Then he regaled me with a few stories of his frat boy days at Stanford. “I can’t tell you all of them,” he said, “because they’re far too crass.

“I want you to call me in six months, and tell me what your impressions are of the west coast. Because, believe me, being from the east, you will experience culture shock.”

He immediately recommended some high-end hotels, restaurants, and shops for me to check out once I got there. He can’t get it through his head that I’ll never be able to afford those places. I only hung out in one swanky spot when I was in San Francisco, and I went there specifically to steal the glassware.

See, as cool as my boss is, he’s a very proper guy, and prone towards funny generalizations. Lucky for me, his tendency to lump people according to “ilk” has worked overwhelmingly in my favor. For some reason, knowing that I was born, raised, and educated in Massachusetts, he’s always seen me as nothing but a demure, polite, soft-spoken smarty.

He has the strangest conception of what being from Massachusetts means. I never really thought it “meant” anything. Well, okay, it means something, but we don’t all go to Harvard and hang out in Beacon Hill brownstones, for Christ’s sake. Dude, the most important figures in Boston’s history were a bunch of punk kids who ran around dumping tea into the harbor and starting revolutions while all the normals were busy chopping up injuns in the forest.

Even my boss’s joking impression of a Boston accent is skewed. Instead of the beloved, rough-sounding, “r”-dropping accent that surrounded me when I was growing up, my boss opts for the weird, faux-British, “upper class” Boston accent, and ends up sounding like a Kennedy with Down’s Syndrome.

It makes me giggle on the inside that he has this image of me as a croquet-playing, boarding school socialite. Honestly, it’s fine with me, as it gives me plenty of freedom to let my definition of “business attire” devolve into skirts and t-shirts with flip-flops, and spend my office hours emailing poop jokes to my friends.

The other day, I was preparing to compose a document, and I found, amongst my notes, one of the doodles I had drawn at the last board meeting:

Much of the detail was lost in the scanning and resizing of the illustration, but you can probably see that it depicts an angry man with a large FISH in his mouth. The question remains, however … is the fish invading the mouth, or being expelled? Ah, yes. The answer is up to the observer, and greatly reflects said observer’s outlook on life. I will JUDGE you based on your answer.

I call it, “Facefuck, with Fish.” I’m thinking of doing a whole “Facefuck” series, featuring people with various foreign objects protruding from their mouths.

Yeah, I have no idea. I get bored at the office, and tend to free-associate. Thus, fishfacefuck.

Despite my behind-the-scenes transgressions, my boss constantly praises me on my manners and my professional demeanor, and tells me that I’m a “quality person.” Makes me think I should have a sticker with a serial number on my ass, but he really does mean well.

And, go ahead and laugh. When I told my friend Em about my boss’s impression of me, she said, “HA! Has he ever met you?” Then she sang me Eddie Murphy’s “The Butt Song” over the phone.

Truth is, I really am quite nice and polite at work. I’ll subtly slip in a wise-assed witticism now and then, but they usually go unnoticed, because my boss would sooner die than allow something to pierce his preconceived notion of me as a composed little Bostonian lady.

Sometimes I play along with his generalizations even though I don’t support them, because they amuse the hell out of me.

“You’ll find there are a lot of freaks in San Francisco,” he said amiably. “You’ll see.”

“Um, Mr. F, I like freaks.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“I’ve been in theatre a long time, and hang out with a lot of … ‘creative types,’” I continued, “who you would probably think are ‘freaks.’”

“That’s true. Artists are freaky. Well, except for musicians. Musicians are not freaks.”

”Are you KIDDING me???”

“Musicians are freaks?”

“GOD, yes! Rockers, jazz musicians – oh, jazz people are FREAKY! … And have you ever met a classical composer? Freaks.”

He nodded thoughtfully, amused. Oh, this was going to be fun.

Mr. F then went on to deliver a historical diatribe delineating the reasons why Californians are flaky. “They haven’t paid their dues,” he said. “They have no work ethic, and I’ll tell you why.”

Incidentally, “And I’ll tell you why,” is one of Mr. F’s favorite things to say.

1. The Gold Rush, during which “anyone, from a drunken mass murderer to a PhD, could become a millionaire overnight. All those grubby people were out there striking it rich without having to earn it!”

2. The Real Estate Boom, wherein, I guess, people used home equity gains to cover existing debts and help them live beyond their means.

3. The Dot-Com Craze, which allowed GEEKS to climb the social ladder without having to learn any social skills! HA!

Oh, my goodness, what an awesome crock of bullshit. Look, I realize that regions and cities have different cultures and industries, and that people of different interests are drawn to them because of those cultures and industries. I also know that people are affected by the cultures in which they are raised. I am, indeed, a Yankee, in whose brain, “route” and “roof” both sound like “boot,” and “aunt” rhymes with “flaunt.” But I’ve been hearing a lot of the same dumb shit about regional differences, and while not all of it is crap, it’s my duty as an asshole to make fun of it.

I don’t think Californians are flaky. I think they create a regional culture that is generally more laid-back than the one in which I was raised, but maybe that’s because the weather is so much nicer. I know that sounds simplistic, and I know there truly are differences between the characters and cultures of different cities and regions, but think about it. When you live someplace where the weather completely sucks for at least 4 months out of the year, you get a little edgy. It’s habit. You don’t even realize how much the weather effects you until it’s finally springtime, and people are rolling down windows and strolling on the sidewalks and smiling at each other, and the air is filled with a palpable relief because it is no longer painful or frightening to be outside. Perpetually shitty weather makes a person tense.

As far as Californians “not paying their dues” and having “no work ethic” … that’s just weird.

Take the Gold Rush, for example. I mean, sure, an economic boom of any kind is going to draw a lot of mercenaries and opportunists, but it’s not like dragging your ass out to California in a covered wagon to pan gold was a fucking picnic.

Remember that old computer game, “The Oregon Trail?” In third grade, when I played The Oregon Trail in the Apple Lab, I could never manage to get my clan any further than Arkansas before all my digital kids had died of starvation or typhoid. Had it been real life, and had I made it to the west coast, I would have considered those dues paid. It actually surprises me that Mr. F doesn’t have more respect for the pioneering aspect, seeing how he cites Odysseus and Shackleton as two of his idols.

As far as weather’s concerned, it might be more temperate in California, but you have to live with the knowledge that at any moment, you could be devastated by a landslide or an earthquake. In that regard, California weather is quite the efficient ass-kicker.

Also, there were a lot of people involved in the three historical periods listed above, and a very few of them really got rich. If they did, and managed their money poorly, they got the financial and idealistic shit kicked out of them after things fell apart. Dues is paid, baby.

I think what bothers Mr. F is how wealth was accrued in such a random fashion, with timing and luck being main contributing factors, instead of brains and enterprise. I can see why that shakes his world, considering that wealth is so fairly distributed everywhere else in the world EXCEPT California.

Again, I say that Mr. F is a really cool guy, and he has always been exceptionally kind to me. He’s worked in the Peace Corps, and has been wise in business. His dues have been paid. Also, he ended the discussion by randomly singing me his own renditions of various The Doors songs, which was awesome. But he probably voted for Reagan.

When I was in San Francisco a couple of months ago, my friends Chris (originally from Illinois) and Mike (California native) took me to the ocean. During the drive, Mike said …

”A friend of mine moved here from Boston, and he had a hard time adjusting because he felt that even though everyone in California was really friendly, he didn’t have any ‘real friends.’ He said that on the east coast, it takes longer to make friends, but once you do, those friends would take a bullet for you.”

“I’ve heard that, too, but I dunno,” I said.

“Chris,” said Mike, “is that how it is in the Midwest?”

“Sort of, I guess.”

“Chris, would you take a bullet for me?”

Chris paused. Chris shrugged. “Sure,” Chris said.

“See,” said Mike, “that’s the difference between you and me. I think you’re great, Chris, but I wouldn’t take a bullet for you.”

“Okay,” Chris said.

“Hahahahaha,” I said.

Yes, it was in jest, and yes, I’m about to take this waaaay too far, but OH YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW STRESSFUL IT IS TO BE FROM THE EAST COAST, WHERE THE QUALITY OF YOUR FRIENDSHIP IS BASED ON HOW WILLING YOU’D BE TO TAKE A BULLET FOR ANOTHER!

Wow. I mean, by accepting an invitation to a birthday party, you’re basically volunteering yourself to act as a human body shield. I, for one, didn’t accept my prom date’s invitation until after he had lost an appropriate amount of blood for me.

When I lived in Boston, a lot of my friends lived in neighborhoods along the sketchy, sketchy Orange Line. Every time I went to one of their houses for a beer, a freaking beer, I knew that my status as “friend” was at stake if I didn’t take a bullet for them, should the necessity arise. Which is highly unlikely. But, if gunplay was to take place anywhere in Boston, it would be along the sketchy, sketchy Orange Line. FOR A FREAKING BEER!

Lordy! I can’t imagine what it’s like to try to make friends in rural New Hampshire, where gun racks are de rigueur. I bet there are a bunch of folks hanging out in the woods during hunting season, with fake antlers on their heads, just so they have someone to sit with at lunch.

Sometimes, it gets really nasty and competitive.

“This is MY bullet to take!”

“NO! You took the LAST one! C’mon, man. You let me get shot this time, I’ll let you take a bullet for me later on.”

“Dude, I already did! Remember this scar? This SCAR is the reason why we’re even hanging out!”

“Aw, man. My social life needs this bullet wound.”

“Hhhhhh. Okay.”

BAM!

“OW! Fuck. Thanks, man. I won’t forget this. OW!”

I had plenty of friends on the east coast, and thus sustained a fair amount of bullet-wounds. My ribcage has since been replaced by titanium steel. Bring it.

Hey, to the friends I already have in California, I don’t expect you to take a bullet for me. Loyalty is not contingent upon geography. Or bullets.

Cool.

At any rate, I’m listening to Blondie right now, and how can a person worry when there’s Blondie?

Fishfacefuck,
Kelly

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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