Rain

Dad? Can you hear me? Dad? Yeah, so I wanted to ask you, when are you planning on going home tonight? Could you pick me up? At the BART station? Well, it's raining, and I don't have a hood. Yes, I'm wearing a jacket, but it's got no hood. It really sucks. It would be really great if you could pick me up. I'm at the library now. That late? The library closes at 8, I think. But I need my computer to do math. Yeah, okay. I said, Okay. I'll see if I can get a ride from somebody else. Fine. I'll call you back, and if you still don't know, I'll try to get a ride with somebody else! Okay, bye. Thanks, bye.

Celia

Celia is about 60. She is from the Philippines originally, but also she spent there eight years between 1998 and 2006. That was because of a traumatic death in the family and also because the family business is there. Somehow, between living in the Philippines and running the family business (which she should be doing even now instead of spending the morning at the open rehearsal at the Symphony) Celia managed to raise four American children. The youngest has graduated from UC Davis this past spring. The oldest went to UC Berkeley. The two girls in the middle went one to NYU and the other to UC Davis as well. Celia likes to bake and she also loves opera. It's too bad the opera does not offer cheap open rehearsals.

Knowledge

There is so much to know, Anna said. She was out of her make up already and wearing dark blue jeans and a sweater. I had waited for her outside the theatre, and I was surprised to see that I was the only one waiting at the back door for the performers. The opera played to full house, yet noone brought flowers or wanted to get an autograph. I wanted to tell Anna that she sang with such depth and color like never before. Anna took me to a coffee shop a few blocks away that stayed open late to serve the after show crowd. Even at the next table over a group of friends was discussing the performance, but nobody recognized Anna without her wig and courtly attire. I've been in school most of my life, Anna said, I read all the time. Yet I am barely competent even in the area of music, in this field that's supposed to be my own. I understand that that's how it is and always will be, but it's frustrating. She ordered chocolate mousse and I had some vanilla ice cream and we shared. Take me home, she said. I need a break.

Tango

They met at the coffee shop on Sundays, from 7 to 10 pm, to practice tango. Nothing more, nothing less. A. would get a glass of wine, and B. would take a sip or two from the same glass. Sometimes, B. would buy a cookie and split it in two. There was a teacher, but the two of them were always too poor to pay for the class. So they came in when the class was over but the tango music was still playing and there were other couples on the floor. Over the weeks, they managed to pick up a few moves, but not many. A. would laugh and talk about the weather or the upcoming holidays or the teacher's outfit. B. stayed mostly silent and looked at both of their feet. A. always wore red shoes and B.'s only dancing pair was black. The *always* lasted five to six weeks, and then A. disappeared and B. went back to the bar.

7:29

The sun is shining through the blind and combs the carpet. I can't sleep. It's 7:29 on Saturday morning and I cannot sleep. Why is that?

Three tenors

The two of them start singing, and it's awful. They are trying to harmonize, but they are just off. Way off. There are no lyrics, and the tune is really whiny, and the singing is so bad that the dog tied to the parking meter outside starts to squeal along. As if she's also horrified about how bad this is. And the three of them go on like this for another two minutes, and all of a sudden something changes and I start to see the beauty of it. The dog is telling her story. Cruel owners who leave her outside and forget to feed her. Loneliness, despair. Hunger. Real animal hunger for companionship and a meat bone. Everybody in the cafe is terrified. The dog squeals along; and suddenly its owners decide to recognize her. Oh my God, they say, that's Bud, she's squealing outside! So they rush to the dog, and since they can't make her shut up, and they are super embarrassed about this, they untie her and take her home. And all of us at the cafe are stuck listening to these two dopey guys who can't hold a tune. How did they get hired, anyway? I wonder.

Knife and fork

The best decisions in his life were the ones he made on the spot and complied with ever since, never wavering. When he was 12, he decided go against fashion and grow long hair. So he did, until his hair grew shoulder length and he could braid it. Once, on a particularly cold and windy autumn day in college, he decided to become an engineer. He never regretted his decision, not even when forced to study for three different exams all scheduled for the same day. Later in life there came a point when he was forced to make up his mind to eat his food with a knife and a fork, always. At another point, he decided to start reading books, first non-fiction, then short stories, then novels. He even started listening to books on tape on his way to and from the factory. These were decisions made once and for always, and they stuck, and he was proud of himself, of his ability to carry them out, one, two, three times a day, every day.

Glasses

A crazy man on the bus today was talking about Tina Fey, like she should be running for President. And then a car ran a red light at a four-way intersection, but the driver of the other car was paying attention and swerved just as he was about to ram into the first car. It turned out alright. I was looking for a shop where they could re-polish my glasses, because all the scratches on the plastic lenses have been giving me headaches. I must've taken a wrong street, because I didn't find it.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers died the day after I introduced them into my garden. They went to sleep that night, closing their petals so tightly that the next morning they struggled but couldn't open them up again. The sun was in zenith, but the flower discs remained fisted, and only in the very middle I could see the soft yellow labella and the black eye of the seeds. I wonder what I did wrong. Did I hurt their root system while replanting? Was it too cold for them at night in my yard? Did I water them too soon or not soon enough? Is there any rational explanation for their behavior except for or in addition to their severe dislike of me?

Recognition

The girl who recognized me today thought that I worked at the airplane factory. I didn't.

Pure evil

It is a library policy that one must wear shoes in the library. Due to health and safety concerns. It's not Okay for the shoes to be even half-off (heels on the floor, feet hovering over the leather) because you're going to the theatre later and you decided to put on your brand new red shoes, so new they are still tight around the edges. No, the shoes must be on all the way, buckles buckled, laces tied. If they're too tight in the toes or your heels are swollen and need a breath of fresh air -- oh no, not here, not in the library, nowhere near the books, in fact, never! You're out of line, bad woman, not a Cinderella, but a stepmother, a wicked sister. Off with your toe! Down with that heel. Where did I leave my butcher knife today?

I wonder what the library policy says about flip-flops.

Finis

Ta. Ta-ta-ta-Ta. Ta-ta-ta-Ta. Ta-ta-ta-Ta. Ta. ta. ta... ta.

Smoke alarm

He woke up in the middle of the night because the smoke detector was beeping. Beep, beep. A tiny, squealy sound. He got up and changed the battery. Then he went back to bed, and lay there, thinking about the sheep who were grazing in the grass by the river, and how they were supposed to swim across, and then one of them drowned, and then the second drowned, and then the third...

Fobia

The worst part about being mugged and hit on the head with a brick on the dark street corner near your house is that for weeks afterwards you're afraid to leave your house unaccompanied. You're afraid to stay in your house unaccompanied as well, but you deal with that by installing an extra lock on the door and never letting anybody in without first ascertaining their identity in at least three ways. But leaving the house is painful. When you have to do it, you run, which hurts your head still in bandages from the assault. You carry chemicals with you, fully aware that you're not going to be able to use them when somebody decides to hit you on the head again. You call your friends for help, and for a while they are happy to do it: they feel generous and useful and happy that you were just hit on the head and nothing worse. Later they tell you that your fears are a fobia and that you can't live out the rest of your life behind the locked doors. You know that is true, so you don't. You move; you move in with somebody. It's the easiest thing to do. It makes you feel healthier for a while, because you're also afraid that you've developed a fobia.