Dreams are usually better than my pathetic life, but now, apparently, I go to the movies in my dreams. What was playing I don't know, but I had popcorn and Black Vines and someone was talking too loud in the seat behind me, so I turned around to yell at 'em — and it was my mom.

I moved to a different seat, settled in and got comfortable, and someone tapped my shoulder and yup, it was Mom again, still talking. I don't remember what she was talking about — Jesus, probably — but the movie was on and I didn't want to hear it.

To lose her trail, I went into the men's room , sat in a stall, closed the door, latched it, but she somehow opened it so as to maintain constant eye contact with me as she talked.

I told her to shut up and go away, and then I buckled up and went away, but everywhere I went in the dream, Mom was there. Eventually I founda jagged shard of glass and slashed my arm to wake myself up.

Awake, I looked around and under my bed, and she isn't here, but jeez, shaking that crazy dream is as difficult as shaking my mother.

I clicked the lamp on to think about it, write about it, and it's illuminated a pattern of my life which I was certainly aware of, but hadn't given my conscious thought to lately.

♦ ♦ ♦

As long ago as I can remember, my mother has always wanted to nose into my business. Of course, that's what a mother is supposed to do, when you're little, and really, she was a pretty good mother.

She just wanted to watch me and tend me, more than I ever wanted to be watched or tended. So I backed away, and when I backed away, she came closer, to watch and tend me better. So I backed away further, and I'm still backing away.

♦ ♦ ♦

I don't remember much before school, but my mom was always there, even when I wished she'd let me alone for a while.

When school started, I immediately hated it. I'm anti-social, and being surrounded by all those other kids was just a guaranteed anxiety attack, pretty much all day, every day.

And on top of that, my mother showed up at school, quite often, and not only when I was in trouble.

Parent-teacher night, second grade: I was supposed to be there with my mom, and already wasn't looking forward to it, but at least I'd be able to come home and hibernate in my room before going to this stupid adult event, right?

Nope. Mom showed up at the classroom door as school let out, and spent four hours with me, 'preparing' for parent-teacher night. She asked me a thousand questions about the lessons, the teacher, the other students, the playground equipment even.

She also came to school during school hours, to see me. It didn't happen often enough to say it happened often, but it happened far too often for me.

When you're an acknowledged loser and misfit at school, having your Mom come at you across the playground to talk to you at recess, or getting called to the office because your mom is waiting to bring you a birthday present or take you to lunch — it was a real crimp to my 7-year-old self.

I asked her not to visit me at school, every time she visited me at school. Said it was embarrassing as hell, only of course I had to say 'heck'. She always said she wouldn't visit the school again, but a few weeks later she'd dropped in unexpectedly.

At the time, it felt like she was there just about every day. Maybe she was only there once a week, or even once a month, but whatever, it was way way more often than I wanted to see my mother at school, and I lived in fear of it.

What did she want, when she came to my elementary school? Sometimes she wanted to talk about Jesus. Sometimes she brought Twinkies to add to my lunch. Always she wanted to ask me a thousand questions, and if I wasn't talkative enough, she'd talk to my teacher, other teachers, or random kids walking down the hall. Most often, she was there when the last bell rang, to walk me home from school.

Once, she was somehow there when we all lined up outside for a fire drill. How did she even know?

Jeez, it's been almost thirty years and I hate even writing about all this. Even if she hadn't been at the school in a month, I was still a little kid on edge, thinking today might be the day.

"Are you embarrassed at your own mother?" she would ask as I begged her not to surprise me again.

"Yes!" I screamed, but not as often and not as loud as whatever it might have taken to get through to her and make her understand.

I was smart enough to start varying my path out of the school building, to ditch her at the door. But sometimes she outwitted me, or outwaited me. Once when I thought she hadn't seen me, I hid in the boys' room for forever, but she was still leaning on the wall in the hall, waiting for me to come out. "Well, that must've been a difficult bowel movement, Douggie. You need to eat more fiber."

♦ ♦ ♦

When I moved up to junior high, Mom was still there sometimes, at first. It was a much bigger building, though, a whole block long, with hundreds of kids for crowd cover, more doors for entrance and egress. When she stopped being able to find me, she stopped showing up to walk me home.

At 15, I volunteered one summer at a day-care for disabled and retarded kids. It was hard work, but rewarding, and I enjoyed it. Dear old Mom started visiting me there, of course.

Same story at my first paying job, McDonald's, when I was 16. She didn't like the food, but she ate there any time I was working there, sometimes bringing her friends, sometimes dining alone. I'd be frying burgers, and she'd be chewing one and smiling at me through that weird little window on the side.

OK, this part still hurts: There was a girl at our church I had a crush on, but my mom asked her out before I did. She invited this girl to join her for lunch at McDonald's, while I'd be working.

The girl had the good sense to decline Mom's invitation, and the better sense to decline mine when I got around to asking her out. She told me about it, though, else I never would've known.

I started carrying my McDonald's work schedule in my wallet, instead of leaving it tacked to my bedroom wall, so Mom wouldn't be sure when I was working. That seemed to help.

♦ ♦ ♦

On my 18th birthday, I moved to an apartment of my own, where I could finally eat what I wanted, do what I wanted, stay up late, not go to church, etc. It was marvelous. One night I was lucky enough to bring a young lady to my apartment, and Mom was waiting at the door, same as when I was in second grade.

After that explosion, Mom didn't stop by without warning nearly as often. I'll give her credit for that. She was there often enough, though, to make "my place" feel like it wasn't really my place. More like a distant outpost of Mom's house.

I didn't call home as often as I should, or so Mom always told me when she saw me. And she didn't see me as often as she should, or so she always told me.

When I started working in offices, a grown-up man at least legally, she showed up to surprise me a few times. I remember coming back to my desk one afterlunch, and a much older co-worker asked, "Who was that woman you were yelling at?"

My mother, I said, who'd shown up unexpectedly. This earned me a scolding from that woman at work. "You shouldn't treat your own mother like that!"

Mom also liked calling at my desk phone. After 2-3 times saying "Don't call me here," I started hanging up as soon as I heard her voice.

At one of the family dinners I attended increasingly rarely, we had it out, yet again. "Why, Mom? Why do you call me at work, without even anything to talk about, when you know I won't talk, can't talk while I'm on the clock?"

"Well," she said, "I like hearing the sound of your voice, and Lord knows, you don't call me very often."

Which struck me as a good start to be improved on, so when my employer transferred me to a different department, I pointedly did not give Mom the new phone number. When she asked, I told her why I wouldn't give it, but she called the switchboard and asked for me by name, and started calling me at work anyway.

When I took a better job at a different company, I didn't tell my mother. When she called my old desk and they said, "He doesn't work here any more," she was furious at me, but I didn't tell her where I was working, and I told her why.

"OK, I promise I won't call you there, but you have to at least tell me where you're working."

"No, actually I don't."

I moved to a new apartment, closer to the new job, and I was making big bucks so I chose a place with a closed-circuit camera at the entrance. When anyone rang my buzzer, I could turn my TV to channel 3, and see who it was, 19 floors below. Too often, it was Mom. She'd gotten my address, because my brothers had helped me move in.

So the next buffer I tried to enforce was, I ignored her at the doorbell unless she'd phoned first. And when she finally began phoning before visiting, I used my answering machine to ignore most of her calls — invitations to family or church events I didn't care about, and long nagging stories that were always cut off by the machine's ten-minute per message maximum.

Next time I moved, I hired college kids to help me carry the couch, and gave the family only a maildrop address. Oh, how I savored the inevitable report, and I knew it was coming, when the staff at the maildrop told me that some lady had stopped by with a housewarming present, and asked, "Where's Doug?"

They explained that I didn't live there, only rented a box, and of course they wouldn't give her my physical address.

At last there was no contact with my mother unless I called her, and as she always reminded me, I didn't call often. I was never one of those guys who moves out, but comes home to do laundry.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now I live in Berkeley, California, much farther away from my mother. She's not the main reason I came here — I can avoid her from much closer — but it's certainly not a drawback.

Since I came to Cali, she's invited herself and visited, three times. None of the visits were surprises, but she's promised — in so many words — that she will surprise me, "some day soon."

That's why she doesn't know where I live, or where I work. She doesn't even have my maildrop address, nor my phone number or voice mail. She doesn't know whether I'm alive or dead, and I don't know whether she is.

Certainly, I do hope she's alive and well. I love her, and hope she lives a long and happy life. Other than my few mild complaints, she's a pretty good mom. I never went hungry, always felt loved.

For at least a few years, though, I need the wide open space of knowing that my mom won't be at my doorstep. Distance is my favorite family value.

♦ ♦ ♦

And yet, there she was, in my dream. I awoke at around 3AM, after the gunshots had woken me at midnight. Not much sleeping tonight, and now I'm as wide awake as if Mom was right here knocking at my door.

"Dou-uuuuug! I'm here to surprise you!"

TUESDAY — On a dull day when nothing happens, what's a guy who writes a diary supposed to write?

Sitting at the typewriter, the first thing that comes to mind is something kinda icky, so I stare at the window for a few minutes, waiting for a second thing to come to mind.

It doesn't, so I'm gonna write about something disgusting and embarrassing.

I haven't had sex with anyone but myself since last May or (depending on how you define 'sex') July. Still, I keep a supply of condoms on hand, not in hopes of better nights, but because if I happen to be wearing a t-shit not yet stained, a rubber can save the trouble of yanking the shirt over my head. Mr Manhood slips into his sleeve, and everything stays neat and tidy, no splashes, no spills.

That's what happened this morning, and upon completion of the task at hand, I fell asleep. When I woke up, my penis was still wearing the Shroud of Turin, and that's not unusual either.

Giving it no thought at all, wearing only that unstained t-shirt and a used condom under yesterday's shorts, I went about my morning's business. Walked into the kitchen for a glass of water and a few slices of peanut butter toast. To the front door to check the mail. Sat down in the living room to pet the dog. Walked into the guest room to use the phone, to check my messages. Back to my room to grab a towel, and then into the john to take a shower.

And somewhere along the way, that little bag of jism slipped off.

Twice I've revisited every stop, and it's nowhere, so I'm giving up. Will I confess it, I wonder, when one of my flatmates finds it? Or when the dog chews it up and spits it out, or swallows it?

♦ ♦ ♦

WEDNESDAY — Same as yesterday, there's nothing to say about today, so let's turn inward and expunge a demon from deep in my soul.

What am I doing with my life? In my late 30s already, and still, I have no idea.

There are no plans for the future, except, vaguely, moving to New York with Sarah-Katherine some time soon, if and when we can afford it.

Other than that, no goals. No career, certainly. No places I yearn to go. I don't want to bother learning to play the guitar or do needlepoint. No self-improvement classes for me. No intention of marrying, and absolutely no children are in my future.

What will I be doing in a year or five years, or twenty if I'm still alive? You got me. Of course, nobody knows what's coming except the pizza they've ordered, but most people seem to have hopes or plans or daydreams about their future. Not me, no-sir-ee.

Any day, Bill Clinton or Boris Yeltzin could wake up in a bad mood, and there might be no future at all. If there is a future, all I ask is to be alive and healthy enough to be having a good time, same as today. Beyond, that, I will take whatever's delivered except anchovies.

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — Never thought about it this way before, but my bedroom looks like the habitat of an anarchist. There's a place for nothing, and nothing is in its place.

I'm about to start laying out the December issue of the zine, but first it was necessary to clear the unopened and also empty cans of tuna, dirty socks, loose dollars and change, dirty bowls and silverware, old newspapers and other people's zines, butter kept soft for spreading, insecticide, paperclips, batteries, odd ointment, pills, griz, grime, and grunge off the table.

In the process, I stepped on something that felt peculiar, and discovered that missing condom from a few days ago, stuck under an old Twinkie wrapper on the floor. So — life is good.

With 45 minutes to waste before the movie, I thought I'd treat myself to a bowl of healthy veggies at that cheap Chinese place on University. Instead, I was Shanghaied into McDonald's by a sign in the window offering a Big Mac for 98¢.

I apologize to myself, and feel guilty just typing about it, because philosophically I am opposed to everything about McDonald's: raging capitalism, complete uniformity, the greasy food on the menu, and hard work at crap wages with no benefits, no sick leave, so your burger is made amidst sniffling sneezing and snot-dripping workers. And I'm nominally a vegetarian, but — a Big Mac for just 98¢? Yes, please.

Yes, please and please and please — I had three of them, with a large order of McD's always-disappointing fries, a large eggnog shake, and for dessert, a so-called 'hot apple pie' (79% corn syrup, 15% lard, 6% apples).

And you know what's the worst, most awful part? It was a pretty good lunch.

♦ ♦ ♦

Eating at McDonald's means I'd just ingested twelve times the maximum daily dose of salt, so I quickly guzzled the 1.5 liters of tap water I'd packed for the movies. Then I walked into Thrifty Drugs to buy enough water to get me through two movies of popcorn, and…

"I'll take that pack for you," said some bouncer-size twit behind the photo counter.

"Like hell you will," I answered politely, breezing past him and down the aisles, my forbidden backpack still lashed over my shoulders.

Stores play the "check your bags" game, to prevent shoplifting. It's basically an accusation that everyone walking in is a thief, but almost always I cooperate. All I ask is that they ask nicely, and that guy didn't ask nicely so fuck him.

I found the water I wanted and bought it, all while wearing the forbidden backpack. The guard never decided what to do about my disobedience beyond glaring at me, and I certainly hope someone else in the store did some serious shoplifting while I had his attention.

♦ ♦ ♦

A reader (thanks, Mike) sent a Landmark movie pass in exchange for Pathetic Life #16, which I traded at the UC box office for today's martial-arts double feature. I'm not a big fan of the genre, but Jackie Chan movies always delight me.

Not today, though. Serpent in Eagle's Claw (a/k/a Snake in the Eagle's Shadow) was Chan's first big hit, from 1978, and it kinda sucked. I guess nobody had figured out the Chan mystique yet, not even Mr Chan himself.

He's OK in it, playing a retarded houseboy and sparring guy at a kung fu school, but he's not involved in most of the movie's fights, and when he's absent it's just chop-socky hokum. Nothing's particularly bad about the movie, but also nothing's particularly good, and even Chan's fights aren't up to Chan's standards. I spent most of the movie wishing I wasn't at the movie.

The second feature was High Risk, a new Asian import that's supposed to be a satire of Chan movies and Chan himself. The director has a grudge, or so said the theater's brief notes.

The guy mocking Chan is obviously having a grand time, playing him as a drunken cowardly womanizing wimp. He brags of doing his own stunts, but actually has a bodyguard who's a body double, and does anything that's dangerous.

That part of it was fun, but the rest of the movie is remarkably mean-spirited, and not just toward Jackie Chan. All through it, ordinary people are going about their business for just a few seconds, and they're randomly killed. It's supposed to be funny, I think. And jeez, I don't like children, but blowing up a school bus full of kids has limited entertainment value. Also, it's more of a machine-gun movie than a martial-arts film — there's so much gunplay here, it's a parody of John Woo, too.

Amidst the gloom of a disappointing double feature, however, the UC Theater pleasantly surprised me, by showing both films in focus and frame, all the way through.

♦ ♦ ♦

Walking toward home, two Berkeley policemen pedaled past on their high-tech bicycles, looking for someone to pester or arrest. That's what cops do, and it reminded me to do something I've been putting off for too long, so I called CopWatch, the local group that monitors police misbehavior, of which there's plenty.

I had a long, relatively relaxed chat with whoever answered the phone (name dropped, but not caught) and got a quick overview of what CopWatch does and how they do it: They send out pairs of volunteers, armed with a video camera and a copy of the California Penal Code, to film cops making arrests. Any evidence of misconduct is turned over to Berkeley's Citizen Police Review Board—

And that's where I began having doubts. I'm fairly new to Berkeley, and maybe their Citizen Police Review Board works better than its counterpart in San Francisco, but Frisco's CPRB is a facade. They have no interest in doing anything about out-of-control cops, and it's just a bureaucratic jumble, famous for accomplishing nothing. The SF CPRB holds hearings and makes occasional recommendations that some cop be disciplined, and those recommendations are always ignored.

The man on the phone was still talking, so I politely listened, but doubts began brewing. There was talk of meetings, and Robert's Rules of Order, all of which is probably necessary, but jeez, if there's videotape of cops beating someone, give it to Channel 2 News and the Tribune, and then give it to the CPRB. When I'm at a meeting, that's the very first thing I'll raise my hand to say.

The voice on the phone even alluded to "good cops," a concept as mythical as elves and fairies in my opinion. He talked about reporting bad cops to their commanders, which seems equally imaginary.

As if the higher-ups care? They got higher up by being brutal below.

No sir, until I see evidence otherwise and I never have, I'll continue to believe all cops are bad cops. Reporting a bad cop to another cop is simply futile.

Show me a "good cop" smiling at strangers and helping little old ladies across the street, and that's nice, but soon as he walks around the corner and you're not watching him, what's he doing then? That's what's worrisome.

I was hoping that CopWatch did something more radical than reporting what they see to Berkeley's Citizen Police Review Board, but you know what? That's more than I've ever done, and they're the only group making any effort to prevent cop worship. That's something to be respected, so I didn't give voice to any of my ignorant first impressions.

The guy on the phone told me they'd sign me up if I drop by their office, any time after 3:30 on any Tuesday afternoon. I told him I'll be there, and I will be, skepticism in check and hoping for the best.

In the Mission, there are preachers at the BART station every weekend, sometimes more than one preacher, and sometimes during the week, too. In Berkeley, we only get street preachers once a month or so, mouthing their message for morons. Today was their January visit.

If they stood on a corner, shouting and singing their stupidity into my ears all day, I would simply take three aspirin and ignore them. Free speech is cool. I approve, even when I disagree.

I don't think the founding fathers anticipated public proselytizing through big portable speakers, though.

Jesus H Christ, as I recall, spoke without electronically-amplified sound, and through the strength of his thoughts and his throat, thousands listened. His modern-day disciples use high-power portable public address systems, and thousands walk by and couldn't care less.

Whatever the message, whether religion or politics or advertising beer, it is fucking rude to blast it via microphones into a public space. So I retaliated, as best I could, taunting them with whatever rudeness I could think of, between customers at the sacrilegious fish stand.

When they sang their insipid songs, with their hands raised as if their palms were satellite dishes receiving signals from Heaven, I stood and reflected their silliness right back at them. I danced to their awful music about their awful God, with exaggerated arm gestures pointing to my rectum and groin. Now and again I screamed insults at them, or waved my display Darwin (it's as big as my head) at them.

Without a microphone, I couldn't annoy them as much as they annoyed me, and it wouldn't be possible to mock them more than they mocked themselves, so eventually I gave up and simply glared at them.

Listening to the lyrics of their songs, sung off-key of course, would be enough to make any thinking person into an atheist, but there aren't many thinking people.

"Verily, verily, I love you Jesus, you are my Lord," was the recurring chorus of one number. What does that even mean?

Another big hit — they sang it several times during the long afternoon — included this line at the end of every verse, and repeated three times as the chorus: "Jesus has ahold of my life, and he won't let me go." Ain't it the truth, verily.

A young man in a wheelchair rolled up the street, headed toward the Christians. He wheeled right past my table, so I got a good look at him, and especially at the medallion draped over his bare chest: a silver Christ in agony on a wooden cross about the size of your hand. Another crucifix with another dying Christ was affixed to the hub of his wheelchair's wheel, so Jesus was turning somersaults as the wheelchair wheeled along. Dangling by a thin chain, a third cross was suspended over the man's face, with the horizontal wood crossing his forehead and the vertical wood riding his nose. That third cross had no Christ, though.

I've seen horror movies that didn't give me the shivers like that man in a wheelchair, and when he'd rolled past, I could see a fourth cross draped over the backside of the lunatic's chair. This last cross included Jesus again, and it was quite large, three feet tall, with the base of the cross dragging on the sidewalk behind him, perhaps all the way to Golgotha.

He rolled himself to the corner, parked his chair a little too close to the preacher, and that's where the man in the wheelchair sat for the next few hours, listening intently and holding a Bible. I didn't have the cruelty to shout out for a miracle, so we could see him clamor out of his chair and boogie to the righteous rock, but I thought about it. Thought about a lot of divinely rude things I might've said, if I'd had a microphone to match the preachers.

And here's one last detail so dippy you'll think I made it up, but I swear, verily, it's the gospel truth:

To nurture the body better than the soul, the Christians had prepared sandwiches, dozens, which they handed to anyone who looked hungry. And that's kinda Christlike, yes, but they brought only one kind of sandwich: baloney!

I didn't take one, but Umberto did, and brought it over to show me — baloney on white bread, with mayonnaise, and nothing else. We laughed and laughed, and you could choke on the symbolism.

♦ ♦ ♦

Being loudly preached at all morning and afternoon, in public, in a situation where I couldn't leave, was thoroughly unpleasant. No amount of baloney could ease the frustration.

By any sane definition, those Christians were not sane. I ain't saying all Christians are crazy, but those Christians were. It's the difference between having a beer after work and drinking two six-packs alone.

Anyone who would talk about Jesus into a microphone for hours and hours, someplace where nobody wants to hear it, is inarguably fucked up in the head.

♦ ♦ ♦

It wasn't on my agenda, but as quitting time came around, so did Josh. He invited me to dinner, and tonight's show at the Pacific Film Archive. He was buying, and I needed to get Jesus out of my head, so away we went.

Dinner was fishburgers from a street vendor, very yummy, with root beer. Grazi, Josh.

Mr Dynamite (1935) stars Edmund Lowe as T N Thompson (TNT = Mr Dynamite, get it?). He's a hot-shot private detective trying to solve a murder that's happened at a casino.

The dialogue is roughly an even split of cliché and corny retorts, but there's an antique appeal when lines like "Go powder your nose" are delivered with flippant sincerity. One scene plainly alludes to cops beating a suspect for information, something rarely acknowledged in mainstream movies even in our time. Other than that, the movie was nothing memorable, but it wasn't boring, and wasn't bad.

The Squeaker (1937) stars Edmund Lowe again — big movie star, I guess, but I'd never heard of him until tonight — and he's more likable than in the first movie, playing an alcoholic ex-Scotland Yarder tracking a fence who might or might not be a murderer. The mystery, though, is anything but mysterious, and the conclusion is so dumb that Josh and I both said, "Ah, jeez."

The theater had grown uncomfortably warm. I took my jacket off, along with my sweater and shirt, and watched the last half of the second movie in just my t-shirt and britches. Man, it must've been 80° in the PFA, like the boiler had boiled over.

What with the heat plus it was getting late, Josh and I were both drowsy, and he seemed to be half-hinting that he wouldn't mind cutting out before the third feature. The PFA shows weird and rare movies, though, and if you miss 'em you might never get another chance. So we stayed, with the agreement that if the movie sucked, either of us could tap the other on the shoulder and we'd split.

It did not suck and we did not split.

The Spider and the Fly (1949) tells a wry, understated tale of almost brotherly competition between a safecracker and the cop who's caught him a few times, and lost him a few times. They like each other, quip cleverly, go out for a cup of coffee together, and eventually fall in love with the same dame, all while the thief and the detective — the spider and the fly — try to anticipate each other's next move.

As the film progressed, I was fearing either a tap on the shoulder from Josh or that the story might take a wrong turn, and become another routine cops and robbers flick. Neither tragedy happened.

All the movie's many twists are perfectly executed, and when the story reaches its utterly satisfying conclusion… it's still not quite over. I was ready to lead the applause for an all-dead cast and crew, but instead there's a whole new set of tensions.

All along it's full of fabulous flourishes and dagger-like dialogue, all stylishly mounted and expertly underacted. I especially liked the underacting — a lot of the lines are almost whispered, which adds more to the drama than a dozen of Al Pacino's raging rants. The Spider and the Fly is a joy, a film I'd happily pay to see again.

Josh wasn't quite as enthusiastic about it, and confessed that he'd nodded off, but he said he'd take my word that it was great.

There's this lady on Telegraph sometimes — an older woman, white. She sets up a table and sells her paintings, but not often. I've looked at her paintings and they're definitely art, in a good way, but I'm anti-social so I never bothered to say hello.

Today she was working two booths down from me, so some minimal niceties were required. "Hello," I finally said, and yakity yak yak, and then I went back to selling fish.

When I looked up from my work and daydreams a few hours later, she was reading an oversized paperback — Answer Me, by [Jim & Debbie Goad](../Cranky Old Fart/COF-030). Hmmm. They publish an over-the edge nutso zine, and the book is a compilation of the zine's first three issues. It's too nutso for me, but at least it's not normal.

She was reading it, so that probably means the lady is not normal either, and I like not normal. She was chuckling as she turned a page in the book, so I strolled over, said hello again, and this time tried to actually be sociable.

Her name is Brenda, and she's funny and friendly, and she likes zines. We talked about the various zines she reads, all bizarre, and I forgot to mention that I write a zine myself.

She volunteered that she's 58 years old, though I would've guessed mid-40s. She sells her art only on Sundays, she said, so now I know someone worth talking to one day a week on the Ave.

I thought about maybe mentioning that I write a zine, or even bringing her a copy next Sunday, but that would be a bad idea. People not knowing is how the whole zine works. If word got out to Jasper or a few other vendors that I'm writing about 'em, they'd kill me, or sue me, or run me out of Berkeley.

Addendum, 2023: Reading what I wrote about Brenda brightened my morning, all these years later. She did become a friend, and we were buddies until she died, but at the moment I don't even remember her last name.
She told me some great stories, though, and I hope I told some of those stories in some upcoming Pathetic Life entries, 'cuz if I didn't they're probably forgotten forever.
It was great hearing from you today, Brenda.

Westward to Frisco, I ran a brief errand out to the avenues before reporting for duty at the magazine. Just along the streetcar route, I counted 247 Christmas trees dumped on the sidewalks.

I'm not particularly 'green', but it was a somber sight. As if the family-induced suicides and twisted consumerism aren't enough — Christmas has no redeeming social value at all.

The environment is like the economy — I have my ideas about how half-ass-backwards it's being mismanaged, but my opinions don't make a loogie's difference to anyone who matters, so I don't mention it much, don't think about it often.

The dead trees, though, reminded me of photos of the buffalo slaughters in the 19th century.

If a quick round trip on one city transit route shows hundreds of dead trees, chopped down to provide a few weeks of Xmas scenery and scent and then discarded as trash, how many millions of trees are sacrificed across the country every December and January?

And we do this not just with trees, but with with everything. Billions of geegaws in the stores, made of plastic and then wrapped in plastic, to be carried away in plastic bags, plastic that lasts forever. Millions of new cars built every year, each of them a ton of metal and glass destined for junkyards in ten or twenty years, after rolling around drinking gas and oil that can't last forever, and killing people and crushing puppies in random wrecks along the way.

I have my doubts about all of it, about everything western civilization is proud of.

♦ ♦ ♦

Working at Black Sheets this afternoon, Steve seemed extra chatty, cracking a lot of jokes at me. Usually he's been shy like me, but lately he's warmed up to me, and today I had the distinct feeling that he was flirting.

But I won't be complaining to the city agency that pretends to give a damn about such inappropriate workplace behavior, 'cause after all, he is kinda cute.

♦ ♦ ♦

Oh, and sarcastic thanks to the anonymous reader who sent this flyer about a "creative writing workshop" in Berkeley, called "Write About Your Life."

The flyer is a series of clunky incomplete sentences, promising that "award-winning writer █████ █████ MFA" will teach how to "make your life experience come alive for the reader." And golly gee, the seminar is only $175."

But before I sign up, could you please tell me who █████ █████ is, or show me something she's written that's worth one-hundred-and-seventy-five dang dollars, let alone the bother of walking six blocks to be bored silly at a seminar?

Until that's been explained, I'll be absent, and remain intentionally ignorant of knowing how to make my life experience come alive.

I'm not sure that good writing can be taught, but even if it can, nobody who writes well is teaching the class. Norman Mailer has better things to do. Only the █████ █████s of the world teach creative writing workshops.

Addendum, 2023: When I wrote my sneering dismissal of █████ █████ in 1996, I'd never heard of her, and had no way to know whether she could write. I printed her name because I was an ass, and also what the hell. Nobody reads zines, so it couldn't possibly hurt her feelings.
Today, armed with the internet and some early morning curiosity, I Googled her name. She's mentioned only once on the entire internet, in a PDF of a 1984 article in her college alumni newsletter, reporting that her poetry had won an award from the college.
The article included the prize-winning poem, which I've read. Like most poetry it's not for me, but it's credible, and probably better than the poetry I wrote last time I tried.
With only that one online mention of her name, Ms █████ must be either dead, married and using a new surname, or she's given up writing. All those possibilities seem sad to me, and nothing good or kind could come from making this page her second citation online, so today I've redacted her name.

Here's a letter from Sarah-Katherine, sweet as always, but she's getting antsy. Instead of waiting for me to scrape up the money and move to New York, she's moving without me.

I'm invited to join her when I can afford to move east, but realistically that won't be any time soon. Probably not this year, maybe not in this lifetime.

So this might be goodbye, damn it.

My head is full of thoughts, which I'll try sorting through…

Sarah-Katherine is probably smart to leave without me. I'm broke, and broke won't buy a ticket to ride. Broke can't pay half the rent.

About $1,200 would take me to New York, with enough left over to not be instantly panicked about my next meal. I have $600, half enough — enough to get there and be homeless. I'd be immediately signing up for welfare, sleeping on Sarah-Katherine's couch and sponging off her, which I will not do.

The next thought, and it's disgustingly sexist to say this, even think this, because in my head I absolutely know she's one tough dame. She has nothing to fear from NYC, and New York should probably be afraid of her, but... I worry.

This isn't That Girl, where plucky Marlo Thomas moves to Manhattan and lands the perfect job, the perfect apartment, makes friends with her nice neighbors, winks at a mannequin at Macy's, and the mannequin winks back.

It's real life, where anything could go wrong. I wish I was going with her. I'm not big and tough, but I look it, and that's usually been enough to keep trouble at bay.

So like an idiot, I wrote back and suggested that she move to San Francisco instead. It's idiotic, because we've had that conversation before.

No, New York is where she'd rather stay, so that's where she's going, and she's going without me, at least until I can afford to join her, which is never. So this is probably goodbye, damn it.

♦ ♦ ♦

They said to come by the CopWatch office any Tuesday afternoon, after 3:30, so I was there. The door was locked, the lights were off, and nobody answered the bell. I stood there ringing and knocking for twenty minutes, then gave up and came home.

Well, maybe they were out watching the cops. I'll try again next Tuesday, after 3:30.

♦ ♦ ♦

Artrero, Judith's adult son, is why I did the last big clean-up. He's been staying in the guest room for the past week or so, along with his girlfriend. My parents would've rained armageddon on me if I'd brought a female home to stay overnight, but Artrero has a better mom.

He's not particularly outgoing, and I'm utterly introverted, so we shook hands when he got here and we haven't said a word to each other since.

♦ ♦ ♦

And Sarah-Katherine is moving to New York without me, so goodbye, damn it. And good luck.

Last week I saw this old black guy again. I say 'old' but he's probably my age. Some nights he stands behind a traffic control box and beats off while looking into the window of a couple of young oriental girls.
I'm sure the girls are attractive, but I'm not sure what they look like since my glasses got stolen last summer. I think they are fairly young, and that's probably enough of an attraction in itself.
Maybe I'm chicken but I haven't said anything to the girls. I don't know if they know they're being watched. I haven't said anything to or about him. He zips up before I get close, and like I said it's dark and I don't have my glasses. Anyway, it gives the neighborhood some character.
—Tim Lauzon
The Voluntary Poverty Newsletter
San Diego

If you're seeking advice, mine would be tell the girls. I'd want to know, wouldn't you? If you're too shy or embarrassed to tell them in person, leave a note under their door.

Or if you're just telling me what's up, I guess it's that old black guy's dick. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

We would like to know more about you and your ZINE! Content? Distribution? Readership? Target market? Advertising rates? Classifieds? Free-lance gigs?
Moore-Harmon Productions is compiling a data base for major and indy label advertisers as well as free-lance artists who are interested in working with you! Drop us a line or fax us, ASAP! Please let us know about your ZINE! Details, details, details, please!!!
—Moore-Harmon Productions
Los Angeles

My ZINE has no fax! No details will be forthcoming! No free-lance gigs! No classified ads! No readership to speak of, and only the finest in shit-level content. Also, no interest in whatever you're selling, so please please please go away, ASAP! —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

I need to leave Seattle soon, very soon. If you can't go with me to New York right away, that's all right. I'll go, and wait for you to come to me…
— Sarah-Katherine
Pasty
Seattle

Oh, my almost darling, I don't have the money to move to New York any time soon. If you go without me I'll try to catch up eventually, but meanwhile I'd be awfully worried about you. You don't know anyone there, and nobody in that city of millions cares about you.

If your goal is to get out of Seattle, I wish wish wish you'd consider San Francisco. Even if New York remains your destination, six months or a year here would not seem like purgatory, I guarantee.

SF is a city the world thinks is beautiful, and just this once I concur with the world. Never been to New York City, but based on second-hand comments from everyone on Earth who has, San Francisco is cleaner, kinder, more tolerant, more affordable, and maybe easier to get around in.

For me, the one and only attraction of New York City is that you're going to live there. And you are. I am not trying to talk you out of it, Sarah-Katherine. I'm only trying to persuade you not to go alone.

If you do, you'll kick the Big Apple's core, and I'll try to follow, hoping your invitation doesn't expire while I keep trying to save up the required scratch.

Your friend wherever, —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

I've been putting in 12-hour days. Since I do a lot of my work on the computer, I'm dizzy and have a headache by evening, and my eyes are getting so hopeless that I can't read easily at times.
I've got this big floater in my left eye that insists on drifting squarely in my line of sight, and my right eye is good at long distance (it's the one that was injured) but doesn't do so well close up.
Nearsighted in my left eye with a brown blob, farsighted in the right, night blind, crotchety, curmudgeonly misanthropic and forty-six.
— Paul Roasberry
Littleton CO

Your mind is 20/20, though. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

The holidays (hollow days) were a dismal disaster, as usual. They sent me into a depression I'm still crawling out of…
— Barbara Cooper
San Rafael CA

♦ ♦ ♦

When I examine all the reasons I so frequently travel long distances, the bottom line is probably the simple luxury of being alone.
When I'm in Prague, I always book a room with families that only speak Czech, German, or Russian. When I pull into a railway station accommodations booth, they always ask, "Would you prefer a room with a family that speaks English?" and I say NO! It's worked out real well.
—Sam Cucchiara
always on the road

♦ ♦ ♦

I'll probably wind up getting Alzheimer's Disease or Parkinson's Disease or some shit like that, so I'll be perfectly honest with you, Doug — I'm not really planning on living much past 40 anyway. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of growing old.
—Matt Frisbee
The Frisian Journal
Corpus Christi TX

I dunno, Mr Matt. Growing old, feeble in mind and body, and becoming an all-expenses-paid ward of the state? That is my highest aspiration. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

"Put a pretty woman in a short skirt, and show me any man who's not hoping for a breeze, and it's gotta be a gay man."
That made me laugh, and though it describes my desires now, back in my active political days I would've been appalled by this sentiment. Perhaps it was all a repression of natural instincts, but I had no desire to sneak glimpses at women's bodies. I was the perfect feminist male, interested only in a woman's intelligence and personality, and boy did this ever get me laid a lot!
—Paul Kazee
FALaFal
Brooklyn

I repress my natural instincts by not openly ogling woman, never drooling if I can help it, and keeping my filthy thoughts to myself. I am a feminist male, but that's not even why — it's just good manners. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

Remember me? I wrote from Little, Brown and asked if you had thought about doing a book. Have you thought about it any more or do you still think I'm crazy?
—Jacquie Miller
Little, Brown & Company
New York City

I don't think you're crazy, but also don't think anyone wants to read a book I'd write. And anyway, I don't want to make my words fit onto your shelf. Maybe an editor would improve my many crappy entries, but Little, Brown or any big-time publisher would water down the pages I'm proudest of, and make me tack on a happy ending I don't believe in, so — no hard feelings, but no thanks. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

I don't care much about getting laid. Sex isn't very important to me these days. I've been taking Zoloft (it's a lot like Prozac) for two and a half years, but I'm going off it as of last week, so maybe my sexual interest will rise, so to speak.
I was taking Zoloft for depression, but I've moved back to Oregon where I have friends, so depression doesn't seem to be as much of a problem as when I lived in Seattle…
— Corby Simpson
Salem OR

Welcome home, to your home in Oregon, Corby. Hope your depression goes away and your erection comes back. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

New York City ought to be nuked off the face of the earth. It would be a true service to humanity. Fuck, man, I used to live there, and stress the word "used to." I don't get why you'd move there, why anyone would.
If you're going there for Sarah-Katherine, she must be a hell of a woman. You must love her, huh? I wouldn't go there for Uma fuckin' Thruman.
—Jay Robinson
Cleveland

For Uma Thurman? Neither would I.

For Sarah-Katherine? Maybe, but it'll be a while. —DH

♦ ♦ ♦

Don't apologize for what you think is sappy writing over true love. I've just met a wonderful woman and we have connected like we were made for each other. I too find myself saying sappy things, thinking of her and nothing else, etc, but I've realized that it just means I'm happy, and who cares what it seems like to anyone else? Art may come from suffering, but give me happiness any day.
—Jim Moul
Acworth NH

Congratulations, Jim. If I'm ever in love, I won't apologize for anything sappy, I promise, but I don't think I'll ever be in love. —DH

Josh and I seem to be conducting our friendship mostly via my voice mail and his answering machine, which works out nicely. People call it "phone tag," as if it if's a bad thing, but I love it. I never know what to say into a phone anyway, so this kind of 'conversation' gives me time to think of what to say next.

Today's message from Josh was an amusing but frustrating story about the stupidity of his instructors at the university. I won't try to re-tell or even summarize it, because it's the same story any of us could tell from any day at any job. Just another story of people in charge everywhere, who shouldn't be in charge anywhere.

His story ended with this: "It's the kind of thing that makes you question human nature, or even question the worth of humanity in general. It's the kind of thing that could turn someone into a recluse."

Then there was a long pause, until Josh added, "It's the kind of thing that turns people into people like us, which I guess isn't too bad after all."

♦ ♦ ♦

I don't know what damage makes people into people like me and Josh — people who need to retreat from the onslaught of stupidity that's drowning the world. Sure glad I can recluse myself away from it all sometimes.

And I don't know why the idiots are in charge of everything, but it's one of the most reliable rules of life.

I am done being a young man, working my way toward being old, and I don't know much but this much is clear: Most of "the people in charge" don't know what they're doing, they're doing it poorly, and they know they're doing it poorly, but they don't care.

Most of the systems allegedly set up to help people, tend instead to demean us, keep us down and in our places.

At work, the people who get promoted are rarely the best; they're the people who make the bosses comfortable, which is not at all the same.

At the ballot box, the winners are the candidates who make voters comfortable, almost never a candidate who could address or even acknowledge our societal problems.

There's nothing I'm saying here that you haven't noticed yourself. This ain't earthshaking wisdom.

But how long can it go on like this, with dummies in charge, making an endless series of dumb decisions and always further dumbifying everything?

Tonight I look out the window and wonder where we'll be, you and me and America and the world, after another 25 or 50 years of "the people in charge" not knowing what they're doing, doing it poorly, knowing they're doing it poorly, and not caring.

It was Tuesday when I received and answered Sarah-Katherine's letter, the one where she said,

"I need to leave Seattle soon, very soon. If you can't go with me to New York right away, that's all right. I'll go, and wait for you to come to me…"

She'll probably receive my wishy-washy response today or tomorrow, but another letter from her came in today's mail.

It says she's leaving for New York a week from today, on a scouting expedition. She'll fly there, stay in a hostel, and look around at the various neighborhoods to get a feel for the place, maybe get pricing on possible apartments. She'll only be spending the weekend in New York, then she'll fly back to Seattle to start packing.

And more and more, when she writes "New York" what I'm seeing is "goodbye."

If it takes six more months (it would probably take longer) for me to save up the funds to follow her, jeez, by then she'll be a New York woman. She's not rich, so she'll have to take a tiny room alone, or a shared space with other poor people, and in six months she'll have a circle of friends, and what'll I be? Her fat friend from San Francisco, sleeping on the couch.

See, Sarah-Katherine and I are not a couple. We never have been, never will be. What she's offered me is a friends-with-benefits arrangement, while we're sharing an apartment in New York City. But if I'm not there for six months or probably longer, the benefits probably won't be there either.

She's a very attractive woman. Six months is a long time. If I show up in the summer or autumn, by then she'll almost certainly have a serious boyfriend or girlfriend, depending on which way the winds blow. Philosophically and physically, where would I fit in?

I'm not sure there'd even be a couch for me, for more than a few days. I'd be in a new city where I'd only know one person, who might well have no room in her life or apartment for me. She might be involved with someone else, and maybe having tea with me on Tuesdays.

And by having tea with me, I mean just that — having tea.

I am quite fond of Sarah-Katherine, and I'd love to have tea with her any time, any place, but I'm not sure about moving across the country to have tea with her, so it might be time to give this whole daydream some serious reconsideration.

Woke up too late for a shower, and I needed one. The accepted standard is once daily, but I usually shower twice weekly. It was time, though, but there was no time, so instead I stripped and stood at the sink, lathered and rinsed my smelly and itchy genitals and arm pits, washed my face in the leftover suds, and now I'm daisy fresh.

♦ ♦ ♦

From my perspective, the fight started when Midget the vendor appeared at the corner, yelling at a hairbob man, "You hit her! You hit her!"

Midget is about six-foot-six, very muscled and wild-eyed, while the man he was screaming at stands maybe five-foot-eight, skinny as a stick-man. This is a mismatch that wouldn't have been sanctioned by the World Wrestling Federation, but if Stickman hit a woman it's OK with me if someone dismantles him.

"But I didn't hit her," Stickman yelled. "She took my acid while I was homeless, and I took it back, but that's all I did! I never hit her!" So the defendant pled not guilty, but the Court of Telegraph Avenue moves swiftly. Midget kept coming at Stickman, so Stickman started running, but he didn't get far.

Midget swung three times, and after that a dozen other vendors encircled them trying to pull Midget off and dang it, blocking my view, so I can't give you a blow-by-blow account.

The action was over after half a minute, but the two men, big and little, could still be heard yelling at each other. From the yelling, I've ascertained that the woman Stickman allegedly struck is Midget's "ex-old lady."

Nobody but Stickman and Midget's ex can say what actually happened, but from my seat on the jury, I believe some justice was delivered on the Ave.

Maybe that's better than involving the police and what's laughably called the justice system. Since the original dispute involved drugs, and the guy I've called Stickman is what some call an "illegal alien," of course cops and courts aren't even an option.

♦ ♦ ♦

There was also a mild incident at the marijuana information booth. The man who runs that table — I know his name, but I've forgotten it — brought his dog today, and when he wasn't looking the dog ate a brownie, maybe two.

The animal must've been confused, maybe frightened? The whole afternoon, the man kept the dog in his lap, petting it, saying soothing words.

Knotted up inside, I woke up at 3:00 or so this ayem and had to take a dump. Now, usually when you gotta go you gotta go, and I had to go, but this time it wouldn't go. I sat and grunted for half an hour, pushing so much and so hard that I got sweaty, and then finally, nothing happened. But the urgentness subsided so I went back to bed, too exhausted to sleep, and read a boring zine for an hour until slowly fading away.

Twice more I woke up and took a seat in the john, but twice more the mission was unaccomplished. I needed to poop but I'd tried and couldn't, so finally I rolled the cart to work on the Ave.

Once open for business, I went for a cup of coffee, as much for its laxative effects as for the caffeine, but nothing brought things to the dropping point.

This is not the way my bowels usually work. Sometimes there's an hour's notice, and sometimes it's more immediate, but getting urgent signals, getting no results, and then getting no more signals — that's highly irregular, so to speak. All morning and afternoon nothing would budge, nor did I even have an urge to try. I simply didn't have to go to the bathroom, except a few times to pee. What is this dark curse on my bowels?

♦ ♦ ♦

A man and woman walked toward my fish stand, and they were young, white, well-dressed. I heard only the last few words the woman said as she approached: "...the man who sells the fish."

"I am the man who sells the fish," I said, with a salesman's smile.

"You're Doug the fish guy?" she asked, and I froze. I'm Doug in the zine, but I don't wear a name tag, and on the Avenue I'm someone else, OK?

We all have our walls, and mine are tall, with few doors. The only people who'd know me as Doug are a few other vendors on the Ave, and a few people who know the real me.

"No," I said quickly, "Doug took the day off." I am not on the Avenue to interact with zine readers. I don't like meeting strangers unexpectedly, especially unexpected strangers who've read the most intimate details of my life. "Is there anything I can help you with?" I asked, blankly, or trying to be blank.

"Oh," she said, "damn," with a disappointed look on her face. "He writes a funny zine," she explained, to her companion and to me.

"What's a zine?" I asked, still trying to be blank, to say what someone blank would say.

She looked at me, but didn't answer. Probably she didn't believe my lie that I wasn't me. I do bear a striking resemblance to the character of 'Doug', as described in the zine.

She kept looking at me, and at the table, at things I've described on the table, like the Permit to Place Object on Sidewalk, which must be and was conspicuously posted, and the magnet display that's actually a fireplace screen, and my boss's poetry zine What Lesbians Do, and of course, all the blasphemous fish.

She knew this was the fish stand, and knew I'm the guy from the zine. Finally she smiled and said, "Naaah, you're the guy from the zine," like enough of this kidding around.

I was not kidding around. "Dunno what the fuck you're on about, lady. Would you like to buy a fish?" Still she stared at me. "Because if you don't want to buy a fish, it's time you leave."

At that her smile disappeared, and she looked like I'd insulted her. I hadn't, but that was next on the agenda if she didn't leave.

Too slowly, she and her companion walked away, and she turned back to look at me as she left. The look on her face said she didn't understand, so I am going to explain it to you now, lady:

I write about my life. I sell the writings for $3 a month, but I do not sell tickets to the life itself. You are not invited to intrude wherever you see me.

Today was the fourth time someone's approached me like that, someone who thinks I'm Agatha Christie dropping clues, and takes my writing as an invitation to find me.

I never should've written that I sell fish on Telegraph Avenue. I should've obscured things, maybe written that I sell buttons or bows or something, anything but fish. It's made me too easy to find.

Pretty sure she wasn't Marcia David Chapman. She only wanted to say, "Gosh, I like your zine," like people sometimes say in postcards. I like the postcards. I want people to like the zine, but no saying hello.

Jesus H Fucking Christchild. I have written and published this before, but maybe not plainly enough, so again: If you want to meet me, drop me a damned card in the mail, or leave a message on my voice mail. Maybe I'll be willing. I've done it before. Your odds are better if you offer to buy me lunch.

Your odds are much, much worse if you simply ambush me, and that's what today was, an ambush. I am massively introverted, I don't like meeting people unexpectedly, don't want to talk about my zine while I'm on Telegraph, and I can't talk about the zine on Telegraph — it would blow my cover.

Do not to approach me on Telegraph, capeesh? I've written that before, and yet numbskulls and knuckleheads approach me on Telegraph. If this continues happening, the next time someone says "Are you Doug from Pathetic Life?" my response might not be so polite.

♦ ♦ ♦

On a much happier note, Brenda was back on the Ave today, close enough that we talked, but not close enough that she overheard the stalking incident. We chatted pleasantly, and it is rare indeed for me to feel as relaxed around someone as quickly as I have with Brenda.

Two young men came between our conversation, wearing colorful sarongs and too much lipstick, handing out invitations to something called "Journey into the Caverns of Pan," which says it's "a rare San Francisco performance by Frank Moore." They rambled on about what to expect at a Frank Moore show — strange incantations, maybe nudity, and servings of a drug they said "looks and tastes exactly like water." It's the sort of dippy dementia that makes San Francisco San Francisco.

Of course I'd never attend, but sometimes I surprise me and do things I'd never do. I've heard of Moore, and seen flyers for his other "rare" San Francisco performances. Some years back, I read a copy of his zine, The Cherotic (r)Evolutionary, but frankly, Frank, it bored me.

Then again, I'm not the man I was a few years ago, or ever last week. Perhaps Mr Moore is better appreciated in person. So when Brenda said that "Journey into the Caverns of Pan" sounded absurdly interesting, I said I'd go if she was going, and now it's a date.

I've definitely got to wash my clothes before this big whatever-it-is or she'll smell me, but tickets are just five bucks, and if it gets boring or awkward or scary, we can always split.

♦ ♦ ♦

After work, Josh and I went to dinner at Hong Kong Villa, on University Way. We had vegetarian pot stickers, which were sumptuous and scrumptious, plus a shared plate of prawns and garden vegetables (quick, name a vegetable that isn't a "garden vegetable"). The rice was kinda clumpy, but on request they brought free refills until we were stuffed with clumpy rice.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then we went to the Grand Lake for Twelve Monkeys, and pretty soon Bruce Willis was wearing a plastic suit exploring ancient ruins and it looked interesting, so of course, that's when I felt the stirring return from this morning. Soon it became a stabbing, and I climbed over other people down the row and jogged into the lobby, and looked around. I don't come to the Grand Lake very often, and had to ask a pretty usher where's the men's room?

"Upstairs, to the left," she said, but she lied. Upstairs to the left is the ladies' room. I was bursting at the seams, ready to unbuckle my britches and leave a Paul Bunyan log on the carpet. Then I saw the sign lit up far down the hall, "men's room." It was upstairs, and to the right.

I darted into the only open stall and before I'd finished sitting down a pungent rope the length of Indiana Jones' whip began to emerge. It may have been the most evidence I've ever left behind, but it took mere moments. Oh, I felt so much better. Wiped, flushed, and I'd only missed a few minutes of the movie.

Sometimes nature calls twice, so I took a seat by myself in the back of the auditorium, so as not to be stepping on people's toes the whole evening. After twenty minutes or so and a second trip upstairs and to the right, I returned to my original seat beside Josh.

He whispered the plot points he thought I'd missed, but I hadn't missed much. Indy's whip had cracked twice, but fast. Despite a low-key need to return upstairs afterwards, the film was fine all the way.

Oh yeah, the film? Willis plays a forced-volunteer time traveler from our disease-wracked future, sent back to the 1990s to trace and prevent the beginnings of an epidemic that's killed 99% of humanity and left Brad Pitt kinda crazy.

It's good science fiction, with a high-IQ script, a goosebumpy sense of wonder, and it briefly touches on animal rights and psychiatric abuse. It made me think more than I'm used to thinking, especially trying to understand the ending, but with help from Josh I got it. There's a point to it, and I recommend it, but go to the bathroom first.

♦ ♦ ♦

Before signing off for the night, let me reiterate once more what I've already iterated. Thank you for buying this zine, but I do not want to meet anyone by surprise.

You are not the exception to this rule.

There are no exceptions to this rule.

You're why I carry mace.

Do not approach me on Telegraph, or anywhere, OK?

Is it Monday? That means I'm supposed to be working at Black Sheets.

Stayed up too late yesterday, and woke up too early today, but I squeezed myself into a pair of pants and onto a train, then a bus, and worked my shift in more of a fog than usual.

"Sleep deprivation," I explained after my fourth or fifth yawn at the office.

Then I answered the phone when it rang, did some proofreading for the magazine, tidied and vacuumed the dungeon, and packaged orders for the magazine and books we sell — an ordinary day in the porn industry.

On my way out, Bill gifted me a big bag of foodstuffs, leftovers from the various Christmas parties, ours and others, held at the party house that also houses the office. What's this? Graham crackers, Jello and jam and cottage cheese past its pull date, and also et cetera. Thank you, Bill. I'm gonna be eating fine for the next few days.

♦ ♦ ♦

Like Blanche DuBois, I have always relied on the kindness of strangers. Bill's not a stranger, but he's stranger than most.

If anyone out there is feeling kind, someone's relying on you.

♦ ♦ ♦

Dinner was graham crackers, crumbled and mixed with Jello and jam and cottage cheese, and eaten with a spoon. Not healthy and too high in calories, but it was yummy and filling.

Then I belched twice, and sat in this chair, looked out that window, and wondered at it all. I'm renting a room in a house full of people I didn't know a year ago, and barely know now.

Out the window is California, where I know perhaps a dozen people, and most of them know me, but none of them know most of me. Most of me, I keep to myself.

The people who'd known most of me for most of my life are up north, in Seattle. I left there and left them, came here instead, because I wanted something beyond the same old same old, every day, for every year of my life and then a pine box.

And what I was looking for, I've found — a place unknown to me, different but not so different as to be scary, and noticeably more open to the strange and the stranger. It's a place freer, and happier, where I laugh more than worry.

Sometimes I do miss the people left behind, but never yet the life. This life is better. This is where I want to be, and more to the point, who I want to be, instead of what someone expects me to be.

So who am I, anyway? I'm a guy who does what he wants to do, with no permissions asked, no compromises, no explanations, and no apologies.

Mostly I keep to myself, a friend who accepts and never judges me. I write a zine, and read dozens of other zines. I go to the movies, and read books. For fun I take long train rides alone.

I got problems, sure — no romance, no savings, no health insurance — but there's graham cracker slumgullion, and plenty of time to sit here and stare out the window.

It's raining, so I'm typing this to the rhythmic ping p-p-p-ping ping p-p-p-ping of six drips into six buckets on my bedroom floor. The rain makes me think of Seattle again, where it rains a lot, and of one particular friend left behind when I left.

From the time he and I were six years old, going to the same Sunday School, Bruno was my best and only friend. I was a loner even then, so I had no friends at school, and Bruno and I didn't go to the same school. His family lived in the city, while mine was in whitebread suburbia. But he was as friendless at his school as I was at mine.

At church, though, we were a matched set. And after church, almost every Sunday, either Bruno came home with my family, or I followed him home to his, and we'd spend the afternoon together, until evening vespers at the church, and after that we'd go to our separate families.

Thinking back on it this morning, I wonder where we'd be, Bruno and me, if fate hadn't brought us to the same church, the same Sunday School class. Without him, I would've been completely friendless all through my childhood. Nobody to talk to, ever. Nobody to laugh with, play with, be myself with.

There were occasionally kids at school that I could pal around with for a month at a time, but they were the new kids, who hadn't yet figured out what a dork I was. When they figured it out, I was alone at recess again.

Oh, and for a while in (I think it was) fourth grade, there was a retarded kid who hung out with me. Guess he was a friend, though what we could talk about was always limited, and then he got sent to a special classroom, and I hardly ever saw him any more. So almost exclusively, my one and only friend was Bruno, on Sundays only.

Come adolescence, Bruno and I were both hopelessly awkward with girls, so there was never any chance for some dame to come between us.

For me, everything changed when I got a job — working with people my age who didn't know my certified outcast status at school, I suddenly had plural friend_s_, and even lost my virginity (cue the applause sign, but I'll spare you the story).

Bruno wasn't as adept at reinventing myself, and as of last summer, the last time we saw each other, he said he was still a virgin.

And that's not the only difference between us. He still goes to church, and now he teaches a Sunday School class, and he's serious about his Christianity. Me, I'm an atheist. He believes abortion is murder and ought to be illegal, which I believe is ridiculous. He's a Republican, and I'm certainly not; there's no political party where I fit in. He works for the city government, while I'm either an anarchist or close to it. He's an avid collector of old LPs, but I have no interest in music. He tapes all his favorite TV shows, and I don't even have a TV.

Is there anything we have in common, besides thirty years of friendship? We both love movies, but rarely the same movies. Whatever we talk about, we're certain to disagree.

Yet when we disagree, it's always fun, never furious, and Bruno is still my best friend. Do other people have friendships like that? Do you?

Bruno and I disagree about almost everything, and adamantly, so we should be enemies, but it's the opposite. I always want to hear what he thinks, tell him what I think, and we engage photon torpedoes and rock-em sock-em robots and argue about all of it, but as friends. We'll never change our minds, either of us, and we'll never take it personally.

Peel away the politics and religion and opinions about everything, and there's nobody I know who's so much the same as me. And the next time I see him, whenever that might be, we'll hug and laugh and start arguing again. He's the best friend a guy could ever hope to have.

I ought to drop Bruno a post card.

♦ ♦ ♦

"Come to the CopWatch office, any Tuesday after 3:30," they said, so again today I tried. I wrapped my socks in old bread wrappers, put on my holy shoes and purple parka, and trudged through the rain to the CopWatch office again.

I got there at about 3:45, and again the place was locked, so I waited in the rain until a few minutes past 4:00.

♦ ♦ ♦

On the walk back home, I was joined by Danny, the amnesiac homeless guy whose arrest around Christmas was the last straw that convinced me to join CopWatch. Which I will, one of these Tuesdays, but not today.

To my surprise and delight, Danny almost remembered me — first time that's happened. We've introduced ourselves to each other half a dozen times, even ate lunch together once, but Danny doesn't have much memory and when I said "Hi, Danny," he looked at me and smiled and said… nothing, for a minute.

"You're— wait, don't tell me— You sell fish, right? And your name is…"

"Doug," I said when I couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Yeah, that's right! How ya doin', Doug?"

We talked for a few blocks, and then he went west in the rain, and I went east.

♦ ♦ ♦

Back home, I called CopWatch a few times over the rest of the afternoon, but kept getting a recording that said the office is open every Tuesday afternoon from 3:30 until 6:00. At 6:00 I stopped calling, but I'm stubborn so I'll try again next Tuesday.

And I'm not even annoyed. More like, amused. They're a volunteer organization, and sometimes something comes up.

Actually, it's perfect for a lazy activist like me. I get to feel like I'm doing my but to help the cause, even if I'm doing nothing but trying every Tuesday.

Breakfast was a big bowl of graham cracker slumgullion, as I read a letter from Sarah-Katherine. It had been well-shredded by Lugosi the dog, but was still legible.

"In case you haven't noticed," she writes, "I'm a headstrong, willful girl. My friends and family all eventually discover that attempting to change my mind is futile. And I want to get off the West Coast."

It's her answer to my letter a week ago, when I'd dumbly asked her to reconsider moving to New York. Dadgummit, I knew this was coming, and now it's here. She's moving to New York without me.

♦ ♦ ♦

Took a long walk and thought things over, and it's my own fault, of course. New York is her destination, always has been, and she's been square about it all the way.

She's leaving, and I'm invited to follow, and maybe I will but I don't see how, and it won't be soon, and more thoughts, and more. And as usual when I think about things, there was no epiphany, no eureka moment, no answer to what I was wondering.

I understand her wanting to leave, absolutely. When I wanted out of Seattle, I left, came to San Francisco, and nobody could've talked me out of it short of handcuffs. So I have nothing but respect for Sarah-Katherine leaving, and knowing where she's going.

When I left, though, I'd spent a couple of years saving up a fat nest egg. There's no nest egg these days, and to be honest, no great desire to leave San Francisco.

♦ ♦ ♦

When I got home from the walk, I wrote a reply to Sarah-Katherine's letter, wishing her the very best of luck in NYC.

And dinner was another big bowl of graham cracker slumgullion, and that was the 13,700-somethingth day of my pathetic life.

In a dream, I was walking through Seattle's Central District, the mostly-minority neighborhood where you'll find the mostly-white church my family attended all the years I was growing up.

My mom still goes there, and so do my buddies Bruno and Leon and Stu. Attendance has been dwindling for years, though, as the old folks die off, and the young folks move away. The sanctuary seats about 600, and another couple of hundred could squeeze into the balcony, but there's only a few dozen people most Sundays.

The church has been at that corner since the late 1800s, when the neighborhood was of quite a different hue, but the church remains white. Black people do attend now and again, for a few weeks or months. The congregation isn't particularly racist — and hands are shaken and I think they're sincerely welcoming — but like a lot of old white people, the church's elders are uncomfortable around the 'coloreds', and I imagine the blacks folks can sense it, so they drift away.

It's a wonderful old building, though, full of cavernous, rarely-used rooms, enormous exedrae, musty memories, and forgotten back hallways where months might go by with nobody walking. When I was a kid, sometimes I climbed into a hidden loft above the sanctuary, where I could make unseen faces at the preacher and nobody's see me.

In my dream, the now-adult me decided to explore those neglected parts of the building, but the layout kept changing. There was a new, twisting passageway in the back of the sanctuary, where the nursery used to be, and I sorta got lost back there.

A staircase leads down to the kitchen, and I thought I'd go downstairs and raid the fridge, but instead of a kitchen I walked into a belly dance class, taught by Mrs Amos. She was a particularly fuddy-duddy seventy-something spinster who thought pre-marital kissing was a sin, and who, in the real world, died twenty years ago.

Suddenly a bell rang, like the bell between classes at school, and people came pouring into the hallways — people I remembered from eighteen years of going to church there. These were people I haven't seen or even thought about in years — an old friend of my father's, an ex-pastor's cute daughter, and a grumpy old cuss who'd always hollered at me for running in the foyer, even when I wasn't running. And a hundred others, and oh Christ, there's my mother!

I knew she'd nag at me for not calling, so I quickly ducked into the belly dancing room, hoping she hadn't seen me, and though the church blueprints would prove it's impossible, the door behind the belly dancers opened directly onto the raised stage in the sanctuary.

The pastor came over and took me by the hand, led me to the pulpit, and introduced me as the guest speaker. Every pew was filled (which at this church, happens only at Easter and Christmas), and I was supposed to preach a sermon, but had nothing prepared.

But unlike the typical dream, there was no stage fright. Hell, no. This was an opportunity that could only come in a dream — to speak the truth in a place where the truth can never be spoken.

I leaned into the microphone, coughed for clarity, and said, "There is no God and it's all bullshit!"

My voice echoed back to me, as the congregation sat open-mouthed and shocked, so I continued: "Jesus, your Lord and Savior? He died 2,000 years ago! Give it a few days of mourning and get on with your lives, because he's dead and he's not coming back!"

The multitudes rose as one to smite me, so I quickly exited stage left, down a hallway to a back door that opened on the parking lot, and the 7-Eleven behind the church, because I desperately needed a Big Gulp.

But again, the architecture was all wrong. Instead of the parking lot, the hallway led only to more hallways, and with every turn I was more and more lost in a building that seemed much larger and more confusing than the church I grew up in.

And then things got crazier and more confused, and I think I got shot in the face by the church's gun- and Bible-toting security guard, who after shooting me said he'd pray for me.

Sorry I can't remember much about how the dream ended, but that's the nature of dreams. When I woke up I touched my face, happy to find it was still there and unshot, unbloodied.

Still wanted a Big Gulp, but they cost money so I settled for a tall glass of vaguely rusted tap water, as I typed up everything I could remember from the dream.

And now I'm sitting here, thinking about that old church and the people who went there. I'm not a believer any more if I ever was, but it was a decent church, full of decent people. It was never one of those Republican hellholes of hate.

And what a great building, too. If I had a million bucks or whatever, it's been an occasional daydream to buy that old castle of Christ, hold a big clearance sale on crosses and hymnals, turn the Sunday School rooms into a homeless shelter, give the giant kitchen and dining room to Food Not Bombs, and maybe turn the sanctuary and balcony into an old-style movie palace. Our first booking would be The Last Temptation of Christ, since it angered the pastor so.

And also, sign me up for those belly dance classes in the basement.

As I rode the escalator up from BART into downtown Oakland, a remnant of food or smog snagged something in my throat and I needed to cough.

Being me and in a what-the-hell frame of mind, I exaggerated the coughing until it sounded like death with phlegm. It's something to do for fun, like overdoing a sneeze or a belch, just to bother strangers so's I could chuckle inside at their expressions of disgust.

After I'd wracked my body with one real and eight phony coughs, a messy-looking bum on the sidewalk said to me, "You OK, sir?"

I am rarely in a mood to talk, especially to some homeless guy, so I said, "Fish, fish," same as I say all day at the fish stand, though Berkeley was miles away and I was fishless.

"Here," he said, reaching into the pocket of his once-bluejeans, now grimy, ripped, and stained. I heard a few coins jingling in his pocket and wondered, was this guy gonna give me some spare change, like he thinks I'm worse off than he is? Briefly, I evaluated what I was wearing, and indeed I looked sloppy like I always do, but c'mon, not homeless-level sloppy.

Instead of a quarter, though, he handed me a Hall's cough drop. I stopped, unwrapped, it, popped it into my mouth. Who'd expect a glimpse of kindness on the hard streets of downtown? "Mmm, menthol," I said, and I hate menthol cough drops, but I added, "Thanks, mister."

"Hey, sir, before you go," he said, and here it comes, I thought. The pitch — he's gonna ask for spare change.

"Yeah?" I said, gruff.

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Depends," I answered, but the cough drop was doing me good, and I knew I'd give him something if he asked nicely. But also, Get on with it already. I was going to see a movie, and this guy was slowing me down.

"Just keep smiling," he said. "The world needs more smiles."

I hadn't been smiling, so I couldn't "keep smiling." His line made me smile, though, so I gave him two dimes, but kept two quarters.

Studying his ugly bedraggled face, I wondered for a moment what multiple hells that man had been through to land him on Broadway in rags. Then I walked away, and my smile vanished, because I could see a long line at the theater.

♦ ♦ ♦

Way, way too many people were clumped under the Paramount's brilliant colorful flashing neon marquee. The crowd was flowing in, but the line of ticket-holders stretched down the street, around the corner, and around the next corner.

I never do first-run opening night at the movies, so I can't remember ever being turned away at the ticket window, but the sign said, "Sold out, sorry." The attraction was Billy Wilder's Sabrina, for one night only.

Well, that's disappointing, but not a great tragedy. I've seen Sabrina before, and it's excellent, but seeing anything in a packed theater is a drag. You're scrunched up next to strangers, many of whom talk and crinkle their candy wrappers and cough like I'd coughed, only for reals.

Selling out the Paramount is remarkable, though. It's a beautiful, meticulously restored and maintained movie palace, and it's huge — more than 3,000 seats. And they sold every one of them, with hundreds turned away, for a movie that's older than I am, and easily available on video and laserdisc.

People are willing to pay good money, to see a very good movie in a very nice theater, so why does Hollywood keep making shitty movies, and screening them in plasterboard shoebox auditoriums?

♦ ♦ ♦

Walking back toward BART, that homeless guy, Mr Menthol, was leaning on a wall looking miserable and holding his hand out, palm up. Someone gave him a coin, and he said, "Thank you, sir."

Hearing that, it occurred to me is that the homeless are the only people left who habitually say 'sir' and 'ma'am'. Bums are America's last bastion of good manners. Go shopping at Safeway, and no matter how much you spend, you can't buy a 'thank you' at the register.

Well, I appreciate good manners, and I was still sucking the cough drop he'd given me, and I'd brought five bucks to buy my ticket, so why not help the distilled beverage industry? I put my five ones into his open hand, and he smiled so big I counted all his teeth — seven.

"Thank you, Sir," he said, frightfully loud, and offered to buy me a beer. I declined, of course, and walked on. I'd come for a movie, not to make friends.

Today I was selling fish on Telegraph Ave, not far from Cody's bookstore, when what to my wondering eyes should appear? A nondescript late-model mid-sized car pulled up and parked half a block from the store, a few yards down the street from me and my fish stand.

Two men stepped out of the car. One of them was barrel-chested and muscular-looking, like somebody's bodyguard. The other man was bookish, mostly bald, with a face I'd seen somewhere before.

They walked into the store, with the big guy kinda blocking a good view of the little guy, and soon murmurs from a few nearby vendors told who we'd seen. Salman Rushdie has a new book out, and he was presumably making an appearance at the bookstore… though I hadn't heard any publicity about it, understandably.

I haven't read any of Rushdie's writing, or at least not successfully. Tried once and failed, but anyone who questions or mocks any organized religion is OK by me. By nature I'm pro-free thought and free speech and anti-death threats from dipshits.

♦ ♦ ♦

Among the many street characters trying to separate you from your money on the Avenue, there's sometimes a guy who juggles sticks all day. I don't know (because I don't care) whether he passes his hat for donations after the entertainment or whether he's selling the batons as souvenirs; that's his business.

He walked and juggled and I paid no attention as he passed behind my table, and then I guess he slipped or farted, and a wayward stick came down on the back of my head.

I didn't know what had hit me until the guy was standing over me, apologizing. "Sorry, man, it got away from me…" Too lightheaded to be angry, I simply waved him away. I wasn't gonna go for the juggler.

Bud pun, but it's a true story.

♦ ♦ ♦

A little later, I was fourth in line to use the urinal at the bar up the street, and Very Abdul was third. He's always a talker, some days about ordinary things, and other days he tends to rant about what's moral and what's not. Today he was all about football and other sorta normal stuff, but still, I discreetly didn't mention that Salman Rushdie was a block away.

As we waited our turn to pee, Very Abdul pointed out some graffiti on the wall, and said it reminded him of New York, so I mentioned that I'd been thinking of moving there. Turns out he's a native New Yorker, who moved to the Bay Area in the mid-1980s, and being Very Abdul, he had an opinion.

"It's not just three thousand miles away," he said as we peed, "it's a hundred years ago. It's a very racist place." He looked over at me in the next stall to make sure I was paying attention, and I was, so he continued. "Out here in California, there's racists too, but they stand out from the crowd. Back there, they're the crowd, just a fact of daily life."

He zipped up and continued from the sink, "And black or white or any color, most everyone there is full of hate and rage. Here, nobody cares enough to hate you."

I zipped up and followed him out, skipping the sink, and midway up the stairs he asked me, "Why would you want to move to New York?"

"Everyone keeps asking me that," I said, and we said no more as we walked back to our stands.

On Telegraph Ave, I worked next to Umberto today. Are we friends? No, but I like working near him, and he doesn't seem to mind working around me.

We had a good laugh at a couple of college kids who looked at his table, with its dozens of anarchist bumper stickers—

"No-one is free when others are oppresses."

"Against abortion? Have a vasectomy."

"The religious right is neither."

"I'd rather be smashing imperialism."

"There's no government like no government."

"If you want peace, work for justice."

"U.S. out of my uterus."

"The death penalty is dead wrong."

You get the idea, right? It's fairly obvious that Umberto is an anarchist, running a very political table on the Avenue.

But one of the college students asked, "Do you have the sticker that says 'Star Fleet Academy'?"

And no, the kid wasn't kidding.

♦ ♦ ♦

My day was a little light on the ordinary dumdums, but an old geezer with a slight Southern accent came up and said, "I want me a dally fish."

I wasn't even being an ass on purpose when I said, "Huh?" You want a dally fish? A fish that dawdles, just loiters around all day doing nothing?

Had to ask him to repeat himself before guessing that he wanted a Salvador Dali fish. It's a slightly surrealist fish sticker, as you'd expect, but the geezer didn't even get the joke. He asked, "What does d-a-l-i mean, anyway?"

♦ ♦ ♦

Several of us chipped in to buy Gerry a cheeseburger and fries and beer for lunch. He's awfully scrawny, so that might be the best meal he's had in ages.

What's the special occasion? Tomorrow Gerry reports to jail, to spend thirty days paying his debt to a sick society for his crime — vending without a license.

His table is full of pro-pot literature, political petitions, and a few bumper stickers and very political books. Obviously it's a free speech table, First Amendment, same as mine only more so. The difference is that Gerry doesn't have a license or city permit, so he's going to jail.

What's the point? What lesson is a homeless or near-homeless street character like Gerry supposed to learn from a month in jail?

And who's protected? He's not a burglar or thief, never hurt anyone. He's just a guy who doesn't have the money to buy a vendor's license.

His real crime, of course, is what his table is about — marijuana mostly, and left-wing ideology. That's what's being punished. And it's honest capitalism, trading money for merchandise, only the city didn't get its cut, and that can't be allowed.

♦ ♦ ♦

Brenda wasn't on the Ave today, or if she was I didn't see her. That's odd. She's usually there, every Sunday, and despite forecasts of rain it was a warm, sunny day.

Well, she has my phone number, but I don't have hers. If she calls this week, we'll go to that Frank Moore event on Saturday, and if she doesn't call, I'll stay home alone, like every other night of my life.

Riding BART into San Francisco, I sat opposite two casually dressed young white men, both wearing baseball caps. One of their caps said "NARC," and the other said "FBI."

From their sloppy clothes and stick-thin builds, they were clearly not lawmen, and the caps are a joke. Ha ha fucking ha.

Why not wear a cap that says "NAZI" or "MAFIA" or "EXECUTIONER"? That would be the same joke, same punchline, and just as funny, which is not funny at all.

♦ ♦ ♦

At Civic Center Station, the escalator and the elevator were both out of order. That's a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and also a pain in the ass.

I had to climb the stairs up from the subway station. Take one look at me, and you'd know that I don't want to walk up a very, very long stairway. Plodding up me sweaty and grumpy, and then there was oncoming traffic.

The stairway is wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side, or two of me, so there was plenty of room. A few other people were going up and down, but the two that matter to this story were me going up, and a young skinny white man coming down. He was following an older white man, who apparently wasn't walking fast enough, so the skinny guy maneuvered into the middle of the stairway to pass him.

This put him on a collision course with me. There would not be enough room for our bodies to clear each other unless I turned sideways against the handrail.

This, however, I will not do. I will and do assert my right to exist in public, and even when there's no painted yellow line, there are lanes for traffic, and he'd come into my lane.

So I continued climbing, did not turn sideways, and instead stiffened my torso for a firm body block. He had time to see me coming, and he did see me. We made eye contact, but he foolishly assumed I'd yield.

Instead I continued going up, he continued coming down, and wham. He bashed into me so hard that he lost his footing and crumpled. It looked like it hurt, and there was loud swearing.

I kept walking, but when I reached the top of the stairs the sound of "What the fuck is your problem?" was too tempting, so I turned back to look and smile and wave.

♦ ♦ ♦

Working at the sex magazine, it was a little embarrassing to be proofreading the galleys for the next issue of Black Sheets, and find Bill's review of my Pathetic Life.

Gads, he says nothing but nice things about my lousy little zine, even finds philosophical meaning I hadn't known was there. I wanted to red-line the whole review. I don't take compliments well.

♦ ♦ ♦

Steve Omlid, office manager at Black Sheets, is a 40-year-old 'theater kid', and he invited me to a play he's directing. He said he's proud that it has two songs with the word "fuck" in the title.

"So it's a musical," I asked, "like Disney's The Lion King?"

"Yeah, it's exactly like The Lion King," Steve explained, "but with a lot more dick."

Well, I love musicals, and it's a freebie, and Steve knows I'm antisocial so he assured me there'd be no schmoozing or socializing before or after. "Two tickets if you want 'em," he said, holding them out to me.

"There's nobody I'd bring," I said, "but I'll take one ticket." So on Wednesday night, I'm going to see a live musical, alone, with dick.

Today was a day for doing dang near nothing. I answered some mail, sent out some sample issues, and worked on recent diary entries.

Yeah, there's work involved in writing this crap. Nobody would want to read the first draft of any day of my life, full of typos and dullness and just the facts, bub. Well, the facts remain the same, but the application of a little rewrite rouge is where the real writing happens.

After a few hours of that, it began to bore me, so I took a walk, ate some cinnamon rolls, had a long nap, and woke up with doubts about all of this.

I am a big fat failure, you know — and I know it too. Writing about being a big fat failure doesn't make the big fat failures any less big or fat or failures.

The guy writing this is not old yet, but certainly not young. I'm in my late 30s. By my age, most people are married with children, and some kind of career is in progress. They have a house, a car, money in the bank, and plans for a vacation. Maybe most people even believe in something.

I don't. I have none of that, no chance at any of that, and not much desire for any of that.

What do I want? I do not know, so day after day until I die, I make do. I try to keep myself amused and distracted, try to have a good time, and usually do.

Most days, I'm successfully amused and distracted, but if I keep doing what I'm doing what's it going to add up to?

Imagine my obituary — "He was a grumpy fat hermit who lived his life alone, had a good time, and died."

And I can live with that. It sounds sucky because it is, but it's the best option available. Accomplishing something worthwhile? Making a difference? Improving the world? Bah, none of that was ever a possibility. Not for me.

But you know something?

Most of the people I've known who got married, also got divorced. Most people with children seem perpetually exhausted, full of worries about their kids. Most people with a career spend five days every week looking forward to two days off.

Most people with a house and car always seem to be working on one or the other. Most people with money in the bank get bills in the mail. Most people who plan a lovely vacation come home disappointed. And most people who believe in something, it's bullshit what they believe.

I ain't judging. You do what you want to do in the pursuit of happiness, and I hope you find yours. What suits me best is being a big fat failure.

♦ ♦ ♦

And here's my failure for today: For the past two Tuesdays I've gone to CopWatch's office to try signing up, because they keep telling me the office is only open on Tuesday afternoons. But both times it was closed, and I've left a few messages and they keep telling me to show up any Tuesday afternoon.

Today I totally forgot it was Tuesday, so the initiation, orientation, dues, or whatever's supposed to happen some Tuesday won't happen until next Tuesday.

With grapefruit-size holes in the floppy soles of my shoes, I'll admit that the rain all day literally dampened my enthusiasm for seeing Steve's play. But wearing two pair of socks with old breadbags between them, I trudged through the downpour and BARTed into the city.

And the stupidity of BART is astounding. It's a 70-mile electric train set, much of it running underground, but with long stretches of track on or above the surface too — and they didn't take the esoteric concept of rainfall into account when it was designed and built.

Whenever it rains, the trains have to slow down, and wires inevitably get splashed and short out. When it's heavy rain like today, there might as well be no schedule at all.

It's usually half an hour by BART from my place to the city, but today we idled for 18 minutes at Ashby Station, and 23 minutes at MacArthur Station. They explained the delay in an announcement thoroughly garbled and muffled by the inaudible PA system.

♦ ♦ ♦

I'd planned on arriving early enough to grab a few fast-food hamburgers before the play, but instead I got to Theater Rhinoceros soaking wet and grumpy, about five minutes after the show had started.

Once inside, though, after quietly seating myself toward the front, despite being late the play grabbed me quickly.

Out Calls Only is a comedic drama about male hookers, call boys accustomed to having the settings and situations of their business encounters defined by their clients. It's a revelation to them (and to us) when a paid encounter evolves into something more than the mercenary position.

It was too dark in the seating section to take notes, so I can't quote any lines, but there are lots of laughs on the way to a romantic ending. It's all sexy, moving, and over too soon.

Usually I'm a movie guy, because plays are so damned expensive, and whoa, it's a whole 'nother experience to be sitting in the second row, fifteen feet from the stage. The theater is small, so everything is right there, close enough that the actors seem to be looking right into your eyes. I could see the color of their eyes.

Also, one man had a large mole on the side of his penis. As promised by Steve, there's plenty of dick in this play.

It's not really a musical, though. There are several songs, but instead of being belted out like "76 Trombones" they're mostly background music for a few moments between scenes.

Dicks all over the place, though. Everyone in the cast disrobes, and it's an all-male cast. Haven't seen so many penises in one place since high school gym class.

Tonight was the last undress rehearsal; the play opens on Friday, and if it's still playing by the time this zine lands in your mailbox, Doug says you ought to buy two tickets and take your sweetie.

Or take me. I'd love to see it again, but due to my ongoing bankruptcy and the theater's $12

minimum ticket price, that's not happening unless you want to see all those dicks with me.

Please, help support the arts. My voice mail is 415/487-████.

Seeing a play yesterday was all the culture I'll be allowed this month. Got a voice mail from Brenda, backing out of that "rare" Frank Moore performance on Saturday night.

She has a good excuse — family visiting — and anyway, I wasn't wild about an evening event that might stretch late when I've gotta work the next day.

♦ ♦ ♦

Had to work today, too, helping some semi-senior citizen move. He looked to be in his late 50s with all-gray hair, but he didn't yet smell like old people smell, and he was in good enough health to do at least half the schlepping.

Nice enough old coot, and he didn't talk much, which was even nicer.

We carried a lot of boxes to his car, then drove to his new apartment and carried a lot of boxes in, then returned to the old place to load the couch and bed and dresser into the truck, delivered it, and my work day was done.

It was kind of a boring gig. Most gigs are boring. Some are so boring I don't even write about them.

♦ ♦ ♦

Doing anything legal for five bucks an hour will never get me anywhere but where I am. It won't get me to New York. To do that, I'd need a real job.

But I really don't want a real job, doing the same thing five days a week and hating it.

Kinda sucks about New York and Sarah-Katherine. A real job would suck more, though.

♦ ♦ ♦

At home, my flatmate Judith and I were talking in the kitchen as we made our respective meals or snacks, and then somehow we were talking about the Bill of Rights. She thinks it's marvelous. I think it's a swell idea, but not much more.

Actually, what I said was, "The Bill of Rights is mostly bullshit."

She didn't like that, and put down her potholder to argue with me. "Without the Bill of Rights," she said, "you'd have no right to criticize the Bill of Rights or badmouth the United States of America. In many countries, you couldn't even write your zine without being sent to prison."

"Well, yeah," I agreed, "I'm glad America's not as repressive as Commie China or North Korea, but 'better than North Korea' is not a motto that makes my heart swell with pride and patriotism."

She got angrier, said I sounded like a snot-faced adolescent, and I shrugged. In many ways I am a snot-faced adolescent, just twice the age, so I'm like two snot-faced adolescents.

We argued for about five minutes, and I didn't do so well making my point in the kitchen, so I'll try again at the typewriter:

Like the flag, the Bill of Rights is a symbol for lying politicians to huddle around and pretend they give a damn. But what's it mean, really?

Under the Bill of Rights, America had the slaughter of natives, slavery, women as property, internment of Japanese-Americans, and the illegalization of abortion, homosexuality, birth control, alcohol, drugs, and lots of other things I'd call the opposite of freedom.

And jeez, there's no explicitly-stated right to privacy? No right to not be drafted into the military? No right to plant seeds in your back yard? No right to know what your government is doing, when they declare it 'classified'?

You only have freedom to whatever extent the government voluntarily operates within the bounds of those ten amendments. Which isn't all that often.

They're always looking for loopholes, or forgetting that the Bill of Rights exists.

One by one through history, they've nullified each of our ten freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights, with (as yet) the sole exception of the 3rd Amendment — nobody's quartered soldiers in my apartment lately.

When you're denied your rights, your only hope is to take the government to court. That's gonna cost more than you have, and then the reality is that a bunch of black-robed old farts, millionaires most of them, are well-paid by the government to interpret the Constitution, and they usually rule in the government's favor. Funny how that works.

What's lacking most, what makes it all a farce, is that there's no penalty when the government violates the Bill of Rights. Nobody loses their job. Nobody goes to jail.

The Bill of Rights is a lovely piece of idealism, I'll say that. In practice, though, it's crapola, so I have no warm fuzzy feeling for the Bill of Rights.

But I do have warm fuzzies for Judith, so I hope we won't be rerunning this argument when she reads my recap of it in the next issue.

Pushing the cart to Telegraph, the clouds were ominous. Might rain, might not. Either way, though, it was gonna be overcast, and that's usually enough to scare most of the customers away. And also, I just didn't feel like selling fish today, so midway there I stopped and turned around and decided to take the day off.

♦ ♦ ♦

On my way back from almost work, I stopped to scan the headlines in the news racks in front of a store. As always, there's no good news. Health care is still a luxury. Bus and BART service remains spotty. No charity has announced a blow job drive.

As I was reading the Chronicle's front page through the plastic, a banker-type man in an expensive suit said, "Excuse me." I stepped out of the way as he inserted some change into the machine to buy a paper, and then, holding the newsbox open, he looked back at me and said, "Want one?"

"Uh, no," I said, and he shrugged and slammed it shut and walked away. After he'd taken a few steps I had more to say, so I sorta shouted, "If I was gonna steal I'd rob a bank. I wouldn't rip off two quarters from some working stiff who's barely making a living."

He interrupted with a cheery "Fuck you," but stopped and looked at me like he was going to say more.

I took two quarters from my pocket and bought a Chronicle I didn't even want, just to make my point.

He sighed like a hiss, shook his head, and we both walked off in opposite directions with our newspapers.

What makes a person so shitty? It's not stealing from the Chronicle, man. It's stealing from the very low-paid guy who buys the papers and stocks the paperboxes.

That man's suit was worth more than my life, and he wanted to steal 50¢.

♦ ♦ ♦

Lugosi the dog was shredding the mail, so I checked to see in there was anything interesting among the confetti. Nope.

Zine mail comes to my maildrop, not this apartment, and my family doesn't have this address. I don't have any bills. A week ago I got the new Loompanics catalog, and occasionally there's porn addressed to me, but mostly I'm on the lookout for letters from Sarah-Katherine. Nothing today.

No word on her visit to New York last week. Not a card or letter since a few days before she was leaving. I wrote to her on Wednesday the 17th, Monday the 22nd, and again just now, but if she's moved who knows how long it'll take for those letters to follow her. Who knows whether she'll answer when they do.

And so it goes. Sure hope she's OK. I worry a little, but mostly I mourn. Whatever happened between us last summer, it's ending. Or it's ended. It would be wrong to call it a romance, but whatever it was, the ending always hurts.

My eyes popped open at 4:30 this morning, and sleep was over. That's hours earlier than I'd hoped, and the first thing on my mind was taking yesterday off from selling fish. What was I thinking? I can't afford days off. Funds are low and income is limited.

February's rent is ready, but after that, even one trip to the grocery would empty my wallet. And yet I took yesterday off, for I am a nincompoop.

And while I'm full of worries and blues, I took a look at what I've written for the January issue of the zine, and it sucks. It's not the worst writing I've done, because I've done a lot of bad writing, but it ain't worth the three dollars I'm asking for it.

And then there's my mother. This morning I'm hearing her parting words at the airport last May, as I walked toward a plane taking me home. "Keep in touch," she said, but I very much haven't. I simply can't bear to, for reasons only Freud could explain (and he'd explain it all wrong). Everything's better when I'm as far out of touch as possible, but still, Mom's hammer of guilt swings over my head.

And of course, I'm kicking myself over Sarah-Katherine, as she relocated to New York City. She wanted me there, but instead I'm still here. I could take the rent money, plus sell this typewriter and my microwave and mini-fridge and whatever else I own, and maybe have money enough for a discount ticket to LaGuardia. But I'd land with empty pockets and no prospects, and I'm not even sure she'd be happy to see me.

Ah, screw it. Screw everything. Enough with the self-pity. To whatever extent my life sucks, it's entirely my own fault. Time to either get a gun and end it all, or quit my fat-ass bellyaching and make myself some toast.

I'm going for the toast, and spreading someone else's jelly from the fridge over it.

♦ ♦ ♦

As if I wasn't blue enough already, now I'm reading yesterday's paper, reminding myself what a shitty world this is.

Says here that Wells Fargo, the nation's 17th largest bank, is acquiring First Interstate, the 15th largest. Combined assets will be a few billion more than $100,000,000,000. About 350 branches will be closed, with thousands of people pink-slipped. Judging from the Chronicle's report, we're supposed to think this is a good thing, but it's not, of course.

Says here that National Public Radio has won a DuPont/Columbia University Journalism Award, for such shows as Morning Edition and All Things Considered. I listen to those shows sometimes, and find them about 1/3 journalism and 2/3 piffle, but what surprised me wasn't the award; it's that DuPont Chemical has apparently acquired Columbia University.

And here's a completely fucked-up letter to the editor. Seems a book review in the paper had mentioned in passing that "soldiers on both sides [in the Vietnam War] fought and died for no good reason." The letter-writer is furious, because even decades later, he still thinks America's war on Vietnam was a just and great cause. The war was only lost, he writes, because of all the 1960s boys who lacked "the humility to accept their draft notices."

It's hard to even grasp the stupidity of that argument. It's breathtaking. Life-taking.

♦ ♦ ♦

Ten blocks from my designated corner for fish sales, the skies began sprinkling. Six blocks off, it became a cloudburst. When I reached the Avenue it was still raining, hard, and Umberto and a few other vendors were packing up to leave. In every direction the clouds were thick and dark, the weather hopeless, and I was drenched, so to hell with it.

Another day off, without pay.

♦ ♦ ♦

Come with me now to the semi-monthly staff meeting for Free Radio Berkeley, held in the back room at the Long Haul Infoshop. That's a pretty good zine shop that doesn't sell Pathetic Life, but I ain't mad at 'em. They only sell good zines. I've bought zines there many times, but today I was too broke.

I am not on the staff at Free Radio Berkeley, but the Long Haul is only a few blocks up the street from my place, and Josh had tipped me off that the agenda for today's meeting be a raucous ruckus. It's about theft, he said — there's been a lot of stuff stolen at the station, and people are pissed.

With the rain-out on Telegraph I had nothing better to do, so I darted through the downpour and settled into a back row seat.

Apparently past meetings have gotten out of hand, because the first thing they wanted to do was appoint a facilitator — someone to keep the discussion a discussion instead of a shouting match. And I guess my man Josh is a better man than I even knew, because someone said, "It ought to be Josh." Nobody nominated anyone else, so Josh took charge, and laid out the ground rules:

"If you have something to say, just raise your hand. I'll call on everyone in order, and you'll all be heard, but no interruptions, please. If someone says something inflammatory and you want to respond, raise your hand and wait till I point at you." Better than Robert's Rules of Order.

Free Radio Berkeley is a pirate station that broadcasts 24/7 out of a shared house. The people who live in the house have had stuff stolen during the night, several nights, and that's what they're pissed off about. One of the house residents read a list of stolen things — a pair of galoshes, a can of coffee, food from the fridge, two backpacks, three bicycles, etc.

The housemates want to start locking the house overnight. Which seems logical.

But it might make the station no longer 24/7. Which would suck.

So someone asked, why can't the overnight shows be pre-taped?

And after much lively but polite debate, it was agreed that, for at least a while, the house will be locked from midnight to 8AM seven nights a week, and broadcasts during that time will be tape-delayed.

The overnight DJs are supposed to come in, one at a time, to meet with house residents. They want to know the strangers using their kitchen and bathroom, to assess for themselves whether each individual on-air person is someone they'd welcome into their home, reserving the right to bar anyone who doesn't pass the vibe inspection.

Josh had promised fireworks or a fistfight, but instead of a bunch of rabble-rousing radicals screaming at each other, it was all very civilized. The United Nations could learn a thing or two from Josh and Free Radio Berkeley.

After that, Stephen Dunifer, the aging hippie and technogeek who started FRB, gave a quick rundown of the station's latest legal battles with the FCC. It was depressing, a litany of threats and ultimatums. There's nothing the federal government hates more than freedom of speech.

More optimistically, he then read a list of new pirate stations on the air or coming soon, in San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, West Berkeley, East Oakland, Mountain View, Fruitvale, Fremont, and Valejo. And that's just in the Bay Area. He said FRB is also helping six new stations get up and running around Los Angeles, and one in the town of Williams, Oregon.

Which reminds me again, if you believe in freedom of speech and have about $500 to buy the equipment, you too can go on the air. Mr D says it takes no great expertise, and it's safe and perfectly illegal.

If you're interested, just call or write me, and I'll let Josh know, and he'll let Stephen know, and Stephen will get back to you.

Addendum, 2023: I am pleased and kinda proud that two people contacted me way back when, for info on pirate broadcasting. I passed their names and numbers to Josh, who passed 'em to Stephen Dunifer. I'll never know what happened after that, but I certainly hope laws were broken.
Information on pirate broadcasting is quicker and easier to come by in our internet age. If you're interested, just click on FreeRadio.org.

Instead of Christians at the corner, today we had Krishnas. And I prefer the Krishnas. At least they don't preach, don't use amplifiers, and when they smile it looks sorta like genuine happiness instead of an order from God (You Will Smile At The Non-Believers).

Of course, they're believers in nonsense, but it's a nonsense unknown to me, so it's less obnoxious than Christianity.

At least the Krishnas seem to be having a good time, with their singing and dancing and drums and tambourines, and wearing the Krishna-kook robes. I even kinda like their music — it's soothing, in a new age silly sort of way. Is it available on cassette?

Definitely, the Krishnas' street style is preferable to the Christian street preachers, who usually wear suits, babble into microphones, sing or play much worse music, and stay all day, preaching and singing and hassling passers-by.

That's what proselytizing is — sticking their Jesus in your face forever, until you drop to your knees and join them. And if you never drop to your knees, if you tell them no thanks, it doesn't matter because the Christians never stop preaching.

The Krishnas, by comparison, did no preaching at all, and stayed only half an hour. They sang and smiled, but didn't try to talk anyone into their Krishna consciousness, and then they danced down the street and around the corner, to do whatever the heck Krishnas do when they're not dancing and chanting.

♦ ♦ ♦

It feels like there should be something more to say about today. After all, it was a day, twenty-four hours and all. I was awake and healthy and alive, three things it's marvelous to be, and all day long I saw and heard things and thought about things.

I went to work on the Avenue, talked to people, sold some fish, ate a couple of sandwiches for lunch, and sold some more fish and talked to some more people. And then I came home, ate a couple of more sandwiches for dinner, played with Lugosi the giant dog, and read a few zines. And then I ate yet another sandwich, and typed about the Krishna kooks.

Nothing else seems worth mentioning, though. Does anyone want to read that I stopped halfway home to remove a pebble from inside my shoe, or that my ass itched a lot because I hadn't wiped it so tidy as I'd intended?

No, nobody wants to read that, and I don't particularly want to write it, so the entirety of today's entry will be only Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.

Before reporting to work at Black Sheets, I posted some "I'll do anything" flyers on Market Street, around Van Ness.

I'll be broke soon if the phone doesn't ring, so call me please, and I'll scoop your cat's litterbox, type your memoirs, do your shopping, paint your porch, wash your windows, remove your tonsils, whatever.

♦ ♦ ♦

It wasn't raining when I got dressed, so I didn't wrap my socks in plastic, but the protection would've helped when I stepped in a pile of fresh dogshit on the sidewalk. It squirted right through the hole in my sole and the hole in my sock, making my toes all gooshy-gooshy with Fido feces. I could still feel the warmth; that's how fresh it was.

Ah, but the recent rainstorms have taught me to carry an extra pair of socks in my backpack. Into a Wendy's I walked, and in the restroom wiped most of the poop from between my toes, leaving the old holy sock in the trash.

♦ ♦ ♦

Then I worked for six hours, typing and editing other people's writing, and also doing that and this and whatever. Told Steve I'd enjoyed his play.

As my work day was ending, Bill said he needed to run an errand to Berkeley, so he offered me a lift home. We drove over the Bay Bridge, a sight seldom seen by me — heavy traffic, lovely view.

On Telegraph Ave, he saw Fondue Fred and had hunger pangs, and offered to buy us both a cheesy dinner. He phrased the invitation so nicely, complaining that he'd been working too hard lately and deserved a treat, it felt like I'd be doing him a favor by accepting a free meal, and I'm very generous in such matters.

"Swiss cuisine," said the sign on the door, but I've never been to Europe so I wondered at the odd two-pronged mini-spear between the fork and spoon in our table-settings.

Bill helpfully explained that it's a nose-picking device. "You put the points up either nostril," he explained but didn't demonstrate, "and twirl it, and it pulls all your boogers out."

We ordered the Classic Fondue for two, and an unsmiling waiter brought us each a spicy salad, then lit the table on fire and left.

Bill and I ate our salads by the firelight, and spoke of the general stupidity of mankind, corporate capitalism, and Republicans, until the waiter came back with a pot of cheddar cheese. He set it over the flame, and dropped a wicker basket of french bread bits on the table. "Your dinner, gentlemen," he said flatly. "Enjoy."

My mom made fondue a few times at home in the 1970s, but this was my first professional fondue, so Bill showed me that the nose-picking device can also be used to stab the bread chunks, then dip them into the melted cheddar.

The food was delicious — thank you again, Bill, when you read this — but our waiter was weird. From taking our order until we left, he never smiled, never said thanks, never checked on us after dropping off the cheese, and never said anything except "Your dinner, gentlemen. Enjoy." Bill said it was like eating in some future restaurant, where the waitstaff has been replaced by androids.

And also, yikes, it was $18 for melted cheese and bread bits, delivered by droid. Yummy, yeah, but so expensive I know I'll never be back. I could whip up something comparable in the microwave for a few bucks, though, and I might.

_Addendum, 2023: T_here's no more Fondue Fred.

I've been an insomniac since adolescence, and get two or three good nights' sleep annually, but this morning I woke up extra early. Couldn't get back to sleep, troubled by everything but yesterday's fondue — Sarah-Katherine, Mom, money, etc. I'm not even sure how I'll afford the stamps to mail out the next issue of the zine.

Since sleep was out of the question, I read through the Loompanics catalog for a while, and when I finally reached the outskirts of LullabyLand, Lugosi and one of the cats had a loud argument in front of my door.

Sighed and rearranged the pillow a dozen ways, and after 45 minutes I was almost asleep again, but it had started raining, the water was dripping through the ceiling, and I had to rearrange the buckets.

After that I gave up, and started typing what you're reading.

♦ ♦ ♦

It's been almost a month since I called CopWatch to volunteer, and they told me on the phone to drop by their office any Tuesday afternoon. That's the only time anyone's there, I was told, but so far the only person there on Tuesdays has been me, locked out.

Today it was raining too hard to walk to their office and be locked out again, so instead I called, and left a message. Someone called me back an hour later to say that the office is no longer staffed on Tuesdays, and hasn't been for months.

What I ought to do, she said, is simply show up for orientation on Thursday night.

"I'll be there," I said.

♦ ♦ ♦

In the mid-afternoon, my flatmate Judith knocked at my door, and told me morosely, "Matilda is dead."

"I'm so sorry," I said. "Condolences. Who's Matilda?"

"Matilda was Joe's pet rat," she explained. "He had a tumor, took him to the vet for an operation, and he died on the table."

"Matilda was a he?"

"He was a cross-dresser. Or at least, that's what Joe always said."

We have five housemates here, plus three cats and a very large dog, but — "I hadn't known we were sharing the premises with a rat," I said.

"Well, we're not any more," said Judith, "but Joe is in mourning, so I'm taking him out to dinner. Do you want to come?"

"To dinner? To mourn a rat I never knew?"

"He was a good rat," she said sincerely.

"Jeez, I don't know. I never even saw the rat."

"We can fix that."

"I never attend funerals," I said.

"This isn't a funeral, it's just dinner."

Cripes, I was thinking. Not only did I not know the rat, not even know there was a rat, but I'm also barely cognizant that there's a Joe. I rarely see him in the hallway, and when we pass we never do more than nod. All I know about Joe is that he's as anti-social as I am. Seven months I've lived here, and I doubt we've spoken seven times, so he's a terrific flatmate, but what am I supposed to say at dinner with a stranger whose pet rat has just died?

"I think Joe is an introvert like me," I said, "so he wouldn't want me there."

"Sure he would. Misery loves company. It'll be dinner. It'll be fun."

"It really doesn't sound like fun," I said.

"I'm buying," she answered, slam-dunking all my arguments.

Jake was at work, and Cy declined to join us, but said we could borrow his pick-up truck, so the three of us crowded into the cab of Cy's truck with Judith driving.

We parked at an animal hospital to pick up a rodent's cold corpse, and I was afraid there might be wailing and tears and unwieldy emotions, but it was all very matter-of-fact. Joe paid the bill, and a woman brought him his rat, in a cardboard box that once held a Radio Shack calculator.

"Here's Matilda," she said. "I'm so sorry," and it sounded like she was.

"That's all right," Joe said. "I know you did the best you could."

Then he stashed Matilda and the box on the truck's dashboard, and our next stop was Biff's Diner in Oakland, the flying saucer-shaped place. We all ordered breakfast for dinner, and the food was fine but the conversation was weird.

Joe said that the rat's tumor was pretty big before he'd even noticed it, and Judith gave him a hug and said it wasn't his fault. They both agreed that Matilda had been a fine rat, and I wondered really what I was doing there.

Then for half a minute nobody said anything, so I finally spoke. "Were you and Matilda close?"

"Well, as close as you can get to a rat," he said. "He ate my granola bars, and always seemed happy to see me, but I couldn't let him out of his cage because our house is full of cats."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I grimaced and shook my head and took a bite of eggs. After another uncomfortable silence I said, "You shouldn't have had to pay for an operation that killed your rat."

"I agree," he said, "but I didn't think they'd give me his body if I didn't pay."

Since there's only so much you can say about a rat, the topic eventually drifted to strange dreams we've had and cool car crashes we've seen. Pretty soon I laughed at something clever Joe said, and he smiled and started talking to me more.

That's when it occurred to me, Judith had invited us to dinner to get us talking, at least as much as to talk about the rat.

On the way home, we discussed possible burial sites for Matilda. The house doesn't have any yard at all, so I mentioned a grassy stretch outside the BART station. Judith suggested a clandestine visit to Mountain View Cemetery, bringing Matilda and a shovel.

"That's what we'll do," Joe announced, but they're going to wait until it stops raining — Friday, says the forecast.

And I'm invited.

Until then, Matilda rests in piece in a Radio Shack box, in a Glad bag, in the freezer.

_Addendum, 2023: T_here's no more Biff's Diner.

Today, at last, a letter from Sarah-Katherine arrived. It's sweet and upbeat, recounting some of the things she did on her visit and planning trip to New York City.

She is nuts for New York, has always wanted to live there, and now she's about to. It's a dream coming true for her, and it's one of the out-and-out happiest letters she's written to me

No, I'm not going to share all of it, but here's the part that isn't too terribly personal:

Oh, it's useless. I've been sitting at this keyboard for half an hour, and I can't begin to tell you about my trip. Sure, I could blather on about the places I visited: Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Victorian Flatbush, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, the Financial District, Fifth Avenue, Central and Prospect Parks, etc, but those would just be names.
The truest thing I could tell you is that I saw absolutely everything I could in the three days I had, revisiting the neighborhoods I love and making the acquaintance of new ones. I got up early every day, had a cup of coffee, and started walking. When I got tired of walking or wanted to go someplace far away, I rode a train. At the beginning of every day, my pockets were full of subway tokens, and by the end of every day all the tokens were gone. I was like an alcoholic on a binge.
Money, though — I need more money. The fact that I'll have to make some sort of temporary living arrangement — probably the hostel, though possibly the YMCA — means that I'll need more money than what I've got. Okay, so I'll get more money somehow. Sheesh, how hard is that? I just wish I could leave for NY now, but it's better, I think, to have a buffer zone just in case I have a harder time finding a place than I anticipate.
Don't be hopeless, dear! We'll both make it there, providing we exercise Patience and Fortitude. And when we're both there, living in that beautiful, filthy city, I'll treat you to a corned beef sandwich at Katz's Deli. (I know you're a vegetarian, but an exception must be made for Katz's.) We will toast each other with egg creams, and marvel at our dumb luck to be finally, finally in the right place.

I had to grin at all her gushing enthusiasm for New York, and also at her pragmatism in thinking, Maybe not quite yet.

I know that feeling of affection for a place that's magical. It's what I feel for San Francisco.

♦ ♦ ♦

I bused to Oakland to wash a guy's Cadillac. Exteriors only, and wheels and hub caps, but he didn't want me to tidy the inside. It took about two hours, but I got four hours pay, cuz that's my minimum wage. Twenty bucks for two hours of wet work, and I soaped and sprayed my hair too, so I won't need to take a shower today.

♦ ♦ ♦

Walking a few miles across Oakland afterward, I thought about Sarah-Katherine and New York, as I stuck my "I'll do anything" flyers to every second telephone pole.

After twenty blocks, still wet and tired of walking, I splurged 90¢ for a BART ticket home, and waiting in the open air at MacArthur Station, I checked my voice mail at a phone booth.

As I held a receiver to my ear listening, a youngish female panhandler asked me, "Do you have a quarter, mister?"

Being a beggar is one thing — times are tough and I can understand it — but interrupting someone who's on the phone is simply rude, and rudeness sometimes sets me off. So I nicely said, "Excuse me" into the mouthpiece (though there was no-one on the other end), and to the woman I screamed, "I'm on the phone here! Do you have no fucking manners at all? What the fuck is your fucking fuck?" (stealing that line from Blue Velvet.)

She screamed back, calling me rude, when of course I'm the kindest, most cordial and polite person imaginable, so I screamed at her some more. We screamed until the train came, and when its doors closed and her shrieking insults faded away, a smile spread across my ugly face, as two thoughts occurred to me.

① I hadn't gotten far enough into the phone call to actually listen to my messages, and ② I really do love living here.

♦ ♦ ♦

Looking through BART's sooty windows at beautiful Oakland under the elevated rail, and at the lights of San Francisco in the distance across the bay, absolutely I knew that I'm not moving to New York. Or rather, I'll go when I can afford to, which is the same as saying I'm not moving to New York.

After fooling myself for several months, thinking I'd have the money or courage to go with her or follow after, I do hope that I didn't fool Sarah-Katherine, too. That was never my intent. I'll write to her tomorrow and let her know I'm not coming.

She's pretty dang smart, though, and probably figured it out well before I did.

It would be nice to visit New York and try that corned beef sandwich, but if ever I do, it won't be Sarah-Katherine's treat. And it's not going to be soon, or any time in the foreseeable future. To get to New York I'd need to wash a lot of cars, or work a straight job for fifty hours a week, and give up the zine.

But that's not even the point. The point is, as fond as I am of Sarah-Katherine, I'm fonder of San Francisco.

New York is her big move in life, but I've already made mine. I have a life and even have a few friends here in San Francisco. I live here, more than I've ever lived anywhere else, and I marvel at my dumb luck to actually be where it seems I'm supposed to.

♦ ♦ ♦

As I walked home from the Berkeley BART station, a line from Casablanca popped into my head: "How extravagant you are, throwing away women like that. Someday they may be scarce."

A high-quality dame like Sarah-Katherine doesn't come along often, and when they do they never, never want anything to do with me.

So writing all this is depressing. The thought that she's too beautiful, too personable, too bright and funny and warm to be alone for long in New York, somehow doesn't cheer me up.

Addendum, 2023: Staying in San Francisco, eventually I met Stephanie, and she was the love of my life — a much better match for me than Sarah-Katherine or anyone else could've been.
So big picture, I have no regrets over not moving to New York. Small picture, though, I wish I'd realized earlier that New York wasn't for me, and told Sarah-Katherine I wasn't coming.
And I regret that she and I didn't keep in touch. Same as Margaret and most of the few women I've ever felt anything for, I don't know whether Sarah-Katherine is alive or dead in 2023.
A year ago, I emailed a hello to her last known electronic address. It didn't bounce back undeliverable, but there was never a reply. Once is my limit on such things, as anything further would seem rude.
After all these years, though, I'm curious to know about how it was for her, living in New York. Here's hoping she had a grand time there, and her life has been everything she wanted.