...Miss Head, if You're Nasty

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Random Thoughts

At the grocery store this weekend, I saw a dude in full biker regalia--leathers, American flag headscarf, steel-toed boots--in the pet aisle, carefully selecting 9-Lives flavors for his cat.

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Never tell your mother that you have a sexually transmitteed disease. Mostly because she will get drunk and tell her friends and your brother all about it one night before going to a party and discussing American Idol for three hours straight with her ex-husband.

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I love "The Paper" on MTV. I hardly ever watch the channel anymore, mostly because I've seen every Top Model marathon already and I hate those stupid Randy Jackson dance shows. But I love Amanda and hate Alex and...God! It is just like being back in high school! In a good way! Where I don't actually have to go back!

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I just pulled out my prom photos. My God, what was I thinking? Although the reality isn't as bad as the memory. I recall the dress being really short in the front and long in the back. It actually differs by about a foot, not the two-and-a-half-feet I recall. But the hair. The hair is so sad. I really did look like a soccer mom. I look younger now than I did then. And why didn't I wear heels? I look like a stumpy fool! And I'm 5'9"!

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Why is it that, once you get the phone with the slide-out keyboard, people stop texting?

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Possibility

Is there anything so full of promise as a warm spring evening in May? The sun starts to set. The streetlamps switch on, creating circles of light and life beneath them. The night ahead seems endless and awash in possibilities.

You could end up driving aimlessly, with the windows rolled down and the radio on full blast, driving to the beach with your two best friends, to end up sitting on rocks and watching the waves until dawn.

Or you could sit in front of the warm glow of the television, watching the last few minutes of the Steven King miniseries. Your friends tumble through the front door like puppies anxious for their first trip outside. "Time for the Peanut Barrel!" they cry.

You might sneak out of your house after your parents fall asleep, to meet a boy and drive down to the tennis courts to spend what simulatiously feels like days and minutes solving the world's problems.

A dance might be going on somewhere, where you dance with the guy you've had a crush on all year, before running off with your friends to laugh about it in the bathroom.

You might simply sit on your deck, watching the neighbors drive by, eavesdropping on their conversations, their personal dramas, peeking into their lives.

Or you might end up in an art gallery, listening to music and drinking wine, watching the world pass by outside. The the afternoon glow turns into dusk, then full dark, while the laughter of friends surrounds you.

On a warm evening in May, almost anything is possible.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Questions

Who are you people? Where do you come from? Do you live under a rock? Do you have no sense of common decency? Were you raised by wolves in a far Romanian forest, forced to eat raw meat and drink stagnant water? Are you not literate? Can you not function in modern-day society? Can you not interpret the international signal language, which tells us which bathroom is which and things not to do in public? Have you been imprisoned in an Austrian man's basement, forced to have sex with him and have his children for the past eighteen years and, as a result, remain ignorant of common social mores of the twenty-first century?

Does someone really have to sit down and tell you NOT TO TALK ON YOUR CELLPHONE DURING THE FIRST SHOT WE SEE OF IRON MAN FLYING AROUND LOS ANGELES, all of which I missed because I was so overcome with hate and anger directed toward you at such a degree I'm surprised you didn't immediately burst into flames and disintegrate?

And why do you always have to come sit next to me?

Friday, May 02, 2008

The Man at the End of the Bar

I've never been one for lust at first sight. Not really. Oh, there are guys, men, that I'll see and think, "Wow!" And then he'll straighten his cuffs in such a way that I realize that, in fact, he is gay and, therefore, handsome in a you'll-never-get-your-hands-on-this kind of way. Usually, the reason I find guys attractive is because they're funny and smart and don't look like Scotty Pippen, the ugliest man in America.

I met some friends for a drink last night at an upscale watering hole in town. I was really tired, beat down from a long week and an evening on the golf course. During which in rained. So, not only did I look a little bruised under the eyes, but my hair had seen better days. I bought a beer and sat down. Then he walked in.

He was beautiful. Simply beautiful. Brad-Pitt-knee-shakingly beautiful. Blond, curly hair pulled into a short ponytail. Tan. Golden beard--not like a Grizzly Adams beard. More like Don Johnson. He had the look I thought I got over in college. Apparently not.

He looked like he still had California sand between his toes. Like his skin would taste slightly of sea salt. He'd smell of limes and coconut and fresh breeze. He looked like Richard Branson, the guy who owns Virgin Atlantic, aspires to look. He looked like he had a tan line around his ankle, where he secured the line to his surfboard.

I don't know where he came from. I want to think he was drinking gin and tonics. He polished his silver with his napkin, making me think he worked in the business. He ordered pork tenderloin, I think, with fresh asparagus, and drank a glass of nice white wine with dinner. He had two earrings and a few string bracelets. He sat in such a way that the lamp in the parking lot behind him made his hair light up from behind, like a halo. Or a corona.

A woman came to join him. They knew each other but I don't think they were together. I thought about going to talk to him. And then I thought better of it. So I left.

I thought I'd learned to take a chance once in a while, but I guess I haven't quite gotten there yet.