My Right Foot---Days 11 & 12: Found Whimsy

During a rehearsal for a play in college, one of the guys in the cast suddenly looked at me and uttered a complete non sequitur.

“You look like an Edward Gorey drawing.”

I suppose it didn’t help that I had just read Edie Sedgwick’s biography and often showed up at rehearsals in a black turtleneck and black leggings like the famous photo of her and Warhol hanging out near The Factory in the 60s.

Nevertheless, I was completely taken aback. I DID look like an Edward Gorey drawing with my thin frame, skinny legs and black stockings. I knew who Edward Gorey was primarily due to the opening credits that played on PBS’s Mystery! Series every week and a few of his children’s books.

Though calling them Children’s Books is a bit of a stretch. I think the phrase “Children’s-Looking Books” would be more apt.

The Doubtful Guest is one of Gorey’s best. An odd little tale about a mysterious creature that suddenly shows up at the home of a family, creates all bits of curious chaos and simply refuses to leave.

“It was subject to fits of bewildering wrath,

During which it would hide all the towels from the bath.”

The past two days have been a bit of a blur with work and writing and rehearsal in preparation for a film I’m about to shoot. Oftentimes, Found Whimsy, as I like to call it, is what makes a hectic, blurry day much more pleasant. It’s also how I have fun when all that boring, grown-up, life stuff starts to take over my day---and ruin my blogging time (hence the doubled-up post).

I present for you today some: Found Whimsy of the Past Two Days!

The Austin Powers theme song comes on the Muzak at work and the bartender, Michael, and I do a little dance in the kitchen.

A few months ago, some odd, middle-aged woman sitting at the bar saw us talking to each other and leaned over to ask us "a personal question".

"Are you two dating?"

"No," I simply say with a smile.

"Oh, come on---I can tell there's something going on with you two."

"Noooo," the bartender says (in what I, and any other cogniscent person would recognize as a VERY gay voice).

He is, indeed, gay.

However, no sooner does he leave the bar to clear some tables than the middle-aged, single woman leans over the bar and says, "Okay---he's gone. You can tell me now. Are you two..."

"No," I can't help but smile. "Really. We're not."

"Well..." she says as she takes a sip of her martini, "trust me, honey---don't let the good ones go."

No wonder she's fifty and still single---apparently she has no Gay-dar!

Ever since then, the bartender and I always refer to each other as "Lover".

"Hey lover---are we out of Chardonnay?"

"Hey lover---did you get my text last night?"

We never tire of this silly little game.

Not only that, but we have added to the mix.

We constantly accuse one of my best friends at work, Valerie, of trying to "steal my man". Here she is at work--caught on camera eating pizza in the kitchen.

"He wants nothing to do with you," I say haughtily. "So stop rubbing yourself all over him and making him nauseous," I add whenever she gets anywhere near him.

"You're just jealous because you can't keep your man and you know he likes me better!"

"Oh Pu-lease," he pipes up. "You are such a desperate woman!"

Here is one of our busboys, Kabir:

Today, the sun peeks out from behind the rain and clouds for the first time in almost a week. I call his name from across the restaurant. He is bussing a table and looks towards me. I point out the window and cry across the dining room," Roddromoy! Roddromoy!!!"

This is the Bengali word for sunshine. Not only does the sunshine make him smile---but he always giggles when I speak Bengali. He finds it funny. Little white girl picking up his language, I suppose. Everyday I pick up more and more Bengali from him and the other busboys. It's all completely useless. I have no plans to visit Bangladesh anytime in the near future. A former manager of ours was once stunned that I spoke so much Bengali and was able to wait on tables in so many other languages.

"How did you learn all that?" he asked.

"I'm a waitress. I'm bored. I have to do something to keep my mind busy here."

Today I add four more Bangla words/phrases to my mental dictionary. It's completely pointless---but it makes Kabir giggle.

And that makes my day.

Later at work, I put my hand in my pocket and stick my finger on the little notebook I keep in my apron pocket to takes notes for writing. The spiral end is so sharp it draws blood. I go to the medicine cabinet to get a band-aid.

This leads to an appearance of Senor Piccolini :

And Senor Piccolini has something to say about EVERYTHING all night long.

And, although he denies it, I do believe that Senor Piccolini is responsible for the dirty bit of graffiti that appears on the kitchen special board that announces to the entire restaurant that "Valerie wets the bed."

Damn that Senor Piccolini! He is really a cad!

Later, one of the managers and I realize that we've never tried Miso Soup. We decide we need to be adventurous!

I run across the street to the Sushi place and we share a bowl. It's tasty, but the seaweed makes it quite fishy, indeed. I will now try to compare bowls of Miso Soup from other Japanese restaurants to try to get a better perspective. Daring Girl strikes again!

At rehearsal today, I explain to one of my actors ( a very sweet guy named Ron) that a mutual friend and I were discussing him the other night. And tho, Ron claimed he had to leave us early to meet an "acting coach" in the morning...we knew better. Oh, we had it ALL figured out! We knew he was, at that very moment, doing blow off a hooker's ass. In fact, at that very moment, he was NOT lying in bed sound asleep. He was selling drugs on the corner of 135th and Amsterdam. We even came up with his street name: P-Lay---a variation on his last name that had us laughing our way up 8th Avenue.

Here is P-Lay looking dramatically out the window during rehearsal today. Oh sure---he looks like a nice, decent guy---but when he went to grab the script out of his bag, a dirty syringe and some anal beads dropped to the floor. And I will SWEAR to that!

And later at work, I tried, once again, to convince my co-workers to join me in forming the official restaurant Barbershop Quartet.

Come on, you guys! "Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey, Hello My Ragtime Gal"? Don't you think it would be nice and summery? If "Coney Island Baby" doesn't bring in customers, I don't know what will.

And my friend Timmy is suddenly obsessed with taking found pictures of something her refers to as "cankles"---women whose calves and ankles appear to be one and the same. He texts me this photo he snapped while waiting for the train:

While this may seem odd---at least it's better than his last photo project---butt cracks. Trust me, if you've seen one cell phone photo of a butt crack, you've seen them all.

As we end rehearsal today, I almost forget that I need to take a picture of my right foot.

A thunderstorm is going on, and I had taken off my rainboots to direct in my black, Edward Gorey stockings. The picture comes out blurry.

I decide I like it that way.

My Right Foot---Day 5: The Tempest and The Coupon

Tonight, on the A Train home from work, I saw an ad for Barnes & Noble Bookstores. The ad read:

“O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is. O brave new world

That has such people in’t!”

---William Shakespeare, “The Tempest"

Apparently, Shakespeare never rode the A Train.

Actually, these words, uttered by the character of Miranda in The Tempest, are NOT meant to signify the beauty of the world as much as they are meant to show the naïveté of Miranda. The characters she calls “goodly” are really not all that great.

But apparently, the Barnes & Noble Corporation doesn’t get the context---nor the irony of putting this particular gem on the A Train, whose cars are where the local bums go to sleep at nights.

Oh, I’ve learned the hard way to scope out the car in advance. A friend of mine once told me a story about his sister visiting NYC. They were waiting for the A Train and noticed that most of the cars were packed, except for one.

“Oh, that car’s practically empty!” she cried as she dashed towards the vacant car knowing she would get a seat.

“Okay,” he snickered as he followed her across the platform. “But you’ll see why.”

The doors of the train opened and the smell of unwashed homeless immediately tore thru their nostrils.

Ten minutes after they got off the train, they still had the smell of pee on their clothes.

Frankly, if I’m on the A Train and look around me and think, “How many goodly creatures are there here…” Well, I’m just as deluded as the over-sheltered Miranda.

However, as a waitress, there is no danger of that. Waitresses have learned thru years of lousy treatment not to trust people. In fact, we’re often shocked at kindness. Even hold it suspect.

“Those people were really nice. What the hell do they want?”

Once, I told my manager at work to look at a particular blog post I wrote. The next day he said to me, “Wow. You seem really nice on your blog. Like a nice person.”

“I AM a nice person!” I replied. “I’m a completely different person outside of this job. You can’t be nice here. They’ll eat you alive!”

Tonight, I waited on what seemed to be a lovely couple. French. Old. Really old. I'd say close to ninety. They each ordered a glass of wine and the all-inclusive Prix Fixe special. Things seemed to be going along swimmingly. They were happy with everything. Having a very nice vacation in America. Smiled. Seemed to be having a pleasant, relaxing evening.

At the end of the meal, he asked for the check. When I went back to pick up the check, the man had laid a coupon for 15% off next to the check.

"Oh," I explained, "I'm sorry, but the coupon doesn't work for the special. You can use it for the wine, but the special is already a special."

The man instantly became irate. Started asking me where it said on there that he couldn't use it on the special.

'Well, it says right here, 'Some restrictions apply'"

"Some restrictions!" he screamed. "What are the restrictions? It doesn't say the restrictions!" he screamed as he pointed his arthritic finger at the coupon.

"Well, it also says on the special menu, 'Not to be combined with other offers'".

This seemed to send him into a rage. "You're crooks!" he yelled at me with his French accent. "CROOKS!!!"

"Sir, I'm just the server. It's the company policy."

"You're crooks! All of you! I'm never coming back here again!"

I was this close to saying, "Are you going to live that long?"

Of course, when I told this story to my manager and another server and uttered my imagined response, they immediately cracked up laughing. I was told I was "on fire tonight".

Luckily, I have a manager who appreciates my sometimes twisted sense of humor. Luckily I HAVE my twisted sense of humor. Some nights, it's the only way I can get thru the evening without going postal on the joint.

Of course, I knew this man wouldn't leave a tip. And he didn't. No big surprise. Old French Man was determined to hang onto that six dollars one way or another.

But anyone willing to use the last precious days of his Golden Years to yell at a waitress over a possible six dollar savings was not my type of person.

I can't imagine being an old person like that. Sure, waitressing may have taught me some mistrust---but it's also taught me to appreciate the good times.

Tonight, as I ride the train home, I set to work on a short sketch for a local theatre company. Fresh from work, I pull out that snarky, doubting side of me and add it to the sketch. Ninety year-old French man may still have have his six dollars---but I have him and every other crazy, angry and/or miserable person I've ever met to draw upon as material.

Who's the richer now?

The Dots

Today was the first truly beautiful day of the year in New York City.

I had to work.

Nevertheless, I decided to enjoy it as much as I could. Unfortunately, the beautiful weather also brought out every single asshole in New York City.

Unlike other parts of the country, just going to work and back in Manhattan will put you in the vicinity of at least a thousand or so people---at least 60% of whom I would never allow into my home.

Oh, that may sound harsh, but I will never understand the phenomenon of the Delivery Guys always needing to use my bathroom. Not the pizza or Chinese food guys---I’m talking about the guys who deliver an appliance or who show up to fix your cable. For some reason, they apparently drink a Giant Big Gulp full of Mountain Dew right before they get to my place with a delivery and (even though they’re in my apartment for a grand total of three minutes) they ALWAYS have to use the bathroom.

And they ALWAYS manage to miss the toilet completely.

Apparently, I picked up this Urinary Gene from my mother who has the same problem with delivery and home maintenance guys. It got so bad, she recently told me, that when they ask to use the bathroom now, she said, “I just tell them very politely that my bathroom is out of order.”

She’s had her bathroom rugs peed on just one time too many.

But I digress.

As usual.

In any case, on this beautiful day, I witnessed not only an amount of public drunkenness not seen since St. Patty’s Day---but I also saw an inordinate amount of rude people, nasty people, yelling and screaming people, just plain loud people, and all around jerks.

For the first time in my life, I actually saw and heard the original meet-up between a hooker and a John. Sure, I’ve seen hookers and Johns before---but by the time I'd see them together, they’d already hooked up and were either quietly discussing numbers in a hidden recess or one of them was yelling at the other to “get the fuck away from me!"

By the way---the encounter went a little like this:

Huge fat woman with a big ass and short shorts and heels walks down the street. Dude with do-rag and baggy jeans notices this little lovely and does a double-take. She keeps walking. He does the full turnaround and yells out, “Hey baby. Got five minutes to spare?”

Baby barely turns around; but with a charming ennui mumbles, barely audible, “Yeah”. And keeps walking.

Do-rag picks up his step to catch up to his lovely and the two of them saunter off into the sunset.

Yes, it was sunset. He with the gangsta limp-walk and she with the visible ass cheeks and worn out heels. So romantic.

I’m sure they’ll have a beautiful life together---for the next thirty minutes or so.

On the bright side---these were two of the few people who did NOT get on my nerves today.

It started with Lighter Guy.

With subway repairs taking place over the weekend (and apparently, the past twenty years) everyone on my route was forced to take the free shuttle bus for several stops till you reached a working subway connection. On this bus, a few seats behind me, was Lighter Guy.

Lighter Guy was a thirty-something Spanish guy sitting with his girlfriend who held a metal lighter in his hand and constantly kept flicking it open and close, open and close, open and close.

At first, I had no idea where this noisome noise was coming from. I just wanted to look out the bus window and enjoy the sunshine. And then, like some Chinese Water Torture, Lighter Guy’s nervous tick started gnawing its way into my ear. I looked back. Oh, it’s some idiot flicking his lighter. Surely he’ll stop. After all, what can he possibly be gaining by opening and closing his lighter?

He didn’t.

And it grated and scratched at my brain to the point where I finally turned around and glanced his way---after all, perhaps he was absentmindedly simply flicking his lighter and didn’t realize the agony he was causing. Surely, once he realized his mistake, he would stop.

After a moment, he saw me looking at him.

Phew. Problem solved. I turned back to look out the window at the sunshine.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The guy sitting in front of me seemed to be suffering from the same frayed nerves from this continual flicking and clicking and turned back to look at Lighter Guy.

Lighter Guy stopped.

Then, he started up again.

This was unbelievable! How could someone possibly be so intentionally rude?

I turned back again and this time, gave him my cold, hard Paddington Bear Stare.

He just looked at me and kept flicking his lighter.

My head was bursting. Seriously? Are you kidding me? What a sorry excuse for a man, I thought. Ooooo---you’re a big man. You can flick your lighter and annoy a whole bus load of people for seven minutes and nobody can do anything about it for nine whole blocks. Ooooo. What a tough guy.

I mentally made peace with this idiot by realizing that the tiny lighter was probably the same size as his penis and, since he couldn’t masturbate in public (anymore, that is) he played with his tiny lighter to simulate the effect. Sad little man. Really sad.

This made me feel better. Once again, my imagination was my only comfort in a city full of assholes.

Oh, they were everywhere today. Even the people I work with. I watched as one of my co-workers screwed me over, another treated just about the nicest girl there like dirt, and watched about four other co-workers in bad moods push and shove and snap at each other. And then a party of six had a perfectly fine dinner and then, one of the women at the table griped because, although she had gotten an entire meal for under twenty dollars, when she tried to get something for free and was told she couldn't, simply replied, "This is the worse place ever!"

What? Everything seemed fine until you couldn't get something for free? And then, when I said thank you and have a nice evening, the woman just scrunched up her face and walked past me in silence.

It was at this point, that I lost my faith in the human race. Again.

Waiting tables is bad enough. Some days I feel like Orson Welles in The Third Man looking down from the Ferris Wheel at the tiny “dots” below:

“Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.”

I suppose there are Useless Dots in every city---but, in New York, just the sheer number of people and your constant closeness to them makes the odds much worse that you’ll be standing right next to at least three of them over the course of your average day. And, on a beautiful day like today---the Dots really came out.

Of course, you can’t kill people. That would be wrong. And, unlike most New Yorkers, I’m not a yeller. I don’t like yelling and screaming. I generally just sit there and let the anger fester. I don’t really throw things or break things---though, on a particularly bad day, I have occasionally had the need to throw my waitress tray down on the kitchen counter in anger. But no one is harmed. Not even the tray.

But tonight, as I sat on the subway platform waiting to go home, I looked around and played a little mental game.

Which Dots Can Stop Moving?

I discovered that I didn’t like about 20% of the people there. If some heavenly body came down and spoke to me and said, “Hey---I’ve got to get rid of 20% of the people on this platform and you get to choose…”

Well, I had them all picked out. They were the screaming people. The drunks. The bum who’d peed all over himself. The irritating guy yelling about Jesus. The unseen person who’d eaten about twenty shrimp and thrown the shrimp tails on the floor. And the guy who upchucked godknowswhat and spit on the platform. Because frankly, I’ve never had the need to spit anywhere in public in my life. What do these people have in their lungs, for godsakes? And I still smoke! I’ve never spit on the ground. Never. Never even thought about it. I’ve also never put my gum under a table in my life. Never. Not even under my desk in grade school. No. Gum goes in a piece of paper or a napkin. Not under a table. Who ARE these people? And why are they allowed to live?

Yes. That’s the mood I was left with after this absolutely gorgeous day.

If you don’t understand this mood---you’ve never lived in New York City.

So now, I sit here at the computer, trying to come up with something nice to end this with. Some pleasant illumination that takes you out of this horrible journey and shows you that, yes---there is hope, indeed. Some beautiful Anne Frank-like moment where she writes, “I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

I’m a good writer, damnit. Surely I can do this.

I think back thru my day. Straining to remember one kind person or even one small act of kindness. Just something. Something positive. Did something nice happen to me when I walked in my building tonight? Well, the guy who screamed “Fuck!” when he dropped his Duane Reade bag on the shuttle and then bent over to pick it up revealing his ass crack to the entire bus wound up being a guy who lived in my building.

I held the elevator door for him.

He didn’t say anything to me.

I don’t think that counts.

I walked in my door. Um…well, the cat didn’t throw up today. That was good.

I think some more. I strain for a good fifteen minutes. There HAS to be something good about today. There HAS to be. People HAVE to be good---right?

As I run my bath, I realize that today, I simply have to be thankful for a bright, sunny day and a non-vomiting kitty.

I suppose you need the bad days like this to appreciate the good ones. And the same goes for people. Sure, life might be easier if some of those dots stopped moving---but they make you appreciate the Good Dots all the more.

Be a good dot. Don’t spit on the sidewalk. I have to walk there, too.