the attention, but mostly she likes just sleeping under my desk or sitting quietly in my lap. to me she’s the perfect office dog: a nice distraction for people who like her, and easy to ignore for those who are indifferent.
(i do, in fact, consider it impossible to not like maude. anyway i’m not the only person who brings their dog in. a few other people bring theirs in sometimes, too, but maude’s the only regular.)
today ellen came over to my cubicle to talk to me. i took off my headphones and she leaned in close and spoke very quietly. maude didn’t even wake up from her nap. ellen told me that they’d figured out that the lease our company signed with the building means that i’m not allowed to bring my dog to work. “i’m really sorry about this,” she said, “but i wanted to tell you in person before i sent an email to everyone.”
“thanks for doing that,” i said. “i really appreciate it.”
“we’ll miss her,” ellen said.
“do i have to take her home right now?” i asked.
“no, don’t worry about it today,” she said.
after ellen sent the company-wide pet policy email, a lot of people came over to talk about it. “this sucks,” someone said. “she was a really nice break from work.” a fellow chihuahua owner sent me an email:
since you and i are both blind, we should be able to bring our dogs in as seeing-eye chihuahuas, right?
to which i replied:
as a seeing-eye chihuahua, maude would probably just lead me towards expanses of grass, discarded food on the ground, and other dogs’ butts. i am much less interested in those things than she is.
someone even suggested that we all wear t-shirts that said “TEAM MAUDE.” at the end of the day, i ran into a coworker as maude and i were walking out the door. he bent down to pet her, and then he stood up and announced, “maude is leaving the building!” a few people came over to say goodbye.
“take a look around, maude!” i said. “it’s your last day.” at which point she ran out the door and into the hallway, because she knows that after work is dinnertime.
i made a lot of jokes to hide it, but i’m really disappointed. that i can’t bring my dog to work isn’t anyone’s fault, and it was a luxury anyway. but when ellen told me maude couldn’t be there anymore, i very nearly cried. i couldn’t help it. i was happy to go to work on maude days; working my tolerable job with a dog in my lap made my job seem, well, tolerable.
as a dog rescued from a puppy mill, maude didn’t always like people. when i first brought her home, she didn’t even like me. to see her get comfortable coming to the office, to see her interact with so many people and be okay with it, showed me how very far she’s come since i adopted her two and a half years ago. after i’d taken her to work with me a few times, she knew where we were when we arrived, and she’d wag her tail as she followed me to my cubicle. i was so proud of her. i am proud of her.
as i write this, she’s asleep in her hand-knitted dog bed, and she has the hiccups. if you haven’t seen chihuahua hiccups, you haven’t seen anything.
this evening i was outside with maude, and i ran into matt again. rather, he ran into me, as it was not my intention to run into him, necessarily. “hey, old neighbor, how’s it going?” he said.
“fine,” i said. “you?”
“partying too damn much,” he said. “boy, sometimes it seems like i just go and go until i can’t go anymore, you know?”
“yeah,” i said, although i guess i don’t really know.
“how was your thanksgiving?”
“good,” i said. “i just got back from visiting my parents in st. louis.”
this led to a conversation in which matt asked me how, if my parents live there, did i end up all the way down here in austin? so i told him i’m from houston, and then we talked about houston and its areas, urban and suburban, while i tried to use the power of my thoughts to send maude a message to hurry up and finish peeing. he asked where i’d lived in houston, and i told him the montrose area. “that’s a good spot,” he said. “that’s where you get the good drugs anyhow.”
since i’ve never been into drugs, i didn’t know what to say to that. not yes, because agreeing would be untruthful. not no, because that implies that i disagree and, as such, know where the better drugs are. and not i don’t do drugs because that’d either a) make him feel really stupid and make me look preachy, or b) make him ask me about what drugs i might have tried, thereby lengthening the conversation.
outlining the what-ifs of my potential answers had taken so long that i’d run out of time. “hmm,” i muttered, and louder, “are you ready for treats, maude?” she came running like the good little distraction that she is, and we went inside.
ten minutes later there was a knock at my door. it was one of those loud, insistent knocks you only hear when you’ve got a pizza or a package delivery. the cops use it in the movies, too, but since i’ve never had the cops come, i call it the pizza knock. the pizza knock makes maude’s head shoot up out of the blankets like a little furry rocket. anyway, i knew it would be matt at the door, and it was.
“hey,” i said.
“hey, i was gonna ask you, and this might be a strange question” (oh crap he’s going to ask me out isn’t he, what should i say? thanks but i’m not interested in dating anyone right now thanks but i don’t like to go out with neighbors thanks but i can’t date or the dog gets jealous thanks but you’re kind of annoying?), “but do you do anything other than wine?”
“yeah…” i said, relieved he wasn’t asking me out.
“oh, good. bump?”
shit! why, oh why, did i not know he was talking about drugs? he was just talking about drugs ten minutes ago! why did i think, “well, i drink beer sometimes, and i enjoy a nice vodka tonic, and those things are other than wine, so my answer is YEAH”?
“oh! i mean, no! sorry!”
“oh, well that’s–”
“i mean, i guess i was confused by your question. so i guess the answer would be no.”
“it’s okay. i had some extra, so i thought i’d offer.”
“well, thanks anyway.”
“sure. listen, don’t let this get around, okay?”
“i won’t.” besides the internet, who would i tell?
the lessons i’ve learned here are threefold:
1) when someone says something about where to find the good drugs, a response of “hmm” can be taken as a sign of agreement.
2) when someone asks if you do anything other than wine, they’re talking about drugs. if they wanted to know that you like vodka tonics, they’d ask if you drink anything other than wine.
3) there is such a thing as “extra” cocaine.
after matt left i had this terrible mental image of me at his apartment helping myself to some of his extra cocaine. we were snorting it off of a glass-topped coffee table, which is always how i picture cocaine usage. this probably means i’m sheltered, but it’s the kind of sheltered i’m really okay with. incidentally, this marks the second time in my life i’ve been offered drugs by a next-door neighbor. if basic math can be applied to these situations, since the first offer occurred in 2000 i’ll be receiving my next neighbor-drugs offer sometime in the year 2012.
just now i heard some loud banging noises coming from matt’s apartment, like the sound of hammering a nail into a wall. maybe he’s hanging a lot of pictures really, really fast.
my parents just moved to st. louis, so i’m spending my first-ever thanksgiving in a town other than houston. my dad picked me up at the airport on wednesday and took me to their new house, the first new house they’ve had since we moved when i was ten. “is it weird that we’re here?” my mother asked me when she got home from work.
“a little,” i said.
“i remember that feeling from when my parents moved after i left for college.”
“yeah,” i said. “i mean, it’s a different house entirely. but all your stuff is here, so that makes it easier.”
(later she asked me if my dog had a hard time adjusting to my new apartment. “not really,” i said. “she was fine once she realized that all our stuff was there.”)
my mother and father each gave me their own tour of the house, which was useful as they were different tours of the same house. the theme of my dad’s tour was “here’s where i built shelves to put this stuff, here’s where the floor isn’t level so i had to build a pallet for the washing machine, and here’s where our wireless internet signal doesn’t quite reach, can you take a look at it later?” my mom’s tour was about her new dolls, the rugs she bought at j.c. penney, and asking for my advice about curtains and furniture placement.
(twice i have caught my mother using the word “home” to refer to our old house. i can relate.)
i left my car and dog at ari and michael’s, and ari and the kids took me to the airport. i used their computer to print my boarding pass without looking at what kind of paper was in the printer, so it printed on some fancy parchment-looking stuff that julien was using for his report on egypt. “it’s kind of funny, isn’t it?” i said to ari. “my fancy new internet boarding pass printed on paper that’s supposed to look old.”
when i got to ari and michael’s, i asked if i could borrow a suitcase, one that would be better for my stuff than my giant, unwieldy duffel bag. ari gave me a little blue one, and as i was putting my stuff in, gabriel came over and said, “hey! that’s my suitcase!”
“oh, really?” i said. “well, is it okay if i borrow it? you probably won’t need it between now and monday.”
he thought about it for a second. “okay,” he said. “except it should be PINK because you’re a GIRL!”
when i showed my dad gabriel’s fancy elephant-shaped luggage tag on my suitcase, he said that it might make people think i was a republican. “probably not,” i said, “since my hair’s pink.” you know, like a GIRL.
on the way to the airport, gabriel asked me a lot of questions about going to see my mom for thanksgiving. where does your mom live? in st. louis, missouri. it’s far. what’s your mom’s name? judy. my mom’s name is ari. are you going for three days? no, six. what if you went for thirty-five days? that would be too long; i have to go back to work. what if you went for one day? that’d be too short. the flight would hardly be worth it. what if you went for ten days? again, the work thing. hey, that’s a krispy kreme over there!
at the moment i’m alone at 11PM on thanksgiving in a st. louis bar, where the doorman eyed my texas drivers’ license with suspicion. everyone at this bar seems to be home for the holidays; they’re greeting the bartenders by name and talking about college life. one of the bartenders-by-name almost spilled beer on my computer (she apologized profusely, so i told her that this laptop’s really old), and two people have asked if i’m writing a paper or “you’re not working, are you?” i wanted to explain that, no, i’m here by myself because i don’t really know anyone in st. louis and i haven’t left the house all day so i felt like i wanted to go somewhere and write or surf the internet but this bar doesn’t have wifi so i went with the writing. instead i just smiled and said “no.”
i had thanksgiving dinner with my parents and my aunt and grandfather, who also live in st. louis. our dinner conversation made me think about the jokes i make. my parents and sister (who is in brazil right now, where they don’t have thanksgiving) always laugh at my jokes, but my aunt and grandfather don’t always laugh. my grandfather’s not laughing has two explanations: he’s eighty-nine and doesn’t usually get the pop-culture references, and he doesn’t hear very well. when people talk over each other or too quickly he doesn’t catch everything. he puts himself in a different mode when he can’t hear what people are saying, and you can practically see the change on his face. my grandmother (his wife) didn’t always hear too well either, and she often seemed like she, too, was missing most of the conversation. when questioned about her glazed-over look, she would say, “i’m just glad to have my family around me.” i’m pretty sure that this is my grandfather’s passive-listening mode: he stops paying strict attention and instead just enjoys the fact that his family’s there and talking and enjoying each other’s company.
this makes me happy.
(the bartender-by-name just came over to ask if i needed anything. “i’m fine, thanks,” i said.
“what are you working on?” she asked. “i’m really curious.”
“just writing,” i said. “my parents live here, and i’m visiting for thanksgiving. i don’t really know anyone, but i wanted to go out, so here i am.”
“i’m sally,” she said, shaking my hand. i guess now i know someone.)
but back to the jokes. my immediate family always laughs at my jokes. the jokes are often at my mom’s expense, especially about the dolls, but she seems to take them with good humor. in fact, i’m starting to think she shows me her dolls because she’s amused by how much they freak me out. the extended family, though, doesn’t always know where i’m coming from. which makes me wonder: do my parents laugh at my jokes because they think i’m funny, or because they consider the laughing a familial obligation? my experiences in a workplace setting lead me to believe that i’m not always as hilarious to other people as i am to myself. this same theory may also apply to hair color. when my dad picked me up from the airport, he didn’t seem surprised by my pink hair, nor did he comment on it. my initial thought was that he’d seen me with funny-colored hair before and was therefore unfazed. but maybe the family code that makes him laugh at all my jokes also dictates that he not comment on my tattoos and piercings and funny hair.
the consolation prize is that at least my immediate family is happy to see me. really, that’s the best prize of all.
*barf*
today i used the phrase “ultimo sex pants” in front of my boss.
on the way home from work every day, i drive by an auto repair place with a big marquee out front. every day the marquee features a new announcement for passersby to read. sometimes it’s patriotic, sometimes it’s about smiles and hugs, and sometimes it’s some bizarre platitude i’ve never heard before. the other day it was about how bevo (the UT football mascot) likes to eat stew made from the mascot of an opposing team (i’d say which mascot, but i can’t remember). i always check for the new phrase when i drive by; it makes me think about how, if i were an auto mechanic, deciding what to put on the marquee would be one of my favorite parts of the day.
today it was “a dentist’s drill, when it rotates, makes 300,000 revolutions per second.” whether it’s true or not, that’s a pretty bizarre thing to put on a marquee. in a way i can appreciate that.
a few months ago the marquee said, “don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.” this advice is wasted on me, since i almost always think that silence is ripe for improvement, usually in the form of speech on my part.
i talk a lot. i talk when i have something to say, i talk when i’m tired, i talk when i’m comfortable with someone. the aforementioned talking is fairly innocuous, but i’ve noticed recently that i also talk a lot when i’m nervous or when there’s an audience available for me to entertain, and i talk a hell of a lot when i’m trying to get someone’s attention. those situations are a little less harmless.
in those situations, a strange feeling comes over me, and suddenly i’ll do almost anything to make the joke. all my tact goes out the window; i say things i wouldn’t normally say to people i wouldn’t normally say them to, and i say them no matter who’s listening. not having experienced literal mania, i suppose i’d describe the feeling as manic. the audience, god love them, is fuel for the fire, and if i feel like people are paying attention to me, the mania worsens.
here’s a list of the things i’ve had to apologize for lately:
“i’m sorry i said i hate volleyball after you told me you played it all through college. it’s true that in my own customized version of hell i’d be forced to play volleyball with a severe sunburn, but i think volleyball is a fine sport as long as i’m not playing it myself.”
“i’m sorry i made a joke about death mere minutes after you mentioned that your mom is no longer with us.”
“i’m sorry i said your pants were too short in front of everyone, and then fell on the floor and laughed and laughed. it was rude of me, and i’m sorry.”
“i’m sorry i said that ‘a fantastic game of tennis’ is an oxymoron. i saw the opportunity for a joke, so i made one. i think tennis is a fine sport as long as i’m not playing it myself.”
this manic tactlessness is a new thing for me. it might have arrived along with my recent self-doubt; maybe i’ve begun to feel like i need to perform in order to impress people. another potential excuse is mathematic in nature: i spent the first seventeen years of my life afflicted with crippling shyness, so if i’ve been twice as talkative since, i’ll be thirty-four by the time i get it all out.
or maybe it’s like carbon dating. what’s the half-life of verbosity?
last weekend, during a moment of social awkwardness, i found myself describing my job in bizarre, hopefully-amusing detail for an audience of three people. it’s a speech i’ve given before, but this time, i had the sensation of leaving my body and standing across from myself as an invisible fourth member of the audience. i was watching myself and talking at the same time (which is none too easy, mind you), and it was weird to say the least. why am i talking so much? the invisible me wondered. and why am i talking about my job, of all subjects? it’s not that interesting. in fact, i’m monopolizing the whole conversation. i wish i would stop. when one of the three audience members got up and walked away, the invisible me was not surprised.
naturally the visible me kept right on talking to the other two people.
this talkulitis is useful in some respects: it covers up my general distaste for all forms of segue and small talk, and it does occasionally diffuse awkward situations. though maybe it’s more deflection than diffusion—a “hey everyone, look at me, i’m being an idiot!” way of creating a diversion so that nobody else thinks about how they have nothing to say to each other.
but i’ve seen the way people look at me when i get this way; and it’s not always pretty. it’s a deer-in-headlights sort of look, like one henry miller might get. sometimes i can get away with telling myself, hey, if they don’t like this part of me, they’re not worth my time. but if everyone gives me the deer-in-headlights and is therefore not worth my time, who will i have left to talk to?
