I have a dirty little secret that I feel compelled to share with you all.

I have a soft spot for romantic comedies (films). I have an especially soft spot for Hugh Grant. I love Hugh Grant. I also adore Drew Barrymore, and will watch any romantic comedy she makes. The RLA and I just watched “Words and Music” and we both loved it.

Does that make us shallow?

Star, the number 1 and number 3 surrogate daughters and I went to see the revival of Camelot on Sunday. With us was one of Star’s nieces and the man who broke my heart when I was twenty-one.

The Number 1 and I waited outside the mini-van for him. I was smoking a pink cigarette, and had already put down a quick martini in anticipation of our meeting. Last year we saw each other for the first time in almost 20 years, but the RLA was with me to remind me of who I am and what year it is.

I started by saying to the N1SD “do you remember last year or so, we took you to dinner at the middle eastern place and as we were leaving, you mentioned in passing that you thought perhaps you had been in love?”

She didn’t. I reminded her that she had just broken up with someone and wasn’t sure if her heart was broken too. Oh. Yeah. She remembered now.

“Well,” I replied “it seems certain that you weren’t in love, or you would have known. This man we’re waiting for, he was my first love. Your father would have it that I left him for this guy, but that isn’t the whole truth. This is the man who broke my heart, the one who got away.”

I put out the pink cigarette, and looked up to where he was crossing the street, his grey hair longer and his bald spot larger than last year. He’s wearing a wheat-colored linen suit. I smile and say to her, “Hard to believe, huh?”

But oh, those salad days when we were together. We were the king and queen of cool…at least until he walked into my dorm room, took me by the hand, stared deep into my eyes and said “Hey. When nothing’s there anymore, nothing’s there. What are you going to do?” and walked out.

It was a week before finals. I managed a 4.0 that semester, but I’ll be damned if I can remember anything from that moment to when my parents picked me up to take me home for the summer.

My last semester at school was painful, because I saw him everywhere on campus, and with him the stringy blonde who had taken my place. I graduated. I moved to New York City. And then, a miracle happened. He called me out of the blue to say that he was passing through town and would I like to have dinner with him.

So I did. And he moved in with me and spent the summer before graduate school living in my first apartment with me. We walked to Chinatown. We saw avant garde films projected onto sheets in unmarked galleries in a nascent SoHo. We argued. We loved each other. And then summer ended, and he went on to film school and then we drifted apart.

But always and ever, I wanted him to return. I married the Antichrist praying for a “Graduate” moment, when he would show up and take me away. And I would have gone, gladly. I would have walked away from any and every relationship I was ever in, to go away with Bruce.

Until I married the RLA. And then, like looking into Schroedinger’s box, reality became fixed. There is no longer a shoulda woulda coulda. There is only the RLA, and our life together.

And this life I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Oh, yeah. Camelot. Michael York was wonderful, the woman who played Guinevere was wonderful, the giant who played Lancelot had a beautiful voice. As always, Jenny leaves Arthur for that tool, Lance. I cried, thankful that at last and at least, I know when I’m in the right place.

Ming the Merciless woke up at four a.m. and demanded to go out. Not having opposable thumbs, he required my assistance in this matter to turn off the alarm, unlock the pool door and open same.

I tried to go back to sleep, and was just getting into a dream when my alarm clock rang. I managed to hit the snooze button and then slept through the second ringing. Which isn’t really ringing, it’s some electronic version of surf. Sounds more like broken glass rattling in a thermos, but whatever.

The RLA has been on duty up at my parent’s home, packing and sorting and dumping for the last week. He took the dogs, but let me bring JoJo home on Sunday. This has added a dog walk to my morning routine. This morning, since I was already dragging and late, JoJo refused to poop. Around the block, up and down, singing the doggie has to poop song. Nada. Nothing. No use.

Running really late, I zoomed to the train station, where the only available parking spots were those formed by the space left when two over-sized vehicles park in compact spaces, each with one set of tires over the line, thereby rendering the third, central space unusable for anything wider than a bicycle.

To the top of the parking garage, and back down, narrowly avoiding head-ons with the folks rushing up the ramp later than I. To the flat lot, where the person in front of me took the last remaining space. Back out onto Dixie Highway, back to the original parking garage, and up to the roof, where, hidden behind a giant pickup truck, I found a place to park Zelda Bleu.

The escalator to the train platform was undergoing repair, and so I made it to the platform as the train was leaving the station. But not before some asshat punched the elevator button six or seven times, reaching over me to do so. Cause, yeah, (and I said it loudly) I wouldn’t have thought to do that.

Finally made it to the office, where, in anticipation of our new hire, one of my co-workers “cleaned” the new kid’s work space. That is, if by clean you mean dumped all the old files in the trash, piled everything that might be useful or kept on the desk, emptied the bookshelves into piles on the chair, opened every box and left the whole thing looking worse than it did before she started. And left it there for me, no doubt, to make ready for the new kid.

Thanks. I needed something to keep myself busy with today. Other than my regular workload, I mean.

The other night, the RLA*, the ADS** and I were walking our dogs, and one thing led to another and we ended up talking about tv cowboys and their horses.

Roy Rogers rode Trigger. Dale Evans rode Buttermilk. Buttermilk was a palomino, and so was Trigger. Except I couldn’t remember what Trigger looked like. I could only remember Buttermilk.

The Lone Ranger rode Silver, who was a white horse, or since it was old black and white tv, maybe a light dapple grey. Tonto rode Scout, and Scout was… a pinto? An appaloosa?

Fury was black. Bret Maverick rode a black horse, but did the horse have a name? Bat Masterson only rode in stagecoaches, that I can recall.

The boys on the Ponderosa? Can’t remember any of their horses, although I watched the show every Sunday night. Did one of them ride a buckskin? Did Little Joe ride a paint?

In other odds and ends, I just bought a new domain name. Reecie, of the Mild, Mild West let her domain expire, and in double checking to be sure it really did, the following phrase popped up as a related search “mild burning symptoms”. How that relates to Mild, Mild West is something only a computer knows. But it cracked me up. So much so that I am now the proud owner of mild
burningsymptoms.com

What do you think the content of that site should be? A wiki of Paris Hilton bashing? The place I write the stuff that’s too rude for here?***

Just a page that asks the question “what the fuck are you looking for here?”

I don’t know. I only know that it makes me laugh. Mild Burning Symptoms. Schnort. I have a whole line of t-shirts planned to go along with the “I’d Rather Be Widowed” shirt, and they are all rather snarky, so maybe this should be the name of my clothing line?

What else? I have nothing planned for the weekend, but my toe is good enough to stand on, so maybe it will be a long two days of sewing. Purses for the etsy shop. A couple of dresses for moi. Design and upload the art for the rest of my t-shirts.

A long, and productive weekend. What a concept.

* The Renowned Local Artist

** The Artist Down the Street


*** Is there such a thing?

Happy Birthday, Bob.

The genius, the magician, the one and only Bob Dylan turns 66 today. I’m afraid there’s only left overs for dinner tonight, Bob. But you never show up, so I didn’t make anything special. Still, if you do manage to come by my house tonight, I could throw together a cake. (The RLA is out tonight, too. It’s Boys’ Night Out at the Casita des Zapatos.)

My door is always open, if you’re in the neighborhood.

Love you forever, Miz Shoes.

Broke the pinkie toe on my right foot Saturday, opening the gate to the driveway on my way to run a day full of errands. True to my family of origin, I just shoved my foot into my clog and went around town for the next 5 hours in pain, and ignoring it.

Now my toe looks like a miniature eggplant. I’ve gotten very, very good at athletic wrapping. At least my feet match again, since it was two years ago that the RLA rearranged the furniture in the bedroom and in the middle of the night, when I jumped up to let the cat in out of the rain, I swung around the end of the bed and right into a chair leg, snapping the pinkie toe on my left foot.