The Middle of the Moon

Heat. Melted chocolate on the kitchen counter. Hand prints fading silently down the hall. Heat. Bare skin clinging to furniture warmed needy and soft. The release holding pools of sweat that feel cool but for a second against the hot, hot air. Heat.

A long ride brings comfort. A long ride lets your body ease and your mind breathe. A long ride forgives the heat and hums along to songs best played in the car. There is more road than traffic. There is more horizon than conversation. There is a sunset and you find yourself driving towards it.

The neighborhood twists like it did last summer. It turns around bright-eyed. There is a clinic on the corner with a woman being wheeled in a chair by an orderly. Her neck is bent at an unnatural angle. Her view of the sunset is unlike any I'll ever know.

There is a father and a daughter picking flowers in the shade. She is laughing and he is soaking up every note with the sponges inside him. The flowers are slightly wilted and their job is forgotten.

A trunk is open and three people stand around it. Perhaps they are fresh from the market. Perhaps there is a body hidden inside. Perhaps they have a thing for trunks. I try to look as we pass them by but their backs are a wall and their expressions are blank.

I like to think they all saw something different.

Then there is an opening and green grass and children playing. We add ours to them. The sun sinks into the ocean and we don't miss it.

The moon is torn down the middle. The long ride reflects this upon bodies of water and now dark windshields. A small voice says that half the moon is in his pocket. A small voice says that the cloud stretched lightly across the sky is a blanket.

Goodnight, Moon.

Goodnight, two small voices and a man saying hush.

Goodnight to the woman driving them home.

The road keeps humming and the moon sleeps sound. The heat hides, waiting.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

There are bloggers in the lobby 29 stories beneath me. They are wearing pajamas, boas or bags on their heads. They are exhausted and sober and loud and drunk. They are hugging out their goodbyes.

Meeting people you have known for years but never met in person is an interesting experience. Some are exactly how you thought they would be while others are what you hoped they wouldn't. Some are a little of both.

Good. Bad. Facts. Life.

The majority of the weekend was filled with fun and laughter and the knotted pangs of homesick in my stomach. Knotted pangs covered in layers of whiskey.

I am exhausted and sober. I am loud and drunk. I have danced away the night and watched the sun rise from a hotel window.

I have made friendships from friends and thrust the virtual into reality.

There are bloggers in the hallway. They are stretching the moment to its thinnest point. They are not ready to walk away.

But I am. I am in my room. I am tired and lonely and I miss my family. There is an unopened bottle of whiskey on the table. It will have to stay that way.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

I have found that when seeing those again that you never thought you would see again that it is best to do so with a smile on your face and a drink in your hand. Pleasantries are nice, awkward moments are few and name tags are suggested.

The key here is the drink.

20 years ago we parted ways as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Simple terms and convenient definitions. Today we embrace each other with memories and photos of our children. Today we look fantastic.

That may be the biggest surprise of them all. I never expected twenty years to polish my peers with the fountain of youth. Granted, I knew that I hadn't changed much, other than some grey in the beard, less hair and more stomach, but hell, I still get carded.

My classmates were fit and beautiful and bald. Lots of bald. People were happy. And it was good.

What we found was that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Hey, hey, hey, hey, don't you forget about us.

There weren't endless hours of glory days revisited, though they were mentioned, usually with a shake of the head and a stare into the distance. Rather, there was the filling in and the catching up and the where is so and so and the passing of people that you once rode a bus with.

It was an ode to technology and our nights were displayed upon the internet instantly and endlessly. There were friend requests an hour after a handshake. There were status updates built upon sips of whisky.

Blanks were filled in like a breathing mad lib. Everything was (adjective).

Sunday morning found me arm in arm with a friend I haven't seen in too long, walking the streets of a desert resort in the shadow of a security guard and the heat of the rising sun. We were happy. And it was good.

And it had been too long.

I have found that when saying goodbye again to those that you never thought you would see again that it is best to do so with a smile on your face and a suitcase in your hand. Pleasantries are nice, awkward moments are few and name tags aren't needed.

The key here is the moment and in the knowing that those that once meant so much still do, even if you forgot, and even if you'll never see them again.

Days of Zane and Roses

He is only three. I treat him like he's older. Like he is the same age as his brother. I suppose this might be a good thing when it is all said and done, but it hardly seems fair now.

I hold him accountable with expectations that are probably hard enough for a six-year-old, let alone a child half that age.

He doesn't make it any easier. He is smart and talkative and funny. He spends his day with children twice his age and rather than standing out he blends in. His height is the lone giveaway.

But in the night when I kiss him goodnight and he covers himself with an army of stuffed animals, a flashlight and a large bouncy ball, just to ward off the dark, he becomes my little boy- the way he is meant to be. I stand there between him and his fears, adding to his wall even as it tears at mine.

He is only three and I need to stop to smell his roses.

A Summer on the Hill

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide.

Where I stop and turn and I go for a ride.

Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you don't you want me to love you?

I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you.

Tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer, and you may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Personally, I thought that crack about the dancer was uncalled for.

To the Dogs or Whoever

The door was open and my hands were full. I was walking out when they came in. It was the kid next door and she had her arms wrapped around her friend. She was looking at me. He was looking at nothing. I was looking at the blood.

"Can you help us?" she asked.

My hands were empty already.

He had been bit by a dog. The same neighborhood dog that attacked someone's pet last week. The same neighborhood dog that killed a grown deer against the chain-link fence of the playground on the corner.

Or maybe it was the other one. There are two peas in this pod. They are pack mentality and they roam freely. Their pee is everywhere.

It had been an accident. It wasn't an attack. It was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn't matter.

It is only a matter of time until it happens again.

They lick my children and bark at my mailman. They are tethered to rocks and they are happy to see me. I do not fear them. I do not hate them. I do not trust them.

My children, who have been around dogs their whole life, have been instructed that they are not to go near the two without an adult present. They are not to run when the dogs are loose. I encourage them to smell their toys before playing with them.

The dogs need more supervision and training. They need to be neutered.

People that worry themselves over the rocketing population of unwanted pets are only telling you part of the reason- the dead deer on the playground? That's the rest of the equation.

Testosterone can make a guy do funny stuff, even bite the hand that feeds him. Apparently.

We cleaned his wounds and dressed them accordingly. He slept in our living room and she sat next to him, rubbing his feet between bites of pizza.

The dogs were in the distance, which was too close for me.