Marcy and Colin and Antoinette and I decide that we can take only so much poetry, that it's time to breathe, sweep the cobwebs from the attics of our minds, and Nathaniel's in school, so Antoinette can relax about that.

We vacate the premises for an afternoon of playing tourist, taking the bus and trolley down to Ghirardelli Square, to soak up the sun BECAUSE IT'S SUNNY, YEA! 

It's SO much fun being away from campus and classes. We bop around acting immature, not that we're mature anyway, but it feels like a holiday, so . . . cool.

Marcy and Colin are the perfect couple. Too bad they're not a couple. They really should be. Marcy is the most amazing woman, and it's not because she's beautiful, and tall, and Asian, it’s not her gorgeous long black hair, or that she’s too smart for this world. It’s because she's funny and nice and smiley. Usually. Sometime I'll post some of her poems.

And Colin, I have a tendency to rethink things when he's around . . . blonde and handsome and quiet, usually, deep thoughts, but with a twinkle in his blue eyes. He LOOKS like he just stepped off the beach at Malibu, surf board under his arm, but he's a farm boy, and he's NOT gay, which makes him a rarity around here. I'll post some of his stuff, too.

So why aren't he and Marcy an item? Alas, human nature cannot be ordered to fit. Zappos has yet to figure out how to do that.

Antoinette, I've already written about her, how it's her and her son Nathaniel forging their way in the world. It weighs on her all the time, and it makes my berth look trés cush. Which it is. 

She is very quiet by nature, introverted, which means that when she is with friends, and I mean real friends, and I like to think we're her real friends, she opens up, blossoms, voilà, into something warm and sunny and funny . . .

. . . you may have noticed, sunny and funny are high on my list . . . beware the quiet ones. 

Beware of darkness. 

She also looks like she got off the bus in 1972, with her long, rippling brown hair parted in the middle, and her propensity, or necessity, for vintage thrift shop clothes. Hippie, is what I'm looking for. She's our resident hippie. Her poetry is heavily influenced by George Harrison. Look for some of her stuff coming your way soon. ish.

Here we are bopping and scatting, Ella style, and we decide go to the dwarf, I mean wharf. I mean Fisherman's Wharf, to see if the Bush Man is scaring the crap out of tourists today, which is always a hoot. And as the four of us march down the hill, arms linked in camaraderie, Colin starts, in sotto voce:

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

lions and tigers and bears, oh my! 

And we pick it, quietly at first, but getting louder, in unison and four part harmony:

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

And I'm sure we look like fools, but, hey, we're tourists on holidays, and who looks more foolish than that? 

And it’s: 

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

and Antoinette adds a line:

landlords and tenants and rent, oh my!

and Marcy, quick as she is, adds:

teachers and students and grades, oh my!

and I, predictably, add:

trannies and fairies and dykes, oh my!

and it's Colin's turn again:

workers and bosses and broke, oh my!

and pretty soon, because we're clever, it's:

lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

landlords and tenants and rent, oh my!

teachers and students and grades, oh my!

trannies and fairies and dykes, oh my!

workers and bosses and broke, oh my!

mommies and daddies and kids, oh my!

sisters and brothers and friends, oh my!

and then it turns dark:

niggers and ragheads and jews, oh my!

honkies and wetbacks and chinks, oh my!

pakis and gypsies and chavs, oh my!

junkies and hustlers and cons, oh my! 

hookers and angels and pimps, oh my!

bullies and bigots and cheats, oh my!

blondies and afros and punks, oh my!

shooters and victims and cops, oh my!

soldiers and sailors and spies, oh my 

homeless and lonely and scared, oh my!

schizos and mentals and dead, oh my!

and the colored girls go, doo do doo do doo do do doo . . .

and though it's dark humor, each of us are a little fucked up in our own way, and somehow it's a release to say these toxic words, because we’re not white bread, none of us, not even Colin, with his poet's pain and soul; and even if we were all perfect, every last one of us, I have to believe we'd still long to let it out, to just say it, whatever "it" is.

Or, maybe not. It's hard to imagine George Clooney coming up with much of a zinger:

handsome and charming and rich, oh my!

or Dick Cheney:

evil and dangerous and cruel, oh my!

And so on, and I’m sure I’m being unfair to George and Dick. Surely everyone could add a line of their own. 

 ~~~

and the colored girls go, doo do doo do doo do do doo . . .

~~~

I know we look like spoiled rich kids going to college, mocking everything, irreverent, sly . . . mollycoddled. I know it. Some of us are. I am. Not rich, but my parents are paying for school, and I don't know about Colin or Marcy, I know there are student loans, and as for Antoinette, I don't know how she's doing it. All I know is that we all have part time jobs, and it's a lot of work, though it’s a LONG WAY from tote that barge and lift dat bale!

My dad has worked his tail off. He was given squat. My mom has been a MOM. All she's ever wanted to do was love us, me and my bro. And she has, and both of us have been so fucked up at times that it's aged her, and she carries worry in her eyes all the time. Only, we're getting better, and our family is healing, and despite EVERYTHING, we LOVE each other so, so much, and that’s a beginning . . . beginning to make her feel better, and she's beginning to do the things she loves to do again, she's ALLOWING herself that. 

And dad, he carries the weight of the world on his broad shoulders, except when we go to a Giants game, and he wears his Giants hat, and brings his old mitt to catch the foul balls that never come his way, and he's eating a hot dog, ketchup and mustard and relish dripping down his shirt, and he buys us over-priced peanuts, and the Giants are playing the fucking Dodgers, and Tim Lincecum is pitching, and even if he isn't what he was, he's still so much fun to watch that it doesn't matter. 

Then dad doesn’t worry so much.

Usually he worries. Sometimes about money. Not money, per se, but, you know, surviving, and that isn't even it, because he's done well. Usually, he worries about us, me and bro, about fucking us up even more that we are, because his father fucked him up, and we are fucked up, but, like I said, we're getting better, we ARE better, we’re FANTASTIC! And when he isn’t worrying about all of that, he’s feeling guilty for the very same things.

But you know what? 

Mostly they’re happy, and they love each other, and we have a lot of fun, and they both love Terri. Well, not LOVE her, but accept her. I've had too many girlfriends for them to have unconditional love. But when we're together, all of us, we are one big, sort of fucked up, family. And it’s nice. And I’m grateful. And I love them. 

~~~

We make it down to the wharf, and GUESS WHAT? There's the Bush Man scaring the crap out of tourists, and there's that guy painted all in silver doing that mechanical movement thing. I don't know how he stands it, but he's been here forever, and we go to Pier 24 and watch the seals: arf, arf, arf.

Life is good.

And it's even better with crab cakes, and clam chowder in a bread bowl, and little kids running around chasing gulls, and parents on vacation, and people like us out for the day, and for ten minutes we can forget the homeless people, and enjoy the sun and sights and food and good company . . . 

. . . and then Miss Gloomy Antoinette goes and says, "so, have you guys written anything for class?"

And a hush falls over the crowd.

Except, of course, Marcy's written some sort of Crown of Sonnets, in Latin, backwards, upside down, in invisible ink, and tattooed it on her back. 

But no, I haven't written anything, and I really should get to it.

~~~

lyrics by lou reed, george harrison, jerome kern