Today's the anniversary of the day John and I arrived in California.

To celebrate, I went to work. On a Sunday. Like I do every Sunday.

There's this older gentleman that comes on every Sunday evening, who's nearly deaf, which means he's loud. He has a huge jaw, and wicked sense of humor. He's also an artist, which mostly amounts to him pouring over art books for a couple of hours and drawing anyone near him into an impromptu oral critique. My analyses usually sound like the one I offered today on a book about Soutine, "That's a lot of trees." Aside from his occasional tirades about the Civil War (he might be related to Sherman of burning-Atlanta-to-the-ground fame: a yankee), Japanese interment Camps (better safe than sorry, he would say), and political or social issues in general (remember, he's loud), he's quite funny and pleasant.

Another one of our frequent customers is this incredibly effeminate man, I'd guess to be in his late 50's, who gets his kicks telling dirty jokes that are usually also racially or culturally stereotypical, and, of course, offensive. He calls me a "dear, dear, child" and "oh, dahhling" and is actually a nice man, when he isn't trying to be funny (which he isn't) or touch me. He's big on hugs. And no worries if you're behind the counter--he can always pat your face.

Both of these characters were in the store at the same time today. I don't know if I've ever seen that happen before. They're both attention hogs...and can get pretty jealous.

Sitting in the office, I could hear the "oh, dahhlings" starting and the art discussion becoming more one-sided as my co-worker clearly retreated behind the protection of the front counter. I pictured these two customers, one in his fifties and the other in his sixties or seventies, having an all-out brawl. In a ring. I pictured the former wearing a blue silk boxing robe (perhaps with "The Artiste de LA" embroidered on the back) and bright blue gloves hopping up and down with his high shoulders slumped in front of him, that savage jowl poking out, and his white hair falling down in his face. The latter I pictured dressed similarly, only in pastels ala Richard Simmons, and teasing his opponent, only to retreat back into his corner and giggle. The Artiste de LA hates that sort of thing! He would be positively livid. In fact, being sort of a homophobe himself, he'd probably back out of the fight altogether.

It was at that moment, when I accused a customer of backing out of the boxing match in my brain, because he might think a man who calls me "dahling" might be gay and therefore not like him, that I realized the following things: 1) I'm really hard on conservatives. 2) I know nothing about boxing. 3) I have either entirely too much imagination or not enough real thoughts in my head to keep it otherwise entertained.

Labels: work.

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