My Face for the World to See (Part II): The Diary of Sherilyn Connelly a fiction September 1 - 10, 2002

Tuesday, 10 September 2002 (heed the sun) 1:05pm From my brother Barefoot (who had to move away from Oakland to Los Angeles last year) when I mentioned that I don't read Mark Morford on sfgate anymore even though I appreciate his leftist politics: Well, since I'm working at a place where the plans for tomorrow is a "Day Of Rememberance" where at Noon, all employees are asked to convene in a common area to recite The Pledge of Allegiance (the "under god" version, natch), and sing "God Bless America" before a lunch of "All American Fare." because "While we must all be cognizant of how this tragedy has changed the way we now live, we must also show our unity and commitment to rebuilding America." so I don't really get sick of Morford's stuff. Sigh. You get to make Warhol-esque videos of your cats, I have to deal with EVPs who *still* put American Flags in their email sigs. I'm not inundated with the good fight anymore, so any relief in the form of agressive, balls-out liberalism is good. Otherwise, my soul continues to shrivel, day by day, inch by inch. So things could be worse—to the best of my knowledge nothing of the sort is being planned here. (I've read that some places will observe a moment of silence at 9:11am. The attacks didn't happen at 9:11am originally, of course, but we Americans do love our cheap, easily digestible symbolism. It's like stoners and 4:20. Nine-fuckin'-eleven, dude!). And it'll be over soon. Except for that unity stuff. Last | Top | Next

Monday, 9 September 2002 (moonrock footnotes) 11:55am I took my car to the Goodyear Tire Center in Daly City on Saturday morning to get the front tires replaced. (They told me the back tires are in bad shape too. They're quite right.) It took about half an hour, and I spent it in the lobby reading a book. Unfortunately, there was a very large teevee blaring MSNBC—the moment I was left by myself I turned it down a bit, but I couldn't mute it or turn it off. By the time my car was ready, I'd officially had my fill of anniversary coverage of The Great Overshadowing. Really. I'm done. I get the point. No more, please. I'm going to do my best to avoid major media outlets for the next few days, but it's not easy. I wish I could hibernate this week. Everyone else can commemorate all they want. I want nothing to do with it. I saw a commercial on the Food Network this weekend which, to me, said it all. Scene: a row of houses, reminiscent of Newport Beach. "Last year terrorists tried to change our way of life. They succeeded." Fade to: the same row of houses, but now adorned with flags. So there you go. Last | Top | Next

Sunday, 8 September 2002 (tainted obligation) 9:48am It's remarkable how much you can tell about a person from their arms. Last | Top | Next

Saturday, 7 September 2002 (silent testifier) sometime after midnight Well she dances alone in nightclubs Every other day of the week People look right through her Baby doll, check your cheek And she's kind of like a poet Who finds it hard to speak Poems come so slowly Like the colors down a sheet Last | Top | Next

Friday, 6 September 2002 (negative earth positive sky) 2:11pm As a result of intense foot pain, I started wearing Asics Gel running shoes in the early nineties. (I went into more detail about it a couple years ago.) I've been wearing buetz and occasionally sandals since early 2000, however, with no problem. Until a few days ago, that is, when the old familiar pain started coming back. Not as bad as it has been before, but it was clearly just a matter of time. So for the last couple days I've been wearing the last pair of running shoes I bought, which are three years old—older than Mina, as this picture shows. They clash with what I'm wearing otherwise—black jeans, a black blouse and red-and-black stripey arms—but are necessary, especially considering how much walking I've been doing lately, and my feet do already feel a little better. Still, it's probably for the best that Maddy's in bed when I leave for work in the morning; I'm not sure she'd let me leave the house so mismatched. Ixe wrote; he's leaving town next week. He didn't say whether Danielle would be following suit, but I suspect she will. I hope we'll get to see them before then, but I'm not holding my breath. 9:43pm When we came home tonight after a visit to Anodyne's salon to get Maddy's hair done, someone was setting off fireworks on the beach. Skyrockets, to be precise. It was quite beautiful. I love my neighborhood. (See? There are good things, too.) Last | Top | Next

Thursday, 5 September 2002 (buy anything) 2:11pm Because of the ads all over town, magazine and newspaper covers which enter my field of vision whether I want them to or not, and headlines on Salon.com, I'm aware of the existence of a very popular teevee show called American Idol. I wish I wasn't. At least I've thus far managed to avoid seeing both The Osbournes and The Anna Nicole Show. I feel sorry for Maddy, who will be visiting her family in the Midwest later this month and will probably have to watch one of them whether she wants to or not, kinda like what happened with jackass the last time I was there. Then again, she's not as pretentious or snobbish as me. I am no better than anyone else. Last | Top | Next

Wednesday, 4 September 2002 (take his name in vain) 10:02am Then again, there are times when I do wish we lived, as the kids say, "closer to the action." I may not have discovered the flat tire yesterday morning if it weren't for the fact that Summer had a booksigning in the evening at Borderlands Books at Valencia and 19th. My plan was to drive to the garage at 21st and take BART to work, then head back out to the store after work, after which we would drive home. But it wasn't to be. Maddy met me at Borderlands. One of the more peculiar things about being back at CNET is not having Maddy there, for the first time since March of 2000. Odder still, she had Pike with her, having run into him on the way out there, even though I'd been the one who'd just seen him at work. This town is very small. We parted company with Pike after the signing and headed to the BART station. I reckoned the quickest way to get home would be to BART to Embarcadero station, then hop onto an outbound L Muni train. Simple enough, except for one thing: I kinda needed to find a restroom. Wasn't quite urgent yet, but the need had been there since I'd gotten to Borderlands. We considered eating at Herbivore, but Maddy was craving a burrito. Besides, I was feeling guilty about the money I'd spent buying sushi for lunch at Lee's Deli, and Herbivore is reasonably priced but not exactly cheap, and all of those overrode my need to piddle. Not to mention that I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. There were Mexican restaurants in the area, of course, but what we really needed was a taqueria so she could take burrito home and use her cilantro-less salsa. With any luck the taqueria more or less in our neighborhood would still be open when got home. We ran into Matthue in the 24th Street BART station and rode with him until Powell. His eventual destination was a stretch of Ocean Beach not too far from our own. I considered suggesting he travel with us and we could drive him the rest of the way (in Maddy's car) when we got home, but decided against it. That turned out to be the correct decision. There wasn't an outbound L coming to Embarcadero for at least fifteen minutes, so we went aboveground to Embarcadero Center to see if the public restrooms were open. Nope. Closed about an hour and a half earlier. Back to the the station. When an L finally arrived, the electronic sign above the platform said it was an N. The sign on the train itself said it was an L, though, and that's generally accurate. Inevitably there was some confusion, as will happen with conflicting instructions. The driver wasn't exactly helping; he was announcing over the loudspeaker that it was in fact an L, but he was haranguing the passengers, telling them to hurry, that they were slowing everything up and not paying attention. Passenger reaction, understandably, was not entirely pleasant. He continued to grumble over the loudspeaker after the train started moving and repeated the tirade at the next few stations, the recurring point being that people don't pay attention. He was about to prove his own point. It may not have been his fault; perhaps the sign on the platform reflected what the automatic controls of the train itself thought, that it was an N. Whatever the reason, the train took a wrong turn in the subway, and went above ground four stops early and in the wrong part of town entirely, at Church and Market. After first saying he was going to doubleback into the subway, the driver then kicked us off. It didn't occur to him at first that he'd have to lower the steps; without doing so, it's a three or four foot drop to the street. By the time he realized it people were already starting to jump off, but to lower the steps the doors have to close. He tried closing the doors, but people were holding it open, and one person yelled "You almost closed the door on someone, asshole!" The door finally closed, the steps lowered, and the doors opened again. Throughout all of this, the driver did not apologize for the inconvenience or admit to any fault whatsoever. He could tear into other people just fine, but evidently when he made a mistake (as he probably did), it's not worth mentioning. So. We were at Church and Market, not much closer to home, with no burritos to show for our trouble and my body still requiring attention. Azteca was right there, but it doesn't have a public restoom; we decided to eat at Sparky's, which at least had a restroom, and we had a little time to kill anyway, not wanting to wait for the next L with the other passengers. As we approached Sparky's it occurred to me that we were only a block or two away from the Bagdad Cafe, which has better food. We headed to Bagdad; by the time we got there I was feeling guilty about Maddy not getting her burrito (though she assured me it was perfectly all right), so I suggested we walk to the taqueria down the street from the Castro Theater, which had both good burritos and a public restroom. Best of all, by the time we were done there, the angry mob of passengers from our train would be long gone. Waiting to place our order, I saw a guy ahead of us in line ask for the restroom key. Fine. As our burritos were being made, he exits the restroom and joins his boyfriend at their table, without going by the counter to return the key. Makes perfect sense, considering he left it in there. The urge to kick him square in the nuts as he walks by is strong but not overwhelming. One of the employees has a spare key, and I enter to find that in addition to leaving the key, the guy didn't flush and pissed on the seat. And standing is not an option. We left without incident—I could have said something to him, but to what end? It's not like he'd give a damn, any more than the driver really cared. There are no heroes, you know. People are capable of the same levels of self-absorption no matter who they are or what they do. Not all people are bad, but nothing about them will necessarily make them good, either. And, in spite of what you may have heard, it has nothing to do with where you live. San Francisco does not have a higher percentage of bad or unfriendly people. The rest of the trip home was uneventful. 2:47pm Lucky Creation is closed on Wednesdays. Had I known that (by, say, calling), I wouldn't have walked a mile through downtown to get there. On the other hand, at least it means I walked a couple miles today. Last | Top | Next

Tuesday, 3 September 2002 (the circlemakers) 9:02am Ah, the irony of it all. My twice-delayed baby sleep #1 was finally shown last night, and I was too tired to watch. After napping through the evening I was able to stay up late enough to see it begin, and then I went to bed. I heard the music from the next room as I was falling asleep, though, which felt rather appropriate. A flat tire is not a promising start of a first day back at work. And, for as much of a spaz as I can be when it comes to parking—I broke the air valve off the rear passenger side tire with a bad parallel park last week—I'm pretty sure this time it wasn't my fault. It's the front driver side tire, currently facing the street, so it wasn't me misjudging distances. For a change. It's possible it was slashed. These things do happen, for no good reason. It's hard not to suspect the ex-neighbors (Saturday was their last day, which I guess means we can set foot in their apartment now), but I don't think it was them. Yes, they've done some remarkably petty things—removing our names from the doorbell, splattering paint all over our washing machine, and so on—but this seems like a bit much. Sure, we've harbored a few tire-slashing fantasies ourselves, or even just strategic placement of the half-empty Snapple bottles they leave all over the garage, but I have to assume it wasn't them. Since I'm fundamentally naive. 3:21pm The Marketing Weasel is gone. I hope his workstation simply moved and he didn't get laid off. The net result either way is that I'm in this corner of the office by myself, which is awfully nice, although I'd been sickly curious to hear his inevitable phone conversations about how drunk he got at Burning Man. Last | Top | Next

Monday, 2 September 2002 (some days are better than others) 9:48am 165, with a somewhat emptier body. We didn't make it to K'vetch last night; Maddy's back and neck were acting up, so we had to choose, and went with the Strombolli Tour opener. For as much as I would have liked to have read at K'vetch, not to mention (e) was the feature, we made the right decision. The show was great—though it's odd to think that I'm already familiar with much of the material, having seen it performed elsewhere—and I really hope it does well. (Tour dates? Why, yes.) It was rather bittersweet afterwards, as goodbyes were said and phone numbers and promises to keep each other company for the next two months were exchanged amongst the family and friends of those staying behind. I get the feeling both Rocco's sister Anastasia and the girlfriend of MC STD (Rocco's cohort in The End of the World) are going to have a particularly rough time of it, but we'll help them however we can. Didn't get to bed until after two in the morning, of course. Someone asked me last night if I'm in a band; no, but evidently I live the rock and roll lifestyle. Last | Top | Next

Sunday, 1 September 2002 (not of the season) 2:15pm Between the Strombolli Tour tonight and taping the kittypr0n broadcast tomorrow, I guess I won't have much of a chance to reacquaint my body with the whole "getting to bed early in order to wake up early" thing. Would have been a good thing come Tuesday morning when I go back to work. If nothing else, I probably shouldn't keep staying up til 2am watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Maddy every night. 7:53pm 170. Maddy pointed out that I'd just eaten, so it wasn't a very good time to weigh myself. Hell, these days, when haven't I just eaten? Last | Top | Next