Working Title Pt.1

Prologue....

   "What d’you mean you're sleepy? You’ve downed, like, three Cokes. You should be bouncing off the walls!" Josephine raised her voice over multiple stereo speakers, before taking another swig from her beer bottle.

   "I know. But I can't keep…keep my eyes open. You fink…think Brandy would let me crush…crash, I mean?" Jade slurred, though she didn't wait for an answer, and walked with an unbalanced gait down a hallway cluttered with partiers.

   “The devil inside, the devil inside
Every single one of us the devil inside
The devil inside, the devil inside
Every single one of us the devil inside…”

   Pre-Spring break revelers grooved, made out, and played Poker or Strip Twister to INXS. Tipping back all matter of libation, they bragged to one other which beaches they would soon be sunning themselves on.

   Josephine spotted her crush and sidled up to him. "Hey Kell! Your girlfriend sure knows how to throw a house-party. How about a dance?"

   "Maybe later. Have you seen my sister? She oughta know that scumbag Cameron's here.” He scanned the room for familiar red hair.

   "Jade already knows,” she said with a sway of her hips. “She's been avoiding him."

   "This is ridiculous!" Kellan scoffed, hooking his hands on his hips. "She tells him to go to hell and breaks up with him, and she still can't get away from him!"

   “Well, this is a party. Everybody and nobody here was invited.” She laughed, raising the longneck again.

   “You know, I think you’ve had enough,” he observed, taking the bottle from her hand and sitting it on a nearby end-table of empties. “You’re not even old enough to drink.”

   Josephine’s good time flipped to flinching shame. As resentful as she wanted to feel towards Kellan Dunham for it, his good opinion was one of the few she valued.

   “So, where’d you see Jade?” he prompted.

   “She's in one of the bedrooms,” she waved in the direction. “I think winter finals wore her out.”

   He peered down the hall, unable to shake an ominous feeling. "I'm gonna go find her."

   "I'll come with you."  

   The row of doors down the hall were all open, but one at the end. Trying the knob, he found it locked. An unfamiliar chill trickled down his back, and he chose to throw caution to the wind. His party host and girlfriend, Brandy, would just have to forgive him for busting the door down.

   The scene on the other side of the door put Kellan in an instant rage.

   "You son-of-a-bitch!"

 

*              *              *

Content Is My Jam!

     I’ve let the gray grass grow; I present as the X generation, but my natural ebullience will leave you baffled. (I may be old to you, but I saw all the cool bands)

     Detachment to societal conformity is my key to successful maturity and awareness. Comical, but no fan of the ‘Jackass’ crowd. Educated, but can’t afford to get that degree, yet. Globally appreciative, without the passport. I get excitable chills when I discover something I never knew before is actually a thing! (i.e. Rosca de Reyes v. Mardi Gras king cake)

     However, everyone has those days. Osteo pain can make me a bitch, but no one dares call me on my surliness. Why would they? They can’t do anything about it. Letting me vent will definitely help. (Though, I think they’re afraid of my taser)

     Thankfully, we live the era now that won’t tolerate the misinformed & insensitive: “If you’re not walking in my shoes, then back off; you can’t possibly know how this feels, and be glad you don’t!” can be snarled. (If they snarl back just to snarl, their name’s Karen---cue eyeroll)

     When you’ve lived more than half your existence with ailment no prescription will alleviate, you create your own helpful life hacks. I own mad skills at targeting exactly where a cereal box will land in my scooter-grocery cart, from a quick tip-over with my mobility cane; right between the coffee filters and Minute Maid carton.
     So, no, I don’t need your help, kind stranger. I’ve got it down due to practice & necessity.

     Oh, but don’t get me wrong--I’d never treat a bookstore the same way! Lawd, no! I’d rather search multiple aisles of tall shelves for that bored, knit-capped-pseudo-hipster employee, and pump up his ego for his help in reaching for that Stephen King/J.D. Robb/John Grisham/James Patterson, et al that’s just outta my reach. A book in my hands always gets the knit cap a genuine smile and a ‘Thank you.’

     Yah, you’ve just figured out why my blog has been its own deserted island-of-misfit-toys; can’t decide which I love more: reading, or writing. Oh, I DO write, but I can be pretty brutal to my work. No, it’s not in a pile of crushed up paper balls. How stereo-troped is that? Nah, it still lives and breathes in my composition books. I just need to edit it all so that it no longer reads the way I’d originally written it.

     Talk about gate-keeping at its snottiest.

     I think I just hurt my brain. Sorry, bones. You’ll have to take a back-seat for a while.

 Credit: Bill Schorr

Mirror

My mirror doesn’t tell me I’m getting older. It does say to me that I’m changing, but not in the ways society says it is. Those who know I attempt to be a clever writer might say that my ‘play-on-words’ statements make sense perhaps only to me.

Example? ‘I’m youthful because I have no youth.’

Hah.

Childfrees get it. I don’t act as old, or look as tired as parents. I grow gray hair—that I’ll cover with bottled color—simply because my hair is changing with age. I see that my skin hangs slightly, but not so greatly from age as much as weight loss. When I was heavier, the mirror showed me younger, too. My Mah used to say the fat smoothed out any wrinkles gained from age. The mirror recognizes some shadowing under my eyes, but that was sadness, not lack of sleep from a crying baby, or a teenager flouting a curfew.

It’s none of your business what the melancholy was about. It comes and it goes normally. What’re you wistful about? My dejectedness only lasts long enough for me to remember I can visit Powell’s Books at the drop of a hat. To type away at a blog very few read. (Apparently, I have a minute fan base in Russia; really can’t tell if that’s a good thing at the moment)

And the mirror also tells me what one of my brothers impulsively revealed a while back. “You’re kind of starting to look like Mah.” Okay, most daughters DON’T want to be anything like their mothers. And, I’m not fooling myself by saying I don’t act like she did; I know I don’t because I’m a Gemini, and she was a Leo. Totally different identities.

In any case, I don’t mind the reflection resembling her. It makes the one brother happy. It makes me content because it means I don’t fully resemble my father—aged thirty-plus years older, and recently admitting the wisdom in asking my youngest brother to string up the house’s Xmas lights. I’ve promised Da I won’t tease him about his Sunday morning ‘church nod’ anymore as long as he stays off that damn ladder. (Shudder!)

The mirror at work makes me look even younger; coffee-themed, Covid face-mask, safety goggles, and 26dB protective ear-muffs. That’s when the shadowy eyes are revealed more; late-night writing rather than sleeping. My fault, but I’d never complain—caffeine fixes everything. ☕

I’m not one to look deeply in the mirror for signs of ageing, or to cover it with a trowel of foundation. Olay moisturizer, sure. Noticing it’s time to color, yah! The only thing about my reflection that makes me grimace is the McConnell-style turkey neck I’ll eventually end up with. Lawd, I hope I have enough in savings for a neck-lift!

But mostly, my mirror reflects an independent person who knows how to look out for herself. What I don’t know, the internet, and the Golden Girls, will teach me.