Pony Thieves (Part One)

It was at Liz Lively’s insistence that I enrolled with a business banking account at Wells Fargo once I got my first legitimate paycheck in September. Liz Lively went to visit Wells Fargo every day, she said, because of Daniel the banker, who was always up for a chat about football, or Austin Texas, or good looking men, or the various promotions going on at the bank. Liz Lively already had three different checking accounts at Daniel’s suggestion.

“He opened me up a new one today with 50 dollars already in it,” she said, “I didn’t ask questions. I think we’ll both get another 50 dollars if I bring you in to open a new account. Daniel will make it happen.”

But Wells Fargo was being audited by the IRS the morning we went in, and Daniel was under a lot of stress. He wasn’t quite so loose-handed with his 50 dollar offerings.

“I could maybe get you a casita to keep your pennies in....” he said hurriedly, looking over his shoulder at the auditors. “Or a Wells Fargo laundry bag...”

And so I never developed quite the same enthusiasm for Daniel as Liz Lively had. In fact, I formed a rapport with almost every other banker. There was Jen, who gave me my casita (with a guitar on the porch), Steven, who counted out my housekeeping pennies one day and in doing so heard all the stories about the Adelaide, and Michelle, who advised me how much to withhold on my tax forms.

But I still had no Daniel equivalent, and I secretly fumed with jealousy when Liz Lively came home with a stuffed Wells Fargo pony and a brand new checking account with 50 dollars in it. I suddenly could think of nothing else but how to get my own stuffed pony. I asked Jen about it the next time that I went in, but she said that I had to refer somebody to open an account, or open a new checking of my own. She made no offer of the magical funds that Daniel seemed to have access to, and I didn’t particularly want to split up the measly amount I already had in checking, so I declined.

Back at the hostel, I fumed and plotted some more. I finally decided that I would just have to abduct Liz Lively’s pony, and hold it for ransom until she agreed to finagle me a new one from Daniel. First I took the pony and hid it under my bed, and then Luke and I brainstormed the cryptic clues we were going to leave around the hostel as to the pony’s whereabouts. I left a rather haphazard ransom note on Liz’s bed (signed, anonymous), and then joined Luke in his bed next door for some more plotting and some canoodling. We silenced both momentarily when we heard Liz Lively walk by, and pause outside her bed. She read the ransom note aloud. There was another pause, then she came to stand outside Luke’s bunk.

“Is this you, Liz?” She asked, flapping the note. “Did you abduct my pony?”

“What? No. What pony?” I said, unconvincingly. “I never saw a pony. Did you, Luke?”

“Whatever,” said Liz Lively, letting the note flutter to the floor. “You can have it. I don’t even care.”

And that’s how I got Nillie.

To be continued...

The Time Travel Tea Party

So, I not only finally found the Trickster Salon, but I performed in it! I wore a flamingo on my head. And sang songs about time. And sat in a jester chair! How marvelous.

The Case of the Missing Clothes

Yesterday was one of those days where the Universe was just screwy from start to finish. I woke up with my left eye irritated, which happens with abnormal frequency and usually leads to me dressing up like a pirate. I didn't have the time or materials to make an eyepatch before my housekeeping shift started, so I settled for putting one contact in the non-irritated eye and walking into a few walls on the way to breakfast.

I was three quarters of the way through my coffee when I remembered about some laundry I'd done the night before, and set out to find it. Living in a hostel, I often panic at the idea of wayward germs and bedbugs, and do my laundry at least three times as much as anyone else. Unfortunately, I am as spacey as I am paranoid, so 90% of the loads I do, I forget about until half a day later. By that time they've usually been dried twice, or moved to a back shelf somewhere, or even deposited on my bed by someone far more proactive than myself. So it's always somehow worked out, until yesterday, when I opened the dryer to find my clothes gone. Completely gone. Not in a back room, not in a shelf, not on my bed. Gone.

There had been several different forms of shenanigans going on the night before as I had embarked upon the load. Our laundryman was a little intoxicated, since it was around midnight, but I trusted him when he said that he had moved my clothes from a washer to dryer (after I, of course, forgot about them in the washer between the hours of 9 and 12am). Then I got distracted again with some canoodling, and that's how it got to be 9 am before I remembered to check for the clothes. My friend Josh at the front desk knows all about my canoodling behaviors, and so he was entirely unsympathetic to see me tacking a sign to the bulletin board at reception.

"I washed a load of clothes... and suddenly they were gone?" He sneered. "Yeah, right. If you hadn't been up all night doing dirty things, maybe you would gotten your clean clothes. At least be honest with the people. Tell them about the... and the...." whereupon he mimed some very lewd interpretations of my night's behavior, and I squealed, "Ew! JOSH!" And went off to call my parents in hopes my pitiful story would move them into funding a new and improved wardrobe.

The clothes hadn't turned up by noon, or three, or four thirty, when it was time for me to head to my other job. By that time everyone in the hostel was on alert. My manager, Nicola, said she would help me in looking; "That's odd..." she said, "I did a load of clothes last night, too. And there have been some sitting on top of the dryer since about 9pm. Are you sure it's not those?"

"No," I said, because I had checked them. "But thanks, anyway."

And so it was with a heavy heart that I headed off to my ballet job. I felt like I had barely had clothes already; how was I going to function with three quarters of THAT depleted? My parents had had sympathy, but not enough to offer so much as a new pair of leggings. I was on my own.

I garnered more sympathy and clothes offerings at my ballet job than from my parents, and I was already starting to feel better when I received the best text message of my life from my canoodling partner, Luke.

"We found your clothes!!!!!!!!!!" It read, "Nicola had them the whole time!"

Everyone in the office joined me in celebrating, and I decided I would wait until I got home to even press the question of how they ended up with Nicola. It was a good thing, since it turned out to be a long story. Nicola had been doing laundry for her girlfriend, whose clothes were the ones that had been sitting out on top of a dryer the entire time. Nicola had instead taken my clothes to be dried in the basement of our other hotel, the Dakota, and it was very dark in the basement of the Dakota and she hadn't really seen what she was folding. There were still a few items that gave her pause, such as my jester pants ("These are a little billowy," Nicola thought, "I'm sure I've never seen Tani wear these.") Whatever clothes our inebriated washerman had moved to the dryer had not been mine. And so the mystery was solved, and the clothes were waiting for me in a big pillowcase when I returned.

I poured myself a glass of wine to celebrate, and set about folding and putting away my clothes. I propped the glass on a scarf on my dresser directly above the basket. Not two minutes had passed before I had accidentally moved the scarf and there was red wine dripping directly into the drawer where I had just put the majority of my clean clothes.

My bunk neighbor, Pedro, is Colombian, and he doesn't know much English except for his oft-uttered phrase, "Oh, mann!"

He came in just in time to see me knock the wine over, and there was a moment of silence as Pedro and I watched it run down the dresser and into the drawer.

"Oh, mannnn," Pedro said.

And so I set off to do laundry for the second time in a twenty four hour period. I didn't answer anybody's questions about it. I'm pretty sure I got distracted canoodling again that night, too, but the important thing is that at some point I got my clothes and I still have them.

THE END

Typical. Absolutely.

I was so excited to attend the "Mythic Picnic," a monthly TRICKSTER ARTS SALON. YES. I KNOW. I'M OVERWHELMED BY THE SHEER PERFECTION AS WELL. I RSVP'ed online, quickly checked the general area of what it said was the location ("Hmm, Fisherman's Wharf... that's an odd place for an arts salon..." I thought), then quickly got in a Carmen Miranda-like outfit, packed up the freaksha hat for work, and spent the whole rest of the day telling everyone about my impending jester convention.

At 8:30 I set off in search of a cheap bus and cheap food and found neither... at 9 I was wandering through Chinatown (in the opposite direction of the wharf) and at 9:30 I was in Little Italy (also not very close to the wharf) ordering an avocado salad and wondering if I would ever make it to the other jesters. At 10 I was finishing the remnants of my salad as I plodded determinedly along the outskirts of the wharf toward a set of promising looking lights. I reached the Mechanical Museum, which, for some reason, was where I was convinced the convention was, but there was no sign of life.

I walked out on the piers but they were empty. I walked by some buildings; a lone Mexican busboy was rolling out some trash. I walked on some more piers and got excited when I heard noise and laughter, but it was people dressed up like sailors, not minstrels.

I finally came across some fishmongers and restrained myself from asking where the jester convention was; instead I asked if there were any hip bar slash clubs nearby. We were standing on a sidewalk soaked with dishwater and the air reeked of dead fish. The mongers exchanged a look.

"Rainforest Cafe?" They asked.

"Never mind," I said.

"Do you have a number for the place? A name? An address?" One of the men asked. He was obviously one of those irksome people who try to actually follow through and help you solve your problem once it's been presented.

"Kind of," I said. "No. I mean, I was just passing through and thought I would check out this place I thought was here. But it's not. Never mind," I said again.

Now the men looked really troubled, but I was already wandering off again. I saw the sign for Taylor Street, which meant it was only a good three miles over the hill before I was back safe on Isadora Duncan Lane.

I hadn't made it a block before I got the giggles over the sheer and glorious irony. Deep down I had had some reservations over attending a whole gathering of self-proclaimed tricksters and minstrels; I only call myself a jester because I don't want to be like anyone else... if I got cynical about trickstering, what would I have left? And thus, my subconscious (and sheer lack of organization and follow-through) manifested this situation, in which I wandered aimlessly around fisherman's wharf in my jester get-up and failed to find the minstrel convention.

The end!

Halloween at the Adelaide!

I had originally wanted to be a sexy gorilla, with a full on suit and a coconut bra. But that plan fell through due to lack of funding and/or motivation.

So I ended up as a deranged jester, which is what I am everyday already. Check out Anita's costume: a Twister board with dismembered limbs.

Decompression

We encountered a bear AND a snake at the Burning Man Decompression Party.
How auspicious!

Rainforest Cafe

My new friend Olivier and I drank pineapple juice and chamomile tea and drew the landscape at the Rainforest Cafe.

Bear!

Daily Life

Walking through the Tenderloin in pigtails, skirt, and cowboy boots today was a wild experience. One man said, "you look good like that," as if he had a prior reference. Another group competed in heckling... "Beautiful AND cute!" was boomed triumphantly over the rest of the voices, as if an age old paradox had been solved. But my favorite was on my way home, up the hill towards Geary: "Hey Snow-Bunny, nice cans!"

I've also gotten: "Girl, I would jump over two sisters to get to you!" which doesn't even make any sense. And yesterday when I tried to take the long way home to avoid the area completely, I still heard "I wanna touch the hips. Are they real? Are they real?" from a shady street-corner. My favorite ever interaction, though, was in Berkeley, when a man in an electric wheelchair piped up from behind me.

"Girl, you got great legs. I been admiring them for about two blocks," he said. "Are you a student?"
"Nope," I said, "looking for jobs."
"Well, I know what you do," he said. "You just go in there, turn around, and show 'em your legs."

Solstice!

Liz squared reunited for an autumnal solstice celebration, complete with feasting and witchery and butternut squash. We put our glasses on the altar for a clear vision of the present, past, and things to come.

Home, Sweet Home.

Sooner or later everything came together, and I was living here.

Like Vegas, only better...

We thought Santa Nella was a mirage. It seemed impossible that after all that unending dirt and olive groves there could be a town with a Subway, and a Holiday Inn, and gas stations, and Denny's, and Roy Rogers, and Andersen's Pea Soup, and Motel 6, and even a Korean War Memorial. We got extremely over-stimulated driving in and weighing all our possibilities, and Courtney got over-excited and booked us a room at the swanky Hotel de Oro instead of the Motel 6, and we made big plans to go to Andersens Pea Soup and then the bar and then the pool, but instead we went to Subway and Roy Rogers and straight to the room, which turned out probably to be a good thing since the Hotel de Oro was not quite so swanky as it looked from the outside, and there sounded like there were various instances of domestic violence going on within its quarters, so we moved upstairs to a room that was quieter but had a hole in the floor. We watched lots of tv and I got distracted in the bathroom for about half an hour with the mirrors, which Courtney pooh-poohed; "Haven't you ever been in a dressing room?" And then I panicked some more about my imminent future while drifting off to sleep.

The next morning, I pilfered the free breakfast bar and ended up getting jelly all over my bag in my excitement, while Courtney opted for a more sensible breakfast at Starbucks. Then, we were homeward bound!

Santa Nella

Route Five...

has nothing to be said about it. It consists of fields and olive groves and big trucks that splatter bits of dirt all over the windshield, and Courtney had been driving for seven straight days and was exhausted and there was no good music left and then our wheels started shaking about an hour into the olive groves. We pulled over and kicked the wheels and talked about cars like we knew something, and then got back on the road and kept driving and prayed. We eventually found a bevy of gas stations complete with an automobile repair shop that was filled with grease covered Mexican men, and Courtney and I were in skirt and dress and it was like an episode of the Simple Life that transpired. But they pumped up our tires and back on the road the wheels didn't shake anymore so that was that.

We drove and drove and talked about olive groves, and read all the signs that kept saying the same belligerent things about the US Congress, and we drove and drove some more, and poor Courtney was about to crack. There was nowhere to pull off even if we wanted to. We took videos on my camera and watched the light change as the sun set and I tried to point out exciting things in the landscape ("Look, look! I think it's a water tank! And over there, some... dirt! And MORE OLIVE GROVES!") to no avail.

We had decided that with Courtney going through all this suffering, it was only fair that to even the karmic balance I would name my first born child after the first town we finally stopped in. We were on the edge of our seats with anticipation. Would it be Gustine? Los Banos? I could only be thankful we were already well past Big Oak Flat.

To be continued...

Bye Bye LA

The next morning we met with another dear and wonderful friend of mine, the inimitable Ali McCallum. We had brunch and hung out at her awesome bachelorette pad (the balcony of which was made famous in Pretty Woman!) before hitting the road. Oh, and before hitting the road, we had a very exciting episode of giving Tinie Tempah his very first car wash. After seven days of beach and camping and the co-pilot spilling water all over the passenger side of the car, he was well overdue.

We watched every moment of the wash like hawks, or proud parents on the first day of school, and I think the attendants were equal parts amused and creeped out by our enthusiasm. Anyhoo. Then we got the proverbial eff out of LA and back north to start my new life!

Hello LA

I didn't know exactly how to feel about returning to L.A.- my years there had been filled with bliss, misery, chaos, parties, cars being stolen, more parties, more bliss, more misery, and lots and lots of vodka. I wasn't sure I wanted to experience any of the above for the twenty-four hours that I'd be there; a mere taste might send me spiraling back down the rabbit hole.

Our drive in was definitely the bliss part of the visit; sunshine filling the car, Gwen Stefani pumping as we cruised along the beaches of Malibu. Then it was Santa Monica; I introduced Courtney to the Third Street Promenade and some of my favorite vintage shops, and it was all fabulous, but at the same time I could feel the over-stimulation rising. I almost left my wallet behind in Peet's Coffee and Courtney raised her eyebrows.

"You know, I'm only going to be with you another two days, Liz," she said. "After that, you're on your own."

We stayed at the Orbit Hostel on Melrose and met up with my dear friend Shevin for sushi, and afterwards did more walking in one evening than most Los Angelenos do in a month. It was probably a subconscious desire on my part, since I had absolutely no desire anymore to carouse or make idle shouted chit-chat in a bar or club.

We did eventually go back to a trendy bar, and bought 11 dollar drinks, and stood around, and everything that had once seemed glittery and exciting seemed hollow and sad. Back at the hostel I began to panic about money, and where I was going to live, and the past and present and future unknown. I knew the feelings couldn't be resolved until I was actually in San Francisco in person, and able to take action, but still.... somehow it felt better to worry.

We saw these rental RV's all the way down, but our favorite was definitely the one filled with German teenagers dressed as pirates. They had scrawled skull and crossbone emblems all over the side of the van; the overall effect was well worth whatever charges it was going to incur back at the rental place.