March 03, 2004

8:04 p.m.

Fridge Magnet

Jeez, I slept horribly last night. Inside the down comforter is now too hot, but outside it is too cold. Must arrange alternate bedding tonight. We had a long dragass day doing biz, and about half an hour of actual music making, and I still have a large project to complete tonight. But right now I'm cooking swordfish on my Foreman grill, and woe betide anyone who comes between me and it.

My upstairs neighbor, Bob, stopped in to say hello when I came back from errands, and we had a pleasant chat. This is one of the nicest people near whom I've had the pleasure of living. He gets my mail when I forget to have the P.O. hold it. He's learning the acoustic guitar so I hear him practicing sometimes, and it's totally all right with me. He's divorced and has a ten year old son, Brian, who is with him about half the time. When I first moved in I heard a lot of pitter-pattering upstairs (read: running around), which stressed me out to tears, until I went and introduced myself to Bob and gave him a CD. I didn't say anything about the noise at all, but it was around Christmas and I mentioned that I'd heard him teaching Brian to play "Silent Night" on the guitar and how sweet it was, and he was aghast that I could hear it from downstairs. He's very considerate, Brian doesn't run around any more, and Bob's light guitar strumming is the one noise in this apartment that I don't mind.

In other news, I've pretty much decided to get a new laptop. This one's three years old and Dell has such a good payment plan -- last time it was something like $50 a month and no finance charges -- it just makes sense. When that's up and running I can reinstall the old Windows Me in this one and use it as a backup. Kinda diggin' this idea.

So last night I had to go to Borders, tired as I was, to find a card for somebody who bought some of my CDs on CD Baby and, thinking she was ordering directly from me, had all these requests about moon and stars wrapping paper, autographs and special messages to her husband. Of course CD Baby can't do that, but they do send us a little email with all the information from the buyer, and I knew who she was from past gigs, so I emailed her and explained why all the requested stuff wasn't going to happen. I also offered to do up a special card for her, with the requested message on it, and send it separately. This is just a favor; I couldn't imagine how flaky someone must be to get onto CD Baby where it says, "CD Baby" and all, and think they're ordering with a credit card directly from me... but I thought she must be disappointed so I offered the card. She was very excited and grateful so I thought, ok, easy, I'll go find a moon-and-stars motif card that's blank inside and write the little pithy thing in it, sign her name, and send it to her to give to hubby.

I couldn't find one.

And as I pondered the whole thing, it seemed stupid for ME to get a card that's from her to her husband, write her message in it, and send it to her. To give to him. With the CDs that came from CD Baby and are not wrapped in moon and stars paper. But I said I'd do it, and I finally went to Borders, where I did not find any celestial-motif cards at all, but found a pretty one with a gold heart motif, for $2.50, and came home and did up a nice graphic with her message, printed it out, and now I just remembered I need a damn glue stick to put it inside the card... then I inadvertently deleted her address and all the emails she'd sent, so I no longer knew where to send it... had to email her for the address... I think my subconscious stepped forward and said, "Make her go away, as quickly as possible!" and I unwittingly obeyed.

Something happened at Borders that delighted me. I don't often go there, but I was there a couple of months ago perhaps, and this time the same clerk was there -- I only remembered him because he's British and has this very professional, rather curt way of speaking -- like you'll only get the "form letter" out of him, the standard, practiced customer responses, not anything spontaneous or laid back or really even human. He is courteous but not warm. He's a tidy sort, very energetic, moves efficiently and says all the right things in the right order. You can hear him halfway across the store. It's as if he's competing for the "best customer service" award, by following the letter of the Borders Code.

So I heard him as I was perusing Refrigerator Magnet Poetry; looked up, and sure enough, he's still working at Borders since the last time I noticed him. I kept tuning into him talking, and I thought, jeez, he must be exhausted by the end of the day. Either that, or he's the type who will label the closet shelves so that all the aspirin is always in the same place. Sheets here, pillow cases there. Plastic bins a must. When I finally had gathered my purchases together, I went up to the counter and, as he was the only clerk on duty, came up to his register. I got the rote, "How are you this evening? Did you find everything you were looking for?" and he rang up my stuff as I gave him the rote answers.

Meanwhile, a young woman stood a ways away on the other side of the entry door, where those metal theft-detectors stand upright on either side, ready to sound an alarm if someone tries to leave without paying for something. She was standing innocently at a bookshelf, but near the gate, so it went off. The English clerk and I looked over at her; she looked back at him, bewildered, and said,

"I'm not doin' nothin'!"

And in the twinkling of half a second, he said, more to himself than anyone else and only loud enough for himself (and me) to hear,

"Anything!"

and continued, to her, "It's only because you're standing near the door that it went off."

The slight annoyance in his voice and the irresistibility of the urge to correct made me love him in that moment.

I understood the English clerk.

Suddenly his bookshelves at home filled with great literature. The Oxford English Dictionary, an old friend, sits prominently on a pedestal. Keats and Shelley share domestic space with Shakespeare, Strindburg, Giradoux; Homer, Whitman, maybe even T.S. Eliot. His love for language in general, and words in particular, is a beacon that guides him through an otherwise mundane existence. A well-thumbed Strunk & White is on the bedside table, and he still writes letters home by hand.

And he's always available on Inventory Day.

As if this little fantasy weren't exciting enough, I've written some morose Fridge Poetry with the set that, yes, I picked up at Borders. It's interesting and expressive in the way that foreigners are when they have only a little grasp of English, and must make themselves understood with a limited vocabulary. Here is last night's first poem:

blood blue cool must sleep
dream ���play delicate beat and sing
music incubate in bed
goddess lust so no rust