Guys

I hope you don't mind, but I unlocked this thing. I don't know if we had too much to worry about privacy-wise. Let me know if this bothers you- Big Toe

in a country where they turn back time

I was over at Mark's for the weekend, but mainly to see my Pittsburgh girlfriend.  It's maybe '97.  A nice, chaste relationship, of course.  We were heavily sedated by the church but that didn't stop us from having random after Sunday night service parties.  I had to leave, classes and work and such the next morning, aside from the three hour drive back home to Columbus.  She finally showed up just as I was packing the trunk of my car.  It was snowing, coming down on the already packed snow that I had already shoveled as a favor to my friend so I could crash on his futon.  The door opened, and somehow the small party of maybe eight people immediately moved into the kitchen in the back.  She walked in, apologized as she always did in the small voice she had, and this track from Fuzzy came playing over the speakers.

I was standing near the CD changer, and just set this song on repeat, and we danced, a slow, just let me hold you, let's just be together and forget everything, everyone else.  And they all left us alone, the people in the kitchen and elsewhere.  But I finally said, after the third or fourth time we heard this song, I said, I've got to go, I'm going to be a mess tomorrow if I don't leave now.  And we left the front room, kissed on the front porch, and then, walking down the front steps to my car, we had the Hollywood moment, the last kiss before I get in the car, snow falling, the streetlight providing just the right shadow (yes, I opened my eyes for this).

We finally broke up just a couple months later, maybe February. But I knew then, at that moment, standing in snow in the middle of the street in Dormont, PA, with a girl who I knew would be perfect for me and who I would never have family issues with, someone who all my friends grew up with and loved, as we are sharing that nearly last kiss, I knew.

I knew, as I closed the door on my crap Tercel and watched her walk back into Marks' place, my tongue relishing her kiss on my lips, that it was over.

It's been that sort of day

Early summer evening home from college, I was all into writing poetry, taking classes with big name poets. Mom said to relax, have a beer. I took one up to my room and wrote a poem about plant growth as I looked out on the trees in the backyard through the screen on my window. I still hold onto that moment, the feeling of possibility as well as the pre-dinner beer buzz through which I experienced it.

Now, coming home from work stressed, sometimes I feel like I need a beer just to smile at my family. That isn't every night, but it is not infrequent. These are moments I don't think I will be holding onto, that I don't want to hold onto.

she doesn't give you time for questions

* * * when i was in Wisconsin, i used to go for random drives, just listening to the radio (my crappy Chevy Cavalier had a tape deck and...radio). so i listened to radio. radio in the heart of NPR and the midwest is good. i first heard Al Stewart coming back from looking at a condo, a place i was sure i wanted. modern. granite counters. convection oven. i was still living out of an ExtendedStay at the time, only a month or two into the move to Madison. but. But. Nothing seemed right. The complex seemed in foreclosure, my sixth sense was in overdrive. And driving out of there, a bright, sunny late October afternoon, I know there is no way in the world I am going to do this. But I hear this song come on my idiot car radio and think, maybe I've made the right choice. * 20\20. I used to think I had something to say. I spend my days watching Law & Order and House.