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Kim's friend from Los Angeles
Friday, April 16 1999
Me with some of my engineering and content colleagues.
back: Marty, Eric the Developer, Barbie the Information Systems person, Lydia, Jay, Paymon, Dave the Developer
middle: Al the Producer, John the Sr. Editor, me, Kevin the DBA
front: Mike the Programmer
At work today, there was a meeting for "the Mega Project," the site-redesign that is supposedly going to happen afterhours in addition to the work we engineers normally do. Since I don't really intend to stay afterhours, I wanted to bow out of the meeting and actually do work instead. But Paymon, one of my superiours, was adamant that I attend. So I did so reluctantly. A short way into the meeting I announced that I absolutely refused to "donate" any of my time to do afterhours work. Never again would I be swindled by the promise of large bonuses as a reward for attempting to achieve an unrealistic deadline. I think my adamancy was enough to empower my colleagues, who aren't normally nearly so assertive. Now we're pretty much unified in our desire to be paid incrementally for extra work we do above and beyond the call of duty. The lesson to my superiours, as you see, is this: if you twist my arm and make me attend a meeting, you better be prepared for something like left-wing unionist speach. I will not be pushed around. I know my value to this company and am willing to throw my weight around when I need to.
This evening as I was about to take Sophie for a walk, John the property manager pulled Kim aside and told her that he could see her nude silhouette from the street when she was taking a shower. He acted all freaked out and titillated like someone who'd been cryogenically preserved back in the fifties. That was bad enough, but then his mother (who also lives in our complex) pulled Kim aside and had the exact same conversation. Evidently the sighting of Kim's silhouette had been the subject of some serious discussion amongst the whole family. Kim walked away from both these discussions feeling vaguely dirty, as though she'd been sexually harassed.
As I was walking Sophie beachward down Cape May Street, I saw a couple of escaped macaws up in a palm tree nonchalantly eating of its fruit, dropping many to the ground below. It was a spectacular and thoroughly exotic sight for a humble Virginia farm boy like me.
Kim had a colourful and interesting life for years before starring in the Musings of the Gus and Randomly Ever After. For several years she lived just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, doing all manner of interesting things she probably wouldn't want me recounting. One thing she might not care about me recounting revolves around a girl named Terra, a young overachiever from wealthy hippie parents who lived for a time in a house once occupied by David Crosby of that familiar white boy rock and roll band. For a brief period, Kim and Terra were actually involved in a lesbian relationship. But that ended in the aftermath of a botched menage-a-trois with one of their boyfriends. Over the ensuing period, Kim and Terra have patched their friendship back together and now they're in a state of fairly close communication. Terra has moved to Los Angeles, has a boyfriend named Stephen, and does a fairly large amount of work as an actress. Terra is soon to begin an intensive Yoga seminar in Encinitas and Kim offered to let her stay at our house. Today Terra arrived.
She's a small girl with nearly white bleached-blond hair and a pretty, symmetrical, circular face and sharp little features. She's not into booze or drugs; these things would only stand in the way on her road to success.
We sat around having a few interesting conversations, psychology drifting in sociology or something like that. Terra is bright and a good conversationalist. But she's also one of those early to bed types. So Kim and I took Sophie for a walk to Steph and EJ's place about a block away.
For those who came late, Steph is the massage therapist who used to work at the Deja Vu strip club but now gives genuine therapeutic massages with her hands at Kim's place of employment, the V!ctoria Rose spa in downtown San Diego. EJ is her boyfriend, a well-respected skateboard guru who, by day, pedals bicycle-powered rickshaws downtown. Since getting back from a vacation to Thailand, they'd been living on a couch at a friend's nasty apartment in Ocean Beach. But recently they found a house they figured they could occupy for free. Here's the story behind that house:
It's currently owned by a guy who is serving a life term in prison. While in prison, this prisoner somehow met an unscrupulous golddigging woman and sparks somehow flew. Eventually she married him (however one marries a prisoner). Not surprisingly, the wife rapidly depleted the prisoner's cash reserves and it wasn't long before he got wise to the situation. He divorced the woman (however a prisoner divorces someone), and she split, heading off to Hawaii, leaving her adult sons living in the house. The sons are good friends of EJ, and when they decided to leave town, they offered him the house rent-free. EJ and Steph moved in, expecting to be evicted any day. But no one came knocking except the occasional inertial-driven crack head. It gradually dawned on Steph and EJ that the house really was their's, completely rent free.
Having served for a long time as a crack house, the place was in sorry shape. So Steph and EJ started fixing it up. They painted the walls purple. They mopped layers and layers of patina off what turned out to be a sound wooden floor. They even managed to save the potted plants and a couple of tropical fish. They tore up disgusting carpets and tossed them out into the back yard. By the third week, they figured they were home free, and they actually bought a refrigerator to replace the original, a nasty old thing held together by duct tape.
The bad news for Steph and EJ came a few days ago. Federal Marshalls came knocking at the door, looking for the woman who had married the owner of the house. As a side matter, this woman is in serious trouble for some sort of fraud. Incidental with the arrival of the Federal Marshalls, the locks on the doors were changed and the residents, Steph and EJ, were served eviction notices. So they're totally bummed. Without this house, they have no place to stay. They might have to end up camping on the goddamned beach, helpless against the ravages of a chance Tsunami. What would they do with their stuff? What about the goddamned refrigerator? (Well, EJ figures he could always take it back.)
Steph and EJ pleaded with someone claiming to be the "new" owner of the house, claiming disingenuously that they had paid a mysterious "someone" a $700 rent check. The "new owner" was actually sympathetic to their plight. It's even possible they'll be able to stay until the house is actually sold. After all, with all the cleaning they've done and all the improvements they've made, Steph and EJ have increased the value of the property enormously. What sucks is that no one is under any contractual obligation to give them anything for their trouble.
We drank some beers and shot the shit about a number of other issues. After awhile Kim and EJ inevitably began to wonder about pot. Apparently both were running low on the stuff, so I volunteered that I had some. I'd found a good deal about a week ago and had a big bag of Mexican green (the very best of the schwag) stashed away. Since Kim is sort of a pot snob, I hadn't seen fit to tell her. I'd been thinking about just bringing out a little now and then whenever the supplies ran low and surprising her. When Kim heard I had pot but hadn't told her, she became rather angry with me. It wasn't about the pot, she claimed, it was about me feeling the need to keep secrets.
EJ was off on his bike scoring some dope when Kim finally snapped about this issue. She pulled Steph into the other room and disappeared from view, though I could hear her sobbing and saying what a creep I am through the thin walls. I've noticed that it takes nothing to trigger Kim's emotions at certain unpredictable times. It's a familiar thing so it's no longer particularly disturbing to me. So I sat by myself watching the fish swimming in their aquarium. Sophie saw them too and became very excited, eventually barking at them as if to say, "Look everybody, there are fish in the house! Fish, I tell you, there are fish in the house! Am I the only one who cares? Come on people, there are fish in the house!"
Kim's little fit gradually subsided. EJ returned with some Mexican green. We smoked up. Everything was groovy.
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