The Toy Boy

Once upon a time a woman sat alone in her apartment, sipping wine, reading a book, nursing a broken heart.  She heard a knock on her door.

“Who can that be?” she wondered.  “No one buzzed to be let in the building.  I don’t know any of my neighbors, except the little old lady next door.  Maybe it’s her.”

She opened the door and looked straight into the friendliest, freshest eyes she’d ever seen on a man.  Well, more of a boy, really.  Curly, messy hair, a big smile to match the eyes, an empty bowl held in his hands.

Guy’s hair was curlier, and I never saw him wear sun glasses. Otherwise…….

That was you, Guy.  Twenty-year-old you.  Facing 28-year-old me for the first time.    I wonder how scared you were, that moment.  Actually asking me for some sugar.  That was the best ruse you could come up with to meet me.

 

Decades later you told me that you and your next-door-neighbor bet on who would meet me first.  You’d watch for me from the living room window of your apartment.  The best days were when I’d park my car right

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50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

Alan, my former husband, and I concocted our fantasy business while idling in coffee shops and wine bars.  The mission of this company was to help broken-hearted lovers bring closure, dramatic and final, to their relationships.  We were inspired by Paul Simon to help people in pain with their struggle to be free.  We, of course, were never going to be in pain, never struggling to be free.

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Reading the Best of You

 

Me reading your comments, ala Vincent Van Gogh

I’m departing from my norm today.  Instead of posting new thoughts, I’m inviting you all to go back to previous posts to read your thoughts. For the last two months, I’ve been reading the best of you with pleasure.  The traces of yourselves that you leave in your comments are funny, thoughtful and insightful.

I savor them daily.  I suspect most of you don’t go back to old postings to see what comments have shown up.  Today, I invite you to do so. They are worth your time.

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One Man’s Viewpoint

Before starting The Diary of the Vixen Divorcee, I emailed my friend, Reggie, to check out what he thought of my idea of a blog about life as a single woman.  Typical man, he translated it into a blog about sex.  This is his response, except that I edited his choice of a photo; his was too racy for my diary.

The perfect morning to sit down and answer your mail.  It’s heavenly outside.  A balmy, wet, warm front is in the area.  Very feminine, this kind of weather.  Warm, wet, still, mysterious, close and yet the essence of it standing at a remove.  You know something’s coming.  A good day to sit in the window early in the morning with the clothes line strung with pearls.

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Party Like It’s Christmas 2011

I want to take you someplace with me.  This journey is neither far, nor exotic.  Depending on your mindset, you might call it banal.  Or tacky.

I call it fun.

You and I, we’re driving down a back street in an industrial corner of my town on a Saturday night.  Make that last Saturday night, to be precise.

We pass factories, warehouses and cross railroad tracks before we come to a parking lot loaded with Harleys, pickups and SUVs.  We find one spot left for our little car.  We cross the street toward a cinder-block, windowless building.  Smokers crowd around the door.  The temperature tonight is freezing, but the men wear t-shirts or cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up high on their tattooed arms.  The women’s arms are bare, as are their thighs, below their short skirts.

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And the Winner is…….

Marlys plunges her hand into the waiting pile of email addresses. Who will win The Other Side of Me?

My friend, Marlys, stopped by first thing this morning to oversee the drawing of the winner (See The Other Side of Me). She wanted to make sure that I was fair.

After all, I could have been tempted to show preferential treatment.  For example, I could have chosen to send my story off to Big Fan, who almost reached that goal of 10 new subscribers.  I thought 9 was pretty darn good.

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Ah Have Always Depended Upon…

I lied to that man on the airplane to Zihauntenajo (see Birth of the Vixen Divorcee).  I told a blatant lie when I pretended to be Blanche Dubois in Streetcar Named Desire.  “Ah have always  depended on the kindness of strangers,” I said.

What a disastrous way to live a life that would be.  What a sad, frail, ineffectual creature Blanche was.

No, my truth is far different.  I have always depended on the kindness of friends.

How about starting with my recent run-in with the nine-foot-tall Norfolk Island Pine sitting in my kitchen.   The plant grew so big in the summer that no one could sit at my table except me.  My upstairs sitting room would give it more space and light.

I carried it inside from the patio by myself at the end of the summer.  Surely with all my weight lifting and yoga I could get it up 32 stairs.  Of course I could.

This is my Norfolk Island Pine this summer, out on my patio. It’s a beauty, isn’t it?

  

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I’ve Been Addled Before

I touched his knee, that’s all.  It happened accidentally, quite innocently.  I leaned forward toward the driver, Trevor, to make a suggestion, he spun the steering wheel, the tiny Fiat swerved and I reached out to get my balance.

My hand landed on the knee of the tall, blonde, handsome executive crammed in the back seat next to me.  That’s how it started.

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Solace for a Grieving Heart #3

The night I threw my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s clothes into boxes and hauled them out to the garage, this song from Marianne Faithful’s album, Broken English, blared away on my sound system.

When I stole a twig from our little nest
And gave it to a bird with nothing in her beak,
I had my balls and my brains put into a vice
And twisted around for a whole fucking week.
Why’d ya do it, she said, why’d you let that trash
Get a hold of your cock, get stoned on my hash?

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The Comfort of Her Arms

Don’t you think American Impressionist Mary Cassatt captured the trusting tenderness between mother and daughter?

My mother’s robe hangs in the back of my cedar closet, where it’s been since she died 10 years ago.  Tonight I choose to wear it.

First I light all the candles in the bathroom.  Fill the tub with hot water and fragrant bubbling foam.  Then I lie in the steam and the warmth, gazing at that perfect robe hanging on the closed door.

This silken wonder was a gift from my father, and showed a rare flash of gift-giving insight.

 

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