WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS THERE'S ALWAYS THE GARDENER

The alarm doesn't wake me. Or it doesn't go off. Or I've learned selective dreaming--sort of like selective hearing, only, when one is in REM sleep...Just as I shake myself onto the floor from the futon, realizing I have the choice of pulling on jeans, and Uggs and making it out to my truck to move it before Ticket Time, or instead, rolling over, sucking up the possibility of the wrath of the City of L.A., and trying to find another dream... guess which motivation wins? Of course, the fact that I've barely fallen asleep (because of back-to-back HELL-RAISER films) contributes to the choice, but, I'm not thinking of that as I sink into a coma.

No sooner do I realize it is now past the safety zone,when it is like Leatherface, from all the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRES, has suddenly camped outside my second story window. This is not the gentle buzzing of lawn liners. O no. This is full on chainsaw turbo power, not only screaming in decibels clearly illegal, but also tossing branches, twigs, possibly dead birds, up, into the air two flights, and hitting the windows with thuds! It is barely nine a.m. and this guy is in the small path between my building and the the house,next door. Working between the trash cans and too- small- wooden fence that separates us. Arrgh!
Of course, the neighbor's bushes are on the opposite side of his house from HIS bedroom. And while he and his roomies are at home at least as much as me (this is L.A.), they could be snoozing soundly, on the other side, not giving a rat's ass about all of us, being terrorized by his gardener.

I pull the covers over my face but am soon strangling from heat and lack of O2. I try the ergonomic pillow over my head. Likewise: sauna-effect. I turn on the t.v. remote--something with a soothing sound track or background music. It's TELE-TUBBIES or TERMINATOR--nothing in between. I try focusing on my breathing: one breath in, I take in the cacophony of the Universe; one breath out, I release peace, harmony, tranquility around me. Doesn't Buddha say that all sounds are the same Sound? What would Jesus do? (I am increasingly sure He would go out and scream at the gardener with the illegal motor, so early in the morning, so close to neighborhood bedrooms...) I fall off the futon, face planted on the bamboo rug. (It's nine-o-five a.m.)

I stagger to the bathroom, turn on the water, take a short, hot,shower, still able to hear the sound of the buzz saw through the stream. In clouds of misty peppermint, I shake my hair out, brush my teeth, finish the daily ablutions and get dressed. Cars are exploding and motorcycles are chasing each other through L.A.'s drainage system, on my t.v. I pull on my gray hi-top sneakers and my black hoody. I grab my keys. (I've just read, on the Net, that one cannot succumb to depression and isolation during long terms of unemployment. One must get out into the world and renew even casual contacts.) One must re-inforce one's sense of worth in the world. One must remember that one does count! Maybe the gardener was an angel sent to rouse me from my depressed slumber? (An angel armed with a chainsaw, but, an angel,nonetheless.)

Outside, the morning fog has burned off. The sky is that particularly intense blue that some L.A. mornings show off. Birds are singing again. The wind is fragrant with orange blossom and bougainvillea. Foot-traffic is light; just a few early walkers and their little dogs, bouncing down the street to their own beats. And the frigging buzz-saw is finally silent!

I smile. There are other gardeners, trying to do their jobs. Feed their families. Planting marigolds or trimming rose bushes. Their parked trucks are older than mine. I shouldn't be angry with them. God only knows what their back stories are...how their nights were and if they held any sleep. I think, suddenly, of border crossings, of desert walks with unreliable coyotes and forged papers; what would it be like trying to survive with a dozen people crammed into an apartment my size or not being able to speak the language to even begin to hunt for work... Suddenly, I'm ashamed I was upset with the loud gardening practices below me. I don't have to work in the sun for fourteen hours, straight, or come home smelling like sweat and fertilizer...As I walk to my truck, shaking my head at my own insensitivity, a free woman at nine fifteen on a lovely Monday in L.A., I see it waving back: a crisp new sixty dollar parking ticket.
(What, indeed, would Buddha say?)

CAR BREAKFAST BLUES

Okay, on Mondays, every single week, the truncated street block I live on makes those lucky enought to have secured a parking space, overnight, move for street sweeping. If your butt is not in the driver's seat with the engine growling, by nine a.m., the parking ticket lady--and it is always a woman officer that they send on Mondays--has already whipped out her pad and is writing a sixty dollar fine. No kidding. You've got to stay away, too. If you get back anytime before eleven a.m., she's usually cruising the block, like a shark waiting for minnows. Twice, I pulled up to the curb, my watch alarm informing me it was two minutes before eleven, my brain rejoicing that I was the first car, back, and could actually unload groceries in front of my building, when, pulling up, immediately behind me: ticket master! Luckily, I hadn't shut the motor off. I zoomed away, barely avoiding a speeding ticket, and drove exactly three minutes into the smog. When I got back, there was only one, compact- sized parking space left on the entire street. (It's like someone pulls the plug in a bathtub and all the water rushes into the drain hole. Cars just fill up and get sucked into the empty spots.) Somehow, by holding my breath and doing the back and forth side step with my truck, I barely managed. But, I was safe, at least long enough to unload two grocery bags and my backpack.

I know that I should be thankful to the Universe that I can still afford two bags of groceries for the week. I AM grateful. Seriously so. I am also grateful that my truck is in enough working order that I can make it to my choice of grocery stores. My budget is something that they teach you to manage in High School...so small that there is room exactly for the same items each week. Since my tiny "loft" is little more than a glorified 1920's rennovated hotel room with a bathroom, there is no kitchen and no real cooking challenges. Lots of take- out, in the old days of employment. Not so much these days. So, fruits, salads, soups, nuts and cereal, yogurt and the Glorified CoffeeMaker are my mainstays. Which, in the long run, can be its own blessing. Cleaner diet, better health, right? When one doesn't have health insurance any longer, these things begin to count in altogether new ways. So two bags of mostly fruits and veggies, plus coffee and creamer and breakfast cereal and soymilk and I'm set for the week. (Oh, of course toiletries...lest we forget those expenses...)

However, three Mondays a month, I take breakfast on the road, before going grocery shopping or doing any other errands between nine and eleven. But one Monday a month, I actually either have breakfast with friends or take myself to a sit- down -diner . I order pancakes or eggs and pretend I'm a grown up and this is the routine of a person with a job to attend, later on. (Who I am kidding, actually, is only myself. But, hey, it's Hollywood. Lots of single people at diners, hiding out in the want ads and entertainment columns. ) I've begun to enjoy a quiet breakfast by myself, those solitary Mondays. I admit, if I don't have a paper to read, I have a small, black notebook, filled with the latest writing I'm mapping out, or the occasional sketch for a new painting. Waiters seem to accept that I'm legit. (Or maybe they are all laughing into my omelette in the back...hmm....)But on the other three Mondays, it's breakfast ala Nissan. It's far from nutritious, but surprisingly delicious, sometimes...even if it is a bit like juggling practice.

My only complaint, really, is that lately, when I pull into the grocery store parking lot, (or any parking lot, for that matter) to scarf my fastfood and coffee I've been accosted. Even in the parking lot of the drive thrus ! This came as more than a minor shock the first few times: I mean, there I am, blurry eyed, uncaffeinated, in hoody and jeans, hair spiky and no make up, dark glasses firmly in place as I focus on the mac-something breakfast fastfood in my hand --suddenly-- there's a knock on the window, just two inches from my face! The first time, I dropped a country-fried burrito full of hot sauce onto my crotch and was so busy trying to wipe it up before it soaked through my levis, that I ignored the repeated banging on the window. The Homeless guy gave me the finger, shrugged, and took off. The second time, the window was wisely down, and I was sipping coffee from a papercup.

Believe me, they do not want breakfast...at least not my breakfast. "Hey, you got a dollar?" was the first request. This from a neatly pressed teen that was around sixteen and had perfect teeth. Looked like the kids I used to counsel at the Foster Care Agency. "Sorry, " I half lie, "I just spent it on coffee." He accepts it, gives me a grimace that is half a threat and half snide comment on my economic status, and moves on to a car parked in the next aisle of the lot--another single woman--struggling with her keys. I watch as he works the lot for over half an hour. Usually avoiding all the males and cars with kids. Then, finishing my coffee, I get out and do my grocery shopping. I'm not hungry anymore. The next week, it's a middle-aged man, grizzled looking, pushing two--two--full-loaded carts he has pinched from Trader Joe's. The nearest TJs is about two miles away, so, he's had these babies for a while. I have my keys already in the ignition but he gets me before I can set down the coffee on the dash. " Hey Lady, can you buy me breakfast? I see you got yours--" Yeah. I do. And all my "spare cash" has been sunk into it on that particular morning. I begin to explain. Before I can get a sentence out of my white, liberal mouth, he's already moving to the next car, across the lot of Burger King. He doesn't want my story and he knows I probably don't want his. These are desperate times.

I feel my face burning . I feel like crying. I only want a quiet breakfast; killing time before I get to go back to my monkish life. A forced exile to public parking lots--places that used to feel somewhat safe, if one minded one's business--if one kept inside one's own car. No place else outside that one could sit in peace and munch a breakfast roll. Hot tears to salt my hash browns? Why? Menopause? No. Embarrassment? Maybe. Guilt. Of course.

I've been brought up to give to the poor--since Catholic School. I've always done just that. Especially the less fortunate or merely unemployed around me. At work. In school. In the neighborhood. Always doling out money in drips and not so small drabs,when I had it. Even lending co-workers a couple hundred dollars, if they fell on emergency times-- never asking and usually not getting--it back. I shouldn't feel guilty,not now, when I'm barely scraping by. But I do. Sitting in my twenty- year- old- truck, scarfing cheap, poisonous fastfood that tastes decidedly delicious, about to sink fifty dollars into two bags of groceries and toiletries, on the edge of the Miracle Mile; knowing, after these morning forays with the Homeless, the Fakers, the Manipulators, the Crazies, the Truly Needy, the Buddahs, I will fight to find a parking place on my own street in a couple hours, and be able to return to my own space. At least for now.

Unemployed Writer Needs Work: pronto

It's going on thirteen months now. The non-profit foster kid agency went bankrupt and as its arts and education program director (in the midst of a city also gone bankrupt in a state teetering on the edge of its own financial ruins) I haven't found a suitable replacement job. The bitch is that it isn't about matching a salary. It's about quality of work. That is, doing what I am most qualified to do in the world--somewhere it is needed and necessary. What I have found, after thirteen months is this: in the middle of a very adventure-filled life; mostly spent in the company of brilliant people, interesting kids and a world of hurt humans; I discover that I can't find a job that can make use of my expertise. What the Hell is going on in America?

The "news" blasted in our public venues promises "recovery". The new president cries for people to dig deep; to look for problems with an eye on solutions; to make sacrifices for the good of those at risk. Well, President Obama and Co., here I be. I've been the Head Teacher of a university lab school for over twenty years--then that program changed directors and went under; I've worked with teen-aged hustlers in Hollywood as a street counselor, when the AIDS epidemic first hit; I've been a speechwriter for Democrat Sissy Farenthold, from Texas, and the first woman president of Wells College, in New York; I've published three novels, countless short stories, articles and reviews on everything from LGBT homeless youth to women's music over the past four decades; I've designed stained glass windows; I've had paintings in exhibitions and private collections from here to Europe; I've ghost written articles for politicians and book reviewers too busy to read the books they were being paid to review; I've illustrated underground textbooks for homeschoolers; I've given poetry readings coast to coast; I've run writing workshops for teens and adults and seen many of my students get published and begin their own forays into the world of writers; I've been a social worker and counselor with recovering people for thirty years and stand on my own 23 years of sobriety; now, most recently, I'm collaborating on a metaphysical book with my old meditation teacher and a screenplay biopic about a famous queer psychotherapist from the Human Potential Movement. Yet I can't find a job, anywhere, that makes use of any of these skills.

Now, I'm a blogger. So, America, who needs me? I'm here. Ready. Able. More than willing.
And funny as Hell. Trust me.