Then there was the time I drove through a perfect storm of fish... Dunno what's prompting me to keep diving into memory lane, except that I'm swamped with work and sculpture and friends and not finding a lot of new stories. When you're not listening to strangers on a train or a park bench, the storytelling muscles tend to turn [...]
“No, ma’am, that’s not what I said,” said the support tech. She was using that syrupy, paid-to-be-nice-even-though-you’re-a-moron voice common to kindergarten teachers, hostage negotiators and underpaid helpdesk employees. My Internet connection had been completely hosed for about 90 minutes and I’d spent the last 30 verifying it with their automated troubleshooter. They finally passed me through to a human. “What I [...]
Review website (Yasmen doesn’t seem to have a site) Location: Beaverton Price to fill up (and I mean fill up) two people: $60 I chatted idly with the Yasmen employees while I waited for Robyn to arrive. “It’s only 7:00 so I guess we’re kind of early?” I asked, gesturing at all the empty tables. Most of my Middle Eastern [...]
"I just LOVE your collection," I gushed, "It's absolutely incredible. How long have you been collecting?" My host looked puzzled...
This was a week of contrasts, of suicide bombers and gems, art and armor. A rich week of brainstorming and artstorming and talk, one that brought home the value of new and shared perceptions. And maybe (sigh) an unwelcome revelation.
The important dude sat opposite me in the limo, confident and just a tad patronizing, flanked by his PR handler and the most amazingly beautiful woman I'd ever met. He was the CEO of a big multinational and I was covering his company's new product line. His only available timeslot was the early-morning drive to the airfield, so here I was, scooted in next to his grownup son.
Encountering a homeless guy on a dark and lonely sidestreet isn’t always a happy situation; I was nervous. But the man, tall, swaying, reeking of booze and piss, only blocked my path for a moment. “What is your why?” he asked, and moved aside. […]
The train was delayed--they didn't say why--so Mary and I talked about lonely. "The thing is," she began, "as long as you don't know you're lonely, you're not. But once you realize it, you'll always be lonely." I blinked at her logic. "So if I just don't think I'm lonely, I'm not, but if I do, I can't be anything else?" She smiled. "Exactly. Once you find out you're lonely, it's a permanent condition. But you learn to like it..."
It's 1:15AM, I'm wide awake and, uncharacteristically, writing this on paper. It feels odd, blogging with a pen, but then it's been an odd day. I'm stranded in a downtown hotel for the night, thanks to an unexpected snowstorm.
"Don't you usually have a PRAAAAY FIX-AAAAAY?" I asked the waiter. He looked puzzled for a minute, then asked, "Do you mean "prix fixe?" he asked, "Yes we do," and he showed me the prix fixe menu ($20 per person for salad or soup, entree and dessert) while I blushed a bit. OK, in most places in the US (outside New York and DC), if you ask for the "prix fixe menu," you'll just confuse them. "Prefix to what? Do you mean an appetizer?" they'll ask, with a little eye roll. If you mispronounce it with long aaaaaaas, they just might get it. Except in Chez Joly, which is the closest thing to a real French bistro I've seen in the great Northwest.
