Part Two – The Joke, The Debriefing, and The Departure.

Continued from Part One in which Narrator Catches a Glimpse of Flesh

“Well! That reminds me of a joke. Do you like jokes?” She pivoted her torso towards me, and I could see her pulse throbbing at the base of… Read full post »

 Part One: The Arrival

The tap leaked, but the absentminded barkeep didn’t seem to notice precious foam fizzling down the stem. He polished the glassware and kept his eyes on the soccer match on the TV in the corner. I was tempted to say something so that other passeng… Read full post »

A lite verse guide on how to woo women.

Ho, a dear, a female dear

Hay, a place to roll and play

She, the one you need to please

Ha, some laughs to spread the knees

So, your plan should start… Read full post »

Earl, darlin, it ain’t you

Makes me wanna dance all night

It ain’t you darlin makes me feel alright

Earl, darlin, it ain’t you

Earl, darlin, you shoulda loved me up and down

You coulda drove me into town

You shoulda whispered in my… Read full post »

Her hips swayed freely beneath her silk skirt as she breezed out the door after our lovemaking. Watching her sashay down the front walk and out the iron gate, off to the grocery store for some pasta and wine, I could see the energy course off her like the ripples… Read full post »

She left the big city and headed out West

My Fanny Shenanigan was looking to test

Her mettle and fettle and jingles and wrangles

So she packed ropers, and blue jeans, perfume, and bangles

She dropped outta touch for what seemed quite a… Read full post »

“Hey, Grace, didja see the flyers all over the place about the Reynolds girl gone missing?” Duke flipped his brim to the back and adjusted his belt below his belly before straddling the stool at the corner of the counter.

“Yeah, Phil said him and the other guys over’t t… Read full post »

It had been way too long, and I’d made up my mind to pay a Frenchman to give me what I needed so badly. 

That morning I ran early, not for health’s sake, but to put some color in my cheeks, vain, silly girl. Later, in the bath, I shaved… Read full post »

They stream towards me, down there by Town Lake. Phew! Hot bods.  I mean, it’s hot in Austin in the summer! The carousel undulates in both directions, round and round in a daze. In the middle is Town Lake, shimmering like a mirage, made barely real by… Read full post »

Vertebrae twitched

As he examined the parchment in his hands

How still

Beautiful he stayed

Looking at my letters

With paper, ink and string

I unknotted

His gravity

Bestowing a license to laugh

For the flight ahead…

  Read full post »

Was it the first time she crossed my screen or the third time when I began to take note? It was probably the first time, but by the third time, I knew she was writing to me.  Those first steps were hers in our mounting online relationship. I wrote… Read full post »

I put it in the deep pocket of my coat which is awesome (CIA) so I’d have it handy. I didn’t want to carry a bag that night; it would ruin the drapey look of the oversize lavender coat and my jacquard scarf of twilight colors. I… Read full post »

 I took up my pen with the precise point

And permanent black ink

Incising meticulously

Every freckled feather

Her haunches blossomed under my hand

I, overcome under the pendulous brugmansia

secreted there

My ink staining, rounding, etching, shading

The… Read full post »

O Henry… That was great. I’m so glad I came. The 2012 O. Henry Pun Off World Championships in Austin last weekend was an occasion for the mother tongue to be flexed in unnatural ways, thrust and parried by the quick- witted masters and mistresses thereof. They do it jest for… Read full post »

I saw the ottoman sitting on the sidewalk. The garage sale was over and apparently nobody in the upscale neighborhood wanted the ratty navy blue double-wide storage foot stool. It even had rollers on the bottom!  The Salvation Army would pick it up tomorrow.  She said yes, I c… Read full post »

Taking risks. The atmosphere was ripe for something to happen.  In Paris in the early twentieth century artists and writers experimented with new forms of expression, man… Read full post »

Dear Jake,

How was your first week here on OS? For me, the most interesting thing about posting here on OS has been the feedback and comments that my readers and observers take the time to share with me.

I… Read full post »

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Hemingway said his best work was this six word story:

 "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Challenge: Write a six word story.

Terrific contemporary examples can be found in Wired magazine's archives:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html… Read full post »

My old man gives me gifts. All the time. Always has, as long as I can remember. He gives them to me still. I’m gonna share some of the gifts I’ve received from him with you.

First, there are the musical gifts. He has enormous breadth of… Read full post »

This is my first time to do this, so I don’t want to call it a review. That is for grown-ups.  This is my response to film about first love and being a little different. I had never been… Read full post »

Friday night and the lights are low

Eyelashes on and lips just so

Ibiza tunes are playing

And soon I will be preying

I’m in the mood for blood…

Add a verse of your own!… Read full post »

Bigger image here: 

 http://coloringbooktwo.tumblr.com/ Read full post »

The ebullient Mrs. Bass and the lovelyBass lasses have a thing about garage sales, and the Onion Creek Memorial Day neighborhood-wide sale was something not to be missed. Mrs. Bass was alerted by Darla, who owns the consignment store at the corner of Pecos and Bowie, that we really should get… Read full post »

I barely make it to Austin  without wetting my pants. I had crossed the Mississippi,  rolled past the cotton fields of Arkansas and onto the blowing, blond grass plains of Texas, past the sign for Fate,  past the sign for Rockwall, past the sign for Austin City Limits and lurched to… Read full post »