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2006-01-01 @ 9:36 p.m. |
My best friend �G� down in Manhattan and I have this thing we do every New Year�s Eve. We�ve been doing it for a good 20 years. It started at the Stage Deli in San Francisco on Geary Street one New Year�s Eve. We had just seen a show at one of the theatres across the street and were enjoying a late night bagel before taking the bus home to Sebastopol. We decided to write down all the big events that had happened to us that year on the back of a theatre program. Since we were only in our twenties and didn�t have very exciting lives, we mainly wrote down things like our favorite plays, trips to the beach, movies that had been filmed in our area. Well, the tradition stuck. We started doing it every year. We weren�t always together, but we always did our lists. I still have many of mine, which I stuck in the binders where I keep my paper diaries. Well, last night I got an e-mail from �G� entitled �happynewyearseve� and he wanted us to write our list back and forth throughout the evening and then today. He did have a party to go to last night, so it became my turn to write a couple of items. My previous lists over the years have always been pretty top heavy with crappy stuff, but this year was pretty light and for that I�m thankful. And as for him....his year really ended with a bang. The Broadway show he�s been working on for nearly 4 years (including pre-Broadway runs, etc) closed in December. He�s both relieved and terrified. I�m sure he�ll find another job, because he is a wonderfully talented person. I�m just glad he�s getting a little R&R after working 6 day weeks for almost 4 years. I know the big thing for New Years Day are resolutions. I never make any, because they are a recipe for failure and if I want to feel like a failure, I�ll just call my mom. I do have one little eensy weensy resolution though. And no, its not getting a date believe it or not. That�ll come...someday. I would like to work on something really simple. Eye contact. I�ve never been very good at it. Of course it may be getting easier shortly since I�m getting blinder than a bat. It was so humiliating the other day. I was with my mother and I was kneeling down at Target trying to read the price on something. And I told my mom I couldn�t read it and suddenly out of nowhere, some woman about 40, comes walking up behind me and said, �Excuse me ma�am, I can help you read that if you want.� Ma�am???True, I almost couldn�t get up from a squatting position without making a little oomph noise but still... Ma�am?!!??Fuck lady, I was only in first grade when your mom pushed you out of her uterus. True I could have babysat you a few years later when I was in high school and you were some bratty little know-it-all offering to show me how to use one of those new fangled 8 track tape thingies. Gosh, its a good thing I wasn�t looking for the price of some DEPENDS, you know, since I�m so elderly and probably incontinent. Hell no, I think I was looking at something cool like maybe, condoms, or Cuban cigars or Hello Kitty barrettes or something. OK!!!! I was looking at hair dye, are you happy? You look like you dye your hair too, bitch! People are so weird though. Especially in stores. I worked in retail for a long time in my 20�s and never did any eye contact there. I didn�t have to. Nobody was looking at me. I�m not sure if it was just because I was a lowly retail clerk, or because they were afraid to make eye contact too. But just as an experiment, tomorrow when you�re out at a store or a deli or fast food place, try looking at a clerk and see if they make eye contact. I bet about 90% of them won�t. I did make eye contact with one clerk on Friday afternoon. And she was glaring at me. Why? I guess I pissed her off. I was at a grocery store and had just loaded about 12 things onto the conveyor belt. At that very moment, the two clerks were changing shifts, lifting their tills in and out of the register, etc. The new clerk coming on looked terrible. She was pale and had dark circles and was coughing and hacking. As in...all over the fucking everything. Suffice to say, since her hands were full, she was spraying her e Coli droplets over like a 200 square foot area. I immediately got grossed out. I�m the girl who opens public bathroom doors with her elbows. I�m the girl who�ll clean the public toilet seat with about 15 yards of toilet paper before I�ll sit down. I�m the girl who must immediately wash her hands when somebody is fool enough to shake my hand. I don�t like germs. Yeah, I�m one of those. But I�m rarely ever sick either. So grocery girl was making no effort to cover her mouth even after she puts her till into the register. And I was standing there secretly adding up the number of germs that would be directly transferred from her germ infested hands to my nice, yummy yogurt cups as she scanned them over the scanner and all I can think was, I wonder if there�s a Hazmatt Team in the vicinity? I think I need to be hosed down just being in the same zip code as Coughy Cathy. So I made a snap decision to take all my food off the conveyor belt and go to another checker. As soon as I started doing this, I got a death ray glare. She asked, �What are you doing?� I told her she was obviously pretty sick and that I was a germ-o-phobe and I was going to go to another checker. I was a little anxious doing this, but I was making eye contact, and she did appear pissed, but I�d much rather have 10 seconds of discomfort than 7 days of snoticus/boogery. Yet with all this fear of germs, I have no problem with massage. I got a massage on Thursday. It was with my usual person. She�s not Married Guy, but she does a pretty good job and likes to mix things up. Married Guy had always been very methodical about his massages. Everything was always in the same order and same length of time. Must have been the Capricorn in him. Nyla is different though. We don�t talk much, and as usual I don�t open my eyes. That would be too intimate. I couldn�t even open my eyes when Married Guy was massaging me. I was actually afraid to. He had these crystal blue turquoise eyes that were really bright and knowing. He had no problem with eye contact however. I always felt like I was under a microscope when he was looking at me. Like I couldn�t hide things. And I guess I couldn�t. Obviously. But Nyla does a good job, and even though I don�t talk about it much in my diary, I do suffer from a lot of daily fibromylagia pain. A LOT So I asked her to work on my abdomen since my left rib was really tender and hurting like hell and she had to keep telling me to �breathe! BREATHE!!� Ya see, sometimes, I forget to. I get uptight, when I�m in pain, physical or emotional, and I�ll just kind of freeze up and then it�ll be like an EMT situation where somebody has to jump in and do some emotional CPR. I�m not sure why that happens. Its probably just related to childhood trauma or something. Married Guy used to always have to tell me to breathe too. But at the end of the massage, Nyla always has to give me �The Speech� about how I have to relax and be good to my body and drink plenty of fluids. But this week, she did the weirdest thing. She stood at the foot of the table and said, rather breathlessly, �I saw a girl today, witty, and she was 16. And she was standing on a hill, with a red hat and a gray coat and the wind was blowing and she was laughing and enjoying herself. And it was you.� And then walked out abruptly. For some reason that just totally freaked me the hell out. Huh? Was she channeling Shirley MacLaine? I�ve never owned a red hat in my life. Why would she say such a weird thing? Is this a massage AND an aura reading? I don�t give tips for psychic readings you know. I didn�t know what to think. I then got off the massage table and looked in the mirror and I was really flush. I even looked kind of young. Maybe not 16, but younger than when I had dragged my sorry ass in an hour earlier. So, maybe I will start working on making eye contact with people. And maybe more than eye contact. Because there are no do-overs in life, and I want something nice to write on my 2006 list next year with �G�. You know what I mean?
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Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty |
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