a man who was giving the woman waiting on him behind the counter a hard time because she had a speech impediment. I wish I had spoken up about it there and then, but I told myself it might embarrass her more — which was probably a lie.
That was atypical. Normally, I do speak up.
Which is why I get called names a lot.
it’s the upcoming election and my memories of Jan 6, 2021.
They’ll try it again. They always do.
I rode the Eight every morning. It was a pretty painless, brief trip (about 15-20 minutes) from downtown San Francisco to San Bruno Avenue, a predominantly Asian/Hispanic neighborhood. By the third stop (SOMA), I was usually the only non-Asian on the bus.
One afternoon on my way back to downtown from teaching, I sat next to a round, elderly, very cheerful Asian lady who seemed to speak very little English and who, out of the blue, offered me a small pin, a butterfly fashioned from blue and pink thread. At first I thought she was offering it for sale, but she made it plain it was a gift and she wanted me to pin it to my lapel. I did, and she smiled, vigorously nodded her approval then stared ahead, apparently satisfied. She got off at the next stop. I never saw her again.
It’s possible she was a grandparent to one of the children I taught, and recognized me from the school, but to this day I’m not sure why I warranted the butterfly. I still have it.
about whether everybody likes me or not.
I was a child when the first moon landing took place. We all gathered in front of the TV to watch it live. My parents were of that optimistic generation who imagined that by the 21st century, tourists would be visiting the moon, staying in hotels there, etc.
After explaining the terrible risks the astronauts were taking, and why they had to wear those heavy suits, what could happen to them if those helmets they wore so much as cracked, my parents told me confidently, “…and someday, you will visit the moon yourself!”
Which absolutely horrified me.
a single drop in the ocean.
When I was in high school I learned that two younger cousins of mine angrily confronted someone because they thought that person had been unkind to me. I was in high school and they were in middle school, a time of life when kids rarely stand up for someone with any trace of nerdiness (I had more than a trace of it.) I’ve never forgotten that.
…tucked into a rather grimy side-street. (Its sign was included in an expensive, nationally broadcast car ad back in the oughts, meant to conjure up neo-noir vibes. I think it involved a car chase.) It’s been around for decades, the late owner a Chinese-American local culinary patriarch whose descendants still staff and run the restaurant. Three dining rooms, energetic wait staff, delicously fiery food.
Since it’s close to an Imax theater, it used to be where local critics had dinner before attending advance screenings. I can remember eating there with Michael and spotting several in the dining room at other tables.
It’s not far from the Mechanics, so before COVID I either ate there or picked up lunch takeout at least once a week. I was on a first-name basis with them, and occasionally they added hot-and-sour-soup as lagniappe to my order. They still call me by my first name. Yesterday, when I had lunch there with a friend, the smiling waitress commented, “You still like this, eh?” as she served me my hot and sour chicken.
Back in the ’90s this was a question that used to crop up at job interviews. I hated it. Like “what is your greatest weakness”, it was less an honest question than a hoop held up to test my willingness to hop through it. The honest answer would be, “working at another company after you boost your stock prices by laying off half the customer service/admin employees” but I was supposed to sit up a little straighter in my seat and say something like “striving hard in my chosen life’s work of telecom/real estate ad management/heavy equipment sales contract processing.”
Now that I am retired and in my sixties, the answer is “looking around for a home without so many stairs.”
My Ipad, which is my book/camera/notepad/mailbox.
My biggin, which is not only beautiful, but makes good coffee. I’ve written about it here.
My cougar rock. It’s a piece of quartz I found while taking a walk on a mountain in North Carolina. I put it in my pocket because I had seen a video clip of a man being chased by a cougar and wanted to be prepared. Completely irrational, of coure. In the Western Carolina mountains I’d more likely encounter a bear than a cougar, and I don’t think bouncing a small rock off its nose would do any good if one were chasing me. Not much chance of meeting cougars or bears in the hills of San Francisco, though there are coyotes, and I do know someone who got bitten by a seal at Maritime Park. I just like the way the stone, which is just big enough for me to curl my fist around it, gets warm in my hand.
My suede ivy cap, which used to be my father’s. Now that I am a Woman Who Wears Hats, I use it on overcast days. It’s too big for me. I have to pin my hair up when I wear it, or it will constantly slide down over my eyes. I suppose I’m attached to it because I remember Dad wearing it. Sometimes, if I catch some murky passing glimpse of myself in a store window, I can see him.
Any one of my tarot decks, which I can use to tell myself stories.
At the public high school I attended, checking a book out of the school library involved signing it out on the pasted book card inside the back cover. I used that library a lot, to the point where I was friends with the school librarian. Once, I carried a book to the front and she opened the back cover and exclaimed, “but you already checked this one out.” I looked down to see what seemed to be my own autograph.
Then we noticed the date beside it. The last person to check it out had been my dad, twenty-five years before. We don’t have the same first name, but our signatures were the same illegible scrawl.
I never did, of course, but I could have signed off on my own report cards.
Pam Troy 