Introduction
This is the fourteenth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, and Volume XIII is here. (The different volumes have nothing to do with one another and can be read in any order, in a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox, and/or not at all.)
What are bits and bobs? In the context of albertnet, they’re mostly excerpts from emails, letters, etc. that I wrote to friends and family before blogs were a thing. Read on if you’re too tired to watch TV. Better yet, read this aloud to your pet or your plants.
February 2, 1990
I spontaneously decided I was through wearing old bike race t-shirts etc. Among these were the polo shirts I got from being a media liaison at the Coors Classic, and some other polo shirts (the bright red ones) that Mom got from somebody who’d marshaled at the Coors Classic. It’s a ton of shirts. Simultaneously, my art studio roommate, C—, whom I call Dithers (for reasons I don’t myself understand), and who calls me Dithers as well (ditto), decided he was tired of wearing nothing but grey and black (which was, and probably still is, the unofficial uniform of the starving artist). So I offered him virtually my entire wardrobe, and that is all he wears now. Buzzard to peacock literally overnight. Naturally, the fact that every single garment promotes cycling, in which he has zero interest, has not escaped him; I guess you could say he wears the shirts ironically. Every so often he complains to me about some nerdy cyclist type who quizzed him eagerly about his involvement in the Coors Classic, and who was disappointed when C— replied, “I was never a marshal for anything and I don’t even know what the Coors Classic is.”
January 19, 1991
[Reminiscing to my brother.] And so, a job at a factory. Underwear. Cans. Crates. Cardboard. Time clock, big bell that rings for break, picnic tables and vending machines. The factory like a giant hive, hundreds of sewing machines going at once, turning out underwear. You and I sticking endless size/color labels on the cans, crating them, stapling wooden lids, packing boxes, filling out shipping forms, noting on invoices where an order—seemingly every order—is short because the factory cannot sew underwear fast enough.
You speak fondly of the experience. Fighting together against the oppression of our (rightfully disgruntled) factory floor colleagues, underpaid immigrant laborers. After-hours hijinks. You and I singing “G— W—” [the factory owner’s name] to the tune of “Richard Corey.” Disabling the safety mechanism and firing the high-powered compressed-air staple gun out over the factory floor. You grin, laugh, reminisce, and what do I do? I sit back, real cool like, maybe mumble a little bit. Do you know why? It isn’t because I don’t cherish those memories. It isn’t that I didn’t enjoy it. It’s that my ambitious preoccupations are censoring me from admitting to having enjoyed a factory job. Yeah, god damn it, it paid the rent. No it wasn’t a stepping stone. Yeah I did it but only because I’d been unemployed. No brass plaque from that one to hang on the wall. It wasn’t a part of my plan. But these are all only delusions of dissatisfaction. I was afraid to admit that I enjoyed it. Afraid I might never transcend it. Gotta getta outta here. Gotta move on. Drive, man, drive.
I have this vision of driving that ‘52 Ford, the
closest thing the factory had to a work vehicle, down to the warehouse, unloading
all P’s and G’s personal shit because they were too cheap to rent a storage
locker. This is not important company business. This is something others are
too lazy to do. No talent here. But we were talented in a way, weren’t we? We
taught ourselves how to enjoy it. I took half an hour rolling down the screwed-up
window so I could coolly hang my arm out and try with one hand to steer that horribly
misaligned truck in a straight path down the driveway of the factory, all the time
checking out the tits ‘n’ ass of the girlies in little round pictures mounted on
the dash. You’d have a book of human sexuality on your lap (found among P—’s
stuff), reading aloud with fascination at all this scholastic explanation of
the carnal. Written by experts.
But at the factory, we were the experts, making it all a big joke, stumbling through our work recklessly, giddy like little kids left with a babysitter who lets us cuss. Fuck, shit, god damn. Look at my crazed smirk when I say that. Hey G—: fuckin’ shit bitch hell. Laughing so hard we’re dribbling spit down our chins which we wipe away with the back of an arm. After a while the babysitter says, “Hey, quit cussin’, it sounds like shit,” and we are back on the floor, rolling with laughter. Laughing so hard we can’t even make our lips shape the next obscenity. That was our factory life, in all its true glory. It was like a science fiction role-playing vacation, not Westworld or Futureworld, but Factory World. We knew it wasn’t our life, it wasn’t our destiny, but a few months of living paycheck to paycheck, no lofty ambitions, standing in line to punch the clock behind a fat ‘n’ sassy waistband technician. It was like a vacation. But now I’m in dangerous territory. I better shut my trap before I say something stupid like “I’d like to go back.”
April 3, 2000
Next week we’ll be putting an offer on another house, also in Berkeley, that’s ugly on the outside but really groovy on the inside. We should have a bit better chance on it, I reckon, due to its ugliness. (How far we’ve fallen since we started this seemingly doomed house hunt!) It’s on kind of a sketchy street—generally nice, but with a couple of totally derelict houses. One of the houses is abandoned, and the other ought to be condemned whether it’s occupied or not. It looks like it would collapse if you blew hard on it. There’s this big old truck out front that looks like it was driven through the fires of hell. It has a really bizarre mural painted on the sides and back, that looks kind of cult-y. We asked a neighbor what was going on, and he said, “Oh, that’s Mike The Mover. He’s been here since the dawn of time and always will be. He runs an illegal moving operation out of that house.” Fingers crossed … Mike The Mover could become my new neighbor!
January 16, 2001
Oh yeah, I’ve heard of the Stinking Rose, and in fact I ate there once. It’s somewhat famous, probably because of its name and its gimmick (which is, of course, gobs of garlic). It was written up in a “Smithsonian” article on garlic (and is probably mentioned in every other article on garlic as well). It has a prominent location on Columbus Ave, not far from House of Nanking. E— and I took a couple of friends from out of town because they specifically wanted to go there. It was a bit overpriced, and they didn’t really do anything fascinating or brilliant with garlic other than, well, using too much of it. They also had these order-placing devices that looked like phasers, so they could shoot your order into the kitchen rather than walking there. Neat idea, and fun for the diners, but it seemed to actually slow things down. The most memorable part of the evening was when our gay, bald waiter said to me, sternly, “What’s your name?” I told him and he said, “Dana, let’s get one thing straight. I would kill for your hair. Kill!” (My hair was shoulder-length at the time.) Anyway, if they had a Stinking Rose in Phoenix I might go there during a business trip, but you can certainly do better in the Bay Area.
April 26, 2001
Quick question for you. Any tips on child care? E— is due in September and we’re having a hard time finding good day care. Some of these places fill up a year in advance (I guess the couple gets on the list before even trying to conceive) and we don’t want to end up having to settle for one of those places where a chain-smoking ex-hippie sits forty-five kids down in front of the TV, puts her pit bull in charge, and then heads into her bedroom to work a psychic hotline.
I think you guys said you had a nanny back when C— was a toddler? Gosh, that brings me back to a nanny my brothers and I had. I didn’t learn her name until years later but the whole time she watched us, we called her “Darlin’” for reasons we ourselves probably didn’t understand. Probably she called us “darlin’s” and we got confused. We actually thought that was her name. Not that we thought it was her first name—we would never call an adult by her first name—but more like she was a Cher or Madonna type who had only one name. Darlin’ was a very old lady, and very cool because she would let us watch “Adam 12,” and would occasionally give us Trident gum. The only downside was, she absolutely forbade us to suck our thumbs and would always threaten to cut them off if we persisted. In fact, once she chased me under the bed with the kitchen scissors. I remember peeking out from under there, terrified, watching her stick her head down under the bed and say, “Stick out your thumb! I’m going to cut it off!” Such an exciting lady. We always looked forward to having her over. Reading over what I’ve just described, it doesn’t appear that this was top notch child care, but in fact it really was.
Is having a nanny way expensive? Day care places are running about a grand a month and that’s what we’re expecting to spend. It seems impossible anything could be more expensive than that but then you’re probably already laughing at my naivety. I’m thinking I could just drive down to Fourth Street and find one of the nameless workers that gather down there to get picked up for day labor. For $5 I’m sure a laborer would find childcare easier than digging trenches or putting up sheetrock. Of course, if I suggested this to E— our daughter would end up being raised in a single-parent home (assuming E— beat the murder rap). So I’d appreciate any advice you could give.
September 4, 2001
Thanks for the advice about strollers, particularly the bit about how newborns can’t ride in them because their heads will flop around, frightening Mommy. Someone advised I start with a pram. Near as I can tell, a pram isn’t a terribly useful device, as it only gives the baby a view of the sky. There’s probably a lot to see up there, but not as much as if the kid is facing forward. We’re borrowing a “Baby Bjorn,” which is some kind of frontal baby seat that you wear. Our birthing and bondage coach insists that they’re terrible for the baby’s back, and we should use a sling, but with a sling the kid can’t see much of anything. What do you think? I’ve always had a terrible slouch, giving me a “vertebrae be damned” attitude, so I’m not completely sold on the Baby Bjorn prohibition. I’m tempted to ignore the birthing teacher’s advice simply on the grounds that she’s a radical post-hippie alternative type, but I’m anxious to get the birds-eye low-down from people who know such as yourself.
I was trying to remember what model of Maclaren stroller youse guys had there in the Netherlands. If you’re still using the original one I saw when we were out there, and that you brought out when visiting us, that alone speaks volumes for its durability, as does the fact that you can get replacement parts for it. I also like the British in the web-page descriptions, particularly “colourway.” Some of these look incredibly fancy. Needless to say I won’t be getting the titanium one; if I don’t have a titanium bike, my daughter’s not getting a titanium stroller.
January 21, 2005
E— and I took the youngsters to House of Nanking on Sunday, and in the midst of L— detonating and doing her best impersonation of a fish out of water—in fact, an alcoholic fish out of water having the DTs—no, make that a fish out of water having the DTs combined with a generalized spaz attack—a guy at the next table noticed my Gaastra pullover and got all excited. (Only once before did somebody recognize the Gaastra brand on this garment; it was my friend D— who does a lot of windsurfing, and he asked, “Why do you have that?” to which I replied, “Why, whose is it?”) Our dining neighbor was a kind of nerdy, kind of . . . well, European-looking guy, and he asked, “Hey, are you into kites?!” It was all I could do to keep L— in my grasp—she was on the verge of launching herself out of my hands, and as I was standing up, she could have landed right on the guy—and so instead of having him on, which I might have been tempted to do (“What makes you think of kites?” / “Your Gaastra pullover. They make kites.” / “Is that what they make? I thought they made that heartburn medication!”), I only stammered that I don’t have a Gaastra kite, but rather a brother in Holland. The guy was crestfallen.
January 23, 2009
You asked about the wounds on my finger. They’re from a farming accident—my arm got caught in this big threshing machine we call the Mangle. Oh, wait, that’s how I lost my arm. The finger cuts were from a freak dishwashing accident.
—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For
a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment