During the Summer of 1970…

…while my mom, sister and I were visiting her parents in Massachusetts, my mom decided it was time we learned how to swim. (I was comfortable in and  around water, but I didn’t know how to swim, which was apparently not good enough for any of the adult parties involved in this decision.)

The dashing gentlemen standing between us was Chad, our instructor.

There is a reason I’m covering my crotch with my hands. I wanted Chad in the worst way, even if at that point in my life I didn’t know how. I can’t tell you the number many times I’d come home from one of our lessons to shower off the remnants of Laurel Lake adhering to my skin, soap up and shoot a huge load down the drain after thinking about the guy.

(“Oh gurl…those socks with that shirt? Were you high?”)

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I Can Understand…

…how after seeing something like this people came up with the concept of Hell. It certainly does look like souls being dragged down into the fiery depths.

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63.

Today marks 63 trips around the sun for me. Honestly, I never thought I’d make it this long.

With friends dropping around me in the 80s and 90s, I often questioned whether or not I’d make it. I mean, my sexual history was anything but pristine, so my continued survival was not a given all things considered.

“And yet, she persisted.”

When I was in first grade, one night before I fell asleep I figured out how old I’d be in the year 2000. (My math skills were next to non existent at the time so I just counted off the years and my corresponding age.) When I arrived at the answer it seemed so old. As I grew, 2000—with visions of moon bases and manned missions to Jupiter always dancing in my head—always seemed so far off.

When 2000 dawned, I remember walking down Market Street on the way to work on New Year’s Day (because computers were expected to crash across the planet with the coming of the new year) and I thought, “So…this is what 2000 looks like. Not much different from 1999—or any other year for that matter.

What came after that imagined future I couldn’t even begin to comprehend if someone had told me. Cancer came out of left field three years later, but I had no doubt I would beat it into remission, and I did. My most recent PET scan a couple months ago remains all clear.

But now that we’re 21 years beyond 2000 I know that after everything the world has been through, this is not anything I could’ve remotely imagined; much less that there still would be no moon bases or manned missions to Jupiter—and that we’d still be dealing with the same racial crap we were in the 1960s.

The funny thing is, I now have this feeling that something—something big—is about to happen. Maybe it’s only because of all the shit Ben and I have gone through over the past six months and it’s the post-traumatic “waiting for the other shoe to drop” sensation. But is it going to be something good or bad? That’s unclear. All I know is as I enter my sixty-fourth year on this planet, we’re all due for something amazingly good to happen, both personally and collectively.

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I’m Ready for My Closeup, Mr. DeMille…

Amid everything else that went on over the past two weeks, on the day we said goodbye to Bobo I received a (previously scheduled) early birthday gift from Ben: a full detailing on Rabbit.

Ben had this done on his car about a month and a half ago and after watching way too many professional detailing videos on YouTube I was so impressed with what they’d done with his Soul that I told him I was going get mine done too. “How about I make it an early birthday present?” I was reluctant to agree because it was kinda pricey, but he just said “Shut up,” and made an appointment.

We were supposed to have this done the previous Saturday, but the shop was running behind and the owner offered to take a couple hundred off the cost and bump us up to the next level of service if we agreed to bring the car back later in the week. I mean, how could we say no?

I thought Rabbit was in pretty good condition when we took him in and wouldn’t actually look that much different when we got him back, but damn if he doesn’t just absolutely shimmer now. I know he got detailed before I bought him, but he didn’t look this good.

They even managed to get the unknown stain out of the driver’s seat that had been with the car since I first got it. And the interior smells so good now.














Gratuitous photo of a happy owner:

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Hey Monica…

…how about we have a little peek in your nightstand?

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Friday Before a Week Long Staycation

Nothing really planned for next week other than not logging into work! (To be followed by an expanded back-in-the-office schedule starting June 7th—but that’s a depressing thought best pushed off until that preceding Sunday night.)

On Thursday we may take a day-long road trip to north to drop off my Technics components to a guy in Prescott who is going to refurbish the innards (something long overdue). We’re going to take Sammy along because it’s been ages since he’s been in the car without the destination being something unpleasant for him. And let’s face it, after the past two weeks, we all need a getaway.

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