Kiss on the Corner

I had kissed other boys before him, but I will always remember this as my first real kiss.

I was invited by my slightly older, slightly wilder friend Hannah to a party on the Upper East Side. Hannah went to another school, and was, during my restless eighth grade year, a personal portkey to a fresh crop of boys. So that Saturday, I negotiated a 1 a.m. curfew and saddled up in my black cocktail dress and fishnet stockings.

As I write this, I suddenly recall the sweet feeling of walking into a crowded party, young and dressed up, self-conscious and self-confident at the same time. I hung onto Hannah's hand and scanned the room, and I noticed him right away--surrounded by an impenetrable phalanx of girls, he was intent on breathing nitrous oxide from a huge blue balloon. Hannah looked in the direction of my gaze, and rolled her eyes. "Christopher," she said succinctly. I couldn't stop staring at him; he seemed to be enclosed in a soft bubble of blond Catholic radiance.

All evening we passed looks and he winked at me, once. I lost myself in ostentatious conversation with another boy, all the while telegraphing, so I hoped, my diffident invitation.

It was Hannah who finally, impatient with the pretense, interceded on my behalf.

"Christopher!" she called to him.  "Leah's ready to leave, and you live right around the corner from her. Take her home." and to me, sotto voce, "he's yours!"  Hannah was just like that.

Christopher shrugged and put his suede jacket ("buttery olive green," I noted specifically in my diary that night) around my shoulders, and his arm over that, and we left together, and as easy as that, I made my first tiny conquest...

We kissed in the taxi--a real kiss, a soul kiss!--and his mouth held the sharp thrilling taste of whiskey. We kissed all the way home, and then he paid the cabbie and we kissed on my corner one last time, under the street lamp, and parted ways and I never saw him again, although for a week after that, my dress held his scent of soap and liquor and cigarettes, and, very very faintly, his boyish lust...

I quietly entered the house, so pleased with myself, with my victory, as innocent as any killing ever was.

photo by my grandfather, Maxwell Pollack

Distractions

I am, alas, disgustingly adept at procrastination;  I have elevated the formerly humble pursuit of the minor distraction to a high art.  Avoiding my work has become something of an obsession.

Today I was in rare form.  By noon I had accomplished the following:

I stared at my freckles in amazement, for quite awhile.  I have a lot of freckles that I never noticed.  It seemed suddenly important to catalogue them.

I called that long-suffering Sarge long-distance to discuss Victorian costume with him.  He obliged me for a few minutes, and then finally cut me off with a terse "What next, celluloid collars?"

I thought about Sarge in a celluloid collar.

I thought about Snape in a celluloid collar.

I thought that they could both pull it off, but only one would and that one wouldn't be Sarge.

I thought about whether Victorian boots would be too '80s.  And I don't mean 1880s.

I thought about how my fantasies are becoming repetitive and I would need to come up with something new if I wanted to keep my self-respect.

I drank a whole pot of coffee and then had to walk off the jangles.

I argued with my step-dad about the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.

And then, when I thought I had exhausted all other options and had no choice but to begin my work again, I had a crafty brainstorm and crocheted a little stuffed turnip with a face, for my friend's baby.

So, what do you think?  Is he turnip-like?

Shut Up I'm the Driver, You're the Passenger*

Okay, no, that was rude and I didn't mean it.  You know by now how much I like you and how I don't want to offend.  It's just that I've come to think of that song as my song, the one I always listen to when I'm joyriding around on the back roads of upstate NY.

I was tagged for a meme by two lovely ladies, Marianna and Candie, and asked to list 7 things that make me awesome.  Well, I'm not feeling exactly awesome lately--more like odd and floaty, and overly preoccupied with my writing project, and maybe a little bit insecure, but not really so awesome.  No way could I come up with seven things.  So let me offer just one--

I got my driver's license only six years ago.  And now I am a totally freaking awesome driver.

I'm still proud of myself.  17 years passed between my first road test and my last.  At 16, I took driver's education with a boy I adored.  I couldn't concentrate during class, not even when they screened the grimly enthralling "Highway of Agony," too busy was I, gazing at Jonathan's silly curly golden mop of hair and daydreaming the 45 minutes away.  In the student car together it was even worse, so near was he to me in a closed contained space.  The heady smell of patchouli and weed overwhelmed my senses...but I digress.

I failed that first road test when I nearly drove into a Mack truck as I tried to turn left across an intersection.  The tester actually shrieked a little.  And I blame Jonathan for that one.  He didn't have to be so alluring, did he?

But I couldn't keep blaming the boy for the next 17 years, now could I? Every time someone asked about my lack of license, I replied with the old standard that I was from Brooklyn, what did I need with a car.  Oh please.

So when Hedgehog was three, I finally learned to drive.  My stepdad and Sarge took turns teaching me.  The two men had very different teaching techniques: Sarge was a harsh taskmaster (hm, at least he obliged me on that one), with a cruel look in his eye that prevented me from making mistakes, while my stepdad would get in the passenger seat and just close his eyes and pretend to nap while I drove.  Between the two of them, they managed to make me a driver.

Or, let me take some credit that I honestly deserve, I made myself into one.

I'm now just as comfortable driving in midtown Manhattan traffic on a rainy Monday evening as I am gliding along a quiet country road on a sunny afternoon.  I've just got that sang froid, behind the wheel.

Driving is something that most people take for granted; they've done it for ages, since they were very young.  For me it was enormous; it made me a grown-up, finally independent, long after that milestone usually takes place.

Since I'm tweaking this meme until it's unrecognizable, let me pose a question.  Do you have an accomplishment, near to your own heart, that's significant to you but possibly taken for granted by everyone else? Don't worry, it won't be on the test.  I'm just curious.

*"Sharp Darts" if you didn't know.

A Quick Knitting Post

Switching gears rapidly from my deviant sexuality to knitting dish cloths...

For any reader who happens to be living in the United States and is also a knitter...

and that leaves out, oh, pretty much everyone...well, there are a few of you, aren't there?...

I just wanted to direct you to the most fun you'll have with your knitting needles:

Dish Rag Tag

Go to the link if you like and see what it's all about; sign-ups just opened, and will close when it reaches 220 people.  Hurry hurry!

Discipline

I am drawn again and again to this theme, the antithesis to my thesis.  I am electrified by the idea that someone might control me (in bed, in life) through sheer force of a composure that I rarely feel; through their own restraint that I could only hope to mirror; even, dare I suggest...by means of punishment, soberly applied.  I have no faith, however, in my own ability to regulate myself.

I have never yet been able to locate my own dispassion.

For truly I am not disciplined.  Whatever I've accomplished has been by haphazard inspiration or sudden whim.  My creative drive is scatterbrained, an emotional free-for-all, an anxious reckoning.   

My fantasies often conjure the man who would rein me in even if by force.  Who would govern, restrain, and control me where I was unable to do so myself.  Of course, in real life, what good and suitable, respectful and kind partner would ever impose his own super-ego on a woman he cared for?  

I know that, but still—

as I stare down an obstinate chapter of my book--

 

--Master, please help me find my discipline!

--only by my rules.

--yes, Master.

--there will be no 2 a.m. bowl of Rice Krispies.

--yes Master.

--the infernal crunching is distracting to us both.

--yes Master.

--you will sit here across from me, where I can watch you.

--yes.

--you will work until I am satisfied with the result.

--yes.

--or you shall taste the lash.

 

 

I Just Wanted to Bite the Buttons off His Frock Coat, One by One

All through the "Half-Blood Prince" matinee I attended today, I couldn't stop thinking about those buttons on the Potions Master's coat.

I've mentioned them before.  I thought I wanted to lick them.  But today I realized that they are cloth, not glass, and they would need to be bitten instead.

Bitten off one by one.  While he waited impatiently but with a stillness born of well-practiced discipline.  While the frock coat opened just a little bit more.  And then a bit more.

I'm Your Biggest Fan

I have bragging rights as the winner of MJ's "Guess the Brits" competition.  Perhaps it's a dubious honor, perhaps you think it just means that Sarge and I watch too much television.

But little did you know, it has a greater and even more embarrassing significance.

My UK readers, commenters and lurkers alike--from England, Ireland, Scotland and not yet Wales (though I hold out hope)--God, I adore You.  I have a crush on You.  And I may even be in love with You.  The gorgeous accents that have our Brooklyn staccato and even our Southern drawl beat all hollow, the way you say "fortnight" and "bloody hell," "duvet," and "herself" for "her" and "she"; and the way You measure Your chocolatey, custardy recipes in metrics that look for all the world like a favorable numerological prediction to me; the way You have kept on that mysterious "u" where our American laziness has truncated--"parlour," "favour," "flavour" and "colour" indeed! I can't even remember anymore whether I'm supposed to spell "gray" with an "a" or an "e," but I know which I like better--I like Your way!

So, Limerick London Belfast Dublin Glasgow Derby Liverpool Manchester Cardiff--the delicious names linger on the tongue--the regional differences like a mystery religion, and I've only yet been admitted to the church foyer...

I've been holding back, too shy to tell You the truth about my feelings; how could I ever measure up?

But now that I am officially champion at Guessing the Brits, I suppose the truth has come out anyway.  Yes, this Brooklyn girl is Your biggest fan.

Edited: Now I've gone and kindled a nice little flame down in the comments.  I suppose this is what happens when I try to objectify You.  Why not just lie back and be objectified? It can feel very nice sometimes. 

Edit part two: yes, I know the above edit is totally beside the point to the discussion below.  But I think it's funny, and I'm funny, and I had to include it just to humor myself.  

Aftermath

downtown San Antonio, Texas

The road trip is finished, and I have taken temporarily to my bed. No, really I have. I am so utterly spent that I have been unable to get up and be my usual self, full of vim and bustle, tidying and cooking and organizing everyone and everything around me (that may or may not be a bit of an exaggeration, but I'll never tell).  In between sips of my delectable Cafe du Monde chicory coffee, I have entertained myself with cackling over the Twilight books, forcing myself to read the dreadfully arch and affected New Yorker (a girl needs a little culture, however bitter the pill to be swallowed), and occasionally waving to Hedgie from the pillows.  Sarge rousted me for an hour this afternoon and took me for a walk like a recalcitrant dog, but aside from that, it's been bed and more bed.  In honor of this post, I have for the first time in two days made said bed, an accomplishment of which I am inordinately proud. My counterpane neatly arrayed, my coffee balanced, hair brushed into two pigtails (yes, it is the truth), the reclining is not quite so shameful, and if someone should happen to pop in on me I am at least presentable.

In an effort to take stock, I shall hereby abridge and truncate these previous long 12 days journey as follows:

Best: The New Orleans cemetery.  Oh how I loved it.  I might have to move in there...

Worst: gas station bathrooms.

Funniest: the donkey who fell hard for my sister, followed her around, brayed sweet donkey nothings in her ear, and stared wistfully after her as she tried to leave the little farm across the road from my MIL's.

Scariest: The hotel room we checked into,  and then out of five minutes later, that looked very much like a serial killer's abattoir might look after all the action but before housekeeping had visited.

Most Delicious Meal: a toss-up between Cleburne Cafeteria in Houston and Mary Mac's tearoom in Atlanta Georgia.  Both places, truly Lucullan.  And I'm sure I've used that crazy word before this, in a fit of exaggeration about something or other, but it really applies here.

Most Delicious Individual Food: bread pudding soaked in bourbon.  Hands down.

Most Disgusting Meal: Texas Land and Cattle.  I might take my dog there for scraps.  Then again, I might not.  Getting drunk and just slightly belligerent helped the teensiest little bit.

Most Disgusting Individual Food Item: The  "baked" potato at above.  Nothin' like biting unsuspectingly down on a forkful of crisp raw potato.

Most Boring: the un-politically correct lecture we got from the docent at the old plantation in Baton Rouge Louisiana.  You would think it might have been interesting, seeing as how he had a most peculiar take on the whole, er, slave issue.  But it wasn't.  He reminded me of Professor Binns from Harry Potter.  

Most Interesting: wandering into an old hotel in downtown San Antonio, and discovering that Robert Johnson had recorded some of my favorite songs in a room there.

Ugliest: the fussily be-ribboned china doll with the gruesome simpering expression given to Hedgehog by some relatives.

Most Beautiful: the eerie swamps and wetlands of Louisiana and Georgia.  Seen in dusk, just lovely.

Most Shameful: In desperation, feeding poor dear starving Hedgehog cold Chef Boy-ar-Dee ravioli straight from the can with a plastic fork, in a gas station parking lot.  Without doubt one of my lowest parenting moments.  However, she seemed to enjoy it.

Most Surreal: Purchasing my red beans and rice from Boudin King in Jennings, Louisiana, I went to pick up some napkins on my way out, and found myself staring down a gigantic pile of tracts that said, in big cheerful letters, "if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your lord and Savior you will burn in the fires of hell."  I became immediately convinced that they were trying to fatten me up for the slaughter, and hightailed it out of there.  However, I would still recommend Boudin King for all your boudin needs, if you ever find yourself in the backroads of backroad Lousiana.  Just make sure your Star of David is tucked all the way into your t-shirt.

Favorite souvenir: no contest, a true crime book I purchased at a Stuckey's in East Texas.  Written and vanity-published by a local sheriff, an account of a disturbing murder he had solved. I confess to being initially amused at the florid title: "So Innocent, Yet So Dead."  Yet to my surprise, it is actually rather well-written.  Score, a direct hit.

Written by Hand

click pic to make larger

New Orleans, Louisiana: Saint Louis Cemetery Number One

I had so many random things I wanted to post, but this evening I'm sitting in an Atlanta hotel room, completely exhausted, unable to stop thinking about the New Orleans cemetery...

We blew into the French Quarter by car, this afternoon, just for a cafe au lait and some beignets--we spent less than an hour there all told--but it was one of the most intense hours I've spent in, oh, perhaps years. Chicory coffee--delicious. Oh, so very delicious. Beignets--well, I'm still finding powdered sugar, like sand, 12 hours later. In the car. On my nose. Everywhere.

A serendipitous parking spot in front of an above-ground cemetery yielded one of my favorite moments in life so far--perhaps it's the Goth in me, I don't know, but even in broad stark white blazing daylight, this place was--well, for some reason, I don't have words for my feelings about it. Unusual for me, to be struck speechless. I love graveyards anyway, and this was the very distillate of graveyard--the crux of it--stumbling about in the crowded crumbling little death houses was like making one's way through a crowd of the dead themselves...

I wanted to linger, but thought that if I did, they might catch me and keep me...even this little bird, the only other animate thing around, came to perch and was instantly held like a piece of statuary:



I tried hard to capture the heat and existential claustrophobia of the place, but couldn't quite...