• UNUSUAL

    I recall it wasn’t as cold as usualthat early November evening, Iwas standing nervously on the small deckin front of the Indian restaurant.This was going to be my fourthfirst date of my lifetime, notsurprising in the abstract, unlessyou realize that put me on an averageof one every twelve years.Fast forward almost three yearsand I am…


  • LAUNDRY LOVE

    In the older romcom moviesthere was often a meetcutetaking place in a laundromat. I have spent far too many hoursin laundromats when travelingon extended business trips. I found one in Santa Cruzwith a coffee shop and figuredit was where romance would bloom. I spend more than a few hourswatching but while the coffeewas always pouring,…


  • NYE

    As a child, I only wantedto stay up until midnight,actually a bit after that time,to see in the new year. I didn’t need to beat my parents’ party, itwas too loud and the adultsbehaved more like my kidbrother and sister asthe magic moment approached. And it was supposed to bea magical moment, althoughno one could…


  • THEN, NOW

    It was easier then, so let’sgo there, the spring of 1970,the location is less important,so long as it’s a coffee housewhere those barely old enoughto drink, or barely short of thatage congregate, waiting forsomething to happen or, Iseriously hoped, someone,someone with little hair, butwho carried James Joyce inhis jeans pocket, Portrait ofthe Artist the only…


  • FIRST KISS

    You ask me if I rememberwhen we first kissed, and then addand what was it really like for me. I know the answer you expect,and I am reluctant to tell youotherwise, but I have to be honest. It was moments after I left youat your door on our first date,having found my car finallyin the…


  • A NOVEL IDEA

    If I were a character in a novel, sayby Kawabata, that evening we mettwenty years ago, I would haveplaced my hand lightly on your shoulder,and I would have felt a heat,embers of a passion that would,in hours, leave me consumed by it. I was a middle-aged, soon to bedivorced man on his first datein thirty…


  • ETA

    I can assure you I will be there one week from the date I was supposed to arrive, not a day sooner and only possibly a day later. If, by any strange chance I am not please feel free to contact me immediately at the number I have not given you and won’t. And if…