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