Tom Whaimts, Prescribed Time, and Microwaved Sweet Potatoes

Things I'm grateful for this week

I took a three week hiatus from the ‘stack to focus on work-work and a poetry workshop I was/am participating in. I had this idea to write inside a schedule that alternated every three weeks: three weeks, we sunday glass. Three weeks, we don’t. This was built as a remedy to the problem of “It is difficult to write and it is even more difficult to enjoy writing,” and for the most part, it has been successful in that regard. More than ever, though, I am conscious about protecting that joy while also developing the writing, making it better¹. Who knows what might happen?? I don’t!!

HOT ONIONS IN THE AIR

Passing by an In-N-Out on a Saturday evening, trees devoid of color, only murky shades. Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee crackles through car speakers. I am tempted to drop everything in my life for a cheeseburger. But I need to get to Target before it gets too dark.

PRESCRIBED TIME AND LATE DINNERS

I wake up at six thirty a.m whether I like it or not, sitting upright for a couple minutes, in a half-stunned state. By nine, I feel the most fury. The caffeine hits, whatever I eat for breakfast undergoes fission. I write best at this time². Come noon, I desire a sandwich or sandwich equivalent. Four to five p.m. is often forgotten time, a temporal ravine. Floating between finishing work and thinking about the upcoming evening, I flounder. I get weird.

I feel trained to want dinner at six and I often follow through this routine when I am at home. There are days though, usually when I commute, when the only time I can eat is at seven or eight. I feel loose. Every movement feels out of time. There are even days I work or eat at ten or eleven. Instead of winding down at this time as I would normally, I eat curry, blasted in a microwave. I write a really bad poem. These controlled bursts of rebellion, rebellion against, are exciting enough to justify how abysmal I will feel the next morning, when my body’s clock wakes me up at six. And I sit there, for a couple minutes, feeling waves of the day before.

DAD SHOWING ME PLACES ON GOOGLE EARTH

He flips between Google Earth and Google Maps to show me the current route he has planned for a vacation next year. He and Mom are going to Switzerland. Traveling via train, they will cut through Vienna, as there is “nothing to see there”. Overall, there is a lack of good food in Europe³. You don’t see German or Austrian restaurants here, he says later as we carve through Rowland Heights⁴.

He is almost giddy when he drags the little orange guy onto a village street in Copenhagen. The shops lining the sidewalks each have bespoke metal signs. Shoe repair. Market. Bakery. Police station. I point to one with the McDonalds M painted in mustard. He gives me a stern nod and flashes a thumbs up.

MICROWAVED SWEET POTATOES

In some convenience stores around Korea, there are steamed sweet potatoes next to the register. Held on warm plates, the spuds are wrapped in aluminum foil, and people grab a couple in the morning and go along their way. Men in gray suits chomping chunks of yellow tuber in their mouths, steam emanating from their mouths like dragons, wait for the bus. My family microwaves sweet potatoes when they want a quick breakfast. I never understood what the big deal was until I was running late-ish to a shoot. Hungry and pressed for time, I threw a potato in the microwave and collected call sheets and rolls of tape. Five minutes later, a long beep, then suddenly, I am in my car, heading towards Malibu. I get it.  

TOM WHAIMTS

Singing at the top of my lungs is among my favorite activities to do in the car⁵.  It is less fun and more helpful, if I am being honest. Singing is catharsis, a release of what has been kept inside, liberated through voice. I like to sing on the freeway, where the overall sound is so loud that my voice is enveloped.

Sometime last year, “The Wire” by HAIM comes on shuffle. I turn the volume knob up. Winter and its limited daylight has a hypnotizing effect on LA drivers; everyone forgets how to drive. Somewhere between the first chorus and when Alana Haim begins her verse and between the numerous stop-and-starts on the ten⁶, I begin to sing along to the song as Tom Waits. Swordfishtrombones, gravel-voiced, wailing Tom Waits.

Mumbling, “I GIVE IT ALL A-WAY” in a growl, I was first amused by the absurdity of Tom Waits singing HAIM. Tom famously sings with a conviction, a ferocity that is imitable. Then it started to become weird. Tom keeps singing, and as my voice just gets louder and louder. Tom not only takes over the song but the wheel and the road. I am gripping the wheel, digging my fingernails into the plastic leather. As the Haim sisters sing rounds atop each other, Tom wails through chorus. Brake lights illuminated red look like flowers. My voice breaks into his, and I am alone in my car, yelling and weeping. The freeway clears up.

I roll the windows down and feel the seventy five mile air whip my face. The tears dry into icicles.

1. A process that a) takes time and b) turns on my neuroses.

2. I write most at this time, and when volume is required for proper revision to occur, this means most equals best

3. Minus Italy. We hunker down on spaghetti often.

4. Rowland Heights is, I mean this with love, VERY ASIAN.

5. The others would be: not getting into an accident, driving down scenic roads, and eating a bean and cheese burrito.

6. The 10 freeway. East.