longer.blue

Does Ira Glass still do This American Life? (contains adult language and themes) She listens to NPR. We were both listening to it when an interview with the Temptations was playing, that day at Pam's when we met yet again, and as I entered the building, I laid a warm, wet hand upon her bare pelvic bone, she emits an exciting "oooohhh". Two days after she and Tommy Tiny Penis hooked up. He would later fuck Pam, at her then current boyfriend's house, who was present, on the couch in the living room, in the ass I hear, while I was locked outside with Paula by a mischievous Patty, and my then girlfriend Prissy was at work as a waitress at IHOP. She suggested our little new in-law holiday group each say something defining of themselves as an introduction to each other. I offered a quote I had recently heard from one of the Temptations on NPR. And her eyes continued to sparkle, hazel reflecting blue. Later, Tommy Tiny Penis attempted to earn brownie points with the girls' parents, Ken and Gloria - my next-door neighbors, by taking the group out to dinner at Olive Garden, saying he knew the head chef working. So. Filing into our seats at the table, Patty launches a convincing argument to her father Ken, insisting that she sit in the chair he was about to plop down upon. Winning convincingly, she seats herself not next to Tommy, but directly in front and across from me. Smiling conspiratorially. She is in full information gathering mode. She remembers to this day what I ordered. Not the most expensive nor the least expensive menu items, as someone being treated has a tendency to do. But selections based on the nutrient content and healthiness of the meal. Dark leafy greens, lean protein, only a bit of oil instead of heavy calorie content dressing. Beers, multiple, selection based on how well the brew recipe paired taste-wise with the food ordered. While eating, her father attempted to pass the salt in my direction, after being handed it from Tommy, who had just immediately doused his large steak with the saline grains. I told him, apparently in my default radio announcer voice, that I never added seasoning to food until I had tasted it, my reasoning being that it was an insult to the person who had prepared it, in this case a paid professional. Preparing a meal is an artform, and as an artist I recognize the sweat and effort of the cook or chef. The food as placed with purpose upon a plate by another is a finished product - the last stage of producing art is the presentation to the audience. It is now up to the audience to appreciate the finished work. To apply seasoning without tasting is an insult by an uncultured, unaware, and unappreciative person. If modifications need be applied after tasting to match an individual's preferences, then so be it - it's their food. Unbeknownst to me, the actual person who had prepared the food, the actual head chef on duty who obviously Tommy did not know at all, was standing directly behind me when I said this. He announced his presence, and I was rewarded with a complimentary meal, including the beers. Three beers, most likely. Tommy would attempt over and over that week to catch me in acts of verbal plagiarism, or insult me, only to always be bested by my quick and always razor honed intellect. I had already been practicing my craft for more than a decade by that point. The coward even uttered a "faggot" in my direction as Prissy and I left, under his breath, only to have my sharp ears pick it up. So, spinning with overdramatic flair and facing the opponent as always, I pointed out why that isn't an insult, and indeed that I could never be insulted by him, adding a well-placed and accredited quotation by Tom Waits, in French. Much to the confusion of the attacker and the delight of Patricia. I make memories, man. I even blew Patty a kiss, 'til we meet again, which we would, of course. To backtrack a bit, when mischievous Patty locked me outside with the youngest sister Paula, who I almost always sat next to on the school bus if I rode it, she never speaking to me, I had immediately postulated that since we were so rudely confined all night to the expansive backyard that she and I had a duty to retaliate in kind and consume every single beer. Which we did, triumphantly. Paula grew up to be a big girl, and a voracious consumer of alcohol. Taking me up on the challenge, she matched me beer for beer until they were all gone. 108 each, in five hours. That's one 12oz bottle of various brands every five minutes. And at no time, as mischievous Patty observed, mischievously, did I ever hit on Paula in any way. Come morning we were in someone's car listening to her CD collection. I inquiring about any I didn't recognize. I put in 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time In Eden album, informing her that I had all of their catalog on cassette, including the earliest collected demos. Much to her surprise. I would continue to confound that woman over the coming decades. Upon daybreak, Prissy returned and released us from the walled backyard that her younger sister and I would have escaped in someone's vehicle had we could in pursuit of more beer. She had to go get her daily dose of methadone from a clinic downtown. Patty cringed as she threw the van keys as a softball pitcher would, directly at my face, as was our custom. And I, wearing the leather jacket my grandmother had given me on my eighteenth birthday a decade earlier, caught them without thinking or flinching with a swooping downward arm movement. Prissy's dealers lived in the neighborhood behind the clinic. She was into heroin and cocaine, and I was into her. We went back to my house, and I grabbed my guitar, always the disposable emergency income, and a Seymour Duncan JB pickup I had purchased new but not installed yet. I pawned those and used the extra cash for more cocaine than the planned amount, which I would divide into two nice-sized lines on the bathroom countertop for Patty and myself. Tommy, I was informed later, didn't want to share the baggie of coke and meth mixed he carried. With us or her. Ugh. How fucking uncool is that? I guess Pam got some. Eew. I smile now, writing this, remembering Patty playing footsies with me under the table at Olive Garden, and again at Christmas a year or so later under her grandmother's kitchen table, with her grandmother and aunts sitting around us. I customarily wear steel toed boots, ankle high. But that day at grandmother's I had some cushy old man sandals my aunt had given me on, leaving my feet open this time to return the playful gestures.