Step One: Draw Some Ugly Women

With any hobby, talent only comes through hard work and practice.  It was for that reason that my pastime of painting took a hiatus, as did my writing, because I could not produce from either endeavor anything of value in my eyes.  Any compliments from friends become mere polite encouragements, almost like one would compliment a child for some piss-poor drawing by sticking it to the fridge, or so my self esteem would interpret praise.

My paintings were never good enough to me, and the desired masterpieces I could so vividly visualize in my head did not translate well onto canvas.

So I’m starting all over with the basics, and one thing holding me back is my inability to draw still life.  Even my stick figures were not discernibly stick figures.  So I borrowed a head and figure drawing how-to book from my girlfriend and worked with some of the tools she gifted me a Christmas or two ago.  I’ve managed to take the easy instructions and beautiful faces from the aforementioned book and turn them into eyewitness sketches of the offspring of grey aliens and a typical 3AM Walmart shopper.  Portraits might be a bit away, but I’ll get there.  The one skill I don’t think will take me long at all to get a handle on is my use of color.  My paintings in the past were of an abstract nature and I had a love for making pretty messes.  Now I want to focus on making a visually pleasing flow of colors worthy enough to bring someone joy when gazing on one of my pieces in their home.  Turning one's nose up and boasting of owning a “Len Duran” has just the right amount of pompous air to it.

The Nuances of Being Girl

Toward the end of my shift I overheard my coworker, River, ask another staff member for a hair tie.  It was at that moment that the cartoon light bulb you would associate with an idea illuminated over my head.  “I should make a ‘girl kit’.”  I voiced out loud to River.  Met with a quizzical look from her, I elaborated: “Every job I’ve ever had, the staff usually has a majority of women.  They often forget things like hair ties or even more important: tampons”

“Oh.”  She acknowledged.  “They had something like that in our first aid kit at my old store.”

I began to formulate a list of common little things a woman might need in a pinch, yet was often unavailable.  Around that moment, another coworker of mine, Harley, walked into the store.  I approached her with my idea and asked for her input.

“Hair ties for sure.”  She offered.  “Bobby pins too.”

“Dual purposes.”  I added.  “In case one would ever have to pick a lock.”

“Right!?”  She credited my suggestion.  She continued to list other essentials.  “Tampons of course.  Plastic!  Not cardboard!”

“What do you mean?”  I asked.

“They hurt when you put them in.”  She said.

“You mean the applicator?” I inquired, but without waiting for an answer, my brain had already connected the dots of logic.

“Cardboard is absorbent!”  I announced, making a slow, explosive gesture with my hands coming from my head.  “That would cause painful friction.  Why on Earth would they make something like that!?  The sadists.  I know it’s probably really cheap to produce, but come on!”

Harley nodded approvingly.

“What about medication for the kit?”  I asked.  “Like Midol?”

“No, try Pamprin.” Harley endorsed.

“Why Pamprin?”
“Because if you take three of them it’s like taking a Vicodin.”

Just then another coworker of mine, LuLu, arrived on the scene.  I informed LuLu of the idea I had just proposed to River and Harey.

“So far on the list I have: Hair ties, bobby pins, tampons... plastic, not cardboard, as I’ve just learned-”

“Yes!”  She shot.  “Don’t ever get cardboard.  They hurt like a bitch!”

I chuckled.  “Okay, now that I have a consensus, I’m deciding on medication-”

“Get Pamprin.”  She recommended.

“Why Pamprin?”

“Because when you take three of them it’s like taking a Vicodin.”

As I was leaving to head home, two other coworkers, males this time, called for my attention.

“Hey Len, do you have a lighter on you?”

“No, I don’t smoke.”  I stated.  “But you know, I get asked enough to the point where I should just carry one.”

“Oh.”  He said.  “I just figured you would have one since you carried a first aid kit in your bag that one time, and you seem like the type of person that would have a lighter on them in case they got lost in the forest or some shit…”

Pest Control

I couldn't tell you how many I killed

It’s safe to say around twenty.

Broken, smashed, twitching remains

of which I assure you there are plenty.

Much like the head of a hydra

a small death was replaced by five.
A frantic, chaotic call to arms

for the glory of the hive.

My people backed away in fear

“He has this, a willing killer of the drones.”

What humor that I should bolster their resolve    

and yet no one inquired into my own.

I have an intense fear of them,

I’m not as brave as I seem.

A thousand yard stare an appropriate mask

over my heart’s desire to scream.

Faux Pas

We recently hired a young Bosnian woman at my work, bringing our number of that nationality up to two.  My two Bosnian coworkers, both women, quickly made friends with each other and joked that now they would be able to speak ill of the rest of the staff in their native tongue.  I have a fear of being in any situation where I don’t know what is being said or talked about, so I took it upon myself to learn a few Bosnian phrases purely out of interest.  “What harm could a few conversational phrases in another language do?”  I asked myself, ignoring my inner voice of reason that replied:  “The harm is that you’re already teaching yourself four languages.”

In my defense (and not a very good one), the language learning app “Duolingo” makes a fun and easy game of learning languages, but I digress.

I began to learn a few starting conversational phrases in Bosnian via “Google Translate” and confirmed my pronunciations with Bosnian number one.  After the beta phase of Bosnian phrases, it was time to test what I’ve learned on Bosnian number two.

My pronunciations are weak but not nearly as bad as my cultural insensitivity.  It turns out that I had been speaking the Serbian-Bosnian dialect (can you guess which side of the conflict she was from?), a misstep I would discover when reading the body language of the new girl and the Wikipedia article on the Bosnian War.  Dreadfully embarrassed, I later apologized to her for putting my foot in my mouth.
“Lets just stick with the four languages we’re working on for now.”  My inner voice of reason chimed in again.

Exist

I suppose I'll just start with the honest truth: somewhere a few months ago I stopped writing because I lost faith in myself.

There.  That sentence took ten minutes to compose as it was deleted over and over while I tried to think of an opening line.  So I settled on what I would say to my best friends if asked how come I didn't write anymore.  It's because I have no faith in myself, and I suck.  That's the kind of attitude I ran with for months while procrastination morphed into quitting.  Around the time I stopped calling myself a writer I took up story telling for a table-top role playing game with some friends.  Perhaps it was because of the game that my creative spark ignited; or maybe I just had so much to say to the world.  I did learn one thing: I am capable of entertaining and even moving people.

I can start writing again and maybe become good at it.  I'll ramble a little at first and learn to open up about my thoughts and feelings and eventually, if all goes well, maybe I'll actually make something worthwhile, if not on paper, at least with myself.

What's In a Name?

I don’t know why, but there has been an influx of deaf customers at work over the past few months.  This increase has given me the much needed kick in the ass to better my singing abilities.  I've heard of a few shops all over the Valley where the deaf congregate to socialize.  I've always wanted to go to such gatherings to practice my ASL.  Now it seems those places have come to me.  We have a customer who comes in from time to time and exchanges pleasantries with me in sign language.  She is very patient with me as I clumsily fumble through what little sign that I know.  Today she asked me what my name was, and when I responded she gave me hers, Regina, first spelling it out and then giving me her “deaf name”.  If there isn't already a common sign for your name the deaf groups you associate with will usually make one up for you.  Often, the made up sign is a mix of a letter and an attribute of your personality or lifestyle.  It’s a pretty big honor to be gifted a deaf name.  I told Regina that I didn't have one yet.  She began to think of various verbs or attributes combined with the letter “L”.

L and computer?

L and learning?

How about L and coffee?

She told me that she would think one up.

I maintained my polite smile despite my inner pleading of “Please, please, don’t associate me with coffee…”.  My job makes me miserable beyond words; Please, please, don’t let my name include coffee.  

Routes

  The boy was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, dressed in simple khaki slacks and a plain white baggy shirt, a common attire among his peers.  He hurried from his seat to the sliding doors of the light rail car with a strawberry in hand that he had been nibbling on.  The boy took quick glances outside of the light rail’s dual windowed sliding doors as it slowly came to a halt at a designated stop. His face glowed at the sight of what I could only assume was his girlfriend as she stepped aboard.  The girl appeared to be same age as the boy, yet stood half a foot shorter.  She wore tight jeans and red shirt, an outfit that despite its simplicity was no doubt purchased in a popular expensive store.  She was pretty, and it was easy to see why she caused such a blush in the boy’s complexion.  She glanced down at the boy’s half eaten strawberry and had made a comment with a smile that I couldn’t catch due to the noise of the light rail now beginning to depart.  He finished the strawberry and they moved to a corner in the car of light rail.  He leaned toward her and they kissed as she wrapped her arms delicately around his neck.  I couldn’t help but imagine what strawberries must taste like in a kiss and reminisce on my own personal experiences of young love.  The girl had closed her eyes during the first kiss between them, but as the light rail carried on, and the boy moved in for more kisses, I took notice at how she started to meet his lips with open, almost pensive, eyes.  There were small gaps of time between the two young lovers where hardly anything was said or any physical connection was made.  However when he indulged himself to more lengthy kisses, she never closed her eyes.  I would have paid a large sum of money to have been able to read her mind or the invisible signs over his head that only she could observe with open distracted eyes.