My Blog

A few minutes ago, at 4:45 or so, the digital thermostat in my apartment read 82 degrees. In my apartment, with the windows open and the fan on! In the sun, it is much hotter, but I wouldn’t know anymore, as I have taken refuge on the balcony.

Today at work it was sweltering and hectic, with all five of us harried cafe workers guzzling water and San Pellegrino sodas while washing dishes, serving food, making espresso drinks. The mornings have been beautiful; I wake before dawn, and my walk down the hill to the train station is backlit by the strange green light that precedes warm days staining the night behind the Oakland/Berkeley hills. I get to watch the sky turn brighter and brighter while I ride the train; nothing like those first few early morning shifts where I walked in pitch darkness - my first opening shift I even saw an owl! I like having a schedule that has me up at the same time everyday; on my two mile round trip walk to the train, from the train to work, from work to the train and from the train home I get to watch the seasons change around me. New birds flock to the shores of Lake Merritt, the earliest flowers wither away to be replaced by shimmering daffodils and plum blossoms, the sunshine brings lovers out in droves.

I have realized how much I love the regulars at work. There’s Peter, the tall and distinguished British man with spectacles and dark hair who orders an egg salad sandwich and a cafe au lait every afternoon, then sits on the patio and scrapes the bottom of his au lait bowl with a demitasse spoon, savoring every tiny bite of leftover foam. I recognize his bowls when they come back to be washed, take special care to lay out the anchovies and sun-dried tomatoes on his sandwich. There’s Elliott, who comes in once in the morning and sometimes again in the afternoons, nervous and unmarried, a shy but brilliant freelance journalist with endless health complaints who is working on a historical nonfiction book that he describes as opulent and romantic, investigating the Indian/German Conspiracy Trials of 1917. Every morning he orders poached eggs with dry toast, cooked medium. Donna arrives right before we close, a beautiful professional woman who wears the best lipstick I’ve ever seen - deep rose pink, perfectly augmenting her caramel-colored skin. She has a cafe au lait, and, depending on the fruit in the preserves, sometimes an order of buckwheat crepes with jam. And Michael, jovial and perky, a wine merchant from next door who comes in for his English Breakfast or yunnan tea so frequently (sometimes five times a day) that we joke about putting him on the Cafe Fanny payroll. While I’m on my lunch break I sit with my olive tapenade and mozzarella sandwich, watching him carry boxes of wine to people’s cars, on easy days he grins and winks at me, or shrugs and lifts his eyebrows if the work day is not going well. And Ken and Anne-Marie, an elderly couple who always split an order of levain toast, rhubarb-lemon marmalade and an americano with low-fat milk for Anne-Marie, jam and regular coffee for Ken. They talk about cultural events: the ballet, the cinema, Booker-Prize-winning literature. The beautiful thing about Cafe Fanny is that the regulars recognize each other: Ken & Anne-Marie often share their place at the bar with another charming older British man, who joins in their conversations; Michael answers questions about wine while in line to order his tea; Al with his jumbo-sized architecture books talks about the wonders of the temples built in the Middle East; Bob, who comes in every morning right after we open for coffee and breakfast, tells anyone who will listen about the language barrier between himself and his Mexican wife; Donna listens patiently to the health complaints of a pinched blonde who usually has a mocha.

I am beginning to really love the job, to understand what it was Alice Waters had in mind when she started the cafe. I find more parallels between my life and that of Amelie Poulain than I ever could have asked for now, working at this French cafe and lately, more and more frequently trying to find secretive, loving ways to brighten strangers’ lives. I want to leave chalk paintings on lonely people’s doorsteps; poems for the awkward, fumbling tobacconist on Grand Avenue; words of inspiration and hope for the sweet African man at the Grand Lake Theatre, who speaks mostly French and blushes horribly when he stumbles over English phrases.

Tomorrow I have the day off, and plan to spend my time lounging by the lake, taking pictures, arranging my apartment. There are small challenges to overcome here: the refrigerator is large and ungainly, difficult to open all the way. The shower fixture is not particularly compatible with the clawfoot tub, the linoleum in my kitchen is peeling at the corners like a ripe fruit, the hallway reverberates with the buzz of a vacuum cleaner, the throb of hip-hop. In the foyer there is the dusty perfume of ancient cigarettes, and the distinct sensation of a watchful ghost - which I admit was welcome today, as the icy feelings rushing up and down my arms upon entry provided momentary relief from the punishing heat. I will put pictures up in a photo album for everyone to see.

This is the challenge of blogging: I type phrases like that one and wonder if anyone is actually reading this. You should tell me if you are, I’ll write more.

This is actually yesterday’s entry, as pirated wireless Internet can be very tricky:

Today I strapped on a pair of my favorite high heels, fixed my beloved orange tank top (broken strap) and took a break from unpacking to go down to Grand Avenue for a sandwich at the Jewish deli. The sun was shining, sky a perfect unbroken blue, I talked to my sister Meagan on the way down the hill. I am loving settling here - saw the tobacconist clerk I am slowly getting to know, he hooked me up with matches to light the pilot for my gorgeous little stove; bought three sturdy pink daisies from a gorgeous fat woman who wished me a happy Women’s Day and commended me on buying flowers for myself; ran into a salon owner who recommended a good mousse for adding volume to my rapidly lengthening hair.

Today it just felt amazing to be alive, to be me, at this moment in my life. Everything is expanding around me, and I am reminded of that luscious Anais Nin quote which is sadly often converted to a self-help cliche: “Life shrinks and expands according to one’s courage.”

Tonight I will callibrate at the Ladies Night Slam in San Francisco, I plan on covering one of Qwo-Li Driskill’s pieces and drawing some attention to what’s going on for hir right now: http://www.pscap.org/help/ by the way - please assist in whatever way you can. I’m covering “For Marsha P. “Pay It No Mind” Johnson” and I may do a piece of my own as well, depending on what’s cool with the organizers of tonight’s event. I am excited to get involved with the slam community here…my nervousness is ebbing as I become more comfortable in my new environment.

I just sat on my balcony talking with my dad, who sounded tired and bored but enthralled with his window into my life. Watched the sun sinking behind the distant San Francisco skyline, barely visible through the golden blur of East Bay smog. Now the blue of the sky deepens, the first stars emerge, I sit in my studio apartment wearing a beautiful dress I just mended, starting to feel the first quivers of butterflies in my stomach at the prospect of possibly performing tonight.

To everyone reading, all of whom I adore - I hope everyone is well. If you want to call me, please do, or if you don’t have my cell phone number yet, email me and I’ll give it to you. I’m not about to announce my new number on a blog - I’ve had enough strange Friendster experiences as it is.

*****

Today I had many other adventures, mostly work related. I will speak of them another time.

My laundry is in. Washing the clothes that I have to wear to work tomorrow. I have called a taxi service to book a cab for 7:15 because no trains will get me to work at 8 a.m. on a Sunday. On the bright side, that means I don’t have to wake up at 5:00 in order to get to the train station on time from Bethany and Michael’s, where I’m staying tonight. I’m staying there because Kat is picking her boyfriend up from the airport as we speak and reuniting lovers need alone time. I’m leaving Strider all by himself in a strange apartment in a back bedroom full of boxes and laundry. I have less than 24 hours to move everything from Kat’s apartment to my new place. But the silver lining is: its only two blocks away. Wish me luck, ya’ll. I’m about to go totally and completely insane.

I just returned from an evening spent with Bethany and Michael, two of my few Oakland friends. We went to a Chinese food place on Piedmont which was kind of good in the sense that all of the food items are coated in gelatinous saltiness. I ate a prawn and was pretty disgusted with the texture, but ate the second one anyway because it was on my plate and I didn’t want to look like the whiny vegetarian after turning down Mongolian beef and pork fried rice.

Afterwards, we were heading for Fenton’s and Michael was giving me shit about throwing my cigarette butts in the street until we got to the ice cream parlor and Mike said that if he ate anything else his belly would explode. Instead we meandered down Piedmont squawking at each other until Bethany led us to a swanky bourgie coffeeshop called LaMyx or something like that. I got hot chocolate and carrot cake, Mike had peppermint/chamomile tea and Bethany got chocolate cheesecake. After a let’s-not-be-assholes-anymore pact between Michael and I, talk turned to movies that scared us when we were kids, then to urban legends, and then, abruptly, to my Scariest Story In The World, which of course involves the ill-fated hitchhiking journey that Celeste and I embarked upon a year and a half ago.

I don’t want to tell that story here, but let me say, there’s a reason its called The Scariest Story In The World. Bethany says she’ll have nightmares for a month. Michael kept saying, “I’m glad you’re alive,” and we were all hugging and I almost cried in public, in front of this guy who recognized me from somewhere and I can only assume that that somewhere is work, because I never do anything other than ride the train, walk around the lake thinking about my novel, and go to work. So a Cafe Fanny regular would have seen me cry, but I held it together and afterward smoked and shook all the way to the car, then put out the cigarette and just kept shaking all the way back to Kat’s apartment, where I am staying until the 6th.

Now I have to be at work in seven and a half hours and my body is full of adrenaline, my eyes hurt, I’m awake and scared and tiny.

What else are Blogs for but this?

A lot of times I abhor Blogs; I think they are hideously self-indulgent, but its high time I got around to admitting that, well, so am I.

In less than 48 hours I will have my new apartment, and it is beautiful. In this huge gorgeous house at the top of a hill, big backyard full of old-fashioned plant life, California style: tea roses, bouganvillea, lemon trees, and calla lilies. My studio is small, but I’m relishing the promises it holds. Big windows, small sink and a tiny vintage gas stove, beautiful afternoon sunlight, clawfoot tub. Everyone must come visit, see my hair getting longer than its been in almost a decade, taste my strange new recipes.

I went to the Berkeley poetry slam the other night and was horridly intimidated, saw Sonia Renee (this year’s Indie champion) and Sekou da Misfit (2002’s Indie champion) featuring up on stage, and they were amazing. Other poets there blew my mind - it was like the best poets of Eugene over and over and over, there really wasn’t a low point to the show. But nonetheless, I think I will be callibrating at an upcoming women’s slam, so wish me luck on my arduous initiation process.