Say “When”? Nope.

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I pride myself on my verbal rapier wit and bon mots voiced with a skill set comparable to the precision of how Venus and Serena Williams serve tennis balls. However, my written voice, while loquacious once its engine starts, will on occasion ride shotgun, take a backseat or sometimes even hide out in the trunk when it should at the ignition.

In spite of it all, , as wonderful regular followers of this blog know, I participate in various poetry and flash fiction challenges each week. Add to that I am a regular -I won’t lie and say weekly- participant in each Tuesday’s Slice of Life Writing Challenge. And because I simply glutton, I am also a part of #52Essays2017 where I submit –you guessed it- an essay each week. Clearly, I must be a closet masochist for personal writing.

Thus when I saw the email reminder earlier today that tomorrow is March 1st and Day 1 of the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, it gave me pause. 31 consecutive days of writing personal vignettes of my life, when I can barely remember to participate weekly. 2016 was my third year in a row participating, and my best year as I only missed posting three days, but I did miss three days. Can I do better this year? As I take into consideration, my considerably more than two cents, in all the other challenges I have a toe in, do I even want to go for it?

Oddly enough a classic Kenny Rogers song is what pops into my head as I ponder:

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em…

Is it a sign that this song popped in my head and became an earworm? I mean, sometimes you have to know when to say ‘When”, before you wind up saying “Uncle!”, right?

…Know when to walk away
And know when to run

Oh Kenny, I hear you, but I will not heed your words of wisdom here. I really am a masochist for writing after all.

See you guys tomorrow…
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Let’s see how others are slicing it up this fine Tuesday:
sol
Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

Same Coin

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There is something of a bitter taste for what happened at the Oscars this past Sunday. And no, I am not talking about the Warren Beatty – Faye Dunaway – “LaLa Land” – “Moonlight” craziness. “Moonlight” won, some poor twit’s head will roll because of  Twitter, and in the end a worthy movie most worthy of it won the top honor.

Moving on…

Hollywood loves an underdog and that is why the academy was all too keen to bestow Casey Affleck with the Oscar for Best Actor for his widely lauded role in “Manchester By The Sea”. He’s practically a living breathing Hollywood trope: constantly overshadowed by his megastar big brother Ben Affleck, he has spent years teetering on the precipice of movie stardom, clawing to make a name for himself. And then there’s the controversy.

Years ago Affleck was accused of harassing two women on the set of the mockumentary “I’m Still Here”. Both claimed they were subject to inappropriate sexual comments and unwelcome advances saying Affleck recounted his sexual exploits, attempted to psychologically and physically coerce one into staying in a hotel room with him overnight, and ordered a crew member to show her his genitals. At the time, Affleck denied the allegations and countersued. He later settled the case out of court to the apparent satisfaction of all involved parties. But as this year’s Oscar race heated up with praise for Affleck’s performance in “Manchester by the Sea”, though already known, his unsavory past was brought to light again. Clearly bringing up Affleck’s past at this point was a clear attempt to link his alleged off-screen transgressions with his awards fate. But the rehashing occurred after the movie was released and the buzz had a chance to build be heard nationally. And Casey Affleck can ow add Oscar Winner to his resume.

Years ago Woody Allen might have molested a child, and has a tenuous at best hold in public opinion. Yet, even with that cloud over his head he continues making movies with high-powered stars and winning Oscars.

Years ago Roman Polanski was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with five sexual offenses against a 13-year-old girl and other charges upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges, but later accepted a plea bargain in exchange for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse. And though he avoids stepping foot in any country that extradites to the United States, yet manages to win an Oscar.

And then there is Nate Parker…

Years ago actor/director Nate Parker and his then-roommate were accused of raping a classmate. According to court documents, after a night of drinking at a party, Parker, his roommate and the victim had sex in Parker’s room. The victim, who said she couldn’t remember anything from that night, insisted the sex wasn’t consensual, while Parker and roommate claimed that it was. Long story-short, Parker was eventually acquitted of the charges.

And for heaven’s sake I am not, repeat am NOT, repeat AM NOT excusing anything any of these men have allegedly done. This is not about what they may or may not have done, but how Hollywood reacts to such.

Nate Parker, though not a household name, has had steady career acting in other movies. It was not as if Parker’s past was not known, it was, but he wasn’t a big enough yet to bother him with it. But Nate didn’t know his row, he didn’t stay in his place. Worse he dared to taunt Hollywood by taking one of the most controversial movie within its archive “Birth of a Nation” and not only retell it, but did an undeniably magnificent job of it to boot! There had not been this much talk about a racially charged movie in since Spike Lee helmed “X”. It seems this could not stand.

With Polanski, Allen and now Affleck the talk of their pasts emerged after their movies were released to the public and given a chance to be seen by many. Not so for Parker whose past resurfaced right before the potentially Oscar-worthy movie was set to be released nationwide. All talk became about his past, not his movie. Effectively knocking him and his movie out of any chance of Oscar contention. Please remember Nate Parker was acquitted. Acquitted. In a court of law, but not in public opinion. And only when his star was set to rise high did he get the smack down.

For there is nothing Hollywood likes more than a breakthrough underdog. In fact, Hollywood adores an underdog and controversy. Hollywood courts controversy like a courtesan. Unless that underdog, that courtesan, is a black man, with a controversial movie and is a potential Oscar contender. Ask Roman Polanski. Ask Woody Allen. Ask Casey Affleck. Ask Nate Parker.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 9
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

Spring Kiss

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Hearts journey open
as dawn
rose on cue
to jar clouds
lull leaves green
with spring breeze
that curls, melts in
shimmering dance

Shadow scars gone
a grin bubbles
whispering
in ghost giggles
that twists, mists
our warm breath

Lips skip, spill and spark
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An added challenge by De for this Quadrille#27 prompt night at dVerse: Writing The One With All the Words used in Monday Quadrille challenges.

Our Q44 word list so far:

dance, lull, bubble, grin, melt, shimmer, twist, skip, green, breeze, spill, rose, journey, jar, leaves, open, shadow, cloud, spark, cue, breath(e), scar, curl, whisper, dawn, ghost, giggle

I could all but hear Calliope say Psh! Bring it! I can’t remember that last time a poem fell into place so fast.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub |  Quadrille #27 The One With All The Words

Let Me Be There

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Sometimes life just isn’t good,
Nothing feels right, nothing feels like it should
Let me be the one you call
Let me be there

It’s the Tree of Life, we all get to climb
But you may feel you’re out on a weak limb
If you jump I’ll break your fall
Let me be there

Abandon the flaws, just forget it
But never give up on belief in mirabilia, let it
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night
Let me be there 

When you feel the apotropaic fail
I can hold you close should you want to wail
If you need to fall apart
Let me be there 

Let me be the lucida of your soul
Should the darkness baldly enter, grow to take control
I can mend a broken heart
Let me be there 

Hey, it’s plausible that you’re only human
That there will be days when it’s just more than
If you need to crash, then crash and burn
Let me be there 

We’re all in this through tense and tender
So on the days that you feel different remember
You’re not alone
Let me be there
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Italicized lines from “Crash and Burn” by Savage Garden
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie| Music Prompt # 75 “Crash and Burn”

Bold words from:
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Wordle #144 “February 27th, 2017″

Good, Enter, Tree, Mirabilis, Different, Abandon, Plausible, Lucida, Bald, Flaw, Apotropaic, Grow

Use at least ten in a poem or story.

Real Toads: The Tuesday Platform

Giggle it Just a Little Bit

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Your most solid guffaw
Should be against the law

And so should your laughter
But it’s not what I’m after

For it’s something
Most comics can bring

It’s that adorable jiggle
That’s only there when you giggle

Now that is a delightful thing!
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Today at dVerse De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) asks us to have a giggle on this Quadrille Monday – when we write a poem of precisely 44 words, not including the title, and including a given word giggle.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub |  Quadrille #27

What Matters

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Gray Matter:

a) To know what we are doing here.
b) To know what it takes to hear your hoarse cry of what’s mine.
c) To know the touch of your goosebumped flesh so prime.

Pink Matter:

a) The feel in depth of what I’m doing to you there.
b) The sense of heat from your breath against my spine.
c) The copper tang taste on my lips from your bite sublime.

Indigo Matter:

a) We deign to call out the deities to compare.
b) We give envy in the scent of us to those divine.
c) We acknowledge their rhythmic moans as comets come in time.

What Matters?

a) In gray dare.
b) In pink shrine.
c) In indigo chime.

Answer: All of the above, my love.
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At Real Toads we’re asked to use a new form -well new for me- The Multiple Choice poem.
The challenge is simple. Write a poem in the form of a multiple choice test. The whole poem could be a test, or you could insert a multiple choice some where into the normal structure of a poem. Since we’re still in February, I went with that loving feeling (with sincere apologies to the Righteous Brothers).

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads – Out of Standard: Multiple Choice

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dVerse ~Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight #190

 

MLMM: Atriocaval Shunt

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Can I live without him? Unfortunately, yes.
Will I want to? No. God, No.

I sit here and listen to the beep of the heart monitor. It used to be a most gall and wormwood noise before – when it was attached to someone else. It is the most wonderful sound in my world right now. For as long as I hear that sound, that beep, I know his heart still beats, and as his beats – so does mine. Because he is my heart and no one ever wants their warm heart to be attached to a frigid heart monitor. It was so touch and go in the beginning, he coded twice in the ER. The damage to him was that massive. And I sit here by his side, again in the fruitless mental exercise of how we got here.

My bike was showing its age; I didn’t trust it enough to participate in the upcoming Annual All City Cycle so he and I were at our favorite bike shop perusing for a new one.  I was looking at a ridiculously expensive silver and carbon frameset when he called my name to check out a vintage apple red Schwinn that was on display near the showcase window facing the street. I turned just in time to see a car careening towards him at a rapid speed. A woman having a massive heart attack, lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the window of the store. It was less than a heartbeat’s pause – just time for me to scream, not enough time at all for him to dive out of the way before the car jumped the curb, shattering glass panes and my world into a million fragments.

I have been here nearly every day and night for over three weeks now. Our assistant Margie has been such a godsend, showing her talents by holding down the fort at the office in a cinch, but I can see the strain is beginning to get to her. We will give her one hell of a raise once we are back at the office. I will feel so guilty if the business falls into a less lucrative position that what it was before all of this happened. However, its potential failure will not appease the guilt I will feel if he awakens and I am not here. I have only left his side to shower because it drives me more than halfway insane – the grimy feel of being in a sterile hospital 24/7, and yes, I appreciate the irony of it.

There is a difference between sympathy and empathy and you learn it at times like this. Most of our clients are sympathetic, but business is business – they want theirs taken care of, and logically, I understand that. Yet I take one look at him lying there and I could not possibly care less right now.  One of our overseas clients, who had gone through what I’m going through now, sent over a nature sound machine. When I called to thank him and ask why, he says that he had used one when his wife was in a coma a few years back.  He does not know if really worked, but what could it hurt, right? I checked with his doctors first, who also agreed it couldn’t hurt, so I have played different sounds over the past few days.

Tonight, to accompany the palinoia of the heart monitor, I chose wind and rain sounds as it reminded me of our last trip to the coast a few months back for a different race.  A really great picture of us leading a pack of cyclists had made the papers and I pulled out the folded-up copy I always carry with me and grin. I remember the moment the shot was taken, the concentration on my face was less about the race and more about me not stopping to cuss him out yet again. That day had started out with rain and a three hour long argument, but ended with sun and our engagement.

Listening to the sounds and reminiscing, I fall into an exhausted sleep. I wake with him holding my hand.

Wait…he’s holding my hand…

I slowly move my hand to be sure and feel the grip tighten more.

My head pops up to see him smiling at me and I hear the raspiest, but most wonderful sound in three weeks, outside of the heart monitor.

“It’s about time you woke up.”

mlmm-cyclists

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Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie | Weekly Wordle #143

Apple, Frigid, Pane, Gall and Wormwood, Dive, Cinch, Halfway, Grime, Wind, Vintage, Palinoia, Pause

Use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem. The words can appear in an alternate form, in any order that you like.

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Writing Prompt February 19th – Randomize!

For this week, we are asked to seek inspiration in random places. What does that mean?

1st  – Use the Wikipedia! Random Article button, and the article you get, is the title of your write, in my case Atriocaval Shunt.

2nd – Go to http://writingexercises.co.uk/random-image-generator.php, to receive a random image. Post this image and connect it with your written piece. I feel the Muses, especially Calliope, were being ridiculously generous to me when the bike race image came up. Thus the above story.

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Real Toads : Tuesday Platform

You Can’t See The Condition Of My Condition From There

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For the past few years, photographer, activist and friend, Substantia Jones, has celebrated love from February 1st thru Valentine’s Day by posting pictures of couples in love.What makes her work different than the many other photographs of loving couples is that her couples are fat ― and often in various states of undress.  For those first fourteen days of each February Substania shows the world something most rarely see depicted in mainstream imagery – that fat people are in love and are very much loved in turn. That’s the good news…

Each year more and more other media outlets take notice of her work with glowing accolades.   And without fail, whenever she receives these well-deserved accolades for her work in other media, especially social which will often reprint her photos, there is a backlash. Even when an article is overall positive or at least enlightening, as we erstwhile and current models of her Valentine’s Day series, Adipositivity.com, Uppity Fatty and Fat People Flipping You Off  series know…

Now seems like as good a time as any for an important reminder: Never read the comments.

Because, in spite of that good advice, every now and then I forget where I am, the internet, and it will start off with praise and commentary for the article, then someone post that first bad comment. And once that first negative comment appears – from that point on it snowballs into a downhill shitstorm. And that’s the bad news…

For just as inevitably, the negative comments swing from how someone looks around to those who will start spouting their unasked for two cents regarding someone’s “health.”  This is when those, who from a mere photograph can and will spout, near chapter and verse, of the presumed physical, and sometimes emotional, ills of someone, especially the fat someone. Often they do not even bother to be nice about it by wrapping it in the sandpaper of “can” and “may”.

Look at her, you know she has hypertension or diabetes at that size.

I can see his ribs, he’s got to be anorexic.

I just don’t understand how people don’t see the double standard. There could be totally average size people pictured and you don’t question their “health”, because it is the “standard.” Average, thin or athletic looking people could have heart disease, diabetes or liver disease, but no one makes definitive presumptions about their “health”. Give him a salad, get her a cheeseburger.

And for God’s sakes some arm chair Dr. Oz-es out there, really need to stop acting like your judgment is somehow based on some noble concern for our health. Especially when you are basing the things you spew upon a double standard.

Because you simply cannot judge someone’s heath based on a photograph. Unless, you’re Sherlock Holmes, but since he does not exist and even if he did Dr, Watson would tell him to zip it any way, you’re not him, but I digress. You know nothing about the people in the photographs or their background. They may have health issues that prevent them from losing weight, they may have depression or any number of things that would cause weight gain. You do not know if they’re trying to lose the weight and frankly it is none of your damned business whether they are or not. If I have a salad for lunch today, it for the same reason I will have a cheeseburger for dinner tonight, I like the taste. My food consumption is not up for public discussion, especially from a perfect stranger – because there is nothing perfect about them if they are commenting on my food choices–, and especially while I am actually eating.

Average, thin or athletic looking people could have heart disease, diabetes or liver disease, but no one thinks about their health.  No one would comment that she or he could be a contributor to the high cost of insurance. Yet, one look at a fat person and it is almost considered a given. Commenting that a fat is a contributor and that it is something we all have to be concerned is pure sizest bullshit. By making this presumption it bears the extrapolation that some think all fat people are poor and/or do not have insurance. Unless you personally are footing that fat person’s insurance premium, it is just an opinion, an erroneous one at that, and I believe most of us are familiar with the adage regarding opinions and sphincters.

No one should voice an opinion on the healthy or non-healthy status of someone else’s body, whether they are fat, skinny or in between; not even a random someone in the medical profession.  The only person who can voice a definitive opinion on someone’s health without impunity is that person’s private doctor.

You are not attracted to fat people/skinny people, that is fine, beauty is… after all. Do you have a right to that opinion? Absolutely. Do you have the right to voice that opinion? Yes, you do. However, is voicing that opinion germane to the conversation at hand? If not, then please keep that opinion to yourself and avoid potentially derailing a conversation that was not about you and your opinion.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 8
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
sol
Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

MLMM – Tale Weaver #107: Lost

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We are wandering through ancient streets and hills. Well, I’m wandering, for I have no clue as to our destination, if any, she is strolling. She’s avoiding the main thoroughfares as much as possible, taking alternate paths as only one who lives and breathes these streets can. I tease that I think we’re lost, but I envy the ease of how she knows her way around, casually acknowledging points of interest. I see how every now and then she starts to go for my hand, but then stops herself. I don’t know what to do about that, so I put my hands in my pockets and try to remember to keep them there. Otherwise, she is charming, engaging and yeah I like her, but nothing more. She knows this. When she smiles at me, the corners waver a little, and it makes me feel a little bad, but what can I do?

We stop at a quaint trattoria for one of the best meals that I can remember, which is not saying much. I am enjoying the meal immensely, lost in the deliciousness of it all, but she barely touches hers. I’m watching her push the pasta from one end of the plate to the other, not really knowing what else to do. As we pass the maître de upon leaving, he gives us a hearty enough sendoff, but somehow I know he knows what is going on between she and I.

It was early afternoon when we started this impromptu tour. It was now dusk and the city was becoming a different kind of alive. There was something vaguely familiar, comforting about it that tugged at me, but I could not put a name to it. Ever watchful, she could tell it was bothering me and blatantly grabbed my arm to pull me around a block or two, turn a corner and then stop. I look up and grin.

We had been strolling around these Rome streets all afternoon, and I knew I saw it in distance earlier as we walked a part of Via dei Fori Imperiali. It seemed so far away then, I was wondering if we would get to it at all, but here we were now standing right in front of it. The Flavian Amphitheatre, or as the  name the world mostly knows it by, The Coliseum, beautifully lit up for the night.

As she had held my arm, it was only natural that she takes my hand to hold; I don’t try to retract it. Her fingers are long, her nails short, yet well-manicured, and like her soft smile, I see the tiny tremors belying her nervousness as I notice the ring on the third finger of her left hand. A ring that I know was not there a few minutes ago. I am lost for words as it all comes together. I thought she was a good friend. Yes, but no.

She is my fiancée.

This afternoon, the places we stopped, the maître de at the trattoria, this moment – all of it a rehashing of the day I proposed to her, at dusk, here in front of The Coliseum. For me this afternoon was a random, but wonderful wandering. A change of pace from the emptiness that has become my life. For her it was bittersweet reminiscing. A gentle rehashing in the hopes that it would trigger something of the life we had before the car accident wiped my memories. An urgent prayer it will trigger something. A desperate plea trigger anything.

It triggers nothing.

She knows me intimately, yet I really don’t know her from any of the other tourists milling around us. Her eyes are beseeching the words that cannot fall from my lips. I shake my head sadly, watching as tears form and start to trail down her cheeks, with neither of us doing anything to abate them, as I feel lost anew.

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This week, Lorraine asks us to weave a tale with the threads of lost.

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – Tale Weaver #107: Lost 16.02.17

 

Soulmates? II

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I covered this before, but considering today I’d like to bring it up again.

I have a special person in my life.

I love him immensely. When we’re together there is much laughter, very heated discussions, tears and yes love. When I completely lost my mind last year and had to face up to the reality of my actions, he was my first call for drinks and discussion. The words were never spoken, but there is no question if one calls, the other will answer because we don’t do so lightly.

He is my soulmate.

Luckily, his wife knows I am not a threat to her and is completely supportive of our friendship.

Betcha didn’t quite see that one coming did ya?

Let me begin where I ended the last time I broached the subject of Soulmates…

https://raivenne.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/soulmate/

“Nearly, everyone says and thinks of a soul-mate as the all-encompassing, be all and end all romantic type of love.

I propose a person can have more than one soul-mate and while a soul-mate is always, someone you want to share the rest of your days with, a soul-mate is not necessarily or solely the person you also want to share your bed with for the rest of your days.

But that thought is a blog for another day”

It is now another day…

The concepts of soulmates arose from mythology, Greek if I remember correctly. According to the story, our ancestors once had 2 heads, 4 arms and 4 legs. These ancestors did something to piss off one of the gods so bad that the deity punished them by splitting them down the middle, resulting in the creation of humans. To add insult to injury, we humans are now condemned to spend our lives searching for the other half of ourselves, our soulmates.

You’d think the gods would’ve gotten bored watching us run around pell-mell trying to find the ever elusive One, but nooooo. Here we humans are, a few millennium later, still soul-searching.

As Shakespeare had Puck say in A Midsummer’s Night Dream “Lord what fools these mortals be!”
Indeed, Puck-a-rooni, indeed!

I mean think about it, unless these two-headed, four-armed beings were asexual and/or hermaphroditic and/or aromantic, they were loving each other just fine without the concept of The One, but I digress…

My mileage dictates a soulmate is a person who connects with your soul in a way that changes you and that can happen on various levels.

Temporary Souls: A teacher who intentionally or not provides a valuable life lesson. The complete stranger or barely known acquaintance who unexpectedly reaches out to you at a time when you really need it. They are the people that we encounter throughout our lives, who come, touch our souls for a moment and are gone. Whether or not they have any idea that they touched our souls, we know they did and they will always be a part of us. Think of all the nth amount of people you have encountered in your life, outside of your family, yet of all these people only a select few have somehow made it in to the very core of you however briefly. For that brief moment – soulmates.

Twin Heart Souls: Think your best and/or closest friends. The ones who help you bury the body or at the very least know the right thing to say to you at three in the morning when you’re losing it, to keep there from being a body to to be buried in the first place. The one/s you really click with pretty much from the moment you meet. Those who believe in reincarnation, say it is because you have already met in a past life, and in this life you are continuing the relationship. My best friend of over thirty years and I have a saying of our relationship. Where we are opposite we are polar opposite, but where we are alike we are twins. If we both point at something in a store window – say a piece of jewelry and we both love it, without even looking at each other, we immediately know two things. 1) It’s a classic piece that can work with various styles and 2) it is likely to be considerably out of our price range and to keep on walking. From the moment I butted into her conversation with someone else back in high school, unto this day – we were soulmates. YMMV

Twin Flame Souls: This is the what most people refer to when speaking of the soulmate. If we follow the edicts of the mythology I mentioned earlier, there is only one twin flame soulmate for each of us. Like Twin Heart Souls, in reincarnation beliefs, Twin Flame Souls have spent several lifetimes together in past lives. The chemistry and attraction towards each other is undeniable. They burn with passionate fire for only each other. To go all Jerry McGuire here, they “complete” each other and only a very lucky few are able to find their twin flame soulmate.

If I go by that edict, that would mean my late-husband was my twin flame soulmate. Does this then mean if I happen to fall in love again, this person will only be second best? Considering I tend to lean toward the very self-confident to borderline arrogant types, I’m somehow guessing my potential paramour would not take kindly to that option. In addition, many people change as they grow older. If Twin Flame Souls find each other and grow together that’s perfect and as it purportedly should be. However, for most of us, the soulmate that would have been perfect for us in high school, may not exactly be as acceptable in later years, unless they too have somehow continued to follow a congruent path in life, so then what?

That thin thread of hope the deities tossed out at us, that there’s always a possibility that we will find and connect with our perfect soulmates becomes ever more threadbare when one considers after all these eons, our Twin Flames Souls may be on the other side of the freaking planet. Hell, if Richard Branson has his way, that soulmate could be on Virgin Galactic heading to a galaxy far, far away in the really not too distant future.

Just as your heart has more than one way to love, so can your soul have more than one way to share. It is one of the many reasons why I find the Highlanderish “There can be only one” soulmate bullshit, well — bullshit.

To those of you who have found your Twin Flame Souls enjoy your Valentine’s Day. For the rest of us, lets grab our Twin Heart Souls, hit a bar and and hope Branson does not get his galactic wheels up anytime soon and give us earthlings a chance.

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Editing to add: Thanks to my Sweet friend, I am reminded that Aristophanes’ speech from Plato’s Symposium is the Greek mythology I was trying to remember and any one who saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, knows the myth was best explained in the Origin of Love.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 7
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.