Art of the Odd

But blogging about it anyway. I think my front left tire needs to be replaced. My nail polish is peeling, but I haven’t taken it off yet because I hate the smell of nail polish remover. My father’s spending the night tonight; we’ll take him to OC for a conference tomorrow, then go to a friend’s wedding in Riverside in the afternoon. And yeah, I’m still blogging naked.

That by the end of NaBloPoMo, I’ll be incapable of blogging with clothes on.

NovySan doesn’t seem to think this is a problem.

In fact, I think he’d like to encourage it.

“Woo-hoo!” he says. “Blog naked!”

That’s probably more than you needed to know.

There’s some kind of psychic whirlpool at the corner of Pico and 20th. Or possibly a black hole. It’s the only explanation for the strange collection of characters who stagger, meander and occasionally lurch through the crosswalk on the north side of the intersection, making their way from Burger King to Eddie’s Junior Market and back. There’s a bus stop there, but that can’t be the only thing drawing them. I’ve driven past a lot of bus stops in LA, but none quite so colorful as this one. Nowhere else have I heard a Cheech lookalike in a bright Hawaiian shirt exclaim, “I’m a Martian!” in a thick East LA accent. Nowhere else have I experienced the sheer density of the eccentric, the desperate, and the just plain odd. And I’ve done theatre in the Tenderloin! It’s notable, too, for the variety of its denizens — as often as I drive or walk past that corner, I rarely see the same person twice. It’s an endlessly (if sometimes morbidly) fascinating parade, and while it sometimes makes me sad, it doesn’t frighten me. I don’t understand what draws them, but I’m glad they’re there. I often try to make eye contact and smile, because if I sometimes wonder whether these people really exist, it seems like they must wonder the same.

Sometimes I think I should just give Duran Duran their own header.

I danced to “Rio” tonight, in honor of the 80s Night theme at the UkuLady’s Pony Show. (Every Wednesday night, at the Elephant Asylum in Hollywood. It’s not 80s Night every Wednesday, though. Next week, it’s Pioneers and Cowboys. I don’t think there will be any Duran Duran, but I am wondering if I can find an Arabic cover of “Rawhide.”)

One of the few drawbacks to telecommuting is that my cell phone is also my office phone.

It rang at 6 o’clock this morning.

This woke me up.

Then it beeped, to let me know I’d missed a call, and dinged, to let me know I had voicemail.

Of course I had to get up and see who it was.

It was a client, wondering how much we’d charged him for a job we’d done months ago. Apparently, he didn’t realize I was in an earlier time zone.

At 8 o’clock, it rang again. I was awake this time, but not in the mood. More voice mail. Another client, asking a question about a job I finished a few days ago.

8:30 AM. I logged in to work, to find an email from another client, wanting an update, and yet another client, wanting to add onto a job.

And one from my manager, wondering if I’d answered the client who wanted an update, quickly followed by another wondering if I’d started working on the add-on.

I emailed him back. I explained which emails I’d sent, and who I had to call. I noted that the cat had just puked in my office, and I’d had to clean that up. I suggested that I might just go back to bed and start over. He thought it was funny, about the cat.

Then I realized that the 6 AM phone call had been about a job someone else in my department had completed, and emailed my manager. He said he’d already dealt with it — the client had called everyone.

But the rest of the day was quiet, and for this, I am grateful.