la femme follette

100 words on longing

Today we were in a tavern with a nice menu we three rather enjoy, right at 3:30, which happens to be the hour I would start drinking every day for two years.  Same as 15 years ago, in a bar 1000 miles away, in came the beer delivery, there sat six elderly guys talking muscle cars, WWII, and today's headlines. The bartender cut and stacked wedges of lemons, limes; knew what everyone came in to drink.  Paul wrote "when the perfect comes the partial will pass away."  Sitting with the kids, I knew not how to measure which was which.

cold. comfort.

I finished these last week; temperatures dropped to the teens the next day, they were useless. Thirteen degrees is not actually cold unless you are a weakling, or do not know how to dress. The finest winter I ever spent was in south central Wisconsin in 1993 -- a warm day was eight degrees. I love it best between 0 and -10: warm enough not to freeze flesh immediately on exposure, too cold to snow. Even wearing all the clothes, below -10 after a month or so gives your brain anemia, but it is what it is. Skate tough or go home.

100 words on the perils of the modern world

This guy on the Facebook with the gorgeous daughters? Who is he? I have some idea, sure, but this feels like reconstructing an evening of blackout drinking. Information floats in haphazardly, usually while writing: color-blind, left-handed, swam in high school, childhood by the sea, ok. I knew his older brother when I was a girl, yes. After two email exchanges, I remembered we dated; I was nineteen. He broke up with me; I was upset. Otherwise, I am super-deficient in context -- How long? Why? Was I in a coma? Certainly he knows; I have no idea if I should ask.

100 words in dog years

Flattery is a tricky thing between Midwesterners:  too much, the wrong delivery, it gets shut down; not enough, you should be better off saying nothing. When it goes well, everyone blushes in the end. Oh, that is so nice of you to say, thank you. Gosh, what a relief, I was nervous, I didn't want to say too much. No, no, it made me feel really good, thank you. Oh, wow, so nice of you to reassure me, I am really glad I told you. 

Make both players also poets and it is truly harrowing, but much, much prettier. 

100 words about 2001

Between 9-11 and anthrax, there were no tourists in Washington: parking everywhere, no lines for admission. Mornings, I dropped Garçon at his sitter's, took Baby Fille downtown. The Holocaust Museum took days. We were mostly alone there; Fille would sleep, I would hold her tighter during the scary parts. That fall even the Mall would be empty, the sky so blue, the Capitol's dome imposing from the east, the Washington Monument on the left. Washington is gorgeous, but sterile, such a façade, like Snow White in her glass casket; like the fat, red poisoned apple that killed her.

100 words on driving the BMW 328i

Replacing our tires revealed a cracked CV-joint thingy, an asap repair.  Fille needed to see ortho. Exhausted, pale from the week's schedule, I coaxed the loan of a BMW.  O, it made up for everything.  Our car?  Also a sweet icon of German engineering which I love to drive, although frankly, a wee bit like ... fucking with too much lube.  The BMW has a sweet, airless friction to its handling that is seditious. There is a first curve on the highway -- 60 degrees, limited 35mph.  I usually take it at 45, no problem.  In the BMW?  Breathlessly 60+, like she drives herself.   

maybe 100 or so

Mona ran into a friend of ours from high school, coincidentally married to some far-flung former colleague of hers.  I was disinterested; Mona chastised me for not being forgiving.  Mona is in a mood because a friend of hers from grad school dropped dead a few months ago, after a day of being 40; she is on a wicked carpe diem bender.  She sent the first message to Lillo through me.  Lil replied readily, similarly.  They are both wary & circling, waiting for me to facilitate.  Mona should pony up her brave new outlook; I already facilitated ten years ago. A second chance -- imagine.

I do. I won't.

Mari and I are lately unable to resolve the matter of Superman spinning the world backwards to save Lois.  He says it is the stupidest thing ever.  I say it makes perfect sense.  He regales me with all the reasons it is "totally stupid," why spinning the globe to time-travel would never work.  I say, "yeah, whatever.  like a clock, ok?"  This is not like when I cheekily made fun of LOTR to love it & laud it in the end.  Resolving a conflict like this is why marriage was invented. 

100 words

Mari wonders why I want a BlackBerry.  Its seductiveness lies in its command potential. All the channels, silenced &  thrown in my bag.  Like 1993, in the bar where I spent every afternoon.  The phone rang & the chorus sang, "not here!" I could finish a fifth of scotch and a cheeseburger with bacon, pickles, and russian dressing; all while George told me another story from his life between Normandy and Heartbreak Ridge.  Kowalski hovered, waiting for me.  When George died -- at his funeral -- his wife knew my name.   

100 words

Kowalski rang early serenading with a recently-worked-out sequence of Wilco on his mandolin.  I told him he had timing issues.  Two close friends I matched up 10 or 11 years ago want a rematch. Now ended relationships and 1200 miles between them, the time might be finally right.  It seems too hard. Garçon embraces difficulty & fights me every day about whether he or the metronome is wrong.  Dancing in the kitchen after breakfast, I told him Carlos Santana surely once hated quarter-note practice, but he & his mother persisted -- just listen.

"Sorry, I don't have any orange juice," Lara said.