Tag Archives: Life

Exercise

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So if you want some exercise, walk this near 6-mile route:


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If you want serious exercise, do it pushing a stalled out 210lb scooter.

For added fun, do it on the day that the worst possible albeit brief thunderstorm hits the beach.

I did it. So can you! Why you would want to, I don’t know. The only reason I did it was because I went over to the mainland to do some scouting. On the way back, the scooter quit on me. (Not scouting Bayside; that’s just where the scooter happened to die.)

Production Scouting Pass

Almost two and one-half hours, it took me. After I walked around the toll on the Venetian Causeway, I actually saw one of the other drivers from where I work. He was on his way home. Stopped. Talked. Thought I was crazy. Standing there, looking at the high-rises of downtown Miami way off in the distance and (panning to the left) seeing the high-rises of South Beach just as far off if not farther, I thought for a minute he might be right. My logic ran along the lines of (as it sometimes does): “If I can drive a 50cc across the United States AND back, surely I can do this.”

It took me fifty minutes just to get from one end of the Venetian Causeway to the other. When I hit the beach, that’s when the storm started. I’ve never heard thunder so loud or felt like lightning was actually going to strike me. Did anyone else witness that thing? Naturally, it stopped right as I was walking up to the scooter shop. Dropped off the scooter, walked the three blocks home. I know it’s in good hands now. Now I just have to wait.

I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow.

The sun rise.

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Clouds, #64

I’m beginning to think it’s my nicotine withdrawal that is partially responsible for my strange sleeping habits lately. Prior to quitting smoking, I would usually go to bed between 3-4am and wake up mid-morningish. Now, it’s all over the board. A few nights ago, I woke up after two hours of sleep, consumed a lot of sugar, then went immediately back to sleep for another four hours. I awoke at sunrise, but not all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I went back to sleep until around 10am.

This morning, I was awake long before the sun rose. I watched my room slowly start to lighten behind the curtains. I didn’t watch the sun rise over the ocean but I did go to the beach later in the morning. After dishes. After coffee. Around 8am.

I got to the beach, set my bag down, took off my shirt, and walked out into the calm waters. While I was out, propped on bent knees in the shallow waters, I pulled out a piece of crumpled up paper from my bathing suit pocket. I stretched it flat beneath the surface of the water and let it hover in front of me, watching the shape it would take as the waves pushed it slightly. The waters were clear, allowing me to see both the paper and the sand on the floor beneath.

The suspended paper would sway broadly, bending slightly. After about twenty seconds, I would grab it and stretch it at the corners to a flat shape again. Let go. Watch. Slowly, it would turn.

All of a sudden, there were swells of waves. Strong, residual waves. The wake from a boat. I looked out. The only possible option was a tanker coming into port, despite it being probably a mile off. The size and strength and number of waves seemed to fit. I thought about the surfers in Texas who ride (for long periods of time) the wake of tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. I grabbed my sheet of paper, turned and went in.

I reach down and grab the towel from my bag. More people on the beach, I notice. It’s too early for there to be this many people, I think. Hands dry, I lay down my towel. I stretch out and grab my book. Where was I? Somewhere in the back… I don’t know if I’ve read this one.

“And his sister, who married a merchant from Riga, is said to have deplored the poet’s emotional adventures with seamstresses and washerwomen.
-Nabokov, excerpt from “A Forgotten Poet”

“My feet are sore, Daddy,” she whines in a sort of cockney English accent.
“Hurry up, then,” he says.
I look up from my towel, from my book, from my bag, from my phone. They are leaving the beach.

I decide to do the same.

(Photo unrelated. Taken on the 6th of August.)

End of an era

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Older man on a scooter, no. 524

I am now, suddenly, the most senior delivery driver at La Sandwicherie. Over the weekend, my two co-workers were replaced. I can’t say I’m sad to see the younger fellow go. He was… well, he was a nice guy but well… I wish him the best of luck. But the other guy to leave?

Carlos.

When I went into work on Sunday, I looked at the schedule and Carlos’ name was no where to be found. Another person’s name was where his should’ve been. And it hit me, Carlos didn’t work there anymore. Carlos, who had been there nearly ten years, working as a “delivery boy” (as the owner calls us), gone.

My mentor, my colleague, my hero, my friend. When I first started working at the shop, I was certain Carlos hated me. But he was just stand-offish and brash, I quickly learned. And most definitely, he had more than a few run-ins with customers, but he was and is really a nice man. I had a lot of respect for him and thoroughly enjoyed working with Carlos.

When it hit me that I would likely never see him again, that I had never even exchanged phone numbers with this seventy-year-old Chilean man whose life was so vastly different from mine… when it hit me, I was so completely bummed. If I was lucky, he would stop by the shop.

It had only been in recent weeks that Carlos began more frequently relating stories of his daily life, permitting me to glimpse in for a moment. Not fantastic stories of great adventures, but simple stories like how he took his car somewhere. Or how he watches a particular show on Spanish television in the mornings. Or how he spent a day off at home, relaxing. Not epic, no. But they were personal stories and it meant so much to me that he would tell me these things.

In any event, when I pulled into the shop yesterday, there was Carlos. He greeted me with a shrug of the shoulders, hands in the air, as if to ask, “Eh, what are you gonna do?” We stood outside in the shade and talked about what happened, what his plans were now. It was pleasant. Kind of sad. And before he left, he wanted my phone number. I was flattered; I’ve never imagined his contact list to be very long.

And then it was time for me to go into work. On the days that Carlos and I worked together, we would always shake hands at the end of his workday before he left for home. “See you Friday, my friend,” or “See you Monday, my friend” he would say. Yesterday, we shook hands again. But it was more than the usual handshake. It was more firm, as if to say, “it has been a pleasure, sir.”

It certainly has been. I’ll miss Carlos.

One hundred hours

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Self-portrait, #60

One hundred hours. I’ve just hit the hundred hour mark. It’s been one-hundred hours since I’ve had a cigarette.

When I made it 24 hours, I was elated; I knew if I could just make it through the first 24, everything would be alright.

Because, my god, I love cigarettes. Everyone knows me knows that I absolutely love smoking. For the most part, anyway. Not so much if I don’t have an accompanying beverage in hand like a tall latte or coffee or a glass of chocolate milk or an ice-cold coke. But I have thoroughly enjoyed being a smoker. Smoking has been an integral part of my life for over two decades, and to an extreme point right before I quit which is why I’m particularly pleased with myself right about now. :)

I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day right before I quit. In fact, the night before I quit, I went to the drugstore, bought two packs of cigarettes along with the starter nicotine patch kit. I smoked those cigarettes right up until I got ready for work the next day, then slapped on a patch just before heading out.

Three packs. Sixty cigarettes a day. Insanity. I was spending roughly $20 a day on cigarettes.

Room for oneSo now I’m done. Quitting like this, for me, is the easiest route. Rather than plan out the whole quitting, I’ve found it’s easiest just to quit when the mood strikes. I’ve done it this way twice before (rather successfully), starting back for reasons that had nothing to do with addiction or craving but that stemmed from a wholly different system of logic.

But I’m much older now. And I do have to start worrying about my health, I suppose. And cancer runs in my family. And I have the whole low-white blood thing going on. Smoking really isn’t a good thing for me.

I’ve gotten some mild entertainment (while being equally appalled) from a recent thread over at MiamiBeach411 that brought up the notion of banning smoking on the beach. And there was a conversation a long time ago on the topic of smoking and the workplace and people really didn’t hold back. People that don’t like smoke really don’t mind letting you know. Sometimes.

So an unusual side effect (though I wouldn’t exactly call it a bonus) of terminating my addiction is that I’m at least taking away the ability of people to pass judgement on me for smoking or removing their desire to not want to be around me simply because I smoke. It’s a travesty that smokers are treated like such social pariahs.

Do alcoholics go through this? Meth heads? I suppose addicts of other sorts have their own set of social issues they have to deal with. I just find it kind of sad.

In any event, I’ve quit! So yay, me! I’ve been around all of the triggers (and smoking as much as I was, just about everything is a trigger). Even stood in a bar, while the person I was talking to blew smoke in my face. And it smelled soooo good to me. Didn’t make me crave one, but did make me slightly envious. Like I said, I love smoking and I love cigarettes. If someone would invent a healthy cigarette that tasted and smoked like a normal cigarette… and it was cheap? I would be all over that. But I’m done. I’m out.

How am I doing?

Coffee, cigarettes, medicineKevin asked me how I’m spending all of my free time since I’m not smoking. Well, I’ve been keeping busy, for sure. Although not a lot of my routine has changed, I did find myself doing a fair number of things on my day off. But quitting smoking hasn’t given me any clarity. Might have made things temporarily worse. Case in point: I walked into the bank the other day to open a new account and then realized as I was sitting down that I was in the wrong bank. I apologized to the customer service person who was helping me, and then actually asked her where the bank I was looking for was located before leaving. She was kind and laughed. With me, near me, at me, whichever. You would’ve thought that the signs everywhere both inside and outside the bank would’ve clued me in. Signs pretty much everywhere. But no.

Truthfully, it’s business as usual mentally speaking.

Rainy days and whatnot

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Couple on a scooter, no. 530

Last week, after a long day of driving around in the rain, I was going to write some thoughts on the subject. Thoughts about rain from the perspective of the delivery driver. But then I sat down and watched Buster Keaton followed by a martial arts flick. Or maybe that was two nights ago? I can’t recall. I watch a lot of movies lately. A lot.

Anyway, it’s been about a week since then and since the draft version of this hadn’t gotten buried too deep, I thought I would finish what I started to say. This now concludes the introduction.

The Rain

For the delivery driver (at least the ones delivering via scooter) there are only two choices in dealing with the rain: hate it or try to pretend not to hate it. The third choice of simply existing within it, neither fighting it nor reveling in it, is the most difficult choice. So difficult that I don’t even like acknowledging it exists because I foolishly wrestle with it rather than… simply exist.

Last Thursday, my shift started at 11 in the morning. At 10:55am, I take one last look at the wall clock that rests on the top shelf before letting the door to my studio apartment close behind me. As I make my way down the stairs, I note the wet footprints of others. It has been raining outside all morning, not drizzling. It is a steady rain, with drops spattering in puddles forming in all possible pockets on the sidewalk and the road and the grass between.

As I walk to my scooter, my mind is singularly focused on whether or not I will have trouble starting it. The scooter has been in need of a new spark plug, and for mechanical reasons that I won’t pretend to know -mechanics aren’t my specialty; anything beyond a Rube Goldberg machine and I’m at a loss – the rain always makes starting it more difficult. After propping the scooter on the kickstand and attempting numerous times to get the engine started, I grow anxious, knowing that I am going to be late for work. I watch the minutes pass by on the digital display beneath the odometer.

Kickstart. Listen, release. Wait.
Kickstart. Listen, release. Wait.

The sky is gray. The white noise of rain drowns out all other sound, save the tires on cars as they pass and the constant and sporadic drops pelting the hood of my poncho.

I call work to tell them I will be late. “No, it’s okay, don’t worry about it,” he says. I DO worry about it. Standing beside my stalled scooter, my shoes are already soggy. My socks squish between my toes as I try to kickstart the engine once more. It was closer that time, I could feel it. After fifteen minutes, I am able to get the scooter started and I drive to work.

The delivery driver station is still boarded up, waiting on my arrival. I remove the cover, raise the window, go inside and greet my coworkers. Immediately, we’re playing the conversational game of “Looks like somebody’s getting wet in the rain today, you poor bastard. Haha.” “Yes, it sucks to be me.”

I get settled at work. The phones begin to ring. Deliveries, naturally. No pickup orders; it’s raining.

My first delivery is at a bar at the other end of the alley. A waste of everything to drive there, so I walk. I walk through the alley, in my rain pants, and my cheap $4.99 poncho from Walgreens or CVS. And in my baseball cap that I bought the previous day when I drove around in the rain to scout locations for a shoot this Saturday.

Rain everywhere. Gathered in the middle of the street. In all of the potholes. Pouring down like a fountain from the gutters above. As I near the end of the alley, getting closer to my destination, the alley is like a sewer, reeking of urine. Wet garbage strewn about.

“I can’t get out in this,” he says to me as he hands me the cash.
Really, you can’t? I put the money into my pocket. The cash is wet from my hands, though the bag I hand him is dry.

I make numerous deliveries that day. More than usual for a rainy day. It has been my experience over the past few months that rainy days are typically not much busier than others. The tips are not better. When I first started, I believed a myth that rainy days were catch-22s: that they were awful to work, but that the pay was better. Rainy days aren’t catch-22s; they are simply awful days to work.

You will get an occasional person that will tip better, perhaps feeling grateful toward the driver’s effort, but everyday, there exists that occasional person; they don’t increase in numbers when it rains. There is the person that says to you,

“Try to stay dry!”

And they mean it with the best of intentions as they close the door, sandwich in hand. And you notice their dry hair, their dry apartment, their dry wit, their dry everything. The only thing that’s wet is everything on the side of the doorway where you stand. Dripping, soggy wet. Damp.

“Some weather we’re having, huh,” another casually remarks.
Yes, some weather indeed. Outside, where it’s raining.
“Take care,” I say smiling.

The rain hits like pinpricks against my face as I make my way back and forth to the shop. A phone number is written down wrong. Back to the address to attempt delivery again. Two more waiting. Where is the other driver?

“He’s coming late today. I’ll take this one,” he offers.
Four more. Double-bag everything to keep it dry.
“Take the coat in the back, it has a hood. Maybe pull it over the hat.”

Shoes. Socks. Shorts. Belt. T-shirt.
Rain pants. Coat from the back. Hat. Poncho.

The long sleeves of the coat come out from underneath the poncho. The banded cuffs at the wrist are holding water after the first delivery. Rolling them up, more of my arms are wet. All of the money in my pocket is damp. The credit card receipts… they will need to lay flat and dry.

I hate the rain.

“Don’t you love the rain,” he asks. Two dollar tip.
Is my honesty worth two dollars?
“And we needed it,” he continues.
“Rain brings prosperity,” he then tells me with big eyes.

I should have delivered to the rain and not to you then, you cheap son of a bitch. No, I wouldn’t say that. You’re a nice fellow. And a regular. You’re just cheap. And it’s raining.

I thank him, leave with a smile.

Reflection, no. 740

Tips

Delivery drivers don’t forget the tips. Nor do they forget the tippers. And why not? Tips are a large part of the money they make. Delivery drivers are paid like wait staff; a very minimal base plus tips. Like the wait staff, drivers count on tips to make their earnings. The other drivers and I see a familiar address and we know what to expect in tips. There is one woman who, no matter the ticket, counts out the change to make the tip exactly $1 even. There is a man who consistently tips about $20 for a a ticket of roughly the same value. It all balances out. And while I don’t let the anticipated tip from a known customer affect the speed or quality of delivery, I can promise you that I am only speaking for myself. (That link is well worth a read if you want to get an insight into the minds of the people bringing you your food.)

I don’t harbor animosity toward customers about their tips. I would be a very angry person, if I did. Everyone has it figured out in their own head how to tip. I accept whatever that rationalization comes out to. It isn’t my job while I stand on their doorstep to educate them on best practices. I’m a delivery driver; I’m not on a lecture circuit. I will say that I DO find it reprehensible when I deliver to someone AT WORK in the service industry and they don’t tip. The ugliest of cases is when I deliver to someone working at a restaurant and they don’t tip. A restaurant which employs delivery drivers to deliver food… and they don’t tip.

But like I said, I’m not complaining. When I started delivering and after analyzing the schedule, I came to a rough figure on what I could expect to make a week, including tips. I took the job, satisfied with what I anticipated. Taking into account that some days would be slower than others, I have been pretty much exactly right in my estimations and am content with my earnings.

There have been days lately when it’s been so absurdly and miserably hot that I’ve wished for the rain. Delerium, clearly. Because rainy days are, in case I haven’t made my point yet, the most trying days to deliver. Apart from the simple fact that you’re getting wet, you’re money is getting wet and you’re struggling to not look like a wet dog everywhere you go, it’s much more dangerous to deliver when it’s raining. The roads are slicker and you have to drive much more defensively because of other drivers. You can’t simply zip around town, making deliveries; every delivery is a risk.

Oh, shut the hell up, Buddha!

But there’s something else that’s much more challenging about the rain and I’ve alluded to and joked about it throughout. The challenge is to simply be, in the rain. To not let it affect my mood. I interact with a lot of people. I enjoy that fact. And I get to bring happiness. I don’t want to negatively impact the mood of another and set off a chain reaction. When it rains, it is work for me to do that. It should be easy to simply let the rain come down upon me. But I haven’t found the sweet spot in my mind yet. It is elusive.

I remember in the early days of this job one particularly wet day. I remember the rain starting on the way back to the shop. When I got there, the rain picked up drastically and I had a delivery just a few blocks away to a private residence in an apartment building. By the time I got to the building, it was like a monsoon. Pouring. The building had a security gate, so I had to call the resident to open the gate. No answer. Standing in a spot underneath a nearby tree where the rain is dripping through the least, I dial the number again, hoping my phone doesn’t get ruined. I can’t keep it dry.
No answer. After a few minutes of this, I leave.

As I leave, the rain stops.

When I get back to the shop, the fellow has called asking about his food. I get back on the scooter to make the delivery. And like magic, the rain returns in full force. Same routine, I call at the gate when I get to the building. The customer runs quickly from his apartment to the gate and urges me to follow him quickly to the covered landing.

“What, did you get lost,” he asks.
Oh. Hell. No. You didn’t just ask me that. Breathe deeply.
“I’ve already been here once. Nobody answered,” I inform him.
He signs the receipt. I don’t smile. I don’t say anything. I simply leave, my displeasure surely expressed on my face and in my tone.

That was my worst. Instantly, I hated that experience. And not at all for the customer’s callousness (although, jesus, what a dick) but because I could have potentially spread negativity with my reaction to him. Perhaps my attitude rubbed off on him and he ended up snapping at someone. I wasn’t at all pleased with myself. I’ve been careful to never let that happen again.

(Incidentally, it stopped raining the second time back to the shop as well.)

Perhaps if there was simply the opportunity to stop, close my eyes, and point my face to the sky, letting the rain come down upon me for even a moment. Just to sit there and meditate on that moment…

I need to find that spot.

Personal practices

As for my tipping practices, I used to tip 20% across the board. Now? I always overtip. I do so for two reasons: 1) I know that I’m guaranteeing good service in the future and 2) the driver is going to get shafted by someone that day; I want to be on the positive side of that scale and help balance it out.

And I never order when it rains. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. I just leave it to others.

As a final note, I didn’t write this little piece to get people to tip me more. I’m content with the balance. And honestly, I doubt very seriously that anyone I deliver to reads ipanemic. Except for friends. (And it’s really awkward when you tip me; I really wish you wouldn’t.) But I do share this with the hopes that whoever reads this will consider your delivery drivers, the service they provide, and those rainy days when they’re working to make your life easier.

Yeah, scratch that

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Sunrise, no. 400

She’s not out there. I’ve already abandoned the whole looking online for love notion. My girl from Ipanema is not there. I may have missed a couple of countries in Eastern Europe and maybe a small suburb of Tokyo, but no…. she’s not there.

Sigh.

Sooooo…. next step.

Next step.
Hm.
Thinking, thinking.
Neeeeext step.

Sigh. Meanwhile, three years earlier… time travel!

Sea of Love

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Yellow flower

So I’ve decided to finally really be proactive about actually possibly meeting someone with whom I might have a real and solid relationship with. This time, I’m serious. Not just talking about thinking about it. And using my worst judgment, I’ve decided once more to dip into the sea of online love.

So I have begun.

My first disappointment while back at sea came in my complete inability to write a worthwhile profile that didn’t blather on about nothing at all. My second disappointment came when that profile actually attracted women to me, most of whom I probably would not date. I’m sure they’re lovely people and I would love to meet them (or maybe just do a phone interview with some of them for my ongoing studies of the human psyche), but I have absolutely nothing in common with them.

Honestly, I think at this point that I am so far away from the middle of that bell curve in just about every aspect of life that it’s going to take a god I don’t believe in to somehow put her in front of me. Because she’s going to have to be, uh, special. Not like olympics special. And not special special. Special in the sense that she would have to be…

I’m a lot of person to take. A really good female friend told me once that whoever dated me would have to be very patient. I mean, I’ve had a homeless girl leave me to go back to the streets! I kid. Although… true story. But not really.

No, I’m actually really fun. And people love me. I don’t know why she said that bit about being patient. I really should ask her what she meant by that.

All I know is that if it were to happen – if this woman were to magically appear in front of me – I would promise to try to put more faith in and pray to that god I don’t believe in than the Wood which I have certainly knocked on more in my life. That supernatural Wood on which I have laid my hopes and dreams and used to try to keep the badness away as I’ve said with pure conviction and a righteous rap of my knuckles, “Knock on Wood!”

(By the way, I was going to put a link there, certain there HAD to be some christian rapping on the internet, perhaps even an 80s group with a self-titled album called Righteous Rap. Let me just go ahead and say, don’t bother googling “righteous rap” unless you want to be embarrassed for humanity. It’s like the time I wanted to put a link to Gordon Lightfoot singing Sundown. Uncomfortable. I watched the live performance video of that song and all I could think was, “How have white people survived as long as we have?” But, oh my god, Sundown is phenomenal. And no, that’s not the video.)

Getting back to what I was saying, I really can’t make that promise about Wood. I mean, sometimes I’ll even use metal or sheetrock when I can’t find Wood, telling myself that it’s close enough or at least hope in my mind that it is. That’s not the kind of belief system a person can just shake overnight. It’s like saying, “OK, now I’m going to be Jewish.”

In any event, this episode in online dating should, at the very least, be entertaining. At the very most, two people will live happily ever after (with me being, obviously, one of the two people in that scenario.)

By the way, this is pretty much how my profile reads right now: complete rambling. I should probably think about outsourcing the writing for this, Cyrano de Bergerac-style. Any takers? Anyone at all?

42

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Birthday cards

Yesterday was my birthday. I have reached the age of 42. Did I do anything spectacular? Of course I did!!!

Woke up yesterday morning, said to myself, “Alright then. I’m 42.”
Worked on the Goggle Girl video. Finished it.
Did some stuff.
Went to work (and got soaked for the first time since this day.)
Came home.
Started to watch a movie.
Went to sleep.

I received two birthday cards in the mail. One from my parents, one from my sisters, nephews and niece. (They were all vacationing at my eldest sisters’ home in the South of France. So they took the time out to find a card and all sign it.) That made me pretty happy.

I’m actually really happy to be this age. Totally looking forward to the coming few months. And 42 is a year of abundance, I was recently told. One day in and so far, so good. Here’s to a good year.