These essays contain references to drinking beer, not having sex, and even more offensive to most people, my opinions. You've been warned.
©1999 Dave Sipley
Usually on any flight, there is only one person near you who is even nearly worth looking at. I had an aisle seat, and my person-to-watch was a young woman sitting one row ahead and across from me. I could look over her shoulder and see the outing of her cheekbones. That was enough. Most women look better from behind, although there are glaring exceptions, of course. I estimated her age at "young" and later found out by eavesdropping that she was twenty. She was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and sandals, and had dyed hair pulled back behind her head. Good looking, but that's not the reason why I noticed her. I saw her because she looked scared, even from behind. She was gripping her armrests with both hands.
I ignored her for a while and played with the toys I'd brought on board with me. I wrote a little and tried to read, but I was still pretty high from my layover in NYC with Mark, and I couldn't concentrate. My eyes wandered around for awhile, and having little around to amuse myself, I started watching her.
She had rolled her seatbelt up into a long cylinder with her left hand, and she was moving her right thumb and forefinger along it, away from her lap and towards the end of the belt. As she got out to the end, she rotated her wrist around so that her third finger, ring finger, and pinky also ran along it. I guessed that she was using the belt as prayer beads, and was claming herself down by repeating a mantra or two. It calmed me down to watch her. It was very rhythmic. Too rhythmic. And it didn't take very long to figure out the beat: she was jerking her seatbelt off.
It was perhaps the best way I've ever seen someone wasting time on an airplane. She was being very discreet, but there was no mistaking it. She was soothing herself, or at least practicing getting some guy off. I went from mocking her for relying on prayer to admiring her creativity. IT was a wonderful activity for my aching head.
After a while, she must have gotten bored, because she gripped the aisle armrest with her left hand. She didn't hold it tightly like earlier, though. She cupped her hand around the front of it rather lightly, just grazing the metal. She would hold it there for a second, and then move her hand towards her, brushing it along the curve of the armrest. She pushed in a little harder with her fourth finger and put her pinky out as thought she were at tea.
At that point my interest in her was no longer academic. I started to feel it myself. She wasn't doing this for herself anymore, or if she was, I didn't care. She played with the armrest all the way past Cleveland and I felt every stroke. Certainly my favorite trip over Ohio. But even this would come to pass. She gripped both armrests tightly and leaned back in her seat. Her jaw moved forward a little bit, but the best part was her knees. She clenched them tighter together than her hands on the armrests. As she did so, her thighs pushed apart. She looked afraid, and it made her beautiful.
I was dying to see what would happen next. Every minute was a new torture. She relaxed and put her hands down. She put her chin out, barely perceptibly. Her lips were pursed. It was the first time that I'd seen them. She looked royal and haughty, proud of what she'd just done. Just like a woman. She held the pose for a second and turned to talk to her neighbor. I decided to thank her by placing the peace sign over my mouth. Just in case she turned around. She didn't, but I could still play too.
As the flight landed, she turned around and looked right into my eyes. Since I'd enjoyed the show, I'd kept watching her for more. Our eyes locked for a second and we both blinked and looked away. I wanted to thank her, but thought better of it. We got off the plane and went down the terminal in opposite directions.
I never spoke to her and saw her face only once. I never found out who she was performing for. It didn't matter. She was the best on that flight.
While in San Francisco's lovely [sic] Ramada Inn, I was in the lobby working on an earlier essay (number 2). I had great hopes for that one, but it came out sounding more like a letter to Penthouse than anything even remotely creative. Too bad. I had a nice couch all to myself in the lobby, when a large group of non-English speaking Arabic people came in and sat down all around me. They started making a lot of noise, and I assumed that they were trying to intimidate me into leaving. I was tempted, but I was there first, and was in the zone. I wasn't going to move.
A very pretty 8 year-old girl was sitting on her father's lap, looking over my shoulder. She seemed fascinated, but it kind of worried me: the title of the what I was working on was "The girl who nearly jerked me off on TWA 625." I didn't want an 8 year-old reading it; I don't want most people to read it. I turned at looked at her with New York written on my face, and said "You really don't want to read that."
Her mother leaned across the table and said in very broken English that she couldn't read English. After a while, I started to feel badly and apologized to both the girl and her mother. The girl's grandfather wanted to know about laptop computers. He asked how much mine cost. I was worried that they were plotting to steal it from me. Actually, he was trying to buy one for his son back in Syria.
We spoke for a while and they seemed to be hanging on anything that I would say to them. They would talk about it in Arabic for a while, and one of the group would ask another question to me. At one point, I sat there for a half an hour. I had no idea what they were talking about, but it was extremely animated. I thought that they had decided to ignore me and move onto another topic.
I was really tired, so I just sat back and tried to see if I could figure out what they were saying. Supposedly people can teach themselves to speak Russian by watching Russian movies. I wouldn't recommend either learning Russian or watching their movies to anyone. Then again, Syrian movies probably aren't that great either. I learned that "La la la la la" either means an emphatic "yes" or "no". Of course, I may have gotten the spelling wrong. And there may have been one more la.
Finally, the discussion came to an end and the mother leaned across the table. She said, in a way that may have been either an order or a question, "You come visit us in Syria." I tried not to laugh, and said, "Sure, why not?" It was agreed that I would take their name and phone number and call them when I decided to come. They would meet me at the airport..
The next day, I saw them in the lobby and took the cowboy hat that I'd brought with me from Tulsa for my first visit home and stuck it on the head of their 19 year-old son:good luck in the university when you get home and have fun in America. So if the US State Department ever decides to relax its travel restrictions to countries that promote terrorism, stop by and visit my friends. I don't know any of their names, but they live in Aleppo "behind the mosque". Tell them I say hi.
Added after the fact: This was my first solo installation, and if it wasn't for Jamie Flores of the San Francisco Department of Public Works MIS Department, I never would have survived it.
I'd fixed a problem at an installation and had received an e-mail asking me to document how I had done it. I was having trouble remembering individual cities, dates, and computer systems, so while checking in at Dallas for my flight home to Tulsa, I took out my notebook computer and starting writing about what I had done while it was fresh in my mind.
From behind me, I heard, "Gawsh. That must be an important thought that just can't wait." It was. The voice continued, "just can't live without that computer, can you?"
It had been a very long week and it was not my choice to be flying home at 9:30 PM on a Friday night. I observed that I was being dissed by a woman with sequins on her shirt. While one must be fairly tolerant towards idiots while living in West Virginlahoma, this one was not to be allowed past.
"Actually, I loathe computers. I never use them outside the course of my job. E-mail is a means by which my boss gives me more work to do. I never cared for them until I started to work with them full time, at which point my apathy turned to hatred. I do not allow them inside my home."
I must have hit the right chord for the trailer park. The woman responded, "Well, that's good." Meanwhile, the guy standing next to her, complete with crew cut, overbite, and a very distinctly dim look about him guffawed and added meaningfully, "I use a computer at my job for three times a week and not a second more."
I finished typing my note to myself and turned the computer off. Meanwhile, Mrs. Judd had shifted from first person to third person and was explaining to Gomer how "people these days just can't live without their laptop computers and beepers."
I got really annoyed at this, as my beeper also doubles as my insulin pump. It hardly ever receives incoming messages unless I am on a terrific bender. I turned and said in the best drawl that I could muster, "Begging your pardon, ma'am...." and I realized that I was not her prairie home companion, that I had no desire to be, and was therefore not responsible for rescuing her from electronic serfdom. I turned on my heel and walked down the terminal for a soda. It was a lot more polite than she deserved.
Ah reckon she'll be talkin' about me'n mah computor for years.
The next Wednesday, I was called into the company secretary's office and handed a beeper.
I don't know where I got the idea that I wanted to sleep with a girl from Oral Roberts University, but to say that it was divinely inspired would lead me into being at odds with my beliefs. Therefore, I place responsibility for it on an Oral Fixation. Still, I can see where the casual observer, depending on their particular outlook, might attribute such inspiration to the reigning deity of either heaven or hell.
I brought the matter up in front of the Village Board, which is what we call our circle in Tulsa. April spoke first, and as was usual when April spoke, there was no need for anyone to speak second. She asked if I had ever seen a Cohen brothers movie. Since they weren't the Zuckers, who blessed us with the Naked Gun series, I was not familiar with their work by name. April then filled me in: the Cohens write about how you can't unleash a little bit of evil. For example, see Raising Arizona, which is a 'perfect' example of their work. (Of course any movie with Nicholas Cage in it is bound to be worth seeing.)
April continued by pointing out that capital C Christians are a lot like evil. There is no such thing as unleashing a little bit of Christianity. She gave me one week before they had made my life an absolute living hell. But as anyone who has studied me or my relationships would tell you, one week is about the length of time I remained interested in Jackie, Tracy, or Dana, three of my four lovers since high school, and I gave them considerably more credit than my friends did. (This is also about six-and-a-half days longer than my interest in my own short stories, before you go thinking I'm a self-centered, insensitive pig.)
I only hope that next week will be interesting. And even if not, Christians have got to be better than nothing at all, which I believe is called a "Null Hypothesis" when experimenting. It would mean that for the first time I would know that a girl wasn't faking it when she said, "Oh, God, yes...."--whether or not she was faking it. That piece of heaven is worth a little bit of hell. As long as I can keep her leashed.
Last week, I drove down to the Victory Christian Center and could not force myself to get out of the car. I couldn't do it. I'm not going to beat myself up for it. There's got to be a better way.
I hate Texas.
I've never been there and not had it demonstrated by a local what a waste of land the whole freaking place is. I've never met a Texan with a sense of humor. They think that their state is the best, when in reality, it is a complete wasteland. Especially the inhabited parts. They are a state of 30 million or so assholes. And I've never even been to Houston, which I've been told is the worst.of them all. It makes me sad to think that Route 10 is the same Route 10 that goes all the way out to Tucson, a place where I have a lot of happy memories. It's got to be a long and sad 1300 miles.
My first exposure to Texas was when I was told by a store clerk that "Y'all don have a ver thic akkzent fer someone frum Newyourk." I thanked her politely.
The next time I was there, I asked the clerk's recommendation for beer. He asked what I liked. I said dark and bitter. He popped his retainer back into place and told me that Budweiser had a full body and a good, rich taste. I rolled my eyes heavenwards towards the god that had forsaken me, remembering the story by Robert Heinlen, where after the final trumpet blew, the devil purchased Texas and moved Hell there. I said "What have I come to?" and he replied "A dollar seventy-five."
The one good thing going for it was that my hotel room had a VCR in it. I'll always remember that San Antonio had the most cultured hotel I'd ever stayed at. I drove to a local video store and rented the classic Road Warrior movie, Beavis and Butthead Do America.
As I returned to my hotel room, I was behind two men, who were talking about some woman who lived by the ten commandments. As if this wasn't funny enough, they then said hello to the front desk clerk, who responded with so much indifference that it came off as being nothing short of completely indifferent. The two guys started talking about seeing if the movie was on. They asked me if I'd ever seen it.
What?
The Shawshank Redemption.
Good movie.
Great movie. I've seen it four times. Revenge is sweet, isn't it? Whatcha
got there?
Beavis and Butthead do America. I figured since I was in Texas, I'd
try to take in some local culture.
Where you from?
New York.
With a warmth that nearly caused him to spit his tabacco, he said, "Welcome to Texas."
The Republic of Texas. Be careful. You may never want to leave.
I looked at my watch and said I was counting the minutes.
Hey, like we've been telling everyone, you'd better be nice to us,
or we'll secede.
See ya. I got off the elevator.
It was as though fate intervened to help reinforce my beliefs: it usually does to help reinforce stupid belief systems like religon. The only restaurant open near my hotel in San Antonio was Hooters. I had a Testosteroneburger. I wasn't very surprised to see a native posing next to a couple of the girls. I wasn't surprised to see them walk away quickly afterward. I guess what surprised me was that the picture was taken by his pregnant girlfriend.
It makes me sad that my friend Clayton thinks that Texas is the Tits of Existence because if you walk onto someon's property after dark, they can legally shoot you.
I now have one wish: to buy a sidewalk in Dallas and rent an apartment several stories above it.
Since writing this essay, I have met some very nice Texans, namely Albert Mireles and the accounting staff at the San Antonio River Center Accounting Department. Even though it blows my thesis entirely, it was a real pleasure to work with them.
Since revising this essay, I married a Texan. I didn't mean to. It just kind of happened.
Some different perspectives on Jennifer Auguello, my dear friend, who I got to see while in Portland.
She was the only good thing that happened to me that entire week. She is the only reason that I have ever read Anais Nin, Henry Miller, and Charles Bukowsi. And while the first two aren't worth the paper they're printed on, Bukowski is the only thing that my father and I have in common.
Anais Nin:
Jennifer coddled me into the warmth of her personal glow, wherewith
I felt I did not, nay, could not leave the cocoon that had turned into
my trap. Et cetera ad repulsivium.
Henry Miller
Jennifer Augello is the greatest person in the world and anyone who
doesn't believe it is a fucking idiot who can kiss my ass and then some.
Dante
I can't put into words how wonderful Jennifer is because I am a shallow
idiot and therefore will leave the reader to invent their own scenario
but take several pages to do it over and over and over again.
Bukowski
If I just drink a little more, no one will take me seriously when I
say that I'm a human being that is entitled to a perspective, so fuck 'em.
Stamey, Mark
Yeah, I want to meet her.
Bev Becker (from the perspective of Dave for a perspective-within-the perspective)
Bev sort of knew Jennifer because of conversations that we had. She even had a special nickname for her that was wrapped up around Centrex evening staff lore. After the disastrous time that I told Jennifer in the same sentence that I loved her and that she didn't deserve to hear it, Bev called me on the carpet.
Bev. Why did you let her go?
Dave. Huh?
Bev. Why did you let her go?
Dave. Like I would expect her to stay in Syracuse for me.
Bev. Why not?
Dave. Get real Bev. Like I would ever impose that on another human
being.
Bev. John Becker got me to stay here.
Dave. And you've bitched endlessly about it ever since.
Bev. But he did something about it. He asked me to marry him.
Dave. Oh. Shit.
Nietzsche
Compared to her, women just seem like women.
Freud
Dave exhibits a neurosis around Jennifer, which is to be expected when
desires of the ego clash. As he acts to keep from losing the object of
his affection, he actually drives it away. He's done it twice, and I'll
be damned if I can figure out why.
Sipley, Dave
As I listen to everyone tell me that there's someone out there for
me, I can't help but wonder, if not Jennifer, then who? I just wish that
when I was around her, I didn't feel like I was drowning.
Jennifer, I'm sorry that I'm such a jerk.
As I've said before in an essay that I hope you didn't read, there is one beautiful woman on every flight. Because there are hundreds of appallingly middle-class normal looking male Road Warriors like me on the road, getting to sit next to a beautiful woman is a treat indeed. Getting to speak to her is better, and having her be friendly is the ultimate prize. It happened to me once, and needless to say, it ended up being pretty weird.
I'd just left Jennifer in Portland. I've spent my whole life feeling like I've just left Jennifer off in Portland. Her being 3,000 miles away in Portland is like Tanja being 6,000 miles away in Germany. At the rate I'm going, I'll have women that I care about everywhere on the planet except where I am. However, I'm just being bitter--which is pretty much how I felt on that Thursday morning when I had to fly to San Diego.
While I was waiting for the plane to board, I sat down across from a really pretty woman. I've gotten good at that. It seems like it's an accident, that I had no idea whatsoever that the woman that is right in my line of view is a beautiful woman. I didn't even notice. (I travel alone a lot and am lonely all the time. I am entitled to look and my thoughts hurt no one.)
I sat at the very front of the plane when I boarded. That's one of the things that I like best about Southwest. I got to sit facing backwards in the front row of the plane. She was in the second boarding group, and I looked up as she moved a few rows back. When we landed in Sacramento, I was glad to see that she was also continuing on to San Diego. This time, she boarded first, and took the seat right next to where I had been sitting on the first leg of the trip. I had no choice but to sit next to her.
We started to talk. She was returning home from her first fall break from Lewis and Clark College in Portland. Like Hamilton, it is a small liberal arts college. She wanted to major in sociology. I told her that my father had a master's in sociology from Columbia, which was close enough to be true. She mentioned her sister, who was a vegan who ate no fat and had a very sensitive stomach. I asked how they played. I've become very interested in comparing my experiences growing up with Kristin to others' experiences with their sisters.
She got a really faraway look in her eyes when she told me about how cool Volkswagen Vanagons are. I got faraway myself when I told her about Kyle's old VW bus. Different generations, same idea. She offered to have her sister drive me to the hotel where I was staying and I decided that I would offer to take them both out to lunch. I was really enjoying talking to her.
Out of all of my travels over the past several months, she is the only interesting person that I have met.
I gave her my card and found out that her name was Sara. She was distressed that I had checked my bag and would have to wait for it, but I said I would take her up on her offer. She will never have any idea how much I appreciated it: when a girl talks to you after weeks of loneliness, it reminds you why you bother staying alive.
And I had physical needs too in addition to my mental ones. I had a swelling in my nether regions that was threatening to blow out some of the lower parts of my body. I didn't think I'd be able to hold back any longer. I thought that given our intimate discussions on the plane that I would be safe in revealing this to her when I mentioned my pressing needs and singular overwhelming desire:
Could you wait here for a minute? I really have to go to the bathroom.
She turned on her heel, making some kind of flabbergasted noise and walked away. I never saw her again. And I will never know why. I will never know if she had a good spring break. I will never know if she really believed what she was saying about her sister or was just covering up for her obvious anorexia. I'll never know if she was as happy to talk to me as I was to talk to her. I came out of the bathroom, got my bag, and spent a terrible couple of days in San Diego.
Jim Cheeseman told me once that if I ever found Sam Adams Triple Bock and had a job that was paying me six figures, I should buy a bottle and try it.
I decided one night that I was going to act like a normal human being and leave the cocoon of my hotel room for a local shopping mall. After buying myself a couple of ties and a shirt, I had another panic attack as I realized that I did not know what city I was in. They happen a lot now, so I'm getting used to them. (They aren't as bad as forgetting what room number you're staying in, though.)
I decided it was time to medicate myself against thinking too much by getting some beer. There was a shop in the mall that sold exotic beer. Beautiful bottles of stuff from all over the world. And some eighteen year old kid told me that I could put together a six-pack for twelve bucks. I couldn't believe it. I felt like a nymphomaniac in a porn shop.
You mean that I can pick six bottles out of all this stuff?
Yup.
Any kind of bottle?
Well, as long as they're twelve ounces. You can't take the big ones
like the Foster's.
(Foster's. The Australian equivalent of Corona. Crystal Light packs
more of a punch. I'll just have to suffer.)
Well, then. I guess I'd better get to work.
I bent over a four-pack labeled Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. It was the only beer I'd ever had while in Tucson, and I practically had to fight Erika for the right to drink it. I've been very fond of it ever since. The only problem was that these bottles were not Mr. Smith's Beer. They were smaller and pitch black. The gold script on the front said "Sam Adams Triple Bock." Eight point four five ounces. Suddenly I remembered where I was so that it would be possible to come back. And it was the prettiest little thing that I'd seen in St. Louis, if you can believe that.
I put two in the six-pack so that I wouldn't arouse suspicion by taking six of them and filled up the rest of the box with English stouts. I had really scored. I said to the kid that I needed to pay. I wanted to leave right away. And the manager walked over.
She pointed out the small print on the sign that said that certain beers would cost more than two dollars in a six pack. In fact, she said "That's going to be a really expensive six-pack. Those Triple Bocks are five dollars each and they don't even count among your six. Those two are an extra two dollars a piece and those two are an extra dollar each."
I said that I was led to believe that the whole six-pack would only cost me twelve bucks and turned to put them back on the shelf, hoping she'd give in. As I did so, the bottom fell out of the six pack, shattering five of the six bottles and popping the cork out of my only remaining bottle of Triple Bock.
I am so sorry.
Don't worry about it. It's just beer.
Just twenty eight bucks worth of beer. And instead of being twelve dollars worth of beer that could have been put to good use by yours truly, it was suddenly a problem of waste disposal. Their problem of waste disposal. I picked up another single bottle of Triple Bock, paid for it and drank it while waiting for my cab. If I'd had two, I'd have been put on the waiting list for a liver transplant.
If you ever find a bottle of Triple Bock, drink it. Thanks for the tip, Jim.
I was in Las Vegas this week. It was a very long week. I should have known it was coming when I saw that the hotel whose computer I was coming to install was not yet built. There were bulldozers and construction guys everywhere. To make matters worse, there were other computer installers there, still installing the computers that I needed to connect to. Things weren't going well for them either.
My first night out, I walked down to the nearest large casino and started playing the nickel slots. On my five dollar investment, I had soon made 25 dollars. I used it to buy some beers and pull on various handles for the rest of the evening.
One of the interesting cultural phenomena of Las Vegas is the fact that prostitution is legal. However, in some places it is more legal than others. All along the strip were signs stating that the act of "Off-premises solicitation" was illegal in the resort district. The local ladies of somewhat less ill repute got around this with liberal usage of first amendment law. There were several different newsletters advertising various services and phone numbers that were free for the taking (the papers, NOT the services). It's safe to say that I saw more naked women on the streets of Las Vegas than any other city that I have ever been in.
The next night, I went out for a walk. It doesn't take a marketing expert to figure out where things are cheap in Las Vegas. The casinos want to keep you inside. They're cheap. Leave your hotel, and you're a tourist and have to pay the high prices. I wandered into casinos to see how long it would take me to find the bar, the restroom, and the exit. It may sound easy, it's not. They seem to be circular, and everything that I was interested in was in the back. If there is such a thing as the back of a circle. The more of those $1 drink specials you find, the harder it is to leave. I walked for about 300 miles and decided that I'd had enough. I stopped to wait for a bus. When it finally showed up, I didn't have correct change. A local guy gave it to me--and he refused to take my full dollar back as compensation. That was really cool. Come to think of it, a lot of people wished me good luck while I was there. I don't know if they were laughing while they said it or not.
My legs were absolutely killing me, but I decided to go in to Slots o Fun because I knew that all of my friends (the ones that matter) would have fun making puns on it. I decided to play the $1 blackjack because one time I'd sat and watched my co-worker Paulette play blackjack at the Turning Stone Casino in Oneida. She looked so cool that I knew that I could do it too. I quickly won the sympathy of the women at the table, who told me that I had the worst luck of any player they had ever seen. They didn't know me that well, so it probably surprised them. They taught me their Blackjack Philosophies, in direct violation of RW #11, issue 5. I played until dawn. I got cut off from the Heinekens that I was drinking with a Dutch guy at around 6 AM. We were speaking in German and pissing off the dealer. His friend thought my German stank, but I pointed out that he could still understand me. I didn't notice my headache until I got on the street at about 9, wiped out of my forty dollars.
The next night I walked into a wedding chapel. It was shaped like a very small church and painted white in the middle of the parking lot of a strip mall. There was a picture of Elvis right inside the front door. I had not gotten very far inside when I was approached by the proprietress and minister. She told me that several weddings had already gone on that night. I asked if I could see one. She told me that these marriages were private and intimate--just like I would want mine to be. I decided I was not going to contradict her. She was bigger than I was and wearing leather pants.
Las Vegas uses 2.5 times more water per capita than Tucson. Everything was so green that you'd never know you were in the desert. Everything was so bright and big that you'd forget that you paid for it. The slot machine was so cheery that you forgot to see how the people pulling the handle at the machine next to you looked like zombies. It was a very friendly town, just like the one in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. I left feeling like I was coated in slime.
I was having one of those little Crises of Existence when I got on the plane for Chicago. I wasn't sure if I hated my job because I worked too much or if I didn't work enough. I was pretty sure that I hated myself. I tried to look elsewhere for something to displace my frustration. South Bend, Indiana would ultimately give me that place--but I had to get there first. I sat down on the plane and started to do the crossword puzzle in the in-flight magazine. The woman next to me picked hers up as well. She had finished the whole thing before takeoff. I gave up after a while with a good case of Crossword Insufficiency to add to my Crisis.
I then tried to pick up a book I've been wanting to read for awhile: the philosophy of Sartre. My friend Sachin, who is either the first, second, or third smartest person that I know (I am not smart enough to judge) really likes Sartre. I read the first three pages two times and decided that the small amount of marijuana that I've smoked in my life (certainly no more than my body weight) could not have possibly stewed my brains to the point where I could comprehend so little. I've had similar experiences when trying to read condensed versions of Greek philosophy. I've decided that I am not stupid. Philosophers are simply windbags.
Therefore, I am introducing my rules of philosophy. The neat thing about them is that no one will care. An important part about them is that one should.
Now let's see how much I can spout before becoming bored.
Obviously there is an inherent connection between the two that exists because of the opposition. However these connections exist solely in the pre-conceived state, not a formulated one. Can one be bound by opposition to another? Of course. But this opposition is secondary to the connection that was pre-extant. The connection is not secondary to the opposition. This I will refer to as the intrinsic or natural state. This natural state is how we arrive at our ideas. But how can we really call an idea ours? In their natural state thoughts are raw and swimming among the collective psyche. Nothing original remains. You cannot go anywhere and not exist.
Now consider that in order to get a Ph.D. in philosophy, one must study for eleven years or so and contribute something original onto the dungheap. I won't. I gave up on Sartre after three pages and went back to the crossword puzzle. I finished nearly half of it before the end of the flight and felt good. After driving to the hotel I walked down to the convenience mart to get a six-pack. They told me that Indiana does not sell beer in convenience stores or in any kind of store on Sunday.
That is definitely not a part of my philosophy.
Tanja wasn't going to come into Amsterdam for 12 hours, so I walked through the city. There wasn't a hotel room available, and the thought of storing my bag in a locker didn't occur to me until about four in the afternoon. I walked for miles, stopping occasionally for a beer or a coffee. There's something about arriving in Europe that gets you excited to the point that you do not feel jet lag. All the walking, the fatigue, the cobblestones, and the weight of my bag had taken its toll on my chronically twisting ankles. If I'd been wearing my Nikes, I wouldn't have even noticed. But walking became painful everytime I put my right foot down on the ground. It was something between a twist and a light sprain.
(Although it has nothing to do with my essay here, I saw the Anne Frank house. It really blew my mind.)
Tanja arrived at about 11 PM and we took a train to Utrecht, where we got a hotel room. Utrecht is famous for something, but I cannot remember exactly what it is off the top of my head. It's in the Netherlands, though, in case you're interested. We went back to Amsterdam the next day for a while because I wanted to find hashish, a tattoo, and one of them temporary girlfriends. Although all were available, we settled for some cappucino. We then took a train back to Tanja's apartment in Bremen. We continued to do a lot of walking through the course of that week. It was a great week.
My train to Schiphol left at 3:45 AM and Tanja walked with me over to the train station. She didn't want to go inside because of the kind of people who hang out in train stations in Europe in the middle of the night. We said goodbye on the corner by the station.
I love you, Tanja Dippel.
There was a long pause and I started to walk away, wondering if I'd said too much, turning my head over my shoulder, watching her.
I love you, Dave Sipley.
I fell off the curve and landed on my bad foot.
I had a lot of fear when I headed to Tennessee. After all, it was the home of the archenemy of my youth: Tipper Gore. Tenneessee really scared me: it's one of those long, thin states like Nebraska that might have hundreds of miles between civilized points on the interstate. And if they elected Tipper Gore and her straightman sidekick Al, I knew I was headed straight to the heart of bible belting hell.
My fears were confirmed upon landing. The Knoxville airport is not served by an interstate highway. Interstates were designed as defense highways. People talk about the plot against the poor in my home town of Syracuse, which saw Interstate 81 form a border between slum and university. The plot was actually more insiduous than a demarcation: it was there to get the tanks in case any of the poor, weak, and hungry found themselves rioting one day. Since airports could be conisdered critical to military use and are used by thousands of people who need quick accesss that only an Interstate can provide, the highway will wind out of its way or provide a spur road to reach the airport. But not in Knoxville.
I drove up U.S. Route 129, keeping my eye peeled for cross traffic, not really sure which way to head, when I spotted a Taco Bell, which is always a good source for directions and a Chicken Fajita Supreme on my expense report. I asked the nice clerk how to find U.S. Route 58. The typical blank stare of an employee of our nation's greatest restaurant answered my question. He didn't know the way, but he would ask the manager.
After too long a wait, which is to be expected at Taco Bells nationwide, he came back and said that the manager didn't know either and asked where I was trying to go. I said Harrogate. I pronounced it like it was spelled: Hair-Oh-Gait. More blank stares. I used a trick that I never had to use even in the Netherlands and wrote it down on a piece of paper and slid it across the countertop. "Oh. You mean Hairygut. We pronounce things different down here."
Thanks. How do you get to Hairygut?
I don't know.
An older man in an Otis Elevator uniform who was also waiting for his food stepped in at that point. He told me that he knew that Hairygut was up by Oak Ridge and he would think of the best way for me to get there.
The entire exchange had taken so long that my food was ready, which is a pretty long time when you consider the slow service inherent to Taco Bell. I sat down to my Chicken and Vegtable Fajitas and decided that I'd return to the airport and get a map. I was just finishing my second Fajita when the man in the uniform came up from behind me and put a piece of paper down on my table. He'd written out directions and approximate mileages between turns.
I was simply shocked. People do not do that in the north. He asked if I was headed up to Lincoln Memorial College to give a lecture. I told him that I was going to install a new computer system at Commercial Bank. He shook his head. He knew the spot. The only time that I'd ever seen that before was when someone told a technician at the Albion Telephone company of Idaho that there was a problem at a certain phone number, and the technician knew the name of the family whose home it was.
Using the man's directions, I was able to find my way up to Hairygut. The Taco Bell (Express) there made the best Fajitas of any Taco Bell that I have ever been in. I found that the man that I was working for felt that most Tennesseans did not feel that Al Gore was one of them. When you think about it though, that pretty much goes without saying. The city of Hairygut has more cows than elevators, but the one that is there was enough to get me to town from the Taco Bell in Knoxville.
It is safe to report that Tennessee does not deserve its bad reputation. The people of the Cumberland Gap (Virginia/Kentucky/Tennessee border) were friendly, the countryside was beautiful, and they make great burritos. If only they'd get rid of Tipper.
Added after the fact: working with Howard Miles of Commercial Bank, Harrogate (Hairygut) was one of the most pleasant experiences of my career. When you work with people like Howard, you find yourself trying to do even better than your best.
One of the most difficult things to explain to people that don't travel is how much alike everyplace is. It's possible for me to find a Taco Bell just about anywhere in this great land of ours. People who don't know me very well often say, "You must have been about everywhere." It's not literally true, but symbolically, it probably is. I always used the same response: they have never sent me to Idaho. Then they sent me to Idaho.
It's always horrifying to fly into Salt Lake City, because it's a Delta hub, which means going through their godawful terminal at JFK. I rented a car and drove west accidentally and within a couple of miles was in the middle of nowhere, going eighty. I've been in a lot of areas surrounded by nothing but agriculture, but this was true old fashioned nothing-style nothing. Brigham Young must have had big brass balls to put a city in the middle of such a lousy environment.
I re-routed myself and drove north on Interstate 25. As I crossed over into Idaho, there was a sign that said something like "Road Becomes Completely Impassable During Blizzards Next 5 Miles". The exits started to thin out, and several were nothing more than access roads to ranches. After three long state highways, I was in Albion, population 290. I pulled into the hotel and played with the dog that lives there. The next day I went to work at the Albion Telephone Company.
The installation was only two days and only one remarkable thing happened during it. An operator told a technician that a phone number had called in to report problems, and the technician responded "Oh yeah, the Johnson place. They've got trouble because of their wiring." I'm trying to imagine that happening at Bell Atlantic.
I was working with a very nice but straight-laced woman named Mary Jane. She told me that there was a Taco Bell in Burley, which was about 25 miles up the road. She also recommended the two restaurants in town, which were right across the street and next door. Since the day was done fairly early, I set out for Burley. I got about two miles outside of town and decided that the road was bad and going to get worse. I didn't feel like daring the hill. This environment was nothing like the winters that I grew up dealing with in upstate New York. I turned around. A truck was leaving town and driving towards me. He slowed as he approached. I squinted my eyes to see what he was doing. Finally I figured it out: he was waving.
I chose the Dining Club across the street from the telephone company. I placed my order and the waitress/cook/owner pulled up a chair at my table. She asked if she could sit down with me because I looked lonely. It was the third time that day that I'd been absolutely shocked. I said sure and we talked for two and a half hours. She told me that most of the people in the area were LDS, which is what the Mormons call themselves. She knew everyone who walked through the door or a member of their family. She was very interested to hear that I was originally from upstate New York, as she was descended from Joseph Smith, who led the Mormons west from a spot near Rochester. I had to admit that I'd never seen their pageant, which is supposed to be one of the coolest things to happen in upstate every summer. She suggested without being obnoxious that I go and see it sometime when I had a chance. Her two adult daughters came in and got some ice cream and talked for a while as well. What a pleasant evening.
The next day I finished the installation and prepared to leave for the next site in the middle of Utah. Mary Jane handed me a check as I walked out the door. I asked her what it was for.
Our instructions for payment were fifty percent up front and fifty
percent on completion.
Well, they don't mean that literally. They'll send you a bill.
We meet our responsibilities, Dave.
(The fourth shock of the week.)
Mary Jane was concerned with the distance that I had to travel to get to Price, Utah, where my hotel was. The road went through the mountains, but I just kept driving, and the weather held. The next morning I set out for Emery, Utah but left the map in the trunk. After about 45 minutes, I saw a sign for another town and decided that I would stop there and check my directions. After another 15 minutes was a second sign, saying that town was 37 miles away. I turned around. There were no other roads intersecting the one that I was on for at least 50 miles.
Space is different out there in the mountains. They surround you on all sides and are huge, floating past in slow motion, making you not realize that you're driving at ninety miles per hour. Their hypnotic effect had made me lose all track of time and distance. It was the most beautiful scenery that I've seen in America.
I was late getting to the installation because I'd been steaming around central Utah for most of the morning. My nationwide pager wasn't working, so there was a message waiting for me when I got to the second site to call Clayton in the Tulsa office. Usually I call Clayton, not vice-versa, so I called right in to find out what was wrong. He told me that Mary Jane had called in that morning to ascertain that I'd made it to Price safely.
This is one of the favorite installations that I've ever performed because it was so unusual. I suppose if there is anything sad about the experience, it's simply that I was astounded or shocked by simple acts of human decency.
(The title of this one is ripped off directly from one of my father's short stories.)
The week that I went to Akron, I was horribly depressed. I don't wish to imply that the two facts were anything more than casually linked, but both are true: I was depressed, and I was in Akron. I called my sister Diana, who is the closest thing that I have to a twin. Before kicking my ass into a better frame of mind--something that's easy to do when you live with your head up your ass--she offered to mail me some of her chocolate chip cookies. I knew the situation was far more desperate. I needed immediate action. I saw that across the street from the hotel was one of those gigantic grocery stores that looked as if it would be open late. I found my beautiful looking plastic tin of cookies and went home to the Hampton Inn full of excitement. I learned two things that evening: Big K is not an Akron grocery store chain. It is a gigantic K-mart. Their cookies suck.
Tuesday was bad, but Wednesday, things started looking a little bit better. On Thursday night, I went back in there to pick up some toothpaste and razor blades. It was late and I was hungry, desperate for anything to eat. I rounded a corner and started eyeing the cheese hungrily. Suddenly, a black guy over by the meat with his girlfriend started talking to me
-Excuse me, has anyone ever told you that you look like Seinfeld?
-No.
-I saw you in here earlier in the week, and I said to myself that you looked like Seinfeld.
-I've been in this store for ten minutes in my entire life, and you've seen me twice and flagged me as a Seinfeld clone?
-Well, I don't think that there are two guys out there who look like Seinfeld.
-Well, now I'll just go and shave my head. Will that help? I am really offended.
I turned to the girlfriend
-What is the deal with complete strangers commenting on your looks, anyway?
-Hey man, I wasn't trying to be insulting. It's a good thing.
He didn't get the joke. Obviously even less of a fan than I am. Only six more days until I leave.
Whatever.
**************
Scene 2
**************
I forgot about my laundry. The hotel where I was staying had no facilities, but had an agreement with the hotel next door. I threw my stuff in the dryer and went out looking for a pizza. By the time that I came back from Taco Bell, I had forgotten the laundry. I remembered at 1 in the morning. I figured I was safe. No one does laundry at one in the morning on a Saturday except me.
I walked into the laundry room and saw all of my laundry piled up on top of the dryer. The t-shirts, jeans, boxers, and pink sundress. Oops. The sundress was actually a woman taking her things out of the dryer. I had committed the ultimate laundry sin. It wasn't that I had left my clothes in the dryer, it was merely that I had been caught doing it. I apologized profusely.
-It's OK. I've been cursing you under my breath.
My "Fuck You" reflex seems to diminish when I'm not in New York. I started folding my laundry and got a good look at the woman. Quickly I turned back to folding the laundry. I'm not positive that natural human hair occurs in quite that shade of red. It looked like sumac.
-I have children your age, you know.
-I never would have guessed. (How do I get this to stop?)
-Well, you've just saved your soul a little bit.
-What a relief that is too me. You have no idea. So how did you know that I was 29?
-Well, I have daughters who are 29 and 34 and they are both looking for apartments because they just broke up with their boyfriends.
-That must be very hard on them.
-Yes they need me right now. I could tell you were a man because you had put whites in with your dark clothes. I would have folded this for you, but you are a stranger, and this is your underwear. One is a blond and one is a redhead.
-And I am a stranger. (The last blue-stained white t-shirt was folded. I stuffed all the socks into the laundry bag and headed for the door. The harridan would not stop.)
-Eat your heart out.
-Don't tempt me, ma'am. Don't tempt me. You don't want that.
As if.
****************
Scene 3
****************
As I walked past the front desk on the way into the hotel, I heard the clerk say to the security guard just a little too loudly
-I'm sick of guests looking at me as though I enjoy spending my Saturday nights here.
I turned towards the desk.
-Do you expect me to feel sorry for you? I'm here too.
-Don't forget to set your clock back tonight.
-Did you receive any packages for room 318?
-No.
So I get a bonus hour in the Happy Hotel with no hope for getting Diana's chocolate chip cookies. Tomorrow is Sunday, and next week, I play in Canton.
Great.
Maybe he meant Springer when he said Seinfeld. I can only hope.
I promised the head of the technical support staff at "LaserFault" that I would someday write this story, and he promised to read it. Kyle was a good guy, so I won't insult him personally even though the Tulsa/Reading connection would be evident to most northeasterners. Kyle is not what's wrong with "LaserFault", but I've probably stained him at that company for saying so. On the bright side, their products are so shoddy that as the head of the technical support staff, Kyle will never have to worry about unemployment like I did. He is not expendable during their frequent downturns in business.
The past goes blurry and I am transported back to a beautiful, warm winter day in Coral Gables. Even better, I'm transported to the Biltmore Hotel, which was massive and ornate. Even better, I was working with a staff of computer people that had enough sense not to buy one of "LaserFault's" servers. These guys were talented. It was an easy installation.
But like my stay at the Ritz Carlton Palm Beach, I was completely out of my element. I simply do not like fancy getups. I feel strangled in restaurants. I drove into town and stopped at the Burger King. I ended up eating there two nights in a row. The secretaries at the office always loved calculating my expense accounts.
It was after dark when I returned to the hotel. A woman was waiting for the elevator. She appeared a little agitated and said, "I can't believe this it's unreal would you like to spend the whole night with me?" and got off the elevator. Living alone in hotel rooms had made my conversation skills deteriorate a bit. The door was closed before I'd even processed what she'd said.
Well, let's see. I'm lonely. I've been single forever. I'm in a strange city with nothing to do but watch late night cable. Of course. I settled into my hotel room for an evening of late night cable. Then I started to think. How long have I been alive? And in that time, approximately how many strange women walked up to me in a hotel lobby and asked if I wanted to spend the night with them? Okay, so chances were extremely good that she was a pro. But I didn't know for sure. She could have been a lonely, single Road Warrior. I had to know.
I was reading The Power Broker, Robert Moses' biography. It was a fascinating history of how Moses' ego tripping messed up New York. Most people just know that he has a dam named for him. He would have preferred Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, but no one ever suggested it. Justice was served.
I took the book down to the floor where she got off the elevator, sat down in the lobby, and started reading. She came around the corner and pressed the elevator button, turned, and looked at me. Absolutely nobody hangs out in elevator lobbies. She recognized me immediately.
- Hi! Were you, uhh, waiting for me?
No, I wasn't. I just couldn't sleep.
- Oh. Would you like to go somewhere and talk?
(It's hard for me to relate this dialogue now. She was not being forward or obnoxious. She was not stupid. She was actually pleasant and polite. She could tell that I was uncomfortable and was being very soft and gentle.)
Well, I don't think, I'm not, well, it's not what you think...
- Why don't we go back to your room and talk about it?
Okay.
We started walking down the hall and everything started to move in slow motion. I felt like I was walking to the death chamber. She looked at the book, saw the title, and asked if I was a stock broker. I laughed and said no.
- Well first, I've just got to ask you. You're not a cop, are you?
No. Never.
- And that thing on your belt. Are you a journalist?
Not really. (I didn't feel like explaining that I knew then that I would write this story.) I'm a diabetic. It's not a tape recorder. It's an insulin pump.
- Really? So am I.
She told me her name. I can't remember it. We got to my room and went inside.
Back in Syracuse when I was working at Centrex, there'd been an article in the newspapers about prostitution. Some local vice cop had said that 25% of all men will solicit a prostitute at some time during their life. I told Bev that there was no way this was possible, and then checked the story's numbers. They checked.
(I haven't finished this essay yet. I will some day. I didn't sleep with her. Stay tuned, but it's really not that interesting.)
Copyright Dave Sipley
My Homepage