Ten Years Later

Holy, where has the time gone, Batman?

I received notice, on the 14th, that my blog is ten-years old. Double digits deserve a toast and some consideration. I had my toast already this morning, smeared with tahini and to wash it down, a large black coffee, so dark it reflects my soul. I start each day optimistically; butterflies, unicorns, and glitter have nothing on me.

Because of my anniversary, “my numbers are booming.” It’s my doing! Surprise! I’m trying to see what I wrote about back in the day, those ten long years ago, before worldwide political corruption possessed me.

My first blog post was… embarrassing. Not only because, despite the help of my teenaged daughter, an award-winning (unpublished) gifted author, my punctuation was way off. I was honing the skill I aspired to. A coworker told me to dumb it down because no one cared to learn six syllable words. What antediluvian generation was she born into? Sesquipedalian locution is our friend.

PLEASE do not look for that first post; in exchange, I offer a better, cliff notes version. I wrote about my crush on John John, who had been dead fifteen years by then.

This is how it never happened:

I’m on the subway… no, I think he rode a bicycle or rollerbladed. Hmm. Okay, so…

I cross the street clutching my original manuscript, a novel, while looking at the gum I just stepped in when a reckless bicyclist knocks me over. Papers fly… and as was the plight of the great Ernesto (Hemingway), I have no copies of my baby. Bloody and bruised, I frantically scramble to gather as many pages as I can before Tribeca traffic and fetid wind carries off my life’s work.

Horns blare, a melting-pot of dialects and many languages verbally assault me, telling me things like “yo,*Twyla Tharp, get out of the street.”

*Twyla Tharp is a famous American modern dancer who choreographed the 1979 film “Hair.”

I pick up all the pages I find and return to the corner where the nightmare ensued. There is, of course, a charming bookstore…no, coffee shop that lures me in.

I sit at a table by the window where I can organize the recovered pages while watching for flyby papers I might have missed. An aspiring actor, trying to pull off a Jamaican accent, serves my black coffee in a large glass mug because this is a classy locally owned establishment. Looking into my dark brew, I do not see a reflection of my black soul; instead, my eyes meet those of a hottie in bicycle gear holding several crumpled, dirty sheets of paper. (Yes, I said, our eyes met in the reflection of black coffee. This is fiction.)

You’ve guessed by now it is John John. He sits down across from me and laments his regret. A drop of blood trickles down my temple, a minor scratch sustained during the incident. He hands me a handkerchief. (I know: crazy!) His name and phone number are embroidered on it. (My story.)

(Winding this up because my laundry just stopped.)

I publish my writing with his mother’s help. Jackie, works in a publishing house and does me a solid by distributing my book. We (John John and I) get married and live happily ever after.

~~Fin~~

Unfortunately, this is fantasy. He died in 1999 and Jackie in 1995. We never met. 😭

Okay, that is a much more detailed story than the few words I wrote ten years ago. My punctuation has come a long way, as has my ability to convey sarcasm in a manner that leaves no one asking: “Is she serious?” I hope.

Time is a crazy thing. I appreciate the reminder that I need a jumpstart on the goals I had when I started this blog.

THANK YOU!!! To everyone who follows me, and, more so, to the handful of you who read what I write.

I’m trying.