Friday, August 9, 2013

I Met My Old Boyfriend on the Front Page of the Local Online Newspaper This Morning


Okay, so Paul Simon is never gonna win a Grammy if I let him use my song lyrics. He can just get over it. Go for a ride with Billy Joel.

Yes, this morning I clicked on the link for my free morning dose of Backroads news and gossip, and there he was. I didn't recognize him at first. He was holding a big fish. That's not a euphemism for something more racy. It was an actual fish. In another country. I only read the article because it had the words "local author" in the title. And there, under the picture, was his name. MY OLD BOYFRIEND! Okay, that's not his actual given name. What kind of mother would name her son MY OLD BOYFRIEND? One who by happenstance marries a man with a surname of BOYFRIEND, perhaps. But how likely is that, really?

Yes, there he was. After I had just been thinking about him yesterday. Not thinking about him in a way that is tantamount to the betrayal of my significant other, one mister Hick Thevictorian. No, thinking about him as a minor character in a story about dating. Well, not so much a story, as a true account of a really doomed date. The more I thought about it, the more I talked myself out of the effort. Listen, Val, he would have to sign a release. Have you even heard from him in all these many years? No. He could be all the way off in a big city, pursuing his journalistic dream. Or in a hut on a tropical island, sipping lemongrass tea from a turtle shell with 106-year-old Amelia Earhart, discussing last week's visit from Jimmy Hoffa. It's really not a good idea. Move along.

Funny how a thread from life's rich tapestry can unravel and near amputate your pinky toe, without a hipster doofus in sight to put it on ice in a Cracker Jack box and rush you to the hospital on a city bus, while making all the stops.

Funny how the fact that this dude has been living within ten miles of me, and is easily contactable to request a signed release makes me REALLY not want to pursue the tale.

I keep trying to tell myself that my plummeting ambition had nothing to do with the words award winning...writer in the first sentence.

10 comments:

  1. I hereby bestow upon you the "New Jersey Dirty Water Cocktail Blogger" award.

    Should you choose to accept you must down a shot of cheap scotch and announce, "Hmmm taste like Glenfiddich."

    Now you are an award winning writer!

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  2. You live an amazing life, young lady. You should use this post to write about him.

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  3. Val--You can always give him a fitting nickname for the story (like if he loved to play basketball, you could refer to him as "Mr. Hoops").

    There's more than one way to straddle the libel line...

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  4. Still CRAZY after all these years.

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  5. Hey girl, you do not have to give him a name.
    Speaking of old flames, I opened our local newspaper once and saw Bill's former gal's picture about an event she was participating in. I ran to show him. Then I turned the page and saw a photo of my old boyfriend participating in a sports event. Talk about a double whammy on the same day!

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  6. Very interesting. I wonder how you will pursue this.

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  7. joeh,
    I have been working SO HARD to win that one! Maybe I'll appear in the Backroads newspaper. Hopefully not in a mug shot. Though most of those look better than my driver's license photo.

    ******
    Donna,
    It wasn't him. It was me. Though I doubt he would like to hear my spin.

    ******
    Sioux,
    I'll thank you, Madam, to leave your smut-talking out of my ex-dating life! How dare you allude to the act of "straddling" when discussing my old paramour! He was not a lover of hoops. And I believe the nickname Count Drunkula has been used already, by Rosario on Karen Walker.

    ******
    Leenie,
    It would be tough to find a jury of my peers.

    ******
    Linda,
    Even Steven, baby! Now neither of you has hand.

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  8. Stephen,
    Well, it won't be like a beagle baying down the bunny trail. I'm not sure I can choose just ONE bad date from our repertoire.

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  9. Spruce Mountain Press is having a "Past Loves Day" contest you might want to consider. I don't have an URL for you, but I don't think the deadline is until September. So you can tell all about that big fish of his.

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  10. Tammy,
    I am shocked, SHOCKED, that you did not take the time to fish out that URL from the screen of your gold-medal, world-class computer. I will do some searching and look into that contest. Funny how none of the guys around my house want to hear the story about my old boyfriend.

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