My parents each had advice about romantic relationships. From my mother -- Men don't like to be chased. From my dad -- Men don't like rejection. (They both tended to condense.) My mother needn't have worried -- I didn't have the confidence to speak to most boys, much less chase them. But at some point, I realized that I would have to talk to boys on the phone to return their calls or catch them to make a date. (Imagine -- no cell phones, no answering machines, no text messaging -- you had to wait to hear from someone!)
The phone proved my biggest fear -- what tone to strike, what subjects to mention, all those awkward silences. So writer-in-training that I was, I'd screw up my courage and write the script. Calls went okay until my victim went off script, leaving me to ad lib with all the success of a Second City improv act. Afterwards, I'd feel good about myself for facing my fear, having taken action. The calls then had a different quality about them -- when you called someone, they'd have to pick up and hear your voice without knowing who it was and there would be no dying cell phone batteries or people driving around with their phones going God knows where. You could actually make it through an entire call without someone's call waiting beeping. You'd have your beloved's undivided attention provided you didn't get too attached to your script.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Better to start in the evening than not at all." African proverb
Drink Movie of the Day:
The Good Girl
Benedictions and Maledictions
First published in Tar Wolf Review:
Surprise Party
Already you wished you hadn't
eaten all the food on your plate,
those rich combinations weighing
heavy on your heart. Everything
was so good, the guests say, even
when it wasn't. Apply this to any
situation you want. Sometimes
the hostess will offer a cake, home-
made. She checks on it during dinner
with a butter knife and says to no one
in particular, When the blade comes
out clean, you know you're done.
10 comments:
Oh my God Michelle those are the cutest shoes! Love the post it is brilliant as always and you look so beautiful.
Michelle,
You ARE so beautiful, Sheila's so right. Boys **should** be rejected, ha! Your Daddy was right, a kind smart man. Your Mother was right also -- let them chase their own tails. The poem says it all.
xo; Cindy C.
Communication nowadays has too many options. Some people get to know one another way before they even see each other. The internet not only lets us write our scripts, but also allows us the opportunity to be someone else.
---Jim
Today's triple-header "Quote of the Day": #1: I cannot recall the time when I was not searching for a nameless unknown.--P.L.Travers;#2:To be kindred means to share consciously in the stream of life.--Paul Shepard;#3:Vegetarians who switch back to meat first have to eat crow.--A.E. Neuman.
Do you have a Froggy in every room?
Dear Michelle,
Lovely picture and post. That rotary phone is something else. Your parents were on to something, I'd say. Perhaps this is where you get some of your lovely writing style? Bravo, merry weekend!
Did Raymond Carter autograph that phone? Did you have it modified for text messaging?
Based on your biographical data of "passed it off as my own," I'm more than a little suspicious of that cake imagery in your poem, "Surprise Party." Doesn't quite ring true, to use a synaesthetic term of art.
Living up north for a week you don't have any cell phone signal, internet, no texting, nothing. It reminded me of when I was 14 and discovering boys and realizing even then that they never call. <3 you look great!
O Might Isis
thosw were the days. Like camping in the city now. Steamy the grills but cooler air in THE cybercafes. Cell phones everywhere, all the Wayne St kids. Run through the jungle. Rock on Foxy R2 C2!
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