Ain't it the truth!

Friday night in the early seventies meant heading over to my friend's apartment at eight, slapping on Mary Quant, Yardley, and Maybelline; she doused herself with Chantilly Lace which I thought smelled like baby powder.  I preferred Heaven Sent.  No flat irons were invented yet for hair, the thing to do was to lay your head on the ironing board and go at it with a real iron.  I used steam rollers with a metal core that would sizzle your fingers like hot dogs if you grabbed them wrong.  Eye drops to make your eyes bright, then individual lower lid eyelashes were painted on so they wouldn't be smudged by the rest of the construction.  No going out too early; if you were meeting friends at a bar, 11 p.m. was a pretty reasonable hour.

Depended on the bar.  Biker ones, stay out of there all together; preppy ones were filled with LLBean types; at Casey's, be ready to duck out fast as soon as you heard a beer bottle break; Nor-Tel's was an old bar with lounge music, and The Mug would have a band.

If you weren't with a crowd, wear shoes that you could run in, without any foo-foo girly lace ruffled nonsense that would trip you up.  Jeans were best; at the time embellishments included studs, embroidery, paint, sewn on trinkets, and moderate bell bottoms. Why run?  If some idiot lit up inside a public place, the police would be there in a heartbeat as at the time, the county was run by a man who would jail you if you were just sitting next to someone carrying; the wisest thing to do included evacuating the building the second you smelled weed and head to the next door hamburger joint for hot chocolate and french fries.  The whole thing was daring, jittering with the politics of impossibilities, devoid of progress, and gave an edge to life that you thought was reality.

Har de har har, Alice.

Nowadays, Friday night means switching to decaf by 4 p.m. so not to lay awake from a cup of tea's caffeine.  Maybe an early fish fry with friends, then home to jammies and a book or sketch pad.

I used to claim that those years were wasted youth, and there were better things I could have done, such as use the Regents scholarship I had won.  Well, there is truth in that, but the retrospective lens these decades later says something a bit kinder.  People waste time in churches as well as bars, in hothouses and laboratories.  Who did you harm, except yourself?  Hopefully no one, and most of all, you didn't give up.  You knew there was something out there for you to do along the way, even if it wasn't momentous; perhaps helping another living being whether it was cleaning cages at the museum's live animal exhibit, or singing carols at a nursing home.  Picking up a piece of litter.  Leaving a quarter on a railing somewhere.

I helped my friend for as long as I could, for I assigned myself the role of her guardian angel in exaggerated eyelashes.  It was a job I had performed like a seal at my parental home, trying to keep peace and save my Mom.  She wouldn't leave.  As I found my own way out, there was Nancy; seemingly self-assured and wild, but also owning a self-destructive streak that eventually killed her.  It gave me temporary purpose to be the one she trusted, but also partially filled my need to be needed.

That era of my life is basis for continued reflection; I didn't know where I was going then, but I can see the development of conviction, and even longer on, the knowledge to trust my own judgement, which was very hard when you are taught to turn the other cheek.  Don't you turn that face, but get your verbal left hook ready, and know when to leave; wear your sneakers.  I am wise.  I am focused.  I am aware of fallibility and how to get up and start again.  And again. And again. New discoveries happen every day; some I don't forget.  But tonight I have the word "RENT" inked on the back of my left hand, so I don't forget to hand in the check; I currently have bronchial mischief that makes my head hurt, and therefore the brain is battered and deep fried.    

The record for no snow has been broken here in the city of Buffalo, famous for lake effect storms.  If the lake does not freeze by the end of this month, we are primed for some wangdoodle-sized blizzards that will sock us in through March. The almanac predicts a cold, dry winter; but does that take a warm lake into account as storms sweep in from the west?  We shall see.  Shake out the blankets, you are all right.  Take stock of yourself, see the good you have done, and don't worry, dear hearts.  Sleep well, sometimes courage is a slow process.