Some Stuff for Things
I keep an ongoing list of odds and ends titled “Stuff For Things.” What exactly it constitutes is not entirely scientific. It suggests that in order to have things you must need stuff first, but I am sure there are pointed chicken or the egg arguments to be made about how things come before stuff. However, please enjoy some recent developments on my “Stuff For Things”:
Drinking wine with an Argentine:
This came from a Saturday I spent wandering and walking up hidden staircases and steep hills I hadn’t met until then. Overgrown gardens and a view of the city accompanied by two priests who were pointing at every spire or belltower dotting San Francisco. It reminded me of the kinds of people that refuse to wear color and they only wear black and only buy black clothing and make it known as if it is something naked to the eye. So, as the religious brothers (I assume) are consumed with faith and maybe where that happens, they barely glanced at a bay dotted with sailboats, but primarily fixated on houses of God versus houses of the one percent.
More wandering led to a glass of lambrusco, and then another, and finally a glass of sancerre while a 30 year old consultant showed me pictures of his apartment in Chelsea and how statuesque his gray standard poodle is. He had a rawhide rug and a trunk for a coffee table, which feels like it has something to do with an X and a Y axis as it relates to single 30 year old men with some money. An invitation to dinner happened and was taken up. A stranger became less strange and I kept staring at the scar on his shoulder in between drunken lines of flattery that kept reminding me that I could have been home having baked a pie, but instead I was in front of a man wearing loafers the one day I did not wear mine.
Bums hitting a bong at a bus stop bench:
I was returning from my first graduate level writing class excited and apprehensive. Excited for the right reasons and apprehensive because when we shared what we wrote in a 10 minute time frame my lines referencing the word home seemed immature. I was the last to share my off the cuff 10 minute words having to follow a sad lesbian affair, the death of a pet turtle, and various other unfortunate circumstances.
Instead I wrote,
“It is a place where I am, where I was from, and will be. A place to return to, get locked out of, clog a toilet, and eat takeout on the ground because there was no place to sit to begin with. It was a terrazzo hallway, a wool carpeted bedroom, someone else’s bed with my own pillow, and there was the one with creaky floors, an elevator that spoke to you, and a view of Notre Dame burning. It is real and imaginary and heartbreaking and shatterproof.”
So, on my walk home, waiting to cross the street thinking about how I never had a pet turtle nor had a lesbian affair, I saw three bums sitting at a bus stop bench hitting a bong and wrote it down, realizing that it means something to me (a physical alliteration?) and it might not stand for something now (or ever) but it is funny.
Free first meal at restaurants:
Sunday. The day I needed to touch grass so I followed trails that led to salamanders with yellow bellies and the question, “If you were an animal, what animal would you be?” The day ended with a perfect fishy fanfare on Fillmore with Chloe. She parked Holly next to a curb that matched her (red cars, especially 1959 T Birds, can park in red zones, but not a lot of people know that).
We got clam chowder. Chloe debated New England versus Manhattan, but the menu offered a Hartford style, which is if New England and Manhattan had a baby, but it is a bowl of clam chowder that is a little tomato based and mostly cream based. She opted for New England.
The waitress asked if we wanted anything to drink and Chloe, studying the options, told the waitress, “You know, I already had a bunch of root beer at work so I think I am good with water.”
I laughed and she asked why. I said something about how I thought it was funny how she gave the waitress reasoning as to why she would just be sticking with water tonight.
We also ordered a wedge salad and I thought of my mother and how we as people should really be eating more iceberg lettuce. What a name and what a perfect leaf.
At some point Chloe asked me, “Why would anyone want to be friends with you?” It was somewhat rhetorical and totally to do with men in my life that I know.
Then our mussels and clams came and so did conversation points about wanting to chug the broth.
While we waited for the check I realized that if you want to, you can get one free meal from every restaurant, but only once and you cannot really go back after. We paid our check.
Parking Ticket on a Motorcycle:
Not much to be said other than it feels poetic to a degree because there is no windshield wiper on a motorcycle.
It is fun to carry around a little white notebook and have one of those iPhones to use in a pinch (which mostly is the true venue for all stuff for things). There will be more and there is most definitely plenty already.
