Other characters I love are:

-Old woman who does all her makeup and hair on the train.  She uses aerosol hairspray BTW and it gets on me if she sits next to me.  She also uses about 4 packs of those travel Kleenex pouches in one sitting, somehow.  I don’t have the guts to turn toward her and watch her do her thing so I’ve only seen her face when she first gets on the train and right when she walks off.  The weird thing is that she looks exactly the same.  Hmmm.  Must be that new invisible makeup line from Europe.

-Super smiley dude who resembles “Bob” from Twin Peaks.  He wears a very large puffy coat and has very white shoulder length hair.  Some days he seems wasted.  Other days he seems totally put together.  Every day he has his big coat and crazy creepy grin.  Sometimes he laughs to himself.  He has never said anything mean to me so that’s nice.  Thanks dude.

-Super aggro Muni driver.  It’s 6:00 in the morning.  Please try and refrain from blasting your horn at any chance you get.  Also, it’s probably not good for company moral that you talk shit about Muni like every day on the loudspeaker.

Most people just sit there and either read or nod off for a quick nap before they get downtown.  Others enjoy breakfast on the train.  I am not opposed to this as long as it’s a nice, subtle breakfast that doesn’t cause a huge mess and doesn’t fill the car up with a lingering odor.  Things that are acceptable to me are most fruits, granola bars, donuts, oatmeal.  The one thing that could be literally the WORST Muni breakfast choice is a hot dog from 7/11.

First of all let’s get one thing straight: I have nothing against hot dogs.  I definitely don’t eat them every day and have only purchased maybe three packs in my life (pigs in a blanket anyone?) but every now and then, you need dat dawg.  Choosing a hot dog as your first meal of the day seems too risky.  You don’t know how your insides are gonna react to that dog.  You may be setting yourself up for a disastrous day at work.  Probably better to stick to things that are well-established breakfast foods.

Second, I have never walked by a case of glistening spinning hot dogs proudly displayed on the 7/11 counter by the 5 Hour Energy Drinks and been like, “Yum.  I need that in my life.”  Who knows how long these have been stuck in their greasy spinning purgatory!  Were they leftover from the day before?  Would anyone even notice if they were?

Third, eating a hot dog is not a glamorous feat.  It’s messy, it’s stinky, and, let’s be honest, it’s fucking phallic.

The kid who got on the train this morning DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK.  He jumped on with his hot dog and several packets of condiments.  Apparently he didn’t have enough time to dress his breakfast dog in the store, but what better place to top it than a jolting, moving, urine soaked Muni car?!!  Sure why not!

He opened the cardboard clam shell, placed the dog on the seat next to him and began to open little packets of mustard, ketchup and relish.  After he meticulously dressed his breakfast dog, I could have sworn I saw him nod and give himself a silent “Hell Yeah, Dog”.

He ate the entire thing in about five stops.  Luckily he had plenty of napkins to wipe his face and hands clean. He placed the napkins, and the empty condiment packets in his now empty clam shell and sat there ready for his sodium-fueled day.

After a while, I think my body got used to the smell and I didn’t notice it anymore.  I once had an elderly piano teacher who had maybe 15 cats and her house smelled horribly of cat urine which is the worst kind of urine.  When I first entered her house, I almost threw up but after a while, I didn’t notice a thing.  Same thing with the hot dog.  People just entering the car would climb up the stairs and immediately gag a little.  It was actually quite comical to watch.

When he got off the train, Breakfast Dog Dude took his trash with him and even looked back to see if he had left any trash on the train.  After confirming everything was okay, he got off and started his day.  At first I was mad at the kid, but by the time he got off the train, I liked him.  That dude was like, “Man I’m hungry.  And I feel like a hot dog.” and he made his dream a reality.  You gotta respect that.  I’d much rather sit next to Breakfast Dog Dude than the drunkies in the second car.  Maybe next time those drunk dudes go into a 7/11, they should stop buying so many cans of Natty Ice and go for a nice, satisfying breakfast hot dog to start their day off right.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette

The thing I love most about galettes is that you can literally put anything inside of one and, because it’s wrapped up in a flaky pastry, it’s pretty much going to taste amazing.  In case you don’t know what a galette is, it’s basically a free form flat round-ish tart.  I’ve used different pastry recipes, but the one I love the most is the Tartine Flaky Tart Dough.  If you’re looking for something lighter, just use some puff pastry–it’s your body, your choice.  I use the Tartine Flaky Tart Dough for both savory and sweet galettes–the only difference is that with sweet ones, I’ll sprinkle sugar on top of the egg wash.

Tartine Flaky Tart Dough:

• 1tsp salt
• 2/3 cup very cold water
• 3 cups plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 cup plus 5 Tbsp very cold UNSALTED butter cut into 1 inch pieces

Dissolve salt in water in a small bowl.  Place bowl in freezer while you assemble the rest of the dough.  Put flour in a food processor and scatter butter on top.  Pulse until mixture resembles large crumbs and you can see pea-sized chunks of butter throughout.  Slowly feed cold water mixture through the feed tube till the mixture comes together in the bowl.  Don’t over mix or that ish won’t be flaky!  Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface, divide into two disks, wrap in plastic wrap and put in the fridge.  Don’t stack them one on top of the other cause they won’t get as cold (seems obvious, but I’ve definitely done this before and it sucks).  Chill at least an hour but the longer the better.  That was easy, wasn’t it?

Here are a few bad ass recipes I’ve done in the past that are delicious.  The basics are the same so I’ll get into it on the first recipe then just give ingredients for the others because I’m lazy.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette:

• A butternut squash (an entire squash was about twice as much as you need for one galette) broken down, peeled and cubed
• 1 yellow onion
• 1-2 sprigs of rosemary, sage or thyme minced up–whatever you have on hand.
• Parmesan cheese
• ricotta cheese (or whatever cheese you’re feelin.  I think goat would be pretty good too)
• some olive oil
• some butter
• 1 egg yolk and a dash of cream or water for an egg wash

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Take your cubed up squash and put them in a big ass bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Get your hands dirty for once and mix that ish up till everything is coated.  Spread them out on a parchment lined baking sheet or two and roast for 30 minutes.  I turn them over in the middle of roasting cause I’m that guy.

Meanwhile, heat up a couple tablespoons of olive oil with a tablespoon or so of butter in a skillet over medium heat.  Thinly slice your onions and drop them into the pan.  Salt and pepper those onions up and let them hang out for a while.  It’ll take about 20-30 minutes over a medium/medium low heat to properly caramelize the onions but it’s worth it.  About 20 minutes or so, I sprinkled in my rosemary on the onions and stirred those in.

By the time your squash is done, your onions should be about done.  This is where you need to pull out your pastry and start rolling it out!  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to about a 12 inch round.  Transfer the round to a parchment lined baking sheet and start assembling.  Sprinkle some Parmesan and ricotta on the bottom of the pastry leaving about and inch and a half border around the outside.  Next, spread the caramelized onion over that, then cover that with your squash.  Dollop your ricotta on top of the squash.  Fold the border over the filling, pleating the edge to make it fit.  The middle will be open.  Wash the pastry with the egg wash and bake for about 20-30 minutes.  Slice up and enjoy.

Mushroom, Arugula and Fontina Galette:

• Your favorite mushrooms sliced up (I like crimini)
• a couple garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme
• some olive oil
• some butter
• a cup or so of arugula
• grated fontina cheese
• 1 egg yolk and a dash of cream or water for an egg wash

Heat oil and butter in a pan over medium high heat and add shrooms.  Saute until softened.  Lower heat to medium and add garlic, thyme and some salt and pepper.  Cook for about 2 minutes then set aside.  Roll out your pastry like you would any galette and put on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Cover bottom of the pastry with arugula then garlicky shrooms then grated fontina.  Crimp the edges of galette, shellac with egg wash and bake in oven for 20–30 minutes.  Holy shit that’s good.

Apple Galette:

• 3 large granny smith apples
• 1/4 tsp grated orange or lemon zest (whatever you have around)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, diced
• 1 egg yolk and a dash of cream or water for an egg wash

Peel, core and thinly slice the apples.  Put in a bowl with zest so those suckers don’t get brown.  Combine the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and allspice in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade.  Add the butter and pulse until the mixture is crumbly. Pour into a bowl and rub it with your fingers until it starts holding together.  Sprinkle half the mixture into the apples and mix.  Pile the apples in the middle of your rolled out pastry.  Sprinkle the remaining half of flour/cinnamon/butter mixture on top of the apples.  This will give it a dope ass crumbly topping.  Fold over galette, wash with egg wash, then sprinkle some extra sugar on top of the pastry.  Bake for 20-30 minutes.  Serve hot with ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

Picture of a slice of Soprano Pizza

The restaurant was a little confusing.  You have to wait in a line and order at the counter.  There are no menus at the beginning of the line so you kind of have to choose quickly when you get to the front.  We were greeted by a girl who was sitting down comfortably in a chair and who looked ready to go home for the night.  We were feeling a bit void of vegetables so we ordered a grilled chicken salad and a slice each. Shawn got pepperoni. I got something called The Soprano which was described as grilled chicken and pesto.  Both of our slices were cold with beads of oil on top of coagulated cheese.  My slice had cold chopped up chicken nuggets on top of flavorless pesto sauce which was on top of a cheese pizza.

Salad Packets

The salad was also insane.  It came with two Hidden Valley Italian salad dressing packets on top of the salad–you know, the ones you would get in the cafeteria of your middle school.  Yeah.

As the final meal on our awesome road trip, it fucking sucked and we both felt sad about ending everything on a sour note (literally).  Our dinner was so bad that I decided that I had to write a Yelp review about it.  You can read it here (I am “Mimi M”).

Almost two months later, I got a message from someone named Sean W of Evelyn’s Pizzeria.  The message went like this:

Please stay in San Francisco.  They have all you need there.  
We do not serve cold food that should be hot  Why would you say that?

I was a little shocked and bummed at the response so I decided to roam around their Yelp page for other reviews.  Was I mental and don’t have the culinary aptitude to understand that this place has the best pizza outside of Naples?!  Was my palette really that bad?  Nope.  This place is insane and here are some key points in their reviews:

Suddenly the owner, I believe Evelyn, screams at me saying I got to have a plate before I go down to eat or leave. “LEAVE MY BUILDING OR I’LL CALL THE COPS!”  He just kept barking at me, even calling me discriminatory names. He said he will never serve me again because I was being an ass. I go to the checkout lady and asked for a refund, and she said they don’t give them out, and she can’t do anything about it.  I leave, and thought about pressing charges for a while to the restaurant, but I guess I came to the realization that that would be paying too much for my whistle. I’ll let this go; but advise everyone not to go to this place simply for the fact that the owner went personal with me even when I spoke few words in the first place.  I don’t know if he had something against Asians or something, or he had a bad day; but that was very unprofessional and I wish for him to know that there are better ways to communicate that to other people. 
[posted by Steven C]

Saw employee SMOKING… Yes I walked to bathroom with my 4 year old daughter and we walked passed the large man in the closet office smoking a cigarette. I WAS SO SHOCKED! It looked like this was his normal routine as he had a fancy ashtray and watched tv.
[posted by Ryenn B]

The chicken was this massive 4 person portion that was gross. It was overcooked and bland, and just tasted awful. A 99c banquet TV dinner would have had better quality meat. Their chicken was highly processed near-rotting crap.  
[posted by Chris S]

One younger guy took out RAW chicken, diced it, threw it on the pan to cook. He proceeded to cut up lettuce with the same knife- without washing or rinsing the knife.  
[posted by Kyndra G]

After I felt like I was totally in the right about my review, I wrote Sean back:

Hi Sean,

Despite what you may think, I don’t roam around Fairfield, CA looking for restaurants to bash on. I ate at your restaurant, I was disappointed, and I posted my experience on Yelp.

I also am very familiar with the definitions of “hot” food and “cold” food and have never been accused of getting the two definitions confused. Sorry to break it to you, but my pizza was cold.

I have written both positive and negative reviews on Yelp, but all reviews are truthful and not vengeful. Most of the negative reviews are followed up by the owner sending me a message apologizing for the experience and thanking me for the feedback. Till your message, I’ve never received any hostile feedback from owners or managers.

You may follow up this message with some short, snooty comment–I’m totally prepared for that so go for it. I feel totally content with my initial review and response to your comment, so I’m just gonna leave it at that.

So now it’s the waiting game.  Can’t wait to see what kind of response I get to my message.  I only wish there was a way to have the trail of messages be visible to all the world.

1) Go to the DMV.  I strolled in without an appointment and the line said it would take 90 minutes but when I rolled in with my crutches, the lady at the desk took pity on me and put me in the front of the line.  I’m sure people were pissed, but if they wanted to be in the front of the line so bad, go ahead and rupture your Achilles’.  It depends on how much you despise the DMV.

2)  Abuse the BART system.  The other day I found a loophole in the BART system.  Shawn dropped me off at the street elevator that takes you to the main platform at Embarcadero Station.  After asking a Muni attendant in the little glass booth where the elevator was and being completely ignored (bitch), I hobbled over to the BART attendee who told me to take the elevator in the middle of the station.  I again hobbled over to the elevator and pushed the “down” arrow.  When it arrived, I jumped in, almost barfed at the urine smell, and then pushed the button for the BART level.  Once the doors opened, I was at the platform and had not tagged my Clipper Card at all.  I got nervous that when I got to Walnut Creek, I would get in trouble but who would get mad at a girl on crutches, right?  I got to Walnut Creek and took the elevator to the street level and it dropped me outside of the gates.  I basically got a free ride and now I understand why I see perfectly non handicapped people riding the elevators.

3)  Go to bars (Part 1).  You know how annoying it is when you go to a bar and it’s so crowded or the bartender is SO COOL that it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes for you to get a drink?  Well, with crutches, people gladly let you slide in to order your drink.  No problem.  They will also sometimes give you their bar stool which is also very kind of them.

4)  Go to bars (Part 2).  I am not a single woman, but if I were right now is the time to go to bars and meet hawt guyzz.  Here’s what you do: Wait till you see that hottie bo body near the bar door.  Then you hobble to the door and try to open it but kind of struggle with your crutches.  If he has a soul, he’ll help you open the door and BAM there’s your ice breaker.  Start planning your wedding the next day.

5)  Park ANYWHERE.  I got my temporary handicap parking placard almost immediately after my accident and man do I love it.  I am allowed to park in metered spaces for free, in blue or green painted curbs, handicap parking spaces, and permit parking only zones for as long as I like.  Also, if I roll into a gas station and there is more than one attendant working, they are obligated to pump my gas for me for free.  I haven’t tried that yet, but it’s nice knowing it’s there.  With my placard, we were able to park in the crowded North Beach area, anywhere downtown, and at the 7th and Fulton Safeway without the usual anxiety of not finding a parking space.  Hell yeah.

6)  Get on an airplane.  I took a flight to Seattle this weekend and kindly notified Virgin that I would need wheelchair service to the gate.  It was awesome.  I went straight to the front of the ticket counter, they called down for a wheelchair.  A nice man came and got me.  We zipped right through the security line and wheeled quickly to the gate.  at SFO, I didn’t even have to take off my shoe (singular).  I boarded the plane first which was also sweet.  Then, when we landed, there was another nice man standing there with a little whiteboard and a wheelchair that said “EMILY NEVEU” on it waiting for me at the gate to take me wherever.  I felt very special thank you kind sir.

7)  Go to an amusement park.  To be fair, I’ve never tried this.  But I have heard that you are allowed to go straight to the front of the line if you’re on crutches.  I’m into this.

8)  Make up stories about how you got your injury.  You will get asked close to 29384628346 times what happened to your leg and, at first, you’re excited to tell the traumatic story, but after a few hundred times, you want to headbutt anyone who asks you this question.  You will undoubtedly get so sick of this question, that you will begin to make up stories.  Warning: you will get a kick out of this, but the poor sap you’re telling it to will think you’re an asshole after he/she finds out you were lying.

9)  Go to three weddings in one month.  Be sure to plan your leg injury in the same month as all three of the weddings you’re invited to are.  Sure, you can’t get up and mingle, but people will come to you which is nice.  Also, if you hate dancing, you now have a valid excuse not to.  You will, however, get a lot of lap dances (no complaints).

10)  Use Safeway Grocery Delivery.  I have not been able to go to the grocery store and shop for food since my accident.  For those of you who know me, this is almost devastating because I like to cook/bake a lot.  Safeway does have a magical service where you go online, shop for food, then they deliver it to your door.  This is perfect for people who are injured or people who just hate the stress of being in a crowded grocery store.  I highly recommend.

In conclusion, these ten pros do not outweigh the cons of snapping off the largest tendon in your body.  But, if you’re going to do it and be on crutches, take advantage of it.  I’m trying to make some shitty lemonade out of the lemons  handed to me this year, so get off my back.

I had two very distinctive alter egos growing up: Cindy Morgan and Sassy Jordan.  Cindy Morgan was an homage to my father’s cousin Cindy who I thought was the prettiest and nicest person ever.  It was a horrible tragedy and quite the karmic conundrum that has boggled me my entire life as to why she accidentally contracted the HIV virus via blood transfusion in the 80′s.  I can’t understand why the higher powers would let such an incredible woman die so young but that is another conversation for another day over several glasses of bourbon.  Any way, Cindy Morgan was used when I wanted to perform my awesome hula hoop tricks or a fashion show of my latest Old Navy finds from back to school shopping.  Cindy Morgan was conservative and talented.  Sassy Jordan was another beast.

Sassy Jordan was a British DJ working for the fictitious radio station WZUP (what’s up?!).  My inspiration for Sassy Jordan was the funky MTV VJ Downtown Julie Brown.  I imagined Sassy would wear tight leather pants, strappy crop tops, way too much eyeliner and would get hit on by famous drummers left and right.  She had a show based on interviews with locals and sprinkled with some sweet beats recorded off Wild 94.9 (mostly artists like Keith Sweat and Blackstreet).  Basically, I interviewed my friends and family using a horrible British accent and we talked about lame stuff but got a KICK out of it.

When I had completed both A and B sides of my Sassy Jordan cassette tape, I declared, “I MUST make album art for this culturally significant cassette tape!!”.  Naturally I turned to my mother to be my Production Assistant for this project.  I would be the Creative Director, obviously.

I scheduled a photo shoot with my mother a few days in advance and asked her to meet me by the pool table with her 35mm Minolta and several rolls of film.  She showed up on time, completely prepared which was a great sign of her professionalism.  I certainly did not have tight leather pants, strappy crop tops or eyeliner at the tender age of 9 or 10, so I settled on wearing my favorite sleeveless hooded flannel vest for my shoot.  Mom told me I looked great.

For the first few frames, I decided to take off my round Coke bottle glasses for a sexier, more rock and roll look.  I took some photos smiling and some with a seductive stare.  The second round, I put my glasses on and went for a more studious look that might appeal to an older crowd–you know, like 15 or 16.

Throughout this entire photo shoot, my mother did not laugh at me or try and rush me through it.  She patiently sat there listening to her little preteen explain her vision for her epic album cover.  After it was all done, mom scheduled a time to meet with me again in a few days after she got her film developed.  I penciled it into my Hello Kitty day planner and waited anxiously for that day.

I love to think about the pimply stoner kid at Long’s Drugs developing my photo shoot film.  I’m sure he turned to his coworker, high on developing fumes and laughed, “Dude.  Check out this weird awkward girl.  What the hell do you think this is for?  So creepy.”  They may even have a secret photo album of strange photos that they keep under the counter that gets brought out at Christmas parties when everyone is drunk on egg nog.  If they do, I’m surely one of these photos.

When my mother came home from Long’s, I could barely contain myself.  We laid out the dozens of photos and narrowed them down to ten.  Then five.  Then three.  Then THE ONE.  For the cover, I decided on the photo of me without glasses turned slightly to my right, staring straight at the camera without a smile, but with my left hand gently resting on my left cheek.  For the inside of the cassette tape, I chose a photo with my glasses on, looking straight at the camera smiling a toothy, braces ridden grin.  In both, my flannel looks awesome.

I’m sure my mother was ready to have the whole project over with, but my vision was not complete.  I asked Mom to take the two golden photos to her work and photocopy each of them in black and white.  But oh no.  I wasn’t done there.  I then wanted her to take that photocopy and photocopy that and then do that TWO MORE TIMES.  I wanted that high contrast look and nothing else would do.  Mom smiled and responded with a simple “Okay I’ll do it tomorrow.”

And she did.

I also love thinking about my mother taking two hilarious photos of her young daughter to work and explaining to her coworkers what she was doing.  I imagine it like this:

“Hey Joanie [uncomfortable laugh].  What are you doing?!”

“Oh, my daughter had a vision for her own cassette tape insert for her fake radio show where she’s a British DJ.  She needed me to get as much contrast on her photos as possible without losing all the details so you can still tell it’s her.  At least she’s not selling her body for drugs, amirightorwhat?”

“…”

Sassy Jordan, WZUP

Just one more step to completing the Sassy Jordan cassette tape: color.  I went and got my nicest colored Pentel felt tipped pens and gave myself some flamingo pink lipstick, sky blue eye shadow, and topped it all off with a stylized “SASSY” that was strewn vertically along the left side of the photo.  Using my Mariah Carey “Music Box” cassette insert as a guide, I trimmed and glued the photocopied paper so that it fit PERFECTLY inside the case.  I stepped back to admire my masterpiece and almost shed a tear at how perfect it was.  Mom too was very impressed and beaming with pride.  Dad: not so much.

I’ve moved maybe 10 times in my life from apartment to apartment.  Clothes, dishes and DVDs get lost with each move, but I’ve made sure to keep a close eye on my Sassy Jordan tape.  It’s one of my most cherished items even though if I actually listen to it again, I’d probably die of embarrassment (side note: who has a tape player?  Let’s have a listening party).

The tape, now proudly sitting on the mantle above our fireplace, is a reminder that kids are weird but so are parents.  When I stop and think about the strange tics that I have or the OCD-induced way that I have to tap my car window if I see a car with only one headlight, I stop and remind myself that being called weird is a compliment.

She is accompanied by two young sons.  One is about 11 and the other about 7.  The 11 year old has spiky hair and a logo t shirt that looks like something you’d buy at a Pantera concert, but it says something like “Bad To The Bone” on it with lightning bolts and school #2 pencils on it.  He is clearly an ADD child and is somewhat calmed by playing his gunmetal grey Nintendo Game Boy.  The younger, whose name is Luca is the embodiment of what I hope my future child never is.

Luca sits slumped in one of the plump tomato-colored chairs of the waiting room.  He sits cross-legged but never allows his legs to sit dormant.  Instead, he shakes them over and over till there are tiny little black skid marks left from his Velcro shoes on the cheap vinyl seat.

Luca wears a pair of basketball shorts which proudly displays his cuts and bruises and a little Superman logo Band-Aid on his left knee.  I’ve been sitting in the waiting room for about an hour now and Luca has “gone to the bathroom” five times.  Surely, he is unravelling toilet paper and shoving powdered soap in his orifices.

Bar Stool

Luca loves the spinning the 1950’s diner-like bar stools that match the tomato ketchup chairs.  Not because they are comfortable, but because they spin with a loud friction-induced drone that is somehow both high and low pitched at the same time.  The tops of the bar stools are not threaded. They spin indefinitely without stopping.  This makes me want to die.

The mother, however, is the worst part of this family: all talk and no walk.  She gives in to the boys’ whining and let’s them play on her iPhone.  She intends to use the phone as a distraction so she can push the kids out of her line of attention, but she keeps one eye on the phone to see if she gets a text from one of her friends Miranda or Linda or Tanya.

She nonchalantly tells Luca to put the powdered Coffee-Mate vanilla creamer jar down.  I almost turned to her and said, “Go ahead.  Let him at it.  He’ll soon learn the error of his curiosity.  In fact, make him drink the entire plastic container.  It’ll be worse than the saltine cracker challenge we all did in college.”

But I just sit here and stare in bewilderment at this unruly, rich family and remember how, if I acted this way as a kid my father would probably smack me upside the head.  But kids these days don’t get hit anymore.  They threaten to sue or go to the neighbors’ house or even divorce their parents (yeah I’m talking to you Macaulay Culkin).  But seriously, maybe that kid needs to be smacked across the head.

Jason the tire guy, however, is a kind, simple man.  He says everything with a genuine smile and I really do believe him when he tells me he feels bad that I need three new tires.  He is the only person working in the front of the shop and is running around like a madman taking phone calls, going outside to assess tire damage, and taking payments.  His superior, a good 10 or 12 years his younger, saunters in and orders him to fill up the mini fridge with complimentary bottled water.  He races into the back, grabs a small pallet sized pack of bottled water and hurries back just in time to pick up the screaming phone.  Jason’s face is bright red when he reaches the phone, he takes a second to gain his breath back, wipes his brow, and then gleefully answer the phone with the mandated script that America’s Tire probably has laminated on the break room wall.

“Thank you for calling America’s Tire in San Ramon. This is Jason, how may I assist you?”

The young-faced supervisor comes back in just to scold Jason for not offering people the bottled water.  Jason apologizes and then makes the rounds in the waiting room like a street performer asking for spare change after a crude theatre performance.

I noticed that Jason is not wearing a wedding band.  I can’t believe that horrible disaster of a woman with the two disposable children has a wedding ring and Jason doesn’t.  Jason works hard and doesn’t complain.  He is not particularly good-looking but I wouldn’t consider him ugly.

One of my favorite things to think about is what people’s apartments look like.  I imagine Jason’s apartment to be a small one bedroom in one of those prefabricated apartment complexes that has equally spaced palm trees lining the driveway to welcome you to the leasing office.  His living room has one couch and one recliner chair that do not match.  Both have stains and tears on it.  The recliner was a side of the road find that he meticulously investigated before deciding, “Yeah it’s not that bad. Only a couple tears in the fabric.  Nothing I can’t sew closed.”  His days get too busy to actually take the time to mend the rips so they continuously flap in the breeze of his oscillating standing fan propped in the corner of the room.

His bedroom has just the basics: a bed with a forest green comforter that he neatly takes the time to make each morning before his daily beating at the tire shop; a small desk that would collapse under more than 50 pounds of pressure; a small nightstand with a goose-neck lamp sits next to his bed.  His mirrored sliding door closet holds a few outfits that seem like the same outfit just in slightly different colors.

The kitchen, however, has quality cookware and is filled with an impressive array of spices.  Jason enjoys trying out different exotic recipes on the weekends.  Vietnamese spicy crab soup, arroz con pollo and vegetable panang curry are his latest favorites.  He brings his ethnic leftovers to the tire shop and zaps them in the microwave for lunch only to be greeted with rude comments from his co workers like, “What the fuck Jason?!  Your lunch smells like SHIT get the fuck out of here!”.  Instead of rocking the boat and snapping back, Jason decides that it’s just easier to walk across the street and sit under the big oak tree that awkwardly lines San Ramon Valley Boulevard.  He may even be so used to this treatment that he now keeps a small blanket in his car so he has something soft to sit on.

When Jason looks at the woman and her two boys, he probably gets pissed off at the world and turns to the heavens and asks why she got the Lexus SUV and why he got the 2001 Honda Civic.  He probably wonders what she did in her current or past life that society decided to place her in a higher caste.  But he’ll internalize his emotions and put on an amazingly convincing smile on his face and ask Fuchsia Lady if he can get her kids anything.

Maybe it was my duty to be the voice of reason in the room. Obviously Jason would lose his job if he called Luca and his brother a bunch of “Fucking nightmares” and told them to “Keep the hell out of the bathroom”. Maybe it was my duty to GO OFF on those little shits, but I sit there on my tomato chair and just let it happen. I just plain don’t have the balls or energy to start a scene.

If you are Fuchsia Lady and are reading this, please try and pay more attention to your kids. They are not bad kids, they are just hyper little boys who need a little more structure, discipline and attention than the average kid.

If you are America’s Tire Jason and are reading this, you are a great employee and you probably don’t get the recognition you deserve and I wish you only the best in life.

If you are the young manager dude at America’s Tire and are reading this, please either get some new bar stools or some WD-40 because those things are way too loud and annoying to your customers sitting in the waiting room and if you don’t do something about it, one of your customers is bound to write mean things about you in his or her blog.

I’ve gotta say, I was KILLING IT in tennis this sesh.  My backhand was killing it, my returns were focused and I was getting really pumped.  Shawn hit a ball to me which I ran over to return, but someone’s tennis racket went rogue and slammed into the back of my left ankle.  I fell to the ground and spun around to cuss out the guy who threw a racket at me to find that there was no racket and no guy.  I sat there in a state of shock staring at my foot when I realized: holy shit I can’t move this thing.

Shawn helped me over to the bench and we assessed the situation.  I compared my two ankles–gently pushing on the back of my right ankle and feeling the tight resistance of a tendon pushing back at me, then pushing on my left ankle and feeling nothing there.  I turned to Shawn and declared, “I’m pretty sure I just ruptured my Achilles Tendon.  We have to go to the hospital.”  Right then, our friend Victor arrived and he had to turn right back around and leave because I ruined our tennis date.  Victor and Shawn somehow got me down a few flights of stairs and shoved me into the car.  I apologized over and over again for fucking everything up and then we were on our way.

It was then and only then that I began to cry.  I cried so hard that I hyperventilated.  The crying was not induced by physical  pain, but the pain of thinking about how much all of this was going to cost.  I do have insurance, but every experience I have ever had with them has been horrible.  My rates seem to keep rising but my coverage seems to keep shrinking.  I got so freaked out that I whipped out my insurance card and began to call phone numbers on the back to make sure that the ER I was headed to was covered by Blue Shield.

First of all, the main customer service line is only open Monday through Friday 9am – 5pm and is not open on holidays.  I tried the 24/7 nurse line listed below that.  After navigating through the phone menu, and screaming “OPERATOR!” over and over again into the automated system, I FINALLY got a nurse on the phone.

“HI PLEASE, I NEED TO GO TO A HOSPITAL BECAUSE I’M PRETTY SURE MY ACHILLES HAS TORN APART AND I NEED TO GET SOMEWHERE WHERE DO I NEED TO GO”

“Um, hello ma’am thank you for calling.  I understand you need help.  May I please have your zip code?”

“94122!”

“Okay thank you I’m going to search for an emergency room near you.”

“NO I’M NOT HOME I’M SOMEWHERE ELSE I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT EMERGENCY ROOM I CAN GO TO SO YOU WON’T CHARGE ME ONE MILLION DOLLARS.”

“Okay please bear with me my system is running a little slow today………Hmm that’s weird.  I think I have to start all over again.  Hang on……Okay so I keep typing in ‘Emergency room San Franicsco’ and it keeps clearing it out for some reason.  I don’t get it.  Okay I’m gonna try something else.”

Shawn was driving the car this entire time and we ended up at SF General Hospital when this idiot finally figured out that we could have gone to UCSF which was literally a few blocks from where I got hurt.  Whatever.  I’m at General, I’m gonna go here and then I hung up on that chick.

In case you’re not familiar with SF General, this is the place where homeless drunk people, gang violence victims, uninsured people, and people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge on the SF side–not the Marin side go to seek medical help.  This place should have its own television show because it was the Wild Wild West out there.

After getting a medical wristband and getting propped up on a gurney, I was rolled into the “Zone 1″ hallway to wait for someone to send me to get X-Rays.  ”Zone 1″ should really be renamed “Shit Show” because this is where all the action is.  My friend Nicole is an ER nurse at General, so I’ve heard some stories, but now I REALLY get it.  Within the first minute of being in Shit Show 1, I saw a gentleman of 45 years or so (although, due to his certain drug habit and homelessness, he could have been 17 for all I know), with shoulder-length hair that was matted down with a mixture of sweat and blood from the open head wound he had suffered.  He ran out of a room screaming that he was going to “GET THAT MOTHER FUCKER BACK!” and he had somehow lost his shirt on the way.  His bare chest revealed several bleeding scratches that a rabid chicken would make if someone threw it at you and you caught it.  The armed guards put on surgical gloves and shuffled him back into his hospital room before that dude could get blood on me thank God.

After six hours of watching the newest hit reality television show called “The Real Shit Show Zone 1″, I was placed in a splint and told that I no longer have an Achilles Tendon and that I’d most likely not be able to walk on this bad boy for about three months.  Sweet.

Pic from a Vine that Shawn made

Getting up the stairs of our three story walk up apartment in crutches was comedic, to say the least.  I made it all the way to the top of the stairs before almost falling down.  Once I got there, I plopped myself down on the couch, elevated my leg, and asked for an alcoholic beverage please because I’ve earned it.

It’s been three days since my accident.  I haven’t taken the pain medication prescribed to me yet because I keep assuming that it will get worse.  I’ve developed little techniques to help me cope with having only one leg and, basically, no arms since I have to use both to operate my crutches.  I now carry a little backpack with me wherever I go.  If I want to fill up my water bottle, I have to put my empty bottle in my backpack, hobble to the water, fill it up, then put it back in my backpack, then go back and sit down.  I have to put things like beer in a mason jar and seal it up if I want to bring it back to my seat to enjoy.  Any food I would like to eat either has to be eaten in the kitchen where it was prepared, or placed inside a very secure Tupperware-like vessel so I can eat it at the dining room table.  I now have to wear dresses or skirts for three months because my pants won’t fit over my giant splint and JNCOs went out of style a while ago.  Getting in and out of cars is not a graceful thing for me right now, so I invested heavily in biker shorts that go under my dresses so I can get out of a car or sit like a dude and not worry about showing off my bits to the world.

After a few “God hates me” remarks, I’ve begun to find the humor of this whole thing.  I can laugh at how I am not a lady so I need to go buy skirts and girl stuff.  I can laugh at how I got my period just in time for all this shit to go down and I’m sure that is going to be weird.  I have definitely searched the internet for little walker things that I can prop my knee up and roll around*.

I have also started to learn how to ask for help with things.  I hate burdening people with minor stuff, but I literally can’t go and bring my plate of food to the table so can you please help me with that.  I had to ask the nurse in the ER to help me pee because I couldn’t pull my pants down.  Thank you kind nurse and, I’m sorry you had to see my white ass.

Day three was harder than day two but I’m hoping that laughter really is the best medicine therefore making day four easier than day three.  I may or may not have to have surgery and I may or may not have a hospital bill of one million dollars but right now I’m trying hard to focus on the positives like how I have the best friends and family and how Shawn is a total winner and is taking great care of me.  I’m hoping for a speedy recovery and if that doesn’t happen, there’s always pain medication.

*click here for example

San Francisco has more restaurants per capita than any other city in the US and a ton are organic and locally conscious.  People who don’t live here often assume all food in San Francisco is organic, vegan granola sprinkled with quinoa kale chips.  Sure, there are places like this but plenty of places also serve great meaty, sloppy dishes that pairs perfectly with a great beer.

Last night I found myself at one of these restaurants.  We jumped on the N Judah train and headed to the Haight to meet up with some buds for dinner and drinks.  We sat at the long communal table (soooo San Francisco) and ordered our dishes.  Our waitress was a cute bleach blonde with a ton of gel in her hair so that it matted down and might not move if she was hung upside-down.  Still, she pulled it off somehow which makes no sense.

After a few rounds of beers and eating both small and large plates, we got the check and played the credit card shuffle.  I then noticed that my right hand and arm was covered in some sort of viscus honey-type substance.  Using my napkin dipped in water, I attempted to clean it off, but it then morphed into a grey rubbery mess that resembled pencil eraser shavings.  These little shavings were painfully pulling at my arm hairs when I looked down to notice that this sappy napalm was also on my shirt.  I jumped off my seat and investigated under the table and found the source of the sticky mess.  Because of it’s viscosity, it wasn’t something I could simply wipe off so the next person who sits there wouldn’t go through this medieval arm hair torture.  I decided to do the right thing and tell one of the hostesses.

“Hey there.  Just wanted to let you know that there’s something really sticky under that table and it got on my arm and shirt.  You may wanna have someone check it out.”

I expected her to reply with something like, “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry!” or “We’ll get it cleaned up right away thank you for telling us.” or, what would have been my favorite reply, “Let me buy you a drink to make up for ruining your shirt.”

The reply I actually got was, “It’s tree sap.  It’s an organic tree table.”  and then she walked away.

Do you ever have something weird happen to you and you freeze out of shock but then run through the whole thing in your mind for several days after and then come up with an appropriate response?  I have been replaying the scene in my head and have come up with the following response:

“Oh it’s an organic table!  My bad!!!  I thought it was sweatshop, genetically modified, test tube sap that ripped out my arm hair and got on my clothes but, hell, if it’s organic, then I’m totally cool with it and you should TOTALLY just leave it there so that the next person who sits in that seat can join me in my organic sappy bliss.  Next time I’m at your restaurant, I may or may not bring in some dog shit, smear it on your bar counter and proudly declare that it is organic and follow it up with a sincere ‘You’re welcome.’ with an indifferent grin and then leave.  Awesome have a great night!!!”

So yeah, I get annoyed when people make fun of San Francisco being a bunch of organic hippies, but if people start using the term “organic” as an excuse to fuck shit up or make a crappy product, that’s not cool.  So stop that.  Also, buy me a new shirt.

I caught myself staring at her for a little too long and didn’t want to look like that guy on the train so I shook my head and snapped out of it.  But just as I was turning to look at the happy dogs running around Duboce Park, the tall blonde whipped out her iPhone and went to unlock it.  The phone had a normal, humble black case that matched her black ear buds.  Nothing crazy there.  But.  Her phone wallpaper image caught my eye because it was a selfie of her smiling back at herself.

I tried to go through the steps it took for her to go from the stock grey stone wallpaper that comes with your phone to deciding to use the selfie she took of herself on a good hair day.  First, she had to take the selfie.

Now, I’m not really a selfie person.  When I’m on my phone trying to take a picture and I accidentally push the “Face Time” mode on the camera, a double chinned, high contrasty version of me comes up and I start to rethink the way I let myself leave the house in the morning.  I’ve never taken a selfie where I was like, “Holy shit.  This is the one.  I look AMAZING.”  Instead, I’m like, “Holy shit.  Maybe I should invest in microdermabrasion and lose like 3o pounds.”.  But for Blondie, I bet she did her hair and proclaimed, “Holy shit.  I am on FIRE today.  Gotta document this.”  So she snapped five or six selfies and decided on the perfect one to use as her new Facebook photo.

So we’ve got the selfie.  Next is the decision to set it as her wallpaper on her phone.  I once tried to have a cool wallpaper on my phone, but I don’t have children or pets to blast on there, so I just kept the generic mason design and left it at that.  I’m sure Blondie has kids and probably a really cute dog that resembles her fluffy locks.  Why not choose that as the wallpaper?  No.  Not as cute as her selfie so that’s the one she went with.

Maybe she’s onto something.  Maybe a nice photo of yourself staring back at yourself is like buying one of those “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters that gets you pumped up every morning.  Maybe the selfie pushes her to be a better person each day.  Maybe I should try it for a week and see how it changes my life…

…nope.

As Blondie left the train I smiled at her (trying to be as un-creepy as I could be) and she left the train with a smile on her face.  I silently gave her a “You go girl” and only hoped I had a shred of her self-confidence when I’m her age.  Hell, I’d like to have a shred of it at my current age.

Then I stopped and thought to myself, maybe she has an identical twin and it’s just a picture of her as her wallpaper and I’m just a giant asshole for thinking about it too much.  Oh well.

IMG 0762 from Emily Neveu on Vimeo.

Thank you Ricardo for the video!