Signing our life away
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
number crunching
On Friday, we signed accepted the seller's counter offer for the house of Raph's dream. Jason, Raph's cousin, came along and jovially snapped pictures of us signing the forms and it was a jolly time, exciting.
Yesterday was a different story. We sat the with the loan officer for two hours and watched her fill out our loan application. Perhaps she didn't think we could do it on our own. I am more prone to believe that she just liked her own handwriting and wanted the application to be nice and neat. In any case it was excrutiating. We've talked to several loan officers. They all seem off, either shady or disgruntled, or something. This lady, bordered on rude. When we bought vacant land a year ago, she wrote the loan. When we considered a second lot, she'd say things like, "we don't want to be greedy now!" Yesterday she said things like, "Oh, that seems like a lot of money for a house out there." (I feel even now like I have to defend myself and tell you that actually it is a very good price for a house right near the water like this one.) Yesterday was not nearly so fun and jovial. In fact, I hope never to have pictures of myself with any loan officer.
Yesterday was a different story. We sat the with the loan officer for two hours and watched her fill out our loan application. Perhaps she didn't think we could do it on our own. I am more prone to believe that she just liked her own handwriting and wanted the application to be nice and neat. In any case it was excrutiating. We've talked to several loan officers. They all seem off, either shady or disgruntled, or something. This lady, bordered on rude. When we bought vacant land a year ago, she wrote the loan. When we considered a second lot, she'd say things like, "we don't want to be greedy now!" Yesterday she said things like, "Oh, that seems like a lot of money for a house out there." (I feel even now like I have to defend myself and tell you that actually it is a very good price for a house right near the water like this one.) Yesterday was not nearly so fun and jovial. In fact, I hope never to have pictures of myself with any loan officer.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Our course is set.
For better or worse, our course is set. We have an accepted offer on a house near the ocean in Hawaii. Come what may - lava, tsunami, hurricane, blue skies, friendly gales, friends and family - our course for the moment is set.
We went and biked around the neighborhood at dusk the other night, listened to the croaking of the coqui frogs all around, listened to the waves crashing, sat on the porch and let the wind play with my hair, tickle my eyes. My favorite thing about this house is by far the wind. It is constant and light, coming across 2500 miles of open ocean to kiss me. I can imagine the wind out of some Greek myth, arms outstetched reaching for me in Hawaii, hurling itself along, impatient.
We went and biked around the neighborhood at dusk the other night, listened to the croaking of the coqui frogs all around, listened to the waves crashing, sat on the porch and let the wind play with my hair, tickle my eyes. My favorite thing about this house is by far the wind. It is constant and light, coming across 2500 miles of open ocean to kiss me. I can imagine the wind out of some Greek myth, arms outstetched reaching for me in Hawaii, hurling itself along, impatient.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The Dry Cleaners (also from the writing workshop)
The Dry Cleaners
“You’re going to be working for the rest of your life. Why don’t you spend your free time with your friends or at the pool or something,” my mom offered. She didn’t get it. I desperately wanted a job, and for no particular reason. I wasn’t trying to make money. I just wanted a job. I considered having a job to be a great adventure, a sign of something. I wasn’t sure of what.
My friend Christina Kefalos, who brought me to Greek Conventions even though I wasn’t Greek, and who had the attention of every boy in the school, told me I could work with her at the dry cleaners. Thrifty Dry Cleaners paid $4.25 per hour and workers signed up for shifts. The deal was sealed. I was their newest employee.
The following month I headed to work, through the hole in the fence and across the tracks, stopping to feel the track for train vibrations and leaving a penny to get smooshed after I’d left. Sometimes I worried that I’d derail a train that way, but treasured the flattened metal too much to stop. I maneuvered through the fat gravel on the side of the road and hopped over the cement barrier into the middle of Edgewood Avenue.
Thrifty Dry Cleaners didn’t do the actual washing or pressing or whatever it was that they did to clothes in our store. A white van would come and take the carefully tagged clothes away and bring them back “cleaned” the following day. I was always doubtful that they did any actual cleaning of those clothes, instead suspecting that they put them on hangers, pressed them, covered them with bags and sent them back, since no stains ever seems to come out and clothes never really looked cleaner.
I learned a lot about stains at Thrifty’s. We were never allowed to tell a customer that a stain wouldn’t come out, but rather we were told to encourage them to “give it a try – you never know.” Well I knew. Those stains never came out. There were stains the workers learned to avoid. The biggest hazard to a worker at Thrifty’s were the pants of the “freeballers,” the fat men (most of the time) who without exception had stains on the insides of their pants. We went to extreme lengths to avoid contact with those pants, and tried our best to pin the little red and yellow tags to the waistband without touching the actual fabric.
The freeballers weren’t the only people who left the workers unsolicited surprises. The local drug dealers were a constant source of conversation between workers, due to the baggies of marijuana and wads of money left in pockets. We would all try to outdo others’ stories of treasures found by embellishing on the amounts of our finds or speculating about the owner. We commonly debated whether or not to keep money found in pockets. It was generally agreed upon that money less than ten or twenty dollars could be pocketed. Some of us returned such amounts anyway, to make customers happy. The issue was far more complicated when the sums grew over $100 or $200. We sometimes argued for keeping half, but reasoned the customer would then know the remainder had been taken. Christina convinced me that if we returned it, that would be an act of kindness, but we were not obligated to do so. So, mostly we returned the money, save a few dollars here and there, but grappled with the choice over an over again. Sometimes we’d take turns getting slush puppies from the convenience store next door with our found money, trying to outdo eachother with awful combinations of flavors – raspberry banana, blueberry grape, or the rainbow, which included every flavor all mixed together. In the end, they all pretty much tasted the same, even though they turned you lips and tongue different colors.
A major perk of working at Thrifty’s was that you were given a key to the store. Christina and I would occasionally sneak into the store after dark, because we knew it was wrong, that the cops were sure to catch us our after Edgewood’s community curfew of 10:00pm, which was broadcast by an exceedingly loud mounting whistle, that also alerted the volunteer fire department of a fire. We would enter and turn the light in the back room on, try on forgotten and neglected clothes. The store’s policy stated that Thrifty’s was not responsible for clothes left at the cleaners for more than three months. They never threw them away either, so we’d wait for the three month mark and then make them ours for our own personal fashion shows. Ridiculous prom dresses with puffy sleeves, too much toole, and terribly ugly cuts, were favorites. We also liked the gaudy wedding dresses, polyester shirts in browns and blues from the 70’s, and bell-bottom pants. Occassionally, we’d try on newer clothes and try to figure out which of our customers were closest in size. Sometimes we’d give them away to friends for Halloween, hoping that noone would ever come and pick them up.
They never did I suppose. Our clientele wasn’t the swiftest. We’d watch “the purse” from the big store front window on most days. She was a gaunt black lady, whose clothes never seemed to fit her right, clinging awkwardly to the wrong parts of her body, like a wet piece of clothing. She wore white pumps every day and puffy colored socks at the same time. She’d stand on the edge of the parking lot swinging her purse the way a lifeguard swings a whistle, eyeing each car that passed her. We were never sure what it was that she was doing there. Some speculated that she was trying to be a hooker. I doubted. She seemed lonely and crazy to me, and yet sure of her self at the same time. I speculated that she had lost a lover in our parking lot and would come every day to visit that memory, which was interrupted by every passing car.
Another favorite customer was Mr. Mom, who pushed a baby carriage through the parking lot, into the convenience store for a Kit Kat a couple times a week, and almost always on Saturdays, my usual work day. Very occasionally, he’d push the carriage into Thrifty’s to drop off baby clothes for cleaning. It was at these times, we’d choke back our laughter and try with all seriousness to comment on the cuteness of his “baby,” the plastic doll in his carriage. He never seemed to pay much attention to us, or catch our teasing. Sometimes I’d feel bad for Mr. Mom, wanting to understand him better, understand why he carried that doll around and chose not to hear our snickering, but I never told the worker that.
Working at Thrifty’s involved signing up for shifts, and after a year I signed up less and less. I’m not sure what had lit the fire inside of me to start working, but my mom was right, I have been working ever since. I do know that I learned a lot about stains, ethics, and strangers from Thrifty’s, lessons which I am still drawing upon now. I pause for ketchup down my white t-shirt and sometimes I pause to swing my purse in the parking lot, eyeing every car that passes.
“You’re going to be working for the rest of your life. Why don’t you spend your free time with your friends or at the pool or something,” my mom offered. She didn’t get it. I desperately wanted a job, and for no particular reason. I wasn’t trying to make money. I just wanted a job. I considered having a job to be a great adventure, a sign of something. I wasn’t sure of what.
My friend Christina Kefalos, who brought me to Greek Conventions even though I wasn’t Greek, and who had the attention of every boy in the school, told me I could work with her at the dry cleaners. Thrifty Dry Cleaners paid $4.25 per hour and workers signed up for shifts. The deal was sealed. I was their newest employee.
The following month I headed to work, through the hole in the fence and across the tracks, stopping to feel the track for train vibrations and leaving a penny to get smooshed after I’d left. Sometimes I worried that I’d derail a train that way, but treasured the flattened metal too much to stop. I maneuvered through the fat gravel on the side of the road and hopped over the cement barrier into the middle of Edgewood Avenue.
Thrifty Dry Cleaners didn’t do the actual washing or pressing or whatever it was that they did to clothes in our store. A white van would come and take the carefully tagged clothes away and bring them back “cleaned” the following day. I was always doubtful that they did any actual cleaning of those clothes, instead suspecting that they put them on hangers, pressed them, covered them with bags and sent them back, since no stains ever seems to come out and clothes never really looked cleaner.
I learned a lot about stains at Thrifty’s. We were never allowed to tell a customer that a stain wouldn’t come out, but rather we were told to encourage them to “give it a try – you never know.” Well I knew. Those stains never came out. There were stains the workers learned to avoid. The biggest hazard to a worker at Thrifty’s were the pants of the “freeballers,” the fat men (most of the time) who without exception had stains on the insides of their pants. We went to extreme lengths to avoid contact with those pants, and tried our best to pin the little red and yellow tags to the waistband without touching the actual fabric.
The freeballers weren’t the only people who left the workers unsolicited surprises. The local drug dealers were a constant source of conversation between workers, due to the baggies of marijuana and wads of money left in pockets. We would all try to outdo others’ stories of treasures found by embellishing on the amounts of our finds or speculating about the owner. We commonly debated whether or not to keep money found in pockets. It was generally agreed upon that money less than ten or twenty dollars could be pocketed. Some of us returned such amounts anyway, to make customers happy. The issue was far more complicated when the sums grew over $100 or $200. We sometimes argued for keeping half, but reasoned the customer would then know the remainder had been taken. Christina convinced me that if we returned it, that would be an act of kindness, but we were not obligated to do so. So, mostly we returned the money, save a few dollars here and there, but grappled with the choice over an over again. Sometimes we’d take turns getting slush puppies from the convenience store next door with our found money, trying to outdo eachother with awful combinations of flavors – raspberry banana, blueberry grape, or the rainbow, which included every flavor all mixed together. In the end, they all pretty much tasted the same, even though they turned you lips and tongue different colors.
A major perk of working at Thrifty’s was that you were given a key to the store. Christina and I would occasionally sneak into the store after dark, because we knew it was wrong, that the cops were sure to catch us our after Edgewood’s community curfew of 10:00pm, which was broadcast by an exceedingly loud mounting whistle, that also alerted the volunteer fire department of a fire. We would enter and turn the light in the back room on, try on forgotten and neglected clothes. The store’s policy stated that Thrifty’s was not responsible for clothes left at the cleaners for more than three months. They never threw them away either, so we’d wait for the three month mark and then make them ours for our own personal fashion shows. Ridiculous prom dresses with puffy sleeves, too much toole, and terribly ugly cuts, were favorites. We also liked the gaudy wedding dresses, polyester shirts in browns and blues from the 70’s, and bell-bottom pants. Occassionally, we’d try on newer clothes and try to figure out which of our customers were closest in size. Sometimes we’d give them away to friends for Halloween, hoping that noone would ever come and pick them up.
They never did I suppose. Our clientele wasn’t the swiftest. We’d watch “the purse” from the big store front window on most days. She was a gaunt black lady, whose clothes never seemed to fit her right, clinging awkwardly to the wrong parts of her body, like a wet piece of clothing. She wore white pumps every day and puffy colored socks at the same time. She’d stand on the edge of the parking lot swinging her purse the way a lifeguard swings a whistle, eyeing each car that passed her. We were never sure what it was that she was doing there. Some speculated that she was trying to be a hooker. I doubted. She seemed lonely and crazy to me, and yet sure of her self at the same time. I speculated that she had lost a lover in our parking lot and would come every day to visit that memory, which was interrupted by every passing car.
Another favorite customer was Mr. Mom, who pushed a baby carriage through the parking lot, into the convenience store for a Kit Kat a couple times a week, and almost always on Saturdays, my usual work day. Very occasionally, he’d push the carriage into Thrifty’s to drop off baby clothes for cleaning. It was at these times, we’d choke back our laughter and try with all seriousness to comment on the cuteness of his “baby,” the plastic doll in his carriage. He never seemed to pay much attention to us, or catch our teasing. Sometimes I’d feel bad for Mr. Mom, wanting to understand him better, understand why he carried that doll around and chose not to hear our snickering, but I never told the worker that.
Working at Thrifty’s involved signing up for shifts, and after a year I signed up less and less. I’m not sure what had lit the fire inside of me to start working, but my mom was right, I have been working ever since. I do know that I learned a lot about stains, ethics, and strangers from Thrifty’s, lessons which I am still drawing upon now. I pause for ketchup down my white t-shirt and sometimes I pause to swing my purse in the parking lot, eyeing every car that passes.
Friday, September 15, 2006
The Suicide Run
We had to write a poem at our training today and I sort of liked mine. It was based on the structure of a poem by Mary Oliver called The Summer Day.
The Suicide Run
Who brought the snow?
Who laid it gently - an invitation?
Who made the hills?
This hill - I mean
The one who beckons my father,
The one who calls to us to test our luck, sleds in hand,
Who is waiting with trees like hair,
Who is gaping, mouth open under walls.
Now she smiles, sunlight illuminating the pores and rocks of her complexion.
Now she calls again and my dad slides away - down.
I don't know what other families are like.
I do know how to follow him, how to wait for his magic,
How to be awed and surprised, how to expect wonder and fear and wonder again,
Which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything change and too soon?
Tell me what is it that you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
The Suicide Run
Who brought the snow?
Who laid it gently - an invitation?
Who made the hills?
This hill - I mean
The one who beckons my father,
The one who calls to us to test our luck, sleds in hand,
Who is waiting with trees like hair,
Who is gaping, mouth open under walls.
Now she smiles, sunlight illuminating the pores and rocks of her complexion.
Now she calls again and my dad slides away - down.
I don't know what other families are like.
I do know how to follow him, how to wait for his magic,
How to be awed and surprised, how to expect wonder and fear and wonder again,
Which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything change and too soon?
Tell me what is it that you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
about running
So I hate running. I hate running enough that I've created theories about why I'm a bad runner. Want to hear my favorite theory? My theory is that as a child dominant muscles form, based on the kinds of activities you participate in. For example, I spent most of my childhood swimming and feel I could swim for miles, presumably because my muscles had swimming as their major formative force. Other people who spend a lot of time running around and participating in sports have a whole different set of muscles formed. So this of course explains why running is so difficult for me and I hate it so much.
Having said that Raph and I are getting fat, mostly because his cousin Deanna has been cooking for us since we arrived in Hawaii. Quite seriously, I've never had so many different kinds of great food - Vietnemese (which she happens also to be), Mexican, Italian, Thai, Indian. Just thinking about it makes me fatter. So Raph convinced me to start running with him. At 5:00 AM. Ouch, you might be thinking, but in fact that is my favorite part of the running game, getting up for first light, when it is cool and sensitive outside.
Today was our third day. I'm only running half a mile, but my God it feels like an eternity. Then I walk that same distance or more back. And I have to say it feels good. I am energized for the whole morning, in a way that my cherished cup of coffee doesn't even afford. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of liked it today. Hopefully it will last at least as long as this blog.
Having said that Raph and I are getting fat, mostly because his cousin Deanna has been cooking for us since we arrived in Hawaii. Quite seriously, I've never had so many different kinds of great food - Vietnemese (which she happens also to be), Mexican, Italian, Thai, Indian. Just thinking about it makes me fatter. So Raph convinced me to start running with him. At 5:00 AM. Ouch, you might be thinking, but in fact that is my favorite part of the running game, getting up for first light, when it is cool and sensitive outside.
Today was our third day. I'm only running half a mile, but my God it feels like an eternity. Then I walk that same distance or more back. And I have to say it feels good. I am energized for the whole morning, in a way that my cherished cup of coffee doesn't even afford. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of liked it today. Hopefully it will last at least as long as this blog.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Saturday, September 09, 2006
moonlight on a lava field
It's Raph's birthday weekend and so I get no say in what we do. That's our deal. No compromising on your birthday weekend. So Raph made me stay up late. At about 10:00, we drove to Kalapana, which borders the most recent lava flows, the ones that tourists regularly photograph with the speed limit signs sticking out of the lava. Raph needed to know if you could see the lava on the hillside from this side of the lava flow. Sure enough it lit up the hillside and turned the clouds orange. More impressive than that was the silver sheen of the lava, reflection of a plump moon, so bright, we had moon shadows. We scuttled along as Raph set up the tripod and took painfully long to snap a picture. (I am not known for patience.) But soon my tendencies to fall asleep and my impatience with his pace faded, and the three of us (Raph's cousin Jason was also there) were having a grand old time taking ghost pictures in the lava. We did the old flashlight tricks, though I only posted the "LOVE" shot, not Jason's "FUCKER" shots. And the whole thing reminded me of days gone by, times in college or at the beach in Rhode Island, when boredom was the mother of invention and entertainment and beautiful landscapes the medium of our art.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006
The Big Knot
I spent a wonderful week at home. I got short visits with lots of good friends and spent some wonderful time with my family. My friends Evan and Ben tied the knot and it was beautiful and lots of fun. Here are some pics from the event.
I am now fascinated by weddings. I love photographing them, but the whole ritual is pretty amazing. I justified some pretty silly things "because it was my wedding." Then at the wedding we said our vows, and I felt, "wow, that was it!" And then there was complete exhaustion trying to spend time with all people who made their way into the middle of Yosemtie to be present. (We have friends in Hawaii who have threatened to get married on top of a glacier in the middle of Alaska that will require us to take a helicopter, a dog sled, hike three miles and swim through icy water just as retaliation.) I go back and forth between thinking that weddings are over the top and thinking that they are great chances to celebrate eachother and see friends and family. I loved Evan's wedding. At the moment I'm leaning towards the latter.
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