Desire - Epilogue

One more thing about desire, though...
All this pondering has led to a new insight.
I have long operated under the assumption
that attaining the object of my desire was the ultimate goal.
That only when the item has been purchased,
food has been eaten, or boy has been fucked--
only then is satisfaction achieved.
On an evolutionary level,
the whole point of desire is to propel,
to motivate,
but once satisfied, there will just be another object to pursue.
It's a slippery cycle,
and can rule your life for you if you let it.

Desire burns within, not a fire that needs quenching,
but a fire that needs careful maintenance -
a fire to warm a house, not turn it to ashes.
I've been missing the point all along...
struggling to tame this beast,
but only because I thought society
(and the constraints I've subjected myself to)
required it,
not because I understood.
I don't know if I'll be able to remember this,
and maintain a balanced fire,
or if it even makes sense yet in print
but I'm glad it has clicked for now.

Virginity, Vermont & Stevie Nicks

And then there was the time Stevie Nicks took my virginity.
Well.
Not directly, not personally.
But I was home for the first summer of college,
and I'd had my first broken heart,
and I was hell bent on making someone pay.
I wanted that sweet boy who'd loved me for two years,
and then married someone else without bothering to break up with me,
to return from his Presidential Support duties with the Marine Corps
for long enough
for me to punch him
so hard
that my heart would unbreak,
to the rhythm of his cracking mandible...
but he didn't.
He stayed thousands of miles away
and he stayed married to someone else,
(someone I would later find out he loved with a pale immitation of what he'd felt for me,
someone he would spend years feeling stuck with);
maybe if I'd known those things sooner,
I wouldn't have felt the need to punish him vicariously.
He stayed a villain in my mind,
and a haunting memory of sweetness in my heart.
And when I arrived home for the summer,
heart in shreds,
I was just trying to survive.
So when my new crush introduced me to his less attractive
(and also less gay, as it would turn out) friend,
I let myself date him, passively hoping it would help me to heal.
I pushed and pushed him
to tell me how many times he'd been in love,
how many girls he'd slept with.
I was sure I was the only one who'd loved so deeply, and lost;
I was sure that I was the Last American Virgin.
And I was sure I would always regret not having
my one and only First Time be with my first love.
Instead, I had his unworthy successor,
his understudy, the imposter who'd shown up
to try to fit into the Charly-shaped hole in my heart.
When he told me that he'd loved three times;
had sex with three girls,
I saw the symmetry
and the intense desire to be loved again overtook me;
I believed that if I could get him to have sex with me
that would mean that he was in love with me,
and I would have avenged that spineless Marine of mine.
To throw a little more fuel on the fire,
my best friends were describing
in glorious detail
their various sexual pursuits from our year apart,
at colleges spread across the country like a handful of rice thrown.
They made it sound so much better than
eternal salvation
or whatever the fuck it was
that my Bishop insisted would be mine
if I didn't let a boy put his hand above my knee
or under my shirt or
whatever other dirty little images
that (adulterous) asshole painted for us.
Their giggled details outshone his stern threats
by a whole spectrum of light.
Their instructions on how to give head sounded like the map
that would lead me to a place where my poor little heart would finally mend.
Their eyes sparkled and I couldn't stand to not know for myself.
So.
I spent time with the Replacement Boyfriend all summer,
mildly disgusted by his tobacco chewing,
not terribly comfortable with his thrash metal,
slightly scared of his older sister,
but unwilling to be deterred.
I can still see the cloud of smoke hanging lazily above the small kitchen,
as I learned to play Hearts with his parents and him that summer
(which is kind of ironic because I was definitely playing with his heart).
I didn't set out to hurt him,
I just needed to be needed,
and he felt lucky to have such a sweet girl,
so I told myself it was fair.
But really, we were from different worlds -
we had so little in common,
and we just didn't belong together.

Despite his preference for music that scarred my ears,
he admitted to a secret Stevie Nicks fetish.
She happened to be touring that summer,
but the closest venue was a 6-hour drive,
Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center
in upstate New York.
I wanted to give him a birthday present
before we both headed back to college,
so, the second choice and I headed inland,
and west, west, west -
over Maine's mountainous border with New Hampshire,
across its forests
(which should not have been distiguishable from Maine's,
but somehow were)
and made our way to the far side of Vermont.
We were welcomed by his college roommate,
whose hand-crafted log cabin nestled deep in the forest
(but, really, isn't every house in Vermont nestled deep in a forest?).
Sometime the next morning,
we got a call from the amphitheater:
there would be thunderstorms all day and into the night,
so Stevie Nicks would not be performing.
He was
disappointed?
annoyed?
(angry)
something like that...
He went to bed early
and I sat up talking to his friend
over a firepit and wine coolers.
When I went upstairs
I undressed and slid into bed next to him.
(My bed was untouched, across the hall.)
He stirred and I kissed him until he kissed back.
It was so dark, a starless night behind the crowd of trees outside the window.
Mr. Penultimate knew I was angling to give him my virginity,
and I knew he wouldn't take it until he loved me,
so when I started to pull his boxers away from his body
he paused, asked if I was sure -
and I wanted to ask him the same thing,
but I didn't.
He didn't taste like Charly,
he didn't feel like Charly,
with his scratchy beard and stocky build...
I kissed him and kissed him
trying to conjure up the lean, wiry boy I'd loved with all my heart
(and most of my body).
I almost growled, or maybe did,
because his voice was threatening my illusion -
I pressed onward,
and he reluctantly followed.
The poor guy knew I wasn't really ready,
and he knew I was breaking a rule I felt strongly about -
he knew I felt I was committing a huge sin.
But, he was only human...
so he kept pace with me
as the ferocity of my kisses grew to envelope us both.
My body responded, even if my heart didn't.
I remember how it felt to think of his body as a foreign place,
something I could negotiate, but not know.
I didn't crave him, I didn't memorize him;
I allowed him.
I focused on the rhythm, and on blocking out the smell of his skin
(it was all wrong)
I focused on the black, black ceiling -
not looking at him, not touching him anywhere that wasn't strictly necessary.
His rhythm slowed as he pressed into me,
my breath catching at the discomfort, the fullness.
He tried to talk again, some gruff pronouncement of adoration probably,
but I didn't hear him, lost in the echoes of my own mind.
Tears slipped down my cheeks and took with them my hopes -
   hope to hurt Charly with this,
   hope to ever be worthy of my religion's blessings again,
   hope to be worthy of real love again.
The thunder clapped and rain poured down on the thin roof.
He got up to find a towel, and to close the window.
I felt hollow and restless.
I curled up in a ball, overshelmed with the desire to go home,
but I think what I really wanted was to go back in time.
I wanted to be a child again and start over;
I wanted to have never loved, so that I would not feel the pain of loss.
I wanted stupid Frank to disappear in a puff of smoke,
and be erased from my memory forever.
I lay in the dark, feeling triumphant and defeated all at once.
I didn't want to move, but when he curled up beside me,
and said, "I love you, babe," I wanted to throw up,
or throw something
at him,
so I just squeezed his arm and said, "I gotta pee,"
and I went across the hall instead.
I slipped into the cool sheets
and felt the stillness of the sleeping house,
the closeness of these wildly unfamiliar trees.
If this was one of my fantasies,
here's where I would wait for him to fall asleep,
then slip into his friend's room,
and look again for the missing piece of my puzzle,
but it's not a fantasy, it's just the sad truth.
I did continue looking, though, after we broke up,
with greater and greater success.

Roots are for Trees

I have spent my adult life
dragging my Self

and my stuff

from one corner of the country to another

and back again

and then plopping down in the middle,

a pouting child –

but then one more jagged run toward the northeastern coast,

flopping down a bit too far inland,

stubbornly finished with all the upheaval.

Each time, I left a chunk of Me behind.

Each time, the landscape of my dreams was altered in irreversible ways.

I can’t find my desire for Maine’s crushed-rock fingers of land

or the choppy gray-blue ocean they press into;

I can’t find my certainty

my roots

my belonging –

or even my longing.

I float, adrift on this giant land mass,

remembering the rumble of my father’s lobster boat

and the swell and surge of the unending waves beneath us;

I have lost my sea legs,

instead stumbling and swaying here on the firm ground,

willing it to be a blustery, frigid day in early spring

on a white-capped expanse of deeper colder water

than most people I’ve lived near could even imagine -

water that they would only want to skim over the surface of,

or, better, look at from the fog-shrouded wharf 
as they await the return of the catch-laden boat.

I sit
(like an empty lobster trap

hung with sea moss, 
drying in the cold gray light)

smelling of salt, 

tears for the home I’ve lost my way back to.

The Wren

She broods -
an island of pouting
in the sea of a happy life.
She embarks on a restlessness,
purposely diverting from the path of calm goodness.
She just wants
a slight
detour.
--to slip through the fabric of time
that is woven with memories, roots, commitments,
and plunge into a separate journey
(falling, climbing, seeking),
a parenthetical aside in this joy-filled life.

Hunger

It fills me
and gnaws its way out through my laughing face.
My joy pulls you to me,
luring you close enough for me to
bite.

Spring/Sprang/Sprung

Winter didn't seem to want to start this year

then it didn't seem to want to end.

It kept fading away under the warmth of the sun,

then charging back in to blanket us with white.

Today the sun was brighter than expected,

the tinted glass weakly shielding my eyes against it;

the wind was colder than expected,

my light fleece jacket failing to intercept it

before contact with my pale, hidden skin.

The sky was bluer than expected,

no clouds to mar its completeness.

My walk along the busy road was muffled –

music came between the whoosh of passing cars

the rumble of halting trucks 
and my ears;

the world was blurred around the edges,

since I'd left my glasses on my desk.

I was cocooned in my own thoughts,

bobbing along the shoulder;

you were there.

Saturdaze

The afternoon spread out before them:
a gift.

They lolled in soft chairs, 

delighting in the lack of structure.
They had no where to go,
nothing to do,
just the luxury of time to squander.

Then she got some startling news

and he leapt into action

while she scrambled to gain purchase -

somehow she needed to fully comprehend it,

digest it,

before she could overcome inertia

but he

he was sheer velocity,

hurtling through the seconds, minutes, 

minutes stacking up as he lifted, carried, wrapped, moved

things -

his temper rising with the tempo of his movements

as she stammered and stalled and tried to hold time at a distance -

wait!

just let me!

hold on!

But she couldn't find her footing.

They volleyed in a stilted fever pitch -

each trying to make their case -

out of sync, and overlapping,

his fear like a wind at his back,

hers an anchor dragging her under the ocean's choppy surface.

Later,

the threat contained, neutralized for now,

they would retreat upstairs,

naked,

since their clothes now baked in an angry dryer.

We might as well...

he smiled with a mixture of suggestiveness and a shrug, 

as if to say, I mean...we're here, so why not?

They giggled, and dove for the crisp white-with-blue-paisley sheets,

sweeping the puffy white duvet  to the far side of the vast bed.

After,

she snaked a hand out from under the pile of bedding and satisfaction,

finding the top drawer pull by touch,

and slipped the small choclate bar out of its secret spot.

She let the medically infused confection disolve on her tongue,

the flavor of the plant a wicked reminder 

that she would soon be floating on its currents.

The afternoon had crept into evening

while they were distracted,

and they tumbled into pants-shirts-shoes

and out into the dimming world.

Dinner tasted better than usual,

the Nutella shake might have been the manna from a christian legend...

it felt like heaven on her tongue, 

and she was connected to its Italian provenance,

and to all the other devotees.

A new religion.

What Life Hands You

She drove with the beach at her back 

and the sun in her eyes,

heading for the desert --

heading for Leo and his lemons.

She looked forward to collecting the sunny, rough-skinned fruit,

and to seeing her fella.

She was too old to have a boyfriend,

(but she hadn't planned on being a divorcee again at 75).

The citrus trees dotted the perimeter of his parched land,

keeping out unwanted gazes,

but doing nothing to deter the rattlers

which in turn kept her from ever feeling quite at home there.

She peeked around every bush she passed,

carefully stepping across the porch

and taking the last few steps quickly, in case a coiled beast lay in wait.

She hated snakes,
but it was worth it
for Leo
and those lemons.

Do you remember when...?

Do you remember when blogging was

kind of a big deal?

Do you remember when we poured our souls into keyboards,

and connected like our own mini worldwide web?

We were a microcosm of art and beauty and sex and rock n' roll.

We were raw and joyful and angry and loud.

But

then

we all grew up.

We got too busy to

get busy, wink-wink,

and worked too hard 

to work it hard, nudge-nudge.

But it's time for another round.

Past time, maybe.

Time to dig in and shove the Self out into the public sphere again.

--Artist Formerly Known as the Bored Housewife

Identity Crisis

What am I? she howled, 

with the silence of a gust of wind

in the night sky. 

Without your contours to form against, 

how am I anything? 

Restraint

Self-restraint and I,

we aren't exactly allies...

We tend to pace angrily

in opposite corners of a vast ballroom,

each aware of the other

and a possible symbiosis that should exist between us--

who the parasite,

who the host?

If I advance,

self-restraint retreats;

if that holy asshole approaches 
I writhe in agony,

like a demon splashed with blessed water.

Sometimes,

I dance so close to my nemesis

that our cheeks almost touch,

our steps so synchronized

that we are almost one body.

And 

there are times

            when I feel ripples of self-restraint roll across my skin,

like when I manage to keep myself from

going to you,

dozens of small times a day;

as I manage to not

reach out

to touch your face 

while we chat about the weather 

or the athletic achievements of millionaires.

My arch-enemy crawls across my landscape

slicing into me with the assertion of his-way-not-mine,

not my greedy, devouring, lust-filled way,

I lose, I lose, I lose

                               to my foe,

as I refrain

from dragging you from your pedestal

from holding your face in my hands

from pulling you with me into a vortex of skin and panting...

My adversary defeats me

and I smile,

sigh with relief

and gratitude

for his unwelcome presence.

Smoke and Mirrors

She dashed through the rain
and settled into the broad front seat of his car.
She felt a sneaky delight -
one of those times
when she would slip into the space between.
She wouldn't be all the way in one world
or another -
just that place where they didn't quite touch.
She smiled and inhaled deeply,
choking and laughing
and coughing,
because this was a literal inhaling).
She felt the day soften around her,
the fears and worries melting into the air outside the car,
fading away with the light of the afternoon.
Her face became a smile, and she felt the world smile, too.

She said, Don't you love the Lumineers on a rainy day?
She stretched and yawned a little,
her fingers brushing his shoulder as she settled back into herself.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up
and he gripped the steering wheel tightly.
He kept his eyes on the road,
even though they weren't driving.
She pulled one leg under her and turned to face him.
They're kind of perfect, right?
She pressed him for an answer;
the world was made of dim gray cotton,
and so was her mind,
but the Lumineers were
illuminating it all,
a melancholy joy bouncing across her tapping knee.
She poked his leg with her toe,
Riiiight?
He relaxed and turned to smile at her, nodding slightly.
Yeah,
kind of perfect.
He cleared his throat and suggested they go inside.
They splashed along the sidewalk,
avoiding the deeper puddles
as they traversed the packed parking lot,
aiming their zig-zag trajectory at the front door of the pub.
They tumbled into the protection of the awning,
and he pulled her into his embrace,
leaning down to press his lips against hers
for one reckless,
urgent
moment.
The foggy world pulsed around her as the kiss lasted an eternity,
in the blink of an eye.
She clutched his shirt in her fist,
eyes wide,
but he turned and threw open the door,
ushering her in and stepping back into real life.

Sweet Jesus

And so then the idea was born
to write some stories about what kind of lover Jesus would be.
I mean, have you SEEN some of those paintings of him?
Pretty hot.
But then I giggled,
because
what if
he was really bad in bed?
Or just selfish, you know?
Like one of those uber cocky dudes
who acts like the sun rises and sets at their command
because,
like,
it does in his case
(if you believe in that sort of magic)
and so,
what if he was one of those dudes
that just sort of flops down on the bed
and grins up at you lazily
from his throne of alpha arrogance,
expecting you to worship his ridiculous boner
and you just kind of stand there smirking
with your own sheen of haughtiness
(bursting with naughtiness)
like,
seriously, man?
Not going to participate in this situation at all??
It can go one of two ways in those moments--
you either roll your eyes and walk away
or you hang back,
and make him come to you...
this is a two-way street, you vain motherfucker.
I could see Jesus being kind of a douchebag like that.
I would still fuck him, though.
Because
they do say
he's hung like
thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis,
so maybe it'd be worth the effort.
It's also rather lovely to imagine him a 40-year-old virgin,
kind of shy and sweet,
maybe it's his wedding night
and you're Mary Magdelene...
you usher him through the bases,
slowly savoring each one -
so you have to focus,
really pace yourself as you kiss his ear lobe
and lightly graze it with your teeth.
You leave most of your clothes on
for as long as you can,
so that neither of you
will accidentally
finish
too
soon.
You marvel at the deified perfection of his body -
those gnarly scars making him sexier
and you pause in awe -
maybe he's really a god after all.
You light some candles
and pour some wine
(it did start out as water,
but he winked and the color deepened
to a rich scarlet).
You show him how to touch you,
and where.
You whisper the sweet things
and the sweeter things, dirty around the edges.
You whisper his name,
then shout it -
slightly dizzy at the absurdity that this urgent chant
is his actual name as well as the right thing to utter at the height of ecstasy.
You collapse into a heap of sweat and satisfaction beside him
and he smiles indulgently,
I forgot how much I liked that.
He winks, and rolls over,
the wave of his hand extinguishing the candles and drying the wet spot.
Jesus. What a night.

Bought a Ticket

Every time I hear Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train"
I think of that night in August, 1993,
when I went to say goodbye to Chris.
I would be leaving for Brigham Young University in the morning 
and he would be starting at MIT the next week. 
High school already seemed like a distant memory,
and the future lay crackling like an exposed wire
just out of sight, behind the next sunrise.
I pulled into the driveway in the deep darkness of a Maine summer night,
fog rolling up from the harbor, and pooling around trees and parked cars.
I sat in his parents' driveway, 
and took a deep breath 
as I scanned the shadows in the vast yard beyond the porch light.
I remember slip-sliding down the wet grass on the small hill,
heart pounding as I wondered if he remembered I was coming.
I made my way to the hull of the sailboat where he was living that summer 
in protest of his parents' choice to not put it in the water that year,
for the first time in his life. 
I reached up and knocked three times -
the sound dull but loud in the stillness.
I heard movement inside,
and soon my best guy friend was peering over the edge of the wooden deck
the broad whiteness of his smile illuminated by the scant light.
He put a finger to his lips
ssshhhh
and motioned me toward the ladder on starboard side.
I carefully climbed toward the emptiness above,
and he led me across the deck and down another ladder,
into the darkness of the confined space -
he sitting on one bunk me on the other 
our knees touching as he told me 
how strange and lonely it had been to live out there all summer,
in forced exile,
and how it hadn't helped him forgive his parents.
I tried to make out the features on his face, through the shadowy darkness
and I wanted this space to be familiar,
to have been where I had spent dozens of nights that summer,
instead of this last
final
only
visit.
I wanted to reach out and grab his hand,
to still his voice,
to whisper all the ways I loved him,
beyond friendship,
surpassing the boundaries of my relationship with Charly, or his with Suzie.
I wanted him to hear me speak the bare bones of truth that I somehow 
didn't know 
he already knew.

We ended up taking my car through the car wash, instead.
It was something we'd done before,
something to do,
in this too-small town after 9pm.
We stood in the dark,
spraying water at the car and each other,
laughing from a hollow place.
The jokes were all call-backs to our massive, 
era-long, 
brief 
4-year friendship,
less funny now,
as they echoed into a future without each other.

And then we were standing in the shadow of his sailboat again,
dragging out the final goodbyes,
shuffling our feet and trying not to be too sappy,
but wanting to savor it all.
He didn't want me to leave,
but knew I had an early bus to catch.
Finally it was time, and my heart felt physically heavy,
sagging against my ribcage,
dragging me forward - 
and when I leaned in to hug him goodbye 
I
realized too late 
that he had been angling for a kiss. 
The moment was lost 
and probably for the best that it was 
because I would have been in agony 
to have to say goodbye after that, 
although, I don't know...
maybe finally scratching that itch -
having a nice long make-out session of some kind -
would have been incredibly healing.
I guess we'll never know.

A Tree Falls in a Forest

This blog...
I feel like I am whispering into a hole in a wall,
and there is nothing on the other side of the wall -
it is just a closet or another cell, devoid of an occupant.
I miss the old days of blogging,
but there is something comforting about this -
talking to an audience, but having the freedom to say anything and everything because no one's really listening...

Full

A foggy walk
in the soggy woods
fills my afternoon with sunshine -
the kind that emanates from joy,
not from our sweet little star.
I wander along,
connecting to the world around me through the lens of a camera,
pulling the scenes I savor through the aperture and onto the microchip inside
(oh, how I ache for film, a darkroom);
I hold the trees and moss-covered boulders in my pocket.
The misty air settles on my skin and blurs my car's windows.
The world is soft around me,
muted like eyes filled with morning sleep.
The river pounds along,
over the dam and under the bridge,
filling the air with its song.

Carried on Currents

Sometimes
I get carried away -
by my thoughts,
by my feelings,
by my ridiculously wild
imagination.
Sometimes
I forget where
when
who
I am.

But I'll just ride the waves and see where they take me.

Imagine

"Active 56 minutes ago"
And then I wonder,
so where is he now?
Did he take the dog for a walk
through the sharp night air?
Did he remember his gloves,
or is he cursing the rough chill on fingers entwined in a leash?
Is he making love to his wife
(because it's Wednesday,
so sex is on the schedule)?
Or is he ending her argument with the kids to
GO TO BED
because dads have a way of winning those fights.
And how about now?
Is he taking off his pants,
and climbing beneath a heavy quilt,
as the drafts in his old house
whisper from corners and hover in hallways.
Is he thinking of that girl at the office,
the one that is too pretty to be real,
but too sweet to be fake?
Does he picture her in quiet, rhythmic moments?
Or has someone else captured his imagination?
...he said he doesn't have an imagination anymore.
He said it like he believed that having an imagination
wasn't safe, or maybe just didn't have value.
I wanted to grab his face between my hands
(I imagine palms on furry cheeks, and how his eyes would look that close up)
and say to him,
"Of course you have an imagination--
you can't love music like you do without one!
You can't make jokes like you do without one,
or leap into mine like you have...without one."
But I didn't move,
and I only said the first two things.
Because that is how we behave in Real Life Grown-Up Land.
Or so I'm told.

Rosetta Stoned

Sometimes the words claw at my insides,
trying to get out.
Usually, they just float around,
in a holding pattern behind my ears,
beneath my tongue.
When finally there is just me and
music
they line up eagerly, like dancers auditioning for Broadway and the Rockettes, all in one.
They unfold and spread themselves before me,
a sacred offering
of letters and spaces, rhythm and flavor.
They flow and pop,
luring me deeper into my own mind -
lulling me into a sense of security in their
false embrace.
They are only words.
...words are everything.

Sunday Night Blues (or is it Greens?)

Earlier tonight,
I swam in layers of inspiration and memory,
thoughts swirling around,
offering themselves to me in turns.
I couldn't catch them all
as they slid through my fingers and fell away like liquid sand.
Now I sit, music pumped in through the speakers pressed closely to my ears,
mostly blocking out the husband's incessant televised noise consumption.
He is mostly perfect,
so I mostly don't complain...
But this is a battle I don't bother to fight very often.
Although,
when I do,
I remember without fail
that it is a battle as easily navigated as
floating downriver on a sunny summer day.
It isn't a battle at all
it is just a different path,
as easily walked as the other.
But much more satisfying.
So here I sit, joyful in my cocoon of sound and keyboard.

I have spent much of this weekend lost in a fog of my own thoughts.
I haunt myself and turn my hunting inward.
I flit from the poetry of Mary Oliver to Charles Bukowski,
I drink chai latte and feel impatient to fill the day with more than it can hold;
I run away to the hill and ski down it as many times as I can
before my quads feel like jelly,
and I lie on the massage table
and let the friendly chat with my long-time therapist die out,
and I let her hands push the aches and knots out of me,
falling in a heap on the floor.
From beneath my layers of thinking and dreaming and remembering,
I celebrate with friends their decision to bind themselves together as a family,
and by Sunday night, I find myself immersed in the music of a large,
bearded man whom I wouldn't normally have chosen,
but
after seeing him perform on Saturday Night Live,
I can't shake him,
so I download his latest album and let it press against me
like an awkward dance partner
until the track comes on that I heard on the show,
and it's like noticing that dance partner's boner is against my thigh -
a sly smile crosses my face
and a flush flutters across my cheeks as I lean into him.
This artist is a welcome intruder to my world of rock and rap.

Monday, you're on deck.