On the street and in the store

at the corner store which is not only a liquor store there are 3 men. one is from yemen and he has incredible eyes. i would bone him in a second. he's not smooth or anything, just really nice. one time the other 2 men were arguing about something over by the deli area, yelling, really getting into it in arabic. he kept looking over and i asked him what they were arguing about and he listened for a moment longer and then told me, "sandwiches."

the second man is a very sweet father-like type gentleman and is usually working by himself. he blushed when we spoke tonight. i said that the cereal was way too expensive, that i usually buy cereal in bulk, and that really the only time i ever go into his store to buy food is if i am so desperate because i haven't done my real grocery shopping. he said i should come in more often and i was like, don't you get it? that would mean i'm not taking care of myself. of course i didn't say that though.

the other guy i feel kind of bad for. he is big and dumb looking, although i'm not sure if he is actually a stupid person. he's just an oaf. and he always fucking things up and getting in trouble. like one time i went in there and asked for a half pound of smoked turkey and he signaled to me to wait, as he was taking singular cans of coca cola out of a case container and putting them into the refrigerator. he had 2 and a half cases to go. i was like, seriously? can you just do that after i leave? and guy #2 told him, i can only assume, to get to the turkey slicing now and leave that shit for later, because he jumped up and helped me. he gives me dirty looks, maybe because of that incident, or maybe he thinks i am a filthy white american whore, or maybe his face just looks like that. i like him anyway though. i think he probably has the best intentions.

i was waiting for the bus on the corner of 14th and mission just a little while ago, right in front of the Armory, which i love. i always try to see in the windows thinking maybe i can catch a glimpse of some action. (it's the kink.com headquarters....fucking machines!) i never, ever see any sex, but sometimes just standing outside of the building where soooo much sex goes on is totally exciting. it appeared to night as if someone may have been shot in front of the busstop. there was yellow police tape, a large dark puddle on the ground and the glass bus stop wall behind it was smeared with some circular scrubbing action and was all cloudy. there was a sign instructing people to catch the bus 100 yards up towards 15th street instead, and then a corresponding orange traffic cone where the alternative stop was. so maybe someone didn't get shot. really i have no idea what happened there, but that is the description of the scene.

there was a guy standing at the original busstop. i said to him, 'hey i think we are supposed to wait over here' and he laughed and walked with me, telling me that the last bus had blew right by him and he didn't understand why. but now he knew. also, he said that it was because the driver was 'a chinese' and that chinese don't care about anybody. he pointed to his heart and said, "you know why? because chinese have no mercy in their heart. and you know why that is?" he asked. no, i said, please please tell me why you think that chinese people have no mercy in their hearts?! " because they have no religion! not like you and me...they have no god or jesus or anything! they worship animals, like pigs!" evidence he offered for his claim was that if you go to chinatown and asked for help you would not get any from the shop keepers. i suggested maybe because they don't really speak english in chinatown? i asked this man where he was from. egypt. i had to say that he had come to quite an amazing conclusion about chinese people, and i asked him if he thought it was anything like when white people assume that 'all arabs are terrorists'. he did not answer my question, only went on to say that have i ever known a chinese? i said that as a matter of fact i was just hanging out with a friend who is chinese earlier today, and she helped me a great deal. he asked if she spoke english, i said of course! whatever. i t was an absurd conversation. really pretty interesting. he was nice. he didn't seem to understand why i wouldn't just fess up to hating chinese people.

on a similar note, when i got to the zen center i was a little early and so i went across the street to the cafe to get a light for my cigarette, which i hoped, as i hope all of them are, would be my last. there i found julia and tarumi sitting having coffee. they came outside with me, tarumi wanted to smoke too. julia remarked that i looked nice. yes, i said, i am wearing the sweater that you gave me. she said, look, i am wearing a a sweater that sarah gave me. sarah is my friend whom i had just been shopping with, the one who is chinese. ha! it all comes full circle now!
no.
so anyway, we started talking about how sarah is working for these rich people, she's a nanny, and she was trying to find out exactly how the husband's family got their piles of cash so she googled him and found out that he OWNS JCrew! and she was always wondering why the woman that she works for (heidi) wore jcrew sweaters because they are really not very good quality and the heidi is pretty rich...so we started talking about how heidi runs a non profit, and i was laughing as i explained it to tarumi. i said, it's a 'rich people non profit' - for people who have lost family members in plane crashes, and r. guliani is on the board of directors, as is g. newsom and sean penn and i'm sure other such luminaries. and it's just funny to me because: 1)9/11+ guliani is so funny ha ha!, and 2) rich people and their fucking causes! fucking plane crashes! so tragic! and julia is like blathering on about how she thinks it's so great that heidi is 'helping people' and how lovely that is and how SAD THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE IN PLANE CRASHES! and i was like, "ha! i think it's funny, you know, rich people dying, i can't really be sad about that." and julia got really offended and said that "YOU NEED RICH PEOPLE because they have the money and you need to make money!" and i was like, whoa, this girl does not understand how the world works? why am i friends with her? and i went on to explain to her that, well, see, poor people die all the time because of rich people, like, as a direct result of rich people's shitty actions. and they die because they don't have things that are very basic, like water and they eat fucking DIRT CAKES because of rich people, and the rich people don't fucking care about that, and they go and instead do things like starting non profits for people who's families have died in plane crashes...which i'm sure is a traumatic experience or whatever, you know? and she was super angry at that point and tarumi was silent and then julia also added that i didn't know who i was friends with and what their backgrounds were and i was like, yes, i know, i am not friends with any rich people (her family totally has money). whatever. so now i think she hates me and thinks i am a shitty person, but i think i have a good point and also a right to not give a shit when all of a sudden there is one less person on the planet to head up a multinational corporation, say, or give money to the right wing think tanks, or support nuclear weapons development, or who rakes in profits from tearing up rainforests so that they can eat steak while people in that deforested country eat DIRT.

and then we went to the zen center and listened to a talk about how death is only a transition etc.