In the Mix

Dear Sir,

You know us stage queens, we aren't comfortable in the shadows. I would have sung something last night if you'd asked. I would have liked to coax vibrations into every nook and cranny of that gourmet restaurant, with its vaulted ceilings. I meant to ask, was it a church once upon a time?

It was, in a sense, last night, the first church of miss karen, with that eclectic crowd of friends, mingling like in a Ninja blender. Maybe some day they'll honor my fiftieth birthday, though that's a long time to wait. I may look thirty-two but I'm only five, sort of like Tom Hanks in "Big" except I'm not sick.

Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed meeting your friends of one to nineteen years. As you finished introducing them, I thought, these folks could run a county, if not a country -- feed (Travis), shelter (John, Mike, Dan), warm and cool (Jimmy, Morris), heal (Laura, Omar, Heather, Gerri, some day Melissa), secure (John, Ruth), teach (Jen, Colleen, Roberta, Amy), communicate (Peter), organize (Amy), develop (Rusty), govern (Roy), entertain (Laura, Colleen, Adam), and nurture (Susan, Emily, and everyone).

My old friends in New York could wait tables and create fantasies in the Met and City Center, but I doubted how long we could live outside Manhattan. Since moving here, I wonder more.

Love,
Virginia

Where Are You?

Dear Sir,

You have neglected me so long I am afraid as I lie on my dying bed, its coverlets worn to threads, rope-springs no longer tightening, with bluebirds nesting in the knot-less holes children fingered over the years. I, too, may be dying, so far as anyone but you may know.

You have been reading about anhydrous ammonia, long-neglected opera singers, and payment-option ARMs. Did not the second remind you of someone close? Why the last, I wonder, as the Rolling Stone tells the truth about too-big-to-jail bankers? Farming is music to my ears (and mouth) and music is farming to piggy pigs and donkly donks, so why explain qualified mortgages and rate adjustment notices to LIBOR-mangling suits and money-laundering murder accomplices?

I realize the exceptions swallow the rule, most bankers are not big boys, they are girls and regular fellas trying to bring home the bacon they could never eat after naming. This, and maintenance of cash flow to feed Roxie and Mac and all your other wards, is why you cannot cut the cord, so yes, I get it, but please don't forget me, musing in the dip of your separated shoulder.

Your lead,

Virginia