The anger, my good, good friend - the one I can depend on - the one who’s always there. She has been missing since I got here until yesterday. Yesterday I woke up angry and it felt good. I felt like myself.

It’s odd for me to be tentative. To touch objects gingerly, to be afraid of making a mark or an impression. It’s odd for me to be self conscious. In the US, I know I look a little odd and though I’m aware that I draw stares because I dress funny, at home I don’t care. Here I feel vulnerable. Though I carry the skill set to appear as if I am ignoring the attention that my funny shoes garnish, here, instead of feeling the ordinary flippancy and possibly annoyance, I would like to bury my head inside my lapel.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration if illustrative.

Still, I move differently. The way I feel is something like the way I feel in the house of a friend’s parents. On my best behavior - my precious cuss words inaccessible to me in Spanish, the arsenal of my personality locked away with no possibility of being expressed. I’ve grounded myself and am on probation indefinitely.

I clean my room every day. I’m usually an incredibly messy person. And while at home, I think that the messiness is an aspect of controlling my surroundings in a different way, here I think that the inverse is a necessary measure of control over my environment. I know exactly where things are when I’m in my room, be it messy or clean, but the orientation of it doesn’t matter at home the way it does here.

And though I’m a cheap bastard, my stinginess here is more a result of being a little embarrassed to go into a shop and not understand or misunderstand. I am not used to feeling stupid, and I do, and it’s uncomfortable.

So when I woke up angry yesterday, I sunk into the groove and relished it. Frustration resounding in my brain, I recognized myself. And though it was soon replaced by insecurity, bewilderment and mild self loathing, it was good to know that it’s still there.

On my way home from work, leaving the bank there was an acre long line at the stop light on the side street leading to the main road that would eventually take me home. I pulled up to the exit where I needed to turn left and join the line which extended far beyond the point at which I hoped to join it.

I stopped. Anticipating a left turn into the endless line of cars idling, I made eye contact with a man in a beat up blue minivan. There was room for me to squeeze in. When he saw me, he pulled up about 4 feet. Now there was no way I was getting in that line until some observant driver noticed me waiting and flagged me in. Except...the guy behind him might let me in, I thought. Just as this thought crossed my mind, the giant pickup truck behind the minivan closed the gap, crossing into the left turn sweet spot. Neither of these guys were going to let me in.

For a moment I felt trapped. I know that the first guy had noticed me and had pulled up. "Nuh-uh, freak girl. I was here first," I could practically hear him thinking. I started to get angry. I sat there minute, stewing. And then I turned right. I turned into the parking lot of the chain store across the street. Sailed through their parking lot and turned onto the main road and was on my way while those dipshits were still waiting on the light - probably through two rotations - and I was cruising home.

Why do I bring this up? Simply to say this.

Small minded people will get in your way. This sort likes to wield the little power they have when they get the chance.

You do not need to participate in their moronic games by getting mad.

Go around them and leave them baking smugly at the stop light. They'll never even know you beat them.

So anyway - it's really cold and I'm in this costume that has me very exposed to the elements despite the cowboy boots and leather jacket - and I shiver my way into the pizzeria. Now usually this place is the only dependable spot in any reasonable radius with "New York Style" pizza. It gives me the shits, but I don't really care because pretty much everything does anyway.

This really preppy looking couple goes in ahead of me and I'm STARVING at this point. I'm wacked out, depressed, starving and a total nervous wreck and I know if I can just get some mother fucking pizza - some semblance of a normal frame of mind will descend upon me and I can have a very small modicum of inner peace.

And they're ahead of me in line and the television is on CNN and the banner is "What Killed Anna Nicole" non-fucking stop. And I'm making fun of it. "Guess what everyone - she's still dead. And now: we just checked - Anna Nicole Smith is still dead...) And some other people are making fun of it. And the girl at the counter is really nice and cute, but very slow and apparently inexperienced. And this guy is saying, "YOU THINK THEY'D HAVE SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT TO DISCUSS ON THE NEWS (fuck caps lock) and I'm laughing and all of this is taking an inordinate amount of time. The girl next to me wants to know where I got my cowboy boots and is probably disappointed to hear DAV, and the little girl behind the counter does not even really acknowledge my presence. And after what seems like 6 years, I look to the preppy couple as they say "Can we actually use a different credit card?" And I'm standing there thinking I may very well lose an eye after all watching the counter girl's hand move so so very slowly to take the new card, fumble to give them the old one - pensively stare at the total on the screen and apparently give some deep thought to the method of swiping the card through the machine.



FINALLY (and I have to really try very very hard) I get the attention of the girl by loudly saying, "I think I may starve to death sitting here." She finally looks at me. I ask what's ready. She says cheese. I order 2 slices. She gives them to me. They are gigantic and look like Freddy Crougar's face - orange and lumpy cheese slicks the top of 2 gargantuan pieces of pie - each one large enough to necessitate its own paper plate. I pick it up. It's cold. I notice this, but it's not until I get to the 3 last inches near the crust that I begin having trouble masticating. It is at this point that I begin the arduous process of attempting once again to get the attention of the girl behind the counter who is meandering aimlessly and slowly poking at things and being very inefficient. I am going to finish this damn slice, but I'm not - by God - going to eat a second slice of bone hard flavorless bread topped with soggy and congealed sauce and cheese gone rubbery.


I try and I try and I try to get her attention - but to no avail. Finally a guy opens the "warmer" and I say "Is there any way you could exchange this dried up abomination with something a little fresher?" I had had a lot of time to think, and I thought it was a little funny. He says to me "I've got one for you that's fresh. I just took it out of the oven." And he sets a plate down on the counter with another piece of (what I'm pretty sure is) the same pizza. He points out to me that he made the pizza. He repeats this quite a few times and I'm getting the feeling that I've offended him. He walks away after reiterating once again, " I made this. I made this pizza." "Thank you very much," I reply.


Now he's gone. I have one nearly eaten slice on a plate in front of me and the shards that flew off when I bit into it are peppering the counter. To the left and front there is the slice I pushed away upon the realization that it was more of the same. Then there is the new piece of pizza. Same fucking story on the third damn slice - and it looks like I'm going to eat that anyway. After wolfing down as much as was possible one slice remains.

I've been there for at least 20 minutes now and I spill my fucking coke - clean most of it up myself - and after all this the slice is still sitting there. The girl behind the counter asks me about it (after ignoring the spilled drink and having to be asked to refill mine after she had refilled her own and was slurping it down right in front of me) - and I explain - saying that it was cold and hard and inedible and had been replaced with another inedible slice - and she says sorry. I then ask her if the device it came out of is supposed to be keeping it warm. She says yes. I say, "Well, it wasn't." and she says that there's supposed to be water in the warmer and it must be out.


WHAT THE FUCK!!!! You serve pizza on a paper plate. It's not just paper thin - it IS fucking paper!!! and the temperature doesn't even register??? Then another person serves the same cold shit on the same paper thin paper plate and doesn't notice after a complaint about the shit - that it's cold - THEN only after someone EXPLICITLY asks about the machine meant to keep it warm - only then does it dawn on you that the fucking thing does not have any water in it????!!!!


I was nice about it, really. I told her I thought I may have offended the cook and he came out and apologised and I think he may be a little dimwitted, but he said he likes people to like their pizza etc.

But what the fuck, really - these people are getting paid for this shoddy work... Okay, I'm in a terrrible mood and all this shit I've written is totally pointless.


CIAO