ps - the meth lab down the street blew up this morning... :)

"I gave him a tip, that's why."
"You what, mom?" I leftt-to-right-ear shift my phone.
"I told officer Willis that those people who moved into Dr. Lowrey's home were cookin' up meth," she long-vowels her E with a southern 'gossip without a cause' emphasis.
"How do you know they are cooking meth, Mom?"
"Because you can smell that shit when you walk past their house, Ashley, and I walk around this block every night, since you were big enough to stand, and I know I've never smelled that stench before...they are cooking that shit, I know it."
"First of all, how do you know what crystal meth smells like when it is 'cooking,'? and secondly, how do you jump from narcing to some local goon's flirtations?"
"Aaashhley," she begins her home-brewed lecture of sticks & stones, "any idiot could smell that poison a mile away, and he wasn't just flirting with me because I turned in some druggies," my mother's judgmental tone takes a violent turn as I turn east on 17th toward my Tucsonan metropolitan home.
"Why was he flirting with you?"
"Your mother may be old, but she can still turn heads," she jokes without the joke.
"Well, I guess your lab partners will be turning nothing but glib flattery your way."
"I don't care what they do, as long as that shit doesn't blow up...those meth labs can take out entire neighborhoods, you know?"
"No, mother, I didn't know. I don't read 'Suburban Biddy Weekly.' "
"You hate me, don't you?"
"Yes, mother, I spend my lonely days drawing blueprints of your mental demise by the hand of my mental superiority."
"I knew you thought you were smarter than me!"
"Mother, don't ever use exclamation points, even in speech; it's a pat use of punctuation, and furthermore, sarcasm has yet to register with you...can't you tell when I'm using irony to express my contempt for the general public?" I say before I can fully utilize my mocking tone of ridicule and scorn.
"Ashley, you are so weird, oh!!, my walking buddy is here.., yes we're going to walk by the druggie's house and report any changes."
"Mom, you are 22 across on today's crossword puzzle."
"Whaaat?"
"The clue: person who turns in known drug users. The number of spaces in the puzzle: 4. The answer: NARC. That's what you are."
"I may be a narc, but at least those druggie's are OFF the streets," she yells into the phone, a lifetime NIMBY member re-staking her flag on the property that was always no one's.

---

"Do you want me to stop at this gas station?"
"Yes.,.,.,no,,yes, no, yes,"
"Jesus, what's the answer?
"Well...what do you think?"
"I think you need a decongestant."
"I think you're right. Ok, stop."
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" I exclaim with the threat of exclaiming every second of my 90-degree-turn right into the wheel of my misadventured life.
"I love you," she smiles her soon to be de-congetsted smile.
"Make sure you bring your ID if you are buying Sudafed."
"Why?" she marks her question without the guile.
"Because that's what people use to make meth, so you have to be eighteen to buy it now."
"Even in Vermont?"
"Honey, meth labs are all over the country, even in Vermont," I edit, the expert editor who knows nothing except what she hears from unreliable sources and wikipedia articles,
"But, what the hell do I know?" I ask, an earnest target, an unreliable genius.

---

Dear M,

I received your letter and CD today; thank you for the mix. I honestly thought you were on crack when you wrote the letter, but after a second reading, I could finally piece together the random thoughts. I couldn't listen to all of the CD for some reason. Maybe send another copy. Anyway, I don't think I could advise you on your problems with women, as I seem to have my own waiting on my sleeve. Speaking of tough advice, I received yet another rejection letter in the mail for my manuscript. Ah well, there's always theater, right?

Take care, and we hope to see you sooner than next October.
Love,
Ashley

---

"Hello, is Ashley there?"
"This is she," I respond in my grammatically correct response.
"Hi, this is Patrick," he responds in his gay director voice, "How are you?" he ask as his non-obligatory gay choice.
"Fine."
"Good!" he goody-two-shoes his next word, "Well..." and his non-obligatory pause presents the obligatory non-accidental clause, "unfortunately," followed by my preparation for the rejection that hurts the most, "we decided that we couldn't use you."
BULLSHIT!!!! That's a lovely euphemism for, "We are not sorry that we didn't have the balls to cast a young, talented, and budding star, even though I said you were talented and had lots of natural ability."
Instead he says, "Thanks for coming out, and I hope to see you in a future show."

---

"Are you bitter?"
"Has a cat got a fucking ass???"
She laughs.
I mourn.
She asks if I'm OK.
I ask if she's been around for the last three months of my life.
She says that isn't fair.
I imagine my response, just as I've imagined the entire conversation until now. I say, "The entire fucking world isn't fair. If it were, I'd be published or a famous actor, or a member of the Arcade Fire, hopefully one of the strings or accordion players."
"Ashley--"
"What?"
"You know what. You're--"
"What? Talented?"
"YES!"
"Fuck that. If I had a chance to die, I would."
"No you wouldn't"
"Sum, I'm talking to myself right now. How desperate do you think I am?"

---

ps. the meth lab down the street blew up this morning :)

She gently places her smiley face after the postscript, as if it were part of the channel nine morning news's "in other news," or as the musical afterthought of an amateur musician...

---

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry, I--"
"Don't fucking placate me...I don't need a fucking cheerleader right now, OK?"
"Yes."
"FUCK!" I slam the hammer against the cement floor, just as my father would have done as a 28-year-old-unknown-dissident. I throw a fit. I want to slam the metal tip into my temples. I throw the hammer. I throw my love and anger around like a sledgehammer. I throw.

---

or as the one who thinks experience comes after the notes, the director who thinks acting comes after the production.

---

ps. post script. p. I forgot to tell you. s. I don't know how to express how much I adore you