Central Coast Evan: Tuna Fish on Rye

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We all tend to get pale this time of year. The sun gave up working overtime months ago. So, a sign in the parking lot caught my attention this afternoon.

Unlimited Tanning
S P E C I A L
$20.00

It seemed too good to be true. The sandwich I was eating while I read the sign cost almost half that. A thought ran through my head. Maybe they're one of those fly by night operations that hope you'll be so disgusted by the place after your first visit that you never come back. I walked a bit closer to read the small print. At the very bottom it said: per month. Wasn't unlimited and per month somewhat contradictory? Then the sandwich kicked in and my blood sugar got back to normal. The special was $20.00 per month. The name of the business is Unlimited Tanning.

On further reflection, maybe I should open a business called Free Sandwiches.

Anonymous December 25, 2009

I like Free Hugs!

But, free unlimited tanned sand witches may need a rain check to see them melt. I'll buy that for twenty doll hairs.

Air brushing women's bodies is where your head should be at.

All kidding aside, just clear spray sun screen all over your body, you'd get an even spray. People in the sun who just don't want to get burnt, forget wanting a tan, need a place to go. They should offer both. That stuff gets everywhere anyway.

Don't people look obvious coming out of that place up there? That might be funny in itself.

Thanks for listening. chris

Anonymous December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas dad. Love, chris

Anonymous December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas Eve.

T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house up in San Luis everybody's teeth were chattering, even the mouse in the house. But something brought warmth to their limbs where there was no feeling and the warmth warmed hearts in all their dreaming, it was the real feeling of Christmas that let's them sleep at night, the feeling that we thought of others, we did something right for others. Acts of selflessness keep us shining bright and lights your star tonight. Sleep well.

Tomorrow is Christmas.

Everybody who wakes up gets a present. chris

JoAnn December 31, 2009

Why were you eating a sandwich in a parking lot?

Evan Jones December 31, 2009

A good question with what will probably be a disappointing answer. One of the many details I decided not to provide was where exactly I was eating. Though my posts tend to be long by web standards, my goal is always to provide a minimum of detail. In movie parlance, you have to leave something for the sequel to fill in. Also, you have to keep people's attention. When I read through what I write, the moment my mind starts to wander, I start deleting or condensing. The mind goes numb in the presence of unnecessary facts and fill in. I sometimes grab lunch and end up eating it in parking lots, to answer a portion of your question. This particular time I was eating a sandwich, a tuna sandwich with tomato and lettuce no mayo on whole wheat, on the periphery of the ubiquitous parking lot at the center of all things hereabouts. I walked from my table to the sign to read what was not quite legible at the bottom. Whether I finished the sandwich before or after seems unnecessary, but the fact is, I finished it. I was nearing the end of a long walk. I sensed I was talking nonsense to myself. Things were going in circles. The choice was between Keebler Toast & Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers (made with real peanut butter) in my backpack or something in a restaurant nearby. The restaurant came with a chair that was close to a window facing the parking lot. If things have windows here, they tend to face parking lots. As for the sign itself, our local shoppers, perhaps shoppers everywhere, I can only testify to what I've seen with my own eyes, will run errands, as they like to say, at two or three stores in the same shopping center and move their cars between errands. Sometimes they end up farther away than they might have been had they stayed where they were. Nonetheless, there's a constant and oftentimes unnecessary competition for good parking space. The store owners and operators seem to have realized that signage generates more views per customer in the parking lot than on walls or windows even at the entrance to the stores. People's eyes hover at ground level until they are safely inside. As a result, the entrance area becomes invisible. I suspect that parking lots will be redesigned to accommodate these things once they trickle down to the architects and engineers, unless gasoline runs out. As for falling into the trap of misreading the sign, Hans Arp used to starve himself in his studio to achieve altered mental states. When his blood sugar came crashing down, not that anyone understood blood sugar back then, he saw things differently. I can achieve the same thing with a little insulin and a long walk.

JoAnn January 04, 2010

It appears your writing methodology works. Inevitably after reading your posts I have more questions than answers.

Evan Jones January 05, 2010

I appreciate your continued interest. As you've probably noticed, almost no one besides yourself and my older son takes advantage of the comments section. You are certainly welcome to ask all the questions you like. I've done a reasonably good job of answering them in the past, though admittedly my answers are sometimes incomplete or evasive. On the other hand, I have occasionally been rather expansive. This may sound odd, but I don't consider myself the subject of the blog. In fact, I'm not sure it has a subject. Each post tries to decide its own direction. Each tries to connect with something.

It was Elbert Hubbard who said, "Life is one damned thing after another." Edna St. Vincent Millay corrected him. She said, "It is not true that life is one damned thing after another; it is the same thing over and over again." By starting the blog over again — it originally started in October, 2004 — I've tried to eliminate some of the repetition and to add fresh water to the pond. I've written posts about design, politics, movies, the perception and meaning of direction, Godlessness, pretentious memorials, current events, Zen, Taoism, underwear, Astrology, holidays, Wales, family, and boiled potatoes — not an exhaustive list. For more than a year I shut things down to a single post featuring a Dead End sign. With the first new post I left the sign but removed the words. With luck, the current blog will become as outmoded as the ones that preceded it. An old Buddhist saying is that you use the boat to cross the river. Once you're on the other side you don't carry it on your back.

This tiny post to which I am now adding yet another comment has generated more than its share of interest. The more serious ones, the ones that cost considerable effort, have generated almost no interest at all. I think I know why this one tickled my son the way it did. He's sensitive to wordplay and slogans. He's also completely uninterested in what or where I ate when I observed the things it talks about. He might say otherwise, but he would merely be responding defensively. The post wasn't about tuna fish. It doesn't matter if it was on rye, whole wheat or whole wheat rye. The sandwich had to do with a comparative price and with low blood sugar. Low blood sugar had to do with seeing things differently. Seeing things differently had to do with noticing the inappropriateness of the business name. And the business name lead back to the sandwich in Free Sandwiches. At least that's one possible map. The larger pieces are sometimes far more complicated. It's the connectedness that I look for. When things fit together, I have a post. There are times when nothing fits together and I end up with disjointed paragraphs, or when reading takes precedence over writing. Or, times when I just don't feel good. The details concerning myself merely hold what I write together. Your friend Saxon might have created, or attempted to create, a character who felt such things, or lived them in another life. I don't entirely understand her method or motivation, but I'm working on it. I write about myself because I know myself first hand. If it happens to me, it's no longer theory, but the theory is always foremost. My actual life is very uninteresting. That in itself may raise questions, and such questions are difficult to answer. Although I feel the neglect, I sometimes think that my son is right for not being interested — at least while he's working on the puzzle of each post. Beyond that, feel free to ask.

JoAnn January 06, 2010

You classify your life as uninteresting however you are not uninterested. Which is what makes your writing so captivating.
The sign in the parking lot was not incongruous. It was typical bait and switch advertising. The fact that you could have experienced first harvest asparagus in France and then chosen to eat a sandwich in a parking lot was incongruous. However you see, that probably says more about my hedonistic tendencies than your choice of dining location. Thank you for being so gracious about my participation in your blog.

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