I Know What I Did Last Summer (or Statutory, Smatchatory)

While sitting on my countertop last summer, legs wide open, carrot peels flung everywhere and an 18-year-old boy’s head between my legs, I had to ask myself, “Whose life is this anyway?”

It’s a blonde head of a tall, strong boy I surf with, named Kevin. He looks so all-American, you feel like you could bake an apple pie and then eat it off of his face. I’d always catch him staring at me while we were in the water but I attributed it to admiration, surfing with a woman considerably older who could surf as well as he did.

But when my handsome gay friend Kenneth came to visit my house at the Jersey shore last June, he had a different take.

“Behhth,” (that’s Kenneth’s sleepy southern accent) “That boy lahks you!”

“What are you talking about? He has a gaggle of young girls following him around. I highly doubt…”

“Oh shut up. He lahks you.”

“Well, that’s his problem. I’m not going near a 17-year old boy. I do have some standards, Kenneth. 24 is as young as I go. And besides, I’m not even attracted…no!”

One night during Kenneth’s visit, Kevin came over to fix a ding in my surfboard. Kenneth insisted on Kevin staying for dinner. Kenneth was up to something.
As Kenneth and I started chopping vegetables at the counter, Kevin sat at the kitchen table and small talk ensued. Usually Kenneth and I would talk about any old raunchy thing but I didn’t want to hurt Kevin’s delicate young ears, so I kept it safe.

“Kevin, that girl you were surfing with today. Boy, she’s cute. She looks just like Alyssa Milano.” I say, with my back to him.

“Yeah, she’s alright. I’ve known her since I was a kid.”

Which you still are, I think. I turn around and his eyes are decidedly fixed on me. On my ass, I think, specifically at that point. I quickly face the counter and go back to peeling carrots.

Kenneth begins to dig for facts, as he marinates next to me:

“So how old are you, Kehvin?”

“18.”

“Oh, really! That’s nice. 18. Behth thought you were only 17. I told her you looked older than that. Didn’t I, Beth?”

I sneak a look over and Kenneth starts smiling. I’m afraid I’m going to erupt in awkward laughter and shove some celery in my mouth to stop it.

“Hey, Behth. I’m think I’m gonna go pick up some more wine at the store. You want anything, Sug?”

“We don’t need anymore wine, Kenneth.”

Now I know what he’s up to.

“Really, Kenneth - a bottle is fine for us. And Kevin can’t drink. He’s not legal…if you get my drift!”

“Well, I want some white wine. I don’t lahk red. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Damn him. I continue to peel carrots furiously, with my back to Kevin.

“Kevin, you don’t have to stay. I mean, your friends are going out surfing again, aren’t they?”

“I want to stay. I wanted to see you.”

“Oh. I’m not meaning, um…you should leave but…”

He gets up from the table and starts walking towards me. Shit. Shit. My carrots are getting pointy from over peeling.

“Do you need some help?” he says, as he stands directly behind me, breathing near my ear.

“Absolutely not. I’m fine. I’m really good at carrots.”

He pulls my hair away from my neck and starts kissing it. Oh such a weak point. I’ve always loved Dracula for this very reason. He cuts right to the sensual chase. Except Dracula is like 2 thousand years old and this guy’s 18!

“Kevin…really. This…we shouldn’t…” The peeler drops from my hand. Shit!

In no time flat, his hands are all over and under me. Wearing a little sun dress proved to be my undoing. Sometimes a girl needs to be wearing tight-fitting, hard-to-get-off jeans.

The next thing I know, he picks me up in his arms and flips me onto the counter, in a sitting position. He spreads my legs, pulls me forward and proceeds to go down on me.

While sitting on my countertop, legs wide open, carrot peels flung everywhere and an 18-year-old boy’s head between my legs, I have to ask myself, “Whose life is this anyway?” But then bit, by bit, I stop caring.

It’s a very special moment indeed, when your body and mind let go, when you stop worrying about who might walk in on you or how carrot peels look when stuck to your inner thighs or why you’re with a 18-year-old boy in the first place. When you just stop caring. When you feel good and dangerous and a little dirty and embrace it like a woman should. That precious little moment when life crashes right over you, through you.

Afterwards, he lifts me off of the counter and on to my feet. My knees feel weak and I’m shaking slightly. He tells me he needs to go. I don’t dare ask him if his mother is expecting him for dinner, though I have a feeling that’s why. I feel relieved. I kiss him one last time and make a parting joke, as I walk him to the door:

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re 18, huh?”

“It is good I’m 18.” he says, walking out.

He turns around one last time:

“Tomorrow.”

It’s a Bird not a Butterfly, Frankie

Meditating at the Jersey shore in summer is a spiritual act of futility. Entitled tourists and their sand-tossing offspring (kids love throwing sand for some reason) have taken over and peace is tough to find. 

Interestingly, no one ever looks like they’re having much fun on "vacation" here. Families bicker, kids whine and shrill New York voices yell “Tommy get that filthy shell out of your mouth or I ain’t buying you no ice cream, you hear me??”

But whatever, I live here and am determined to find inner peace amidst the chaos, goddamnit. Besides its early morning and there's time before the throngs descend. 

I find a section of undisturbed space, cross my legs, close my eyes and attempt to quiet those unruly inner demons. (Little did I know, an outer demon would soon be my undoing.)

After oh about a minute's worth of frigging inner peace, I feel the thud of footsteps circling me. Opening my eyes, I spot a gawky kid running mindlessly around me, because, you know, I'm meditating and all so where else would he run? 

I spot his breeder nearby. Teased blonde hair, bronze leathery skin and pink pastel lipstick, his mother looks like she just walked off the set of The Jersey Shore. (Hmmm...or maybe I'm walked on the set of The Jersey Shore?)

She's in deep conversation:

“I told him he’d lose that job if he didn’t get his shit together. The man’s a filthy bum!”

 
Block her out, Beth. Still your mind. Use this as a spiritual challenge. Embrace the moment.  

I close my eyes again and take a deep, fucking cleansing breath.

“Mommy! Mommy! Look. Look at the butterfly!” Annoyed again, I open my eyes to see the awkward child pointing frantically at a small bird that landed on a nearby sand castle.

“Mommy! Look at the butterfly.”

“Hold on, Frankie. I’m on the friggin’ phone!” leather lady screams.

“But the butterfly!”

Now clearly this isn’t a butterfly. But perhaps Frankie is the next Picasso and he's simply thinking outside the box at an early age. More likely, he's a little daft or spent way too much time indoors.

“But Mommmmmmyy!!!!”

I then make a critical mistake and open my mouth:

“Psst...hey Frankie, get this. That’s not a butterfly. That’s a bird.”

Frankie looks at me, stunned, mouth agape. A second ago, he didn't even know I existed. I was just an object to run around. 

“That's right, dude. Butterflies are entirely different creatures.”

His mother manages to tear herself away from her face-implanted phone and shouts my way:

“Hey lady, why don’t you mind your own goddamn business?”

“Well, why don’t you teach your child the difference between a bird and butterfly?"

“Why don’t you shut the hell up?”

“Only if you kiss my ass?” To punctuate my point, I do a downward dog, said ass pointed in her direction, pausing a moment to really feel the stretch. 

Walking home, I feel renewed, lighter. Like the weight of the world just fell off my shoulders. I'm relaxed, present and oh fuck me, it's summer at the Jersey shore again.

 

 Photos by Beth Mann

Between My Legs

Ruby’s visiting. Good. Cause see, I’m supposed to be going out more and meeting people (read: getting laid) since my life at the Jersey shore has become a little too solitary. With my friend visiting, I have more impetus to get over my social issues (read: I hate people) and have some fun (read: getting laid).

So I pull out a sexy, little dress from my closet, one that hasn’t seen the light of day in quite some time because I’m either wearing ripped jean shorts and a tank top or a wetsuit. While Ruby and I drink wine and apply makeup, I dance around my room, trying to convince her Fall Out Boy is not a bad band (she’s remains unconvinced.)

When we get into my truck, I start feeling this strange fluttering between my legs. I tell this to Ruby, to which she responds, “Overshare.” “No, really, Rube. Something is going on down there…oh my god, there’s something between my legs!!” I start screaming. “It's not me!” Ruby yells back, showing me her hands.

I open my legs and this giant moth comes flying out from under my dress. Not a little, poofy pantry moth – a big ass, Silence-of-the-Lambs-style moth. I kid you not! Ruby is my living proof. You can ask her. Apparently, my cute dress had been in the closet a little too long. I’m screaming, Ruby’s screaming, the moth is screaming (real quiet-like). It’s bouncing between my wide-open legs as I scramble to open the window. It flies into our faces and we freak out even more. Ruby falls out of the truck, laughing and screaming. The moth flaps off into the sunset, flustered and homeless.

I’m laughing but real tears start emerging. The symbolism is too great. What next? A cloud of dust? Tumbleweed? Ruby tries to be empathetic but is laughing too hard to be much help. I guess I’ve had my first summer encounter after all. Nobody said it had to be with a human.

Surf Lessons

I stand by the shoreline, watching this man struggling to get up on his surfboard. It’s very frustrating for me, since I surf. He’s just doing one little thing wrong. But I’d have to swim out to tell him. No. Let him figure it out. Ah…I couldn’t!

I swim out to the sandbar.

“Hey, I hope you don’t mind me telling you this but you’re doing one little thing wrong. Let’s fix it!”

He’s not annoyed at all. He looks rather odd. Good-looking but almost to a fault, with these dazzling white teeth and shiny soap opera looks. Not my type but whatever.

I show him what he’s doing incorrectly: he keeps trying to stand up on the board before he actually catches the wave – a common beginner’s problem. He needs to paddle harder then get up. So I show him how it’s done. He’s as good as gold after that. After a while, I feel a deep urge to commandeer his surfboard for a few minutes.

“Hey, do you mind me catching a wave or two on your board?”

“No, that’s fine.”

So I leave him on the sandbar and paddle out far, where the big waves play. I catch a few. Then a few more. I do realize I’m being a little rude but oh well…I’m always nice and whatever. I look over at shiny soap opera dude and he’s talking to a group of people on the sandbar. He must know a lot of people here, I think. That’s strange. I’ve never seen him before.

I paddle back to him and overhear some kids saying to him, “Hey, nice meeting you, Mr. Guttenberg.”

Steve Guttenberg, film actor. Hmmm...now the dazzling white teeth and LA waxen looks all make sense! Plus earlier, he had mentioned how being in the water was very “Zen-like” for him. People around here don’t talk like that. You could get you’re ass kicked for Zen.

I give him back his surfboard.

“Cocoon.” I say.

“Yeah and a few other movies.” he says.

“No doubt.”

We resume our lesson and at this point, he’s doing pretty well. I feel proud of my handiwork. He catches me looking off into the distance, at the bigger waves.

“You can take the board again if you want.”

“No, that would just be too…but I didn’t think the waves would be so nice so I left my board at home and you know what? I will. Thank you.”

And with that, I paddle off a second time on Steve Guttenberg’s board. I catch some nice waves and he happily body surfs the smaller, sandbar break. I could tell he was feeling really Zen. Me too.

Steven Guttenberg and I play well together.

The Bloody Bike Incident of 2008

"One dollar? Are you serious? That's a great deal! I'll take it...howabout 75 cents?" (I like to haggle.)

That's how the incident began, innocently enough. At a yard sale in my suddenly overpopulated home by the sea. The score? A sealed box set of Led Zeppelin tunes. 4 cassettes in total. (I know, CD's would have been cooler but as luck would have it, my old vehicle only has a cassette player. And believe it or not, I actually like the scratchy, thick sound of cassettes sometimes.)

Okay, back to the horror story. Old lady selling box set has nothing to put my score in except this over-sized, white plastic bag. She says she'll find me something smaller, it's too big. I don't care, I tell her. She gives me a look of warning, foreboding. I ignore it. She ain't the boss of me.

I climb on my old, trusty bike, put on my iPod and start flying back home, excited to read every boring detail in the linear notes. I'm flying along, flying along, dodging the myriad of tourists and their 200 screaming children, ready to have a "fun" day at the beach. I'm dodging cars and riding aggressively the way I always do.

Suddenly, oversized plastic bag gets stuck in the front spokes of the wheel and suddenly, I am airborne…swoosh! It's always such an interesting feeling when you’re in an accident. Time really stands still. I must have been up there for 5 minutes, I swear. Hmm…how should I fall, I ask myself. I know! I think I’ll fall the way I always fall...well.

I can't seem to come up with "positive affirmations" to tell myself, like "You are worthy and special." "You have hot legs." "God loves you more than the next person." But I can say this about myself: I fall well. I relax, let go. I don't brace or get tense. I let my reflexes do the work and I take a backseat and watch. Of course, I get hurt like anyone else. I just don't get as hurt.

So after an eternity of mid-airness, I land. No, it was a skid, actually. The human body can skid, I note to self. When I finally stopped, I just laid there. (This is part of falling well. Don't get up. Your spine could be in 8 pieces. Just lay there. Relax a spell. Who cares what you look like?)

I turn my head around gingerly and see two soccer moms unhurriedly approaching me. I think to self: Huh. If I saw somebody spill out like I just did, I'd pick up a run, not a goddamn saunter. And these women are supposed to be teeming with maternal instinct? My ass.

When they finally approach me, they ask the inevitable, "Are you alright?" Don’t be sarcastic, Miss Mann. Don't shout enthusiastically, "You know what? I'm MORE than all right. I'm GREAT!" I simply say, "I don't know."

They lift me up and I'm bleeding. Everywhere. A lot. My arms. My legs. The palms of my hands. They look at me nervously. I'm fine. I tell them how I fall well. It’s just something I do. I tell them I can’t manage daily living, relationships, family, finances or my overactive, constantly worried mind, but I seem to fall well. Nobody can take that from me. (Well, I didn’t tell them that. I’m telling you.)

I look at my bag and it's ripped, the contents strewn everywhere. My iPod is fine, thank goodness. The women pick up the tapes and the linear notes and stick them in the bloodied bag. "It's all for rock and roll" I say to no one in particular.

I get back on my bike. It’s making a funny noise. The frame is all messed up but I need to get home. I am now a living, breathing bloodied horror story amidst the plump, lily-white suburbanite families rushing to the beach. I pull up to the first traffic light and plead for it to turn green. No such luck. A woman in a massive SUV next to me looks over and I see her mouth "Oh my god!" behind her closed tinted window. A child crossing the intersection looks at me in terror, grasping his soccer mom's hand. I feel like a vampire out in daylight.

By the next intersection, I'm feeling a little more comfortable with my new, nightmarish look. I decide to up the ante and drag a bloodied palm down both of my cheeks, in downward streaks, like war paint. Which feels kind of appropriate here. These people are nothing like me and I'm nothing like them. But the worst part is that they take over my home and act like I'm the foreigner! Sometimes when I walk on the beach with my surfboard, I get these crazy looks. Like people are really shocked that a female is surfing. I think, "Wow, this is really outside the box for you and your little world, isn't it?"

I get home and the visiting tenants across the street are drinking coffee out on their porch. I decide to act like nothing is wrong, just for kicks. "Hey, great weather we're having. I hear it might storm tomorrow though." They look at me in bored shock, if that's humanly possible. I jump in my outdoor shower and watch the red slowly turn pink.

Coconuts

Coconuts. I can’t believe I worked at a store called Coconuts. The comedy of it hurts too much.

Before starting my online business, I needed money fast. A touristy clothing store right up the street from me was hiring. I figured it would be pretty mindless. (It’s called Coconuts after all. How mentally taxing could it be?)

The clothing was of the garish Jersey shore variety. Beach kitsch fashion at its absolute worst. Coral orange t-shirts with big seashells on them, sweatshirts that read stupid shit like “Gone fishing on Long Beach Island” or “I Left My Heart on LBI.” The kind of clothing worn when you’re interested in watercolor classes or making Rice Krispie treats.

As I stood behind the Coconut’s counter that first day, I wondered how long I’d last. Three weeks? Maybe a month? Knowing me, it wouldn’t be long but I had to stick it out to get one decent paycheck. So I’d keep my big mouth shut and let Clarissa train me.

Ah, sweet Clarissa. Well, okay…she wasn’t sweet at all. Cute as hell but wound up like a constipated nun. 20-something, bobbed black hair, ivory white skin, pursed crimson lips. Focused and almost entirely devoid of humor. She took Coconuts very seriously and felt a great need to impart its importance on me. Good luck, Clarissa, good luck. 

She showed me how to work the cash register, how to treat the customers, how to fold sweatshirts just so--the stuff done in Hell repeatedly, for eternity. But I endured. I can do it. I can do it. One paycheck.

At one point, Clarissa bent over in front of me to pick up some hangers off of the floor. Clarissa has one nice ass. Tight, round, just ripe enough. Ideas raced through my mind that probably never occurred to anyone in the history of Coconuts.

Someone ought to tap that shit, I thought. Somebody ought to grab it and slap it, bite it and kiss it. Someone ought to make that girl blush. Maybe I should be that person. I don’t swing in that direction, but for novelty’s sake, maybe today I would.

Maybe I’d follow Clarissa to the stock room and take one of those hangers and whack! She’d stand there in stunned silence and I would do it again and again until Clarissa realized the vast unimportance of a store called Coconuts.

Poor Clarissa. It seemed almost tragic that such an uptight girl should possess such a fine behind. If she’d just focus on her ass more, let it guide her in life, she’d be far better off. Her tight little derrière contained all of the sexuality that the rest of her probably would never possess.

When the phone rang, just for kick’s, I answered “I’m kookoo for Coconuts! How can I help you?” Clarissa didn’t think it amusing. “You say ‘Good morning, this is Coconuts. How can I be of service to you today?’” Bend over, Clarissa. Just one time. I’ll show you real service.

When Clarissa returned from lunch, she found me sitting on a stool, reading a surfing magazine. She folded her arms, pursed those ruby lips of hers and said firmly, “We don’t do that around here. When we have spare time, we stock and we fold.” Oh boy, the royal “we.”

Why did her parents name her Clarissa? They were asking for a prissy daughter. A friend of mine named her dog Bonkers. Bonkers ate bees and tried to chew its own tail off. You have to watch what you name your pets and people. Now had Clarissa been a Wendy or a Sandy, she wouldn’t be lecturing to me but smoking pot in the stockroom, looking over her freshly-inked tattoo.

“Clarissa, I know you mean well. But I’m not being paid enough to be constantly busy. I’m paid to show up and ring up an ugly sweatshirt or two, then leave.”

Silence. I felt my two weeks quickly shrinking to 4 hours.

“I’m going to have to talk to my manager about this. I don’t think she’s going to like it.” Clarissa muttered, reaching for the phone.

“Clarissa (using her name repeatedly made her so uncomfortable and so cute!), you don’t have to worry about it because I’m going surfing instead.”

I grabbed my bag and sweater.

“And you should never take a job at a place called Coconuts so seriously. It’s going to make you old before your time.”

She was practically shaking at this point. Her lips trembling, a darling vein on her head pulsing. I wanted to kiss her, I really did. She’d resist of course, but I’m stronger. On the floor of Coconuts, I would ram my tongue in her mouth and make it all better, like a bizarre lesbianic sexual exorcism. The Exorcism of Clarissa.

But I sighed and walked out the door instead. My first and final day at a store called Coconuts.

I've Been Drinking Ants for Days

Drinking water must be around me at all times or I get weird. So I have a Brita pitcher in my bedroom in case I’m suddenly struck thirsty.

This morning, I brought the pitcher to the kitchen to refill it. When I opened the lid, there were about 100 ants crawling around. Some dead, some mating, some staring off into the distance, drunk off my water.

 I’ve been drinking ants for days and hadn’t a clue. It made me wonder how many other gross things are happening to me on a daily basis without my knowledge.

One can only ponder how disgusting life really is if looked at closely enough. Seriously, we have mites eating the waxy oil from our eyelashes, thousands of dead skin cells falling off our bodies every minute and don’t even get me started on the belly button, home to about 2,000 species of bacteria.

Researchers can’t even identify the different types of weirdness found in your navel. One person had bacteria previously found only in Japan even though he’s never been…weird, right? And gross. Just plain gross.

I remember as a child finding bugs in my oatmeal. When I informed my overworked mother, she was unconcerned to say the least.

 “Well, eat around them. They’re not going to kill you!”

No, they wouldn’t kill me. Nor would the ant parts I’ve been drinking or the mites eating my eyelash oil or the bizarro shit in my belly button. I rinsed and refilled the pitcher and continued on with my day, nonplussed.

Now let’s say my mother freaked out about those oatmeal crawlers, I probably would have issues eating them. But she didn’t. Thanks to my mother’s brass-tacks guidance, I drink bugs in stride now. What’s the big deal, right?

Parenting is cool like that. If we’re instilled with certain belief, no matter how small or trivial, it sticks to our gray matter and we take it with us to life.

“It adds character,” my mother said when I told her how I hated how one of my canine tooth sticks out slightly. Little did I know that it really meant, “We can’t afford braces so deal.” 

But I ran with the whole character thing and have embraced it ever since. Now I brush that tooth with a little extra special love.

The takeaway? There are gross things out there and we’re all terribly imperfect. If we can embrace our inner grossness and imperfections, self-love will follow. Or at least you won’t throw up in your mouth when you realize how disgusting you truly are.

You go tooth!

Sexual Harassment or Cheap Thrill?

The same two seagulls wake me every morning. It’s a mother/son team. I could set my watch to them, if I owned one. They know the second I open my eyes. Then they let off a series of ear-splitting calls, basically saying, “She’s up. She has food. I want it. Stay away!” It never bothers me. Especially not today.

I went for my echocardiogram yesterday, the first in a series of tests I will have this week on my “beat of a different drummer” heart. I was a bit worried since it's been acting strangely as of late. I rarely go to the doctor, don’t take antibiotics or other medication and self-treat almost every ailment I’ve ever had, which hasn't been many. But I do go to a heart doctor to check my irregular heart every so often.

Anyway, back to the sexual harassment. So the guy performing the echo has the same birthday as me! Same day, same year. Wild. A fellow Scorpio. Always cautiously intrigued by male Scorps. They are very sexual beings and exude it like crazy but overall, kinda snaky.

So I have this pink paper top thingie, open in the middle so he can access my chest easily. He tells me to lie down on my left side and face the wall. He reaches from behind me, with this magic marker-type thing with a metal, rolling head and cold gel on top. He places it right under my left breast and I let out a little squeal and start giggling. I totally forgot that my heart resides behind a breast!

He puts his hand on my right shoulder and says, “Relax.” Sure Scorpio Heart guy. Whatever you say. Echocardiograms – something new to add to my “Strange Things that Turn Me On” list.

He probes his thing under my breast repeatedly, all the while bracing my shoulder with his hand so I don’t move. He tells me to be prepared because I’m about to hear the sound of my beating heart. Ah, poetry.

Well, not really. It sounds gross and sloppy and big and throbbing and…I ask him if he can turn down the stereo. I don’t want to hear this tune but he can’t.

Listening to all the crazy bubbling and gurgling, I assume the worst and share it with my fellow Scorpion.

“It sounds like mitral valve regurgitation. Clearly.”

“What?!” Looks like someone has been playing on the Internet. Roll over on your back.”

Now I have two choices. Hold the little pink thingie just so, that way my breasts aren’t totally exposed. Or just let it all go, man. Go for it. Show off those cute boobs of yours. Do it!

I roll over on my back and let the pink thingie fall away. He looks in my eyes for a second and I look back as if to say, “Yep. You got a live one today. She hasn’t had sex for a while and she’s going to grab her cheap, little thrills where she can get ‘em. Probe away!”

He continues poking and prodding underneath and around my breast. The gurgling big sounds continue to play. I get used to hearing the sound of my heart. I fold my hands behind my head and relax into the whole experience. No, I wasn’t attracted to this guy. But yes, I sure like men touching my breasts. Hence why my gynecologists have been men as well. It’s a two for one deal in my opinion.

When he’s done, we smoke a cigarette…no, we don’t.

He says to me, “My dear, you have a lovely, athletic heart.”

And I almost want to cry.

“I thought so.”

“It’s just a little quirky. You still have to talk to the heart doctor but…you sound fine.”

Hmmm…you’re not a heart doctor? I start comically fantasizing that he’s some man from the psych ward on the 7th floor who put on a white coat and sauntered on in.

“I have really cute breasts, too.” I say.

No, I didn’t. But I wanted to! I was this close, I tell you. This close!

“Pleasure meeting you. Happy birthday.”

“Happy birthday to you.”

Death, Flight and Spalding Gray

I hear a voice, a strange, disembodied voice that says to me:

“I need to be alone with you now.”

This is a dream I had last week. Everything was fine up until I heard that voice. My friend Ruby was dream visiting and we were hanging out in my backyard, talking about any old thing.

Then I heard the voice and I had to move toward it. I told Ruby that I had to go now, that I had no choice. The voice sounded to me like Satan at first - very powerful, very dark, almost enchanting.

Strangely, it didn’t matter what entity spoke these words; I knew that I had absolutely no choice but to go. He was simply too powerful. I wasn’t scared per se. Everything felt very matter of fact about it. It was that “Oh, it’s Thursday. I have to take out the trash” feeling.

As I walked to the front of my house to be with him, I started to dematerialize. I knew that at that moment, I no longer…was. My first thought was not “Farewell, dear life.” My first thought was - flying. I bet I can fly now. Fun with death! So I simply focused my mind and instructed myself to rise.

And I did. I begin to rise, to fly. I’ve done this several times in my dreams and of course, it’s the most thrilling thing ever. Mainly because it feels so disturbingly real. In my waking life, for years, I’ve tried to take flight or move objects with my mind. I figure if I can do either, I will believe fully in magic, in an afterlife, in a god.

Last week, heart doctor said my arrhythmia has changed considerably, that’s he’s a bit concerned. My heart never did the whole “bump, bump” thing. It does it’s own thing. But lately, it makes me cough sometimes and worse; it causes some pain in my chest. Heart doctor asks me if I’ve ever passed out and woke up and didn’t know where I was or how I got there. Desperately wanting to answer him with several pithy responses (“Bitch, please.” “Well, no…not this week.” “Oh, what…you haven’t?” etc.), I opted for a simple “no” because heart doctors aren’t the funniest lot.

I am flying. But you have to maintain it. You have to keep your focus. I keep rising, rising – hundreds of feet, maybe thousands, over my backyard. I look down and see the garden, the swinging chair, the clothesline...

“I need to be alone with you now.”

I begin falling. Quickly. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. You can’t hit the ground. You don’t exist anymore.

I wake up startled. My heart is racing in its own weird way. I can’t escape the implications of the dream. I try to think of other things it could mean but it’s tough. This dream seems like your average, garden-variety death portendy dream.

I pick up the book next to my bed to ground myself. Spalding Grey. Dead man. Whatever. His book mostly contains little suburban rich white people anecdotes. It’ll be fine.

This is what I turn to:

Then just the other day I had a hopeful fantasy. What if, when we are dying, instead of our breath stopping, it instead shifts from us into the breath of the universe. Yes, I suddenly had a peaceful sense that the whole universe was actually breathing and that at our last breath we can, if we choose, breathe into it and become one with the great swelling and retracting breath of the universe. I felt almost hopeful. I thought that maybe that’s a positive image I can give Forrest [his son] to work with, my fantasy of what is beyond the apparent death of breath.

Then in no time I thought, who really wants to become a part of an eternal egoless universal energy field? It feels too much like spiritual communism. I couldn’t lay that on my son. No, I think, now tired of thinking about it all, all I can do is hold him and say, “We don’t know. It’s a mystery. I love you and everything is going to be alright.”

It’s odd but that voice that says, “Everything is going to be all right,” that’s the one I choke on. I have no problem telling Forrest that I love him, and then when I try to say, “Everything is going to be all right,” I feel so distant from myself, so faraway and down the hall.

Now the late-afternoon stupor is taking me over and I begin to fall into my nodding nap. In my nodding nap the disembodied voice of death enters. This voice is as fearful to me as Chucky the doll is to Forrest, only I can save Forrest from the fear of Chucky, and no one can save me from the fear that this disembodied voice of death engenders in me.

The disembodied voice whispers, “Hello, Spalding, here I am again, just as you are relaxing, to remind you that all that you know and feel and remember will one day disappear forever. Gone, gone forever gone. And all the substance that surrounds you now will cave in like so much sand and sea to fill the place where once were. It will all be as though you never existed."

I toss the book across the room.

“Go to sleep, Beth.”

Dear Diary

(I saw my friend Amanda this week and she wanted me to post one of her favorite old Thrush TV blogs of mine, so here goes:)

Dear Diary:

I logged onto to some “dating” site a few days ago and promptly found an offer from "two very hot guys willing to satisfy one woman's darkest and wildest fantasies."

So I wrote:

"Yeah, I'll take you up on your offer. When can we satisfy my darkest and wildest fantasies?"

A bit later, I received an email:

"Whoa, not so fast! Let's talk a little first. Get to know one
another. How about all this snow?"

I responded:

"Oh yeah, snow…crazy. When do you think you two can fulfill my darkest and wild fantasies?"

(Now, I realize this all sounds a bit forward but I was actually being pragmatic. The winter was bearing down and I felt the need to store up on sex, much like a squirrel stores nuts. And this way, I’d get twice as many nuts.)

They responded:

"Wow, you're a real take charge gal! LOL. Okay, well, how would you like to do this? Your place or ours?"

"How about your place. Or better yet a hotel. Let's embrace the anonymity of it all. How about this Friday night?"

A few minutes passed by...maybe longer:

"I can do Friday night but not until after 9. I have a business party. Tom can't do Friday night at all because he's getting a root canal that day and doesn't want to be uncomfortable for our "meeting."

This was becoming what is referred to in the industry as a real "buzz kill." Root canal? Uncomfortable? What were we going to talk about next? Fabric softener? Flossing habits? Lactose intolerance?

"Okay, fine. What about Sunday night then? (Saturday night I was planning on...nothing. I just didn't want to look too desperate.)

They responded:

"Well Tom can do Sunday night but there's an Oscar party that night I don't want to miss. Do you like the Oscars? I do."

I took a deep breath before answering:

"Actually, I don't give a rat's ass about the Oscars or Tom’s dumb old root canal. I do care about my darkest and wildest fantasies being fulfilled. And pronto. But its obvious you do not have the showmanship to live up to your promise. I wish no further contact. You're a mad disappointment."

They had the nerve to respond:

"Oh well...your loss."

I answered:

"I think I'll live."

They responded:

"You're a retard."

I responded:

"It takes one to know two."

And that's how it ended. In a blaze of juvenile insults that included the word "retard."

I poured myself a glass of barely respectable wine and sat down on the living room couch and contemplated my situation.

I knew the next time I pursued a sordid sexual experience, it would be with two guys who would never tell me about their dental work. Or their love of the Oscars.

The men who I would meet one imaginary night in a blank and bare hotel room would have missed their mother's funeral for our "meeting."

They would be two strapping, bold and serious men who take their ménage a troises seriously. Is that so much for a girl to ask? For people to take their ménage a troiseses seriously?

It was to be a cold winter after all.