Nashville

So I'm sitting out on my porch in the waning sun, listening to my friend Katy's most excellent cd mix entitled "Cube of Human Dignity"--which was one of our inside div school jokes. We often had the same level of distain, loathing and rage when placed in inane and tortuous classes like "Reformation" and "Ethics" taught by some PhD candidate who basically read (badly) the "real" professor's notes verbatim, with really bad inflection. (As a side note, the Ethics professor at our school was often found passed out drunk at various parties held at Christian denominational housing. We used to have some very drunken-ass parties for people claiming to be Christian, actually. Lots of alcoholic ministers out there, so don't let their holier-than-thou act fool you.)

Any way, his lectures in particular were like listening to a Chinese-speaker read a Volvo manual in Swedish, having never learned the language. Katy and I would sit near enough to each other to pass notes like the completely mature graduate students we were, and hers often said things like "cube of rage" or "cube of despair" next to a 3-D cube. We also wrote things like "this fucking class sucks ass" in French. Unfortunately, she studied Hebrew and I studied Latin, so we couldn't get all old school, but it was still funny, and I used to scribble Latin phrases on my notes when I got bored.

We'd also spend hot, sticky interminable Nashville summers making cd mixes and at her house, and yes, I'll admit it, making construction paper jewel case designs. Once we cooked fortune cookies, and brought them to a party, or gathering of some sort, I can't remember any more. I hope this doesn't embarrass my friend, by it's a fond memory for me.

And right now I'm doing something very dorky and eleventh grade, staring at the floating clouds and setting sun, and imagining the day when I'll fly away (not like the t.v. show with Sam Waterston playing... I don't know what character actually, because I never really watched it, but any way.) Fuck this shithole! I'm getting out of Dodge, man. I just need some money, and I'm outta here. Which is kind of the root of the problem. The money thing. Again.

I'm thinking about my Nashville days, and how those were such days of hopeful despair, if that makes any ironic sense, which it probably doesn't. I mean, I was in poor, I was in debt, I was living on ramen noodles and sometimes, oatmeal. As in, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Kind of like now, except back then I had a future, or dreamt of a future, any way. Now I just have present-day reality, which is some kind of crappy life sentence of workplace drudgery/insanity. I finally get why people become alcoholics and abuse drugs. Grown up life sucks. And there's no escaping it. And after that, there's old age, which, from what I can tell, sucks even more, because suddenly you don't even remember your name, much less how to control your own bladder and bowel continence.

Back then, however, I lived in a tiny studio apartment which was noisy and constantly dusty, but it had a nice view of a tree in the spring and summer. I whined about school (but couldn't kill any one by misquoting Kant, so the liability was pretty much nil) and cried about boys who had broken my heart (but never about human beings I had taken care of the best I could and had died nonetheless).

But I also had good friends, who rallied around me in my depression, held my hand when I was sad, and we had a barrel of fun. We went downtown one April and got riproaringly tipsy at various pseudo-swank lounges and a honky-tonk bar for Katy's birthday, then came back to my apartment and drank the crappiest wine I've ever drank in my whole life. Peruvian wine, as if that's even a real kind of wine, Danny. (Inside joke there for you, Katy.) I woke up to the sound of the dog drinking wine out of a wine glass mistakenly left on the floor. Needless to say he was a little drunk off his furry ass for the rest of the day, too.

Once, Katy and I went with a couple friends of ours to a gay bar, hoping to hear some good music, and dance. We went with this new guy, and I think another one of Katy's good male friends. Any way, New Guy had been a monk proselyte (or whatever they call them) after having given up a career in computer programming. Any way, I went to a movie with him the next day, ("Signs" as in "This is a sign I should run and hide from this guy." And did, but it took a while of coldly dissing him before he got the message.) So we were talking about the bar, and I was saying you know, for a gay bar, it really had sucky music, and he said, "That was a gay bar?" I guess when you live with a bunch of men, sequestered away from the rest of the normal world, things like gay bars don't register properly as such, or something.

Any way, I don't know. I had a great job as at a knitting store. I was paid like $9.50 an hour and I loved my job. Sometimes I taught knitting for $20 for a half hour lesson. I don't even make that much overtime now as a professional. I basically helped people pick out yarn and needles and it was one of the best fucking jobs I've ever had. I stocked yarn and sometimes just got to sit and knit with my customers.

Customers were nice, they never sweared or yelled at me, threw things at my head, tried to kick, punch and bite me, nor bled, puked and crapped on me, ate their feces, required assistance to the bathroom, their diapers changed,or to be fed and bathed. Never once did I have to wipe up blood or feces off the floor because housekeeping wouldn't do it. I never had to beg my bosses to please, please, please do something NOW to keep someone from dying, and then get screamed at because "You're just a nurse, I'm the doctor, what the hell do you know about taking care of my patients?!" I never had to watch people die agonizing deaths, or listen to their family members scream and cry in utter grief watching them die.

All I did was stock yarn and help people knit. It was a nice job. It was civilized. I forgot I had a job like that, where I actually got more respect as a yarn store clerk than a registered nurse. Dude, I wish I could live off of $9.50 an hour, because I go back and do it again in a heartbeat.

Life was good. It's too bad I didn't know how good it was at the time, you know?