ten minutes
Have we met?...
Is a line I've never heard or used before in all of my years of dating. A cliche as old as the stools at some of the bars I have been to. It's classy yet tasteless, used and useless, an ice breaker and a deal breaker. We use it as a verbal handshake, a way of becoming personal without intimacy. You hear it rarely now, but time was a man behind the marble bar in his penguin suit could utter the phrase to a milky white seductress in a black gown and get not only a demure smile, but a slight shake of the head of encouragement. Today, it's worn out and tired, much like the sophisticates of old, past their prime and watching the fading sunset of their glory years. Romance is dead, it's often heard, but it's not the heart that has slowed but the art of conversational banter that leads to romance. It's all underwritten by sex and the steps taken to get there.
The innocence of flirtation is practiced, performed, and perfected by those last great bastions of conversation...the world's bartenders.


six minutes
My secret talent...
Lies down below the stars, under the clouds, past the tree tops and down my throat. It's hard to pinpoint a secret talent because if it comes to light than it ceases to be secret, and if it doesn't come to light to practice, play, paint, draw, write or cook, then it can't really be considered a secret, now can it? Secrets are held inside, mostly in dark corners, occasionally in locked boxed, but they are not exposed to sunlight or shared with the bus driver. We keep secrets private and talents public, giving oxymorons another reason for being. I would like to say that my secret talent is writing a decent story, but I've never published and am hesitant to share stories with friends. I submit them to the scrutiny of strangers, getting no feedback, expecting none and feeling somewhat safer in that realm. Sometimes I write because I'm afraid to say what I think out loud....