Angela Hill - Alameda, California
Come on, all, what were you doing Friday?
Article Last Updated:03/13/2007 06:45:53 AM PDT
MY MARCH 9 consisted of writing about writing about March 9.
No, I didn't hiccup there. It's kind of a play-within-a-play thing, or like those mirrors in the Exploratorium that reflect another mirror that reflect another mirror till they get so small your retinas ache. OK, not that bad.
You see, almost every March 9 for the past few years, I've been part of a friend's unintentional social and literary experiment called "March 9." Jack Chang, 33, was once a co-worker but is now a jet-setting international correspondent in Rio, and everyone hates him for it, although he is one of the most inoffensive people to ever set foot in Oakland or even Alameda but maybe not in Rio. I've heard he's quite a rascal down there.
M-9, as I like to call it, didn't begin with a grand purpose. It started in 1993 when Jack got out of grad school, was heading to a job in L.A. and asked friends to write about a day in their lives as a fun way to remember them. There's no significance to the date, and that's the point. Just a random day.
But sometimes grand things happen randomly and accidentally, like rainbows, penicillin, Post-it notes or the coming together of Rocky and Bullwinkle. And now M-9 has gone from a few stapled pieces of paper to a 40-page snapshot of life and philosophy that Jack compiles and mails out to all participants at Christmas.
Entries come from all over the globe. From El Cerrito and Berkeley to Argentina and Belgium. Some write poetry. Essays. Random thoughts. Moment-by-moment accounts of the day. Some draw pictures or write music. One entry last year was from a teddy bear's point of view. (That was Jack's. What a rascal.) (Editors's note: Actually, that was Naomi Onaga's.)
So today I'm writing this, and it's Friday, March 9. I'm killing two birds with one column, play-in-play, mirror-in-mirror, because I'll e-mail this to Jack for my M-9 entry too. Score!
M-9ers start the day more alert than usual, keen on surroundings, because we know we have to write it all down. It's pressure. The guilt that Jack built. Precisely 6:08 a.m., I was up. Way early for me, but I wanted to finish this before my regular shift so my editor is happy. It was a bright day, and cool. I drove to work in my rental car. Here's a shout out to Rich and Todd at Rent-a-Relic on Telegraph -- hi, guys! It's the place with the big cut-out green dinosaur with wheels for feet. They gave me a silver 2003 Ford Focus, although it says it's a 1903 on my rental slip. Either it's truly a relic, or their computers never got over Y2K.
My actual auto is also an antique, but I love it. A 1995 black Acura Integra with 186,820 miles, currently at the car dermatologist. It was re-painted two years ago, but the clearcoat started peeling off, like sunburned skin. So it's in the spray booth as we speak.
Too early in the morning to eat, so my sweet hubby packed me some snacks in a Trader Joe's bag: Some Kashi Go-Lean cereal, a banana, two V-8 juices, an apple, an orange and a bag of walnuts. Salt included. I shall be able to endure to the next March 9 or through a nuclear winter, whichever comes first.
By 8:45 a.m. I had finished another news story, the cereal and a V-8. My editor and I talked about a story on a problem gambling conference in Chinatown. My hubby called to see if I had enough snacks. I flipped through my 2006 M-9 book. Here are some excerpts, so I don't have to come up with anything good on my own.
From Greg in Berkeley: "soft boiled egg/super ultra windy day/bath/granola with vanilla yogurt/reading on the pink couch/crazy dude at Best music jamming on electric piano/housemate Rob's rad vibe/mozzarella cheese/peet's coffee/solo sushi @ Drunken Fish/melon gum wrapper."
Todd from Sierra Madre submitted a photo of a steamer trunk he was trying to sell. It looked like a Craigslist posting, and probably was.
Matthias broke his tooth at a Chinese restaurant in Dubai. But he had to hop a plane to Geneva for a meeting, and spent the flight adjusting to new tooth topography and pain. "Then during a morning stroll, I see the water fountain rise out of Lake Geneve, high bursts of white water into the winter sky with fast moving clouds. I am transfixed and gaze at this miracle for many minutes. Suddenly no more toothache. Back from Europe, I receive word I got the job I applied for while navigating this broken tooth through the time zones."
Elizabeth called from Strehle's Body Shop. My car was done. Stopped in the coffee shop for a steamed milk. Enrique always draws a smiley face in chocolate on the foam. Gracias, Enrique! I can't get all the way through this M-9 day for this column, or my editor will be sad. But you get the idea.
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