Dark For Hours

Hi readers! Thanks for all the support of the last couple of days. I'm almost caught up and recovered. Here's a brief excerpt from Second Day Reported (the memoir I'm working on that I started as a result of the essay "The Ceiling Or The Floor"). I'll probably put up sections of this from time to time since it's my primary project at the moment.

Detroit, mid-evening, winter. It had already been dark for hours. Waiting in line at the Stardust Liquor Store (such an evocative name for an uninspired, run-down place, an ageing starlet who no longer checks to see if she’s kept her lipstick in the lines), I spy a shelf full of cheap wine in bottles the shape of cats. The man in front of me turns to his wife and says, "That’s the kind of pussy I like. One that gets me drunk and doesn’t talk.” His wife doesn’t say anything. “Did you hear me bitch?” She picks up one of the bottles. “You want a white one or a black one?” He picks up one of each. “They’re so cheap. Let’s get both.”

I clutch my vodka a little tighter as if it might save me. I don’t go in there again. That’s the great thing about Detroit -- a party store on every corner, no blue laws bullshit. Even if you drink a lot, you don’t have to see the same clerk twice, much less all those bottles of rancid wine packaged as cats. Pussies that don’t talk.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"The most important lesson I've learned in this business is how to say no. I have said no to a lot of temptations, and I am glad I did." Penelope Cruz

Cocktail Hour
Drinking memoir suggestion: Waking Matthew Sanford

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Monday!