Paperback Writer

He walked into my office like Rasputin entering a Hallmark Store - out of his element and out of his mind.

"Hello, Sam." His voice was the same husky whisper, like a 20 year old Scotch served on a velvet-lined tray. He was that smooth.

"Hello, Nicky," I said. I may have sounded cool and collected on the outside, but on the inside the bells were ringing a warning a deaf and blind man couldn't miss.

Nicky Maniboutoun had it all. Looks, money, charm, sex appeal. And he knew it. He could make a dame's knees buckle with a single "come and get it" glance. When I was a young gal, just starting out on the beat, I was as green as blue comes. I didn't know he was one of the wealthiest men in town, nor did I know that he was engaged to Roberta Illkikeras, Greek-American Shipping Heiress. I just knew that, back then, I could hold my own against the killer dames and I set my standard issue cap. I almost came up with the prize, too.

"I need your help, Sam," he breathed, crossing the room with languid steps and long legs.

My heart skipped a beat. Maybe two. Okay, maybe four, but no more than that. I played it cool. He couldn't see me sweat behind my knock-off cashmere.

He stopped at my desk and a frown creased his perfect fact. "Are you sweating?"

Damn!

"What do you need, Nicky? I'm a busy woman." I wasn't. In fact, business had been slow lately. I really could use the work, but he didn't need to know that.

"Roberta's missing," he almost sobbed. The man knew how to play me like a Strati - Strata - really good violin. "The police think I had something to do with her disappearance, but I didn't, Sam, I swear I didn't. I didn't know where else to go. You're the only one I knew who could help me."

Then I saw it. The little tic at the side of his kissable mouth. The one that always told me when he wasn't being entirely forthcoming.

"What are you keeping from me, Nicky," I asked as I opened the bottom drawer and pulled out two glasses - the kinds that people like me keep for moments like this.

"What makes you think I'm keeping something from you?" He was all wide-eyed innocence so I knew he was lying. But it looked good on him. Too good.

"It's me, Nicky," I poured something dark red and somewhat flavorful. "You know you can't hide things from me."

"Um..." he looked at the glass dubiously.

"What," I demanded. I might be poor but I'm not unkempt. "It's clean."

"It's Merlot," he said. "Oh, Sam, just how down on your luck are you?"

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

(The new web page is up - nuttin' fancy, just pics - but it's up)

My cousin sent me a Christmas present. I haven't even let her know I've received the package and here I am about to share some of it with you. How tacky, Warbler! One of the enclosures was a book by Dr. James Dobson entitled "Bringing Up Boys". The first page of Chapter 2 is my favorite by far. This guy is a religious Child Developemnt Psychologist - but he seems to have a sense of humor despite that. I guess he's also on the radio, too, but I don't really know anything about that. Apparently he got a letter from a nine year old girl named Elizabeth. In it, she shared a list she had made about why girls are better than boys.

GIRLS ARE MORE BETTER THAN BOYS

1. girls chew with their mouths closed.
2. girls have better hand writing.
3. girls sing better.
4. girls are more talented.
5. girls can do their hair better.
6. girls cover their mouths when they sneeze.
7. girls don't pick their nose.
8. girls go to the bathroom politely.
9. girls learn faster.
10. girls are more kinder to animals.
11. girls don't smell as bad.
12. girls are more smarter.
13. girls get more things what they want.
14. girls don't let stinkers as much.
15. girls are more quieter.
16. girls don't get as durty. [sic]
17. girls are cleaner.
18. girls are more attractive.
19. girls don't eat as much.
20. girls walk more politely.
21. girls aren't as strict.
22. girls sit more politely.
23. girls are more creative.
24. girls look better than boys.
25. girls comb their hair better.
26. girls shave more.
27. girls put on deoderant on more often.
28. girls don't have as much bodyodor.
29. girls don't want their hair messed up.
30. girls like to get more tan.
31. girls have more manners.

Oh, now, gentlemen, don't get yer panties in a wad...Dr. Dobson invited his listening audience of boys to send their written opinions of girls and selected items from the numerous lists he allegedly received. You get represented, too.

WHY BOYS ARE MORE BETTER THAN GIRLS

1. Boys can sit in front of a scary movie and not close their eyes once.
2. Boys don't have to sit down every time they go.
3. Boys don't get embarrassed easily.
4. Boys can go to the bathroom in the woods.
5. Boys can climb trees better.
6. Boys can hang on to their stomachs on fast rides.
7. Boys don't worry about "diet-this" and "diet-that".
8. Boys are better tractor drivers than girls.
9. Boys rite better than girls.
10. Boys can build better forts than girls.
11. Boys can take pain better than girls.
12. Boys are way more cooler.
13. Boys have less fits.
14. Boys don't waste their life at the mall.
15. Boys aren't afraid of reptiels.
16. Boys shave more than girls.
17. Boys don't do all those wiggaly movmets when they walk.
18. Boys don't scratch.
19. Boys don't brade another's hair.
20. Boys aren't smart alickes.
21. Boys don't cry and feel sorry when they kill a fly.
22. Boys don't use as mutch deoderent.
23. Boys were created first.
24. Boys learn to make funny noises with their armpits faster.
25. Boys can tie better knots - specially girls pony tails.
26. Boys get to blow up more stuff.
27. Without boys there would be no babies. [Now there's a new thought!]
28. Boys eat with a lot of heart.
29. Boys don't WINE.
30. Boys hum best.
31. Boys are proud of their odor.
32. Boys don't cry over a broken nail.
33. Boys don't need to ask for directions.
34. Boys can spell Dr. Dobson's name correctly.
35. Boys aren't clichish.
36. Boys don't hog the phone.
37. Boys aren't shopacholics.
38. Boys bait their own hook when they fish.
39. Boys don't hang panty hose all over the bathroom.
40. Boys don't wake up with bad hair.
41. Boys aren't stinker.
42. Boys don't take two million years to get ready.
43. Boys couldn't care less about Barby.
44. Boys don't have to have 21 pairs of shoes (three for every day of the week!!!)
45. Boys don't put a tub of makeup on all the time.
46. Boys don't care if their noses aren't perfect.
47. Boys respect everything and everyone including GIRLS!

I tried to keep all the syntax intact. It's hard for me, with all my temp office work not to correct as I type. It's even harder for me not to add comments when we all know exceptions to each and every sweeping generalization on both these lists.

Kids are fun. And we still act like them.

Slow Hand

[WARNING: This post might be considered of objectionable content to some. I'm not sure who, but there's always someone, isn't there. Oh, and Auntie M might not want to read it...just because I'm not sure she wants to know I think this way.]

My keyboard is a ten year old concert venue Roland called Quasimodo. So named because he's ungainly and somewhat freakish, but tender and mellow all the same. And he has a lot of bells and whistles.

I don't think there will ever be any lover who could ever be to me as Quasi. He waits for me, patiently, day and evening. Wanting to be with me whenever possible, knowing he's being used and loving every minute of it.

My union with Quasimodo is sensual and romantic, needy and passionate, longing and heartbreaking. When I am with him, it is never enough. When I am without him, I think of him almost continually, counting the moments until we can be together again.

When I am frustrated, lonely, happy, silly...it is Quasi that I turn to. He supports me unequivocally as I express myself as loud or as obnoxiously as I choose. Quasi does not judge me. He does not edit me. He does not say "I don't like your choice of music" or "Is that song about me?" Instead, he is a willing and giving partner who takes pleasure from giving me pleasure.

We understand each other, Quasi and I. I know which keys and buttons no longer work and which ones I have yet to master. I know that #36 is the only setting that I can play "Moondance" on satisfactorily but #18 is the only way for "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" to be played.

When I sit down with Quasi, it's with relish and anticipation. I breathe deeply and relax, knowing that there will come a release and a sustenance. No lover has ever felt my touch as Quasi has: the pressure and release, gentle strokes and thunderous chords, the range of dynamics from whispery soft to percussively passionate. We are as lovers entwined with each other's inner beings. He lives for me and I for him.

But life has intervened and our trysts are,sadly, no longer. I cannot be with him when the baby is asleep. I am self-conscious of being with him around others - it is far to intimate an experience to be comfortable sharing. Instead, during the day I teach my son to know him, perhaps one day to love him. But we long for each other. Like two people who deeply love each other but agree that, for now, it's all for the best. We know we belong together, that we're good and right together, but for the sakes of others, we must put that passion on the back burner for just a little while.

Perhaps it's unsettling to hear me confess that 88 keys and a box of electronics can be so much to me: husband, friend, lover, confidante, the physical embodiment of my soul. But it is who I am, who we are together, that makes me such a unique individual.

You Don't Know Me

All right. Tonight I was issued a challenge by someone wgo didn't realize they were issuing a challenge. I am more than just a pseudo-pretty face and a quick wit, folks. There's nothing that makes me wax competitive like underestimating me. I hate that! So someone, anyone or all of y'all (doesn't matter how many), give me a sentence, a scenario, a character, a style...go ahead, make me think. (But don't leave me hangin' and eventually I will fill y'all in).

Oh, and here's cute pics for those of you (D!) that drop in for those. The web page should get updated this week-end.

Should.

Pennies From Heaven

If every time it rains, it rains Pennies from Heaven...wouldn't there be a lot of people in the ER?

Untitled Opus

Hmmm...I want to write. I want to communicate. I want to reach out - bare my soul. But it's a tad bit difficult to bare one's soul when one's readership is peppered with those who speak to and deal with some of my family members on a regular basis.

I started out glib with resolutions for the New Year, but I don't feel glib. I don't feel...superficial...tonight. I'm not particularly dour or morose, but I need...I need to figure out the words that go there. A...soul connection. Yes, that's it. I need to connect my soul to another soul - if only for a brief moment of time. Not in a romantic or tantric way, but...again, the words are lacking. I need to pour out a piece of the real me that lies beneath the humor, the angst, the talent, the need to make people - anyone - chuckle or...be...entertained. (I'm using those...-my daughter knows the name for those dots, starts with 'e', I think, but I can't remember it - to show you my struggle for words this evening. And no shiraz!)

I love to write, but one of the reasons I never did anything with it is because I have an ability to concentrate deeply, but only for really short periods of time. Perhaps that's why I am so at ease and connected with music. It engages all aspects of my concentration - right brain, left brain, muscle memory. Writing with me has always been hit or miss.

I had a teacher in college who insisted I needed to major in English or Journalism. At the time, I was insulted. "English!" *sniff* "I'm an actress!" Boy, sure do wish I had that English degree now, I can tell you. What that teacher didn't know is that almost all my assignments were straight forward, stream of consciousness writings that I penned in long hand, copied down again and turned in. There were no outlines, no rough drafts, no editing and thesaurases - which I use for songwriting, by the way. I can't function like that. I shouldn't say that. I can function, but it is difficult to make myself sit down and do it. I am who I am and my writing is the same way.

What you see in my post is, with very few exceptions, what I have sat down to write in fifteen minutes or less. I type fast, by the way. Used to be 90 wpm, now I think I'm about 75 or 80.

How can one bare one's soul and connect when one can't find one's soul in fifteen minutes or less? And, really, would I want to? As has been evidenced by one of the other blogs I'm a regular loud mouth on, nuances do not convey in type. And I'm one of those people who find myself misinterpreted in real life far too often for comfort. Imagine how much more it happens in cyberspace.

How do you explain the Universe in 25 words or less? 'Big' Sure. But it doesn't encompass my Napoleanic need to conquer the masses(or, speaking of Napolean, my obsession with gleefully watching Tom Cruise fall) , or what I really think of the Big Bang theory (yep, I had a roomie who thought it was something else) or why I think intelligent design is an infringement of separation of state and why atheists shouldn't have the right to take the ten commandments out of the Courthouses. It doesn't help me to define who I am, who I was and who I will be.

This past year, I have faltered. I have learned, I have grown, I have fallen in love with an angel. I have conquered much and let go of far too little. But I have stumbled and continued down a tangled path long after I realized it would not lead me to where I wished to go. I have betrayed my very credo of humanity. I have let myself down because I was not perfect in the ways that I needed to achieve perfection. And I have not forgiven myself for my own slackitudinosity. And for me, the new year is fraught with personal and financial dangers. It has not started fresh, with a "ringing in". Instead there is a ringing in my head of harsh words - not just from others but from myself to myself. It has started with a bittersweet sadness as I realize my shortcomings. But it has also started with a growing determination to allow myself to mourn my imperfections but to also acknowledge that I don't wish to ring in the next new year in the same manner.

And yet, these are not the words with which I wish to connect my soul to another. Or many. Or a few. There isn't emptiness in my heart. There is fullness. Nothing too heady or ebullient. Nothing too depressing. A bittersweetness here, a lingering memory there, a wistfulness somewhere else. Just an overwhelming need to be who I am and be accepted for that. To tear aside the carefully crafted veil for a small space of time and...be. To be imperfect and funny, educated without a degree, angry and loving, clever and clueless and all the other dichotomies that make us who we are. A need to express myself through more than writing paragraphs that amuse me and songs that move me. Far more important, a need to express myself through the hundreds of thousands of little things we do every day that tell others who we really are: the manner in which we start our mornings, our toothbrushing rituals, what we chose to wear and why, how we take our coffee, tea or juice, which phone calls we make and how we avoid talking on the phone, the way we pull down our creeping underwear when we think no one's looking and the preference of posies over roses.

I haven't titled this post yet. I can't think of a song that fits the subject matter or my mood. I can't think of how to end this post, either. So I just will.