This one is for Harry A with love and self indulgence.
I don’t know why I light a cigarette right at the beginning of commencing an attack on the keyboard when I know it will only end in ash between the crevices. My blighted keyboard has been bashed upside down too many times, creating a gentle rain of ash snow on the desk, which then has to be corralled into a receptacle. I spend far more time dealing with this than I do writing. It might have a familiar ring to it, if you are a fellow smoker. Then there is the coffee to hand, necessitating yet another bathroom break just when I was about to say someth…that I can’t remember. Merely another version of walking into a room and forgetting why. Then…oh. No. Wait, yes. If I had a stalker who was filming secretly from the shrubbery all they’d have would be hours of baffling and useless footage of me turning circles in doorways. Part of me hopes that being aware of it will somehow stave off the madness aspect until someone else is happy to highlight another foible that I wasn’t aware of. Apparently, I stand aimlessly staring at supermarket shelves for inordinate lengths of time and also punch people in my sleep. Or so I’ve been reliably informed.
“You are a genius and I stand in ovation to you along with many, many others who have been waiting to devour your marvelous words and begin to know your excellent, evolved mind.” Diane Meyer Simon. Co-Founder, President Emeritus, Global Green USA
I’m not often, in fact never, told in the course of a day that I’m a genius. There are plenty out there in the vast who would virulently disagree, having seen me unfailingly go for the wrong side of a car every time or, as my brother would testify, calling my own cell phone and insistently dialing the wrong number. Although launching a large metal fire truck at his head when I was three may have understandably coloured his judgement somewhat, he correctly labelled me as a giant idiot in 1962 and has been provided with no evidence to alter his opinion thus far. Imagine my unconfined joy last week to be able to point out a typo on his glorious and much vaunted new website.
Such tiny triumphs are all too rare in life and I was reminded this week of my only other which I’ll share with you if I may.
Beverly Hills 2001. I’d just been cheated on and dumped by the love of my life for the previous five years. I’ll call him Joachim, because that’s his name. He was due back at our apartment, which had been cruelly stripped of everything ‘he’ owned, including the car, which was leased in his name that my deposit paid for. On top of this, he’d managed to work into a conversation that his chiropractor had set him up on a date with a pageant winner. Miss Inland Empire Cunt of The Year or something. Anyway, on the same day my dear friend Donnie had promised to teach an un-named friend and me how to scrabble a living from ebay. The friend would handily deliver Donnie, chair bound, up the multiple steps to my apartment, thus killing several birds with one stone. Donnie’s friend was after selling old pictures of himself, and I was thinking to flog the last of any ex-husband memorabilia to enable me to eat that week. As the doorbell rang, I prayed for two things: Firstly that Donnie would get there first, with friend, and secondly, please, oh please, let the friend be good looking.
So in rolls Donnie, followed immediately by the most perfect and impressive specimen of manhood you ever clapped eyes on. Playgirl Man of The Year, no less, trumping Miss Inland Empire in spades.
Thank you, God. Angels are singing through rays of sunlight streaming from a parted cloud.
I say, “Look, I know you just met me three seconds ago, but would you be kind enough, when the next man walks through the door, to pretend to be my boyfriend?”
He amiably agrees, to his credit, and busies himself spreading out his chiseled, naked modelling shots all over the coffee table. I dash into the bedroom, rumple the bed a bit and (nice touch, I think) place a wash bag, some spare change, a comb and a new toothbrush on Joachim’s ‘side’.
Joachim arrives and is introduced to the specimen by a cheerful and conspiratorial Donnie. He circles warily, being polite but it has to be a challenge to overlook nine inches of cock on the coffee table.
I suggest we adjourn to the bedroom to privately take care of some unpleasant break up paperwork, like the car lease. Adonis casually waves me off, embroidering his moment by motioning a kiss.
Of course I ignore the artfully strewn bedside evidence, not calling it to attention, but Joachim doesn’t miss a trick. He turns to me, hissing, “Are you dating this guy?”
I say, “No. I’m just fucking him.”
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