Now....

It's 93 degrees on my porch and one by one, I shear off the legs from a stack of hand me down levis... These are for Skinny, this pair for Kimbies, a ratty tatty pair for myself. I reach down and wind my hair up into a knot, thread a bic pen threw it to keep it off my neck. I'm melting. And I smile. The broken AC is paying for how may nights at the beach?

I lug a giant tupperware box into the kitchen and start tossing necessary evils into it....salt, pepper, a cork screw, the camera, sidewalk chalk, a flashlight, paper fortune tellers, packs of no name cigarettes. We go without eating at home, we won't need much food at the beach....And I smile.

I wander through the house with a Winn Dixie bag and a peace backpack chocking random things in at will....the last bikini's I'll ever wear, magic markers and paper, little Love postcards for playing Pixies. I wonder for the last time where I left my little suitcases...what rendevous I came home from bagless...and what priceless pair of old jeans were lost in the leaving. And I smile at my makeshift luggage.

Less than 48 hours....

And we'll all be home...