Sitting at the train station in Irvine. The woman at the counter
would not sell me a ticket because I don't have ID. When I was
arrested, the cop took my driver's license, so I haven't had an ID for
awhile. You can get a state-issued, "valid" ID card from the DMV, but I haven't gotten around to it.
It hasn't been a problem until now. I don't drink, so I don't get
carded, although I was out with friends one night and they wouldn't
let me into a bar where we were going to get some kind of famous tacos.
I bought the ticket to come up here on-line, printed it out at a
kiosk, and the conductor didn't ask for ID once I was onboard.
I tried to argue with the ticket vending woman. She didn't seem at all phased that I had ridden the train up with no ID. Grasping at straws, I told her I was a
lawyer. I don't know why this seemed like a good idea. Because lawyers
inspire confidence and feelings of trustworthiness in others. Right.
I asked for her supervisor. "I am the supervisor." Of course she is.
I'm not good at this kind of thing. A friend of mine recently talked
his way onto an airplane without valid ID. An airplane! I'm not
silver-tongued. I go straight to bullying, then wheedling. No one
gives in to that.
So I left the station and bought a ticket at the kiosk. We'll see if
they let me on. And not the train, mind you. It's not running
southbound today, so it's a big coach bus. I think the worse thing
that happens is they don't let me on. And then I say fuck it and hire
a limo. That's my plan.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Post From The Road
The kids have been with their grandparents out of state for a week. Serendipitously, a very dear friend from the other coast is on this coast, so I'm on the train to go visit her. The trip would take about an hour in the car. The train adds nearly another hour. Nevertheless, it's quite pleasant. And there are electric strips! So you can plug in your laptop or charge your phone! Pretty cool. I was inspired to blog from my phone. If I remember correctly, we will have a full view of the coast in a few moments. I'll try to upload a picture. By the way, guy next to me is totally passed out. Gently snoring.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
The Right to Privacy
I'm home with the kids for a few days because school is out and day camp is not yet in. We spent several hours at the park yesterday and I got to observe a group of pre-school moms with their young ones. As they all got ready to leave, I watched them pack their gear into their mostly SUV-type cars and take off.
I remember doing that. I stayed home with my boys for about two years when they were very small. I really loved my jeep then because I could fit everything I needed into it--diaper bags, snacks, kids, dogs. We could go where I wanted when I wanted. I was ready for anything in those days, and I didn't need anyone to help me.
I'm realizing that our cars give us freedom, but I'm finding that they also give us a strange sense of privacy. As long as you can get around on your own steam, you don't have to explain yourself to other people.
One day, when I was walking home from the bus stop, my next-door neighbor picked me up. She is in the unique position of watching my comings and going fairly closely.
"So, where is your car?"
(I'm in her car, right? She's doing me a favor. I can't exactly say 'none of your beeswax!' Not very friendly, or gracious.)
"Oh, my friend Judi has it. I take the bus to work." Yes, slightly evasive, but I'm a lawyer, I'm trained in evasive.
"Do you get it back on the weekends so that you can run your errands and things?"
Crap, she's got me. I decide to go for it--we're only as sick as our secrets, right?
"Well, no, this is embarrassing, but . . ." and I give her the short version.
She's pretty cool about it, and I get the impression she's been suspecting something of the sort and I've only just confirmed it for her.
I shared the information with one of my kids' friends' moms the other day. We had been talking about letting the kids go to the Boys' and Girls' club for a few weeks in the summer, instead of the day camp at the school. This, of course, presents a transportation problem for me. I told her I wasn't going to be able to carpool because I wouldn't be driving this summer. She didn't ask, but I told her anyway. She smiled ruefully. "Yeah, well, I've done a lot worse." And shaking her head, "A lot worse...." I didn't ask. But she offered to drive the kids, and I can't believe her kindness.
Have people always been this nice? What the hell is wrong with me that I didn't know this? I'm really going to have to work on this attitude that one can't ask for help, essentially because people will think you're an evil leech. In the last two months, the exact opposite has proven to be true.
People are thrilled to help--I know I love it when I can. It's like we are all starving for community and we want to reach out but we're stuck in our cars and our houses without front porches and we can't interact the way maybe we once did. Are we so concerned with protecting our privacy that we are losing our community? Why don't the moms going to the park ever ride together?
Why can't we all just get along?
Just kidding--the devolution into a boring rant needed to be stopped.
But I am curious about whether the desire for privacy blocks the building of community.
In the meantime, I better get these kids out of the house before the dog starts chewing on them.
I remember doing that. I stayed home with my boys for about two years when they were very small. I really loved my jeep then because I could fit everything I needed into it--diaper bags, snacks, kids, dogs. We could go where I wanted when I wanted. I was ready for anything in those days, and I didn't need anyone to help me.
I'm realizing that our cars give us freedom, but I'm finding that they also give us a strange sense of privacy. As long as you can get around on your own steam, you don't have to explain yourself to other people.
One day, when I was walking home from the bus stop, my next-door neighbor picked me up. She is in the unique position of watching my comings and going fairly closely.
"So, where is your car?"
(I'm in her car, right? She's doing me a favor. I can't exactly say 'none of your beeswax!' Not very friendly, or gracious.)
"Oh, my friend Judi has it. I take the bus to work." Yes, slightly evasive, but I'm a lawyer, I'm trained in evasive.
"Do you get it back on the weekends so that you can run your errands and things?"
Crap, she's got me. I decide to go for it--we're only as sick as our secrets, right?
"Well, no, this is embarrassing, but . . ." and I give her the short version.
She's pretty cool about it, and I get the impression she's been suspecting something of the sort and I've only just confirmed it for her.
I shared the information with one of my kids' friends' moms the other day. We had been talking about letting the kids go to the Boys' and Girls' club for a few weeks in the summer, instead of the day camp at the school. This, of course, presents a transportation problem for me. I told her I wasn't going to be able to carpool because I wouldn't be driving this summer. She didn't ask, but I told her anyway. She smiled ruefully. "Yeah, well, I've done a lot worse." And shaking her head, "A lot worse...." I didn't ask. But she offered to drive the kids, and I can't believe her kindness.
Have people always been this nice? What the hell is wrong with me that I didn't know this? I'm really going to have to work on this attitude that one can't ask for help, essentially because people will think you're an evil leech. In the last two months, the exact opposite has proven to be true.
People are thrilled to help--I know I love it when I can. It's like we are all starving for community and we want to reach out but we're stuck in our cars and our houses without front porches and we can't interact the way maybe we once did. Are we so concerned with protecting our privacy that we are losing our community? Why don't the moms going to the park ever ride together?
Why can't we all just get along?
Just kidding--the devolution into a boring rant needed to be stopped.
But I am curious about whether the desire for privacy blocks the building of community.
In the meantime, I better get these kids out of the house before the dog starts chewing on them.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
DOG is GOD spelled backwards
The dog ate my God Box.
The God Box is, I believe, a twelve-step thing. It allows the owner to manifest physically the concept of "turning over" a problem to one's higher power. The idea is that you write down the thing that is fretting you and put it in the box. You've turned it over. I find it to be like writing troubling things down in a journal. It's a nifty idea.
My sponsor made me a God Box. It was cute and round and nicely decorated. A lovely gift. But I left it out on a side table and Boomer, my 22-month old lab, ate it. I wanted to kill him. It's not the only thing that dog has wolfed down. Last week, he went after a two-pound cube of cheese on the kitchen counter. One minute it was there, the next, gone. I chased him into the backyard and he growled at me while I tried to pry his jaws open and dig it out. I got about a third of it out before he swallowed the rest, wrapper and all. All I could think of was if he needed to go to the emergency vet, I couldn't drive him there. It didn't slow him down at all, though. In fact, a couple of days later he stopped in the hallway, hocked up the wrapper on the carpet, and just kept moving. Unbelievable.
Other things that dog has eaten, or at least tried to eat: my glasses, my blackberry, my red stiletto patent leather pumps, and several other shoes I once held dear, a few books, food off the table, food from the kids' hands, and an awful lot of trash.
I've had labs my whole life. I like having dogs around, I even let them sleep on the bed. But the two black ones I have right now can overwhelm me. They each weigh about 75 pounds, which is only slightly heavier than my kids. Sometimes I feel like I have four kids. My house is just under 1300 square feet, so when I'm walking around and the dogs are underfoot, and the kids are underfoot, I kind of feel like the Bumpuses.
No wonder I used to drink so much. You can understand why the kids' dad really wanted his own room when we were still together--I cannot blame him.
Here's what's funny about getting sober, though. When I was drinking, I really thought that was the only way I could deal with the stress and responsibilities of holding down a job, rearing kids and taking care of these dogs. But in reality, I kind of ignored the dogs. Now, with all this time on my hands, the dogs tend to get walked a lot more. The kids like to go, too, so we spend more time at the park.
This is all very positive, and yet the damn dog continues to eat things. He regularly pokes his head into the trash in the bathroom like it's his own personal snack bar, pulls out a tissue and just munches it down. I happen to wear bras with underwire in them, which I guess make great chew toys. Look out if he gets ahold of one of those--I'm a lovely sight chasing him around the backyard with a pink Victoria's Secret hanging out of his mouth.
What I'm wondering is, if I write down my troubles on a piece of paper, and feed them to the dog, could it be the same as giving them over to my higher power?
The God Box is, I believe, a twelve-step thing. It allows the owner to manifest physically the concept of "turning over" a problem to one's higher power. The idea is that you write down the thing that is fretting you and put it in the box. You've turned it over. I find it to be like writing troubling things down in a journal. It's a nifty idea.
My sponsor made me a God Box. It was cute and round and nicely decorated. A lovely gift. But I left it out on a side table and Boomer, my 22-month old lab, ate it. I wanted to kill him. It's not the only thing that dog has wolfed down. Last week, he went after a two-pound cube of cheese on the kitchen counter. One minute it was there, the next, gone. I chased him into the backyard and he growled at me while I tried to pry his jaws open and dig it out. I got about a third of it out before he swallowed the rest, wrapper and all. All I could think of was if he needed to go to the emergency vet, I couldn't drive him there. It didn't slow him down at all, though. In fact, a couple of days later he stopped in the hallway, hocked up the wrapper on the carpet, and just kept moving. Unbelievable.
Other things that dog has eaten, or at least tried to eat: my glasses, my blackberry, my red stiletto patent leather pumps, and several other shoes I once held dear, a few books, food off the table, food from the kids' hands, and an awful lot of trash.
I've had labs my whole life. I like having dogs around, I even let them sleep on the bed. But the two black ones I have right now can overwhelm me. They each weigh about 75 pounds, which is only slightly heavier than my kids. Sometimes I feel like I have four kids. My house is just under 1300 square feet, so when I'm walking around and the dogs are underfoot, and the kids are underfoot, I kind of feel like the Bumpuses.
No wonder I used to drink so much. You can understand why the kids' dad really wanted his own room when we were still together--I cannot blame him.
Here's what's funny about getting sober, though. When I was drinking, I really thought that was the only way I could deal with the stress and responsibilities of holding down a job, rearing kids and taking care of these dogs. But in reality, I kind of ignored the dogs. Now, with all this time on my hands, the dogs tend to get walked a lot more. The kids like to go, too, so we spend more time at the park.
This is all very positive, and yet the damn dog continues to eat things. He regularly pokes his head into the trash in the bathroom like it's his own personal snack bar, pulls out a tissue and just munches it down. I happen to wear bras with underwire in them, which I guess make great chew toys. Look out if he gets ahold of one of those--I'm a lovely sight chasing him around the backyard with a pink Victoria's Secret hanging out of his mouth.
What I'm wondering is, if I write down my troubles on a piece of paper, and feed them to the dog, could it be the same as giving them over to my higher power?
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