Last month I felt old and depressed. Like a dent in a rusted-out Ford. It could have been the rain – carrying an umbrella puts me in a bad mood. All that delay – what didn’t I put off in June? Could have been. But wasn’t. It was me. Just me. Full of excuses, wasted
Browsing category blogging
I was 19 when it happened. My mother and sister were held hostage by a junkie with a bad haircut. That was the worst of it. But it wasn’t the first of it. It was all very Cape Fear. A family affair that lasted several years. Between Rich – That’s what I’ll call him –
“I don’t recollect a lot of birthdays. Didn’t really celebrate ’em when I was a boy.” Pa turned 70 today. “I’d get a year older and not even know it ’til a month later when one of my uncles’d come around.” I heard my grandmother in the background. Reminding him of the birthday he does
The summer was shorts and sandals. Trying to fish an alligator out of Lake Norman – Jo swore she saw it on the boat slip. Billy swore he’d catch it. A Cape Cod with a white picket fence. A lawn, mowed before we rolled out of bed. Speed boats. Jet skis and clear blue. That
I’m watching ‘Three Sisters’. Morning syndication at its best. The middle blonde is reminiscing. Ooohing and aahhing about the day she fell in love. The absolute moment she just knew. She fell the second she lay eyes on him. He fell three months later, as he watched her eat a pepper off the floor. My
I use to peddle pharmaceuticals. I sold a boat load of haloperidol to a psychiatric hospital my first week on the job. The lady sounded fat and annoyed when I asked her if she needed to restock. Hoping to woo her I skipped the Freudian / Jungian trivia and went straight to the crazy cousin.
It’s lunch with the ladies again. Clare’s going on about the man she’s getting ready to dump and the one she’s trading him in for. “He doesn’t have Roger’s money, but with a body like that, who needs money?” Gill does. “Puhlease. A nice body never got a girl anything but a house full of
One minute I’m fine. The next, not so much. Two hours doubled over the toilet bowl, followed by fits (momma hates this word) and faints. T makes a bed of towels on the bathroom floor. Gets a cool cloth for my forehead. Feels like it weighs a ton. I try to sit up and throw
“G’s pony died.” It’s my sister. “Oh no. She ok?” “Yeah. She is. But I’m not.” “Sorry ’bout that. What happened to it?” “Not the pony. Our dogs.” “Huh?” “You know, our dogs. Yours and mine. When we were little. I was telling mom this morning about the pony and how glad I am that
Mawsie’s house was on a hill. When she was old and I was young. After she died someone sat a bear on her porch. They killed it and stuffed it and left it there, because it was something to do and they didn’t want it in the house. Her husband passed away some time back
