Unchained, a melody

so we got our hot dogs on the way in and walked around the lumber section, chatting randomly about the stuff on the shelves, the poor lighting in the store, the hot (or not-so-hot) employees, and all that we had missed in a few months of chatting--having been so busy we hadn't had a chance to catch up; I took it like a much-needed confession, sans the "bless me father" and the guilt.

i talked about carlos, who's name isn't carlos, my jewish boyfriend who got me eating kosher, and who is now my dearest friend, but not my boyfriend, and whose company i dearly miss even in these hot and humid summer nights. i told the story of how i broke his television accidentally and how we fixed his couch and how i still have a toothbrush by his sink--one i never get to use. i talked about ricardo, who's now moved somewhere in the middle of the country, who called just a couple of months ago and confessed his undying love to me as he told me of his friend's indiscretions and showed me again why it is we're not together--all with just a word. i talked about andrew and his boyfriend, and the crazy drinks they make, and how they sit in front of a blank t.v. watching xm-on-directv, which is odd because they have no video and so you just sit there watching a blank t.v., and how much fun that can be because you get to talking and before you know it you're deep in conversation and i hope george bush's ears are ringing mightily because there are very few conservative gay men in silverlake, and none of them watch xm-on-directv--at least not with me.

i talked of jose, who promises to be another ricardo, full of love and friendship, with no papers, no car, a lowly job and little promise of staying in the country longer than this blog has lived, and how i cannot get myself to hold him accountable for all the pain others have caused, so here i go headlong into a love i know better than to feel, thinking i'm crazy for loving just the feeling of falling in love and being willing to suffer the pain of having to get over it afterwards bacause in the end how can you have mountains without valleys, canyons and all the other great geological irregularities that make a map that much more fun?

i talked of work, and how busy we are, and how i love working there not because the work is any easier, but rather because everybody is so much fun to work with, and how we're making so much money we're bound to have a great christmas season... and that, of course brought me to the possibility of getting a new car and how i test drove the 350z convertible and just how fast the darned thing is. but i think i am too old and too big for such a little car, so i'm looking at the c70, though it might look like someone's aunt's car. what the hell, i'll be the aunt. and the hell do they put in those hotdogs? they're so tasty! but wait! don't tell me, "everything else"... whatever parts of the cow have no name and some i'd rather not name. Thank goodness for hebrew national. They answer to a higher authority.

we walked up and down the aisles, looking at the stuff that we might buy but wouldn't, because after all we were there just for the hotdogs and boy those were so good! by the time we got to the paint i was terribly confused as to what i really wanted to do with my room and made a mental note to watch a few more episodes of trading spaces before spending any money, as i might just want to go with a jungle theme instead of the slightly-overly-stuffy architectural digest take on the lincoln bedroom, though i highly suspect that room sees more action on a regular basis than mine does--and why don't they serve beer at home-improvement stores? i mean, that's what most guys drink when working with power tools.

the lighting aisle is way too hot. i don't care how cute the guy is that works it--and boy does he work it--i won't stay there a moment longer than it takes to pick a decent ceiling fan, you know the kind, the cabana-style, bungalo-on-malibu, i-found-it-at-a-good-will-store, $300 kind. and then we found we'd mostly run out of aisles and stood in line for half an hour, just to find the hot dog guy had left before we made it back outside, and i had little else to talk about... and just when we got outside i got a call from my friend in san pedro, who just bought the boat and i got invited to a weekend party and a three-hour tour of the bay! what to wear? what to wear?

i hate these hot summer days... oh but those hot summer nights...

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

e. a. poe