Have I mentioned lately how much I love
Netflix? Love it. Recently, I received
Noises Off in my mailbox. I haven't gotten my hands on this particular DVD-o-CornyHumor in many years... like since high school some time. And I probably inflicted it on all my poor high school friends (hi, H!) then, too.
Anyway, one of the characters doesn't use nouns. Ever. His use of adjectives is also fairly spotty. The title of this blog is a direct quote from one of his speeches in the movie. He's telling the director of the play that he's worked with a lot of directors, but never one "who is so totally... I don't know." It's a profound sentiment. Really.
I have the same reaction to my recent afternoon playing hooky (from my own list of to-do chores on my day off, no less) in a very specific neighborhood of the local big city. It was an afternoon that left me laughing, and at a complete loss for how to explain its profundity. Good lord! Profundity is a WORD! that my spellchecker KNOWS! Will wonders never cease.
I started the afternoon having a great little mutual vent with a girlfriend while standing in front of my hair salon. I really think beauty parlours are the unofficial counseling center of the world, you know. I've gotten the best haircuts from women who became close personal friends and confidants. And some of the worst wax jobs from women who didn't.
Anyway, had my hairs cut-- all but this one she always misses because it tucks itself behind my ear until she's sent me on my way-- at which point it hangs down and starts tickling my neck relentlessly. Feels exactly like a mosquito in heat. ARGH!!!! Then I decided to swing by this one little cool strip in East downtown-- and maybe drop into the bead store there or something. Came at the strip from a direction I've never come from before, and as a result I parked about four blocks further down the street than I intended-- and found not one but THREE shops I'd never even seen before but was quite interested to visit.
The first shop... well, I went in under the mistaken assumption that it was a kitchen boutique. The storefront said something about cutlery and gifts. Yeah. The bald mannequin holding an offering plate with red lipstick and a samurai sword on his back should have alerted me... but you know... that sort of thing is NORMAL on the strip, so I didn't even stop to consider. Yeah. I
should have been checking the area for cameras. It was at this point that my afternoon went from "unscripted" to "I just know somebody has got to be filming this!"
The store was a samurai's dream. There was actually a little bit of cutlery on the back wall, by the way. A very little bit. The smallest paring knife was priced at $43.-- Most of the stuff in the cases and on the walls had nothing to do with the kitchen, however. Samurai swords, throwing swords, jungle-hackers, pocket knives, belt knives, throwing stars... Plus racks of robes, traditional leather body armor, symbols of protection, and a young man behind the counter with one of those shaved heads and a long flowing ponytail at the crown of his head-- showing an older gentleman in a nice button-up shirt and slacks how to play a bamboo flute.
I left the store about 45 minutes later having received a dinner invitation (or just tea if I'm not ready to date yet after my divorce-- do I like tea??), a phone number, a short reiki-style healing, a conversation about car accidents and military tactics (and the resulting emotional trauma of each), and a CD of personally recorded gospel music. WTF?? All I can say is that it was par for course on the strip, and it was actually quite a fun conversation with the nice Christian Grandfather (with over 57 years of experience with blades of all sorts, and a wife who played piano on the CD) and the nice Samurai Man (with a weird ponytail, and several recent car accidents under his belt, who wants to take me out for tea). I left feeling loved.
I sat down on the next set of steps I passed and called a friend. Someone who could appreciate how FUNNY the last hour had been. Umm... I just had an experience that was just so totally... I don't know. Help? Then we both started laughing at the absurdity of it all. Only on the strip, she said.
There's a bumper sticker I see very occasionally on cars out here, and I totally want one. It's a great shade of purple, and all it says is
"COEXIST." However, each of the letters in the word has been turned (quite obviously, and with no loss of readability, if you can believe it) into a religious symbol, ranging from the Star of David to the Christian Cross to the Pagan five-point Star, to a bunch of other stuff. The reason I bring up this bumper sticker is that I've lived here for over a year now, and I still haven't found one store that actually CARRIES this bumper sticker.
Until Thursday. When I found the second store I'd never been in before. To get to it, you have to walk through a side entrance to a little diner (which said diner was closed, adding to the oddity of the entrance program), up some stairs, and into this little reformed attic of an old house which is full of a mix of eclectic new age books, candle holders, sketchy essential oil home-mixes, and slightly pogrnographigc plastic statues of witches wearing little black dresses and bent way over their cauldrons, Betty-Boop style.
HOWEVER, the ceiling rafters were lined with cool bumper stickers. Including the elusive
COEXIST. Which the proprietor has to reorder before I can go back and buy one. And the store itself was definitely a trip. I'm not sure what the destination was, but hey-- it's all about the journey, right? I left there with an inexpensive and scholarly book about the role of Women in ancient Celtic life (a side interest of mine-- I designed an independent study course in college about Celtic and Irish folklore, and had the damnedest time finding anything about women that wasn't how they were virgins or shape-shifting faeries or really vengeful deities, so this was something of interest), and a total feeling of... I don't know.
Walk on down the strip, enter the third store. This is a store on the part of the strip I've visited in the past. I've often thought it looked like a neat place for unusual jewelry and random stuff. I just never knew for sure because every time I go past it, it's CLOSED. Except Thursday. It was open. Actually open. I've walked past on a Thursday before, you know. I tell you, it was closed. I went in. And immediately got sucked into a political rant about the current state of the world, and our little corner of it by the store owner. Luckily, we were on the same side. I don't even think the poor man stopped to breathe.
All I did was comment on the cool pendants in his display case, and he went off about the rising price of silver on the open market, to be followed quickly by a series of quiz questions about the earnings of our city cops vs a cop in New York City, and a living wage being about $20,000 a year if you want to be able to compete with workers in China, and he went from there to ... well, anyway, he gave me a price break on the one little trinket I did pick up, because I listened to him rant for about 30 minutes, and because he found out that I plan to be a public librarian some day. He feels I'll be "right there in the trenches!" And he has a lot of respect for that. And I know what he means.
(But I still like breathing better than complaining in most circumstances. And a lot of my sentences may be run-ons, but MY GOD! this man would have given an English teacher a heart attack!)See, Public Librarians don't get paid as much as Academic Librarians (college/university types), don't have the same job security, and don't get to be snobs about who they serve. Public Librarians have the goal of bringing library services to under served populations, and this includes the homeless, the homebound, the illiterate, the ill, the recent immigrant and don't forget the incarcerated and incompetent! I think that's part of what draws me to the field. You get to help people who really need help, or at least will make good use of what help is offered in many instances-- to make their lives better and happier-- and to help them become a bit more self-sufficient as they do it. Our goal is to help as many people as possible help themselves. And it's hard, dirty, smelly, difficult work at times.
I did eventually make it to the bead store, by the way. I learned that they only carry rainbow obsidian, which I don't want, and a lot of onxy, which appears to be easier to find, but I also don't want. Odd, really, considering all the active volcanoes along the West Coast.
Not sure this post has a point... but I would say that I loved meeting so many strangers who were educated, eloquent, and so obviously comfortable with expressing exactly who they are and what they believe. People who took me at face value, and gave what they have to give-- to all comers, regardless. I could learn a lesson from that. I definitely learned a lesson in judgment from the Gospel Grandfather and the Reiki Samurai Youth-- who were obviously old friends, regardless of differences in belief and background.
I find that in today's world, it's a challenge to be who you are, and to not worry about being liked or accepted or approved-- by anyone. To find a place in the world where you can make a living in line with your belief system, without compromise. That's the beauty of the strip, and I think, the secret to its success. You find elegant conservative business men, little old grandmothers, out witches, spaced-out Rastafarians, rainbow couples, and everyone in between enjoying the strip and its offerings. They know who they are, and they know they'll find something they like on the strip, because each store has something specific to offer, even if it's just
a good bagel and shmear.
Self, thy name is... I don't know. With a lot of individuality and good humor thrown in. And as a side note, can I just tell you that I found a dead yellow jacket in my salad at lunch today?! People, WASH YOUR PRODUCE before you eat it. This is an important tip from the trenches.
