Mood:
vegas luckyTopic: The World At Large
Playlist:
Little Village: Solar Sex Panel; Bryan Adams: Diana; Alan Parsons Project: Wouldn't Want to be Like You; Ian Dury: Sex & Drugs & Rock n' Roll; World Party: Way Down Now; 10CC: Dreadlock Holiday; Hothouse Flowers: Thing of Beauty; Dire Straits: Industrial Disease; Nena: 99 Luftballoons; Hothouse Flowers: Don't Go; Jesus Jones: Right Here Right Now; Depeche Mode: Just Can't Get Enough; Hollies: On a Carousel; Judy Collins: Someday Soon; Dusty Springfield: All Cried Out; Fever Tree: San Francisco Girls; Beatles: Lovely Rita; Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose: Treat Her Like a Lady; Five Stair Steps: Ooh Child; Cream: Badge; Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour; Beatles: It Won't Be Long; Hugh Mazakela: Grazing in the Grass; Mary Hopkins: Those Were the Days; Every Mother's Son: Come on Down to My Boat; Elvis Costello: Oliver's Army; Hipsway: The Honey Thief; Glen Campbell: Witchita Lineman; Toto: Africa; Richie Havens: Here Comes the Sun [studio version]; Spin Doctors: Little Miss Can't Be Wrong; Sarah McLachlan: Vox; Jackson Browne: You Love the Thunder; Beatles: Rain; Savage Garden: I Want You; Beatle: Doctor Robert; Blue Rodeo: 'Til I Am Myself Again; The Fixx: Deeper and Deeper; Peter Frampton: I Can't Stand It No More;
Today, being a good day, there was $3/gram cross at the Compassion Club. The waiting room was nearly full and there was maybe 10 numbers before mine. I'm guessing half an hour wait.
Big guy, reeking of cigarette and grubby clothing, wearing shades indoors calls out "Who's got 87?"
I'm right next to him, and say "I do."
Well, he's got 88, and he wants to go out for a smoke, so could I rap on the window when it gets to be my turn and he won't lose his place? The first time he asked me I couldn't make sense of his request; for some reason it sounded like a recording played back at the wrong speed. The chemo from yesterday was still floating around this morning and I'd needed a small hit of Emerald Wonder before I could get going. Had to ask him again what he wanted, and then I agreed to his presumably simple request.
He goes out front and I can see him smoking. A few numbers later, he's not there and the implications of my agreement are sinking in. If you're not there when they call your number, that's it. Gotta get a new number and that'd be a terrible nuisance especially when it's busy. I have a responsibility not to lose track of this fellow. I hoped he hadn't strayed to the park, but he seemed pretty eager about not missing his spot.
I went out the front door and he was right there with a few others. He asked if it was his turn next. Nope, but in about ten, fifteen minutes it will be.
"I didn't see you by the window and I wanted to find you in enough time."
He thanked me. I thought I heard somebody in the group say "Well spotted, ma'am."
Another 10 minutes later, the fellow comes in and before he sits down, says to me "Really, thank you very much for that."
I stopped by the Food Co-op to get a carton of milk. Wrong time of day entirely to be there, but it beat what Santa Barbara's nightmare queue would be. You only go there in early evening when you have both leisure and a desire to check out the crowd. I was in a hurry to get home because my friend Trish was coming for a visit, and I wanted to start on the baking.
Woman in front of me has a full basket, and I notice that she has soy milk. She didn't miss seeing the 2 litre carton I laid on the counter. Almost presenting it to see how she'd respond but she didn't have the motivation to let the one-itemed milk drinker go ahead of her. Trained from a steady diet of tv crime shows, I began constructing a mini-profile of her by the items in her basket.
She wore a fashionable gore-tex jacket, was probably a few years older than me. Professional looking. The produce she bought was organic--nearly each piece of it confirmed individually at the till with emphasis: "Yes!" or "Of course," in that superior way. She could've just said they all were at the start but where would be the satisfaction?
Then she hadn't put the bin number down on a few bulk items, an indication of her relationship to detail. I deduced via eavesdropping that she does body work. Ah...a healer. Probably doesn't watch TV, and I bet she's a vegetarian. I wished I'd had a package of meat in my order. Then her card had to be run through twice because she'd begun packing the groceries and the connection ran out of time.
In real life, there's probably nothing the matter with the woman in front of me. She had an essence, like she was one of my secret evil dopplegangers. The person I might have resembled had I made better choices. In moments of maudlin reverie, I am reminded of having known many such women, of having attended dinners and gatherings in their beautiful homes. Women who had plans for their lives. Women with terrific partners, women with promise. Women with stability. Women who had earned the right to dawdle at the Food Co-op.
In contrast, I was a middle-aged woman wearing a biker jacket, Docs, shiny, baggy, downright ill-fitting Levis, topped with short, spikey bed hair and looked like she hadn't slept right in days. I illustrated what is implied by the No butches please you often see in personal ads, the sort penned by women like her, who initially sound intriguing, somebody you'd want to meet. But they don't want to meet you. Then there was the milk. The two grams of pot in my pocket, which she wouldn't know about, simply added to the tableaux.
I don't remember how it got to be so goddamn complicated.
The big guy has a nice smile.
