rabbit holes

last night for sushi at the sushking and beer at the microbar again. (what is it with tiny restaurants? love em.)

after to the derelict hulk of a construction site across the street from the hacienda. it’s the albuq-urban version of alice down the rabbit hole. 1880s adobe belltower and lots of long, dark texas-chansaw massacre type hallways. the roof is off now and the stars shine down into a sacristy of renovation.

the three hundred dollar trespassing fine is well posted right next to the hole in the chain ink fence, and part of me wants to go spraypaint the walls in there with messages to the construction workers:

fall in love with everything.

we are stronger than everything they taught us to fear.

the site is protected in the historical register, so they can’t knock it down and build the culture of deathboxes – another subway or blockbuster or walgreens – on the contrary, it’s part of the reinvention of downtown as the natural center of 300 years of burque history.

it’s good to live across the street from rebirth.

Dear Al

This is a letter I recently sent to albertsonscustomercare@albertsons.com

Dear Albertson’s:

I stole from you today.

Not much, don’t worry. And this letter really isn’t about that anyway, but I thought it was only fair that you know. In the interests of open, honest communication. This letter is, rather, about how our relationship has to end. But I’ll get back to the theft.

Now I know. You’re thinking that this is so sudden, and maybe there’s some way that we can work this out. I don’t blame you for thinking that, but I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I just don’t think it’s possible that we can stay together. Not as customer and retailer, certainly, and I don’t think we can be “just friends”, either. This is really the end. But you’re right. It is sudden, and you deserve an explanation. After all – as you once told me: “I am committed to providing superior products and service to my customers. If you are not completely satisfied, contact me and I will make it right for you. Guaranteed!” But I don’t think there’s any way for you to make it right. The hurt is too deep.

Let me explain.

I moved into a new apartment, and you were the closest grocery store around. And you know, I heard you were a pretty good egg, so I decided to check you out. You had good selection, fair prices, and a pleasant atmosphere; all things that I’m looking for in a potential grocer. You even have okay taste in music, and that’s not nothing, you know?

But I can’t see you anymore: not ever again. Because you make me violently angry. So angry that I stole from you. Which isn’t something that I’m proud of, I want you to know. But I’d do it again, I think, if I had it all to do over. Because when I arrived at the register, choc full of goodies to take home and enjoy, you did a deeply unsettling thing.

You had two lonely registers with humans at them, and a full battery of six roboregisters. Hoping to complete a pleasant first shopping date (and even contemplating the possibility of applying for your discount card before saying goodnight) I approached one of the human registers. Hm. Express checkout lane. Fifteen items or less. Look in my cart: dozens of articles. No good. Approach the other. Hm. Also an express lane. Must be some mistake. Check again: two humans, six robots. Two express lanes.

What?

Are you serious, Albertson’s? You’re really trying to tell me that either this is going to be a relationship based on quickies, or you’re not even going to look me in the eye? I mean I used to get this checking (and oftentimes even bagging!) service for free, you know? You used to pay someone to do it for me. And I appreciated that, you know? It was a nice gesture. It showed me that you valued my presence. And what’s more, I’m sure the person checking my goodies appreciated the interchange too. Maybe they didn’t particularly enjoy it, sure, okay; I’m not deluding myself here. But gainful employment is generally appreciated on some level, you know? You used to give someone a place to live, and heat, and even some drinks on the weekend, maybe, or a movie. And I got a nice, courteous service for free! It was such an ideal relationship!

And now – now you expect me to do the work myself that you used to pay someone else to do for me?

And it’s not like you’re not going to pay me to do it, are you? You’re just expecting me to sucker up and do all of the work in this relationship? Like my needs don’t count? That is so… insensitive. So selfish.

And it’s not like you’re giving me the job training that you undoubtedly gave the human that used to do this for me, either – so it took me a half an hour to check out my hundred-seventy-five dollars worth of food. And I was sort of angry, you know? That’s a lot to ask of me. But that isn’t really what did it. You want to know what really did it? What really sealed it? What really told me what kind of grocery store I was seeing? I’ll tell you. Just as I was nearing the end of my self checkout experience, your messaging finally filtered through the battle-hardened layers of corporate messaging filters.

There it was. The nugget of my indescribable anger, and the last straw on our fledgeling relationship. Repeated on every bag into which I was checking each individual item: “Albertson’s: Making your life easier.”

What. The. Hell.

Come on. That’s just disrespectful. You’re making me check and bag my own groceries now, a service you used to provide for free. That is in no sense at all making my life easier. Not in any way, manner, or form: none.

Surely I must be hallucinating. Check again.

No. That’s really how intelligent you think I am. That’s really how much contempt you have for me. That really hurt, Albertson’s. I thought we were really headed towards something worthwhile here.

So I bagged some things without paying for them. And your robotic machinations noticed it. They told me to take it back, and pay for whatever it was. But I persevered. It’s a flawed system, and it’s easy to beat – easier, actually, to beat than to follow. I asserted the superiority of my human cunning over its cold, robotic calculations. I deliberately confused it until it gave up and asked me to check the next item. I stole from you, Albertson’s. Jarlsberg cheese: a whole brick of it.

And I want to be clear about something, Al. (Can I call you Al?) I could have paid for that. I totally could have. I put it in my cart intending to cheerfully pay its marked price in full. I didn’t need to steal it, and I didn’t get a thrill out of taking it from under your nose. I took it for spite – nay, for revenge. It amounted, I think, to about five bucks worth of cheese. And I think that’s pretty fair, because I work menial labor at ten bucks an hour, and It took me a bloody half an hour to check out my groceries – between the looking up of items, the robotic snafus, the entering of pin numbers, and my lack of experience as a cashier – because, you know, it’s not my job. So ten bucks an hour by half an hour is one free block of Jarlsberg cheese.

In your robot face, Al.

Oh yeah. And for the record, there was one human being around. She was manning that little desk, ostensibly making sure that all six of us checking out weren’t pulling exactly the kind of spiteful stunt that I was very decidedly and concertedly pulling.

This human, she seemed nice enough, and she was probably a checkout cashier in days gone by. We used to have a pleasant enough relationship. But Al, you interfered, and you changed all that. You reduced me to petty revenge theft, and her to the lowest form of brute enforcement. And we can’t go back now – you’ve permanently altered our relationship. It’s unpleasant, and I don’t think either of us prefers it to the relationship we used to have. I left without our customary “Have a nice day”, “Thanks, you too!” Not so much as a nod.

And when I got home (half an hour late), putting my groceries away, there it was again, this little round knot of hyperdistilled aggravation, frightening in its existential purity, worming its way under my skin, on every bag: “Making your life easier”. And that was when I came to my final decision, Al.

It’s time, I think, for both of us to make each other’s lives easier. Permanently. I won’t be coming back. Not ever. I met a nice grocery store across the very street from you, Al. Its name is Smith’s, and I look forward to our time together. I really do. And I wish you well, okay? I do. Good luck. I mean that. I just don’t want to spend any more time with you. Ever. Or money. Definitely not spending any more money with you.

This probably sounds harsh. I know. But I thought a lot about it, and I really think it’s the right thing. For both of us.

Please don’t call. It’s just not worth it anymore.

Goodbye, Al.

-Sam

12.06

Personal

Crazy-ass new year. Got all that shit out of the way straight at the getgo. There were broken bones, tequila shots, random hookups, crying jags, and serious relationship examinations. Christmas was fun. Odd to be living in an apartment two miles from the folks, and good to get to know the brother’s girlfriend a little better.

I seem to have hit an attractive phase. Suits me well enough. I’m in the market. In the last couple of weeks, two guys at the shelter have told me I’m a “good lookin dude”, one hit on me, an old fling has come out of the woodwork (possibly seeking further flingage?), a film secretary told me I should be a model, and I hooked up with one of my roommate’s old high school friends (gone to Oregon now – bon voyage, Annie). And was Juliet hitting on me yesterday? What the hell?

Been trying to figure out how to be a functional person lately. I’ve been in high octane environments for so long, and now octane seems like an esoteric concept. In school or in a forty-our job you’re in go mode; forward momentum. But when you have nothing to do with all that high output energy, you lose traction. Little projects, ordinarily accomplished in the peripheral movement of life, become bigger projects. Get a vague sense of guilt flanking you from under the shadows of everything you haven’t done.

So I’m trying short-circuit the problem. Giving myself a bed-time rather than a time to get up. Going to the theatre an hour early but not pressuring myself about specific work goals. Trying now to deal with things as they come up to keep busy and skip the anxiety – less planning, more doing (similar to last summer: less thinking, more drinking).

I’ve entered a red phase. Everything wonderful is colored red, seems like. Has something to do, I think, with reinstating pleasure into my life. Not just satisfaction, but pure, senseless pleasure. Used to be one of my specialties, as I recall: choosing constantly to enjoy the shit out of things. To that end, I’ve painted one wall in my beautiful room red. It’s just begging now to be co-occupied occasionally by a female type person. The roomie and I should throw more parties.

Professional

Working on Mercutio has been way more fun than I imagined it would be. It’s an absolute blast. “A Visor for a Visor.” Mercutio’s version of Hamlet with the skull. Something wonderful about that, I think. We’re midway through rehearsal and the name of the game is truth and specificity. I haven’t done the kind of quality methodical work on him I should be though. It has to do with not getting paid and not being in rehearsal every day. Also, not being surrounded by other actors with serious professional designs on the theatre. Ultimately the greater project has to do with continuing the personal work I began to discover with Jaques last summer. Mercutio’s in there somewhere, I know it. I gotta have the courage and humility to meet the guy.

Oh yeah. And Albuquerque Little Theatre is gorgeous.

Got cast in Macbeth, as himself, running in April. Fucking heavy duty; the King. Biggest goddamn role I’ve played since high school. Chad Brummet from Tricklock is directing, and Kate Schroeder from the same, is Lady M. I don’t know the other people in the cast. I’m massively excited and nervous.

For the record, when we hit may, this will put me at ten months of my first year out of school working on Shakespeare. I’m totally pleased with that, and some (necessary) thing in me related to a shark is grateful and proud that I’ve been able to stack those things up on the ol’ resume. And also, I think some contemporary work is in order.

My agent has been good enough to keep sending me out on auditions. Nothing booked yet, but plenty of callbacks.

Political

Talk to a bum. Interaction humanizes.