With the Right Person...

And today, this is the mantle of my existence. I had my entire schedule upended today by a sweet angel who sent me a visitor from the Land of Writers. The entire day has been one intense, inspired, and memorable experience after another.

At first, I was a nervous wreck, just thinking about meeting a stranger, and one who could help me advance one of my life's goals, at that. Then I realized, she's here to see me. ME. In all my inglorious humanity.

A couple weeks ago, I was faced with an awkward situation, where I was "excused" from a book club that I'd been attending. I was disappointed, as I felt I'd found a great group of women- smart, funny, authentic. They felt I wasnt a good "fit". In that situation, I just shook it off. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. But long ago, I accepted for myself that so long as I can say my intentions are pure, and that I'm walking in love, I am pretty much fine with rejection based on personality.

As I was flying about in a dither this morning, temporarily purchasing the misguided need to impress, I thought about the book club situation, and rebooted.

I took off the fancy pants and put on the jeans I like the best this week; the ones with holes, and skinny legs, that make me feel one big hairdo away from being a Bon Jovi groupie. Add to that a tight T-shirt with a slogan on it that is highly inappropriate, for those who are smart enough to get it--a ninja suit if there ever was one.

I figured, if this woman wants to see where I grew up, we're gonna get pretty damned dirty getting there. That she smiled and winked at the shirt, made me think we were off to a good start.

I decided, with zero shame, that we should take my pimpmobile Up The Hill, instead of her Cadillac. No amount of package-upgrade-automatic-whatever would really be a net benefit down four miles of dirt road, the last half-mile of which now has manzanita growing in the tire tracks.

I told her to bring a change of clothes. We might be meeting some of the most legit people I know, but they don't smell good. Just a fact, I told her, supported by my duffel bag with my own change as well.

As we left my suite, I grabbed a wet paper towel. She asked. I explained to her that I had delivered decadent cupcakes to a really cool lady earlier in the morning, and that I had dumped one out on the seat, and while I ate it promptly to send it along to cupcake heaven instead of allowing it an earthly and deformed existence, I hadn't cleaned up the frosting that landed on the seat, during my near-Olympic use of The Five Second rule.

She shared a similar story with me, and we both erupted in a fit of giggles as I continued on in my tale of how Katie, the cupcake recipient, was both my frosting-filled soulmate, and my daughter's namesake.

I took her to the elementary school I attended. She was immediately drawn to a 30-plus year-old mosaic. I told her about the art bus that had come to our school for a week in about 1980, and how my class had worked on portions of the piece, and how my desire to work on it the following day had led to a series of events which resulted in me not being at home the night my mom in a drunken rage, nearly shot my dad.

I told my companion, "You asked for 'authentic', but if at some point this gets to be too much, you let me know, and I'll buy you a soda and take you back to Redding."

She nodded, and with a twinkle in her eye, said, "I see your near miss and raise you a dead brother."

A small part of me would like to say that we left it at that, but the rest of the day was interspersed with details of both our pasts that made it clear we each had experienced life with people who expertly put the FUN in dysfunctional.

We sat on the memorial bench in front of the school and I shared with her an hour's-worth of my best school memories-- the teachers who inspired me to learn, the friends who were a world-facing escape from a lot of weird living at home, the beautiful things about attending a small school along a ridgetop that I really didn't appreciate until much, much later in life.

As I took her further into Shingletown, we talked about writers we have enjoyed at various stages of life-- ‪#‎JudyBlume‬, Jodi Piccoult, Maya Angelou, Stephen King, ‪#‎AnneLamott‬... It is a blessing to talk about words with someone who loves words in the same way I do...

I took her to meet the old guy whom I long ago nicknamed Mr. Romano Cheese. He is responsible for that delightful piece of life advice I occasionally dispense, "There's a lil asshole in all of us, Sweetheart. The key is to find other people who know how to properly channel that inner asshole we all possess."

I took her to the site of the burned-out Big Wheels. "Yeah, some small towns complain about the local bar and grill being sort of half-baked. Ours has been twice-baked. We excel."

At my growing-up home, I showed her places where Bonnie and I used to play, and told her accounts of climbing trees and jumping off rooves and hiding treasures and learning survival skills.

"You jumped off THAT roof? In this life? And you're here to tell about it? What. The. Fuck?"

We scoped out peeps at The Store. There are actually two small markets in town now, but to my way of thinking, the one which bears the town's moniker and is attached to the post office, will always be THE Store.

I couldn't give her background fast enough between hellos and nice-to-see-yous to inform her of how I knew these people.

Both of us finally over-stimulated by the amount of traffic and people and stories, she jumped out of the car, ducked into the store, and came out bearing a paper bag well-wrapped around two bottles.

"Take me to That One Place," she said.

We hadn't talked of Any One Place during our travels. Using my best telepathy, I took her to a boat dock on a lake owned by the local power company. I had wanted to take her to a different boat dock on a different lake, but her shoes weren't really up to the fence scaling and general trespassing that likely would have been involved in getting there.

We each drank a Bartels & James while hotspotting off of her Super Urban Satellite phone. We shared a rash of giggles as we compared the similarities of our small town teenaged experiences.

I shared with her enthusiastically the news I received in an email about an order of shirts with my massage business logo on them. She was effusive with praise for me, "That's a really great marketing opportunity..."

I stopped her mid-sentence and confessed, "Yeah, it's all that, but mostly it's a legit way to deal with the very adult problem I have dressing myself every day. Now all I have to do is worry about pants. And maybe socks."

On our drive back into town, she spouted out process and contract negotiations, and other business stuff.

"If I am able to get this rolling for you, trust me that I get your challenges. You're going to write your ass off, and apparently, I'm going to be teaching you how to improve your wardro--scratch that, I'm going to be selecting some pieces for you to wear..."

With the right person, there is no such thing as inappropriate behavior.