tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84955714434181764832024-02-18T23:39:50.475-05:00The Authentic LifeThe only way out is in.William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comBlogger193125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-2655349057541427672020-07-01T09:52:00.000-04:002020-07-01T09:52:13.424-04:00Chipping Away at Life Goals, One Piece at a Time<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Nine years ago, when I began writing a personal blog, I could not have imagined that it would lead to dinner with Augusten Burroughs and his husband, Christopher Schelling, at their haunted house in Connecticut, but here we are. Wearing surgical gloves, Augusten places a plate of vegan burritos in front of me and my husband Paul and says, “Connecticut's first murder conviction without a body took place ten miles from here," which strikes me as odd. How can there be a murder without a body?</div>
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As if reading my thoughts, Augusten says, “Wood chipper. The pieces found in the river implied that the victim could not have survived."</div>
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He sits down at the head of the table, smiles, and says, “Bon appétit!"</div>
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My blog was more of an online diary and a poorly written one at that. So I read works by my favorite authors, attempting to learn the magic by studying the construction of each sentence, paragraph, and page. I read Augusten's best-selling memoir, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ASFPX2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Running With Scissors</a></em> multiple times, and then consumed <em>Dry</em>, <em>Magical Thinking</em>, and <em>Possible Side Effects.</em></div>
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The meatless burrito is one of the best things I have ever tasted.</div>
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“Isn't it wonderful?" Augusten asks.</div>
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I am seriously beginning to believe that in addition to being a witch, as he describes in <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Toil-Trouble-Memoir-Augusten-Burroughs-ebook/dp/B07NCRRS4X/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=toil+%26+trouble&qid=1593605700&s=digital-text&sr=1-2" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Toil & Trouble,</a></em> that Augusten is also a mind reader until he says, “I mean the murder. Isn't that wonderful?"</div>
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It is wonderful in the sense that I am delighted to discover that this is precisely how I expected one of my literary idols to behave. It all began with a hope to publish something other than what I forced my immediate family to read. When <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/my-father-myself_b_1601707" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><em>The Huffington Post</em> </a>picked up one of my essays, I thought I had reached the pinnacle of my publishing career.</div>
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“A significant percentage of me is Neanderthal," Augusten says, “according to a DNA test."</div>
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But here is the thing about dreams, they evolve. After I published the piece, and many others in <em><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/author/wcdameron-382" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;">The Huffington Post</a></em>, I set my goal on seeing my words in print and published an essay in <em><a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/08/16/can-you-should-you-consumed-with-how-you-walk/myU419WZBhWKAekuKFwsrI/story.html" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Boston Globe</a>.</em> After that, it grew into a desire to publish a piece in a literary magazine and then finally to write a book.</div>
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“A friend of mine, who never reads, told me I should read this book called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lie-Memoir-Marriages-Catfishing-Coming-ebook/dp/B07H7J16QC" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The LIE</a>," Augusten says.</div>
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After I finished writing my memoir, I sent a chapter to Dan Jones, who is the editor of Modern Love at <i>The New York Times</i>. Within 30 minutes of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/style/modern-love-conversion-therapy-gay-husband-haircuts.html" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">publication of that essay</a>, Christopher Schelling, who, is both Augusten's husband AND his agent, contacted me.</div>
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I thought when my book was published that all of the hard work had been completed. However, looking back at all of the <a href="http://www.williamdameron.com/" style="color: #3c6aa0; font-weight: lighter !important; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">essays, interviews, podcasts, and readings</a> that took place in the year proceeding publication, I can see pieces of me spread all over the globe. </div>
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“This friend said that the writing in your book reminded her of me," Augusten adds.</div>
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This is it. I am dead, which is wonderful in the best possible way.</div>
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I killed it.</div>
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William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-57853169588472341052020-02-28T19:51:00.000-05:002020-02-28T19:51:16.477-05:00Coming Out on Live TV<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last
summer, I was pruning the boxwoods in our garden in Maine, when my neighbor Irene,
a retired schoolteacher, and self-professed book maven walked by and said, “Hey,
Edward Scissorhands, I saw your book in the New York Times.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
waved the shears at her and said, “Thanks!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
dropped the hand she was using to shield her eyes from the sun, and scrunched
up her face contemplating my reply, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thanks?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I
mean, so what did you think?” I corrected myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You
ready to be the poster child for all of this?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Um,
sure, yeah,” I replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She
raised one eyebrow and displayed a closed-lip smile. It’s a look I’ve seen
before, typically, when my youngest daughter, Marisa, uses a phrase I don’t
understand. Something like, “Ugh, Dad, you’re such a stan.” She’ll give me that
look, and I can read the question in her face before she asks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do you even know what that means?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Um,
sure, yeah.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
published a book, a memoir about my personal experience. I wasn’t the first person to come out later in life, or as I like to say,
Fashionably Late. That always gets an eye-roll from Marisa. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Irene
didn’t say anything, but I could read the question in her facial expression, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But really, are you ready?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>As she walked off, she shouted, “William
Dameron tamps down the tall grass of untold experience,” echoing a sentence
from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/books/review/william-dameron-the-lie.html">New
York Times Review</a>. That phrase has become somewhat of a joke in our
household. We use it any time we try something new, like when I tell my husband,
Paul, I tried a new pork chop recipe, and he’ll say, “Tamping down the tall
grass, huh?” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Since
that summer day, I’ve received emails almost daily from people who’ve read my
book. Most are kind, a few decidedly not, but almost all of them state the same
thing: they feel heard. I reply to every single one. It is not something I take
lightly. While I may have written one of the first literary memoirs about a person
coming out later in life to his spouse and family, I am not the first one to do
it. I can joke about many things, but I stand in awe of those who come out, often
in environments much more hostile, sometimes life-threatening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
queer people, we make a decision every day whether to come out or not, to
co-workers, new neighbors, a manager, new clients, or even the taxi driver. It
gets easier, but there is always that split second thought, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is it safe</i>? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Recently
Philip Schofield, the host of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This
Morning</i>, in the UK, came out on live TV. In light of those events, <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coming-out-to-my-wife-and-daughters-was-painful-7fmjr2jnj"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Times</i> published an excerpt from my
book</a>, and the BBC interviewed me on the Victoria Derbyshire program.
Because I joined by skype, the studio didn’t want to consume the bandwidth by sending
their video back to me. While I was being interviewed, I didn’t get a chance to
see what the studio looked like. Maybe that’s a good thing because when they
sent me a screen capture later, I certainly looked like the poster child for
coming out and also? it reminded me of a scene from the movie Edward
Scissorhands when he appears on a TV program. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
that scene, an audience member asks Edward if he has ever considered corrective
surgery. “Yes,” he replies quietly. Then, another audience member stands up and
says, “But if you had regular hands, you'd be like everyone else.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
line slays me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-80132609326863355732019-01-06T20:43:00.000-05:002019-01-06T20:43:12.328-05:00Adorable Little Stories and Great Big Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Years ago, when I
told Paul I was going to start writing this blog, he cocked his head and said, “OK.”
I had heard that tone in his voice once before when I told him my attorney
suggested he sign a <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">prenup</span> agreement. What
he said then was something like, “OK, give me that stupid agreement<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">. I’ll</span> sign it.” It wasn’t indignation or
resentment, it was bemusement, like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">don’t
worry, you can keep your Franklin Mint Star Trek plate collection.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
narrowed my eyes and said, “You don’t think I have anything valuable to say?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Sure I
do, sweetie,” he replied reaching out to finger the top button on my shirt. “But,
what are you going to write about?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I don’t
know,” I said, swatting his hand away and looked up at the <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">ceiling</span> like the answer might <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">be hidden</span> in the rafters. “Stories.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You’re
going to write adorable little stories?” he asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
truth is, I <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">really</span> didn’t know what I was
going to write, but after that comment, I was for damn sure going to write <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something,</i> <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">and</span> whatever it was, it would make the world sit up and take
notice. It would make Paul bow down before all of the beautiful words piled up
at my feet. It would make the angels weep<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What I
wrote was the first crappy blog post that I forced Paul to read and that you
can still find here. <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">I will never remove it
because it makes me laugh with its oh so noble sense of purpose.</span> And
also? It lets me know how far I have come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">After
that post, many stories followed and then they jumped onto <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/wcdameron-382" target="_blank">The Huffington Post</a>, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2016/06/03/husband-lights-dark-spaces-literally-and-figuratively/b7EXXhRIvznZpgvqe16SrJ/story.html" target="_blank">The Boston Globe</a></i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/08/28/my-face-is-catfish-bait-im-the-40-year-old-man-face-of-deceptive-online-dating-and-i-think-i-know-why-they-do-it/" target="_blank">Salon</a></i>, various other places and then to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/style/modern-love-conversion-therapy-gay-husband-haircuts.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a></i>. But this blog is where I fell in love with writing.
It has been my proving ground, my laboratory to experiment in until I finally
figured out what it was that my stories so desperately needed to convey: <b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It is never too late to become who you were
meant to be</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Lately,
the posts on this blog have been few and far between, but don’t worry, dear
reader, like Evita </span>Perón<span style="font-size: 12pt;">, the truth is, I never left you. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Early in the mornings and late at night, I have been
writing something a bit longer than a blog post. On July 1st, 2019, more than a
decade after I came out, my debut memoir, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lie-Memoir-Marriages-Catfishing-Coming-ebook/dp/B07H7J16QC" target="_blank">TheLie: A Memoir of Two Marriages, Catfishing & Coming Out </a>will be published
by Little A. It’s not an Adorable Little Story, but I hope you will love it as
much as I do, as much as I love Paul.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When I
finished writing the book, after my agent said, “Slice your heart open and let
it bleed out onto the page.<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">”</span> After my <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">editor</span> who is also a poet, coaxed from me the
most difficult, and beautifully terrifying words I have ever written, I gave
the book—my quote-unquote Star Trek Plate
collection<i>—</i>to<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Paul.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was
the story <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">of my</span> destruction and my creation,
the story of Us, my precious. I waited. One day passed without comment, then
two, then three freaking days. On the fourth day, I was about a ten on the
anger scale and cranking it up to twenty-five. On the fifth <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">day,</span> we boarded a cross-country flight to
California together, <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">and</span> I <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">imagined</span> how I would ignore Paul for six and a
half hours and flirt shamelessly with the cute flight attendant. And then he
pulled out his iPad, sat it on the little folding table and opened up my book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“You are
not seriously going to read this while I sit next to you are you?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He
clapped his hands like a kid with an adorable little toy. I looked through the window at the clouds below us, stealing sidelong glances at his
face and <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">at</span> his finger scrolling through
the pages of my life. After six hours, he attempted to swipe left multiple
times. We sat in silence, the only sound my beating heart and the hum of the
engines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“The period
end period,” I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He stared
straight ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“WELL?”
I asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The startled
passenger on the other side of Paul shifted uncomfortably in her seat, angling
her body away from us. If he didn’t know how much I detested the word, Paul
might have told me I sounded a little shrill. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He held up his finger, like give me a minute<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">. I’m</span> about to sneeze. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Look at him, </span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I thought. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Look at that same old stupid Maine t-shirt he always wears. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
glanced back through the window at the tiny roads <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">stitched into the landscape,</span> at how they crisscrossed in seemingly senseless
patterns. I thought about all of the years invested in this book, all of the
pain. When I looked back at Paul, he pulled that stupid old t-shirt up to dab
his nose, to wipe his cheeks, to blot his eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Look at that face. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">How
could I not love that face? That old t-shirt.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>That old Paul. My husband.<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My weeping angel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<i>Dear Reader: Keep up to date with my book news by following me on my <a href="http://www.williamdameron.com/contact/" target="_blank">author website,</a> won't you?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-81210319739096904442017-12-07T07:06:00.000-05:002017-12-07T07:06:33.460-05:00Carolina Girls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiszh4ciYsBO0-PR5m-WrcTmxwkBc-yOFEYbgUggrflJB2Ed2PLP4l68cEBx0ouGN9rjsh2oQTPi7NGDGNHmW8g0jG_-YPQxitoJD0dm8vzFw4c-41bWyC3-a-SRucCOZSXCJaCkMBrw9EO/s1600/mom-boys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="488" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiszh4ciYsBO0-PR5m-WrcTmxwkBc-yOFEYbgUggrflJB2Ed2PLP4l68cEBx0ouGN9rjsh2oQTPi7NGDGNHmW8g0jG_-YPQxitoJD0dm8vzFw4c-41bWyC3-a-SRucCOZSXCJaCkMBrw9EO/s400/mom-boys.jpg" width="301" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Every
summer, my family vacationed on Topsail Island, North Carolina for one treasured
week. Mom would load the back of the wood paneled station wagon with brown
paper grocery bags of food. My three brothers and I laid claim to our space for
the four hour drive by karate chopping a boundary line in between us on the
vinyl back seat, <i>Hi-yah!</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Invariably,
someone’s foot, hand or breath would breach the imaginary border. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Mom,
he’s on my side!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
she tired of playing the role of United Nations, Mom would banish the offending
party to the way, way back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
didn’t mind riding in the back so much. I’d lie down and watch the rows of green
tobacco plants flicker by like the spokes of a wheel. When I became hungry, I’d
pull out the Honey Combs cereal and have a snack while secretly admiring the
picture on the box of Bobby Sherman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Just
when cow poker was about to lose its luster, Mom would sing “Who can see the
ocean first?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We’d
train our gaze on the undulating sand dunes, searching the tiny valleys between
them for a glimpse of blue. Like baby birds we’d chirp, “I see it! I see it!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
were drawn to the sea, bobbing like bell buoys in the briny currents, searching
for the perfect crest and sometimes getting pummeled by a rogue wave. At night,
sunburnt, tired and lying in between the sandy bed sheets, we’d close our eyes
and get rocked to sleep by the phantom push and pull, push and pull, push and pull
of the tides.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
continued that family tradition for years, even after Dad left us. One moonlit
night, there was a party on the deck of the cottage next door and I watched Mom
peering through the open kitchen window, elbows resting on the sill. The sounds
of “Beach music”—those boppy, Carolina R&B tunes—drifted up from the party
below. Mom held her hand to her mouth as she laughed, her feet dancing to the beat.
For the first time, I realized there was someone else my mother used to be. She
was not actually born a mother. It was then that I realized she was in this
alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mom
was fiercely protective of us, still is. Breaking into the Dameron family for
any girlfriend and later, a boyfriend must have been a daunting task, much like
wading into the ocean. There were a few family dinners with significant others that
crashed terrifically beneath a sea of tears. I think Mom just got used to
protecting our borders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I worked up the nerve to tell Mom that Paul was going to become my husband, I was terrified. She wept
for many reasons, but happiness certainly bubbled to the top. Mom told me she
felt like she had missed that boat—that she never really had “The love of her
life.” She had devoted herself to her boys and God help the poor man who came calling
at our door on Latham Road. He would have been greeted by a tsunami of rambunctious
Dameron boys and the flotsam and jetsam of our pets. As much as Mom protected
our borders, we flooded hers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
all kids, I pushed Mom and my brothers away at one point or another, attempting
to find myself and become the man I am today, but Mom never stopped pulling me
back. She starts every conversation with, “When was the last time you talked to
your brothers?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
is a faded photograph of Mom as a pretty, young woman clinging to us on Topsail
Island. When I look at it, I can feel the phantom push and pull of the tides.
God, we all look so happy. The edges may be a bit tattered, but it’s clear to
see, Mom didn’t have one single love of her life. She had four. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-55891758517620158252017-06-09T07:26:00.000-04:002017-06-09T09:44:11.203-04:00When I Said It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQX5xU1SqIxsBkdQW14m10Rjh1oiIvczZyVcaCppze2Hm5QDaK0zj_rqNKFnIUY4ZZLNMUCUtPPiT7SODzDfzheZYJhuCZNmWX0WEFIu1VGnwdunaeMx_PKlnSWn2vN6ey8bY9_RiBy8vI/s1600/FullSizeRender+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1225" data-original-width="1600" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQX5xU1SqIxsBkdQW14m10Rjh1oiIvczZyVcaCppze2Hm5QDaK0zj_rqNKFnIUY4ZZLNMUCUtPPiT7SODzDfzheZYJhuCZNmWX0WEFIu1VGnwdunaeMx_PKlnSWn2vN6ey8bY9_RiBy8vI/s640/FullSizeRender+%25282%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was a garden level apartment, too far from Boston and too close to nowhere. On
the day I moved in, I wrangled a queen sized mattress by myself until a young Latina
held the lobby door open with her foot and guided the bed with her hands, using
facial expressions and Spanglish to communicate, <i>“Mira, left, left!” </i>That first
night, I lay awake on the bare mattress and listened to muffled conversations
seep through the walls, too distant from English and not close enough to any
language I could comprehend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
was alone in a way that I had not been for more than twenty years—seven hundred
miles and a secret separated me from my family. It was not a complete break, but more of a
fracture that we were attempting to heal, as if giving it a rest could mend the
broken bones of our marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
tried setting up rituals to break up the solitude, drinks at the Picadilly Pub
with co-workers on Thursday nights, take-out sweet and sour chicken from Chin’s
Garden for Friday dinner and a run along the abandoned rail bed of the Assabet
River trail on Sunday mornings. But on Saturday nights, when the light faded, loneliness
crept into my unfurnished apartment, like the scent of foreign foods being
prepared by the unbroken families around me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
sun would slip below the horizon around 4:30 pm and shortly thereafter, a group
of Brazilian men in dark Levis, whooping and hollering, would emerge from the
cinder-block apartment building and climb into the back of a pick-up truck, the
night stretching out before them like a lubricious promise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
chose one of those Saturday nights to rent a video, when video stores were
still a thing. I walked up and down the aisles surveying the titles, already
knowing which DVD I would select, too ashamed to see it alone in a theater and barely brave enough to hold it in my
hands. I would rent it and return it through the after-hours slot and then
cancel my membership. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
waited until most of the customers left. My heart pounded as I walked up to the
cashier, DVD in hand holding it close to my body so no one could see and placed
it title side down on the counter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Do
you want popcorn or candy?” The cashier asked, nodding his head towards the
selection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“No,
just this please,” I said without looking up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He
turned the video over, glanced up at me and said “I need your membership card.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
thought his stare held a certain conviction as I fumbled through my wallet and
when I looked up after finding my card, I caught him regarding my wedding band.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I returned home, I poured a healthy amount of gin into a glass, placed the DVD
into my laptop computer and sat in the single chair next to the small, folding
kitchen table. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
dusty little town, the longing twang of a guitar chord and the forlorn
landscape of Wyoming was all it took for me to know their love was doomed from
the start. When it ended, one dirty, blood-stained shirt neatly folded into the
other, it ended me too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
Ennis del Mar, I’d have to stand in that open space for a while, too afraid to
move forward and too changed to go back. Looking into the mirror that night I
decided for the first time to try out the foreign words, see how they might
fit. It was more of a confession and less of an affirmation and only a whisper.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Shit,
I’m so gay.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
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<br /></div>
William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-12408601126427162892017-05-31T13:25:00.000-04:002017-05-31T13:25:55.006-04:00The Turkeys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZ05Dk-tr6jFnZJdVba0KquKSmbOHHyvqDpICmjlbpviOZ1hwfvO-IuTHSjUaex0CmBUP3EGztJcSDGCEtJ_03wfVdZD4wLynYlTWfo46HNvpK0gtMavImXXgknR3ydqKuvSz59Tmfyzq/s1600/turkeys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1283" data-original-width="1600" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZ05Dk-tr6jFnZJdVba0KquKSmbOHHyvqDpICmjlbpviOZ1hwfvO-IuTHSjUaex0CmBUP3EGztJcSDGCEtJ_03wfVdZD4wLynYlTWfo46HNvpK0gtMavImXXgknR3ydqKuvSz59Tmfyzq/s640/turkeys.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The turkeys woke me this morning. They roam
our Boston neighborhood in a gaggle, like a gang of delinquent teenagers. They
are unafraid; defiant even as they strut across the sidewalk daring pedestrians
to cross their paths. I’ve witnessed them charging the oblivious passerby, their
brown wings extended, red wattles flapping and eyes narrowed. This morning, they
are just outside my window. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I lived in Franklin, MA a lifetime ago, the turkeys hung out on a rural back
road next to a restaurant called “Ma Glockner’s,” an establishment famous for
their chicken dinners served with a fresh cinnamon bun. It opened on Maple Street
in 1937 on Thanksgiving Day, serving the domesticated big breasted, white, dumbed
down brethren of the wild turkeys.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
land surrounding the restaurant could have been lifted from the pages of <i>Watership Down</i>; sun-dappled stones
walls, birch leaves alternating green and silver as they shudder in the cool breeze
and rabbit warrens burrowed among the twigs and russet colored leaves of the
forest floor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
used to pass the turkeys of Maple Street on my morning and evening commute. I
was mostly unaware of the beauty surrounding me. But every once in a while,
one of those damned birds would run along the side of the road, hook a left and
attempt to become airborne. Their lumbering bodies would tumble mere inches
over the hood of my car, more like an awkward long jump across the road than a graceful
bird taking flight. Startled, I’d pull my car into the parking lot of Ma
Glockners and wait for a minute while my heart stopped pounding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
sat there once, listening to Al Green on the radio singing “Love and Happiness.”
The tune so sweet it made me tear up. A strip of clouds blushed orange in the
western sky. Squirrels chattered in the Oak trees, turkeys huddled. I wanted a
love that would make me do right and make me do wrong. Next life, I thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
here I am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Each
morning, I check the balance of my 401(K). I calculate the years until
retirement. I glance at Facebook. I wait for an email from my agent. Perhaps he
worked out a deal at two AM with a publisher and sent me a contract. It could
happen. I re-read the same essay I have been working on for two months. I delete
a comma and then I put it back. I look to see if any of the publications have
accepted my submissions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">How
easily we fall into a routine. But this morning the turkeys gathered outside of
my window and sang me a song. Gobble, gobble, gobble—“Wake up mother-fucker.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-61117191598000355232016-12-09T19:40:00.000-05:002017-02-10T07:55:55.052-05:00When I Woke Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ys9nCr-bpv-In-huuJCDLBYr3kzDB1bBc31PXNNUTT7dQphdfhi2NYkX6vOfv7L4KoTyksbYfBJhXWiqEUWCnfxvBGMGc0W0r_kuNhxfP2dePcEnIO3H_LfR49bpiS-Y8TLRvpHyKYWm/s1600/birds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ys9nCr-bpv-In-huuJCDLBYr3kzDB1bBc31PXNNUTT7dQphdfhi2NYkX6vOfv7L4KoTyksbYfBJhXWiqEUWCnfxvBGMGc0W0r_kuNhxfP2dePcEnIO3H_LfR49bpiS-Y8TLRvpHyKYWm/s640/birds.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I was floating between jobs in the 1990’s, I worked as a reader. Breadwinner for my young family, and all I could scratch up were the lousy crumbs from a temporary job scoring high school essays, which were part of Ohio's standardized assessment exam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I had to score the essays on a scale of zero to five. A zero meant there were no words written. A five was stellar, as if perhaps this should be published in a literary journal. A score of one meant they had written something, a word or two, typically some permutation of “This sucks,” or “Fuck you.” Judging by their essays, teenagers in the urban core of Cleveland, Ohio were brimming with hostility. Like most things in life, it was the essays in the middle that got messy. What was the difference between a two and a three, or a three and a four?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Most
of the essays began verbatim, using the writing prompt, “One morning I woke up
and discovered that I could fly.” What often followed was a quotidian trip
drifting through the neighborhood as jealous friends exclaimed, “Hey, you can
fly!!” Many of the girls flew to the mall to go shopping with their friends, or
to Hollywood where they employed celebrities in cameo appearances. Brendan
Fraser often appeared in a loincloth, fresh from his role in “George of the
Jungle.” They would “make out,” but it rarely progressed beyond first base.
Even in uncirculated print, teenage girls fretted about being called a slut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then
there were the essays where girls drifted up to bedroom windows and secretly
witnessed stepfathers committing some type of abuse, or boys flew into closets
and stole guns. These were unscored and forwarded to my supervisors; middle-aged
women, who poured over the words, with knitted brows, as they tugged at their
sweaters, pulling them closed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
essays were read twice by two different scorers. If we wanted to keep our jobs,
we had to maintain a high accuracy rate with the tandem reader’s score. As my
rate flailed, I worried that my temporary job would become a zero. Many
mornings when I woke up, I wished I could fly away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Look,
if the word ‘Slumbering’ is used in an essay, that’s an automatic four,” one of
the readers confided to me in the break room. She was heating up her lunch, a
single sweet potato, in the food-splattered microwave. It was the same thing
she brought in every day. Karen was thin with stringy brown hair and paper-white
skin with a slight blue sheen. She had the unsettling habit of staring at my
forehead during our conversations. When she caught me looking down my nose at
her shriveled-up potato, she glanced at my ham sandwich and said, “I think meat
tastes like dried blood.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“A
four for slumbering?” I asked, patting the hair on my forehead, checking for
fly-aways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Well,
they have to write more than that, but you get the gist. More syllables and
better word choices equals a higher score and vice versa.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
my accuracy rate grew, so did my friendship with Karen. We shared the tidbits of
our lives over lunches of sweet potatoes and ham sandwiches. Karen’s dream job was somewhere in the wilds of Wyoming where she could live
and work on a ranch while writing and paying down her Grand-Teton sized school
debt. Mine was to become employed full-time at a job
that offered benefits; it was a three, though at the time I would have scored
it a five.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here
is the thing about dreams. When life is a one or a two and you’re just trying
to make ends meet, to be like everybody else, a three—somewhere in the
middle—sounds pretty damn good. A five is unfathomable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Every
once in a while an essay deemed exemplary would be read aloud by a supervisor, giving
us a break from the monotony of kids flying to the ubiquitous mall shopping
trip, or drifting above the popular crowd and dropping egg-bombs. The first essay
I scored as a five resonated deep in my marrow for reasons I could not then
understand. I handed it to my supervisor, chest puffed out, as if I had written
it myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“This
is good,” she said. “Beautiful use of language and imagery, but I’m afraid it’s
only a high three, perhaps a four.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“But,
she used the word slumbering,” I protested, “See? Right there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It’s
poetry, really, but how did the writer change? What do we discover about the
narrator in the end that we did not know in the beginning?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the essay, the girl drifted above a handsome boy she loved, a honey-colored
moon in his inky black sky. While he slumbered, she tugged at his tides and
painted his face with her moonbeams. She was forever trapped in his orbit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After
I read the essay to Karen, she put down her fork-full of potato and asked,
“Have you ever been in love like that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Not
yet,” I replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Her
eyes fluttered for a moment and then her gaze drifted down from the bulls-eye
on my forehead to the tears rolling down my cheeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m
sorry,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It
was just such a beautiful essay,” I said, waving my hand in the air, brushing
it off. But, while I was dreaming about life in the middle, this teenage girl
from Sandusky, Ohio burned a hole through my forehead, pulled out a five and
held it up for me to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
Monday morning, Karen didn’t show up for work. Later in the week, I received an
e-mail from her. She woke up Sunday morning and decided to start driving. We
shared fat e-mails about the dusty ranch and the colorful
characters in her new Wyoming town, how the sky was so big, you could see a
storm coming from a hundred miles away and how at night it grew so cold that
when she went to the toilet, she was afraid her stream would freeze up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
became employed full time at a company
that offered benefits. I don’t know what happened to
Karen. Our lives got busy and somewhere along the way, we lost touch with one
another. I imagine her steely gaze
looking up at the windswept clouds racing over the Tetons. I lived in that
messy middle for many years, moving up the ladder, hoping each fresh job in
every new city would offer a benefit that the previous one did not, authenticity.
When I finally figured it out, the storm of divorce kicked up and then it passed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here’s the thing about dreams, you don’t necessarily have to fly away in order
to make them come true, but you do have to wake up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
got up, brushed off the dust and became an IT Director for a prestigious
consulting firm with stellar benefits in Harvard Square. Even so, sometimes at
night, I lie awake, worrying about the college debt my children have amassed and wonder how I'll make ends meet. Then I’ll look over at my new husband Paul slumbering, as the full
moon paints his face. A sense of lightness tugs at me and pulls me up. I am
forever, happily trapped in his orbit. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
found my five.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-4349800777492268142016-11-01T17:35:00.000-04:002016-11-03T05:03:15.863-04:00Lost and Found in The Land of Mañana<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkbJe7sSUAh-oqVSVWkrxsSJLWBWtE0-iozgjTMpbCZKsi61mbtG0QORlbEAsyQqs-IlWq4VYSiEgKEYSXzjkvCwXxZo7J41Ae2X-hQuode-mvklURq5AdOp7WZTIR2a4P9GF-v93M1KvD/s1600/bill+span.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="638" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkbJe7sSUAh-oqVSVWkrxsSJLWBWtE0-iozgjTMpbCZKsi61mbtG0QORlbEAsyQqs-IlWq4VYSiEgKEYSXzjkvCwXxZo7J41Ae2X-hQuode-mvklURq5AdOp7WZTIR2a4P9GF-v93M1KvD/s640/bill+span.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The waiter cradled two menus in his arms,
like fraternal infant twins. I was certain the one I could not read listed the
most delectable delicacies and the other one, the less attractive sibling,
contained watered-down, Anglicized versions of Spanish dishes. He sized us up,
by which I mean he mentally placed us on a scale, measured our weight in
kilograms and then inquired, “Ingles or Español?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">His
expression was the same one I had seen on my doctor’s face when he rhetorically
asked if I “really understood what a healthy plate of food looks like?” The
answer was obvious, though I could not seem to give it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Ingles,
por favor,” my colleague Dan said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
was then that <i>j'ai regretté</i> studying French in high school. I fell for the
romance of the language, the way the S’s and vowels snuggled up to form
liaisons, like two lovers clinging to one another on a misty, black and white
Parisian afternoon. I thought if I learned the language of love, I might
understand my internal version of it. But, simply analyzing a map versus
walking the twisted lanes and secret side streets of a foreign city are like
dining from the dollar menu at a Taco Bell and calling it tapas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
didn’t expect everyone in Madrid to speak English, as if I had stumbled into
the Disney Epcot version of Spain where the scrubbed down facades and
cobblestone sidewalks did not offer up the occasional acrid, urine besotted
scent. But, I also did not anticipate feeling so ill-prepared and let’s face
it, so American. Not that I was un-proud of being American. I was just keenly
aware of Europeans’ distrust in our politics. Never was there a more accurate warning label than a Donald Trump bumper sticker. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I
can’t make out the prices. These wines seem so expensive,” I whispered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
older gentleman sitting next to us, so close that I could count the comb marks
in his white hair said, “That’s not the wine list. It’s just the cover of the
menu. They’ll bring an iPad if you ask.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Gracias,”
I said, even though he spoke with a crisp British accent. And then I actually
began to count the comb marks—in Spanish, but when I got to <i>diez</i>, I reached the
upper limit of my knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
learned a handful of phrases on my trip to Madrid. I could say good day, thank
you and ask where the bathroom was, but if anyone answered in Spanish, I would
have been lost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I told our waiter the paella was <i>muy bien</i>, he smiled and said “Bueno.” I smiled
back. I considered this a small victory until Dan explained that the waiter was
correcting me. I had told him the food was very well, as if he were inquiring
after my elderly aunt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That evening, the language app on my iPhone indicated with a triumphant chime that I
was one percent fluent in Spanish. Being one percent of anything does not
strike me as something to crow about. I’m used to giving it my all, of working
sixteen hour days in order to move a data center in Spain; of taking a sharp
left in my early forties and tossing out the map while actually walking through
the twisted chambers of my own heart after my first marriage to my wife
imploded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you were to question my </span>perseverance<span style="font-size: 12pt;">, I would tell you how I drove through a blizzard on a road I had never travelled to dine with the
man who would become my husband. We met at a Mexican restaurant called “On the
Border.” It straddled the state line between Massachusetts and New
Hampshire. After dinner, I could not stop kissing him in the front seat of his
car as the snow piled up. When I drove home, the landscaped was so altered I thought
I’d never find my way. Here's the thing. Falling in
love is like learning a new language; the only way to do it is to immerse
yourself and risk becoming lost. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
may have only known a few Spanish words on that trip to Madrid, but <i>mira</i>, I
made a decision. I would make them the most <i>auténtico </i>sounding phrases a
Spaniard had ever heard. So, I listened closely and it seemed to me that
<i>Madrileños </i>cast off their S’s the way Bostonians drop their R’s. No hypersexual
French S’s rolling in zee hay with any proximate coquettish vowels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After
Dan and I finished setting up the new office we decided to take a walking tour
of Madrid. When we approached the tour guide I said, “Buenos Dias. ¿Qué tal?” I
barely acknowledged my S’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Ah,
si, Español,” he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Ingles,
por favor,” I replied. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Well,
your greeting was very convincing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After
the tour, we walked through the heart of the city, along the twisted side
streets and uncovered its secrets hidden beneath the cobblestone lanes and
behind the Palacio walls. I turned to Dan and said, “I will give you five euros
if you can find a Mexican restaurant.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
sat outside at a table on Calle de las Hileras and ate Guacamole, tacos, tamales
and quesadillas while sipping dos cervezas. It may not have been the healthiest
plate of food in the world, but on that moonlit night in Madrid, it was the
Spanish I knew snuggling with the Spain I was beginning to love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-39507915165175524332015-09-06T10:42:00.002-04:002015-09-06T10:43:32.806-04:00Fashionably Late<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe frameborder="0" height="360" scrolling="no" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vinniek/fashionably-late-stories-by-men-who-came-out-later/widget/video.html" width="480"> </iframe>
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<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Great news! My story “Operating Instructions” will be featured in the upcoming anthology </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi, and Trans Men Who Came </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Out </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Later in Life</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">. The collection sheds light on a largely overlooked segment of the LGBT+ community and offers affirmation to older men coming out of the closet. The book will be out in March, but you can pre-order copies of the book right now through its <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vinniek/fashionably-late-stories-by-men-who-came-out-later?ref=project_link" target="_blank">Kickstarter </a>campaign! <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/vinniek/fashionably-late-stories-by-men-who-came-out-later?ref=project_link" target="_blank">Click here</a> to visit the page.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-63722351676291911082015-07-02T11:48:00.000-04:002015-07-02T16:08:43.949-04:00I'm Gonna' Keep On Loving You<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XO2YuOZlBAM5PT-tDWOiU6FJbAKfQI3CHXioKId7yzp898d2_E2NEwDtQa5_9NHkoCN4SrHmaCtZXs40TPeaPAI4MRw9yt1uPho0y8zogpQVaSmVZmxnpohc9Ia-10XTns8hbWvC05aj/s1600/mainehighway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XO2YuOZlBAM5PT-tDWOiU6FJbAKfQI3CHXioKId7yzp898d2_E2NEwDtQa5_9NHkoCN4SrHmaCtZXs40TPeaPAI4MRw9yt1uPho0y8zogpQVaSmVZmxnpohc9Ia-10XTns8hbWvC05aj/s640/mainehighway.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Paul’s definition of a good time is driving
like a bat out of hell from Boston to Maine, which is funny, because that’s my
definition of no sex tonight. You could say that he is an aggressive driver,
but that would be an understatement. Maybe he is an <i>obstreperous</i> driver. The meaning of that word, which no one could
define any differently, is to boldly resist an authority or opposing force. If
that opposing force is impending death—car over cliff style—then yes, this is
the word. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Look
Sweetie, no hands,” Paul says steering with his knees while changing lanes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s
this type of thing that people find charming in one another during the first
several years of a relationship. They choose pet names for each other. They intentionally
sing the wrong words to well-known songs together. They invent cute descriptions
for each other’s body parts, <i>juhostehagen</i>,
for example. They listen to REO Speedwagon. And because your love is so new and
all encompassing, it washes a glowing rose colored haze over these things. You
not only forgive him for listening to REO Speedwagon, you actually <i>adore</i> him for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">But
one night, many years into a relationship, when you come back from the gym and
you’re tired and hungry and you’re pinching that roll of fat around your middle
and you’re hurtling down the Maine turnpike at warp speed, guided only by someone’s
knee caps, you remember that you not only dislike REO Speedwagon, you <i>detest</i> them, always have. You imagine
REO’s speed wagon careening over a cliff and exploding in a terrific blaze amid
the whiff of singed, over-permed eighties hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Come
on sweetie, do a little dance,” Paul says glancing sideways at me. He raises
his eyebrows suggestively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Not
feeling it,” I say and look through the car window.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It’s
no secret that I’m the moody one, the thinking one. I’m writing a scene in my
head as it takes place in front of me. Thirty seconds after Paul asks “What are
you thinking about?,” I say “nothing.” Because how do I explain that I was just
wondering about how in a parallel universe, there must be the two of us driving
down another highway exactly like this one, asking and answering the same question?
And if you were to keep looking, you would see that same scene over and over
again like a repeating fun-house mirror? I could attempt to weave together the
thoughts that got me to this point, but when someone asks you what you’re
thinking about, they expect simple answers like “dinner” or “how pretty the sky
looks,” not quantum physics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
wish that I could wake up in the morning, throw my arms up over my head and
start whistling the way Paul does, but I’m not wired that way. For years, I
waited to see his bad side, but it never came. He’s eternally optimistic. And
then it dawns on me, like the blush of orange spread across the evening sky that
perhaps Paul’s definition of a good time is simply to have the wind in his hair
and the open road before him. Maybe he’s thinking that somewhere along the
line, in a parallel universe, he found the moody and overthinking guy
sitting to his right sexy and charming, but now he’s just a buzzkill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As
if he’s reading my thoughts, Paul reaches over and pats my face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Is
it a good thing that after all of these years, I want to kiss your face and not
bash it in?” he asks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Yes,
that’s a very good thing and I decide to define it as charming.</span></div>
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William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-29872905699976389952015-04-14T21:45:00.000-04:002019-01-03T10:03:08.077-05:00The Martin Guitar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZ_bcHARg9Lb51Qp06_LJjtH_xNxScoX5snfiqbvWxVxD_XAwIkOVPSWKevv12PUBIjK3hMG1ECY2dhyphenhyphenJV0nK9ZpFe9z5qyQk6Rfq0MboaXb9CO_eQGxddO74CEe1P9zUKV3SaVJBqB1_/s1600/C.F._Martin_000-28EC_Eric_Clapton_model_details.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUZ_bcHARg9Lb51Qp06_LJjtH_xNxScoX5snfiqbvWxVxD_XAwIkOVPSWKevv12PUBIjK3hMG1ECY2dhyphenhyphenJV0nK9ZpFe9z5qyQk6Rfq0MboaXb9CO_eQGxddO74CEe1P9zUKV3SaVJBqB1_/s1600/C.F._Martin_000-28EC_Eric_Clapton_model_details.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">She was what you would call
a “character” if you were being kind, something else if you were not. We didn’t
use the B word back then, lest we find ourselves gagging on the curious flavor of
Irish Spring soap. Manly yes, but I did not like it. We called her Ginny, which
was her name, a nickname for Virginia, the virgin grandmother. Grandma, Granny
or Nana was too soft a moniker to stretch over that tough exterior, arms always
crossed, black patent leather purse in the crook of her arm, plain woolen dress
and dark plastic eyeglasses resting on the end of her nose. Her fire red hair
was the one colorful accessory, a warning of sorts. Hugging her was like
wrapping your arms around the wrong end of magnetized iron, you always felt as
if you were being repelled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Great heavens above,” she
used to say, cigarette perched between the tips of two fingers, which she held above
her right shoulder, à la Bette Davis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">She could bend that phrase to
suit almost any emotion, shock, disbelief, disappointment. But whenever she
said it, it always felt as if she was summoning an army of angels to judge my
sorry, sinful ass. And I was a sinner, because every time she asked if we still
had that Martin guitar, I’d lie and say “Oh yes!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It was your grandfather’s guitar
and then your father’s, you know that don’t you?” she’d continue the
interrogation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Yeah,” I’d reply.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Yes ma’am,” she’d correct
me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">She’d take a puff of her
cigarette, narrow her eyes and say “You’re too skinny. Doesn’t your mother feed
you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My mother sold that Martin guitar years earlier for the express purpose of putting food on the table after
my father, Ginny’s cherished only child left us. But the phantom guitar
remained. Sometimes my brothers and I would embellish the story and breathe a
little more life into the fable. “We just had it re-strung,” we’d say or “It
sure does sounds pretty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“It’s valuable. Don’t let
your mother sell it,” She’d command.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Though we were children, my
brothers and I understood that somehow my grandmother knew the guitar was as
gone as my father. But we clung to the numinous fantasy, in part because we
feared her reaction and perhaps more so because as long as the guitar remained,
there was a piece of my father in the house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We probably would have
gotten away with the ruse had my grandmother chosen not to make a rare visit to
our home after the divorce. It was strange to see Ginny out of her environment
of stiff Victorian furniture and oriental rugs without “the help.” She was like
a piece of antique furniture appearing all the more displaced in a room of
orange shag carpeting with a brown corduroy upholstered sofa where four
misbehaving boys were scattered about the floor like throw rugs as our mangy
dog, Tiger farted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">During dinner, we attempted
to steer the conversation from tumbling down the road we all knew it would
eventually take. My older brother Chuck regaled us with his adventures in Boy
Scouting and the call of the wild. My younger brother John secreted away the
obligatory three bites of vegetables into his glass of milk. Matthew, the
youngest, batted his eyelashes that were as thick as a girl’s and then, without
thinking, I offered to play a rousing rendition of “Hot Cross Buns” on the piano.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“What?” I asked when my
brother Chuck kicked me under the table. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Why don’t you get the
guitar and make it a duet?” Ginny asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">My mother scanned our faces
and then asked Ginny to join her in the kitchen while she washed the dishes,
relieving us from our usual post dinner clean up. We sat in the den in silence just
as we did while listening to my mother’s one sided phone conversations begging
my father not to leave. “You never could make my son happy,” we heard Ginny accuse
my mother in the same kitchen where my mother sobbed over many a phone call
from women confessing to affairs with my swarthy, handsome father.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And then, Ginny appeared in
front of us, like one of those birds popping out of a coo-coo clock her body stiff
as a daguerreotype portrait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“You don’t have the guitar
anymore do you?” she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“No ma’am,” I said as her eyes
became watery and red-rimmed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Shortly thereafter we heard
the tires of my father’s car pull up the gravel drive and then Ginny was gone.
If I had been a good Christian boy I might have felt guilty, but I didn’t. I
was just so relieved to be rid of that God damn, worthless guitar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-209/"><img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/nonfic209.png" /></a>
William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-39831023067919605742015-03-03T07:56:00.002-05:002015-03-06T22:57:40.833-05:00The Blue Crab<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGC5tVB6cexSEV8qDa6oen2j4A8ylpSXLjytN_A2SL5e9RwG6hQz506veVkZ9vUeGOWRfxgddYOJuklWIpWKEji9oLlLx8tUWpZaRbhUKjg_t9UcgyJdl3MG5FrZQAM55PEdpouXf6dZaW/s1600/oceansunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGC5tVB6cexSEV8qDa6oen2j4A8ylpSXLjytN_A2SL5e9RwG6hQz506veVkZ9vUeGOWRfxgddYOJuklWIpWKEji9oLlLx8tUWpZaRbhUKjg_t9UcgyJdl3MG5FrZQAM55PEdpouXf6dZaW/s1600/oceansunset.jpg" height="358" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
end of swim season was the end. There were no digital fibers in the fabric of
our lives to keep us connected. Gone was the shock of the early morning water
and the honey combed sunlight quivering beneath the surface of the pool. Gone
were the Lycra suited lords and ladies of summer cheering from the edge. There
would be no more frozen snickers, wafting scents of crinkled French fries
frying or coconut scented mothers glistening. And most all, it was the end of congratulatory
pats on the rear end from coach Hal with the blonde wavy hair and muscled legs like
tree trunks. I was a moonchild born in July. The end of swim season was the end of me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">But
after the end, my mother piled brown paper grocery bags filled with a week’s
worth of food into the back of our wood paneled station wagon and so we began the
four hour trek to Topsail Island on the outer banks of North Carolina. As the
landscape flattened out and the green stalks of corn flickered by the window, we
hit a bump in the road and my lungs deflated with a hissing sigh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“What’s
wrong with you?” my older brother Chuck asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Shut-up,”
I replied. Because how could I explain what was wrong with me, when what was
wrong </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">with me was so terribly wrong?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
the shoulders of the roads became sandy and the dunes dotted with nodding sea
oats came into view, we rolled down the windows and inhaled the warm salty air,
each attempting to spot the blue of the ocean first. It was an elixir that
brought me back from the brink of death caused by teenage summer crush. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Towards
the end of the week, my three brothers and I bolted through the screen door
with the rusted spring hinge of the faded blue cottage, <i>whack!</i> Chuck with the fish heads, John with the string, Matt with
the Styrofoam cooler and me with the net. We navigated our way across the street
and through the reeds, side stepping the fiddler crabs retreating backwards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
tied a string in a loop through the mouth of a fish head, our faces screwed
up as if we had just bitten into a lemon and tossed the head into the
shallow water of the sound. Within a minute or two there was a tug on the line
and Chuck slowly pulled the string towards us as I dropped the net and scooped
up a blue crab. I inverted the net over the cooler and shook it, releasing the
clamoring crustacean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">After
we deposited about ten crabs, Chuck pulled up another and when I captured it in
the net and shook it, I discovered that it was hopelessly tangled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Reach
in and pull it out,” Chuck commanded, but I could not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Come
on you fag, just do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I’m
certain now that he used the term loosely, more as an insult and less as an
accusation, but I felt ensnared in the word. And so I whacked the net against a
barnacled wooden pole over and over again, tears streaming down my face as the
crab’s body cracked and my brothers looked on with wide eyes and gaping mouths.
The sun dipped below the horizon smearing orange streaks in the sky and I was
left alone to pick the dismantled pieces of the crab out of the net. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
was the end of the season and it was the end of me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-203/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nonfic203.png" /></a>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-winners-203/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/editor203.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-26021635048570618022015-01-27T14:29:00.001-05:002015-01-27T14:29:50.184-05:00By Any Other Name<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsIz9SqqB0LY5vReG7zpx4IbZLS1h-xseqlLTXXv838udAksd7zvngt6buuvKFKNNcsZ4UbNEHra9ZuBcXHE7QZ__t3IUO6_bcclnnUc5vSV1Gy1LM9bDu-pN3kBPOIfMO_MLUOxxQ-YUT/s1600/roses.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsIz9SqqB0LY5vReG7zpx4IbZLS1h-xseqlLTXXv838udAksd7zvngt6buuvKFKNNcsZ4UbNEHra9ZuBcXHE7QZ__t3IUO6_bcclnnUc5vSV1Gy1LM9bDu-pN3kBPOIfMO_MLUOxxQ-YUT/s1600/roses.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
was poking my fettuccine with a fork at the Cheesecake Factory on a cold
November night while he explained the process for remembering all of his previous
boyfriends. “Take the first initial of your last name, for instance mine is ‘B’
and give each of them a nickname that begins with that letter.” I don’t
remember how the subject came up, but enumerating our previous love interests
on a first date seemed dangerous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“For
example, ‘The Boozer,’” he said. “He was my first.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
had less of a list of boyfriends and more of a handful of encounters; two or
three fingers would have sufficed, really. I had been out of the closet for
about six months and during that time I went out on a few dates. One guy even
kept in touch with me, if you could accept a single misspelled text message as
communication: “sorry, ben busy.” Buy a fucking vowel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Then
there was the Biscotti,” he said. “He was sweet and I think he truly loved me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
wasn’t difficult to see why any person might fall in love with him. With his
looks, all he had to do was smile and hearts melted. The middle aged woman at
the table next to us was pretending to point out an item on the menu to her
friend, but she was in fact, making a sloppy gesture towards my date. I could
see her mouthing the phrase, as if she was talking to a deaf person, “Not that
one, The-Good-Looking-One. Over There.” Bitch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“The
Bald eagle was next,” he laughed. “He lived in Lexington and put hair product
on the twenty or so hairs on his head.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As
he continued to describe the bald eagle, I began to worry that we dated the
same guy and then he mentioned him by his actual name. Correction, he had dated
the bald eagle. I only had <i>physical relations</i>
with him and then he flew out of the door. The guy who spent an hour applying
gel to the sparse hairs on his head could not apply that same amount of attention
on me. As he continued to describe all of the previous men in his life, I envisioned
introducing him to my family and friends. I imagined them looking confused as
they glanced over my shoulder while I mouthed the words, “No, The Good Looking
One. Right Here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Box-boy
sold cardboard boxes for a living and collected washing machines as a hobby.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">My
heart sunk. My two or three encounters were his full-fledged relationships. I
was the crazy in their universe and they were the throw-aways in his. As he
continued to go down his list, I began to wonder how I might be remembered, The
Blunder, The Bozo, The Bitch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
he walked me to my car, I thought about asking him what my nickname would be,
but it was time to manage the crazy. Maybe <i>I</i>
would come up with a way to remember <i>him</i>.
If I were to choose the first initial of my last name, “D,” there would be plenty
of options, Dazzling, Dreamy. <i>Dammit</i>,
I was already hooked. This was Dangerous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
asked Paul once when he decided to stop collecting nick names and settled on me.
Maybe it was because he finally found someone who could only be described with
glowing B words: Beautiful, Beguiling, Bewitching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Was
it because you finally found someone whose name begins with B?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Who
are you?” he smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Douchebag.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-198/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nonfic198.png" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-68598096298335262502014-12-30T10:57:00.000-05:002015-12-30T08:50:43.768-05:00First Person Possessive<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZPh-2OdNRVz0oVAp0eRcJNBPDqOx8lSI1vATPfUBbx7mg19VBzrfAF3f54REup0eh0Ug4Unk7ITVu_Jz5fXQK44gpEeGQJr_4-7CgW1hAl_8a9IBOVGOF9vVaArUgehELRLNrvAmu73QM/s1600/DSC01746.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZPh-2OdNRVz0oVAp0eRcJNBPDqOx8lSI1vATPfUBbx7mg19VBzrfAF3f54REup0eh0Ug4Unk7ITVu_Jz5fXQK44gpEeGQJr_4-7CgW1hAl_8a9IBOVGOF9vVaArUgehELRLNrvAmu73QM/s1600/DSC01746.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">On
Wednesday nights, Dad would pull up the driveway in his Carolina blue Mercedes
and honk the horn, cigarette perched in the corner of his mouth, hairy forearm
hanging from the car window. My brothers and I would run down the front steps shouting,
“Shotgun!” tugging at each other’s collars, attempting to hold the other one back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">He
would take us to the Village Inn Pizza Parlor on Battleground Road, where they
played silent films on a canvas in a dimly lit, wood paneled dining room. By
the flickering light of some bygone silver screen stars<i>,</i> we’d devour a large cheese pizza and drink pitchers of Coca-Cola
with crushed ice and talk about nothing in particular and everything in
general.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“All
these youngins yours, sugar?” the waitress would ask, surveying me and my three
brothers like we were a certain sign of his virility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">They
sure are, honey,” Dad would reply.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">That
was the year language changed. “Our home” became “The house.” Possessive
adjectives were too hefty to place into a sentence. Dad left Mom for a woman
who was all of the things that she was not, blonde, young and childless. But,
Wednesday nights and alternating weekends were ours, possessive. If he wanted
to flirt, he could do it on his time, singular.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
look just like my mother,” I said to the waitress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
midweek meals and weekend sleepovers dwindled when my older brother went off to
college. The last time we participated in a Wednesday night dinner, a Formica
table divided the space between us at a McDonalds, while Dad drew down a
cigarette. We spoke of nothing at all until he asked, “You about done?” and I
replied “No, but we can go now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
Dad became ill, there was a sense deep down in my marrow that I needed to say
something to him. The old, <i>if you need to
say anything, you better say it now, </i>feeling. We’d be sitting in the
afternoon sun on the brick patio, just the two of us and I’d rack my brain trying
to fish up something worthy to say. Some timeless version of I love you, or I
forgive you. I’d look over at his chemo withered frame and hairless head, but
the words I was trying to push out would be sucked back in by a tide of
embarrassment too strong to ford.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Funny,
the things you remember when someone up and leaves; a cluster of red and yellow
petals swirling in the sunlight on the front porch, the stench of stale breath
and sweat soaked linens, a pair of skinny, pale legs twitching a death jig in a
rental hospital bed and a smoke colored moon drifting through an inky black sky.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
last time I said anything to Dad was moments before he left. I sat in the
coveted spot by his head and my brothers at his feet, as we counted the seconds
between his final breaths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“It’s
OK, Dad, you can go now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">That’s all I said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Because the most important words I could think of to say were the ones my father was waiting to hear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-194/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nonfic194.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-23769017988891245422014-11-17T14:40:00.000-05:002014-11-17T17:36:49.047-05:00Dancing For The Stars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaRDQeuoQR_op50Ptb7F6eX9_aAuLpY0FoPZSaEg9sIMfs8koH5rsPgigENl9rh2edgq7H9Jy_DfYncolkhJIoGcUYbNGegQAo5r4xzSXHrMvgHHQiubK_9H5Qd2LUAcNvKgxmewwSm7yO/s1600/FullSizeRender+(4).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaRDQeuoQR_op50Ptb7F6eX9_aAuLpY0FoPZSaEg9sIMfs8koH5rsPgigENl9rh2edgq7H9Jy_DfYncolkhJIoGcUYbNGegQAo5r4xzSXHrMvgHHQiubK_9H5Qd2LUAcNvKgxmewwSm7yO/s1600/FullSizeRender+(4).jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">When
Paul installed a security camera in our cottage in Maine, I felt a
celebutante’s dread that I would become the victim of a leaked sex tape. When I
expressed this concern, he brushed it aside with a wave of his hand and said
“It only records when we put it in ‘away’ mode.” In theory, this is true, but
in practice it is false. The camera never records, because we never put it in
away mode. But it is always on, a watchful eye streaming to an app on our
iPhones with a five second delay. It is on demand déjà vu.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">“Show
me something,” Paul says as I walk into the kitchen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">I face
the camera and give it a Kardashian caught without make-up look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">“No, I
mean something <i>good,</i>” he says holding
his iPhone up in front of his face while sitting on the sofa in the sun room
and flicking his index finger and thumb, zooming in. He then offers some
directorial advice “Do a sexy little dance.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">I perform my best <i>Magic Mike</i> moves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">“That was mechanical,” Paul sighs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">The
life of a reality star is difficult and if being under constant surveillance
were not enough, there is a microphone on the camera that is controlled by the
iPhone app. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">“Oh
yeah, slice those limes,” a gravelly porn star voice, aka Paul, emanates from
the speaker on the camera. “Now squeeze them, baby. Squeeze them real good.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">Correction,
it is on demand porno vu.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">When
we are not home, Paul will occasionally say “I wonder what’s going on in the
cottage,” which is my cue to open the app. I’m not certain what I expect, but
every time I am chilled to see a creepy stillness, a kitchen table and four
empty chairs in the shifting light of the late autumn New England sun, shadows in
the shuttered sun room, the glint of sunlight on hardwood floors where the click of our footsteps have long since vanished. Perhaps even more eerie is the
sound of our absence, white noise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">All of
this makes me feel as if I am somehow cheating. Unless we have jumped off of a
bridge on a snowy winter night and been pulled out of the abyss by a bumbling
guardian angel, we’re not meant to see the world without us. But I do,
and for all of the changes it has made to me, I am surprised to find it
unaltered. The air does not quiver, as Isak Dinesen ruminated, with a color I
have had on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">If our
nearest possible alien neighbors were to poke their telescopes through the
cloth of space, it would take at least twelve years for any images from Earth to
reach them. This is the nearest “habitable zone” of planets, scientists say.
The image of my sexy dance in a pair of boxers while slicing limes would echo
through the cosmos, bumping into a passing comet and drifting over stars for more
than a decade before reaching the blinking eyes of some extra-terrestrials. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.5pt;">I
imagine two alien lovers discovering my ethereal sex tape and looking at
each other in that knowing way, touched by the absurdity of the universe and
this gives me comfort. They would glance at each other and exchange thoughts
without speaking, as Paul and I often do, then smile, turn on the microphone and
whisper a gravelly message across the void.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">“Get
out.” </span></div>
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<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-188/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nonfic188.png" /></a><br />
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<br />William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-1796607709545786872014-10-28T08:09:00.000-04:002014-11-12T07:05:38.025-05:00Public Displays<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQdrKEDDS96snXXVCOXK-uwLNLXmoAnRIyvM51ToVVWHSu-aqrtA-nqZHiRftA0AF5iSHhz1FcDa9NkX_pgPF2fzmCmNnqWRMrpeDUntBbe2eh23-F3vF83Wk4fNJN5h8oEBdOvAtsE5d/s1600/charles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkQdrKEDDS96snXXVCOXK-uwLNLXmoAnRIyvM51ToVVWHSu-aqrtA-nqZHiRftA0AF5iSHhz1FcDa9NkX_pgPF2fzmCmNnqWRMrpeDUntBbe2eh23-F3vF83Wk4fNJN5h8oEBdOvAtsE5d/s1600/charles.jpg" height="267" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
are strolling along the Charles as Paul’s hand falls behind my back and taps me
on the rear end. I swat at the air as if an angry swarm of bees has descended
upon us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">“See
that? Ninja like reflexes,” he says and performs a karate chop. “Nobody would have seen me touch you if you hadn't </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">made such a public display.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">He
begins to sing. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when
you act gay.” He then slides his sunglasses down his nose with one finger,
glances sideways at me while raising an eyebrow and says “You need modesty
panels beneath that shirt. I can see your breasteses.” The thumb and index
finger of his right hand come towards my chest like a snapping turtle, which I block
with the back of my hand, <i>hi-yah!</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Taking
a walk with Paul is no walk in the park. My discomfort with performing public
displays of affection is, perhaps, rivaled only by his delight in delivering
them. The more I squirm, the more he fondles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You’re
adorable,” he’ll say, while my hands dart to shield parts of my body as if my
clothes have evaporated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
is this reaction that fuels his glee.
You think I would learn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
Paul is driving and I am sitting in the passenger seat, the slightest anomaly
startles me, a car changing lanes, a bus suddenly stopping or the shadow cast
by a passing bird. All of these things
will cause me to shout “Look out!” and stomp on the imaginary brake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Sweetie,
look at me. What if I were to pass out right now,” Paul will say, his neck
becoming slack and his hands flopping to his side. The car will veer slightly towards the
shoulder. “We would end up sinking to our watery death in the marsh,” Paul will
say and my hands will fly up as if I’m swatting away bees again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Don’t
do that!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
can’t remember the exact moment I became so fearful, though I know it is entwined
with when I became fearless. When you make the decision to become courageous
and get what you want, you become afraid of losing it. We have never crashed
through the guard rail. No one has ever
threatened us over a kiss, still I am like the dog getting his back scratched;
too concerned that it will end to completely enjoy it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">But
today it is a warm September afternoon and summer is flirting with fall. The
leaves are glowing yellow. Rowers skim the river’s glossy surface like water
bugs. Crickets are chirping love songs to one another and if gravity failed, we
could sail forever together through the endless blue sky. I make the decision to enjoy
the moment and then like a driverless car my thoughts veer towards the dark water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“What
are you thinking about, right now?” Paul asks, while pointing a finger at me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“That
I am afraid the literary magazine will not publish my piece, or worse, that
they <i>will</i>. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent anything out.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Paul
screws up his face and says “They’re going to hate it. You will probably never
write again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I throw up my hands to block the insult. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You
think I would learn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-181/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/nonfic181.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-772517188863374182014-10-27T10:32:00.000-04:002014-11-12T07:06:28.785-05:00Spinning Bottles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLB9KBVPfdtQe5bNvBi_OEOqXGbarqC2p4GrDNT9RB5xr7n_KVNGUSNhmCvF7Z_Wn18Zp9C7WMethpmuJkQ6CzCzds7HSS5rH8kWbjlrqk6p7_F6sTXRiTEmxSc7W3zGB57AoGI6lafhz/s1600/bottles.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLB9KBVPfdtQe5bNvBi_OEOqXGbarqC2p4GrDNT9RB5xr7n_KVNGUSNhmCvF7Z_Wn18Zp9C7WMethpmuJkQ6CzCzds7HSS5rH8kWbjlrqk6p7_F6sTXRiTEmxSc7W3zGB57AoGI6lafhz/s1600/bottles.png" height="289" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The
first time I kissed a girl, I was twelve years old, which was also the first
time I sampled my first taste of alcohol.
The two were, rather surprisingly, unrelated. The former involved a gaggle of eighth
graders in Carolyn Clancy’s backyard, spinning an empty green bottle and the
latter a bubbling champagne fountain at my step-grandmother’s second or third
wedding in Danville, Virginia. Both of
them left me feeling slightly nauseated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For the life
of me, I can’t understand why my father thought it was A-OK to let his twelve
year old son drink four glasses of champagne.
Perhaps, he thought it might put some hair on my chest or maybe he found
it charming the way, when loosened up, I performed my Cary Grant impersonation
for the crowd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Judy, Judy,
Judy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">My
step-grandmother wore a smart, ivory, lace jacket and skirt suit, smiled widely
and her lilting southern accent curled up at the ends like her Mary Tyler Moore
hair-doo. She wore bright red lipstick and from a distance she could have been
a beauty queen, but when you got up close you could see how the lipstick bled
into the tiny cracks around her mouth from years of smoking Virginia Slim
cigarettes. The effect was slightly horrifying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I suppose
that’s the way I felt about Karen Enright too.
From an emotional distance, she looked appealing, but when the mouth of
the bottle stopped spinning and pointed at her like a gulping fish I scanned
the expectant crowd and wondered if they might settle for my Cary Grant
impersonation instead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Kiss her!”
The boys shouted at me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Judy”—I
muttered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“Just do it
Dameron!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The crowd
wanted a lurid display of sex. Sister
Mary Claire had just that year, attempted to teach a classroom of hormonal boys
the facts of life. The girls were sent
to another room to learn about their monthly gift. But, when Alex Brethette
asked Sister Mary Claire if a blowjob was considered pre-marital sex, she
became red-faced and was replaced by our hunky physical education teacher with
the porno-mustache. I was thrilled,
however sorely disappointed that Alex never broached the blowjob question with
him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I finally
mustered up the courage, stepped across the divide of the circle, closed my
eyes, and planted a kiss squarely on Karen’s nose. My aim was a little
off. She jumped up, holding her hand to
her nose and inexplicably, started crying. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“I’ll hate
you for the rest of my life!” She bawled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Her hatred
lasted for one week, maybe two. My embarrassment lasted a little longer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The first
time I kissed a boy, I was nineteen years old and unsurprisingly, it involved
alcohol, gobs of it. There was no spinning bottle, but the stars above us were
twirling and they all seemed to point at a guy I met in a bar on the edge of
town, beneath the moonlit shadows of the Colorado Rockies. My aim was much
better this time and despite being a little more than tipsy, I don’t remember
feeling nauseated in the least, quite the opposite.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I first
kissed my husband in the cold Burlington Mall parking lot. There wasn't any
alcohol involved, but the effect was no less intoxicating. If I could go back, I’d tell my twelve year
old self a few things. Ignore most of what nuns teach you about sex, alternate
glasses of water with the champagne and have faith, it will take forty-four
spins of the Earth around the sun to find your own charming Cary Grant. It’s
worth the wait.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-167/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge167.png" /></a>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-winners-167/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/jury167.png" /></a>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-winners-167/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/editor167.png" /></a>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-winners-167/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/crowd167.png" /></a>
William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-90641267798502762932014-10-26T10:27:00.000-04:002014-10-27T10:15:49.884-04:00Mystery Date<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofYQjbgqKqltdK2Q6-0lKYn8tqOcRrVMt58FZObBovJGHclarVgrMRmld0GzTLDVxjehbyMLC2wdc1mXJC8ArHxZrAmtzvjWVVycGWyQfkvyOOan3G83ZnxfQnQxkT64tcJIfb8eb4XZl/s1600/bill-who.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofYQjbgqKqltdK2Q6-0lKYn8tqOcRrVMt58FZObBovJGHclarVgrMRmld0GzTLDVxjehbyMLC2wdc1mXJC8ArHxZrAmtzvjWVVycGWyQfkvyOOan3G83ZnxfQnQxkT64tcJIfb8eb4XZl/s1600/bill-who.jpg" height="496" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">My
therapist leaned forward and asked, “What are you looking for, physically, in a
man?” I could have said, “Someone who looks like you.” It would have been
truthful, though awkward. After forty-three years in the closet, the physical
details regarding my ideal man were basic: someone over twenty-one and under
fifty. Even then, I was willing to grant some leeway. If I had an angel and a
devil on either shoulder, one was a gyrating go-go boy in a red G-string and
the other was a gay Pat Boone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Tall,
maybe six-two, one hundred ninety-ish pounds,” I said narrowing my eyes to
visualize him and then continued, “brown tousled hair with highlights, blue, <i>no</i>, green eyes. He works out, but not
too much, you know?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“That’s
fairly specific,” Adam remarked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
was describing a guy I had just seen on the subway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Also,
a good sense of humor and caring,” I attempted to round it out. Although these were not technically physical
attributes, I hoped this made me seem less superficial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You’re
a good person, you’ll attract a good man, but it’s important that you
understand what you’re looking for,” He replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">There
was a warning of sorts, couched in that compliment, but like most people would,
I focused on the compliment and ignored the warning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">After
creating an online dating profile I showed it to my friends, Hans and Dennis. Hans
had been in the closet for forty-six years and if Dennis ever was in, it was only
to color coordinate his clothes. They lived together in a small condo on the
top floor of a 1920’s building in Harvard Square. I would visit them often and
dream of living in the city with the man I loved. Their home was like a
photograph from the pages of </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">House
Beautiful</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">. Although in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">House
Beautiful</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, I doubt there was a charcoal drawing of an ejaculating penis on
the refrigerator. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Oh
my God, so many of these men are the same ones who were on here before I met
Hans. These poor men--Not you honey-- you’re fresh meat,” Dennis said patting
me on the shoulder. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">How
long would it be before my meat began to spoil?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Oh
honey, let’s go through them all. I’ll tell you which ones to avoid with a ten
foot pole,” Dennis said, then he raised one eyebrow and added “or the ones with
a ten inch pole.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Hans
rolled his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
felt incestuous knowing that I could potentially date some man that Hans or
Dennis might have had a relationship with. While I appreciated their insight, I
didn’t want to end up with sloppy seconds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“What
does DDF mean?” I asked Hans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Disease
and drug free,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Honey,
did I tell you about the time I did LSD with my friend Angie from high school?”
Dennis said. “Her mother opened the door to her bedroom and Angie shouted,
‘Shit, it’s my mother!’ I said that’s not your mother, it’s a big crow! We started screaming and throwing pillows at
her, trying to shoo her away.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Hans
gave me an upside down smile, pushed himself up from the table, walked over to
Dennis and kissed him. They put their arms around each other and started swaying
back and forth, laughing. I watched them dance to music that only the two of
them could hear. They were in madly in love with each other. When I looked at
them, I could almost hear the music playing and if I narrowed my eyes just a
bit?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">I
could almost see my future.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/nonfiction-writing-challenge-185/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nonfic185.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-69947062913157654702014-09-08T12:04:00.000-04:002014-09-12T11:31:53.189-04:00The Best Medicine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKP3aAXXmEv_ldiVN9lKQ4AUkG0iPD0fpazByOR9cf7vxbHZQK6RkTqCyTbWrdpUHFyqizzVUbeuY9qeVt7_A2edyWVkWmbOFTomBWJEwm75uhk8i5cF0UsA47zZtGL-9pn2xkwNo_BAdI/s1600/Antique-pharmacy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKP3aAXXmEv_ldiVN9lKQ4AUkG0iPD0fpazByOR9cf7vxbHZQK6RkTqCyTbWrdpUHFyqizzVUbeuY9qeVt7_A2edyWVkWmbOFTomBWJEwm75uhk8i5cF0UsA47zZtGL-9pn2xkwNo_BAdI/s1600/Antique-pharmacy.jpg" height="408" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Paul
saunters into the hospital room, glances at me lying in the bed and throws the
back of his hand to his forehead saying, “Pull the plug! I can’t stand to see him suffering.” I shoot
him a look. I am babysitting my pain, which is an alien living inside of my
gut, clawing at my intestines, consuming all of my faculties. After four hours
of suffering at home and an alarming text message from my friend Sam,<i> Not to
scare u but u have to act on abdominal pain bec the lining of ur intestines can
rip and cause all types of poisoning in ur body!</i> I decided to make my inaugural visit to the
Emergency Room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Let’s
go before my stomach explodes,” I said wide-eyed, as Paul grabbed the car keys. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">He
bent his head down like he was looking at a baby and attempted to rub my belly,
but I swatted at him as if he was a gnat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“The
equipment is aging,” my physician told me during my last physical. He is a thin man with hair on his face, to
make up for the lack of it on his head and prone to making unvarnished and ill-timed
statements. “How was your Valentine’s day?” he asked me once, while inspecting
my prostate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
is this aging equipment that concerns me now as I look at Paul, who is
inspecting the tube taped to my arm. I mutter “Sweetie, get used to it. This is
your future.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
am a languishing Mimi to his Rodolfo. I am dramatized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Maybe
we can fill this thing with a Cosmo,” Paul says, squeezing the IV bag.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Don’t
touch that!” I shout. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
is a given that one of us will go first. When Paul travels for work, I take a
vacation to his side of the bed. Not
because it is closer to the bathroom or because long ago, it used to be mine,
but because I want to experience the world from his point of view. When you
love someone, <i>really</i> love him, you
want to become him. I think that if my
head falls asleep on his pillow, I will be able to peek into his dreams and
wake up in the morning to see the world through his eyes. I want to understand
what he sees in the man with the aging face he chose to wake up to for the rest
of his life. And now, I wonder what he will feel when my side of the bed is
empty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
open one eye and examine the equipment in the room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Is
one of these things a lipo machine?
Maybe my pain is coming from a thin layer of fat,” I say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You
made a little joke,” Paul says cocking his head and smiling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
is then, that I realize my pain has vanished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
the resident, a young stoic, Indian woman enters, I am taking a selfie in my
hospital gown. I apologize profusely for the lack of pain as she presses down
on my abdomen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“It
<i>was </i>an eight or nine on the pain scale,” I promise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">She
nods her head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Heart
burn,” she says as she hands me my discharge papers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Lack
of attention,” Paul will later change the diagnosis, when I recount the
harrowing experience, ad nauseum, to friends.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Paul
reminds me that I came into this world with a slap and a wail and I’ll leave it
with a slap and a tickle if he has anything to do with it. If that’s my future,
I can accept the prognosis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-178/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/challenge178.png" /></a>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-winners-177/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/edkiwi177.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-19134002696347072292014-08-14T11:09:00.000-04:002014-08-17T01:19:06.911-04:00Memoir of a Gay Date<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglz1lqrIUqOAdsQBkI-pnrdKPSgFOTEk41LqmJv9NJOFX-tRW_3Q2MSulhzKl6_dPgiZGMHWKSgykmyiuf4gppNsKUveXaBx_WPjz7jABVJo-ncqost-lGttb8np9hmXcNDS64acTQPgxQ/s1600/photo+(16).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglz1lqrIUqOAdsQBkI-pnrdKPSgFOTEk41LqmJv9NJOFX-tRW_3Q2MSulhzKl6_dPgiZGMHWKSgykmyiuf4gppNsKUveXaBx_WPjz7jABVJo-ncqost-lGttb8np9hmXcNDS64acTQPgxQ/s1600/photo+(16).JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Kyle
reaches across the table, gingerly plucks one French fry from my plate and coos
“Oh, I really </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">shouldn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> eat this; a girl has to watch her figure.” He bats his
eyelashes, which I suppose he thinks is adorable and then asks “Am I just
horrible?” A mudslide that destroys an entire neighborhood is horrible. A plane that crashes in a terrific fireball
is horrible. Stealing a single French
fry from your date’s plate is not horrible. Unless you are a forty something
year old man who calls himself a girl, while attempting to feign an adorable
devil-may-care face. Then yes, this is horrible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Why
don’t you take the rest?” I offer. My appetite has vanished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
couldn’t,” he smiles and then glances sideways at me, “Well, maybe just a few.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In
his profile picture he looked blonde, complex and devilishly impish. On the phone, his personality was a mixture of
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Katharine Hepburn.
There was a certain “je-ne-sais-quois” quality about him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
just arranged a birthday <i>brunch</i> for
my friend,” he says rolling his eyes at the word brunch, as if to say it has
come to <i>this</i>, then continues “I
simply cannot stay out all night like I used to. My friends tell me I’m a bitch.
I am!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In
person, he is not a mixture of anything, he IS Katharine Hepburn. In short, he is
simply not my type. He is Spencer Tracy’s type. I wish that I could just go
ahead and tell him this. But, I am new
to the dating scene and have not learned how to be ruthless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You
know, you should change your profile picture,” he says. Kyle has learned how to be ruthless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Oh,
what’s wrong with my picture?” I ask<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Well,
there is nothing wrong with it per se. It’s just that you’re not smiling. You look so serious in it, well like now,” he
says. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">That
is when it strikes me how deceptive the thumbnail profile photographs are. From a distance many men look really
attractive, but when you expand them, you see all of their flaws. The eyes are too close, or the teeth require
work, or there is something just not quite right about the way all of the parts
are put together. And then there are the photographs that look too good. The lighting is soft and reminiscent of a
Parisian sunset in autumn, the skin flawless and the features chiseled like
Roman Gods. These men are too beautiful
to be in love with anyone other than themselves, or else they have become
extremely proficient in Photoshop, in which case they are still in love with
the <i>image</i> of themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
chose a photograph of myself that was truthful, yet flattering. It was one that my daughter had taken of
me. In it, I am standing in a church parking
lot, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pensive look on my
face. In the background, you could see the steeple surrounded by blue skies and
billowing clouds. But, the photograph was less about what was behind me and
more about what was in front of me. From her angle, my daughter captured
someone who appeared solid, tall and ready to move forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
finish dinner and Kyle insists on walking me to my car. He pops a breath-mint
in his mouth, puts his hand on my waist and offers “Mint?” I am in danger of
becoming a human French fry. I do not mask my horror.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You
know Kyle, I just want you to know that I think I'm becoming serious with
another guy,” I ruthlessly lie. Time to move forward.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Am
I just horrible?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-154/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge154.png" /></a>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/winners-154/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/crowd154.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-49005763272391549152014-07-28T18:00:00.000-04:002014-08-05T20:42:02.503-04:00Sheila's Secret Sauce<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsBTlVHPerDMwzsKV6HuRwhQfswIm4kVyrDM_dGS67V0SYG4NbhOP5IHvr3xLCLVHFVjG3AetQJZP6WNBmXuGCWHIz7r9KsjDSJSRu_iQIAwnDItkcTwmtH0lILWmDfyoZdozmrwJ8iaJ/s1600/food.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsBTlVHPerDMwzsKV6HuRwhQfswIm4kVyrDM_dGS67V0SYG4NbhOP5IHvr3xLCLVHFVjG3AetQJZP6WNBmXuGCWHIz7r9KsjDSJSRu_iQIAwnDItkcTwmtH0lILWmDfyoZdozmrwJ8iaJ/s1600/food.png" height="316" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
was an unseasoned nineteen year old, when my Aunt Sheila and her psychic
girlfriend deposited me like a sack of flour on her friends’ front porch in
Central City, Colorado. They were a
couple of “old gay rednecks from the hill country,” Barrel chested Harry would
say while running Texas-sized fingers through his mop of brown hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Speak
for yourself, you old queen,” his partner Bob would reply, tittering about, while
Harry swatted at him like a June bug.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They
operated <i>Saddle Bag Bakery, </i>in the center of the old mining town on Eureka
Road nestled in a crevice along the ridge of the Rockies. The only remaining
gold came from the pockets of super-sized tourists gasping in the rarified air, who would shell out a few bucks for a cream cheese and strawberry jelly pastry and
tromp through a tour of <i>The Lost Gold Mine</i>, following a skinny teenager
with a battery powered lamp (yours truly).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Sheila
and I had been turned out of her tidy Denver home by my aunt’s partner, who in
a fit of jealous rage lobbed a pot over the fence at Sheila, barely missing my
head. “Cook your fucking fetuccine alfredo for your new truck driver
girlfriend,” she shouted, insulting both my aunt’s signature dish and her saucy
new girlfriend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Sheila
cupped her hands around a lighter, picked up the pot and then calmly said with
cigarette perched in the corner of her mouth, “I paid a lot of money for this.”
You could talk smack about any number of things, but when it came to her cooking,
the buck stopped here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
suppose I should have seen that coming,” Sheila said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Or
maybe? Her psychic, truck driver girlfriend, Stella, should have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And
so I found myself living with two gay bakers while my aunt searched for a new
place to live, until </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">one night I was awakened by the rustling of sheets and the
scrape of a toenail desperately in need of a pedicure against my leg.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Bob?”
I stuttered, “You’re in the wrong bedroom. Where’s Harry?” I was woefully innocent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“He’s
down at the shop baking,” he said, snaking an arm around my waist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">And
then it dawned on me that Bob had not made a logistical mistake. I was like a Hostess Twinkie that he could
not resist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You
should join him,” I said and watched him sulk out of the bedroom like an old
dog denied a table scrap. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">After
wedging a chair beneath the doorknob for the rest of the night, I placed a call
to my aunt the next morning and that afternoon we moved into an unfurnished
apartment with a couple of mattresses on the floor and a brand new set of
expensive baking dishes in the kitchen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Where’s
Stella?” I inquired.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Didn’t
last,” Sheila said while pulling out a pot. “Besides, now I’ll get to spend
more time with you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Honey,
why don’t you make us a couple of vodka tonics, while I prepare my secret
sauce,” she motioned towards the freezer door.
When I turned around with glasses in hand, Sheila was unscrewing the top
of store bought alfredo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“This’ll
be our little secret,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">That
evening we dined on paper plates under the shadows of the Rockies, sharing stories
and getting sauced. If food truly is a
metaphor for love, that summer, I got my fill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/summer-series-172/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/summer172.png" /></a>
ijIjrJzACrhUmSW1D7FSWilliam Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-89624168026592981942014-05-20T07:36:00.003-04:002014-05-20T09:32:44.187-04:00Driving Instructions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSNX3pXVgZBThg2f_EOncYymsVhDmzh9GbYwWCPQm5X5f3D6oDRzVr0kPFsvpzH1idIK8FcX7QjZxoKesJUhuqZLHJ-6pB3Qecqg02YayM5qQEVWpTXjHnDh-tTTVdzawoZ2oPmsZGRWpm/s1600/road.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSNX3pXVgZBThg2f_EOncYymsVhDmzh9GbYwWCPQm5X5f3D6oDRzVr0kPFsvpzH1idIK8FcX7QjZxoKesJUhuqZLHJ-6pB3Qecqg02YayM5qQEVWpTXjHnDh-tTTVdzawoZ2oPmsZGRWpm/s1600/road.png" height="314" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
are driving in circles. From my
reclined position in the back seat of the car, I watch the glass square of
sunroof above us become blue, cloudy, blue then cloudy again, the mirror image
of a hawk turning lazy circles in the sky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Keep
going, keep going, keep going!” Paul is offering directions and then adds
“Sometimes the safest pedal is the one on the right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">With
this bit of advice the car lurches forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“That’s
it!” he says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Beanie’s
posture behind the wheel is as stiff as a pose from a nineteenth century
daguerreotype portrait, her face as stoic and her complexion just as pale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“You
act like you’re driving a piece of glass,” Paul says. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
want to add that we are surrounded by multiple pieces of glass, which can
shatter into a million razor sharp shards upon impact, but I withhold this
information. My job, as I have been told many times before, is to sit here or
in this case, to lie down and look pretty. I am keeping my head, indeed my
entire body out of Beanie’s field of vision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“See
how I’m turning my head? I’m always looking left and right, left and right,
left and right,” Paul says as he demonstrates, his head bouncing like a bobble
head doll and then adds “Ow,” when his neck cracks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
continue our Sunday afternoon tour of the Lowe’s parking lot in Sanford, Maine.
I lie still as a corpse, biting my tongue, while Paul tosses out dubious bits
of wisdom, “Don’t think, just drive!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
don’t remember my father giving me driving lessons, although he did throw out doubtful
snippets of word vomit. It was the type
of thing parents said when they were navigating their own treacherous
intersections and didn’t have time to think about the word pairings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“The
army would make a man out of you,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Just
join us for one date with my girlfriend’s daughter,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Do
you really think you can support yourself with a degree in music?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
words seemed benign enough, but when combined with my own heightened sense of
insecurity they sent me in a direction in life that required some back
tracking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
remember when I was eighteen, on a hot summer day when even the breeze seemed
to be heated up by the sun, sitting in a diner with my father on a stretch of
road somewhere in the middle of North Carolina, a dot on the map. We had come to Asheville to rescue my
grandmother’s old blue Chevy Nova from her failing eyesight and trembling hand that
was more accustomed to holding a highball than a steering wheel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Son,”
he said, the same name he used to address all five of his boys, “You finish
your lunch up here, I’ve got to go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“Honey!”
he shouted out to the waitress, the same name he used to address every woman
and gave her a twenty. He left to the
tinkling of a bell over the door before I could swallow my chew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Faced
with the challenge of finding my own way home, before the advent of gps or smart
phones and in a strange car with no air conditioning, I tentatively pulled onto
the highway. Within minutes, I peeled off my sweat soaked shirt, rolled down
the windows and cranked up the radio. Like it or not, I was driving down this
road on my own, searching for signs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">If
you were a hawk and could see a great distance, you’d laugh at all of the
circles and mistaken exits I have taken. But no one can deny, lying in this
backseat, listening to my husband teach our own daughter how to drive, I
finally found my way home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-162/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/challenge162.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-88057786675857912692014-04-30T22:13:00.000-04:002014-05-01T10:25:56.113-04:00A Quick Load<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I met George at a support group for gay
fathers. He was not a father, had never
been married, but he had been engaged to a woman once, and I suppose that made
him feel like he had been close enough to the blade. The rest of us opened up
our wrists every Wednesday night in a semi-circle in the basement of a
Unitarian Universalist Church in a Boston suburb, airing dirty laundry with our “God knows I tried,”
stories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
would pass the talking stick around and one by one, a nervous guy would fidget,
tug at his collar and stammer through this week’s trials and tribulations on
the road to, I don’t know where, but it sure as hell wasn’t here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
the talking stick landed in George’s lap, he stood up and the room took
notice. He was broad shouldered, cocky
and wore a blonde crew cut. He was
shaped like a refrigerator, all hard angles and cool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I’m
not a father,” he said and the room of enraptured men replied “That’s OK!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
can’t say I’ve ever been married,” he continued and the room shouted “Good for
you!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“When
I told my mother I was gay, she said you must get it from your father’s side,”
he said and the applause was so thunderous that you would have thought that God
had just farted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
the meeting was over, word went around that perhaps we should all just walk
over to the local bar and continue the support over a libation of our choosing,
give us a chance to talk in a less formal setting, which was code for “hook-up.” The apple-tinis, cosmos and chardonnays were
cast aside for something more manly seeming, like beer, in the presence of “box
boy.” The appellation was justified, as later we would learn that in addition
to being shaped like a box, he also sold them for a living.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
was the lucky one who nabbed his number, or he nabbed mine. In any case I ended up speaking with him on
the phone for an hour or two that night replying “uh-huh” and “you don’t say,”
while he told me what a catch he was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I’m
looking for something long term,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“So
am I,” I replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
I met him the following Sunday at his home he wanted to show me his hobby,
which was a collection of vintage washing machines in his basement. Now, most people would begin to second guess
a relative stranger’s invitation to voluntarily venture into their basement to take
a gander at their “hobby,” but I decided to find it cute and quirky. It wasn’t like he held up a rag and asked me
if it smelled like chloroform. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
never made it to the basement. We hardly made it from the sofa and we never
made it to a second date. I was foolish.
He just wanted to wash a quick load. Maybe we were both looking for
something long-term. It just wasn’t with
each other<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-159/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge159.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-51082704220761884892014-04-15T13:25:00.000-04:002014-04-15T13:25:51.149-04:00Eye of The Beholder<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
am taking pictures of the clouds with my iPhone and casting a shadow over Paul. He is lying on his stomach in the driveway,scrubbing the rim of a car tire
with a brush specifically designed for this task, when he grunts “Can you find
something to do for an hour?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">An
hour really </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">isn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> long enough to do something productive like exercise or write
and I have already taken the opportunity to go for a run on the beach, while
Paul cleaned the gas grill. It is a
found hour, sort of like a crumpled twenty dollar bill you might pull out of your
pocket. Not enough to buy something you
really want, like say, a life sized golden piggy bank, but enough to make you a
little giddy with the possibilities. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
decide to take a selfie and try photo-shopping different eye colors, which is
not as easy as it sounds. First, if your eyes are as beady as mine, you need to
take a picture where they appear open, but not like they are in a state of shock;
as if someone has told you that golden piggy bank costs more than $100, for
example. Then, you need to get the right size software tool to color the iris
and erase the spot over the pupil. If
you go too blue, then it just looks fake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
Paul opens the front door and enters the kitchen, I am surprised that an hour
has passed. He glances over my shoulder at the laptop screen and asks “Did you
spend an hour on that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
know,” I exclaim and then add “It’s really tricky, getting this to look real.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">He
wipes the sweat from his forehead and stares at me without blinking, which is
when I realize that his eyes are a mixture of brown and hazel and that this
subtlety is exactly what I am missing. As I adjust the tool and zoom in on the picture
of my eyes, Paul grabs a rag and the spray bottle of vinegar and plods to the
bathroom, where I assume he is going to clean the glass shower doors. I’m proud
that I suggested a dual headed shower, though it requires more cleaning. I have
learned not to complain about the vinegar smell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">It
is precisely this moment when I realize his suggestion of finding something
to do for an hour might have meant anything other than performing virtual
cosmetic surgery, which is why I think our relationship works. I bring a sense of whimsy to his otherwise
strictly ordered life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
next morning, Paul is driving me to work while The Captain and Tennille are
singing on the radio about how love will always keep them together. Unfortunately,
it did not. Toni was always the bubbly
outgoing one and The Captain was content hiding behind the piano. Something
must have changed, a power struggle perhaps. Maybe The Captain said “You know
Ton, I’d really like to get up and dance the fandango when we sing <i>Muskrat Love</i>,” to which Toni replied “It’s
the Tango you buffoon! And that spotlight is mine, bitch!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
offer to drive us in to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Paul
rolls his eyes and says “Honey, I’d really like an enjoyable ride in today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Maybe
our roles are as immutable as our eye color, but I know our emotional piggy
bank will always remain full, because unlike Toni, I’m not a diva and I’m willing
to bend. Good thing we met later in life
when our interests were equally shared, but if we ever need to change, I know
we will, because we both have the right set of tools and more importantly? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We
know how to use them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-157/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge157.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8495571443418176483.post-53912436582443177232014-04-06T00:09:00.000-04:002014-04-08T06:20:35.502-04:00Word Fishers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinZZatEQrs-fCOx22SNbzDjPzszcdiw5W-LaltxPEjReFnrJW05QzgEz7DjlXGIF1VFHtGlJSJB6TQDO6NT8zkvUdbMtv-sRD7mqiMKibXpwSoGfPTfiWaa0uRTft0gyWPJs9GcF2rKzfs/s1600/wordfishers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinZZatEQrs-fCOx22SNbzDjPzszcdiw5W-LaltxPEjReFnrJW05QzgEz7DjlXGIF1VFHtGlJSJB6TQDO6NT8zkvUdbMtv-sRD7mqiMKibXpwSoGfPTfiWaa0uRTft0gyWPJs9GcF2rKzfs/s1600/wordfishers.png" height="374" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When you are writing a memoir, each morning you sit at your desk and kill your father, slander your mother and shame your children. This is the price that you pay for seeking your
version of the truth and that truth is like a wadded up ball of string that you
pick away at slowly. You may be able to get
a purchase on the beginning and the end, but the middle seems hopelessly riddled with knots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Once you untangle the twine, you are not even half way there. You tie a hook on the end and throw it into
a sea of words and hope to catch something, anything. Most days pass without a tug. Then, you feel a slight nibble and you
struggle to reel it in. Sometimes the
catch is too small, sometimes too big and still others are monsters with razor
sharp teeth and dark eyes too terrifying to consider. You cut the line.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">At
night, when sleep eludes you, the words swim through your mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They
shudder with a bright silvery flourish just beyond your grasp, but you try to remember.
In the morning you say “Here, this is the spot,” and cast your line. If you are patient, you catch a few and then
some more until the boat is teeming with words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Once
you have enough, you select the best and prepare them, fry them, broil them,
bake them; add a bit of salt here, add a dash of spice there until they are
ready to be consumed. You place your
dish proudly in front of other fishers of words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You
wait. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You
wait. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You
wait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“This
dish is too cold.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“This
dish is too hot.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“This
dish stinks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">They
pick apart the words and spit out the bones.
They ask if you considered baking it less or baking it more or adding
this spice or just throwing the whole damn thing out and starting all over
again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You
swear off fishing for words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">“I
can sit on the beach with my friends,” you say.
They seem perfectly happy, you think. You rest.
You drink. You go out to dinner,
but you cannot stop thinking about the monster that lurks in the murky depths of </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">the ocean.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
next morning, when the world is sleeping and your dreams are like the mist on the sea, your line
breaks the glossy surface. You let it sink deeper and deeper until it reaches
the abyss where the weight of the words on the string threatens to
capsize the boat. You kill your father,
slander your mother and shame your children. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Because you know that </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">if you don’t catch the
words,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">the words will devour you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a href="http://yeahwrite.me/challenge-156/"><img src="http://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge156.png" /></a>William Dameronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10129769129251689759noreply@blogger.com