FireVaney

She’s drunk and she presses your face into her cleavage—twice—and you tell her you think of her as a sister. And but so now, after that, you’re not so sure. You tell her it’s hard not to stare at her breasts and she tells you go ahead, stare. After that, you babble on about the painful crush you have on her best friend. She sits there beside you and she’s very understanding. At one point, for Paparazzo Pete, she bends over and aims her face at your crotch. It’s all for fun and she’s drunk and so are you—a little bit. And but so now, writing this, you’re thinking maybe you should pursue something with her. And you’re completely sober now. It would be a sober relationship. You want a companion and you want sex but you don’t want to break her heart if she falls in love with you.  8 March 2007

Betty’s bad back has a beef with every chair and sofa in the house. * So I drove her and Pop over to Wickes and, after a lot of test-sitting and indecision, Pop ordered some new furniture: a sandy-colored reclining chair, a matching sofa, and a matching loveseat. You might say they’re more comfy-looking than they are stylish. By the way, Pop’s bad ears have misled him to refer to Wickes as “Wicky’s.” Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve explained that the name is pronounced, “Wicks,” —as in the “wick” of a candle—it’ll always be “Wicky’s” to Pop.  Before he made the purchase, I measured the room so everything would fit. † Only I forgot to measure the doorways. Turns out the new sofa wouldn’t fit through. So we changed the order to two loveseats and the reclining chair.  Now Pop’s worried about the two OLD sofas that have to go. The Salvation Army is sending a truck the day before the new furniture arrives. Pop, though, he’s not convinced the old sofas will make it through the d...

I waved, few noticed, I left. Out on the street I mumbled to myself, “What a terrific waste of time.” I couldn’t tell you what my “scene” is, but it sure ain’t the “bar scene.” One light beer made me drunk, so I had to wait for it to wear off. So many conversations… I couldn’t follow a single one. So I watched others laugh and flirt. Damn near every time anybody spoke to me, I  shouted back, “WHAT?” They’d have to shout whatever they wanted to share or ask several times, until I’d give up with a smile and a nod. All of that secondhand smoke still clouds my head a day later. Damn near ever wall was full of muted TVs tuned to one sport or another. Birds of a feather self-segregated in the several available corners. Ms. J. Redacted drank straight from a pitcher of beer. Ms. D. Redacted hugged everybody in the cast—except for me. But then I wasn’t easy to reach (story of my life) and she barely knows me. I did, however, hear what Ms. L. Redacted shouted at me on her first try: “WHY ARE...

You could, if you wanted to, live here, where I live, in this community, blissfully ignorant of what goes on anywhere else. One of my high school history teachers compared the Village of Knotydart to a cocoon. That same history teacher wore leather boots, blue jeans, and a jean jacket to class nearly every day of the week. He tossed the word “groovy” around quite a bit. When we studied the Roman Empire, he rolled a TV with a VCR into the classroom and showed us Jesus Christ Superstar. That was his first year, when he did all of that. He’d moved back to Knotydart from Tinseltown. He’d given up on the pipe dream of becoming the next Frances Ford Coppola. (Incidentally, he studied screenwriting with StepDude at Tinseltown College, but that was many moons ago.) After Mister Argh’s first year of teaching at Knotydart High, he started wearing khaki pants and a professor’s elbow-padded wool sport jacket, a button down shirt, and a tie. He traded his boots for brown oxfords. He shaved off his...

Save for the enviable, one should save for the inevitable. Whereas the inevitable will come a-knockin’, the enviable will steer clear. (Hencethus, why we envy them.) And so but anyway, when the inevitable comes a-knockin’, you’ll need a reserve. This is true of the balloon as it is true for the needle. The balloon seeks to be popped. Indeed. It does. And the needle seeks to pop. It does. Indeed. To pop, or to pierce. To pierce whom? To pierce Brosnan . Ha, ha. The needle enjoys it: The Bursting. And the balloon enjoys being burst. It’s not unlike an orgasm. Perhaps it IS an orgasm. Why not? The balloon drifts on the wind. Indeed. It does. It drifts. The needle stays put. It does not have the luxury of buoyancy. Launch it into outer space, and, yes, it’ll have buoyancy, of a sort. But I had a conversation with the needle. It’s rather sharp, that needle is. Ha, ha. I asked it all kinds of questions. (Afterall, how often does one have the opportunity to converse with a needle?) It answe...