beyond the pale

But I was alone yesterday and weird bad suff happens when I’m alone and, well, I threw my back out. My side back. My side. Yeah. What is that? My lats? I pulled a lat. Is that how you say it? “Yo. I pulled a lat, mannn.” And it kinda hoits. I was moving a large bookcase by myself — because, of course, MB was not home and I do weird and/or stupid things when he leaves me, like a puppy that shouldn’t be left alone or something — and, anyway, all was going well and the bookcase does look better where it is now, but an hour after that, in minute 26 of my trampoline workout, to be precise, something went Uhm, OWWWWW! and I was hobbled and crippled and collapsed in a bouncy sweaty lump on top of the mat. So now I’m lying here on the sofa hopped up on Doan’s back pain pills — which really must be just for the BACK back because they are doing nothing for my SIDE back, my lats, yo, and really, the picture on the Doan’s box of the topless dude holding his painful painful back doesn’t inspire much hope. “Take these pills and grab your back in sudden, clutching pain. Also, be constipated. GOOD LUCK, yo!”

So since I’m on a whiney roll here and MB is gone again — after having given me strict orders that I’m allowed to do nothing, absolutely nothing — may I vent, please, about some recent niggling incidents and comments at Boheme? Because it’s always the small stuff that pushes you over the edge.

All right. Commence venting:

The other day, I was bringing an ashtray out to the patio for one of my regular customers. So, you know, thank you, and words like that, right? Nope. He looked at me and said, in front of the whole table, “Oh. I see more grey in your hair now. Is this job that stressful?”

I just stared at him. A not-nice stare, actually. A glare. I could feel it in my eyebrows. And I couldn’t think of anything to say. I think I always expect people to behave better than they do and I’m perpetually shocked when they don’t, so it paralyzes me. Or something.

Finally, I said, drily, “Oh, gosh. Thank you for noticing.” I plopped the ashtray down, turned on my heel, and got back to work.

The next day, Ginger Pervy — remember him? — who witnessed this exchange attempted to apologize for his friend, because Ginger Pervy is a Southern gentleman from Georgia with that smooth molasses drawl they have and oh, besides, he “doesn’t want to die an ***hole.” So he says to me, “I wanna apologiiize for my friennnd. I don’t thiiink he meannnt to be offensivvve about your haaair. It’s not noticeable at all in the shaaaade, but it’s realllly noticeable in the sunlight.”

Oh, gosh, Ginger Pervy. Thank you for that apology. I mean, it really means, well, absolutely nothing to me. First of all, I think that people should make their own apologies; just not a fan of apologies by proxy. Also, dude, that wasn’t an apology. I mean, why dontcha, while the knife is still in there, go ahead and give it a nice ginger-gentlemanly twist?

*****
Continue venting:

Dude came in, ordered a parmesan bagel, toasted, cream cheese AND butter. Fine. There was only one parmesan bagel left because they are yummo-licious and MB and I eat most of them, frankly. (There’s that ol’ business sense of mine rearing its ugly head again.) So this last lonely parmesan bagel had the pastry tag stuck in it, a little metal pronged dealio with the name and price attached to it. Because that’s the way the reeeal classsy places do it, you see. And when I took the bagel out, I took the tag out, and the bagel had two teeny holes, as if it had been bitten by a bagel vampire, but no big deal. I mean, I did not wipe my nose with the bagel or shove it in my armpits or my underpants, tho’ I do fight that temptation daily. Still, the dude looked at the bagel, wrinkled his nose, and said, “So you’re gonna give me the one with the holes in it?”

“Well, most likely. It IS the only one left.”

“Oh.”

“Do you still want it, holes and all?”

Heavy sigh.

“Okaaay.”

*****
And end venting, for now:

See the little rat dog in this picture?

(Never mind the long-haired dude squatting down with the dog; he’s not the dog’s owner and I prefer never to speak of this person. Although I’m sure I will at some point. Blech. BLECH.)

But the little devil rat dog is now regularly POOING out on the bamboo patio. Yup. Leaving tiny milk dud dookies out there, amongst the bamboo — which her owner does not clean up. No, he leaves them behind for us to discover, like last year’s Easter eggs, all shriveled and brown and stinky.

We hates her and her owner.

A couple days ago, this:

MAN (kinda barging into Boheme, demanding): Do you have any matches?

ME: Uh, no.

MAN: A lighter or something?

ME: Sorry. No.

MAN (exasperated sigh): Jeez, how do you even advertise, then??

ME: Well, I just dangle coffee cups from my bo*obs, go outside, and shake ’em around.

(You thought I really said that, didn’t you? And now you’re disappointed to find out I actually didn’t, right? Yeah, well … me too.)

Now today, different dude:

MAN (same bargy vibe as other guy): Do you have any matches?

ME: Uh, no.

MAN: Matchbook?

ME: No, sorry.

MAN: A LIGHTER??

ME: No, I’m sorry. I don’t smoke.

(pause)

MAN (pawing frantically at his arm): Well, this patch is NOT WORKING. NOT WORKING!

He storms out. Moments later, I see him out in front, hands shaking, smoking a cigarette.

Woke up this morning 4:45 to open Boheme extra early for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. I still felt all jittery and heart-poundy about it. I’d never seen a marathon before …. til today. And wow.

Wow. Amazing. I am still awestruck by the whole thing, really.

I have some cell phone photos of it that I may be sifting through to see if any of them look okay. And MB — the world’s most awesome cameraman — took his digital video camera and an old-style 8 mm camera to film the action, just for a little project for himself. (He does this professionally so he ain’t no slouch.) Soo … if I can get some still images from what he shot, well, so much the better. I mean, even after watching the marathon sweep past Boheme, we still came home and watched all his footage. Lived through the thing all over again. It was just so so wonderful. So, fingers crossed, I’ll get some of what he shot. But for now, just some quick random images and impressions that I just want to get down, to remember:

~ The sky was dull grey and puffy this morning, like a sky that didn’t get enough sleep. At first I thought it didn’t look quite ready for such a day, but then I looked again and saw a soft soothing blanket. Nothing jarring or too bright. A comfort sky. Good for the runners, with just the right amount of chill blowing through the seams. I dashed around in my black yoga pants, brewing coffee, watching the band set up across the street. Literally, directly across the street. Right in front of Boheme. I had no idea they’d be RIGHT THERE. So that was cool. I listened to their sound checks, listened as they blasted “Takin’ Care of Business” through their speakers at 6:00 a.m. while they finished setting up their stage. Here I was, puttering around my silly coffeehouse venture, and I suddenly felt part of something huge, way beyond me. Inside, I felt it roaring towards me, louder each minute, as if my blood were pounding in rhythm with the steps of 40,000 distant feet.

~ I fell in love with our street corner band The Kobbs. (There are bands all the way along this marathon’s route.) Seriously, though, kinda fell in love with them. I don’t know if it was uniquely them or if I just would have loved whatever band played across the street, supplying a pulse, a beat, for the runners to run to. Although, on the other hand … how many of the other bands would have played their entire hour-long set in their bathrobes and looked adorable and turned me into a twittery school girl groupie? Well, not tooo many, I’m sure. And more on THAT humiliation later. Lord.

~ The wheelchair runners rolled by first, heads down, all of them. You saw only helmets, arms, and wheels. No faces. Not a one. I started to tear up just witnessing that, the determination in that pose. The total single-mindedness. The HUGE arms shoving and shoving and shoving at those wheels. I didn’t exist to them. My feeble cheers of “woo!” didn’t exist to them. The band didn’t exist to them. There was only the road and what they had to do. That seemed to be all. Everything. And I felt almost called OUT by that. It practically seared through me: What in my life am I allowing to ask THAT of me? To ask me to see only the road and what I have to do? What? Weird, how I’m just standing on a sidewalk, sipping a coffee, and that thought rips right through me. A thought that seemed completely IN the moment and completely outside of the moment all at once. And it felt too big to contain right then. Too much to consider. I need to think about that more, really. But my woo-hooing stopped — instantly — and I felt almost like I should drop to my knees and thank them for letting me see that, letting me see inside them, see something in them so lacking in me.

~ The Kenyans blew by next. So fast, it almost didn’t register. I remember lots of pairs of bright red tennis shoes and how lightning fast they were, how effortless.

~ Then the swelling roar. The pounding horde. The charging feet. Lord in heaven. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It felt like an explosion, inside of me, outside of me. All the runners, the whole world, really, came stampeding up the street. For a split second, I just wanted to fling my coffee down and jump into the fray. I wanted to BE in that. I wanted to KNOW that. Outside looking in just didn’t seem right. I was missing out on the THING. The thing that seemed like the only thing that anyone should be doing. It was so primal. So visceral. In that moment, I felt sure that a mere step down off that sidewalk and something new would be pounded into my mind that I would never ever know just standing there. I’m not even explaining this well. Dammit. Maybe it was just the movement. Maybe it’s because they were all going somewhere I wasn’t. But there was something more, I think — for me — in the whole thing. There was something of hope in that, something of fearlessness, in what I saw. It would be easy to compare them all to charging beasts or wild things because of the sound, the feral pound of it all. But they weren’t beasts. They were all so totally human and so totally divine at the same time. They were transcendent to me. I swear, I saw fully clothed people being more naked than I’ve ever seen people be. Some were old, but they ran. Some were fat, but they ran. Some wore leg braces, but they ran. One, a little old lady, was even blind, but she ran. As I stood there awestruck as if I were witnessing the cloud of fire on Mt. Sinai or something, this old woman shot past me on the sidewalk and plowed right into the light pole. She teetered, I gasped, and made a move towards her. But she just straightened herself back up, like Gumby unrolling himself, as if nothing had happened. Then she flicked her wrist and I saw it, the walking stick, unfold, unroll, whatever, as she started tapping the sidewalk to find her way again. She trotted off past me, a little unsteadily, and I saw the back of her t-shirt: Legally Blind Community, it read. She was old. She was fat. She was basically blind. But she ran. They all ran. Whatever the personal odds against them, they just ran. Whatever their myriad doubts, they just ran. Whatever anyone might think of them, they just ran. And that rebellion thrilled me, made me feel bigger inside, that rebellion of hope against despair. The beautiful naked hopeful running.

So my dearheart husband, MB, helps out every morning at Boheme for a couple hours before ambling off to his real job, his own business. Customers love him. He’s a big, personable, easygoing fellow — unlike his twitchy wife — and he’s a great conversationalist. He relaxes people. So he’s a hit. All the gay men just looooove him. Plus he got a new haircut about three weeks ago, so the schwing factor — always very high — is now through the roof. Which isn’t what this post is about, but, oh, well, I got a bit swept away and now he’s gonna read this and get a big head about it all. Calm thyself, MB.

Hm. Okay. Losing focus. See, I’m taking a day off from Boheme right now and it seems I forgot to — oh, nothing major — just leave my employee, C, the money for the cash drawer and she called my phone “39 times” she said, but I didn’t have it with me because I still haven’t figured out what cell phones are for, apparently, so she just sat for an hour and a half of business time, calling my cell phone, drinking coffee, and doing the puzzles in the paper. All of which I heartily endorse, because, well, what the heck is she supposed to do when dealing with an idiot boss? So when we finally got the message(S), MB called her back and said, “Hey — I’m sorry to hear your employers have become retarded.”

So I’m having that kind of day. Verrry mentally loose and glitchy.

Anyhoo. Back to Carla the Intuitive Clairvoyant. Didn’t I mention her?

She came in the other day for her meeting day, took one look at MB in all his glory, and said, “Oh! You got a haircut!”

MB just smiled. “Yeah.”

Later as she was leaving, she exclaimed some more and MB just smiled and I recognized the particular amused glint in his eye. I knew we were thinking the same thing. So Carla left, all floaty and high because of MB’s haircut. Or whatever.

I turned to him. “You got your hair cut three weeks ago.”

“Yup.”

“She’s here every week.”

“Yup.”

“She’s a clairvoyant.”

A brief pause.

“Guess she was just feeling my inner haircut.”

My friend/customer M has lived an incredibly hard life. She struggles and she’s not afraid to say so. Not afraid to be open. Take an emotional risk. Say, “I suck.” And she’s one of my very favorite people because of it.

The other day she started telling me this ….

When she was 20 and desperate and strung out on drugs, she prostituted herself for 3 months because she couldn’t see straight, couldn’t see anything else to do. It was during this time that she first slept with a woman. Shortly after that, she told another, older woman, a woman she trusted, what had happened. The woman just looked at her and pronounced, “Oh. You’re gay.”

So M was telling me all this as we sat out on the front patio of Boheme. As she smoked, tears streamed down her cheeks. Tears streamed down my cheeks too. And I just let her talk:

“But was I? Was I really? I mean, she just said that. Poof! You’re gay! I’d never been with a woman before that and I was a total zombie at the time. A total mess. But this woman just said that and then said I was an addict and dropped me off at a rehab house for gays. So I’m grateful that she pointed me to sobriety, but, you know, she labeled me as gay when my resistance was low. I was totally vulnerable. But I was at this place for gays, right? And since I found acceptance from gays as gay and rejection from straights as gay — I was GAY. And it’s easy to become that because, well, suddenly, you’re in and accepted and there’s no going back. I don’t know the other life. I know this life. And now I don’t know what I am. I literally don’t know. I want what God wants for me. That’s what I want. But how would I ever explain this — all this — to a man? And I want kids, too, but my eggs are probably too old now, I guess. And I know all these people with kids. They talk about them all the time. I go to their parties and people I don’t know — people with kids — come up and ask me, “Do you have kids? Do you have kids?” And I always say, “No, but I can imagine.” But, Tracey, I can’t. I really can’t. I mean, I don’t know what that’s actually like. But I know what it is to want. So is that something? Does that count? I know what it is to want.”

She stopped and looked at me. And then we just sat there and cried from all the wanting.