Angel hair pasta.

I whisper the name of this delicate entree into the anxious ear of my trembling waiter, careful to be gentle with its exquisite celestial sounds.

The fragile lining of his ear blushes the color of sweet chardonnay.

He knows it’s what I want.

It’s what I always order when it is featured on the menu.

Who wouldn’t?

To strip the silky golden tresses from some unsuspecting angel and have the nerve to drench those locks in the rich red juice of sun-ripened tomatoes is gutsy cooking.

If the chef made a trip to the confessional between courses, he would be issued a platter of Hail Marys to eat as penance for his nerve.

But I feel no guilt for such a sin as angel hair pasta consumption.

Heaven must be rampant with clean-headed women with wings all because of my insatiable appetite for their heavenly hair.

I am not some predatory infidel.

The notion of gnoshing on the ponytail of a saint or sampling the sideburns of an apostle hold no gastronomical appeal for me.

Martyr moustache manicotti? 

No way!

But angel hair pasta, that platter of golden locks shorn off the pates of the singing seraphim?

Bring it on.

I will probably suffer some repentant heartburn tonight for my sin, but I will hum my novena lullaby in the vigil light glow of my twilight sleep, content with my belly full of angel hair pasta.

Copyright 2009

She plants flowers wherever she goes, whether her stay is three years, three months, or three weeks.

Time is money, timing is everything, and time is of the essence.

It is what she does and who she is – a cement gardener of hope, a patch nurturer of dreams.

Petunias precede evictions, impatiens bloom longer than the lease, marigolds are left behind with old curtains.

She may eat stale peanut butter right out of the jar.

She may turn trash into treasure to stave off bill collectors.

But the luxury of seeds is an obsession and art.

For she is an infidel connoisseur of vigorous life, with a high priority for setting down roots…and I like to think she is simply fostering fragrant memories well in advance.

Copyright 2009

I’d like to start a business my friend tells me.

And what would you sell I ask.

With no hesitation she states:  plastic novelties.

Why am I not surprised.

Copyright 2009

The small circle, dressed in the depressed hues of a viciously-sharpened number two lead pencil, stares back at me like a dead eye.

I gave it life.  The answer key took it away.

Now it is just some scavenged mathematical carcass, a decomposing civil service roadkill.

Have I been reduced to this?

I glance at my reflection in the cafeteria window and see a pencil-stabbing, middle-aged sedentary hunter chasing down waddling overbred answers that are too afraid to fly.

I am so much better than this.

I sigh and breathe in the rancid smells of lunchroom plastic, test anxiety, burning erasers, and charred gray matter.

My job of ten years now requires me to upend fractions until I empty their pockets of decimals, comprehend inane passages on the incomprehensible mating habits of the three-banded armadillo, read elaborate graphs drawn on an axis the size of an atom, and translate the conversation puffed rice would have with popcorn.

Needless to say, I have never used, wanted, nor been required to do any such rot in my life.

But I have been sitting here in this Looking Glass world for over three hours now, trying to color the wisdom of the world into circle choice A, B, C,  or D.

And I am not the only nut in Wonderland.

The woman next to me sweats all over her test booklet as she concocts an equation that I think stands a good chance of confirming the Big Bang Theory.

The girl on my left keeps swearing and pulling out patches of hair as she rips holes in her answer sheet.

I push my test-taking Buddha in her direction but she only swears more vehemently, not at me per se, just at life.

I can respect that.

I fear, though, that the large overweight man across from me with the steamed eyeglasses is designing a suicide note on his booklet.

He is running out of space and there are still three more hours to go.

How has this happened to us?

I drudge back to my test booklet #P6937A and attempt to decode question fifty.

Dear God!  What is the percentage of chickens that come before eggs if the breed of rooster is a Rhode Island red?

My eyes sting from eraser scat, my throat closes up from exam asthma, my head pounds from data drilling.

I cannot last for thirty more questions.

What could possibly be left?

The test has already covered all volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the last ten years of the Farmer’s Almanac, all the IRS audits done since Euclid, and the pitching stats of every Cy Young winner since 1953.

What could possibly be left?!

Then I remember:  The Gettysburg Address, the secret recipe for Coca Cola, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and all the episodes of Jeopardy.

I am in some corporate hell with no hope for salvation.

I put Buddha back in my pocket and get  scolded by The Monitor.

I squint my eyes at her to let her know that I fully suspect she is the very author of this marathon exam.

She folds her massive arms and slits her eyes right back at me.

I take this as silent confirmation.  Ha!  I knew it.

She’s one of those parochial school valedictorians whose life didn’t work out quite like she planned and this is her revenge.

I’m on to her.

My logic skills have been honed these past three hours.

My paranoia is at feverish pitch.

I stare.  She stares.  I blink.

She is paid $15.75 per hour while I am wasting valuable time.

The Monitor chuckles victoriously and slithers away.

I slide down defeated into my chair and bite the eraser right off of my pencil.

That’s when it happens – my denouement, my ephiphany, my Andy Warhol moment.

In my peripheral vision, I detect a glitter…of what?  Of hope?  Of chance? Of?

Can it possibly be?

In this upstate New York summer where every weekend has been overcast or sopping wet, there is the sun!

I shade my eyes and stare up at the solar magnificence.

Old Sol is wearing a smiley face and whispering my name.

He is so out there in his rainbow tiara festooned in Roy G Biv bling.  You go , girl!

Birds appear carrying pastel silken ribbons in their beaks while chirping “Here Comes The Sun,” just like the Beatles only different.

I start to hum along but The Monitor appears.

I don’t care.

Flower heads erupt from the earth wearing shocking wigs of color.

I feel like Snow White in a room full of dwarves.

And…what’s that?

A unicorn prances by as the disco ball sun starts to spin.

Jumping up on the cafeteria table, I shout:  “What is the true measure of an employee?  What about creativity?  Integrity?  Showing up on time?  Never using a sick day in ten years?  Refraining from eating a colleague’s lunch in the company fridge?”

The rest of my comrade test takers break their pencils and join me up on the table.

The Civil Service exam has now morphed into something rude and unruly – akin to a bad Broadway show tune.

But hold on.  No need for anxiety.  This is only happening in my head.  But still…it is an “aha” moment of epic proportions, my defining moment of dignity.

I pencil a square box around every remaining choice D:  None of the above.  For it truly is the only correct answer in life.

Copyright 2009

The packing bxes arrived late Friday evening so I spent the weekend putting my emotional life into storage.

There was a twenty-four hour storm watch in effect for the area and for me personally.

This was as good a time as any to put the past into pigeonholed perspective.

I put on a depressing radio station.

Bach was pacing heavily around the airwaves in his hobnail Baroque boots while the thunder of the downpour agitated his legacy.

Nothing sends me running down into the spiritual cellar like a brooding German composer and an electrically-charged atmosphere.

Everything was perfect – but where to start?

When in doubt, always opt for youthful memories.

There’s always a bunch of them laying around the basement, all unorganized and mildewed.

I gathered up armloads of the stuff and dragged them upstairs.

I’ve been hauling bits and pieces of my youth with me forever.

They have such strong emotional ties, sort of like pictures of relatives you don’t know anymore but you still can’t toss away.

So there I was, cramming piles of reminiscent youth into the biggest box I could find.

I had to sit on the lid while strapping packing tape around the cover, but it’s all put away now.

I highly recommend misspending your youth as foolishly as possible so you don’t have so much left over…you won’t know where to put it all.

Copyright 2009

The sound of my key in the door causes reality to inject a small dose of cause and effect into his miniscule mind.

That is why he sits in silence, hunched under the table, holding firm to the concept that by doing so he is invisible.

Does he truly believe that by remaining motionless his gray fur acts as camouflage on the red oriental rug?

How did he tightrope across Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest?

Doesn’t he realize that the complete silence makes the absence of his ear-piercing yelps, clattering tags, and flamboyant Schnauzer-on-a-pogostick greeting dance all the more noticeable – and cause for suspicion?

My crime scene skills, gleaned from thousands of award-winning televison shows, kick in.

Bits of chewed magenta candle litter the linoleum in front of the refrigerator.

“Who did this?” I ask in that pet owner voice that comes complimentary with every first leash.

And then he does it, his own personal answer to authoritarian challenge.

He jumps to his feet, cocks his head, and quietly woofs at me in complete canine defiance.

I offer you the translation:

   Wasn’t me.  It was Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with the candlestick.

Game.

Copyright 2009

The last time I saw, truly saw, with my heart and not my eyes, I was nine years old and held prisoner in parochial school.

I was at the age where one instinctively knows that certain moments in life should be plucked and placed into storage.

One needs such memories for comfort or revenge.

So there I was, a reluctant prisoner of education in Sister Juanita’s fourth grade classroom, sitting in the back row with the end of the alphabet, writing another insipid essay about mortal sin and the fires of hell.

That’s when I decided that I’d rather go fishing.

Mind you now, I was an urban child with neither pole nor lake.

But I was armed with a malnourished imagination, a case of ill-fitting conformity, and a lunchbox full of cookies and metaphors.

I was desperate to escape…if only in my mind.

I opened the student dictionary, set my sights on a spectacular adjective, and pinned one down on my paper.

It was exhilirating – the thrill of the hunt and the catch.

I had gone deep-sea fishing with a fountain pen while the rest of my peers were hooking sunnies with pencils from on shore.

A pile of carp pales in comparison to a barracuda.

I can still sense the excitement of that first haul, impressive really for an amateur angler.

The trapped word wiggled with life beneath the nib of my pen but I held fast.

The adjective and I were one in the struggle – and I, yes I, emerged the victor.

The flow of filler black ink made the mounting effortless.

My catch was multi-syllabic, melodious, and magnificent.

I taxidermied it in perfect Palmer penmanship.

Even Sister Juanita was impressed.

I was at the top of a new game.

It wasn’t until three days later, when my triumph was posted on the refrigerator door with a funeral home magnet, that I was forced to face reality cold in the face.

My piscine prize, my majestic modifier, my astonishing adjective, had mummified into a mere ordinary word.

Life had dehydrated out of its resplendent body with use and the passage of time.

What was once monumental was now merely mundane.

That’s when I saw, truly saw, with my heart and not my eyes, that I was the one ironically hooked.

The sport of words lies in the hunt, not the haul…and the life of a writer is continually measured by the ones that get away.

Copyright 2009

My spirit whispers your name and your eager baby fist grabs each sweetly-curved vowel and long-stemmed consonant.

I have presented you with a bouquet of identity and over time you have woven its fragile bits into the crown of a conqueror.

How is it that I, who loves you with a heart more powerful than any god’s, now finds that same heart shattered by your absence?

Reach inside the broken rubble of my soul and place your finger on the heartbeat we once shared.

Can you still feel its rhythm?

Can you still move to its music?

The connection between us pulsates beyond the very existence of time.

It is an endless echo that speaks in infinite motion…perhaps that is why you so passionately dance in the moment.

Your heartbeat will now carry me as mine once did yours.

I am the past and you are my future.

Copyright 2009

Ranga.

The word “orangutan” is gargled in the throats of the Maori, masticated in the mouths of the Bushmen, and expectorated by colonists in the streets of Sydney until it morphs into the idiom for “redhead.”

You are the ferocious ranga in my life.

Sitting across the table from me at the coffee house, with your fiery hair lit up like some personal bonfire, you cause me to lose focus on the conversation.

Today your coiffure is upswept and angry, spewing out amber tendrils like some ignited Medusa.

I can only throw blankets of smothering words over your fireballs of tension.

How is it that you can sit there so calmly, as if everything is normal, while your hair spontaneously combusts?

I feel like Dante caught up in my own little inferno.

Then, rather unexpectedly, the flames dramatically dissipate into pathetic ringlets of evaporating smoke.

You twist the glowing ashes into a conservative bun and narrow your eyes at me as if to ask:  “Are you listening to me?”

There is no winning with a Ranga.

Copyright 2009