brief vignettes of 2015

For the past two years, I have been writing daily vignettes based off this quote:

“Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end—as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary.”

As this year begins, I want to look back at the past year with this small collection of brief vignettes I wrote over the course of 2015: 

1) The tiny portable art studio in front of my apartment building had a piece of printer paper taped to the frame of the open door reading “The Table and The Precarious Position (5 Minutes)”. It was a performance piece that lasted, predictably, for five minutes. A man wearing grey pants and an over-sized grey hoodie had pulled out a wheeled black table in front of the doorway. He was slung over it like he had passed out drunk there. Both legs splayed out on the table while one arm and the top half of his body hung off so that the weight distribution made the outer wheels lift off the ground. His head was resting just inside the art studio. He lay like that until a timer went off, then packed up, locked the studio, and silently walked away.

2) Addie pulled the opposite way when I started walking towards home until she noticed the start of a rainstorm. Her ears folded back in a way that gave her a worried look and she immediately began following me. She would duck under overhangs and large trees and refuse to continue forward when we reached the end of its protection, making me pull her out into the rain. Waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change, she pawed at her face because she didn’t like it being wet. Then she thought of a better idea and stepped closer to me. She wiped her face against my thigh until she was satisfied that my jeans had soaked up the droplets that had been clinging to her snout.

3) The taxi slowed for traffic on the congested and overheated Nevada streets. I glanced out the window and saw a store advertising for the Las Vegas essentials: ice, groceries, cigs, and slots.

4) Even though this restaurant had a high rating and no reported deaths, I was still skeptical when the blowfish aquarium next to the door had more than half of the fish sunk lifelessly at the bottom. Fugu chefs go through an intense amount of training, usually for 2-3 years, and their final test is to prepare and eat their own meal. I know this place is safe, otherwise it would have closed long ago, but it was still startling to have Nick order four dishes with blowfish pieces in it. There was hot sake with a blowfish fin, which our server lit on fire before placing it in the middle of our table. The fin was dry, but eventually steeped, leaching the liquor with a fish taste before bloating into a mushy blob that made it difficult to finish. We were given a salad made with blowfish skin cut into noodle-like shapes. The fish itself was rubbery and had so little taste that the only way I was sure I was actually eating a piece was by texture. Then there was blowfish sashimi, thin translucent white cuts of raw meat that were bland, but the most easy part of the meal to swallow. The fried fugu was the best tasting part of the meal, but it also seemed to be 80% thick bones, forcing us to pick randomly into unfamiliar crevices to get anything.

Shortly after the meal, Nick accidentally convinced me I was dying. I had a worried look on my face and he tried to reassure me by saying if I had been poisoned, I would have known already because my limbs would have been tingly and paralyzed by now. Then, of course, my foot fell asleep and I had an internal panic attack until I managed to get the blood flowing again while walking through the Disney section in a discount mall nearby.

5) I touched my fingertip against Gira's throat as she rubbed her face against my knee. I could feel her purr deep in her throat, a vibration like a struck piano string.

6) Ever since we listened to the Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me episode where they brought up a study that showed that women felt happier after smelling a happy man’s sweat, Nick has been shoving his armpits into my face every time he suspects I am not feeling jubilant.

7) It was so hot that even the air was sweating. We stopped in Pioneertown hoping to find something for lunch, but ended up witnessing their 4th of July parade/chili cook off.

We stood to the side of the main dirt road while a scratchy rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” played on a boombox. I spotted a woman on the porch of the Chapparosa Saddlery performing sign language along with the tune.

Three features of the parade went through before I realized that it was indeed the parade and not just the townspeople trying to find a spot of shade underneath the sparse trees. Two men on horses lead the procession. It was followed by a golf cart, and then a tractor. A small family went by, walking their goats and the announcer was able to name each child and goat for the audience without any help. A group of people pretended to gallop on stick horses. Then there was a mini-outhouse built on top of a lawnmower. We left when the town drunk stumbled by. He had a plastic butt cheek hangout out of his red long johns and was randomly shooting a starter’s pistol.

8) I couldn’t read my book while waiting for my plane to board because the woman sitting next to me was talking loudly into her phone. Her conversation circulated mostly around her grandchildren, but near the end of the call, it turned suddenly to a health issue of the person she was talking to.
“Just try a little Neosporin,” she suggested. Then she paused to listen. “No. Not anally.”

9) NEMA sent out an email about a Beyoncé dance class that will take place every Wednesday in the same room where they give yoga classes and TRX training. The class is instructed by Shonna Chiles, a Golden State Warriors cheerleader and each lesson is preceded by a wine happy hour. The email noted that heels are more than welcome, but not necessary. I closed out my email account, but I still couldn’t exit the image of the 30-something white men that mostly made up the demographics of this building all wearing stiletto heels and attempting to swing their hips to R&B.

10) When Addie jumps into the bed at night, she curls up at the foot of the bed and rests her snout on my ankle. I’ve gotten so used to it, that I don’t sleep as well without that weight on me. Now every time I go to bed without her, I contemplate wearing an ankle weight so that I can pretend she is still with me.

11) Another five minutes were up and a length of chain was released so that the zombie had five more feet of freedom. All 12 of us were backed into the corner near the locked door as the zombie snarled at us, hunched on all fours. Then he suddenly lunged at us.

Angelique screamed and shoved me forward so that she could make a break for a less crowded corner in the sparse room.

The zombie reached the length of his chain and was yanked back by his handcuffs.

We were safe for now, but I couldn’t believe Angelique, the one who booked this event and knew exactly what she was getting into, had almost sacrificed me in her hurry to save herself.

I turned and locked eyes with the zombie. “That’s my cousin,” I told him, still in shock.

The zombie soberly shook his head and mouthed “I’m sorry.”

12) The town of Sunol sits an hour and a half away from San Francisco, but is so far removed from city life that you have to turn on your high beams when you take its exit from the freeway. Sunol’s claim to fame is a black Labrador and Rottweiler mix that beat out two humans to win an honorary mayoral election in 1981. The dog’s name was Bosco and he retained his position for the rest of his life. Just outside the city post office, there is a statue dedicated to the noble canine. Across from this, there is Bosco’s Bones & Brew Restaurant. Inside the restaurant, the far wall is plastered with a huge print of people dressed in mock Western attire. Men in cowboy hats and ponchos played poker at a green felt-lined table while women behind them wore shiny pink dresses and large feathers in their hair while they stood provocatively with their leg on an empty chair so that their garters were exposed. Behind the bar was a stuffed version of Bosco that doubles as a beer tap where you can order a wheat beer and watch the bartender lift his back leg so that he can obediently pee out your drink.

13) I saw the man with the kazoo again today. He has strayed vastly away from how he sounded when I first heard him two months ago, tooting short, rhythmic beats. Now he blows out as long as his lungs can muster, making it sound like he was squeezing the last breath out of a bullfrog. The horn is starting to wear down. It still happily rasps out a tooting sound, but now when he exhales, the paper twirl no longer unfurls and just sits curled up against his lips.

The wedding party standing on the City Hall steps did not look very impressed with his new artistic direction.

14) It is difficult not to talk to a man who is wearing a banana suit. He seemed a little embarrassed by the outfit despite the fact that he has probably worn it many times considering that he works behind the counter at The International Banana Museum. He kept his hands clasped in front of him, only raising his arms when one of the other customers asked him about the trails of tattoos that ran along both his triceps.

“Do you have a banana tattoo on that arm?” an older man in a Hawaiian shirt asked.

The man in the banana suit twisted his arm around so we could get a 360 degree view. “No, this is my Star Wars arm.”

“You could do a banana-themed Star Wars tattoo,” I said. “Like Darth Vader with a banana lightsaber.”

The lady who was making our banana split sundaes liked my train of thought. “How about a banana Yoda, like his ears could be an opened peel.”

The man in the banana suit was so horrified by our suggestions, he just stood there with his hands clasped in front of him again and his mouth hanging open in a perfect “O”.

15) I’m pretty sure my dad's dancing cracked one of my ribs. It was that bad. Bowling was fun and calm until Katie requested they play “Gangam Style”. The guy playing the music wasn’t even sure they still had it, but ten minutes later, it began blaring through the speakers and all hell broke loose. Dad started hip checking everyone. With my small size coupled with bowling shoes, I had no chance. I was slammed down into one of the plastic chairs. Then Dad and Ryan decided it would be funny to rhythmically sit on me. I was laughing too hard to yell at them to stop and now my ribs hurt when I twist from side to side.
“That’s probably for the best,” Dad said as way of apology. “"The Twist" is a very outdated dance move.”  

much love,
hedgie