Randy from Baton Rouge
Randy from Baton Rouge who was a great dancer not so great kisser took me to the Propaganda concert Fall semester which I thought was a date but asked me after to reimburse him for the ticket not that I would have minded if the evening had been prefaced by this request and if the band had blown my mind instead I resisted paying for weeks and was relieved we weren’t running in to each other on campus until I heard he’d taken medical leave before finals due to emotional issues which my roommate said was despair at being outed by a Classics major who’d broken his heart and he ended up transferring anyway so that I never did pay him back and we truly stopped running in to each other, Randy from Baton Rouge I’m sorry.
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1984
Consider seriously if I really wanted to get back together or did I say yes because he had sixth-row seats to David Lee Roth’s first solo tour and I was curious to see if Diamond Dave was going to be better or worse than the Sammy Hagar-led Van Halen which I’d seen less than two weeks prior with my best friends not that either of those bands were my absolute favorites not even top ten but it was almost summer and I missed having a boyfriend and I thought maybe just maybe those old feelings would return but in the end what I realized was obvious, nothing could ever be as good as Van Halen circa 1984.
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That Velvet Jacket
You try going to a Bryan Ferry concert where the theater is Art Deco and the cocktails are strong and Bryan’s singing in a maroon velvet jacket and not feel something for your date who happens to be the consensus best-looking guy in the graduate film program what with his dark ponytail and the way he wears a tool belt and gloves when he’s gaffing though you know you shouldn’t even call him your date because he has a girlfriend and you’re practically engaged and you’re just going together because you both love Roxy Music and no one else can afford tickets or wants to skip that night’s seminar on Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole, did I mention how strong the drinks were?
A little flash (absolutely) fiction on a Friday night.
© Jennifer S. Deayton
therockmom 
Hey, Jen.
This is kind of interesting. Are your trying out a new technique? Some kind of stream-of-consciousness with no punctuation?
It reads a bit like the diary of a teenager, kind of edgy. I like it. I actually first thought it might have been written by one of your daughters. Do they also write?
I came across another contemporary writer who writes nearly entire pages like this, just about anything that comes into her mind. I can’t recall her name. Maybe you would know her, part of a ‘new realism’ or some such school?
The pool is DIVINE these days. I was down there at 4:30 today and a very hot fellow in the lane next to me with some kind of Brazilian or Portuguese accent offered to give me some suggestions for improve my technique — that really took me aback and made me realize I should get back to some classes. Now that I am feeling pretty capable in the pool at the END of the six-month session when I can swim outdoors. So NOT looking forward to the six-month hiatus. How the heck to keep the feel of the water?
How long do you plan to swim? Will you swim indoors over the winter?
Am thinking I might try some core classes or Pilates down at Flex in Wong Chuk Hang since my studio is over there. Or maybe even yoga? Or down to the Stan Ho indoor gym and hit the rowing mating or elliptical?
Hope you are well. Can’t wait for Zach to go back to school. I can’t seem to build any momentum with the painting, but I do keep pecking away at the key pad.
Keep writing! How’s that novel coming along?
I just finished Joyce Carol Oates’ “Carthage,” had been chewing on it for a while. Great book. Haunting.
A xo