look at what you did

Coming. Slow. Again. It’s been two weeks and seems like everything I wanted to say has been mushed together. In a ball. Like Play-Dough. And the happy parts are yellow. Like happy parts always are. Like street signs and banana taffy. Yellow like the sound of birds. Or yellow like taxi cabs. Yeah yellow, just like that.

There were parties. Two to be exact. But only one where I accidentally dressed like a French hooker. Black and white striped shirts and fishnets have a way of doing that. Instead of changing I made extra effort to throw my hips into my walk. Swish. Swish. Boom. Boom. I had my hair in folded up pig tails and drank red wine with a sense of purpose. The other one, we made cupcakes and I smiled wide like a 6 year old the whole entire time. Frosting with a pastry bag and choosing from trays of pretty to top the hill of buttercream. I smelled like sugar for two days. It was in my hair. My earlobes. That little place on my neck.

And then.

I made art and my hands were pewter from the wire. 5th Annual. Shrinky Dink. Invitational Art Auction. First ever. Time. I was invited. I drew colorful fancy-filled leaves and watched them curl and wiggle down to 1/5 their original size. Sticking the wire through the tiny holes and twisting it carefully around the branches of my stolen twig in the exact perfect way I’d think a pink polka dotted leaf would grow. Still more wire to hang it. Silver metal washers for balance. A few felt leaves to add a little soft. It was the biggest piece in the show and was bid on before I left. Smiling I said goodbye and wondered whose window it would be casting shadows from.

And then.

Procrastination caused an accidental meeting and a cat hair covered couch caused an accidental phone call to The Boy I Try Hardest Not To Think About. (Tuesday) Cleaning out the art space on the absolute last day we could clean out the art space, his mussed hair made him look like a little kid. He had on brown corduroy pants. The perfect brown, really. Cadbury if creamier. The color of the 1975 light brown M&M. I got my things and left as quickly as I came. Waiting for the elevator, I thought about the rock I held in my hand for two days straight and let the wave of missing him come and go. (Then Friday.) Transferred to him, I said nooooooooo even as it rang. Even as he answered. Even as he said there is a place in Fremont that takes unwanted couches. I mostly just wanted off the phone. I mostly just wanted to have been transferred to Chris. Where a call about a couch is a call about a couch. And not where a call about a couch is a call about a couch, ya know? Hanging up, I quickly started flipping though pages of market research on wine drinkers in Western Washington and figuring out ways to spend $10,000 of someone else’s money in a month’s time. When really. I just wanted to look out the window and remember how we’d laugh and kiss and how his hands would slide all over me.

But.

He looked so beautiful in the half light of my bedroom. Making me laugh and scream and pull his hair all at. The. Same. Time. Wine drinkers are 25 times more likely to visit us online than non-wine drinkers. The print buy is twice as much, with twice as much free. How do I write that? Let me try this. This. This connection could have powered a small city some days. Electric as I fed him licorice in a dark movie theater. Sparks when I'd kiss his ear. By adding online you increase your reach to wine drinkers by 35%. For just 10% more investment. How. Can. You. Say. No? He was pulling down the elevator gate as we all waved good-bye. And I was walking backwards for a second. Looking for the eject button and instead turning off the radio. Thanks for your time today. I look forward to working together to further promote and brand Washington wines.