Suffer Straight-Sided Tubs No More!

Whoever invented the straight-sided bathtub must’ve had two characteristics.

(A) The person was male (B) with zero understanding of body mechanics.

I’m a baths person big time.

I just moved into my own studio rental — good.

The bathtub has 90-degree straight back and sides — bad. Oh. So. Bad.

My first night in my new space after an exhausting, physically demanding and painful move, I needed nothing more than a long hot soak in an Epsom-salts bath.

FAIL!!!

I exited that soak feeling waaaay worse than going in, nearly crippled in the neck, shoulders and upper back, where my serious issues are concentrated.

THIS WOULD NOT DO.

I couldn’t rip out the tub, obviously. And going baths-free was no sooner an option than a fish surviving out of water. So I hastened to fix the horrendous ailment that was my tub.

What I Did First That Didn’t Work

I read tons online by folks with cursed straight-side tubs — every one of ’em also searching for solutions. While discomfort and despair were widespread, fixes short of jackhammers were not.

I researched inflatable wedges and inflatable pillows. The wedges were too big and iffy in terms of slants accommodating my body.

And I’ve never been happy with inflatable pillows. They’re cheap but not durable. They deflate easily, suction cups don’t hold and you’re forever fighting to keep the damn thing positioned — defeating the purpose of a tub: relaxing!

Then I researched as well as checked out thrift stores for all variety of low-to-the-ground folding beach chairs, pool chairs, floating devices. No way. My tub’s not just short but narrow — with 17 inches of “seating width.” My petite frame may fit into a kid’s chair … but a kid’s chair would fit in that tub. Nix those ideas.

ARRRGGGH!!!

What I Did That Worked

First, I invested in a cushy large bathtub mat — not only to prevent slipping while showering but padding while sitting.

After reading rave reviews, I sprung for the Luxury Spa pillow at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I’ve never in my life paid $20 for a bath pillow — neither would I normally. But then, I’ve never had an abnormal crippling tub either. Worth a shot.

Luxury Spa Pillow from Bed, Bath & Beyond. Worth every penny … every bubble … every grain of Epsom salts!

Loooove it! It’s not an inflatable, rather vinyl-wrapped foam padding — thus solid, durable, supper-comfy, with numerous well-placed suction cups that adhere well, regardless of high water level, heat and daily use. Mine’s secured to the side 24/7; your mileage may vary if you’re continuously attaching and removing.

This “perfect pillow” has 3 parts designed to support the lower back, upper back and neck/head.

My sucky tub prevents use as designed. I’ve got all of 1 inch of back ledge-“resting space.” (I’m starting to loathe the designer of straight-side tubs!)

So I simply flip down the “head portion” — thus beefing up the padding and comfort for the back and neck as I slide deep into the water.

While the pillow helped tremendously, still missing, experience revealed, was support for the mid-to-lower/small of the back.

What to do, what to do.

Ms. McGyver to the Rescue!

I’m Ms. McGyver. I can fashion nearly anything out of almost nothing. I’ve accomplished some pretty impressive feats with my resourcefulness and Think Outside the-Box-ness through my lifetime.

As a minimalist and Anti-Clutter nazi, I haven’t a lot of things.

What I DID have, luckily, was a scrap of Reflectix. A radiant insulating foil-covered bubblewrap found in any hardware store. Regular bubblewrap would work just as well.

I fashioned a “bubbly” snake about 4 feet long by folding and securing sides and ends with duck tape — and bless the man who invented that!

Snake with no bite, just bubbles

Next, I folded the snake into fourths to form a small pillow. Create a longer snake for fuller pillow, play with the width. (I’m petite so 4-inches wide and 4-feet long sufficed.)

I secured the ends originally with duck tape … then revised to soft elastic rubber bands. Elastic cord or bands (used in sewing), strong string, skinny rope, any waterproof ties that withstand pressure would work.

“Capturing” my bubbly snake with bands

Ms. McGyver does it again!

Then slide this “bubbly” pillow under your mid- or lower back — wherever your body’s needing the support and equalizing.

What’s cool is that it’s fully adjustable, lightweight, pliable, waterproof, cheap and buoyant. It floats to support your body yet is held in the water by body weight. Perfect!

Plus it dries quickly. Simply remove the rubber bands or do as I do: Stand it in wrapped form in a bathtub corner to drain.

Verdict: Mission Accomplished! Well Done!!

My fixes don’t take the place of a tub with slope. Or cause me to dislike the designer of the straight-backs any less.

But the comfort in a straight-side contraption is VASTLY improved. So much so that I’ve actually fallen asleep in my McGyvered “hot tub.”

If my experience can help one poor soul suffering with a straight-back, this post was worth every moment of writing.

I passionately believe that a bathtub ought abate stress, not be it.

Straight is for geometric angles and gender, not bathtubs!

Advertisement

Stoners, party of one, your table’s ready

So this ad in the local craigslist under writing gigs generated a chuckle:

“I have a story I need written. It covers the last several years of my life. I want to have you sit with me in my home in (location), while I smoke a bong to cope with the discomfort of the topics I will discuss with you.”

Nothing was said about a bong, or bottle, for the listener’s discomfort.

However intriguing be the story, I’ll pass. Regardless, a chuckle at the start of a day is good and post-worthy.

Play s’il vous plaît

There’s writer’s block that impedes flow.

Then there’s the mighty Roman flotilla that brings flow to a dead stop.

Endeavoring to loosen the constraints and restraints on creativity, I’ve been looking at sites with exercises on making writing time fun, silly, playful again.

Stumbled upon this one: https://thewritepractice.com/fun-writing-exercise/

It’s inactive these days but that posted exercise withstands the passage of time. So here goes writing with no particular rhyme or reason, goal or destination — save silliness.

Migraine ouch! too much sugar

Birthday girl yesterday c’est moi

Say coursing through my veins

Pancakes, syrup thick — like my head

I know better but do it anyway

exceptions on birthdays after all

Coffee drinks heavy with chocolate syrups

whipped cream enough calories for a family of 4 in Rwanda

where I’ve never been and aspire to never go.

Not even if their pancakes and coffee shakes are free

on birthdays.

Brownie, vanilla ice cream, chocolate torte

dense but who’s denser me or the torte?

Big cookies, chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin

Raisin my blood sugar cruisin’ for trouble

all sweets consumed in the spirit of a birthday

I’ve survived one day – hey!

having ascended a Sugar Mountain – thank you Neil Young

for that classic early tune

June by jove my body should be divested of these sugar clumps

I’ll jump for joy to be back in balance

and for now be done with this poetic parlance.

 

A day to glow and blooooow!

Make a wish.

And blooooowww!

It’s sooooomebody’s birthday!! Could it be mine?! Why yes! Yes it is!

That’s 6 decades + 2 revolutions around the sun.

It’s the one day a year I get to glow, like the candles, without repercussions, harmful consequences, punishment. A day to shine, to be. I’ll take it. Gladly.

Years = 62. Not an insignificant amount of time under the belt! Not to mention worldly and otherworldly life experience!

Have I a pearl of wisdom to dispense this day?

Not in particular.

I could dispense one every day for a year and not run out, Of the many peculiarities and truths about me, one stands out tall in the crowd. It is this:

An easy life it has not been — beginning, coincidentally, perhaps ironically given today’s date of birth — from birth.

Part of me’s astonished I survived. Made it this far!

Part of me’s sad for the damage done, the challenges overcome and yet to be overcome.

Part of me’s relieved — for through this vast worldly, unique and unconventional life I’ve gained — nee earned — incredible solid wisdom, astounding insights and extraordinary compassion for others; still workin’ on that compassion for self. 😉

Part of me’s hopeful — that the worst is truly behind me and better (as I define it) is to come.

Part of me’s tired, quite tired, fatigued, worn out (health issues). Part of me’s deeply wearied — not by life, by people.

Part of me’s yet amazed at how well I’m doing, things considered, age considered.

I’m still athletic/sporty, spritely, quite flexible — though not as much as the gymnastic Gumby girl of my youth. I can assume many yoga poses that would be impossible for others my age and younger. No extra pounds and low blood pressure (actually too low! — genetics).

My mind’s sharp and I’m very mobile, as passionate a solo traveler as ever and passionate about Subbie, my companion of nearly 17 years.

In sum, there’s room for improvement in my health, for sure, my sleep and stubborn ongoing insomnia, absolutely. In my diet (though it’s not bad) and water intake — particularly necessary in this dry Arizona climate.

Mostly perhaps, here’s room for improvement in my attitude — above all, toward myself. I am kind to others, not myself. Attend to others, not myself. Make others matter and never myself.

I’ve lived a life invisible. Correction: I’ve trudged through and survived life as an Invisible (rooted in family of origin).

I’d like to see this change. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, speaking of wisdom: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

It’s no longer the world I’m concerned about changing. It’ll be what it is and continue to spin whether I’m here or not.

No, the passion to change the world is a thing of my youth, discarded through accumulation of wisdom.

The change that I wish to see is within.

The world within, which eventually intersects with the the world without.

It’s bad luck to share your birthday wish, it’s been said. Perhaps it is, perhaps not. Rebel and mold-breaker that I am, there it is, said and written, my wish from birthdate March 15 now to March 15, 2020.

Happy Birthday Al! 62 years. You’ve made it this far!

WHOOOHOOO! YESS! GOOD JOB!!! EXCELLENT! ALLLLRIIIIGHTTT!

 

 

 

 

 

Heels ain’t just for feet, Mr. & Ms. Millennial

If you’re middle-aged, you’ll relate to this post. If you’re younger, you’ll need to read this post.

Tonight’s conversation with the restaurant’s cashier — female, guesstimated age 23 — went like this:

Me: I’d like a bowl of cream of broccoli soup please.

Her: For a side, is a baguette OK?

Me: That’s fine. But no heels.

She looks utterly confounded. Stumbles to continue the exchange.

“It’s a baguette,” she says.

“Yes, I know. No heels.”

Still confused.

“The heels. The end pieces on a loaf of bread.”

“Oh, so you want the center part.”

“Right. No heels. You don’t know what heels are?”

“No.”

The ironic kicker: She works at Panera Bread.

I’ve observed the Dumbing Down of America for some 17 years.

I’ve seen the younger generation, particularly millennials, lack skills in 3rd-grade fundamentals of math and English.

As a wordsmith, I’ve been particularly heartbroken and dismayed and angered by America’s rampant illiteracy, the lack of simple vocabulary and spelling beyond social media acronyms and abbreviations.

I understand that some words that are simple and common in my vocabulary are absent in vocabularies of even the middle-aged educated population … “extrapolate” … “pernicious …”  “agog” spring to mind.

But “heels.” Really?

When did that become a PhD.-level word in relation to bread?!

Since when is it necessary to attend grad school to assume a vocabulary of the simple, fundamental, common words in day-to-day living?

Imagine if just for fun I’d gone on to say to the cashier:

“He looks like a well-heeled gentleman.”

Or: “I taught Fido  to heel.”

Or: “The dog’s heeling the cattle.”

Or: “The ship kept heeling to the right.”

That’d REALLY throw her for a loop!

“Idiocracy.” One of the funniest and most spot-on comedies I’ve seen in a lifetime as a movie buff. In my Top 5.

It’s a look generations into the future, where Dumbing Down, Illiteracy and Stupidity prevail. Hilarious and frightening.

Idiocracy ain’t the future. It’s now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bazooka Joe bursts my thieving bubble

Ooooh, touch-y! Even potentially squeamish-making. Today’s prompt from “A Writer’s Book of Days.” Write about stealing something.

It’s wrong.

Just wrong. Pure ‘n’ simple. No debate, no excuses.

That’s reason 1 I put it back.

Reason 2  is an overgrown conscience. It’s a curse in its way in this sea of life, where sharks prevail and goldfish with consciences get eaten alive. If we survive amid the sharks that is.

Seriously.

I’m no spring chicken. I’ve been around around and around. I’ve seen more people with questionable consciences or amoral characters get ahead, achieve successes, been given opportunities, favors and favoritism than I with my mature conscience, impeccable work ethics, honesty and moral compass received or achieved.

Oft I’ve moaned that it doesn’t pay to be good and honest (to a fault) in life. I’ll bet if I had even half my current conscience , I’d-a gone twice as far!

Back to the story.

I put it back because it’s wrong and my conscience wouldn’t let me carry out the act.

The “it” that I put back was a piece of Bazooka Joe bubblegum.

That sugary cotton-candy-pink square wrapped inside a colorful little waxy comic from the box of penny pieces on the bottom shelf between the cash register and front door of Rexall Drugstore, if memory serves.

I was maybe 8. Can’t say what possessed me to act so atypically.

Wasn’t that the family was dirt-poor and couldn’t afford bubblegum. Loved gum then, still love it.

Wasn’t that I was empty of pocket change. I got a weekly allowance of maybe a dollar. Most I saved for something I needed or wanted down the road, the remainder I spent on little treats or sweets.

I certainly held no animosity toward Rexall. On the contrary. The corner drugstore was a nice old-fashioned place in a bygone era when people were still nice, mannered, friendly, thoughtful and courteous toward one another.

Adventurous and bold spirit that I was, perhaps growing pains pushed me to test the waters, as we all do when we’re tykes discovering ourselves. Or a momentary lapse of reason.

Maybe it was just immense curiosity that got the better of me, as it has throughout my 6 decades.

Whatever the reason, I covertly palmed that piece of Bazooka Joe and headed to the door, free ‘n’ clear.

Before I exited, I turned around, went back to the shelves and put the gum back into the box.

Thus began and ended any thieving career in 2 minutes.

For full disclosure, I did in my 20s steal “successfully.” A small can of tuna from a well-known supermarket chain. Why I took it I don’t precisely recall save for a sense of financial distress.

That was some 40 years ago. Don’t laugh but many’s been the occasion since that I’ve thought about sending the cost of the tuna and an apology letter to corporate (being that I reside nowhere near the “site of the crime”).

I don’t, only because it’s unlikely that this ginormous corporation would have the means to process it. Surely there’s no column in its vast financial spreadsheets for repayment of stolen items. The cost: about $1.39.

I’ve consciously cleared my conscience in other ways, including acts of paying it forward. Still, that crime still niggles.

Be it Bazooka bubblegum or Bumble Bee tuna, I fared no differently in the end. I’d make a pathetic thief. Not cut out for stealing.

Not to be overlooked is my astute awareness of karma — as strong as my conscience if not stronger. For better or worse, all this and a strong moral compass guide me now in my sunset years as they did in the drugstore that day. 

If there’s a moral to this story, it’s this:

Yes, bad people and lesser individuals, the sharks in the sea of life, have many advantages. They win, they get ahead, they achieve, they receive more than I could dream of having in my honest conscientious living.

They destroy in their ascent to their mountaintops and once arrived, they whoop it up and lead really enjoyable lives. And they sleep at night.

Meanwhile, little goldfish such as moi, the truly honest and good folk get ignored, stepped on, shoved aside, overlooked, taken advantage of and fill-in-your-particular-suffering.

Life is unfair. This is known.

Yet stealing does not make life any fairer.

Truth is, I’d rather do without (and have, in profound impoverishment) than turn to taking what is not mine to take.

Bazooka Joe, my bubblegum hero, would be proud.

Caught red-handed

“A Writer’s Book of Days” has the final word tonight. And that word — rather, words, in the form of today’s writing prompt: “You have stayed too long.”

He’s speeding. Smack on the tail of my Ford Focus. Tomato red. “Cops notice red cars,” friends warned, daring with laughter. “Red cars get ticketed more than other colors.”

Guess they were right. My 4th ticket in 10 months.

I slow into a roll to the shoulder. Easy does it.

Caution is demanded when any maneuver except speeding, tailgating and abrupt frequent lane changes — The Norm of California Driving — occurs. Your very life depends on expert execution.

And I’m not about to get slammed and sent sailing into some lane by some speeder doing 85 and meet my Maker at age 24! Where ARE the cops for those assholes anyhow?! Me, I was goin’ only 75.

“Do you know how fast you were going, miss?” he asks, even before requesting license and registration. Not a good start. Good cop bad cop, can’t tell.

What I can tell is a square strong jaw, a broad-shouldered buff tough build, a well-groomed small brown mustache above small tight lips. And my reflection in his mirrored sunglasses. I take advantage by checking that innocence and cooperation are plastered on my face.

“I’m sorry, officer,” I respond in the most conservative tone I can muster, masking my contempt for highway cops. “I was going a little fast.”

“What’s that, miss?” He can’t hear me over the oceanic thunder of 6 lanes of vehicles soaring past at 90 mph. California: Where Speed Limits Are A Mere Suggestion.

Unless your car’s red. Might as well attach a roof topper like pizza delivery drivers use that screams: “STOP ME!” Or “COPS CHEW BIG RED!” Or “RED, NOT WHITE, BLEW BY!”

“I said I was going a little fast,” I roar over the thundering 405.

He jumps back a little.

“He thinks I’m some crazy stoned — dope’s legal in Cali after all — snowflake-y millennial who can’t handle an ounce of stress and am gonna turn psycho on a dime.”

With his eyes secreted behind sunglasses, I can only speculate. His hand brushes casually against the big manly weapon holstered on his right hip. Maybe I’m onto something.

“Miss, you were going 92 miles an hour.”

“WHAT THE F…?!” I remember the authority figure to my left and auto-correct. “Funky … what the funky day I’ve had.” Sigh. Chin and shoulders raised and dropped for effect.

Total lie. I’d had a fucking fantastic day. Got laid by the boyfriend. Day off from the job — waitress at Fuddrucker’s. And now I’m gonna meet Desiree for happy-hour margaritas, free chips and salsa. Perfect meal for a pair of 24-year-olds on the prowl. That’s probably her 10th text buzzing about my whereabouts.

“Funky or otherwise,” says the cop with all the levity of a German judge conducting trials for war criminals. “Facts are facts. The speed gun clocked you at 92 miles an hour.”

He punitively rips the ticket off his clipboard. I could see him in a bar socking some dude who looks at him wrong or his girlfriend lustily. Assuming he’s got a girlfriend. Probably, that whole “guys in a uniform” aphrodisiac.

Not for me. Not now and not him, the prick. He’s someone else’s problem. My problem is the yellow paper in my hand. And the promise of penalties a-plenty.

Brusquely he sets foot toward his vehicle, where spinning blue and red lights slice through even brightest sunlight.

I shove my titties — 36C, all natural, I’m proud to say in the State of Silicone  — up for maximum cleavage, unbutton another to reveal a hint of my hot-pink bra. I cross my right leg over the left and strike a slightly provocative pose, left hip angled into the seat, right aimed toward the driver’s side window.

I lean out. “Ohhh, officer,” I shout, feminine wiles and coyness discernible even from a distance.

My final shot at an appeal. Gotta take it.

The cop marches back to the window. “Yes, miss?” Again, judge at the war-criminals trial.

“Would it help if I said how very sorry I am? I didn’t mean to speed. I had a lot on my mind.”

Such as margaritas with Desiree. I wave my right foot lightly to create undulating motion in my pelvis pointed his direction.

He smiles.

“There’s hope!” I muse. “Turn up the sex appeal.”

I inspect his face.

That’s no smile after all. It’s a smile wanna-be. A straight line bordering on a constipated grimace. Not attractive. Makes him appear humorless, almost cruel.

I uncross my legs and assume the driving position. Rebutton the button and tug at my skirt like an uptight Mormon secretary whose thigh is exposed 4 inches above the knee.

Four tickets. Caught red-handed am I. Dead meat am I — with the DMV, insurance rates, missed work, lost income, even jail time.

Desperate, I stretch for salvation one last time.

“Officer, I’m really, really sorry …”

“Miss,” he replies. “Be as sorry as you wish.” My hunch is he knows I’m not. I am ticked off at the bad rap red cars get. So unfair.

“You’ve stayed too long in my company … and on these roads. Jail time would do you a world of good. Teach you respect and regard for the law and the drivers with whom you share the roads. Let’s hope the judge sees it the same way.”

He turns sharply on his heels, gets into his car and spins his wheels hard, sending gravel and dust my direction.

“Jerk. What a waste of time. And effort,” I free my titties from ramped-up cleavage.

I cut into the freeway race, royally pissing off some guy behind me. He flips me off with vehement waves as if conducting an orchestra and spews presumably a stream of profanity judging by his billowed inflamed red face.

I notice. ‘Cause things red get noticed on the roads.

From secret to smithereens

You never know whether it’s gonna be a silly tickle behind the ear. Or a poke into the wound of the heart.

Such is the nature of writing prompts. From “A Writer’s Book of Days,” today’s reads: Write about a secret revealed.

He wore it well.

As well as he wore his tight bell-bottom jeans, pointy cowboy boots, T-shirts and long hair to midback, often in a ponytail. Hair black and thick like a horse’s mane. Rare hair — for a Japanese man — and it made him very sexy amongst males in Japan. Not my country of birth but my country of resonance, affinity and life for more than a decade.

He wore it well.

As well as he wore his black leather jacket, cut to the waist, tight to his slight frame. Unnaturally skinny he wasn’t. The man could inhale 2, 3 bowls of rice and a plate of cooked sliced beef and veggies and maintain a slim, healthy and strong physique. No gym. No workouts. Just naturally virile. Scrappy. Fucking sexy as hell.

He wore it well.

As well as he rode his big Kawasaki motorcycle. Fire-engine red and powerful. Lordie I loved perched on the back, my thighs tight against his, arms clasped around his waist as we zipped here and there, usually from his abode or mine to our rock-n-roll hangouts in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

As a child, I loved a being passenger on my dad’s bike too — though we never went out nearly enough. Hardly ever in fact. 

Dad mostly rode that Triumph to escape family and stresses and enjoy solitude or time with other bikers in the California desert for a weekend. When I was a girl, I didn’t fully understand him taking off like that. In adulthood, I absolutely got it — and discovered the same need. Get away from people, from life. Solo road-tripping saves my soul, likely as it saved his back then.

He — the former Japanese lover — wore it well.

As well as he wore his particular scent and the smell of tobacco. Not just of Marlboro, yuck, which due to its hideous cancerous odor he was banned from smoking inside my tiny 6-tatami-mat room but of unadultured genuine tobacco from a bag.

I taught him how to roll.

He practiced, oh how he practiced! He was artistic, quite deft with his hands and detail-oriented. Together we’d lay long on futon on tatami, with papers and loose tobacco, often Drum — and roll, an art I’d long before mastered. Only after he’d developed his skill did we compete for whose smokes were better. Tighter. Smooth with evenly distributed tobacco, wrinkle-free paper perfectly sealed along the gummed line.

I gotta admit, he got very good very quickly. And he was very competitive. Often our rollies were too close to call.

He wore it well.

As well as he wore his smarts, sexiness, his sweetness, sentimentalities. He wore well his strut, part swagger, part surety of self. He exhibited unconventionality and the bravery to be a black sheep in a straitjacket society that insists on white sheep and their conformity.

He wore it well, the secret.

The secret that ripped us apart. It gutted me, shattered my heart, cost me one of the great loves of my life.  He fucked another woman. In the very bed where we slept.

He betrayed me with his friend, my friendly acquaintance. She’d long lusted after him. Wanted what he and I had. She didn’t get THAT. But she, backstabbing cunt, got him.

The secret that he — whom I still meet in slumber 15 years later — wore so well for a time altered everything yet altered nothing. 

The secret revealed altered us, shattered all we had and were, love, to smithereens. In an instant. Profoundly, permanently.

And it altered nothing of everything else that he wore so damn well.

Night, how I adore thee.

Sometimes a girl needs a friend.

And that friend is a book. That book is “A Writer’s Book of Days” by Judy Reeves. And in that book is the day’s writing prompt: Night.

The great carouser.

Invitations from Night to play to party to succumb to temporal pleasures delights deliciousness. Invitations to plumb forbidden pleasures in basement bars secreted hideaways and strip clubs with prancing buxom figures in hot-pink neon lights.

Night, the barker who beckons drunken men and bold ladies into exciting holes-in-the-wall brimming with booze and cigarette smoke that in a manner of Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde are dreary, depressing, dead in daylight.

Night, who delivers the surreal the sensual and the suspect.

Night, who suggests and illuminates shadows only by skirting their peripherals, invoking mystery, arousing fears. “Come here, go there, if you dare. Your identity shall be concealed, your face unrevealed,” encourages Night.  “Privacy I guarantee. Daytime reveals, night conceals. I tempt you to pull up the bedcovers up over your head or pull them down, as you please.”

Night is not always the Good Guy. Fear follows where Night traipses. Dangers real or imagined crouch behind dumpsters, inside cars parked at Lovers’ Lanes, in cheap motels and plush homes where illicit affairs and actions produce varied consequences.

Hearts are broken, people brought to their knees, property is stolen, homes invaded, homicides happen and prison sentences are promised eventually by Night’s presence.

Night does not distinguish between Right and Wrong. It offers a wide stage of theater ranging from solemn hours in solitude and prayer to upheavals and uprootings and ruination of lives.

Do you wish to weep in privacy? Night will be a friend at your side. Reminisce at the sea or on the park bench about loves lost, high school friends who like you are now elderly, contemplate problems, cultivate solutions, or simply breathe far from the stress of life and Night does listen.

And no words need even be spoken but inside your heart and mind.

Night gifts you with solitude when you most need it as much as it pierces a burning reminding thorn of loneliness into your side.

As delicate as Night is so is it harsh. From sweet kisses and tender caresses upon a lover’s hand in your bed a dying parent’s in a hospital bed to brutal violations of safety, personal space and living spaceS, Night allows.

Night bears not the Scales of Justice. Night’s purpose is not to weigh or judge but only to serve as the indefinable fulcrum between extreme pleasures and extreme sins.

Night , how I adore thee. You are my nature, my domain, my friend. Never have you betrayed me, wounded or abandoned me. Always certain to show up and certain to return after Daylight provides its performance.

What human being in my lifetime could ever claim such loyalty and trustworthiness?