Close your eyes....

I can vividly remember the first night...

They sipped pink champagne in long fluted glasses and in between the vinyl grooves, they set their drinks on the mahongony table...

And it left rings in the morning....

She swirled and twirled to Ray Charles, Bobby Vinton, Louis Armstrong, Chubby Checkers, The Tijuana Brass....and just for fun...The Grasshoppers....He dipped, and spun....and laughed....

I sat on the couch and watched. Long gangly legs in a pink velvet dress and blonde bangs chopped off to match my Barbie Doll. Kimbies and I had to be very, very quiet, or we had to go to bed....

I barely breathed.

On the blue carpeted floor, they shimmied and watootsied and "Love potioned Number 9'd" each other.....

And then I grew up....

I went to first grade, and fifth, and senior prom. I fell in love and out of love. And got married. And divorced. I raised my babies. I danced on coffee tables, balconies....and beaches. I danced in empty bars, at concerts, in traffic, and in the kitchen....

But I never forgot...
they might have, but I didn't...

The magic of that night...

Of them closing their eyes and feeling the music....

I believe in Magic...

Ballad to Bobby Brown....

I saw you there. Inside out and backwards. 17 or 21, ID flicked, flipped, flashed.... you were a natural. I've imagined a million times what you would look like, walk like, talk like ten years, twenty, a lifetime from now. And then I saw you. In yesterday.

Toothy grin, crooked and upward, my favorite "I just had a shot" smile...Skinny legs, jeans too short, but frayed, worn, loved..."In case I meet a hippie".....Mind racing, writing Country Top 10 songs on legal pads, eyes dancing....rock and roll and punk...strobe lights flashing.....And that f'n grin....that gun it grin...race, tumble, roll....Gun it, grin...

I don't dream about you anymore. Wonder what you're doing. Tink you. But I miss you. And I saw you in yesterday. 20 years younger. Before you were you. And just so you know, I laughed....And danced ....

And when I came home,
jeans crumpled in a pile,
key in the door,
memories plopped on the kitchen counter,
I slept....
and thanked God I wasn't there in the beginning....

but was there for the end....

Deja Vue...

You can't make me.....

We caravaned. Met up in the Valet parking lot, squishing in between the "reserved-for VIPs"....and flip flopped up the deck to The Crab House. Oh, Man, what a beautiful day for Peace Out, coconut shrimp, french dip, and ice cold beer in a bucket. Me and three of my new best friends. I know, I know, I know, you've heard it before.....

But there we were. Instant friends. Old friends. With very short pasts. And a lotta catchin' up to do. 99 beers on the wall later, we had laughed ourselves silly, solved world hunger and been on a peace march. We had confessed, professed, dared, bribed, danced,harmonized throughHello Dolly in our best Joe Cocker voices, and scooched in closer for the punch line...

"But what if"?

"What if you won, fell into, stumbled on a gazillion dollars?"

Skipping the lengthy four-fold conversation we had about charity, clarity, responsibility and all that hoo~hah ....what it all boiled down to was this...

"But isn't it all relative? Wouldn't a blue lagoon with cascading fountains and towering palms be the same to you as a millionaire as your little vinyl pool was to you last summer?"

"Ummmm. No."

I chewed on a piece of celery. Dipped it and swirled it in bleu cheese. Chewed again.

Behind their Foster Grants I could sense their eyes rollin'......

"Lemme tell you about my little blue pool......"














When we caravaned out of the parking lot,
sunkissed and dreamy,
beerbattered and fed,
there were four make-believe millionaires dreaming about blow up pools.....

and smiling......

Pajama Day!

It's raining. That thick, delicious, syrupy kind of rain. The world, as far as I can see, has been draped in one giant cottonelle sheet. For a moment, I think I'm a bird, and the giant hand of God has tossed a towel over the cage to slow us all down. I'm listenin' to the man. Staying in my pajamas all day.

I open all the windows and the morning wetness settles in, a free spirited ghost drifting through the windows. I like it. There is no sign of the Saturday morning sun. The moon has been showing her up lately.....the eclipse a strip tease act that left us breathless in the streets....and last night, the glowing, all knowing mischievious face in the sky.....the full moon rising. And now this, the sun hiding, sleeping in late, staying in her pajamas all day.

I'm rewriting my life today. Starting where I left off, except someone hit the rewind button, and things are all happening in deja vue. The same lines. The same stories. The same meant to be's playing over again in slow motion, only this time I get to pick which ending I like. The butterfly effect. Clink!

Whachoo talkin' 'bout?

I once dated , fell in love actually, with a man, who spoke seven languages. All of them fluently. Except mine.

He knew more three syllable, four, even five syllable English words than I did. It was what we heard that made us stumble.

We met in the drive through teller lane. Me, twirling my hair, blasting rock in roll in the five o’clock lane, and him passing out doggie treats ,receipts, and lollipops through the vacuumed canister. He was working his way through school. I was doing the nine to five. On overtime.

We went out for dinner.

Followed each other.

Me with a diapered Haley in tow. Him, with his broody eyes, listen-to-me-lips, and that accent. Every word musty, ending with a curly que. I fell hard.

On the Tuesday before Valentine’s day he called and said we would probably go out on Friday. Probably go to the Club on the River, dine and dance. I told him I probably wouldn’t be there when he arrived.

I hired a babysitter and got dressed. Turned on the outside lights. Sat in the Gray Grand Am and put the car in reverse every time I saw a pair of headlights. He was five minutes late and just caught me backing over the little rock garden at the mail box.

He was beaming and I was fuming. We rode to the River in silence, me twirling my hair, and him humming to the crackly music on the radio. His knees fidgeting. Cold I guessed. I couldn’t have cared less.

A block from the restaurant he pulled over. Pulled a thorned wild rose out from his shirt. “Jesus, could you just smile so I can give this to you?” he whispered. “It’s Valentine’s Day…..”…..
“Well, I could smile” I started to blabber, "but hell, you were only probably coming to get me, and I might have probably had plans, and I really don’t know how you probably caught me in the drive-way, because I totally wasn’t going to only probably be your Valentine!”

And suddenly we knew, " probably” was “definitely” in his world, and “if you only knew” in mine and that if we were ever going to understand each other, we couldn’t assume we did. We had to ask….

Deja Vue…..

Pleased to meet you....

Last Sunday I was estatically catatonic. Worn slap silly out from friday night dancin' and camping out with the little ones, playing hippie hoo-hah, and chasing stars. It was wonderful. I was punch drunk, giddy from exhaustion. I fell into bed on Sunday, racing the Sun to be the first to fall, and slept a glorious full 8 hours.

In those eight hours my life changed. I woke up rested, rejuvenated, full of love, and charged out the Monday Morning door. Cranked the car, blasted the music and joined the ratrace. And then I saw it. The orange glowing lights changing. Flickering. The clock in my car suddenly working again. It's been stuck on Midnight, the moment between yesterday and tomorrow since June. And so have I.

Other chics have biological clocks. I have a car clock. And Monday the alarm went off.

Ta! Dah! Sometimes, it's all in the timing...

The Highway Man

“Are you a transient?” I asked, leaning in…..laughing…..

“No, no, I just moved here…” the words spilled out of his Saturday night smile.

I asked to see his driver’s license. You never know. “Hmmmmmmm….” I toyed with it for a moment, scanning the picture for tattle-tales…. “Yeah., it looks like you”….smiling at the obvious tourist, with his polished deck shoes and button down shirt. I slid the laminated ID, face down, into his hand…..and he casually tucked it into his wallet, next to the pictures of his other world. Upside down.

That was a zillion years ago.....

Peace~love, baby.


Everything in between is a roadtrip......

Trainwrecks and other truths....

Two likened souls in the last place on earth you'd ever go....

I leaned in.

And then fell.

Suspended, for a moment in laughter...tumbling face first into... "Nice to meet you's"....

And it seems like a million years ago that we first met, flirting with fate...
Daring Mother Nature, the world at large, and our own demons to stop us. No one did.

We've driven thousands of wreckless miles chasing a fickle sun. Danced in the kitchen, on the sidewalks, in darkened corners, and under neon lights. Laughed until we were snot-nosed and wet faced and laughed again. We've traded dirty little stories for "I've never told anyone this before" secrets....the recanting tumbling out in a language perhaps only we understand. We've dreamed and pretended and smacked each other around with the truth.

We've been to the Fair and back.

Riding rickety roller coasters with broken tracks, the clickety clack of the wooden climb, an atom bomb tick-tocking at our backs. And made it to the top, again and again..
free to fall fast,
eyes closed,
into the crash.
Laughing.

Rocking the flimsy ferris wheel chariot, long arms and legs dangling mid-sky.
Rattling the safety-bar.
Laughing.

Chugging mid-way beers with the carnies, the locals, the drifters, the tourists.
Our kind of people.
All kinds of people.
Laughing

Falling through mirrors.
Laughing.


It's been a helluva ride...

Slammed....

It’s just a crooked screen door. Kind of Florida-like, kind of Victorian, kind of 50ish. One of those. It’s the rusty hinges that do me. The cheap haunted house sound they make. The way they pro-create their own tainted WD40, oozing like dirty glue, dripping down the door frame.

The hinges. My doorbell. My pit bull. The way I know if my next door neighbor, Maggie, is ready for coffee…sneaking over in her pajamas on Saturday morning ,hangover plastered on her face….if my Father has lumbered up the drive-way , "The beer-garden-fairy", on Friday afternoon, to have his “dearest darling daughter” chat, if my son has successfully stumbled past the benches and made it as far as the screened porch to make bodily noises and expel his Friday night at my feet. But, made it home Alive.

It’s the way I know if the mailman, who has had a crush on me since 1999, has left a package from SLB, loitering if he thinks I’m at home. The way I know if Daniel got my cut-off notices in his mailbox again, and is slipping them discretely onto the outdoor coffee table.

It’s the announcement.

Anyone that rings the real doorbell, stands on the front porch, and leans past the wasp nests, through the bouganvilla,to put their dirty little fingers on the front door button, is a stranger. God, I hate that sound. The ringy ding screams trouble. On the other side of that noise stand cops, Religious witnesses, pizza deliveries to the wrong address, men in uniforms selling fertilizer, frozen steaks, and serving subpoenas. I have furniture piled up in front of that door. Even in a fire, we’d have to run out the kitchen door, couldn’t be saved by the sound of the saving grace. We don’t do the front door. It’s the screen door that spells welcome. The screen door that is dressed in an old piece of oak, carved by Skinny , that says “This house believes…”, the screen door that I slam when I’m having a hissy fit, that I flit in and out of, creaking, squeaking, slamming…..

God, I love the noise we make

When we’re not strangers……

When Harry met “I can’t remember her name”….

There’s a little club in our neighborhood kind of like Cheers, only better….because it’s real. Passers-by would never think to stop there. It’s not aesthetically appealing from the curb. You have to cross the dirty gravel parking lot, trudge up the make-shift-dipping-deck-entry -“sit here and sober up”-patio and actually open the door to appreciate it’s appeal. You have to see the faces. Learn the names. Join the crowd.

And then it’s a blast.

In my world, nobody’s a stranger. Linda says men only murder on Mondays, so if a new face bops up to the bar on a Friday night, it’s safe to be the welcome wagon. It’s not my official job, but I take it seriously. I’ve met a lot of friends that way. And only a few creeps. Either way, most of them come back again.

I didn’t see him come through the door, but Chey did. He was on a mission. Probably his first time….meeting someone at a pre-determined “spot” at the bar, landing smack next to us. He zoomed up, leaned through the crowd , elbows on the bar and waited…..Jimbo, our favorite bartender-bouncer-keeper of peace, didn’t see him. He didn’t flash that “I’ll be right with you grin” and he didn’t, I noticed after a few minutes, even acknowledge him. Poor guy. He’s just thirsty. I nudged Chey. She nodded. I leaned over her, tapped the new kid on the block on the shoulder and asked if he was having trouble getting a beer. “I aaaammmmmm…” he drawled back at me. Grin. Cutest damn little accent I’ve ever heard. Chey and I chuck two coasters at Jimbo, he spins and thirty two seconds later our new friend has an iced cold Bud in his hand and is in leaning in for introductions. It’s loud here. A lotta rock and roll going on, but we talk over it. His name is Brian and he is new here. New in town. New to the club. New to our world. We scoop him up, with his baby blues ( I hear ya knockin’ Nadine!) and introduce him to every one that meanders by, drag him (well we really didn’t have to drag him) onto the dance floor and spend the evening telling stories and laughing. And dancing. And telling stories. And laughing.

We deja-vued it the next week-end. Same time. Same place. Different costumes. We had a ball. We topped it off with 2:00 a.m. coffee and get-to-know-you-late-night stories. We laughed.

And blah,blah,blah,blah,blah…..

We’re joy riding. Flying down a two lane highway, the top off, my arms in the air. In my world, I’m at the Fair. We’re laughing.

German potato salad. The waiter is polite. I crunch my nose. Waiting for the smell of vinegar to twist my face , the one he sees, into the KOOL-AID pitcher expression. Fake and smiling-grimacing. My Mama used to feed us this out of cans … on nights we ate salmon patties with tiny little bones floating in the greasy little bouffant blobs. I ate it all. I devoured it. And laughed.

On Tuesday he called to make plans for the week-end. And hemmed and hawed. And drug his accent out even more. He started back pedaling. To the night we met. And the moment we said hello. And all the people in the club. And how Howie called me Blondie, and Evey calls me Missy and Chey calls me Baby Girl and Sweetie Pie…..

I’m thinking he wants to call me names…

He sort of stutters.

I just want to know where we’re going on Friday night…..

And then he blurts it out. This man that I’ve danced with. Talked on the phone with. Swallowed German potato salad with…. This man I want to see on yet another Friday night.

“I don’t waaaaaannnnnnt you to be mad at me,
Buuuuuuuutt,
I don’t Knoooooowwww yer name…..”

FLASHDANCE (Or in other words, We're here to have a good time. Don't Blow It)

Sometimes you just have to accessorize to get the total look!

Big fat CD buttons pinned to our 501 levis.

My idea of charmed.