The Awkwardness

Things can get awkward in the retail business. This mostly comes because I try and be stupidly charming in the corniest of ways. Here are some of my favorites from the last few weeks.

“Hello ma’am, how are you doing?”
“Don’t call me ma’am. I’m not that old yet.”
“No you’re definitely not. You’re a spring chicken.”
“I’m a chicken?”
“I didn’t say that. Who said chicken?”

“How are those jeans working for you, sir?”
“Um, they’re OK… let me ask you a question, are they OK in the butt?”
“Excuse me?”
“The butt, are they OK, in the, you know, well, hey, take a look. Are they OK in the butt?”
“It looks, it looks just great.”
“Really?”
Phone rings in the background.
“Oops, I got to take this.”

“Wow it’s really raining out there, ma’am.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Don’t get too wet.”
“OK… Good advise, kid…”
“Any time.”

“How’s life, ma’am?”
“Terrible, my husband ran off with another woman.”
“Wow. That’s… that’s terrible.”
“I know. That’s why I said terrible.”
“Well, you look like you’re getting through it OK.
“It’s hard to wake up most mornings.”
“Wow, yeah, I heard that… so… out for a little shopping therapy, I see, haha.”
“Yeah, my sister and I are going away for the weekend and we’re going to look fabulous. Her husband left her for someone else six months ago.”
“Runs in the family, hey?”
“What?”
“Um, nothing. So, you dating around now?”
“Yeah, but I read this book about dating and the book says no sex with new guys for a month. It’s like, God, a whole month, really?” Lady shakes her fist at the sky and laughs so hard she cries. A beat passes between us and the tears keep coming even after the smile fades away.
“Well, um, that’s going to be $86.50.”
“You take Discover?” she says and buries her face in a hankie.
“We certainly do.”

“Hey, do you have black jeans?” a man asks me.
“Yes, we do,” I say.
“You are NOT getting black jeans,” says his wife.
“OK,” says the man.
“Give him the boot cut jeans,” the wife says.
“OK,” I say.
“I don’t like boot cut,” the man says.
“They make your butt look good,” the wife says. “And I’m not letting you get black jeans, damn it. Don’t you hate black jeans?” she asks me.
“I, I, well, I’m not fond of them, but…” I stammer.
“See, everyone hates black jeans. Now go try the boot cut jeans on.”
“Yes, honey.”

“Sir, that’s a woman’s sweater.”

And on and on…

Sunday Morning Bike Ride

Oregon is so beautiful. Its cold though. My hands are numb.

Lists, Oh Sweet Lists

Things That Excited Me From November:

1. Greg Oden playing three straight games. He’s looking huge, athletic and intimidating.

2. Eggnog hitting the supermarket shelves. I drink a glass a day. I figure it’s good for my health. It tastes so good I store it in the pouches of my cheeks so I can let it trickle down my throat throughout the day. All in all, it works out pretty well until about hour three when the natural warmth of my cheeks heats up the egg portion of the eggnog a little too much and rancidness starts to occur.

3. The cold, dark weather. I’ve complained before about the darkness, but in reality, the terrible weather has been fun so far. I never got to bundle up last year, aside from when I went into the frigid air-conditioning of the movie theater, so this is a treat.

4. The election being over and Obama winning. It takes a lot of worry off my plate. I don’t know what I would’ve done if McCain had been elected… Probably just not include it on my “Things That Excited Me From November,” list.

5. My work got published on two online zines. Whoop, whoop.

Things That Depressed Me From November

1. Anything to do with the financial crisis. Seriously, will any good news come from this thing? The Dow dropped close to 500 points yesterday and is seriously flirting with doing the limbo beneath 6,000 and no one seems to have a clue as to what to do. Not that I care specifically about the health of Caterpillar or any of the other industrial companies comprising the Dow, but when people lose jobs it gets me down cause I hope to have one of those in the future…

2. The cold, dark weather. Yeah, this one goes both ways. One of my favorite things from the summer to do was ride my bike around. When it is cold and dark I don’t do that as much. Sucks.

3. My feet. They are always cold. It is the curse of tall people to have poor circulation. It has been this way my whole life…

Well, I can’t think of a full five to fill out the rest of the “Things That Depressed Me From November” list so I guess it’s been a pretty good month… Well, the month isn’t over yet, so if anything comes up, I’ll update the list.

The End of the World

Have you heard that the world is ending? Our economy is in a (dare I say it aloud?) recession. It’s true, so get your money under your mattress, learn how to tie a tight bindle, and work on your timing so you can hop trains without losing legs. The stock market is pitching like a boat lost at sea and because of our global interconnectivity most other developed countries are following suit. (You're not safe either, China, this financial scourge doesn't play favorites.)

Listen up, Oregon, it's every man for himself!

Salmon-heads on the coast, pause your incessant casting, bronco riders in the east, quit your rodeoing, tree-huggers in the south, stop your Shakespeare and everyone listen up! The sky is falling, Chicken Liken, the sky is falling.

Of course the day-to-day is going to pass without fail so don’t get too worked up. I’m going to go to sleep tonight and I can almost guarantee I’ll wake up tomorrow. Even if the stock market goes poof and is gone from existence, I’ll wake up tomorrow. Even if the financial health of our country gets so low-down sickly that Warren Buffet is panhandling for spare change at freeway off-ramps, tomorrow will come.

Then what’s going to be left when our economy is crumbled away and we are at the GDP level of, let's say, Sweden?

I guess everything from before, right? But did people do stuff when the Dow was below 7,000? Did they even have wireless internet then? I guess if tomorrow is still going to come you might as well fill it with something good. Salmon-heads, pick up your poles; bronco riders, get back on your horses; and tree-huggers, hug your trees and recite your pretty words.

That is unless you have nothing to eat and there's begging to do, cause in that case, get to your begging - there's a recession going on these days, haven't you heard? I'll see you in car 18. I'll be the one they call Flap-Jack (I always wanted that nickname).

Poems

OK, so a little more exciting news for me. Two of my poems have been accepted to an online magazine to be published in their December issue. While it isn’t that big of a deal, just a little something something, I’m excited about it.

It’s going on a journal called Four and Twenty Poetry.

The basic idea is that all of the poems have to be four lines or less and twenty words or less. Now I’m not sure if the four and the twenty were chosen because of the obvious drug connotations (I’ve seen nothing to support that connection on the site – just good poetry) but one never can tell...

And besides, just getting my stuff out there is good, right, right?

Anyway, when it goes into “print” online, I will update it right here.

Coffee and Words

I decided to step out of my world the other day. I got into my car and drove to the other side of town.

I’ll branch out, I said to myself, there are plenty of coffee shops in Portland and it’ll be a shame if I don’t ever visit more than a handful. So I left. I found a coffee shop off of Williams street and I sat down with a steaming cup of joe. I pulled out my computer and got to work, but I couldn’t help but overhear people talking next to me.

They were three authors in town for the recent Wordstock festival that Portland puts up every year. They spoke nonchalantly about their new books that were coming out, and complained in an off-the-cuff way all about their struggles to find an agent who really understands their artistic vision…

They talked about all the other authors they new, about how their friends got started, about how they themselves got started, about who they sent their first manuscripts off to and it all just seemed so impossibly possible. Like, on one given day, just because of whatever reason, it would all just fall in place.

Damn I wanted their life.

At least I know it’s out there… At least I know they drink coffee at the same place as I do.

Well, at least on days I’m feeling adventurous.

The Black Death

I’m just going to say it. I hate daylight savings time. I mean, screw this, right?

Daylight savings is like a payday loan. OK, fine, you get some cool, hard cash in your hand right now and you go out and get a new toaster with a timer on it, or better yet, some new clothes that get it right and get it tight for the next big date, but then you realize that the interest rates are something the devil dreamed up on a day he was feeling grumpy and you owe double whatever it was you took out in the first place and now your toaster is broken and your clothes are out of style so you ask your neighbor if he’s going to use the Maytag box he threw out last week because you need a house, goddamn it, after the bank repossessed your old one.

Longest sentence ever.

Anyway, the first day you realize you have an “extra” hour you’re stoked. At least I was. I laid around in bed for an inordinate amount of time, used up all the hot water in my monster-length shower (sorry Youlee) and still felt ahead of schedule.

It didn’t take long to realize my interest rate on daylight savings was ridiculous.

The Black Death started to rain down. At least, that’s the term my friend Hump has taken to calling it. The fact that it gets dark at five in the afternoon everyday seems like to big a price to pay for that measly “extra” hour.
It feels like I have an hour of light every day before the sky darkens, heavy with rain, to brood all night long. I have the vague feeling I haven’t been fully awake in days. 

This whole thing does have logic behind it. Good old Ben Franklin wanted to fire cannons and ring church bells at daybreak so as to save people money on buying candles. The modern idea is not that different. If we have an hour more in the day, theoretically, we will get more stuff done and our economy will be stimulated… Also, traffic accidents go down when there is an extra hour of daylight.

Still I don’t know if it’s worth it…

Yesterday the sun went down before I was finished with lunch. It feels like the End of Days. 

Damn this daylight savings.

Check Me Out

Hey, check out some travel writing of mine that has just been published on the site www.pology.com! Mine is the one on the Marshall Islands!

Cautious Optimism

Last night was a happy night. I watched the election results come in at the Lompoc bar. Obama was declared the winner right around eight. The mood brimmed with electricity. Glasses clinked and fireworks streaked the night sky.

Yes we can.

Yes we did.

I want to look at this with the blind optimism I see so clearly painted on the faces of my peers. People who say they are now proud to call this country their own. On my walk home I passed people shouting from car windows and others banging pans on street corners. I passed my roommate, and he was crying from joy. I want to look at this moment in that same light, that same joy, but I’m having some trouble.

In Senator McCain’s concession speech his distraught throng of supporters jeered and booed the mere mention of President Elect Obama’s name (damn that feels good to type). McCain showed his class and poise in quieting the mindless booing and praising Obama and the history changing importance of his victory.

As the camera panned through the distraught faces of McCain supporters I saw written out in their expressions disappointment. For them this wasn’t a turn for the better. For them it was a backslide.

These were the same people who praised President George W. Bush when he was elected to the White House. A young, relatively inexperienced politician who promised change in Washington; who promised to go across the aisle to get it done. Remember, he was going to be the Uniter, not the Divider. After all, the way I understand it, he’d gotten things done in Texas without a big majority of Republican support in the state.

We all saw how things turned out. Here we are, muddling through a huge economic downturn and trudging knee-deep through two foreign wars and a brighter future is a hard climb away.

That hope that so many Republicans had at the beginning of President Bush’s term has turned into a landslide victory for the Democrats. Lets try and look at this from where we want to be. This can be the way a better future begins, but only if we are smart. Even the most promising beginnings can rot, degrade and spiral downward without careful vigilance.

The year 2009 is a year of new beginnings – blank page for us to write on. Let us wield our pen with care, with prudence and with compassion. The future will come, no matter if it be good or bad, and this moment in time will one day be a history lesson. It is up to us to make that lesson pivotal, life-changing and hope fulfilling.

Yes we can.

Yes we will.

With the Election Two Days Away...

I find myself thinking of the two candidates playing pool in an empty bar. Crooked ceiling fans brush up lonely cigarette smoke.

“Well, Barak, I gotta say, you put up more of a fight than I would have figured. You’re a pretty good talker, there friend.”

“Well, John, growing up in Indonesia will do that to you. You need to talk good.”

“How so?”

“I meant to say community organizer. I meant to say, being a community organizer will, uh, hone your skills on oration. Communication. You need to speak well.”

“Did anyone hear that?” John asks the empty bar, pool stick held loosely in-hand. “Anyone at all? We gonna get this up on the Youtube?”

The bar is empty and John sits down heavily in his stool. He looks down into his beer.

“Damn,” he whispers, “it’s lost.”

“Listen, John, I just want to tell you a story about me and my daughters sitting around the dinner table. Michelle and I had just talked about the bills and…”

“Save it Barak, it’s too late. I know I’ve lost. Guess this was my last shot, huh? Nobody’s gonna wanna vote for me the next time around, huh? A president over the age of eighty… No way Jose. These kids can’t look past their Facebook and radios.”

“Ipods, John, Ipods.”

“No, you pod, Barak. I really love this country. Could’ve done something for it. Could’ve made it better.”

“John, let me buy you a drink.”

“Sure thing, Barak, sure thing.”

“Say John?”

“Yes?”

“Think I could take Cheney if it came down to it?”

“Not a chance, son, but his shutdown sequence should be enacted soon…”

Barak lines up the eight ball, back corner pocket, and sinks it coolly before heading to the bar for another round.