Who am I?

Who am I?

I picked lowslop because I'm tired (low) and because I just finished the dishes after having my mother over (slop). It wasn't always this way. I'm 52 so "always" is starting to mean something.

Once I drove a Cadillac and lived in a three-story house with turrets. Yes, turrets. My friends would stand in the windows and gaze...what's the word? Pensively; yes pensively. They would gaze pensively across my lawn into the neighbors' houses. "That bitch in the blond brick is hitting her kids again," they'd say; or: "Tony's got a crack in his driveway. I bet the whole neighborhood is settling." Today is my day off so of course I remember these things.

I work (said loosely) at the "Houston Press," a liberal rag full of liberal rage. They're funny, those liberals. It almost always boils down to whether or not the subject of their stories has taken care of him- or herself. Usually the answer is a big fat "no," but still they go on an on. I admire them for their ideals and they are a fun bunch to go drinking with; I fell off a stool once with my skirt around my hips and all they did was pick me up and pay for the cab ride home. You have to admire that, right?

I learned to write from my husband. "Use this adjective," he'd say. "Throw a semicolin in there and see how it looks." A bastard but he did know how to write. I miss him and his smelly feet. He ran a marathon once and though I thought I'd never hear the end of it I did, in fact, hear the end. He's tucked away under the bed in a copper urn, waiting for me to make up my mind. The ocean? The blacktop along Westheimer? Low tide in Galveston? None of them seem right, but I'll make up my mind one day.

I wrote his monthly reports, the third week of each month, the same format with the date at the top and a sincerely at the end. "Make 'em remember me," he'd say, so I did. You can learn a lot pondering how the turn of a phrase will affect the inner psyches of men -- and some women -- educated in business schools. It worked. My husband was so popular that when we had a Christmas party, his employees' cars lined the block: sleek, sleek vehicles, like seals up and down the block, all black. They loved their black.

I'm still in the house with turrets. Yes, turrets, though now I drive a modest Toyota with cloth seats. I've discovered that the leather seats of my past weren't worth the effort; cloth is the way to go. It's hot here, in hell, in Houston. Four months out of the year, anyway. I take that car three blocks this way, ten blocks that way. Sometimes we go all the way to the Galleria, mostly around Christmastime, but no one opens my door for me anymore. Or they do and it just doesn't feel the same, being in that Toyota. Tips make little difference. You can see it in the valets' faces.

I'm bored, too, so I'm going to post a story on this site later in the day, once I've proofread it. It's about my sister, and a letter she sent me, and what I think. So I guess it's not a "story" in the true sense of the word but who gives a damn? I've read Hemingway and he wrote a whole book about a man and a fish. I cried at the end but not because it was a good story.

So that's me. Ciao or whatever you say. Do people here even do this, introduce themselves? I haven't seen it but it seemed like the thing to do. So my apologies if I've bored you or made you think you were reading a real story.

Thank you.