Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long time to make it short.

Michelin Man, Christie Nielson

When I go for porno, it's of the vintage variety. That's not to say I don't indulge in the occasional pay-per-view when away from home, say touring a plummy Motel 6 or knocking around a Mid-Western Holiday Inn. There are some things that are simply more fun when done in the unfamiliar place. I imagine you all know what I am talking about here. Nonetheless, back at the ranch, I have my own stash of tried and true. The fewer the fake tits and the lesser the landing strips, the better off we all are, in my humble opinion. Sure we might have to put up with some blemishes, some bad–and I don't mean baaaddd–Shaft riffs. And yeah, the director might have fancied himself an auteur and thusly encumbered the porn with more plot than it could possibly accommodate. But I'll take my stray hairs and eggy breasts over any modern-day revision of My Big Fat Greek Penis.

To get to the point, when I went out of town last week to visit that film festival of note in the ski-sloped resort just south of the desert, my sort-of boyfriend opted to stay behind and vacation at my little resort on the island. The night before I left, let's just say, we indulged. Fast forward to me, bundled to the size of which would rival the Michelin Man and wattling through the snow to wait in line for the highly-acclaimed and very sold-out shows the festival of note had to offer. No doubt watching yet another independent film or queued up in front of the theatre in the six-degree weather, I missed the phone call from the sort-of boyfriend. But, oh, the message was well worth it's recording:

Hey dude, just wanted you to know, that when I returned King Kong, I had taken the first DVD out of the freakin, uh, player and it happened to be Deep Throat and that's what they saw when they opened it up to check it back. [change of voice] Excuse me sir, this isn't the DVD for King Kong....
...agh!

Apparently, he mumbled it's my girlfriend's...but we're not quite sure they heard that.

Of course, I played the message for my cohorts to hear, and, of course, we laughed until tears sprung and crystallized on our cheeks. In fact, I laughed all the way through the hour and a half line for a disappointing, soon-to-be released documentary. I laughed every time one of us said King Kong! And I laughed at the thought of this man, staying alone in my apartment for the first time, tentatively trying on the role of sweetheart, and trying to explain to a sixteen-year old, Blockbuster employee why the accidental substitution of Deep Throat in the place of King Kong was just an honest mistake.

Sugar

Reynold Reynolds & Patrick Jolley with Samara Golden, still from Sugar

The OSC calls me kid even though I am technically older than him and even though we dated, what, about two decades ago. It seems like I have known The OSC for just about ever. He is the only man who has ever asked me to marry him–though he was drunk at the time and we had already long stopped dating. He is the first person to pour me a beer after heartbreak, the first shoulder I cry on when it gets hard to drag my ass out of bed, and–plug your ears, mom–the first lay when there has been a particularly long draught. Though his once lithe skate boarder's body has now grown soft, his hair has considerably thinned, and we don't even have to go into what years of smoking, dry walling and lack of health care has done to his capacity to breathe, looking at him is much akin to looking into a mirror, a painfully accurate mirror. Our dreams a bit more battered, our cross-word puzzling skills a bit improved, we look at each other and we read our own histories. I may not be balding and, at least I can climb up a set of stairs without coughing up half a lung, but he does know exactly what to say to make me feel better, precisely how to piss me off, and absolutely how to, um, push my buttons.

We moved in together to save money, not a good enough reason at any age, let alone when you are twenty-two. We lived in a one-bedroom, third floor walk-up where I was the apartment manager. Together we paid about two-hundred dollars a month in rent and sometimes we couldn't even scrap that together. For most of the time we lived together, I remained indignant. He never picked up a finger to help with the maintenance of the building, though, he benefited with the cheap rent. He wasn't particularly neat. And his idea of apartment decorating included hanging up his baseball cards willy nilly on the mantel so that they fell anytime the door slammed shut.

Still, we had fun. It was new, this living together thing, and we made the best of it. In our hearts we knew this was just a practice run for later, when we had the capacity to take these things more serious. We played house. And in the process, we learned one or two things. One Thanksgiving someone had given us a twenty pound bird, no doubt a freebie with the one they had purchased for themselves. We invited over a few friends and stuck it in the oven. Four hours later, it was no where near being cooked. It seemed our tiny oven couldn't handle a turkey of that size, and so, minus any kind of meat thermometer, we started sawing off the drumsticks hoping we could at least eat those. And we did. And lived to tell about it.

The OSC once tried on one of my dresses. It was a slinky, low-cut number and it startled us both to see how good he looked in it. He pranced about the house, dancing back to the full-length mirror to wag his ass and giggling the entire time like a schoolgirl in her first bra. I can't remember if it turned us on, or if the absurdity of his hairy chest and his high, round buttocks kept us in hysterics the rest of the night. He could make me laugh, that man, he could also make me forget, and for those alone, I will always keep his company. He might have been the boyfriend that behaved the worst–we were kids, after all, it could be argued that we hadn't known any better–but he was the one whom I have actually known long enough to completely forgive.

We've been to hell and back, both as a couple and each on our own. We've seen each other act the worst and we haven't always been there to witness the best. One marriage, one divorce and one abortion between us. We share a million stories. And one hopes there will be a million more. Lovers, jobs, apartments, they may change. But he is the well-worn map I turn to when lost. Separating at the seams, edges thinned from touching, the map may not always tell me where I am headed, but if I traces it's contours, it can begin to tell me where I've been.

morning rituals

Kathryn Spence, Pigeons, 1997, street trash, wire, string, rubber bands, glue

Some people have their coffee, some their morning mass and others still wake up to the Today Show. And those of us with dogs, well, you know what we have. The morning walk. A ritual that I now look forward to more than than the smell of coffee percolating, more than the sight of espresso steaming, more than the screeching sound of milk foaming. I never thought it was possible to enjoy something more than these sacred things. But. Look at me now.

My morning walk, like all rituals, begins and ends with the same thing: the donning and the shedding of many layers, the leashing and the unleashing, the picking up and the letting go of a plastic bag. We button up, we grab our coffee and we hit the road. What is most enjoyable about this ritual is that we walk the same route every morning, we reach the same landmarks, we see many of the same people. And yet, what is most striking about traversing the exact same path day after day are all the subtle changes: the ones that weather, season and sunlight afford. It is the closest to religion I get. And I look forward to it more than anything.

The walk begins as we cut through the park. We pass the empty playground, we notice our breath in the air, and often the grass is full of dew, sometimes, even, brittle with frost. We head down the stairs, we come to the barren baseball field, we marvel at the energy of the tennis players so sprightly in the bitter cold and pale light. We come across the one or two ambitious joggers, the all-business dog walkers, and the middle-aged Asian couples comfortably bundled in sweats. We walk past the pond with its sleeping ducks, its one solemn egret and its still marsh reeds. And the moment I first lay eyes on the sea, like the exquisiteness of a first kiss, is the moment my day officially begins.

Once we are walking along side the beach, I notice everything. How calm or furious the tide is, the colors of the leaves on the ground, the wee little plovers alight on the sand. I mark the winterness of the trees, whose nests have become suddenly visible by their nakedness. I regard the cast of the sun on the water. I near the paved walkway, my second landmark, where the shifting tides swell over or under to reveal it's architecture. And like a prayer, a meditation, a really impossible yoga move, I am unabashedly thankful. On days like today, with the sea high and frothy, the moon sufficiently waxed, the air crisp and the coffee hot in my hand, I stand and ponder my good fortune. It's not a bad way to start the day.

The walk from there is brisk and to the point. We approach the school playground, the sounds of recess and PE echoing across the water, we pass, for the second time, the elderly man who carries a camera and whom I see, not once, but twice, each morning, we exchange another good day greeting, and we reach the house with the Butoh, or perhaps it's Kabuki puppets and bottle tree. This is the third and final landmark by which I measure my walk: a row of Butoh puppets mysteriously lining the entire windowed-wall of this last house on the water. Most of the puppets face inward, but a select few look down on us forlornly as we reach the sidewalk and leave the ocean's side. Depending on the light, the blue bottle trees leave either a tragic or regal impression.

By this point I am already thinking of all the things I have to do that day. I am dreading or looking forward to going into the office, I am ready for breakfast, I am making lists in my head. I stop noticing. I turn inward. I obsess, or stress, or act the way I normally act throughout the day, mostly as if my eyes were blinded and my ears plugged. I act the way we all act. The walk is officially over. The work day has officially begun. Life has officially taken over. But. For a brief moment in time, I bore witness to the morning. And I was humbled by it's wit.