I pass by him every afternoon on the way back from lunch. I’m carrying designer coffee and wearing expensive shoes; he’s wearing a t-shirt and chinos beginning to fray at the cuffs. Always, he’s bent over two bibles, one English, the other Spanish, and his dark eyes dart from one to the other, as he searches for the key that unlocks language.

I catch the faint scent of hair pomade, and despite the gulf of years and cultures that separates them, I am reminded of my grandfather.

I consider pausing to say hello, but I never actually do so.

Sky asked me about hats, and the first thing that I thought of was my grandmother’s voice, thick as olive oil, issuing the command, “Put a hat on that baby’s head!” Until I was four, my mother and I lived in our Eyrie apartment, and I was both awakened and lulled to sleep by the sounds of surf and shore birds and the basso profundo tone of the foghorn, but the rest of the time, I heard a lot about headgear.

The sun-hats that were foisted upon my toddler-self, generally in preparation for trips down the shore, or forays into my grandfather’s garden, started my addiction, my fascination with hats, but it was the hatboxes in the back of my grandmother’s closet that really cemented the relationship. These were not the cardboard gift boxes we think of as hat boxes, but small, round suitcases of the red and grey Samsonite variety. On rare occaisions, I’d been allowed to use them as overnight cases, but mostly, they held hats.

I don’t remember which hats came from which box, but I do remember the powdery smell of the scented paper that was wrapped around them, and I remember specific items that were withdrawn, not just hats, although there’s a red felt hat that I’ve inherited that is my all-time favorite, but also a collection of French gloves (long lost, alas) and a sealskin muff that I loved to touch, to caress, really, until I was old enough to understand that it was real animal fur. For a while, I still loved it, almost as much as the fox coat she had, for the softness, and the novelty of such a thing, as much for the notion of those items being relics of a lost era (though I’m sure I wouldn’t have used those words at the time), but later, after I saw my first seals and sea lions (okay, well, maybe not so much the sea lions, which are pretty much just big bags of jelly that bark), I couldn’t bear to slip my hands inside that muff any more.

As I grew up, my love of hats grew with me. As a teenager, I had berets in every color, including a black velvet one that, after I accidentally melted a patch of it by tossing it onto a curling iron I’d left plugged in, became my personal version of Jo March’s writing cap, though, without the bow. (I have a lifelong aversion to bows on hats and underwear), and an equally large array of painters caps and baseball caps, which are the best thing when you have long hair, because you can draw your ponytail through the hole at the back. (My collection as dwindled a bit, but both kinds of hat are still staples of my wardrobe).

Other hats in my collection are a green fedora, that I wear when I want to channel my inner Katherine Hepburn or Lauren Becall, a black one, for Annie Hall moments, and an embossed and irridescent velvet crushable stovepipe hat that I bought at a craft fair in San Jose more than a decade ago. (That hat is one of a pair I have from the same designer, an adorable older man with a merry soul and a treadle sewing machine, who called himself the Hatterdasher. Headgear is better when it comes with a pun. The second hat is a purple and green plaid velvet golf / newsboy cap.) Then there’s the classic straw hat perfect for picnics or trips to the faire, and the velvet Fez my mother made for me one year. I have several crushable hats from various sources, some velvet, and some in cottons and twills, and , my most special, a white leather tricorner adorned with peacock feathers (that and a saber came home with me from a science fiction con one summer…you haven’t lived btw, til you’ve tried to hop a Southwest flight carrying a sword)

I could go on, as I’ve only talked about a tenth of my collection, but more fun would be to explain why I love hats. As with any accessory, they’re part outfit, part costume, and I use them to help give myself a mood or theme for whatever I’m doing – when you’re essentially shy, you NEED crutches like that – so, I’ll wear a black beret and all black clothing if I’m feeling subversive, or a fedora if I feel like I need confidence. Newsboy styles are for jaunty moods, and baseball caps are for hiding.

Or at least they used to be. Now though, I live in a climate that isn’t conducive to hat wearing, and work in a place where they’re against dress code (here’s me NOT ranting about the fact that adults are given a dress code in the first place, because it’s another entry), and I have to admit, I feel like some part of my personality has been boxed up with my hats.

But at least the box is the one with the suns and moons painted on it.

The clicking of the sprinkler heads in the neighbor’s yard caught my attention while I was supervising the dogs on their pre-bedtime elimination break earlier, and brought me, momentarily, back to being five or six, and being completely content with an afternoon of dashing through the sprinkler in my grandparent’s suburban New Jersey back yard, risking rose-thorns in my tender feet for a few minutes of refreshing coolness. Ususally this was on the days when we didn’t go to the beach, for one reason or another, but it never seemed like the lesser choice. That I was splattered by an errant sprinkler on the way to lunch today probably helped the memory to surface, but it’s a happy one, so it’s all good.

Back inside, sitting crosslegged on my bed, with my laptop propped on two pillows, and a dog sleeping on either side of me (and the unspoken threat that I’d better not THINK of moving) I spent a quiet hour catching up on other people’s blogs, including WWdN in exile. As much as I enjoy Wil Wheaton’s writing, he has this tendency to post things that are lurking in MY brain, which drives me crazy. Recently, for example, he posted about a childhood afternoon spent watching Poltergeist in the hope that seeing a scary movie in broad daylight would reduce the impact on an over-imaginative brain.

Tonight, those afore-mentioned sprinkler heads were sending my mind down similar tracks, a route travelled several times over the last couple days, as summer as truly descended and the air has thickened, and partly inspired by my friend Alisa including me in a mailing of a net-quiz that determines how New Jersey one happens to be (I scored 99%, which isn’t bad for someone who hasn’t been back in over six years). I wasn’t so much thinking about watching horror movies, though, as making them.

Summers, when I was a kid, meant making really bad Super 8 movies using my grandfather’s camera. My cousin Cathy was chief cinematographer and co-writer, mainly because, at fifteen, she was tall enough to reach the cabinet where the camera was stored. I helped write, as well, and served as resident ingenue. Her brother, KJ, heckled, mainly, but sometimes he helped. He was seventeen, and caught between childhood and adulthood, and liked to pretend to be a mafia thug, just to scare us. (He wasn’t, of course, but we were kids.) I’d seen the original black and white version of Frankenstein that summer, and that, partnered with a latenight radio rendition of Bill Cosby’s “Chicken Heart” story, had put a fear of the darkness, and a love of horror movies, into the deepest part of my brain.

I slept with the closet light on, and my hands fisted into the covers the entire summer I was eight, because of my own imagination, but a few years later, at fourteen, I embraced the darkness. I fell in love with vampires, learned to scream more effectively than Linnea Quigley, and developed the PERFECT recipe for stage blood (the secret is to use karo syrup and red food coloring as a base, add a touch of baby powder, to make it opaque, and then mix in the merest hint of green food coloring, because it looks more visceral when it’s not candy-apple red). I devoured issues of Fangoria and learned exactly when to start the tape of A Nightmare on Elm Street at slumber parties, so that the last half hour would play in real time. (It’s scarier that way. Trust me.)

Years after that, on a rainy evening in San Francisco, my best friend H. confessed that she really wanted to design a line of costumes for strippers, and I admitted that I wanted to write the ultimate vampire novel, or go to film school. Six months later, I’d realized I don’t function well in institutional educational facilities, and gone to work for my mother, but I think she really DID make clothes for strippers.

I still love horror films, though, and I still have an overactive imagination, to the point where I didn’t sleep for a week after watching Ringu (and even just typing it made me shiver), and I still flirt with writing that vampire novel. Sort of. It’s changed into something about mermaids, sharks, blood and the sea over the years…

But that’s another entry, for another night.
And tonight, I’m going to sleep with the sound of sprinklers merging with the half-remembered sound of a super 8 camera in my head.

Just a friendly reminder that there are still nine days left to sign up for Summer Burn 06.

That is all.

I’m watching the dvd of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for about the gazillionth time. Does anyone here NOT want to play the Narrator at some point?

* * * * *

I love that David, the owner of David’s Seafood Grill (aka The Place that Used to Be the Cedar Hill Rockfish), comes out and introduces himself to all his patrons, and makes personal suggestion. Also, they have the 2nd best clam chowder west of the Mississippi.

* * * * *

I learned today that too many years of PernMUSH have affected my ability to touch other people – realized I’d stopped myself from using casual touch in a scene because I’m so used to people whining about power-posing. Oy.

* * * * *

This line is simply a hug for Bripadme @ LJ, who really needs one tonight.

* * * * *

I bought a book called Devil’s Teeth about the great white sharks that cruse the Farralones, and reading about Marin County scientists holed up on the island with Peets coffee has made me really homesick for the Bay Area. *Le sigh*

* * * * *

Bed now.

If you’re interested, and not already ON LJ, I’m conducting a naming poll in my livejournal.

Click Here.

I haven’t updated in forever. I could use the excuse of work, because there have been an inordinate number of stupid people calling lately, and we’ve got a reduced staff because half of us are in training (why oh why do these trainers think we need to have the entire product matrix READ TO US? This is not training. This is mass torture.)

Or I could be honest and just say I’ve meant to write, but there’s this really compelling HP slash-fic (Snarry, actually) that I had to finish, and then, my own het OFC fic that has been speaking to me, and I’m working on a serious short story for Glimmer Train‘s July contest, and then there’s ALSO work.

Here’s the week in review:
Friday:
Boss announced at 6:50 that we may as well leave early. Gee, a whole ten minutes. We hadn’t had a call into the queue since five, and the doc drawers were already gone. Fuzzy really wanted to see X-Men: The Last Stand, so we went to Cedar Hill directly from work. I was tired, and popcorn does not a nutritious dinner make, but the movie was enjoyable. If you’re one of the five people who has not seen this movie yet, and has not already been told, It is essential that you sit through the credits.

Saturday, was my first day working the door at ComedySportz, and mainly it involved polishing metal stanchions and holding hands with entering audience members (so I could stamp them with fuschia lips), before they were seated. (Hence the title).

Sunday, we slept through the time allotted for choir rehearsal. I went to the phone to call, realized I hadn’t checked vm in a couple days (people who know us know to email if a response is required, or call our cells), and found that we hadn’t missed rehearsal, there wasn’t one. Attendance is generally light on holiday weekends, anyway. Went back to bed intending to get up and go in time for mass, but there was an incident with the alarm clocks that wasn’t happy, so, we lingered at home, watching eps of Dr. Who and John Doe from the tivo.

Sunday evening was my first workshop with the ComedySportz crew. I was terrified, and not very energetic, but I had fun, and learned a lot. Also, any workshop that does not involve doing BUNNY is a good workshop for me. As a result of this workshop, at which I demonstrated my complete and total lack of Gibberish-speaking skills, I begged my friend Clay for help/advice/a miracle cure. He made some valid suggestions, most of which come down to turning off the inner editor. Note to self: Ask for help on this tomorrow (tonight).

Sunday night, after the workshop, we went to see The DaVinci Code, which didn’t suck, but wasn’t great either. Then again, the book was mediocre mind-candy and not great, so I guess it was true to the book in that respect. (I maintain that if you want to read a similar story, Umberto Eco’s novel Foucault’s Pendulum is a better choice, although the frequent use of Latin and French may make you feel undereducated.)

Monday:
A lazy day of reading, laundry, writing, general puttering around the house, and watching more Dr. Who and John Doe. (We’re such geeks). There was rain, and I read the novel Lighthouse Keeping which fit the weather. I’d finished Charles De Lint’s Widdershins the night before.

Tuesday – Thursday:
Work, and work, and oh, look, more work. By the end of Thursday, I could have taken Friday off and still had enough hours to get five hours of OT. I wish we had a 9-80 program. Thursday was taken up by half a day of new product training (we finally have a suprime I/O product), during which I struck up a conversation with the trainer, and basically told him I wanted his job. He asked me to write a quick and dirty CV and email it to him (I did it on our break) because there’s a chance at a position teaching salespeople to teach brokers how to use automated underwriting engines, and I know a TON about automated underwriting.

Friday:
It is impossible for Fridays to ever be entirely bad. Mine wasn’t, really, but it did seem ENDLESS. There are only two of us who work past five on Fridays, and we end up stretching files just so we don’t sit around bored. I sat around and surfed the ComedySportz playerz fora, in between workstuff, but by the time I got done with work, and they released us, it was after the show start time, so I couldn’t even go watch.

Today:
I woke around nine, realized it was Saturday, let the dogs out, drank some mint tea, read bad fanfic for a while (in bed) and napped a bit. We finally BOTH rolled out of bed around two, had sandwiches, and took long self-indulgent showers, before heading to Dallas, where I worked the concession stand with one of my fellow newbies (after vacuuming). After the show, a bunch of us went to Fridays, where one of the troupe members analyzed all our handwriting, and we all got to know each other a little bit. It was pleasant, but we left at midnight, because the dogs needed to be fed, and we think we have choir in the morning.

Last night, even though I was exhausted and frustrated by work, and really wanted a hot bath and a good night’s sleep, I ventured into Dallas’s West End to attend the audtions at the local branch of ComedySportz.

I blame (or credit?) my friend Clay for the suggestion that I go. In truth, I had contacted them, at his friendly urging, to inquire about their public workshops, searching for something interactive to jump-start my muse, shatter my shyness, and allow me to hang out with creative non-mortgage-industry people. Instead of giving me class info, they said, “Consider coming to the auditions.”

And so I did.

Consider it, I mean. I also bugged my closest friends about it, knowing they wouldn’t let me chicken out, that by telling them, I was giving myself external accountability. Again, Clay offered the best advice telling me to go with the expectation of having fun for a couple of hours. “Worst case scenario,” he said, “You get to play for a while and laugh a lot.” (I have the wisest friends).

Anyway, I was near to skipping it from sheer tiredness. Thursday is “month end” at work, and our volume is such that, this month, it’s crazy. We’re all working long hours and everything is time sensitive. But I knew I’d have to explain myself if I didn’t go, and I really wanted to play in that sandbox. So I went.

As auditions go, it was about as non-threatening as possible. We filled out minimal paperwork, and then we played games.

Specifically, we opened with Zip Zap Zop, and then played the Name Game and Pass Clap. We were blessed to have, among the auditioners, a bald guy named Curly, who became the focus of the name game, an exercise that helped us learn each other’s names. As folks wandered in late, people would wave them over and say, “That’s Curly. Start there.” It seemed to work.

We moved on to more interesting exercises, doing brief (two-five lines) justification scenes, in which we essentially just had to establish who and where we were (this was in pairs), and then we did some small-group exercises – HitchHiker, What Are You Doing, and Four-Headed Expert.

After having some of the current cast demonstrate, we warbled our way through “Do Ron Ron” (my favorite) and then wrapped up with 185, which is quite possibly the most exquisite torture available in a family-friendly format.

At the end of the evening, we collapsed into chairs, and were told that email would be the primary form of communication, and that if we couldn’t commit to the required time, to leave now (essentially). I walked down the block to meet Fuzzy for a late dinner at Fridays, and then went home to bed, pausing only to babble all of this to Clay, via IM.

(He was so patient about listening)

This morning at work, I checked my personal email via the web, and found that the invitation to join the troupe (attend workshops, and work door/concession while learning) had been extended about ten minutes after I turned out the light – I’d been expecting not to be asked – and emailed the select circle of friends and family who’d been told about this in the first place.

So…the first players workshop is on Sunday. I can’t wait to go play!

A quiet afternoon spent curled on the couch with Fuzzy, a dvd that we both enjoyed, and two small dogs with their heads on our knees…sometimes the quiet days are best.

There’s something really wrong with five pairs of panties (admittedly in cute colors), two bras, and two t-shirts costing almost $80.