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Red Red Rainboots
I took a walk in the rain today. That in itself is nothing spectacular: this is Vancouver and it rains here a lot. To avoid rain, one would have to stay inside from mid-September through April or May, and I’m unwilling to do that. Luckily, most people here have a similar regard (or is it disregard?) for rain, and people can be seen out in it all the time. I walked through the neighborhood I live in, enjoying the feel of the drops falling on my hooded head, and the quietness that rain brings. Sure, people are out in it but from necessity, not joy. I was walking in the…
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100 x365 #9: John C.
Judging by your website, your clients would find it hard to believe that you once pedaled to school with your pals on unicycles, dressed in identical denim jackets sporting embroidered pythons on the back. A gang? Hardly. You were denizens of Monty Python, smart and awkward nerd-kids. You wrote clever semi-erotic prose starring my best friend and pushed it through the vents in her locker, oblivious to her blushes. When you later turned your attention on me I found it puzzling, sitting there with you on my front lawn one summer before we all went separate ways in high school.
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100 x365 #8: That Boss From Tulsa
You were responsible for the faux Texas accent I adopted for two full years, the one that seemed real because it got stronger as I got drunker. Every morning you’d ask someone to pop open your can of Pepsi; with your 3-inch nails you couldn’t manage it. I emulated you too much (except for the nails; I could never get into even painting mine let alone the weekly maintenance) and when you got distinctly colder after I hit on your ex-husband in the hot tub on your birthday, I figured out you weren’t over him and I went too far.
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Seeing Things
I wrote once about the tricks my eyes play on me. Actually, I think it’s my brain playing the tricks, taking in one thing and turning it into something else. It results in humorous doubletakes, mainly while driving, as I morph passing signs into words and phrases very different from what was intended. My brain plays other tricks on me, creating still small snapshots that burst into my heart, impaling me. We were at Ikea the other day and a family was approaching, going downstream to our up. There were children and a mom and a cart, but my eyes were on the prancing girl coming toward me, Serena-sized from…
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100 x365 #7: Mrs. Fuller
A five-year old kid with a sense of humor based on wordplay, I was endlessly amused by your name which also described your physique; you were not a small woman. I’m not sure we ever had an actual conversation; my contributions tended toward raising my hand for the bathroom, a ritual I thought peculiar, and avoiding asking about the necessity of coloring shapes outlined on paper and then cutting them out with useless blunt scissors. I was too good for that place and it was a relief being told to report to the first grade room, leaving behind kindergarten forever.
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100 x365 #6: Lish
Two hundred plus pounds never looked so good or so beautiful; you had gorgeous curves. You dieted, shed some self-consciousness, and got a boyfriend though your virginity was never in question (your “list” was longer than mine, actually, and yes, you kept track of every encounter, preserving them proudly on paper). Still, I felt naked when you tried to hide your bulk behind me sometimes. I wasn’t ready for your spotlight. But of all the people who crowded into that year, you are the one I’d most like to find. See, I think there’s a good chance you’re not alive.