Category Archives: these are the days of my lives

I have fallen prey to the worst sort of madness.

Namely, I am poor and I have no money. Pitiful, as I am a grown-up. But there it is.

But being poor is not the madness. Amy, Meg, Beth, Jo and Marmie were poor, but all cheery about it. Except when Beth dies, then they are less than cheery. Although still poor.

So unlike Little Women, I am poor and spending money like an insane person. Seriously. I should be locked up in a place for people who have psychotic breaks.

I can’t even list the offenses. It’s too wretched. But Etsy must take some responsibility. And if I’m being truthful, I should also confess to some entirely frivolous spending at The Foxy Lady. Go ahead. Judge me. I know.

Meanwhile, I’d really like to get some new sneakers. And a yoga mat bag. And there are some birthday plan things for next week that I’ll have to fork over some cash for. Right. And then I’ve to pay for cello lessons tonight, those little bastard experiences of my week for which I am forever plagued with guilt, as I do not practice. I do, in fact, pay $40 a lesson for the privilege of that guilt.

How about if I just close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and just start singing La la la’s? That would help, right?

I got a new haircut yesterday, complete with bangs. Every time I see myself, it makes me giggle a little bit.

I take the NX1 bus home from work every day. On a good day, I catch the 5:35 bus, which is one of the plush, big, green ones. If I were that desperate to check my Facebook updates, I could do it on the big, green NX1, because they have wireless internet. Which is fascinating, really. If I were driving in my car next to a big, green bus, would I have wireless then? Is there an internet forcefield over the bay? No matter, I am loathe to haul a lap top anywhere, and in all honestly, mucking around on Facebook is the likeliest activity.

Today the bus was completely filled to overflowing. Literally. They made one more girl get off, and she had to wait for the 5:55, which tre sucks.

A woman directly behind me was talking on her cell phone, and she kept at it with dogged enthusiasm the entire ride. She was talking about her job, but generically. She got a bonus this year that was 8.5% of her salary. Which will cover her upcoming trip to Ghana. And she likes her office because it’s right in downtown and she can walk along the bay during her lunch if she wants. She thinks that her job is relatively easy and not terribly challenging. She asked her boss if she could move desks because she doesn’t like the woman who sits next to her, as she is very negative. When they switched from one e-mail service to another, the unliked coworker complained a lot about how she didn’t like. So chatty bus lady, she bought herself a radio at Walgreens and she just plays that to tune out her coworker. Or maybe she’ll play a CD. She asked the person on the phone if they liked their job and if it was hard to get a government job. It all went on for quite some time. Highly uninteresting, mildly moronic, but compellingly listenable to.

When the bus got to the first stop, the chatty bus lady got off. Because I had just listened to her natter on about her job for 20 minutes I needed to see her. Who *is* this woman? I wish I could say that she was some sort of woman-child, or an over gymmed newly divorced lady, or a bland plump little mouse. But she was an ordinary Oakland lady… early 40’s, light-skinned black lady, with freckles and dreadlocks, loose flowy sort of clothes.

The silent girl next to me saw me looking at Chatty Patty. She made eye contact with me and said “I can’t believe how some people talk on their cell phones like that.”

To which I confessed “I know! I had to look at her! I couldn’t believe that conversation she had. I had to see her!”

Silent girl doesn’t have more to say, but she starts laughing like crazy. Spurred, I continue to have my internal workings out loud. “Who do you think she was talking to? I thought maybe it was a career counselor or something. It didn’t sound like someone she knew. And could you believe that part about the radio? Seriously. Would you not kill one of your coworkers if they started playing a radio out loud all the time? Who does that?! Dang.”

Silent girl is still laughing. I guess maybe I surprised her with all I had to say about this, but I had a long time to think about that woman’s telephone conversation and I was bursting with the musings of it all.

But it was a neat moment with a stranger. And those are good.

I got a text from Peter last night saying “am probably leaving tomorrow a.m.” I knew he was going. I knew he was all packed up. I knew he tried to give me his Ikea bookshelves. But when I got a second text this morning “Peter is riding off into the east! Sayonara CA” I was still surprised. He never got a local phone number. Never even changed his New Jersey license plates, but I am still in disbelief. He came here, we were close for about a second, and then he left.

So, bye P-tron. I’m sorry that we didn’t work out like I thought we might. But true to form, I didn’t know you when I thought I knew you and got in over my head before I knew if I was jumping into jello or diet coke. Then after all that effort and expectation, I couldn’t just admit that I was so utterly wrong, and we still kept in touch. Sort of, anyway. But I didn’t know what to say when you couldn’t find a job or when you couldn’t decide where to live or when you started making plans around your newly found dog. And I got busy and caught up in new people and new things. So, I dunno. It’s a little sad that you’re off now.

Good luck back there. I hope the next round of adventure is better for you than this one was. And thanks for stopping by.

There is a farmer’s market in my neighborhood every Saturday morning. I go each week, some times just to ensure that I have left the house at least once over the course of a weekend.

It’s clear and sunny today and it feels as though spring is coming, even though it’s only January. But the weather’s been unforgiving lately, for the Bay Area anyway, so it is spry indeed to get a day like this.

I usually do a lap of the whole market first to see what’s there and then make purchases on my second circuit. Today I bought a pomelo, which gave me fond memories of high school AP English.

It takes a lot of work to get through a pomelo, which looks like a monster grapefruit. They’ve got these thick spongy skins, which can’t be just peeled. They have to be cut through and whittled away at until you’ve got just the fruit. Then the interior skin is entirely non-good for eating, so you have to completely remove the flesh from the pithy stuff in there. But it’s completely worth all the labor. You might not think that crunchy citrus is the way to go, but it’s surprisingly super.