Just a little short piece I’ve been toying with… want to thank Donna and Ms. Foo for giving it a quick once over.

The closed-mouth man wore a sign around his neck that read “The Great Orator”. Not one of the village’s inhabitants knew exactly what an orator was but the goat trader from across the river said it meant the old man was a teller of tales or a speaker of news. The villagers never actually believed the goat trader; he was well known as an exaggerator, he sold weak and watery goat’s milk and, for certain, he came from across the river. Besides that, no one in the village had ever heard a single word out of the old orator’s mouth, neither from news nor tales.

When the butcher’s wife brought him his afternoon meal, she never heard an offer of thanks. If, during the winter, the snow climbed up and piled above his wrinkled grey head he made no complaint. It was always, from day to day and year to year, complete and constant silence.

Even with his still and quiet existence, the villagers did as they could to include the old man in their daily lives. During the spring celebrations, the young girls worked his matted hair free and loose to braid fresh flowers into the colorless strands. Summer would bring the young men with the face paint and roars. They would share their colors with him, drawing angry stripes of black and red across his forehead and down his cheeks.

Mothers brought their newborns to him for mute blessings and gamblers rubbed his head for luck before a game of dice. The local drunks kept him company on cold nights and shared both their drink and their misery with him.

Through it all, though, he said nothing.

Of course, one day the old man died as old men do. The butcher’s wife was at his side cleaning his scraps. She swore later the man opened his mouth and mumbled something far too soft to be heard. Then he slumped into his dinner plate dead as stone. The butcher beat her for the lie that night and on any other night she tried to peddle the tale. The butcher never tolerated a liar and everyone in the village knew that The Great Orator had never, ever said a word.

I’m not sure how many really important things I learned in high school. Most of the things I needed to know, I picked up before or after those long and annoying four year. Which makes the things I did learn there stand out. One such stand-out lesson I learned in my U.S. History class and it’s one I am never likely to forget.

I can’t recall teh name of the teacher. He was black and had a great story about the Korean war, but other than that I can’t remember much about him. (Shows how much the midn goes as I had to take his class twice.)

Anyway, we were given an assignment early in the year. Two small groups of us were picked and each group was to make a presentation to the class. My side would try and convince the class that the American Colonies should stay under British rule. The other side would try and convince the class to revolt against England.

The two teams were made up of four studens and while I don’t know who else was on my team, I remeber that the Americans were led by Jeff Colar. Jeff was one of the guys I put in the smart group and I knew that my team was in for a challenge.

Now, normally, I didn’t go in for class assingments and homework, but I enjoyed that type of things and really got into it. My team and I dug in and did research and when teh time came to make our presentation, we were pretty well convinced that the win was in our hands.

Heck, to this dayI still think the U.S. should’ve stayed with England. Our argument was well reasoned, supported and eloquent. We were brilliant and when we stepped down to let Jeff and his guys take the podium, I know I smirked. “Fuck you buddy. You just got it handed to you,” was my thought.

Now, I’m not 10% certain it wnet down like this, but in my head I see Jeff step up to the front of the class. He looks down at his notes, shuffles his papers, and looks out at us. He pauses for a moment and then tosses his hands up in the air and shouts “England Sucks!!!”

The whole class erupts into shouts and cheers and whoops.

I don’t think my side got one single vote. England Sucks? We lost every person in the class on those two words.

So, now I remember that. I remember it when peopple want to argue politics or religion or any other hot button issue.

Sometimes, well thought out arguments are nothing more than a waste of time.

Time better spent cutting class, chasing girls and smoking in the parking lot.

Till next time, fight fans.

Just keeping up as I am making Laurie write 300 words a day and am trying to be the example. So, I will be posting some of the short stuff I write during the day.

Pick Your Poison

The old man smiled. “You are dying,” he said.

The younger man pushed back from the table and nodded. “Been that way for a while now. Nothing new there.”

Reaching into his bag, the old man pulled out two small, corked vials and a shot glass. He placed them onto the center of the table. “Does it hurt much?” he asked, clicking the glass of the intricate red vial with his finger. Picking it up quickly, he held it to the light and checked the level. “It seems like it would hurt.”

The man shrugged. “It does sometimes. Don’t think anyone ever suggested dying was pleasant.”

“Some have said it might be considered a relief.” The vial was returned to it’s place.

Laughing the young man rocked in his chair. “That has been suggested.” The laugh died and he sat the chair flat on the ground and closed his eyes. “Be lying if I said I wasn’t exhausted.”

The old man reached out and placed an index finger on the stopper of each vial. “There are remedies,” he said.

“For the exhaustion or for the dying?”

It was the old man’s turn to laugh. It was a soft chuckling sound escaping from the back of his throat and was all the answer he offered.

Leaning forward, the younger man pointed to the thin blue bottle with the swirling design along its base. “Right, I’ll play, then. What’s this one do?”

“It will probably kill you.”

“Ha! Well, that makes it easy. I’ll take the red one.”

The old man shook his head. “That one kills you too.”

“So, the cure kills me? Doesn’t sound like the best way to go.”

“It keeps you from dying from your current troubles.”

That made the younger man smirk. “Well, that’s something then.” He paused and took a deep breath, considering. “Maybe I will take a little of both, get the whole thing over twice as fast.”

Both vials were immediately returned to the old man’s bag. The shot glass left in the center of the table, forgotten. “Rules. You do not get both. Though, together… taken together, maybe you live.” The old man stood up and tucked the bag under his arm.

“So, I’m just going to die. Can’t have the cure unless it’s the cure that kills me. I’m just going to die.”

The old man turned to leave, answering on his way out the door.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Lordy, who are these people without cars? There is an old East Indian lady sleeping peacefully and a heavy set black lady making some kind of party favors out of ribbons. There are a few folks working on laptops and a lady reading a book. (The blurb on the back reads “For a Kick Ass Exorcist, It’s Still All About Staying Alive!” I am sure that it is all about staying alive for the rest of us too.) The guy across the isle is riffling through some papers that seem to be a presentation of some sort seems pretty intent on what he is doing.

All of them… why are they here and not in their cars? I mean, I figure the well dress Mexican fellow across the table from me with his nice computer and blackberry could afford a set of wheels, but then, maybe not.

Maybe he and the others just enjoy the ride. I mean, the mudflats of Alviso are stunningly brown and boring; Although, I don’t actually see anyone looking out the windows. It’s a nice day out and the graffiti covered freight cars on the sidetracks are, at the very least, mildly distracting.

Looking up, I see that the lady has put here ribbon project away and has covered herself up with a very large and very purple blanket. Her eyes are closed and she has a small annoyance gripping her face. She’s drifted of into an unpleasant looking nap.

We come into Fremont with a garbled announcement by someone. I think the fellow said something about the doors and “your baggage”. Fun times on the train. The platform looks really crowded and I figure that someone is going to want me to move over, but this train car seems to just swallow the crowd whole.

I’m reminded of that old elementary school math problem. We had 15 people in the car and one lady got off. A man with a yellow duffle bag got on with a lady in a green sweater. The rest went upstairs. How many people are now in my car? Ha!

I actually do like looking at the scenery along the train tracks now that we are out of Alviso. There is a sort of no-man’s-land along the tracks that belongs to kids, gang members, and the homeless. My buddies and I would have had all sorts of adventures here, in the twenty yards or so between the tracks and the real world.

The book lady and the guy across from me have fallen asleep. We’re leaving Freemont and moving into the Sunol canyon via a tunnel. It almost seems as if it’s a passage into a different world. The Silicon Valley turns into a tree filled wilderness with nothing but trees, bushes, and a creek between here and Pleasanton. Well, actually, if memory serves, there is a golf course right before the next stop, but what the hell.

When the guy across from me leaves (his ticket says “PLD” which has to be Pleasanton… don’t understand where the D comes from.) I am going to jump across to his seat. I have my back facing the direction we are moving, which is a mistake. I won’t do that tomorrow.

The man with the yellow duffle who climbed on in Freemont is now reading a rather large bible and mumbling on his cell phone. This seems odd to me, almost as if he just discovered something important in the old book that he never noticed before. I imagine him saying, “These Pharisees have me concerned” and I chuckle to myself. Pharisees are always up to stuff.

We are through Sunol now, coming up on the golf course. The hills are brown because winter is still not even close here. It looks like a tinderbox waiting to catch. The golf course is totally green; the rich folks from the hills wouldn’t accept anything else.

A guy in a leather jacket prepares to leave and people begin to shuffle stuff around. A lady, who is pretty large, two seat large in fact is watching “50 First Dates” on a portable DVD player. Funny, didn’t really notice this before, but there are a lot of large (read fat) people on the train. Not regular fat, but really big fat. At least the lady is drinking a Diet Pepsi.

I flop seats to face the right was as soon as the guy is gone. We lose more people than I can count but we gain an almost equal amount. A quick count shows a net gain of two and I get a smart looking elderly black woman across from me jotting down notes in a small pad. Wait, turns out to be a little sudoku book.

The Pleasanton to Livermore run is short, but it has that great dead zone just like Freemont.  The first of the trip has a large wall blocking off condos and I can see evidence of a clubhouse and a campfire. Cool.

I start to wish I was in my car and for a short moment, I think I don’t want to do this tomorrow. I tell myself I just spend $150 on a 10-day pass so I had better suck it up. Plus, I could also use the writing time, and I do hope to write more than this type of bullshit as I get used to the trip.

I start to get tired, which strikes me as cliché; sleeping on a train. I fight through it as I see a few signs of homeless folks outside as we sail through Liverore. We drop a few folks at the two stops and then begin the slog up the Altamont. Two more stops left, but still an hour or so to go with nothing but windmills, dry grass and my own boring thoughts for entertainment.

My thoughts turn to all the appliances I have seen along the train tracks. It seems excessive; I’ve seen refridgerators, stoves and dishwashers. There have been a lot of tires too. Haven’t seen the roads that someone would have had to take to dump these things and I doubt they’ve come off trains. I think it bears further investigation.

I doubt anyone is actually going to read any of this and if they do, they will probably regret it, but I want to get my 300 words out as an example to Laurie. She needs to jot down shit everyday. I should make her read the whole thing, although, I am almost done. We’re at the top of the Altamont. Makes it time to drop into Tracy, then Lathrop and then my 60-minute walk home. Yea!

As we slide out of the hills towards Tray, people from the top start to come downstairs. They are preparing to leave. I am going to have to look up top some time. I figure half the people on the train get off in Tracy with another large chunk at Lathrop. I don’t know what percentage of people ride all the way to Stockton, but I am not one of them. I am off at the next station so the notebook has to go away and I’m done. Tomorrow maybe real writing… we shall see.

Till tomorrow fight fans.

I was out walking. I met a girl, like I do. We chatted for a bit. At one point she asked, “What is it you do, anyway?”

Heh, what is it I do? It’s a funny question to me for many reasons. I do a lot of things. I do a few things well and usually like people to also think I do them well. Then there is the one thing I do, that I pretty much don’t care if any thinks I do well, cause, well, I do.

After this chat with the lady, I started thinking, that some folks know what I do. Some folks don’t.

So, for the next few days, I shall show you what it is that I do.

* * *

It’s Poetry, Innit?

By

~Me

I don’t know how I found that little store. It was tucked away into a forgotten corner of the city. In fact, truth to tell, I’ve not been able to find it since that day; the day I needed a birthday present for my wife.

It’s been a couple of years, but I still remember the curiosity I felt when I looked up at the sign hanging above the door. Its bold and clumsy lettering read:

All I am: A Collection of a Lifetime

There was no display window but a small board hung on the door. With a heavy black ink  it welcomed me in with a simple declarative “OPEN”. I twisted the knob and pushed myself inside.

If claustrophobia were one of my issues, I most likely would have fled for the outdoors without a moment’s hesitation. The shop, if one could really call it that, was a shrine to clutter with piles of nick-knacks, junk, and various other do-dads pushing against the ceiling. A very narrow passage way made a valley between the mountains of miscellany running through the center of the place and I also noticed that there were two even narrower paths cutting off to my left and to my right. I reached over a grabbed a book off one of the piles and examine the spine. In a dull gold it read “Don Quixote Part II”. It wasn’t something my wife would be at all interested in, so I put it back and started to move deeper into the valley.

From somewhere in front of me, I heard voices. There were actually two voices, in fact, with one sounding like a small child and another belonging to an old man.

“Hello?” I called out and received an immediate response.

“Take the first left past the pile of Bat-mobiles. You’ll find me,” the old man replied. “If you get to the boxes of stuffed penguins, you’ve gone too far.”

I stumbled through, past the piles of newspapers and bags of what looked like old marbles until I find what was perhaps the largest pile of Bat-mobiles I had ever seen. Well, of course, it really was the only pile of Bat-mobiles I had ever seen, but it was very large. Regardless of the pile, just as the old man had explained, there was a path heading off too the left between two slopes of old and broken bicycles. It was a tight squeeze but finally I emerged into a relatively open area. There, behind an ancient wood counter was the old man. He grinned at me as he leaned on a cash register that must have been 150 years old.

“Welcome, welcome.” He said. “We welcome him, don’t we Flavius?”

An animalistic grunt grabbed my attention and I looked up to see, inside an overly large brass birdcage, a small monkey wearing what appeared to be a mini Roman centurion outfit.

“Is that a…” I started to ask but the old man cut me off.

“He’s just a silly creature. Thinks I’m his nephew, he does. Never mind him though, I think. It’s you the one what needs looking after, I think.”

I couldn’t get an exact read on how old the shopkeeper was, but if he was under 80 I would be shocked. His hair, which flowed well past his shoulders what shock white and while his beard was clean and short, it also lacked any sort of color. It was the exact opposite with his eyes. At first they seemed brown, but they seemed to shift right in front of me to a soft shade grey. He was odd-looking sort of fellow; he was just an odd fellow.

“I’m looking for a gift for my wife. It’s her birthday today and I completely forgot.”

A few teeth were missing from the smile he flashed me. “It’s a common mistake, it is. Made it a few hundred times myself, I did. Course, she’s gone and dead now and isn’t asking for much these days.” He let out a long wheezing laugh and since it seemed the polite thing to do, I joined him.

When he finally caught his breath, he wiped his eyes and asked, “What do you think she’s looking for, this wife of yours?”

I hadn’t really given it any thought. I often didn’t. What with work and the pressures of just getting through the day, I wasn’t really certain what she wanted for her birthday.

“She likes to read.” I said.

“Bah, for her birthday you get her a book? For her birthday it should shine. It should sparkle, is what it should do. Grand gestures are for birthdays, I would say.”

“Well, she doesn’t really wear that much jewelry.”

The old man reached up to the top of his head and gave his scalp a good scratch. “Does she have a spot? A place she puts what she likes?”

I thought about. The shelves and the cabinets and the top of the entertainment center had little things on them.

“She likes these little glass balls,” I threw out to him, not really sure of the statement and it probably sounded like a question.

The shopkeeper looked up towards Flavius and said, “Little. Glass. Balls.” He closed his eyes and nodded. Flavius just grunted. His eyes snapped open and he darted out from behind the counter.

“I think I have exactly what you are looking for, I think,” he said as he grabbed my arm and started pulling me down one of the narrow paths that led from the counter.

We passed piles of thumbtacks and a heap of cassette tapes as we threaded our way through the store. His grip on my arm never faltered as he pointed out the highlights of his stock.

“Fine hats there. Took a fine lady to the Derby in one of them hats, I did.” We twisted around a grouping of colored glass vases to face a wall of stuffed bears, Teddy and otherwise. “Bears,” he said simply and nodded.

Finally, after I couldn’t tell how many switchbacks and turnarounds we had made, the two of us were standing in front of a fine old wooden display case. The glass had long been removed but the shopkeeper didn’t seem to be bothered by it, so I wasn’t.

He let go of my arm and reached up and removed a small round object. Placing it close to his ear his smiled.  “I remember this day. It was before she died. She sang a soft song from home.”

It slipped from his hand into mine. I raised it up to listen and was stunned at the sound that filled my ear. It was both beautiful and sad, this voice singing in a language I couldn’t understand. I was filled with a longing for better days.

“Thirty dollars and it’s yours,” he said.

I frowned and handed it back to him. “It’s a lovely sound, but I was thinking of something a bit more, uh, a bit more.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed spinning and setting the singing orb back in its spot. He started poking into holes and checking shelves. “What you need is something elegant and simple, is what you need,” he said. “What you need is one of these.”

Another glass orb was placed into my hand and I felt it vibrate slightly. It felt warm and as I brought it up to my ear the shopkeeper shook his head.

“No, no, no. It’s a looker that one is.”

I held the glass up to the light that was seemingly coming in from nowhere and saw what looked like a small child playing with his mother. The two of them looked so happy and content that I actually thought I could almost feel the love between them. Something I had never known.

“That’s a nice one, innit? Not for selling though, no. That one would be requiring a bit of a trade. Something of you and your mother, perhaps, I think.”

“My mom?” I replied, not grasping why he wanted to bring her up. “My mom died when I was two. Never really knew her.”

The old man snatched the ball from my hand with youthful speed. “Shame that, but then you’ll be needing something else.” He returned the mother and son ball to the shelf and started searching again.

“I did rather like that.”

“Yes, yes. Of course you did, but it’s not for you, is it? We’ll find something here, we will.”

I reached up and grabbed a blue tinted ball that was sitting just off the left of me. The color was both soothing and troubling at the same time. It was warmer than the last one, but it also didn’t vibrate. Looking deep into the swirling hues I could just make out two young people, a boy and a girl, sitting on a small red brick platform of sorts. They were smiling and holding hands, unaware that there was anything else going on around them. It was innocence and passion conflicting with each other in the way only young love is capable of doing.

“What’s this one?” I asked.

The old man looked over his shoulder and then slowly stood straight and turned towards me.

He grinned soft, showing little teeth. “It’s poetry, innit?”

“How’s that?” I replied, still drawn into the scene of those two kids sitting there enjoying their youth.

“They don’t know. They don’t care. It’s all before them and yet all they can see is themselves and each other.” He walked over to me. “Those two are everything that life offers and nothing that life actually gives, yet, there,” he pointed to the orb that sat in my hand, “there, in that moment, in that short brief intersection of time and space, there, they are poetry.”

I watched as the boy kissed the girl and they embraced like adults shortly before exploding into the laughter of children. He was right. It was poetry.

“How much for it?” I asked.

The old man shook his head and said, “That one, that one is not for sale, its not. That’s one of my treasures. That one…” he paused and looked off into nothing. His grey eyes lost focus for a brief happy moment and then he looked back to me. “That one I wouldn’t trade for the world, I wouldn’t.”

I nodded and placed it back on the shelf reluctantly.

“You don’t have the world to trade, do you?” the old man asked me and I shook me head no.

“A shame,” he replied. “I could offer you such a deal for it, I could. But, how about this? This one is nice, it is.”

I  spent another hour in that shop before I found myself standing out in front with a beautiful glass ball with two lovers walking in the snow. I traded something for it, but I don’t really recall what it was. My wife loved it and it sits on the entertainment center in my front room.

It really was a very nice gift. One of her favorites, but, you know, it really wasn’t poetry.

I have said this before but it sure bears repeating… “Don’t fuck with the California Franchise Tax Board.” Heh. Seriously, they don’t play around.

I owned a small little store. Sold comic books. It was both the most enjoyable satisfying thing I’ve ever done as well as the most terrifying, life destroying thing. I ended up losing $150k of my money and $75k of my buddy’s money. (And my buddy is like Scrooge McDuck. He loves his money.)

I was about an inch away from losing everything. I am still being sued by a few folks who I owe a few grand to, but the worst, by far, is the State of California.

I owe them $6k from some misappropriated sales tax. Now, they have been trying to get the money from me and to be blunt, I just don’t have it. They don’t seem to care, though. They’ve taken money straight out of my bank account…. hence, I don’t have a bank account anymore.

They went after my buddy and started taking money out of his paycheck. Which I am now paying him back cause the state doesn’t want to acknowledge the piece of paper saying that he wasn’t my partner when the debt was incurred.

Now, they have just done the same thing to me. 25% of my check. So, I am thinking of telling my boss to lay me off and go on unemployment, cause honestly, I think at this point I would get more money that way.

It’s stunning really. I made a deal with a guy. The account is being paid $240 a month. Then they break the deal and move my account to Salinas where I can’t just drive out there to see anyone. I mean, I am not Al Capone. It’s $6k and it’s dropping every month. I suppose it is easier to get the $6k from me than to go after the folks with a lot of money that can afford those lawyers on TV. I saw a guy last night saying, “She saved me $250k.”  Well, crap.

Till tomorrow fight fans.

So, I was just reading a note that a guy I went to High School wrote to another friend of mine.  He said that he “will not let thoughts of food control him.” I wish him the best of luck, but it brings to mind some stuff that I’ve been tossing over in my mind and since I need to knock something out this morning, it’s as good a topic as anything.

Obviously the food isn’t doing any sort of controlling. It’s a method of speech. It’s those damn brains of ours that do the controlling. Somehow the brain is sending out the commands to eat.

After I quit smoking, which my brain is still pissed off at me for, I found myself grazing. Just walk through the kitchen and grab whatever I saw and pop it in my mouth. All day long. I’m in the car 2 hours minimum on the way home. I used to get a few cheeseburgers for the drive. Just sitting them on the seat and munching as I tooled on down the road.

Recently, though, I’ve stumbled onto a little theory. With the return of my muse and the absurd behavior of a friend, I’ve decided that the brain is supposed to take my orders, not the other way around. I’m not going to let subconscious drives run me. (Or I am going to try. LOL. I have so many personality disorders that I can’t deal with all of them at once.)

I know it sounds silly. Taking control of your brain, but it’s the only way I can think of how to describe it. I’ve told my brain it is going to like Green Tea. It’s learning. I’ve told it is going to stop looking at food as anything other than fuel. It’s learning. I told it to like mushrooms… it drew the line at that point. Told me not to get cocky.

I guess all I am really saying is that we are smarter than our brains and it’s time we knocked it around and showed it who’s boss.

Till tomorrow fight fans.

So, I am going to climb Mt. Shasta. I was sitting around complaining about how exercise is  so amazingly boring and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to do jumping jacks. No, if I was going to have to do physical activity it was damn well going to be in pursuit of something.

I see these exercise tapes and programs and DVD infomercials telling folks that they have the secret to getting in shape. And you know, maybe they do. Whether or not they have the secret of the ages, it still equals boring. With my A.D.D. I don’t do boring very well, as I know most of you already know.

The thing is, we really already know how to stay in shape. We’ve known since we started to walk. Humans stay in shape by having fun. When we were kids, we were out in the parks and in the creeks. We were chasing each other and we were hiding and seeking.

I don’t do to much playing in the park anymore and I haven’t ran down a creek in decades.

So, I have made a conscious effort to not exercise, but to have some fun. In doing so, I’ve decided I am going to climb Mt. Shasta. It’s a bit over 14,000 feet and a two day trip. Only 1/3 of the people that try to reach the summit make it. The other 2/3 give up either from the altitude kicking their bottoms or they have just found that it’s too hard. (Shasta doesn’t need ropes to summit. It is really just a 7 mile very steep hike.) I’m not going to be one of those people that doesn’t make it.

Which means, I am walking every night. I hit four miles last night and I hope by the end of this coming week to be at 4 miles inside an hour. And see,the only way I can tolerate this is that I am not doing it to get in shape. I am not walking for the sake of my heart or that damn cholesterol. Nope, I am walking to climb that mountain and it makes all the difference in the world.

See you at the top fight fans.

I have a serious issue with being focused. For the most part, I have to be doing three or four things at the same time. As an example, as I am writing this, I have two emails that I am responding to, a chart that I am editing, two war games that I am planning moves for, as well as trying to save a portion of my brain to solve a Tax issue while still trying to figure out the biggest puzzle of my life.

Not bad for ten to six in the A.M. but I tend to take forever to get anything done.

Then of course, I also have the opposite problem. I also will get what the experts call “Hyper-focused”. It’s where I spend the majority of my brain power concentrating on a single topic. The most recent bout of this is counting calories of what I eat. I am researching and making spread sheets and it gets crazy… of course, I really do my best to keep this to myself. (Except when I write 300 words on it and post it on the internet.)

These things usually last a few months, where I find it very difficult to place importance to anything other than the issue I am obsessing about. Although, I am hoping that the more I understand it, the better I can work around it.

Now, these two traits seem to be in direct conflict with each other but they coexist pretty peacefully inside me. I like to think that after 40 years of being me, I have learned how to be me pretty well.

I do wish things were a bit different and I am trying to improve. Be a little more focused on most things and less focused on those things that engulf me, but it’s not easy.

Then again, no one ever said it was going to be.

Okay, fight fans, weekend is coming and we shall see what we see, won’t we.

I am going to leave the names out of this because those involved didn’t say it was alright for me to talk about this, but it’s a memory that has just come to the surface and, well, I do need 300 words.

I’ve always broken time up into segments framed by the women I was involved with. I look back and say, “Oh, that was when I was with so-and-so.” (Ha!… I just got a shiver of fear referring to them as ‘so-and-so’. That is probably going to bite me later.) But, it all really started with that one girl back in the early spring of 1981. She was generally considered the hottest girls in school. Just amazingly cute and  she was, as far as us young punks were concerned, all grown up.  I’ve often wondered if that was a bother for her cause I can see how having the entire male population drooling every time you walked by could be a pain.

Anyway, there was a dance at school and I want to think it was in late February or early April. She kissed me at a dance. It was a real kiss and it was the single greatest thing that had happened to me since I learned I was smarter than my dad. She smelled wonderful, she was soft and warm and just… well, perfect.

I still get teased by my best friend Pat about the bounce in my walk when I came out of the dance with my arm around her. I must have been floating and glowing.

And, as thirteen year old boys often do, I screwed the whole thing up the next day. I was still very much a kid. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with a girlfriend. She seemed to have no interest in what I did: throwing rocks, flipping quarters, talking about the latest issue of X-men. I had no interest in sitting around holding hands. She tolerated my nonsense for a few weeks and then her friend, a complete hurricane of a girl yelled at me and broke up with me. Man, that makes me laugh.

I’ve always been embarrassed by my behavior even though I realize I was a child. The embarrassment kept me from ever really getting to know her as I got older. I never wanted to give her a chance to mention what a dork I was in front of my buddies. I regret that now but really, who teaches you how to deal with this kind of thing?

Anyhow, I did eventually learn how you were supposed to behave around girls. I totally got to second base with a little blonde girl the following spring during Easter vacation and the rest is history.

But, that first kiss… that great memory… even the embarrassment of being a total dork… guess all I can really say is thanks. So, hey, if you actually read this, “Thanks!!”

Till tomorrow fight fans.