Lost and Found

Story Ideas.

I'll be in Chicago this weekend for the Fancy Food Show, which is always an adventure. A few highlights from last year include crashing a Mafia birthday party, taking my homophobe Creationist Boss into a wine bar with drag queens and beer with fruit in it, and, of course, the three hours spent at a restaurant called "Off Track Betting" where I watched the vice president of the company pretend to ride a horse while drinking steadily to the Kentucky Derby. "We kind of have a gambling problem," my boss says when I call to find out about dinner plans.

I'm certain that this year will bring more stories. For one, the Chairman of the Board has insisted that we fly separately, this year. He doesn't want the entire executive staff to expire should Southwest Airlines operate a plane in the same fashion that most of my co-workers operate cars. So I'm flying in late tomorrow with the Creationist Boss and his wife, while the vice president(s) fly in earlier (so they won't miss the Kentucky Derby, of course.)

In other news, I am being forced to attend a day of motivational speakers with some co-workers. I will be inspired by the words of Jessica Lynch, the founder of Kinko's and half a dozen other people who are better than I am. I will go in with an open heart and mind, taking vigorous notes. My goal is to bring you a full report sans sarcasm.

Really.

Math for Artsy People.

I'm filling an application for a sign permit today. Typically, this is a daunting task and includes many unreturned phone calls to government officials. So far, I've spoken with treasurer offices (both in our township and county), the department of transportation and the development department. Surprisingly, people have been friendly and helpful. People respond to messages and return my phone calls. They sit patiently with me when I ask algebraic questions, such as, "What is Mass Factor?"

(They don't know, either.)

People were just as friendly and informative when I called the IRS help line while filing my taxes a few weeks ago. Maybe it's the weather. Bush supporters keep saying the economy is better; if this is the case, then I attribute all of it to positive dispositions of public employees. They must be receiving Prozac in their paychecks.

My recent experiences make me almost want to head to the BMV to renew my license and registration. Almost.

So. Part of the aforementioned application requires me to know the height of the buildings in the shopping center. In high school Physics, I learned a formula that allows one to determine the height of a flag pole using the sun and some angles. Unfortunately, the only thing from that class that I remember is that in certain intersections, you can trigger a left turn arrow if you position your car over a magnet embedded into the road.

My solution to the problem? Measure the height of a brick. Take a digital photograph of each building, and count the bricks on the computer. It's not the most concise way, but it gets the job done.

The Romantic Post.

So I don't write about my amorous escapades on this thing. It may seem to the reader that my last four relationships have been with, in this order, NPR, a sandwich in Seattle, a song about drinking and, most recently, a sandwich in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's safer to gush over inanimate objects and constitutions. In the real dating world, Gentleman A has already left the "It's Just Not Going to Work Right Now, But Let's Still Hang Out" voicemail by the time I would even consider writing about him.

The gentlemen who don't make it onto this site will most certainly appear on future pages, under the guise of "fiction". I may add a few disguises: a fascination with eating all his food in alphabetical order, a severe allergy to roses, a mother who e-mails him a description of what to wear each day. But there will be vaguely recognizable facts, as well. Coming to mind is a story based in London wherein the heroine purchases an M67 Fragmentation Grenade to use against a lover who interrupts coitus to vomit.

I digress.

I have a new crush. Today I received my new PowerBook. It's cute, and it wants to play. It wants me to install software, learn how to use the wireless internet, play around with iTunes. But, like a proper girl waiting for marriage (or the third date, at least), I must be strong until five o'clock this evening. I can flirt, steal glances and even occasionally click on an icon. But if I dare install Photoshop and Microsoft Word, I risk moving too quickly in the relationship. I'd undoubtedly have to assign my PowerBook a nickname, and within three months you'd be reading a post starting with the sentence, "When I first met P, I knew he had a problem; if I left him alone for more than three minutes, he'd go to sleep. I should have paid attention to my instincts…"

Three Reviews.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

It takes a little while to get used to the fact that Daniel is not a graduate student at Ohio University, but a Film Professor at Calvin College. He drags me on a whirlwind tour of his duties including recording a spoof play put on by Christian theater majors and overseeing a very professional-looking film shoot outside the chateau of the Amway dynasty. (I once built a house out of balsa wood and caught it on fire for a film class at OU. His student would have just burnt down one of the guest houses.) The evening closes with the best burger I've ever tasted from a drive-thru joint called Checkers. At least 1/10th of the sandwich ended up in his car, because Daniel could smell it the next day. Had I known about the travesty, I would have licked the dressing and meat-like residue off the seats immediately. Because I was that hungry and Daniel has very clean car seats.

Kalamazoo, Michigan

Although I am tempted to sit in my Aunt's driveway for 45 minutes, listening to the rest of *This American Life*, I go inside and subject myself to a day and a half worth of the South Beach Diet, garden walks and my Uncle's new wardrobe (which includes a $50 t-shirt with both the American flag and the Declaration of Independence on it). We pick my mom up from the airport and she is outside smoking before her luggage arrives. I love that woman. Grandpa's living in a posh new retirement center with a dining facility and events such as "April in Paris" in the lobby. Ladies put on their best spring dresses and sip wine out of plastic cups while listening to a woman play "Summertime" on the guitar. My Grandpa chooses not to attend, most likely because he can't see or hear very well, though I'd like to think it's because the ladies are a little heavy on the perfume. When I tell him I'm heading back to Ohio, he asks what the weather's like. This is his way of saying he loves me.

Athens, Ohio

It's Viscom Day, and I know no one, save a few professors and my advisor's daughter. I listen to speakers from various outlets in visual communications basically tell the students that the field sucks right now. When the designer who started the initiative to get Macintosh used in the newsroom said that if he could go back and do it all again, he'd be a writer, I saw my advisor wince. I deposit six dollar's worth of quarters into the parking meter before I remember that an Athens parking ticket is only five dollars.

Thought for the Day.

Showering is a lot more fun when your water drains properly.

I'm going to Michigan for the weekend.

The first time I ever saw a cockroach was in Detroit. It was crawling out of a shower drain.

A Sign.

I went to the coffee shop again last night to design a wedding invitation. Screw gift registries. If you're my friend and you're on the superhighway to choosing bathroom tile and reveling in the wonders of scrapbooking, then you're getting wedding invitations from me. Full-fledged custom made invites that encompass everything lovely about you and your kissy-bear.

While I was shortening the distance between Amy and Eric's heads (she's roughly seven feet shorter than him; the invitation wasn't tall enough to hold a photo of the both of them), I sat in on a first date between "Talkative Motivated Girl" and "I Can't Believe I Just Compared My Living Situation To *Old School* Guy."

It wasn’t a first date; it was an interview. What do you do in your spare time? Where do you see yourself in three years? What type of parent do you want to be? I'm not kidding. She actually pulled the standard "My weakness is that I work too hard" line from job interviews. And his, "I really like to travel" was a clue that he was bursting with creativity.

Not once did they laugh. The amazing part was that it lasted so long. I sat a foot away from them, not daring to look over, for three hours. By the time I left, I wanted to kill them both. I wouldn't date either of them. The debacle reminded me of a date I had in Chicago with a guy I affectionately call, "Plastic Boy."

Plastic Boy had an imaginary notebook from which he asked me questions. What type of food do you eat? Tell me about your family; I don't know anything about them. (To which I thought, you don't know anything about *me*, you idiot.) And the kicker: what was your most romantic moment?

Note to all involved in the agony of dating: do not ever inquire about your date's most romantic moment. She will spend the rest of the night reminiscing about the guy she shared it with.

Plastic Boy intrigued me because he was a gentleman. I thanked him for this before our second date, outside an Italian restaurant in the Loop. (He told me that I did a "nice job dressing" on the first date, and I should do so again on the second, I remember.) I told him that I didn't encounter many gentleman, and that he seems like a nice guy, and he should stay that way. Nonetheless, I don't think it's going to work out, I said, before catching a cab to Wrigleyville to drink beer with coworkers who would never think to open a door for me. He stared on with a synthetic smile plastered to his face.

Perhaps my companions from last night are perfect for one another. I mean, she *wants* to travel and he *likes* to travel; what more do two people need to sow the seeds of love? Perhaps, when she went home, she told her girlfriends all about Mr. Wonderful and that the girl next to them was designing a wedding invitation and she thinks that it's A Sign.

Whatever. I don't want to go on a date for a long, long time.

Cooperative Gardening.

In other neighborhoods, if you don't take care of your yard, your neighbors ridicule you and refuse to invite you to backyard cookouts. They whisper about property value while pushing strollers or walking their poodles.

In my neighborhood, if you don't take care of your yard, you'll come home from work and find that your "garden" has been uprooted and new plants and soil live where dead branches and leaves once called home. Your neighbors will be sitting on the front stoop drinking cans of Budweiser and smoking cigarettes. They will tell you that if you want them to finish landscaping the part that they haven't touched, then you'll have to "throw a few bones" their way for plants.

Not bad.

Dewey Decimal Makeover.

"So, do you have a dress code?" I ask during my final interview for Adult Programming Coordinator at my local public library.

My two interviewers, donning the librarian uniform of blazer, silk blouse with lace collar and gold necklace look at one another.

"We haven't ever thought of that," M admits, "I've never hired a young person for an administration position before. You'll be representing the library. We suggest a nice blouse."

"And hose with a small heel," pipes in the woman I'd be replacing.

Hose and heels. Despite the facts that I'm in love with my library, that I could use the additional income to start a savings, that I want to provide a public institution with marketing skills otherwise not available to them, I could not imagine myself in pantyhose. Twenty percent of my new paycheck would have to go towards buying a new pair every day. I'm not easy on those beige things. And I don't think that M has black fishnets in mind.

No worries, though. I received an excited call from M last Wednesday. They've given my position to someone internally, someone who wears holiday lapel pins. And they've created a position for me. For ten hours a week, I am Marketing Coordinator. This new position does not require public speaking or sensible shoes. Instead, I will "freshen the image" of the library with my writing and spunk.

"I've told the other administrators that it's your job to make them feel uncomfortable," she says.

It was then that I realized my new boss has excellent insight. Making people feel uncomfortable is what I do best, and now I'm getting paid for it. In reality, I will come up with programs at the library that will draw the 20-35 year old crowd. It's an awesome responsibility, considering that they created a position for me in a time that nearly all arts and humanities budgets are being slaughtered by the federal government.

So, Library [I'm hesitant to put the name, as I'm pretty certain that librarians know about "google"], hold on to your shoulder pads. Get ready for outdoor films, library speed dating, poetry slams and flip flops. You're about to feel uncomfortable, and that is, to quote Ms. Stewart, "a good thing."

Statistics.

It has been decided. Thirty-five percent of the women I know will sleep with Bill, Kwame, and/or Troy, while one hundred percent of the women living in my apartment have crushes on Nick. Fifteen percent of the women at work think that Nick is whiny but would jump at the chance to jump Troy's bones. One hundred percent of the women writing this believe that Troy has too many characteristics in common with Dubya.

Two percent of the women I know would shack up with The Trump, because "You know he'd feed you one hell of a breakfast the next morning."

One hundred percent of the women writing this would sooner skip breakfast, thank you.

An Orgasm of Knowledge.

The game started this winter, triggered by a discussion about concealed weapons. Which states still prohibit carrying guns in diaper bags? I don't have internet (nor a phone line) at home, and the library was closed. But Barnes & Noble, the clean and attractive land of lattes and Norah Jones was open. The three of us picked questions we wanted answers to and drove to the nearest shopping center for answers.

What drinks require Frangelico? What is the minimum amount one can drink a week before he or she is labeled an alcoholic? What states do not contribute to the stereotype that all Americans are fat, loud and carry loaded weapons? (Surprisingly, most of them are in the Midwest; I would have placed all of my money on the Northeast.)

We played again last night. Equipped with a bevy of questions and inquiring minds, we made it our goal to learn at least one thing before we finished our sweet and overpriced corporate coffee drinks.

What is the difference between a water bug and a cockroach? What constitutes a "bisque"? Did that Crapper guy really invent the toilet? How do pheromones work? What are the typical jobs of undocumented workers in the Midwest? (This question is actually research for my next piece of mediocre journalism.) And, what was the first documented orgasm in the history of literature?

We went our separate ways. Sarah sat cross-legged on the floor looking at books about bugs. Lainie wandered the cookbook section. And I searched through World History, Sociology, Love & Sex (those should be two entirely different sections, if you ask me), Literary Theory and Anthologies for the answer to my orgasm question. I found a book entitled "The Good Orgasm Guide" which offered me very little both in the history of, and how to achieve orgasms. I searched a literary encyclopedia, only to find Optical Illusion and George Orwell cuddling and leaving no room for ecstasy.

Behind the display of Kurt Cobain books was the Customer Service Guy. I approached. "Could you tell me where your Women's Studies section is?"

"Sure," says the aging hippie guy who is undoubtedly humming along to a Nellie McKay song when no one is around, "Are you looking for something in particular?"

"Well…" I start. [Note: it is not against the rules to ask for assistance from the Customer Service Guy. I would have never learned that Rhode Island loves guns without him.] I tell him what I'm looking for and he types in a search. Nada. We walk to Women's Studies and I thank him for his help.

Seconds later, he returns. "Maybe you should consider going deeper than western literature," he suggests.

"Do you mean the Bible?" I ask. "I thought that one would be too obvious."

"I was thinking Songs of Solomon."

These are the things we learned last night. Despite my landlord's clever attempt to convince us otherwise, water bugs are cockroaches and we have a few of them. Bisque has cream. Crapper was a plumber. Labia contain sweat glands. Internationally recognized artists - and not many others - can obtain visas to work in the United States. According to "Sexual Politics," the Hebrew verb for "eat" can also mean coitus, and snakes are phallic. Thereby concluding that the first orgasm in literature is in the story of Adam and Eve: "Adam was seduced by a woman, who was seduced by a penis."

Wow, that was stimulating. Time for a smoke.

Car Insurance.

I did it. I became a regular consumer yesterday. I like to think that as a marketing person, I've received a powerful vaccine that allows me to resist the blatant (and subtle) techniques utilized by my highly compensated cohorts. Apparently a new strand of Consumeritis is in the making, and I'm no longer safe.

It started yesterday with a meeting with Kyle, the sales rep for a local radio station. As always, I start out the conversation announcing that while I like his radio station, I advertise on and listen to NPR.

"I listen to you guys on Tuesday nights, when WCBE broadcasts the school board meeting," I said, hoping that this afterthought might spare his fragile feelings. "Of course, half the time you guys are playing hockey…"

"What do you listen to then?" he asks.

"Um. Well, if I'm with some of my girlfriends, and we're feeling saucy, I sometimes turn to Delilah and sing along to the love songs." I clearly lost the upper hand in this meeting.

"I guess I just don't like listening to commercials," I say to him before mumbling to myself, "The advertising girl doesn't like commercials."

To better educate myself, I turned on his radio station for the drive home. Beer commercials. Car commercials. And then there was one for Progressive Auto Insurance. They're the company that gives you quotes from other companies.

I need new auto insurance.

Before the commercial was over, I was at a stoplight typing in the 1-800 number.

"Thank you for calling Progressive," my friendly sales person said. "How did you learn about us?"

I almost got into a wreck when I found myself saying the words. "I heard you on the radio."

Peggy was nice and helpful. I felt close to her at the end of the half-hour conversation. So close, in fact, that I felt a little bad deciding to go with State Farm. Because the commercials don't lie. Progressive did quote their competitor, who, as it happened, was $100 cheaper.

Music Lovers Anonymous.

Once upon a time, I got a package from Portland marked "SAMTA". Inside the package was a mixed cd and a list of addresses with no accompanying names. After reading the enclosed letter, I realized I'd been chosen by an anonymous music lover to be involved in a sort of music pyramid scam. But instead of receiving ten pairs of panties from strangers, I would receive mixed cd's from people that I presumably know, or know of.

SAMTA stands for "Sort of Anonymous Mixed Tape Association". I've received three or four mixed cd's introducing me to the likes of The Innocence Mission and rekindling my love for Yo La Tengo, and the Magnetic Fields. As I open the cd's, I create an image of the sender through the music that he or she chose to send. When the entire process is over, I will have roughly twelve mixes. But in turn for this free musical education, I have to contribute my own compilation.

Which is what I worked on last night. With a glass of Chardonnay always within close reach, I spread my music collection on my bed and poured through it, selecting the songs and artists that best represent me.

I have no idea what will become of SAMTA when the final cd is sent. Perhaps our (not so) anonymous leader from Portland will instruct us to start our own SAMTA groups, to truly start a pyramid scheme. Perhaps the idea will ignite a new hit reality tv show. At any rate, I'm glad to be one of The Chosen, a disciple of our western leader.

The following artists are on my yet-to-be-named album. If you are a member of SAMTA, I apologize for ruining the surprise. If you are not a member of SAMTA, but would like a copy of my yet-to-be-named album, shoot me an e-mail or comment; I'll get your address and send something over.

Rufus Wainwright. Jem. Doug Martsch. Damien Jurado. The Whitlams. Neko Case. The Decemberists. The Chemical Brothers. Scott Parsons. And more…(There's a subtle Tom Waits connection, of course. But you'll have to figure out that one on your own…)

Easter People.

I passed on the offering plate, leaving no contributions aside from a fingerprint or two. I had no cash or checkbook on me. I sat alone at Easter service and surveyed my surroundings. Children I had known as unruly infants were sitting quietly in suits and dresses. Women were rounder. The band was louder. I was drinking hot tea.

I used to drink hot chocolate during service.

I had seen the minister two or three times, though I'm sure that he didn't recognize me. If he looked closely during the songs, he may have noticed that I knew all the words to some, the old ones, and didn't even pretend to mouth the lyrics to the new ones. Even though the words were on the giant PowerPoint screens cradling the stage.

The entire service utilized a live video feed. If I didn't want to look directly at the minister, I could cock my head to the left and up a little bit, and see a zoom shot of his nose hairs. This must be very convenient for people with neck problems, I thought.

He was talking about hope, I think. And promise. Two parables, he told. One was about losing his wedding ring on a hayride. The second was about a 200 mile bicycle trip he once took with a youth group. I found myself thinking about Race For The Cure. I have to run 3.2 miles in a month. I should get good running shoes.

I focused back in on the sermon. "Imagine how you would feel if Jesus Christ walked down this center aisle today," he was saying.

We were sitting in a carpeted basketball court-turned-sanctuary. We were at the Contemporary Service, the one designed to attract young people and new families with rock music, live video and a conversational tone in sermons.

I tried to imagine Jesus Christ walking down center court. What would he be wearing? Would he be short? Our bodies have changed in the last few thousand years. Would I be freaked out? I couldn't decide.

The sermon ended and we began to sing. I knew the song and closed my eyes, hoping for that adrenaline I used to feel in high school. It was all about the music, always. Nothing.

I exchanged hugs with a few people I used to know and headed home, lighting a cigarette on the way. I stopped by the grocery store to pick up the Sunday New York Times and a package of Peeps.

"Hello?" Sarah yelled when I walked in the house, "How was church?"

"Okay." I handed her the candy. "Happy Easter."

Columbus Rocks.

The grumpy food critic mentioned in previous posts has asked me to be his agent for an autobiographical television series he's written based in Columbus, Ohio.

"Cincinnati has WKRP and Cleveland has the Drew Carey Show," he says, while sitting in plaid pajama pants and a half-buttoned chambray shirt with a Clear Channel logo stitched on it, "so I want this one set in Columbus."

The story line is interesting, but I don't have the heart to tell him that I know absolutely nothing about getting a television pilot started. He's had three previous agents, but they've failed in some capacity or another. Instead of responding to his request, I stare at the photograph of a naked Marilyn Monroe on his closet door.

Silence.

"So, tell me something I'm not supposed to know," he says.

"Well, apparently Southern Living printed a recipe incorrectly. I guess it causes explosions. They had to send out a warning card to every one of their subscribers." We laugh and look at the website. Inside, though, I feel a little pity for the writer who messed up the recipe.

In a different world, it could have been me.

**********

In other news.

Birthday plans are finalized. Celebrate 25, 26 and 25 (in that order) with Sarah, Anita and I and Byrne's Pub this Friday in Grandview. We'll be there around 8.00 to secure tables for our plethora of friends. Party favors will be provided by Miss Mollie. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the "Jill needs to renew her license and registration" Fund.

Things that I think about during my work day:

I had two Crab Rangoon and Summer Chopped Salad for lunch. I wonder if I'll look like a pig if I go back and order six more Crab Rangoon?

Dale from the Ohio Department of Transportation was really nice on the phone. I wonder if he's hot and available? What would it be like to tell people that my fiancé works for O.D.O.T.?

My bosses are taking me to lunch on Friday. I wonder if they're going to fire me? They just gave me a raise; I don't see why they'd give me a raise and then fire me. Do people get fired on their birthdays?

Can I date someone named Dale?

I should go running after work.

If Kerry chose a blue-collar running mate, would it balance out the fact that his wife is in the Heinz family?

I should do my taxes after work. I hope that I don't owe any money.

Perhaps Dale and I should just be friends.

Seven Units.

"Guilt is a wasted emotion," the veterinarian said to me this morning as I cried in her office.

It was a phrase that felt so cliché and familiar that I wondered if I had seen in on a bumper sticker or elementary school classroom poster with a basket of puppies on it. But, searching back through my annals of advice, I couldn't recall ever seeing or hearing the phrase before.

It was what I needed to hear in that sterile room. But, like my first (and only) experience with Ecstasy (yes, Mom, I tried it once - it's a pill that makes you watch lights bounce up and down for twelve hours after puking on yourself), it was dangerously easy to digest. "Guilt is a wasted emotion" could quickly become my mantra.

As defined by my thirty pound unabridged Webster's, guilt is 'morbid self-reproach often manifest in marked preoccupation with the moral correctness of one's behavior.' It is self-centered and, in my situation, comes at different degrees. Though not usually in appropriately in my case.

For example. I felt ten units of guilt when I took Tobias to the vet today. While cutting mats of hair off of him last night, I accidentally exposed his flesh. "You were trying to help him," the vet justified to me, "I don't see you as the type of person who would go around cutting open cats on purpose."

In comparison, I felt three units of guilt after a San Francisco vacation I took a few years ago. M picked me up at the airport and took me home to dinner, wine and candles. Not knowing, of course, that I had decided to make out with a stranger in Napa Valley.

That leaves a difference of seven units of guilt. Perhaps I knew that things weren't going to work out with M, one could justify. Tobias symbolizes the memory of my grandmother; though he's a cat, he's a family member, one could justify. But the problem here is that physical wounds heal, while emotional wounds linger on.

Both crimes are products of a problem larger than my guilt and me. It wasn't easy to break things off with M, but they had to be done. Obviously we weren't meant to be together and my infidelity was a minute piece of evidence of this. And as for Tobias, he needs to be with someone who can care for him properly. Despite the family ties, I am not that person. I will leave work early today to drop him off at the humane society, holding back tears and repressing the obvious symbolism that comes with the action. I will do so under orders of my vet, who instructed me to bring him in a cardboard box and say that I found him on the street, that I think he belonged to an elderly woman who died. (If only she knew.)

The guilt will be absolved because I'm following orders of a licensed professional and because he'll ultimately live in a home full of friendly people who are not allergic to him and do not have any other animals, people who can afford to get him groomed and won't have to resort to half-assed haircuts. But the pain, remorse and love will linger on.

Because I am human, after all, and every emotion is worth feeling.

Do I Dare Eat A Peach?

I flipped through some old notebooks last night and came across a scrapbook of sorts from an idle winter that I spent in Athens, Ohio. The small college town is relieved of students every year from Thanksgiving to New Years. For some reason, I decided to stay.

Every morning, I'd get up and walk down to Casa, a worker-owned restaurant and bar within stumbling distance of my apartment. Laptop and notebook in tow, I'd keep myself busy with freelance work and word games while drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. The wooden booths became my desk. I liked the solitude.

Around 5.00 p.m., the bar area would fill up with regulars and I'd swap my tea for a beer or three. I'd talk to my comrades - artists, graduate students, townies - and we'd play Scrabble, recite the poetry of T.S. Eliot and learn words from the dictionary. Every good bar should have a dictionary. That winter was an integral part of my education. I discovered an appreciation for poetry, satire, semantics. And I realized that one can save a lot of money on toilet paper if she temporarily moves into a public communist restaurant.

That winter, I developed a crush on a friend who taught me about the conflicts in Israel. He knew every word in the dictionary and walked like he was dancing. Along with the spring came the students, including the girl he pined for. They married and went to Asia. I stowed away my notebook of memories and went to class.

Drinking Songs.

When M and I broke up over a year ago, he got custody of PBS, The Blue Danube and all things plaid while I got the Treebar, Gene and Tim Easton. We share NPR.

Tim Easton and his music are to Columbus what cat hair, plants and dirty dishes are to my apartment; they give the city flavor and make it feel like home. With various states of drunkenness, I've watched him play throughout the years. Usually, I experience his lonely songs while sitting on the floor of the Treebar in my best non-yoga posture, eyes closed and glasses falling down my face.

I'm not sure how many shows I had been to before he started recognizing me. "Hi," he'd say as Lainie and I paid our covers at Little Brothers. I'd kind of smile and turn away; I could only talk to him after a minimum of four beers.

After which I would say things like, "I thought you were moving to Georgia". And "They have you on display at Amoeba in LA" And "Can you play anything by Tom Waits?" And "What do you think of John Kerry?"

His songs are a passport to other times and people, to memories that don't resurface often. A few strums of his guitar will take me to Candida's front porch in Athens, Ohio, with its tired wooden swing and hand-powered lawn mower. We drink lemonade while she feeds the cats an organic homemade cat food that's of higher quality than anything she'd ever eat.

I grew to love one of his songs in particular, one that always brings me back to Maya. It's on an album that you can't find anymore, so, like clockwork, I request it at every show. It's called "Bitters Past," but I refer to it as the "Drinking with You" song. Sometimes this causes diehard fans to roll their eyes at my audaciousness. He always plays it, though. "I don't wanna grow old always drinking, but I can grow old drinking with you," are the lyrics that bring me to a dive bar in Calistoga, California, wherein Maya and I skip a fine dining experience to play pool with construction workers. They take me to Skipper's on a spring afternoon in Athens, Ohio. Maya's holding a margarita and I'm holding a wheat beer and we're about to be late for film class. Afternoon rooftop lunches in Madrid. Sunday evenings at the only bar in New York City that will let you smoke AND order you dinner at 1.30 a.m. Bus stops in San Francisco with brown paper bags. That time in Vancouver that we picked up our server after a late breakfast. The song aids my travelling when time and money don't allow me the luxury.

I talked to Maya yesterday afternoon and she said, "we should have a beer soon." Tim Easton has unknowingly created the technology that allows a girl in Columbus, Ohio to have a beer with a girl in Brooklyn, New York on a Thursday night and still be able to go to work in the morning.

I ran into Tim at the Treebar on an off night a few weeks ago. "I always talk to you when I'm drunk. I'm sorry about that," I said to him.

"I've noticed," he said.

"Your songs get me drunk."

Last night I assumed my typical position, cross-legged on the floor of the Treebar, cigarette in hand, tears rolling down my cheeks as a song took me to a bittersweet place. He asked for requests. "Have you played the 'Drinking with You' song yet?"

He looks at me and addresses the crowd, "this one here always starts the night out sober and by the end of the evening drunkenly tries to discuss politics with me." They laugh and I blush.

"But tonight I started out drunk," I retort. More laughter.

He turned back to the guitar and started the song, "I know too many drinking songs…"

Later, at the bar, he bummed a cigarette and said to me, "Thank you for being part of my shows."

That's when I realized that I'd become a fixture, an unofficial mascot of sorts, a reliable presence. The clown girl whose cell phone rings at all the wrong times, who sometimes talks too much and sings too loud, who is never without a cigarette and always struggling for something intelligent to say. Musicians need people like me as much as people like me need music. I thanked him for playing and tried to tell him about a peace rally that I attended.

The April Fools Joke That Wasn't.

Two years ago today, I officially became a grocery store marketer in Columbus, Ohio. Two years and one day ago, Erin and Rob drove my Malibu from Chicago to Columbus, as I sat in the back seat, sobbing. Two years and one day ago, my father helped me carry my belongings into his house, thrilled that his little girl was safely back home in Ohio, complete with health insurance and a 401k.

"Hey, Kiddo!" he said, "Are you excited?"

I hadn't cried since Dayton. I glared at him and burst into tears once more. "No. I'm. Not. Excited."

"But tomorrow's your first day at work," he said, not knowing how to handle an erratic twenty-two year old.

"I. Don't. Care. I don't want to think about it." I sat in the back room, craving a cigarette and hating life. I was a person full of adventure, full of life. I left that to earn a steady income and get my teeth cleaned regularly.

I sulked myself to sleep in my old bedroom in the basement.

In the morning, I woke up early and made the trek to my new job, hoping that it was all just a big April Fool's Joke, and that by the end of the week, I'd be back in the city and I'd never have to worry about oil changes again.

It wasn't. I'll need an oil change in about six weeks. And my bosses say that my rear tire's going flat. I should get that looked at.