Tina and I took a week’s vacation in San Francisco, where we visited City Lights
A friendly native very fastidiously took our picture
got some amazing capuccino at Cafe Greco
Tina chooses a “beat” postcard to send to a friend
and saw the Matthew Barney show at the SFMOMA
A beautiful view of the museum from street level
among many other things. There’s a much more comprehensive day-by-day description, with images, of what we did on Tina’s blog. I’ll just say it was a great week to visit friends, chill out, eat some really great food, and show my darling around the gorgeous city where I used to live. Of course, it was a little strange being there for the first time in eight years as a tourist and not a resident. Here’s a short poem I wrote our first day in town:
Short Poem Upon Returning to San Francisco
Looking out warped
Victorian window at stacked greens
of Buena Vista Park, lean
back on couch, Lacy on stereo,
baby asleep in next room, desire for
smoke, talk, old
streets and friends
to be as it
was, faces and places
returned to me
as it was
…yeah. It was weird. Next time we go somewhere, we kind of agreed it should be someplace neither of us has been before. Maybe Ireland? But now school’s started and I’m already deep into grading papers and getting set for my graduate classes. I absolutely love teaching. Where has it been all my life? (More to the point, where the hell have I been?) Here’s a list of the jobs I’ve done, resume-style, from most recent to the earliest one I remember:
Nonprofit Administrator for Rova:Arts (a great job)
Dog-walker (also cool, but not always so much fun)
Library page (pure hell at times)
Freelance writer/editor (not as glamorous as it sounds)
Dot-com worker (good pay, but extremely soul-destroying)
Proofreader for “The Ledge”
Proofreader for The Austin Chronicle
Proofreader for a translation company (all of these were rewarding at the time, but I wouldn’t want to do it again)
Rollerskater/cashier/cigarette clerk/produce guy at PACE Membership Warehouse (my last job through the end of college)
Cleanup dude/Donut guy at Meijer’s Thrifty Acres (pure hell, but had some cool friends)
Busboy at Big Boy’s (essentiailly got fired from two franchises)
Produce guy for local Italian market (my boss was a maniac who fired me)
Burger King worker (walked out of this job after one month)
Quasi-worker at parents’ tire shop (involuntary labor)
Paper boy for Detroit News (hated waking up on weekends)
That’s basically it. Most of these jobs, up to and including the most recent ones, were really only part-time gigs that I took so that I could write. I didn’t love doing any of them. The only one that lasted more than a year or two was the Rova job, but that was only because it was extremely cool and flexible. I dig teaching, and hope that it turns out to be something I can do (and get hired to do) from here on out.
Of course I forgot to mention my two most recent jobs. Over the summer, I worked as a lifeguard and as a wage-schlub in the school library. It was pretty easy work, and I was grateful to have something to keep a little money coming in during the lean months. But it was also a bit humbling to be making minimum wage, as I was at the library, and it further reinforced my desire to become a really good teacher so I can keep doing this.
You were such a wonderful guide, darling. I loved it. Everything. The city, the food… And all of your friends were so nice and so nice to me. Good times.
And you’re doing great as a new teacher!
PS–I can tell exactly when that poem was written. 🙂
Worst job I ever had: loading chickens. This was just a one day thing, when the chicken truck came around to this farm owned by my music teacher’s husband. (I was in high school.) But anyway, we had to grab three chickens in each hand (by the legs) and hand them up to some dude on the truck who shoved them into crates. It was summertime, very hot in the chicken coop (which was really more of a long, football-field sized shed) and the manure was pequant, to say the least, so we wore masks, which made it even hotter. The worst part was how the chickens would scream when you grabbed them. To my ears, it sounded like they were saying “Help! Help!” Also, they would whack your arms with their beaks. These guy I knew got into trouble for drop-kicking a chicken that pissed him off. I’m sure this whole experience contributed to my eighteen month flirtation with vegetarianism.
Best job I ever had: teaching, also.
you should ask tina sometime (if she hasn’t told you already) why she became a vegetarian. one girl in my early class said that she was a vegetarian, except she does eat chicken. why chicken? never did find out. nancy’s also got a good story about buying a chicken in asia…
Andrew, don’t ask. You don’t want to hear about headless chicken and slaughtered pigs. Or do you?
And David, honey, PLEASE tell that girl that she is NOT a vegetarian if she eats chicken. I mean, how ridiculous is that. “I’m a vegetarian, except I eat chicken.” *cough* bullshit *cough*
Which reminds me of this great cartoon I had on my fridge. Two witches are sitting at the dinner table, and one of them is saying, “I’m a vegetarian, with an exception that I still eat small children.”
My worst job was selling ice cream out of the bike-type fridge. I had to play this one CD all day long; it almost drove me insane. And the worst part was dragging the bike to and from work every day. Luckily, the fridge had gone kaput one day, and I went to answering the phone for pizza delivery. Which was awesome because I got to eat pizza all day for free, and all I needed to do was pick up orders. Plus the people who worked there were cool. One of them was my brother. 😉
Welcome to the teaching club / clique / coterie. I’m sure your students will thrive on your ideas and ethusiasm.
Boy was I sore after yesterday’s match, by the way.
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