...Miss Head, if You're Nasty

Friday, April 25, 2008

Best Darn Feeling in the Whole World

You don't know until just before it happens. You could be anywhere: a snowy street corner, a deck on a rainy fall evening, sitting on a couch in a dark basement, in a garage. There's tension. There's a...a look. And then, suddenly, you know it is coming.

That first kiss.

A first kiss with someone is always exciting, no matter how good or bad the person might be at doing the actual kissing part. The anticipation, really, is the thing. The wondering if...well, if you'll fit together, the way you thought you might. The figuring out which way to tilt. The surrepticious spitting out of gum when they aren't looking. Or swallowing it if they are. The reading of all of the non-verbal cues that tells you whether or not this...is actually going to happen.

I love first kisses. Frequently to the detriment of second kisses. I love thinking about whether they're going to happen with someone. Picturing how they might happen. Rerunning them in my mind. I can remember my first kiss ever. I even remember the date.

Eventually, however, you get to the point where, when you're seeing someone, there isn't any mystery as to whether or not their going to kiss you. And then some of that magic disappears.

Maybe that's why I'm still not married.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

A Good Dad Story

I'm trying to think of a good dad story to tell you. Something that would encapsulate the person that my dad was, show his good points and bad ones. Something involving Fritos and peanut butter, our favorite snack.

Like the time we went to Michigan for a football game and he told me the story of the guy drinking 20 pitchers of beer on his birthday, only to throw up in the 21st pitcher, then drink it.

Or the time we played in the amputee golf outing and I was just playing horrible. But I made the last, really long putt and he was so proud of me.

When I used to go down to the golf course on Saturday afternoons and I'd have a beer with him before we'd go out to play nine. Or when he'd coach my soccer team when I was little.

Or when I got the car stuck in a snow drift in high school and he came to dig me out? Then I ran into the same drift again and he swore like lightening? Or when I crashed my mom's car and ran home. He told her to get me a paper bag because I was hyperventilating. So she runs into the living room with...a grocery bag. And he and I just started laughing, hyperventilation cured.

When he left his keys in a Mexican hotel room.

When we'd randomly call his old friends from college and he'd make me ask for them on the phone.

When he came to my graduation in Vermont.

When he asked me on the phone after awaking from a coma if I still ate at Bambinelli's, somewhere we hadn't eaten in ten years or more.

When he gamely walked through Greece and Italy with no legs.

When I told him I'd bought several cases of beer on his Mobil card. And he was okay with it.

When he came home from the fire at his plant in Texas, with paint all over his college letterman's jacket. And when I got him a replacement, years later.

When he'd tell the story of how he lost his class ring and his fraternity pin.

When I thought Denny's was named after him.

I love you, Daddy.