It was early for the mail to be in, but on my way to work this morning I chanced it, stopped at the maildrop, twisted my key in the box, and found a letter from Sarah-Katherine.

Joy? Possibly, but it took me a while to screw up my nerve and open it.

After trading some letters, we finally met when I was in Seattle last month, but I hadn't heard from her since we kissed goodbye on her porch ten days ago. In that time I'd sent her a zine, a letter, a post card, and written another letter not yet sent because maybe it's too mushy.

Yeah, I've got it bad.

Finally, what the hell, I ripped open her envelope, read it while walking to the bus stop, and… hey, Sarah-Katherine still likes me! She says some sweet things… tee hee… gosh, am I blushing behind my beard? Joy!

Oh, enough already — typing so much joy is making me ill, and it must be making you nauseous reading it.

And then all day at the shop, I was exactly the kind of character I can't stand — happy-go-lucky, whistling, attaching deep meaning to the schmaltzy songs on the radio. I offered LeeAnn an unsolicited testimonial about the high-quality cleaning products she had me scrubbing with.

When she had me slip into that silly cape and skirt to pass out the shop's flyers, I altered my normal sidewalk spiel from "Colorful clothes, exotic gifts — upstairs!" to "Free drugs, naked boys — upstairs!" And more folks than usual climbed up the stairs, but LeeAnn said several of them asked where the naked boys were.

Of course, no matter what I say, almost nobody takes the damned flyers any more, but at least they smiled, allowing me to share my joy with the world. Two gay men flirted with me, and one of them kissed me on the lips, and it was joy. I had to say, "Sorry, no tongues," but I said it politely, not wanting to lessen the joy.

Sarah-Katherine likes me, woo-hoo, and it's amazing what that does to me. Only ecological concerns and the lack of a jackknife kept me from carving DH+SK into every tree on my long walk home.

I wrote back to her as soon as I got to the apartment. Sent two letters, actually — the mushy one I'd written but hesitated to mail, and a more mellow letter, answering today's letter, and inviting her to fly down to San Francisco any time she needs an escape from the clouds over Seattle. I promised her, San Francisco's clouds are much nicer.

Infatuation is a mild form of mental illness, like being manic, only more fun. So I'm mildly mentally ill, and I'll recover, but tonight I'm sinking into it like an overstuffed sofa.

The management of this zine apologizes for the cheerful nature of the above entry. Now that I know where I stand with Sarah-Katherine — further away than I'd like, but close enough to hold hands — I pledge, dear reader, to lay off the giddiness and hearts and arrows and happiness, and return to the grumpy brooding you pay $3 a month to read.

Today was my last day of regular work at Stevi & LeeAnn's shop, and if I wanted to be a little unhappier than yesterday's giddy joy, well, I was.

Not because I'm leaving — hey, that's good news. I don't want to retire with a gold watch after handing out flyers for a second-hand shop for forty years. Leaving Unusualia isn't sad. I was unhappier today because it was just a shitty day.

In three months working there, I'd only broken two pieces of merchandise, but today I dropped half a $15 pair of brandy snifters, and then a few minutes later a $248 wooden statue, chipping off a few of its fingers. Apologized profusely and felt lousy about it, because yikes, a couple of hundred bucks is more than the shop sells on a so-so day.

Stevi didn't shout at me, because despite being big and tough she rarely shouts, and it was my last shift so she couldn't very well fire me. She just frowned and told me to get into the skirt and cape and hand out flyers.

So, one last time, I pushed those annoying flyers at people, and all evening most of them said "No thanks" or ignored me, and then with a handshake from Stevi and a hug from LeeAnn, I was gone. "Stay safe," LeeAnn said, and I don't think either of them ever figured out that I'm not gay.

Things I'll miss about being flyer-boy:

• Stevi and LeeAnn, who were always kind to me
• sexy dykes in sensible clothing
• the distant laughter of drivers on Market Street agog at my costume
• making faces or flipping off the tour buses
• men trying on drag in the shop
• laughing at the bitch running the shop downstairs, and at the lawyer-ass upstairs
• and wearing that damned cape and skirt, which would be the craziest outfit I've ever had to wear at work, if it weren't for a job once where I had to wear a necktie.

Things I won't miss about being flyer-boy:

• the bitch running the shop downstairs
• the lawyer-ass upstairs
• pushing the same flyers at the same faces on the same sidewalk day after day
• polishing silver and brass without an apron, because the proprietors were too stingy to buy one, and so was I
• and strangers expecting me to make their babies smile and their kids laugh when I was wearing the cape, as if I was Ronald McDonald or something.

On my way to this morning's gig, the #27 bus rolled past ABIQUIU, a restaurant as pretentious as its all-caps name, and the door is padlocked and a sign says "For lease." It's out of business, and I smiled.

ABIQUIU was at the corner of Ellis & Magnon, near my room when I lived downtown, and I'd often walked past and glanced in the window, or tried to. It was so dark inside, you couldn't tell if they were open or closed. Even during the dinner rush you'd have thought the power had failed, if not for the lone low-watt light bulb shining over the dessert tray.

My condolences to the staff, now unemployed, but you could see from outside that ABIQUIU was no place to eat. The menu, posted beside the door, boasted preposterous prices, and in even dollar amounts. That's a warning sign, right there: Affordable restaurants have prices listed to the nickel ($4.55), overpriced places just make it $5, or $10.

And ABIQUIU's prices were listed without dollar signs — not $25, just 25. That's another very strong indication of snootiness.

And here's a third warning sign: Never eat at a place you can't pronounce, like ABIQUIU.

And what did people get for 25? Next to nothing, it seemed to me as I peered into the darkness through the honest-to-gosh fern-shrouded windows. The portions were ridiculously tiny — a plate with three asparagus sprouts laid out real purdy, and a dollop of sauce, is not a meal.

Now, San Franciscans who want to pay 25 to squint in darkness at a miniature plate of veggies with schmancy sauce will have to go to one of the city's ten-thousand other snooty overpriced restaurants.

Here's hoping a fair-priced sandwich shop moves into the empty ABIQUIU space.

♦ ♦ ♦

The gig I was on my way to? Helping a couple of frumpy ladies run a sidewalk/yard/garage sale, and what a disaster that was. They spent half the time alternately telling me where to pile stuff on their tables, on the sidewalk, on the itsy-bitsy lawn, then telling me it didn't look its best there, so move it over here instead. And the heavier anything was, the more times it had to be re-schlepped.

As the day wore on, very little was selling, because prices weren't marked, and when anyone asked what something cost, the ladies would quote a very large number. "I'll let you have it for $75," said one of the ladies, about a flimsy old oak cabinet with scratches and a missing pane of glass. It would've been overpriced at twenty bucks.

They didn't understand that a garage sale is supposed to be cheap. Or maybe they didn't really want to sell their tons of junk, just wanted to spend the day looking at their memories and talking about 'em. Well, at $5 an hour for the hired help, they can look at their junk all day long.

Come sunset, they had me hauling everything that didn't sell, which was almost everything, back into the garage. And again, the ladies told me where each piece should go, then argued with each other or changed their minds. For nine hours of carry and drag, I got $45 — and no tip, despite never once all day saying "fuck you."

♦ ♦ ♦

Tomorrow I'll be a fishmonger in Berkeley, which sure sounds like more fun than I had today.

♦ ♦ ♦

Back home at the apartment, Pike and Terry were in primo argument mode, almost literally screaming at each other when I walked in, went straight to my room and wordlessly closed the door. In any other neighborhood someone would've called the cops, but in our broken bottle slum, screams are the ordinary soundtrack.

Brightening my spirits, I got another letter from Sarah-Katherine, which I won't share here but will smile about. Have I mentioned? I kinda like her, and she seems to kinda like me too, which always helps.

It's all very 7th grade, I suppose, and chances are it's going nowhere, but who cares? Even though she's way far away in Seattle, even though she's not crazy enough to be crazy about me, even if I ought to know better than to get crazy about her, even if daydreams of her are impossible fantasies, her letters are just friendly chit-chat, and she never whispers the sweet nothings I'd like to hear into my mailbox, it's nice just knowing that someone kind and clever and smart with a pretty smile and well-rounded boobs cares enough to lick a stamp and send a letter. For that, thank you, Sarah-Katherine.

For my first stint selling Jay's funny fish on Telegraph Ave, she went for a classy set-up, with two comfy folding chairs — one for her, one for me — and a matching sun umbrella. This made us the swankiest booth on the avenue, where we sat cutting fish from the pre-printed mylar sheets in the lull between customers.

During the (lots of) lulls, we talked to strange people (on Telegraph Ave, there's nothing but) about the philosophy behind the fish, and about everything else. It was more like fun than like working, especially with Jay handling most of the talking.

The philosophy behind the fish? People take their religion too seriously. Our fish, gently mocking the Christian fish symbol with Darwin and other amusing designs — Freud, Dali, marijuana — refuse to be taken seriously.

I'm new at this, of course, but the sales seemed slow, considering it was a sunny Sunday. Jay was keeping closer track than I, but did we even take in enough to pay my wages? When I got pessimistic, she reminded me that this was our first day, so sales will probably pick up when people know there are fish stickers and magnets for sale on Telegraph Ave. I'll try not to jump to my habitual negative conclusion, that whatever I'm doing can't possibly go well.

Seems like a very easy job, too. We were on a crowded street, and I don't like crowds, but most people ignored us — bad for business but good for my disposition. Jay knows I'm no good with people, so my sales strategy is to shout the word "Fish" every few minutes. That's all. If someone responds, then we can talk about the fish, maybe sell one. If nobody responds, I'll keep reading the newspaper.

Once we have the routine worked out, I'll be running the fish stand alone. Maybe that'll be fun, too, but today it was nice having Jay around. She answered people's questions, spelled me when I needed to take a leak, gave good pointers about what not to say to customers ("Maybe 'Jesus is bullshit' is a little too harsh," she said), helped me discreetly ogle the beautiful college co-eds (she's bi, I think), and she gave me half her tuna sandwich.

I offered her a peanut butter sandwich in exchange (I'd packed six), but she about retched after one dry bite. See, I'm stingy with the peanut butter, spread it on very thin. PB is expensive, bread is cheap and filling. If I'd expected to be sharing, though, I would've spread more than three microns of PB on my sammiches.

Today I worked just three hours at Judith's house, scrubbing her tub, washing her dishes, and scouring her sink. The scrubbing and scouring was unpleasant; it had been years since anyone rubbed Ajax into the porcelain, and despite my sweat spent, some of the stains are still there.

I'd hoped to make a 6- or 8-hour day of it, but Judith went to sleep soon as I started work, stayed asleep the whole time, and didn't answer when I knocked on her door, so I couldn't wake her to ask what to clean next. And also I was tuckered, and didn't knock as loud as I maybe might have.

Left her a note, "You owe me for three hours, see you tomorrow." Then I BARTed back to San Francisco, promptly fell asleep on the train, and didn't wake up until the driver yelled at me at the end of the line, in Daly City.

That's a dull day at the diary, even for me. It's not writer's block (never experienced that, really), it's just a pathetic life. Can't say you didn't know that before you sent me your three bucks. This zine is often boring, as boring as my life, and insignificant, utterly predictable, etc, but the title tells the truth.

♦ ♦ ♦

Randomly pathetic observations:

• Today my arm pits smell curiously of cauliflower.

• My flatmate Pike's girlfriend is sick, so she hasn't been in the apartment yesterday and today. I hope she's sick tomorrow, too.

• There's vomit on the wooden steps up to our apartment. Might he hers. Might be a stranger's, or a dog's. It's not mine, though, so I'm not cleaning it up.

• Someone mailed me three glossy porno magazines instead of three dollars, for a copy of the zine. Deal.

Riding BART to Berkeley, I found someone's leftover Chronicle, and the news is that a bunch of San Francisco policemen beat an unarmed man to death on Sunday night.

That's mighty unusual — not cops beating someone, certainly, not cops beating someone to death, but reading about it in the newspaper? That's unusual, as only a fraction of cop-crimes make the news.

The Police Department won't say a word about what happened to Aaron Williams, the man they killed, except that he was a suspect in the burglary of a pet store. That's a capital offense, now? SFPD officers went to his home "to question him," says the Chronicle, and they 'questioned him' to death.

According to several witnesses, the moment Williams stepped out of his flat, a policeman slammed him against a car, and as many as a dozen policemen and women then proceeded to beat the life out of him.

Witnesses said Williams, a black man, cried for help as he fought with a group of officers that included whites, a black, and an Asian-American…

Policing is now an equal opportunity line of work. Everyone gets a club and a turn at bat.

"They were still punching and kicking him when he was completely subdued," said George Falley, a 46-year-old janitor who watched the beating from a few feet away. "After he was hit with the club, he was out. He's bleeding from the head area. The way they kicked him when he was handcuffed — that was the terrible thing — in the forehead area, the ribs, the stomach, the shoulders, the upper body when he was on the ground." […]
"It was gross. There were so many cops on him and that one cop kicking him," said Cecilia Lynch, 33, a management consultant who lives across the street from Williams' flat […]
"It was pretty disturbing to see," said Shannon Robins, 26, who works in the Academy of Sciences' exhibit department. "I think the police were obviously freaking out." […]
Williams' sister, Kimberly, said, "They kept hitting him on the back of the head. I tried to get them to stop, but they pushed me away. One cop said, 'He's okay,' and they threw him in the paddy wagon. It was shameful what they did." […]
A neighbor, who declined to be named, said he could see police "beating someone. He was hollering for help, saying, 'I need help. I need help.' It didn't make no sense to beat a man like that. It's like a Rodney King deal to me," said the man. "There was nothing I could do. If I went out where there were seven carloads of police and a paddy wagon, what would they have done to me?"

That's an excellent question. They might have 'questioned' you into unconsciousness, and then arrested you for interfering with police work. Leaving your name out of the paper was doubtless a good idea.

The terse official version of the incident that appears on the coroner's register contrasts sharply with that given by family members and other witnesses.
Although the register does not describe the struggle, it says that Williams was placed in a police wagon and taken to the Richmond District police station. There, the officer driving the wagon noticed that Williams' breathing was labored. When officers attempted to remove him from the wagon he was "unresponsive." Paramedics were summoned and unsuccessfully attempted to resuscitate him.
"No apparent trauma was noted," the report in the register says.

"No apparent trauma was noted." I laughed out loud reading that on BART, but it wasn't a happy laugh.

Being a police officer is the perfect job if you're a psychopath, or a thug, or a murderer. After killing someone, you get to write the official report of the death, so despite all those blows to the head, "no apparent trauma was noted."

Bryan Bowser, Williams' 33-year-old cousin and a maintenance mechanic from Alameda, said when he viewed the body at the coroner's office, the side of Williams' jaw was swollen, one eye "looked crushed in, there was blood on his lips, blood in his nose and blood in his mouth, which was partially open. They had his neck covered so we couldn't see it. There's no question he was beat up. … I think he was dead before they drove him away. They made no attempt to take him to the hospital. Instead they took him to the police station."

Rest assured, good citizens, that these same police officers or their good drinking buddies are now piecing together the clues, scrutinizing the evidence, interviewing the witnesses, determined to bring keep the perps to from justice.

"The homicide detail is looking into the death, with the cause still to be determined," said Deputy Police Chief Fred Lau. "There won't be any official statement until the medical examiner determines the cause of death."

Cops beat 'suspects' and anyone they feel like beating, more often than teenagers have pimples. If that's news to you, you're hopelessly out of touch.

What earns my fury is knowing, absolutely knowing with no doubt, that these cops will get away with killing Aaron Williams. A few officers might be suspended, probably with pay, and it's vaguely possible that someone might be fired (and promptly hired by the police department in one of the city's suburbs — that's what always happens), but the odds are a million to one against anyone wearing a badge facing prosecution, and two-million to one against a conviction. (See my 2022 addendum, below.)

There won't be anything approaching justice for those blue-shielded bastards, and no matter how often the same scenario repeats itself, the police will never be tamed of their savage ways or brought under any meaningful community control.

This is what American police do. The only violation of protocol here is that the beating happened in front of witnesses.

In a few days or weeks, SFPD's "no comment" will evolve into a series of rehearsed lies with reliable catchphrases like "self-defense," "measured response," and the bravery required to "protect the community."

Almost certainly, we'll hear about the dead man's criminal record, and be told he was high on cocaine or heroin or angel dust, and thus had the strength of a dozen men.

Maybe they'll say he had a gun, or they thought he had a gun. Maybe they'll 'find' a gun at the scene of the crime. Maybe he was 'threatening' police with that invisible gun, even after they'd handcuffed him and beaten him comatose.

Quite possibly, a few of those cops will qualify for disability pay, because they twisted their ankles kicking Williams skull in.

Addendum, 2022: If you're in the mood for it and have a strong stomach, here's Human Rights Watch's 1998 brief on the San Francisco Police Department, which includes a few paragraphs about the killing of Aaron Williams.
As expected, zero cops were prosecuted, and zero cops were disciplined. One cop was fired, for unrelated reasons. His name is Marc Andaya, and as of 2018, he was a lieutenant for the Contra Costa County Sheriffs Department, where his total pay excluding benefits was $146,214.90.

♦ ♦ ♦

There was so much to be done at Judith's house, I ended up working 12½ hours. I cleaned Judith's kitchen, and the john, and the hallway, living room, and especially the guest room, because she has company coming tomorrow. It was a lot of work and took a lot of time because she's a slob like me. Nobody's done serious clean-up duty at Judith's house for a long, long time.

My arms were sore before starting, thanks to yesterday's scrubbing, and they were sorer after a few hours standing on a wobbly high chair, scraping mildew off the bathroom ceiling. Work is work, though. I need the money, and it was only painful because I'm so very out of shape.

Haven't known her long, but Judith seems easy to talk to, and she's read my zine — that's how we met — so while I washed dishes we talked about Sarah-Katherine. When I got to the part where Sarah-Katherine had recited poetry for me, Judith laughed and said it was obvious that I'm smitten, and she offered her services as a poet for a reply.

Judith is a poet, if I haven't mentioned it. The real thing, published and professional, so this was not an offer to be snickered at. She asked me several more questions about Sarah-Katherine, about her eyes, about her voice, places we went, what she wore, what went wrong when we were together in Seattle, and what went right. These were things I haven't written about, and questions I'd usually decline to answer, but she wanted to write an acrostic for Sarah-Katherine.

What's an acrostic? A poem of some kind, I guess, where the first letter on each line adds up to something, in this case spelling out Sarah-Katherine's name.

When she'd heard enough of my sappy romantic recollections, Judith disappeared for a while as I swept and mopped the kitchen floor. When she came back, careful not to step where the floor was wet, she had a poem that sounded more intense than the infatuation I've admitted to myself, or to Sarah-Katherine. It seriously was good. Maybe too good. 'Take my breath away' good.

"You can tell her you wrote it," Judith said, after I'd whispered wow and read it a second time. And I'm a schmuck, so I considered telling that lie. After all, it's a poem full of my feelings, retold more romantically than I've been inclined. Lies stink, though, and always lead to more lies, so Sarah-Katherine will be receiving a very nice poem written in her honor, but with no pretense that it's from me.

And the poem? Sorry, it reveals more about Sarah-Katherine, or about the woman I imagine her to be, than she'd want the world to know. She's entitled to some privacy.

You want to read love poems? Go mop a poet's kitchen floor.

WEDNESDAY — Gave a few hours of my life to Black Sheets, and came home with about seven hours of consciousness left in me. That's a luxurious amount of time and awakeitude for typing.

It was a hottish day, so I pulled up the blinds, opened the window, then wrote the second half of yesterday's entry, and started laying out the zine's May issue.

After several hours at the typewriter and sometimes pacing the floor, it occurred to me that with the window wide open and no curtains, perhaps I ought to wear more than socks.

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — Today was a day off from everything but me, and sadly there's no escape from that. Worked more on the May issue, then decided on a lackadaisical stroll through the north Mission slums, because nothing brightens the spirits like stepping past broken glass and human feces on the sidewalks.

Live in the city long enough and you'll get used to the dirtiness, the hint of danger. There's a promise of crime and cruelty in every evil shadow, and it keeps the adrenaline pumping. Don't tell anyone, but pssst — the promise of danger is usually false, like most promises.

Earthshaking is an unwelcome adjective in Frisco, but that was the volume from a passing Barracuda, tricked up all shiny and coasting an inch off the asphalt. "Hey, fatso!" a teenager screamed with a Hispanic accent out the back window, which wasn't there — just air, no glass. I happened to be wearing a hat (Oakland A's) so I tipped it toward their passing car, and think I heard someone laugh.

Across the street, six black boys in gangster colors leaned on a bankrupt storefront, talking too loud, too profane, their mothers being fucked twice per angry sentence. Some say it's racist to be afraid of them, but by their dress and demeanor it seems obvious that they want people to be afraid. It would be rude not to be afraid, but I whistled and kept walking.

At the corner, three pretty high school babes were giggling together like girls do, each with a babe of her own in her arms. Condoms are too much trouble, too messy and unromantic, while babies are no trouble at all, and what could be more romantic than wringing out a diaper?

Or maybe I'm mistaken, and they were young, but not that young. Maybe they were babysitting, or big sisters, not moms. Maybe, but I never argue with my snap judgments.

Always rubbers for me. Sex is unlikely for a fat, late-30s hermit who doesn't even talk to women, but no babies, please. Seeing those women with their output inspired me to put a condom back into my wallet. When I was younger and fancied myself in circulation, one was always tucked in behind the dollar bills, but I lost it (never used it) years ago.

I stepped into a bigger bodega and bought a box of a dozen, then paused on my way out to glance at the afternoon's headlines. Nothing much in the 'news' part of the news, so I thumbed back to the movie section, and as I followed an article from one page to another, a voice from behind the counter said something in Farsi that translated itself as, "Buy the paper, or leave." I left.

Trash and old news blew down the street, and I followed, becoming part of the trash myself. Or am I the old news?

After a while my ankle started hurting, so the walk brought me back to my apartment, up the vomity stairs, past Pike and Terry both screaming that the other won't do the dishes, and into my room, where I closed the door too loudly and clicked the typewriter on.

"You never do the dishes," Terry bellowed at Pike. "You've never washed a damned dish in your fucking life!" On and on they argued beyond the wall as I typed all the above, and as usual she won on volume but he won on vocabulary and insults.

Now I'll click the typewriter off and go into the kitchen, and wash the dishes myself.

Today was another day off, and I loved it. Wish I could retire young and have every day off.

Started with a visit to the mailbox, where I received another letter from Sarah-Katherine, for whom I swoon. Back home I replied to her immediately, and sent late-late responses to a few other deserving people.

Then I lazed for a while, something I haven't done enough in the past few weeks. Sprawled on the foam-rubber mat that's my bed, I read some zines better than mine, hunted and killed the wild roaches, took a nap in the early afternoon, then woke up and took another nap in the late afternoon. If I can't retire yet, wish I could find someone who'd pay me for lazing. I'm good at it. References will be provided on request.

Checked my phone messages after hot dogs for dinner, and returned the one phone call received since yesterday. It was from some guy named Ron, who needs someone to tote boxes tomorrow.

Since I'm booked it'll be Pike doing the toting, but I'm glad I called him back instead of just giving his number to Pike. In addition to the box-toting, Ron mentioned that he also needs live-in help for a few months, tending the grounds at his cabin in the mountains — and that might be me.

We're meeting tomorrow night, he's buying me dinner, and if it feels right, who knows, maybe I'll pack up and ride off with him to the frozen north, 40 miles outside Ukiah.

No, I'm not leaving San Francisco, at least not permanently. Even if he offers the job and even if I take it, the cabin gig would be only for a few months.

Nothing's holding me here in this apartment, with Pike and his perpetual 'special guest star' in our sitcom, Terry — the world's most annoying woman.

Almost any way out of here would be welcome.

Today I worked on Telegraph Ave again, as Fish Man for Jay, but I BARTed in early because the vendors' lottery takes a lot of time. Got there even earlier than I'd intended, and found myself killing time at Sproul Plaza, in the warm morning sun.

On the steps where Mario Savio once stood, I sat and thought about things that happened at Sproul and in Berkeley, things that need to happen again, happen bigger and better and happen more often, here and everywhere.

There's more I want to say, but I'm in a good mood at the moment, and politics is pessimism. Anyway, there's a long and pointless story to tell, so let's get to it.

♦ ♦ ♦

My fisherman's workday began in the parking lot across from People's Park, where dozens of permitted and licensed vendors milled around, waiting for the daily draw.

What's the daily draw? Well, if everyone who wanted to sell what they'd made simply came to Telegraph Avenue and sold their stuff, that would be untidy. Society must be tidy, so there are rules and requirements, lots, even for selling trinkets from folding tables on Telegraph Ave.

First, you're required to buy the permit and license. Then you go to a hearing, and prove to some Arts Commission that what you're planning to sell was actually created by you. Everything sold on the sidewalk is supposed to be art, and they decided that Jay's fish qualify as art.

Every dang day, though, there's a lottery to determine which licensed vendor gets which space, on which block of Telegraph Ave. The daily draw is a long and boring process, and being there, being part of it, was even more boring than reading about it.

Before the drawing, all the vendors talked and harrumphed amongst themselves, but I'm not much for talking and wasn't in a harrumphing mood, so instead I leaned on a tree and studied the scruffier types in the park. There were ten or twelve homeless and/or addicts or just plain bums on the benches there, awake but maybe not conscious, and I hoped they're happy in their lives.

Hoped, because if or when a few things go wrong, it's likely I'll be one of the bums across the street. My mom and dad would say my life's on a downward trajectory, that bumhood is what awaits me, and maybe they're right. I have moved down a tax bracket or two, on purpose. Maybe I'll eventually fall further, on accident. Check back with me in a few years, and see how low I might go.

To enter the drawing, I showed my vendor's permit to Martin. He's a vendor too, who'd volunteered to run today's lottery. A different vendor runs it every day, to keep things seeming fair.

Martin is a burly guy, in sloppy clothes and with an untamed beard, and he glanced at my plastic card to be sure I was street-legal. He jotted something onto a scrap of paper, then handed it to me instead of putting it into the big bag for the drawing.

See, some vendors think they'll have a better chance at having their name drawn early if their piece of paper goes into the bag late, so it's near the top of the pile. That's stupid, of course, so when he handed me my piece of paper I dropped it into the bag, and walked away and waited. There's a lot of waiting at the morning draw.

"Last call," Martin shouted at a few minutes past ten. The drawing is supposed to be at 10 AM sharp, but we were running late, which apparently isn't unusual.

If you'd been holding your scrap of paper, you'd put it in the bag now, right? No, because a minute later Martin shouted "Last call!" a second time, a little louder.

Then a little later and a little louder still, he called "Last call!" the third time, and everyone knew that the third "last call" really is the last call, so now all the slips of paper were in the bag.

Martin mixed and shook the bag real good, even closed it tight and turned it upside-down, before he started pulling out and announcing names, and numbering each piece of paper sequentially.

For a long time, I waited impatiently to hear my name, but it was Jay's name instead. She wasn't there, but she owns the fish and the booth and most important, the license. Her number this morning was 47, which means I got the 47th pick for a spot on Telegraph.

I walked to the next line and waited there. The queue snaked around somebody's beat-up pick-up, where all the vending spots were charted on four photocopied pages spread out on the truck's tailgate, and held down from the breeze by magnets. Number 19 was choosing her spot for the day, so I was waiting again. The whole morning was a series of wait, wait, waits.

Number 19 owned the pick-up truck, so after signing in she opened the door and cranked her engine while someone gathered the papers, and as 19 drove away, the ritual moved to a blue Buick.

Does all this seem like a complicated process to go through, just to sell fish stickers and magnets? It is nuts, and I sighed then, and sighed again now typing it.

The Buick turned out to be Number 33, and drove away, too, so by the time we got to my Number 47, everyone was huddled around the back bumper of an ancient yellow Subaru Brat.

Yippee, it was my turn to pick my space. New at this, though, I don't have the expertise to know a good spot from a shitty spot, so I picked an untaken space across Telegraph from where Jay and I worked last weekend. My logic was only that the shadows should hit me a few hours sooner there — a scorcher had been predicted.

As the lottery dwindled to fewer and fewer participants, vendors huddled around the parked cars, negotiating deals, swapping their spaces for future considerations.

Suddenly, across the parking lot, Martin screamed at another vendor, "You're an asshole! You're a shit-head!" and then they both stomped away in rage. From a distance it seemed comical, and I half-thought they were kidding around, but some other vendors were saying, "Come on, Marty, chill out" and such, so I guess it was genuine anger.

Martin slammed his car door and left two stripes of rubber on the asphalt, but not before yelling to the crowd, "I run the best damn lottery the Avenue has ever seen, and you God damn well know it!" Again, all evidence suggested he was serious.

I couldn't see who he was mad at and couldn't guess why, but there was a muttering of agreement from several voices in the crowd. "Yeah, Marty runs a clean draw," seemed to be the gist.

Pulling out my ever-present notebook and pen, I scribbled, "God Unlikely, we're deciding who gets what space for hawking hairbobs and earrings on the Avenue — this ain't exactly the Paris Peace Talks. Shit-fuck."

Expounding on that later, it needs to be said that half the vendors are hippies or ex-hippies, and the other half are dropouts. There are no neckties in this crowd. We're all small-timers, mostly marginalized people, all on the bottom rungs, and no cars in the parking lot were newer than ten years old.

And yet, before during and after the daily draw for vendor spaces, there's a hierarchy, turf to protect, battles to be fought. Humans will never fail to disappoint you. Always there will be land wars, even over unmarked five-foot rectangles on the sidewalk.

At a phone booth I called Jay, to tell her where to deliver the goods and equipment. She said she'd meet me at the designated corner in fifteen minutes, so I walked over and waited, ate a sandwich I'd packed and waited, ate a second sandwich and waited. Being as I was on the clock, the delay didn't bother me, but most of the other stalls were open for business, and making money, while I was just eating sandwiches.

I was eating a third sandwich and drinking a diet root beer when Jay got there, 45 minutes later. We unloaded the table and umbrella and merch, and then she left me to work alone all day. Behold Doug the Fishmonger, sitting there saying "Fish!" every minute or two, all through a hot sweaty day.

When I wasn't selling fish, which was most of the time, I was cutting new fish from the pre-printed mylar. By closing time I'd made lots more fish than I'd sold, but the fish were jumping — there were more sales today than there'd been on Sunday.

Sales would doubtless be better still, if I had the ability to schmooze like a salesman. The vendors working around me did that, and it seemed to help. They smiled at prospective customers. I didn't. They talked about the weather and the news, made jokes. I didn't. Remember, I hate people, and surrounded by people all day, simply not decking anyone felt like a success.

By the end of the day, though, I'd worked up a few comical lines that seemed to be helping. Maybe by the end of the summer I'll have a few more. I can pretend to be nice, and I'll get better at it, I suppose. Couldn't get much worse.

♦ ♦ ♦

Mid-afternoon, with the sun beating down so my fuse was already lit, some schmuck from the City of Berkeley walked by with a clipboard and got grumpy at me. Anyone with a clipboard is a schmuck, by definition, and I hate people, but I especially hate bureaucrats bearing clipboards.

He demanded to see my license to sell on the sidewalk, because your government wouldn't want anyone doing anything anywhere without prior permission, fees and photos taken, IDs flashed, Social Security number listed, home phone, work phone, home address, business address, three local references, and most important, proof of meekness — which is what's actually provided by going through such a rigmarole.

My proof of meekness is my vendor's permit. It cost five bucks, and it's supposed to be on my person at all times when I'm selling. It was in my wallet, and I showed it to the schmuck — more proof of meekness — but he was not satisfied.

He wanted to see Jay's proof of meekness — her vendor's license, which isn't the same as a vendor's permit. The schmuck told me that the license must be posted conspicuously, but it wasn't, because I didn't even know what piece of paper he was talking about until he pointed to the license taped to the next table's umbrella.

I'm the guy with a permit, which proves I've kissed ass. Without Jay's license posted, though, my kiss-ass permit means nothing. The schmuck said that I could get a ticket or a fine or maybe a night in the slammer for not having Jay's license posted, and I sweet-talked him by not demanding to see his license to hassle me. "We're new at this," I said, proving my meekness again, "and I don't think the license has come in the mail yet."

He shook his head with a weary "yeah right" look. Oooh, he's heard all the excuses and he's tough and itching to punish me for what seems the tiniest and pettiest violation imaginable — failure to post a piece of paper permitting the sale of bumper stickers.

He let me off with a warning , but if the license isn't posted the next time he "inspects" the fish stand, he says he won't be so "nice," and the full force of the California legal and penal system awaits me.

♦ ♦ ♦

The shadows I'd hoped for took a long time coming, and by the end of the work-day my arms and forehead were sunburned. It's gonna hurt for days, so I stopped at a drug store on the way home to buy sunblock and pain cream and be generally miserable.

♦ ♦ ♦

Remember the guy who'd called yesterday, Ron, who said he was thinking I might be his handy-man at a northern Cali cabin? He left another message today, saying he wanted me to bring a resumé to dinner tonight. That's a red flag — it tells me he's normal — so I considered telling him to fuck off.

Thinking it over, though, I could see his side. if I had a cabin, I wouldn't hire me and let me live there, based solely on my "I'll do anything" flyers. I'd want to know who the hell I was, so OK, I typed up a half-assed resumé (more proof of meekness) listing the straight jobs I'd had before going un-straight with the flyers. It's not impressive, and I'm still not sure I'd hire me.

Then Ron called again, canceling out of the dinner and interview for tonight. I called him back to reschedule, but I'm more interested in his offer of a free meal in a restaurant, than in his cabin job.

Moving out of San Francisco, even for just a few months, to someplace so remote that the nearest bookstore or movie theater is a week's walk away? Doubtful. I hate people, but I need civilization.

It was an unpleasant morning, preamble for a short day. Woke up queasy, like a hefty barf was upcoming, but it never came up. After praying at the porcelain altar several times, dry heaving for twenty minutes, suddenly I felt fine, so what the heck, I got dressed and went to work.

Feeling a bit lightheaded, I needed an energy kick from something sugary to calm my belly and keep me moving. Before descending the steps to BART, I stopped at the scuzzy Chinese place above the 16th Street station, and bought several maple bars. Biggest mistake of the weekend.

True maple bars are hard to find in San Francisco. Bakers don't seem to know what a maple bar, so I'll explain: It's a sweet fluffy chewy doughy rectangle with a coating of fake maple slop on top.

What some shops sell instead is something that looks like a maple bar, but it's injected with unidentifiable beige viscous fluid, like it's a maple Twinkie.

No. Emphatically, no. Maple bars were a frequent treat when I was a kid, so I know what a maple bar is, and isn't, and it's not a maple bar if it has filling inside. The filling makes it an eclair or something. Call it a cream-filled maple bar if you must, or more accurately a snot-filled maple bar, at least from that Chinese place. But it's not a maple bar.

It said 'maple bar' on the display case, though, and I stupidly didn't ask for proof. I bought a small bag of them, took a bite from one, and sank my teeth into the disappointment. I was already on BART, though, and needed that sugar fix, so I ate it, and then under the bay I ate two more, and finished the fourth and final fake maple bar as the train pulled into Berkeley.

Walked where I needed to be, and got Number 55 in the vendors' drawing, but then as the second phase started, where vendors pick their spots & argue about their spots & trade their spots, those phony maple bars attacked me like Pearl Harbor. I seriously had to retch — no false alarm this time.

In the People's Park public john, I puked and the puking made me puke some more, and then I puked atop my earlier pukes. Some got fake maple on my shoes and pants, and some of it splattered the floor, sorry. After horking up those fake maple bars and last night's dinner and maybe a hairball or two, I finally could hork no more, but I'd missed my number on the second draw.

There is a procedure to sign up late if you've missed the lottery, but it's complicated and probably involves forms filed in triplicate, signed in blood, and notarized by a CPA. With no stomach for that, no stomach at all, I decided my vomit was a secular sign from an atheist god, telling me to go home and back to bed.

Called Jay, informed her that my day was done, BARTed home, and I've been asleep for four hours, oblivious to the downstairs neighbors' barking dog, the upstairs neighbors dumbbell-dropping, and Pike's 110-decibel Screeching Weasels or whatever audio garbage he's listening to.

Haven't puked again, but it's my greatest desire at the moment. I feel pretty good, but another puke session would make it seem less like the day was wasted. I ain't rich, you know — can't afford to take a day off work for just one good regurgitation.

Yesterday I was vomiting and nauseous, but today I feel like climbing Coit Tower and singing the BeeGees' greatest hits. Pike sounds near death in the next room, though, coughing up phlegm, hacking his throat dry, and he's not sick.

This is his morning ritual. He wakes up, and coughs for half an hour, or 45 minutes. The racket is as reliable as a rooster crowing at sunrise, though with Pike it's more like 10AM. It must be a side effect from all the drugs he does, and he does plenty.

Pike has been conducting his throat orchestra for an hour now, which is longer than usual. If he was a friend of mine, perhaps I'd ask about it, or offer him some of my cough drops. But he's not, so I won't.

♦ ♦ ♦

Maggie, my ex, is in Livermore, visiting her daughter and staying at her sister's house, so I called to arrange lunch or dinner or whatever. She kept me on the phone, long distance, till I ran out of quarters, but she wouldn't commit to a time and place. She said to call back at 6PM, when she'd know her complicated itinerary better. What Ever.

♦ ♦ ♦

Worked a few hours with Bill at Black Sheets, and he gave me the enviable assignment of reviewing two books, Penis Size and Enlargement, by Gary Griffin, and The Joy of Uncircumcising, by Jim Bigelow. Some light reading for bedtime.

Came home with the books under my arm, thinking I'd relax, but no relaxing would be allowed, because Pike and Terry were loudly yelling at each other. After putting up with it for too long, I took a bus ride instead. To nowhere in particular and then home again was my plan, hoping they'd be done yelling before I got back.

♦ ♦ ♦

Despite their noise I'd been in fairly good spirits when I climbed onto the overcrowded #14 bus, but somewhere south of Market my spirits sank.

It might've been Terry, sneezing and screaming at the apartment — she's aggravating, but when I (rarely) stop and think about it she's sadness brought to life. How hellish it must be, to be her.

Or it might've been a shouted argument in Mandarin at the back of the bus...

Or the teenager across the aisle popping his bubble gum loud as Oklahoma City...

Or it might've been the phone call with Maggie, someone I used to rather like, who feels like only an obligation now.

Or just the general hell of Muni, where the drivers delight in alternating at random between brakes and gas, to see how many standees they can topple...

Whatever the cause, I was depressed, and lonely. Depression hits me now and then without warning, probably a sign of mental fragility or a chemical imbalance, who the hell knows. Loneliness doesn't come as often, because usually I like being alone, but there are limits, I guess.

Loneliness and depression at the same time? Man, I was down.

Rang the bell and stepped off the bus, then walked around the south Embarcadero with a serious bad attitude. I was talking to myself and saying awful things, kicking a rock, daydreaming of vandalism and violence, when a voice behind me said, "Hey, excuse me?"

Without even turning to see who'd spoken, I said, "Excuse yourself. I ain't giving you a dime, so fuck off," but it turned out to be a guy I used to work with. He was trying to say hi but he'd forgotten my name, so we re-introduced ourselves, and I apologized for snapping at him because apologizing is what you're supposed to do, but I wanted to snap at him again. We talked for a short while that was too long, until I said "Gotta go, man," and walked away, cold.

Around a corner I stopped for a slice of pizza at some greasy, dirty dive, where I didn't leave a tip. That's something I'm not proud of. For a poor boy I'm usually a generous tipper, even when the food sucks and the service is barely there.

After another bus ride, a red-headed hooker on O'Farrell caught my eye, which is also unusual. It's stupid that prostitution is illegal, but on the sidewalk the idea usually repulses me. Sorry, ladies. Unlike what's for sale in my neighborhood, though, some of the ladies for hire downtown are attractive, and this one had nice legs, smiled at me, and hello, I was hardening, but no.

Called Maggie from another phone booth, at 6:00 sharp as instructed. She was out — or possibly she was playing games. Sometimes she does that, especially when I wish she wouldn't.

The annoyance of Margaret led my thoughts to Sarah-Katherine, that sweet woman who's been brightening my world a little over the past few months. Not tonight, though. The mental image of her pretty face only make me feel worse, certain I've been deceiving myself. She can do much, much better than this fat fart. She's nice enough to write me some letters, and I appreciate it, but probably we've seen each other for the last time.

Called Maggie twice more like a good boy, and twice more she wasn't there. Third time I rang, her nephew who sounded about ten years old asked politely, "Would you like to leave a message?"

"Yeah," said I, not so politely. "She told me to call at six, so please tell her I called at 6, 6:30, and 6:45, and I'll probably call again tomorrow, but I'm out of dimes tonight.

"Who is this?" he asked, and I said my name. Hope he relays the message.

Stopped at a corner rip-off grocery for an overpriced loaf of bread, then waited while the skinny kid on the other side of the counter ignored me and talked on the phone. I watched him waste my time for maybe half a minute, maybe less because I was grumpy, before putting the bread into my backpack and announcing, "It's free if you don't want to ring me up."

"Just a minute," he said — but he said it into the mouthpiece, then actually apologized to me, took my money and even said thanks. I was so amazed I put the change in his tip can, maybe to make up for stiffing the pizza guy.

A third bus took me home, where Pike and Terry were watching TV, holding hands like they like each other, not screaming. The sight and soundlessness of it lifted my spirits from 'absolute shit' to 'lousy', and then he said to me, "You got a letter," and pointed to an envelope leaning on the wall, next to my door.

Zine mail and family mail comes to the maildrop. Nobody has my home address except Sarah-Katherine, so I said thanks, and slipped into my room, and ripped the envelope open. The way I was feeling, I was pretty sure it was "Dear John," but no, it was a nice letter. Not nice enough, and too brief, but it got my mood from 'lousy' to 'so-so'.

By then, though, Terry and Pike were calling each other assholes (they're both right), and I was reconsidering my position against domestic violence.

I wrote Sarah-K an unromantic response, which I ought to rip up and rewrite instead of mailing it. Maybe I should've smoked some marijuana, or borrowed some of Pike's cocaine or heroin or whatever shit he inhales or ingests or injects. Instead I decided to turn in early, hoping for a good night's sleep that might clear away whatever's got me down.

♦ ♦ ♦

First, though, a talk with Pike was necessary. The rent is due tomorrow, and my half is ready, but his half is always iffy. I stepped out of my room and into theirs, and they stopped arguing, looked at me, and I asked the big question: "Will you have the rent ready tomorrow?"

"Ah, screw the rent," he said, smiling through a fog of pot. "Let's not pay it at all this month," and I remembered why I'd once liked Pike. He's an ass, but for all his irresponsibility and fondness for drugs and that horrible woman, he still has the ability to make me laugh, and I laughed.

"Sounds good to me," I said. "And while we're at it, let's toss some bricks through the landlord's window and flip off the cops when they come for us."

"Let me get my jacket," he said, of course without moving from the couch. Then Pike and I laughed at each other while Terry sat mute, not getting the joke, because there is nothing, nothing between her big ugly earrings.

Yeah, fuck the rent. We'll pay it, or it'll be late. Tomorrow I might give a dang, but tonight I don't. Anyway, my name isn't on the lease.

I was back in high school, surrounded by the same butt-heads and jerk-offs as twenty years ago, but a few folks from the modern era were there, too — Jay, Corby, and Sarah-Katherine.

All of us were teenagers again, and kids from every clique — athletes, stoners, stuck-up girls, tweedy eggheads, cools, wanna-be cools, blacks, Asians, dweebs, and the cliqueless (me) were all hanging out one weekend afternoon, dropping acid on a baseball diamond.

It was very Ferris Bueller. None of us should've been anywhere near the others, but there we were, all pals, because in the dream or in the drug, we'd stumbled onto some essential truth, a way around all the misunderstandings and awkwardness that clutters every hour of social contact everywhere — the high schoolness you never graduate from.

Are real friendships like that possible? Probably not.

In the dream, though, we were friends, and it was great — feeling truly connected to other people like I never have in real life. Ten or twelve of us bonded together, like buddies from a beer commercial.

Fade to another day, which must've been a school day, because I was hanging out in the cafeteria with several of our new bunch — the unattainable cheerleader, the basketball star, Corby with a pistol, Jay with a fish, and Sarah-Katherine with me. All of us friends like I've never had, and talking about our new improved truth.

Even being in the school cafeteria was a revelation — I always avoided that place, because it was full of my enemies, the other students. In the dream, though, I wasn't alone in the world. I had friends, so the cafeteria didn't seem like dangerous ground.

Then two others from our LSD picnic rolled past on bikes (guess this was an open-air cafeteria?) and we waved at them, shouted hey and such. They seemed to see us, but they biked away without acknowledging our greeting.

Next day I was joking around with Corby and Basketball Jones, when a few more of our Saturday trippers walked by, but they acted like they didn't know us, ignored us and kept walking.

In the dream, I was afraid. One by one, the weekend miracle was ending, and these people I'd thought I'd known were becoming non-friends again, as unknown to me as everyone else at Auburn High School. Who'd be the next to forget what we'd taught ourselves last weekend?

I didn't want to know, certainly didn't want it to be me, so I willed my eyes open. Wide awake, I was lying on this sweat-soaked cushion, jotting down what dreamy details I could still remember, and still I was scared.

Jay, Corby, Sarah-Katherine — If you see me on the subway, please don't walk past and pretend you never knew me. We knew each other once...

♦ ♦ ♦

I typed all that the next morning, from hand-scribbled notes written in the black of night. The dream, the nightmare, is now completely forgotten. All I remember is waking up and writing it down.

No need to dig deep, to unravel the hidden meaning of it all. It's not well-hidden at all, is it? It's right out in the open.

I am alone, adrift, and I ought to reach out to the very few friends I have. I am a man who needs a hug, damn it. I ought to call Stanley. Ought to try calling Maggie again.

And maybe I will, but probably not.

Maybe later. Probably not.

♦ ♦ ♦

It's boring, so I haven't mentioned this, but I need more work, and more money. Things are tight. I can't afford a new tube of toothpaste, so I've been brushing with lukewarm water (which seems to work just as well; possibly a money-saving tip).

The flyers haven't been generating many calls, and I had no work lined up for today, so I rode the buses, and taped "I'll do anything" flyers all over the Haight, the lower Mission, and Taravel.

On the way back, the last place I targeted was the Rainbow Grocery at 15th & Mission. Kurd-heads and vegans shop there, but I shop there, too, when I have money, and the store's bulletin board has brought me some business in the past, so I posted my flyer there again.

Across the street from Rainbow, sometimes there's a crackhead and homeless mini-mall, as extremely poor people spread their junky merchandise on the concrete, and on the steps of an empty building. Maybe some of it's hot, but I doubt it. Most of it's too ratty to bother stealing.

Some of my holy wardrobe was purchased from bums on that corner — three bucks for a black sweatshirt, two bucks for the pants I'm wearing, etc. (Another helpful hint from Heloise: Always launder the clothes before wearing 'em. There might be bugs.)

Today there was no curb-shopping across the street from Rainbow. Instead, two San Francisco policemen were heroically protecting the city by forcing homeless guys to dump the contents of their shopping carts, and then abandon the carts.

Cops demanded that the bums describe exactly where and how they obtained this pair of shoes, that paperback novel, the clock radio, the hub cap, and so on. Doing the judge and jury thing they always do, the cops decided every answer was a lie, and one by one all the bums' possessions were tossed into a waiting trash truck.

I leaned against a telephone pole to jot a fraction of my anger into my notebook, and then walked to the corner to let my rage subside some. When I turned around, the homeless guys were gone — not into a cop car, not under arrest, just gone. "You're free to go," I imagine some cop said to them, after stealing everything they'd had and tossing it into the trash truck.

The only things that weren't trashed were the shopping carts, which were instead stuffed into a van, presumably to be returned to whatever store they'd been borrowed from. Or maybe the cops sell them to other bums. Who knows? It's not like there's any oversight of the police.

This is Mayor Frank Jordan's proudest achievement. He calls it "the Matrix Program" — instead of providing services for the homeless, help or human kindness or anything human at all, city policy is to hassle them endlessly. The Mayor imagines that if he treats the homeless with great cruelty, they'll all roll their shopping carts in a grand parade across the Bay Bridge and become Oakland's problem.

It's better than having the cops beat them to death, I suppose, like that guy a few days ago, but it's so damned heartless. And for what purpose, anyway? Taking everything from people who have nothing isn't going to reduce homelessness, it'll just make the homeless even poorer, angrier, a little more likely to smash a bottle over your skull and steal your wallet, just to survive.

♦ ♦ ♦

Once, I was sorta politically active. Went to pointless meetings and useless protests, and believed in things. I was out there marching against the Gulf War, a slaughter of innocents that most Americans are still proud of, and our protests accomplished nothing. I was out there marching when the city outlawed free speech after the Rodney King riots, and again, all we did was make ourselves targets for furious cops swinging billy clubs.

Political protest is a choice between doing something futile, or doing nothing at all. The end result is the same, though. I no longer believe protests can accomplish anything — not if the government is run by people who lack a conscience, have no ability to feel shame. Imagine carrying a "Down with Mussolini" placard while Mussolini is in charge; it's not going to change anything, and it might get you bruised, handcuffed, or dead.

No, I'm not saying San Francisco's Mayor Frank Jordan is Mussolini. That would be ridiculous. Mussolini was bald. Jordan wears a toupee.

Maybe it's time to get my ass out of San Francisco, and let Jordan and the bastard Republicans have their way with the poor here. Soon enough that'll be me.

Or maybe it's time to do something futile, join up with an angry group, go to meetings, carry placards again, and hope I'm not in an unlucky bunch that gets caged and clubbed by the cops.

I'm 37 years old, and tonight I feel twice that.

Inside the Rainbow, I posted two of my flyers, and found an interesting poster on the board, from some people outraged by last week's murderous police riot. I wrote down their number, gave them a call, got their answering machine, and left a message. We'll see what happens. Probably nothing.

Called Ron again, still hoping for that free dinner he promised, and maybe that job at his cabin, but got his machine, too. Left a message.

And then, three for three, I called Margaret at her sister's house, got the answering machine, and left a message.

Same as in my dream last night, I'm connecting with nobody. Maybe writing about all this, it'll connect with someone, somewhere who reads it. Probably not.

Jay's fish stickers and magnets have sold fairly well on weekends, so we wanted to see if there'd be enough business to sell fish on Telegraph during the week, at least during summer months. Today was supposed to be the first attempt, and I scored an excellent 11 in the morning draw, but there were only 11 vendors, so actually mine was the last name picked. Just like PE.

There were very few vendors, because of very many clouds, and it started raining during the draw. I called Jay with doubts, and we agreed not to set up the fish stand. Our table has an umbrella, but it's only big enough to keep me and the fish dry. Customers would be standing on the sidewalk getting drenched, which is not conducive to stopping and browsing.

Since I was in Berkeley and Judith lives there, I called her, asked if she had any work for me, and ended up doing maid work at her house — cleaning catshit, sweeping the stairs, and mopping the john. And then, something unexpected happened.

I'm a good maid, Judith says, and she hates housework, so she offered me a room in her very large flat, free of rent if I'd be her live-in housekeeper, like Alice on The Brady Bunch. Alice had to deal with six annoying children in addition to cooking and cleaning and doubtless sexual harassment, but at Judith's house I'd only be the maid.

There'd be no paycheck, but in exchange for part-time work, free rent seems like a fair deal. The idea came out of nowhere, and we only talked about it for a few minutes. More talking about it to come, tomorrow.

It might be charity. Judith reads the zine, knows I hate people, and we'd been chatting about how much I hate Terry, my flatmate Pike's aggravating girlfriend who's always in the apartment. That's when Judith said, "You could move in here, and be my maid," so maybe it's more about rescuing me from the Pike-Terry situation than about Judith actually needing a maid.

I have no pride, though. No objections to taking charity. Anyone reading this, feel free to send cash.

And also, Judith's house is a mess, and she kinda does need a maid. Their flat is huge and always cluttered and dusty, with dirty dishes perpetually stacked in the sink, stains on the walls, lumps in the caret. It's basically a disaster, except for whatever small patch of it I've cleaned for $5 an hour, and whatever I've cleaned is a mess again next time I'm there.

Judith is married, I should mention, and lives with her husband in a very large flat above a store that's long been out of business. It's near the Ashby BART station in Berkeley, and it's a huge place — eight or nine rooms (an estimate; I've never counted). With no kids, they don't need all that space, so they've rented two of the rooms to boarders. I'd be the third, which means five people would be sharing two bathrooms and the kitchen, and I'd be the one keeping everything tidy.

That's the part that seems all wrong — I'm a slob and always have been. Everywhere I've lived, you could only see the floor in rare patches where by luck newspapers, underwear, trash, books, and jelly jars haven't landed. Philosophically, tidying things up or scrubbing the porcelain is something I simply don't do, like making the bed or baking bread.

Me as the maid? Preposterous.

Free rent, though? Hmmm. Maybe I could be Alice. I have experience wearing a skirt...

Best of all, I've met Judith's husband and the two guys who board there, and never heard any of them screaming at anyone else. "No screaming" seems to be a household rule.

With Pike and Terry, the rule is "No not screaming." I'm sure tired of coming home to their arguments, which is what I come home to almost every time I come home. It's what I came home to tonight. They're screaming in the next room while I'm typing this.

Terry is screaming at Pike because he dropped two plates and they only have three, so now they'll have to buy more plates. Pike is screaming at Terry because he found a dead roach in the oatmeal, after she hadn't sealed the box. There's an unspoken subtext to tonight's screaming, though. What they're really screaming is, "Doug, you don't want to live here..."

Today was a good day on Telegraph. Best day yet. Sold enough fish to more than break even, actually making Jay a few cents profit after my wages. And on a weekday, too.

After doing the fish thing, I walked the mile or so to Judith's house, where we talked over the details of her kind housing-and-housework offer. In exchange for 12-14 hours a week mopping and sweeping and scrubbing and such, I'd get a room free of rent, and she'd get less of a mess of a house.

I'm pretty sure living with Judith wouldn't drive me insane. I like her, and she is insane, officially. She needed to prove it once, that she's unbalanced enough she can't work, so to get some form of government aid, she passed a test, or failed a test, whatever. The cliché is 'certifiable', and she's certi_fied_. Grade A bonkers.

She's a friend, she's nuts, and she's also my boss, which could be a tricky combination. If Judith my boss gets on my nerves, I'd go home and there's Judith again, Judith the nut, and Judith the flatmate. In the several times I've seen her, though, she hasn't much bugged me yet. A little, sure, but everyone bugs me at least a little. Mother Teresa? Alan Alda? They can both kiss my ass.

Jake is her husband and he seems to be amicably gruff. Sometimes he tosses viciously sarcastic comments, but he hasn't yet tossed any at me, and the zingers I've heard have been funny. He and I certainly haven't clicked, but we haven't clashed, either, and he works 60+ hours a week, so he wouldn't have much time to infuriate me. If I'm keeping his house clean, presumably he wouldn't hate me.

Cy is the boarder who lives three doors down from what would be my room. We've had a couple of conversations, and he seems OK, too. He telecommutes to work on that Information Superhighway everyone's talking about, and he has a bad back so he's not on a bowling team or anything, which means he's almost always home, but he stays in his room mostly, and doesn't hang out with the others. Fine by me.

Joe is the other flatmate. He's some kind of a software geek, quiet and bookish, and also always in his room. He's very introverted, member of a chess club. I've only met him once, and he clearly couldn't wait for the introduction to be over. Basically he's me without all the flab.

There are three cats, all friendly purring houselions. One of them is very old and no longer uses the litter box, seems to have pooping and peeing privileges anywhere she wants to go, and usually she wants to go on the back porch, or the closet in the guest room. Both places stink, of course, but it smells like job security to me, since I'm the guy who cleans up after. If I take the job and move in, I will keep my bedroom door latched to keep that cat out.

And there's a dog — Lugosi. I love Lugosi. He's the size of an Oldsmobile, with a ferocious salivating bark that loosens the plaster. He doesn't want to bite, though. He only wants to play. Toss a tennis ball down the hall, and he'll fall over himself in a hairy hurry to bring it back sloppy and wet, drop it at your feet, and wait impatiently for you to toss it again. Being huge, his happy tail tends to knock on doors or topple whatever's been left in the hallway.

And there's always plenty that's been left in the hallway, and everywhere else. I haven't seen inside Cy or Joe's rooms, but Judith & Jake are beatniks not neatniks. I'm a sloppy and messy guy, but Judith & Jake's place always looks like a burglar broke in the night before.

Their flat is near BART, so getting to San Francisco for work or movies or El Castillito won't be difficult. People's Park and Telegraph Ave, where I work as Jay's fishmonger, are about a mile away, a reasonable walk, and Berkeley has two theaters that show old movies all the time, the Pacific Film Archive and the UC.

All in all, this arrangement could work. I keep looking for the catch, but the only half-problem I can spot is the neighborhood. It's awfully whitebread, much quieter and safer and more boring than I'm used to.

Cy told me there's a "drug house" down the street, but in Berkeley that probably means a high school kid who deals pot. Where Pike & Terry and I live, crack is the leading industry, but on Judith's block I haven't seen any obvious addicts, haven't heard gunshots, haven't seen anything interesting at all.

If peace and quiet is the only drawback, well, I'll suffer through it. Yeah, I think I'm moving in.

It's not happening today or tomorrow, though, because the room that would be mine is absolutely overflowing with Judith & Jake's accumulated everything — clothes, boxes, old magazines, old furniture, two broken TV sets, and just general junk a foot deep, three feet in the drifts.

It's going to be a lot of work clearing everything out of that room, work which falls to me, of course. Then comes the more ordinary unpleasantness of moving, which will involve shuttling what little I own under the bay via BART.

After that, guess I'll be a Berkeley boy. A whole different city to get to know.

It's strange that this thought didn't occur to me yesterday or the day before: For as long as I've been living on my own, the landlord has always been life's biggest liability.

You can scrimp on food, or skip going to the movies. You can delay buying new clothes if you don't have the money, and delay laundering the clothes you have if you don't have enough quarters. The rent, though, is due once a month, it's gotta be paid and can't be delayed. Any budget calculations must begin with the rent.

Living and working at Judith's house will change everything. "Two hours of pushing broom buys an 8x12 four-bit room."

I've been paying Pike $275 a month, money I've had to hustle up work for. That expense evaporates to nothing when I move into Judith's house. I'll still need to hustle up work, to pay for food and porn and other incidentals, but the baseline expense — rent — is gone.

Wow. I'm sure it's going to suck in some way, maybe several ways, because everything sucks in some or several ways, but it feels like it's gonna be a major improvement.

How often will I even need to leave the house and do "anything legal" work for someone else, to earn what little I'll need to keep the shelf stocked with wheat bread and mayonnaise? Maybe twice a week?

♦ ♦ ♦

Thought about calling Maggie again, but what for? People in general confuse me, but Maggie is a jigsaw with too many missing pieces, and she doesn't even return my calls.

She's been writing to me at least weekly, for months, and calling almost as often, all from some tiny town two hundred miles outside of Spokane, WA. Sometimes she tells me she loves me, which makes me wince.

Now she's visiting the bay area for a week, so she's a quick BART ride away from me. She's said she wants to get together with me, and I'm not sure what that means or implies — maybe a cup of coffee, or maybe oral sex — so I've called her six times. We've briefly spoken once, she hasn't called me back from the other five calls, and we haven't and apparently aren't getting together for any purpose.

We are so over. That's something I've told her already, several times, and if I see her again I'd tell her again. Guess I won't be seeing her again, though. Can't see her if she doesn't call me back. Maybe that's Maggie telling me we're over, so I don't have to tell her.

♦ ♦ ♦

I'd been hoping to see one of my favorite old movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still, at the Stanford tonight, but I couldn't afford it. Even without concessions, a movie ticket plus a train ticket coming and going is beyond my budget.

Instead I went downtown (with a fastpass, transit inside the city is free) to check the maildrop, and whoopee, received a windfall. Someone bought a long-length subscription to the zine. That's twenty dollars, man, so the movie is on again.

♦ ♦ ♦

Have I mentioned that I'm a transit freak? The appeal of cars eludes me — why would anyone choose to drive, fight traffic, find parking, when there's a bus or subway or train that goes right where you're headed?

CalTrain is kind of creaky and dusty and I wish it ran more often, but I love that funky old-fashioned double-deck commuter train that's been running up and down the peninsula for a hundred-some years.

BART doesn't allow food and drink, but CalTrain doesn't care, so I packed a bologna sandwich and dill pickle picnic, and ate it while riding thirty tons of southbound steel.

The train rocks and rattles, but that's good for the digestion. The view is mostly urban blight, the back doors of homes and businesses, but occasionally it gets beautiful. The damn automobiles that clutter the world have to wait, as the gates come down and the train roars through each intersection. That's as it should be — private transit yields for public. Sometimes I can see grumpy expressions on drivers' faces as we roll past and they wait, which makes it even better.

♦ ♦ ♦

We pulled into Palo Alto at 4:45, exactly on schedule, leaving me with half an hour to wander a few blocks to the theater. The area keeps getting more yuppified, though. All I wanted was a cup of coffee, but you can't get java on University Avenue for less than a buck-fifty, and at that price, bah, I'd rather swallow a caffeine pill from my backpack.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then it was popcorn and showtime. The first feature was The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), and I liked the opening credits — "In front of the camera," listing the cast, and "In back of the camera," listing everyone else who worked on the film.

Unfortunately, after the credits came the film they'd all worked on. It's the story of a poor farmer who sells his soul to the devil to meet the mortgage, but it's a morality play with too much morality, too little play. Really takes itself seriously.

The problem isn't the clichéd story, nor the casually racist and sexist way it's told. What annoyed me most was that the protagonist is a scumbag — he's cruel to his neighbors, cat, and kid, and he's built a mansion for his mistress, while his doltishly devoted wife and mother stay in a shack. By the time Satan comes for his soul, it seems fair — here's a guy who deserves to burn in hell.

Satan, however, is portrayed by Walter Huston, and he's deliciously wicked, and almost makes the movie worth watching. Certainly nothing else on screen comes close. Three cheers for the devil!

Next came the movie I'd wanted to see (again), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), a golden era sci-fi classic. The movie's terminology and technology is dated, and its view of American life is quaint, but the story is as fresh as what I wish was tomorrow's headline.

A spaceship lands on a ball field, and Klaatu, the space alien who looks exactly like Michael Rennie, says basically, "Take me to your leader." He can't get an appointment with anyone in authority, though.

It's funny, then it's corny, then it's tense and terrifying, and I'm gonna give away the ending, so if you haven't seen the movie, stop reading now.

When Klaatu delivers his message, it adds up to, "Give peace a chance." It's kinda beautiful, and as long as Klaatu is on the screen, there's intelligent life on Earth. After the show's over, of course, there's none.

Much as I like this film, though, there's a big problem with Klaatu's climactic message. He's accompanied by a giant super-robot — an intergalactic policeman that's been endowed with the "absolute power" to annihilate any person, or any planet, that acts violently.

That's a nice fantasy, because certainly we Earthers are too stupid to solve our own problems, but I'll never believe that the answer is bigger, more powerful, frickin' omnipotent cops. Tell it to Aaron Williams.

I leaned against the big oak tree for this morning's lottery, and my ass was sticky with sap all day. Every time I tried to get out of the plastic chair to sell someone a fish, the chair came up with me.

♦ ♦ ♦

Waiting at a crosswalk on the way home, I overheard an enthusiastic catchphrase conversation between two of the devoutly religious. Muslims, in this case, but with Baptists or Buddhists, only the name of the god has been changed. Maybe a few of the silly rules.

Two men went on and on, sincerely and seriously discussing their religion's arcanities and idiocies, and then one of them said something so priceless I had to write it in my notebook: "When you're young, it's possible to over-worship."

I politely kept my snickering to myself, but felt lucky that gluttony is my only addiction. None of the others major addictions — cigarettes, drugs, drink, and especially religion — have been a problem for me.

Freedom is a marvelous thing, and I'm in favor of your freedom to believe whatever idiocy you choose. Me, I'd sooner worship a bowl of Alpha-Bits than Allah, or any other supposed god. At least the Alpha-Bits are real, and do me some good. I'm a dumbshit in a lot of ways, but I'm not the worshiping sort of man.

♦ ♦ ♦

Nobody calls me back.

Called Maggie again, and left a message again. Silence echoes back at me.

That political group, the people pissed off at the SFPD, is apparently so pissed there's no patience for returning calls.

And Ron, the guy who wanted to take me to dinner and see my resumé and maybe hire me as caretaker at his cabin? I've left two messages for him since we last spoke, and I'm not calling again unless he calls me back. A guy's gotta have some pride.

Of course, I'm usually quite crappy about returning calls myself. If you've called or written to me, you're probably still waiting to hear back.

The only people I voluntarily have contact with are people calling from my "I'll do anything" flyers, and the people I live with or am about to, and Sarah-Katherine until she dumps me.

Other than that, I am a rock. I am an island, and if there's a bridge, I've blown it up.

I was the second to arrive for the daily dumb lottery, wherein sidewalk vendors determine what patch of sidewalk they'll vend at. "Hello," I said to the only other person there, a lady vendor I'd worked next to last week, and she looked at me and said nothing.

Nodded at the fifth person to arrive, and he said nothing to me either, breezed right past and started talking to someone else.

Said hello to another vendor a few minutes later, a bearded kid, and he sorta grunted at me.

Yessir, the vendors on Telegraph Ave are a tight-knit bunch, and I am not invited to join the club. All of them (certainly not "all of us") know each other, most have been working the same block for months or years, and I'm the new guy, a loner by inclination and habit, so even in what for me was a gregarious frame of mind on a sunny morning, I couldn't chip through their ice. For my attempt at faking sociability, all I got was that grunt, one disinterested 'hello', and the minimum words required to participate in the morning draw. If it takes years to become a "vendor buddy," that'll never be me.

We do watch out for each other, though, and in that regard I'm included just for sitting on the selling side of a table. When I need to take a pee or poop break, I can ask my neighbor-vendor to watch my stand. That's a trick I learned on my second day, when my next-table vendor (who hadn't previously said a word to me) didn't ask but tapped my shoulder and announced, "Gotta pee," and with that he was walking toward the corner Sanican.

His table, selling rings and bracelets, had been left unmanned, so I kept an eye on his stuff, made sure nothing got swiped. That's how it works. Yesterday while I was peeing, my neighbor-vendor sold three stickers off my table. I never would've noticed, but when I got back he gave me the cash, and told me which stickers he'd sold.

If you're talking with a prospective customer, the next vendor will keep half an eye on your table, to be sure nobody's shoplifting while you're distracted. If you need change for a twenty to make a sale, another vendor will swap for four fives or two tens if he or she can.

In that sense, there's great camaraderie. In the human sense, though, damn, they're a tough crowd.

Anyway, 74th pick out of 90 vendors this morning, I picked a slot in front of one of Noah's ubiquitous bad bagelries, because I sensed that I might need coffee. Indeed I did, and it was shitty.

The woman working the next booth was selling candles, and she was remarkably beautiful, like a leggy supermodel, so what do you think I said to her? Not a word, all day.

♦ ♦ ♦

Selling fish is an enjoyable but unusual gig, but perhaps I haven't adequately described what I do all day on Telegraph, so here's the basics. (If you already understand, you can have a hall pass and skip the next paragraph.)

I sit at a table and sell Jay's sacrilegious stickers and magnets — Darwin as a fish, of course, but also Gefilte fish, 666 fish, or JR 'Bob ' Dobbs as a fish, etc. It's a laugh, $2.50 for a sticker, $4.50 for a magnet.

Passers-by often ask, "What's with the fish?" and I try to answer patiently, without a withering glare, because if you weren't raised in an excruciatingly Christian family like mine, you might not know that a simply-drawn fish was the ancient symbol of solidarity between Christians. That was thousands of years ago, when Christianity was new and Christians were oppressed, instead of being the oppressors like today.

When people don't know the above, it's an ignorance I can understand.

It's hard to hide my disdain, though, when college-age or older people pause at the table, and frown and ask, "What's Darwin?" It happens at least once every day, and I do not understand how grownups can be that stupid.

What's even worse is that I see that same look of confusion when people pause but then walk away without saying anything. I am positive that they don't know who Darwin was, either, don't understand anything about the concept of the fish, but they're not even curious enough to ask.

Today a middle-aged woman studied the entire display, 25 different kinds of fish stickers and magnets, and asked if she could buy a Jesus fish. Sorry, ma'am. We don't sell Jesus fish. Go to Utah.

Like most men, I gotta pee when I wake up, and quickly. The bathroom, however, was occupied, and not by Pike, my flatmate who's always late with the rent but pays eventually. Nope, it was Terry, his girlfriend who stays here rent-free.

Waiting for shared space in the john is a minor hassle, but you can't complain because a flatmate has the right to pee.

Terry, though, is an uninvited guest. She pays no rent. Pike and I have talked about this, and twice he's said she'll start paying, but she's never paid, and I've just peed into a milk carton because that obnoxious sneezing freeloader has been in my bathroom for half an hour.

Well, it's "my bathroom," for as long as it takes me to move out of this place, which is not much longer.

Win place, and show, when I'm out of this damned apartment the three things I won't miss most are Terry, Terry, and Terry.

I also won't miss the loud neighbors, the loud neighbors' loud music, the loud neighbors' loud kids and their loud music, and their visitors who honk their horns instead of ringing the doorbells.

Won't miss the endless bass backbeat from upstairs and downstairs, the never-ending rhythm of the block. Won't miss the screams and shouts in every language of the world, the drive-by shootings and insults. Won't miss the tough-guy pose I have to adopt when walking home after sundown. Won't miss the diagonally-walking winos, crackheads, gangsters, and everything else about the Mission.

Might miss the burritos. Do they make good burritos in Berkeley?

And I will miss Pike, a little. He's a doper, a slouch, and always late with the rent, but he's an OK guy. Has a sense of humor. Has been known to make a not-stupid observation. I could share a flat with Pike, and it wouldn't be a problem.

The problem is his girlfriend, and there's simply no limit to how much I won't miss Terry.

Just now, towel over my neck, bar of soap in one hand, and a milk carton half full of piss in the other, I emerged from my room to take a shower. That's not an unreasonable hope, is it?

Terry was in the kitchen eating a sandwich, probably made with my bread. She saw me coming, I'm sure, and put down the sandwich and skipped into the bathroom quicker than a roach when you turn the light on.

The door doesn't fully latch, so it wasn't hard to kick it open and boot her out, and you're damn right I did. "I'm gonna shower now, Terry. You can watch if you want," and I took my t-shirt off and thumbed the waistline of my shorts, and she shrieked and went back to the kitchen.

Pike said nothing; I think he thought it was funny. An hour or so later, I thought it was funny too, but in the moment I was pissed off.

Did Terry think I was going to turn around and wait again, after waiting half an hour already?

♦ ♦ ♦

Then I worked all day at Black Sheets, and when I came home Pike and Terry were arguing.

Soon, maybe very soon, I'm moving to Judith's massive apartment. I'll be the fifth person living there, which could lead to long lines at the toilet. The place has two bathrooms, but the second john has been out of commission for years. The plumbing works, I've been told; it's just that the room is stuffed to the ceiling with junk beyond comprehension — old newspapers, canned foods with yellowing labels, books in bad shape, a washing machine that doesn't work, empty shelving, and everything else imaginable.

Nobody could squeeze in there to take a poop or a shower, so the plan for today was, I'd go to Judith's place, and together we'd clear the clutter from the second bathroom, making it usable.

That was the plan, but what happened was, Judith was asleep when I got there. I banged on her door a couple of times, couldn't rouse her easily, and decided I didn't want to be sorting through all her crap without her help.

So instead of clearing the bathroom, I washed some of her dishes, took her dog Lugosi for a walk, and admired the different mess of everything in the world that's jammed into what'll soon be my bedroom. (I'm not a huge Marilyn Monroe fan, but someone is — there's an impressive collection of Marilyn memorabilia in there, including a half-size statue of her skirt being blown upward.)

An hour had passed, Judith still wasn't awake, and banging on her door didn't do anything but bother the dog, so I said fuck it and left. There are several theaters within walking distance, and I had a Landmark movie pass that expires in a few weeks, so I walked to the Shattuck without even knowing what was playing. Figured I'd see whatever junk flick was next to begin, to quietly kill a few hours before going back to see if Judith was awake.

While she was sleeping I saw While You Were Sleeping, a formulaic romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock, from the factory in Hollywood. It was schmaltzy, predictable, and manipulative, but not bad.

When I got back to Judith's place (soon to be my place too!), she was awake but getting ready for a doctor's appointment. My day had been wasted, in other words. No progress on the bathroom and bedroom messes.

I wanted to just go into that mega-cluttered bathroom and start boxing up everything, but Judith has a phobia of boxes. Things in boxes are an obligation to sort through the boxes later, she says, and she'd rather do the sorting without the boxes.

I may have mentioned but I'll mention again, Judith is kinda kooky. Owning some phobias and dementia of my own, though, I can't complain.

Judith invited me to accompany her to the doctor's office, luring me with the promise of going to a donut shop afterwards, so I went along, ate three donuts, and by the time we got back to the house it was almost dusk.

We started cleaning out the spare bathroom, finally, but we didn't make much progress. Then she started making dinner, and I ended up chatting with Cy about the relative merits of original Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think I'm gonna like Cy.

As for clearing the bathroom and then my bedroom at Judith's house, the new plan is that I'll be back tomorrow, and we'll work on it together. Which was also the plan for today, so — we'll see.

I'm supposed to bring some minimal possessions tomorrow, which for me is my typewriter, dictionary, and maybe a change of underwear. Then, starting tomorrow night, I'll sleep in the guest room until my soon-to-be bedroom is cleared out and ready to have my own mess moved in.

♦ ♦ ♦

At the donut shop, Judith and I talked about Sarah-Katherine. Judith, being female, has opinions on me & SK, and thinks I should try harder at impressing her. She says I should write sweeter letters to Sarah-Katherine, and send poetry, little gifts, etc, but — absolutely not.

I am not willing to put in that much effort, and when Judith referred to Sarah-Katherine as my girlfriend, I corrected her. I could do worse and Sarah-Katherine probably couldn't, but I am not delusional. I'm not trying to be anyone's boyfriend, not from this distance, probably not ever, and definitely not Sarah-Katherine's.

When I said that to Judith, she accused me of being un-romantic. Me, un-romantic? God, I hope so. If I start writing passionate letters on scented parchment and sealed with a kiss, please kick me in the nuts, hard.

Whenever romantic thoughts even briefly pop into my head, I just think: Look at Sarah-Katherine, and look at me. She's smart, stacked, and pretty. I'm of passable intellect, but fat and funny-looking and have bad breath.

I like Sarah-Katherine. She tolerates me. That's the best offer I've had in years, and it's enough. Anyway, what's the rush? Sex isn't the only thing best wrapped in latex. Hearts need protection too.

I've packed my dictionary, thesaurus, and Strunk & White into my backpack, along with two pair of underwear and two t-shirts. When I'm done typing this very paragraph, the typewriter goes gently into a tote bag I got for giving fifty bucks to PBS, many years ago. Toothbrush and pens in my pocket, and everything else stays locked in my room in San Francisco, where I won't be back for at least several days because… I'm moving to Berkeley.

♦ ♦ ♦

… And hello, Berkeley. This is Doug Holland reporting live, from the guest bedroom in Judith's house.

Everything's sure different on this side of the bay. Where are all the hookers, winos, derelicts, and other scum? So far as I can tell, I'm the only scum on the block.

Judith and I were supposed to go to breakfast at Aunt Agnes's, a diner not far down the street. That was the plan, but I'm learning that with Judith, plans are like modern dance interpreted on angel dust. She was still asleep, and despite serious effort couldn't be awakened. When she's asleep, wow, she's asleep.

I hadn't eaten before BARTing over, not since six pickle sandwiches for dinner last night, and my fat heart was set on trying breakfast at Aunt Agnes's, so I went alone.

Couldn't ask for a better welcome to this new town, either. Aunt Agnes makes everyone feel like a nephew or niece, and her restaurant is one of the greats, right up there with Beth's in Seattle, or the Sincere Café in San Francisco.

It's in a tiny building, with maybe two dozen seats. The chairs and tables are a little too close together for a fat guy like me, but I was there before the lunch rush so there was plenty of space. Big screen coverage of the endless trial of OJ Simpson provided the ambiance, along with stupid commentary from some of the customers, but my table was around the dog-leg corner from the kitchen, so I didn't have to watch the ongoing injustice, only listen.

Most of the menu is affordable, though a few items are priced high enough to make dipshit yuppies feel welcome. I ordered the vegetarian omelet, a delicious concoction, and it came with a muffin so tasty I'm certain it had never been wrapped in plastic. The hash browns were dang delicious, and mixed in with the spuds were some onions and spices I couldn't quite identify.

Aunt Agnes works alone. She's the cook, cashier, waitress and bus-dame, so the food was understandably slow coming. Yet she did find time to greet me friendly-like, refill my coffee thrice, and she was there instantly with a glass of ice water when she saw me grimace at how hot the potatoes were.

Gluttony is my favorite deadly sin, so I also ordered a stack of flapjacks. When they arrived without butter or margarine I thought there might be something to complain about, but when I asked, Agnes said she'd bring butter if I wanted it, but I should take a bite first. Dang if she wasn't right. With a dollop of maple poured over them, butter would've been redundant on those sweetcakes.

The tab was $9 plus tip, but that's deceptive, cuz remember, I'd ordered two breakfasts, and either the omelet or the hotcakes would've been enough for an ordinary human. Take it from an abnormal: Visit Aunt Agnes's, when you're in Berkeley.

♦ ♦ ♦

After my late lonely breakfast, I'm back at Judith's house — wait, I have a key now, so it's my house, too — at about 12:30, and she's still asleep. Looks like another day of making no progress toward clearing out the bathroom and bedroom, but there's no rush. The guest room is perfectly comfortable. I paid first month & last month when I moved in with Pike, so I don't owe him two nickels, and the rent is covered here if I simply do the dishes and clean the litter-box, so I did the dishes and cleaned the litter-box.

Meanwhile, I'm in a quiet neighborhood for the first time since leaving Seattle four years ago. Probably it's too quiet, but I'll suffer through it. Yeah, my life is pathetic. You should wish your life was as lousy as mine.

♦ ♦ ♦

Eventually Judith woke up, and to make up for not taking me to breakfast she took me to lunch. We had sandwiches at a sub shop, and they were fine but nothing memorable, and then somehow the sandwiches turned into a 4½-hour excursion to some mall in Emeryville. I'd never been to Emeryville, and the whole town looked like a mall to me.

When we came home, we set to work making the second bathroom into a place where someone might shower or shit. I'd been awake for fourteen hours by the time Judith was up to working speed, so I let her do most of the work, but progress was made. Now you can get to the toilet without walking on two-foot drifts of junk.

Tomorrow morning: More bathroom work, clearing a path all the way to the shower, and removing everything that's stacked in the shower itself. Then we'll start clearing the crap out of my future bedroom.

At least, that's the plan, if Judith isn't sleeping late again.

♦ ♦ ♦

Someone from Interview called my voice-mail. Ever seen Interview? I've read it a few times at the library, and it's a magazine that's shallow and proud of it, just like me, so I called 'em right back.

Publicity is a ridiculous game that I don't know how to play and usually don't. Just this once I participated, and ten minutes after hearing the voice-mail, my Interview 'interview' was over.

We'd spent maybe three minutes on the phone, not counting my time on hold, and most of our talking time was their reporter saying 'Ummm," and trying to think of another question to ask about the zine. My answers were somewhat sarcastic and I got increasingly grumpy, so it's impossible to guess what they'll make of me and Pathetic Life, if there's any mention at all.

Why there should be any mention, and why they called at all, I don't really know. I'm a nobody, writing a zine only a few hundred people have read. I try to make it worth $3 so suckers will keep buying it every month, but it's not worth more than that, not noteworthy, neither am I, and returning the magazine's call was probably a mistake.

What's supposed to be my room is still uninhabitable, so I slept in the guest room. It got kinda cold overnight, and Judith had thoughtfully put some extra blankets on the chair, but I was too lazy to spread one out. When I woke up, a second blanket had been neatly spread over me.

Judith did it, I assume. Can't imagine it was Cy or Lugosi. It was a nice thing for her to do, but also… when the door is closed, the door should stay closed.

♦ ♦ ♦

When Judith was up, at noon or so, we went to breakfast at the east bay's finest dyke café, the Brick Hut, and shared a giant pile of healthy hotcakes made of wheat and corn, topped with cranberries, blueberries, spicy apples, walnuts, and a couple slices of orange. Despite being good for ya, it wasn't bad.

With coffee, milk, and some grainy side dish, the tab was close to twenty bucks, which is way beyond my budget, but Judith paid, so no complaints. We talked about bedroom boundaries, and I had to say it twice, but the rule will be: Knock before entering, and no sneaking in, even to tuck me under a binky.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then Judith went to the dentist, while I came home and swept and mopped the newly-cleared second bathroom. Hung a sign on the bathroom door, "Now open for your business," and this place that used to have four flatmates and one john now has five and two.

♦ ♦ ♦

When she got back, Judith and I went shopping for a few groceries and sundries, to three stores within five blocks of each other. It took nearly three hours.

I'm beginning to notice that she's a time-eater. At our third stop, the pet supply store, she kept changing her mind about which doggy toys to buy for Lugosi, and she wasn't changing her mind in the aisles, she was changing her mind at the register. If I hadn't started complaining about it I think we'd still be standing there.

She's a character, for sure. Things like this afternoon ought to be aggravating, and soon enough I'm sure it will be, but it's new to me so it's mostly just amusing. I'll talk to Judith about it, same as we talked about the blanket.

She's hard to be angry at, even when she deserves it. Even after wasting ten minutes of the sales clerk's time at the pet supply shop, he was laughing and it seemed to be genuine, and he gave her some free samples of cat food.

As the sun was setting and we were still out shopping when I wanted to be eating a sandwich in bed and unwinding, she was still making me laugh, too. Pretty soon, I'm pretty sure she'll start driving me nuts, but I have many years experience dealing with nuts, and I can deal with Judith.

♦ ♦ ♦

When we got back, she immediately started kicking up a flurry of dust sorting through stuff and hauling things out of my future bedroom, and she was mostly working alone. She hollered for help lugging some of the big stuff so I came and helped, but same as yesterday, I didn't help much.

It's body chemistry: If I get up at 6AM, by 8PM I'm out of energy and my day is finished. She gets up at noon, lollygags until sunset, and then wants to get things done in a hurry.

There is no hurry, though. I'm in the guest room for now, and it's OK. I miss my comfy blankets, smelly pillows, and clothes that need laundering, but the typewriter's plugged in. Anywhere I can write, I'm at home. Mostly.

♦ ♦ ♦

Have I conveyed the hugeness of this place? And the messiness?

Sometimes I call it a house, because it feels like a house — a big house — but it's an apartment with seven bedrooms (I finally counted them). Four rooms are occupied, and the other three are full of everything that could fit through the door.

The house/apartment is a great space, all on the second floor of an otherwise empty commercial building. The flat is structurally sound, but it's a complete catastrophe of junk, books, trash, dog toys, and dog hair everywhere. Dunno where I could stash anything of mine if I brought more stuff over from Frisco; there's not an inch of empty floor space in any of the rooms, except maybe in Cy's room or Joe's.

I'm not a neat guy, so no complaints about the mess. My room at Pike & Terry's place in San Francisco is just about as bad. Everywhere else I've lived, though, even at Pike's apartment, everything outside my bedroom door has always been basically presentable. This place is an obstacle course, everywhere. You have to twist like a disco dance just to walk down the hall.

I type that smiling, though. I'm going to be right at home here, soon as I get settled into what'll be my own room, with my own stuff. And maybe with a lock on the door.

This house can be hot and stuffy, so on sunny days the back door is left open, along with most of the windows and interior doors. Even overnight last night, it never much cooled down, and everyone except Joe slept with their doors open wide, to let the evening breeze blow through.

Why was Joe's door closed? He has an air conditioner. Only one in the house. The rest of us melt.

I do not like sleeping with my door open. The door to my bedroom should always be closed unless I'm walking through it. Privacy is a big deal. Gotta be able to walk around with or without pants, to pick my nose if it needs harvesting, and of course masturbate whenever I feel like it, and without an audience, thanks. Last night, it was too friggin' hot to close the door, even at 3:00 in the morning.

At Pike's place, I have an electric fan the size and strength of a 747 engine. It'll solve the problem, when I bring it under the bay and plug it in here in Berkeley.

Meanwhile, another problem with having the door open is that Peculiar, the cat that shits wherever it wants, shat next to my shoes last night. Maybe tonight she'll shit inside the shoe.

♦ ♦ ♦

I am not much of a sports fan, and even less of a football fan. The sport sort of nauseates me.

Strangers are smiling, though, and everyone's giddy at the news that the Oakland Raiders are returning from the longest road trip in sports history. They're moving back from Los Angeles. Even as someone who emphatically doesn't give a damn, the Raiders belong in Oakland, I think, same as cable cars belong in San Francisco and imbeciles in Orange County.

Of course, as with every time a team moves or a stadium is built, it's the local government's money that makes it happen. How many millions of dollars will the city of Oakland and county of Alameda be paying? Lots. Fortunately, there's no unemployment or hunger in the east bay, so the money doesn't matter.

♦ ♦ ♦

Two of my favorite films placed at the UC Theater, so I was there for the discount matinee of Blue Velvet (1986) and Santa Sangre (1989). I've paid to see those movies before, and probably will again, but they weren't nearly as good today as they've been in the past. Guess my mood was wrong, for blood, gore, and misogyny.

Blue Velvet has Kyle MacLachlen and Laura Dern as Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, except instead of putting on a show in the barn they're snooping into a very 1990s maiming and/or abduction and/or murder. It works as a mystery or as campy noir, but much of it revels in brutal sex, and I was just, Not tonight, dear.

Santa Sangre is no less perverted, but without even the veneer of normalcy. Here's religious insanity, bloody murder, suicide, child torture, and cocaine for Mongoloids, and I've seen it all before and loved it all before. It's a great movie, I know.

So's Blue Velvet. Both movies deserve rave reviews.

The problem was me. I was feeling way too good, too wholesome and happy for tonight's double feature. I walked out of the theater whistling "Singing in the Rain," and then walked all the way to my new home, which felt like two miles, but what the heck, I could've walked three.

♦ ♦ ♦

By then it was almost 6:00, which is not bedtime for me, but it's "start to unwind" time, especially since I didn't sleep well last night, in the new house. When Judith invited me to go with her to get a prescription filled at the drug store, I almost said no, but I needed wet-wipes and macaroni and cheese, so away we went, for an errand that became an incident.

At the drug store, the estimated wait time was half an hour for someone to count 36 pills, and Judith said she needed to replace a loose Band-Aid on her foot. Having no interest in her Band-Aid or foot, I stayed in the store, wandered the aisles while she went out to the car and tended whatever pained her paw.

When she came back into the store and found me, she pointed to her foot and said, "The Band-Aid is almost exactly the same color as my skin. 'Flesh tone', they call it, but it must look awful on anyone who isn't white."

Another shopper in the store, a black woman, found this offensive. She started with, "Excuse me, but" and then berated Judith for her "lack of sensitivity." Judith listened, waited for it to end, and when it didn't she interrupted.

"Can we talk about it? I think you misunder—"

"No, this isn't Ricki Lake, and we're not going to 'talk' about it," and she whirled and walked away.

And, scene.

Judith was flustered. I was bewildered. That had been a very strange moment at the Rite-Aid.

Always when there's a confrontation or argument, I try to see the other person's perspective, so I tried. I'd probably be super-sensitive if I'd gone through my whole life being treated like less because of the shade of my skin.

That said, whatever that woman perceived was all in her head. Judith's comment about the Band-Aid had no offensive subtext. I haven't known Judith long, and maybe I don't know her well, but she's never said anything even slightly racist while I've been around.

Band-Aids are Caucasian. That's just a fact. I've never seen Ricki Lake's show, but that black lady belongs on Morton Downey. It was a sit-com-worthy misunderstanding, but what happened next was more like Russian Roulette.

Judith's prescription was ready, her name was called, and the pharmacist was another black woman. Maybe Judith was still flustered, and wanted a second opinion, or maybe she's a high-wire act without a net. She asked the pharmacist what she thought of what had happened, but the pharmacist hadn't seen it, so Judith recited it all: the Band-Aid, the comment, the confrontation.

I don't know why — I sure wouldn't have — but the pharmacist listened patiently. When the story was over she said the color of Band-Aids bothered her too, and that nothing Judith had said sounded offensive to her. Then she excused herself and went into the back to do whatever pharmacists do. Probably laugh at the customers.

What to make of what happened, I do not know. The first act was an innocent comment misconstrued, awkward as hell, but it could happen to anyone. An instant replay, though, asking a stranger's opinion afterward? Fuck no. Race is a touchy topic in America, where some people owned others people for centuries, and no reparations have ever been paid. You tread tender, not full speed ahead.

If one black lady screamed at me, I would not turn to the next black lady and ask what she thought. I was silently screaming no-no-no during the entire second act.

It was a bad day to be fat. A day like any other day, only hotter, maybe not literally 110° in the shade but on Telegraph there was no shade, and not even a breeze.

The fish didn't sell well. When my brain's being broiled I'm a grump, and my whole head was a waterfall of sweat, probably repulsive to the customers, and I felt the same about them.

There's a tablecloth for the display stand, but I kept it in my backpack today, because it's cloth. It was great for wiping gallons of sweat off my face and arms, and it must've been gallons, because despite drinking six jugs of water I didn't have to pee even once.

There were more street wackos than usual on Telegraph Ave. My table was in front of a pizzeria, and across the street behind me a bag lady shouted her order for most of the afternoon. "One slice of pepperoni and sausage," she'd yell, and then yell it again ten minutes later, like a joke she'd keep telling until someone laughed. Nobody laughed. Or maybe she thought they'd bring her a slice, just to shut her up. They didn't deliver.

A flock of spiked and leather-clad teenagers sat in front of the pizza joint, talking loud and sometimes obnoxious, panhandling passers-by, and when those kids were rowdiest, sales were bleakest.

Sorry I sound like a spokesman for the Chamber of Commerce, but (on days it's not quite so hot as today) I actually like selling stickers on Telegraph. I want to sell enough stickers to justify my job.

The vendors' tables are in the street, and we all sit facing the sidewalk, so the teenagers were ten feet in front of me, all damned day. My ignorance of the youth of today is profound — I don't even know what's the noun for what those kids are. Punks? Skinheads? Dunno. 'Dipshits' seems accurate. Spikey-haired panhandlers.

At one point, a couple of them argued and did a testosterone dance, yelling insults, each of them waiting for the other to throw the first punch. That stupid moment lasted about twenty minutes off and on, and the whole time nobody on the sidewalk stopped to look at the fish. It's not good for capitalism when a fight's about to break out, but it never did, and later those two kids drank from the same beer can.

Another time, a crackhead asked one of the teenagers if he had any spare change. Panhandlers panhandling the panhandlers — that's prophesized in Revelations, I think.

The spikey kid said, "Sorry, I'm broke," and the crackhead called him a liar, and I silently agreed with the crackhead. I don't know what the kids' outfits are supposed to signify, but it's an expensive uniform. Leather ain't cheap, and theirs looked new. How they bake their hair into those shapes, spikes mostly, must involve costly products in plastic bottles. Money isn't a major problem for those kids. They probably have allowances.

Then the crackhead looked at the boy's girlfriend, and said, "You've got this fine bitch here, why don't you put her to work?" and did I imagine it or did all of Telegraph Ave go quiet?

The boy was one of the almost-fighters from earlier, so I expected he'd punch the bum, but he only watched as his girlfriend, maybe 17, rose out of her slouch and into a rage. She got into the crackhead's face, almost literally, screaming at him from inches away and splashing him with spittle.

After insulting and threatening him, she pointed down the street and told him to start walking, but instead he made a stupid face and said, "Who's gonna make me?" and that's when she gave him the Jackie Chan treatment. One kick to the chest, and he was falling over when the second kick hit his stomach. He landed on the sidewalk with an audible thud. She pointed again, and he picked himself up and walked away quick and quiet, without another word.

And that was your CNN Play of the Day. Her boyfriend applauded, I applauded, and it was the only moment all afternoon when I didn't hate those kids.

It was hotter today than yesterday, and you might remember that yesterday was frickin' hot. It wasn't quite as miserable, because I brought more water than yesterday, and drenched a rag and wrapped it around my head like an Arab. We had fewer and better behaved panhandlers than yesterday, too, and the ones closest to my stand were on acid I think, or some drug that made them very mellow indeed.

Working a block from U-Cal Berkeley, the concourse on a sunny day is crowded with pretty co-eds, in super short-shorts and bra-less sleeve-less low-cut tops designed to accentuate the cleavage. Presumably there are male students at the university, too. I wouldn't know.

Of course, I haven't got a hint of a possibility of a fraction of a ghost of a sliver of a hope of a chance with any of those lovely women, but everybody loves a parade, or so it's said. Personally, I hate parades, but a parade of short-shorts and halter tops made it a nice day in the sunshine.

♦ ♦ ♦

Jay wants me to sell fish five days a week, at least for the next two weeks, to see how business goes. This is good news, in theory, because I like being the fish guy and money is tight. I'm not sure I want to do anything five days a week, though. I quit at Macy's to get away from doing the same thing five days every week. But… as an experiment, I'll give it a go.

Being Jay's full-time fisherman means I can't be Judith's part-time maid, because there's no way I'm coming home from one job to work another. So I asked Judith, and she says I can pay rent and skip out on the housework for two weeks, and after that, we'll see. Selling fish is more fun than scrubbing toilets anyway, and the rent Judith's asking is still less than at Pike's place.

The biggest problem is that Judith's house is such a mess, if nobody cleans it up, the dust and dog hairs and cat poop might choke me in my sleep.

♦ ♦ ♦

Pike left a voice-mail, wondering where I'm at. "Have you been kidnapped? Are you in jail? Are you on special assignment for the CIA? Drop by and say hi, dude. I have some good buds, and oh yeah, I got a job."

Congrats on the new job, Pike. Tell me all about it some time, but…

He's my flatmate in San Francisco, but I haven't told him I'm moving out. He's not the kind of person who'd kick my door down and sell or trash my meager possessions, but I'm not sure at all about his girlfriend. She's a junkie, and I wouldn't put anything past her, so why take a chance?

My plan is to leave without telling them at all. I'll give them notice I'm leaving when they notice I've left.

MONDAY — I'm in transition, moving from San Francisco to Berkeley. It's a two-step process, and step two will be the normal part, moving my stuff from San Francisco to Berkeley. Right now we're stuck at step one, though, which is clearing Judith's enormous pile of junk and stuff and furniture and appliances and trash and a Marilyn Monroe statue out of the room that's supposed to be mine.

Since Thursday, I've been sleeping in Judith's guest room, and helping her sort through her mess. She's spent some time on the clean-up and I've spent some time helping her — serious time, double-digit hours — but you can barely see any difference. It's down from three feet of crap to two and a half. At the rate of progress we've been making, it'll be three weeks before I can even start moving my own catastrophe in where hers is now.

But there's been no hurry, and if it took a month, so what. That's been my attitude.

Suddenly, though, there's a deadline. In today's letter from Sarah-Katherine, she's accepted my invitation to visit — and she's already bought her ticket — and she'll be here in two weeks and three days — and oh my godlessness!

(September is more what I had in mind, Sarah-Katherine.)

My leisurely "There's no rush about moving" is over. I gotta get out of the guest room, fast, because that's where my guest will be sleeping (I assume). My room at this house needs to be emptied of Judith's stuff, and my own stuff moved into it, within two weeks and three days, and preferably sooner, so I'm not frantic about that when I'll be nervous about Sarah-Katherine coming.

It's now 7:15 PM, and Judith isn't awake yet. Yeah, she's been asleep all day. She sleeps whenever she's sleepy, wakes whenever she's wakey, and there's no knowing when she'll be asleep or awake to work on the room full of her stuff.

We've agreed that I won't empty the room of her mess myself, because

• I don't know what she wants to keep and what she wants to toss, and

• Judith has a phobia of boxes so I can't just box stuff up.

Which means I can't clear out the room without Judith's help. I need more of her help, on a more reliable schedule.

I'm tired and going to sleep, but tomorrow Judith and I will talk, and I will make her understand that we need to get moving with this moving. The woman of my wet dreams is coming, and I don't even have a bed.

♦ ♦ ♦

TUESDAY — I had a reassuring chat with Judith, and she's promised that my soon-to-be room will soon, actually, be my room. She says we'll have it emptied so I can move in by Thursday next, which is a week before Sarah-Katherine comes to visit.

Toward this goal, I have volunteered to switch to Judith Standard Time. She keeps impossible-to-predict hours, rarely wakes before mid-afternoon, and seems most full of energy between midnight and dawn, which is long past my usual bedtime of 9PM. For the next few weeks, though, any time Judith needs to schlep something big, or something small, any time she's in a clean-out-that-room frame of mind, I've told her she's authorized to knock on my door and wake me up. Screw sleeping, for the next few weeks, anyway.

♦ ♦ ♦

We didn't start with a flurry of work, though. I heard Judith working on the room, but I was working on the zine. The May issue is (finally) back from the printer, so the rest of the day was spent assembling and stapling copies, addressing envelopes, and licking stamps.

Too many staples, too many jams, too many envelopes, too many stamps. Too many readers. Where'd you all come from, and why are you reading this, and making me spend a whole afternoon getting the zine ready for mailing?

Seriously. I never thought there'd be more than ten or twelve people in the world reading this diary of a fat slob, but there are so many of you it took five damned hours to get the zine into the mail, not even counting an hour's bus errand to buy more stamps and staples.

If I could afford it I'd hire some doofus to do all this tedious work, but since I have no money, that doofus is me.

The May issue isn't bad, in my opinion, but the issue you're reading — the June issue — shows signs of serious suckage. Guy sells fish. Guy gets depressed. Guy argues with his flatmate's girlfriend. Guy sorta moves to Berkeley, but gets stuck in Limbo instead. It's my own life, and it bores even me to read about it.

I write better when I'm angry, upset, or annoyed about things, but lately life seems to be going OKish, so the writing is doggy doo. I'm moving out of the slums, into a fairly quiet neighborhood, with a friend and a more human group of flatmates, and trading letters with a woman who inexplicably seems to like me, so life is looking pretty good. Not pathetic at all, which means the next issue of Pathetic Life is gonna be as boring as PBS.

My recommendation? Don't send three dollars for the next issue.

In my beginningless quest to be a better man, I know I should talk to people more, but I almost never do. I've tried saying hey to my neighbor-vendors as I'm setting up the fish stand in the morning, and usually they ignore me.

Today I introduced myself to the guy at the next table, who was selling a lot of anarchist and subversive bumper stickers on display. When he said that his name was Umberto, I knew who he was. Everyone on Telegraph Ave knows who Umberto is.

He's the anarchist who fought City Hall, and won. It was long before my fish-selling time, so I don't know the details, but legend has it that Umberto refused to apply for a vendor's license. And yet, he vends. His stickers are all political, so he argued that it's his freedom of speech, not a plastic permit from the city, that allows him to set up shop on the Avenue every day. And he won.

That's amazing. Inspiring. Everyone ought to have the right to set up a table in a public space and sell whatever they want. It doesn't need to be regulated and overseen by city officials. But it is, and the rest of the vendors — including me — do as we're told. We pay the fees, follow the rules, to be allowed to sell our stuff. Umberto just sells his stuff.

Soon as he said his name, everything I'd heard about Umberto filled the empty space in my head, and he was someone I wanted to know. There aren't many people I want to know, but dang it, I wanted to know the details of how Umberto won his legal right to be there without filing forms and paying the city. He looks scruffy and poor, like me and like the rest of the vendors, so it's hard to imagine he took it to court. Harder to imagine he won in court. Yet somehow, he won.

I wanted to know if he's also fought his way out of having to attend the tedious vendors' lottery every morning. Wanted to know if selling anarchist bumper stickers is enough to pay his rent. Wanted to know Umberto, so after I'd set up my table, when there was a quiet spell with not too many people walking by, I though I'd start a conversation with him. I strolled over and waved my hand toward all the subversive stickers on his table, and I said, "Tell me where you're coming from, Umberto."

"If you can't tell where I'm coming from," he said coldly, "nothing I can say could explain it." Then he went back to reading a newspaper.

That's fairly rude, I thought. Of course, "Tell me where you're coming from" was a dumb opening line, because while he had no circle-A on display, everyone knows Umberto is an anarchist, and the stickers make it obvious, too. 'There's no government like no government.' 'Under Republicans, man exploits man. Under Democrats, it's just the opposite.' Et cetera, et cetera.

That's why I wanted to talk with him. He's an anarchist, and I'm an anarchist too — some days, and about some things. It's fair to say I'm anarchist-adjacent.

And damn it, I respect the man. If what I've heard about Umberto is true, he's actually accomplished something in what's almost always the futile fight for freedom. The man sells bumper stickers without a license.

But, my social skills are moot, and after he shot me down I didn't ask again. I'm not sure if it's me he hates, or just dumb questions in general, but sitting next to him all day I heard him answering far dumber questions than mine, with more patience than he showed me.

Maybe he sees my semi-sacrilegious stickers as competition for his anti-political stickers? I'd have thought the fish and the anarchy compliment each other, and several customers bought from both Umberto's table and mine.

Maybe he's just weary of dealing with vendors' politics. Some of the vendors hate him, because he broke the rules. I wanted to like him, because he broke the rules.

We watched each others' tables when we had to pee, and he watched my table again when I walked to the corner store and bought a Diet Coke. I offered to get him one but he said 'no'. Not even 'no thanks'.

What's eating Umberto?, I wondered. I don't know, and decided I don't care. I just don't like the guy.

He's an anarchist, and I have anarchist sympathies. He beat the bureaucracy, and I love that. I wanted to buy two of his bumper stickers, and I don't even own a bumper. But he's a schmuck and I don't like the guy.

♦ ♦ ♦

After I'd scribbled the gist of the above in my notebook, Umberto maybe mellowed out a little. I sold some of his stickers while he was on another pee break, and he said 'thanks' when I gave him the money and told him which stickers I'd sold. He's not an asshole, only a schmuck, but I didn't try again to have that conversation I'd wanted to have with him.

It was interesting, though, when the inspection man came around. You remember, the semi-cop from the city's Department of Compliance with Stupid Rules. I'd failed his inspection that day, but today I passed inspection — all my paperwork was where it was supposed to be.

Same as he does every time I see him, at every vendor's table, the clipboard man jotted the numbers off their vendor licenses and other vital information onto a piece of very official paper. But he didn't say anything to Umberto. He didn't even pause at Umberto's stand. He simply walked right past, as if Umberto and Umberto's table weren't even there.

Fabulous — the joy of being un-numbered, un-licensed, and un-hassled. I sure do admire that schmuck Umberto.

Selling fish that gently poke fun at Christianity, it had to happen eventually, and it happened today: A Christian took great offense and made a stink about it. Just as predictably, I didn't handle it well.

She started with, "I want you to know that I find all this offensive."

It was the first thing either of us had said. I wasn't sure why she was riled, and thought maybe she was kidding. "What's offensive?" I asked. "Berkeley in general? Telegraph Avenue? Or me?" I smiled, pleased at my little joke.

"Those fish are offensive, young man." Very stern, like maybe she's a teacher, or maybe a Sunday School teacher, and accustomed to scolding children with lines like "young man."

I'm in my late 30s, though. Middle-aged at best, and she looked younger than me — in her early 30s, I would guess. White. Brunette. And for someone so prudish about the fish, she was dressed revealingly — shorts with long legs poking out, and a blouse with the top three buttons unbuttoned, not quite showing cleavage but close enough to trigger daydreams.

I'd noticed her before she even spoke, to be honest, because she was... noticeable. My mind wasn't entirely on her arguments, as she delivered a long spiel: "The fish is a sacred symbol of God, not to be taken lightly, and if you take the symbol so lightly you probably take God lightly too, but you will receive his wrath one day."

"I receive God's wrath every day of my life," I said.

"That's exactly what I'd expect someone like you to say," she said, which is exactly what I should've expected someone like her to say. With disdain she went on and on, telling me what I already know about the fish symbol — it was a means for long-ago persecuted Christians to identify each other — and then she said again how offended she was.

"Well, I'm offended by your being offended, but that's OK. We're free to offend each other."

She mostly talked over that line, to tell me about Judgment Day, when I'll regret mocking the Lord. I retorted with one of the few Bible verses I know: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." (Matthew 7:1).

That didn't slow her down, of course, but I was done listening, and next comes the part I'm not proud of.

As she prattled on, I tried to think of the meanest thing I could say to shut her up, and when her finger-wagging sermon started to wind down, I smiled and said, "If you're going to judge me despite God telling you not to judge me, then tell me what how Jesus would judge your cutoffs?" She hadn't dressed for preaching, that's for sure. The last inch of the curve of her butt was poking past her super-shorts. "That's not church attire," I added.

My comment pissed her off, and that's what I wanted, so when she said something else about God's wrath, I said her legs sure were sexy. That shut her up and she stormed away furious, so mission accomplished, but it wasn't a fair tactic, was it?

Thinking back on it after I'd calmed down, it feels like I won the argument, but by cheating. I should've argued that there's no evidence of God, or that her God is a murderous monster even in his own Holy Bible. Should've argued on the merits of the matter, instead of using her fine legs and well-rounded butt curve against her. That woman was crazy, but at least she raged about what she raged about — God and fish. She didn't take any cheap shots. She never told me I'm fat.

♦ ♦ ♦

After my "day at the office" selling fish, I walked to Walgreens to buy wheat bread and sauerkraut, and one of my new flatmates, Joe, walked out of the store with a plastic bag of whatever. We passed within two feet of each other, and I almost said hello, but he turned his head at the moment we might've made eye contact. He's not a talkative guy, I knew that, but I guess he's really serious about his anti-socialism.

There was a time when I was that determined to look at the asphalt instead of the assholes of the world, and I'm still happy to be a hermit, but I've mellowed some. Now I'll sometimes say hello to strangers, which compared to Joe makes me the president of Toastmasters International.

♦ ♦ ♦

After dinner (four sauerkraut-on-wheat sandwiches), I read and relaxed, and by about 9:00 I was ready to turn in. That's when Judith took me up on my offer, to work on cleaning my future bedroom any time, day or night.

Through a fog of drowsiness, I wasn't sure what we were doing or why, as we moved chairs and a desk and table out of the guest room and into the living room. Sure, let's reorganize the entire house eventually, but what's it have to do with what we need to be doing — emptying the mess from what's going to be my room?

She wanted to move Jake's favorite chair from one room to another (and neither room was my room). That chair is huge and heavy like a throne, and the path was blocked by more mess in the hallway (books and Christmas decorations, mostly, and Lugosi the dog). Judith and I could barely lift the chair, and we couldn't carry it, so she summoned her husband Jake from their bedroom, and told him to help.

He listened to what she had in mind, then said, "Why don't we just saw the chair into little tiny pieces and toss the pieces in the trash? That'll accomplish the same ends, without as much work."

That's negative thinking, but it was also funny as fuck, and that's Jake. Sarcasm is his natural response to everything. It pissed off Judith, but convinced her, I guess — we gave up on moving that chair.

We moved everything else, though. I couldn't see the plan, doubted Judith had a plan, but it's her house, her mess, and maybe she knows what she's doing, I thought.

And she did. After an hour and a half of schlepping stuff from the guest room to the living room, we (finally!) went into the room that'll be mine, and started schlepping stuff out of there, and into the spaces we'd cleared in the other rooms. An extra desk and chair, bookcases, and two ottomans have been relocated, and now the middle of my future-room is free of furniture, and if you watch your step there's a way to walk through that sector of the clutter. I even caught a glimpse of the floor.

It's a major improvement. Mentally and physically, it'll now be less daunting to sort through what's left in there. Then again, a lot of what had been in my future-room is now in the guest room, and we'll need a guest room, too, when Sarah-Katherine gets here.

But… that's a problem for another day. For today (tonight, soon to be tomorrow morning), it feels like something's been accomplished, and I'm getting more confident that we can find a way to squeeze me into this house.

Now, can I go to sleep?

On Telegraph Avenue, all the laws that govern who can sell, who can't, what we can sell, what we can't, where we can sell, and where we can't, are supposed to prevent the chaos of vendors vending without rules. At least, that's the pretense.

One of the many rules is that vendors can sign up for sidewalk space until 12:30. Well, I got the fish cart to the Ave at about 11:20, earliest I've been there since I started skipping the lottery for sidewalk-space — but the sign-in sheets had already been closed and collected by the city's clipboard schmuck.

So instead of signing in and setting up my table, I had to wander Telegraph and ask the other vendors whether an empty space was taken or not. I was halfway set up in an empty slot, when the vendor who'd already claimed it showed up, so I moved to an empty space across the street, and of course, that vendor showed up half an hour later and kicked me out.

I lost about an hour of sell-time, and cost two other vendors some of their sell-time, thanks entirely to the city breaking its own rules. And then the clipboard schmuck didn't even come by! Today I actually wanted to see him, just to tell him the truth about his heritage and IQ.

♦ ♦ ♦

Because of a new threat from the so-called Unabomber, the US Post Office won't accept big packages, until further notice. A "big" package is anything twelve ounces or over, so if you go to a post office and try to send something "big," they'll refuse it. You're supposed to go to a post office, fill out forms, stand in line, show ID, etc.

It's a minor inconvenience for me, as I send the zine to a few stores that sell it, and those packages weigh a few pounds. I don't know when I'll get around to the forms and the lines at the post office, but it won't be in the next few weeks, so you buy this zine at Quincy's or Powell's, it won't be there.

The article in the paper doesn't say this, but you know USPS will only hassle little guys like you and me with these requirements. You think they're going to refuse thousands of packages from the Book-of-the-Month Club, or mail-order purchases from Sears? Those packages are going to be delivered just fine, and nobody's going to be filling out forms or standing in line to mail them.

Seems to me the mail should go through — dead of night, sleet and snow, and all that. The Unabomber is over-publicized, anyway. He's killed three people in fifteen years, which certainly sucks if you're one of those three, but a postal carrier is more likely to be killed by another postal carrier than by a bomb.

And anyway, isn't this exactly what the Unabomber wants — to disrupt everything?

♦ ♦ ♦

Tucked away on page 26 of today's San Francisco Chronicle, there's a report on some witnesses' angry reactions to news from the SFPD in yesterday's paper. I didn't buy a paper yesterday, so it's all news to me, but here's the news:

The cops say they "have found no evidence in their continuing investigation to support criminal homicide or felonious assault charges against the officers involved" in murdering Aaron Williams.

We're overdue for a riot, if you ask me.

♦ ♦ ♦

I answered a customer's questions about what the fish are about, and then, whatdyaknow, that customer bought a fish. As he walked away, a neighbor vendor who'd overheard the Q-&-A told me, "You're a natural-born salesman." He meant it as a compliment, but it was the most cutting insult I've received in years.

I don't know squat about sales, and sure don't want to be a salesman, but I've mastered three proven methods to attract customers to the fish stand: ① Take a big bite of a sandwich, so you can't talk. ② Feel shitty, with an upset stomach or mild fever or whatever. ③ Begin breaking down the stand at the end of the day. Any of these techniques will bring in business.

And the best way to drive customers away? For me, it's usually just saying hello.

♦ ♦ ♦

After work, I hurried to Dark Carnival, a cool bookstore, where Dr Weirde, author of A Guide to Mysterious San Francisco, spoke and presented a slide show on the city's strangest sites. The good doctor puts on a fine show, and he was funny and enthusiastic about the subject, despite probably giving the same lecture and showing the same slides at another bookstore the night before.

From living in San Francisco for 3½ years, I'm a naturalized native, but I learned at least two things from Dr Weirde's lecture:

• Despite seeing Harold and Maude countless times and making several trips to the ruins of the Sutro Baths, I hadn't known that the scene where Ruth Gordon falls through a hole was filmed at the Baths.
• I knew that Golden Gate Park was built where there'd been nothing but sand dunes, but I hadn't known that the makeover was mostly accomplished by hauling in all of the city's horse manure. And that was before Frank Jordan was Mayor.

Of course, I bought a copy of Dr Weirde's book, and I've started reading it, and it's quite good. Recommended by me, if you're visiting the city and don't want to do all the boring and usual things.

It has too many Illuminati and/or Anton LaVey references. I prefer weird things that actually happened over such silly running jokes, which feel like filler. Some of the book's better suggestions are free, though, so it'll be useful when Sarah-Katherine is here… in twelve days, ten hours, and 19 minutes.

♦ ♦ ♦

Chipped a tooth while chewing a sandwich at dinner. What had been creamy peanut butter was suddenly chunky. Creamy PB is all it takes to break my flimsy teeth, and It was a fairly substantial chunk of tooth, too. No pain before or after, so I guess that's good luck.

We haven't spoken since last month, but my mother's voice is nagging at me. "See a dentist," she's saying, but — dentist, schmentist. Poor people don't need teeth.

♦ ♦ ♦

OK, that's the June issue, but I'm adding this note on the 18th of July. I'm finally starting to proofread the issue you've just read, so it's probably August as you're reading this.

Being tardy is a tradition amongst zinesters, and anyway I'm a butt-head, so I won't apologize for the lateness. The delay is because Sarah-Katherine has been staying at my place, and she's more interesting than typing.

Want the details? Yeah, you want the details, but they'll cost ya two dollars.

That's right, just $2, not the normal $3. It'll still say $3 on the cover and that's still the price, but the June issue both bites and blows, and if you put up with it, you get a dollar off if you're willing to make the same mistake again.

Hell, maybe I am a natural-born salesman.