Off Day

Had those days before, have you? Those days where little trivial activities turn out to be nigh impossible, that life seems to thwart you at each turn. I had a day like this a while back, on a deliciously entendre drenched day off from work.

This day started early, when I went to move my car. When I used to get off work so late, I would drive around for nearly a half-hour looking for a spot to leave my car, sometimes significantly far from our apartment. Nowadays I park as close as possible, but need to get up early to move it. That's the trade off. Either park far and add to the stress of searching for a spot and sleep in, or park close immediately and wake up early to move it. I should get up early anyway.

This day, I bounded off for the car, but the spot I wanted to move it to was on street-cleaning hour, so, halfway to the car, I turned back and went home, realizing that the timing of the move would have to wait up until the last moment possible. This was a minor annoyance. I was off and had things to do and wanted to move the car early, but couldn't. I went home and read the paper for an hour (twenty minutes at best--gotta love the LB Press-Tribune). I eventually got the car where It needed to be.

Next I wanted to try out the new coffee shop in the Hotel Broadlind, the Romanesque hotel I've written about before. I went inside--the decor is similar but slightly more subdued than the recently shuttered Sipology--with my own cup and ordered a cup. The baristo said I got a discount for bringing my own cup, I nodded like an ass, and then he charged me $2.19.

$2.19? Shit. I guess we, in America, have become too used to cheap food prices. It probably should cost that much. But at the moment in that coffee shop my blood pressure spiked.

At least the coffee was great.

Back at the apartment, which was frigid, I opened up the balcony door, only to feel how hot it was outside. Neither were completely true--obviously it wasn't as cold as the living room says it should be nor as hot as the balcony--but it was nice enough outside that it inspired me to go and get some pictures taken. I went down to the beach with my Holga (medium-format film camera), and out to the breaker where we went on New Year's. I figured I could get a nice shot of the ocean and city buildings if I climbed down onto the exposed rocks of low-tide.

The moment I got down onto the rocks I slipped and fell, getting a layer of green slime on my brand new shorts. I was wincing and noticed what looked like red slime on my hand, and I began to get nervous that we had a red-tide (a harmful algal bloom) and that I may get sick. I lined up the shot and took the picture. (It tuned out to be blurry.) I looked behind me and checked out the water: it was the normal color, and not red. That's when I noticed my thumb was sliced open, and there was even a shard of mussel shell that I couldn't dig out while standing there, a laughable combo of slimy and bloody.

I made it home and bandaged my thumb and changed my pants. I have some printing projects I'm working on, and that day I was going to go off to Kinko's and take care of some parts of it, namely the binding. I also had wanted to have a seat at that same coffee shop I went to in the morning and work on the "Is the Future a Foggy Street?" blog post, using their free wi-fi and working on this site in a public setting.

I grabbed my paper projects and lappy and walked over to Kinko's. On edge already, I fought with the staplers they provide at our local shop. Corrie called while I was inside, and I tried to let it go and calm myself (I was cursing loudly in hoarse whispers at the printing shop). I finished up the call from Corrie (who was calling on her lunch break), and headed over to the Broadlind's new shop.

I had a seat, and got on the internet just fine. It was just my blog that I couldn't get to. I even followed the intense proscription on how to fix the problem that the lappy gave me, only to see that the switch I was to turn off was already turned off.

My blood pressure spiked again. I closed the lappy and went home. I had some other projects I wanted to do, more digital photography, namely going to the tops of parking structures and taking pictures looking down over the city. It's a little something I like to do. I've hit up most of the structures in Long Beach, but there was one that I still had my eye on.

Biking some of the day's stress out seemed like a good idea at that time, and after dropping off my printing projects and lap-top, I headed out on my bike to the structure. I should have noticed that there wasn't an easy opening on the street level. Maybe I did notice, but I didn't register the importance. As I rode up I noticed an elevator on Level 2. I went inside and pressed the "Roof" button. Nothing happened. I thought that was weird, and started out on my bike going up the spiraling driveway. I was met three-quarters of the way up by the fuzz.

Building security had been on me, apparently, from the moment I brought my beach cruiser into the building. What I took to be a parking structure was actually the parking lot of the otherwise tightly guarded Southern California Edison building, the supplier of electricity out here. They told me in no uncertain terms that I was trespassing and had to leave immediately. I shook my head and turned to leave.

When I got to the bottom of the driveway another security guy was waiting and stopped me to collect my information. I momentarily thought about bull-dozing him with my bike and speeding away. As I approached the trying to block me, the guy I contemplated running over, I remembered that this is in a half-mile semi-circle around my house, and I'm a bike riding character in this neighborhood, and I'm too old to have the cops coming after me for trespassing and assault.

The guy took my name and address, didn't really buy my story ("I like to go to the tops of structures and take pictures..."), and told me never to return.

No...problem.

Feeling like I'd been thwarted all over today, with a sore hip and sliced thumb, with my name and address having been added to the list possible So. Cal. Edison evil-doers, I decided the one thing that would be hard to screw my day up would be my little friends Beer and Whiskey. I rode around angry for a few minutes before deciding to visit the Auld Dubliner, an Irish pub in the vicinity, hoping to find a friendly ear to bitch to over the course of a shot and a beer.

I ordered some fancy beer (it came in a bulby glass with a stem--with a stem!--another thing that has been getting on my nerves)(can't a brother get a regular pint?) and a shot of Jameson. I had a quick talk woth the bar-keep, who did offer a friendly disposition for my stories from my trying day. When he offered a second shot or beer I said no thanks and asked for my check.

It was $16.02.

Excuse me? It was 2 in the goddamned afternoon! I looked at the paper bill and saw that I was only charged for one been and one shot.

As I made it to my bike I looked over my shoulder for a phantom to come out from the shadows just to kick me in the balls.

Being a lightweight now, generally, when I got home I was too buzzed to work on that post I'd wanted to work on earlier, and ended up taking a nap. I slept for a while and fell behind on what I wanted to do for dinner.

Overall, my days are never this hard. I've also gotten better at dealing with stress, even in the interim. I don't let things get to me like they did on that day. To prove it, I guess, I did actually get the foggy-street-metaphor post finished that "day", started right before midnight turned the day to Thursday.

I showed that day: World-7 (car; coffee; fall; stapler; internet; trespassing; drinks), Me-1 (nice little blog post).

All in all, I've been a glass half-full kind of guy for the past few years, only to see the stress from work eroding that goodwill for the world. This day specifically made me realize that that half-empty negative-jerk Pat might be returning. That realization helped me even on the day itself. My car made it where it needed to go with no tickets; the coffee was great and I supported a local roaster; I did get a few usable staples to work; I wasn't actually arrested at the power station; and I should realize the riviera nature of the exact 'hood where the Auld Dubliner lives yields only tourist prices. The outcome: some trials, but a nice piece of written art was accomplished, so I do indeed win the day.

Keep plugging away, baby! It'll turn out right when you make it so.

When you make it so...