Shut up.  Just shut the hell up.

You sit there, at the bar, screaming at the TV, giving anyone within a mile radius of your bar stool a play-by-play of the lame basketball game which is blaring out of all three, oversize televisions behind my head.  You flail around as if you were an injured teammate, begging and pleading to just be let back onto the court.

No one wants to hear your chatter, nor witty band camp comments.  Stop with the text message reciting, the minute facebook updates of fellow bottom dwellers like yourself.  Your opening line, forced upon those misdirected few who wander too close,  is sad and stale…just like your haircut.

And after nearly three years as your neighborhood beer slinger , I am certain it would break your heart to know that these are the memories of you that I am taking with me. Sure there were  moments of interest and the mirage of concern over your double shoulder surgery or your son’s epilepsy was hazily genuine.  But months and years later, when I have long ago escaped the oily stench of pepperoni and your perfume, you will still be at that bar, watching the same boring ass game on even bigger TV’s and I’ll be thanking the heavens that I no longer have to listen to your drivelous prattle or wonder if your haircut, indeed, will ever change.

He’d dreamed of rain that night and felt peace and the last thing that he wanted to do was to wake up and face yet another sunny day. However, like clockwork, his eyes begrudgingly opened at 7:03 am. “Fuck!” he thought, “Fuckin’ Fuck.” It was already 89 degrees.

After dressing, Gerald pulled on his boots, lacing them with care and precision, sipped the last dregs of his coffee and opened his front door to the hot dusty world that he had always known. His feet blindly carried him to his truck, and his Ford pickup drove him to the edge of town. He looked out. Out his window; out past Wellington and the road stretched for an eternity.

Golden wheat, blue skies. Dirt roads that led to the edge of their world.  Gold and Blue and shades of brown.

Somewhere, far down that road, there were places Gerald barely had the courage to dream about. And he turned the key, let the engine die and sat there, contemplating what he must do. And the children of Pondero’s Farm ran to the edge of their fields, folded their arms over the top of the wooden fence, intertwined their legs in the middle logs and watched Gerald. They knew what he would do. He would turn his truck around and head back into town as he did every time. An hour would pass. Two. And then the kids would welcome him back to Wellington with waving arms.  He loved these children, they always let him return. He hated these children; they always knew that he couldn’t leave.

There’s a little country lane outside my hometown named Springhetti Road.  Just before it merges and disappears into the unromantic & all too common Broadway, it rises over a crest and the entire valley spreads out before you; nearly as far as one’s eye can see.

No matter my mood, that little patch of asphalt can lift my spirits and transport me  nearly anywhere.  I can be twenty years old again coming home from college or if I squint my eyes just so, I may be 10 miles up the 101 on the outskirts of LA.  Maybe I’m returning from a city book signing or on my way home from a European tour.  I could be eleven years old again, with my tanned legs sticking out of the passenger window of our old VW van with my mom’s Pearl Jam bursting out of the radio.

For the thirty seconds it takes for me to traverse that road, I can be anyone or anywhere.  And every night, after clocking out of my thankless job, I look forward to that moment, when I hit that crest and I am suddenly transported somewhere else, miles and years away.

I like to pretend that I may (if I could move quicker than magic could) catch Zelda in the most beautiful ball gown having tea with all of Derek’s brilliant fishes.  They would be sitting around our table on velvet cushions eating cucumber and salmon sandwiches and sipping Earl Gray. The fat orange fish would say through fishy bubbles, “Please, do pass the cream.” And Zelda would grasp the delicate pitcher with her thick furry paw and slide it towards him. And the black fish with all those blue polka dots would say (in an operatic voice) that “the weather truly is lovely—a perfect day for a swim!” Around the table I would hear fish voices and Zelda’s meowing cat voice as they discussed us (their owners—their personal bitches) and how life in the tank is (for the fishes) and Zelda’s new burgundy lace ball gown with the puffed sleeves. They would laugh as they ate all the contents of our refrigerator.

I like to imagine this. Or Zelda sitting on the edge of the fish tank in blue denim over-all’s (no undershirt—just her fur popping out) clutching a little wooden stick fashioned into a fishing pole. Beside her, she has a lunch pail of catnip and bread (which awaits one of those gorgeous fish to sandwich).

This is the power of the imagination. Anything can happen. Anything. In a single moment I can grow wings—my hair can turn pink, my skin blue—and I can be in the era of the Jetsons (only my robot will be named Wilbur and not Rosie). Or I can be crossing the Oregon Trail, battling scurvy and hunger and the utter wildness of the unknown.  I can be an actress in Paris in the 1920’s—traveling Europe with my chaperon—spending money I haven’t yet made.

Imagination in the most amazing gift that we have been given.  In a single moment, my brain can take me anywhere; I can travel the world. I can travel thru time.  And I feel so fortunate that this has been given to us and that I have let my mind be wild—my imagination roam free.  And so I want to say thank you to whatever entity created us—thank you for the power of the imagination.  And thank you (again) to my mother, who taught me to cultivate and grow my own imagination.

Plastic plates.  The place isn’t bad enough already without adding cafeteria style dishware to the menu.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned to my boozy ass of a boss that we needed more salad plates.  I show up a few days later to a plastic atrocity, stacked 30 high on the crumb littered counter.  We may not have linen napkins, but my god, I thought we were above toddler plates.  Couple this with adding hamburgers to our Italian menu and the gas station quality, see thru napkins, it’s obvious that my boss doesn’t give a damn and that I need to get out of there.

It’s a long time coming and I know that I’ve complained about my indentured, marinara infused servitude to practically anyone within a mile radius of my lips; but this is it! I refuse to use the plastic plates, secretly stashing them under cupboards and behind doors but I shudder for the day when all the porcelain ones are finally gone and I, with a hanging head and a depressed air, must use the plastic horrors thrust upon me to take out soup or coffee.  And so my friends, I am pleading with you, don’t let me fail in my mission! Push, prod and paddle me into leaving this place and escaping the inevitable disgraceful plastic plate fate which only awaits me there.