Experimentation Is Good for the Soul

I'm taking a brief vacation from ze blog until after the long weekend.  There will be plenty of reading, some writing and some good old fashioned fun with friends, board games and alcohol.  I'm going to be experimenting with language, too.  I think I'll start every with sentence with the word Bitches and end every sentence with ya dig?

And when that gets old (10 minutes), I'll go back to responding to everything with "Jolly good."  That's been a huge hit.

So here's the real experiment:  I'm putting together a word list to use as I write.  If you're here, please leave a comment - your favorite word or words, what you like the sound of, how if feels when you say it, the meaning, the combination of letters, whatever.  Or tell us what you're doing for the long weekend.

The deal is I would love to hear from all of you.  Even those of you who never make a peep.  Please.  And thank you.

May you enjoy your long weekend and let us all remember those who served.

Until Tuesday,

Lisa

Brought to You By the "Miracle" of Modern Science

The cultural development of the children continues*....

Today's Musical Challenge, Marshall
Setting:  Inside Roxanne, the 1995 Toyota Celica, some nice Luigi Gatti is playing in the background as Nate and I make the trip to his new high school where he's on the summer baseball team (yay, Nate!)

Me:  This music is killing you, isn't it?
Nate:  It's almost as bad as the Adult Album Rock you forced me to listen to.
Me:  Don't end a sentence with a preposition.
Nate:  You cut me off.  Yesterday.  You forced me to listen to yesterday.  Can we listen to some of my music?
Me:  Sure.  Is it going to be women or men singing about sex, money and fame?
Nate:  Let's see what's on, shall we?
From the radio's speakers.  Eminem:  When you're not fucking grown men, listen too....
Me:  That's not music.
Nate:  You're not listening right.

THIS is not starving.  A little perspective, please
We're at the thin end of the month again.  You'd think I'd figure this out so this wouldn't happen, but it does.  We're out of milk, bread, eggs, meat, sugar, plain cream cheese, bagels and chocolate. One lonely apple sits in the fruit bowl.  It's seen better days.  So we're living on the pasta and tomato sauce I've hoarded, some leftover cereal (dry), and lots and lots of Ritz and Townhouse Crackers that were buy one/get one free a couple of months ago.  Thank you, modern American science, for preservatives.


Anyway, Chloe and I spent  approximately eight minutes discussing whether the low-fat garden vegetable cream cheese we were scraping from its plastic tub was more like a spread or a dip.  We finally settled on dip.  It's faboo on Townhouse Crackers in case you're wondering.

So after our dinner of  crackers and cream cheese in front of Golden Girls, I mentioned that I'd found tucked away into the stupidly high cabinet where I hide things an unopened box of Lucky Charms.  And thus dessert included the shoveling of dry sugary cereal into my mouth while watching Toddlers and Tiaras.  I did, of course, pick out those shamrock and rainbow-shaped marshmallows to save them for last.  My brain doesn't know it's done eating until I've had something sweet, you know.  Tonight I needed that little extra oomph delivered by those other-worldly-colored hard marshmallows to switch off my hunger.

Be that as it may, the star attraction was the show.  Oh my gawd, people spray tan their kids?  And give them false tooth covers and hair pieces? And I thought I saw some freaky stuff on fetish websites.  Not even in the balllpark, my friends.  Tonight's episode featured a little red-haired girl who was adorable with porcelain skin and gorgeous wavy locks.  Her mother covered up her little girl teeth with a toothy set of falsies and had her beautiful, milky skin sprayed tan.  Even her face.  The results were sadly hilarious.  We elevated the moment in our own living room....

Chloe:  I want to adopt a little red-headed kid when I'm older.
Me:  You know if you adopt one, you have to keep it.
Chloe:  Okay, I want to find a friend who has red-headed kids who I can spoil.
Me:  That's a bit odd, you know.
Chloe:  Do you want to be called Grandma?
Me:  I didn't mean odd in a bad way.

I understand that sometime this evening Sophie sent MathMan a text reading "Food, food, food."

I suggested that maybe it's time to cancel the cellphone service and satellite t.v. so we can buy food, food, food.  That suggestion was vetoed as they dug into some left-over baked penne.

Yeah, thought so......


*Some of this may or may not be true.  I'll let you smarties decide.

There Must Be a Simple Explanation for It

Today was the first day of summer break for all the kids in the house and 'hood.  So far I've been asked the following:

For a puppy 
For $2.00 for a Kona Ice 
To move out of the way because I was blocking someone's view of Millionaire Matchmaker
Did I need any more strawberries?
To please explain exactly what does "Adult Album Rock" mean

The following answers applied (in random order)

Thanks, but we're good
You just want me to change the channel, don't you?  (that's the bonus answering a question with a question)
Bite me
Not just no, but hell no to the infinite power
Ask Chloe


In addition, I wrote about 1,500 words (yeah, I know what I said), read some, watched some, cooked some, fed some, laundered some and laughed some.  And those kids better not think that just because I made French Toast for them this morning that there will be special breakfasts every damn morning.  They can eat PopTarts and other sort of foods brimming with high fructose corn syrup just like every other kid in the U.S.  I mean, we live next door to a coal ash mountain.  You think I'm going to worry about their diet?

All in all a good start to their vacation, wouldn't you say?  

And how was your day, honey?

P.S. I found a pair of unexplained underpants somewhere in the house.  They don't belong to any of the gents here.  That I know of.  Care to claim them, any of you darlings?

P.S.S.  I have developed some kind of strange super power.  Every time I hold my book in my hand and walk toward the door leading to the deck, I make it thunder.  An interesting super power, I assure you, but not really lucrative or helpful.

Thanks for Rubbing It In, Bing Crosby

Yeah, well, not if you don't pay your gas bill....

Yesterday was one of those days.

The money noose tightened.  We got the gas turned back on so it's not all bad.  You know, if I had to choose though (and the last three weeks have been an "experiment,") I'd rather go without gas than water.  Just sayin.')

As a result of the continued money issues, I've expanded my job search quite a bit outside the field I'd worked in for nearly twenty years.  Whatever it takes....

Using the online form from the Georgia Department of Labor, I tried to apply for a job which is considerably lower on the food chain from whence I came. It sounded like an interesting job in a different kind of setting, so why not apply?  The skills I've acquired over my twenty years in not-for-profit and association management are highly transferable and fit the job description - administrative, communications, coordination, working with people, etc. 

The Dept. of Labor denied my request for a referral.  Wanna know why?  I don't have the required six months of experience in academia.  You know, because admin jobs are soooooooo different from one field to the next.  You pretty much use your skills to do what other people ask you and voila!  Job done.  I mean, even when I was the head of the organization, that was basically what I did.  I made recommendations to the Board of Directors, they blessed it as was or complicated it and then I did the tasks to complete the job.  Sometimes a volunteer came in and helped, most times not.

So I think I could handle this job working for a junior college.  Coordinating a couple of student programs doesn't seem so far out of my realm that the learning curve should be unreasonable. We wonder why people are out of work.  Six months required experience is arbitrary at best.  It occurred to me later, of course, that it may have been a situation where they had to post the job, but already had someone lined up for it.  Ah, well.  I'll keep looking.

In the meantime, I decided to give up the fantasy of publishing a book.  A complete waste of time.  I have no talent, blah, blah, blah.  MathMan was on the receiving end of this bout of self-pity and doubt.  I love that man for putting up with me, I really do.  He sent me a couple of positive thinking texts and came home prepared to give me a stern talking to about my attitude.  He walked into the bedroom and was shocked to see me smiling.

He did a double take.  "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, why?"

He gave me one of those looks.  Nothing is such a dangerous word...

"Oh, this?"  I pointed at my grin.  "I decided to stop worrying.  Worry or not, doesn't change a thing."

While I was in the shower getting ready to go to Sophia's 5th grade graduation ceremony (hello, contrived sentimentality!) I could hear MathMan rifling through my bedside stand looking for whatever I'd taken to alter my mood.

My mood change really was a combination of his attempts to buoy my flagging spirits and an hour and half of thinking time as I pushed the back and forth across the slope that is our back yard.

Later we sat reading our books while we waited for the graduation ceremony to start.  I'm reading A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery.  He's not all Pooh, you know.  "Oh my god," I whispered to MathMan.  "I'm losing my mind.  I realize as I read this, I'm editing A.A. Milne.  See here, he doesn't need that was...." I pointed to the words on the page.

MathMan just shook his head in that way he has when he realizes yet again that he's chosen to spend his life with a needy lunatic.  "And you say you're not a writer........"

Adventures in Real Parenting: No Matter What You Call Her....

The Baby...Cupcake...Resident Evil...Garbo...RezE....Sophia...she leaves elementary school behind tomorrow. I'm a bit stunned that we'll no longer have a little kid in the house.  Of course, as far as she is concerned, we haven't had a little kid in the house for a long time.

A couple of days ago, she mentioned that she doesn't really want to grow up.  I told her there was no rush.......

May middle school be easy on you, kid.

Love,

Mama

It's a Gas, Gas, Gas....

Good morning.  I'm sitting here bracing for an exhilarating shower while you're sitting there all snug in your office, kitchen, bedroom, parents' basement, bomb shelter, right?

The Goldens didn't pay their gas bill on time.  Talk about nasty surprises.

We discovered this bad bit of business last night when Chloe tried to make some pasta on the uncooperative stovetop.  Tick tick tick, IGNITE! go out. 

So perhaps it's no surprise at all.  It would help if we'd gotten some sort of disconnect notice, though.

As it was, we each had all night to consider the back to nature joys of a cold shower.  I believe Joan Crawford was a fan of the cold shower.  Better for the skin and all that....

Not that I want to use Joan Crawford for a role model or anything.  I mean, there was that questionable business with the wire hangers and she was a fan of Pepsi, not Coke.  Here in Georgia, Co'Cola is the state drink (with or without the moonshine chaser).

Because perspective is of the utmost importance, I shall think about how this little speck of trouble fits into the broad scheme of human experience.  This is when I roll out the Pioneer Living Scale with 1 being "I'm not whining about a minor inconvenience, I'm simply noting that I've noticed the difference between now and then" to 10 being "At least we don't have to dig a hole in the meadow where we can bury our dead." So this is what?  A 1?  Maybe a 2?  Nah, a 1.  It's a cold shower, for heaven's sake, not an amputation or the roof of the lean-to caving in during a blizzard in June.

It could be worse, of course.  It could always be worse.  My soap is not made of lye and fat butchered from my favorite cow and, what's more, when I've toweled off and turned back to pink from blue, I'll just stroll right back into my well-appointed home office and be grateful that I won't have to waste fifteen minutes surfing porn (to take the edge off, you know) before my mind is clear so I can get busy writing.

Perspective.

How was your shower today?

The One Where I Missed the Meaning of Getaway

Things have been a bit busy lately.  Lots of grown up stuff and kid stuff, too.  The end of the school year is loaded with activities that are both delightful and sigh-inducing.  i.e. Really?  I have to sit through an hour and a half of a D.A.R.E. graduation?  Capped by a sappy song sung by my least favorite teacher at the elementary school.  But I already know Drugs Are Really Excellent. Prescription drugs, I mean.

So when on Friday night MathMan and I found ourselves suddenly and temporarily sans les enfants, we were beside ourselves with possibility.  The evening stretched out before us like the old days.  Like before I saw that precious yellow dress at Carson Pirie Scott in 1990 and made a high-pitched noise that indicated my maternal instinct had just clicked firmly and irrevocably into place.


Since it wasn't Sunday morning, we opted to keep our clothes on and do something different.  A movie? Why should we want to sit in the dark not talking to each other?  The grocery store?  Too predictable.  Dinner?  We'd already eaten when we discovered we'd been released for the night from parenting.  Think!  What haven't we done in a long time or ever?

After having deposited the last child at her overnight destination, we drove through the dusk, taking our time as we meandered over the country roads.  We rode with the windows down and breathed in the freedom.  The air smelled like...Maui.  I am not kidding.  The Virginia sweetspire and honeysuckle are in full, glorious bloom and the air is so sweet you want to stick your tongue out and taste it. (I wonder if that would be okay on this low carb thing I'm doing...) The evening cooled as we zoomed along, the wind in our hair, listening to some nice Brahms* cranked past eleven and marveling at an enormous cloud that contained lightening like an electric snowglobe with lightening instead of snow.

Taking the road home, we found our calling.  Perhaps it had been a subconscious nudge, the answer hidden in the depths of our collective psyche all along.  Our chosen activity did not represent something one would consider a family outing.  One normally would not do such a thing with children in tow unless, of course, one might require the help of a child sitting on one's shoulders, for example.  But for now, it was just MathMan and me and a plan.

We'd noticed the sign he's been coveting lo these many days.  It hangs like a yellow slash of memory from an abandoned Chicago hot dog restaurant.  Now that the joint is kaput (sigh), the Vienna Beef sign is nothing more than a tease of delicious all beef delicacy.  Like mustard and relish on a condiment table, it's just there for the taking.

Our time had come.

No one was around.  I glanced at MathMan and saw the lustful gleam in his eye.  He nodded.  I assumed his intentions and turned into the parking lot.  Because neither of us are criminals at heart, this was a risky venture for us.  The restaurant is on a busy road and we could have easily been seen.

"Okay, be ready to haul ass out of here when I come back with that sign," he was looking around to make sure the place was empty."We don't want to get caught."

"Yes, yes, okay."  I pulled my cellphone out of the car's console as he scrambled out of the passengers' side.

I glanced up from checking my text messages to watch him jumping up trying to pull the vinyl sign down from where it hung.  He pulled once, twice.....I went back to checking my messages.

The car door opened and closed.  A few seconds passed.  "Are you going to drive?"  I looked at him forlorn and empty-handed.

"Sure."  I closed my phone, put the car into reverse, checked my mirrors, waved to our neighbor who was walking out of the adjoining Domino's Pizza, her arms laden with three pizza boxes stacked atop each other.  I paused and looked at MathMan.  "I guess we'll have to come back, huh?  Bring a ladder and something to cut it down with?"

He just stared at me.  "Yes.  And someone else to drive the getaway car."

*Somewhere along the way, Brahms replaced Rush's Tom Sawyer?

Or Maybe It's Because I Just Have One of Those Faces

So the nurse came and...........................................went yesterday.  She was a very chatty lass who was all about the testifying.

Chloe, who is now home from college and has a new job waitressing at the local barbecue joint (yay!) was here, too.  To be more specific, she was working on her butt-groove in the loveseat just like she does everything else.  Driven.  Goal-oriented.  Successfully.  Let's just say if she could have a G.P.A. for butt-groove wear, she'd have a 4.0.  Her butt groove would qualify her for high honors.  Is that cum laude or the other one.  Anyway, now this just sounds like a dirty post which it is not.

So there I was trying not to make eye contact with the scales Nurse Chatty had placed without comment on my kitchen floor (good thing I mopped ten minutes before she got there or those scales may have become a permanent fixture on that sticky mess) and Nurse Chatty was opening sterile plastic packages of medical supplies with her teeth and talking to me about her ex-cheating-husband and the three guys she's met on Plenty o' Fish and Chloe was in the next room fusing with the loveseat when Nurse Chatty tells me that upon her husband's last escapade of illicit sex and such, GOD spoke to her and told her what to say to him and what to do.

I tried to maintain an air of complete ....um.........believability?  not-about-to-run-screaming-from-the-room-ility?  Criminy, is there even a word for that demeanor one tries to maintain when confronted with something just short of shocking and not exactly not amusing?  What does incredulous mean, anyway?

Okay, yes, yes, I live in the Bible Belt and should be used to this religious-speak by now, but it wasn't so much the testifying, but Nurse Chatty's complete lack of self-consciousness when talking to a stranger about intimate details of her life and then dragging her god and his voice into it.  I was knocked back a little on my heels, I suppose.  I mean, I'd apologized to her because the house still smelled of bacon from that morning's breakfast.  (Honestly, I was relieved the bacon smell masked the eau de cat)  I'd been concerned about an overpowering bacon/cat smell and she was telling me about how her husband's new woman had spurned her attempts to pray for her.

For the record, she didn't mind the bacon scent at all.  "Oh don't you worry about that.  You wouldn't believe the smells in some of the houses I go into.  It's enough to make you cry for the people who live there."  I hoped she couldn't smell those cat undertones.  Or even if she did, she certainly was gracious about it.

So anyway, there we were, her personal stuff out there for discussion, me still fretting about my little white weight lie and Chloe becoming one with the leather.

I smiled and tried to keep my blood pressure from betraying my sense of anxiety on both our behalfs.  And then Chloe got up to switch out the dvd she was watching.  I glanced at her as she walked across the living room.  Yes, you guessed it - we made eye contact.  And I sucked in my lips trying not to laugh and that's when Nurse Chatty looked right at me.  Quick!  What does one do?

I did what anyone who's been living here as long as we have would do.  I smiled, "Well, bless your heart."

It's the only proper thing one can do in that situation, of course.  And she smiled.  "Thank you for listening to me.  I haven't told anyone this stuff.  Except for my pastor."

I swear, when I was finishing college and took that What Color Is Your Parachute Test (okay, I know, that was bad timing, maybe taking that test before spending all the time and money on a degree would have made more sense) the results announced that I should be a minister, rabbi, writer (ahem), teacher, psychologist or some kind of therapist.

Silly me.  I thought it was a joke, that test, because it never did tell me what color my parachute was.

I Hear Audrey Hepburn Had a Thing for Red Velvet

Because it's been brought to my attention that I could keel over or get hit by a monster truck or attacked by a pack of rabid raccoons at any time, I recently applied for a life insurance policy.  I suppose MathMan is right when he tells me that leaving him alone to raise these children would be inconsiderate enough, but to leave him broke and alone?  Unforgivable.   (Please take note:  MathMan is the beneficiary.  I'm counting on you to watch my back.)

Besides, saying that I'm worth more dead than alive and meaning it, knowing it's true strikes just the proper morbid tone I need to help color "those" days.  It lends a faux-authenticity to the narrative I indulge in right before I quell and admit to myself that I still like me just a little to much to do that.  Well that and an unmitigated fear of the unknown. Plus I'm not so keen on final acts. Too final.

So now we begin the process that often ends with a body in the library.  At least in the mysteries of which I'm so fond.  Those wacky Brits.  They're not dying of gunplay.  Well, not so much.  They're much more creative.  Arsenic poisonings, stabbings with ancient Celtic spear points, "accidental" shotgun wounds, shoving one another off church towers.  They're so not gangster.

But back to this life insurance business.  It's a three step process because it's that much fun.

First I went to the office of the nice lady who sends us those colorful birthday greetings postcards with The Big Insurance Company Logo.  I gave some them information about my height and weight, paid my money and signed on the official line.

Next I answered four hundred and six questions about my health history, the health history of my parents, my siblings, my next door neighbor Ed and the Boxer down the street.  That was over the phone.  I said yes as my "electronic" signature.

Step three is a visit from a nurse who will give me an exam.  She told me to fast for 4 - 6 hours before she gets here at 2pm on Friday.  Fast?  No problem.  I've been in a near starvation state for three days now. It's technically a low carb eating plan, but I prefer to think of it as a slice of hell.

Many years ago I smoked.  I quit.  No problem.  I like my alcohol, but I can take it or leave it.  No problem.  But breaking up with sugar?  Well, I'm not climbing the walls, but I assure you there have been moments when you might see me stealing empty Oreo packages from my neighbors' trashcans just so I could lick off the crumbs.  Did you know coffee grounds look an awful lot like Oreo crumbs?

Addiction is so undignified.

So the nurse is coming and I'll be all ready to pee in a cup and my stomach will be growling like Leonard Cohen without the clever lyrics.  It will be like tea time at the Manor.  Without the tea and fancy cakes.  I'll try to be gracious, of course, but it may be difficult from my place on the floor where I'm sure I'll have fainted dead away. 

It occurred to me tonight as I stood on the scales for the 82nd time today that I should probably stick hard to this eating plan because I may have told the woman at the insurance office that my weight range is Audrey Hepburnish.

I stepped off the scale and wandered aimlessly around the bedroom in a stupor.  My pants remained on the bathroom floor where I left them when I weighed myself.

"I need that cake," I whined to MathMan.  That cake is what is left of the red velvet confection from Chloe's birthday.  Just one piece sits there oozing cream cheese frosting.   

MathMan would not play along.  He understands his role, my role and the role of the cake.  Were I to give in to temptation, I'd spend the rest of the evening extolling how I should now go ahead and have some ice cream, that stash of Hershey's in the top drawer, what's left in the potato chip bag and the remaining chocolate truffles from Mothers Day.

"Forget about that cake.  How about a little workout instead?"  He was looking at me over the rim of his glasses as I lay across the edge of the bed where I'd flopped so unceremoniously.

Silly me.  He meant the gym.

I still want cake.

Was No More

I've finished attacking the word was and completed (for now) the Ethan story.  That project proved to be a great writing exercise.


To be sure, the story goes on.  Ethan remains one of my best friends.  When we reconnected a year or so ago after having not been in touch since the mid-1990s, it seemed as if no time had passed.  But of course it had and we've had all kinds of fun catching up and creating new stories.  For now, the story of our shared youth is captured here on its own page.  Whether he likes it or not.

Thank you, Ethan.

It's a Well Worn Metaphor

Nemesis

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. 

In the afternoon I put it back again.

         - Oscar Wilde

Chisels, hammers, saws.
The occasional screwdriver.
To drink.
Erect, tinker, scrape, demolish.
Thank goodness for the cutting
And the pasting.
Mind the printed word. (Minding!)
The characters ever evolving,
Love them, hate them, manipulate.
Them or me?
This manuSCRIPT is my Moriarty
Or is it Voldemort?
I'd dare to say its name
If it had a title.
The trouble is.....
It does not know what it wants to be.
Nor do I.

What's driving you mad these days?  Come on...distract me!


P.S.  Ohmygawd I love MaudNewton who shows us things like this.  She's a friend of a friend, BTW.

Little Love Stories. Part Three. The Girlfriend

July 1985 

We decided to stay in Muncie that summer. Ethan was taking classes and I got a job at Sears in the mall. We moved into neighboring studio apartments in the basement of a columned colonial on University Avenue. The landlady, a gruff old bird named Mrs. Blix, claimed that David Letterman lived there when he was a student at Ball State.  She'd tell anyone who'd listen about what a slob he'd been.

Although we had two studios next to each other, Ethan and I shared his, which was nicer and bigger. We filled our days with giddy, young love, shared a twin bed and didn’t mind so much. We got addicted to reruns of Hogan’s Heroes and M.A.S.H. and when those shows weren’t on, we played a computer version of Monopoly on his Commodore 64.

We were playing house and it was lovely.

******

Someone was knocking on the door. Ethan and I lay paralyzed for a moment. What if it was Mrs. Blix? We'd assured her that slept in our own beds. She’d been adamant that unmarried people would not be “fucking in her house.”

Ethan sat up, not sure what to do. I climbed over him. “I’ll hide in the bathroom,” I scampered across the room, and shut the door behind me. I pressed my ear to it to hear.  I could hear a woman, but it didn’t sound like Mrs. Blix’s gravelly voice. I pushed my ear harder against the door. My heart pounded and I was annoyed that I couldn’t make out the words.

I cracked the door a little and peeked out. I couldn’t see Ethan, but I could hear him. He sounded nervous. No, he sounded really nervous. I opened the door a bit more and leaned out. He was there, leaning against the wall, the door partially opened in front of him. His bare chest stood out in stark contrast to his navy blue sweatpants. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and smiled at the person in the doorway.

The door blocked my view so I couldn’t see to whom he spoke, but I heard the voice clearly enough.  It belonged to a young woman – and she sounded cute.  I decided to make my presence known. I swung the bathroom door open and sauntered across the room to sit on the bed so that the person in the doorway could see me.

Ethan swung around.  I saw a cloud of fear pass over his face, his smile frozen. I gave him a stony look.  My heart beat double time and my pulse assisted by drumming in my ears.

Ethan turned slowly back to the young woman at the door. She stood there smiling with her open, friendly face. Her dark eyes were muted by her glasses. She wore her shiny brown hair in a chin-length bob and had decked herself out in a navy blue slicker with matching rain boots.  Little ducks dotted the ensemble.  I hated her.

Ethan still didn’t react. I cleared my throat and waited.  The young woman looked from him to me. We were waiting for him to make the next move.

“Um, right. Um, um……,”  It was painful to watch. “Um, this is Cynthia,” he stammered, gesturing to the slicker chick whose smile grew wider as she nodded my way. 

“Ah, uh, um…..Cynthia is in my photography class. She just stopped by to say hi.”  It came out in a rush.  He cast his eyes to the floor.

I tried to smile. I waited, my eyebrows raised, my eyes snapping shut and open, shut and open.  Ethan turned back to Cynthia. My mind was already racing with questions. How did she know where he lived? How did she find the exact apartment? What the hell was she doing here at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday? In the rain? And what was she wearing under that slicker with its little duckies and matching rain boots?

Ethan shook himself, as if to try to deflect the angry vibes shooting in his direction. He finally found his footing, sort of. “Um, heh, um, Cynthia, this is, is…….is um The Girlfriend,” he managed. The second the words were out of his mouth, he winced.

“Actually, my name is Lisa,” I said quietly from the bed.

********

I paced the room while Ethan escorted Cynthia out.  My mind was whirling with invectives and questions, but mostly invectives. I’d already made up my mind what was going on. Cynthia was what Ethan did while I worked.

I heard the door open behind me. I wrapped my fingers around the first object I could find on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living area. Ethan moved fast, but not fast enough.  The Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup can connected with his forehead before he could speak.

Part 1
Part 2

Little Love Stories. Part Two. Still Life

February 1985

"Hurry up! I’m freezing!”

“Hang on. These are going to be good, I think.”

I took a deep breath and waited. Counted to ten and waited. Waited some more. What was taking him so long?

I regretted my offer to pose. What had I been thinking?  I was a fidgeter, not made for this kind of thing. And Ethan!  I had no idea he could be such a perfectionist, twisting my body this way and that, giving direction, adjusting the lighting. Meanwhile, I was topless and my nipples were hard as the icicles that hung off the eaves of the house.

“Stay right like that,” he whispered, backing away a little and aiming the Nikon at my bare breasts.

I was torn between wanting to get this over with and wanting to look down to see what he could see.  As I sat frozen and stiff, trying not to think about which body part itched more, it occurred to me that I had ceased to be flesh and blood, the soft, pliable girlfriend who shared his bed and secrets.  I had crossed into that other place as his subject. His eyes roamed over my body with a precision that didn't mesh with the desire that normally accompanied his response to my naked breasts.  He studied me like the artist he was.  I could have been any body.  Any. Body.  I could have been a bowl of fruit, a jug of wine, a mandolin leaning against a wall. I shivered.

“Now you’ve got goosebumps,” he said, leaning down to adjust my right shoulder ever so slightly. “You must be cold.”

I didn’t want to tell him what had made my skin go all prickly.

Later, we sat on the worn  blue carpeting while he repacked his gear. I slid my foot underneath him and wiggled it.  “I love you.”

He didn’t miss a beat as he continued to dismantle the lighting.  “I love you, too.  Want your pay?”

“And that would be?” I asked, pushing my foot further under him and goosing his butt with my toe.

“Dunkin Donuts, of course!” he yelped as he grabbed my foot between his legs an held on to it.

I tried to wriggle away, lying down and stretching to reach the tee shirt just beyond my grasp.

He let go of my foot and lay on top of me.  "That was pretty cool, seeing you like that."  He was so warm.

Like that. For days after I would wonder if he meant like that naked or like that posed. Or both. When I finally saw the photos, they took my breath away. He’d captured a beauty I did not know I possessed. Until I saw those photos, I'd thought my breasts awkward, too large, unappealing.  At that moment, though, I wanted to stay there, feeling his weight on me.  I knew where that would lead though and my roommate was due home shortly.

I reluctantly pulled away and tugged the shirt over my head.  "Donuts, remember?"

Part one.
(Not in the manuscript.)

Little Love Stories. Part One. Ethan.

(Not part of the manuscript.)

I've Been Waiting for a Girl Like You

December 1984

All the girls were ready to go. Now it was the waiting time. We crowded into the dorm’s common area and fidgeted and primped, using one another’s faces as mirrors. The unasked question – Do I look all right? No.  Do I look good? That was what we all wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.

Thursday night Must See T.V. provided the background to all the nervous activity. Cosby, Family Ties, Cheers….After Cheers ended, we would shift, anxious and anticipating, toward the door. It was almost time for the Thursday Night Club.

As a college freshman, I was being introduced to all kinds of new social activities. This was no longer my small hometown where I had to forever worry about getting caught by someone who would tell my parents. Caught doing what? Anything. Everything.

I sat, a little distracted, facing the television. Through the slotted wall behind the t.v., I saw the door open and in he walked. Ethan. I'd been watching for him.

I can’t remember now if we made eye contact and, damn it, I can’t find any journals from that time (I think I’d briefly stopped writing), but the minute he walked through that door, I felt electricity. I knew it was silly, this guy was just some kind of player, a lady’s man. When he sang Foreigner’s I’ve Been Waiting (for a Girl Like You) to me the night before in this very room, he was just goofing around, right?

I sensed him somewhere behind us. I peeked over my shoulder and saw him standing behind the row of seats, his eyes on the television. He glanced my way and snapped a grin. He may have wiggled his eyebrows. I’ll never know for sure because I whipped my head around to face the t.v., my face burning with embarrassment. Caught looking!

The show ended and we stood and stretched and collected our coats from the table where we’d stacked them. Ethan joined our little group and asked what we were doing next. Someone mentioned the Thursday Night Club. Did he want to go with us? I think it was Melinda who asked.

He said sure.  My breath caught in my throat, but I still was not going to let myself hope. What was the point?  Our gaggle of coeds included Melinda with her long legs and auburn hair. Deirdre with her China doll face, blond hair and perfect breasts and Cat with her exotic Asian beauty. This guy who would have had his pick wasn’t interested in me.

********

I’m that girl. You know the one. Cute, not pretty or stunning or unique in looks. Easygoing until you scratched beneath the surface and found a basketful of barely-controlled compulsions. Humorous as a defense more than anything. Accommodating. Too much so. Nice.  As if it isn’t enough to be a middle child, I’m a Libra, too. I’m the Rodney King of birth order and astrological signs. The world can be crashing down around us and I’m wondering aloud if we can’t all just get along.

I’m just nice to be around, but I'm not going to make your heart beat out a symphony, I'm not going to inspire poetry or wild flourishes of affection. I’m nonthreatening and non-confrontational. I don’t make sport of contradicting people.  I'm neither ornamental nor darkly compelling.  I'm the classic girl next door.  You'd do her, but you wouldn't die for her.

Someone once described me as the best girlfriend ever. In fact, that someone was Ethan, but he used the description about twenty-three years and five months after....., but now I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?

Anyway, I was that girl. Never the drop dead gorgeous one, never the unattainable ice queen. I was never the Queen Bee for that matter. I wasn’t exactly the side kick either. I was usually the third girl from the left with chestnut hair, friendly smile and large tits (not necessarily noticed in that order by the opposite sex). I just looked…nice. And maybe easy.  None of this mattered because I was convinced that I was not the reason Ethan was joining us.

I repeated this to myself during the frigid walk to the house where the Club was in full swing. I thought it over and over as I flowed in and out of little knots of students talking, played drinking games in the breakfast nook, smoked weed from a one-hitter in the basement, and danced to the Psychedelic Furs, if you can call it dancing.  It was more like dreamy swaying at that point.   

This guy Ethan - tall, handsome, charming Ethan – was not interested in me. And then we were standing together making small talk while we waited for our turn at the keg.  He smiled right before he leaned down and kissed me.

********

I awoke facing Ethan and was engrossed in memorizing his face when his dark eyes flew open startling me.

“What are you doing?”

I acted coy. “Nothing.”

"What were you doing?”

“Nothing.”

I watched his perfectly formed eyebrows knit together as he schemed to get me to tell him the truth. His skin was pale, his eyelashes framed his brown eyes giving them a wide-eyed appearance. “You were staring at me.”

I pulled back so I get a better look at him. His almost black hair was cut short and preppy, he had a long, straight nose and a strong chin that reminded me of Cary Grant’s with its subtle cleft. Without thinking I put my fingertip onto the cleft in his chin. “So what if I was. You’re not bad looking, you know.”

He tickled me until I squealed and then we settled down remembering that females weren’t supposed to spend the night in that wing of dorms.

“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. You’re going to get me kicked out of here.”

I turned my back to him and curled into a fetal position. “Oh, well, I’ve had my fun with you….”

He tickled me again and then pulled me close.

We fell asleep again.  A little later, I lay with my eyes closed and felt his warm breath on my neck as we spooned together.  I became curious about the sounds outside and rose up on one elbow to look out the window. Moving the curtain aside, I squinted in the morning light and wondered what time it was. The snow that had been on the ground for a few days was shrinking back, giving way to the dead grass and mud of the worn paths around the dorm.

“The whole world is melting.”

I could feel his weight shift. “Mmmmmm. That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”

I let the curtain drop back in place and turned to him.

Once more into the fray

Thank you for all the terrific feedback on the story so far.  Today I'm engaged in another rewrite.  I think this one will streamline the plot so that the story is more focused.  It also gives me a chance to reduce the characters by one, saving what I think is a compelling character for his own story, perhaps a short story.  And no, it's not the General, any General who is being sidelined.  It's a character you hadn't been introduced to yet.

Anyway, this is one of those days when I'm really having to force myself to keep my butt in the chair and sally forth at the keyboard.  I'd much rather enjoy the rainy day either by reading or by watching the new Foyle's War we dvr'd last night.  Speaking of which, one of my favorite English detectives went through a similar thing.  Fictionally writing nonfiction, I mean.

From this I take my inspiration.....

I can write it, I just can't read it.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up today.