The first time I met you, we were in a bar in Albuquerque. Actually, I met you in the backseat of a friend’s car – your friend had asked if I wanted a ride to another party after the bar had closed, and I had gotten into the car mistakenly thinking I was being given a ride home after my friend’s truck had broken down.

Once inside the car, I realized that the interior lights were not bright enough for me to see either of you talk to me. And then you pulled out your pager and turned on its light so that I could see your face.

“Can you see me now?” you had asked.

I mean, most of my friends and family often forget that I am deaf and read lips, and they also try to talk to me in the dark sometimes, which is always an impossibility of epic proportions. But not you – you made sure I could see you enough to understand you.

And through the years, I have found myself occasionally thinking back to that night and the act of kindness you had shown me. We were both about to graduate from different colleges and not yet spoiled by a cynical, insane world, and those little moments of gentleness would become sentimental treasures the older I became.

Your friend would take me home, and I would not see you again until a couple of months later – this time during a weekend ski trip to a Colorado ski resort that mutual friends of ours had arranged. The Friday night of that weekend, my then-girlfriend and I had arrived at the condo well into the darkened morning hours after a long drive from El Paso, and it had been too late to talk to anyone.

The next morning, I hurriedly dragged my girlfriend onto the ski slopes without so much as saying “Good morning, everybody!” I mean, in my impatience to hit the slopes, I had pretty much ignored everything and everyone, and didn’t have a chance to say hello to you. I figured I would eventually see you either somewhere on the ski slopes later that day or that night at the condo where dinner was to be cooked by everyone in our group.

I spent the day teaching my girlfriend how to ski through her constant tears of frustration. By the end of the day, I had ditched the girlfriend and gone off to find the most difficult trails I could ski, and enjoyed the hell out of myself.

And as you can probably imagine, when we were all sitting around the kitchen table that night, eating herb-roasted chicken, sweetened potatoes, and buttered asparagus served with beer and wine, there was already a bit of tension between my girlfriend and I. Later after dinner when we began to play drinking games like Table Charades, my girlfriend became sensitive after you finger-spelled a word I could not understand.

My reaction of surprise became ammunition for my girlfriend and she accused me of “having a connection” with you because you had signed to me. And unfortunately, I ended up spending the rest of the night catering to her insecurities; the next morning, we left before everyone woke up because I had decided I needed to take her home before I ditched her once and for all in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

I never really knew if we had a “connection” beyond what my girlfriend claimed (“a woman’s intuition is never wrong,” she kept saying) all through the drive back to El Paso. I mean, the first night we met in the bar, I had really appreciated the compassion you had shown me, and when you began signing to me, I really had thought, “Awesome! About time somebody learned to sign ‘round here!”

I dismissed the “connection” you and I had, and attributed it to the overzealous insecurities of my girlfriend, who was also a freshman in college at that time. I mean, I never understood what she meant by the “connection” she thought we had, and I never really dwelled on it, either.

Once back home, life returned to its familiar routines as we got on with our lives. Every now and then, I would run into mutual friends who would keep me updated on your life’s adventures: you graduated college, had been accepted into a prestigious graduate school and had gotten engaged.

Then one night a few years after the ski trip, I was at a New Year’s Eve party in Albuquerque when I found myself in a fight. A drunk guy had been throwing heavy balls made of marble at people inside the house, and I had grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into a wall after he threw a ball at one of my brothers.

Chaos ensued, and there were a lot of angry people yelling at anyone they could find to yell at, and for a moment, I felt I had been sucked into a swirling tempest with no way out. Another guy pushed me and we were about to start fighting when you came in between us.

You put your hands on my chest and told me, “It’s okay. I’m here – look at me.”

And when I looked down at you, you smiled the kindest, gentlest smile I have ever seen in my life, or since then. And in a split moment, the world seemed to stop.

It was like, only you and I existed.

And for what seemed like an eternity, neither of us said a word.

We shared a smile and then I felt foolish – almost embarrassed. I apologized to you for having gotten into the fight in the first place and that I really didn’t want to ruin the party for anyone.

And all you did was hug me. It was a gentle, compassionate hug – the kind that you don’t ever forget – and it made me feel good inside.

The mob inside the house eventually calmed down, and after people began leaving the party, we cleaned up the debris left over from the fighting though we did not talk. And later, when I was leaving the party, I hugged you and apologized again.

You know, it’s funny, too – we never really made any connections. We never asked for each other’s email or telephone numbers, either. And we never asked if one of us wanted to have coffee or tea for a quick chat.

I had always thought of you as a friend, though there were times that I wondered why I found you intriguing. And when we would meet by accidental fate, I had the sense that I was lucky to have been in your presence – your smile illuminated the rooms you walked into, and warmed the lives that you touched.

Many years would pass before I would see you again. I went on with my life, bouncing around the Southwest until I settled in Colorado. Like you, I graduated from college and graduate school, and though I never did get married, I came close a few times.

A few months ago, I received an invitation from a childhood buddy of mine to attend his wedding reception, and I had wondered if you would be there since we still had many of the same, mutual friends in common.

It was really good seeing you again last night.

When I saw you last night for the first time in ten years, I instantly knew it was you. And besides the fact that you looked only slightly older than the last time I had seen you, you looked the same: beautiful  straight, brown hair that flowed to your shoulders, and you looked like you had taken good care of your body – you looked tan and fit like you always have.

I was tempted to walk to your table and say hello, but for some reason, I didn’t. I felt like I was messing with karma if I had walked up to you, and so, I guess I avoided you for a good part of the night.

As the night became older, I began to think that I would not run into you again, and that I would not see your smile one last time. In fact, whenever I did look at you last night, I felt a little sadness radiate from you – you hardly ever smiled.

I wondered if life had treated you fairly, and if you had achieved any of your goals and dreams. And then I wondered about the harsh realities of life that can get in the way of people’s hopes and dreams: Did you get divorced? Did you go bankrupt? Do you have children? Cancer? Diabetes? Are you a Republican?

I danced for a little while and probably had too much to drink (the groom had instructed me to, “Abuse the bar!” and I dutifully complied) when we finally did run into each other near the exit of the expansive ballroom that the reception was held.

And it was awkward at first. I looked at you and saw tired eyes, and when you smiled, I saw a struggle behind it. I remember looking down at the ground in disappointment when you told me that you had gotten divorced, and the only thing I could offer was a shrug.

“It happens.” you said, and we both laughed and shared a smile.

I nodded and hugged you tightly, and then I told you it was good to see you again.

And then I left.

I am older now, and find myself losing touch with many of my childhood, high school and college friends. I often feel the need to reach out to my old friends and make the attempt to rehash old memories and good times, but I never do.

Memories are untouchable, and though they often change with the times, some memories never change – they just disappear until something or someone gives you pause to remember a moment or two from the past. Like, when you’re driving on the interstate and pass a landmark, every time you look into the rearview mirror, it gradually gets smaller until it disappears.

Until the next time you pass by.

I will always remember you as a gentle, compassionate soul. I will always treasure the moment we had during the New Year’s Eve fight. And I am always proud of the fact that you learned the alphabet in sign language and hope you learn more. And our “connection” has always been through our circle of friends – something we can both treasure together, always.

And in case I never see you again, I hope you have a great life.

It was really nice knowing you.

Paotie

Denver – Good morning, everybody! I hope you are doing well. Roses are red. Violets are blue. It’s time to say good-bye to shots of the flu. Say “haylo” during summertime visits at the zoo, where right-wing extremists are found to rendezvous – much to the delight of the Chinese and Fox News.

Do – a female deer
Re – a drop of golden sun
Mi – a name I call myself
Fa – a long long way to run
So – a needle pulling thread
La – a note to follow so
Te – a drink with jam and bread

So do la fa mi do re, so do la ti do re do

HaHa!

Lately, there seems to be this new trend involving online tea parties and stuffs, and I figured I’d have a little fun with that. In fact, I am gonna write as Mrs. Couthless, an Englishwoman living in Colorado who is also about to turn 60, and we are going to have a tea party right here right now with her.

.. .. ..

(Oh, Paotie and his double-dots! How embarrassing! The grammatically correct and proper method is to use three dots to indicate a pleasant surprise of a pause, dear Paotie. We shall have a word later, yes?)

Oh! There you are!

Top of the morn’ to you!

Please forgive my rudeness – this is my first time using a laptop. Paotie’s laptop is big and beautiful and feels like a man’s laptop. Strong and powerfully built.

I like that in a man.

(And we all know that boys with big toys have size issues.)

Yes. Quite right.

Tut.Tut.Tut.

This laptop/machine looks like something a hippie would own: it has stickers of snowboarding, skiing, and marhi whawna plastered on all the metal parts, and it constantly and loudly hums and whirs.

And is quite the godless and noisy contraption. I was in the powder room earlier today, and without warning, Paotie’s beastily-noisy laptop punctured one of my dear-old eardrums with sinful music that almost gave me a heart attack.

(It played Lucifer-inspired devil’s music! Oh my! I do believe it was a song about a poor woman wanting, “More! More! More!” Good heavens!)

Anyway, let us discuss important matters for now.

Did you know that Paotie is always giving me the frights? He seems to have a cruel and sadistic sense of humor (fueled perhaps by the size of his laptop? Tut.Tut.Tut.); once, I kindly asked him how he pronounced his name and do you know what he said?

“Coyote, it kinda sounds like the Spanish word, coyote.”

But – and pay careful attention here, ma’dears – I was holding Skinky, my tiny, black Chihuahua in my arms when Paotie also had to tell me, “Coyote means ‘pet-killer’ in Spanish. Better watch out or one will sneak in when you’re not looking, and snatch ol’ Skinky right outta your arms and then … coyote meat.”

Oh, the horror! I could not imagine such a terrible destiny for Skinky!

Good heavens – that Paotie!

I am calmer now after a deep breath. But isn’t that terrible what Paotie did? I did not sleep for three weeks after that and The Lord knows I need my sleep or I get sick and the gout in my front teeth flare up.

The tea that Paotie has been serving me for the last hour has also helped fantabulously. I instructed him to keep my teacup topped proper, and I am proud to inform you that he has. He also told me that iced chais help people “be calm and serene.” Being from England, I only drink black tea and I rarely drink Chinese teas as Paotie does with his iced chais.

Frankly, I must confess to you that I seem to be feeling a rush of energy: my heart is beating faster and my palms are clammy, and I find myself taking rapid breaths – not ordinary events that transpire (unless it involves Mr. Couthless late at night) (actually, it usually does not involve Mr. Couthless – ever).

(Tut.Tut.Tut.)

For some reason, I also feel a tremendous amount of anxiety, suddenly. In fact, I feel quite right paranoid, though Paotie himself seems to be laughing non-stop for an unknown reason.

An hour ago, Paotie gave me some of the most marvelous bits of candy that I have ever tasted this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Actually – and frankly (I just love the word, “frankly” because it reminds me of Old Blue Eyes, and in a very private way, by the way) (Tut.Tut.Tut.) – I think the secret ingredient in the candy was a Spanish word, marhi whawna.

Marhi whawna candy makes people feel good, Paotie always says. Quite right, I did feel marvelous for a few minutes, but I appear to be old and quaint – my heart’s beat has increased since I first sat down and began writing to you.

My hands are shaking now, also. Good heavens! Everything seems so much … different. When I asked him about the “spinning sounds” that seem to be occurring in my head, Paotie laughed and said, “Mrs. Couthless, I am deaf – I do not hear things in your head.”

The boy can be outright cruel!

I seem to recall a story or two about a time when Paotie was in college and visited his lovely mother’s house over the weekend. It was a dark, very early Sunday morning when he frightened his family by maniacally screaming and yelling, “HELP!! I AM AFIRE!! HELP!!”

Good heavens, let me tell you that!

Not a good way to wake up in the dark at 4:32 AM, I suspect. And if it were not for the newspaper that Paotie had wrapped around his arm, everyone in his family would have thought he had magically been set on fire by fiendish elves.

Everybody except Paotie did not laugh. The boy laughed and laughed all that horrible morn’. In fact, I seem recall that Paotie would repeat the same hijink several times to his family, especially whenever his younger brother had friends sleep over.

(Not to forget the time Paotie took the keys to his unsuspecting, younger brother’s very first car and parked it several blocks away late one night. The next morning, the house was awoken to teenaged shrieks of bloody horror, “MY CAR WAS STOLEN!! CALL THE POLICE!! MOOOOM!!” and the dear brother then ran off down the street in a full state of panic.)

Naturally, Paotie had a big laugh with that.

That poor brother of Paotie’s.

Probably what most of you might not know about Paotie is that his laugh is very infectious. Often the occasion in restaurants meant that Paotie would laugh really loudly and other people would begin laughing too. I do believe Paotie has made quite a few friends from those “happy accidents” that he calls them.

Silly boy, that Paotie.

Well, I must be off in a moment. I have typed far too much than I had intended – an effect Paotie seems to have on me every time I see him. We can talk for hours and hours about the most mundane of subjects and yet, we are never bored. It probably helps that he gives me his famous candy and the sugar perks me up (though for the life of me, I cannot understand why I have temporary fits of anxiety).

Perhaps Paotie will allow me to write another entry for his readers (you, poor, suffering souls) because I have thoroughly enjoyed my time writing.

And perhaps I may buy a laptop as Paotie has suggested, though I do believe I will most likely get a smaller, simpler computer. I do not need to be lugging around big laptops like Paotie’s because they are quite too big and heavy for an Englishwoman about to turn 60 in May.

And yes, just between you and I: size does matter to Paotie.

(And we all know why, ma’dears.)

(Tut.Tut.Tut.)

The sun is out and the finches are chirping; today appears to be a lovely day, and I do think I shall return home and attend to my garden. It has been a grand experience writing this entry for Paotie (he suggested I “blog” after I mentioned that I liked to write).

Thank you for having tea with me, Paotie.

Toodle-Ah!

Mrs. Couthless

Denver – Good afternoon, everybody! I hope you had a great weekend. On Saturday I was staaaaaarving, so I went to eat at an Italian restaurant and ordered a plate of spaghetti and meatballs from a hot, blonde waitress. And when my order arrived with two, large meatballs that sat at the side of the plate and a thick, long breadstick nestled in between – and pointing at her – I told the waitress, “Wow! I think I am excited!”

And then she laughed. And I laughed. And then together, we laughed.

GOOD TIMES! GREAT VIBRATIONS!

HaHa!

Crumple up the kush, let’s paint this picture purple
And shawty watch out how you be hittin’ that, that shit’ll hurt you
We gotta puff, puff pass, the blunt must last
I put in my half, so don’t touch my grass
The weed man love me, he don’t never charge me
I shot the sheriff, like the legend Bob Marley
Lighters in the air, I brought enough to share
I gotta question for ya, who the tightest up in here?

wORd!

Anyway .. today, I want to talk about the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs failed. We lost. We tanked. We screwed up.

We should have been puff, puff, pass’ing instead of locking people away because former President Richard Nixon was an always-angry Republican like Sarah Palin, because cokeheads like to do armed robberies, and because meth freaks like to grind their teeth repeatedly until they look like drunken zombies.

I mean, once upon a time, the United States had Prohibition to outlaw alcohol, and look what happened: lots of people killed or got killed, or went to prison or got killed in prison. Or turned into people like Amy Winehouse.

I digress!

Most marijuana smokers, on the other hand, do not do stupid things like what alcohol drinkers do. I mean, go to a bar and see what happens by the time the bar closes: people love each other through slurred means, and quite often by the time the parking lot is full of drunken bodies heading home, there is invariably a fisticuffs fight involving more drunk people (and I’d know – I used to be one of them).

And! Plus! The difference between winos and pot-smokers on the street is the fact that you will never see a pot-smoker ask for money like a wino. Instead, you are more likely to see the pot-head playing music on a sidewalk – and sometimes people donate money without anyone asking.

Marijuana gets a bad rap. I mean, about the worst thing that could happen to someone if they smoked (or ate) too much THC is that they might get paranoid or deaf people might ask each other things like, “Shhh! Did you hear that?! My heart! Can you hear it, too?!” But even then, Republicans are already paranoid and they don’t even like drugs of any kind – except anti-anxiety pills and Viagra – and look what happened during the 2008 Presidential Election: Sarah Palin.

I digress!

And generally, when fanatics of alcohol like to procreate, they do irresponsibly and cause Ann Coulter to blame all single-mothers in the United States for the ongoing economic recession. Responsible stoners know that marijuana enhances sex more than alcohol and do not have to deal with “The Morning After” fusses (hangovers, regretful fornification, etc.) that accompany typical, alcohol-driven one night stands that took place during former President George W. Bush’s two terms.

Hot chicks + weed = sheer ecstasy, proved federal employees of the Department of Interior.

I digress!

And while moonshiners created NASCAR, the non-THC version of marijuana, hemp, has been cultivated for thousands of years, with uses ranging from making ropes to creating canvas’ themselves (the word, “canvas” is derived from Cannabis), to providing a nutritional source of food – hemp is also a vegetable. Even biodegradable fuels and a host of commercial products have been developed using hemp.

And unfortunately, too many people are being locked into prisons because of the War on Drugs. I mean, a cokehead in prison most likely will not receive any form of drug treatment, and instead of becoming a rehabilitated, former drug user, the cokehead will most likely find their way back into the prison system, one way or another. People who only smoke marijuana do not typically end up in prison; research has indicated that responsible pot smokers are that – responsible.

The War on Drugs is not helping anyone, least of all American society, and is wasting billions upon billions of taxpayers’ money on only “punishing” people by locking them into prisons instead of providing drug treatment and rehabilitation  (many mental health-care professionals also note that the mentally ill are routinely locked into prisons without adequate treatment).

So, in general, marijuana has, at the very least, more pros than cons, and I am of the opinion that marijuana (medical or not) is a far safer alternative than alcohol, for example. People die from alcohol withdrawals. People do not die from marijuana withdrawals.

Aigh’t?

There is an organization, though, that is trying to help redefine and reform America’s approach to drug enforcement and regulation – the Drug Policy Alliance. In fact, I will donate $4.20 to them later tonight because I want to see the War on Drugs ended, and I hope you do the same because our prisons are overcrowded and and current policies only make drug problems worse.

Anyway, I have to go now – I want to pick up the latest edition of High Times magazine before I head to Boulder, Colorado to join students at the University of Colorado as they “Light Up” today – but the point of today’s article is that today is a special day for those who appreciate marijuana and hemp. And before I go, I want to remind of you one last thing:

Never fuck up the rotation.

Be good .. or be good at it.

Paotie