Photo credit: fractl from morguefile.com
Do you ever sit down to complete a thought and there's a cocktail party going on in your brain? Friends you haven't seen since childhood are rubbing elbows with Presidential hopefuls. School superintendents are off in a corner somewhere in deep conversation with your mother. Ex-boyfriends are chasing your old bus driver around the hors d'ouevre table and sloshing their drinks. The deejay is blasting that Chumba Wumba song that you didn't even like the first time around and mixing it up with Depeche Mode and the soft hits of the 70s, 80s and today. There's a conga line of children, old pets, authors and movie stars. They stop and speak to you in quotes and song lyrics, bad puns and cliches. It's a wonder anyone gets anything done around here.It was a beautiful afternoon today. The sun came out and softened the chill in the air. Everything smelled like grass and cherry blossoms. We walked to the park after school because playing tag was really the only thing any of us could think to do. An old power ballad blasted through an open apartment window and I felt like I was in a John Hughes movie. Where the skies are always blue, the lawns are always mowed and the family dynamics are always are slightly dysfunctional. It was the sort of afternoon that lifted me up and out of body and around and through time and space.
Rather than fight my out of body cocktail party, I think I'll let it rage on. I won't be the finicky neighbor who calls the cops when it's too loud, too late on a school night. I'll take my place near the punch bowl and do some people watching, maybe take some notes.
