6710 Grand

I've been a fraud for so many years. Now, finally, I was facing the chance to remove that lable--I was going to my first football game. I spent ten months in college working for the St. Louis Rams Internet Pro-shop. We were the official site for buying Rams Gear and could honestly say we were employed by a professional football team. All of us touted that with pride. Even me, who hates football, mostly because I don't understand it. I remember feeling excited about going to high school where I could go to football games and pep rallys on Friday nights, but the performing arts high school I went to didn't have a team. Can you imagine, dozens of violinists and ballet dancers out on a football field? We'd have been the joke of the century! Ok, no problem. There's always college. That would be more fun anyway--college football. Well, the Billikens were big in basketball--no football team. I resigned myself to never knowing the sport and not really caring. I'd manage...

I have become something of a nutrition junkie, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me. I’m not in the best physical shape, I drink more coffee in a day than any one woman should (and not decaf), and I have an uncontrollable weakness for doughnuts. However, over the past several years, I’ve become fascinated by how the physical body works, have turned to a vegetarian diet and limit my indulgences to as few as possible—my weight is on the way down. I’ve become an avid exerciser in the early morning hours as well. When I first moved to California, I found the joy of 24 Hour Fitness. I love it solely because it is open 24 hours. I like to get up before the birds are chirping and college students are still out partying. I generally stroll into they gym around 4:30, do an hour on the elliptical and they a half-hour to an hour of resistance training. It’s done wonders for my well-being. Not only am I getting in a great workout, but I’m up so early that I get lots of other stuff done as wel...

“Entertainment?” I asked, astonished. “Sure! You want people to come here when they’re bored, right?” “Well, yeah.” “Then you’ve gotta give them a reason to think it’s not boring here.” I frowned. He was right. We needed something to draw a crowd and I didn’t want to resort to the Authentic Lunatic. “Ok, entertainment,” I began. “Any ideas?” He nodded. “I know just the act,” Nick said with a grin. “Who?” “Virginia Wolf.” He was beaming at his own genius. “Virginia Wolfe?” I frowned. “Are you kidding?” “No. Totally serious.” “Ok, look Nick, I’m not sure that Virginia Wolfe has the kind of material we’re looking for. For that matter, I don’t think she’d be particularly interested in entertaining the crowd I’m hoping to bring in.” “Oh, so you’ve heard her?” “Well, no, but I’ve read her. Her books aren’t exactly boring but I’m not sure they’re bar material.” “No! No! Not the author, the musician.” Well, ...

Nick was a better asset than I had ever imagined. He was a veritable library of research on this business. However, I was facing a tough decision about him. Should I try to get the information out of him indirectly, keeping my cards close, or should I trust him and tell him what I want to know and why I want to know it? Crazy Angie and I were in a delicate position. We didn’t exactly have the law on our side. True, we had the necessary paperwork and licensing and they were all legal, but it wasn’t exactly legal for us to have them. If we weren’t careful we could loose it all or even end up (GASP!) incarcerated. Trusting Nick could be dangerous. He would have quite a bit of leverage on us and could do serious damage. Still, we needed to open soon. We needed to get this thing going. I didn’t have time to develop trust or to winkle information out of him. I decided to consult my partner since it affected her too. “Ok, we need to figure this out. What do you think of Nick?” I asked her. “H...

I had to crane my neck just to see his face. Were there people this tall? He must have been near eight feet. Aside from his height, he looked normal. Thin but not skinny, neat in appearance, clean cut, but slightly forbidding. He was intimidating enough to anyone shorter than him, but his expression seemed to say ‘mess with me and I will step on you’. I was sitting on the floor, going through the books. Being especially low to the ground, I felt unbelievably short. I decided to take charge of the situation and mustered up my most confident, authoritative voice. “May I help you?” He looked down as if he just then noticed that I was there. “Oh! Yes! I’m here about the job.” His own voice wasn’t nearly as intimidating as the rest of him. That alone made me feel better, if not taller. I stood up, increasing my confidence. “Great. You are?” “Oh, uh, Nick. Nick Hortnorter.” “Ok, Nick. I’m Robin, the owner. My partner, Crazy Angie is over there. I motioned to where she was inspecting a broom,...

My wife lay dying in the hospital bed and I could not leave her side. We’d been so careful. We knew her heart was bad. We knew. We didn’t try to get pregnant. We tried hard not to. Birth control, condoms, rhythm—all of that. Everything but abstinence. That wasn’t possible. We were so in love that keeping away from each other was almost painful. Through the years when our work schedules didn’t co-inside and we had to schedule “dates” and the years we spent apart and spent only a week together every three months—we were so in love, beyond the depths of anything I’d ever dreamed possible. She was part of my soul. My very being would crumble without her. She was all I had and all I wanted. Now, she was about to leave me but not for want of staying. She needed a new heart. If it were up to me, I’d rip my own chest open and take the beating muscle from within me and give it all up to her. Just to keep her breathing. Just to keep her alive to love me. But I couldn’t. No matter how much I want...

The walls in my room had begun to close in on me. I’d been sitting there, staring at those walls a lot in the past few weeks. I had to get out. I didn’t really enjoy driving, but the thought of a long stretch of highway ahead of me made me long for it. It was a change of scene and it was far away from my problems. I could think much clearer if I got out of that room. I’d done so much thinking lately that it was making me sick. I’ve known for months that my boyfriend was bisexual and it was never a problem until now. For a while I didn’t know that what was the problem and now that I do know, I wish that it were anything else. We had built such a strong relationship. God knows we had tough times. But those rough spots didn’t have anything to do with how we felt about each other. He lost three jobs since we’d been together—all for the wrong reasons. He always came to me. Together we fought for them. Together we held each other up. Always together through everything. He to...

The Authentic Lunatic brought in enough money to finish any leftover construction we needed to do, the cost of supplies, and at least the first pay period for one bartender. If for some reason our bar made no profit, we could at least pay the help before we laid them off. Now, all I had to do was hire one. I had absolutely no idea as to how one went about hiring a bartender. Given that I was only fifteen, I’d never had a job other than babysitting the neighbors. I decided that it might be a good idea to consult someone with experience. I trotted down to Bill’s Bar and Grill to see if Bill was in. It was the middle of the afternoon—not quite Happy Hour, and not very busy. I got a few strange stares from the bar as I sat down, but I did my best to ignore them. Bill was behind the bar, where I expected him to be. He saw me right away and came over. “Whatalya have?” “The usual.” He set a Diet Pepsi down in front of me. I took a big swig and then nearly choked on it. “Whoa! There caffeine i...

Construction was almost over and the decorating was underway. The Reverend was truly working magic with her paintbrush. I’d never seen such a colorful bar (not that I’ve seen many drab ones). The general construction was finished. All that remained was the furniture. I had worked out a deal with Al for bar stools and tables. He and Sarah were getting quite curious about what exactly this bar would be like so I was able to buy him off easy with a few free drinks. He was even going to throw in a cabinet in which to keep our glassware (once we had some). The summer was rapidly approaching. With school almost over as well, Crazy Angie and I were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to spend more time working at the bar. Still, with the crowd we were planning to attract I didn’t think the two of us could handle it alone, especially given the mental capacity of my partner. “We need to hire some bartenders,” I said while gently wiping the sawdust off of our beautiful new marble slab ...

I awoke the next morning to a violent jostling of my entire body. I opened my eyes and saw that it was Crazy Angie trying to rouse me from my slumber. “What? What? Who let you in here?” I shouted to her once I had my bearings. “Your brother,” she said in a frantic rush. “But he said not to tell you it was him if you got mad. So are you mad?” “Uh! What do you want and why does it require you to rattle the insides of my body?” “Ok, good, you’re not mad. Well, I just had to show you this!” She thrust a half crumpled piece of paper in my face. I had to back up just to stay in focus. It had scribbled writing in big letters on it. “What is it?” “It’s an advertisement.” “For what?” “For the arteest.” She mocked a French accent (very poorly, I might ad, but what can you expect from a lunatic who has never been outside the state of Missouri?). I took the paper from her and read it: “Wanted: French Arteest to unborify a bar. Please call soon! It then listed our contact i...

I used to be in love with my husband. I used to be so desperate for him that the eight hours he spent every day at work seemed so lonely and empty. What happened to the man I fell so in love with? How did he get this way? How did I let it happen? He works so much more than eight hours a day now. He seems so removed from my personal life. He is the man who provides for our son and me. He brings home the money so that we can have a house to live in and food to eat. That’s all he is. That’s all he wants to be. His stockholder meetings and client lunches are what stimulate him now. I am no longer a distraction. He doesn’t stay away because he’s tempted by me. He stays away because he feels no reason not to. Jimmy is eight. He’s in the second grade and he is my life now. I feel what most mothers feel for their sons—pride and a touch of fear that something might happen to him if I’m not watching closely. He fills my heart and I can’t get enough of him. I do what...

I write because I can’t not write. I write because the stories in my head are so wonderful that I have to share them with the world, whether the world wants to read them or not. Writing makes my daydreams legal—I’m working when I daydream. I write because since my very first story that I wrote in the fourth grade, it has been the one constant goal I’ve ever had. I still want to be a writer when I grow up. I’m not sure I’ve grown up yet, but I am a writer. I write because I love the English language and how the words sound when strung together just right. I love knowing all of the rules of writing and speaking—and then breaking them all, just for fun. I write because it is the one thing that I know I can do well without having to think too much. A letter, a story—whatever. I know it will be good. I write because I’m addicted to stories and no one has stories like mine, so I’d better get them down. I write because there are bad writers out there making ton...

     I had been scared to death of planes all of my life.  I’d only flown once (to San Diego) the summer after my freshman year of high school.  I’d spent the week before my trip telling everyone that I only had a week left to live.  I even marked in on my calendar—“the day I die”.  How morbid.  I was convinced that the plane was going to crash.  If is didn’t crash on the way there, I still had a backup—it was a round-trip flight.  Needless to say, the plane didn’t crash and I’m still alive.  However, the plane was every bit as horrid as I convinced myself it would be.  All we did was go up and down, over and over.  It was like the elevator from hell—up and down forever, but never close enough to the ground to risk jumping off.        It was because of my dreadful, totally irrational fear of flying that I took the train to Warren...