Hello from Shell.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
New Book I'm Working On
Hello here is a new book I just started!!!
Haunted
Her new Home.
She had moved to the South. Found a place on the internet and bought it sight unseen. After twelve years with her employer the move could only be called abrupt. She quit her job and left.
She had been enchanted with the jasmine vine entwining the white pickets of the front porch. The house was built in 1849! And so no surprise there were some rotten boards here and there. She could almost smell the history of the place. Deep. Dark. Fertile.
Her first night. Very quiet. She wasn’t used to that. She lay in bed and heard herself breathing. The crickets chirped with the unvarying cadence of machines . She had locked the door, but the lock was not much good. A strong nudge and the door would creak open.
The drone of the insects had a hypnotic effect. She slept. It was one in the morning when she awoke in the dark. She couldn’t describe it, but she felt a “presence”. The hairs on her neck crawled. Her palms were damp. She lay awake, listening to rustle of leaves, the tapping of branches, the subtle creaks of an old house.
The next thing she knew it was morning. Spring sunshine dappling her bed. Birds trilling. And the sweet jasmine blossoms gay and cheerful. She inhaled, stretched like a cat. Today she would tackle the overgrown garden.
The garden had about merged with the wildness at the edges of her property – scrub pine, acacia, thistle . A blackberry had gone crazy and smothered a bouganviilla , with the rare lily or rose trying to poke its damp tentative blossom toward the sun. Ripping away the vines with gloved hands and whacking them with her machete, she encountered a scraggly tomato plant. The heavy green tomatoes lay against the moist dark soil, savageable. She smiled.
Just then her cell phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans.
What?
How is it going?
I’m busy.
Is there anything you need?
Yeah. I need for you to stop calling me.
She turned off her phone. She took her machete and whacked at the blackberry. She had quite a pile of thorny severed boughs.
Idiot. She said aloud. Stopping, flushed and breathing hard. A bird of prey (an eagle?) soared overhead. White clouds stretched and changed shape against the blue sky. May. Her favorite month.
She had accomplished quite a bit by the time darkness extinguished the long dusk. She began to visualize orderly rows of vegetables. Sipping Jasmine tea, she smiled as she rocked in sunbleached porch rocker. The rocker was lopsided, but most enjoyable. She tasted the skin of her sunburnt forearm. Salty.
No electricity yet. The wiring was shot. As cool night yielded insects and dew. She lit the wick of a kerosene lamp. She would be sore tomorrow. Not used to physical work. She felt a healthy exhaustion which rendered her peaceful. Not like the fatigue after a sedentary day of endless phone calls and emails, capped with a commute in dense aggressive traffic, while her cell phone continued to buzz. She had yet to turn on her laptop.
The bathroom was narrow box. It had been added in the forties. The toilet. stained porcelain, was slow, but flushed, eventually. The bedroom closets were small, but the kitchen pantry was large. A big walk in pantry. No doubt it once held a winter’s worth of home canned fruits and vegetables.
She sunk into bed. The “partly furnished” component of her new house was appreciated, though the too soft double bed had a distinct gentile sag. A grandmotherly bed. Sweet but arthritic, it held her in it’s crooked springs. She would sleep well tonight.
But she did not. She had dozed off almost immediately, but awakened suddenly in the whispering blackness. A cramp bit into bowels. The usual panic attack, all she had to do was count to one hundred. One, two, three . . . .
She had the sensation of being locked in a vault. She sucked in air but felt she wasn’t getting enough. Slow. Slow down, her brain tried to tell itself, but her body had its own ideas. Her heartbeat accelerated like a gas pedal pushed down.
Then she heard something. Not loud. She had to strain to hear. Where was it? In the kitchen? She listened with the vigilance of a prey animal at high alert. But the sound did not return. The wind kicked up. It puffed the muslin curtin cooled by a pattering of summer rain. She could hear it gently rocking the oaks. The sound of rhythmic swooshings soothed her and sleep overtook her.
The next morning she emerged from her bedroom, treading softly on the oak floored hallway with the quaint patterned carpet runners that had so captivated her on the internet. Night terrors banished by the light. She yawned, anticipating brewing morning coffee on the petite gas stove, and getting to work again. Today she would begin to clear out the detached garage. The garage (not shown in the internet advertisement) was stuffed floor to ceiling with several lifetimes worth of junk. She envisioned turning the garage into a tidy little art studio slash library.
As she entered the kitchen, she stopped and froze. A smeared swath of bright red blood was already attracting a few files on the pale linoleum. Her eyes followed the blood to its terminus, where a rat lay with its intestines ripped out.
She gasped.
Instinctively she covered her eyes. But quickly recovered. This was her house and her dead rat. She would have to clean it up.
Donning gloves, she scooped up the rat with a shovel and buried beyond her property line in the forest. She deduced that the rat was killed in a fight with another rat. What else could have killed it?
She had peered into the dusty attic in search of the source of the rat . It was scattered with rat “pellets”, and it, like the garage contained dusty junk. Boxes, things covered in sheets, odds and ends, stacks of magazines and papers. Another project for another day. The real estate agent had emphasized that the house was a “fixer-upper”. The bold words “AS-IS” were something she was required to initial on the purchase contract. Of course that was why the house was so cheap she could buy it outright with cash.
She drove to the nearest small town seventeen miles distant, savoring traffic-free Oak Leaf Road for seven meandering miles. Shady forest tunnels gave was to sunlit meadows with collapsing red barns. She crossed Shenandoah Creek over a stone bridge, and turned onto two lane Shadrach County highway. The route had originally been used by horse drawn carriages trotting residents to a brisk little railroad station and thence to churning cities far beyond. The route had long ago been supplanted by the interstate. And thus it was that the town of Red Stone and all its former arteries atrophied to lovely oblivion.
The old town of Red Stone consisted of a boarded up moldering schoolhouse tucked deep in a cypress wood, a crumbling railroad station similarly festooned with vines and far enough from the existing thoroufare to look somewhat haunted, two street, two block old downtown, with a white clapboard church here and there. The “new” Redstone consisted of a couple of the most prolific Big Boxes and fast food places. A nursing home doing its best impression of a prison , an auto dealership vying for “most garish”, and a squat stucco drive through bank looking like a smug fat toad completed the ensemble. Civilization as we know it. Ugly, but convenient.
She smelled the delicious aroma of fried food. She decided to try to local fare and drove through “Ernie’s Drive-In” She ordered onion rings from a chubby freckled teenager whose name tag said “Shandora”.
Eating her onion rings at a small park while perusing the local paper, a red-neck in a base-ball cap, leered at her, and gunned his engine for all it was worth. Bare legs, a tank top, and long dirty blond hair. What more could a guy ask? Not much, she well knew. She felt good. The sun felt warm on her legs. She dipped an onion ring in ketchup and relished the crispy taste. Perfection. She loved this place. Maybe she would open a little restaurant. She still had a fair chunk of savings. She had to do something to make money, eventually.
After her onion ring feast, she purchased chocolate, peanut butter, olive oil, pasta, tomato paste, garlic, oregano, canned tomatos, lemon cake mix with lemon frosting, eggs, and rat traps
Back home she made herself jump when trying to bait the traps with peanut butter. The big traps inadvertently snapped with considerable force. She put one in the kitchen, one in the attic, and one on the front porch.
At about three a.m. she was awakened by an agonized rat squeal and the banging sound of a rat in its death throes flopping the trap around. The banging didn’t last long. She sighed and went back to sleep. She knew it was evil to murder the rat. But it had to be done. Life was brutal.
What Happened Next.
Her rat bonanza ended after she bagged six. She didn’t trap any more after that.
As the month of Map unfolded, she found herself on Sunday morning following an old stone wall along her southerly property boundary. The wall continued past her property into the forest where it became progressively more mossy and crumbling. She had no particular reason to follow the wall, and no particular reason not to. She was curious. The wall continued for about a quarter mile and veered sharply west where its condition improved. She was thrilled to hear the exuberant not too distant whinny of a horse amplified through the tall Alder and Dogwood. She skipped along and the wall curved, went down, went up, right, and left and then straight.
As she followed the straight section of wall the trees became increasingly sparse. The wall had been cemented along the top and the cement was warm and smooth. The wall was in good enough condition she could walk along the top of it and she did. She removed her shoes. She from under an enoumous weeping willow tree to a vast rolling pasture studded with oaks. In the distance several horses were grazing. One of them lifted its head and whinneyed to her. She didn’t know much about horses. She waved jumped up and down and then whinneyed back.
Something in the pasture moved that looked like part of the boulder it was sitting on moved. It turned out to be a person. The smallest oldest person she had ever seen.
The person held up a crooked walking stick in a gesture of greeting. She laughed. It was like looking at a munchkin in equestrian attire. A tiny stooped old woman with knarled hands and wrinkles everywhere. Her smile was toothless, but her blue eyes twinkled as she looked up approaching slowly using her walking stick. The wrinkles make patterns, formed a landscape of trails, were a sort of dermal geophrapic phenomenon. The old woman came and stood leaning on her cane looking up.
And what is your name young lady?
Merle. I bought the little white house. Up that way.
You live alone?
Yes.
So do I.
Merle sat on the wall smiling, fascinated with the munchkin woman, who was equally fascinated with her and smiled back.
I’m JoJo Pikering. That little house you bought used to part of my great great great grandfather’s land. He owned five thousand acres. I’ve got the last five hundred.
Wow. Merle was trying to suppress her laughter. She knew she was being impolite. It was just that when JoJo talked her wrinkly skin and tiny wrinkled mouth moved in such a way, that when she said “I’ve got the last two hundred” she looked extremely comical. A dwarf. A gnome. It was surreal!
Say young lady have you been smoking something?
No no I’m sorry. I just . . . it’s very nice to meet you. I guess I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’ve never owned a house before and I’m a little . . . you know . . .
Lonely?
Merle’s borderline hysteria was making her eyes water and for an embarrassing second she thought she would cry. She felt that she had a Hoover Dam of tears inside and the dam had sprung a dangerous crack. What would JoJo Pikering think of her new neighbor if she broke down sobbing for no reason?
Haunted
Her new Home.
She had moved to the South. Found a place on the internet and bought it sight unseen. After twelve years with her employer the move could only be called abrupt. She quit her job and left.
She had been enchanted with the jasmine vine entwining the white pickets of the front porch. The house was built in 1849! And so no surprise there were some rotten boards here and there. She could almost smell the history of the place. Deep. Dark. Fertile.
Her first night. Very quiet. She wasn’t used to that. She lay in bed and heard herself breathing. The crickets chirped with the unvarying cadence of machines . She had locked the door, but the lock was not much good. A strong nudge and the door would creak open.
The drone of the insects had a hypnotic effect. She slept. It was one in the morning when she awoke in the dark. She couldn’t describe it, but she felt a “presence”. The hairs on her neck crawled. Her palms were damp. She lay awake, listening to rustle of leaves, the tapping of branches, the subtle creaks of an old house.
The next thing she knew it was morning. Spring sunshine dappling her bed. Birds trilling. And the sweet jasmine blossoms gay and cheerful. She inhaled, stretched like a cat. Today she would tackle the overgrown garden.
The garden had about merged with the wildness at the edges of her property – scrub pine, acacia, thistle . A blackberry had gone crazy and smothered a bouganviilla , with the rare lily or rose trying to poke its damp tentative blossom toward the sun. Ripping away the vines with gloved hands and whacking them with her machete, she encountered a scraggly tomato plant. The heavy green tomatoes lay against the moist dark soil, savageable. She smiled.
Just then her cell phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans.
What?
How is it going?
I’m busy.
Is there anything you need?
Yeah. I need for you to stop calling me.
She turned off her phone. She took her machete and whacked at the blackberry. She had quite a pile of thorny severed boughs.
Idiot. She said aloud. Stopping, flushed and breathing hard. A bird of prey (an eagle?) soared overhead. White clouds stretched and changed shape against the blue sky. May. Her favorite month.
She had accomplished quite a bit by the time darkness extinguished the long dusk. She began to visualize orderly rows of vegetables. Sipping Jasmine tea, she smiled as she rocked in sunbleached porch rocker. The rocker was lopsided, but most enjoyable. She tasted the skin of her sunburnt forearm. Salty.
No electricity yet. The wiring was shot. As cool night yielded insects and dew. She lit the wick of a kerosene lamp. She would be sore tomorrow. Not used to physical work. She felt a healthy exhaustion which rendered her peaceful. Not like the fatigue after a sedentary day of endless phone calls and emails, capped with a commute in dense aggressive traffic, while her cell phone continued to buzz. She had yet to turn on her laptop.
The bathroom was narrow box. It had been added in the forties. The toilet. stained porcelain, was slow, but flushed, eventually. The bedroom closets were small, but the kitchen pantry was large. A big walk in pantry. No doubt it once held a winter’s worth of home canned fruits and vegetables.
She sunk into bed. The “partly furnished” component of her new house was appreciated, though the too soft double bed had a distinct gentile sag. A grandmotherly bed. Sweet but arthritic, it held her in it’s crooked springs. She would sleep well tonight.
But she did not. She had dozed off almost immediately, but awakened suddenly in the whispering blackness. A cramp bit into bowels. The usual panic attack, all she had to do was count to one hundred. One, two, three . . . .
She had the sensation of being locked in a vault. She sucked in air but felt she wasn’t getting enough. Slow. Slow down, her brain tried to tell itself, but her body had its own ideas. Her heartbeat accelerated like a gas pedal pushed down.
Then she heard something. Not loud. She had to strain to hear. Where was it? In the kitchen? She listened with the vigilance of a prey animal at high alert. But the sound did not return. The wind kicked up. It puffed the muslin curtin cooled by a pattering of summer rain. She could hear it gently rocking the oaks. The sound of rhythmic swooshings soothed her and sleep overtook her.
The next morning she emerged from her bedroom, treading softly on the oak floored hallway with the quaint patterned carpet runners that had so captivated her on the internet. Night terrors banished by the light. She yawned, anticipating brewing morning coffee on the petite gas stove, and getting to work again. Today she would begin to clear out the detached garage. The garage (not shown in the internet advertisement) was stuffed floor to ceiling with several lifetimes worth of junk. She envisioned turning the garage into a tidy little art studio slash library.
As she entered the kitchen, she stopped and froze. A smeared swath of bright red blood was already attracting a few files on the pale linoleum. Her eyes followed the blood to its terminus, where a rat lay with its intestines ripped out.
She gasped.
Instinctively she covered her eyes. But quickly recovered. This was her house and her dead rat. She would have to clean it up.
Donning gloves, she scooped up the rat with a shovel and buried beyond her property line in the forest. She deduced that the rat was killed in a fight with another rat. What else could have killed it?
She had peered into the dusty attic in search of the source of the rat . It was scattered with rat “pellets”, and it, like the garage contained dusty junk. Boxes, things covered in sheets, odds and ends, stacks of magazines and papers. Another project for another day. The real estate agent had emphasized that the house was a “fixer-upper”. The bold words “AS-IS” were something she was required to initial on the purchase contract. Of course that was why the house was so cheap she could buy it outright with cash.
She drove to the nearest small town seventeen miles distant, savoring traffic-free Oak Leaf Road for seven meandering miles. Shady forest tunnels gave was to sunlit meadows with collapsing red barns. She crossed Shenandoah Creek over a stone bridge, and turned onto two lane Shadrach County highway. The route had originally been used by horse drawn carriages trotting residents to a brisk little railroad station and thence to churning cities far beyond. The route had long ago been supplanted by the interstate. And thus it was that the town of Red Stone and all its former arteries atrophied to lovely oblivion.
The old town of Red Stone consisted of a boarded up moldering schoolhouse tucked deep in a cypress wood, a crumbling railroad station similarly festooned with vines and far enough from the existing thoroufare to look somewhat haunted, two street, two block old downtown, with a white clapboard church here and there. The “new” Redstone consisted of a couple of the most prolific Big Boxes and fast food places. A nursing home doing its best impression of a prison , an auto dealership vying for “most garish”, and a squat stucco drive through bank looking like a smug fat toad completed the ensemble. Civilization as we know it. Ugly, but convenient.
She smelled the delicious aroma of fried food. She decided to try to local fare and drove through “Ernie’s Drive-In” She ordered onion rings from a chubby freckled teenager whose name tag said “Shandora”.
Eating her onion rings at a small park while perusing the local paper, a red-neck in a base-ball cap, leered at her, and gunned his engine for all it was worth. Bare legs, a tank top, and long dirty blond hair. What more could a guy ask? Not much, she well knew. She felt good. The sun felt warm on her legs. She dipped an onion ring in ketchup and relished the crispy taste. Perfection. She loved this place. Maybe she would open a little restaurant. She still had a fair chunk of savings. She had to do something to make money, eventually.
After her onion ring feast, she purchased chocolate, peanut butter, olive oil, pasta, tomato paste, garlic, oregano, canned tomatos, lemon cake mix with lemon frosting, eggs, and rat traps
Back home she made herself jump when trying to bait the traps with peanut butter. The big traps inadvertently snapped with considerable force. She put one in the kitchen, one in the attic, and one on the front porch.
At about three a.m. she was awakened by an agonized rat squeal and the banging sound of a rat in its death throes flopping the trap around. The banging didn’t last long. She sighed and went back to sleep. She knew it was evil to murder the rat. But it had to be done. Life was brutal.
What Happened Next.
Her rat bonanza ended after she bagged six. She didn’t trap any more after that.
As the month of Map unfolded, she found herself on Sunday morning following an old stone wall along her southerly property boundary. The wall continued past her property into the forest where it became progressively more mossy and crumbling. She had no particular reason to follow the wall, and no particular reason not to. She was curious. The wall continued for about a quarter mile and veered sharply west where its condition improved. She was thrilled to hear the exuberant not too distant whinny of a horse amplified through the tall Alder and Dogwood. She skipped along and the wall curved, went down, went up, right, and left and then straight.
As she followed the straight section of wall the trees became increasingly sparse. The wall had been cemented along the top and the cement was warm and smooth. The wall was in good enough condition she could walk along the top of it and she did. She removed her shoes. She from under an enoumous weeping willow tree to a vast rolling pasture studded with oaks. In the distance several horses were grazing. One of them lifted its head and whinneyed to her. She didn’t know much about horses. She waved jumped up and down and then whinneyed back.
Something in the pasture moved that looked like part of the boulder it was sitting on moved. It turned out to be a person. The smallest oldest person she had ever seen.
The person held up a crooked walking stick in a gesture of greeting. She laughed. It was like looking at a munchkin in equestrian attire. A tiny stooped old woman with knarled hands and wrinkles everywhere. Her smile was toothless, but her blue eyes twinkled as she looked up approaching slowly using her walking stick. The wrinkles make patterns, formed a landscape of trails, were a sort of dermal geophrapic phenomenon. The old woman came and stood leaning on her cane looking up.
And what is your name young lady?
Merle. I bought the little white house. Up that way.
You live alone?
Yes.
So do I.
Merle sat on the wall smiling, fascinated with the munchkin woman, who was equally fascinated with her and smiled back.
I’m JoJo Pikering. That little house you bought used to part of my great great great grandfather’s land. He owned five thousand acres. I’ve got the last five hundred.
Wow. Merle was trying to suppress her laughter. She knew she was being impolite. It was just that when JoJo talked her wrinkly skin and tiny wrinkled mouth moved in such a way, that when she said “I’ve got the last two hundred” she looked extremely comical. A dwarf. A gnome. It was surreal!
Say young lady have you been smoking something?
No no I’m sorry. I just . . . it’s very nice to meet you. I guess I’m just . . . I don’t know. I’ve never owned a house before and I’m a little . . . you know . . .
Lonely?
Merle’s borderline hysteria was making her eyes water and for an embarrassing second she thought she would cry. She felt that she had a Hoover Dam of tears inside and the dam had sprung a dangerous crack. What would JoJo Pikering think of her new neighbor if she broke down sobbing for no reason?
Monday, May 19, 2008
Boiled Egg
I am looking at the title of this Blog. Seems like I'm going in all different directions. And it's hot. So I want to lay around. I just ate a boiled egg.
I feel guilty for not doing anything.
So I am blogging to get warmed up to "doing something". Above is a picture of My Dad, my brother John and the "Blue Bag". Also my daughter Sarah is holding the volley ball. I bought her that at the Huntington Beach Pier. It was six dollars.
The blue bag is a relic from before our family broke up. It goes way back to when we were kids. When we went on a family vacation, or to the beach, or waterskiing, it was always "where is the blue bag?". It was stuffed with necessities. Snacks. Towels. Sunglasses.
The blue bag is a relic from before our family broke up. It goes way back to when we were kids. When we went on a family vacation, or to the beach, or waterskiing, it was always "where is the blue bag?". It was stuffed with necessities. Snacks. Towels. Sunglasses.
A metaphor for a womb. And it kind of looks like an empty womb doesn't it? Just dangling there. Dad has it hung on a hook in the garage. His garage is so clean and orderly. I wish mine were like that.
The freakin blue bag doesn't look much different. But we do.
Now here is another picture I really like. This is Sarah and her best friend Tara running to the ocean to jump in. Can't you just feel the sand and remember doing the same thing as a kid? Young girls on the brink of life. Running toward a bright future, their whole lives ahead of them.
Ya know, I've done a lot of trying real hard at a lot of stuff. Know what? I've got a resume five miles long. But check this out:
Here's my sister and I. We're doing some kind of hand thing that means "flower". Point is we're best friends. She is my right arm. And I'm her left foot. I look a bit like my mother. Tracy won't like this picture of herself, so I'll put up another one so you can see she reallly is a hot bitch like she mentioned in her last post:
Here is my sister wading in the ocean. And Sarah and Tara are on the body boards.We're one of those familes from Orange County. Once upon a time, not so long ago this picture could have been my mother, with Tracy and I in the water.
Tracy was always a great student. The validictorian. A smart person. Level headed. I got the crazy "gene".
I guess I can blame A.P. Simpson, our great grandpa who did time in San Quentin. He wasn't a criminal. Just a Preacher. And a Pimp.
He was some kind of charismatic or other and he convinced his followers to hop a train from Iowa to California. And he started pimping on the side.
I imagine that ride at Disneyland - you know, the "Haunted Mansion" where suddenly you pass a mirror and these ghosts are in your little car with you and you are surprised and delighted.
The world is so full of ghosts and imaginary things, it's hard to cut through all that, know what I mean?
Art and Music
Here is me all prettied up. I was going through some files and loading a program and found some . . . "Art" pix.This is kind of a test to see if I can upload some stuff on the Blog. I probably won't write much because I already have a sore neck from trying for some hours to figure out a movie editing program that appears not to be compatible with Vista. Talk about wasting time and money.
Let me try to upload some music. Don't see a button for that. Alright forget it then, over and out then.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Surviving a Singles Event
I was set up with L., a friend of a co-worker, because we were two single women amongst our coupled off friends. No, no, not a date, but because L. wanted to attend a wine tasting and the wine tasting was also a "Singles" event, I was recruited to accompany her. I had already made tentative plans that night, but since those plans involved meeting a group of friends in a sweaty bar and there was a guarantee a former flame would be there, I was itching for a different alternative. In other words, I said YES before I thought through what a Singles event might entail.
L. told me the event was semi-formal, okay, we were in the midst of a rare heat wave and I could pull out a skirt from the back of the closet, hell, it might be fun to show off that pedicure I got a week ago, and so what if I looked a little a lumpy in my knit top, I was still a "hot bitch", at least my friend, R., told me to tell myself this every morning, preferably while naked and listening to Aretha Franklin. She said it worked for her... and well, she is a hot bitch, so I was trying to think along those lines.
L. picked me up, we were both decked out in our dresses and heels. Of course, I should mention she is 5'3" and wears heels every day and walks like she could run a marathon in them. I am 5'9 and I tottered on my cheap strappy heels from Target, worn for the second time though I owned them for 2 years. The wine tasting event was at the Yacht Club, (woohoo!), I envisioned standing on the balcony watching the setting sun while a tuxedoed Clive Owen type sidles up and we watch the dramatic sunset beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, yes, this night had potential! The $25 ticket price was insurance men of quality would be there, aficionados of fine wine, and yachtsmen, nonetheless, I was actually excited. No more sweaty night clubs full of twenty-somethings for me! This was going to be my coming out party to the world of sophisticated professional singles, even the name of the group was impressive "The Professional Guild"... well, that should have been the tip off, I should have known better.
First we got the location wrong... there are two yacht clubs at the Marina. We parked and I tried to keep up with L.'s quick short steps. My feet already hurt after two minutes of walking, but it was okay... soon that Clive Owen type would be rubbing my feet...
The swanky yacht club was the wrong one, when we saw a group of women in semi-formal attire turned away and looking lost, we knew that our function was being held at the funky yacht club way at the end of that dusty, gravel road ahead. We forged on.
Despite the heat wave I was chilled by the sea breeze and my feet were quickly swelling up walking the uneven path, I started to notice a parade of women, most at least ten years older then us heading toward the building. Eyeing this parade of courageous gals, were men, men sitting in their cars, men talking to other men, lone men reeking of cologne. It wasn't long before I started to feel like a group of whores marching along the gravel road in our ridiculous heels to be scrutinized by these jackals, the clientèle. (So, that's where they got the name "The Professional Guild"?)
I felt sorry for us. Grown women, middle-aged, excited by the prospect of meeting Mr. Right, desperation trailing us like cheap perfume, trying to smile, trying to look confident and sexy and for what? These men! There wasn't a Clive Owen among them, they were awkward, leering, in various stages of paunchiness and baldness, cracking stupid jokes as we waited in line to get in. I started to feel increasing uncomfortable. I kept looking over at L. trying to catch her eye. Finally out of the corner of my mouth, I said "What do you think?" She seemed bewildered, we kept moving forward in line. "Does the $25 covering the tastings?" She wasn't sure, she said she would ask when we got to the front.
I didn't know L. very well, and since I had promised to go with her, I felt I must. I wasn't about to leave her alone, besides she was my ride home, there was no way I could walk back to the main road in these shoes to get a cab. Please, I prayed, I want to leave now.
The line was on a staircase so you could look back and see everyone looking up, the collective comb-overs and bald spots, even one misplaced skinny pony-tailed man with an odd handlebar mustache, leathery, over bronzed complexions, Geez, were they licking their lips? No, no, I was being paranoid. Ahead we could see into the Yacht Club, the bar where a gaggle of men sat and stared at the fresh meat paying for their tickets. They all looked like they drove into the City from Stockton, no offense to Stockton, I don't know who lives there, but these were not sophisticated men, these were guys who, face it, had a very hard time meeting girls and were here for the easy pickings.
We finally made it up to the ticket table and I told L. I didn't want to stay unless the wine tastings were included, as if somehow that would redeem the evening. The answer, no, nothing was included, but they had a DJ and hor dourves. I whispered to L., "This is San Francisco, there are hundreds of bars with DJs with no cover." She looked at me and for a horrifying split second, I thought she wavered, but then she said firmly "Let's go!" We paraded back down the staircase, past the leering stares of the desperate and unloved, past the dirty gravel road and the heavily cologned stragglers still coming towards the line. I felt free, young and relieved I wasn't one of them.
We were a couple of hot bitches and we went out the town in our skirts and heels and bought our own damn drinks at a swanky bar. I ended up getting to know a pretty interesting person that night. One who is not desperate at all, one who I will go out with again. Her name is L.
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