Thanksgiving Day

I awake at 5:45 am, disappointed that I have not been able to sleep in on a holiday. After coming back to my bed from the bathroom, in the pitch dark of my studio, Jeb sits up in his bed and says, “I want to watch a movie.” the day has begun, it is as dark as night and I’m out of coffee. Read more

Went on first date in 2 years. The ‘blind’ kind set up by a friend.  We take my quick lunch window that is open between work and picking up Jeb at school. He is divorced, 40 and working on an organic farm in exchange for a lean – to. Nice man. Earthy. No vehicle. I pick him up. He’s wearing a loud print new-age version of an aloha shirt that is well worn and permanently wrinkled at the collar. A detail that seems to have been overlooked for some time. His shanty shack is made up of reflective tarps on one side of a plywood platform that houses a thin mattress beneath a mosquito net. Permanently red dirt stained grey-white socks hang on a line above the “bed”. Dirty underwear and shorts from the morning’s work still lay on the ground. Books pile in a corner haphazardly.

My brain does a quick data scan taking in the scene and in under 2 minutes it is determined no intimacy will take place between he and I. We have not yet gotten into my car. Read more