My distrust of Carmen Electra and the products she endorses

The title alone is a mockery of me. Of all celebrities to put your faith in: Sally Field for Boniva, Diddy for Proactiv, that old tired woman for the Sleep Number Bed, I pick Carmen Electra and her cursed stripper pole.

I had the best intentions. This wasn't some attempt to keep a boyfriend or begin a career to finance my higher learning. This all came about for the new year and weeks later after a comment about my belly fat. I was crunching away on pretzels and cream cheese, minding my own damn business. "You know that's basically all fat, right?" a friend of sorts asked, her large hazel eyes filled with pseudo concern. "It's because she's pregnant." a co worker commented justly so with his Miller Lite baby about to explode out of his work shirt like an Alien offspring.
"I mean, you know where it's all going to go. You carry most of your weight in your belly." How I love people and their unwarranted comments on my body. Can't get enough. However, it was what I claimed I needed to get myself motivated to work out. When you're skinny and always will be but need to get toned, you make small talk with others about weight and when you even mention weight loss and yourself in the same sentence you get "What are you talking about?! Have you looked at yourself? You're fine the way you are." So, you eat. Then you wake up and realize that while you are skinny a one piece bathing suit would probably be more flattering than a more daring two piece number.
I cut back on my portions even more than usual. I planned to run, do yoga, and purchase the stripper pole I'd been vying for since I slid my first dollar into a garter. I researched poles and decided that I could go the recession conscious way and get the $130 pole in the pretty pink and black box with Carmen Electra splattered across it. I power walked through the mall recalling the comments made thinking on the boys I gave to the past tense and how they'd kick themselves when they saw me again. "You only live once" I said to the check out guy after he told all sales were final. "Whatcha got there?" a tall snowy featured man asked with daughter in tow. I gave him a flirty eye and smile "Oh nothin'".
This morning after five minutes of easy toil according to the instructional DVD, I'd be swinging my way to a rocking body minus the extra baggage I've acquired. "Maybe you can resell it on ebay." my male assistant said. Looking at me with those damn boyish cognac eyes. If I weren't so embittered I might have been charmed. Instead I was overcome with disappointment and buyer's remorse. Clearly stated on the back of the box not covered with Carmen Electra's cosmetically altered and Photoshopped body and also not in bold and jazzy pink writing were the words of my undoing. The pole was made for ceilings not exceeding 8 feet and 6 inches. The nine foot ceilings in my apartment made the pole unusable and potentially unsafe. Such items can't be returned for obvious reasons no matter how many times you tell the cashier you swear on your gene pool that no bodily fluid of yours even looked at the pole. I can only blame myself I guess for making a hasty purchase, but I can still give the stink eye to Carmen Electra and all things she stands for.
If you are in the market for a stripper pole no matter what your intentions may be, look for one that costs more than $100 as you will be attempting George of the Jungle type moves. Average costs I've seen range between $230 and $400 and some even have attachments if you have vaulted ceilings. One company in particular boasts to have been featured on Oprah and if there is anyone you can trust...

The Bust Stop

At 8:45 I turn the lights off. Not to sleep, but to watch an exhaling shadow first then a woman materialize. She is always early for her 8:55 bus as I am to look down from my window. Perhaps she is scarred to be in the dark. The time has not quite been set for spring though the March days have lengthened. The street lights are flickering on now, a spotlight to procure her glamour. The honey shade of light gives me swinging leg, a cheek round and high, dark tresses neatly curled. Ten minutes is never long enough. Soft screeching brakes make her stand, throwing a quick sass of hip for her time wasted, and off she’s carried away from me until tomorrow.

Twenty minutes till and I stand in the mirror mowing down my stubble. No beard to speak of. Hairs are splotched on my oval earth. I don’t know how I didn’t miss a stair as hastily as I galloped to front door of my building. The humid atmosphere was a thousand camel licks on my skin. I look down at my watch. She’d just be taking her seat. I think of what to say. Maybe I’d be nonchalant and let her come to me. Or maybe use some slang I’d overheard from a bunch of kids in the supermarket. She sits hands in lap staring out. She is a nightingale perched cooing to me. She hears my footsteps and doesn’t flinch (no, not a bird, a tigress). I stand behind her just under the half moon ceiling of the bus stop. She turns to me giving me a once over. She leans back out of her crouch, deeming me safe, and the light thwarts the shadows over her lips. I coil inside. To kiss her would drown me.

“Hi.” My peppy tone is my certain undoing.
“Hi, how are you?” How wrong I am and glad of it.
“Hot.” She smiled. I sit down.
“I’m usually alone for the 8:55.”
“I know.” I unnerved her. The eyes narrow and they dart to each bush and dark corner.
“I mean I live right here and I see you out here by yourself all the time and I feel compelled to make sure you’re safe.”
“That’s very nice of you.” She exhales and smiles and this time it is full. I extend my hand.
“I’m Kyle.”
“Marissa.” Hands soft with a touch of chill.
“Enchanted.”

Twenty minutes till. Now five and still I wait. She’ll be here and I won’t move. She’s already mine her scent in my sheets. I’ve traveled the world with and without her. I’ve asked my boss for a raise or got on the internet to find a better job. I am always already there.
“I’d love to take you out some time or at least just drive you home once.” A laugh is the gift at my doorstep. This moment is finding money in the wash. Then it is gone from me. Mechanical cringe of old brakes and rows of lit windows. She stands and pauses before the doors swing open. She looks over her shoulder at me.
“Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Trashbag sledding

"I didn't take Physics for nothing" a friend of mine said as we stomped through the snow back to our apartment building. We'd been hit with an inch or two of snow in the Nation's capital. Outsiders say we call in the cavalry whenever we get the slightest accumulation. Salt trucks line the highways waiting for anything solid and white to hit the pavement. Traffic is backed up for miles 'Winter Storm Warning' plastered on our TV screens. The weather is far from the infamous '96 blizzard during which I enjoyed a week of no school, but I felt childlike running through the parking lot of my community laughing, tossing loose snowballs like handfuls of glitter. "Let's go sledding." the Physics buff suggested. None of us had a wooden sled or its' middle class cousin the trash can lid, but we hurried inside to grab white trash bags. We layed them out like picnic blankets. Nothing except the red drawstring was visible under the street lights. My gloveless hands gripped the bag's edges before scooting then sailing down the hill barely missing the wood barrier of the playground. Up and down panting and laughing and colliding, we knew our other friends would be sad they missed out. "We should've brought a camera" my other friend lamented. The only evidence is the rear-shaped impressions atop our slope.

Intro

Inspiration is like
catching fireflies
in the summer evening
they do this for love
I'm told
to get a mason jar
but I'm focused on the light
the bright green-yellow
flashes, pulses
and I follow behind it
Ignoring the reality of the present
I reached out to grab ahold
of the light
allowed me to see its' wings
The light stopped suddenly and I trailed behind
skidding across the grass
waiting for a sign,
eyes darted
in the darkness
the light beckoned again
And I snatched it in my hand
selfishly
feeling it tickel my palm
Looking for an open jar,
a thought ocurred:
this light can't just be mine
to keep clinched under my fingers
sticky from the heat of the chase
The having the losing of a non-possession
My hand hinged open and set it free
And this is why I write