HERMAN ASKED me if I wanted to get coffee after work tonight. I really really like coffee so I said OK. We met at Circadia on Mariposa at 6:30. Someone told me it’s really a Starbucks in disguise which makes me angry and confused. Why are they hiding it?

Shame, shame, everybody knows your name.

I had to hang around the studio for a while beforehand so a couple of the night editors and I listened to South Park MP3s on Napster. It was fun. The editors are cool, I think they smoke a lot of pot. Pot makes me nervous and anxious. They have a rock band together that I’ve never seen; and probably never will anyway. I should learn how to use the Avids so I can do editing too. The grass is always greener; they tell me they want to learn AfterEffects and PhotoShop. If I had the patience to teach them I would. But I don’t so I won’t. Anyway I met Herman at 6:30 sharp, there he was, sitting on one of their big couches by the window when I walked in. I ordered a double soy mocha and joined him. I sat in an adjacent high-backed chair though. I need to keep my distance from new people.

HIM: Hi. How was your day?

ME: (How WAS my day?) OK, I guess.

I could tell him all about Ass Breath but what’s the point?

HIM: We got some really cool new software in today…

He starts going on about some thing or other, and he’s really excited and happy about it, but I couldn’t care less, so I just smile and nod like an idiot. I’m watching a homeless guy outside the window push a cart full of dirty bulging bags. His worldly possessions. Sad. Gross.

HIM:… you know what I mean?

ME: Oh, what? Yeah sure I do.

HIM: What did I just say to you?

ME: I’m sorry. You caught me. I was distracted. What were you saying?

He’s doing that staring thing again, but this time I don’t like it so much. Maybe I should pay attention. His eyebrows are cresting accusingly over the top of his thick glasses and freaking me out.

HIM: I was saying how most software manuals these days are totally dumbed down, since the assumption is that the end user is a complete retard.

I’m looking at him thinking he IS a complete retard, but I keep it to myself.

ME: How do you qualify gaming, on the whole?
HIM: Qualify it? It’s just fun. Don’t you like to play games?

I’m trying to remember the last time I played a game.

ME: I used to play Tetris, on the first computer I’d ever worked on. It provoked me.

HIM: Tetris? I haven’t played Tetris since I defragged my first Lisa!

He found his own comment so amusing he emitted a loud snorting sound, and spilled some coffee on the carpet but didn’t notice. Everyone is looking, looking over here, at us... Herman Roth you simply must calm down.

ME: (quietly, reeling him back down to acceptable volume) Basically I played Tetris all day, and did no work at all, and was promptly fired. I was supposed to be entering accounts receivable into an ancient dos database, but it was stupid so I didn’t do it.

HIM: How long ‘til they found out?

HIM: Wow. Where was that?

Dammit. I was giving him too much information about myself; I was being way too candid. What was it about this goofy tubby geek that made me spill my guts this way? I had to quickly erect the Wall of Fictitious History that amused Janet so much night after drunken night.

HIM: So, you’re from New York.

Ugh. Here we go.

ME: No, I’m not… I lived there for a little while but that was a long time ago.

HIM: How long you been in San Francisco?

Again with the questions… I can’t take it.

ME: Who cares. Hey, did you like the part in American Psycho where he brings the bloody sheets to the dry cleaners, and the Chinese lady starts screaming like a lunatic?

HIM: Yeah, it was pretty funny. I like how Patrick couldn’t understand why she was so upset.

ME: Yeah, I’d like to know what was going on in her mind too. Funny. Really really funny.

HIM: Yeah, kinda. What else have you read?

At least this is a line of conversation I can get with somewhat. Non-committal. I can lie or not, and it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

ME: I read a lot. Kierkegaard, Burroughs, Kant, Hegel, Nietszche, Vonnegut, Tolstoy, Dickens, Baudelaire, Derridau, Artaud, Cocteau, Dostoevsky…

HIM: Wow! I’m surprised you squeezed Ellis in there somewhere.

ME: Who?

HIM: Brett Easton Ellis… he wrote American Psycho.

ME: Oh, yeah. Ha ha. Duh hey, right?

He must think I’m crazy for not knowing that. I started getting really nervous; I’m sure the 5th soy mocha of the day wasn’t helping either. I had to close my eyes, breathe deeper, slower, think of happy useless things. The color blue. A sleeping cat. Cats die, that’s not happy. But the cat isn’t dead, he’s just sleeping… no, he’s dead, NO, he’s sleeping, he’s dead, he’s sleeping. Check his stomach, is it moving? I can’t tell, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s… I opened my eyes & Herman Roth was giving me the weirdest look. That damn stare. He’s trying to get inside my head. I better make something up quick.

ME: I have anxiety attacks sometimes. And I drink too much coffee, I’m sure it doesn’t help.

HIM: Me too. It’s OK, just tell yourself it’ll be over soon. When it happens to me, I chant "This too shall pass".

ME: I can’t say that out loud!

HIM: No, I just think it – it really helps. Give it a try.

Trembling, I started the new silent mantra, eyes tightly shut; this too shall pass… this too shall pass… this too shall pass… this too shall pass… It really worked well. I opened my eyes again, and Herman Roth was still there, smiling calmly like a big weird Buddha holding a happy yellow mug.