Novacaine rots the brain

The Master of a good soundbite and my enduring literary crush
I was reading the Anthony Bourdain article on being stuck in Beruit during the start of the bombing, and was going to link it, but despite the subject matter being not as crucial and intense, this intervew is better.



On Sunday nights the bookstore is usually quiet. I don't read at work, as I get too deaf towards the outside world, so I usually post to my blog, check art sites online, and read the paper. People usually assume that booksellers read books at work. Not me who regularly misses MUNI stops from reading on the train.
Half of my face is numb and slack from getting 3 cavities filled right before I got here. I thought my lopsided smile might be sexy and ironic put I just look paralytic and chipmunkified. I'm spooning Yoplait into my mouth in order to have some semblance of dinner before I start fasting towards my doctors appt. tomorrow. You can't eat anything but water starting 10 hours before you show. "What is this?" you ask. "Kai Smart is taking CARE of herself even in the face of no health care plan whatsoever?"
Yes it's true. I have been inspired to fix my teeth before they all fall out and only one avenue of employment is left open to me*. I get two more cavities filled on Thursday. Tomorrow is a visit to the doctor. I can't remember the last time I went. I never get sick (I probably shouldn't talk about it, in case God wants to strike me down for my presumptive attitude...) and only visit Doc in the Box for internal bruising and the gyno for an occasional uplifting pap smear (God, what a term that is! Can they get any more disgusting?) I think I'm getting a TB test, which is exciting, because all of my favorite artists perished of it. Also because of my almost-favoritest Van Morrison song TB Sheets, which he starts with the epic opening lines of, "Now Julie-baby it ain't natural for you to cry in the midnight." Talk about a non-sequitur. Wait...is that the right word? I mean the word for starting to talk to a person as if you were in the middle of a conversation already?
I need to know that word, as it is a tactic I use often, making me the pro at talking to strangers at bars and parties. I just start in the middle of a thought and pretend I have known the person for years. Another part of the trick is being next to the person and not looking at them as you start to speak. Then you look at them as if you expect an answer but aren't too worried about it. I promise this will not make you seem crazy, but the effect is ruined if you start the thought in the middle of a sentence. Haha.
Example:
Kai sits down next to random person at the bar. Slams shot glass on the bar. Says (without looking), "Do you think they INTEND to make you go blind, or is that just an innocent side-effect? Jesus."

Works every time (and not just at making me look like a blind lush. Haha)

Scarily enough, my manager at work (Carl) was obsessed for a while with this book by Neil Strauss (ghostwriter to the stars including Jenna Jameson and Marilyn Manson) called "The Game" which is where he infiltrated the sociaty of pickup artists who use nuero-linguistic programming and other top-secret-unless-you-give-them-money-over-the-internet techniques to pick up girls, and wrote about his experiences. This book is a guilty pleasure, but made me (after reading passages at work) second-guess my interactions for everyone that came up to the front counter for about 2 straight days. I was hyper aware of my body language, ways I talked, and how I tried to make the other person comfortable, convey my authority, or whatever. I was also aware of how many of the innocent ice-breaking techniques I used to meet people and make small talk were also used to "wrap any woman around your finger in less than 30 seconds" and "sleep with whatever girl you wanted no matter how shrewish and bland you look". Horrors, you know? Including the technique I detailed in the above paragraph. I told Carl all of this, and some other ways I have of meeting people, and he helpfully said, "Kai, you could have written that book!" Great.

I went to a party with Jessica (my tattoo teacher) on Friday and realized (in comparison to her friendliness- yet natural reticence) again how I seem probably like a party-girl floozy sometimes. This happens when I am in a social situation that makes a lot of people nervous and shy and I barge right in and start dancing on the bar and making out with the host of the party. Kegstands!!! Just kidding. I am serious though, that I get embarrassed now at being rather outgoing. Embarrassed because of everyone else is sticking with their friends or cowering in a corner like normal folk and I have trained myself not to do that, so be the one who offers her throat up to the axe of public opinion. Thank goodness I usually go to parties with swell kids, so I don't usually get cut down.

I was formerly outrageously shy. Ask my parents. It was debilitating to my childhood. Around 14 years old I began a program with myself to rid myself of shyness, and after a while I did it. It was a conscious, concentrated effort. Weird, eh? I have to say though, the bulk of this was done in one day, one Tuesday, when I was 14 and just starting higschool (I didn't go freshman year)- just discovering my wildness and with a host of new people (probably the wrong people according to most) to become friends with. I simply realized in one afternoon that just as I wasn't better than anyone, no one was better than me as well. We are all on equal playing field, so you might as well just be friendly and kind to everyone, and expect the same in return.

Small talk at parties though, is a bit more of a learned art. You're all there, you all want to have fun, but there ain't nothing happening. You don't know each other. You have nothing to connect to other than you all know the people whose porch you are on (maybe). You have to make connections and MAKE something happen or else it's all very uncomfortable. It may as well be me to break that ice and jump into the cold water. It will knock the breath out of me, but perhaps it wll be fun.

I rambled long enough so now that I have feeling in my face. Wow. Enough to know that I have blood in my mouth. Yum.




*That was lewd, and I apologize, but I think it was vague enough to not offend.