(See what I am saying?)

A Simple Goodbye

I opened the front door.

prada was there wedging her head and the stuffed animal she held in her mouth through the doorway as soon as it began to open. I walked into the house. the paper lamps hanging from the ceiling shifted slighty as the door opened, like a pathetic attempt to wave hello to me.

I set down my bag on the mat and sat down indian style on the ground to play with prada. suddenly she walked away and into my bedroom. i followed her in and took off my shoes.

It was sitting there on the pale sheets. Strange i thought, when she sees something in a magazine she likes, which is often, she usually tears out one page at time until there are far more pages to keep track of lying on the ground than left in the book. but this time nothing was torn out. it was folded open and left for me to read alone.

and i have plenty of time to think about it. there is nothing too complicated about that.

The order of business:

Joe came in and set the box on the corner of my desk.

"Usually we take a picture of this." he said with a wry smile.

Business cards. Lots of them. More than i will ever use. Even if i was a strapping bachelor on the prowl in vegas strip clubs. Even if i dropped one in every fish-bowl for a free-lunch-drawing-every-week raffle at every restaurant in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area.

Joe left and i sat there looking at the box of business cards. I pulled one off the top of the stack and read it to myself.

Business cards are like bookmarks in your life. Some people just fold down the corners of the book to dog ear a particular spot in the story. Or if given the chance, they use a business card, and wedge it against the saddle stitch on the inside of the book spine to mark the division between two parts of the tale. Either way, i had about 1000 sitting in the box on the corner of the desk.

At least everything was spelled correctly.

It will take far too long in this life to get where i need to be to have a business cards that reads the way i want it to, i thought. and by the time it does, the print will be far too small for me to read.

I met a man recently. from what i could tell, he was successful at what he did. I think he might have even liked what he did. Later on i was told that he owns 10 cars. That fact may or may not be an accurate way to measure his success. But i imagine his business card reads the way he wants it to. (his last name is also the name of the business on his business card.) The catch: He, like most every successful person, are in their late 50's -60's.

My point:
I am surrounded by people in very early in their careers. I am surrounded by people who will have to pay their dues, answer the phones, take out the trash, enter the data, lick the envelopes, and other wise do about everything they don't need to do to directly get the career they want. I am surrounded by talented people who are entering a saturated, over specialized, far too cliquish industry where favortism almost always trumps true talent. I am surrounded by people who will have to wait their entire careers to get where they think they ought to get.

I can have common sense. I can have a talent. I can even have geniune and original thoughts. I can push my self to learn skills i need to challenge and honor a talent. But in order to get a business card to read what you want to, it takes time. it takes watching others. it takes making mistakes. it takes waiting in line. it takes reading the book in order, every chapter, one page at a time. if no is looking, you can skim over overly descriptive or repetitive paragraphs, but it still takes time.

Some people have kept turning pages. They kept waiting in line. They kept working at it until they got towards the back of the book. Back where they can slide their business card against the saddle stitch on the inside of the book spine at the page that reads "I own 10 cars." Or the page that reads, " i get to take my dog to work because i am the boss". Or the page that reads "i only have to work when i get tired of walking my dog". Or whatever it needs to say for them to feel they got where they ought to have got.

The trade-off:
They are no longer a strapping bachelor on the prowl. The fish-bowl-free-lunch-drawing-every-week doesn't matter because they can eat off the seniors menu.

Instead, i am young and impatient and hard to please.

Instead, I am full of energy but i am at the back of the line.

Instead, I have a beautiful girl to take for a ride, but barely 1 car to drive.

Instead, I have a wonderful and healthy dog, but she has to sit alone in the kitchen everyday.

Instead, I have one hundred spare ideas and an able body that could make them happen, but i have to stand in line everyday.

By the time i trade-in for the trade-off, and be in a position to be better than the best before me, the 401k will kick in. or the arthritis, or bad eyesight. The girl will have gotten tired of me. The dog will be long gone.

I put the box of business cards in my desk. I leaned back and looked at the spot i was in. I thought about what i have done, what i do, and what i want to do. i thought about how many free lunches i am going to win. i wondered what the pages at the back of the book read, and what the bookmark looked like there.

My hunch is, way back at the index, it will read something like:
"I do exactly what i want. (my business cards says so) i do it on my own terms. it makes me happy. i don't care what page of the book i am on. and now that i am here i would give back every buisness card and car in the garage to go back to the first chapter."

"The End."

One

Post-Election Boogie (or: being young and dealing with it)

"Excuse me," the waiter interrupted.

"We are clearing the tables off for the dance floor." he said apologetically.

We were talking about the difference between our parents generation and ours, and politics and religion and issues of controversy and so many other things that no one can ever try to change in themselves or each other. Her words were peeling me away like an onion skin wearing me thin and boiling down the meaning of thought until it wasn't worth thinking about. We talked until every other dinner had been finished and every dinner table had been cleared away. The DJ was unrolling his coaxial cable coiled around his elbow. The line began assembling outside the double glass doors. The waitress came and stamped our hands. The lights were turned down, and the boys collars were turned up, turning the wood grained banisters and roosevelt parlor atmosphere into what is was: a saturday night on the west coast.

We walked up the stair case. I carried our sack of free books we took from the free book box in front of the book store down the street. Upstairs we found two empty seats at the end of the balcony against the wall. I sat down and watched our dinner table being carried away like a coffin through crowd filling up the open floor.

My mom has this saying." i remembered her telling me, "If you are not a democrat when you are young, you don't have a heart. If you are not a republican when you are old, you don't have a brain."

It made sense, and sounded like it could be true, until i moved to california.

A lot of things would make more sense if i tried to stop making sense of them and just stayed in one spot.

Our glasses were empty, along with my wallet. I hung my head over the railing and watched the dance floor shimmer and spin like a school of tuna swimming through the sea. I looked down over the balcony at everybody looking at each other. I looked down over the balcony at everybody trying to figure it out. I looked down over the balcony at people who agree and disagree, and at people who don't know the difference. And as long as the music was playing loud enough, i thought, everyone will get along fine.

As i looked down over the balcony at all the fish in the sea, i began to understand that the biggest disservice i can do to myself is expecting it will ever get any better. I tried my best to think through the music at any where in my life that i wouldn't take what i thought i would learn then and trade it back for what i actually did. I tired to remember a time when i didn't wish i hadn't looked ahead. because i always do. and i miss what is real for the expectation of what might come.

I am supposed to be growing up.

I am supposed to be learning something.

I am supposed to be figuring it out.

we don't live long enough in this world to learn anything worth a damn, i thought. i looked down at the life in the nightlife come trickling in the door like sand falling through an hourglass. and so i am reduced to relying on second hand information gathered from history in non cumulative 60-70 year increments. and i will not live long enough to ever truly be a republican or a democrat. i will not live long enough to claim to understand how this world works or how it should work. and what little i can scrape together in this life will be wiped clean and forgotten by the time the next generation of nightlife tries to talk over the music on the dance floor.

"Let's get out of here, and find some place else." she said.

"Gladly," i thought. I picked up our sack of free books we took from the free book box in front of the book store down the street. As we walked down the staircase of Mother's Tavern on Higuera St. in San Luis Obispo, I reminded myself that being young and dumb is supposed to be fun. I reminded myself that i am exactly where i am expected to be. Then i reminded myself to forget my disappointment in expectations.

And then through the crowd she smiled at me. And remembering to forget, i set down our sack of free books we took from the free book box in front of the book store down the street, and danced with her for the rest of the song.