two fine gentlemen.

yesterday i spent six hours straight, no breaks, on my manuscript. way too much, i didn't do the things i needed to do around the house, so as far as fulcrums go, i failed. i did, however, manage to edit my existing manuscript and make sure things are how i would like them to be. details i'd been meaning to get to and finally have.

when i stood up to walk away from the computer, i wanted to drop, but washed dishes, ate something. got on with my day because i had an open mic last night.

i didn't do much by way of advertising. i didn't meet as many poets as i'd hoped in the weeks before (the open mic i was to attend to advertize, was cancelled), so i wasn't sure if anyone really even knew about it. i went, knowing if nothing else, i could read for two hours. i had a good book in hand.

i wandered in and was supposed to have gotten in earlier in the month to meet the manager, but that never happened. so i wasn't sure what to expect. i was unexpected, and just parked myself in the cafe.

don't go to any trouble, i'm not sure if anyone will come tonight

i told the night manager who seemed to bustle about to try to make a place for me. i hadn't really done my part of the deal, so i was mostly there to honor a commitment i made.

sitting there surrounded by two moms, one of them oriental, not sure from where. and the other a new jerseyite, with three raucous kids. whiney, a bit rude to their mothers and perhaps ADD as far as labels go.

they left, after tormenting me for about a half-hour. i was grateful to see them go. and one of the dads was picking up his kid's stuff when he almost grabbed my binder full of my work. whoa! that would have been bad. he thought it was his son's laptop (i think the kid was about ten, tops).

while they were leaving, i wafted over to two gentlemen sitting at a table. i noticed them when they walked in but since they picked up car magazines, i figured we wouldn't have much in common. my mistake. that is the problem with surface judgments.

the older of the two men, prentice, said to me,

bet you can't get just one

(meaning tattoos) and proceeded to show me his sleeves and various tattoos all over his person. around his neck and legs.

i told him my husband wouldn't let me get another one.

and he described a large Jesus he had on his back, an eagle on his chest from his days as a marine. he showed me a rather colorful statue of liberty on his left forearm. we discussed prices and i told him i got mine at rick's tattoo in arlington, virginia. my brother in law's friend does them. that is where my sister still goes to get hers. i can't remember his friend's name though. (NOTE: my sister tells me, that WAS where we got our tattoos, but, james marlow has since opened his own shoppe)

anyway, prentice and edward, his younger friend, obliged me for a reading of my work. they sat with me on the leather couches, and listened to a few poems. we talked about all manner of things.

edward reminded me of the lead singer of an eighty's band, curly longish brown hair, black rayban sunglasses (which when he took off revealed the most gorgeous set of blue eyes. i feel it a particular triumph when you can engage someone in conversation who has sunglasses on and they remove them to continue the conversation. edward left his off the whole time we talked until a third man joined us and edward went to the loo. but the glasses didn't stay on long after he returned). edward wore a hawaiian shirt, with red hibiscus on it with a cream background and green foliage. it turns out he is a music connosieur. his collection, prentice told me, is to die for. walls of all manner of music. edward scrubs in before putting on his pristine music and cleans his player both before and after listening. when the topic of music came up, edward lit up. i wished it had come up sooner. he was particularly fond of coltraine, liszt, bach, but i was too involved talking to prentice to hear much more of what edward was saying.

these gentlemen had very soft voices, which was refreshing. they had nothing to prove. no one to impress.

prentice had survived an 80 mile per hour head on collision, edward said they had to resew his spine back into his body at the base (yeuck, a detail my husband would appreciate). prentice is a gearhead, who lit up when i mentioned i drive a toyota camry. because besides having a great deal of money (the stories he told), he liked to make a thing run and run and run. he could get 90 lbs of oil pressure in his 1991 toyota camry, which had only 8 lbs of pressure when he purchased it with 190,000 miles on it. he wore a large jeweled cross with the face of Jesus on it, on a heavy "real" gold chain. he was a slight man, but substantial. he drank plenty of water to keep things flowing (so did edward),

helps with the headaches,

he said.

if you drink enough water, you don't have to take aspirin.

it turns out prentice has twelve (because he just used one) cases of oil in his garage. he was telling me about this stuff called tuffoil. prentice described how if you use 1/2 of 1 oz per oil change, and change the camry's oil every 2,025 miles, you can get that engine to last forever (as his proves).

measure,

he said,

more is not better.

i'm not a chatty cathy as you well know. i would rather read than chit chat any day. but there are some times when souls meet. and i believe when we cross over, i'll join edward and prentice in that heavenly cafe and chat a while longer. i'll be able to hear all edward's pristine music. and maybe get a ride in prentice's camry which will still be running i'm sure.

i read them happiness, a poem i just wrote, and they said,

it's real.

they liked my style and said i was humane, compassionate, confident, and unique. it's amazing what can happen if one just honors committments. even if no one shows, God can still do stuff.

i'll have to read edward my music poems next month. i think they said they'd be back. at least i won't be sitting there alone.