Fireflies

I notice that every feeling I write about takes place in a certain situation and doesn't last long. The situation doesn't create the feeling, but expresses it. Regardless of what it is, another new feeling quickly takes its place.  I'm trying to catch each of them, just for a moment, like fireflies. 


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Blowing in the Wind

I go out to no particular place to meet and to talk to anyone. I find this exciting not because of whom I might meet or what I might learn. Doing it is as undirected as something’s blowing in the wind. I do it because surely this is our natural state. Having a career and a status or a nationality or a particular religion is not our real situation. We make up who we are and then dismiss the world outside because of our fantasies. If you want to know more of who you are, meet people who don’t know who you think you are.

You can purchase I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles for 99 cents right here!

Summer Reading Giveaway!

Hello, everyone! Summer is officially here. It's hot outside and you're looking for a cool spot to relax in. What's better than relaxing in that cool spot with a book? Not much! You can win a free Kindle copy of I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles on this blog. We will be giving away more free copies if we get more entries, so feel free to come back every day and gain more chances to win on the Rafflecopter form!! 
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What are they doing and thinking?

When I walk up to a group of people, what are they doing and thinking? All of this, of course, depends on who they are. The moment we live in, has as many eyes as the ones we’ve already experienced. Even if people are experience the same feeling generally, their reasoning and their invention of dealing with the moment varies. There is no such thing as one idea or one thought; there are beginnings and results and any immediacy is as temporary as a single breath.

            Yet we go around assuming that we have individual thoughts all the time. What we call individual is only the thought that finally has affected what is going on in our multiplicity of thoughts and ideas.

            Things appear to become more singular when we speak to each other.

Vice President of a Bank

            

            “I was Vice President of a bank,” the well dressed man whom I’ve struck up a conversation with at the health food restaurant says.  We sit side by side in the little place. Our orders are being prepared.

            “One day I decided I would do more than just make money. I quit my job and spent months in meditation training with some of the most knowledgeable people in the world. Now I teach businessmen how to meditate.”

            “Do they like it?” I ask.

            “They do.  I know where they are coming from. Their lives are so busy they forget how to go quietly into themselves.”

            “Is that where you go when you meditate?”

            “I think so, yes.” He is a handsome middle age man who keeps in shape.

            “That’s a wonderful thing to do,” I say. “Do you miss business?”

            “No,” he says, “not at all. The people I teach are quite successful in their fields.”

            He didn’t have to tell me they pay top dollar to learn to meditate. To do it for free wouldn’t be worth their time.

            “Where do you teach them?” I ask.

            “All over the world,” he says. “Many are CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies.” He nods at the young man who brings his salad. I see mine coming.

            He continues to talk as we eat. “The world is so filled with stress that most of us just don’t see each other anymore,” he says. “We put our priorities first. Whatever I can do to change that is important to me.”

            “And to all of us,” I say. Quite suddenly, without thinking out what I am doing, I take a dollar bill out of my pocket. I put it on his table. “Here,” I say, “I want to give you this.”

            He is taken aback. It is obvious a dollar bill doesn’t mean much to him. Nor does it to me.

            “No, no,” he says.

            “I want to give it to you.”

            He shoves it back. “Thanks, but I don’t want it.”

            “If I go to the park and hand it to any homeless person, he will thank me for it,” I say. “He will appreciate my generosity and even love me for it sometimes.”

            The man doesn’t answer.

            “The homeless man wouldn’t be too proud,” I say.

            He smiles uneasily. He focuses on his eating.

            I do, too. There is probably no excuse for my being so rude. Whoever said meditation was about caring for others anyway? But isn’t it about opening up to the world?

            I hurt his feelings, but I wanted to point out the generosity of the homeless. They will freely take a dollar from someone and give thanks in return. We shouldn’t take this for granted.

I Am Everyone I Meet is available for Kindle at 99 cents! Pick up your copy TODAY!

(All Rights Reserved 2012 James P. White No part of this work may be reproduced, except to quote in interviews or book reviews, without the express permission of the author) 

Summer Promotion!

Summer is here, and that means that you might have a little extra time to settle back with a good book and enjoy a few days of rest and relaxation. Or maybe you're working and need a book to relax with at the end of the day. At any rate, you can probably guess what's coming. 
That's right. 
You can snag all kinds of 99 cent ebooks from the Kindle Store on Amazon. In fact, I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles is now only 99 cents, too! In addition, you can pick up James P. White's other novels on Amazon as well, like Birdsong or The Ninth Car  or Talking about Ideas with your Children.

Being Asked is Not Enough

As I walk along the promenade, an older homeless woman, thin, grey haired in clean clothes, plants herself directly in front of me, making me stop. 
"Can you help me out?" she asks. "My family's hungry." 
She is clean and well dressed. 
I don't want to give her money because she is confronting me. I am in a hurry. She does not step aside to let me pass. 
"Not even a dollar?" she asks. 
I smile and walk on. Then I frown and I look a little deeper into myself. I do not want to give this woman money. I realize that I only give when I choose to. Just being asked is not enough. 


I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles, is available in paperback and on Kindle right HERE! 


All Rights Reserved James P. White 2012 No part of this work may be reproduced in any way, except to quote on blogs, reviews or interviews, with out the express permission of the author)

Where did you go to school?

I wait in line at the counter. An attractive blonde in her late twenties gets in line behind me. She is well-dressed and carries a purse. She acts like she dresses, as if she is used to money.

            “Hi,” I say, “where are you from?”

            Although she faces me, her eyes have no expression. For a moment I think that she isn’t going to respond. When she does, she makes it extremely clear that she does not appreciate being spoken to.  “Not from here,” she’s says.

I know I should say nothing more, but it is embarrassing not to. Why can’t we interact on a friendly level?

            “Oh,” I say, “where did you go to school?”

            “To USC,” she says. She thinks this has prestige.

            “I used to head their graduate writing program,” I say. “But my son and I went to Brown.”

            She suddenly smiles. “Oh,” she says.

            It is my turn to order. I do, then move past without looking at her.

            My responding to her as I did is the surest way to lose with this person. My interaction was rather silly, but the real problem is that on some level I care about her and she does not care about me.

Pick up I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles for 99 cents right here!

(All Rights Reserved 2012 James P. White No part of this work may be reproduced without express permission of the author, except to use in reviews or interviews)

What do you do?

“What do you do?” I ask.

            “I teach,” he says. He works at a school that teaches stylists how to cut hair.

            “How much is the tuition?

            “Expensive.”

            “How much?”

            “Well, it depends on where you go. It can be as low as two thousand or as high as thirty.”

            “My god How much does a stylist make when he finishes?”

            “Most make minimum wage.”

            “Is your school expensive?” I ask.

            “Very.”

            “What are most people paid after graduation?”

            “Minimum wage.”

            “That’s it?”

            “After a while, they make more. A few make a lot more. But it doesn’t really matter where you go to school. You can still compete.”

            “How much is the most expensive haircut?”

            “I know a place in Beverly Hills where it’s eight hundred dollars.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes, but that the highest. “ He is as amused as I am. A minute later he moves on to another machine. We are at the gym. I do not know him.

            I think about how interesting it is that we put such prices on any kind of education. Learning is in spite of money, not because of it. It doesn’t really have a price.

You can purchase I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles  for 99 cents right HERE!

(All rights reserved 2012 James P. White) No part of this work may be reproduce in any way, except to quote in interviews or reviews, without the express permission of the author) 

Palisades Park & Tree Hugging

 

This afternoon in Palisades Park is as glorious as the one before it. Strollers follow the path and look out at the view. The blue of the sky is as calming as the expanse of water. The sun makes distinct shadows on the palms, on the thick, healthy grass. I'm about to start a slow thirty minute jog. Somehow, all these people enjoying the park, day after day, are strangers. I never know anyone or want to. I am a stranger as they are. This not knowing each other is a kind of privacy. I watch a woman pull up into a parking slot, stop her car, kill the engine, and get out. She hurries. She is headed for someplace. She rushes over to a Eucalyptus tree and, ignoring us, wraps her arms around its trunk. Her hands pat the trunk as her arms caress the trunk. Her eyes are closed. And she had hurried from her car because something about the tree had drawn her. I wonder what she would do if I walked over and asked her to hug me. Then I ask myself, why don't I hug trees? Even worse, I dislike her hugging them. Yet I'd probably prefer hugging the tree to hugging her. If Theresa of Avila in her brilliant Autobiography can write convincingly about walking into a garden and seeing rocks breathing, why do I look askance at this woman hugging this lovely (and maybe lonely) tree? Would I care if she did it in private? 


You can find I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles for 99 cents on Kindle! 


All Rights Reserved 2012 James P. White (No part of this work may be reproduced, except to quote for interviews and reviews, without express permission of the author)

A McDonald's Encounter

I always find people to talk to at McDonald’s. This is why I like to go alone. If I go with someone else, I can’t venture out as I want.

            The McDonald’s in West Los Angeles is as busy as ever. I sit at a little  table and sip diet Coke. Across from me is a Chicano eating a large breakfast. We smile at each other. Then, to my right I see a man sitting with a full cup of coffee and a folded newspaper.

            “Hello,” I say.

            “Hello.” Immediately I see he wants to talk.

            “What do you do?” I ask. The question pops out of my mouth. He’s as old as I am and must be retired.

            “I don’t know what to do,” he says.

            I understand what he means. One has to be involved to live life. Otherwise one lives non-life. “There are so many things to do,” I say.

            “Like what?’

            I think a moment. “You could go to school. Take a class.”

            “I’ve thought about that,” he says. He has already decided not to. Too many courses to choose from.

            “You could go into spirituality.”

            “I don’t know how to do that.”

            “It doesn’t take knowledge,” I say. “Just pray.”

            “Hmmmm.”

            “Well,” I say, “you can volunteer at a home and help people.”

            He looks directly into my eyes.

            “I don’t want to do that, either,” I say.

            “If I don’t know what to do, why would I go join a group that doesn’t know?”

            Not a good attitude, I think. “I know,” I say, “you can write something. Or do some kind of art like painting or singing.”

            “Yes,” he says. “I could.” He clearly won’t.

            There’s just so much to do,” I say. “But we don’t have to do anything if we don’t want to.”

            “I just don’t know what to do,” he says, his lips quivering.

            I see that he means this in a profound sense. He nor I nor anyone knows what to do. The thought unsettles me. We don’t have purpose like spoons do. We’re like running water. The action is what we do, like volume on the TV.

            Suddenly, I don’t want to help him. What he is looking for startles me. A little bit of me senses that if I talked to him too long, I would end up sitting beside him at the little table, asking the same question. What do I want to do?

            “Want” is the problem here. I’d rather just ask myself, “What are you doing?” Maybe even that’s too much at 70.

All Rights Reserved James P. White 2012 (No part of this work may be reproduced in any way, except for reviews and blog excerpts, without the express permission of the author)

I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles is now available for just 99 cents on Kindle! Click here to explore! 

Lunch with an Actress

I am at lunch with an actress who was once widely recognized for her talent. She is describing filming on a current project in Jersey. "These older actors are in a fix," she says. "In order to look like themselves, they can't grow old naturally, so they have a lot of surgery done. A whole lot. On film they look pretty good and are kind of recognizable. But up close they look like freaks. Their faces become exaggerations of what they were: huge, huge lips, big eyes, emaciated...it's hard not to burst out laughing." 


I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles, is now available as a Kindle ebook for only 99 cents this summer! Click here to take advantage of this offer!

Soup and Tattoos

The twenty-four year old Latino who brings my bowl of soup has a big smile on his lips and tattoos on his arms.

            “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to one of a baby’s footprint.

            “It’s my son’s foot when he was born.”

            “He was a big baby. What’s the number around it?”

            The Latino’s teeth are very white. His black hair is neatly combed. “That’s his number on the ID bracelet at the hospital when he was born.”

            “Are those feathers?” I ask, pointing to another area of his arm.

            “My Dad did it. He can do tattoos. When we were kids he told us not to act like white crows. These are two crow feathers. Dad was very tough on us.” He motions with his hands across his shirt. “I have a daughter. I’m going to put her name all across here.” His excitement is contagious.

            “Do you like it here?” I ask.

            He thinks I mean the restaurant. “I just remodeled the counter. I did the granite. And that wall.” He points to a beautiful stone wall. “I’m learning construction.”

            “Where are you from?” I ask. I had meant did he like the U.S.

            “I was born in Los Angeles.”

            I look down at my soup which is almost unappealing healthy. “You like this food?” I ask.

            “Guatemalan is better, but I eat healthy now. My whole family does. No more pupusas.”

            “Yes,” I say, reflecting his grin. Then I begin to eat. Having your kid’s name tattooed across your chest is not unusual in Los Angeles. It is an extension of the family values the Latinos have always had.

            Imagine if my son Jules’s name were tattooed across me on my chest or arms or back? What if I saw it every day, all day long? What if I couldn’t get it off? I must love my son as much as this man does, but when we gave Jules his name, it became his, not mine. I don’t think he’d want it tattooed on me, either.

            Is it because we have a familiarity of the mind and not the body? I have to think that the person who would do this, loves enough so that the person whose name it is, would be proud.

I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles, is available this summer for 99 cents!!! Click HERE to check it out! 

Who are you?

“Who are you?” I ask the young guy stretching beside me on the mat outside the exercise area at LA Fitness. He is doing strenuous core exercises without resting. He is in the best condition and wears a skin tight shirt. He has black curly hair, dark eyes and pimples.

            “What?” he asks.

            “If you are going to do that—those hard exercises and be that strong beside me, then who are you?”

            “I’m Jeff,” he says, smiling. “Thank you.”

            “How old are you?”

            “Twenty.”

            “I got married at twenty,” I say. “Are you married?”

            “No way,” he says. “I’m not ready to be married. I have to go back to school. It will be a long time.”

            “How many girls were in your 7^th grade class?” I asked.

            He thinks about it. “About seven,” he says.

            “Only seven?”

            “Yes.”

            “I want you to pick one out. You get engaged to her at sixteen and marry her at twenty. You spend the rest of your life with her. That’s what I did.”

            “No way. Did you really?”

            “Tell me about that psychology.”

            “I couldn’t do it,” he says. “I can’t imagine it.”

            “What are you studying?”

            “I’m a trainer, but I want to go back to school. I want to study small business. I want to own a business.”

            “You’ll do well at that if you are this good at these exercises,” I say.

            He smiles broadly, filled with enthusiasm. It has been many years since I felt the energy that is humming through him. Every pore of his body is on alert.

            “Want me to show you how?” he asks. “You can do them.”

            “I know who you are now,” I say. “Go back to work. It’s fine.” I begin to stretch, my way, and ignore him as he gets busy, too.

You can purchase I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles, to here more about James's experiences right HERE! 

Copyright 2012 James P. White (All Rights Reserved) No part of this work may be reproduced, except to quote on blogs or reviews, without the express permission of the author. 

The Coffee Shop

                  

          At the coffee shop where I sit at an isolated table I see several people, like me, using a pen and paper, and writing. This activity is what is left of a literary world that made all of our best thinking paramount. Good writing was never about what everyone wrote down on paper. It concerned writing down and editing, writing down and editing, on ones own, until the words had clarity that the writing down produced. But it was not a single act of pouring out words like water splattering into a sink.

            The act of writing, however, had a significance. It meant that someone was trying to do something that was important in all educated minds. It was not the idle journaling that so many people call writing today.

            It was dealing with a love of words that expressed thoughts more than emotions. The thoughts expressed the emotions; the emotions did not express the thoughts.

            I feel the last of a literary world that I hardly understood when it thrived. It was an unquestioned way of life. It was important. We thought it was permanent.

            But writing gets soggy when it becomes everyone’s pastime and a means of getting down things. It has become conversation, like the spoken word.

The Stairway

I am going downstairs in the hotel garage to get my car and drive to dinner. The valet car parkers wearing white knit shirts and black trousers run up and down the stairs all day. The concrete is stained. The narrow stairs barely leave room to pass anyone. I'm descending so fast that I almost run into a woman coming from the other direction - from the lower garage level. I smile as I pass her, a Chicano woman wearing a blue uniform with a white collar and cuffs. "Hello," I say. "Hello," she answers. She is walking slowly. Obviously she is tired. She works in some capacity in the hotel, but I have never seen her. No, I look back because she has hesitated and I wonder why. She sees a piece of trash on a step. She has stopped and is deciding whether or not to pick it up. Then she leans down and does so. There is no question how many things she has cleaned in her life. 


From I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles. Now available for 99 Cents! 


Copyright 2012 James P. White All Rights Reserved (No part of this work may reproduced, except to quote for reviews or blogs, without the express permission of the author) 

Five Dollars

Leaving my apartment, I go along the outside walkway and out the metal grill to the alley. Immediately ahead I see a woman about my age digging into the trash. I walk past, glancing at her. She ignores me. Her grey hair is matted; her skin is dirty, too. She has to be in her sixties like me. After a few steps I turn around and walk up to her. I hand her a five dollar bill that I have just taken from my pocket. "Here, " I say. She reaches out and takes it. She looks at it. "Wait a minute," she says. 
I am just walking off. I turn back. "Yes?"
"Why did you give this to me? 
"I thought you needed it?"
"But why give it?" Her expression is very serious. She holds the money like she may give it back. 
"Because I care about you," I say. 
She breaks into a full smile. 
"Thank you, then," she says. 


I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles. Pick it up for 99 Cents today! 

Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved (No part of this work may be reproduced, except to quote on blogs and reviews, without the express permission of the author)

I Am Everyone I Meet: Blog Hop

Today is the start of a mini-event, otherwise known as the I Am Everyone I Meet: Blog Hop! This blog hop is celebrating this book and the amazing readers who have made it a success. There are several different blogs participating in this hop today, and you can visit all of their blogs here: 

Julia Thiel at Branding Authors 

Lisa's Blog  

Diary of a Divaliciouz Book Addict 

Writing Belle  

Jules White 

Abria at Shall Write

So what's all the hubbub about? Check it out! 

From the LA Times:

DISCOVERIES

James P. White's collection of random encounters with strangers on the streets of Los Angeles isn't about wanting things to be different; it's about being interested.

Customer Review: 

Maybe there is more to the city than meets the eye. Because let’s face it: a city is little more than a collection of people. Without people, it’s nothing but an empty shell. James P. White brilliantly plunges headfirst into the hectic world of LA and strikes up conversations with the most random strangers. From masseuses and homeless men to Hollywood actresses, everyone will enjoy reading this entertaining and enlightening novel.

The cover art was designed by Jules White , who is not only a professor at Virginia Tech and the recipient of the Outstanding Assistant Professor award at the College of Engineering, but also an artist. His work is renowned and can be viewed at the Gregory Way Gallery, among other places. 

For the Blog Hop, I Am Everyone I Meet is available for a promotional price of only 99 Cents! You can pick up your copy right HERE! 

The Promenade

I sit on a bench in the promenade in Santa Monica, talking on the cell phone before I go into the gym. My gym bag is beside me on the bench. I feel a movement, look over, and see that a young guy, with spiked blonde hair and a bright pink tee shirt with sequins, is putting his bag beside mine. The suddenness of his action surprises me and to protect my bag and to be polite and give him more room, I scoot mine over. I look up at him. 
"I don't want your bag," he says. 
"Of course not," I say. "I was just startled." I immediately want to make up for what he thinks was insulting to him. 
His voice is mincing and his facial expressions are exaggerated. "Don't talk to me!" he says. He points his finger at me and shakes it. "I hate you! Don't ever speak to me again!" He is screaming; his voice fills the area. He grabs his bag and hurries off, running into a sporting goods store. This happened before I could say anything more. 


Get I Am Everyone I Meet: Random Encounters on the Streets of Los Angeles for 99 cents today!!! Visit here to take advantage of this special promotion!

Copyright 2012 James P. White All Rights Reserved (No part of this work may be reproduced in any way, except to quote for blogs or reviews, without the express permission of the author) 

Yogurt, Interrupted

                     

           I sit down at a yogurt parlor near Santa Monica Boulevard and Westwood. I’ve eaten this yogurt enough so that it is rather tasteless to me. People swear by it, as I did at first.

            A woman is sitting across at an individual table with one chair. She doesn’t look up from her reading.

            I hesitate, then I say, “What are you reading?”

            She is as still as a deer in the woods. I feel embarrassed. I hesitate. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I say although I realize that my comment will bother her further.

            She makes a tiny gesture, either with her lips or her eyes, so fast I can not tell which.

            I turn away. Of course I had no right to break her silence. Her not answering irritates me, but she is more right than I am. She didn’t ask me to sit down and open my mouth. Imagine if she had.

Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved (No part of this work may be reproduced, except to quote for blogs or reviews, without express permission of the author)




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