The surreal world

There’s a woman on television shouting at a group of investment advisors. “What are the financials?” she shrieks. “It’s been a sharp week for the market. Is it still possible to invest in stocks without losing money?” Given that the men are portfolio managers, it seems rather a waste of time.
She is one of CNN’s many Sexy Presenters, the ones who wear heavy Sophia Loren-style eyeliner, spill cleavage, and look as if they are about to bite your shoulder. When I lived in the US in the early 90s the CNN ladies were iron maidens, wrapped tight as bandages in jewel-toned blazers (red! green! royal blue!), their earlobes stretched by the weight of their shield-like gold clip-on earrings. They gave the impression that they were always tired, that after they deconstructed Clinton’s first 100 days in office they were off to a kindergarten open house, and then a cocktail party at the hubby’s office. I’m not for a moment suggesting that you can’t be both attractive and authoritative but I felt a fondness for the battle-mommies that I don’t feel for these lush chicks who waft across the screen in Manolo Blahniks and bed hair.

***

It was a bad morning in the Montgomery BART station on Friday. The man with no legs who usually panhandles up on the street corner had taken the elevator down into the station and positioned his wheelchair right by the exit, so commuters had to pass his outstretched hand to get to work. The drunk guy who is usually asleep on the tiled floor, a brown-bagged bottle in hand, had propped himself up against the wall and was gazing into the middle distance. I can’t figure out how old he is—his hair is mostly grey, he’s lost a lot of teeth, his skin is red and leathery, and his circulation looks very poor indeed given his purple feet, but he could be in his late 40s. The punk cowboy—cherry red mohawk, motorcycle boots, studded leather pants, studded leather vest, fleshy bare arms—who often performs in my station of a morning stood across from the drunk guy strumming his guitar and singing Johnny Cash. “Because you’re mine, I walk the line...” It was a surreal scene, and hard to dismiss.

***

Craigslist has been good to us. For those of you who are unfamiliar, it’s like a giant newspaper classifieds section, except it’s online, free, and offers a ton more stuff. We found our apartment on Craigslist, I got my job through Craigslist, and now we’ve made our first purchase through Craigslist. Craig, by the way, is a San Francisco guy who made millions when he sold his site, and still manages it. There are hundreds of Craigs in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. It makes you sick.
Anyhoo, Crowded House is playing in Oakland at the end of next month and Tim was determined to go. I too was keen, but felt a bit conflicted about it because I had been given the job of procuring tickets to their earlier concert at a winery down south and…didn’t. Was in dog box for several days. But I redeemed myself by stumbling on the aforementioned tickets on Craigslist. I emailed the seller and sent my cell number, which made me feel all nervous cos what if the seller was a psychopath, or direct marketer or something? Didn’t hear a peep for days and thought the tickets must be gone and I would have to move to the dog box permanently. But, luck shone on me yesterday, cos the seller, a softspoken man named Peter, rang and said the tickets were still available. I could have them but would need to drive to a supermarket in San Ramon (40 minutes away) to get them because he didn’t want to send them through the mail and would not accept a cheque from me. Pain in the butt. However, we were already at SFO dropping off our friend Steve (Hi Yvette!) so figured we may as well take a tiki tour of the East Bay and get tickets at the same time. We arrived, cash in hand, at Nob Hill Foods in San Ramon—hot as Hades and a nasty shock after the mild cool in SF—and met a boy-man holding a white envelope. It was Peter, not scary or weird at all. He’d won the tickets in a radio competition and his good fortune became our good fortune: he gave us the tickets for $50 a pop, significantly less than the going rate. Thank you, Craig.

Art patrons

Tim and I share few interests—we have an embarrassing passion for The Amazing Race; inhale chip and dip whenever we have the opportunity, therefore must ration ourselves, or suffer malnutrition; love reading and writing (though not the same stuff); and derive tremendous enjoyment from teasing each other. And that’s about it. So when we stumbled on a painting—a grown-up, put-it-on-the-wall and admire-it-for-the rest-of-your-life painting—we both absolutely loved while poking around Bodega village, where Hitchcock’s The Birds was filmed dontcha know, we bought it. Even though our budget didn’t really support it at the time. (It should be noted here that we did get a beautiful painting from Tim’s sisters and their families when we got married, but it’s in New Zealand, with our house and barbecue and the rest of our adult lives.)
In our California painting, two cows stand on Baker’s Beach, with a spectacular view of the Golden Gate and Marin headlands. One is a fresian, and the other is that reddy brown and white sort of cow, the one that looks like wet clay. Both cows are beautifully rendered, would look completely at home on the walls of a great ranching home, but the killer part as far as we’re concerned is the striped beach ball that hangs in the air between them, as if one of the ladies has just nosed it towards the other, and both are trying to look nonchalant for fear of losing their cool. Once you’ve spent a few minutes looking at this scene, drinking in the loopiness, you notice a black cow (Angus?) in the background, thundering up the beach to join the game. The whole thing is surreal and lovely. We swallowed our anxieties and whipped out the credit card, feeling confident we had bought the best thing in the gallery.
That was four months ago and today we returned to Bodega to attend a reception for the painter. We were a bit nervous to meet her, given how much we love the painting and how cool we’d imagined she must be. I was expecting, lord knows why, a woman with a husky voice, lavender hair and shiny black boots with the laces undone. I didn’t realize this is who I expected until we met the artist and she turned out to be quite ordinary, with an embroidered waistcoat (I have a weird hang-up about these), and little interest in talking to us, her patrons. We were miffed, I tell you. She even, at one point, took a huge step back towards the wall, positioning herself in front of another of her paintings, a well-endowed mermaid hugging two sea otters, but that didn’t stop us from sidling back into her space and talking at her some more. We so wanted to make a connection with her. Sad, huh? To heap disappointment upon disappointment, the gallery owner served Chablis in the smallest disposable cups I have ever seen—literally not much bigger than a cough syrup measure. So when “our” artist turned away from us again—crying out and practically jumping into the lap of a man she knew to escape us—there was nothing left for us but to get back in the car and drive back to San Francisco, an hour south.

Practically still flapping

I love sushi—the salty-sweet firmness of the fish and the bite of the ginger—but I have a bit of an issue with raw food, so I’m conflicted. I tend to go for the cheater’s sushi made from cooked chicken and loads of avocado, or the cooked eel thing that tastes a bit caramel-y and looks like a wrapped gift. So today’s lunch counts as an accomplishment. One of the interns had to deliver some magazines to a restaurant on Shattuck Ave, Berkeley’s “gourmet ghetto”, and offered to pick up some bargain sushi on her way back. It was superb, the fanciest sushi I think I’ve ever eaten, despite being composed of many jewel-like slabs of raw tuna, albacore and salmon. Oh, and eel, coiled like a centipede, wrapped in a rice blanket and sprinkled with brilliant orange fish eggs that burst when bitten. I had to close off the part of my brain screaming, ooh yucky, this hasn’t been cooked, and concentrate on the subtle flavor of the super-fresh, practically still flapping, fish, which was deeelishus. Dunking it in lots of soy sauce helped too. I gotta say, I think having interns at my disposal is going to spoil me for other jobs. I try not to abuse my position, but ,hey, who doesn’t like having someone fetch lunch for them? I guess this is why executives get off on having personal assistants.

Bad baaa-stards

It had to be done. On Friday night, we went to see Black Sheep, the kiwi film about eugenically altered sheep who turn on the humans who run their farm--and any other unfortunates who stumble upon them. It's part of the lineup at the San Francisco Film Festival and conveniently was shown at a theatre in Japantown, not even 10 minutes from the apartment. I'm not a horror film fan, so I'm probably not much of a judge when it comes to the schlock variety. There was no time when I felt scared, which is a positive for me, and there were many moments of great humor--I almost weed myself when a tiny genetic mutant from a broken sample jar bit off Oliver Driver's ear. But there were some rather obvious gags--there just had to be a sheep-shagging joke, for example--and the one and only Maori character was the cliched cheeky chappie, which I found a bit disappointing. Still, you gotta love a film in which a bloodthirsty sheep gets behind the wheel of a ute and drives it off a cliff.

Direct from Heaven, God TV

Against my better judgment, I allowed Tim to get satellite TV yesterday. I know how that sounds: no, I am not one of those spouses who have to be in on every little decision their beloved makes (although he could probably save himself a lot of bother if this were our arrangement, hee hee), but in this instance I demanded input. And I resisted. For a long time. Because satellite TV isn't cheap, and it sure isn't necessary, and given his viewing habits (he habitually turns on the box as soon as he walks through the front door) I have a real fear of never having a meaningful conversation with him ever again. He finally won me over by doing his pouty puppy face (he can make himself look amazingly like that golden lab who advertises toilet paper) and last night, after a man had come and fixed a wee gray dish to our roof, we stayed in and watched the Colbert Report.
For those not living in the US, Stephen Colbert is a screamingly funny comedian who pretends to be an arch-conservative pundit with an arch-conservative punditry program. In his opening credits he scowls meaningfully and waves a huge American flag as an eagle flies overhead. Stephen Colbert is my #1 secret crush. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, aka Mayor Hunky, is #2.
So, that will be a weekly treat. But among our 200 channels – yes, 200, the naughty scamp – we also get at least three home shopping channels, several of the Lifetime family of channels broadcasting terrible Tori Spelling dramas and the like, the Military channel, and, get this, God TV. I couldn’t stomach the Military channel, but I did briefly check in with God TV and was disappointed to find a very ordinary looking man with an electric blue tie leading some kind of chat show. I had hoped for more.
The unexpected bonus of getting expensive, unnecessary satellite TV? We discovered a door leading to the roof of our building. When you go up there you can see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Ramblin' Jack

I went to my first folk concert at the weekend, and found myself spellbound by a 75-year-old who looked like a Christmas decoration ready to hang.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is a Bay Area legend, the last man standing who traveled and played with Woodie Guthrie; he appeared on the Johnny Cash Show and sang with Bob Dylan. He knows Springsteen. Springsteen! He started rambling when he ran away to the rodeo when he was 14 and he so clearly does what he darn well pleases, you just have to admire him, although he probably wasn't dad of the year. Pure speculation of course.
He is about 5'2'' and on Saturday night he was decked out in a fire engine red flannel shirt, green kerchief, jeans that bunched around his ankles, short-man cowboy boots and an enormous black cowboy hat that sat right down on his ears. All he needed was a wee gold thread poking out the top and you could stick him on the tree. Adorable.
He told as many stories as he sang songs, and they were great stories about cranky folk lyricists and sun-bleached podunk Arizona towns and jolly good songs sung with a keening worldliness that ya gotta admire: If I Had A Hammer, San Francisco Blues, The Ludlow Massacre. I'm not a folk convert yet but I'm closer, I must admit. Tim will be over the freakin' moon.
We met him afterwards (he was on his way to the bar to get paid) and it was kinda thrilling to shake the hand of a Grammy winner. My first one.

Punked

Went to the Vivienne Westwood retrospective at the De Young Museum today because it’s too chilly for visiting the redwoods and because there are banners with her mug all over the city. The place was crawling with people in skinny black jeans and studiously messy hair. I’m not a real Westwood fan – I like her 50s throwback suits and her baroque ball gowns cos they are architectural and pretty in an obvious way, and I like that – but I find all her stuff interesting and she sure has been influential. I also admire her rejection of the banal. It’s a tough way to live your life, but more power to her.
Anyhoo, as I was walking around the oddly dark galleries where her clothes were displayed, I kept finding myself standing in front of the same mannequins as Business Barbie (beige jacket, gold stilettos, brown and beige logo bag) and Suburban Gypsy (older, more lipstick, “distressed” skirt and whimsical earrings).
“Oh, that is so cuuute!” they said as they examined a doll-sized white corset atop a bum-exaggerating crinoline skirt. “Oh, that is soooo cute!” they said, pointing at a modern-day pirate’s jacket paired with square-toed shoes. Everything in that dang exhibit was just as cute as a rubber penis-shaped button (Westwood used these for a time in the 80s).
And then Business Barbie found the cutest. Standing before a shiny skintight dress the color of a cat’s tongue, with curious sticky-out bits protruding from the shoulders, she cried, “Oh my god! That. Is. So. Cute!”
Suburban Gypsy: “Oh, yeah. Really cute.”
Business Barbie: “I would totally wear that with white leggings. That would be so cute.”
I can’t imagine what made these ladies think Westwood’s clothes were intended for them. I don’t for a second kid myself that any couture designer has me in mind when they sit down in front of their sketchpad. I just don’t live in that world, and that is fine, although it is nice to take a peek at it every now and then. But BB and SG clearly had aspirations, and that made me feel a little sad for them. Their blandy-blandy identikit outfits would make an ex-punk like Westwood sneer. High fashion is not democratic – it’s just another us-and-them device – and certainly not clothing like that, which squeezes and manipulates your flesh and recalls the champagne and cake-eating days before the French Revolution. Nothing cute about it.
I may just be maudlin because when I ordered my coffee from a sidewalk vendor at Golden Gate Park he asked if I wanted some spiced whisky with it. “That sounds good,” I said. “You’re the first person to say that today,” he replied, taking a paper-bagged bottle from under the counter and sloshing a good couple nips into my cup. I have felt a bit ooky ever since.

The secret of my ennui

Gosh that Sylvia Plath is a downer. The Bell Jar is fantastic -- wish I'd read it years ago -- but I'm afraid I identify with the main character a bit much. I really like her, I'm sure we could be friends, and now the poor chook is being sent for electroshock treatment.
I was feeling a bit Plath-like last night as I drove across the Bay Bridge towards the bookstore. Esther (the electroshock girl) has got to the point where she can't be bothered changing her clothes or washing because she knows she'll just have to do it again. And again. And again, until lights out. On a lesser level, I have got to the point where I just wear the same thing to work over and over again because there is absolutely no point in dressing well when you are going to be squatting at the base of bookshelves, dusting, lugging huge carts this way and that, and dealing with sticky children. I do wash my clothes, however.
I continue to be amazed at the success of The Secret, the book that purports to condense centuries of wisdom into one teeny little book that will change your life. It is flying out the door. They literally can't keep it on the shelves. Oprah plugged it on her show and the whole country has gone bonkers for it. It feels like a very American phenomenon to me. As far as I can tell, the secret is that you draw to yourself whatever it is you are sending out into the universe. So if you are sending out vibes of satisfaction and success, that is what you will reap. Clearly I am sending out great waves of mediocrity and ennui. And yet I can't seem to stop. What is a girl to do?

By the book

Back at work today after two days off. Tim was sick which meant we didn’t go anywhere or do much but we did manage a trip to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a lovely museum with a notable collection of Rodin sculptures (The Thinker sits in front of the building, sending out a pensive vibe) and a small but perfectly formed array of Impressionist paintings, fine European furniture and ancient bits and bobs such as Etruscan vases. The current special exhibit is a collection of French jewelry – gorgeous, intricate enameled brooches featuring birds and butterflies, diamond necklaces and bracelets worn by socialites and movie stars, and angular 50s pieces with enamel inlay and lots of highly polished gold. I particularly liked the chunky chalcedony necklace and bracelet set commissioned by Wallis Simpson. The stones were a lovely purple blue, the size of gumdrops, and the feature element of the necklace was a large flower which could be removed and worn as a brooch. Clever and beautiful.
It was sheeting with rain when we finished at the Legion, so we came home and watched the Gilmore Girls on TV. Then Tim went to bed and I stayed up reading a book of essays about turning 30. I crossed the Rubicon nearly three years ago, but for whatever reason I am feeling the dread now. Perhaps it’s the new wrinkles around my eyes or the fact that last year I threw in a perfectly acceptable magazine job with some status and good pay to work at a bookstore while I figure myself out. I moved country, left behind my lovely little wooden house to pay exorbitant rent on an apartment, and happened to arrive in San Francisco at the same time print journalism is in its death throes. Oh, yeah, and I dragged my husband along with me, my accomplished, ambitious husband who now sells books too.
This is my third foray into the world of retail. I briefly worked at JC Penney when I was at university, selling shiteous ensembles in the Petites department. Polyester dresses gave the illusion of being “outfits” when in fact the apparent skirts, blouses and vests were one-piece wonders. Even necklaces were sewn onto these things, so the busy, diminutive businesswoman would never have to worry about accessories. I was on commission and I actually performed reasonably well – those creepy “outfits” sold like hotcakes, but then, I was living in Salt Lake City and there wasn’t much of a fashion scene.
I had worked as a journalist in New Zealand for three years when I moved to London, and already unsure that a newspaper career was what I wanted out of life, decided to bum around for a couple of years instead of try to snag some impressive writing job that would serve me well when I got back home. I was probably scared I wouldn’t be able to snag an impressive job of any type, let alone a media one, I don’t actually remember. But I ended up selling perfume at Harrods and Harvey Nichols, lovely stores both, but, for me at least, spectacularly unsatisfying places to work. At Harrods I had to dress up in a stylized sailor suit to sell the new Jean Paul Gautier men’s fragrance, and when that promotion finished, I swapped my stripes and polka dots for a purple crushed velvet dress to sell perfume that cost 1000 pounds a bottle and came in a Baccarat crystal pyramid. It smelled like patchouli and I just couldn’t get excited about it despite the promise that if I managed to sell a bottle (nigh on impossible, I would say, after customers got a whiff of the stuff) I would get a commission of 100 pounds. It was the Christmas shopping season, the store was packed at all times, but my stand with the giant display crystal pyramid was an oasis of calm. I ended up amusing myself by gift wrapping my supplies: stapler, scissors, ruler, assorted pens and pencils.
And now I am working at a bookstore. The upside is I get a good discount on books and that I actually like books and do not feel morally sullied by selling them (although I do have a problem with the get-rich-quick titles, which I don’t believe can work and to which far too many people seem to pin their hopes). There is no commission to worry about and the work is pretty low-stress unless you are unlucky enough to be assigned a shift in the children’s department, where you spend eight hours cleaning up after kids who don’t know any better and their takeout coffee-clutching parents who seem to feel entitled to treat you like a nanny. The downside is being treated like a nanny.
And then there’s the membership card. Basically it’s a discount card that gives customers an automatic 10 percent off everything in store, sometimes more. It costs $25 for a year (so of no use unless you spend more than $250 a year on books) but the real benefit to the bookstore is that membership increases foot traffic. So it's up to us to push the card on customers, and mentioning its many benefits is part of the spiel we have to reel off as we pop books in their crinkly green plastic bags. I am a hopeless card salesperson because I resent the whole system and if someone tells me they don't want a card I'm not going to push. Tim doesn't push either but he's very good at extolling the card's virtues up front, and people looooove his "cute accent". (A woman who didn't see his wedding band asked him out for a coffee around Christmas time. Not to be left out, I had a man slip me his business card a month or so ago and ask me to phone him after I'd checked out his website. How California is that? Blech.) Tim has been the store's top salesman for the past three weeks, pushing aside a rather strange older woman who makes it her life's work to be the ultimate card salesperson. When customers approach the counter she kind of whispers at them, which causes them to lean in closer and gives the impression she is sharing privileged information when she explains the way the card works. It's fascinating to watch people falling under her spell and signing up.