When I went to the john for my morning wizz, a cockroach was on the bristles of my toothbrush, maybe eating whatever was left of yesterday's Crest. Killed the disgusting thing and rinsed off the brush, but now and for the rest of my life, every time I brush my teeth I'll remember that roach. Good thing I don't brush my teeth very often.

♦ ♦ ♦

It's the morning social hour on the sidewalk. There must be 30 people, maybe more, young and old, standing around and talking mostly in Vietnamese, in front of my building and the building next door and in the street and on the sidewalk on the other side. The heart of the party, though, is right outside my window.

Nothing's wrong with other people being friendly, long as I'm not invited thank you, and nobody in this slum would have enough indoor acreage to host an event like this, so have fun, folks. But why is the party happening under my bay window, starting at the crack of 8:30 on a weekend morning?

Further grumpiness: When I'm forced into a conversation, it's usually one person talking, one person listening, with the roles switching once in a while. With this crowd, though, it seems like everyone's talking all at once, except the children, who simply scream.

A crotchety neighbor needs to open his window and shout, "Shut the fuck up!", but it won't be me. That would bring only bad vibes, taunts, and possibly a brick through my window. This ain't Mr Rogers' neighborhood.

Peering through the cheap plastic Venetians, I'm trying to make sense of the scene: babies in their mothers' arms, toddlers toddling, little kids, bigger kids, high school kids, grown-ups, and gray-haired oldsters, some with walkers. Everyone's dressed up like it's Easter Sunday, standing there on the sidewalk and the street and the stairs. There's a wedding, perhaps? Or some kind of Asian holiday? Maybe it's Loud Day.

Half an hour later, a fleet of late-model sedans come down the alleyway, and everyone who's been bothering me all morning climbs into the five cars, which drive away, horns honking, into the distance. Somewhere in the city today, there's a convention of well-dressed Vietnamese non-stop talkers.

♦ ♦ ♦

Pike found a mildewy queen-size futon down the street, so I've inherited the butt-portion of the old couch he and Terry had been sleeping on. Terry — that's his girlfriend who's almost always here. We met a week or so ago, and of course I forgot her name, but yesterday they were arguing again and I overheard her name when Pike screamed it.

I told them thanks for the couch cushions, and indeed it'll be a relief to my butt and backside after sleeping on my wooden sleep-shelf since I moved in. I'm happier for them, though. Finally having a real bed instead of two people sleeping on one sofa, maybe they'll argue less when they're not sweating on top of each other after the sex.

♦ ♦ ♦

A long letter, from Maria Tomchick, of Eat the State! Zine:

As usual, I enjoyed reading PL, especially your political rants. I was commenting to a friend yesterday that I think I've alienated a few of the other zine people I trade with because of the political stuff in my zine. I forget that we live in a country where political discussions are frowned on in the same way as talking about your toilet habits, menstrual problems, etc in a fancy restaurant is considered grotesque. Normal people don't let politics bother them at all… Aaargghh! …
I read about your exchanges with Carlotta and found them very interesting. I've always thought that people talk about sex when they're in an unsure social situation. They may feel too insecure to talk about their hobbies, what they're thinking about, how they are going to deal with their mother's illness, what they thought about a movie they saw the night before, etc. All these things might lead them to betray something about themselves that they consider shameful or inferior in some way (feelings like fear and insecurity aren't always logical, so bear with me here).
I do this too, especially at parties where I don't know most of the people. It's safe to fall back on sex-talk because it's a common denominator among everyone, and everyone is interested in or fascinated by sex. And women, especially, get a lot of approval for being sexy or knowledgeable about sex.
Unfortunately, there's a flip side to this, too — sexual harassment and unwanted advances. Which is probably why Carlotta gets so pissed whenever a guy ogles her cleavage and makes a smartass remark. She's doing everything right (according to society's rules) so how come he's not being a nice guy? The guy, on the other hand, is thinking that she wears revealing clothes and uses double entendres, so she must want him to come on to her. Classic double-blind.
How to deal with it? I think you did the right thing — treat her like a friend, which is what she needs and why she keeps coming back to talk. Maybe it's why she did the inexplicable poetry-reading thing. Friends are people you can do stupid things in front of, and they don't criticize you for it.
Re: the pencil test. Never heard of it. For me, wearing a bra depends on two things: 1) how baggy is the shirt that I'm wearing, and 2) how hot or cold is it outside? Simple, huh?

Great letter, and I never know how people do that — live a life, write a great zine, and still have time to write long, thoughtful letters. I've got no life, just a zine, but I rarely write letters, and they generally suck when I do. For you I'll make an effort.

Glad you liked the political rants. Of course, for every person (you're the first) who appreciates the political stuff, three or four people say they find it boring or didactic or offensive. I say fuck 'em. It's my zine, my diary, my thoughts, and sometimes my thoughts involve politics, so there will be some politics here.

I also love talking about toilet habits in inappropriate places, and if I knew anything about menstrual problems I'd talk about that, too.

Found your perspective on Carlotta thoughtful, and probably exactly right. Now of course, she's a distant memory, but when we were working together and she was borderline-inappropriate, yeah, she probably just wanted to be friends.

Which is something else hard to understand. Why do people want so many friends? Four out of ten people are assholes, and five of the rest are just boring as hell, so I'd rather be alone most days. And most days I am.

Thanks for the conversation, Maria.

When I was a kid, Sunday mornings were wasted in Sunday School, where I was brainwashed by child molesters of the mind, and forced to recite insipid moral lessons from an extremely immoral book called The Bible. After that, I had to squirm through an hour of "worship services," which amounted only to more Bible boredom.

At 18 I moved out of the family home, and except for a few visits to please my mother (when I still cared about pleasing my mother) I've never attended church since.

When I pause for a moment and remember how Sundays used to be, having Sundays for myself lifts my spirits. Thank god there's no God! The believers carry their scriptures — and their kids — to sacrifice their souls, and I say to myself, what a wretched world this would be, if we were under the thumb of God or Allah, Jehovah or Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

♦ ♦ ♦

My pretty good spirits were punctured almost as soon as I slipped into the green cape and stepped onto the sidewalk to hand out flyers for the shop. The third guy walking by shunned me, then stunned me by turning and asking, "How can you be so cheerful when my friends are dying?"

He wasn't being an ass; the hurt was in his eyes, unmistakably. He walked away before I could come up with an answer. Typing this hours later I'm still looking for an answer, but this is the best I've found.

First off, I'm glad he left me speechless. Being me, my instinct would be a smartass retort, which would've hurt us both.

Second, sorry for the cheerfulness, but trust me, it's mostly fake. My job is to force flyers on people, and pretending to be happy helps, but please don't take it personally.

Probably every living soul in this city knows someone who's HIV+, or a friend with AIDS, or knows someone who died of it, or someone who will. I'm lucky to be somewhat removed from it — I only know one person who's HIV+ — because I have so few friends and never have sex, but it's impossible not to know, not to ache. I see the suffering every day, especially now that I'm working in the Castro.

And something else… It wasn't my intent to bookend tonight's entry with this morning's, but let's be blunt: If AIDS is part of your god's marvelous plan, then your god is cruel and monstrous. If you love and worship a cruel and monstrous god, well, you and me got nothing to talk about.

If I could relive that moment from this morning, I'd offer that guy a hug. Even if I never see him again, though, it's a big city with a lot of sick people in it. Something similar will probably repeat. I'll try to keep a hug handy.

Today's a day off work, yet work is still on my mind. At the second-hand shop where I wear the crazy cape, I like the owners, LeeAnn and Stevi. They're always nice to me, it's a fabulous shop. They're passionate about it. They've told me that running a shop like this has been a dream of theirs for a long time, and they do a marvelous job keeping the shelves stocked with great stuff. I sincerely recommend the place, and if you're in the Castro or Upper Market area, please stop in, spend some money, and tell them Doug sent you.

But I don't see how the shop survives. Sometimes an hour goes by without anyone even coming through the door, and they've had whole days selling next to nothing at all.

They're in the perfect neighborhood for a shop selling colorful clothes and oddities from another era and ladies' garments big enough for men to wear, but they've chosen a disastrous location. It's a low-rise neighborhood with lots of storefront shops, but they're on the second floor. From the sidewalk or street, other than me wearing the cape and pointing people upstairs, the only clue that there's anything on the second floor is a wordy A-frame sign that has a big arrow pointing up, and says "collectibles, clothing, accessories, drag, jewelry, art, statuary, books, baby boomer nostalgia, furniture, gifts & more."

There's only one similar shop within a mile — and it's right below, on the first floor of the same building. Our competitor has a full window display and a neon sign, and they couldn't be more visible. When I get people's attention and they turn and look toward our shop, what they see first is the other shop, the Brand X shop at sidewalk level.

That's why "Upstairs!" is half my vocabulary when I'm wearing the cape. I say "Upstairs! Upstairs! Hey, mister — go up the stairs!" thousands of times every day, and maybe one out of a hundred people passing by on the sidewalk actually turns and looks. And when they look, what do they see? Our competitor's shop.

In our upstairs shop, drag is the best-seller, so I've suggested that we should stress drag more. Me wearing the green cape and insect hood is weird, and maybe weird gets people's attention, but we're not selling capes and insect heads. I think they should put me in a dress and make-up to hand out the flyers — there's a yellow chiffon skirt I'd look great in, especially with my pale chubby legs and beard.

But Stevi says no, because the ladies' clothes for men are too expensive, and they're afraid of the wear and tear on the garments. In the wise words of Michael Nesmith and Linda Ronstadt, I think she can't see the forest for the trees.

They have me vacuum the shop every morning, but not until they're open. They often have me unload and carry stuff through the store and into the backroom, to be cleaned up and priced and put out for sale, but again, I do this while the shop is open. So there I am with a big 50-pound box in my arms, waiting for shoppers to get out of my way, or vacuuming over their toes. It's basically saying, "Hey bub, could you quit thinking about buying that expensive rocking chair so I can vacuum in that corner?"

It would make more sense, I think, to juggle my hours and have me do the stocking and vacuuming before we're open for business, or after we're closed. I've said that to Stevi, but she says no. She doesn't want to come in an hour earlier, and she doesn't want to give me a key.

On Sunday nights, the place closes at 6:00, but yesterday at about 5:45 I hit a hot streak on the sidewalk, and started sending 2-3 people up the stairs every couple of minutes. By 6:00 there were nine people in the shop, wandering the aisles and oohing and ahhing and trying on shoes and putting merch into their baskets... until Stevi said, "Sorry, folks, we're closing. Please come back some other day."

She rang up a few people who were ready to buy, but scooted everyone else out the door, said good night to me, and at 6:03 the second floor was darkened and empty.

It's their shop, not mine, but I think LeeAnn and Stevi should've stayed open another fifteen or thirty minutes, and let the people shop. When I said so to Stevi, though, she did what she usually does when I have a bright idea. She shook her head no. She's running the shop her way, thank you very much. I just work there.

♦ ♦ ♦

After work I checked the mail, and then had a crazy ride back on the #14 bus. I was waiting at the stop across from the Transbsay Terminal, but when the bus came, the driver didn't pull over. The light was red, so I walked between cars into the second lane and knocked on the bus's glass door. The driver rolled her eyes and opened it, muttering what a fool I was to be standing in traffic.

I climbed aboard and agree with her, "Hell, I've always been a fool." She laughed and dropped her attitude, and explained why she hadn't stopped.

"I've got four minutes to get to Van Ness," she said, "or I'll be late. And I do not want to be late, so I'm not stopping until Van Ness."

OK by me, since I was going further than Van Ness — if we're going express, so much the better. But does anyone expect Muni to stick to a schedule? Jeez. I saw some Muni timetables on a bus a while back, but they're not a common sight. I prefer non-fiction. Muni on schedule is an oxymoron.

True to her word, though, tonight's driver drove past the stops on every block, cackling like the Wicked Witch about all the people hollering for her to stop, waving their bags, briefcases, and arms, trying to get her attention. From inside the bus this was plenty funny, but less so if I'd been one of the unlucky schmucks standing at any of the bus stops where the bus didn't stop.

We stopped only for traffic lights, and I was the only passenger on the #14, a route that's usually standing room only by Powell Street. After Van Ness, when she finally let passengers board the bus, she snapped at them to, "Step up! Step up! We haven't got all day!"

It was like riding the bus to an alternate universe. She must've been a rookie to care about being on-time, but she has the Muni arrogance down pat already.

♦ ♦ ♦

The rest of the evening went toward trying to rescue the March issue of this zine. It's not as good as the December or January issues, but guess what? It'll still cost the same three bucks. Cash only. No checks.

Quitting at Macy's made me richer in spirit, but poorer in the wallet. One of the things I've had to give up is going to the movies whenever anything interesting is playing. I used to see 6-8 movies a week, but now… I don't.

My self-imposed rule is that I'm not buying a ticket unless it's a double feature, and admission is under $5 (an hour's wage), and I've heard or read rave reviews of both features.

Tonight's show at the Roxie met only the first requirement, but I went anyway. They're my rules so I can break 'em, and also it was Peter Fonda night.

Before tonight, I'd only seen Fonda in Easy Rider and The Trip, and in both he was slightly wooden as an actor. Those are two great movies, though, so there I was, saying "One, please" under the neon, and walking into San Francisco's oldest, maybe smallest, and coolest theater. It's barely been a week, but it's been too long.

The Hired Hand (1971) was Fonda's first try at directing, and it shows. There are too many wandering shots, slow dissolves, double exposures, and artsy under-lit scenes. Lots of 'technique', and moments that might as well have had intertitles announcing, "Directed by Peter Fonda."

The minimalist music is annoying, too, mostly consisting of one guy slowly plucking a guitar one note at a time, with the same notes repeated so often you're hoping the sound will go out.

And that happened often. It's a recurring issue at the Roxie, but because the place barely breaks even they haven't been able to fix it. When they show 16mm prints, and the film's soundtrack grows quiet — any moment when there's no dialogue, no noise, no music — all sound disappears. So if, say, there's a scene where the only sound is birds chirping softly in the distance, you won't hear the birds chirping. You'll only hear silence.

When someone speaks, the sound comes back fine, but somewhere in the wiring, 'kinda quiet' becomes 'absolute quiet'. I suppose some people in the audience don't even notice, but to me it's really distracting. It only happens with 16mm prints, so I avoid movies on the Roxie calendar that are listed as 16mm.

Tonight's double feature was listed as being in 35mm, so imagine my disappointment when the theater's manager announced with regret that the distributor had sent a 16mm print by mistake.

Despite all the above, though, The Hired Hand is very good, a borderline masterpiece. It's an elegant but violent western with a cleverly minimal screenplay about murder, vengeance, and love's redemption. Verna Bloom is a wonder, playing a very intelligent and liberated woman, Fonda is lifelike and believable as her husband, and Warren Oates steals the show as his loyal sidekick.

When the lights came up, Mr Fonda emerged from the crowd, and stood up front answering questions for an hour. He seemed intelligent and easy on the ego, long on folksy charm. "If you don't like something I say," he said at the start, "please throw vegetables, so I'll have something healthy for dinner."

He told amusing stories about working for Roger Corman, and about the other Fondas (Henry, Jane, and Bridget), and he peppered his recollections of Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson with dead-on impersonations. Fonda's Nicholson might be better than Nicholson's. Despite many years of unrepentant drug use, his wit and memory were sharply focused, and unlike some celebrity screenings I've attended, he didn't show up just for the Q & A. He was shaking hands in the lobby before the first feature, and when the questions petered out (pun!) he returned to his seat in the audience, and watched the second feature, too.

Which took some guts, because the second feature was Wanda Nevada (1979), and it was… not good. The sweet scent of pot was thick in the theater's air as it began, but only a mind-altering substance could make this movie endurable.

Fonda stars again, this time opposite an adolescent Brooke Shields, in what might have been a fast-moving, funny romantic comedy, except it moves too slow, isn't funny, and every hint of romance between the leads made me want to call a cop. And you know, I don't like cops.

Shields, you may remember, was the tragic victim of a CIA-funded experiment wherein the face of a gorgeous 24-year-old woman was grafted onto the body of a 12-year-old girl. Can't imagine the trauma she went through, making underwear ads and pervy movies at an age when she should've been playing on monkey bars.

It's not just the pervert factor, though. The movie sucked in more ordinary ways, and there wasn't even a chance to squirm uncomfortably, undecided whether to find the leading little-girl/lady attractive or not, because Shields overplays the role rather obnoxiously. She's constantly primping, comes off conceited, and every time her character was in danger I was rooting for the danger. By the time middle-aged Fonda and childish Shields fall in love, the movie is already awful and can't get worse anyway.

As I left, Fonda was in the lobby again, glad-handing people and answering questions. Of course, I walked by and left. I don't have anything to say to a movie star, especially after such a shitty movie.

On my way home, I wondered why Fonda had come. Maybe the Roxie paid his air fare, but they couldn't have paid much more than that. Add up the economics: it was a sell-out crowd, but it's only $6 p/ticket, with 300 or so seats in the theater, and Fonda sat in one of them. He must've come because he wanted to be there.

His star has faded since the 1960s and '70s, but he's still a working actor. I suppose nobody making movies hears applause very often. Tonight, there was applause.

If my dad was alive, he'd say to me, "Doug, you've really screwed things up to be handing out flyers for a living at your age." He always had after-the-fact advice, and he'd see my last ten years as an uninterrupted series of mistakes.

I've enjoyed every mistake I've made, of course. and I'd make the same mistakes again.

Dad would say my string of screw-ups began a decade ago, when I quit my semi-yuppie job to go full-time at a second job that paid less, but which I enjoyed more. Money makes the world go 'round, yeah, but I prefer my world rotate really slow.

When I left everything behind and moved to California, it was the same decision all over again. Likewise, when I quit my 'real job' in February, and instead started pinning up signs offering to do odd jobs. All my big choices made me less money, and more happy.

Poverty takes some getting used to, though. For example, there's no soap dish in the shower at this apartment, and my instant inclination is to buy one. Reality argues back, and points out that I'd have to stand on my feet and hand out flyers for an hour to earn the price of a soap dish. Is a soap dish worth an hour of my life? No, it is not. It's not worth even fifteen minutes, so the soap balances on the lip of the bathtub instead.

I'm doing laundry by tossing it into the tub when I shower, letting it soak up the soapy run-off, then wringing it and rinsing, wringing again and letting it dry. It all dries kinda wrinkly, but what do I care about a wrinkled shirt?

Milk, lemonade, soda, and beer? No, no, no, and no. Despite all the advertising, water tastes good, quenches thirst, and remains the only liquid that's essential to human survival — and it's free, so water is what I'm drinking, unless you're buying.

I'm out of toilet paper, but that's another unnecessary expense, so long as I bring a newspaper to the potty. The Chronicle isn't quite so soft and absorbent as Charmin, but it's a more philosophically satisfying wipe — at last, there's a purpose for all the paper's pages of stock tables.

Another idea, though I haven't tried it yet, is that the next time my hemorrhoids flare up, maybe mayonnaise will work instead of a suppository.

Living lean is my quest! If you have cheapskate suggestions, please send 'em in. I'll try anything once, and print any suggestions that make sense.

♦ ♦ ♦

Today I finally met Pike's fraidy-cat, a black and white thing that's fairly friendly but very nervous. For as long as we've lived here, the cat's always been hiding.

Pike says pets weren't allowed at his last place, so the cat spent several months at some other guy's house. He thinks the other guy must've ignored the cat or treated it cruel, because it used to be brave but now it cowers and runs in terror every time a passing car honks its horn or someone slams a door.

Terry said "Uh-huh" several times as Pike was telling me about the cat. She says "Uh-huh" a lot, whenever Pike is saying anything. She's annoying, and I wonder whether she even has an apartment of her own — she is always, always here, and she never hides like the cat does.

Here's something unexpected. Somebody named Bill called my message line yesterday, and I called him back this morning. He runs a book store, and wants to meet me tomorrow morning, to talk about some possible work. Nothing unusual so far; I get calls like that all the time, because of my signs posted all around town — "I'll do anything legal for $5 an hour."

Except he called back a little later, and said to my voice mail,

"By the way, bring a copy of your zine tomorrow morning. That seems like the best way to get to know the guy we might be hiring."

He knows what a zine is? And he knows that I'm a zine guy? That's peculiar, because I keep those worlds separate. The flyers don't say that I write and publish a zine, and I certainly hadn't mentioned it. Not sure I want to work for someone who's read the zine, and knows exactly how often I change my underwear (not very) or get laid (not ever), and so forth.

♦ ♦ ♦

There are plenty of characters in the Castro, where I work when I'm working for the shop. The green cape is an attention-getter, and I enjoy the attention, so I've danced with several men on the sidewalk, and some women too (though I'm a terrible dancer). I've even been kissed! As jobs go, it's sorta fun being flyer-boy in a wild neighborhood.

To counterbalance that, though, this afternoon I was sorta molested. I've seen the perp before — a short, skinny black man in a purple jacket, who does little karate kicks into the air for no particular reason. Maybe the high-kicking should've warned me, but I twirl around in an insect's head, so who am I to judge?

He started by admiring the cape, and we exchanged some pleasantries, and then he reached out and put his arms around me. Nothing unusual so far; people get touchy all the time. It seems to come with the cape.

Then he hugged me tighter, and I felt his erection pumping through his pants, between my thighs. Ever been dry-humped by a dog? It was like that. When a dog does it it's a laugh. When a man does it — I pushed him away and told him to go fuck himself.

My revulsion might be, to a microscopic degree, something akin to what a woman feels when a man gropes her without an invitation. It felt like an insult, like I'm the hors d'oeuvres on a platter. At the moment it just freaked me out, but afterwards it started really pissing me off, and I regret letting him walk away laughing. He would've beaten me up, sure, but I should've slugged him.

My morning client had asked for a copy of the zine, so he'll be the first to see the March issue, but it'll be defective.

I walked to Kinko's and ran just four copies — one for the client, one for Factsheet Five 'cuz their deadline is near, one for me to do corrections of the typos (galley proofs, essentially), and one for just in case.

Kinko's screwed up, though, ran the copies one-sided, and more annoying, the punk chick at the register somehow managed to smear her lipstick onto several pages on my master copy. It was all comped for their mistake, but it still sucks. I'll have to re-type the pages she — what did she do to them, anyway?

♦ ♦ ♦

I walked to the address the client gave me, which was only a few blocks from my apartment, and it's a big and busy house full of people. I asked for Bill, and someone showed me to his room, but he shouted through the door that he wasn't dressed yet. I got to know one of the cats while my maybe-boss put his britches on, and several guys I assume are his flatmates walked down the hall.

He's not an ordinary fellow. First thing he said to me was, "Hi, I'm Bill, and my hobby is sex." I laughed, and he said, "No, I'm serious," and I laughed again. It wasn't an ordinary job interview.

The job was not what I'd expected, either. I'd misunderstood his voice-mail message — he'd said he runs Black Books, which I assumed was a bookstore, but it's not. It's a tiny-scale publishing concern. They print books, and a sex-oriented zine called Black Sheets. I traded my zine for his, and his hardened me an hour later at home.

And how did Bill know that I publish a zine? He told me that a friend of his had read my zine and seen my flyers in the neighborhood, and when Bill said, "I could use some help in the office," his friend had suggested calling me. Whoever that friend is, reckon I owe him an ice cold generic cola.

Bill told me a lot about himself, and wanted to know lots about me. Asking me about me tends to seal me up, but I decided I liked him and answered. Usually it takes 6-8 weeks before I feel comfortable around anyone, but after just a few minutes I heard myself rambling on irrelevantly, like I do here in the zine.

I was saying something about how facial tattoos make me queasy, when it occurred to me that I'd forgotten my glasses and he was across the room, so hell, he might have a triple-pierced nose and my eyes wouldn't have been focused enough to tell. Up closer, his nose seemed virginal so no offense was taken, and I'll start working for him on Monday — a few days a week, data entry mostly, to input a backlog of paperwork and help with mailings and such.

We shook hands, and as I was leaving a naked, gray-haired man came dancing down the stairs wearing a shirt and tie but no pants, with his dick bouncing at right about my eye-height. Another flatmate, I presume.

I've done office work for Macy's, a pharmacy, a car dealership, and several other boring businesses, but this gig might be more interesting.

I was awakened by an itch in my hair that turned out to be a cockroach scurrying across my scalp. This apartment has thousands of cockroaches, but now there's one less and I have roach guts and roach legs in my hair.

Then I had to pee into an empty jar of yesterday's applesauce, because Terry is in the bathroom, and whenever she's in there she's in there for an hour, so this is the perfect time to take a dump on her.

Terry, Pike's girlfriend, is one of the dumbest non-retarded people I've ever met. She babbles at him all the time, till he tells her to shut up or fuck off. Sometimes she babbles at me, and I simply can't make sense of whatever she's talking about. She uses words, one or two syllables max, strings them together into what sounds like sentences but my 7th-grade English teacher would shoot her dead and call it self-defense. While I struggle to decode what she's just said, she's already saying something else that needs decoding, and each utterance seems unrelated to anything that preceded it.

When she first showed up in this otherwise OK-ish apartment, I thought Pike was a putz for yelling at her so much. As time goes by, though, and she's always here, always babbling, never making sense, I wonder why he doesn't yell at her more. Her manifest stupidity is astounding. What Pike is constantly pissed about is that she's constantly brain dead.

As I was typing this, she emerged from the john and started whining to Pike about her social worker, or whomever has decided that she no longer qualifies for general assistance. He'd been asleep, though, so now he's yelling at her, "I was asleep God damn it," and she's apologizing, I think, but it's the angriest apology ever and I hate that woman.

When she's not being yelled at by Pike for doing something dumb, she's clouding up some other misunderstanding — "Ooooh," she says slowly, "I thought blah was blah blah. I didn't know blah was blah blah blah." I've heard her say variations on that so many times, I swear it doesn't even matter what's blah blah and what's blah blah blah. Whatever's what, she gets it wrong every time.

She asked me yesterday if they were hiring at the shop where I hand out flyers, and actually, they are — but I like LeeAnn and Stevi too much to tell Terry the truth. She's been out of work for as long as I've known her, which is only a few weeks but too long already. She often tells long, incoherent tales of job-hunting, but she's always here so I don't know when these tales could possibly take place, and anyway, who'd hire a woman like Terry?

Now Pike is yelling at her about something else stupid she said or did, and I hate it when he yells at her, hate it when she yells at him, but this is the soundtrack of life at the Mierda apartment. I'm putting the plugs back into my ears and going back to bed.

♦ ♦ ♦

Seems queer that I'll be working at a sex publisher on Monday. Like, what do I know about sex? I've given up on pursuing romance, and from my behavior any observer would think I'm asexual. In reality, maybe I'm solosexual — I'm my only sexual partner.

I'm almost completely ignorant of anything sexual. My parents never talked to us (or probably each other) about that sinful subject, so I didn't learn anything from them except "Don't." Sex Ed in school was mostly designed to obfuscate, not enlighten, so I didn't learn much there. What little I've learned came from reading Playboy, jerking off with Bruno in junior high, or from the rare and mostly unsatisfied ladies who've allowed me close enough to unhook a bra. To this day, I have only a vague notion what and where a clitoris might be.

I'm a fountain of sexual misinformation, but in reading through the issue of Black Sheets Bill gave me, I've found cause to beat off thrice, and even if something goes horribly wrong on Monday and Bill instantly fires my ass, I'd recommend Black Sheets. It's about sex, whether you're gay, bi- or tri-sexual, hetero like me, whatever, you'll and find something in it to simmer your stew. I say, send seven bucks and a signed statement that you're 21 (even if you're not) to ██████, San Francisco CA 94131.

We're allowed five days grace, but today's the day the rent is due. It's $550 — $275 from Pike, $275 from me, and jack shit from Terry. Being a semi-responsible adult, I've been putting aside a hundred bucks each of the past three weeks, so my half of the rent is covered, with a little left over for utilities and whatever comes up.

When I got up this morning, though, the first thing Pike said was, "I'm a little short on the rent."

"How short?"

"I've got $210," he said, "and I'm hoping you can tide me over for a while."

"How long is a while?"

The answer was a shrug.

Hence my 'half' of the rent will be $340. I can cover it. Been working fairly steady, so it's not even a strain, but it's got to be a special occasion, not the start of a trend.

Pike is unemployed, except for taking my odd-jobs overflow, and he doesn't seem to be particularly looking for work, but he's not a deadbeat. He has brains and wits enough, when we talk metaphysics it's hard keeping up with him. He's a decent dude, too, if I don't subtract too many points for his girlfriend, so I didn't lecture him, didn't hardass him, and didn't say "just this once." He knows I'm poor, so "just this once" goes without saying, or we wouldn't be in this shitty neighborhood with Mierda painted on the wall.

A while later, though, when I walked through his room to the john, he was using his driver's license to lay out a line of coke on the coffee table. So he has the money for luxuries, but not for the rent.

♦ ♦ ♦

Maybe you've noticed how stories of IRS crackdowns seem to make the news in early April every year? It's not a coincidence, it's a scare tactic, designed to make anyone thinking of 'cheating' think again.

Well, this morning's IRS PR in the Chronicle is comical: The geniuses at Internal Revenue suspect that laundromats might be under-reporting their quarters, since it's all jingle-jangle cash. With this as their "probable cause," IRS is going to gas, electric, and water utilities, to determine which laundromats seem to be using more hot water than their sales could account for.

America, baby — land of the free, home of the brave, where you're always subject to audit, investigation, and fines, so keep all receipts for seven or eleven years.

♦ ♦ ♦

"You have — six — new messages."

Two calls were from potential clients. I called 'em back, and maybe something will come of it.

A furious man left a furious message, complaining that I'd stuck my "anything legal" stickers on newspaper vending boxes, and he'd had to scrape them off. He didn't leave a number so I didn't call back, but I'd say, no sir, maybe you chose to scrape my stickers off, but you didn't have to. I don't stick my stickers over the coin slot, or the news window — they're on the side of the box, doing no damage to anything. If you "had to" scrape them off, well, you'll have to do it again next time I make the rounds.

Maggie called. She got my letter, and wanted to say she still loves me. I still don't know why. She asked me to call her, collect. I didn't, but might.

Kallie called, inviting me to a party at her place tomorrow. I'm not going, of course. I don't do parties. But I did call her back.

And here's the last and weirdest message: My brother's ex-wife called, to say she's in town with my niece for a few days, and I'm invited to join them for dinner. 5:30 tonight, at the Hard Rock Café.

That's not happening, because (a) I'll be working at 5:30, (b) the Hard Rock is an evil yuppie scumhole, and (c) I barely give a rip about them anyway.

When Madeline left my brother Dick, she also left town and took the baby with her. That was twelve years ago. We were never close. And she friggin' dumped my brother — but now she wants to meet me for dinner, with their teenage daughter, Marianna, a kid I haven't seen since she was barely out of diapers?

Mostly I'm immune to the concept of family, but... is my ex-sister-in-law still family? Am I supposed to love her, eat an overpriced cheeseburger with her?

No hard feelings, but no. I don't want to hang out with Madeline and Marianna, just because they're family, or ex-family. There's an uncle in Texas I've never met — am I supposed to love him? My mom has a crazy sister who lives in Idaho, and I've only seen her a few times, but enough to vouch for 'crazy' — am I supposed to love her? Call me a monster, but I simply don't care about my ex-sister-in-law.

I choose for myself who I'm going to care about. Some days I don't even care about me. Other days even that's too demanding.

Today I care about Kallie, enough to return her call but not enough to go to a party. I care about Maggie, but a little less, so her call remains un-returned. In a month I'm flying north to Seattle, to see my mom and a few of my siblings and their kids, and I care about them all. Love them. Looking forward to seeing them.

While I'm there, though, I'm not going to hang out with any of them them more than once or twice. It gets depressing.

Pike's girlfriend Terry is at her parents' place in San Jose, and I wish I didn't know that, didn't know who she was. This morning, for the first time in weeks, it's only Pike and me in the apartment.

He just knocked on my door and said, "I hear you typing in here all the time, and I've noticed the stack of zines — Pathetic Life. That's you?"

Well, hell. I don't want to talk about the zine with anyone who knows me. It's private stuff. I only share it with people who don't know me at all.

Can't lie about it, though, because he's right, I'm in here typing all the time, and the zines are in a box just inside my door.

"Yeah," I said, "I do a zine. Everybody should."

"Then this is you?" he asked, pointing to a tabloid in his other hand. Like Han Solo, I got a bad feeling about this. I reached for it and looked where Pike pointed, inside this week's San Francisco Weekly. It's an article about Factsheet Five. They interviewed its publisher, Seth Friedman, and he mentions my zine. I get one sentence, which is one sentence more than I want.

"Most zines are about music, pop culture. Or just people's mundane lives." He cites Pathetic Life by the Tenderloin's Pathetic Doug as a personal favorite.

"Yeah, that's me," I said to Pike.

"I guess you're a fuckin' celebrity," he said, smiling.

"I am nobody at all," I said, handing the SF Weekly back to him, "and I aspire to be even less." After my confession, though, Pike wouldn't let me weasel out of giving him a copy of November, from the top of the stack.

He won't be in the November issue, and that's good. I'm hoping he'll hate it and never want to see it again, because it'll be easier living with the guy — and his girlfriend — if they never read the March or April issues.

A very few minutes later, he plopped the zine back in the box in my room, without comment. I'm not sure he'd even turned a page. Damned lucky for me my zine sucks.

♦ ♦ ♦

Today was my first day working for Bill at the sex magazine, and it wasn't at all sexy. Spent the morning sorting through checks, filing receipts, and packaging and mailing books and magazines. Four times, the phone rang and I answered it.

Never once got to sit in the hot tub, in the back yard. There were no naked women, or men. No drugs, no condoms, nobody walking around in a bathrobe smoking a pipe. Nope. Just another day in just another office, and I never got aroused even a little.

♦ ♦ ♦

I called Kallie again, and we talked for longer than yesterday (when she'd been in a hurry, setting up her party). It was great talking with her again, so I said something like, "It's been too damned long," and almost instantly we were planning when we could get together.

Squid on Thursday night, we agreed, and after dinner she's going to introduce me to whoever I was, before I was me.

This is something Kallie does as a sideline business: For a fee, she regresses people back to their previous incarnations — past-life therapy, she calls it. For me she says there'll be no fee.

I am, let's say, skeptical about past lives, but being curious and open-minded, I'm going to give it a fair chance. In my past life or lives, maybe I was a better writer and I can give myself some helpful tips.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now it's nearly bedtime, and Terry has returned, loudly.

Ten minutes later a friend of theirs dropped by, knocking loudly and then talking loudly.

They're all chattering now, loudly, about which clubs and which drugs are hot, guys with nice butts, who's going on tour with which band, who's going to drive them to Portland...

I'm not even eavesdropping. I'm trying to edit some pages from last weekend's diary, but they're talking so loud their thoughts are drowning out mine.

Had an "only in San Francisco" conversation with LeeAnn at the shop this morning, and not a happy one — a weird one. She commented that my pants seem baggy, which they are, so I must be losing weight, and I am.

"Yup," I said, "but I'm too cheap to go to Thrift Town and buy pants that fit the new me. I had Twinkies for dinner last night and might again tonight, so tomorrow these same pants might fit again."

Her mouth had dropped open as I was speaking, and she said, "I hope you don't really eat Twinkies."

At this point, I thought she was aghast at the thought of someone consuming so much sugar, so I said, "Sure, I love Twinkies. Junk food made me the man I am," and patted my ample belly.

She wasn't laughing. Her eyes were watering. I couldn't comprehend why she was taking my unhealthy diet so much more seriously than I do.

"Ever since Dan White..." she said, and then I understood.

After City Supervisor Dan White killed Harvey Milk, San Francisco's first openly gay supervisor, White weaseled out of a long jail sentence with what's now called the "Twinkie Defense" — claiming that too much junk food had screwed up his judgment and made him a murderer. America's warped system of justice believed it, and White served only a few years in prison.

The injustice of it baffles me, and maybe I don't even have the facts quite right, but it happened years before I moved to San Francisco, so my knowledge is second-hand. White's easy sentence is further proof — and there's always further proof — that this country is run by cruel bastards and/or imbeciles.

It never occurred to me, though, that it might be socially rude to admit eating Twinkies. Are people boycotting Twinkies because of Harvey Milk's assassination? Hostess is a shitty company, I'm sure, but they can't be blamed for the Milk/Moscone murders.

Of course, I apologized to LeeAnn for any misunderstanding, and explained that it's only the foamy fake pastry and chemical-creamy filling I love. There's no philosophical statement.

She told me I ought to give up Twinkies anyway, just because they're so unhealthy. She's probably right, but I don't actually eat Twinkies. I eat the cheaper generic knock-offs.

♦ ♦ ♦

Pike's girlfriend just walked in on me in the john, while I was losing brown weight. The bathroom door doesn't lock, doesn't even latch, but she's been essentially living here for a month. By now she has to know that a closed bathroom door means someone's on the other side talking a piss or a dump or a shower.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "I forgot that the door doesn't lock..."

She is so fuckin' stupid, I figure she must be fantastic in bed, else Pike wouldn't put up with her. What I haven't figured is why I put up with her.

I'd arrived early for my shift at the shop, so I was sitting on the curb, reading the Examiner and eating (yes) a generic Twinkie, when who comes walking up to me? The littlest pervert — the short black dude who tried to fuck me on Market Street last week. He didn't even remember that I was not the happy recipient of his pelvic thrusts. Today he simply said, "Hey, got any spare change?"

"No," I said sharp as a razor, "and get the fuck away from me."

Being panhandled is ordinary. It's a big city, with a whole lot of poverty and misery, beggars everywhere, and sometimes they want spare change. Sometimes they get it, from me.

Don't panhandling me, though, while I'm eating. That's just rude. It's a long-time pet peeve, even if the guy asking me for spare change isn't someone who molested me a few days ago.

Bother me when I'm chewing and you'll probably get bit. Bother me after what this guy did on Thursday, and well, I had my hand on the mace in my pocket.

To my get-the-fuck-away-from-me, his response was, "Then, do you want to party?" I threw down my paper and stood up, maybe a foot taller and 150 pounds heavier than this miniature jerk-off.

"You're not too old to die young," said I, trying to put a psychotic look on my face. Some international slobber spewed out too.

He put up his hands and walked away, and I am not sure what I would've done next if he hadn't.

♦ ♦ ♦

Most of today I worked inside the shop, cleaning crystal and polishing knickknacks, and there's a "bull in a china shop" effect whenever I work inside, because I'm big and a lot of the merchandise is fragile. Especially in the restroom.

Any of the 'new' used items — anything besides clothes, basically — that need to be cleaned are boxed and stashed in the employees' restroom, because that's the only place with running water. The restroom, therefore, is stuffed with boxes of silver, glass, and woodware to be cleaned. The back of the toilet is has vases and ceramics, so don't sit too enthusiastically. There's a tall pane of glass that's been leaning against the wall for a month, and there's barely enough space remaining to squeeze into the room without having the doorknob jab my groin. Once past the door, I need to contort my knees and hips, to step over a box of brass and reach the sink. It's all precarious. Maybe even dangerous. And what if I need to use the john as a john instead of a workroom? Well, then everything needs to be rearranged, else the splatter from my pee splashes the dresses hanging mere inches from the bowl.

One of these days, especially if I'm in a hurry to take a dump or something, I'm going to stumble and land wrong and there'll be shattered glass or bloodshed. And today was the day. I accidentally broke a vase, and Stevi was forgiving, said it was no big deal, but I pleaded with her to let me take some of the junk overflow to the back room until there's time for cleaning. She looked at the mess in the restroom, and nodded like she was going to agree, but then she said, "Make do."

Make do? Can do. Of course, LeeAnn and Stevi have a private john, up front, just off the office. I've only seen that room once and from a distance, but it's spacious. No clutter. Maybe I'll "make do" by pooping there next time I need to.

Today was my second day working with Bill at Black Books. It was dull indeed, just sorting paperwork and mailing stuff, but at least the end result is something worthwhile — the magazine, and the books they publish, are honestly beautiful things. We're creating something special, and it's nice being a tiny part of that.

It's the opposite of working at Macy's, or almost any other job I've had. The work is basically the same — data entry and pushing piles of paper — but at Macy's what's the eventual point? Making money for some corporation.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tonight I had dinner with Kallie at the Happy Palace restaurant on Monterrey Blvd. We had three helpings of very good squid, two helpings of shrimp fried rice, and all of it was terrific. The tab was $25, including tip, and I paid, because months ago when I had money we'd eaten at Happy Palace, and I'd promised that the next time would be my treat. Ouch.

It was worth it, though — good food, and great seeing Kallie again.

There's a Safeway between the restaurant and Kallie's house, where workers are on strike. As we walked by I asked the picketers if it would be OK to go inside, long as we were only shoplifting. They laughed and liked that idea, but Kallie wanted to take me back in time, so we kept walking.

At her place she turned the lights down low, lit a candle, and put on ambient music, but it wasn't meant to be romantic. At least, I don't think it was. She has a part-time business doing hypnotherapy, putting people into a trance to help with their issues, and she wanted to regress me to a past life. She said I'd find it helpful for my psyche.

I didn't say this to her, at least not tonight, but I've said it to her before and I want to say it in the zine so there's no misunderstanding: I thought it was probably bunk, but Kallie has always countered, "You don't have to believe in reincarnation to get something from exploring past lives."

So I came as an experiment, and it was not my intent to piss in her soup. Fair and square, I only wanted to see what might happen.

What happened was, she started with a slowly spoken relaxation mantra, which after a while was supposed to slip me into a trance, while Kallie counted to ten. She counted, and afterward she told me I'd been easy to hypnotize, that I was in a trance by the time she'd counted to five.

My mind, though, was wandering the whole time, and that's not supposed to happen, is it? Between the questions Kallie was asking me, I thought about whether Juan is still mad at me, remembered the doggy-bag of shrimp in my backpack, calculated how many copies the zine needs to sell to break even, etc. If I was in a trance, it felt suspiciously like boredom.

I did do whatever Kallie instructed me to do. She said relax, so I relaxed. She said to lean back and get comfortable, so I did. But I was choosing to do these things, trying to be cooperative. Pretty sure I wasn't following orders like an obedient android.

She asked me to imagine myself at the beach, and I remembered that I hate going to the beach — I'm fat, people stare. In the spirit of the night, though, I imagined myself at the beach, but skinnier and not embarrassed.

So far so good, but then she said to imagine a giant bird had landed in front of me, and that I was not afraid. That seemed nuts, but — OK.

She told me to imagine I'd climbed on the giant bird's back, and the bird was flying me back in time. Well, all right, but I remember thinking that if I was flying on a giant bird's back I'd be scared, and I wasn't scared — because I wasn't flying on a giant bird's back.

Then she said to imagine that the bird had landed, far in the historical past, that I'd climbed down, and the giant bird had flown away. Bye bye, birdie.

She told me that the bird had brought me to one of my past lives, and she asked me to look at the landscape wherever I was, and describe what I saw. And —

Hold everything. I wasn't sure what to say, because I didn't see anything except Kallie's living room. I haven't got a lot of imagination, or I'd be writing a novel instead of a diary. Through all this so far, I'd been free-associating (I think it's called), trying to see what she told me to see, but c'mon — I'd never seen a giant bird, and I certainly wasn't seeing any time or place where the bird had left me.

At that moment, looking around at Kallie's place, I noticed her shelf of videotapes. It made me think about all the times I'd gone to the cinema, in the old days when I could afford to just hop onto a BART or Muni any time any theater was showing anything interesting.

I hadn't answered yet, so she asked me again to describe what I saw, and what popped into my mind was that I saw... Errol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood at the U.C. Theater in Berkeley. "Why, I'm in merry olde England," I said. "There's woods, grass, and I'm riding a horse…"

Her next several questions were about my life and times in Nottingham Forest, and you can guess my answers if you've read the book or seen the movie.

She asked if there was anyone in my past life who's also in my present life. By then, bored and daydreaming, I was thinking about an old friend I'll be seeing when I visit Seattle next month, so I said, "It's Bruno, my best friend from Seattle. What's he doing in my past life?"

That was almost intended as a joke, but she said, "True friends often come back to be friends again in the next life," said it very seriously, and I reminded myself not to kid around. This stuff matters to her.

After that, Kallie counted backwards from ten to one, and I opened my eyes. She happily retold me all the things I'd told her, and explained that I'd been a horseman in ancient England. I didn't argue, because I didn't want to be rude, but really, no.

I had tried to be cooperative, tried to be under the spell, but I don't believe I was. All my answers were based on things from my life, this life, the only life I'll ever have.

If I'd been hypnotized, I wouldn't remember every moment of it, and what I was thinking, and the thought process behind every answer to every question. And I wouldn't remember being bored by it all, but I remember the boredom, vividly.

What I said was, "Thank you, Kallie. That was cool." It had been a nice evening. We don't work together any more, but we're still friends and that's delightful.

As for reincarnation, I came to Kallie's hypnotherapy with an open mind, but nothing happened. It wasn't as dull as waiting for a bus, but it also wasn't as thrilling as actually riding a bus. I therefore conclude:

You're born, you live a little, and then you die. That better be enough, because that's all there is.

After a dull day at the shop, I came home and read the newspaper. How's that for a fine Friday night?

Not even sure why I read the paper. 25¢ for a pack of lies, yesterday's baseball, and tomorrow's toilet paper.

Dinner was six tuna sandwiches in bed, and after wiping away the bread crumbs and fish droppings so the roaches won't eat me while I'm asleep, I typed these few pathetic words into the diary.

That's all I have in me, though — tuna, and now yawns. Time to click off the light and go to bed alone, for the 300-somethingth consecutive night.

♦ ♦ ♦

A few hours of fitful rest, interrupted by a few gunshots out the window, and a few roaches waiting for me in the bathroom when I got up to pee.

Terry said good morning to me as I passed through Pike's bedroom, which is their bedroom in reality. He's not even home, so now this woman I don't like, can't stand, whose last name I don't even know — this morning she's my flatmate instead of him?

♦ ♦ ♦

Guess I'm awake. Good Saturday morning.

The clothes I've been wearing to work since Macy's days are getting smelly, and I didn't have anything clean, so I opened the big plastic bag in the corner of the room — my dad's wardrobe, or the portion thereof that I inherited after his death.

Even at his fattest, Dad wasn't as huge as me, so when Mom handed me the clothes, I think it was intended about 50% as charity, and 50% as nagging me to lose weight.

Well, I have lost weight. Last time I bought pants, I was a 50-inch waist, but those pants are baggy now, so my guess is I'm a 48, maybe even a 46. Squeezing into Dad's britches, though, would require me to lose more. His pants are 44 inches, and 42, and 38, and 36… the complete chronology of his cancer, via his waistbands. Evidence suggests it's a very effective weight-loss program, and one I'm certain to sign up for eventually.

To my surprise, though — I've delivered the baby, have a cigar — most of his shirts fit. I'm going to work in this lovely floral print number. It even looks good one me. Thanks, Dad.

♦ ♦ ♦

As I was handing out the shop's flyers on the sidewalk, a bunch of square dancers were sashaying and allemanding and do-si-do-ing on the other side of Market Street. Some kind of show, I guess, with amplified sound, so the calls carried over the din of the traffic.

It was high-quality square dancing, too, not a class for beginners. Everyone knew which way to twirl, and even the overhead hand-claps were perfectly synchronized. The only thing missing was the ordinary billowing hoop skirts, since these dancers were all men with nobody in drag.

After an hour or so of square dancing, as they shook hands and hugged and started breaking up for the afternoon, I saw Jose start packing up the mike and speakers. Cool — this has been a Jose Sounds Sensational production!

I used to be that guy, unplugging the microphone and reeling the cord over my elbow and arm. Seeing Jose, I thought about waving, or even darting across the street to say howdy, but… I didn't. Saying 'hi' would make it seem like I want to work for him again, and I don't, so I didn't.

♦ ♦ ♦

A few hours later, another blast from the recent past. I offered the shop's flyer to a well-dressed man on the sidewalk, and he offered me his flyer, and we laughed and traded pieces of paper, and he continued walking.

I glanced at his flyer and saw that it announced a new play that had opened last Friday night — Dahlia's play. The play I typed the script for, or at lest the early versions of the script.

At least once and maybe twice, Dahlia told me that in addition to my pay I'd get a complimentary ticket to the show, but I have not been comped a ticket. No hard feelings. Like everything else in life, only literally, the show goes on even without me.

At early o'clock in the morning I had to pee, which necessitates walking through Pike's bedroom. He was asleep and snoring, so I should have had no competition for the john, but no — that seat was taken. The bathroom door was mostly closed, as closed as it gets. His girlfriend was in there, so I peed in the kitchen sink, and whoops, forgot to rinse the residue away.

Now I'm typing this instead of going back to sleep, but it's not insomnia keeping me up, it's Pike. He's screaming every few minutes — a mid-volume sound, like dismemberment, not death — and between the screams he moans. At first I thought it was just more sex in the next room (it's amazing how often they go at it), but he's been screaming and moaning for forty minutes, and I don't hear her at all (which is a small blessing), so it's not boinking.

I should open the door and check on the guy? No, I am not his father, but yeah, I did peek through my cracked-open door, and he's asleep, just sleeping poorly. Having nightmares, I guess. Every soul is a tortured soul.

Or it could be the drugs. Pike does drugs, a lot. Pot, of course (doesn't everyone?), and speed and coke fairly regularly, and maybe other drugs I'm unfamiliar with.

Hey, I am not Hunter Thompson. Weed is the only drug I know, and we're only occasional acquaintances.

As I typed that line, there came another scream, followed by another moan. My flatmate is Edgar Allen Poe, or maybe he has appendicitis? If it was just him in there I'd intrude, wake him up, make sure he's going to survive until daybreak, but his loving girlfriend is beside him. She can damned well handle the worries.

"Pike," she just bellowed, "shut the fuck up! I'm trying to sleep!"

♦ ♦ ♦

Now it's a few hours later, and I'm waking again. My morning ritual is to stare at whatever I've recently written, try to make the writing readable, so I was thinking about overnight, and Pike, and Terry, and this apartment with Mierda on the walls, and sometimes in the air.

The three of us have been together for a month or so, and I am head-over-heels in hate with Pike's girlfriend. I hate her laugh, a screech from a bird shop. I hate her sneezes, always a series of dainty extended sniffles at odds with her floozy personality. I hate her nasal voice, her mangled English, her long and boring stories, her forever apologies for forever misunderstanding everything, her irrelevant interruptions whenever anyone else is talking, and I hate even the sound of her footsteps. I hate the expression that's always on her face, a contorted sneer that shouts, Life is a distasteful chore! I hate everything about her. I hate her as if she's my ex-wife.

When Pike and I talked about moving in together, he never said that his girlfriend would live with us. I'd never met her, never knew she existed, until after I'd moved in. She lives here, though. Maybe not officially — I think she has an apartment of her own — but this is where she sleeps, eats, fucks, showers, pees, poops, talks on the phone, and puts curlers in her hair.

He and She just had an argument, another argument, and despite having my door closed and having no interest, I heard it all. She woke him up by talking at him, started laughing but wouldn't tell him what was so funny, and then they shouted at each other for seven minutes, and then she left and slammed the door behind her, but not before dainty-sneezing twice.

Now he'll try to go back to sleep, and so will I, but the pulsing baseline from the downstairs neighbors' Mexican music has begun for the day, and oompa oompa won't allow much sleeping. We have no claim to complain about the neighbors' loud music every morning, after Pike plays his own loud music every night. None of the music bothers me much, cuz I have earplugs and a loud electric fan to blot out most sounds, unless Pike and Terry are going at it especially loud.

As for the drugs, he inhales and injects and imbibes so I won't be surprised if he's a corpse one morning, but he hasn't yet stolen my money or food, and he doesn't nose around in my room.

He's late with his half of the rent, but he's still covering the "anything legal" work I can't get to, and nobody's complained about his work, so he has an income, and I don't think he's going to stiff me. This morning he took a stack of my "anything legal" stickers and said he'd post them around the neighborhood, and that was his idea, not mine.

Pike is an annoyance, but everyone is, and he's mostly OK. The girlfriend, though. Jeez, I wish he'd meet someone else, or she would, so they could dump each other and she'd be out of our lives.

♦ ♦ ♦

"Please take one," said the slot at the front of the bus. Twenty years ago, there might have been bus schedules and service bulletins in that slot, but Muni gave up on schedules long ago, so "Please take one" has always been empty until this morning. Someone left copies of a zine in the slot, and that's brilliant.

The Long Answer to How I Broke My Arm is Joel Pomerantz's answer to the question he's sick of hearing, and for 12 pages he describes in detail his ill-fated spelunking and subsequent rescue. It's a smile reading it, a quick glimpse inside someone else's life, and it's enjoyable. I'd certainly recommend it, except it doesn't include an address so how could you get a copy?

♦ ♦ ♦

It was a pleasant day at the shop. Since it's Easter, many of the men walking by wore lovely bonnets. Nothing tasteful, of course, just plenty of vivid colors.

3rd runner-up was a man in a long pink dress, a white rabbit mask, and giant pink bunny ears.

2nd runner up was a man in a tiny thong bikini, with a thousand pimples painted on his buttcheeks.

1st runner-up was a middle-aged man in a violet evening gown, with a fluorescent fuchsia wig a few feet tall, like Marge Simpson.

Grand prize: I don't remember his dress, just the bonnet. Remember Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here, wearing a fruit salad in her hat? This guy had that hat, but it was a vegetable salad — carrots, corn on the cob, cucumbers, oversized pickles, with a few dildos in assorted colors, in case anyone could possibly miss the symbolism.

Women walked by all day too, but curiously, very few of them seemed particularly dressed up fancy, for our lord and savior's big resurrection.

♦ ♦ ♦

At the apartment, I picked up Pike's cat, and it was only the second time she's allowed that. She purred as I petted her, then scratched my arm jumping down.

"That's how she got her name," Pike explained. "Claudia."

When I called my voice-mail to check my messages, I heard those three tones you hate to hear: "Beep, Beep, BEEP — We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected."

What the what? Did I misdial?

Tried it again, and got the three tones again. My voice-mail number can't be disconnected; I'm pre-paid through June!

I called the company, and get this: They've sold a block of voice-mail numbers, including mine, to some other company — without a word to me or any of their customers. If I have a complaint, I'm supposed to call the other company.

"Screw that," I said in a pleasant tone of voice to the flunky on the phone. "I've never heard of this other company, never paid that company a nickel. I paid your company, so your company's going to refund my money." He didn't seem convinced that his employer would pay me back, but he said he'd relay the message. We'll see.

As a public service, here's an announcement: Stay away from Sam Mather Communications. They claim to be in the business of selling a service, but apparently they're in the business of selling their customers.

No, I did not call the company they sold me to. I'm not doing business with companies that buy me. Anyway, they must be incompetent, to buy me and then immediately disconnect me.

Instead I flipped through the Yellow Pages, found another voice-mail company, crossed my fingers and bought a new number — (415) ███-████. Please call that number, not my previous number, and I'll do anything legal for $5 an hour, or anything illegal for a slightly higher rate.

Of course, all the posters, flyers, and stickers I've spread around town for the past two months, "I'll do anything legal for $5 an hour," now ring through to a disconnected number. Doing business with Sam Mather Communications has put me out of business.

Fortunately I have steady work lined up, but instead of sleeping in on my day off, today I bought a money order for a new voice-mail number. Then I retyped and reprinted my "I'll do anything" ads, and took a hundred stickers on a tour of the city's finer laundromats and telephone poles. Where possible, the new sticker got pasted on top of the old sticker, so people don't equate "I'll do anything" with a disconnected number.

And whether Sam Mather refunds my money or not, their locks will soon be superglued.

♦ ♦ ♦

After an afternoon on the bus and on my feet, I came home and wrote a post card to Maggie, replying to her phone call from last weekend:

Dear Maggie,
Yes, I got your phone message, but I can't afford to call you back, and you can't afford to accept the charges. We're still pals, I'm not angry, but poor people can't stay in touch via long distance. To communicate, we'll have to write, or wait until you're here in person, in June.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then I semi-cleaned my room, took out the trash, and killed some roaches. It's a pleasant diversion — splat — and it's kinda fun. We have plenty of roaches here in the apartment, more than I had at the rez hotel, and I don't mind. Squishing 'em is free entertainment, and Claudia the cat likes to chase 'em and chew 'em. They're crunchy! Sometimes I don't even know she's got one until I hear it being crushed, crumbled, and pulverized in her jaws.

The itsy-bitsy spiders are back, though, and they're less amusing. They're so small you can't even see them unless you're looking for them, abseiling from the ceiling in the bathroom, in the kitchen, and now in my bedroom. A little tickle on my arm means another damned spider, about half the size of a freckle, is crawling up my elbow.

Black Flagged the ceiling in every room, just like a few weeks ago only more so, but you know the spiders will be back.

A can of insecticide is expensive, too. Does anybody out there have a cheaper way to evict hundreds of tiny bugs?

April was beautiful, though when I told her that she'd said, "Nah, maybe I'm cute, but not beautiful." Bullshit. She had freckles, auburn hair, big breasts, and eyes that subtly changed color with her mood. Never seen eyes like that on anyone else's face. Beautiful. And also, her breasts were big.

She was 18, too young for me, and too attractive. I was 22, not yet fat, but already disheveled and dumpy-looking, not fit to even ask her out. Ask I did, though, and yes she said, and we went out for five years. I thought we were in love, but in retrospect it was only a strong physical attraction. Whatever the heck was in it for her, I still don't know.

When we talked about things that mattered, they were rarely the same things. She liked night clubs, and I can't dance. She liked country music, and I... did not. I have counterculture tendencies, and she was a Republican. She liked liquor, I drank cherry cola. She played soccer, and I fell asleep watching from the grandstands. She was close with her extended Irish-American family, and I phoned my folks maybe once a month. "I'm a good Catholic girl," she said, and I was agnostic.

She wanted to save herself for marriage, which meant no penis-in-vagina sex, but she wanted to do everything else, and we did.

Regarding her virginity, I was perhaps too much of a gentleman. Our first big break-up came after I'd rebuffed her a few times while we were sweaty and horizontal. If she wanted to change her mind and boink, I said, please say it some evening before we're on the verge. Make a calm, reasoned decision please, not a moist and fevered one she might regret the morning after.

That was a considerate thing to say, right? Wrong, I guess, because one day she told me she'd met another man and given him what she'd never given me. "Sorry, Doug, but I'll always remember you as a friend." Oh, man, that hurt.

When he dumped her a few weeks later, she remembered me, and we started going out again. I wasn't one to hold a grudge, and indeed, I wanted to dial up that man and say thanks, because after her short time with him she had no hesitation whatsoever with me. There was never any doubt that we were going to screw like light bulbs, every night.

Ah, April... those years were excellent but exhausting, until she said goodbye again, and the second time she meant it.

That was long ago, but April still visits my dreams, and weirdly when she appears it's usually from our early "just say no" era. Dreams from the "yes yes yes" era would be more enjoyable, but they almost never happen — where can I complain about that? Probably it's a symptom of one of my psychoses.

In last night's dream it was early years again. April and I were lying on the couch in her family's living room, slobbering all over each other, mostly naked, and we finished each other gloriously, but as always without actually boinking. Then we got dressed and stepped into the next room, where her parents, sister, and annoying kid brother were at the big table, all waiting for us. We joined them for dinner, and from my chair I could see through the flimsy curtains into the room we'd just left, and I knew the whole family had been watching us. What the hell does that mean, Dr Freud?

Then April and I went for a walk in a park, and I bought her an ice cream cone, but before I could hand it to her she was flirting with some other guy. She went off with him, and when they'd finished whatever they did I chased after her again, just to see her safely home.

I don't know what that part of the dream means, either. Certainly it never happened. Every ice cream cone I bought for April, she licked. Probably, same as everything else in my life and in this zine, the dream means nothing.

Ten years after we would've been divorced if she'd married me, I don't know why I still dream of April. The gamut of emotions she stirred in me was fairly narrow — affection, horniness, sadness, and always, horniness.

After dreams of her I always tell myself what a fool I was... and wonder whether I'd be a fool all over again... and probably I would. Even when it wasn't quite 'sex', holy crap the sex was amazing, and after it was actually sex, oh my god.

Sorry if all the above is disgusting. It was good for me, but not for you? Maybe I wouldn't have dreams of April if there was any woman in my life now, or even a chance with any woman.

♦ ♦ ♦

What with buying Kallie dinner last Thursday night, buying some bargain marijuana on Sunday, and buying new voice-mail yesterday, there's almost no money in my wallet. And there's no bank account, so buster, I am broke.

LeeAnn and Stevi owe me a week's pay, though, so it's not an emergency. I'll borrow a few dollars from the zine's printing fund (that's where your three bucks go) to take myself to a triple feature at the Four Star Cinema. They're showing three films I've read rave reviews of, all for one discount matinee admission.

Can't say no to that, so I packed seven sandwiches, a bag of popcorn, and two big jugs of water into my backpack, and left home early enough to poster the Haight with my new "I'll do anything" stickers.

As I was slapping one onto a telephone pole, I overheard a bodega shopkeeper obeying the law, refusing to sell a pack of Marlboros to some high school kid who'd probably left his fake ID at home. Being a good citizen by my definition of the term, when the boy came out I offered to buy his smokes for him. He smiled and said sure, so when I came out with his cigarettes, I laid my grown-up lecture on him:

"Remember, a law that won't let you do what you want to do, in your own space, to your own self, is a law nobody ought to obey." He frowned and shrugged like I was crazy, and of course he's right.

Rode a #33 bus to Geary Street, and postered some more poles and laundromats, leaving plenty of time to ride a #38 to a lovely picnic at Sutro Heights.

I climbed to the top of the hill and sat on the edge, chewing a cheese sandwich as the wind ran through where there used to be more hair. Far below and to the south was the Great Highway, which isn't at all great, and a long sandy beach, which is. To the north, looking down was Cliff House, and the fossilized remains of the famous Sutro Baths, which were sadly before my time. Fifty feet in front of me and a thousand feet below was the infinite ocean. Quite a fine view, and worth the bus ride.

Munching a PBJ, I watched and listened to waves that stretched forever, as they bashed into boulders, then seeped slowly, injured, to the shore. The wind from the west was so strong and steady that the trees have grown up crooked, tilted, and gulls soared but barely moved at all, trying to wing their way out to sea. Nibbling a carrot, I laughed at the extreme insignificance of my own life.

Sutro Heights is not a place to spend much time, though, because the wind, howling and haunting and magnificent as it is, never lets up and gets irritating after a few minutes.

Besides, there was a young couple grappling or copulating on the tower steps behind me, so I walked away to allow those darn heterosexuals some privacy, and watched discreetly from behind a tree.

♦ ♦ ♦

I've seen thousands of movies. Many were awful, many so-so, some were pretty good, and once in a great while something wonderful happens, and you know ten minutes into it that you're watching a work of art.

Such an experience is To Live, an intimate epic from communist China. It's about a lovable ne'er-do-well named Fugui, who gambles away his family homestead, and is left with nothing. To survive, he goes into business as a puppeteer, until he's drafted to fight in the Chinese Civil War.

It would be a disservice to reveal the twists that come after that, and besides, the joy of it isn't in the plot, it's in the characters. All of them, major and minor, feel true to life with a depth uncommon on the screen. They each have motivations that make sense and relatable shortcomings, and there's often a cynical sense of humor as they deal with the daily disasters and delights of life.

When one of these people died, I bawled. When another fell in love, I bawled again. Then I bawled over the end credits, despite what's essentially a happy ending. To Live is superb, the kind of movie I'd pay to see again, and maybe I will.

After something so authentic, so true to life as To Live, something like Three Colors: Red seemed trite indeed. In this one, everyone's motivations are a mystery, and none of the characters quite make sense, not even the dog. Someone's worked hard to ensure that the script and camera are always artsy instead of real. Every detail along the way seems intentionally obscure for a while, then maybe longer, which quickly grows tiresome.

Tell me a story, damn it. Don't make me guess what the story might be.

Near as I can piece it together, Three Colors: Red is the story of a pretty face. The lead actress is pretty, and her pretty face is the focal point for almost every shot. It's always perfectly lit and immaculately made-up, and almost always in close-up. I like looking at a pretty face, sure, but if you're going to build an entire movie around a pretty face, the face should be able to act. This face, attached to someone named Irène Jacob, has exactly one expression — bewilderment. No matter what happens, she's pretty and bewildered.

Anyway, the pretty face meets a super-cynical old guy who used to be a judge, and he has a house full of fancy electronic equipment that allows him to eavesdrop on all his neighbors, which is icky and invasive and made me feel like a schmuck just watching.

At one of the movie's many boring points I slipped out to pee, and when I came back the credits were rolling, so I don't know how it ended. Also, I don't care. Despite missing the conclusion, I feel fully qualified to judge the movie pure piffle.

Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet was one of the best films of my 1993, so I've been looking forward to his next effort, Eat Drink Man Woman. It isn't another banquet, but it's more than a light snack.

This is an easygoing comedy-drama, the story of three grown sisters who still live at home with their father. One daughter is very yuppie, the next is a repressed schoolmarm, the youngest sells hamburgers at Wendy's, and their father is a master chef who's slowly losing his sense of taste. Four interesting characters, and each of them has a big surprise.

This is a family where love learns to overlook all the differences — a family the opposite of mine, but I've heard that such families exist. It makes for an engrossing show, despite an ending that seemed sorta contrived.

To be fair, I might have enjoyed Eat Drink Man Woman more if it hadn't been the last feature of the night. Three movies can be a lot, especially when they're three rather big movies. Even the stinker, Three Colors: Red, was at least trying to offer more than your typical franchise flick.

On my way out I said good night to the nice Chinese-American man who owns the Four Star, and felt guilty for sneaking my own snacks into the theater. Sorry, man. I'll come back some day when I'm rich, and buy Dots and Twizzlers and popcorn.

Riding the bus home and remembering To Live, I was a little misty-eyed again, because the story took some not-so-subtle jibes at communism and totalitarian China, which probably ensures that the director will never be allowed to make a movie like that again. It's the same everywhere, but probably even more so in China — you gotta kiss the bossman's backside, and if you don't, you're done.

Mom doesn't have the phone number for this apartment. If she had it, she'd call all the time — a lesson learned long ago.

But I'd like her to have my voice-mail number, which changed a few days ago, so I've been trying to call her since Monday. She's never home.

Mom is Mom and she's always out and about, going to church and meetings and seeing friends and babysitting and shopping and having lunch or dinner with my brothers and sisters. OK, but why doesn't her answering machine answer? I've called early, called late, and all I get is one ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies, 12 ringy-dingies...

I'll try again later. Should I brace myself for bad news? Nah, if Mom was dead my brothers and sisters would have all called me by now.

♦ ♦ ♦

Holy hell, the news. I don't know what to think or say about what happened in Oklahoma City this morning, so I am going to say nothing except ❶ What people could do this, and why? ❷ Will more buildings be blowing up? And ❸ what stupid things will the cops do in response or retaliation?

♦ ♦ ♦

A couple of hours later, Terry was in the living room being Terry (i.e. annoying as fuck), so I didn't want to have a personal conversation on the apartment phone. Instead I walked to the BART station, where you can make a relatively private call from a booth in a quiet corner.

And still, there was no answer when I called Mom.

Clay and Katrina are my only siblings whose numbers I have, and I'm closer to Katrina (though still distant) so I tried her number first. Her answering machine clicked on, and you can't make a collect call to an answering machine, so I called Clay instead.

"Hello, Doug!" He sounded downright happy to accept the charges.

"Hey, Clay. What's up with Mom?"

Silence. "Nothing's up with Mom, not that I know of."

"Well," I said, "I haven't been able to reach her—"

"Oh, oh," he said, "don't worry about that. Her phone is on the fritz, that's all."

You can buy a phone for ten bucks at any drug store, and she can certainly afford it, but Momma don't do that.

Clay and I had a short but nice chat, mostly about Oklahoma City, but neither of us had anything intelligent to say about that.

All systems are go for my visit to Seattle next month, but Clay says I'll be staying with him and his clan, instead of with Mom.

This had been decided without asking me, and it's not good news. Nothing against Clay, but Mom's place is in central suburbia, with pretty good bus service, while Clay's place is farther out in the boonies. Wherever I'm staying, I don't intend to be there much, but at Clay's it'll be a longer bus ride when solitude and sanity beckon.

♦ ♦ ♦

Terry was gone when I got back to the apartment, which turned my frown upside down, so I offered Pike some of my pot, which I'd recently purchased at quite a reasonable price. We quickly figured out why it was so affordable — I'd been sold a mix of about half marijuana, half parsley sage rosemary and thyme. Damn.

This is not the first time I've been scammed, either. I am not an expert on the purchase of quality drugs. Don't laugh at me, man. It's hard to make a reliable connection when you have no friends. Also, I'm fifteen years older than anyone I know who smokes weed. Also, my hair is a crew-cut so I probably look sorta cop-like.

And what a dummy I am — if I'd simply said the word 'marijuana' to Kallie when I saw her a few days ago, she would've set me up.

Due to financial reality, this will probably be my last purchase for a while. I'm old enough to give it up, too poor to waste the money, and over past few years it's started to scratch my throat. Today I smoked the spicy mix, though. It smelled like pizza but it had some of the desired effect.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tonight's free movie at the Noe Library was supposed to be Astaire & Rogers' Flying Down to Rio, and I do love the singing and dancing musicals, but the guy at the library said someone had checked out their copy. Instead they showed Truly Madly Deeply (1990), a drama about death and grieving and recovery. Sounds like an odd substitution, but it's a good movie.

All the world's charming fellows throw themselves at Juliet Stevenson, but she prefers to mope around her lousy flat and remember her dead lover. The question is, will she settle for memories of a love that was, or pursue the love that could be?

If you don't know the answer to that, then you've never seen a movie.

It's lazily paced for a while, wallowing in Stevenson's grief as if she expected an Oscar, but a sweet-natured story comes to life when dead Alan Rickman pops up, as the ghost of her lover. With some magic moments reminiscent of The Milagro Beanfield War, and a silly but spirited singalong with the living leading lady and her dead boyfriend, by the time the tale takes its tiny twist to the end, it's an irresistible little charmer.

♦ ♦ ♦

Something's gnawing at me, though — the beginning of a toothache. Took two aspirin and then two more, but if it doesn't fade away overnight, I have no idea how I'd pay for a dentist.

♦ ♦ ♦

Rest in peace, Oklahoma.

Today on my torso, I wore a t-shirt and a shirt shirt and a sweatshirt and a jacket, but it was still chilly, cloudy, shivery handing out flyers in front of the shop. What little sunshine there was disappeared from our side of the street by about 4:00, and I was standing in the brr until 8. Whatever direction I faced, the wind came from that direction to hit me in the face.

I don't understand how the cold and flu work, but the old wives' tale is that the chill on my chest will bring something bad. Tomorrow I'll wear every sweatshirt and sweater I have.

And my frigid fingers get numb after a few hours in the wind and shadows, but when I tried wearing the gloves I'd cleverly brought, it was impossible to peel through the flyers one by one, so the gloves had to come off.

♦ ♦ ♦

All you do is bitch and moan about everything, Holland. Talk about something interesting, why don't ya?

Sorry, there is nothing interesting. This was my today. Maybe it'll get interesting tomorrow.

♦ ♦ ♦

Bad news at the shop. LeeAnn says they're "cutting back" on the flyering out front, and they're installing a new, bigger sign instead. She said it as an aside, not like they're cutting my hours today and firing me next week, but hell, there was a guy measuring the front of the building this morning, and Stevi was telling him where the sign should go and what it should say.

I'm being replaced by a sign — ha!

If they let me loose, it's probably not a crisis. I'll switch to handing out my own flyers all day, "anything legal," and there'll be enough work to keep me fed. People always need somebody to do shit work for shit wages, and that's my specialty.

♦ ♦ ♦

Also, a bit of drama in front of the shop. LeeAnn and Stevi's shop is upstairs, hard to see from the street, which is why they have me handing out flyers on the sidewalk all the time, trying to get people to come upstairs. There's a different shop on the street level in the same building, selling similar merchandise — antiques, collectibles, clothing, etc — so they're our competitors. That's kind of odd, yeah.

To get people to climb the stairs, I say "Upstairs" a lot, and "Go up the stairs," etc. A week or so ago, I got someone to look toward the building, but he was looking at Geraldine's shop instead of ours, so I said, "No, you want to go upstairs!"

Moments later, Geraldine snuck up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, scaring the heck out of me, and said, "If you ever, ever tell my customers not to come into my store again, I'll call the police." Then she darted into her shop before I could think of a clever or combative retort.

That was the very first time we'd spoken, and of course I instantly hated her. When I told LeeAnn and Stevi what had happened, they told me not to worry about Geraldine. "She's a bitch," Stevi said. "Everyone knows it."

She really doesn't like having me in front of her shop in my green cape and insect head. When she steps in or out of her shop, with an employee or with a customer, she's usually talking about the low-life scum they hire for the shop upstairs.

And obviously, that's me.

Today she stood in the doorway of her shop, watching me do my routine, and loudly repeated what I said, in a mocking tone. "Delightful new shop, upstairs," I'd say to someone walking by, and Geraldine would say the same words in a dipshit voice.

Sort of childish, if you ask me. Am I supposed to be embarrassed? Sorry, no. I work here. I'm doing my job.

Sometimes I have fun on the sidewalk, twirling in my cape or hollering "Upstairs!" even when there's nobody to hear me. When I'm pacing the same stretch of sidewalk all day, day after day, I might sing, "I have often walked down this street before," from My Fair Lady. Might roll my R's when I'm telling people about the rrrrreasonable prrrrrices at the shop upstairs. Wearing a cape and handing out flyers, it's best to leave your sanity at home.

When Geraldine makes fun of me, though, now I crank it up a notch. If she thinks I'm ridiculous, by golly, I'll shout about the delightful shop upstairs. When I did that today, she shook her head, walked inside, and closed the door behind her. Success!

The last few minutes this evening, she was outside her shop watching me again, so I aimed my spiel about how great the shop upstairs is directly at her. "Visit the cool new shop, upstairs!" I said, with my biggest smile and goofiest tone of voice. And again, she walked back inside her shop.

You want childish? I can do childish. It was cold, I was grumpy, and she's been getting on my nerves for a week, so I'm no longer content to accidentally bug Geraldine. I am going to bug her on purpose.

I slept with the space heater inches from my body, the hot air aimed directly at my chest all night long, and still couldn't overcome the chill from working in the wind yesterday.

Chilled to whatever's left of my soul...

♦ ♦ ♦

I've been a good kid and deserve a day off from the zine, so today's guest host will be Bruce Anderson of the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

The AVA is a cheeky weekly paper from a small California town, I've mentioned and even reviewed it in the past, but descriptions can't do it justice, so instead — a couple of excerpts from Bruce's writing:

Anna Taylor, the KZYX radio personality and professional poor person, is suing me for defamation of character, a charge which seems to suggest she thinks she has some. Taylor wants $5,000 because I said in last week's paper that her marathon case against CDC for tax-funded repairs to her house is as phony as she is.
Taylor is famous in the Valley for dishing it out but not taking it, constantly calling up local talk shows to insult or malign whomever happens to be in the way of her leisurely, mostly tax-funded life. Well, let me make it real clear, Judge Lebowitz, or whichever little judicial Saab-driving yuppo fills in for you as you duck out on this one: The taxpayers can feed me for the rest of my life at the Low Gap Hilton before the Widder Taylor gets a nickel from me.

I don't know who these people are, and I'm unsure what CDC stands for. I'm not local, but that doesn't matter as much as this:

No other newspaper in America would print anything approximating the above. Your local paper is owned by a company that makes money by offending no-one. The Anderson Valley Advertiser is about telling the truth, more than making money. That's why I subscribe, despite never having been to Anderson Valley.

Other regular features include the AVA's ongoing, excellent coverage of the Chiapas uprising in Mexico, scathing reports on the incompetence and incontinence of all branches of government, and surprises now and again, like this recent moment wherein the editor sarcastically rewrote a PR announcement about an upcoming open meditation session. Can you detect where the press release ends, and the satire begins?

Saturday, 1:30 - 4:30 PM, in the Round Room at the Mendocino Community High School, 45220 Covello Street, Mendocino:
No matter what your meditation background is; whether your meditation style is traditional or not; in fact, even if you've never meditated before but would like to give it a try, we hope you'll join us for a quiet celebration of our diverse spiritual community.
We plan two sitting meditations and a walking meditation. Tea will be served for the sitting meditations. Our mantra for the sitting meditations will be "Umm." Then, for the walking meditation, "Duhhhh," we'll march off the bluffs, single file, holding our ceremonial teacups in the Fourth Chakra Position, forever freeing the North Coast of two generations of Purple People.

Yeah, it's a newspaper with an attitude, a piping hot toaster strudel for your brain, once weekly. $██ buys six months, payable to AVA, PO Box 459, Boonville CA 95415. If you're stubborn and cheap as hell or simply not quite convinced, send me a couple of bucks and I'll mail you a leftover AVA fresh off the floor of my messy room.

Addendum, 2022: I'm still not sure what CDC stands for. I don't see how it could be the Centers for Disease Control; surely they weren't involved in making repairs to that woman's house.
The _AVA'_s address remains the same, but now there's also a website (free). I blacked out the price for the paper paper, because it's gone up since 1995. Presently $100 buys a year, 52 issues by mail. My subscription has never lapsed. Renewed it again, just a few weeks ago.

Pike is screaming, Terry is sneezing, Doug is typing. It's a typical morning in this pathetic household.

♦ ♦ ♦

It was Al Tennyson who said, "In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love," but c'mon, it's not like I've gone all winter without having a boner.

My fancy turns toward just about any lady, young or old, white or black, skinny or plump, walking by in a tank-top or a t-shirt. Cleavage and legs get my attention, of course, and perhaps a soft breeze blowing through her hair. We've all seen the beer commercials.

It might have been 80° today, but I was 98.6°, and my red-blooded fancy turned every which way there was. Ladies in super-snug tops that showed every ripple and nipple… sheer blouses tied in a knot… bottoms of butts bulging from shorts of excellent shortness... and decorum says I'm not supposed to notice a crew-cut tattooed dyke in a sundress, but I noticed.

Other than all that sunshine and skin, it was a typical day on the sidewalk. Geraldine left me alone, thanks. Nobody wanted a flyer, but I pushed flyers at everyone anyway, except the regulars. And the tourists asked the same questions they often ask.

The most common question is. "Can we take your picture?" Honey, if a guy in a green cape looks photo-worthy, you must be from out of town.

The second most common question is, "Where's the Castro?" I point to the traffic light, a few footsteps away. "That's Castro," I say. "You're there."

I know what it's like to be new in town. I've only been here a few years, so I'm still new in town myself. Always I'm patient with such inquiries, but none could match the middle-aged woman today, who asked me, "What's that?" as she pointed at a dark building, where the heavy beat of rock'n'roll was rolling out the door.

"That's the Detour," I said. "It's a gay bar, and from what I've heard it's a good one."

"A gay bar?" She said it like you'd say, "Dry raindrops?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I don't understand," she said, and either she didn't or she was fooling me well enough to win a Tony. Her accent was mildly midwestern, but is it possible anywhere in 1995 America that an adult human — even this wrinkled lady from the heartland — wouldn't know the word 'gay'?

"It's where men go, to meet other men," I said.

"You mean, like the Elks Club?"

I studied her for a moment — was she screwing with me? I don't think so. She seemed completely serious, but I wasn't up for explaining the facts of life on the sidewalk.

"No," said I, "it's not quite like the Elks Lodge, nor the Rotary either, but I can't really explain it. You should go into the bar, order a beer, and your questions will all be answered."

Instead she looked at me like I was not to be trusted, made a face, and walked off in the other direction.

♦ ♦ ♦

Came home to a treat never seen before — the apartment was empty. In the month and a half I've been living here, this is the first time I've been home alone — that's how much of a layabout Pike is.

He's almost always here, and Terry is usually with him, but tonight there is peace in the slums of San Francisco. There's nobody yelling, nobody sneezing. Even outside, the neighborhood seems quiet. It's just me, softly clicking at the typewriter, naked, eating tuna sandwiches, petting the cat, and almost ready to go to beddy-bye-bye.

Today's amusing moment on the sidewalk: He didn't accept a flyer, but one guy hesitated, looking me up and down. Sometimes people notice the cape or the insect head, but this guy was looking lower.

"Nice bulge," he said, and I followed his eyes downward to my pants.

I'm eating a little healthier and doing genuine work for a living, so I've lost some weight, and several inches from around the midsection. I'm still wearing the same slacks, though, and the extra inches of material had bunched under my belt buckle, giving the impression I had a loaf of bread in my pants. French bread.

"It's an optical illusion," I said, and yanked at the excess cloth, making my mythical over-endowment disappear. He shook his head, like I'd disappointed him on purpose…

♦ ♦ ♦

Toward the end of my day on the sidewalk, a guy who works or lives in the neighborhood walked by, paused, and started talking at me. After pushing flyers at him a hundred times, his face has finally become familiar to me, so I no longer hold out a flyer for him and say "Upstairs!" when he walks by. He wanted to thank me for that.

Then we had a few minutes of amiable conversation, laughing about the goofiness of what I do for a living, and swapping stories about assorted shitty jobs we've had.

Then came a moment of silence, and I recognized that this was when I was supposed to stick out my hand and say, "My name is Doug."

Friendships spring from moments like that, but I didn't do it. I'd have to have half a dozen conversations with that guy before I'd gamble on a friendship, and even then, who knows? So I let the silence stretch itself out. It took a while, but finally he shuffled his feet and said, "Well, thanks again for ignoring me. Be seeing you."

And safely still a stranger, he walked away.

Pike and I loan stuff to each other — tapes and newspapers and tools and money (he's paid me back on the rent) — and it's never a problem, so when he asked to borrow my typewriter for a few minutes, why not?

I thought it would be Pike typing, but no, it was Terry, and it's almost a rule, any time I mention Terry she's going to be annoying.

Today there would be no exception to that rule, but I wouldn't trust Terry with the typewriter I use all the time. Instead I brought out my back-up unit, an old Smith-Corona with a quaint typeface. She said she was filling out forms for a job interview, and her handwriting is crappy. I wished her luck. She was dressed fancy, at least for her — a skirt instead of her usual jeans or shorts.

Expecting trouble because she's an imbecile, I left my door slightly ajar so I could hear, and after a few minutes of her slow clacking and cussing at the typewriter, she yell-asked, "Doug! Do you have Wite-Out?"

With my main typewriter I make corrections on-screen, so it took me a moment to remember, but yeah, I have a correction-pen somewhere. "Just a minute," I shouted, and dug it out. It's not the name brand product, but it's a felt pen that oozes correction fluid instead of ink, so I brought it to her, and said, "It's a felt pen that oozes correction fluid instead of ink."

In hindsight, of course, I should've explained it more thoroughly. Should've explained it twice, but — it's a correction-pen. It's not a technological breakthrough, and complete instructions are printed on the side of it. You take off the cap, and it paints white. How could anyone fuck that up?

I walked to the kitchen to prepare three delicious peanut butter, pickle, and onion sandwiches for breakfast, but Terry was screaming before I'd unwrapped the bread.

She'd tried to open the pen the way you'd open a Wite-Out, and somehow she'd snapped it in half. A money shot's worth of correction fluid was on her face, and on her skirt, and she was screaming.

She tossed the correction-pen into the trash, cussed and cussed, and she hasn't yet said anything that sounds like "sorry." I may have said something kind about the pen or the mess, or I may have forgotten, but I won't begrudge her for this morning's stupidity. It was damned funny, and worth the price of a correction-pen.

♦ ♦ ♦

Handing out flyers at the shop, I saw two men I recognized from Macy's, coming out of Twin Peaks, a nearby gay bar. They were holding hands, and it made me think of my pal and co-worker Carlotta at Macy's.

She always enjoyed speculating about who's gay and who's straight in the office, and she'd told me once, she'd decided that these two were both very straight. It goes to show, you never know.

For half a moment I wanted to call Carlotta and tell her, because she'd love knowing what I now know. I flushed the thought away, of course. Wondering which way someone tilts is one thing, but outing them is something I'd never do.

Spent my morning at a few book stores, and then at the library, looking for I'm not sure what. Sometimes I find it, but not today. I'll keep looking.

♦ ♦ ♦

I knew I wasn't the shop's only flyer-boy, but I'd never met the guy who wears the cape and mask on days I'm not there, until today. He worked the morning shift and I worked in the afternoon and evening, so we briefly bumped insect heads, and with his head off I thought he looked familiar…

Small world, as they say — he recognized me, too. He's an actor, with a small role in Dahlia's play. We talked about the play, and since he's an actor I asked if he used "the method" when he wears the green cape. He didn't know what "the method" was.

When I ran out of things to say, I mentioned that I was supposed to get a free ticket to the play. It was part of my deal with Dahlia — I got paid to type the script, and as a fringe benefit, there was supposed to be a ticket for the show.

He said he'd mention it to her, so maybe I'll be seeing a play. Look at me, getting all cultured and shit!

♦ ♦ ♦

It was a nice night out, so I walked halfway home before my feet got tired and I caught a bus.

While I was walking, I passed in front of a by-the-slice pizzeria, and they had a guy standing in front of the restaurant wearing a full body pizza costume, his legs emerging from the crust and his head poking through toward the top, where a slice of pepperoni might be. He was handing out flyers for the pizza shop, and urging people to come inside.

That's my job, too, almost exactly. Or at least, it's one of my jobs. We could be in the same union, if we had a union. I took one of his flyers, and said thanks.

All my life, I remember seeing people doing that work and thinking, it's gotta be the worst job in the world. Perfect for cokeheads and the otherwise brain damaged, maybe, but how can a grown-up adult with any self-respect do work like that? It's the one job in the world worse than working at Macy's — and now it's my job, same as the pizza guy.

But you know what? I seriously enjoy it. Don't want to make it my career, but most days wearing the insect head and handing out flyers is fun. Me and outfit go well together.

Like some smiley guy taught me on the sidewalk a month or so ago... Namu myōhō renge kyō.

When I got to the shop, Stevi smiled big and held up a sea-sickly green skirt with yellow pinstripes, and then a blouse that was almost its opposite, yellow with light-green wavy lines. She made a question mark with her face and eyes, and I answered with an exclamation point.

We'd talked a few times about putting me into ladies' clothes on the sidewalk, and Stevi is the one who'd hesitated, never me. I always thought it would be a kick, and it was.

Doug in drag from the ground up: my ordinary ankle-high black tennis-shoes and socks, then my bare hairy legs. Then that awful skirt, from just above the knees, with boxers underneath. Then the blouse, filled with my every-day man-boobs, unsupported. Above that, my ugly face, with longish beard and crew-cut on top. No make-up, and of course that's the real artistry of drag, so my look was very basic. More 'Polk Street' than Castro. A cheap necklace or a chain of fake-pearls might have helped, but Stevi thought the minimal approach was better.

Changing clothes in the shop's cramped restroom, the first thing I noticed was that my skirt had no pockets. How do ladies survive without pockets?

Stevi let me stash my pants in the office, but she didn't want me carrying a purse from the shop. "Too easy for someone to steal it," she said. It was weird being without my wallet all day, but everything about the day was weird.

Without the insect mask, the world felt breezier and my face less sweaty, and it was also five degrees cooler underneath the skirt. Liberating! Things rattled and bounced, and that breezy, airy feeling of freedom down under felt somewhat sexy all day, I'll confess.

Guys, you never really think about how locked away everything is, under a zipper and belt. With only boxers between me and the great outdoors, it was like an inmate released from solitary confinement and finally, happily allowed to wander the yard.

The new outfit was good for business, too. People smiled, and many were ushered up the stairs and into the shop. Geraldine hated me, of course, and glowered from her shop under ours, like my living and breathing was an insult.

In the mid-afternoon, a man in an ordinary suit made eye contact with me, smiled and I smiled back, and he paused and held his arms open. Why not? I walked into him, expecting a hug but got a kiss instead. It was slightly startling, but quick and light. Charming, I decided, not an assault.

After he'd laughed and walked away, I wondered what made that moment enjoyable instead of offensive, like when the short black guy I think of as "the littlest pervert" had poked at me with his penis. The difference is all in the technique, gentlemen, and the smile, and the lack of thrusting.

♦ ♦ ♦

While I was on break inside the shop, Dahlia Diamond herself stopped by, to announce that I'm on the comp list for the play. "Just tell them your name," she said, "and they'll let you and your plus-one into the show."

A plus-one? That hadn't occurred to me. Anything I do, I usually do alone, but maybe I could ask Kallie...

Then Dahlia added, "Please don't come to a weekend show, though. We're expecting to sell out." Then she said excuse me and started browsing the shop, and I went outside to resume handing out flyers on the sidewalk. When Dahlia left she was carrying two bags, and LeeAnn told me that she'd spent more than a hundred dollars.

Would a more sensitive soul have been offended at being told not to come to the play on Friday-Sunday? Possibly, but I hate crowds, so a show with some empty seats is better anyway.

I'm more offended that Dahlia didn't say anything about my lovely skirt.

♦ ♦ ♦

When my shift at the shop was done, tucking myself into pants again was a sad moment, like going back to the jail after a day on work release.

Here's an odd message on my voice mail from J Peter Zane, who identifies himself as a reporter for the New York Times. Says he's doing an article on zines, he's read a copy of Pathetic Life and thinks it's "brilliant," wants me so send him more issues, and then he'd like to interview me. "Here's my number at the Times, please give me a call…"

A little publicity would be nice, sure. If I had a few hundred more subscribers, I could retire from handing out flyers. It's never smart to start by kissing my ass, though — if this zine is "brilliant," I'm Thomas Pynchon, and I'm not Thomas Pynchon.

And he wants me to mail him more zines? What, am I the zine fairy? They're three bucks a copy. I've sent a few freebies to prisoners who asked nicely, but Mr Zane isn't behind bars.

And he wants me to call him, long distance, but he doesn't say, "Call me collect?"

And then there's my complaints about journalism in general. Sorry, I assume they're trying to do good work, but reporters get things wrong. I've been reading the daily papers since I was a kid, and whenever a particular article concerns anything I know about first-hand, it always includes an error or two. Always.

When the former principal at my grade school died, the newspaper said he'd been the principal at a different school, across town. Wrong. When they did a human-interest blurb about my mother's big family reunion, they said it took place at Linden Park, but there is no Linden Park; it was at Lincoln Park. When the various layoffs at Macy's made the news (which was rarely), the body count was always less than the actual body count (and of course, only management sources were quoted, never ever a worker). Absolutely always and without exception, there's at least one misstatement of fact in every news item where I've known the facts.

Extrapolate that over the vast majority of news coverage where I don't know squat about the facts, and at the very least, everything in the newspaper should be read with a skeptical eye.

If I called Mr Zane on my nickel, sent him a stack of back issues, and answered his every question, he'd probably still spell my name wrong, misinterpret my psychosis, and forget to mention the zine's address, so nobody could even send for a copy.

Is the New York Times better than that? Everyone says it's the best paper in America, but I subscribe to a zine, Lies of Our Times, that does nothing but list what the New York Times gets wrong, and it's a lot.

None of that is why I won't return J Peter Zane's call, though.

There's a zine called Notes From the Dump, written by the brilliant Terry Ward. In that zine, Terry mentioned — months ago — that he got a call from the New York Times, asking similar questions.

Terry called back, did the interview, answered a dozen questions, wrote about it in his zine, and months later no article has appeared. It doesn't take four damned months to write an article about zines.

J Peter Zane, I smell a fart in the room, and I haven't cut one myself.

♦ ♦ ♦

Toward the back of the shop, there's what we call the Risqué Room. A sign over the door says, "No kiddies allowed." Inside the room is a small assortment of recycled porn and antique sexual devices.

Today Stevi asked me to apply a coat of Scotch Gold protective varnish to several exquisitely carved wooden dildos. As I greased up each of them, wiping it gently, slowly until it glistened, I thought, Yes indeedy, here's something I know how to do. I've had years of training toward this day.

♦ ♦ ♦

When Stevi sent me out to the sidewalk, I wore the green blouse and skirt again, and she let me add a blonde wig to enhance my feminine mystique. Seeing myself in the mirror, I said out loud, "I'm kind of a dumpy-looking woman."

"So was I," Stevi said and laughed. "So was I," and I'm not even sure what that means.

I suppose a bearded fat man in a skirt and wig wouldn't be wanted in front of most boutiques and antique shops in most cities. San Francisco isn't most cities, and Unusualia isn't most shops.

Addendum, 2022: Curiosity got the better of me as I was retyping this, so I Googled around and found Mr Zane's article about zines in the online archives of the Times.
I ranted here about journalism in general and predicted that he'd misspell my name, so decorum demands I confess that he spelled my name correctly... but I misspelled his name in my zine. It's J Peder Zane, not J Peter Zane.
Pathetic Life regrets the error.

On the sidewalk in front of the shop, nothing interesting happened for a bit, so instead of shooing him away I let some passing man lecture me about astrology. He was wearing a nice suit, looked sane but clearly wasn't, and he told me everything he knew, which was nothing, about what the future holds, as charted by the zodiac.

It's rubbish, of course, but instead of saying "It's rubbish, of course," I took notes on the back of a flyer, and now I'll give you his inside information. Let's you and me meet here again in twenty years, and check whether his predictions are wrong, or wrong:

None of the early front-runners in next year's presidential election have their stars in the right sign, but the Republicans all chart worse than Clinton, so the idiot-expert's prediction is: President Putz will be re-elected. A bold prediction.

The alignment of Jupiter and Saturn clearly indicates that you should sell your entire investment portfolio as soon as possible. Next spring will be 1929 all over again, or so says a random stranger on the street.

The Middle East, he says, will soon face fierce upheavals and unrest. I asked how we'd be able to notice, since that part of the world is always in upheaval and unrest, and Mr Zodiac said again, fierce. Not just upheavals and unrest, but fierce, so let's expect another war over oil, and maybe a global thermonuclear conflagration.

He told me all about the endtimes, coming soon, and you heard it here first: The Anti-Christ will make his appearance in 2007, and seize worldwide power in 2011. Sounds like fun. Hope I'm still around to see it.

Best of all, based on the cusp of the seventh house, and my chakra and date of birth and orb of influence, the stars suggest that May will be an extremely creative month for me, artistically. I never do anything artistic, but maybe I'll doodle a stick-man or something.

You don't want to miss that, so get your order in early: $3 for next month's issue, from Doug Holland, █████████████, San Francisco 94102.

♦ ♦ ♦

Also today, two people on the same tour bus simultaneously lifted their cameras to take my picture. How provincial, dahling. I lifted my skirt an inch higher, to give them a glimpse of my gorgeous gams.

"Peter Zane of the New York Times" left another message on my voice-mail. That's how he announced himself, rather dramatically, like you'd say Lawrence of Arabia.

He still wants me to call him back and answer twenty questions, but instead I've decided to send him this issue when it's printed — free, since he's in it. Let him read what I think of him, before he decides what he thinks of me.

After that, if he wants a copy he can pay, like anyone else. Twenty bucks buys seven issues, Peter, but nothing's going to buy you an interview.

♦ ♦ ♦

LeeAnn and Stevi sort of undressed me today — a customer wants to buy the skirt I've been wearing, so they made me wear the green cape and insect head, instead of the skirt and blouse and wig.

I mentioned that we get noticeably more customers to come up the stairs when I'm wearing the skirt, but Stevi just looked at me with that "She's the boss" look. Sigh. I wrapped the cape over me, slipped the insect head over my skull, and handed out flyers all day, with reduced results.

♦ ♦ ♦

There's a young-ish woman who works at Geraldine's shop, the shop below the shop where I work. We've spoken once or twice while she's smoking a cigarette in front of Geraldine's, and it's taken a while — I try to give people the benefit of the doubt — but I've decided I don't like her.

She's never been rude, but her face and voice are always blank, and from her eyes I get the impression as she's inhaling, watching me hand out flyers, that she shares her boss's opinion of my essential worthlessness.

Tonight, though, this same woman looked different than ever before. She was dressed fancy — must've had a date — and I almost didn't recognize her. She was wearing make-up, better clothes, and for the first time ever, a smile.

Let me 'splain: I don't care about clothes, and I never know what to think about make-up — if it's applied delicately maybe I don't even notice it, but when I notice make-up it just seems like an odd thing to do to your face. And nobody's required to smile, either. Cripes, I never smile without a good reason.

It's just that she's always been so _un_smiley, I didn't even know she had teeth. When she smiles she's illuminated, and it makes her a fairly attractive woman.

The lesson here, I guess, is that I should smile more often myself.

Also, please note: Smile or no smile, attractive or not attractive, I still don't like that woman.

♦ ♦ ♦

A guy came up to me on the sidewalk — white guy, 30-ish, mustache — and said something about his motorcycle. Clearly I was supposed to know what he was talking about, but alas, I did not.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he asked when he saw my confusion.

"Sorry, no," I answered. "I see so many people here on the sidewalk every day, if we said something to each other I just don't remember."

"I can't believe you've forgotten me!" he said, but with a smile. I don't think I'd forgotten him, though. Pretty dang sure I'd never seen him before.

I said, "Maybe you talked about your motorcycle with the shop's other flyer-boy?"

"No, it was you," he said.

I asked, "Were you wearing leather that day?" He was wearing leather today.

"Sure," he answered. "I always wear leather."

"So does everyone around here. It's the Castro. There are so many men in leather with a mustache, I couldn't keep 'em straight even if they were."

He smiled at my lame joke, then asked, "Will you remember me next time?"

"Well," I said, smiling but still baffled, "thousands of people walk by on the sidewalk every day. I only remember the ones who treat me shitty, and the ones who kiss me. Are you gonna treat me shitty?"

"Nope," he said, as we puckered up and smooched. He's the third man I've kissed in a month. Am I a shameless skank or what?

As he walked away, I psychoanalyzed myself. It's easy for me to flirt with men. They seem to find the cape attractive, or the demeanor I adopt while I'm flyer-boy. I'm not attracted to men, though, so it's just good clean fun.

Women are different. Shocking, I know, but one small smile from an attractive woman, or a big smile from an _un_attractive woman, and my blood starts pumping, my knees knock, my mouth goes dry, and my wit goes missing. If that man had been a woman, I couldn't have come up with a clever line with half an hour to rehearse.

I can't have a relaxed conversation with any potentially available woman until I've known her for months, and of course, by the time I've known a woman that long — like Kallie — she's decided we're just friends.

♦ ♦ ♦

Which leads to my next bumbling thought.

Soon I'll be in Seattle, having lunch or maybe dinner with my zine crush, Sarah-Katherine, who publishes Pasty. From our letters and zines, though, we already know each other, so I'm hope-hope-hoping to skip the several months of silence.

♦ ♦ ♦

After work I bused home, and walked the last few blocks toward this trash-strewn slum street, where the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was the quiet. No loud arguments, no boomboxes blaring, no screaming domestic squabbles. This neighborhood is never that quiet, though.

A car was double-parked in the middle of our one-lane one-way street, blocking traffic if there'd been any traffic, but there wasn't, and the double-parking isn't unusual either. The car was a Crown Victoria, though — an unmarked police cruiser.

Across the street in the twilight, two white cops were searching three teenage boys, two Hispanic and one black, I think. At that, the hairs on my arms were tingling. This was the first time I've seen any police in this neighborhood, so I pulled myself out of my thoughts and paid close attention. It is a good idea to watch your enemy.

Do I need to explain that last line? I don't break many laws, but I don't go out of my way to follow laws either, and I read the paper and I've seen some things, and I do not trust the police.

The boys were up against the wall of a tenement, legs apart, hands up. One cop had his gun drawn, while the other did a thorough pat-down of all three. Then the cop with the gun watched the kids, while his partner searched the sidewalk with a flashlight, looking for contraband, I presume. Or looking for a place to drop some.

I don't know those kids, but probably I've cussed at them under my breath. Here in the hood, not a day goes by when I don't hate some kid, for his loud music, tough-guy posturing, smoking outside my window, whatever. Tonight, though, my gut said we were on the same side.

On stoops and from windows, open stairwells and doorways, people were standing, watching. Two of the watchers had video cameras in their hands, filming the scene as it unfolded, and I thought, Aha, that's why the cops aren't beating these kids about the head.

Watching the police is distasteful, though, and I wanted to get safely inside my apartment, so I walked straight ahead and didn't see what happened next. There was a noise, ptth, followed by a loud ripple of laughter, and the cops weren't laughing. They were eyeing the neighborhood, scanning every visible face, but in the dark and distance most weren't visible, what with the streetlight being burned out for weeks now.

The noise sounded again, ptth, and this time I saw what it was — a raw egg had splattered on the cop car's hood. That was the second egg. The first egg was oozing down the windshield.

"Fuckin' pigs!" came a shout from nowhere, and then everything was quiet beyond describing. An utter absence of sound.

The two cops glanced at each other, and a low-rider came down the street but stopped and honked — the cops' car was blocking its way.

The cop with the gun still had the kids against the wall, so the cop with the flashlight walked toward the honking Hispanics. When they saw it was a cop, the driver slipped it into reverse and backed away slowly. No screeching.

I was looking at the other oinker, the one who had the kids in his sights, so I saw what happened next very plainly — a flying tomato hit him on the shoulder. It was beautiful, and I may have laughed, but it wasn't rotten so it didn't make much of a mess. The red simply bounced off him, onto the sidewalk, into the street. Then a voice from somewhere shouted, "Fuckin' pigs! Go hassle someone else!"

Damn right, I thought to myself on the sidewalk, diagonally down the street from the tomato targets. Get the hell out of here! I think I thought it, but I might've said it. Might've yelled it.

Another egg splattered on the sidewalk, a few steps from one of the policemen. A different voice from a doorway shouted something in Spanish so I can't repeat it, but the tone wasn't 'Welcome to our street'.

The cop with his gun drawn said something to the kids, probably a threat, and motioned for his partner to get into the car. A small plastic bag of trash hit the trunk, leaving a trail of coffee grounds and griz on the roof.

The boys slowly lowered their hands from the wall as the cops drove away, to the crowd's cheers and raspberries and vulgarities, and I'm starting to feel at home in this neighborhood.

As I'm handing out flyers in front of the shop, there's one particular woman who walks by most days. She's pretty, she smiles, sometimes she says hi and I reply, but what stands out is her black lipstick. I mean no racial insensitivity, but black lipstick on a white woman is beyond my spectroscopic ken.

Of course, it's not for me; it's for her. I understand that... but it still freaks me out.

Guess it's yet another indication, like punk rock, white rappers, or the everpresent skinny boys in baggy britches, that the world has moved on and left me behind. Today's trends bewilder me. I have become my father.

♦ ♦ ♦

After a few hours in front of the shop, Stevi sent me on a road trip to hand out flyers at 17th & Castro, an intersection I haven't worked before. At least, I haven't worked that corner for the shop, but I've pasted up my own "anything legal" posters there — and someone rips them down quite quickly.

So I was standing there in drag — Stevi got me a new skirt — happily handing out the shop's flyers, next to a telephone pole where a colorful hand-painted poster announced a garage sale later this afternoon.

A middle-aged man in a leather jacket walked by, and without even stopping to look at the poster he reached out and ripped it down as he passed. It was a clean, practiced motion, like he does this all the time, and I realized, he's the person I've never seen but I've come to hate. He's the man who makes it his mission to rip posters off telephone poles, which screws with anyone trying to get the word out about anything, including me and my "anything legal" posters.

Hey, mister! Hey, asshole! Hey, Mr Asshole! Are you the same idiot who pulls down all my "anything legal" posters in this neighborhood, soon as I've put 'em up? Why, man? What's the sanctity of a telephone pole to you? Who left you in charge of free speech in the Castro?

None of this I said, of course, because wearing the skirt and blouse and wig, handing out the shop's flyers, I'm representing the shop. Can't be getting into an altercation while I'm working.

And unfortunately, the guy's face was nondescript, mass-produced. He looked like 50,000 other white men in the city. I'll never know him, if I see him again, unless I see him ripping down more posters.

Pissed me off, though. If ever I'm wearing my own clothes instead of the shop's and I see someone pull down a poster, anyone's poster for anything, it'll be a loud day in San Francisco.

♦ ♦ ♦

Pike still hasn't found a job, and there haven't been many "anything legal" calls, either. Today he told me that he'll be late again with next month's rent — next month being tomorrow.

He offered an innovative solution, and we agreed to it, but it's nuts.

He wants to rent out his room — the living room of our one-bedroom apartment, where he and his girlfriend Terry live — as short-term housing for the friend of a friend of his, who's arriving in San Francisco in a few days. All three of them would be sharing that one room, the room I walk through to get to the kitchen, the john, or the front door.

I moved in less than two months ago, with one flatmate — Pike.

Almost immediately, Terry moved in, unannounced and without asking, so I have two flatmates.

And now another stranger is coming, and I'll have three flatmates — in a one-bedroom apartment.

My Mom had a saying, a cliché she'd say whenever me and my siblings and our friends crowded the living room with too many kids after school — "What is this, Grand Central Station?" Mom's voice said that on a loop, while I mulled Pike's bright idea.

"Four people will be living here," I said, "and I'll be paying half the rent?"

From that came a new agreement, splitting the rent more equitably, and that's nice. I've agreed to pay extra tomorrow, but long-term my rent just went down.

I can handle some extra noise in their room, and probably extra drinking and drugging, food missing from the fridge, longer lines to get into the bathroom, and everything else. I've lived in shared, overcrowded apartments before, when I was younger and maybe more patient. I'm not 19 any more, but all this is a rerun for me.

What I'm not sure about is the key to my bedroom. There's a lock, but the lease is in Pike's name, so he's effectively my landlord, and he has a copy of that key. It hasn't worried me, because I trust Pike to stay out of my stash of cash and other things in here.

I trust his girlfriend less, though — I already suspect she's brushing with my toothpaste and eating my peanut butter.

With another stranger in our household, Pike could leave his keys on the dresser to take a shower, and Terry or our mystery guest could unlock my door and prowl my premises.

That's more risk than I'm willing to take, so I'm off to the hardware store, to add a padlock to my door.