The Mechanic

Craig Bedford walked around the register counter, held out his rolled-up denim-sleeved arms and nodded while his fingers said, "Come 'ere."  We hugged.   

I had only known him an hour, or rather, I had known him for an entire hour, which is a long time considering I had only come into his shop to pick up my keys.  When I walked through the door he was chatting with an Asian kid, college age with square glasses and a smile that would have been charming if it wasn't framed by flaking acne.   I didn't interrupt or even try to look impatient because I felt guilty for showing up late, right at 5:00 P.M. when the shop was supposed to close.  I stood by the door and admired the overcrowded gallery eccentrica that was his 12x12 office.  Not an inch of wall space was left unadorned.  Side by side hung two identical photographs, the size of road signs, of a man (who I assumed to be a younger Craig) standing and beaming next to a sky blue Volkswagen van.  Next to them, a water color painting of a yellow VW beetle in the center of winter landscape.  My eyes scanned the collage of postcards and car calendars and bumper stickers and they eventually landed on a poster, still in its plastic cover, of America comprised entirely of license plates carved in the shape of their corresponding states.

"She must be stoned out her mind ha ha," Craig had finally acknowledged my presence. "Just look at her over there in La La land!" 

"It's a cool poster," I said with a marijuana smile, "and so what if I am?" I am an Easter egg when I meet new people.  Dunk me in a pot of sailors and I swear, in a pot of housewives and I gossip.  I assume the color of the people around me.

It worked.  Their low chuckles baptized me into their ring. "Yeah that's a new one I got, haven't decided where to put it yet. My dad painted the one next to it," Craig indicated to the yellow beetle watercolor.  "Bona fide artist my old man." He said artist like arteest to sound... French I guess.  "I've dappled here and there myself," he pointing with false modesty to a giant canvas covered in red and white dripping swirls.  It looked like an entire bag of peppermint candies had melted on it.  He showed us a few of his other pieces, mostly "abstracts," mostly red.

I couldn't tell what his relationship was with the Asian kid.  Boss/employee? Mentor/mentee? At first I thought they were old friends--they seemed chummy--but then I realized he might just be another customer.  Craig was not a clam.  Craig's the guy that sits next to you at a bus stop or on a plane, unzips his jacket, and then unzips his chest and spills his entire heart on your lap before you even get a chance to shake his hand.

"But my real passion has always been acting."  Without warning, an angry Clint Eastwood was snarling at me to get the fuck off his lawn.  Then an angry Al Pacino was shout-asking why the fuck! was it so hard to find a goddamn sandwich in New York--heavy accent on the yawk in York.  Craig--back in jovial non-violent Craig persona--pulled up his Facebook profile to show us pictures of him in costumes and a YouTube video of a movie trailer featuring him as an albino mafia man.  Before that video finished he was already loading another one of an internet talk show featuring him as the guest star Al Pacino, which led to us watching an interview with the real Al Pacino so that Craig could repeat each sentence to show us how uncanny his impersonation was.

Meanwhile, the Asian kid was taking every possible opportunity to ask me out. 

Craig- "I do stand up comedy at some local places around here." 

Asian kid- "Cool!  I'll have to take Katie there this weekend." He casts an unrequited sideways glance.

Craig- "This girl probably doesn't even know which car is hers, she's so toasted, ha ha."

Asian kid- "I have a bowl, we should go have a light."

Me- "I should probably go soon, I need to grab some dinner."

Asian kid- "Man, I'm starving!  Am I invited?"

I put my credit card on the table.  It felt like whipping out a text book at a party, so square of me to try and conduct business when we are all having such a chill time.  I attempted to make a joke about how he could keep the change to distract them from my uncoolness.  As he was reaching for the card his hand lost its way and found a small clay dish on the table.  "My dad made this too, he's a potter."  But then he noticed the price tag still stuck to the bottom and pondered, "Or did I buy this one?"  From the Mary Poppins bag of his shelves he pulled out more and more show and tell trinkets: Santa riding a motorcycle, a giant red button that shouted "Bull shit!" when pressed, light up bottle openers, etc, etc, ad infinitum.  It was a collection rivaling even my grandmother's, a midwestern Catholic connoisseur of figurines and prank novelties.

The Asian kid, who had finally introduced himself as Jason after the first seven pickup lines failed to gain him any traction, was still interrogating me about my dinner plans.  It was rain on the parade or set up camp for the night.  I extended my arm straight out in front of me, palm up, "Keys please?" Every party has a pooper.  Craig made me close my eyes and put a rubber spider in my hand.  I laughed, but not too much. 

I promised Craig a raving five-star Yelp review and told Jason I was meeting a friend for dinner.  I drove out of the parking lot, $300 poorer, one good story richer. 

The Stakeout

"Is this your first time?" he asked.  He was already a round man but the tan down coat made entirely of goose feather pillows gave him the exact shape of a giant cream puff with a tiny black cherry on top that was his head.  He was trying to load minutes on his little Nokia cell phone with a prepaid card but his fingers were almost too podgy to push the buttons.

I thought about it... it couldn't be.  I majored in peace studies.  I am a connoisseur of all quasi-homeless activities--The Houseless Challenge of 2008 (wherein middle class college kids attempt to delve in to the plight of poverty by swearing a vow of possession-lessness for one week), dumpster diving, fasting for ceasefires, fasting of Africa, backyard camping, hitchhiking, etc. etc. 

"I guess it is, technically," I said.  "You?"

He laughed and the cream puff part of him bounced along with his chuckles.  He was Number One.  He had been there since 2:00 A.M. and it was 5:00 P.M.  Later I realized why my question struck him as funny.  Apparently there is not an insignificant population of Americans that do this sort of thing on a regular basis--food stakeouts, that is.  There is an entire community, an entire movement.  They know each other.  There are heroes and legends among them.

"There's this family of four," says one of The Cousins, "they got pop-up tents and space heaters.  I saw 'em at the Chic-Fil-A grand opening in Modesto last month."  The Cousins are in their late thirties, in between jobs, knowers of all card games.  This is only their second stakeout but they've made it clear they have been around the block (literal and proverbial) before.  They are scheming ways to get power from an extra-long extension chord and working to unite the group to share resources.  They warn us novices to strategize night watch shifts so that people can run to get food and use the bathroom around the corner.  We should exchange numbers, they say, so that we can call each other immediately in case of The Roll Call.

The Roll Call is the attendance check performed at intentionally sporadic intervals by The Keeper, the omnipotent ruler of the temporary universe we reside.  She is the employee in charge of this gig and, as any god, She is both respected and feared.  We want to win her favor and yet we burn to rebel against her the moment she turns her back.  She is The Keeper of The List, the list of The Chosen Ones (i.e. the first 25 people in line for the opening of this restaurant and thus the recipients of a year's worth of burritos).  It is The Keeper's duty to ensure that the people who get in line early actually stay the entire time because everyone knows that the whole point of a stakeout is the agony and desperation of anticipation.  If anyone could write their name down and go sleep in their beds and show up the next morning to claim their prize, it would defeat the entire purpose.  This is unquestioned.  Comfort, expedience, productivity and efficiency are not concerns here. 

Thus The Keeper, just and noble and wrathful as She is, randomly marches into our "camp", clipboard and striking pen in hand--a general inspecting the barracks--and starts shouting names. Should any name not be echoed by a voice declaring the presence of its owner, there is a fatal slash of her hand and the unworthy soul is off the list, cast from the garden. The Cousins try to coax information out of her but her ways are indeed mysterious.  "So you'll wake us up, right?" they say, "In case we're sleeping when you come… around 4:00?"  She doesn't bite the bait.  "How many spots are left?"  She clutches the clipboard to her chest and shakes her head.

She appears to call roll again and when she disappears a crowd forms around The Freshmen.  They are Stanford physics majors (one is still undeclared but his inner physics major is apparent).  One is a curly vanilla wafer the other is small-faced and brown, both are bundled and boyish.  Their labrador puppy grins never droop from their cheeks once the entire night, despite the fact they packed a box of chocolate chip biscotti instead of a tent for a drizzly 30-degree night on the streets.  The people gather around them because they used an iPhone to secretly record the audio of The Roll Call like CIA agents recording an incriminating confession.  We are counting the number of names as we listen.  The camp is fairly condensed but people keep milling around and going in and out so it is difficult to tell how many are still officially on the list. 

"That's 26!"

"I only counted 24."

"There are two Alexes."

"No, she just said his name twice."

It was 7:00 P.M.  Fifteen hours until opening.  Stragglers were still showing up, hopeful and then dismayed to see such an impressive group already gathered.  They pulled up in their cars and on their bikes and scooters, asking us how long and how often and where was this List and the Keeper and did they have a chance?  We commiserated with them like American Idol contestants hugging the one that just got voted off.  "We support you and your future endeavors!  But we are on opposite sides of the curtain now."

And for that space in time, there was a line drawn in the sand.  It was a circle and it separated all of humanity into two groups--those inside and those outside.  Those who shall eat free burritos, and those who shall not.  And for that space in time the other speckled details of our lives faded out of focus.  Our names and jobs and ages and families did not matter.  Number One was making calls on his $10 cell phone (how he dialed the number I have no idea).  The Cousins were making jokes about "funemployment."  The gaged-ear gang of high school punks had a husky puppy on a leash and the grad school couple in the REI gear had a tired golden retriever.  The old man in the Bill Cosby sweater had devious smile poking out between his up-curled mustache and his wiry beard that looked like it could scrub steel pots to a shine.  The cool teens from Sacramento (this was their seventh stakeout) seemed older than all of us, effortlessly dopping into conversations with anyone about almost anything. 

It's hard to imagine any other circumstances that might have brought this group together, huddled around a table outside at 1:00 in the morning playing Settlers of Catan. 

This was my first official stakeout but certainly not the first time I've gone to extremes to get free food.  There were the college days of attending lectures on U.S. foreign policy in Uruguay just to get the luncheon afterwards.  Then there were the potlucks hosted for the sake of the leftovers and the triathlons and 5ks run for the sake of the breakfast buffets.  There was the six months masquerading as a food journalist for the free meals at new restaurants.  I once ate a funnel cake off of the top of a trashcan at an amusement park (it was a dare but, let's face it, I wanted to).  This is insanity for many people and I have no defense.  I am not destitute by any stretch of the imagination, it's not about the money.

When the doors finally and gloriously opened at 10:00 A.M. it smelled like elation with a hint of cilantro and lime.  We were punch drunk and dizzy with cold and hunger and excitement.  The staff must have had three weeks of intensive enthusiasm training in preparation for the event.  Everyone was wooping and high-fiveing and hugging like we'd just won the World Series.  The Keeper shook each of our hands and gave us each our Rewards Card--I felt prouder than I did on graduation day--and then we all got a free burrito.   I took it to work for lunch but I didn't finish it (it's a three pound burrito) so I offered it to my coworker who politely declined.  I, naturally, put it in a tupperware and in my backpack. 

"You just won a year's worth of free burritos and you're going to the trouble of saving less than half of one for later?"

Yes, yes I am. 

Sister from another mister

We point our left index fingers to the sky.  We strain our faces and squint our eyes to emote the painful effort of reaching the high notes in the autotuned vocal section of "Some Nights."  We are driving to the city for the weekend.  It is the fifth time we've heard this song on the radio since leaving work.  We don't change the station.

"You go first."

Me, hand flat and pushing slowly outward, guiding, "So come onnnnnnnn…"

Her, an octave higher, "Come onnnnn….."

Me, an octave higher, one eye squinting, "Come onnnn…."

Her, at the top, fingertip heaving up an invisible heavy ball, "OOH come onnnn!"

Nailed it. 

It reminds us of the time back in high school when we tried to hit the long high note singing "I Believe in a Thing Called Love."  It was winter in Colorado, the roads were icy and the car started to slide out of control.  Jackie was driving and she screamed but we thought she was just singing along.

That was seven years ago. 

"Do you think we ever would have guessed we'd be here now?"

"No way, we are so much cooler that we ever thought we'd be."

It's true, we are extremely cool.  We are the urban youth of America.  When we are together, there is no stopping us.  We cannot be stopped.  We are mighty.  (Or she is mighty and I bask in her electric glow.) The city is ours.  We breathe in its smoke haze and exhale life into its streets.  Our ideas are made of feathers and hollow bones and talons.  They seek to land, seize and take hold of reality and swoop it up into flight.  We want action.  Music.  Dancing.  Travel.  Motion.  We are welded wires, running on the same current, feeding off each other's energy.  When we fight charged sparks fly but, alas, we are fused together.  There is no choice but to mend. 

We know things about the world that other people just do not understand.  Like the art of living on leftovers and free food.  Or like how, when fatigue sets in, there is a time to surrender and there is a time to martyr yourself and rally for the sake of the party (when in doubt, chose the latter).  We know that the 20s will be, hands down, the best decade of our lives and we pity the fools who squander those years with too much ambition or complacency or money chasing or drama.  They key is to have a healthy dose of all of the above.

She knows things that I forget without her.  Like the appropriate length of a political, religious or philosophical conversation--just enough to stretch the mind without slipping into existential oblivion.  Or like how to not give a damn about impressing unimpressive people.  She knows how to talk about literature and science without sounding like a prick and how to tell a good story whether it's happy or sad. Her blessing is worth more to me than a letter from the President or a thousand "Likes" on facebook.  I would feel sick if she was ever ashamed of a choice I had made or an action I had done.

She crawls into my bed at one in the morning and feeds me the last slice of leftover pizza which I do not want but I eat because we both know that letting something edible go to waste is an unforgivable sin.
She reviews my text messages to analyze the meaning between the lines that I completely miss.
We tell each other when to stop complaining and remind each other how lucky we are in life. 

Ali, (if you ever read this) you're my sister from another mister.  You know I'd walk a mile in heels for you or give up cheese for the rest of my life.  Don't you ever forget it.

The dating game

"I don't even want a boyfriend.  I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time and thinks I'm the best person in the world and wants to be with only me." --Hannah from Girls

I don't know if there is universal plague among 20-somethings or if it's something about Californians or if I am buying the brand of shampoo that releases pheromones repellant to normal men, but being single in the Bay Area is like being a Mormon at a poker table--everyone else seems to know what they're doing (or at least can bluff), there are too many rules to keep track of and the chances of being dealt a good hand at the right moment are slim to none.

My standards are not unreasonably high, I'll give pretty much anyone at least a chance.  But the life-of-the-party types are usually gay, the fly-on-the-wall types are usually taken.  The Europeans are flirtatious but when they save your number in their phone by your physical features instead of your name, they come off as a little too... goal-oriented.  The grad students are interesting enough but their schedules are impossible.  (It also doesn't help that I live in the Peninsula--the armpit of the dating world.)

I don't mind the commute to the city for a date, but I cannot do long distance between Earth and the celestial world of intellectualism where many a San Franciscan reside.  "No, I haven't heard of [insert obscure indie band name here] either.  But keep asking, this is fun!  Tell me more about that time you read all of Tolstoy's novels on an airplane.  We could also talk about something that would not make me feel like an idiot, but then you'd have to walk down all those steps of your ivory tower... You're right, let's stick with game where I guess how many degrees you have!"

But even with a solid hand, a straight or a flush--a nice software developer at Google or a handsome business student from Greece--the odds of a win are still low when you don't know how to play the game.  Apparently, green canvas boots with a purple striped dress from Goodwill don't have the "sexy" vibe guys look for in a girl these days.  Who knew that commenting on the hotness of other women in the room might be an awkward conversation topic?  I am still trying to nail down the correct equation for appropriate text response time post initial encounter: TRT = (Average response rate ÷ number of texts/day) x (number of smiley faces as a percentage of number of winky faces).   No one ever told me that dance moves stolen from a full body workout video probably isn't the best way to nonverbally communicate romantic interest.  They just console me after it's all blown over, "Forget about him, he had no personality."


I always ask the "How'd you meet?" question when I meet coupes--the cute ones, not the obnoxious ones--because the variety of responses fascinate me.  Almost invariably, the stories starts with "It was pretty random..."  The best  ones take place on trains or at bus stops or in lines at the grocery store (if you believe in that sort of thing).

Perhaps the proper metaphor for this whole business isn't poker but a game of craps.  Just casting dice. 

Dare I Eat a Mango?

If the Silicon Valley is populated by the creme de la creme of western progressive social society, I am blending in about as well as a cheese curd in a bowl of whipped cream.  Out at the bars, the standard "resume" around town is a mile long on average and generally includes two to five fluent languages, musical or artistic talent, athleticism, involvement in some sort of social or environmental cause, biracial or otherwise interesting family background and a few other quirky hobbies on the side like tap dancing or fire fighting or vintage camera repairing (and that's just the 26 and under crowd).

If you're a white kid making less than $60k who enjoys watching movies and going to the gym, you might consider chopping off your thumbs to beef up your bar talk content material.  It's that or face a sea of uninterested heads nodding at you with their lips sipping from cocktail straws and their eyes darting around the room searching for someone to talk to about underwater photography or 17th century African transgender literature. 

I mean, I studied abroad!  I have an obscure major!  My brother is an athlete and I took piano lessons as a kid so… I've always considered myself a fairly well-rounded person.  But it turns out that blonde liberal arts girls who are into jogging and saying "Gracias" to waiters at Mexican restaurants went out of style in 2009.   I'm thinking about wearing an eye patch out next weekend…

Last Friday, I stole a knife from the office kitchen, memorized Google bike directions to the nearest green spot on the map and walked out the door at 6:00pm sharp.  All of my two friends were busy so I made a date with myself for the evening.  The first stop was a wardrobe makeover at Goodwill.  Knit grandma sweater, wire rim glasses, floral collared blouse: $4.  Taking a vacation from your identity: priceless.  The second stop was Chase Bank.  Turns out the green spot on the map wasn't a "park" per se, but a crab grass lawn between the bank and the parking lot.  Good enough.

I set up camp a safe distance from the dried dog turds and had myself a party-of-one picnic using the office knife to peel and slice a mango I had bought that morning.  (I always have fruit on hand these days now that I go to the supermercado every morning in hopes of making friends with the Guatemalan cashiers.)  I was ensconced in peace, using the crab grass to clean my sticky hands.  I always thought that Prufrock should have asked "Dare I eat a Mango?" because in my opinion, the juice combined with the fibers and the impossibly-shaped seed make it a much more awkward fruit than a peach. 

If the passerbys were staring at me I couldn't tell because the +1.25 glasses slightly inhibited my far vision.  The faulty street lamp hummed behind me in the parking lot like a buzzing locust, the crosswalk chirped like a morning bird signing to a metronome.  The dog poop didn't smell and neither did the exhaust from the cars--just crab grass and mango juice and suburban sterility.  No one but myself to impress and if I were me, I would totally be into the girl sitting on the side of the road with sticky orange strings dripping from her ear lobes.  Oh yeah. 

The Land of Milk and Money

There is no amount of free Costco snacks that could make this OK.  I never thought I'd say this but I don't care about dried blueberries, cashew almond trail mix, peanut butter stuffed pretzels, Nutella, organic breakfast bars, juice in glass bottles and Red Bull.   Don't get me wrong, I love free breakfast bars.  I've run 15k's just for the free breakfast bars at the end.  But a mountain of Sweet n' Salties does not make up for the fact that we are living in one of the most ideal climates in North America and spending over 80% of the daylight hours between Monday and Friday with our eyeballs glued to LCD screens.

I guess you could say that I'm still adjusting to office life.  

It's strange…. Throw me into any foreign isolated tribal community mud hut village, and I will change colors faster than a chameleon on a snake-skin rug and smile about it.  But stick me in a temperature-controlled, warmly-lit, high-ceilinged Silicon Valley office and suddenly I'm frantically searching for a brown paper bag to breath into. The 'Desk Job' has been so deeply stigmatized in my mind that I can't help but see every perk of my new job as tiny crumbs of organic breakfast bars desperately trying to fill the void in our stomachs where our souls have been sucked out by computers. 

We sit in lumbar-supported swivel desk chairs or bounce with good posture on colorful fitness balls behind computer monitors the size of window panes.  In between the clickity-click-click of our multi-tasking fingers on keyboards, we chat about the latest articles we've read on thenewyorker.com and crack racist jokes (not jokes about any particular race, literally jokes about racists).  Every day there is an Android v. iPhone debate at lunch which is generally at some trendy fast-casual health food restaurant.  On Friday, my ears perked up when I overheard someone mention Asian street food.  Finally!  I'd been dying for something cheap and greasy that I could eat standing up on the sidewalk.  I invited myself along but my enthusiasm curbed when we walked through glass doors into a wood-floored dining room and I saw the artsy backlit sign above the register: "Asian Street Food."  

The skinny girl ordered a huge rice bowl, took a few bites, declared it to be delicious, took a few more bites, then threw the rest away.   If I had a dime for every time I saw a perfectly edible piece of food in the trashcan, I could buy myself Starbucks on a daily basis (which is the equivalent of feeding a family of seven in many parts of the world).  If I had a penny for every time I heard a random person on the street use

 the words "market test", "angel investor", "online community", or "Is it native on the iPad?"  I could buy an iPad (without the plan).  If I had 1/3 of the cars my roommate has, I would have a really nice Mercedes motorcycle.  

I haven't figured out how to handle this lifestyle.  So I crouch behind the bushes with my anthropologist's notepad and observe this strange people.  How do they all have bodies of Nike Store mannequins when they spend all day emailing and sipping macchiatos?  Where are all the children and the elderly?  So much to learn...   

Hello Dream, Meet Reality

I packed up the car with a suitcase of clothes, a box of books, some snacks and two mormon boys going out to visit their mom in California. We all fit comfortably enough in the sedan until my iPod decided to turn the Shuffle setting into a playlist themed “Songs for Sinners” including hits like “Sex and Candy” by Marcy Playground, “Get it on Tonight” by L.L. Cool J and “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton (none of which, for the record, have played on my shuffle since 1999).  As Cee Lo Green belted “F**k you!” over the suddenly too-quiet air conditioner, it started to feel a little cramped in the car.  I was trapped in the backseat unable to reach the Skip button so I took a fake nap to avoid the awkwardness and prayed a silent prayer to Jesus/Brigham Young to forgive me for leading his flock astray. 

Once I had dropped them off in Sacramento, I was free at last to shamelessly sing along to the music which, of course by that point had lost its mojo and was only in the mood for the Juno album and Carla Bruni (which I sang along to using a combination of mumbled French words I learned from Beauty and the Beast).  Then I came around a curve and I saw it.  The Golden Gate Bridge.  I had made it.  Hello dream, meet reality. 

This was a moment fit for a proper soundtrack.  Windows down, sunglasses on (upside-down because the curvy part was hurting the bones behind my ears), “Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangster”: play.  On repeat. 

The city!  Celestial in its splendor!  White sails dotted the sparkling water below and golden buildings gleamed in the setting California sun like the shiny new toy they were to me.  The hazy sky was cloudless and rose-tinted like an Instagram photo in real life.  The palm trees and stucco houses were so classically picturesque, my vision seemed to be bordered by a vignette and I saw the world through the lens of an antique video camera. I held it all--the skyline, the bay, the sailboats--in the palm of my hand.  Mine, all mine!  My fists on my wrists, my cape flapping in the wind, my shadow cast long and wide across the entirety of my kingdom. 

Blink, head shake.  Shoot, where am I going?  Missed the exit.  No worries, I’ll just take the next exit… nope.  This is a bridge, I am confused, especially when I see a sign that says, “Exit towards Golden Gate Bridge.”  (At that point I didn’t know that I was not, in fact on the Golden Gate but on the Bay Bridge.  It did seem strange that it wasn’t red like I had always imagined…)  

My GPS told me to “Turn right and then left then take the onramp onto I-80 West” which took me off the bridge and then put me back on it going the opposite direction.  I then spent the next two hours making U-turns, paying tolls, getting stuck in the middle of intersections, nearly rear-ending four different cars and one pedestrian and feeling an Alice-in-Wonderlandish sensation of shrinking to the size of a pea while the world I had stepped over just a moment ago rose mighty and ominous around me.  I was suddenly swallowed by a labyrinth of six-lane highways, overpasses and one-way roads all conspiring to trap me inside their bowels and poop me out in a sewer underground.

I eventually made it out.  I was not in the sewer, but in East Palo Alto (which Palo Alto yuppies don’t distinguish between).  I pulled into the driveway at my new house--well, the room that is new to me in someone else’s house--and took a breath of fresh California air.  

I’ve arrived.  And by “arrived” I mean just beginning.