I Have not Loved You as I Should
One late September night I abandoned a Law & Order:CI repeat I’d seen three times to look for something shinier. You know what? Inside Edition has much more gravitas than people think--like US Magazine. College professors discovered People a decade ago (many years after my own subscription ran out), but out here on the crystal fringe, we metabolize what our hands sieze from Check-Out line. Skip The National Enquirer, Gray Lady of the tabloids. Go to The Star for the dirt.
I watched, wrapped in my kitty throw. Elizabeth Taylor sat on some stage immobilized by a cascade of sequins. With all those glittering sequins and what they had to cover, you couldn't see a chair. She looked disturbingly like my mother. She always has: all their phases cosmically parallel. Liz has more money, but even she could take some lessons from Mom in how to spend it.
My laptop gaped receptively on top of my lap. I just about had a sentence in my head--not MY sentence, but a good one by the Beach Boys that would surely get me going. Something slipped, like maybe the walls, and suddenly there was Mary Hart, way too close.
“Are you done with Patti?” my blog-partner had asked that morning on the phone. Are you done with Patti? the tiny clh in my head had harangued me all day. You haven't posted in weeks! she shrilled, in italics, because unlike me she bothered to figure out how to put italics in her [imagine italics for emphasis] posts.
Done? With Patti? Okay, so I only post when I’m drunk. My fingers lay pink and swollen on the edge of the keyboard. (It's an Irish thing--booze doesn't flush just our faces.) Post, MM! You must post!
Suddenly it was dark out, darker westward than it should be, and a burl of thunder jolted me just before I could fuse with my genius. But I love Patti! I cried out to my blog-partner (who wasn't there, really). And I love you, dear blog-partner! I just don't know what to write.
An idea did come: Maybe I should sleep with my iBook before I do something nuts. It worked in the past, sort of. And closing it for now would give all of us a rest. Plug the battery back in and calibrate one more drink. These things take some talent, after all.
"The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun."
(The Beach Boys, "Student Demonstration Time," from Surf's Up)
I watched, wrapped in my kitty throw. Elizabeth Taylor sat on some stage immobilized by a cascade of sequins. With all those glittering sequins and what they had to cover, you couldn't see a chair. She looked disturbingly like my mother. She always has: all their phases cosmically parallel. Liz has more money, but even she could take some lessons from Mom in how to spend it.
My laptop gaped receptively on top of my lap. I just about had a sentence in my head--not MY sentence, but a good one by the Beach Boys that would surely get me going. Something slipped, like maybe the walls, and suddenly there was Mary Hart, way too close.
“Are you done with Patti?” my blog-partner had asked that morning on the phone. Are you done with Patti? the tiny clh in my head had harangued me all day. You haven't posted in weeks! she shrilled, in italics, because unlike me she bothered to figure out how to put italics in her [imagine italics for emphasis] posts.
Done? With Patti? Okay, so I only post when I’m drunk. My fingers lay pink and swollen on the edge of the keyboard. (It's an Irish thing--booze doesn't flush just our faces.) Post, MM! You must post!
Suddenly it was dark out, darker westward than it should be, and a burl of thunder jolted me just before I could fuse with my genius. But I love Patti! I cried out to my blog-partner (who wasn't there, really). And I love you, dear blog-partner! I just don't know what to write.
An idea did come: Maybe I should sleep with my iBook before I do something nuts. It worked in the past, sort of. And closing it for now would give all of us a rest. Plug the battery back in and calibrate one more drink. These things take some talent, after all.
"The pen is mightier than the sword, but no match for a gun."
(The Beach Boys, "Student Demonstration Time," from Surf's Up)
posted by MM at 2:34 PM
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