misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

Judging by the overwhelming number of comments generated by news of Slaven's marriage, it seems this blog has become as much of a lame duck as George Bush. Not even one comment posted with thoughts or congratulations on the marriage of a long-standing member of the SF Ninja family. It seems I should stick to writing about taking shits in the work bathroom while co-workers brush their teeth. They seem to cause more debate and thought.

Today is simply a post to mark history in my blog. I've been at this blog since 2000 and noticed that I never seem to post on days of historical events. You'll find nothing on September 11th, 2001 .. Nothing on November 4th, 2004 .. Nothing on New Years Eves .. Or on my birthdays .. Maybe I prefer speaking for days that nobody speaks for, rather than the days that are already memorialized forever ... Everyone already knows September 11, 2001 .. But what about September 17th, 2001 .. Those are the days that fill out a normal life. During big events, I rarely have anything interesting to add that you haven't already pecked off of the bloated corpse of the blogosphere. But as news of a marriage can't even generate interest, I've decided to stop giving any attention to the concerns of my three readers.

I stood in line today to vote for two-and-a-half hours at polling station 107, at the Supreme Court Building at 360 Adams in Brooklyn Heights. I read my current issue of The New Yorker, a copy of The New York Post, and drank a smoothie purchased by Jillian, who was with me. For the first time I can ever remember, I enjoyed standing in a line. There was the feeling of taking in a moment. People were visibly excited. Everyone had the energy people have when they know something different is happening. Something historic. Every day is seemingly the same .. But that day once every few years that are not the same, everyone seems to know. There were reporters, cameramen, police ... This was a day that people wanted to be sure they touched, so in twenty years they could sit around a table in someone's backyard, drink a few beers, and talk about the day. I don't think any of us feel we are just voting for some black dude. That's historic, sure. But we're voting for a different direction. Rejecting the depression of the past eight years. Doing something drastic to change course. But the odd thing in the line was it clearly was not just me who felt excited about him .. He's essentially excited an entire country that needs exciting. I'm guessing most of the people were like me: Long-term cynics who were disappointed by the public one too many times to believe in much, but were coming out of their cynical shells, giving optimism one last chance. If the line was any example, there are a lot of people like that .. Apparently, I haven't been the only pissed-off blogger these past eight years. There's a lot of them. And we all seemed to be standing in the same line.

So let me capture this moment, with a few hours left to go before we know if we as a country can start being optimistic again.

In no particular order:

1. A basketball
2. A hoop
3. An ACL

My four-game stint in the New York Urban Professionals Basketball League, which ended abruptly Monday night as I lay writhing in pain on a dusty gym floor, had initially brought forth fond memories .... Memories of the time I could actually make lay-ups, dribble for more than three seconds, jump higher than a cockroach standing on a flea, and land without my femur and tibia sliding against each other like the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.

A reminder for my more forgetful readers (meaning those of you who have forgotten to read my blog the past five years): My right knee lost it's ACL to youth on a concrete basketball court in Hell's Kitchen almost exactly three years ago. I was nearly thirty at the time, lived on the top floor of a five-story walk up, had recently put my dreams of playing in the WNBA to rest, and thus decided to forgo the recommended operation. I knew any activities involving pivots (soccer, basketball, tennis, anaerobic masturbation drills) would have to be forever removed from my non-existent calendar, which I promptly did. Instead, I picked up running, lifting very, very light weights, and beer drinking. Three years of this, with a minimum of knee pain (except for the burn of an ice-cold beer resting atop it), had convinced me that I could once again pick up basketball. If Obama could still play at 46, then shit, I could play at 33. So I agreed to join a co-workers team, bought the cheapest knee brace I could find, and headed to the gym.

Reconnecting with the hobbies of your youth is a frustrating experience, as it is an in-your-face reminder of how far you've fallen. I could once dunk. Now, I can barely touch the rim. I could once shoot well. Now, I average four missed lay-ups a game. I could once play defense. Now I stand and hope the ball falls into my hands. And even worse: I'll never reclaim what I once had. It is physically impossible. I will never again be good at basketball. It is why old people pick up new hobbies such as cooking, reading, and golf: These are things specifically tailored to the natural talents of old people (patience, immobility, money). Youth offers no advantage in the art of cooking. In basketball, it does.

So Monday night, I was playing basketball without an ACL. Today, I was sitting inside an orthopaedic doctor's office, with a needle in my right knee, removing blood. It looked exactly like this:

Tomorrow, the MRI. Then, probably, the surgery I was always supposed to have. The doctor seemed a bit amused by my explanations of why I thought I could tear an ACL, undergo no rehab, wear a cheap knee brace, and continue to play basketball without a problem. He apparently didn't understand my core philosophy: If you don't think something, it's not a problem. Which ultimately proved to be somewhat correct, if misapplied. I didn't think I was getting any older. It took about two seconds for my body to remind me that, in fact, I was.

LESSON #14 OF CAT OWNERSHIP: CLOSE THE DOOR WHEN TAKING A PISS

At no point in my life, either through prior conversation with cat owners, watching television, or reading books, was I ever informed of the fascination kittens have with the deep sounds and intense visuals of a penis emptying urine into a toilet (an activity commonly referred to as "pissing"). Whether sleeping or awake, from any corner of the apartment, upon hearing the sound of my urine stream displacing toilet water, Alice (the current name of my kitten) will race into the bathroom, jump upon the trash can and paw at the urine stream, as if it were an endless piece of yellow yarn. In this event, my options are limited. Attempts to dislodge Alice result in a urine shower upon our tiled walls. Not dislodging her, however, means she'll eventually attempt a full-blown jaw attack on my urine stream, which results in a mess you can well imagine (Alice has yet to figure out exactly why she can never quite get a solid handle on the yellow yarn that she finds so tantalizing). You might be asking why I am not closing the bathroom door to prevent these encounters. For lack of a better answer: Habit. I've spent the past twelve years leaving the door cracked when taking a piss. And that habit is hard to break. Particularly in the middle of the night, when it is hard enough finding the bathroom, more or less remembering to close the door. Fortunately, Alice doesn't find the taking of a crap to be as fascinating, as if she did, that would quickly end my foray into cat ownership.

Since sitting next to Grandma Anderson for the duration of a Thanksgiving dinner when I was in 7th grade, I've assigned Thanksgiving the lowest ranking of all major holidays (still above St. Patrick's day but well below St. Nicholas day). At the time, Grandma Anderson was entering the period of elderly living where motor skills begin to seriously deteriorate (and old-person shoes go from the more fashionable white to plain black), and as a result she had trouble keeping food in her mouth as she ate. In particular, I remember the mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes would ooze from her mouth like toothpaste and dribble down her chin, until coming to a final rest on her purple blouse, right above her belly fat. (I was unable to finish my meal that day, and was yelled at for asking to go to Jack in the Box no more than three hours after dinner.) That day successfully foreshadowed a lifetime of difficult Thanksgivings.

My father had a genuine and strong distaste for holidays, and as such I usually was awoken on Thanksgiving mornings by the sound of my father, thick with impatience, throwing pans from the cupboard while yelling to no one in particular (in other words everyone) that "any normal god-damn house should have a god-damn sauce pan for cooking god-damn thanksgiving dinner god-damnit". My father would then proceed to co-cook Thanksgiving dinner with my moms as if his singular goal in life was to finish the cooking of that particular Thanksgiving dinner as soon as possible so life could go finally go back to god-damn normal. Later in the day, more old people would come over, bringing the types of foods that only old people bring to Thanksgiving, like green-bean casserole with Campbell's canned mushroom soup and chinese noodles (this was the midwest influence shining through upon the Anderson family. Campbell's soup (tomato and mushroom) was the base of most dishes, and if it didn't come in a round glass casserole dish, it wasn't worth serving). We'd pass stuffing and stress around the table, everyone would pat their bellies, and then the holiday would end.

Complicating matters was my age. Being the youngest in a family of six didn't make for comfortable Thanksgivings. When I would come home from college, and all I craved after a week of midterms was sleep and relaxation, I'd be forced to sleep on the floor (which is where the youngest kid is always put) and eat at a broken-down card table with all other guests under 21 (as if three-year-olds and nineteen-year-olds could be grouped together that easily).

Later, when my family had moved up to Bay Area, we stopped having Thanksgiving at home. We'd drive up to my aunt and uncle's home in Petaluma and celebrate there. Or rather, I'd drive up to my aunt and uncle's home while my family sat in the car and chilled. The drive from Bay Area up the 101 to Petaluma was usually just over an hour and half. But on Thanksgiving, when every other human being was going in the same direction, the drive took four hours. Getting back wasn't much easier. All this, for thirty minutes of actual eating.

There were other factors: The necessity to get up early, the inability to watch football without distraction, the way Turkey always tasted the same no matter who cooks it or how it is prepared or what year it is, the arguments over who would go to whose house, the inherent complex issues every family has that made everything more difficult than it needed to be.

This fortunately changed in my mid-twenties, when I began constructing Thanksgivings to be the way i wanted them, either by cooking myself, going to a restaurant, or heading to a friends place. While this has ultimately nudged Thanksgiving up a few notches, it still has yet to enter the area of likeability. So, as I close my 1 AM blog, I'd like to wish all of you a happy god-damn Thanksgiving. Enjoy the green-bean casserole.

I think I have social anxiety. Actually, that isn't quite accurate. I have no problem talking to people I know. Loudly. For hours. And hours. And I like people. They don't make me anxious. But walking up to a new person and speaking? Even if that new person's entire job is to answer questions from strangers? I can't do it. It is a problem. And it is becoming more of a problem.

When I order pizza for dinner, make reservations at a restaurant, or need to ask the bartender to change the channel to the Chargers game (so I can watch them lose in the final seconds after leaving too much time on the clock for the fifteenth time), I make Jill do it (or, if Jill is not properly handy, the person closest to my right). I'm not sure why. I'm terrified of first impressions. And I don't like asking people something, because if they tell me no, I will look like an idiot.

Example: Neal recently asked me to call a very popular restaurant on a Saturday night to see if they had any tables available. I knew ahead of time that they would not have any tables available. It was a popular restaurant. It was a Saturday night. And it was New York. Of course no tables were available. And Neal wanted me to be the douchebag who calls and asks for a table, only to have the hostess snicker and tell me, "Of course we don't have a table, you fucking retard. It is a Saturday night. We've been booked for three weeks. Are you a fucking retard you fucking retard?" Then I'd have to stumble and mutter and say thanks and hang up, feeling exactly like the fucking retard she would accuse me of being. So of course, to avoid this very situation, I didn't call, and made an excuse to Neal so he would call (as he has never had a problem with looking like a fucking retard). So Neal called, and of course they had no tables. Because I am not a fucking retard, unlike Neal, I could figure that out without having to call.

The issue is that this anxiety manifests itself in behaviour (proper British spelling in honor of lee) that makes me look like even more of a fucking retard than if I had just done what it was I was supposed to do. And hence this blog.

This past Saturday night, Jill and i enjoyed a delicious Japanese dinner at Michelin-rated Sushi spot on Smith street, where we enjoyed such Americanized-pussified rolls like the "Spicy Girl", which included spicy Tuny, Spicy Salmon, avocado, topped with Yellowtail and Tempura flakes (yes, you Sushi arrogants, I am aware that there is no eel or jellyfish in there meaning that I am a sushi pussy). After wrapping up dinner with a few Sapporo beers and hot sakes, we were among the last tables there, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the eight Japanese workers, including our waitress, two other waitresses, one busboy, a host, and three sushi chefs, all of whom were fake-patiently waiting for us to get the fuck out, so they could clean up and begin their night.

Upon paying the bill, Jill reminded me we should tip the sushi chefs, as the sushi was good and they were all sitting there looking at us with that "don't be a cheap piece of shit" look and everyone who is experienced in the art of sushi knows you have to tip the sushi chefs. So, with a five dollar bill in hand, I walked up to the sushi bar and proceeded to look for the tip jar. With sixteen pairs of intense Japanese eyes upon me, I confusedly scanned the sushi bar, wondering if the black tin sitting in the middle (with japanese characters scrawled across it), was the tip jar. Seeing that it was closed, I continued to look. At this point, the three sushi chefs are looking at me with a mix of bewilderment and intrigue. What the fuck is this white cracker douchbag going, they were clearly thinking. A normal person, if I were one, would confidently hand the five dollars to the sushi chefs, thank them for their expert preparations, and move on. I, of course, was incapable of this standard procedure, as it would have involved looking like I didn't know what I was doing. And there was no tip jar, which would have removed me from having to interact with these japanese strangers. My plan was totally thrown off, and I was overwhelmed with the necessity to adapt. So instead of handing them the five, I smiled at the sushi chefs, walked a few steps past them as if I was headed to the bathroom, stopped when I realized I had just recently come from the bathroom, then pulled out my cell phone as if I had to text someone, someone important, and right that very second. So i stopped, fake texted someone (i think my fake text was something fake important such as "the deal just went through"), looked at the phone to fake-confirm that the fake-text went through the fake-cell phone tower, and put the cell phone back in my pocket. I turned, looked again at the increasingly confused sushi chefs, smiled again, and raced towards the door, where Jill was waiting with a pissed-off look. "What the fuck were you doing?" she asked. "Did you tip them? Everyone was looking at you."

"No."

"Why?"

"Just keep walking."

So why didn't I just tip them? I don't know. Literally. Some fucking insecure six-year-old inside of me took hold, the six-year-old that would hide behind his mom when meeting new people, peering out from behind her legs with a mix of curiosity and dread. No matter how many years pile up, or how many human interactions, or how many beers, that six-year-old is still there, and that six-year-old is asking "what is is sushi? where's the pbj?" and "who are all these japanese people?" and "where is leo the lion?" and running away, palming a sweaty five-dollar-bill, with the eyes of several confused Japanese restaurant workers following me out towards the door, wondering how a six-foot-two man with grey hair can be such a total pussy.

And this, my friends, is why I drink.