On May 20, 1979, she walked into a club she knew well and her life changed forever

It was exactly half a lifetime ago tomorrow that I met Zachary. So scared that I won’t have another half lifetime from now—you know what mean? 28 more years? Kind of like living even when it’s a mess

Wrote the above in an email to a friend yesterday; he said “you won’t put it in your blog, but you should.” Because he said I won’t…
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On a raw, rainy day in late May, she remembered a perfect May day in 1979, when she walked into a club not knowing that her life would change forever. She remembers most details of that day, the lavender cotton tee with wooden beads hanging from leather around the V neck, the Willie Wear lavender pants designed for girls with small waists and larger hips, the lavender Candy cork bottom sandals that she wore.

Generally she dressed to be noticed in lower end designer fashion mixed with vintage 40’s and 50’s dresses. Fortunately she had stopped in Macy’s before going to the club because she bought Gloria Vanderbilt jeans She also bought a tie dyed tee, newly back in fashion, as they were every few years.

This was all good because she wouldn’t be going home that night and had a job where, well once they sent a guy home because his fly was broken. That was the extent of the dress code.

May 20, 1979, the last day of her life as she once knew it. Much loved at her job because she could get maximum work out of people and have them thank her, nobody except Adam the time keeper minded her coming in late that whole week.

She was the only supervisor under personal probation to Adam. That was a joke as he was a drunk who would fall off bar stools after maybe two drinks.

She was forever trying to explain to the people she supervised that if they came in between 8:30-8:37, they wouldn’t be late for payroll purposes but would be late for company if we want your ass purposes.

Nobody seemed to be able to grasp this simple and stupid concept. So she would take the time sheets and change every body’s times herself.

Obviously she couldn’t do this if she continued coming in late because her new boyfriend Zachary would stand at the door and say:
“You can’t go. You’re a prisoner of love.”

She never found this enchanting. She needed her job as most of her best friends worked there. When she had first begun almost two years before, she couldn’t believe the wide variety of people she met, how friendly they were, and how she felt, she was essentially paid to socialize.

No matter how much work she kept back, she still always had the highest production in the room. Coding documents with little summaries isn’t brain surgery and she couldn’t help being fast.

She wasn’t one of the first to be promoted.

Most people couldn’t believe that. They didn’t know she had woke up one night to find herself in the project director’s bed, and had running screaming out. He was a nice guy but at 350 pounds not really her type.

She did feel bad that she had let him on, and allowed him to buy her meals she didn’t eat as she was always on a diet and drinks she did knock back because everybody knew that liquor didn’t count in calories ingested.

Oh yes the 70’s the last great debauchery decade. She lived in a building where she was the youngest, and watched her neighbors drink constantly.

She worked across from St Paul’s Church. Many years later it would become famous as a place where Ground Zero workers could go to relax. Then it was famous among her friends for morning devotional services, or a place where her friends go during morning break to smoke pot.

She never took part. Partially because she didn’t believe in wasting a good high at work, partially because she was basically a girl who could find trouble easily enough without inviting it, partially because she was scared, and partially because she sat next to somebody who would take out a sandwich consisting of every smelly meat and cheese possible ten minutes before break began.

As soon as he took out the sandwich she would begin to heave and then would run into the ladies room. She did lose 20 pounds thanks to sandwich man, and a diet of her invention which she won’t go into as it was so weird and she wouldn’t want people emulating it.

Her job became her life. When she finally was promoted, the project director forgot how angry he was at her and took full credit for her being such a great supervisor. She never told people about that night, except for the Blenderbusters and they didn’t count as they were her three best girlfriends. The project director told many people.

She developed a rep for being bad, but sweet and a great worker. So bad that a few years later when she worked at another company doing the same thing but without the weird time rules, a man who would become the one after Zachary asked her if it was true that she had slept with __and__and__and__and so forth.

She hadn’t. She still find it odd that the project director told so many people. She’s in a weird mood today and wishes, a bit, that she hadn’t chosen to go into the club where her ex-husband was soon to be the owner and Lucinda Williams was performing

She can’t remember if people at the bar where she was sitting stopped talking when Lucinda played. She would bet not as she’s pretty sure Lynn Samuels was there. Lynn never shut up, and had the New Yawk accent nightmares are made of.

It was before Lynn became a radio host and had elocution lessons. She, or I to clarify, knows that’s hard for people who have heard Lynn on the radio to believe, but yes, Lynn’s accent was much worse.

Lynn always wore combat fatigues with a hat. She blessed Lynn because it was it so easy to look pretty next to her, and she was constantly in this club filled with the used to be famous, soon to be famous, almost famous, never had a chance to be famous, as in Zachary. Obviously she had problems. That’s why she ended with Zachary.

She is in a weird mood today, not really due to tomorrow’s not major anniversary. She just wasted an hour looking for “The Roaches” “Face down,” and she will be damned if she’s going to sing it.

Walked in
looking so pretty
now you’re face down

I need a name for the club. I need motivation. I need good weather. I have the same friends I had then. They claimed I was lost to blogging. I don’t believe that to be true.

The book is very different than the blog. It’s about the earlier years. It’s fiction. I hope to have a first draft ready when I come back from North Myrtle Beach which is supposed to have the best weather in the US. If that’s true I just might end up there as I can’t take raw May days. It’s not normal.