2006
What It’s Worth
After our Sunday morning yard sale, I’m one couch, one futon, one twenty-seven-year-old bureau, and one princess desk poorer and $420 richer (minus $10.81 for a giant cheeseburger and a breakfast platter when the day was through). I’m 99 percent moved out of my apartment and 100 percent in awe of Simon, who did all the hard work of bargaining and selling and standing in the middle of the road waving merchandise, dancing like a showgirl, and flashing his charmingly crooked smile (and a little leg) while I hid upstairs in the apartment and cried as I watched my things get carried off by strangers.
But the strangers were, as it appeared from my crow’s nest view, and as Simon reassured me, happy and excited with their purchases. The couch, looking STUNNING minus the grody slipcover, went to a house of biology students around the corner. The bureau that my parents bought in 1979 for my nursery went to a couple of girls who couldn’t believe their good fortune. The futon went to a married couple recently moved here from Bozeman, Montana, who were so nice Simon let them carry away a $600 piece of furniture for $150 via out-of-state check. The princess desk was the first thing to go, bought by an old lady from Gualalajara. She asked Simon to help her get it to her apartment, and although he’d already done enough lifting for a lifetime that day and his herniated disc was already starting to swell a little, he agreed to drive it (and the matching nightstand, and a lamp he threw in for free) and her to her apartment, where he also unloaded it. I cried and took pictures as they left, and I cried some more when he told me that those were the now the nicest things in her apartment and she would love them almost as much as I did.
For the next half hour, I cried and took pictures while people picked through my high school clothes and college books and memorabilia from one particular past relationship. The guy from the apartment building next door (wearing nothing but a zebra-striped robe with huge silk lapels) relieved me of my old set of measuring cups and spoons and a vegetable peeler, but not before he made sure the kitchen utensils weren’t of sentimental value such that he’d have to sit in his apartment and listen to me bawl for another half hour after he took them away.
My landlord kept checking in to make sure everything was going okay, but all he could seem to say was “You have a lot of memories in that stuff. A lot of memories in this place…” which I assume was meant to be reassuring and validating, but just made me cry more because god. yes. the memories. all out on the sidewalk and upstairs clinging to the empty walls. I told him about my dad fixing the dong-ding doorbell when I first moved in, and he told me about how he’s going to replace the stunning 1880s beveled glass front window and install a dishwasher in the kitchen. Then he practically begged us to take the other apartment in the house, which is three times larger than mine, but also smaller than Simon’s and more expensive. I told him thanks, no, it’s time to go, but not to worry because I have someone to look after me full-time now.
Down on the street, a guy in a shirt that said “Who’s Your Santa?” bought the stuffed panda given to me as a gift from the Mall of America. A woman in olive green Victorian boots looked perfect in the green floppy hat I wore during my first trip to the Pacific Northwest, circa 1998. Dresses I got for high school awards ceremonies went for $1; $30 textbooks littered with my most pretentious sophomore marginalia went for fifty cents; four punkass emo kids came by as we were cleaning up, and we let them carry away three dehydrated soup mixes, a couple of women’s belts, a book by C. J. Jung, and a Beanie Baby penguin for free. George took the coat rack and my great-grandmother’s wobbly “antique” chair, and he lent us his enormous pickup truck so we could get my bookcases to Simon’s place in one piece. I have half a mind to spend all my earnings on people who helped me sell it off: George, his manservant Mart
2006
Simon Says – “The Great Paradox of Religion”
Gosh, since Leah wrote about religion, I think I’ll add my $0.02. Sorry to steal your thunder, Babe.
2006
Believe It or Not
Future Park, San Francisco
Yesterday while walking home from work (for the last time! WAH!), I passed a kid about six years old strolling with a middle-aged dad type, i.e. khakis, inoffensive sweater, untrendy spectacles. And not to judge a book by its accent, but I can say with certainty that this guy was Jewish. Jewish the way Woody Allen is Jewish, which is to say obviously. And what was he talking to the kid about, of all things? Jesus.
“Jesus is…well…,” he started, and at this point I slowed my white-girl roll because I was curious how a middle-aged Jewish man was going to explain to a six-year-old the concepts of messiah and redeemer and god-as-man.
“Jesus is…,” he continued, “well, a lot like Gandhi, I guess. Yes. Definitely Gandhiesque.” Okay. Didn’t see that coming. Do six-year-olds know Gandhi?Or is there a new monster on Sesame Street I haven’t heard about?
