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December 7, 2007Down and up…then down and up again…and catch it!I ALWAYS THINKof my Brooklyn friend Jon Crow when I open a bottle of wine (I think of him often) with the “Rabbit” Wine Management System he and his parents Bob and Doreen presented me with after we’d struggled with my miserable broken waiter’s corkscrew. “This does not work!” Jon complained angrily, so when the three of them visited Napa they were kind enough to bring me the state-of-the-art Rabbit tool kit. It has all kinds of gadgets I don’t know the names of—a thingee to break the foil seal, a “collar” for the neck of the bottle, to prevent drips from reaching your fine linen tablecloth, something to do with removing wax seals (a “wax whacker” I discover on Amazon.com), a one-size-fits-all bottle sealer, and spare replacement spiral (which I once opened a bottle with, with the aid of pliers). See, Jon instructed, this is all you do. You press the handle down, then bring it up, the cork comes out, then you press it down again, bring it up again, then the cork falls off and you catch it. Down and up, then down and up again—and catch it!I just looked at him. “Jon, that is the worst company slogan I have ever heard.” THE POINT ISvirtually every thing I touch in my flat has a story behind it. Even, as I stand at my kitchen counter, my silverware. I had gone to Ikea with a friend to buy a raft of champagne glasses for a celebration party, and my friend while on his own shopping errands saw this set of cutlery he thought looked like me. And what cutlery was I using when he came to the party?—the very set. I had bought it along with the glasses. The faux art nouveau floor lamp in my hallway, which acts as a catch-all for whatever needs draping, and which will no doubt never get the rewiring it needs as I drag it to each new dwelling, was the first thing I bought for my third floor walk-up at 1622 Pine St., Philadelphia. My Mission-style rocker, much admired by Matt Gonzalez as he toured my flat during a Bulldog party, I bought in Portland in a shop nearby the old Quality Pie, when I was utterly broke and jobless after coming back to town from six months with a sociopath in a cabin on Whidbey Island, Washington; my mother had sent me $125 for my birthday and told me to buy something nice with it. The cushion has needed reupholstering since 1983. MY HOFFMAN UPRIGHT PIANO(I took the front panel off to expose the innards so I could see the hammers striking the strings—plus it lends that “cluttered” look I am famous for) I got for $100 from Nickel Ads, and it has remained a-wunnafully tuned all these years thanks to sporadic visits from my pianist friend in Sweden, John Beck, who’d advised me to buy it. It has moved with me from Portland to Berkeley to San Francisco. After high school lessons from teacher Millie, I attained a certain facility, but I rarely play it. I am gifted with words, not music. But I have always held that living rooms should have a piano where the television stands. As I stood with the piano movers gazing at the winding staircase they’d have to haul the thing up, I said, sorry! “Oh that’s OK,” said one, “A shot and a snort and I’ll be fine.” When I see the name Hoffman, however, I am reminded of the art gallery I worked in, where I was typing (on an old clacking typewriter, not the discreet tip tip tip of computer keys) with my back to the room, and didn’t hear some blue-haired old biddy come in. Instead of addressing me and getting my attention, she was standing behind me insisting “Hoffman! Hans Hoffman!” and pounding her fist on my desk. I considered her to be rude and didn’t hide it. “What about him?” said I. She stormed out. Another time a patron, one of the High Society Board Members, came in shortly after I’d been hired. He placed the tip of his umbrella squarely in front of himself, and sat down, propping his hands on the handle. “Do you know who I am?” Not as a question but as a challenge. Luckily, I did, and did not reply, “Do you know who I am?” Hey Mister Money Bags, you are talking to Alexandra Jones! She has more talent in her pinky toenail than you have gold coins up your wazoo.” Atop my charming Hoffman is a 5-foot long Thai wooden reclining Buddha from Outback, the old goddess gathering spot at Dwight and Sacramento in Berkeley, where female energy ran rampant. PEDRO…My beloved electric flower bouquet that casts such a mellow glow—aah. San Miguel de Allende. I propped this arrangement of fabric petals, LED lights and wire branches, against the mantle of our brick fireplace, along with our finds for the day—nascientos that Jon hunted for throughout the trip, a Maria de Quadalupe alter icon, a wooden cross studded with milagros (little charms that represent your ailments), the over-priced mask Jon coveted, which mysteriously became his birthday gift, the silly plaque I got in Puerta Vallarta reading “Welcome, my house is my house.” We thought this was a hysterical translation gaff till I found another that read “Mi casa es mi casa.” They were in on their own joke. Late one night after Jon and I had gone to bed in the lovely Hotel Posada de las Monjas on Calle de Canal, someone was trying to get into the room next door by quietly knocking and repeating in a low monotone, “Pedro…Pedro…Pedro…” Then she’d rattle the door, and again: “Pedro…Pedro.” If Jon leaves a message on my answering machine, it is likely to be “Pedro…Pedro…” The perforated paper five-pointed star lamp casting golden squares on my ceiling, I found leaning next to a tree on Guerrero St. while dropping lit for Quintin Mecke. THE THREE-FOOTED SKULL MASKbroken into three pieces, I have left broken on a tabletop in my bedroom since 2005. Breaking it was one of the last things my cat Jackson ever did. I had bought it right out of a tenant’s apartment when I was a landlady at the Kurdy Apartments in Portland. Paul deLay, awesome blues singer/songwriter, God rest his soul, lived there. So did many of my friends, at one time or another. I remember the heat of the sun on my bare shoulders as I stood on the street at Copacabana Beach, getting my picture taken with the Brazilian maker of the mask I had just bought, a grotesque devilish thing with pointed teeth and a horn coming out of its forehead, which broke off, and I can find no glue that will bind horn back to wood. The picture of one Seth Williams flying through the air, I found on the sidewalk on the way to the National Slam Poetry Championships in Portland, where I shook fellow attendee Gus Van Sant’s hand. It has little pockmarks in it from people stepping on it on the concrete. Van Sant’s first film was based on “Mala Noche” by “unofficial poet laureate” Walt Curtis, kind of the tousle-haired Diamond Dave of Portland, who I went on a couple Oregon field trips with, to Sam Hill’s concrete Stonehenge on the Columbia, and to see the famous petroglych, “She Who Watches.” THE ALPHABET LETTERSscattered throughout the flat, most notably spelling my name out on the wainscot molding in the kitchen, took years to acquire, buying them one by one from shops like Maison d’Etre on the south park blocks, second-hand joints on the San Pablo strip, which I lived one block from in Berkeley, or wherever I saw one. I also prize a brass mail door slot reading LETTERS. I dig letters. Words are made of them, and I need words for sentences. The cherry wood hat rack I’ve had since the 60’s, came from my Philadelphia childhood neighbor Mrs. Chase after her husband died and she gave everything away. I’ll never forget the sad sight of her climbing the porch steps, whimpering, clinging tightly to the rail, my uncle Peter close behind, as she prepared to enter her house, which was for the first time empty of her husband. THE MANY HANDSeverywhere you look reflect my fascination with that five-pointed appendage, that tool that has created the entire built environment, art through the ages, every un-natural thing on this planet. Between our brains and our hands, or thumbs, perhaps, we rule! For better or worse, that is. The praying wooden hands on the laundry room shelf—a memento from Lowell, Massachusetts. The laundry room shelf, from Fiddlesticks in Berkeley. Thought I’d found the perfect spot for it to live its life. Never count on forever. The ash Buddha’s hands I bought on my lunch hour and was showing off at the office, prompted one quizzical look from a manager who asked me what I was going to do with them. “You can always use an extra pair of hands.” THE EVOLVING FACEwithin a face within a face terra cotta mask I got in Tulum, the Yucatan, where my drunken companion rode our moped into a ditch, bloodying my shoulder and knee, which didn’t prevent me from hobbling around still bleeding and calling out “Look! Rugs!” The only physical scars a man ever left me with. My beautiful Chinese rug, and two from India, I bought right before leaving Portland, having no idea where in Berkeley I’d be living. It was on one of these rugs that I just used the round self-contained dish soap brush Bill Soderberg advised me to buy in Seattle, that is so very useful for cleaning up wine spills on rugs (take note). Bill, only recently become a father, was learning more than he ever wanted to know about the best way to wash things. Having come to Berkeley from Portland after my house was rented out to reconnoiter for apartments, I also bought an old-fashioned glass-front bookcase and carved secretary desk, having the owner store them for me until I moved down. And such has been my impulsive/compulsive/manic shopping career. I AM AVOIDING WRITINGby writing. This rather than that, that is. More accurately, I’m taking a break from writing by writing. Ever do that? I didn’t think so. But it is with poignant nostalgia that I tour my beautiful flat, which I am on the verge of needing to sell. I wonder if I’ll live here the rest of my life? I thought as I unpacked boxes in 2003. And now I’m collecting boxes again, breaking them down and hiding them behind the Chinese screen in front of my decorative fireplace. Never count on forever. Where I’ll end up is anybody’s guess. I’m usually ready for changes like this because I instigate them, but this one is a heartbreaker, even though it is I what I need to do right now. I can’t hack it as a working person in San Francisco. Not in this flat. Working full-time brings me to my knees. So I will have to cash out and live on my own resources. I’m inordinately lucky I can do that, God bless. A friend said, “You may have to suck it up and take a roommate.” My hesitation about that is ever, “I’m very difficult to live with! I’m bipolar!” “Oh, well then you’ll need two.” I WAS ON THE BUSwith Cathy and Jim, on the way to Chicken John’s. They had worn dreidels instead of elves-wear at the “Buy Nothing” event. We’d seen each other around, but introduced ourselves. “I’m Alexandra.” “Alexandra? Alexandra what?” “Jones.” “I”ve been to your house!” How many times have I heard that one? Yes, this flat is famous. Dozens of friends of h brown, who housesits my cats, have filed in and out while I’m out of town, many of whom I’ve never met. h calls this place “living like a millionaire.” Compared to quite a bit of the world, I do live like one. No matter how I look at it, I am one lucky bee-yatch. It just might be time for this place to go down in history. But not before the blow-out goodbye party! IT HAS TAKEN ME 30 YEARS,since that first lamp in 1977 on Pine Street, to accumulate the surroundings I call home. They will make a home for me wherever I go, but only once before, searching high and low for my first Berkeley house-share, have I been at the mercy of the rental market, and I don’t like it. In my twenties in Philadelphia, if I wanted to live in a neighborhood, I would just ride around on my bike looking for rental signs in windows. If I saw a place I wanted, it was as simple as “OK, I’ll take it.” The application seemed like a formality, as if hand shakes still sealed the deal. My housing cost is now 18.5 times what it was back then. I once quit a job with $1000 in the bank, calculating it would last me six months! And that’s how old I am. I managed to shoehorn my way into owning SF real estate (1/6th of it, anyway), because I know what I want, am not afraid to make big decisions, and have shown some savvy for good properties to invest in—but four years later I can’t keep up with the ever-rising expenses of this berg. More than anything, I will mourn my life in the Lower Haight, if I can’t stay here, but I will never forsake my beloved Café International. Can’t get rid of me, Zahra. WELL, I MUST BE HIDINGit from myself that I really want to sell this flat. I put myself in this position. If I had wanted to stay here, I would have had to keep my job and supplement my income with the proceeds from my Portland house. But I drew a line I will not cross. I will not do work I don’t care about for people I don’t care about. Really, the only thing I’m suited for is writing. Maybe all along, this flat and its appreciation have been about giving me the means to create the space I need to be on my own. I’m very excited to find out what’s next. If anyone knows of any flats opening up in the Lower Haight, or anywhere, tell me and no one else about them. You’ll be supporting the arts in San FranSASSY! and keeping its soul alive. Also accepting proposals from patrons for the arts. Come on, either you are rich, know someone who’s rich, or know someone who knows someone who is. Tell them about me. Haven’t I been good to you?
The author’s picture of Seth Woods flyingthrough the air with the greatest of ease. ------------------------------------------------------------ Never count on forever
Home is where the BART is. San FranSASSY! USA copyright Alexandra Jones 2007 |
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