INTERMISSION

I kind of moved to Italy. Here's my new blog.

JFK=Just For Kicks

I'm moving to Borgomanero, Italy today to be a live-in nanny for a family. I plan to post pretty regularly now that my life probably will be a bit more exciting. I don't have much to say at the moment because I'm not there yet, but my flight to Milan is delayed at JFK so I have time to post nonsense.

1. Listening to Cee Lo Green's "Fuck You" 2. Have onion breath 3. People love complaining about a couple hours taken from there lives 4. I'm nervous but on the surface I'm calm and ready 5. Ima miss youzall 6. My wrist has fallen asleep 7. I no longer have a cell phone and probably won't for several days...I feel odd 8. Yes, I am still reading "Infinite Jest" and its title has never felt so profound as I lug it across the world and only hope to finish it before my year is up 9. For having an English degree, I have a surprisingly slow reading pace and low reading comprehension 10. For having an English degree, I am surprisingly mediocre at spelling 11. For having an English degree, I have a surprisingly meager library 12. For having an English degree, I am surprisingly willing to admit I don't know everything 13. I hope I get to eat real pasta tonight...I mean real pasta

One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Spew Fish

It happens once in every while that an editor vetoes a writer's first draft. Although I understood my editor did not want his readers puking because of any association with his magazine, I still preferred my first version of this "Out to Sea" story much more than what was printed yesterday in Locale Magazine's January 2011 issue. Below is the original and truthful rendition of my first time fishing in the Pacific.



PHOTOS BY ADAM BARTLETT

“It’s all in your head,” he told me.

“Oh, really?” I tried to sound like I believed him. If I sounded like I believed him, maybe I would actually believe him; and then maybe I wouldn’t toss my cookies over the side of the boat.

Thomas “Thos” Carson threw us a towel to wipe down the seats on “The Boarder Patrol” before we left the Newport Beach harbor. We were going out to sea.

The photographer, Adam, had been deep sea fishing before, out in choppy Mexican waters where, “I guess those Mexican guys just don’t really care.” He said he had gotten a bit seasick then, so he took one of the pink little pills I brought before running out the door at 6:30 that morning. I, however, had never learned from such an experience. I had been on boats before, once on a wakeboarding trip when a thoughtful young man let go of the rope while I watched from my seat in the back. The rope sprang back and swiveled around my neck three times leaving an ugly mark that looked a lot like a hickey. I never got seasick in the traditional sense though, as terrifying as that incident was. I simply learned to stay away from ropes and people who let go of them at fast speeds.

We watched as Thos, the owner of Bear Flag Fishing Company in Newport Beach, quickly smoked a cigarette and set his iPod to play Social Distortion over the sounds of flapping water. I felt like I could walk on water at a quicker pace, we were traveling so slowly through the expensive homes.

“So, what are we fishing for today?” I asked.

“Shark.”

“What!”

“Yeah.”

“So that’s why you didn’t tell me over the phone.”

The fishing trip was all I could talk about for days and the second thing most people asked me was, “What are you fishing for? Tuna?” I said, “Probably.” Only because I didn’t know what else there was out there, really.

The first thing that people normally brought up was, “You’re going to get seasick. Eat some ginger.” Everyone had his or her own preemptive remedy. “Don’t go” seemed the most popular. “You know how you get when in a car, Hannah.” Yes, I’ve gotten carsick, trainsick, airplanesick, covered wagonsick—but I’ve never actually ralphed in any of those situations, so I had no reason to suspect I was going to on this boat. I was going to catch some fish and I was going to keep my breakfast inside me.

Once we got out of the harbor we started to fish for some Mackerel for bait. I watched as Thos caught a couple large sardines. He swung them past my head, over the tank, and, with some pliers bending back the hooks, into the shallow water. I peered in to see my first sardine not wedged between his neighbors sealed in a tin can. Still alive. One swam through a plastic tube as if it had been placed there for his amusement.

“Ready to try?”

I grabbed the pole. After he instructed me on how to lower the line and reel it up slowly, bobbing the weight and tackle around in a you-know-you-want-it kind of way, I caught my first two fish. Not ready to slide a hook out of anyone’s mouth, I kind of dangled them in the air looking at Thos until he came over to help me detach them.
We only caught one Mackerel and several sardines and needed more if we were hoping to catch anything worth writing about. When we pulled up, I stepped onto the bait dock where we bought maybe 20 fish for $10. It was once I was off the boat for a moment when I realized how much I had been missing steady ground but hadn’t noticed. I was just too excited to be holding a fishing pole for my first since I was eight.

As much as I realize now that I am not meant to be a fisherwoman or a bulimic, just hours before I stepped onto “The Boarder Patrol” did I think working at sea only meant adventure, mystery, and Bill Murray saying things like, “Don’t point that gun at him. He’s an unpaid intern.” But my favorites like “Moby Dick”, “Jaws” and “The Life Aquatic” did nothing to prepare me for the possibility of completely missing out on a potentially fruitless fishing trip.

We headed out, further this time, and I sat in the front with the wind chapping my face in the most pleasant way. Fresh air. We always need more of it. When we stopped, I walked back and pretended to help Thos set up the much bigger, much more durable poles. (I say pretended because at this point I was feeling dizzy and could barely comprehend the things he was saying to me. The only helpful thing I did was pick up a piece of line he was looking for, which I’m pretty sure I knocked over in the first place.)

Leaning against the tank, I looked up at Adam.

“I feel great. That medicine was perfect,” he said. He knew exactly what I was feeling.

“Should I take some?” I think I asked him four different times, to which he always told me it was my decision. I just wasn’t looking forward to the drowsy effects. Also, I didn’t want to give in. I think adolescence came late for me in that I don’t like people telling me what to do even if it’s for my own benefit.

We sat around with our poles holding bait and the enticing bucket of frozen fish blood hanging off the back, whose smell was doing nothing for my currently revolting stomach. This was called “trolling”, Thos told me. This was called “Hannah feeling weird,” I told him.

I gave in. I took the pink pill. But it was too late. I experimented with different locations of the boat, different standing and sitting positions, different discussion topics that might distract me from the mounting feeling that I was being thrown around in one of those square, plastic games where you guide the tiny marble through a maze and then sink it in the hole.

Perhaps it was because it felt more like riding a horse, or perhaps it was because I could predict the waves and my body could better acclimate, but the front of the boat proved the most sustainable. I squeezed my hips through the metal bars and threw my legs off the front. Here we were fishing for Thresher sharks and I’m dangling my feet inches above the water. But it was the only way I wasn’t going to get sick. Oh wait.

You just know when you’re going to. I was listening to Adam and Thos having what was probably a very interesting conversation over the sounds of the ruffled water and the whirl of the engine on autopilot. It wasn’t so much the horrible feeling that comes with hurling; it was more my jealousy that they were having fun and not throwing up three times off the front of a boat.

I don’t know how long we were out there. The medicine finally kicked in; but instead of taking away the nausea, it simply made me nearly fall asleep when all I needed was to keep my eyes fixed on the horizon to steady myself. I walked back to Thos and smiled at him through uncontrollable watery eyes and he said, “We’re going to head in now.” I think he wanted me to protest, and believe me I wanted to; but all I could get out was, “Because of me?”

“Nothing’s biting. The fishing has been really bad this year.”

“Oh, okay.”

I wish we could have stayed out longer and caught something, but all I could think about was land land land land. Oh, and fish tacos, ever since someone mentioned them a couple hours back. Besides a few sardines, one Mackerel, and several dolphins a yard away from my face, I didn’t get to experience the deep sea. I wanted the feeling of yelling out, “I got one!” then pulling whatever it was on deck with that pride of a first time hunter.

Driving back, and I don’t think anyone should drive on that medicine and with sea legs, I felt like I had the worst possible hangover. This isn’t what the sea was supposed to be like. The sea is supposed to lead to self-discovery and teach you something, like how you shouldn’t go hunting a murderous white whale out of revenge. After my fish tacos and an hour to regain my footing, I knew I did learn something. Warnings are worthwhile. Listen to anyone who tells you ginger is a magical root that will solve all your problems.

Hey Neighbor

Dear Fellow Writers,

Do you ever come across bits and pieces of writings you've never finished that are just sitting on your hard-drive making you feel more and more guilty about their lack of completion? Here is something I found that doesn't really belong to anything. I was in a stand-up comedy class in my last semester of school and I think I was trying to turn this into a joke. But when I reread it, I came off like a Yankee or something. Not the ball team. This is a true story though. And no; I do not remember what I was drinking when I wrote this.

I’m incredibly self-absorbed. Whenever I’m walking I never look up or notice people waving to me or trying to say hi. Later they’ll tell me that they were waving and I have to tell them about how I really only care about myself and my thoughts. But I can’t always do this with everyone, especially the people I don’t know. I had this neighbor who was always strung out and high and he would have these random visitors in Beamers come to the apt complex to “chat” or something then leave after 20 minutes. Now I think I have this thing where I do not ever want to risk being considered racist, so I go over the top to be nice and cordial. This neighbor of mine happened to be a black man and whenever he walked by me he would say, “Hey neighbor.” I would not say anything back because I only care about myself. After a while of this going on, he stopped me one day while he was talking with one of his clients and said, “You’re mean!” “What?” “Yeah, you’re mean! You never say hi to me.” Well, I was really fucked because he caught me and I couldn’t tell him how self-absorbed I was because then I would just come off as white-absorbed. So I did what I thought brilliant. I made him carry up my dresser that I just bought. This was not a small dresser. He was a nice guy and kind of rotund, so I didn’t think carrying up the dresser would be that difficult for him. So I watched and drank my tea as he carried the dresser on his back. I thought it was a very polite gesture, on my part. It really made up for all those times I didn’t say hi back. When he was done, I told him good job. I thought I needed to compensate him, but not with money. Someone left an unopened pack of Malboros in my car so I ran down and gave them to him. He said, "No, look at my skin. What do you think I smoke?" I said, "I don’t know. Do black people not smoke cowboy cigarettes?" He said, "No we just always smoke Newports." I said, "Sorry I didn't know."

Are you ever just grateful for your arms and legs?

Bestiality

The goat isn't kidding.

The happy triple

Saw an interesting play called "Twisted Wine" about a threesome on Saturday. Read my review here.

The boy going on 20 and the girl who said "whoa"

I needed to cross, so I pushed the button. The light turned green but the little white permission man never replaced the red foreboding hand. If you've ever crossed a street with me, you probably tried to continue in our conversation for a moment then realized I had already raced to other side. My fear of intersections does it to me.

I stood and threw a silent tantrum on the darkening corner, even though I knew the white permission man was probably just out and the green light would still allow me enough time to cross unharmed, and without any jay walking accusation. An out-of-nowhere blond boy raced past me and, seizing the opportunity to have a crossing buddy, I raced with him and arrived at the corner as he was pressing the next crossing button.

"It's scary! When there's no white man light!"

"Ah, fuck the light. Excuse my language."

"That's okay."

"And there's what I missed," he said, pointing to an OCTA member driving away.

"The bus?"

"Yeah."

"Was it stopped there when we got to the corner?"

"Yeah."

"Well, is there another one coming?"

"I think so."

I noticed the functional white permission man beckoning us, so I pointed and started walking. He followed.

"Sorry for walking in the same direction. I'm not following you or anything."

"That's okay."

"I guess it's back to work."

"Where do you work?"

"Right between those two office buildings."

"What do you do?"

"In a nutshell, real estate. In not a nutshell, something very complicated."

"Is it legal?"

"Well considering that when I was doing it when I was 13, 14, and 15 years old and it was definitely not legal then, it must be legal now."

"How old are you now?"

"19. Going on 20."

"Cool."

"You?"

"22."

"Sorry, I guess I'm not supposed to ask."

"It's okay. I asked you."

"Where are you off to?"

"The library."

"You like to read, then?"

"Yep."

"Reading's good for you. It's good for your brain."

"Yeah, I've heard that."

Then I said something that was very much something I would say. If you've ever become friends with me it's probably because I said something like, "Hey let's be friends!" Or, "Hey, look. We're hanging out. We must be friends." Or, "Want to get a drink some time? I think we could be good friends." My friendships never seem to happen organically. I always feel the need to comment on the conversational or relational development, or lack thereof. So I said something like this, something like, "Look we became crossing buddy friends!" Or, "What a fast conversation we started and are now ending as we part our ways." But I don't remember exactly what it was because at this point I saw the fire hydrant, made to pass to the right of the fire hydrant, subsequently failed and incurred a bruise I'm sure will be hideous by tomorrow morning. I do remember what I said after that, though.

"I just ran into the fire hydrant."

"I saw that."

"It really hurts."

"I believe it."

"Owe."

"Well, it was good meeting you."

"You, too."

"And best of luck to you."

"Bye."

Returning from the library and approaching the same intersection, my new crossing buddy had an interesting outfit: helmet, wrist pads, knee pads, elbow pads, and a bike as an accessory.

"Why are you walking your bike?"

"I forgot my light."

"Oh. You should just wave your cell phone in front of you while you ride."

"I don't think the police men would like that," she laughed.

"Where are you coming from?"

"The library."

"Me, too!"

This middle-aged woman told me about how hard her tax class is and that she lived by the high school, which was in my direction, so of course I said, "Hey! Let's be walking buddies!"

"Okay!"

I held up my phone to her and said, "I'm expecting a phone call soon, though."

"Where do you go to school?"

"I just graduated from Vanguard University."

"Whoa! You look like you're in high school."

"I'm 22."

"Whoa. What did you study?"

"English. Literature."

"Whoa. That's deep."

"Where are you from?"

"Venezula. You're Californian?"

When people say "Californian" or "Oregonian" or "Delwarian" it seems to clarify that each state does in fact have its own culture, own people, own ways and shit of that sort. I like it.

"Born and raised. What's your name?"

"Korkee." (Clearly not spelled right, but it sounded something like that while we shook hands.) "Yours?"

"Hannah."

"Hannah, like..."

"Montana."

My phone rang and I answered, finishing my conversation so Cyntho could hear all the way in Miami.

"Well, I have to take this. Good meeting you."

"You, too! Have a safe walk home!"

"You, too!"

Harbor and Baker is a good intersection to meet two-minute friends.

Unmade

I can't exactly go to sleep just yet. My sheets are still in the dryer and I need to make my bed.

I just had a drink with a couple of my favorite people: a friend and a mentor. (I do consider this person a mentor, whether he knows it.) Every time I get together with these folk I get inspired; not necessarily in the artistic sense, but in the sense that I want to do things out of my routine.

My routine being...work, internship, walk the dog, hang, and read a book at some obscure place until I tire of it or it tires of me.

I had been reading "Wuthering Heights" until a few moments ago when I closed it and dog-eared page 168, although I never hope to open it again. I keep telling myself it takes a strong, a courageous, person to stop reading a book midway through. The other tiny person on my shoulder tells me I am being lazy. Honestly though, this books is boring. I have a problem reading things with such dated themes such as class conflict, romance, love, revenge!!!!!!

For now, I will give you a list of things I have in my mind. As good of a bullshitter as I am, these nuggets simply cannot be fleshed out into any paragraph worth reading.

1. My feet are clammy. 2. My nail has finally fallen off. 3. I picked at the remains of my nail. 4. Now my nail hurts. 5. I think I'll try my hand at fiction writing again. 6. I like preppy things and am too embarrassed to wear them. 7. My friend (boss) from work got engaged. 8. After this I am going to reorganize my bookshelf. 9. These pictures have nothing to do with my post. 10. I miss school. 11. Sometimes "Family Guy" takes it too far. 12. I draw 3-D boxes a lot. 13. I'm hungry. 14. I can't wait to see "Atlas Shrugged." But why are there so many newbies involved in the project?

A cluttered thought

Dick Hickock and Perry Smith,
the murderers of the Clutter
family and stars of "In Cold Blood"

The Clutter family before anyone
knew their names

Yesterday I met a man whose father knew the Clutters. That probably means nothing to you, unless you happened to have read the book that has turned out to by my favorite I've read all summer.

The Clutters were a family murdered for a handful of change in their farmhouse in Holcombe near Kansas City. Truman Copote--whose name is more famous among my generation for the title of a movie starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman than for his successful writing career--followed the case for six years and compiled what he called a "nonfiction novel" called "In Cold Blood." I had just finished the book the day before while lying on my bed covering my ears from Elle hurrying me up--she wanted to talk about Hawaii. (The last two pages of a book are crucial to your overall feeling of it. Don't let people ruin it for you.) Not only had "In Cold Blood" made me cry two distinct times, but I didn't exactly stop thinking about it since I had picked it up.

The next day, yesterday, I was ringing someone up while asking a fellow employee what he was reading. I like to try and include customers into the conversation, otherwise they get huffy and puffy about standing around as if in my living room while I completely ignore them and talk to the more amiable people in my life: the baggers. So I asked the middle-aged man in front of me, "Are you reading anything right now?" To which he said "no" but reciprocated the question.

"Yes, I just finished 'In Cold Blood' now I'm reading 'Wuthering Heights.' Have you read 'In Cold Blood'?" I asked.

"Yeah, I have. I was good."

"I loved it."

"My dad lived in Kansas City."

"What? Really? That's crazy!"

"Yeah and he knew the, what was their name? The people who got killed. The Clutters."

"He knew the Clutters."

"Yeah."

"Your dad knew the Clutters, Herb Clutter?"

"Yeah."

I was shocked and he acted like it was completely normal. Now, he most definitely could have been blowing smoke up my ass because, let's face it, some real freaks come into that store. (Just today a man named Hector came in, shook his hips, and sang a few bars to me and two other girls then carried on to do his shopping.) But I chose to believe he was telling the truth.

If you still can't understand what a big deal this was to me, imagine this. You just finished reading "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. It took up most of your time and now it's all you think about. You are recommending the book to everyone. Then you recommend it to one more person and that person tells you, "Oh yeah, my mom went to school with Howard Roark and was neighbors with Dominique Francon." Or, let's see if you need a more pliable situation. You just finish the "Twilight" series and someone tells you his uncle knows Edward Cullen. Wouldn't that blow your mind?

The most disheartening moment when reading a book is knowing you can never meet the characters. I guess it's a little different when the story is true.