Writing Prompt: The boss
He walked around the restaurant checking in with the clientele, doing
what needed to be done if the servers were busy, and otherwise creating
an air of mastery. They called him The Captain, although he wasn't
alone. There was a captain at every fine dining establishment from San
Francisco to Paris to Milan and beyond.
On his downtime he was less fastidious, although you could hardly
have guessed that from observing him at work. He slept in boxers, woke
up, and without putting anything else on, opened his door to the luxury
apartment building hallway and grabbed the paper, itching his crotch and
sometimes picking his nose. Slovenly except for his building had a
doorman, a unique luxury in San Francisco, which was by no one's
accounts, New York, not even on the best day.
He wasn't an unpleasant man, but he had no time for behaving
properly when not constrained by the expectations of Robert, his
longtime boss. It's true, he sometimes ate Kentucky Fried Chicken while
sitting in front of the TV. He also liked to drink at the dive two
blocks over and two blocks down at the corner of lonesome and dangerous.
Although he had done well for himself, running the front of the
house in a Michelin rated venue for years, and with no family to suck
away his funds, he had no desire to be anything but real when he was off
duty. Charlie instead of Charles. Sweatpants or loose old jeans instead
of pressed fine fabric slacks, a simple gold chain around his neck
instead of the finest silk tie. A real contrast between on and off if he
reflected on himself.
Even Robert knew this, and they sometimes joked about it, but never
when the staff was nearby. For the staff the expectations of perfection,
reverence and efficient silence were in order, unless speaking with the
guests. For the staff, Charles and Robert put on quite the show of
disciplined excellence.
She noticed all this without telling anyone. She frequented the
establishment, and happened to live in his building. He thought of her
as a benign presence, having no idea that she studied him day in and day
out. Even she wasn't quite sure why she bothered. She supposed it gave
her something to do in an otherwise privileged but massively dull life.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Daily Write: Albert taps a cigarette from his pack (August 13, 2013)
Writing Prompt: Albert taps a cigarette from his pack
A tall black man with a French accent and short braids, great smile, knowing gait. Exactly what the stuffy, if delicious, restaurant needed. True, a restaurant, unless constructed from food, can't be delicious. And true "restaurant" seems a cheap word, almost common, which is what this place was anything but.
The fabric gathered into a cathedral at the center, drape upon drape, fold upon fold. I think it actually made her a little bit nauseous, the cloistered decor, the polite monied client dinners and old school gray haired set.
Next to us an Asian man in his mid-30s, no doubt a millionaire, or man behind the next big start up, slurped his wine pretentiously. He seemed nice enough, even when talking into his ear piece in this sanctified establishment, located in San Francisco since the late 50s. But god, the slurping. I mean, how much aeration does one guy need? Did the wine taste good? Check. Did he know what it tasted like after the first two sips? Check. So knock it off with the noises from hell.
It made for funny silent lip mimes from me to my date, "oh my god! I can't take the slurping." Try to read that out of someone's mouth from who breath and sound barely escape. I made up for it, of course, by spilling the chocolate sauce and asking loud naive questions about the food. I can only fake it so long, and being quiet and straight backed, proper, is really not my thing, never has been.
Our waiter was a woman. White, wavy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wasn't portly, but neither was she thin. I wanted to like her but:
a) she had no sense of humor
b) she seemed like someone I would have met in college
Later a gay waiter in his 40s walked by, winked and mouthed "happy birthday" to me. This made me happy. Why? Because they always like the queers in those places, especially the unlikely butch/femme couple like us.
A tall black man with a French accent and short braids, great smile, knowing gait. Exactly what the stuffy, if delicious, restaurant needed. True, a restaurant, unless constructed from food, can't be delicious. And true "restaurant" seems a cheap word, almost common, which is what this place was anything but.
The fabric gathered into a cathedral at the center, drape upon drape, fold upon fold. I think it actually made her a little bit nauseous, the cloistered decor, the polite monied client dinners and old school gray haired set.
Next to us an Asian man in his mid-30s, no doubt a millionaire, or man behind the next big start up, slurped his wine pretentiously. He seemed nice enough, even when talking into his ear piece in this sanctified establishment, located in San Francisco since the late 50s. But god, the slurping. I mean, how much aeration does one guy need? Did the wine taste good? Check. Did he know what it tasted like after the first two sips? Check. So knock it off with the noises from hell.
It made for funny silent lip mimes from me to my date, "oh my god! I can't take the slurping." Try to read that out of someone's mouth from who breath and sound barely escape. I made up for it, of course, by spilling the chocolate sauce and asking loud naive questions about the food. I can only fake it so long, and being quiet and straight backed, proper, is really not my thing, never has been.
Our waiter was a woman. White, wavy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wasn't portly, but neither was she thin. I wanted to like her but:
a) she had no sense of humor
b) she seemed like someone I would have met in college
Later a gay waiter in his 40s walked by, winked and mouthed "happy birthday" to me. This made me happy. Why? Because they always like the queers in those places, especially the unlikely butch/femme couple like us.
Friday, August 9, 2013
The Daily Write: Write about a time you retreated (August 9, 2013)
Writing Prompt: Write about a time you retreated
There's a fine line between telling my own story and telling the story of my mother. In some moments I feel like I own her story, after all, didn't it create the conditions of my life? Therefore, don't I have a right to it? On the other hand, many years ago my partner became impatient with the way I seemed to romanticize her past and asked me to stop asking her so many questions or retelling what was hers to tell.
So, I vacillate between what I want to say, what I think I should say and what shouldn't be said. It's a fine line, a tiny bit less awkward given the fact that I don't yet have an agent. But that will change soon. I am destined to be a storyteller and writer, and then surely it will all come out.
Honestly, there's so much that will come out that I can clearly never run for political office. I could do a stint as a rock star, no doubt, because their lives are nothing without secrets revealed. But is ones background and growing up time their own to share or does the story start with the first time on stage, or on the road?
Did you ever see the movie Almost Famous? I resonated with those characters - the eager journalist, the beautiful groupie, the egotistical rock god. Or how about Laurel Canyon? I loved that tough/loose mother and music producer played by Frances McDormand. I cried wanting to be there, in the hot wind of an LA enclave.
I grew up between worlds, between states, between parents and siblings. I grew up on the edges of extreme wealth and hippie poverty. My childhood smelled like patchouli and grass in the summers and hot stifling normativity during the school year. My worlds conflicted, as did my allegiances and no one knew the whole me except me.
When my mom moved to the guru's commune, my story became more colorful, at least in tones of a red orange sunset. Only it wasn't me who lived there. I was, as I had always been, on the outside looking in, sometimes with envy, sometimes with curiosity, usually feeling left out.
There's a fine line between telling my own story and telling the story of my mother. In some moments I feel like I own her story, after all, didn't it create the conditions of my life? Therefore, don't I have a right to it? On the other hand, many years ago my partner became impatient with the way I seemed to romanticize her past and asked me to stop asking her so many questions or retelling what was hers to tell.
So, I vacillate between what I want to say, what I think I should say and what shouldn't be said. It's a fine line, a tiny bit less awkward given the fact that I don't yet have an agent. But that will change soon. I am destined to be a storyteller and writer, and then surely it will all come out.
Honestly, there's so much that will come out that I can clearly never run for political office. I could do a stint as a rock star, no doubt, because their lives are nothing without secrets revealed. But is ones background and growing up time their own to share or does the story start with the first time on stage, or on the road?
Did you ever see the movie Almost Famous? I resonated with those characters - the eager journalist, the beautiful groupie, the egotistical rock god. Or how about Laurel Canyon? I loved that tough/loose mother and music producer played by Frances McDormand. I cried wanting to be there, in the hot wind of an LA enclave.
I grew up between worlds, between states, between parents and siblings. I grew up on the edges of extreme wealth and hippie poverty. My childhood smelled like patchouli and grass in the summers and hot stifling normativity during the school year. My worlds conflicted, as did my allegiances and no one knew the whole me except me.
When my mom moved to the guru's commune, my story became more colorful, at least in tones of a red orange sunset. Only it wasn't me who lived there. I was, as I had always been, on the outside looking in, sometimes with envy, sometimes with curiosity, usually feeling left out.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
The Daily Write: Quirky (August 8, 2013)
Writing Prompt: Quirky
When my son was a baby I needed to feel good. It was a hard birth, he had a hole in his lung that made him sound like a migrating goose when he cried and we were broke. I had midwives that made me livid, one of them reading my copy of Prodigal Summer while I suffered in back labor in my kitchen, and the other who told me to stop listening to my "monkey mind" after she overheard me telling a nurse in labor and delivery that I had a hard pregnancy. My home birth didn't work out. I didn't feel like an accomplished earth mother with every contraction. I wasn't able to produce milk (something the midwives made me feel was my fault "for not trying hard enough").
To feel better, after his lung was healed, we were home and my partner was back at work, I listened to Desi Arnaz and Frank Sinatra. I couldn't tolerate modern music or anything that felt sad. I held my big baby against my shoulder, patting his back and dancing him around in our funky small kitchen, moving across tattered brown and yellow vinyl flooring and cooing into his ears. I sang and danced and smelled his beautiful baby head, so full of hair that by six months he had his first hair cut.
My little baby boy, big of eyes, small of nose, tiny of hands. Us together, dancing in the kitchen to the music from the past, from an imagined less complicated time. I would take any illusion I could get to feel less worried about his future, about his life, about the amount of time I would have to be with him as his mother.
When my son was a baby I needed to feel good. It was a hard birth, he had a hole in his lung that made him sound like a migrating goose when he cried and we were broke. I had midwives that made me livid, one of them reading my copy of Prodigal Summer while I suffered in back labor in my kitchen, and the other who told me to stop listening to my "monkey mind" after she overheard me telling a nurse in labor and delivery that I had a hard pregnancy. My home birth didn't work out. I didn't feel like an accomplished earth mother with every contraction. I wasn't able to produce milk (something the midwives made me feel was my fault "for not trying hard enough").
To feel better, after his lung was healed, we were home and my partner was back at work, I listened to Desi Arnaz and Frank Sinatra. I couldn't tolerate modern music or anything that felt sad. I held my big baby against my shoulder, patting his back and dancing him around in our funky small kitchen, moving across tattered brown and yellow vinyl flooring and cooing into his ears. I sang and danced and smelled his beautiful baby head, so full of hair that by six months he had his first hair cut.
My little baby boy, big of eyes, small of nose, tiny of hands. Us together, dancing in the kitchen to the music from the past, from an imagined less complicated time. I would take any illusion I could get to feel less worried about his future, about his life, about the amount of time I would have to be with him as his mother.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
The Daily Write: Tell us about Abigail (August 7, 2013)
Writing Prompt: Tell us about Abigail
She had a short bob, Dorothy Hamill style, black, shiny and enviably straight. Her eyes were big, like a Kewpie doll, accentuated by the white face mime makeup. She wore white wide legged pants, a tucked in black shirt and rainbow suspenders with a big fake red rose pinned to the left strap just below her slight shoulders. Not tall, but leggy, Abigail had all the moves. And she smiled, a lot, which made her eyes appear to pop out of her head without seeming grotesque.
I'm not sure how I knew her real name, since her moniker for the disco dance class was Salt, her husband, Pepper. He was a taller version of her - same outfit, dark hair. There were some other differences. He had curls and a busy mustache, for instance. And he wore no rose.
He flung her around, a flying buttress of airborne sinew and pantomime moves. And together they enthusiastically Hustled back and forth, clapping, tapping, spinning and then telling us to do the same.
We were anything but smooth faced - 10 and 11 year olds approaching puberty with awkward self-conscious moves and fits of embarrassing giggles.
She had a short bob, Dorothy Hamill style, black, shiny and enviably straight. Her eyes were big, like a Kewpie doll, accentuated by the white face mime makeup. She wore white wide legged pants, a tucked in black shirt and rainbow suspenders with a big fake red rose pinned to the left strap just below her slight shoulders. Not tall, but leggy, Abigail had all the moves. And she smiled, a lot, which made her eyes appear to pop out of her head without seeming grotesque.
I'm not sure how I knew her real name, since her moniker for the disco dance class was Salt, her husband, Pepper. He was a taller version of her - same outfit, dark hair. There were some other differences. He had curls and a busy mustache, for instance. And he wore no rose.
He flung her around, a flying buttress of airborne sinew and pantomime moves. And together they enthusiastically Hustled back and forth, clapping, tapping, spinning and then telling us to do the same.
We were anything but smooth faced - 10 and 11 year olds approaching puberty with awkward self-conscious moves and fits of embarrassing giggles.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The Daily Write: The sound (July 24, 2013)
Writing Prompt: The sound
The ceiling fan, with its endless repetitions, a relief
It never gets too hot here, but still I roast
Age most likely, approaching 48 in a few weeks
And I've always been one to overheat
Except when I am bone cold
Then I turn on the central air
New furnace, old ducts
I listen, wait
Silence and then rumbling like an earthquake
Or an unmuffled motorcycle
The heat goes on and fills the house with a thick sound
Like hot marshmallows
Sometimes if I am quiet enough
Or when my lungs are particularly loud
I hear the close up sounds
So much part of me that I don't usually notice
The filling of my chest
Inhale, exhale
That was one of the ironic beauties of smoking
The way it made me pay attention to my breath
Other sounds are hard to grasp or describe
Electronic pollution
Radio waves
Frequencies distorted by a million wireless connections
My mom once got into magnets
You know, the kind you wear on your body
The ones they make into mattresses and protective clothing
As if that would ward off the toxins of modern life
I'm listening now
Quiet
Except for all the sounds
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Bodega Bay, July
It's
more than mist that falls in the wee hours
quiet of human sounds, save the foghorn every 10 seconds
The sea lions bark over the rolling waves
as I listen, wait for daybreak.
quiet of human sounds, save the foghorn every 10 seconds
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