Peace, Love, and Passion, Please...

I like to drive slow....creep along and daydream, sing really loud, to Primal Scream and Led and Stones, chain smoke until the ashtray looks like a Blooming Onion, and flash two-fingered peace signs at the folks cussing me in silent screams as they zip past me.

I like to ride in fast cars. To pitch my contacts out the window in an act of littering defiance so the highway is a blur. To feel my hair madly tangling with every mile we fly, blonde speghetti in the wind.

I like to dance to make believe music. To dip low, and long, and pretend I'm a ballerina on top of a vinyl jewelry box. To dance in the street barefoot, under full moons and pouring rains and streetlamps sweltering in the heat. I like to dance really, really slow to fast music, and lightening fast to so~slow~it's~a~lulabye~music. I like to be asked to dance. And sometimes I like to say no.

I like to laugh until I cry, choke, cough, spew beer everywhere. Until I can't remember why I'm laughing and have to cross my legs so I don't accidently tinkle. Hell, I like to laugh so much, I don't really care if I wet my pants, send my gum richocheting into your lap, get the hiccups. I just like to laugh.

I like to Love. Hard and fateful. Ridiculously comitted to the moment. Wreckless and silly.

Forever can be a really, really short time...

You gotta make the most of it.

Urban Myths and Mich Lights

She told me dozens of times, the colored yarn twined between her fingers, crochet hook zipping up and down...."How you bring in the New Year is how you spend the year"....fingers flying, eyes down.

I laughed.

Smudged out another cigarette, and told more stories.

She meant it.

I brought it in upside down, sideways, sound asleep. I burned up the old year, sent it ashes to ashes into the wind in the middle of the tiny paved street. I buried it in the back yard, stuffed it in a suitcase and set it out for the garbage man. I danced to Stones. Danced with fossils. Danced by myself. I made resolutions, promises, threats to an empty sky. I cha-chinged it, cheered it, clinked it, feared it. I tried it everyway but right.

And then I put on my cowboy boots and that damned dress I had to have and sashayed it right in through the kitchen door...

Sometimes you've gotta put on your kickers to get that dust off of your petticoat....