If you, or anyone you know, used to know, or think you might like to know better has any information on helping me to obtain my dream interview with a midget, please contact hschauf@yahoo.com. Provide helpful details such as your name, the name of your midget, your relationship to them, your contact info, their contact info, and any helpful background information that might contribute to a successful read worthy work. (Examples: dirty background check, troubled childhood, whacky hobbies or peculiar obsessions)
A reward will be made available for the first successful lead. (It will not be cash as I will not have anyone spending the money to buy more Mad Dawg, smack, or Micky D's). All reasonable award suggestions will be accepted.

This archive cleans the hard drive
Assume for a minute that brilliance, intelligence, smarts, comes with it a price of sanity. Say it’s a theme of man vs. self. The cost of enlightenment comes with it a loss of community, of acceptance, of respect. Someone said to me once, saints were disruptions in their day. They were the freaks, the rejects, the avant-garde. The voice in the wilderness is unexpected and violent in its non-violence. The primitive ego-less-ness of these individuals, promote through their naïveté, an abrasive anti-culture. Thus the anti-culture defines the culture, the anti-hero the hero, the anti-christ a Christ and so on. The dichotomies reside in the same foil shell of a leader. The yin blends the yang to construct an exceptional man of history.

It used to be that films were all constructed from a formula of protagonist vs. antagonist in it’s foundation. This seems to have changed. Time progresses, and the consciousness of mankind in a general way, is moving toward a graying of former blacks and whites. Central characters confront audience assumptions on modern day morality by committing often violent crimes in response to a complex ethos inducing situations. Thus the antagonist assumes the public’s sentiment of prior protagonists.

_______
One also asks, is there such a thing a being too honest? But then consider the social mores we hold about what is “crazy.” Typically, they are those who communicate too concisely. They are constantly hung up on the details that seem insignificant to the general mainstream. They are authentic in their reactions, and they react without discriminations based on real intimacy or relationship with the listener. They deliver insights and emotions without any formality. Typically there is a generally accepted formality in disclosure that is based on a context which has been prepared for the receiver. Lunatics create a space of consistent informality.

Dreaming about him

(And the work situation takes a turn for the weirder.)

No more travel, no more airfare, no more lunches, no more dinners, no more retirement parties, no more.
But what about....
No.
No more office supplies for the remainder of the year. No more paper clips, no more toner cartridges, no more binders, no more paper.
But we're down to....
No.
No more over time, no more call outs, no more midnight dispatch for nobody no matter what the agreement.
Try telling that to...
No.
Please take the evening to digest what they have just told you. We will reconvene in the afternoon. In the afternoon because, I am now going to the bar to get intensely drunk and I don't expect to be well in the morning.
But lets be honest here, this is the begining of the end.
So it appears.
errrrr...but maybe not. Just continue working and supporting our customers like we always have.

My ticket to Guanjuato paid for with a slow painful death.

Just hop on the bus Gus, don'tneedtodiscuss much.
Just drop off the key Lee, and get yo self free.
Sometimes when women fall in love, they can't shut up about it. A girlfriend must sit quietly, nod her head head and smile warmly through it. It's the listening hat segment of being a friend, and you wait out every last boring detail. It's your job. It's what girlfriends do. It's what girlfriends do right after we sit around naked brushing eachother's hair and having ice cream fights at slumber parties. (But not always)

But last night as I listened to a girlfriend go and on I felt my guts getting soft and loopy. I found myself falling in love too with the very same. Both our eyes got wet, our breath picked up, and everyone else in the club, in the neighborhood, in Texas, anywhere- melted away. I could not stop smoking. I could not finish a drink. I still listened and shook my head, but mostly, I just shook. I wanted details that mattered like how not to rush. How to not get so obsessed. How to build a life around this. How many bags to pack, how much money to save, how exactly to get there and when.

The Wolf and the Shepherd
A wolf followed a flock of sheep for a long time and did not attempt to injure one of them. The Shepherd at first stood on his guard against him, as against an enemy, and kept a strict watch over his movements. But when the Wolf, day after day, kept in the company of the sheep and did not make the slightest effort to seize them, the Shepherd began to look upon him as a guardian of his flock rather than as a plotter of evil against it; and when occasion called him one day into the city, he left the sheep entirely in his charge. The Wolf, now that he had the opportunity, fell upon the sheep, and destroyed the greater part of the flock. When the Shepherd returned to find his flock destroyed, he exclaimed: "I have been rightly served; why did I trust my sheep to a Wolf?'

My gay brother's jr. high girlfriend has turned dominatrix and is stalking me.

Okay, I'm seriously exaggerating this time.
She's only threatened to stalk me. She said that she will lurk outside my apartment until I come out if I don't call her. Soon. She says she doesn't believe me when I promise to call, and I admit she's right- I'm lying. Kindly she explains that she doesn't want to stalk me because she likes me and she doesn't think I would appreciate it. Once, she even had an epileptic seizure on the floor of her office. I was the emergency contact.

Tony is absolutely humiliated. I make jokes about spilling the story to a table full of friends over his birthday cake, but he doesn't laugh. He grinds his teeth but still manages to say something about how I wouldn't dare. I've invited him to work this whole thing out over a session mediated by Jerry Springer, but he won't take responsibility for this mess. It's my opinion that if it weren't for his crappy choices in women, I wouldn't have this situation. Considering his trashy preferences as a wanna-be heterosexual man, it turns out to be a real blessing for our famly that he's homo after all.

I've reached my threshold for drama at this point.
An increase on the soma mg's will do me some good.

You think it not twoo?

Ahhh.... nail salons. A woman's safe haven. There was a time I actually wept with my feet in the hands of a total stranger. Seemingly one of my lives had come to an end, and the fashion magazines advised relief in the safe hands of a manicurist/pedicurist. I pulled into the broken parking lot of my local strip mall to collect my remedy. The little vietnamese lady tenderly set to work on my feet as I sat in a black pleather vibrating throne. When she asked how I was, I pretty much fell apart by morphing into a pile of tears and snot. Occassionaly, I'd laugh through the sobbing when the pumice tickled the pads of my feet. As compassionate a therapist as she was, I was far too humiliated to show my face in that little shop again.

Yesterday, I made yet another little pilgramage to the local Nails Salon: Medi/Pedi $28. Never fear my loyal subscriber, I kept my shit together.

An interview with a nail technician (as best as I can make out) goes like this:

So, how long have you ladies worked here? (for there is one at my feet, and one behind the desk at my hands)
Tree years.
(the other nods.) Tree years.
Wow, and you spend a lot of time together in this little shop don't you? Do you ever get into big fights with eachother?
No.
(other) Yes.(head nod accompaniment)
(arguing in vietnamese ensues)
So... (interrupting) do you ever have people with nasty nasty toes and feet come in for a pedicure?
Oh, yes. Disgusting. Very bad.
And did you send them away and refuse to touch them?
No, I had a lady very bad. I just do them.
You just did them and then went and soaked the instruments right away, huh?
Yes.
(everyone gets very quiet now. I thought I was funny but I do believe they think I'm an undercover health inspector come to hijack their livelihood)
So do you have boyfriend? (quick change of subject)
No, I don't have a boyfriend
(shrieks fill the room) Nooooo. You so pritty.
(other) So pritty.
I know yo problem. You no go out to movies or bar. Nutting.
No, I do.
Ohhhh. We find you Vietnamese friend.
(quiet)
Are the women that come in here very nice to you? Sometimes ladies can be so picky.
I wook here tree years, everyone very nice. No one mean to me.
Do, you all take turns doing manicures and pedicures?
Right. We'ya on rotation. One time a guy came in here and tipped owa boss 100 dollar bill, he come in next time and ask fo hir, but she said no she can do it because she not next in rotation. He tip only 12 dollar.
Wait- a guy?
Guy come in all da time. In morning
The morning huh. When there aren't so many women here huh? Cowards.
Most don't want color, but some-they want color.
No!
You think it not twoo, but it is twoo! One guy come in with wife. She says 'Get pedicure. Get color' he say 'No!' she say "Yeah go ahead". He got green. He come in next time want blue. He come in everytime wit her now.
No!
You think it not twoo! Musician come in here. Want their fingers black. Want toes paint blue yellow blue yellow blue.
No!
Yes. It's twoo. Sometimes even this (she picks up a bright red polish with glitter)
I saw a man walk into a nail salon once. The whole place went quiet in a flash.
Right. When man comes in, nobody talk any more.
Everyone in the salon is laughing good belly laughs.

I spray my hands down once more with mink oil, and begin to stare down the wall clock while my hands and feet soak up the ultraviolet dry lamps.

Headache all day today, but damn it's fun to be a girl.

Home again home again jiggity jig
Well, since they called on Thursday, I flew back into DFW on Friday afternoon. Don't read anything into it they said. Don't unpack your bag they said. You can reach me at this number...uh....You, I said.
I've been thinking, that if Mario and I are meant to be together, and get married after 6 months, and travel the world, and live out the rest of our phenomenal sex lives together, then the baby jesus will make this strike happen and we'll end up locked in eachothers gaze back at the Embassy Suites lobby in no time. If not, it's back to pleasing myself on sticky plastic couches, and tending to my stray cat collection.

Me-ouch.

like at first site
So, I walk out the door assuring my father that I have plans with friends and will not be going out alone. A lie. But then again...

I like to think that I've mastered the art of hailing a taxi. I think I have so mastered the art, that now I have begun to hail Lincoln Town cars instead. So, a young Pakastani man says he'll take me to East Village for 12 bucks. A fair price. When we arrive to St. Marks and 3rd, he asks if I like Indian food. Says that he'll take me to just the place. Just the place on 6th street. We park and walk down a street lined in restaurants with beautiful mulit-colored lights dangling from the ceiling and exotic swarthy swami types in turbans and white beards sitting in the bay windows patting little drums and fingering sitars. So, I have dinner with the driver.

YOU ASKED FOR IT.....(drrrrum rrrrrrrolll please)

An interview with a New York Pakastani Limo Driver goes something like this:
So, how long have you lived in New York?
For ten years. I love New York
And is the car your car?
Yes, I purchased the car for 15-20 thousand and the radio inside cost me 15 thousand dollars besides.
Wow the radio alone? So when do you work?
I work from about 4 o'clock in the afternoon until whenever... midnight
And do you always pick people up on the side of the street, or do you mainly pick up people that have called in?
Mainly I pick up people with companies that have contracts with us, and then sometimes people I see on the street. They each have special fares with their contracts. I drive them usually long distances...sometimes Connecticut, New Hampshire,.....

--
We eat. He tells me about the dinky village he lived in, his family, his college, his time in New York. He insults the waiter by telling him the food has gone downhill in just a matter of weeks. The manager even comes out to find out first where my dinner friend is from and then what might have happened to the food, as he is anxious to protect the zagut surveys proudly displayed in the window. The driver offers up no clue, only that it is not as "tasty as it had been. The chicken not as.... ". The frustrated manager shrugs his shoulders too and retreats to the back to curse himself heartburn and give the chef a beating with a cat of nine tails followed with a spicy curry rub. Then again...my imagination transcends this life....
--
From there he offers to take me on a tour of the city. Wants to get ice cream. To Soho so I can shop. He drives me everywhere I want to go free of charge. He holds the umbrella, he waits while I try on clothes. Offers suggestions of skimpy tank tops made entirely of feathers (I have no where to wear such a thing I explain. Just around the house, he says. For what? To dust?)

So does this computer here have GPS
You mean for maps? No not yet, we're working on that
So this thing, they know that you're active and waiting to work?
Yes, but they don't know where I am unless I tell them. See, here it says the Zone. Right now in the financial district we are in zone 1. The airport, that is zone 17.
Can we pick up someone right now?
No, it's a rule that we can't have people in the car when we pick up rides.
Have you ever picked up anyone famous?
I don't care much about famous people. But I did pick up Madonnas sister once from the airport once. She was nice, but not very pretty.
So, what the craziest story you have.
Lots of crazy stories
But the craziest...
Once I picked up a girl, very pretty very skinny. Wanted to go to the Bronx. She said "how do I look" and I said, you look good. She said 'No, how do I look?' ...she insisted that I really turn around and look, and when I did, she had taken her shirt off.

He takes me to the warf where he tries to hold my hand, tries to put his hands around my waist. Key words here: try. He gets ice cream, I get hot coffee. We go back to the car.

This is the portion of my trip where the Pakastani limo driver tells me he's crazy about me. Wants me to move to New York. Offers to find me a job even. No? He'll move to Dallas then, where we can be together. I'm so nice, so pretty, it was like at first sighte. He read my palm when he picked me up on the corner, and I quite clearly did not have a boyfriend. Boyfriends make lines appear on your hands instantly I ask. No, there's a secret he said, and he can't tell me other wise I'd make a fortune telling fortunes off of his little trick.

So the bullshit gets heavier from there. I'm embarassed for the muck. I take the lid off of my coffee for quick dumping, tell him he's making me nervous, and then to take me back to the hotel. Which he does. But he's very offended at my rejection.

He tells me romantic eastern stories of thirsty men that give up kingdoms for peasant girls with troughs of water. And that just about changes everything....about my coffee.

Safe again.
Whew.
I'm in love with this bellhop guy though.
Not ready to go home now...
Mario.

A call this morning from one Jay.
"Good morning Miss Schauf, this is New York City Verizon's Jay ---, You must contact us between 7 and 7:15 every morning at this number to check in from this day forward."
"Weekends too?"
"Uh, I don't know, I'll have...her...call you back on that. This is in regards to the e-mail we sent to you last evening Miss Schauf".
"I don't have access to my e-mail. This phone number is the best way to reach me."
"That would explain why we didn't hear from you then."
"Yes. Thank you. I'll call. Bye."


New York is great, and I'm learning my way around the neighborhood- like how to get everyday stuff done. Like buy underwear, and postcards, and pharmacuiticals (not those kinds of pharmacuiticals...)
Oh yeah- I think I conditioned my hair with hand lotion this morning.
The housekeeping asked if I wanted service today since I locked her out all of yesterday while sleeping, and cramping, and trying to hold my pounding head together. Mom called too under a hunch that something was a little off.

Tiobeto calls it growing pains, and he is incredibly sweet and clever the way he can talk me out of my madness in just a 10-15 minute voicemail.
xoxox
cv
PS/I think that I won't be working so hard on becoming a villianess just yet. I like to think my sweetness is part of my southern civility and keeps me looking young--

Bond. Jane's Bond.

Well, I have arrived.

I get a call not unlike those from James Bond movies every 4 or 5 hours telling me to go home, and then never mind - stay here. No, go home. Never mind stay here. They explain nothing. Sometimes just "Don't go. We'll call in an hour with more details." and then they're gone. I think next time they call, I'm going to ask them to call me by my code name- Jane. Maybe that's a bad idea. Paranoia is starting to settle in, and I don't want to be voted off the island just yet. Not before I eat a decent meal and buy a suitcase full of souviners.

Strike pending, I hesitate to go too far today. Besides, the weather is shit, and my feet are bludgeoned much like I'd imagine the native's feet all look. Brutal. Strong calves though. I make a game of trying to out speed-walk them. Usually, I'm successful- my mother's always been a fast walker- but occassionally, I'll come across someone that blows me out the water. Supersonic footware made of blubber or some shit. I've been studying it- and I know for certain that a long stride or long legs have nothing to do with winning the speed walk competitions. Flashing 'Do Not Walk' signs do make you walk faster like the yellow lights make your right foot feel heavy. Black messenger bags might be the key. I think having a purpose is pretty important too- like running late for work.

Here is a list of some of the nice things that New Yorkers have done for me:
1- the door guy that blew the whistle for my cab to work yesterday, ran back inside the hotel to retrieve an umbrella he insisted on me taking. Total cost: 5 bucks
2- the waitress in the sushi bar last night ran after me down the street to return the denim shirt I'd left behind. Tip total: 5 bucks
3- I've also received many thank you's and have a nice days at the expensive hotel I'm staying at.

Conclusion: New York people are really very nice. I don't understand quite where this bad rap came from.

E-mail: hschauf@yahoo.com with a street address and recieve a cool new york card!!!! (Please write)