Category Archives: Two minute read

Oct 11 2012
15 Comments
Humorous, Two minute read, Writing

The Elastic Minutes

Get it? It’s a toast clock.

Now, here I am, in a place I didn’t expect to be for longer than a couple of minutes. It doesn’t matter where it is. It could be the bathroom, it could be the doctor’s office, it could be a shark tank or a church or on the side of the road waiting for the N to come so I can get on and sleep and mouth breathe on everyone around me.

Sometimes I think most of my life is spent in these places, when dinner goes too long or a class didn’t get out on time, because it’s these times that stretch the most. These are the elastic times, when you could swear on a number of things, both holy and unholy, that more than a minute has gone by but alas the damned clock speaks to a different reality and the fish in the aquarium are pecking feverishly at the plants just like they were a minute ago.

These are the extra minutes that no one wants. Everyone wishes for more time, but what if somehow the request was granted but instead we spent another sixty minutes waiting in lines in a 25-hour day?

Maybe what we do with these nothing minutes is important, because if we ever got past feeling like they were unbearable we could write a song, or think of a way to make a loved one feel appreciated, or give Suzie a call. Who’s Suzie anyways? These are all things we could find out.

If you really want to go for it, talk to a stranger in line and see how uncomfortable that makes you and everyone. At the very least, you’ll have a great story. At the most, you’ll have an interesting conversation and maybe a couple extra bucks in your pocket if you decide to go for coffee afterwards and the other person pays for some reason. This is all theoretical, so don’t blame me if this doesn’t happen and all you get are scared stares.

I’m just the messenger. Waiting time is time, so we should use it. I should use it. And especially Suzie should use it.

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Oct 09 2012
13 Comments
Food, Humorous, Two minute read

Drinking a Cup of Ralph

Don’t be fooled. It’s not as good as it looks.

True or False: instant coffee is disgusting. It is as bitter as the Devil’s eyebrows and as foul as his horn trimmings. It is more profane than an episode of Jersey Shore and more loathsome than a can of Tecate full of slugs.

If you answered true, I’m sorry, but you are incorrect. If you answered false. I’m sorry, but you are also incorrect. This was a trick question designed to make everyone fail.

The correct answer is that some instant coffee is indeed a rank substance unfit for consumption by all things that breathe. Some, however, is just fine. For example, Nescafe, Nescafe Gold, and Starbucks Via are all brands of instant coffee that I would gladly give to my friends, family, and sundry.

I am an instant coffee believer. Some people who term themselves true coffee lovers may scoff at the fact I dare drink the black dregs of coffee crystal solution as they believe it all to be equally unbearable, but this is simply not the case. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, by drinking a brand called Ralphs Instant Crystals Coffee.

It was purchased in what was later recognized as severe error by a person who thought, at the time, that all instant coffee would taste the same and that if instant must be purchased, it mattered not which brand he chose.

Despite its low sticker price, Ralphs Instant Crystals Coffee has extracted a terrible toll on my life as I’ve drank it day after day, waiting for it to run out like the freaking lamp from the Hanukah story because then new coffee will finally be purchased with rejoicing.

Its very name, “Ralphs Instant Crystals Coffee,” does not inspire any level of confidence, nor do the crystals themselves as they glitter in the jar like a pile of dead ants. And upon the first sip of an overly strong cup, one will immediately notice the desire to upchuck, or Ralph, welling up at the back of the throat. At that moment, the unfortunate coffee drinker will realize they are, in fact, drinking a cup of Ralph.

Yes indeed. For the past month I have been drinking cups of Ralph every morning, knowing that even Folgers would be sweet relief. The day of reprieve cannot come soon enough.

One day I will drink Ralph no longer. One day. But until then, the best part of waking up is finishing the Ralph in my cup.

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Oct 02 2012
5 Comments
San Francisco, Travelling, Two minute read

Why Bluegrass Night is Unlike Other Nights

A real picture taken by a real person (nokapixel on flikr) of bluegrass night at Amnesia in the Mission

It’s a Monday night in San Francisco and about one month ago I ironed patches onto my skinny jeans to stave away the quite serious hole progression in the upper thigh area. The patches are not the same color as my jeans and they are huge. Are they a fashion statement? Are they hideous? It doesn’t matter. I can sit cross-cross-apple-sauce in them without exposing myself, and it’s bluegrass night and my boots are on.

For me, bluegrass night is also improv lesson night, and while we play games and learn to forget our inhibitions, my boots have a mind of their own, stompin’ and gearin’ up for the pluckin’ and strummin’ of the folksy tunes we’re about to hear. Somehow, improv and bluegrass go together quite well, based as they both are in community and doing something for the love of the game.

And bluegrass night is unlike the other nights of the week, no matter how special they are. Other evenings don’t hold the same perspiration-scented twang that homespun bluegrass tunes carry, or the madness inherent in the wild twitches of the banjo player’s hand. Other nights have 20% less stomping, 38% less twirling, and 72% less “yips” and exclamations of yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haw.

It’s a very present call to the past, an invocation of a time that may not have existed, a rootin’ tootin’ shindig.

At Amnesia, the bar that feels like the hull of a forgotten ship, which has an octopus in the corner and a selection of Belgian beers on tap and in the bottle, bluegrass draws them in. Some don’t understand what’s going on, don’t quite get the spirit or understand how to stomp and clap at the same time and which foot and which hands to use. Some are caught up in the stereotype. But the energy is contagious, the mixture of nostalgia and booze, the fire-spirited fiddle and plum-drum bass brewing the night’s mood.

Sway a little to the beat, pick up your feet and set them down, in rhythm. Don’t be afraid to believe in the myth, in the fields and the honky tonk and the sweet smell of hay and betrayed love. Because it’s bluegrass night, where the music is too good for pretention. It’s only simple if you let it be.

Grab a Maredsous, pick a partner and do-si-do, if you dare, or at least stand a little closer to the stage. Biting is for afterwards.

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Sep 25 2012
7 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Two minute read

Earth in 2012 Was So Ridiculous

At least there’s wifi on the spaceship.

One day, far in the future, when my grandchildren are sitting on my lap, wearing their space blankets as planets whiz by and the artificial fire roars on our hearthSCREEN, asking me to tell them another story before taking their bedtime Pillz and going off to Dreamland®, they’ll say, “Tell us the story of your first job after you got back from Egypt, Nana! Tell us!”

And I’ll say, “What? That old marketing position I found on Craig’s List?”

“Yes yes yes yes yes!” They’ll say.

“But doesn’t it bore you?”

“No!”

“Not even when I talk about B2B marketing tactics and search engine optimization and quantitative analysis?”

“No!” And they’ll laugh because social media is a thing of the past. With chips in our brains, being social is no longer a choice.

“We like hearing about the days before the Great Singularity when earth dwellers still devoted their lives to monetary compensation in pursuit of the happiness.”

“You kids are bizarre.”

“Tell us, Nana, tell us!”

“Okay, fine.”

“So after I got back from Egypt in the year 2012.”

“Wow, Nana, you’re so old!” “So old Grandma!” “Practically ancient!”

“Umm….yeah. So anyways. After I returned to the former United States of America…”

“Hahahahaha! The United States of America! How quaint! What, did you all still putt around in your Honda Accords! Hahahahaha!”

“Shut up, 43X.”

“Sorry, Nana.”

“So I returned to the former USA, and moved to San Francisco.”

“Was that the first city destroyed by our all-knowing overlords for having become too decadent and frittering away its considerable capital on luxury fashion and alcohol for dogs?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Hahaha!” “Hahahaha!” “Oh, Sparky would like another cucumber gimlet!” “But don’t spill it on his Gucci bow tie!” “Hahahahaha!”

“Do you all want to hear the story or not? We’ve only got a few more minutes before Dreamland® starts.”

“Please, Nana! Please!”

“Okay, so in the former city of San Francisco, I spent many hours perusing Craig’s List for job opportunities.”

“What, Craig’s List like where the incredibly lonely earth beings publicized their pathetic desires and revealed their naïve belief that posting a missed connection would lead them to any kind of satisfaction, even if they were to meet the person with which they supposedly felt some kind of connection?”

“Okay, I’m done. Take your Pillz.”

“Hahahahaha! Earth in 2012 was so ridiculous! I’m thankful and glad for our all-powerful and munificent overlords!”

“Night, dummies. See you in Dreamland®.”

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Sep 24 2012
15 Comments
San Francisco, Two minute read, Writing

An Oklahoman Laments the Loss of Fall

Redwoods don’t drop their leaves.

So it’s fall now, I think. I’m not really sure anymore if the seasons exist. Here in San Francisco nothing changes. Quinoa’s on its way out, boar’s on its way in. Gourmet sausage is somewhere in the middle, the roasted pork chop probably isn’t going anywhere, but fall isn’t coming. That’s for darn sure. Even though sometimes the wind blows and it’s got that crisp feeling and maybe there’s a leaf somewhere in there too, but it’s all an illusion. Fall isn’t going to come here at all.

Sure we get the Halloween Candy, and the pumpkins, and fall-themed lattes from Starbucks, but they won’t bring me a proper autumn. And the kids are back in school, and preschool-high school teachers are wearing themed sweaters over wildly patterned turtlenecks, but it makes no difference whatsoever.

The fog rolls out and in.

We’ve already been wearing sweaters for the past three months and one hundred years. We’ve already lit our fireplaces to stave off the cold of a chilly summer night, and warmed our hands at a bonfire on the beach to keep our fingers from turning blue in late May. We never put our scarves away in the first place, but we’ll never have to turn on our heaters because we don’t have them. Time doesn’t progress here so much as ebb in and out. Other places go in circles, but we move back and forth along the same straight line.

Still, the children get older. The facial hair on the hipsters gets slightly more ironic. Banana Republic models get more smug as they laugh in their business casual clothes.

Somewhere, college students are planning apple picking trips and updating their facebook statuses about how excited they are about wearing fall clothes. Somewhere, the leaves are beginning to turn slightly less green as they prepare to all fall down. But not here. Not ever.

I’ve only been on the West Coat for 2.5 months. Thank God it’s never too early for nostalgia. I’ll go out and drink $8 cups of coffee until the pain goes away.

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