What's a girl to do?

I don't know when it happened. It's been five months in the making, creeping, crawling, sneaking in.....and then walah!, I go to zip my jeans, (line dried, can't blame it on the heat!) and....ummm....for the first time in 36 years they don't fit! I'm suddenly there, courtesy of mid~life crises, a broken foot, and an obsessive compulsion to collect beer bottle caps. The pudge. The pinch an inch. This will never do! I live in Florida. We run around half naked, even when we're seventy. Flesh is a given. It's hot down here!



I moan. I don't cook. I don't clean. And I darn sure don't want to diet or exercise. Fridays are for dancing and other than that....I wanna dream. I spin in the mirror. Yup, got a fanny goin' on now, too! And pencil legs to hold it up! I cringe.



I lay on the floor and try to remember the 1-2-3's from my Cher Fitness Video.....Uggggghhh! I go to the fridge, take a cold one out and stare at it. I wonder how many calories are in this puppy. How many are in three? I pop the cap.



And decide I absolutely have to do something. I can't afford to buy new clothes. And then I remember.....yup! That's it.



I'm gonna get a new boyfriend. I need to dance in the kitchen again.



Wish me luck, friends,
And yeah,
peace and love......



Picture courtesy of the world wide web, www.hookedonvintage.com

Yes, Virginia......

I started. Don’t say a word. I know it’s early, but it just felt right. I plugged my little vintage fireplace in, with the crackling snapping tinsel twirling on a shish-ka-bob skewer, and hauled the tree onto the porch…..and then....Ta! Dah! Years of mardis gras beads dangle from her fronds, and tethered there, like winter wind chimes….our ornaments…..plaster molds of little hands, kindergarten pictures in macaroni frames, my Mama’s glass church…..ballet slippers, an American flag from Desert Storm, a slice from the trunk of my very ever first Christmas tree….coasters from the corner bar…the cork from "that" bottle of pink champagne...

It felt like Christmas today, so I stayed in my pajamas and sock feet and blasted CD’s and smiled. I emptied the Ho!Ho! Closet onto the hall floor and giggled. I wrapped and wrapped and wrapped. Laughing out loud in my empty house. The tradition continues, and like love, it grows…..

Pass the trash….

Shopping in my cupboards, my closets, my kitchen garbage can……

Time in a bottle rocket.....

Five: I have a new lunchbox and a thermos filled with Nestle Quick tucked under my desk. I can't stop thinking about it, all through Dick and Jane. We take turns stuttering through the pages. I daydream. Dick and Jane go to the candy store. I wanna go to the beach....and slurp my Nestle Quick through a straw, blow chocolate bubbles....

Eight: I'm dialing the radio station over and over again, on the rotary dial, shink,click,click,click,click....shink,click,click,click....shink......I'm going to win the red Batman Hotline, who wants this silly pink Cinderella thing? I don't win it. Mom buys me a pink batman sweatshirt instead.

Eleven: Ronnie stuffs the giant velveteen valentine in my construction paper heart. I pretend to faint. I want to shave my legs and let my bangs grow out. He gets suspended from school for having a Beatle haircut and his picture is on the front page of the newspaper. All the other girls faint.

Yesterday: I'm thirty two. In love for the first time, dancing in the kitchen to Fine Young Cannibals, clinking! with pink Champagne in dixie cups. Skinny, Persichetti and I are working for beers at the beach, parading around in macrame'ed swimsuits, reading palms and telling fortunes. The babies are beach bunnies, pink nosed and brown toed, naked from the waist up. And life is good....

This morning I wake up in a blur.....
On a moving sidewalk... slipping, sliding, speeding, flying.....
Yesterday, today, tomorrow, all clanging by, flash framed out the Amtrack window....

No wonder we had to change the clocks....the sun is setting and rising and rising and setting in a never ending circle.....
The contest.....

Who can be the first to reach the finish line......