Apartment #4: 4360 1/2 Texas St., San Diego (1992)

After my vacation ended, I decided that I no longer liked sharing an apartment with someone. Ped was a nice guy, but I really needed my own space. I decided to see what I could find. While scanning the classifieds, I found a studio for $310 a month. I figured I could swing that amount. The unit was part of what used to be one big house. The owner had converted it into three separate apartments with an "in-law" unit in the back that made a fourth residence.

The studio was a 10' x 10' living room, probably about one-third the size of my studio in Denver. (In the photo above, it's the door next to the light pole.) It also had a small kitchen and bathroom, which both took up the other half of the apartment. In fact, the bathroom was so small that when I sat on the toilet, my head was in the sink. It had only a shower stall. I really wanted to move out, so I didn't get picky about it. At the very least, I didn't have to share the bathroom.

The apartments were independently owned by an older gentleman and his wife. They had a couple of other apartments around town. One of the things he told me was that no one else could live there with me. The apartment was too small for two people. He'd had a problem with a couple of guys who tried to live there and all they did was fight. I told him that my friend Chud was going to come by and spend a couple of nights while he went to the Comic-Con, but that was it. He didn't have a problem with the occasional visitor.

I made my move on August 1st, 1993. I was able to get everything from the old apartment over in just a couple of trips. After this time, I met some of the other residents. In the main front unit were a brother and sister. I met the brother on several occasions, but I never met the sister. Eventually, she moved out and he got a female roommate. I did get to meet her. The brother knew the person in the "in-law" unit from high school. He had gone to law school and was trying to pass the bar. I know he failed the first time and was hoping to take the exam again soon. I never met the person who lived in the upper unit in the back.

Like my other apartments, there were a couple of quirky things about it. The first was that there was the beginning of a stairway in my closet. I always wondered if the person in the upstairs unit had a stairway that led down to nowhere. Also, there was a secret compartment in the bathroom. If you pulled on the toilet paper holder, there was a little room just small enough for one person to hide in the event the cops tried to knocked down the door.

The apartment was just a few doors down from an ARCO AM/PM. Across El Cajon Blvd., there was a McDonald's. There were other fast-food restaurants within walking distance. The whole time I lived there, I don't think I ever turned on the oven or made a single meal for myself. (Yeah, I know. That turned out to be wasteful.) I only ever kept Gatorade in the refrigerator.

Also, during this time, I didn't have a TV set. I spent a lot of my time composing music. I turned out to be very productive during this period. (But I was still going to see a lot of movies.) I also only ever had four people come over to the apartment.

At the beginning of December, I had a major change in my life that would require me to find a larger apartment. I was fortunate that the owner didn't force me to comply with providing him with a 30-day notice after he found out about my situation. I officially moved out on December 31st. I was able to get most of my deposit back. The only thing he charged me for was a stain on the carpet. But that happened because I had a soap bubble blower and I spilled some of it on the floor. I would get plenty of suds when I tried to scrub it, but I couldn't get the stain completely out.

Even though I was only there five months, it was still not the shortest amount of time I would spend in an apartment. I'll go into greater detail about what happened in future posts.

My first real vacation, Part 5

Even though I had gotten the least amount of sleep from the night before, I was the first one to wake up. I knew there was a donut place just down the street. I lightly tapped Knod on the shoulder and asked if she wanted donuts for breakfast. Still kind of sleeping, she said, "No... Bagels." Okay. I was going to have to go out and get bagels.

Chud was supposed to go in to work at Disney that morning. His wife Elad would be able to get us in for free at Disneyland. However, he was concerned about her being able to get us all in and felt like he was going to be the only one who would not encounter any problems at the gate. So, he blew off work. It turned out that was supposed to be the day he was set to meet the CEO regarding a project he was working. I told him he should go in, but he insisted there were other people who could handle it and he wasn't really needed. He would never get an opportunity to meet that CEO again.

We drove down to Anaheim and didn't experience much in the way of traffic. Chud had left ahead of us and was going to go in through the employee entrance and meet us at the front gate. We got there, parked the car and rode the trolley to the entrance. We found Chud and were able to get in. Chud showed us around a little bit and allowed us to use his 10% discount on souvenirs before he left. (I didn't want to lug my camera around all day, so I didn't bring it. It was a smart decision.)

I told Knod and Cald that they were completely in charge of where to go and what to do. Knod enjoyed that because when she last came to Disneyland with her family, the adults called all the shots and she didn't have as good a time.

The whole day was pretty much a blur as we went on all the cool rides. The only thing I have a solid memory of was when we went onto Splash Mountain. Waiting in the line, I could see that our pictures were going to get taken on this long slide. This was a period in my life in which I didn't want ANY photos taken of me, and I sure didn't want my photo taken now. During the ride, Knod and Cald brought drink cups with them and would throw water in the back of the plume. The people in back got really upset. Knod would go, "Well, we get to do that at Elitch Gardens all the time!" Then came the big drop. I was able to put my hand in front of my face when we were going down. I have to say, it came out perfectly! My entire face was covered. I wish I had bought that photo.

I also remember the Main Street Electrical Parade and how we tried to watch it. However, people who ran the stores on Main Street shooed us out of the way. Really? Where were we supposed to stand when every square inch was occupied? So we didn't stick around for the parade.

We stayed at the park until they closed. We were there at least 13 hours. I was ready to drop from exhaustion and wanted to drive home. However, Knod and Cald wanted to go to Denny's to get something to eat. This took another hour. On the way back to Chud and Elad's apartment, I had to again force myself to stay awake by singing songs while Knod and Cald slept.

Knod and Cald laid down in the guest room and I was on the couch in the living room. We slept very late the next morning. I woke up when Chud was going to work. I thanked him for everything and told him goodbye. Later, Elad woke up. I visited with Elad after she woke up. Knod and Elad got out of bed. We ate breakfast and got ready to go to San Jose.

On the way down, we got our first view of the ocean when we drove through San Onofre. This would be the first time Cald had seen that.

The plan was that we would go to my apartment, rest a bit and then get ready to go see the La Jolla Playhouse production of "The Who's Tommy." (This would be several months before it would debut on Broadway.) I had already purchased the tickets. The only problem was that I could only get my hands on three singles, but Knod and Cald didn't seem to care.

When we got to the apartment, my roommate Ped and his Canine Companion were there. I had to run to the Hillcrest Cinemas to pick up my paycheck. During the time I was away, Cald had contacted family members who lived in the LA area. When I came back, Knod and Cald were getting ready. I knew it was going to take about a half hour to get to La Jolla, so I was getting a little agitated at how long it was taking them to get ready. At one point, Knod yelled at me, "FAYD! WHY DO WE ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ON SOME F*****G SCHEDULE!" These past few days had really worn us down.

We still made it to the theatre on time. The show got underway. During intermission, I went back to sit with Knod and Cald. All of a sudden, Knod snapped, "YOU DON'T ALWAYS TO SIT NEXT TO ME!" I just decided to leave her be and went to sit in my seat.

I had seen the musical a month before before at a preview just a couple of days before it officially opened. I was so amazed by what I saw that I knew that the producers were going to have to extend the run (which they did) and that it would be headed to Broadway (which it did). What I saw that night was pretty much the same as the preview performance, except that the individuals took bows during the curtain calls instead of the whole company at once.

Originally, we had planned to hang out the entire week in San Diego. We were going to do things during the day and then they would do their own thing at night while I was working. However, Cald's relatives wanted her to come up the next day to see them, so Knod asked if it was okay for them to go ahead and hang out there. Since she had been getting angry at me, I knew there would be no point in forcing her and Cald to stay, so I agreed to take them to the bus station the next day.

We woke up the next morning and Knod made some toast by bending a wire hanger and putting it on the stovetop, holding the piece of bread. I wanted to show off the Hillcrest Cinemas to them, so I brought them by the theatre. There was a press screening going on and they med Anz, Ved and Baz. They also met one of the projectionists.

Afterward, Knod and Cald wanted to do some sightseeing in San Diego and Ped had told them about Seaport Village. I had been to Seaport Village back in December when my Mom and Loyd came out to visit. (That's a story I've opted not to tell, but only because nothing really dramatic happened.) It was a tourist trap and I didn't much care for it. I said as much to Knod, but she still wanted to see it. After we'd been there awhile, she said, "Yeah, I see what you mean."

I then took them to the bus station and helped carry their bags inside. I bought their bus tickets to LA. I hugged Knod goodbye and had to go straight to work. This was the official end of the vacation.

When I arrived at work, Baz asked me who those adorable girls were. I told her they were friends from Denver and they were on their way to LA.

I never knew what happened to them once they left. I do know that they stayed in the LA area for about three weeks before going back home on the Greyhound. I would call Knod's mother up every couple of days to see if they were okay, but she didn't really hear much from them, either.

It was just as well that they left. It would have ended the friendship I had with Knod and I'd no longer be able to consider her my little sister.

As for Cald, she got married a couple of years after I met her. Knod's niece (the one she injured her back with) was the flower girl at the wedding. She now lives in Thornton, CO and is still good friends with Knod. She has a daughter. Not too long ago, she posted one of the photos I had taken of her with the statues in Las Vegas.

The whole road trip experience appears to have been just as memorable to her.

My first real vacation, Part 4

After a full day on the road, Knod, Cald and I slept the night away at the Rodeway Inn in St. George, UT. Knod was the last to get out of bed. While we were waiting, Cald sat at the table and wrote a letter on the Rodeway Inn stationery. The plan was for us to drive to Las Vegas and see some relatives to Knod. Fortunately, it was only a two-hour drive to Vegas, so that meant we wouldn't be spending nearly as much time on the road that day. Afterwards, we would go to Los Angeles, find a motel and meet up with Chud the next day so that we could go to Disneyland.

The only problem with this was that I hadn't figured out where we were going to stay, but I figured it would be easy enough to find something along the way. I thought we would just be at her relatives' a couple of hours and then we would make the five-hour trip to somewhere around Burbank.

As usual, I was wrong, SO VERY WRONG.

Knod woke up, took a shower and put on her makeup. Before leaving the motel, I took this picture of her with St. George in the background.

Our first stop was 7-Eleven. Knod and Cald wanted donuts. Then we set off for Vegas. On the way over, we drove through Arizona for about 20 minutes. This meant that we traveled through three different states during that drive. Cald just upped the number of states she's been to. (And we would drive through a fourth, California, before the day was over.)

She had the address, but we had a hard time finding it. Knod said that her brother told her that the freeway was practically in their backyard. We knew which exit we were supposed to take from I-15, but we couldn't any of the noted landmarks anywhere. We kept driving east on the same street. We eventually passed I-515 and THEN found our landmarks. Her brother didn't tell us the correct freeway. We found the house and rang the doorbell. Knod's cousin Seld answered the door. Seld was a little younger than Knod She acted like she had just woken up. She wondered why Knod was there. Knod told her that her mother had called to let them know she was coming. Seld let us in. She played the answering machine, which no one had played the day before and heard the message. Seld's younger brother Hend was also there. It turned out that their parents worked at night. The father was a musician and the mother was a waitress at Caesar's Palace. They were both sleeping.

We wound up hanging out with Knod's cousins for more than a couple of hours. However, we couldn't leave because Knod wanted to see her aunt and uncle, who were both still sleeping. Her uncle woke up first. Seld wanted to go out and run around, but her father told her no one was going outside because of the heat. Finally, her aunt woke up and she got to visit for her a little bit. Fairly soon, she had to get dressed and get ready for work. Around 6pm, Knod, Cald and I got to leave. It was still hot outside.

But Knod wanted to see a little of Las Vegas, so we went to Caesar's Palace. Her aunt had told us about the Shops at the Forum, where the ceiling looked like the sky and it appeared to be outdoors. We went over there, found the parking and went inside. I told Knod that since she wasn't 21, she wasn't supposed to come within five feet of the slot machines. While Knod never attempted to play the machines, she did run up and touch them.

We went into the Shops at the Forum and it was exactly as her aunt had described. We walked around and took several photos of Knod and Cald near the statues. Then we went outside and sat on a grassy hill outside the hotel. We stayed there until dusk started turning into night. Before we left, I called Chud to find out if he knew someplace we could stay the night. He told me to just come on over to his house and we could all sleep in the living room. It was probably the best news I'd gotten all day.

Now we just had to get there. At this point in the vacation, it was Sunday night. I had no idea what traffic was going to be like going from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a Sunday night. IT'S FREAKING HORRIBLE! So, what should have taken just five hours took at least seven to drive. I was having such a difficult time staying awake. Knod and Cald had already fallen sleep, so they couldn't talk to me to keep me awake. I had to keep my brain active, so I started singing songs to myself. (This was one of those times I was glad I didn't have a radio in the car. That would have caused me to go right to sleep.) We finally got to Chud and Elad's apartment in Burbank around 3am. We came into the house and crashed in the living room. Knod and Cald took the couches and I slept on the floor.

But we would only get about four hours' worth of sleep before going to Disneyland the next day. That will be on the agenda for tomorrow's post.

My first real vacation, Part 3

After leaving New Mexico, the first thing I wanted to do when I got to Denver was go see Knod. I had hoped that it wasn't going to be too late by the time I got there. However, the first thing I encountered was heavy traffic. They had a couple of lanes of I-25 shut down for road work and I was starting to lose my patience after everything that had happened earlier that day. I felt like it was just one thing after another putting obstacles in my way for what was supposed to be MY fun time.

I got over to Knod's house in Arvada around 9:30pm, but her mom told me she was at Muddy's Java Cafe. I threw up my hands and realized that I wasn't going to see Knod that evening. I went over to the apartment of a friend who said I could stay there. He gave me a key and said I could come and go as I please. I fell asleep without worrying about what time I was going to wake up the next morning.

When I did wake up, my friend had left for work. I decided that it was about time that I try to contact Rid. I hadn't talked to him in eight months since I left Denver. Even though I was still mad about how he failed to show up when I truly needed him to help me move, I missed his friendship. Knod had told me previously that he had gotten married and enlisted in the Navy. Before I got ready to leave, I called his house. He picked up the phone. I hung up.

I drove most of the way there. When I got to a gas station, I went to the pay phone and called his house again. He picked up the phone and I hung up again. At this point, I knew he'd probably still be home by the time I got there. And if he left, I would probably see him coming in the opposite direction. Fortunately, he was. He was surprised and pleased to see me. The first thing he showed me was his wedding ring. I told him Knod had given me the news. He was waiting to go into basic training for the Navy, but hadn't been given a definite date that he was supposed to show up.

We decided to run around town for awhile. We went to the Mayan Theatre and surprised Mr. M. He had received word from the friend I was staying with that I probably wasn't going to stop by. But I also had a surprise. In Mr. M's office was a film promoter I had met just a few weeks earlier in San Diego. He was also probably surprised to see me.

Rid and I went back to my friend's apartment and hung out for a little bit before I had to drive him home. After taking him back, I drove over to Knod's house. She was there with a friend named Cald. They were getting ready to go clubbing. Knod previously told me that a friend of hers would be accompanying us and that was going to be Cald. Cald was 21 years old and had short, dyed-black hair. She also had freckles and, in retrospect, kind of looked like Azura Skye.

Knod's mom, older sister and brother were also at the house, along with her 2 1/2 year old niece. During the time I was at the house, Knod started throwing her niece up in the air and catching her. However, she wound up hurting her back the last time she caught her. Fortunately, she would be okay, but it did hurt for awhile.

We planned for me to come back to the house around 8am and we would then be on our way. I went back to my friend's apartment and slept. I got up at 7am the next day so I could go over to the Denver Greyhound bus station, buy the tickets and make it to Knod's house on time. When I got there, her brother was outside. As I approached the house, he told me Knod didn't come home the night before and he didn't know when she was going to be back. I didn't know what to do. Obviously, I was going to stick around until she and Cald showed up, but I didn't know how long I could wait before I needed to hit the road. I hadn't considered the possibility that there was a chance she wasn't going to come back with me. The big issue was that I had bought three tickets to see a production at the La Jolla Playhouse. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait for more than about 30 minutes before they showed up.

Everything was going okay for the first part of the trip. We stopped in Glenwood Springs to go to the bathroom. When we got back on the road, I asked Cald if she had ever been anywhere before. She said the furthest she'd ever gone from Colorado was Wyoming. I told Knod, "You didn't tell me we were initiating someone on their first real trip." For the next hour or so, Knod and Cald were writing stuff in a notebook, giggling and passing it back and forth. I didn't pay too much attention to what they were doing. I was just keeping my eyes on the road.

At some point before we left Colorado, we stopped so I could go to the restroom. Neither Knod nor Cald needed to go. When I came back to the car, Knod smiled at me and said, "Hey, just so you know, we took some acid back when we stopped in Glenwood Springs, so if you think we've been acting a little goofy, that's why." I didn't know whether or not to believe her, but it wasn't really affecting me at this point.

We crossed the state line into Utah. All of a sudden, Cald started freaking out. She was screaming that she wanted us to turn the car around and take her back. Knod kept yelling at her that she was tripping and tried to get her to lay down an go to sleep in the back seat. It was this point that I realized Knod was not kidding around about them doing drugs. Every time Cald tried to lay down, she would immediately sit back up and start asking questions about what was going on. Cald told Knod that she was a terrible person and that all she did was trick people. Knod started crying. Pretty soon, Cald fell asleep. Knod also fell asleep.

A little while later, Cald woke up. I wasn't certain if she was still in the trip state, so I asked her how she was doing. "I'm doing fine." She certainly seemed a lot calmer. I guess she was back to normal. Knod woke up and they started talking. What had been going on was that this was the first time Cald had ever tried acid, and she got it in her head that Knod and I were driving her to a police station to have her arrested for doing drugs. Because the landscape in Utah looked like the same thing over and over, she thought we were going around in circles. Knod told her that if she'd known she hadn't done acid before, she wouldn't have given her any.

Then I noticed I was low on gas. I hadn't thought to fill up before we got into Utah. We found an exit to a place called Cisco and took it. However, I didn't notice there was a sign on the exit that said "No Services." (I would see that sign on future trips.) We kept driving and driving, hoping to find a gas station, but I had no idea where we were or how to get back on the highway or even how long I would be able to go before I ran out. Eventually, the road we were on took us back to I-70. A few miles later, there was an exit to a small town called Thompson. They had gas there, but it was a lot higher than if I had purchased it earlier. It didn't matter, I was glad to have a tankful of gas. I sure didn't need any more disasters on this trip.

There is a section of I-70 through Utah in which you have to drive about 100 miles between towns with services. Knod's other brother warned me about it. I also recalled when we went to my uncle's wedding in Salt Lake City in 1975. Dad told me we were going along this stretch in which we wouldn't be able to stop anywhere. On top of this, it's mostly uphill. I was glad we were in a dependable car and didn't have any malfunctions along the way. We made it to I-15. We stopped somewhere along the way and got something to eat. (I think it was Cedar City.) We saw a Subway and said, "It's a Subway! We're saved!"

We decided to stop in St. George and spend the night. At this time, I always stayed at Motel 6, but I had trouble finding it, so we checked in at the Rodeway Inn. The pool was closed by the time we got there, but Knod and Cald went swimming anyway. Several of the local boys were hanging around in the parking lot and when they saw them swimming, they went up and talked to them. Knod and Cald came back inside and we went to sleep.

It had been a long hard day, but we had plenty more adventures ahead of us the next day as we were going to GO TO VEGAS!

That's tomorrow's post.

My first real vacation, Part 2

After leaving Chez in Roswell, I drove to Artesia. On my way down, I was saddened by what had just taken place and then I realized that I should have taken a picture. I got mad at myself for not thinking about that. I figured that what I could do was drive back up through Roswell, stop at her house and get the picture then.

I went home and saw my parents separately. My Grandma Ogolon was staying with Dad and his wife at the time. Loyd was also there with a friend of his from San Marcos. Dad asked us to drive Grandma Ogolon to the bus station in Roswell the next day. We agreed.

I know the rest of the day was spent driving around Artesia with Loyd and his friend. Before I had arrived, there was an accident at the Hermosa Church of Christ in which someone crashed into their metal sign and it hadn't been fixed yet. Loyd drove Dad's car up to the sign and we took a picture to make it look like he had run into it. I know we also drove to our old house in Cottonwood and took a photo of Loyd outside. But it was during this time that I found out my camera had been somewhat damaged from the heat the day before. The adhesive that held the viewfinder lens in place evaporated. I would have to rattle the camera around to get it to place itself in the proper position, but it wasn't always exact and I could never tell if I was fully in focus. Most of the time, the photos came out focused, but maybe one out of ten would come out really bad.

The next day, we drove Grandma Ogolon to the bus station and waited until she left. After she was gone, I told Loyd and his friend that I needed to go see someone in Roswell before we went home. I told them about Chez, Joad and Road. I told them that I was going to get their picture and there was a chance he was going to try to beat me up. They agreed to wait in the van while I talked to them. Chez had previously told me where she lived, but didn't give the exact address. However, she did tell me that she was two houses away from the beginning of the street. We parked the car across the street and I went up to the door. I knocked. Chez answered the door. Before she could say anything, I asked, "Is Road here?" Without saying anything, she opened the door to let me in and pointed over was Road was inside. He was standing right next to the door. I told him that with everything going on the day before, I had wanted to take a photograph of them, but forgot to do that before leaving. I asked if I could go ahead and take a photo right then. He agreed. Chez carried Joad and they all came outside. I took a couple of photos. After we were done, Road asked me where my car was. I guess he was impressed with the '75 Chevy Nova. All of a sudden someone called out, "Hey, Road!" It was Loyd being a smart-aleck.

After we started back home, Loyd told me that one of the scenarios we hadn't considered was that I was going to go into the house out of their view. They started freaking out in the van when this happened and Loyd said, "I know Dad's got a gun in here somewhere! We need to find it!" As they were scrambling to locate the gun, that's when I came out of the house.

We got to Artesia and went over to Furr's Supermarket to pay a surprise visit on Orld. He was surprised to see me. He asked if I was in town for the 10 year high school reunion (which was happening that weekend). I told him I wasn't. (At the time, I kind of considered that a moment of triumph for me, for blowing off the reunion even though I could have attended it if I'd wanted to. I wondered if Orld told everyone he saw me that week, but that I wasn't coming. I'm certain that would have been fodder for people to talk about behind my back, which they did all through high school anyway.) While I was there, he pointed out another former classmate of ours who had also been in Choir. He yelled at her, "Hey, it's Fayd!" She didn't really seem to care and just continued working. (I found out later that she didn't go to the reunion, either, but I wouldn't consider that a triumph.)

Then Loyd, his friend and I went to eat at Pizza Mill and Sub Factory. After that, we went to get banana splits at Dairy Queen. (Boy, was I stuffed!) Then I went over to Mom's around 8pm. When I got to her house, she was sitting in the living room and she looked furious. She was angry because I hadn't spent any time with her. I told her, "Well, I'm here now." Then she went off about Loyd and me taking Grandma Ogolon to the bus station, how that took time away from her and that Dad should have driven her. I told her I was sorry, but I was here now to spend time with her. She said, "Well, it's late! I'm going to bed." She then stormed off into the bedroom. I suddenly felt bad because I didn't realize that I hadn't really spent much time with her. But then I remembered that I had spent most of the previous evening with her and that I'd probably spent about the same amount of time with Dad.

A few minutes later, she came back out and felt bad about how she reacted and we were able to continue our visit for a couple of hours before going to bed. It wasn't too bad, but I later felt like it wasn't really my vacation to do what I wanted. I was looking more forward to the stuff I was going to do once I'd left Artesia the next day. I wanted to spend more time with the people I'd left behind in Denver and couldn't wait to get there.

However, Loyd and his friend decided they wanted to ride their bicycles all the say from Portales to Artesia and needed me to drive them. Ordinarily, I would have just driven to Ft. Sumner, visited with Grandma Bend and be on my way to Denver, but taking them to Portales was going to add about 90 minutes to my driving time. I was getting irritated that EVERYBODY seemed to be imposing on MY time during MY vacation. I was really getting stressed out.

To make matters worse, Loyd wanted to stop by and see one of Mom's uncles before we got to Portales. (This was the same uncle Mom and I stayed with the week she attended classes at ENMU in the summer of 1980.) Normally, if you go to visit a family member, you're supposed to be there for at least an hour. I told Loyd we were only going to be there for 15 minutes and that was it. I REALLY needed to be on the road to get to Denver and I wanted to get there before midnight rolled around. The uncle was suffering from early stages of dementia, but was able to take care of himself at the time and he knew who we were. But he must have been confounded when we were only there for 15 minutes. I did take some photographs, because I was aware that was probably going to be the last time I would ever see him, which it turned out to be. (I still do not regret not spending more time with him.)

I dropped Loyd and his friend off at Grandma Ogolon's. They tried to get me to stay for lunch, but I had just seen her the day before and I had to go see Grandma Bend so I could have lunch with her. I was not sticking around and getting stuffed before going to Denver. I drove to Ft. Sumner, ate and visited before leaving. I still had a seven-hour drive and it was already 2pm. I was glad I wasn't going to have to waste any more time seeing anyone else.

Yeah, I know that was a terrible attitude to have, but I was really mad at myself for trying to cram so much into one vacation and trying to please everybody. I recalled how Dad hated to make any unplanned stops when we took our family vacations when I was younger and I just seemed to turn into him.

I got into Denver without incident. I'll get into that tomorrow.

My first real vacation, Part 1

Up to the point that I was 27 years old, I'd never been on an actual vacation that didn't involve being around my family for almost the entire duration. In July of 1992, I did see my family, but it was only for two days during the week that I had off. Most of the rest of the time I was going to spend driving.

My itinerary included driving to Alamogordo the first day and spending the night at Kird's house. The next day, I was going to drive to Roswell and see if I might be able to see Chez. I would then go home to Artesia that same day and spend time with Mom, Dad and Loyd. Two days later, I was going to drive to Denver and spend all of the next day there before taking Knod with me to Disneyland and then back to San Diego.

It had been a long time since I'd done hours of driving during the daytime. I didn't realize how blistering the summer sun would get while I was driving. During the first part of the trip, I got a bad sunburn on my arm. Then I realized that I needed to have something cover my arm if I was going to be driving around in direct sunlight. (My car did not have an air conditioner.) Fortunately, my sunburn didn't get any worse for the rest of the day.

I remember stopping at some town in Arizona along the way at a Circle K. I got gas and some Gatorade. I sat there in the store and drank it before I was on my way again. I didn't have any mishaps the rest of the way to Alamogordo. I got to Kird's house around 9pm. His wife was was there, but he wasn't. She said he would be home from work at the Air Force base in a few minutes and she got me some food so I could make a sandwich. We talked while I ate and waited for Kird. He finally came home and gave me a hug. We talked for a little bit before I went to sleep on their couch in the living room.

I got up the next morning and took a shower. I remember the drain in the bathtub was clogged, so I had to take the shower in standing water. Just as I was finishing up, Kird told me to stay in the shower with the curtain drawn. His daughter needed to use the restroom. I just had to wait for her to finish before I could get out and dry off.

I don't remember much else happening with Kird. I left the house and started driving toward Roswell through Ruidoso. During this stretch, I recalled how my family would drive up to Ruidoso almost every weekend during the winters between 1975 and 1978 and go skiing. I remember how, every time we came back home, we would see a sign in Ruidoso Downs that said, "See the Mystery." Loyd and I would beg Mom and Dad to stop so we see what it was all about. Dad would usually respond with something like, "The Mystery is where your money disappears to!" He later explained that it was something where you'd see rocks and other things moving uphill. Even though he downplayed it, it still sounded like something cool, but Dad was never going to take us there.

While I was driving, I said to myself, "Hey, I'm an adult now. I have money and I'm going to go see that Mystery!" But when I drove through the area where I recalled seeing the signs, they were no longer there. It was such a let down, thinking that I could avenge my childhood and then not have it come to fruition. Justifiably, I guess Dad was aware that the tour was going to take about an hour. He and Mom were already tired from skiing all day and just wanted to get home to rest. But he never told us this and he never made any plans to take us during warmer months, when it probably would have been a lot more enjoyable.

(In 2006, Ms. Ogolon and I planned a trip to Santa Cruz for the annual Clam Chowder Cookoff and Festival. Along the way, I wanted to stop by the Mystery Spot and we got to do it. Yes, I have to admit that Dad was absolutely right what it was all about, but I would have preferred to have experienced that as a child in New Mexico instead of waiting 30 years and moving halfway across the country for this wish fulfillment.)

In the previous months, I had kept in contact with Chez. I would call her from time to time and talk to her for a little bit. The conversations were rather strained. I could tell she was really trying hard not to sound excited about talking to me. The last physical communication I got from her was this Christmas card.

As you can see, she didn't bother to write much.

Prior to my departure from San Diego, I told her what day I was going to be in Roswell. I had some stuff I wanted to give her. She said she didn't know where she was going to be that day and didn't think she was going to be coming by her parents' house. I just figured her step-mother would be at home and I would just drop off the stuff there and go to Artesia. I found my way to the cul-de-sac and parked the car at the entrance. I walked up toward the house. Along the way, I saw this man with a beard working on a car outside. He looked up at me. At first, I kind of wondered if this was Road, but hoped that it wasn't.

I knocked on the door. I could hear a child screaming inside. Then I heard Chez' voice. "Who is it?" I replied, "It's Fayd!" It took a few seconds for her to open the door. She didn't look too pleased to see me. She told me to come in and have a seat while she went back to what she was doing. A few seconds later, the man with the beard came in the house. He said, "Chez! What's going on?" It was this moment I knew for certain that he was Road. Chez went up to him and said, "I didn't know he was going to be here!" They went back and forth for a few seconds, with her emphasizing each time that she didn't know I was coming. Then she suddenly realized, "Hey! Where's Joad?" "I left him out in the car." "YOU DID WHAT?" Chez then ran out of the house. (The child I heard screaming earlier was her step-mother's daughter.)

During this time, Chez' step-mother introduced us. It was kind of awkward. We shook hands and he tried to do a manly grasp on me. Chez had previously told me Road wanted to kill me, but I tried hard not to look worried about it. I think it worked.

Chez came back in and told Road to go back out to the car and watch Joad. After he left, she kept insisting to her step-mother that she didn't know I was going to be there.

(I found out later that Chez and Road had originally expected to be at the house for about 20 minutes so he could borrow some tools to work on the car. Road considered it an unusual coincidence that I happened to come to the house when they were there. He thought Chez and I planned it that way and he never let her hear the end of it.)

During this time that Chez was talking to her step-mother, I noticed what she was wearing. It was a pink t-shirt with blue jeans and a baseball cap. This was the closest I had ever seen her to dressing feminine. She actually looked much cuter and more attractive. I seriously wanted to hold her in my arms and kiss her right then and there.

I gave Chez the stuff I brought and we went outside. She got in the car. Joad was sitting in the front seat between her and Road. She introduced me to him. Road told me he had read the letters I had written Chez and he didn't appreciate how I was threatening to come take his family away. I told him I didn't write those letters with the intention of him reading them, but I could tell nothing like that was going to happen. I told them goodbye and went to my car.

I went inside and started it up. Then, Chez came up to my open window, which had chrome on the outside of the window. Remember how hot it was the day before? It was just as hot that day and when her arms touched the chrome, she got a sharp burning sensation, said "Ow!" and quickly lifted her arms. She told me she was sorry for what just happened and told me to keep in touch. I told her I would.

And I was off on my way to Artesia. However, I would encounter Chez again the next day. I'll get to that tomorrow.

Nothing Super about This

There's so much fighting going on in the current Presidential race, it make me glad not to be affiliated with either party.



The bad thing is that it doesn't matter who becomes our next President, they didn't really win anything worthwhile.

Workplace Crushes: Reyz and Farz

Reyz and Farz were members of the original crew hired for the Hillcrest Cinemas. They were at the first staff meeting on 11/09/91 at the Park Theatre, along with Abed.

I don't really recall meeting Reyz that day. There were a lot of new faces I was trying to get accustomed to, and I was not able to make connections with everyone. I was still fuming over being relegated as part of the regular crew to think about first impressions.

At first, I thought Reyz was Hispanic. She had dark brown skin, black hair and a common Hispanic surname. I figured out years later that she was actually Filipino. To be honest, I'd never known any Filipino people up to that point in my life. Even Anz (who was half-Asian) thought she was Hispanic.

I know that she helped out during the final construction phase. She cleaned and assisted in setting up the concession stand. During this time, I was taking a lot of photographs. She turned out to be the only member of the original crew I did not capture on film prior to the opening, except for one shot in which her back was turned. (But that wasn't on purpose, she just happened to be heading out the door from the stand.)

A few weeks in, we were standing together in the lobby area outside auditoriums 2 - 5. We were waiting for films to end and clear out so that we could clean them. We started talking, and we were kind of flirting with each other. This was when I first started noticing her and realizing how cute she was. I became very smitten with her and looked forward to those shifts in which we would be working together.

Now, I knew I couldn't really date Reyz because I was her boss, but I still enjoyed talking to her on a regular basis. One night, she came to the Hillcrest Cinemas to see a movie on her own time. She was waiting outside. Then, I saw this guy with light red hair and glasses come up to her. They might have been dating, but they didn't hold hands or touch each other. I didn't know what the deal was between them, but I hoped it wasn't serious. I saw him with her one other time.

The day came that Reyz decided to leave the Hillcrest Cinemas. On her final night, I was able to convince her to allow me to take a photo of her. She reluctantly agreed, but took off her glasses and gave a big smile for the camera. That night, I put a letter in the mail that I had written to her. I figured that now was my chance since I was no longer her boss. I got her address from the employee file so I could send her that letter. I wrote about how I had strong feelings for her and I hoped she would be willing to go out with me. I told her I didn't know who that guy was I'd seen her with, but I wasn't the kind of person who would interfere with that. I included my phone number, but I never heard back from her about the letter.

A few weeks later, she had to come to the theatre to get some paperwork. This happened while I was managing. She had cut her hair short. Her presence was a little unsettling because I had to be alone with her in the manager's office while she looked through her personnel file. She still did not mention the letter. At one point, she needed my help with something and I accidentally touched her hand. I kind of freaked out because I didn't know what she was going to say. She acted like nothing had happened, but I was just a jumble of nerves during the five minutes she was there. She found what she was looking for and left. I never saw her again. I cannot even locate her on the Internet.

I recall becoming acquainted with Farz before that first staff meeting. She and I had arrived early before Anz and Ved got there with the food and drinks. We started talking. She was about my age, a little nerdy and wore glasses. I remember she told me she had a Master's degree in Psychology and now, here she was, working for minimum wage. She actually thought it was rather funny. I knew right away that I liked her, but I wasn't looking to date employees that that time.

Farz was also a little overweight, but not so much that it made her less attractive to me. I recall an incident in which she was supposed to be a bridesmaid and was required to wear a corset. During the rehearsal with prototype versions of the bridesmaids' outfits, she couldn't breathe and wound up fainting.

When Anz decided to designate someone as "Head Usher," to be primed for learning how to manage. Farz was our first choice. However, just a couple of weeks after she started, the Guild Theatre picked her to be their Chief of Staff. That meant I was no longer her supervisor.

I went over to the Guild during one of her shifts to see a movie. She had started decorating the lobby with a lot of publicity photos from films and actors. She had an autographed photo of Lucille Ball. I told her she would be wise not to put that on the wall because someone was likely going to steal it. I also noticed that she had a lot of photos of Harrison Ford (none of which were autographed, although she had tried many times). I figured he was her favorite actor.

One day, Ved gave me passes to see a press screening of "Patriot Games." I figured this was my opportunity to ask Farz out. She agreed to go, but wasn't certain if she was going to be back home on time to go with me. I drove out to her apartment in Ocean Beach, but no one was at home. We had agreed that if she wasn't there by a certain time, I was to just go without her. That certain time arrived, I waited a little longer and then I left. I was rather disappointed.

Because of that, I could practically call her a Lostop, but since I didn't make any more attempts to try to do something with her, that kind of keeps her in the "Crush" category.

I also cannot find Farz on the Internet. I thought she had an uncommon name, but it turns out there's at least 30 women in the world with that name and not one of them appears to be her.

I'm always curious about what has happened to the women in my past, and it looks like I have to remain curious about Reyz and Farz.

Friend Zone #7 & #8 - Baz & Buz

Baz and Buz were two women who worked for Landmark Theatres in San Diego. They were very good friends and were roommates at one point. Now, this isn't a matter of me going back and forth between them, like I did in Clovis, NM. But because of their close ties, I've decided to include them both on this same post.

Baz was the most unusual Friend Zone situation in my life. This is because we were actual friends, but I wound up being indecisive as to whether or not I wanted to pursue a relationship. This is that rare situation in which I probably put myself in the Friend Zone.

I met Baz during the first week I had moved to San Diego in November of 1991. She was the Chief of Staff for the Park Theatre and also worked as an assistant to City Manager Ved. These hours allowed her to have a full-time job. This was something we didn't have in Denver. We had a woman who came in a few hours a week to help out in the City and District offices, but all she really did was organize materials. Baz was actually making phone calls and setting up appointments like a secretary.

In addition, she worked for us the first few days we had opened the Hillcrest Cinemas. Anz actually asked me who we should consider making our Chief of Staff. I recommended her because she already knew how to manage and had gotten first-hand experience with working a multi-plex. Anz did not ask her to be our Chief of Staff.

Baz was 36 years old at the time I met her. She had long dark hair and wore glasses most of the time. She had a very positive outlook in her approach to life. She was also overweight, but it appeared to be age-related as she was a vegetarian and had a healthy diet. I found her energy to be rather contagious and was attracted to her because of it.

But I was rather wishy-washy about whether I wanted to start something up. A thought I had to myself involving her was that if she weighed 50 pounds less, the age difference wouldn't bother me and if she was about ten years younger, the weight issue wouldn't bother me. There was seriously nothing she could do about either. She had made some offhand remarks that indicated that she liked me. Because I never asked her to repeat what she just said, I was rather in the dark about whether she had any feelings for me.

We went out and did a lot of stuff as friends, mostly going to the movies. I kept wondering if she was going to do something to give me a stronger indication of what she expected from me, but she never did. We still enjoyed each other's company and would talk on the phone from time to time. I remember she called me in the middle of the night once. I was probably talking to her like normal. Then, in the middle of the conversation, I actually woke up and found myself talking on the phone. I had been talking to her in my sleep for about a minute. I think I asked her who she was. After she told me, I said, "Baz, I just woke up right now, so you're going to have to repeat everything you just told me." I don't even remember what the conversation was about. I just went right back to sleep after that.

Something very unusual happened that involved her and freaked me out for a brief period of time. About a year and a half after I'd been fired, she was roommates with another male employee of the Park Theatre. We made plans to go to the movies and she had me come to her apartment to pick her up. It was in Hillcrest and was close to a hillside. She lived in apartment #11. When I went to the building, the door to her apartment was at the end of a short hallway and there was another apartment right across the hall from hers, like this:

It was a very unusual set up for an apartment, especially considering that #12 was the highest apartment number and #11 was the last one on the left side. This meant that the next two apartments to the right were numbered 9 and 10.

About a week later, I was working at News Monitoring Services and was watching a newscast. There was a story about a murder in Hillcrest. They showed the outside of the apartment where it took place. THEY SHOWED THIS APARTMENT BUILDING AND UNITS 11 AND 12! I screamed when I saw this! I was afraid Baz had been killed! It was very frustrating because they didn't reveal more information in a proper manner. They said that the victim was found by a male roommate. I was trembling because Baz had a male roommate. They finally got around to saying that the victim was a "he." I was able to breathe again, but I knew that Baz would still be negatively affected by this. It turned out that the man who was murdered had picked some homeless man off the street to come to his house to have bondage sex with. Things got out of hand and the homeless left the apartment, but was eventually captured by police. Baz said she knew the victim, but also wasn't too surprised that something like this had happened to him.

At one point, Baz got a job at the Daily Transcript, a legal news publication in San Diego. She happened to work right around the corner from where I worked. I went to briefly visit her on her first day on the job. Fortunately, she did not get fired.

It was around this time that she found her soulmate. He was someone around her age. I'd met him a few times and he seemed really nice and a good fit for her. At this point, I had to stop wondering if something was going to happen, because it was apparent it wasn't. I don't have any regrets about nothing happening. It just wasn't meant to.

She sent me a friend request on Facebook last year and I accepted. According to her profile, she is now retired and I'm not certain what she's doing now, expect posting old pinups.

As for Buz, I met her the first week I was in San Diego. I was managing a shift at the Park Theatre when she came by to pick up her paycheck. She had long, red hair, wore glasses and looked kind of nerdy. I did her attractive the first time I saw her and figured we had a lot in common.

I really got to know her when we would both show up at the Ken Cinema when they were showing repertory films. We often went to the same films and would sit next to each other. During double features, we would walk over to the library during intermission and play on the playground. She would smoke a joint and I would watch her. She said she liked my deep voice and enjoyed hearing it when she was stoned.

Again, I was wishy-washy about asking her out on a date. I mean, this was already kind of dating, but I couldn't tell if she really liked me enough for me to be her boyfriend. The main obstacle would have been the fact that I didn't smoke weed. It seems like most women I would meet later on enjoyed smoking with their boyfriends and if I wasn't going to be a part of that, they would lose any romantic interest in me. But I still thought she liked me regardless.

I guess I waited too long because she got a letter in the mail from a guy she went to high school with. He had written it in his own blood and this made her fall in love with him. I was kind of glad I didn't try to start something, because this was going to happen regardless and she would have left me for him.

When I saw her a few years later, I was at a gathering that Baz and her boyfriend attended. She told me Buz was going to be there. At this point, I had shaved my head and told Baz not to tell her who I was. Buz showed up with the same guy who wrote the blood letter. She didn't recognize me at first. It was rather amusing when I told her who I was and she got this shocked look upon her face.

She's still friends with Baz on Facebook, but she doesn't post a lot of stuff on there. I don't know what's really going on with her. (I would have to ask Baz to find out, but I'm not going to do that. I try to do as much research as possible on my own. I know that in 2014, she was working as a library clerk and made almost $45,000 in pay and benefits. She also takes part in a lot of activism. I can't tell if she's still with that guy, but I don't think she ever had any kids.

In time, we just wouldn't have been right for each other. It would have been the same with Baz. I don't feel like I really missed anything by not taking initiative with either one of them, and I probably would have wound up getting hurt in the long run. It's actually better that I didn't get mixed up with co-workers. I've seen too many other people make that mistake.

But I was still open to that possibility with someone else. I'll write about two of them tomorrow.

Real Life Friend: Abed

I first met Abed during the first staff meeting for the Hillcrest Cinemas on 11/09/91. I can't say that I took special note of him. He didn't have any questions nor did he say much of anything during the meeting. I became better acquainted with him the next week when he was one of the people we called up to help during the final stage of the construction. He was one of the last people I ever expected to become one of my best friends.

Abed was 18 when I met him. I found out later that he grew up in Tularosa, a small town about 15 miles away from Alamogordo and about a two hour drive from where I grew up in Artesia, NM. At the time, he was living with his father in San Diego. Prior to his arrival, he had gone to Job Corps in San Marcos, TX. This was about the period of time that my brother Loyd lived in that same town. Abed told me that life with his mother was very contentious as she was ultra-religious and simply could not handle dealing with a child who refused to believe in God. Abed said he suffered abuse at both the hands of his mother and step-father. He'd also been kicked out of the house and was living on the streets for a brief period of time. The only problem with this is that there's not a lot of street in Tularosa to live on.

His parents split up because his father was gay. Abed didn't have a problem with this, except when he accompanied his father to social gatherings after he'd moved in with him. Often, his father's friends weren't aware he had a son and when they saw him with Abed, they tended to think.... Well, just that idea was the only thing that really disturbed him about it.

I wound up meeting both his parents and I just could not imagine any circumstance in which the two of them would be a married couple. Even Abed found this rather perplexing.

My initial impressions of Abed were not very good. He talked rather slowly and it was difficult to try to train him on how to run a cash register, count money and calculate concession sales based on inventory. But the more I got to know him, I discovered that he was very intelligent and creative. But it was still hard for him to do the concession tallying in an efficient manner.

After the theatre had been opened about a year, Abed decided to move back to New Mexico. There were plans to build something some sort of nuclear facility not far from Tularosa and he wanted to go protest that because of the concern he had for his younger siblings. I happened to be going home to Artesia for Thanksgiving that year and I offered to drive him home. It was this road trip that helped us become actual friends.

A few months after I'd gotten fired, I tried calling Abed in Tularosa. However, his mom said he had moved back to San Diego and was living with his father. She gave me his phone number. I called him and we met up. He had just recently returned. (I guess he couldn't put up with living with his mom anymore.) He said he had gone over to the Hillcrest Cinemas and talked to Anz. Before he could even ask if she was hiring, she asked him if he wanted to work there again. I guess she really needed someone right there and then. He had also recently gotten romantically involved with a female friend of his father's. She was ten years older than him. He was also attempting to get into the local music scene as a singer/songwriter. We wound up collaborating on a few musical projects over the next several years.

During this course of this time, he became romantically involved with several different women. This was an interesting aspect about Abed: Many women found themselves sexually attracted to him. I always found this perplexing. I mean, I can see why women would be attracted to men like Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but I sure didn't see that same quality in Abed. One of my female friends, who had a preference for women, even wanted to have sex with him. However, she would add, "But I wouldn't want to be his girlfriend." This was an issue Abed frequently came across: Women wanted to sleep with him, but didn't want to stick around for the long run. He wanted someone to share his life and interests with. They only wanted to get laid.

For about a year, he moved up to Los Angeles and did some musical stuff up there. During this time, he recorded a song for a compilation CD in San Diego and invited me to perform piano and vocals on the track. Very soon after that, he moved back to San Diego and we decided to become roommates. This would make him Real Life Roommate #4. I was living in a cottage at the time, but we would soon be moving into a two-bedroom apartment.

A few months later, his father had been fighting a number of health issues and was admitted to hospice. I remember the phone rang in the middle of the night and I was kind of mad because I thought it was a woman he had recently hooked up with just calling "to hear his voice." It was actually his sister calling to give him the bad news that their father had passed away.

All of the women Abed dated during the time we were roommates all turned out to be temporary, until Qued came along. Qued had been in love with Abed since she was 16 years old and had an ongoing goal of marrying him. The one thing that kept Abed from pursuing a relationship with her was that she was the cousin of the 30-year-old woman he had previously been involved with. The two of them started hanging out more. In November of 1999, I went home for Thanksgiving and when I returned, he told me that he and Qued were an item. I thought he had reconciled the issue involving her cousin. It turned out he hadn't. Qued frequently spent the night at our apartment. So frequently in fact, that a couple of months later, Abed told me she was officially living with us. I got kind of mad about this because they didn't seek my approval for this. I couldn't get too mad because I know it just happened that way. This would make Qued Real Life Roommate #5.

A few months later, my girlfriend at the time, Jolz, told me she overheard Qued saying something to the effect that she and Abed were getting married. I told her no, that Qued's mother was getting married and that was what she was talking about. Jolz swore it was Qued and Abed. A couple of days later, I was looking at the calendar we had on the wall. I noticed there was a day on an upcoming month that was circled and the words "Our Wedding" was written in. WHAT? I live with these people. You'd think they would have mentioned GIGANTIC NEWS like this to me.

When they came home later that day, I told them I found out about the wedding. "Oh, we were going to tell you, but..." I said it was okay, but I was going to need to move out. Qued said, "No! You don't have to move out!" I told them that with a young couple starting out, they didn't need this third wheel hanging around. Qued was concerned about them paying more rent, but a few days later, Abed agreed that it would be a good idea for me to move so they could have their own space. I wound up moving into an apartment just two doors down. It was nice to be able to go to the bathroom anytime I wanted.

They got married in a public ceremony in Old Town and held their reception across the street. This turned out to be the only wedding I'd ever attended in which the newlyweds smashed wedding cake into each others' faces.

A little more than a year after I moved out, I had to move back in with them because I'd been laid off from my job. We both needed to save money on the rent. This arrangement lasted for three months. They found their own one-bedroom apartment and I found my own studio. This would turn out to be the last apartment in San Diego where I would live.

Since we were no longer living in such close quarters, I wasn't aware of any problems going on between them until a mutual friend told me they were having issues. Since they had proven a tendency to not clue me in to anything, I couldn't really say anything surprised me at that point. Later, Abel told me that Qued was starting to become curious about having sexual relationships with women. She felt like she had missed out on exploring this because she had gone from living to her mother to living with us to marrying Abed without getting a chance to be on her own. The desire to experience this lifestyle became so overwhelming and was the cause of so many fights that they decided to get a divorce over it.

Abed decided to move up to San Francisco in the aftermath. He had been working for Neiman Marcus and was able to get a transfer from San Diego. It was around this time that I had started a long-distance relationship with a woman in San Jose and I knew it wouldn't be long before I would be moving to the Bay Area as well. During a couple of my trips to San Jose, I got to visit him while I was in the area. After I had officially made the move in 2003, I only got to see him twice. I went up the night before my 39th birthday and we drove around San Francisco for awhile. Two days later, he called me and said he needed my help moving out of his apartment. He was moving to Louisville, KY. Weeks prior, he had gotten fired from Neiman Marcus after a big brouhaha that resulted him filing a wrongful termination lawsuit. (He eventually settled for $5,000.) His car had gotten repossessed a month earlier because he stopped paying for it after losing his job. He got mad when he figured out that he should have just left town a month earlier before they repossessed the car. I needed to help him load up his stuff and take him to the bus station.

The next time I saw him was 04/27/07. He and his girlfriend Keld came out for my wedding. Along with my brother Loyd, they constituted my bachelor party. After the wedding, I didn't see him again until 2011. He had moved back to California and was living in Orange County. We got to hang out for a couple of days. He later moved to San Diego and then back to New Mexico. After living with his mom again, he was able to move out on his own to Alamogordo. When I came to New Mexico last year, we had made plans to see each other, but I wasn't going to be as near to Alamogordo as I had hoped and he didn't have access to a dependable car that would make the two-hour journey through the mountains to Artesia. We both felt bad about that because it would have marked the first occasion for him to meet my son.

In the last few years, he had started an on-line relationship with a woman from Tunisia named Nesd. After a couple of years, he finally got the money together to go out to see her. After a couple of trips, he was able to bring her back to the United States and get married to her. His journey for true love has been a long one and after everything they've been through, this should be the one that's meant to last.

Abed will be making numerous appearances throughout this blog. I have a lot of gaps to fill in.

Follow up on Anz

Anz remained at the Hillcrest Cinemas for several years after she and Ved had me fired. After Ved left the company, she became the City Manager in his place. As I mentioned in Thursday's post, this was her goal all along. Since I don't think she started getting any marketing bonuses until Ved's departure, firing me didn't really change her situation. But in the end, it was more beneficial to me because I was making more money at my new job about a year later.

About a month after getting fired, I had something very strange happen to me. I experienced a rare feeling of deja vu when I went to Ralphs in Hillcrest to buy some groceries. As I was parking the car, I got this really strong sensation that Anz was in the store. But this was a Tuesday night, and Anz typically worked at the theatre on Tuesday nights, so I shook my head and dismissed it. After shopping a little bit, I ran into her husband. He said that Anz was checking out at the time! I talked to him a bit and never saw Anz (which I was thankful for). Several months later, I went to Ralphs and quickly glanced Anz as she walked by me, but didn't get that premonition beforehand that time. She didn't notice me, but I did talk to her husband again.

Although she took part in the decision to dismiss me and had almost nothing but criticism for me, there were signs that Anz had some level of admiration for me with regards to certain areas. In February of 1993, I had made predictions for what movies and actors would get nominations for Oscars. I put my predictions in a sealed envelope and had Anz put her signature across the seal. When the nominations were announced, I had correctly chosen all five films nominated for Best Picture and got four out of five in the acting and directing categories. After I was fired, I kept up my friendship with Baz, an employee of the Park Theatre who worked as a sort of personal assistant to Ved in the City Manager's office. I mailed her my predictions for 1994 to arrive the day they were announced. Anz got the mail, saw that I sent something to Baz and gave her the envelope. Then she stood around and eagerly waited for Baz to open it up. Anz KNEW what was inside. I find that rather funny.

What Anz went through after I left reached pretty high levels of drama, although most of it had nothing to do with me. Baz told me that Anz was experiencing problems in her marriage. Her husband, who had been working for a graphic design company, had fallen into a routine of work and stopped pursuing his dream of starting up his own graphic design company. This, among other issues, made him less attractive to her.

After Abed had returned to working at the Hillcrest Cinemas, we were hanging out at the Wikiup Cafe in North Park. While we were there, we ran into one of his co-workers, named Krad. I only got to meet him for about a minute. Over the next few weeks, Abed told me that Krad said that he thought he was in love with Anz. This had to do with Anz' Texas-style hospitality in which she had a tendency to place her hand on someone's arm while she was talking to them. (She'd actually done this to me on numerous occasions, but I never thought much about it because I have several female family members who do the same thing. Maud also did this.) Abed said Krad would talk about his feelings for Anz ALL THE TIME. The other co-workers would get fed up about hearing this and would tell him to do something about it.

In the meantime, Baz told me Anz had separated from her husband and began smoking. A few months later, I went over to Alex's Brown Bag, a sandwich shop near my workplace. There was a couple in front of me in line. The woman turned around, looked at me and mouthed, "Hi." It took me a couple of seconds, but I realized it was Anz. She wasn't wearing her glasses. I mouthed, "Hi" back to her. I never saw the the face of the man she was with, but I knew it wasn't her husband because he was much taller.

I called Baz and told her I saw Anz with a man who was not her husband. Baz told me that her divorce had recently become final, but she wasn't aware of who the new boyfriend might be. A few days later, at the manager's meeting, Anz revealed that she had become romantically involved with one of her employees. It was Krad. Anz said that the relationship didn't officially start until after her divorce was final. (Although everyone seriously doubted that was true. The House Manager of the Park Theatre had seen them coming out of a bar nearby several weeks earlier. They were drunk and behaving very flirtatious toward each other. That manager, who was known as the Landmark Broadcasting Company, actually kept his mouth shut and never said a word about what he'd seen until after her announcement.) I do not know if Anz was inspired to inform everyone about the relationship after I saw her with Krad. She was aware that I was still in contact with Baz and other employees and probably figured out that someone was going to hear it from me that I'd seen her and Krad together.

Some time later, I went to see a movie at the Hillcrest Cinemas. When I was there, I saw an Asian woman with short black hair behind the concession stand. She was getting a soda and wasn't wearing the standard employee apron. I looked a little closer and it appeared to be Anz. I didn't spend too much time looking at her because I didn't want her to see me. Later, I told Abed I had seen Anz like that and asked him if she was actually Asian. He said, "Yeah, I think she's been hiding it all this time." Of course, I can understand why she'd want to do that. One thing I haven't mentioned is that she spoke with a very obvious Texas drawl. There would be an issue that arose when customers asked to speak with the manager. They would be surprised when they were presented with this petite young woman who was supposed to be in charge., but adding the image of an Asian woman speaking like that probably would have been rather disconcerting.

At some point after that, Anz became pregnant and had a little girl. Later, she moved to Los Angeles and worked at the Landmark home office. Her title was listed as the Director of Training. It appears that she got into some kind of est-style program while she was there. The program's website posted a testimonial by her and featured her photo. She had gone back to the strawberry blonde color she had when I knew her. According to her testimonial, there was one part of the job she loved doing and another part that she hated. By using what she learned in the program, she was able to somehow get management to allow her to focus on the part of the job she liked and hire someone else to do that part she couldn't stand. Basically, she was experiencing what I went through when I was working for her. The difference was that she was able to charm her way into a more advantageous position and I couldn't. (Of course, keep in mind this wouldn't have worked on Ved to give up half of his bonus to her.)

Anz and Krad apparently got divorced. He lives in San Diego. Their daughter lives with her and is going to high school. In 2010, I sent her a friend request on Facebook, but she declined it. Since I don't use my real name, she probably wasn't aware it was me.

I can't tell if she still works for Landmark because her Facebook profile lists her profession as Former Director of Training and doesn't include a current employer. She's in a relationship. I found information that indicates that he used to work for Landmark and they were working together in 2003 and got a home together in 2005. (It looks like she has a tendency to hook up with her co-workers. Perhaps I did have a shot with her.) Maybe they're married. I don't know. I do know that she still has the same last name as Krad. I also know that the "new man" now works as a payroll manager for a different company and got that position in July of 2015.

As for her first husband, he's gone through a series of graphic design jobs and now lives in Portland, ME. He also has his own design studio. He appears to be fairly successful.

I also found her date of birth. She just turned 50 this month. It is truly amazing how much you can find out about someone on the Internet.

One of the interesting things is the realization that in November of this year, it will have been 25 years since I moved to San Diego to start my new life with the Hillcrest Cinemas. As you will see in the future, I had many more new lives after that.

It's not Easter yet

Another in my series of Life's Quiet Moments:



I wonder if any of the car engines serve as a breeding ground for rabbits.

Job #15: Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas Era, 1991 - 1993 (Part 4)

As I mentioned yesterday, I was told I was fired from the Hillcrest Cinemas because I wasn't seen as a candidate for moving upward in the chain. This was even though I was still able to perform my job with my normal level of efficiency. It turned out there may have been a more scandalous reason. Most of what follows is based on hearsay and speculation, so I can't say for certain how much of this was true, but it all made sense when I found out about it.

You do need to know what benefits the Landmark hierarchy receive. The House Manager receives a commission from the concession sales. The City Manager gets all kinds of money from doing the marketing reports for the films that get shown. If a film does really well due to the marketing provided, the City Manager gets a bigger bonus. When Anz was in Dallas, she was the House Manager and City Manager because there was only one theatre in town. She was really raking in the dough there. When she became just the House Manager in San Diego, she had supposedly been told that she was going to share in the marketing bonus with City Manager Ved because she would also be working on the marketing. After all, the number of screens in San Diego just doubled, so it would make sense that Ved would market half the films and still get paid the same amount of bonus while Anz would be getting the other half. Somehow, that didn't happen. Anz did complain to me once that she wasn't getting as much money as she was in Dallas. (Even though her base salary was greater as Manager, a lot of that got eaten up by California state income taxes. Texas does not have state income taxes.)

So, I guess the plan was that, after a period of time in which it would be determined that I was capable of doing the majority of managing the theatre, she would concentrate her efforts on the marketing aspect and share in the bonuses. There was probably a six-month transitional period after the theatre opened before this took place. But as I posted earlier this week, there were so many maintenance issues and I was so busy dealing with them, I wasn't really given an opportunity to really run the theatre on my own. Nobody ever told me this was what they were expecting of me.

It would appear that Ved was given complete authority on determining whether or not I was capable of taking over the majority of the management responsibilities and allow Anz to start getting the marketing bonuses. This would explain why Anz always seemed frustrated with me. In her mind, I was keeping her from making more money for a whole year more than she was expecting. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Ved enjoyed getting more money and became rather unwilling to share it with Anz because that would mean he would be making less money, so he would keep telling her he didn't think I was ready.

Again, note that at no point did either Ved or Anz tell me THIS WAS WHAT WAS EXPECTED OF ME. I was happy just managing shifts and counting the money at the end of the day. I did that part of the job very well. But I didn't like having to take care of the maintenance. In my past experience, that was the responsibility of the House Manager.

At the theatre, we had someone in the position of 2nd Assistant Manager. His name was Tond. He was a member of the original staff that we had hired. He had moved up to the Assistant Manager position at the Guild Theatre before coming back to us after our original 2nd Assistant left. I actually considered him a friend because he helped me move into a new apartment. The week before I was fired, I trained him on how to do the payroll.

Completely unbeknownst to me, Ved had a very intense crush on Tond. Even though Ved was in a committed relationship, he was actively pursuing him. Supposedly, he once called him into his office, closed the door and started running his fingers through his hair. (This must have been a challenge because Tond didn't have that much hair to start with.) He also allegedly tried to kiss him. I never would have suspected Ved of being capable of these kinds of shenanigans.

In the meantime, Anz and Tond became rather chummy. She likely felt a connection with him that was similar to the one she had with her Assistant Manager in Dallas. This was what she was missing in a working relationship: A gay man she can talk to when she's having problems with her husband. It's possible she and Ved discussed firing me as a means of getting what they each wanted. He wanted Tond and she wanted that bonus AND an assistant she was compatible with. Ved probably sweetened it by saying he thought Tond would be able to take over management in a few months, allowing her to make more money.

Abed, who had left the theatre after one year of being on the original staff, returned after I had been let go. He told me that Tond bragged about getting me fired. It would appear that Tond wanted my job with the increased pay and benefits and made it seem like he would be more receptive to Ved's overtures if he got my job. I don't know if any reciprocation took place after I was gone, but he continued to hold that position for awhile.

If I had any solid evidence that any of this led to my dismissal, I'm pretty certain I could have filed a wrongful termination lawsuit and settled for around $10,000. But as I mentioned in the last post, that really would have been wrong as I had previously put my hand in the till to the tune of about $1,200.

And it wouldn't surprise me to find out that Ved never let Anz handle any marketing or share in the bonus during the time he remained City Manager, despite that he told her Tond would be able to step up.

It was more than a year before I set foot in the Hillcrest Cinemas. I had gotten a pass to a preview screening for "Pulp Fiction" the day before it was released in theatres. Abed, who had also recently been fired from the theatre, went with me. Ved was at the theatre at the time and saw us come in. I know he turned to the other employee in the lobby and asked, "Was that Fayd?"

After awhile, I went there more frequently, as I did the other Landmark theatres in San Diego. I was still friendly with many staff members, whom I think took pity on me because they all knew I'd gotten railroaded out of my job. This meant I could sometimes get in the movies without having to pay. It was a handy benefit to hold onto at times.

Ved eventually left Landmark Theatres to pursue other projects. Apparently, that involved becoming an architect at some point. In March of 1999, I saw Ved again when I went to my postal mail box to pick up my mail. He was coming in as I was going out. This was the day I had gotten my new car, and I was so excited that I didn't really care about what he had done to me six years earlier. I showed him the new car and he said, "Yeah, a new car makes a lot of difference."

I would see him sporadically over the next few years. Often, he was working on the campaigns of a few political candidates. I always made it a point of voting against anybody I knew he was working for. In addition to being an architect, he is the Board President of a neighborhood development corporation in San Diego and does a ton of other community-related projects.

In the years that passed, three out of the four single screen theatres Landmark owned in San Diego closed. They still have the Ken, which continues a repertory-based calendar format. The Hillcrest Cinemas is still going strong.

I know Tond no longer lives in San Diego. The only things I can gleam from his Facebook profile is that he's completely bald and lives in a location that has snow in the winter. I see he is friends with Ved and Anz on Facebook. Interestingly enough, Ved and Anz are NOT friends on Facebook. I guess they let money stand in the way of friendship.

And what became of Anz? That's going to be the subject of a separate article that I will be posting on Monday. It's a very convoluted story and worth waiting for.

Job #15: Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas Era, 1991 - 1993 (Part 3)

So my working relationship with Anz at the Hillcrest Cinemas wasn't going too well. It seemed like all she wanted to do was make my job harder and harder. However, I was always able to rise to her challenges. But then she would raise the bar higher. I really felt like she was trying to make me quit so that she could promote an Assistant Manager more to her liking. And I'm willing to bet that once she did that, she was not going to make that person jump through a bunch of hoops and take care of the maintenance.

The thing was that I still loved the job. I enjoyed managing shifts and working with the employees and customers. I refused to let her get in the way of that. I would come in every day and be the best manager I could be. But I was not being properly rewarded for putting in all that effort. About a year after the theatre opened, I requested consideration for a raise. While the review by Anz was decent, my raise came out to $15 a week. That meant $780 extra for the year, or $65 a month average. It wasn't much of a raise, not to mention that I typically worked about 60 hours a week.

This wouldn't have been so bad, except that we had a Chief of Staff named Lyd who would manage some shifts. She was a good worker, but she had a tendency to take too long to close up the Saturday matinee shift. She was supposed to have everything done before she hit the eight-hour mark, but always, ALWAYS took about an hour an a half extra to get the deposit over to the bank. Then, she requested and got a raise of 75 cents an hour. That amounted to $30 a week, based on a 40-hour week. That was double my raise and even more than that because she was getting overtime. I complained to Anz about her running into overtime every week, but she didn't take any immediate action.

Added to this was a deposit Lyd made that "vanished." The bank did not acknowledge receiving it. Anz told me she suspected that Lyd and her boyfriend at the time (who worked at the Guild Theatre down the street) just kept it, but she couldn't prove anything.

Around this time, there was a major change in my life. It will be the subject of several posts in the future, but understand that I was having problems with both my home life and my work life. I felt that the main solution to these problems was that I HAD to have more money. So I resorted to something I thought I would never ever do: I started stealing from my workplace.

I am not going to go into detail about how I pulled this off, but suffice it to say that I was clearing about $100 a week. This was what I felt I needed to be where I wanted to be financial-wise. (The truth is that I could have stolen $500 a week and it still wouldn't have been enough, but Anz and Ved would have noticed that much money missing.) This went on for about three months and the money I stole got spent nearly as quickly as I took it.

Then Anz and Ved set up a trap. Fortunately, it wasn't meant for me. They put an extra $10 in petty cash before one of Lyd's shifts. When Anz came in that night, she found that the extra $10 had been taken. She and Ved immediately fired Lyd. Lyd swore up and down that she didn't take the extra money, but wasn't able to offer a reasonable explanation for who did. When I ran into Lyd a few years later, she said that the woman we had been training to learn how to manage had admitted to taking the money. Honestly, I didn't know what to believe.

But as a result of someone having taken that $10, Anz changed the protocol for closing. From that point on, I was no longer allowed to take the drawers from the registers and count them by myself. I absolutely had to wait until the concession and box office staff had completed their inventory and count before I could get a deposit ready. Fortunately, the staff had finally gotten its act together and could finish up a lot more efficiently than they had a year before, but it still wasn't fast enough for me. There wasn't anything I could do about it. It did prevent me from being able to steal any more money.

Not long after that, the problems in my home went away and I told Anz I could rededicate myself to the theatre. Because of all my personal turmoil, I had been slacking on my responsibilities and was hoping to make up for it. However, Anz just piled on more work.

I felt like it was time to ask for another raise, even though less than a year had passed since my last one. Anz did a review in which I was supposed to rate myself on my performance and then we'd compare notes. I thought I was doing pretty well after coming back from a double-sided razor's edge. She didn't see it that way, and criticized me in every category on the review. Even the one area I knew I excelled at, attendance, wasn't even considered by her as "exceeds expectations." This was despite the fact that I always showed up at least an hour early for my shifts.

At the beginning of the summer movie season, we were showing Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of "Much Ado about Nothing." It was the kind of film that local English classes could bring students to on a field trip to learn about Shakespeare. Anz told me that a class was scheduled to come in the next day and she didn't have anyone to cover that shift. (It was supposed to be my day off.) She would need me to come in around 11:30am. Later that night, I attended a preview screening of the film "Chain of Desire." I saw Anz and asked her how many students were going to come in the next day. She said there would be about a hundred. I told her I'd see her then. As I waved goodbye, I noticed that she had a strained, worried look on her face, but I didn't think much about it.

The next morning, 07/07/93, I woke up. I did my usual daily routine of going out, getting breakfast and the newspaper. I sat in my apartment eating and reading and got ready to go to work. All morning long, I realized that I really did not feel like working that day, that for the first time in more than 3 1/2 years, I didn't feel like going. The good side was that I only had to work the afternoon shift and could leave in a few hours. As much as I bragged about my attendance earlier, I actually showed up five minutes late this particular day. It was the first time I ever arrived that late for a shift.

I came in the theatre and walked upstairs to the office. Anz was there. I asked her if the class had arrived yet. They hadn't. I asked where the other employees were who were going to be working the shift. They weren't there yet, either. Suddenly, Ved walked in and asked Anz and me to follow him to his office. His tone was very intense. We walked down the hall to his office and he closed the door behind us. I knew this was going to be pretty serious, but hoped it wouldn't take very long because I still had a shift I needed to manage.

Ved said, "Fayd, the reason we're here is because we're letting you go." I was stunned. I recall that Ved was telling me about how there had been expectations that I would eventually be a House Manager, but lately, I hadn't been measuring up. But while he was telling me all this, I had all these thoughts racing through my mind. Namely, that I had a lot of bills to pay in the aftermath of the situation that used to surround my home life. All I could think about was what I was going to do without a job or money to pay my bills and became panic stricken. And I was ANGRY at the same time. I started experiencing what I can now best describe as a neurological breakdown.

I recall Ved ending his spiel with "Onward and upward" and asking me if I had anything to say. Yes, I had plenty to say, but I was shocked at what was coming out of my mouth. Because of everything running through my brain at that moment, I... could... only... speak... one... word... at... a... time. In my head, I was thinking, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I get these words out in some kind of coherent fashion?" As hard as I tried, I could not speed up my delivery. I had to talk to them like this for the next ten minutes. To this day, Ved and Anz are the only two people who have seen me in this condition. Fortunately, I've never had as full a breakdown like that since, but I have come close a couple of times.

What I was able to get out of my mouth was how I had been completely disregarded as an Assistant Manager for the last year and half by both Ved and Anz. I told them I had been doing my job to the best of my abilities this whole time and not once did they say that I was coming close to losing my job. Ved replied with something like, "Well, that's a concern you should have brought up earlier."

At this point, I figured nothing I could say would change the situation and I was finally able to start speaking in normal tones. I asked about the possibility of filing for unemployment. Ved said that under the circumstances, I should qualify. (Honestly, he's supposed to tell me I qualify before sending me on my way.) Ved gave me my final check, which included two weeks' severance pay. I told Anz it was a rather large amount and asked if she would be able to cash it out of petty cash. She said she wouldn't. Since I didn't have a bank account at the time, that meant I would have to take it to the check cashing place across the street and lose 10% of it. That kind of made me a little upset. We all walked down to the lobby. On my way out, I shook hands with Ved and Anz without looking them in the eye. I remember Anz put no effort into the handshake. She just allowed me to move her hand up and down.

After cashing the check and going home, I thought about everything that he said. (I should add that Anz did not say one word during all of this, except to tell me she couldn't cash the check.) He didn't tell me I wasn't doing my job, just that he didn't think I had the potential to be a House Manager. As it turned out, there wouldn't be an opening for a House Manager in the next two years. Why fire me when there wasn't any immediate need for someone to step up into that role? This really didn't make any sense.

After a period of time, I came to the realization that while I didn't deserve to be fired for the reasons Ved game me, I did deserve to be discharged because I had stolen money from the theatre, for which I was never accused nor caught. A few years later, I was watching a news report about people who embezzled from their workplaces. An expert was discussing the difference between blue collar crime and white collar crime. He said that if you ask a blue collar criminal if they knew what they did was wrong, they would say "Yes." But a white collar criminal would typically say they did nothing wrong, like they were justified in taking what they felt like they were owed. That was the way I felt when I was taking the money. My situation can be compared to career criminals who get away with a lot of crimes and then complain when they go to jail for something they didn't do. Knowing that I held on to the job a few months longer than I was supposed to was rather cathartic for me. I've never stolen money from another employer since.

However, I found out some time later the likely reasons for my dismissal, and it turned out to be a conspiracy of sorts. I'll go into more detail tomorrow.

As a post-script, most people fantasize about their former workplace completely falling apart after they've been fired. I actually got to have that happen a little bit with the Hillcrest Cinemas. You may recall how I would go around and tighten all the door handles every couple of weeks to keep them from breaking. The main projectionist told me that three weeks after I left, ALL the door handles broke off. I hope that made them regret firing me just a little bit.