The Leg Session 1986

Today, I decided that I would go ahead and start writing on the public side of this blog. Previously, I used it as a storehouse for my own thoughts and wanderings, like an online, private journal that would be safe from viruses and prying eyes, but today something silly, yet cathartic, happened that gave this blog purpose: I saw a photo, of me, published on someone's blog. Not just anyone, but someone with whom I'd previously been friends.

I am well aware that, in the age of Facebook and Myspace, my photo is likely to turn up, somewhere, with or without my written permission for its posting, regardless of the actual potential legal implications for the poster, but I still wanted to write a cease and desist note informing the poste that I had never given consent to have the photo published and would, therefore, like it immediately removed from public consumption .

"Blah, blah, blah." I'd normally say if I heard someone else whining about an old photo ending up online. "That's nothing but legalese for 'I hate that picture and have no desire to have it up for the world to see, especially out of context,' and all of that should have been thought of before posing for a camera."

Still, this photo was taken long before anyone, including Al Gore, had any idea that blogs would ever exist and I'd immediately asked for their destruction after they were developed and on several other occasions throughout the years. Still, the voice of reason was ringing in my head and I had to concede that the photos would be silly to worry about, since I never intend to run for political office. I was then left with the real questions of why I was even on that website; why was I still so angry a year after ending a friendship that, on and off, lasted nearly 25 years; why would those photos threaten me so; why was I so worried about writing about the realities of my past; why did I stop writing and creating, so many years ago, in the first place?

Ultimately, my question is why this particular relationship held such an enormous influence and hold on my life. That's the main purpose of this blog and it has everything to do with the title, which I've carried around for about ten years. With diversions, and side comments, I intend to use this space to explore my memories, mostly of that relationship, but of life in general. Because of the vast numbers of really good blogs out there, I doubt this site will ever be read; nevertheless, I do reserve all copyrights on the materials herein and, because these are my own memories, I will only really see the details through my own eyes, mixing up dates and events while combining others. I intend to change the names of the living, for their privacy, but I see no reason of changing the names of long dead, historical figures which, however bizzare the connection may be, play a part in the subject,

The photos that started all of this for me are insignificant, but embarrassing. They were taken by a 30-something-unemployed-woman-who-lived-at-home-with-her-parents-teenaged-son, of an eighteen-year-old busboy/waiter/drama-student-wannabe-who'd-just-heard-his-syllabant-"s"-on video-and-realized-he-could-never-be-an-actor. Not in 1986, anyway. Both of them were drunk, having just shared a bottle of domestic gewurtzstraminer, at lunch, and two or three bottles of Piper champagne afterward, rolling around on the front lawn of the boy's mother's Oxnard condo, that she kept in case she was gong to leave her husband, taking photos to an old Maralyn Monroe Cassette. The busboy/waiter boy also fancied himself a dancer, was so caught up in the perceived luxury of the moment that he showed his perfect point, on an extended leg (fully clothed, thank God) with the bottle and one of his grandmother's necklaces seductively to his mouth. Later, he went off, drunk, to work so that he could pay for the day, which had cost him a week's wages, and she went home. That's the reality, but it has nothing to do with the actual fantasy of the day. I'll give that to you later. It's funny, though, that none of the photos of the 30-something-unemployed-mother-who-lived-with-her-parents beginning to pass out on the grass exist any longer. Then again, she had possession of the photos. It was a beautiful afternoon, really, but not something that I would want to encounter, on the web, at 41 years of age.

In the future, I promise to make an attempt to show both sides of an event, even if it is in two different posts, but I make no pledges of how quickly I'll write. I am the only one reading this, after all. Hopefully, it will amuse me as much as it amuses well... me.

Parnassus is heaven and a strip mine is hell. Most of life happens a lot closer to sea level.



.