in a gray dress

"What do you do?" asked a passerby dressed pretentiously in a starched white shirt and black sunglasses with combed-back, blond hair.
I was perched on a flower bed flipping through a manila folder of resumes.
I ignored him and heard him snort in indignation.
I turned toward him suddenly, instinctively, and smiled because he was leaning in toward me like he was curious to see what I was doing.
"I'm applying for jobs at restaurants," I told him, checking off the list of upscale places I'd dropped off my resume.
He insisted on showing me a small nook of tranquil cafes.
"I'm not trying to pick you up," he said, seeing my hesitation.
I followed him through a dark corridor of take-out restaurants to a sunny, secluded patio outside a Chinese tea shop.
"Oh, it smells," he said as we stood in the foyer like maybe it wasn't the best place to work after all. I defended the smell.
"No, it looks nice. I'll apply."
I took a business card.
We stood in the courtyard near the door of the tea shop, talking.
I learned he teaches Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and is working on his dissertation.
"I like that seating because it encourages people to read," he said, pointing to wide, wooden benches that stepped down away from the tea shop.
I told him I like to read obscure journalism like The New Yorker.
"Obscure?" he said, disdainfully.
"Yes, yes. I like nuance and subtelty but there's no room for long text in community journalism. Even community journalism is passing me by because I don't have the social media and technical skills online newspapers are looking for."
He reads Joyce and didn't seemed to think much of The New Yorker.
Or maybe he didn't seem to think much of the fact I called the writing obscure. I chose the wrong adjective. Obscure, like, it's not on YouTube. Community journalism is on the other side of the obscure spectrum; it's only important to a handful of people and not necessarily connected online.
Basically, I meant to say: Reading The New Yorker is not helping me find a job in community journalism hungry for Twitter-savvy hipsters. Working in community journalism is not helping me find a job at The New Yorker.
"I think literature is the most important thing in the world," he told me. "It's like good food. Why would you want to look at garbage. People don't realize how important is what they see with their eyes."
Joyce.
I didn't recall if I had even read him, let alone could remember his ideas, plots and characters. I can remember, however, how it felt to eat an orange persimmon by the blue ocean in La Jolla a few years ago. (I ate the persimmon and then wrote a small poem about it.)
"You have to be a little obsessive," he added.
He was not happy that I was looking for a job in waitressing. He told me I was wasting my time. He determined I was from a privileged background. My parents paid for me to attend a private, liberal arts school. I cringe at the thought of the money they spent.
"I suppose I wish I had studied something more practical like economics or international relations. Those were my friends, not the people who studied English."
He told me I had nice mannerisms and seemed intelligent.
"I don't usually dress like this," I said as I sat in a designer (Anthropologie) gray dress cut in small ruffles high on the shoulder with my legs crossed and feet dangling in beige, cork sandals. I had been to the salon that morning to get my split ends chopped. I felt unusually comfortable and beautiful.
I find it strange that people assume I'm intelligent. They don't know how I drift off during group conversation or how poor my sense of direction is, or how I fail to comprehend information or how I remember nothing. Yes, I agree. I should be intelligent. I just need some help.
I tried to explain my career decisions to him. My thoughts came out piecemeal and jumbled. Intelligent? I was having trouble even articulating my thoughts!
Sitting with this apparent literary giant who teaches at UC Berkeley made me begin to realize how little I've achieved. How little I've desired.
"Have you ever written something you were proud about?" he asked.
Thoughts of papers I'd written for literature classes in college and stories at the newspaper must have passed through my mind. I thought about my stabs at poetry. I've ached with feeling but my poems come out juvenile at best with no technique. Like intelligence, I just need someone to teach me, to impart knowledge and passion. Is there a place for slow people to blossom in this world? Those with potential who don't catch on as fast?
Without hesitation I answered.
"No."
Something shifted in my consciousness.
I have no idea where I'm going. I'm afraid to become someone. I'm afraid to become who I really am. But maybe who I really am is not clearly defined and keeps special rooms and separate identities within. No, I am not heading anywhere full force because I am not willing to choose an identity.
I passed through the teenager years when I was suppose to rebel with my head in the fog. Now, I cannot rebel against my family, my friends to shout out, "This is me!"
I'd prefer to hide it deep within. Until now. I am a journalist who should blog, tweet, keep an active Facebook. So, this is the sad, plain me: a mix-mash of passions with her head in the fog pursuing small, momentary pleasures who gravitates toward non-threatening jobs like community journalism in stifled suburbs and, now, waitressing.

Bedroom guest

A furry black spider ran fast on eight legs out of the old clothes I was sorting.
I planned to find the spider to trap it but I had to leave for an appointment.
I didn't hunt for the furry spider when I returned and I haven't seen it since.
What will the spider eat?
Will it find its way into a corner to spin a web? Are there enough flies and insects in the house for it to feed on?
It seems awfully furry and fat to stay an indoor spider.
I will go looking for it soon. I'm not pleased to find starving creatures in the house.

Just like me

I rode up to north Berkeley to try Philz coffee; he just opened a new store and has been perfecting blends for two decades. I tried the medium: still burnt and flat in my mind.

Is it strange to feel self-conscious about the fact people around me seem very much like me? Like we're all cutting ourselves into the same shapes.
People on the street are talking about Philz coffee. I'm looking for Philz coffee because I read about it online. We're ants following the good scent.
I lock up my bike: a woman my age is talking ecstatically about the creatures she saw at some aquarium. The leaf seahorse amazed her. She bought an abalone shell filled with succulents at the botanical plant sale. She speaks so rapidly it's like the words are streaming from her gut - the epicenter of culture and feeling - than processing from her brain. That's me!

In England, Russia, Switzerland, New York and San Diego, I couldn't trace the scents because they were so varied, foreign or undesirable. In Berkeley, I'm easily tracing the well-worn path. I suppose now I learn what I'm made of, in a hill of ants like me?

Choosing a career

I met Victoria at the post office on College Avenue.
She regrets going to law school. Lawyers are not nice, she said. They are forced to work long hours. She always tried to contract work part-time but firms usually pulled her in full-time.
"They want your soul," she said.
Victoria is moving to Venice Beach to get away from all the techies in Berkeley and to live near the beach. She calls them pirates.
"No one respects a person's creative efforts and investment," she said. "People pirate everything. These tech devices are wiping out the artists."
She asked for my star sign.
Libra.
A Libra needs balance.
She suggested I pursue a profession more focused on beauty and aesthetic. Perhaps become an architect.

Introduction to stinging nettle

It's Saturday morning and I am drinking stinging nettle tea. Stinging nettle is an herb that grows behind our greenhouse that offers a boost to the immune system, the side effect of clarity, plus energizes me.

I am an amateur journalist, a young 25-year old woman and, now, an even more amateur farmer - or farm hand.

On July 4th, I topped the heads of basil (it will grow back); we uprooted Adirondack blue and red potatoes called "new potatoes" because we pulled them up right after the plant had flowered white petals. We dug three-pronged claws into the soil and toppled the whole plant over to reveal glorious ruby red potatoes in the soft soil. Amazing!

After we harvested - and before the barbecue - I excitedly collected a bouquet of wild flowers from an overgrown escarole bed. For me, it was the next step to learning more about the world of wild plants that I have eagerly learned to forge. So, I pulled out a soaring, bolting escarole plant that has flowered purple, coupled it with poor man's pepper, a stalk of wheat and a large sprig of small yellow flowers (name?).

On Friday, we tied bulbs of three varieties of garlic to rope supported by PVC pipes in the office to dry to last longer.