Little Gems

Craigslist is full of them. From "Guy wearing no underwear in Starbucks- I enjoyed watching your dick flop around" to "Seeking naked housemate for reduced rent", they provide hours of entertainment and you feel like you're missing out by not being able to see all these things happen live. Looking through the apartment listing, I came across this gem:

I am looking for a chill open-minded guy to share a studio with. It's a small space. No privacy. I am willing share the space with two guys if necessary. Basically, just wanting someone short term who wants to save money. I have a one eyed cat. Please be cool with nudity and I often wear a Godzilla mask and shove random objects up my ass. You'll have to be okay with that.

And below, there was a picture of someone wearing a dinosaur mask that looked like it had been made for a child's school project.

I actually emailed the ad. Here is the copied email:

So, I'm wondering what kind of objects you are talking about? I'm okay
with anything up to the same girth as a baseball bat. But anything
wider than that might make me a little uncomfortable. Okay, maybe I
could budge and say no wider than an average-sized head. Then things
start to get weird.

Unfortunately I received an email back from the "mailer daemon" (does anyone ever wonder why they don't just spell it "demon"?) saying the listing was no longer active. I really would like to meet the strange individual who posted it.

Songs to fuck to

Put simply, a slutty porn track with what was at its time, a break-all-the-rules music video, "Justify My Love" serves as a track that can make even the most sexually shackled Stepford wife morph into Jenna Jameson. Hearing the synthesizer's alluringly floating tones brings me back to my childhood, when I knew I wanted to have sex with men but didn't know if it was allowed. Thanks to 90s Madonna, millions of little boys were taught it was okay to flaunt your sexuality.

It's been... four days since I logged in to that otherworldly entity. First, my mornings seemed to be lacking in something, without the barrage of the self-indulgent "mini feed".
Now, without that superfluous knowledge in my brain, I have time to focus on my own thoughts.

The close, foetid galleries of Facebook

In the opening pages of "Cloudstreet", Tim Winton makes an observation about death, and thinking about your loved ones, whose lives continue without you- "And you can't help but worry for them, love them, want for them - those who go on down the close, foetid galleries of time ad space without you."
In many ways, I can draw a parallel to that of my abstinence from FB. I think about this foetid stench, whose excrement is posted daily in a "mini-feed"- a misleading name if ever there was. There is nothing 'mini' about it for me at the moment. Every posting had the potential to feature a name which would pull at my heartstrings, a name which I couldn't see without feeling a deep impact, caused by loss and pain and the absence of a huge part of my life.
No, today I was perfectly happy to let my loved ones live their lives and for the passage of time to occur without me. One less world to devote my energy too, and an unnecessary one at that.
I am, however, suffering from a dilemma. My birthday is March 31st. If I stick to my guns, it would mean that all the people in that "gallery of space and time" otherwise known as Facebook will not see that it is my birthday and I won't get all those "Happy Birthday" wishes on my wall, which always make me feel so good. Here's one I'm going to sit on for the next few weeks.

WE WERE ON A BREAK!

Like most brilliant ideas, this one hit me as I was lying in bed, restlessly willing myself to fall asleep, in order to be sprightly for my first day of teaching.

I suffer a disease which affects one in every one American: I am a Facebook. Gripping my fingers, it wills me to probe the Javanese depths of people's lives. Not even people that I know, or care about (or have even spoken to in person, in some cases)- the Brit who I shared one bottle of cheap French supermarket wine over a rickety old table in a Ly0nnais hostel one night. Or the friend of a friend who engaged in drunken chit chat one night with me at the Elbo Room (I swear I didn't meet all my Facebook friends while inebriated.)
This little affliction of mine may seem harmless when you're whiling away the hours looking at the distant yet up-close-and-personal lives of mere acquaintances. But how does one fare when Facebook is used as a forum for post-break up updates? Some people obsess. They get entangled in the web of friend acceptance, wall postings, status updates and photo tagging of their ex, all the while trying to work their way out of it. The web, however, has its slithery strands firmly wrapped around the stalker, never letting them forget their ex's name and what they are doing. One past break up, it seemed the website was working against me and would keep featuring photos in which my lost love had been tagged, even once we were no longer Facebook friends. They appeared under the link "Good Memories" and stated the date the photo was uploaded. I concluded at this moment that Facebook is the Paparazzi for the Z-list, our very own terrible tabloid, splashing headlines such as "... is off to the Bahamas!!!!!!", when covering our romantic getaways; or to famous births "... 9 inches dilated... I'm gonna be a moooom"; to really trying to fill space, "... is wondering how she should use half a cup of leftover milk" (actual status). Then, like any gossip magazine worth its weight in acrylic nails, there are the "spotted" photos that inevitably go with every event. The bachelorette parties, all straightened blond hair and orange skin, posing with a drink in hand at the straightest disco in town. The lovers' holiday snaps, close-up photo after self-taken, close-up photo of the lovers, because they couldn't bear to separate, not even to take a photo. I'd rather see another photo of Mariah Carey walking down Fifth Ave in stilettos and wearing a snowsuit and and fur coat (yet miraculously manages to show off 95% of her breasts in.)

When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston split, Jennifer was heartbroken, Brad was off choosing African children from a line-up with Ange, and People, Star and other fine publications were smearing it like shit off a shoe- in our faces and in the estranged parties'. I can only assume that for the two who were recently separated, their pain (although Brad clearly 'won' that one) only made worse by the media circus surrounding it.

So, tell me- why would I want to have anything resembling what Brad and Jen went through, happen to me? Well I don't. And that's what led me to make my decision to quit Facebook for the month of March. After a break up, which has only served to cause pain and hurt to both parties in different ways, I've decided that I no longer need to know that Susan is baking brownies and that they are YUM! Or that someone I last spoke to ten years ago is an aunt. Not least of all (and this was in face my driving motivation) do I need to know what the view from the window of my lover who I recently broke up with looked like (a snow-filled, winter wonderland) on the getaway weekend we were supposed to go on but broke up in the preceding week. "Block him," you all sneer. "Hide his publications," you offer as an alternative. What most people won't admit, but I freely will, is that I can't help myself! I am a sadist. I need to know. I know I will regret and wish away all knowledge of what I have learnt the minute I learn it but I still do it. I drink, and I know I will be hungover. I still do it. I go home with someone who I have a sneaking suspicion will not look any better in the harsh light of day. Yes, I know the consequences of my own actions but I can't STOP MYSELF.
What's to stop me from logging back in to Facebook? So, they make it hard to completely rid yourself of it. An attempt to close your FB account is like that episode of "Friends" where Ross tries (unsuccessfully) to cancel his gym membership, and at each attempt they bring out an extremely attractive woman who works in the "Closures" department. Or my credit card company, offering me a $2,500 increase on my limit (up to $8, 500) by clicking "yes", but to decrease my limit I had to call and speak to someone.
When you go to deactivate your FB account, you are faced with the earth-shattering news: if you cancel your account, you will lose everything you have put on Facebook. Then you are presented with photos of your friends, presumably to invoke feelings of guilt and remorse at turning your back on hearing about every detail and seeing every photo. After you have got over the racking feelings of abandonment, you must provide a reason. Of the nine offered, I chose "It's temporary. I'll be back". And then in the field marked "please explain precisely why you are leaving Facebook", I entered: I'm tired of hearing about other people's lives. I want to live my own for a few weeks."
The ironic thing is that you can never REALLY quit Facebook. I mean, you can. But to do that you'd have to delete ALL your friends, every single freakin picture, and all your information. That's a lot for someone like me, who's embraced FB since being introduced in December 2005 (oh yes, I remember the day we met). Even once I deactivated my account, I found out all you needed to do was to sign back in and it was all the same- this vast world, had been continuing unabated without me.
So, as the clock nearly hits 12.00am on March 1st, 2011, I (somewhat weakly) vow to abstain, for the month of March, from the one of the most significant phenomena of my generation and possibly the most invasive thing to enter my life since my visit to the proctologist... FACEBOOK!

Here you will read about my walks along the beach thinking about when we were together, my moments of weakness when I wonder if I've done the right thing, then the hump I overcome, realizing that because I haven't been able to live life through Facebook, I've actually been living life!

Drewwwski

I'm keeping my eye on rental prices in SF, because there's a possibility I will be moving out in 2 months' time. In my search (where I realised cheap and good share houses are few and far between), I came across this poo smear:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/roo/2236731718.html

Can you imagine what this guy must be like? His words alone are enough to make me want to scratch the skin off my face.

On the hunt

There are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants residing within the United States. Of those 11 million, I estimate that at least 75% must have some source of income. Perhaps that's too ambitious. Alright, let's bring it down a little- I put the employment rate of these 11 million at about 50%, with maybe 25% of that irregular income (that is to say, that portion takes what they can get). So why is it so hard for me, 1 out of 11 million, to find work? That's 0.000009090909090909091%! (Thank you, math.com). It's a lot of numbers, but it's actually nothing. The odds are on my side!

Let me tell you about my ride on the employment wagon. It started off promising- one interview, followed by an almost immediate job offer. An apartment, a too-good-to-be-true boss and perks such as free laundry (a rare commodity in a city where laundromats so many people spend so much time in them, they've evolved into an entertainment space, complete with stand-up comedy, like Brainwash Cafe, or need to distinguish themselves from the innumerable others, such as Sit n Spin, clearly located in the gay neighbourhood of The Castro). As is human nature, it's never enough. The small stipend, cute and cosy apartment in one of the city's better districts, the self-imposed lack of work ethic all started to stifle me: I needed more economic stimulation. So I turned to the virtual community noticeboard, the bulletin board to end all bulletin boards, the place where San Francisco, and it seems much of America, goes to when they want to buy, sell, barter, give away, donate, pass on, exchange, advertise, offer ,or complain about someone having soiled themselves in the line for the bank. In short, it's a free interactive community which is the first port of call for the strange sea of San Franciscans: craigslist.

A close friend of mine, let's call her Jezebel, was also in this predicament, only that unlike me, she did not have the good fortune nor the freedom of complimentary accommodation. Together, we trawled Craig's lists. Jezebel noted the number of jobs (under 'event' or 'talent') which required "beautiful females" to send in a picture of themselves in their underwear or, if they so dared, nothing, with the assurance they would then be judged either good enough or unsatisfactory for the job (always found under vague postings such as "underwear model" or "sexy ladies needed") and for which they would be paid a handsome sum of $500 an hour (at LEAST, one ad said). Rather than arty-farty New York photography studio types, we suspected pock-marked, gangly teenagers in Springfields all over were behind this.
During one particular dry spell, we applied for everything: promotional work, door bitching, porn, soft porn, hard porn, animal porn- and got rejected. I was offended: I loved porn. Why couldn't it just love me back?

Of course, I do have a small income. I've been working for Mike since August, and I couldn't be luckier or happier. I just needed something on the side, that little bit more pocket money. But not having the legal right to work makes it harder. I'd been offered a few jobs, all paying about $25-$30 an hour, only to flinch as those words hit me "So I just need you to fill in this form with your name, address and social security number..." The Social Security Number. Tax File Number. National Insurance Number. La Sécu. No matter what the country or the language, without one of these you feel like an alien, barred from the ability to participate in something so prerequisite to being part of society, people start a conversation with "so what do you do for work..." I'm trying to think back to the last time someone even bothered to check if I worked. "So, do you have a job?" Or better yet, assume someone is unemployed: "So, what's it like being on welfare?" "How much does Social Security pay these days?" No, we all work and if we can't, or don't, then it's a form of exclusion. Unless you're rich, and don't have to. Then you're just fucking lucky, and can we swap incomes? (Not lives, because mine is fabulous).
I won't mince my words- my job is a dream job. Let me take you through a typical day, chosen at random:
8.30am: wake up. Look out window. Oh yes, I'm in SAN FRANCISCO. That in itself is enough to make me jump out of bed and approach the day with a skip/spring/mince in my step.
8.45-10.00: Read up about the day's events, and tackle the New York Times crossword. Day by gradually more difficult day, this is becoming less of a confusing conglomerate of words and more of a coherent square.
10.30-11.30: Walk 'Montgomery'. Montgomery is the 2 year old Scottish terrier who I walk each day. He resembles an old man: beard, big bushy eyebrows which hang over his eyes to make him seem a little blinded. At first, the little shit was so badly behaved and disobedient that I couldn't even take him on the street, but instead had to walk him in the park, away from people. I'm proud to say that , after poking, prodding and dragging him along with his leash tied in a choke hold, I can now walk him anywhere. 'Anywhere' usually involves a stroll down to Jumpin Java cafe to attempt a final conquer of the day's crossword. That's how I like it: more Ben-centric, with less focus on the dog.

Now a day can include any number of tasks. I like to think of my work days as being in a kind of spectrum of 'intellectual involvement'. Most tasks require a minimum of this. Walk the dog, clean the kitchen (load dishwasher, empty garbage, wipe down marble benchtops), make the bed, put away strewn clothes, do laundry, dust with my feather duster, windex shiny surfaces without getting too distracted by my own reflection... These kind of tasks take up the majority of what some would call 'the working week'. To me, however, it's more like an arrangement a grown-up child would have with their parents than paid employment: in return for doing your 'chores', you get to live rent-free, and I'll give you a little bit of an allowance, plus treat you to lunch, give you a bit more cash here and there when you head off for the weekend with your friends.
Then there are the days when I perform some physical labour: this week, we gravelled the back of the apartment, a large concrete space, mostly unused, from where you can see the ubiquitous San Francisco skyline, definitive against the blue sky most days, completely veiled in fog on some, and in the evenings, glowing defiantly against the black backdrop.
The task of gravelling was lead by Mike (I'm more of a sit-back-and-wait-for-instructions kinda guy), and it involved driving about half an hour to a landscape supply store, and choosing a gravel type. Did you know there are about 15 different kids, with names like ginger (an unassuming light brown), molten lava (a brilliant red colour), marble arch (regal-looking and the most expensive), or pea gravel (shiny and cute like a pea) After choosing our type, a diminutive Chinaman came in his monster truck and dumped a load in the back of ours. And then he gave us our gravel.

Now we needed to get this ginger rock into our backyard and cover the space. Let me preface this next part by saying that if at any point in your life you see someone digging, or using a shovel in any way at all to move materials- this includes roadside workers, construction guys, or any member of a chain gang or other forms of forced labor- you need to stop, and take off your hat or scarf or stole or anything it is you are wearing, and SALUTE THEM. That crap is hard work. I have a new found respect for those labourers, whose intellectual ability I thought was beneath mine but whose physical prowess I can only dream of.

So we had to move the load in the back our truck into a pile in our backyard. Shovel after back-breaking shovel, the load diminished and my biceps ballooned. I did enjoy the kitsch houseboy status- all sweat and dirt and sun, wiping my sweaty brow while taking five, sipping on an iced lemonade, and making eyes with the old neighbours looking through their laced curtains. They have to get their joy somewhere don't they? Who am I to deny them that? We went back and forth about 6 times over the next three days, and now the backyard is as beautiful as the work was repetitive and strenuous. Suffice to say that was one of my harder working weeks.

Some days, however, I will work alone and this is where I thrive: daytime TV, a fully stocked fridge with artery-clogging delights such as blue cheese, cold cuts, ice-cream so creamy you wonder if you've frozen whipping cream by mistake, and views of the city from every room. Of course, the menial tasks ("fluffing the apartment") must be completed and after two hours work I'm ready to head off to the park and perhaps finish that crossword.