Excuses and Bad Judgments Are Not the Same

            It is Tuesday, February the Fifteenth.  Weatherman foresees a partially overcast day with a high of 53 degrees.  The horoscope mentioned that problem solving may not be the Aquarius’s forte, but we can’t use that as an excuse any longer.  Pure laziness, it added.  So in all fairness and removal of all procrastination, it is the perfect day to kill Peggy Swell.

            Where do you begin when you think of a girl like Peggy Sinclair?  I could probably start with her name, oh how atrocious on ears that hear and the eyes that read.  Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair, perhaps didn’t care for her either from her moment of birth, from the sound of it.  You can’t even find a decent nickname to erase the hideousness of such a handle: Peggers, Peg-Leg, Peggaroo; they all are truly revolting to even come up with.

            And you may ask yourself, “Alright, she’s got herself a funny name, but what else is troubling about the poor girl?”  To which I would reply, “What is not troubling about the weak bitch?”

            She has legs like beanpoles, hair as wiry as sin, and a face like that of a horse.  But don’t take me for a judgmental whore.  There’s a lot more to it then her given name and her nasty appearance.

            Peggy’s a wonderful example of idealistic trollop.  She has her ugly drawn head way-way up in the crack of the clouds and it frightens me that some people, a certain someone actually, find her the most delightful person to ever tread the earth with her unsightly heels.

            To be quite honest, it’s terribly unfair.

            Coming to the upper side of town as soon as my driver’s license said “Unrestricted” was enough of a strain on the finances and the spirit to push me into the streets, bars, and hotel lounges just to earn some well-deserved cash and dopamine.  If only my nonexistent mom and pop were so generous enough to send me off for a liberal Southern education, I wouldn’t have put myself in such a socially disapproving, yet primitively civilized rewarding position.

            We’re not all built out of diamonds and luck, ok.

            The catches were easy from early on.  I cannot say I have modesty in my physique and face.  Charging two hundred for an hour and two thousand for the entire night in an area where the wealthy were steady like honey and lonely every weeknight, I could relish my weekends to pampering myself and find tranquility in reassurance that I had to abide by no authority but my own.

            But then around eight months ago, I received a call that would put my emotions in first gear and make me believe in good karma after all those years of doing such a noble service of sustaining euphoric chemical balances in the minds of the once dissatisfied privileged.

            Geoffrey was that call.

            Now good God, he is a gorgeous being, and witty as fuck, mind you.  His thick graying hair atop his cumulative amount of knowledge has me at such an uncomfortable state of arousal I shan’t get out of this chair.  And not a bad little body either for a fifty-five-year-old.

            When I first clapped eyes on him, I knew I need not search anymore in that hotel bar.  He gasped at my desperate red body con long-sleeve dress, which I had chose to pair with cheap stilettos as those weren’t going to stay on for very long when we made it back to his room.  Upon entering the door, he handed me a thick envelope I would have been too embarrassed to count the contents.  And besides, I considered it just a bonus for the pleasure of getting boned by such a sight.

            He was the first and last client of mine to show any real concern of my condition in awkward positions and always made sure I was well fed before bed.  He would call me in the mornings after our long night sessions of copulation and conversation just to ensure that I made it back to my loft safely and to wish me a good day ahead.  In fact, he used my number less for business and more for sheer pleasure.  For the first time in five years, I was delighted to have a real man in my life.

            Mind you, I received plenty of calls over the course of seven months from a familiar gentle man’s voice requesting my presence and best dress at the Pastel to do a roar.

            Yes, everything went rather smoothly till that bitch Peggy Sinclair showed up.

            My phone calls from that darling Geoffrey had soon came to a ceding dribble; him making excuses that his wife was keeping a suspicious close eye on his business expenses or that he was really needing to work late on a presentation due in the morning.  Stealing almost every bit of business I could’ve mustered in my relatively short career as a respectable call girl, I was soon finding myself drawing blank checks, starving on nights and weekends, and close to without a roof over my head.  Indeed, this was all out war.  And I had no intent to surrender.  Today was the day, and I had to act fast.

            With a shovel in the trunk and my wee baby pistol tucked neatly in my garters, I drove on over to the Pastel in the hideous yellow heap of metal I was forced to trade my crisp white Escalade for and parked right next to the pay phone by the side of the parking garage.  Scribbled on my palm was Peggy Sinclair’s number, and it burned my fate-telling lines by association.

            Punching in the heinous digits I hoped my mind would hereafter erase, I put on my best butch that my diaphragm could compose as the bleeps on the other end continued for ignorance sake.  Then she picked up in an ill-attempted syrupy voice.

            “Hel-lo?  This is the Peggy Sinsofair answering.  How can I service you, darling?”

            In an effort to keep my male character, my femininity seeped through too much when she decided to change her name for the sake of being cheap and falsely secure.  I fucking hate this poser.  “Uh, yes, I was just wondering if you were already booked for the evening?”  Was I foiled yet?

            “Well I am available this evening.  Are you looking for the entire night, ma’am?”

            I knew that girl had no limits.  Good thing for me as my brain soon elaborated a brand new façade.

            “Why yes,” my man-battered lesbian tone says, “I’m staying at the Pastel tonight, in room 721.  I would just absolutely love it if you would meet me there.”

            “Well, I have to admit that I don’t normally meet straight in the rooms, but you seem like you could be worth it, darling.  And it’s fifty.  Beyond the door, I have no limitations.”  I could hear her grinning through the receiver.

            No wonder I was getting whacked out of the job, this hooker’s fucking cheap.  Even a rich man couldn’t pass up such a supposedly sweet trade.

            “That sounds like a deal.”  The watch says 7:14.  “How about 8?  Is that alright with you?”  Time is of the essence!

            “Hmmm, I suppose so, darling, though that is a bit of a stretch.  Don’t be disappointed if I come by a little late.”

            “Well, just don’t keep me waiting.”  I fear my true voice might have oozed through just a tad there, but it didn’t make the slightest difference.  She cooed and agreed and hung up with a disturbing elegancy.

            Upon exiting the phone booth with some extra baggage of deliberation and confidence I acquired through some pieces falling into place, I fled for the hotel lounge to gather some more through the help of a shot or two of Dickel.

            An odd and unfamiliar voice from within came through the speakers in my eardrums about mid-shot number three and yet I was not startled.

            “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the poor girl?”

            “Of course not,” I had to tell the newly acquainted voice.  “This is what she gets for treading on ground that isn’t hers.”

            “But she’s only beginning.  It’s not like she knows the ropes or anything.”

            Not wanting to agree with the voice, I added, “She knows full well that this is a people-person job.  Which involves respecting those in the same trade.”

            “And you were?”

            Suddenly I took a spin on the barstool to find Gritty Gladys, the most infamous prostitute in Birmingham.

            In the late forties, in post war Alabama, a young mulatto lady by the name Gritty Gladys proved her worth by having the best legs and best love that money could buy in the city.  They called her “Gritty” because of her lack of hesitation to bust a cap from a .45 in the skulls of those who didn’t or “forgot to” pay for her exploitive extravagance.  The woman didn’t need a pimp.  It was because of this well-known fact that she became a symbol of economic endurance and affluence on the arm of prosperous men.

            However, this amount of moxie would soon catch up with Gritty Gladys in the form of an angry wife and a broken moonshine bottle in the middle of her escapade—the only time she was ever vulnerable.

            And here the bird was, on the next barstool over, in her black pencil skirt, which was one of the most modest forms of dress in today’s time.

            “Well this is definitely a sign that three is enough.”

            “Perhaps, honey.  I’ve come to tell you that what you’re about to do is just trashy.”

            “And why would that be?”  I almost felt horrible for questioning her excellence.

            “Because envy is such a dreadful sin.  And so is pride.  Take what you got and leave it at that.”

            “I’ve got nothing!  And it’s all because of her.  Cause and effect, lady.”

            “Fine, but let me give warning: you won’t like what you find.”

            She blew her cigarette in my face in frustration and as I wiped the smoke out of my face so was her translucent alcohol induced existence.  I peered over to the clock on the wall and realized I was late for my appointment.

            After the elevator ride, I felt a little woozy but composed the bit of courageous bitch I had left and trudged to the door of room 721.  I took a deep breath, slid the key, opened the door, and drew pistol from garter.

            She was waiting for me on the bed, on her back resting on her elbows, at first grinning, but soon dropped jaw upon seeing the pistol.  Peggy then did something I was half expecting; she fell to the floor on her knees, begging for some mercy.

            “Please don’t!  I knew it was you that was coming.  I was so excited.  I’ve admired you ever since I started this gig.  What have I done to deserve this?”

            I didn’t want to answer.  I wanted to make this a clean cut.

            But then that damn gypsy, Gritty Gladys’s voice was coming through the speakers again and I tried and tried pulling on the trigger, but it wouldn’t budge.

            “I envy you!  I’ve always marveled at how well you do!”  She was crying out after me as I left the room in confusion, frustration and cowardice and back down to my shit yellow car.

            I sat with it idling for a short while as I read that newspaper with the horoscope and weather again.  I thought about what it meant about excuses and laziness and came up with nothing.

            We could call this lack of action laziness or result of an excuse.

            This is when I looked down at the baby pistol and realized the safety was on the entire time I tried to pull.

            Laziness.  Pure laziness.

Why does the...?

            The police officer vomits every Thursday at 9:00 PM because his bulimic tendencies have become more and more ritualistic… because his wife is growing more distant and unstable, and he seeks structure… because he is dope-sick from his share of the previous year’s contrabands… because he has lost all faith in designated “quiet time”… because he wants to be a woman.

            Officer Anthony wants a new life.  That’s not too much to ask for, right?

            This 45-year-old body of his has created him much anxiety, too much reliance and responsibility, he would tell me.  Perhaps it was all the extra flailing extremities, knocking each other and everything in baby’s arm’s distance, I never felt inappropriate enough to ask.

            He believed he could erase all the rushed nature of his work and home life if he appeared a more docile creature, something with more quiet dignity and grace.  He could cut loose his nasty habits and insecurities and be start anew as Antoinette, a calm and ordinary example of what a woman should be.

            The snipping and stitching up healed up quite nicely in the past couple or so weeks.  You can hardly tell the difference from the “real” thing.  Those closest to him would say that he’s a changed man, um, woman.

            I really hope the best for Antoinette, I really do.  Because when this placenta fed son of hers grows to find that his father lacks the holy trinity, she’ll want to get down on her hose-covered mannish knees for some telepathic understanding and open-mindedness.

Monkey Do

I’ve never been one to think much of great apes.  And please, don’t bother rousing me with “theories” of evolution, either.

            I’d like to think of myself an open-minded guy sometimes.  I hardly interrupt the strawberry blonde that cares a little too much about saving the environment, guarding horses against the slaughterhouse, and ensuring that every fetus gets out alive.  She’s got an opinion and I’m welcome to listen.

            But then again, I am the devil’s advocate.  So she should be prepared when I’ve created an elaborate refutation even Bill O’Reilly would masturbate to.

            You know what, I’m not much of an animal person, to be quite honest.  So you should understand my apathy and no care for bragging when lack of funds for a decent Florida Cracker education brought me to a university research opportunity involving some interesting studies with primates.

            Allow me to introduce to you—the Bonobo.

            A pygmy version of your common chimpanzee, this creature is far more unique than just being slightly smaller than his brutish cousin.  No, there’s a little tagline attached to this animal that has all the former flower children in the room clambering for their first ever mixed species protest: “Make love, not war.”

            You see there’s a lot of interest in the Bonobo from the science community for its powerful use of, wait for it—sex… for everything.

            Let me enlighten you on the sort of dialogue we’d encounter if these big bold and beautiful creatures spoke the good King’s English:

            In the attainment or search of food:  “Hey chica, I’ve just found a mountain of pith and fruit.”

            “Great, let me tickle your balls while my mom sucks on your nipples.”

            In the scene of communication and welcome:  “Did you hear Karl’s coming back to the Congo Basin?”

            “Oh really?  Well that’s nice, be sure to give him a blow for me when you see him.”

            In the dilemma of the management and diffusion of tension:  “Dude, I’m real sorry I forgot to call your lady after I took her out the night before.  Here, you can do whatever you want with my butt.  Here’s the safe word.”

            Now you know why you’ve never seen one at the zoo.

            But it’s not just their bizarre sexual behaviors that have got scientists all boned up, oh dear God, no.  These apes are fucking intelligent.  They are almost civilized, understanding spoken language and learning through sheer observation, not force.  There’s even evidence of culture.  Yeah, Jane Goodall picked the wrong goddamn ape to live with.

            It’s almost as if they’re fucking human…  From their gait right down to their orgasms, this blight on the face of hominid evolvement has got the religious community running scared.  And Dr. Susan Savage, head of the biology department here at FAMU is innocently instilling raw fear.

            The fliers placed in inconspicuous places all over campus, in the most loathsome of restroom stalls in particular, called for any male of any race between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight of good health and academic standing.  If it weren’t for the reward (too handsome to disclose), I wouldn’t have carried my 3.2 grade point average STD free 23-year-old Blackfoot masculine ass to the Rumbaugh Biological Research Center that April morning roughly seven and a half months ago.

            We, the curious and the credit/financially greedy hundred, were put through various screenings to weed out those inflicted with the popularly outdated AIDs and syphilis, of course, but especially those with peculiar moral position.  Wishy-washy was dropped immediately.  This thorough process reduced us from a roomful of jocks with odorous feet and junkies looking for some cash to score, to four dudes with good sense and plenty of warranted time.  Stuck in a white room of cold cafeteria chairs and nothing else, we passed the precious time with little introductions and instructions to wait for a gal named Martha.

            They had us, Adam, a peachy boy from Georgia; Berni, a black gentleman with simple prospects; Harry, an anxious guy legally migrating from Guatemala; and yours truly, dressed in itching hospital gowns, subtracting what little comfort we had.  The only thing to distract us from the growing rashes was our tedium.

            I managed to zone out for a while to the sounds of soft thumping, a fist against skin.  Harry boasted his great tolerance for any annoyance with Adam hitting the ball of his shoulder, just to do something, anything, to relieve the monotony, no matter how juvenile.

            “You think they could’ve left us some magazines, at least,” said Berni’s voice from the exterior of my eyelids.

            “Cards would have been nice,” a mounting pained utterance from Harry under the steadily increasing intensity of Adam’s punches.  “Okay, you can stop now.  You’re boring me.”

            “Martha, you can come out now.  Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”  Adam obviously couldn’t handle the cumulative twenty minutes and counting.

            “Yeah, I’ve got to be at work in two hours.”  Harry located the generic digital clock, spitting out milliseconds as if they were poisonous.

            “You’ll be fine, man, if it’s the Martha I’m thinking of.”  Berni dreamed, “We dated for like a month, but that was all I could handle; she was quick about everything.  Quick to judge, to question, to argue.  But also quick in the sack, you know what I’m sayin’?”

            “Wait, is this Martha Full?  Redhead?  The one with the tattoo of a fossilized footprint on her—“

            “Yeah, that’s the one!” Berni interrupted.

            I hate being cut off.

            If the attendant Martha was the same Martha discussed, you might just get a peek of the challenge of a beauty when she’s to walk through that door.  She’s a vengeful, fiery loveliness that makes any man both fueled with anger and physiological excitement.  Her ginger appearance condones a gentle and cute girl next-door fetish, but the fury within permeates and transforms her into an unusual femme fatale.  What a frightening and pretty cur.

            I spent the rest of the waiting period pissed off and annoyed with the bundle of clowns and Casanovas.  I thought I could pass the rearranging of the dust with some varying intellectual insight.  I plugged back up and shut out the noise of soft blows to bone and mixed emotions of a past interest.

            If only we knew what we were supposed to be doing.

            Five minutes later, a ginger-headed petite student with a tattoo peaking unconsciously from beneath the crisp white lab coat and nametag led us out of the white uncomfortable waiting space through a hallway and into separate small rooms with no windows, but plenty of magazines and a cheap leather couch for once.

            “Thank you, Martha.”  Almost down on my knees as I was removed from the rest of the group and guided to less awkward seclusion.

            “Oh no, I’m coming in with you.”  She forced her cloaked frame through the door I was desperate to close.  “Sit down on the couch, please,” as she made herself professionally comfortable on one end, and carefully gestured to mine.

            “So do you mind telling me what’s going on?”  I felt it a good enough time as any though still inappropriate considering how much I was getting paid.

            Expectant and without missing a beat, tight ass Martha handed me a clear plastic cup with a lid and a label filled out with my information, and looked down at her paperwork.

            “Congratulations.  You’re getting paid to bust a nut in that cup.”  It was aggressive, like any typical woman bursting at you for vicarious reasons unbeknownst to you.  On the other hand, it was now a substantial price for just one sweet solo release.

            She sat calm and still, whatever her attitude might have been.  It brought me back to those mornings she would be waiting for me in the loft with a fried egg in hand as the bait for her inquisition.  Salty protein hung around on the tongue and in the air as she ranted on about where I had been all night and what I had been doing.

            Quick to loathe, she was.  But she was still pretty despite her unfair judgment.  And this helped me to not snap back.

            “May I ask… why do you need my… you know.”

            “Because out of the rest of these shitheads, you were the best candidate.  Your blood tests and psychiatric exams all checked out for the required genetic material, or whatever, that’s what Dr. Savage said.”

            Her anger seemed to stifle for a bit and I had a familiar urge to hold her, to comfort her like I did back then.  To reassure her that I never left that night, that I was just downstairs and her drunk beautiful ass was too unstable to come down and find me.  To reassure her that I was up all night defending mine and hers’ honor from some estranged ex-boyfriend with a name starting with a B harassing me over the phone.

            My common sense refused, however.  Logic took over and wanted to set the record straight.

            “Martha, just chill bitch.”

            And with Lucille Ball extravagance, Martha, my Martha, came to life and her red-headed beauty peered above the tattoo, the lab coat and the nametag.  “Every time you used to say that I would get so tickled.  I have no idea why.”

            We both smiled and let go of the past like we did every time before.

            “So what are you doing, baby?  What’s the sample for?”

            An upset dimple returned and she retracted a bit, probably forgetting and then recalling the mission.

            “Dr. Savage has a theory.  One concerning the relationship between Homo sapiens and Pan paniscus.  You know how she feels about great apes.  Oh, I don’t think you’d be very much interested if I did tell you.”

            “Could you tell me anyway?  Please.  I’m interested.”

            Martha sighed and shrugged her shoulders in some sort of disgust.  “Trust me, you don’t need to know.”  She paused to connive.  “At least not without a price of some kind.”

            “What price?  Why can’t you just tell me?”

            “Because you know those papers you signed at the beginning of this session?  You’ve given us the rights to withhold any information that could disrupt the results of the experiment.  I really don’t have to tell you anything.”

            “Ah, you sweet bitch.  Always been Dr. Savage’s fucking pet.  Fine, what’s the price?”

            Her answer came in the form of a gradual and sensual tease.  Her plastic piece of identification fell to the ground with a pop, exposing the fossilized footprint stomping on the left ivory breast just above the pink, almost brown raised button, begging to be flicked for my sole enjoyment.  My thoughts and judgments were clouded by the nearly painful flow and stagnation of blood underneath my hospital gown.  As I kept trying to ease on closer to her bare body, she crept farther from my grasp, instinctually forcing me to manually relieve myself.  Before I knew it, my eyes were closed and I let out an animalistic moan that woke me to sobriety and into that goddamn plastic cup with my name on it.

            “Shit.”

            This is what I get for my random acts of sympathy, forgiveness, and primal nature.  Curious and, in my case, incredibly unfortunate how a simple concentration of blood and a pair of dairy containers can turn some men into naïve Neanderthals.

            “Thank you, baby.”  She lifted my chin to deliver an awful coffee flavored kiss and took the cup from my astonished hands.  And then I felt a tiny prick in the ball of my shoulder.

            “What’s that?” I asked, still drowsy from the exertion.

            “Just something to help you rest, darling, though I used to think it rather unnecessary for you.  Give it about two minutes.  Just long enough to tell you what we need this for.  I do apologize though, you’ll feel pretty druggy afterwards.”

            Literally speechless, dumbfounded almost, I just looked up and awaited the fate of my unfortunate genetic output.

            “You see, there’s this chimpanzee from the heart of the Congo, and, well, it’s quite a specimen of intelligence.  Now this campus, I bet you didn’t know, houses a lovely lady whom we call Punda, and she’s just your type.  Yeah, she let us know that she’s looking forward to being a mommy some day.  Looks like today is her lucky day.

            As she held up the cup with pearlescent jam sliding down the inside wall, I made a poor motion to grab for her chunking thigh, and instead fell to the chilled linoleum tile floor with a doped thud.  I blacked out to the sound of her clicking heels stopping at the door and returning in the hall.

            I woke up the next day in the loft on the couch at my end, unsure, but surprisingly relieved.

            The next four months I experienced a great deal of illness and peculiar behaviors.  I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and I particularly couldn’t walk for any beautiful creature that showed me the slightest interest.

            The doctors insisted that before the cancer spreads and to avoid the horrid debilitation of radiation that just because I would lack both marbles it wouldn’t make me any less a man.  With that sort of price, I didn’t need the reassurance.

            Today, I sit with my fried egg and banana chips on the couch in the loft and the local paper in one hand.  The science community is blessed with the front page:

            “FAMU’s Rushbaugh Biological Research Center Welcomes a New Arrival—Punda, the center’s 12-year-old female Bonobo (a rare and unique species of great ape polarized in the Congo) has just given birth to her first son, who has not been named yet.  This is a major breakthrough for the center as it is the first Bonobo to be born in captivity in the Southeast.  Congratulations to the university, the biology department, and lucky new mom, Punda.”

            I think the less I’m reassured, the less closure I’m given, the more I will find bliss in my ignorance.

winner

            “Starting bid at five.”  I raise my card.  Set your sights on the item you seek most and don’t let your guard down.  “Do I have a six?”  Another card flashes up and the first obstacle approaches.  I raise my card in protest.  Stale salty popcorn and cheap dry hamburger choke out the restless toddlers in a stuffy old school gymnasium.  “Seven!  Eight!  Nine, ladies and gentlemen!”  The white cards darting about the room show no signs of surrender.  No draft, no fan, only a single spotted window too high to open.  “Who wants to go for ten?”  I cease the evening and let my number fly high.  It’s just me and the rotund Southern man with too much inheritance at stake.  “Eleven!  Twelve, ladies and gentlemen!”  I cannot, am not, will not cede.  Fifteen comes with all haste and the room quiets, waiting for the round man to raise his sweat-drenched number and he never does.  “Fifteen?  Fifteen?  Going once, going twice,…and sold to—“  I shake my Sharpie 6 and look at my prize: a beautiful pair of blue gemstone screw-back earrings.  Winners always win by never backing down and with a pocket full of dough.

Gramma Would Have Sung

“Sir, your buses can’t leave until you bury the child.”

            This is what the state trooper said to my husband at the rundown BP on an October morning just outside the western border of Colorado, saturated with sporadically painted school buses filled with men and women desperate for a new beginning.  A beginning his followers were not quite sure of.  To be honest, I do not think he was either, but if we were to get anywhere, we would have to lay the stillborn to rest right then and there.

            My husband nodded, his glasses free of emotional fog, and was handed a shovel from the generous store clerk to use across the broken road.

            After loading up the buses with even fewer souls than the past four stops, the men and women turned their heads down and began to pray, in some sense, and we were transported even farther east.  I felt several cold hands rubbing unfound energy through my back and kept my eyes on the six with child that were quick to look away.  If anyone was to lose anything on this caravan, I was rather relieved that it was me.

            For several months we went on like this; traveling from state to state on an evangelical journey Rich had agreed to lead with the help of some Mormon preachers, but do not let this imply our denomination.  We were an independent spiritual community, a harsh concoction of Christian and Buddhist teachings, my husband, then professor, advocated in his “Wednesday Night Sermon”.

            When the decade drew to a confusing close, Rich was asked by the aforementioned church officials to go on a speaking tour for the sake of Jesus and his small cast of hippy deviants.  Due to his popularity and charm, a large number of his “students,” including myself, joined him on his quest for a spiritual and psychedelic re-awakening in eight bright and frightening school buses.

            Just as the trip was coming down, so too was the caravan.  We were hungry, aching, tired, and weary of the commitment we had inebriated ourselves into.  Several men departed our company when Rich announced after renewing a worried couple’s vows that, “If you sleep together, you’re engaged,” and “If you’re with child, you’re married.”  And so from then on out, Rich and I were “legally” bound.

            Our caravan shrank to five before we crossed the Tennessee line, and there were no more soulless congregations to speak to, no more mindless ridicule from ill-hearted traditionalists, no more babies to inconveniently as well as unconventionally deliver, and no more dirty acid to distribute.  We were about to hit the industrialist brick wall until we stopped at a gas station in Lawrence County for provisions and expediency.

            A few of us had entered the store habitually braced for the stares and jeers at our long hair and technicolor dress, only to find friendly faces and curious comments sitting comfortably at the deli slurping foggy black coffee that reminded us of a place long forgotten.

            We would retell this story years later to the three generations and certain re-born souls that made up our rather deep community secluded in the hills of middle Tennessee who would not believe there was once a time when we were lost and had lost.  We lost our friends and family, mind and spirit, freedom and law.  We lost our home and our respect.

            And yet we look around, the plants and drugs acted the same, the culture and art treated the same, and the libraries still provided the same.  So perhaps we did not lose at all… just off on a different course that found us where we are today.  I know if my Gramma were to see me now after all my “losing,” she still certainly would have sung.

I Have a Little Folk in Me That Says...

One day, I will have written various beautiful pieces, highly acclaimed, but nothing that'll disrupt the ego...
One day, I will have land where I can farm a couple cows, a few sheep and goats, a couple horses, a couple pigs, a dozen banties, several peacocks and ornamental pheasants, and succulent and wild fruits and veggies all for me and mine to be holistically sustained...
One day, I will live in the woods, suspended in time and space with nature and as down to earth as possible...
One day, I will have a contented sized home with a wraparound porch, a deck on the back screened in portion, full of swings and chairs and tables topped with people in love with the Southern life, homemade weatherproof cushions, and adult friendly iced tea...
One day, I will have a treehouse where I can be as far away from down-to-earth as possible...
One day, I will use my home as a workshop, where I can be free, and flow about the rooms with the windows open and the sheer curtains blowing...
One day, I will be wealthy and rich in love, life, and laughter, as well as in skill, trade, and commerce...
One day, I will have children who will laugh at my face and body paint and find nourishment in my mashed potatoes...
One day, I will have children who will be embarrassed of my strangeness, but have friends who find their home the ideal venue for play dates...
One day I will make my children's clothes while they play with their imaginations outside...
One day, I will coax deer and other beautiful wildlife onto my patio with corn on the cob, and enjoy their company most graciously...
One day, I will have a compilation of random talents and work extremely well with my hands...
One day, I will travel the world and experience all nations and all geographies...
One day, I will be a messenger of peace...
One day, I will have long gray hair, and only brush it with a wooden paddle back, and fishtail braid it for special occasions...
One day, I will sit on my front porch with my equally long and gray-haired hubby, swinging away, listening to far off music on vinyl...
One day, I will lay in my comfortably sized bed, and not get up till I have finished praying and thanking the good Creator for blessing me with a beautiful day...
One day, I will make mistakes and take them as reminders of my humanity...
One day, I will be beautiful...
One day, I will recognize that my raw, off, eccentric, vintage, bohemian, beatnik, and simple sides are all the same because they belong to and shape me...
One day, I will return to the earth, and to the sky, with all my loved ones...
One day begins today.  And today is too weird and too rare to not pioneer.

The Bird's Got Ovaries

I like to consider myself an individual of very few dislikes, especially among my own species. I enjoy people watching, and even if there is some annoyance with the beauty of being human, I chuckle it off and quickly pop my wrist for being so hasty. However, despite my want to be inherently good, one thing has always caught me perturbed greatly with little apology: radical feminists.

This sounds sort of off coming from a woman born after all the activism and the struggle for my rights to voice and action, and oddly old-fashioned. I will agree with both assumptions, I am slightly off and certainly an old soul, at best.

Not trying to sound ungrateful, I am thrilled men and women of all sorts came together to push for equality and still do. And I actually have no problem with the term "radical" (when used for the purpose of betterment, not for the sake of the name) or even "feminist" (when used to understand the complexities and simplicities of the double x nature, not to take any advantages).

I think it must be the arguments I have issues with.

"Men should use those oppressing black veils on themselves! Women should be allowed to do whatever they want! Men are pigs!"

"Makeup was invented for man, not the woman! Do you think she wants to be covered up like that? It's just to keep her thinking she has to go around impressing men!"

"Women have the right to choose how many kids they want, if any! Men should keep their laws off my body! The pill was the best thing that ever happened for women since sliced bread!"

Stop, myself, please.

While underneath these overtly passionate statements, there does lie some truth. These debates could hold some ground, especially since they have failed to expose both sides.

Both sexes should have freedom, since after all it takes both parties to progress this species into sentience.

As a tiny mutualistic race of the universe, the human race should have the option to do as the flora and fauna do, and live naturally.

Although the chromosomes are arranged differently, the soul is all the same, and feelings and thoughts tend to act a great deal alike.

And now stay for the kicker, folks.

The culture may look different, but the love and sex are all facets on the same diamond.

There are two theories as to why the peacock is more decorative than his hen: he reserves the right to feel beautiful as he is the giver, the provider, the caretaker; she reserves the right to be lax, as it is he who has to win her over, and in the end, she has the gift of preference. I believe in both.

Oddly enough, there is not a lot of choice, though we may like to think we do. Rainstorms either provide life or destruction. Snakes either ensure crops or spit death. Neighbors either lend hands or show arms.

Beliefs are double-edged. And once you believe in something, you cease to think.

Although you would not have it happen in your culture, there is another one that would not have yours at all; beauty comes in all forms; and your freedom could be someone else's oppression.

As a professor once said to me, fairness does not mean providing the same for all, it is accommodating the differences for the improvement of all.

Maybe I crossed a line somewhere, and I know I have imposed my rights to ramble.

I was just mad at all the advertisements for birth control pills. They take up way too much air time and have no relevance to me.