A Moment With Gran

I agreed to go apple picking with my grandmom operating under the false assumption that it would not interfere with my regular Saturday schedule. I.E. sleeping until noon. Needless to say, I was confused and ill tempered when awoke at 8am.
“Come on, slugabed- time to get up. You know what they say, the early bird catches the worm,” she said in far more perky tone of voice than any human being should be capable of at 8am on a Saturday.
I sat up, rubbed the sleep out my eyes and tried to make sense of what the hell she’d just said. I had no earthly idea what a slugabed but I gathered it wasn’t a term of endearment. And what was this about worms?
“I thought we were going apple picking?” I said blearily.
“We are silly- where do you think the bird gets the worm from?”
I thought about this for a second and couldn’t come up with any response more appropriate than “Eeewww.”
Fast forward an hour and we were in the car on the way to east bumble fart because apparently there aren’t apple orchards anywhere near where she lived. Had I know this vital piece of information I would have passed.
In spite of myself, I enjoyed the car ride. She was right- you can’t see anything worthwhile in terms of landscape unless you get the hell out of the city. And as boring of a game as 20 questions I’ve never found a more entertaining person to play it with.
We got the orchard around 10am and made our way up the hill. The apple varieties were parceled out by what you used them for: a list of sauce-making apples, a list of pie-making apples, a list of sweet, a list of tart. Gran had been an avid sauce maker since I was a baby and she’d promised me years ago that one day she would take me and show me all the tools of her trade.
We picked what seemed like a full bushel of apples and I had to get a wagon because the bin was too heavy to carry. By the time the sun past its midpoint we’d collected what seemed like a ton of apples. As much as I bemoaned the manual labor of lugging all the apples back to the car and then into her kitchen I had to admit it had been a nice outing.
She then began the process of showing me how to peel, slice and soak the apples (apparently they had to be soaked in order for the spices to set in). Then we threw them all into a huge pot on the stove and checked as the slowly simmered for seemed like an eternity.
She promised me that freshly made hot apple sauce was better than anything else in the apple kingdom I could have tasted and after an eternity she gave ma bowl and I had the chance to see for myself. I took a spoonful and blew on, somewhat trepidations about putting steaming applesauce into my mouth. I took my bite and found that my grandmother was right, it was even better than pie.
I sat there, spooning through my bowl of hot, freshly-made applesauce and I had one of those moments where you realize that you’re in a moment. A moment that means something. A moment you’ll remember. A moment that you might tell your grandkids about in another lifetime. I looked over at Gran thinking all of this and she smiled at me.

The View From The Other Side of the Sentence

I've always believed, incorrectly, that there were some things that certain people just "got". For example: math. I have never in my entire existence understood math. From as early on as I can remember I struggled more with that subject than just about any other I encountered. It just wasn't something I 'got'. So, relatively early on, I concluded that my brain just wasn't meant to "get it" and I gave up on ever forming any rudimentary understanding of the subject. I mean, don't get me wrong- I can calculate the tip for dinner in my head, but that's really about it. You ask me to perform any basic mathematical calculations towards an end goal of, let's say... figuring out my taxes? Nope, not happening. It doesn't really bother me that I'm math illiterate save for times when my more math-savvy peers will ask me a question they think is extremely basic and I look at them like they're speaking Martian.
Another thing which I never really got is grammar. I know some very basic things- like the difference between your and you're and when to use it's vs. its and some other things like that. But if you asked me to explain adverbs and prepositions and split infinitives I'd be at a total loss.
It isn't that I wasn't educated. I can remember sitting in class and the teacher parsing out a sentence and having us identify the object, the noun, the verb, stuff like that. But when it came to using those concepts to check my own compositions it seemed much like looking at math equations that I didn't understand.
I like writing, obviously, Otherwise why would I continuously subject myself to all this? And I believe, on some level, that I'm not horrifically bad it. Save for my grammar. My elementary school teaching friend has told me that it has, somewhat inexplicably, improved over the years. I'm inclined to believe her simply because I wouldn't be able to tell.
I know that I could, with some time and effort, learn how to correctly use grammar in sentence construction. I could dig out my old copy of Strunk and White and start pulling apart some passages I admire and see if I can figure out the elements involved. I know that "getting" grammar isn't magic, that it takes practice like anything else.
But the fact of the matter is that, to me, that would be an exercise in torture. To dissect a sentence like that would defeat everything positive about writing and turn it into something... sterile, uninspired, bland. To me, the fire and passion that comes from writing is that momentary thrill from slamming your fingers down on the keyboard to get out a thought or an idea or a scene as fast as you can so you don't lose it.
Maybe that's why I like NaNoWriMo so much. And why I've never been able to really successfully edit. Any why I tend to prefer relatively simple sentence structures. And why I write in so many damned fragments.
Maybe it's a maturity that one reaches in writing? When you become more seasoned and gain the ability to hold onto whatever you loved about what you wrote while revising it into something more expressive and coherent. Maybe it's something I'll gain over time.
Or maybe I'll continue to butcher the english language and send Strunk on a daily spin in his grave. I don't know yet. Hopefully, in time, I'll learn.

The Bet

It was a stupid bet to make, Jake knew that. Anyone would tell you that of the bunch Jake was the easiest to scare. In fact, that’s part of the reason why these bets were made so often. If someone jumped out at him it was good money he’d startle. He knew his friends weren’t deliberately trying to be mean, but it had started to wear on him none-the-less.
So it was he, and not them, who had come up with this wager. He bet all of them that he could spend the night in the 'Deadly Forest' all by himself without shitting his pants. He knew the same stories as they did- that the little girl who was found dead there back in the 70’s still haunted the place, searching for her killer and trying to find a way out. But he figured that a forest tucked in between the recycling plant and the police station couldn’t really be that dangerous. And he hadn’t quite made up his mind about the whole ghost thing, anyway, he was hoping he’d prove intelligent enough not to believe in such things.
His friends were more reluctant to take the bet than he would have thought. They expressed genuine concern for him, after they got the hysterical laughter out of their systems and concluded he was serious.
“You? Are you kidding me? There’s no way you’ll make it a whole night. You’ll literally die of fright!” they’d warned.
“I don’t believe in ghosts, that’s stupid,” he’d chided.
“Ghosts or not- you’ll be scared. YOU will scare yourself even if there isn’t anything to be scared of!”
“Maybe I’m not as much of a scaredy cat as you think. Without you assholes jumping out at me I’d be fine!”
“Ok, dude. Your funeral.”
He couldn’t help but think about that conversation as he set up the campsite. He trained the camera on his sleeping bag so he wouldn’t have to adjust it when he went to sleep. He checked the sound, started a fire, and sat. He was perfectly happy to read and listen to his discman until the crepuscular dim made it too dark to read. Then he decided to get up and stretch.
He checked the camera, the red light was blinking consistently letting him know that all was being recorded. He stopped his discman and took off his ear buds out to listen to the sounds of the forest. He could hear the nocturnal animals coming out- the hoot of an owl, the scamper of a rabbit running through the brush, something climbing up a tree. He couldn’t resist the urge to advertise the fact that he wasn’t scared of the noises and the dark.
“Oh, boy- it sure is getting scary out here,” he taunted the camera. “Don’t know what I’m going to do!” He chuckled and gave the finger to the camera. “This is so dumb, but hey if you guys are stupid enough to shell out fifty bucks just for me to do a sleepover in the woods that’s your bad. I’ll be enjoying my gametime on God of War and laughing when you guys can’t afford it for yourselves."
There was a sudden snap like a twig breaking and he couldn’t help but snap his head around to see where it came from. His eyes wouldn’t let him make out anything other than the shape of tree branches and vines. His heart sped up into his throat for a second until he closed his eyes and forced himself to realize what an idiot he was being. The biggest risk he ran in these woods was running across a skunk and so long as he had the flashlight from his cell phone he’d be fine. Logic revived him and he opened his eyes again. Nothing had moved, the shadows were where they had been. He laughed at himself and settled his ear buds back in place and slipped into his sleeping bag, content to watch the red blinking light on the camera. Why his brother had invested in a camera with night vision he never understood, but he was glad for it now.
In spite of his fear he was able to focus in on the music and it lulled him to sleep, just as he had planned. He slept soundly, or at least as soundly as one can when resting on leaves in the middle of the woods. The night went on as it usually did. Mice ran through the underbrush, hungry foxes chased them, the occasional owl hoot echoed through the clearing. At one point Jake came unknowingly close to his greatest fear as a curios skunk walked disturbingly close to his sleeping bag and then moved on. Jake slept undisturbed by all of it, dreaming of pulling off awesome combination attacks in God of War.

Real Vampires

As a long-time fan of the vampire genre I can't help but be appalled at what has happened to the vampiric costumes this year. I tend to browse online for the year's costume fads for fun and i've noticed a disturbing trend of skinny, emo-looking boys wearing white cake make-up and spiked hair and claiming to be "Edward". WTF?
As if the books themselves weren't insulting enough you're actually encouraging people to dress up like the pansy characters? What do you do to get in character? Sit around and brood? That is painfully lame!
Vampires are supposed to be powerful, blood-thirsty monsters not angsty, emo boys who look like they dropped out of an Ambercrombie and Finch catalog and suddenly started coruscating!
Where's the fear? Where's the awe at their inhuman abilities? Where's everything that we hold near and dear about the genre? The only vampire movie that's come out in past years that was even remotely tollerable was 30 Days of Night and that wasn't even that good. I mean, at least they were monsters that would rip your throat out and slaughter people for fun! Of course, then brooding Josh Harnett had to go and mess that up, too. (But at least he fried in the end, that was rewarding.)
My point? If you're going to dress up like a vampire this year please, please dress up like a respectable one. The Dracula cape and fake fangs may have been done to death but at least they reflect a time when it still meant something to be a vampire.

My old Jalopy

“Ok, what have we got here-ere… oh…”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Uh, I don’t think I’m gonna be of much help here.”
“But you said you ‘fixed a million old cars’- your words, not mine.”
“I said old, not antediluvian!”
“It’s not that old- it’s an 87! It’s not like I’m asking you to fix a 50’s antique!”
“That’d be easier- people collect those things, they at least have stores that carry the parts. But this? What the hell kind of make is this?”
“Uh, let me see- it says “AMC’. Yeah, AMC.”
“Ha! That company doesn’t even exist anymore! I’d have to look through a junk yard to find parts for this thing. You know why? Because they’re junk!”
“Ok… so what do I do?”
“I’d say put it in the junk yard with its friends”
“Uh, yeah- that’d be great if I could get a new car to replace it. But I’m poor. Need money to buy new car.”
“How are you even driving this still?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad? Have you ever heard the term ‘moving death trap’?”
“Quite a lot, actually.”
“I’m not surprised driving a hunk of crap like this. I’m surprised the thing hasn’t spontaneously combusted!”
“Look, as much as I appreciate you endlessly ridiculing my car I’m in need of actual, you know- help. If I can’t get the parts then what am I supposed to do? I don’t have money for a new car.”
“Hmmm… you could enter it in a demolition derby- might win money. Then you could get something that runs!”
“Uh- huh. I’m sure that worked well in whatever 80’s tv show you’re referring to but this is the real world, you know? Non- syndicated? I have a job, what do you want me to do? Sell a kidney? Rob a bank?”
“Well how did you get this car?”
“My dad gave it to me.”
“Oy. Your dad doesn’t like you very much, does he?”

The Tastiest Treats

I have become overly fond of baking in my adult life. It took me a while to figure out why I liked baking so much and yet avoided cooking real food whenever possible. I figured it out, eventually.
There are two main reasons. Number one: baking involves sugar. I am a sugar addict. (I know that’s an odd thing for a diabetic to say, but it’s true. I don’t know how I’ve managed to re-introduce so much sugar into my diet and still stay within in a normal range but I’m not about to look that gift horse in the mouth!) Sugar is the tastiest substance on the planet and there are not many dinners I know of that utilize it. Garlic? Sure. Salt? Yup. Other various spices that are far more healthy for you? Usually. But sugar? No.
Number two: baking, in general, is done for a much larger group of people. When I make dinner, only I and my boyfriend eat it. Before I moved in with boyfriend I did almost no cooking at all. Why would I want to put so much time and effort into something that only I would eat when I could so easily pop something in the microwave or eat something that takes five minutes of boiling water out of the box? Now that I do live with someone I have developed a rather 1950’s-esque desire to make a healthy home-cooked meal for my man but not so much that my hard-core laziness doesn’t win over that desire pretty frequently.
Why does the large audience matter? For the same reason that you want people to come to your music recital or sports event: praise. Having people ooo and ahh over my tasty treats is one of the greatest pay backs I know of. In fact, I have gone to extremes making baked goods that take hours of rather difficult preparation simply for the satisfaction of having someone take a bite and proclaim its deliciousness. I would never, short of serving an entire party of people, go to extremes making a dinner. Baking is just far more rewarding in that way.
Thus, for my upcoming Halloween party I plan on cooking up a whole variety of viands for my guests to enjoy. I am so into Halloween baking, in fact, that for my birthday I asked for (and received) two Halloween-themed cookbooks. Why? Because the only thing that makes my favorite holiday even better is spending the whole day leading up to it making tasty, sugary, weird and/or creepy-looking deserts whilst listening to Monster Mash repeatedly.
That delightful scene is only a week away and I am purposefully allowing the excitement to get to me in anticipation. Halloween baked goods: it’s what’s for dinner!

Spectacular Specter

He’d been aiming for the award for the bulk of his afterlife. Every ghost in the business had. But it wasn’t enough just to put on a show anymore- people couldn't just be scared. They had to be scarred for life. They had to be scared so badly that they would develop phobias that years of therapy with expensive analysts couldn’t undo. This, needless to say, was no easy task.
He’d been studying the winners and noticing a trend at the annual ceremonies. These weren’t the moaning, humanistic ghosts of his youth. No, these were the laconic serial killers of the underworld. No gimmicks, no huge production, just little things building up until they can’t take anymore. And then- when their sanity is hanging on by a shred- that’s when you strike. At least, that seemed to be the trend.
So, he went slowly. A random creak in the floor, an appliance turning on out of nowhere, a knock at the window. At first he thought that maybe she was just hard of hearing, so he got a little louder. Not much, still within the realm of normal everyday noises. But loud enough so that he was sure she’d heard.
The sound of footsteps walking down the hall. Ruffling upstairs where no one was. Moving objects to another room. The wind howling when it wasn’t particularly windy. But still, nothing.
He thought she was a sure bet- old widow living all alone, few visitors, ridiculously superstitious. All of the classic signs of someone easy to crack. And yet here he was, months later, and he couldn’t even get her to show signs of paranoia. It had taken the one from 'paranormal activity' less than a month to completely destroy that young couple. Granted, he’d never physically dragged this woman screaming from the bed but he’d messed with her sheets, turned on her fan in the middle of the night, hidden her glasses from her. And with no one else in the house to be doing these things it seemed guaranteed that she’d worry, or at least think it odd.
But she went on about her life as if nothing were at all peculiar. At this rate he would never win the coveted title of Spectacular Specter. Hell, at this rate he might be the one to crack first.
Finally, he resorted to drastic measures. He took her hair ribbon off her armoire and waited for her to sit and braid her hair as she did every evening before bed. She combed out her long, white mane and began folding the hair over on itself as she always did. He waited behind her, watching her in the mirror and trying very hard to make her feel it. She finished the braid and reached down for her ribbon which was not there.
That’s when he slowly, but deliberately dragged it across her neck and started pulling it tight. She looked up into the mirror as if she’d be looking at him if he a reflection and spoke in the calmest, most content voice: “You know if you were trying to scare me you were better off with footsteps.”

Death by Cocktail Party

Jeff had situated himself in the corner near the bar and was watching the party goers with a bored expression. he had made his rounds and grabbed himself a gin and tonic as was his now usual custom. He could remember a time, not too long ago, when he actually looked forward to these events: a chance to meet and greet some of the top names in the field and shake the hands of practicing researchers he'd admired. But it didn't take long for the amusing math jokes to grow old and for the stories to start repeating themselves.
If he, like every other scientist there wasn't desperate for the funding he'd had have stopped coming to these things when the novelty wore off. But he was desperate and every year no matter how much they published it never became any less of a fight to get the funds to field the next study. So now he stationed himself in the corner so he could nod and wave to those he recognized, be visible to those who came late, and sip his drink in peace.
He saw his buddy Dave enter and gave him a wave of acknowledgement. Dave nodded back, rolled his eyes, and entered the fray. Within short order he too finished his rounds and made his way over to Jeff's corner.
"Hey," he greeted him.
"Hey Dave," he said, offering his hand. "You gonna make it?"
"I don't know, man," he said, shaking the hand that was offered. "These things are getting so damned old."
"I know, i'm right there with you. Or rather right here with you biding my time in the corner," Jeff said, taking another sip.
"You think we can quiety slip out before the speeches?"
"No way, Chuck would spot us or something. I swear he has x-ray vision and can see you across a room full of bodies as soon as you make a break for it."
"Yeah. Well, then what the hell are we gonna do with ourselves for the next hour?"
Jeff thought about it for a minute and then had an idea.
"Well, my dear chap- why don't we make a wager?" he said in his faux english accent which popped up from time to time when he'd had enough drinks to bypass the usual embarrasment it would cause.
"Oh, no- you're doing the british voice again? This can't be good," Dave said warily.
"Humor me, won't you? I say we pass our time by seeing who can spot the most fulsome fellow first."
"Hmmm," Dave said, stroking his non-existent beard. "Alright. But let's make it interesting, shall we?"
"You mean a wager?"
Dave nodded.
"Delightful! How much shall we wager?"
"Oh, let's say twenty pounds," Dave mocked in best faux english accent.
"Pip, pip- good show. I'll wager you twenty pounds that... oh, let's see," Jeff said, scanning the crowd. "Ah! I'll wager you twenty pounds that our dear Dr. Bromley will show his true colors first."
"Dr, Bromely, eh? Alright then, i'll take that wager."
And so the two watched for the next half hour as the subject of their bet made his way through the party. He started off in good performance, laughing far louder than was necessary at jokes the two had heard at least a dozen times and shaking the hands of literally everyone he crossed paths with. But after a good run straight out of the gate he began to show signs of strain. He quieted and meandered over to the bar to refill his drink without even stopping to sing the praises of their boss.
"I don't know, my friend- he seems to be running out of steam," Dave said.
"Come, now- have faith!" Jeff replied.
Just then the director of research for one of the wealthier companies walked up to the bar. Both Dave and Jeff knew that the man hadn't done anything more exciting then sit on the board and snore quiety for the past five years and therefore would be difficult to compliment. Jeff grew excited when he saw Dr. Bromley look up from his drink and smile at the old man.
"Arnold, how are you?" he said in the same exagerated air he'd held for most of the evening.
"Good, good, I suppose- getting tired in my old age," he said, putting his empty glass down on the bar and signaling for a refill.
"Oh, well you don't look it. You look rather distringuished. In fact, have you done something with your hair?"
Jeff sputtered and chocked on the sip he'd been about to swallow and had to stop himself from launching into hysterical laughter.
"He didn't!" Dave whispered.
As soon as Jeff regained the ability to breath properly he cleared his throat and pronounced "Oh yes, he did- he just complimented his toupe! Pay up!"

Homicidal English

My teacher told me to write from the heart. She praised my grammar, my diction in reading my work out loud, my correct sentence structure. But she said that wasn’t enough and she told me to “dig deeper”. I had no idea what that meant and I told her so.

She asked me to think about the most exciting experience I’d ever had. At age 14 I didn’t have much experience to draw from. In fact, I hated her for asking me. I sat up late the night before class, racking my brain for something, anything that might make an interesting poem. Apparently writing about landscapes wasn’t exciting enough for her. After what seemed like an eternity with no ideas that seemed interesting enough placate her I gave up and went to sleep cursing my composition teacher for suggesting I take the stupid creative writing course in the first place.

At class the next day my heart was pounding a mile a minute as she walked up to my desk and looked down at me. I told her I hadn’t come up with anything. To increase my embarrassment at my ineptitude she called me to the front of the class and invited them to help me brainstorm. It seemed like a purposeful excuse to torture me further and I found myself thinking homicidally.

“Come on now,” she teased, “everyone’s got something they’re passionate about. Class, help Martin think of something he’s passionate about.”

“What’s your favorite animal?”

“What’s the coolest vacation you’ve ever taken?”

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Do you play any sports?”

My classmates called out over and over, and I just wanted to crawl under my desk and hide.

“Now, now- one at a time,” my teacher asked. “Raise your hand if you have an idea.”

One hand shot up faster than anyone else’s and I knew who it was before even looking. Chelsey was the biggest ass kiss I’d ever met and she loved any excuse to play herself off as the perfect student.

“Well, I recently wrote a poem about my grandfather because he inspires me. Is there anyone in your life that inspires you?”

“Chelsey, thank you for that wonderful suggestion. Martin- is there anyone in your life that you find inspiring? Someone that’s accomplished something or lived through an interesting period in history?”

I thought about it. No one immediately jumped out. My head felt like it was on fire and I seriously thought there was a good chance I’d faint before actually coming up with anything. But then it occurred to me that of all the things an adolescent boy could do that might get them a bad reputation accompanied by a horribly insulting nick-name fainting had to be high on the list. So, I clenched my fists and tried to think of something, anything, other than the room of students starting at me.

“Uh, my uncle’s pretty cool, I guess,” I stammered.

“Ok, what is your uncle like? Or what does he do that inspires you?”

“He’s a pilot. He took me out on his plane once and he let me fly.”

“Cool,” came from one of the kids in the back. It made me feel a little better to know there was approval.

“Perfect!” my teacher exclaimed and jumped to write the word “Flying” on the board, her chalk almost slipping out of her hand. In all my schooling I’d never had another teacher that got so animated over using a blackboard.
“And what did that feel like? To fly a plane, how did it feel?”

Again, I thought. It had been really cool, though not the earth-shattering experience she seemed to be looking for. I didn’t really know what to say about it. “It’s ineffable,” I replied hoping that my vocabulary might make up for my lack of descriptive powers.

“Oh, come now, martin,” my teacher chastised me. “If that were true we wouldn’t have any great writers.”

I looked at her face and imagined what it might look like if her neck were replaced with a large pike. The thought made me smile.

The Blaster

At age 5 it was considered quite normal for him to play with his toy soldiers. Although tripping over the little green pieces of plastic may have annoyed his parents, no one thought it unusual.
At age 10 it was considered lucky that his favorite subject was history and that he excelled at memorization of war dates and famous generals.
At age 15 Norman had accepted that chicks didn't dig history buffs and accepted his fate as the ridiculously intelligent although forever single head of the school's sparsely populated Society for Historical Reenactments.
At age 18 when guesses as to what he would study in college ranged from heading straight to the military to pursuing a doctorate in order to become a history professor he shocked everyone by skipping college and joining an excavation crew.
At age 23 when he'd been an apprentice for years and his parents had given up on their son "the scholar" he got to head his first demolition as leader.
As he suspected, he'd never experienced any greater thrill in his life than watching a 29 story hotel that had taken years to construct be blasted to smithereens in mere seconds. From the time the dust settled, and for the rest of his short life, he was hooked.

The First Date (Part 2)

"So, where're you from?" he asked, simply because it was ground that had to be covered at some point during the evening.
"Oh, all over. Boston, New York, Georgia, South Dakota, L.A., Seattle, Phoenix... I sort-of hopscotched around my whole life," she answered without looking up.
"You a military brat?" he asked, because it was the obvious answer.
"Am I that obvious?" she asked, now intrigued.
"Oh, I don't know. Tough as nails woman making her way around the city with no help from anybody. I guess I figure that kind-of fierce independence usually starts young."
"Well, I guess you're right. Are you always this good at reading people?" she asked.
"It sort-of goes with the territory, you know?"
"Yeah, I imagine it's an occupational hazard, huh? So how'd you get into journalism anyway?"
"Um... indirectly. I liked writing but I was never any good at fiction. I could think of a lot of different angles to look at something that was already there but I could never figure out how to draw something from scratch. I tired, you know. That's what I went to school for. I mean, not that writing isn't writing to some extent but the program I was in didn't really give much credit to non-fiction. It wasn't until I went on my summer abroad that I found people who appreciated what I could write."
"And where was that?"
"London. Typical, I know. But I always wanted to go."
"Well, it makes sense for a writer."
"I guess," he said, and smiled at her.

My Favorite Apocopation

"They couldn't shoot an elephant from this dist-" *gunshot*
-General John Sedgwick, said to his soldiers before being shot dead

Damned Superstitious Chicks

“Oh, no- this is very bad. Very bad indeed,” the woman muttered as she stared intently at the book she was consulting.
“What- what is it?” came a nervous voice from the small man across the table from her. He played with his tie as he often did while nervous, one of the main reasons he could never play poker with co-workers. “What does it say?” he asked, leaning forward to try to spy the passage of the book that was so upsetting her.
“Venus is in retrograde today- that means she’s begining her return to direct motion through the zodiac,” the woman said, voice loaded with anticipation.
The little nervous man stopped fumbling with his tie and looked at her, dumfounded. He blinked at her, waiting for an explanation that made sense.
“You don’t know who Venus is?” the woman asked, lowering her eyes at him.
“Uh, I thought it was a planet,” he replied.
“Well, yes- this is true. But in the signs of the zodiac Venus has to do with matters of the heart, based on the goddess of love.”
“Ok…” he said, still not understanding.
“Well, in matters of the heart you must be active, and having venus in retrograde is a time of fate, of true nature kicking in. It can be a time of great possibility, a time of change and reinvention,” she said looking over the cards in front of her.
“Ok, that sounds good” he said, starting to get excited.
“But you have the High Priestess!” she exclaimed, pointing to the card in the center.
“Ok- that’s… bad?”
“Well, the Priestess is patient- she waits and observes, she does not act. This can be a time of contemplation and self discovery. But with the four of swords reinforcing it it means inaction,” she said, referring to the card in the lower left corner.
“Ok… so, I’m fated to wait?”
“No, fate requires action, as does love and trust. You cannot open your heart while sitting patiently on the side and waiting for love to come to you. Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘when fate comes knocking, you open the door’?”
“Uh… no, actually,” he said, looking down at the cards with his brow furrowed in worry. “But what does that mean?” he asked, pointing to the figure of the man upside down.
“The hanged man,” she said, stroking the card as if contemplating. “It means surrender, surrendering to your fate.”
“And my fate is?” he asked suspiciously.
“It appears that your fate is to be alone,” she concluded solemnly.

Outside his friend looked over his shoulder to watch him emerge, the door ringing closed behind him.
“So, what’d she say?” he asked, excited.
The nervous man, now deflated, hung his head as he said “She said I don’t have a chance in hell at getting laid,” he said. “Apparently I’m too inactive to make anything happen with this chick.”
“Ha!” his friend exclaimed excitedly, reaching out an open palm. “Pay up!”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh twenty dollar bill which he’d gotten from the atm on the corner of Delancey and Olind only an hour ago. He angrily slapped it down into his friend’s waiting hand. “Last time I go after a chick who believes in astrology,” he muttered as he dismounted the last step and started his walk back to the subway.

Santa Beard

"What'll ya have?" the old man asked me. I had a hard time seeing his face over his giant Santa beard. Normally it would've made me smile. Not tonight.
"Got any nepenthe?" I asked, then immediately kicked myself for trying to show off my useless trivia knowledge.
"What's your trouble?" he asked without skipping a beat. I was surprised and it caught me for a second, forcing me to study him a bit more closely. He didn't strike me as anything more than on old bartender- large beer gut, working-man hands, crows feet that said he had to fake smiles a lot. But if I forced myself to study his eyes a little more closely there seemed to be some depth there I'd missed the first time. I decided to indulge him partly because it was technically part of his job and mostly because I was feeling sorry for myself.
"Eh, usual, I guess- Job, boss, wife."
"So you wanna bitch about 'em or just shut up and drink?"
He surprised me again and I looked him with suspicion now. Maybe he hadn't read the same job description I had.
"You always this blunt?"
"Just like to know what you're ordering is all." He looked straight at me with no sympathy. It bugged me now that he got the reference, maybe he was too smart to be a good bartender.
"Tequila, straight up" I said.
"Wow, you are tryin' to forget." he said while pouring the shot. He was right, of course. I never drank the stuff straight unless I was aiming for the fastest route of travel between sobriety and inebriation. It bugged me that he knew that, too. I looked at the Santa beard again and figured out that it had nothing to do with being jolly.

The First Date

The pair emerged from the art museum in silence, each too scared to make the first remark on what they had just seen.
Ben ran over the evening in his head, cursing himself for selecting a modern art museum as a first date.
“I might as well have taken her to a political debate!” he berated himself. “What the hell was I thinking?” He looked over at the delicate jaw line of his date and the hair falling over her ear and lamented the fact that he wouldn’t have a chance in hell at touching it if she found out he knew nothing about modern art.
They walked on and Ben wondered if he should wait for her to speak and just fake agreement or if she would know that he was faking it by not having the passion to speak first. Her lack of verbalizations only fueled his nervousness and he could feel the cold sweat starting to drip down his back. In his mind he visualized the success of his evening crashing and burning like a shot-down fighter jet. They walked on and still she said nothing.
Finally, when he felt like he would explode if she didn’t say something, he gambled on an opening sentence.
“So…” he began nervously, “what’d you think?”
She seemed to pause as if gathering herself, then looked up with bright eyes and responded “I’ve got to be honest- I’ve never been a fan of bricolage art.”
“Oh thank god,” he exhaled. “I didn’t know what to say- you were so quiet in there I thought you were seriously contemplating the pieces. I saw that pile of melted doll parts and I was petrified,” he laughed.
“Oh, I know- and that bath tub filled with packing peanuts and corn syrup? What was that?” she said, her voice light and amused.
He looked at her then, noting the raised eyebrows and brilliant smile and thought that he might just have a shot afterall.