The Biggest

Friday night I went to Esperpento with Tom. I eat salmon (though I try not to think too much about it, because they are sentient creatures who don’t want to die any more than cows and pigs do), so seafood in general seems like fair game. Tom sometimes has a garlic shrimp dish that comes in a beautiful pool of greasy orange juice—he doesn’t mind if I sop up a little with a hunk of bread—and I decided to give that a try, but one of the shrimps still had its spindly little legs or whatever they are still attached, so I’m never ordering that again. Tom ate that one.

Yesterday morning I met Ann Marie at the Samovar Tea Lounge at Page and Laguna. Ann Marie is the recruiter who got me my job 15 years ago, and thus one of the top several benefactors of my entire life. We’ve taken a walk from time to time, but never on a weekend, so this was the first time I’d seen her in her non-work attire, and it was spectacular. Red and draping and with jeweled cowboy boots, and there was lace, and of course her mane of curly naturally blond hair, and her crystal clear bright blue eyes. She is gorgeous, and a delightful person who takes joy in many things. She was wearing a large ring with Tibetan lettering on it (“What does it say?” “Om mani padme hum? One of the oms”) and another ring that stuck straight out about two inches. It was all metal and looked like a flower balanced on top of a teacup balanced on something else.

For brunch, I had vegetable quiche with a salad and fruit and Ann Marie had the mini Moorish platter, with hummus and olives and eggplant, we split squash dumplings with sesame dipping sauce, and we both had tea. Then we walked over to Creativity Explored, which is a nonprofit that supports people with developmental disabilities to become working artists, and toured their huge working space / gallery. I heard a thing on KQED about them, how they spend a year learning all about something and making art based on that theme. The current theme is Day of the Dead, so there were lots of studies of skeletons and skulls. There were some wonderful things there. One artist had made a piece that was a love letter—I think it was from a man to a woman—saying things like, “You are lovely and you are wonderful and you are the tallest! And you are the biggest!” It was utterly charming.

Then we went next door to another shop that sells art, jewelry, books and periodicals, handmade clothes, and greeting cards. In there, a fellow—I gathered he was an artist—very flatteringly asked if he could take my picture. He liked the colors of my yellow cycling jacket and grey-blue homemade pants together (as do I). The proprietor said, “You should get one with her backpack, too,” (which is red), so he took another.

Then we walked to BART and Ann Marie went home to Berkeley and I went downtown for my final Alexander Technique lesson with Flora.

When I came out, three young fellows were hawking CDs and suggested I should acquire one. “What does it sound like?” I asked, and they enthusiastically explained that it’s “beats” but sounds like Miles Davis and would definitely “get the party started.” They were darling. The artist himself, who did all this on his computer, had beautiful green eyes. After about ten seconds, he decided just to give me the CD for free—the artist is known as Zodgilla and the CD is called Languid Pace—but I felt I should make a contribution, of $10, and they seemed thrilled. I realized that’s because they were thrilled—making a CD is thrilling, and being downtown trying to sell it is thrilling, and having someone give you actual money is thrilling.

I passed another band nearby whose sound system was being powered by a volunteer pedaling a modified bicycle.

At home, after listening to Languid Pace and finding it sophisticated and atmospheric, I meant to read and/or watch The Nun’s Story, but thought of another approach to figuring out what those two songs are: to save some alternative rock stations as favorites on my Internet radio (the beloved Squeezebox Boom) and hope that sooner or later, the songs turn up. Nearly everything on the Boom has the artist and song title displayed. So I spent about 90 minutes doing that, also saving some 60s, 70s, 80s, metal, and disco stations—disco rules—and after that, my right little finger was numb and tingling and, as of this writing, still is.

Maybe I should just give this HD radio away on Craigslist and forget about those songs.