Tallsharon's Extraordinary Adventures

It’s the beginning of my second visit to the Ranch, and the world is outside the fence where it should be.   Telephone reception is spotty at best, and the computers are slow in the computer lounge.   Some people have telephones in their “suites” but I am happy to live without all of those electronic links to the outside for a week.   I do use the alarm clock, however, or I’d probably never get up. The rooms are so cozy and the bedding so deep and warm and soft, I sleep like a baby, and dream wildly in color every night. Every night.   It’s still dark and the heater is cycling on and off.   Do I get up for the hike or go back to sleep.   It’s colder than shit Christmas Eve.   My little casita has heavy curtains, drawn tightly closed against the night.   I get up and pull on my long underwear, thick wool socks and hiking boots.   Where are my bloody gloves and hat?   I wash my face, or rather splash it with cold water, grab some chap stick and my heavy jacket and head out the door.   I

I always manage to slip out before the other shoe drops, before the point of no return, before I get too deeply involved.   Is it luck or fear?   I’m not sure if this qualifies as “in bad company” when I leave before the bad is obvious- only when it is sensed, or early on, when things appear to be going bad.   I had a mad crush on a guy, back in my 30s.   He lived in a small trailer in a park in Solana Beach near the Belly Up, come to think of it; I probably met him at the Belly Up.   He was very handsome, a building contractor (unlicensed) with a black Labrador retriever.   In public he’d treat me like a queen but the minute the others were gone he would be mean, and disrespectful.   I knew it but I was absorbed with his looks and also one hundred miles from home so I didn’t really want to drive in the middle of the night on a weekend either.   I know these thoughts were going through my head but I deleted them almost as fast as they appeared.   And then it happened, the words tur

Pop The bubble deflated, attaching itself to my left ear sagging from the tip of my nose to my chin. I reached up, using my pinky cocaine nail to pick at my ear, detaching the pink blob from its perch and returning it to the center of my tongue.   I looked around; no one even looked up and prepared for a second try. There we go slow massage those lips together let the air seep into that sticky gummy mess and float unanchored into the air like a soap bubble.   Oh shit, pooooooppppp, this one collapsed even sooner and even more quietly despite its size.   I should’ve kept- my head up, tied my hair back, and moved behind the stacks so the librarian wouldn’t see me.   Holding the book in front to hide the bubble was a bad idea, in retrospect and now I’ve got to get it outside, or have to pay for damaging it with my gum.   It’s all over page 48 and it will stick to 49 the minute I closed the cover. And it'll leave a gap visible to everyone, especially the volunteers that restock th

I have lots of shoes and footwear.   I also have lots of very expensive glass frames from old prescriptions.   I’m going to take a wild guess and say I have about 30 pairs of black shoes of one sort or another.   I know I have 1 pair of tall black boots, two pairs of short lace up boots, one with a zipper on the side, 1 pair of traditional loafers, 1 pair of kitten heel pumps with oval stitching on the toe bought at Nordstrom in Indianapolis, 2 pair of OJ Simpson   open toe sling back 2” heels- black & red (Bruno Magalia), 1 pair of crocs ballet flats that look sort of like suede but aren’t, 1 pair of sporty loafer type slip-ons with contrasting stitching and a toggle, 1 pair of t strap sandals, 1 pair of open toe strappy black sandals, 1 pair of Akko gladiator sandals, In the garage I have two pairs of raggedy really comfortable keen flats that I’ll never wear again, I have   ankle strap leopard look flats bought at Nordstrom Pentagon City,   A pair of brown Keen maryjanes,

Tomorrow is the day he thought the day I break my record in the ring the weather is dark, the stone cold, my mother and father will sit on the narrow benches heads held high dignified proud but humble. The picadors lead the parade from the tunnel, tight pants and tiny vests, hats with wide brims, almost effeminate in this arena, the bull the testosterone raging silently ominously from behind the fence their torsos thrusting themselves sideways bouncing off the hard stone wall, adding another crack in the gates.   The music, the crowd, swaying forward to see the beginning of the dance, and back again. To neutral when the strain becomes too much. Adrenaline racing around and around row by row forward backward, the first bull is freed, suddenly surprised by the absence of a barrier where there once was resistance. Shaking his head from side to side, scanning the ground, nothing the positions of the picadors, and smelling the sweat the dirt and the blood of centuries baked into the wa