the kindness of strangers

ok, i know it’s been a while, but i have good reason for this particular hiatus: nothing happened.  i still don’t have a job, school hasn’t started yet, and charlie is still a loud-mouth pug.  the only things i’ve accomplished are washing clothes (but, as i’ve explained before, is futile since there’s no where to put the clean clothes besides back next to the dirty ones) and taking my PTCB exam. if you’re wondering if i passed, well, duh, of course i did. but all that means is i get a certificate in the mail any day now and i can sign my name with cpht at the end. woohoo. it also means i have to start looking for a new job.  awesome.  oh well, c’est la vie.

so, here’s a story that happened a few months ago that i’ve been meaning to blog about since it struck me profoundly, and that very rarely happens…

a few months ago i was leaving the boyfriend’s apartment in berkeley.  we had just spent a weekend of almost non-stop bickering and i allowed

oh, how i hate you...

myself a quick cry in my car before i left.  i can’t remember whatall we’d been bitching at each other about now, but at the time it was enough to frustrate me and make me need to release that frustration through my eyeballs.  anyway, a few minutes later i wiped my eyes, put my glasses back on, and turned on the engine and pulled away.  i realized with that irritation that only comes after you’ve just recovered from something really shitty happening that my gas light was on.  i knew i couldn’t drive very far without getting gas and for some reason that always pisses me off, especially if i’m already kinda pissed off and/or in a hurry.  to add to my bad mood was the knowledge that i would have fill-up at the chevron up in the berkeley hills in this little neighborhood called kensington where the gas is typically at least ten cents more than the same frickin gas a mile away.  anyway, i bitched and moaned to myself and reluctantly pulled into the station.  when i get stressed out i usually need two things: diet coke and cigarettes.  so, i put the nozzle in the hole-thing (ha, that sounded dirty) and walked into the “foodmart” while i my bank account got raped, $3/gallon.  my spirits lifted infinitesimally when i found these guys had cold diet coke in the can!  woohoo!  my luck was already starting to change.  i love diet coke from the can.  i can’t explain why, but it just tastes better than when it comes from a soda fountain or those plastic bottles.

next, sorry mom and dad, came the cigarettes.  the happiness i got from the coke can discovery waned when i found that the indian dude didn’t have the exact kind of cigarettes i like (camel no. 9 in the pink and black box), even though really, no one ever has them except 7-11 or those cigarette discount places.  i settled for camel lights.  as i spoke my order to the station attendant, he was very polite and smiley, but not in a creepy way.  he was just so nice.  he asked me if i lived in the neighborhood and i explained that no, i didn’t and why i was there.  he checked my license for the cigarettes and asked if i liked san jose and about if i went to school and just small talk like that.  but for some reason it made me feel so much better.  i left feeling happy and like the world wasn’t such a shitty place and that there really are genuinely kind people out there.  i think he could tell that i had been crying and he drew me out in conversation to be nice.  on the drive home, as i sipped the coke and smoked a couple cigarettes, i thought about that nice indian man who had managed to change my mood with such a simple gesture: kindness.  isn’t it sad when you become so jaded that you’re surprised when someone treats you like a human being and not just what you are at that moment, like a customer or a sad girl.  i don’t know if that makes as much sense to anyone else as it does in my head.

anyway, thanks indian guy at the kensington chevron station.  you made my day brighter and resurrected my belief in the kindness of strangers.

parents, poseurs, and priuses– oh my!

some people just love san francisco and berkeley.

bay bridge-- connects bezerkley to sf... did i mention that i'm also kinda scared of bridges?

i do not count myself among them.

i tolerate sf.  (i mean i’ll venture there to catch a show at the warfield or at, my favorite, the fillmore.  the fillmore hands out these kick-ass art

some guy described these as "purple jellyfish." good description, guy.

posters of the band you just saw as you’re leaving and the interior is wallpapered with history.  it’s worth the hassle.)

and i’m even more tolerable if someone else is driving… unless it’s my dad driving and my mom in the passenger seat.  my whole life my parents have rarely fought, like a real fight with yelling and cursing, etc.  but put them inside a moving vehicle and wait 30 minutes and )))kaboom!(((  you will, without fail,  witness a fight ranging anywhere from mild to moderate, unless the subject of following directions or the “right” parking spot is involved, then it escalates to severe, as in multiple f-bombs (always from mom– it’s inherited) and palpable tension, while those dudes from npr’s “car talk” try to lighten the mood (unsuccessfully) as i squirm uncomfortably asking god and jesus to please, lord, just get us [insert destination here] before i go for the ol’ tuck-n-roll.  i do admit, though, that i admire their ability to move one once desired destination has been reached.  i mean they’re not saints, first they have to each plead his or her case to me while the other isn’t within earshot.  once they’ve vented to their daughter, all can return to normal… until it’s time to go home.  but, to their credit, trips home are less dramatic because our house is always on the same street and there is always parking right in front.  but i digress.

see?

my point is that while i am able to tolerate negotiating the city of san francisco if the proverbial pot at the end of the rainbow (not a gay joke) is awesome enough, downtown berkeley is tolerable only by car and completely intolerable on foot.  berkeley, the one you see in documentaries about the 60’s, is today teeming with with bums and hippies, and ex-hippies driving their priuses and then, during the school year, droves of kids with ridiculous dreadlocks or shaved heads armed with their white bread, mainstream socialist/marxist/anarchist ideologies, topped off with a che guevera t-shirt and an ipod loaded with bob marley.  the rest are asian.  at least the asian kids aren’t confused about

the boyfriend's berkeley-- the nice one

which “subversive” niche they want to endorse.  the asian kids mainly hang around smoking cigarettes that hang precariously from their lips as speak to each other in rapid-fire [insert language here].  now you may be thinking that since i, too, am in college that i shouldn’t be calling these cal students kids.  but, you see, these d-bags are mostly18-22.  now that i’m coming up on 25, i have (in my mind) earned the right to refer to these poseurs as kids, even toddlers or infants if i so choose.  i am aware that part of my distaste for those children stems from jealousy that a) they’re much richer and/or smarter than me and b) that they will already have graduated by the time they’re my age (at which time they will remove the nose rings, throw out the bumper stickers, break the bongs, and cut their hair for their new jobs at fortune 500 companies where they will inevitably rake in six-figure salaries (plus bonuses!) with nice benefit packages (with dental!) and a 401-k plan.) instead of trolling the internet looking for a job that will pay at least 18 bucks an hour.  then i will hate them for a whole new set of reasons.

i, on the other hand, live here, on the island where the mean folk are.  it’s a little crowded, but the weather’s nice.