A Very Long Chin

“I tried to get it out of my mind; going through everything I could to draw my attention away.”

-Michael Kozuch
TELLING TALES OUT OF SCHOOL
Edited by Kevin Jennings

Twenty-five years ago today:

March 29, 1987
Sunday

When I returned home from the movie watching with mom and dad I made a phone call to Eileen Grabinsky at one o’clock in the morning. I confirmed that I would call her on Sunday at four o’clock in the afternoon.

In the morning I went to pick-up my niece, Ashley and we went to Chinatown in Downtown Oakland where we met with Margaret Lai and her son, Lance. We ate at ON-ON CHINESE FOOD at ten-thirty in the morning for dim sum. Ugh…but what the hell.
Margaret says, “This is very common to have dim sum on Sundays. It’s a Chinese tradition.”
We went to Washington Park in Alameda with the kids after the meal. I felt uncomfortable being with Margaret. We no longer work together and there’s no point in our seeing each other, knowing how she feels about me. There is no way I’d ever transfer the same feelings for her.
To close our afternoon I said, “You know, I am supposed to call my friend, Mark. It’s his birthday. I guess I can call him tomorrow.”

Jeff Sombat called me from Hawaii as did Teddy Charach, the film director in L.A. Mom heard Teddy’s voice on my answering machine and she made a frown. We both agreed to his ‘strangeness’. We laughed about his odd sounding voice.

Eileen called me later.
She confessed, “I’m so infatuated with you.”
“Well, I guess I feel the same way about you.”
“Why did you go out with me?”
Good question. I don’t remember exactly what I said but I believe it was something as simple as, “I liked you.”

I received my photos and a letter from the Grimme Modeling Agency on Friday. The representative of the firm wrote ‘you definitely have a personality that shows from the camera but what worries me is the camera wing which shows that you have a very long chin’. That was news to me. He did write that he’s still willing to meet with me. That’s a plus in my favor.

I went to mom’s again a after a quick bike ride along the beach. It was crowded…much too crowded at the beach. Ashley was still at my mom’s house.
I love it when Ashley says out-of-the-blue, “I love you, Uncle Mike.”
I hate it when Ashley repeatedly says, “Huh?”

I drove to Hillsborough to see Eileen. We ate sushi on Burlingame Avenue. It was fun. The sushi came along in a rotation of boats and we simply picked the ones we wanted. We spontaneously decided to go to a local Drive-In but we realized we’d missed the beginning part of the movie called BLIND DATE. So we changed our minds and went to a walk-in movie theater and we missed the start of the movie there, too. So we scratched the idea of a movie. We had fun in the back seat of my car as we both tried unzipping my back window in order to automatically bring the convertible top down. I drove back from the theater to Burlingame with the convertible top down, feeling the wonderful breeze.

I parked near her place of residence, looking at the view. It made me yearn for the beach and I shared the thought of my taking the day off tomorrow. We cuddled and kissed.

I got home to Alameda about thirty minutes later to take a quick shower and go to sleep. Yawn.

There are three wants that can never be satisfied: that of the rich who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different, and that of the traveler, who says, “Anywhere but here.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
American essayist and writer