"Third time's a charm."

I think "Clair de Lune" by Claude Debussy is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever created and I don't care if you all think it's as trite as a Impressionist painting. If OFAG the Musical ever sees the light of day, the song will surely have a feature, perhaps when our heroine spies a beautiful woman at the end of an unusually empty Manhattan street. The air will be crisp, the nighttime sky clear, and the song will play like a soundtrack. But until then I think you all should take five minutes of your time, shut off the mobile phone and the lights, put on the headphones, and close your eyes as you listen to "Clair de Lune" while imagining everything in the world fading away.



As it is almost midnight here and I have the song playing. It makes me forget that spent my entire Sunday working on freelance design, that my body aches from my desk chair, that I need to do laundry, that I have nothing to wear for my date tomorrow, that I ran out of cat food, that I think I may have my first ever UTI, that I have a crush on someone that I shouldn't, that there is no more Harry Potter to read, that I have to go back to work tomorrow but what I really want to do is go on vacation, or stay at home and write and forget that I'm broke. It makes me forget all my worries, troubles, consternations, and lets me melt into one of the most beautiful songs ever written. I makes me wish that I was in a dark room and completely oblivious to the world at large, tricking myself into believing that I am floating amongst the stars.

"At least you can entertain your blog readers with the fact that your presence obviously flusters me and turns me into a nervous idiot."

There's something refreshing about causing a woman to be flustered by my presence. There was a time in the not so distant past when I seemed inspire the opposite in the surrounding lesbian population. Believe me it's a nice change. The power dyke/diva/evil mastermind buried deep inside of me says yesssss . . . yesssss . . . cower before my presence . . .

Just kidding. Sort of.

But on the other hand how can anyone be flustered by me? I'm, like, one of the most down to earth, empathetic, rational people out there. If anything I thought I would inspire a sense of ease within the people I meet. When Ms. K and I met for lunch yesterday -- unfortunately squeezed in between work and other responsibilities -- it was the first time we had seen each other since she came home with me last week. I didn't initially read her as nervous, but realized later that she must have been so nervous that she accidentally sent me a text when she meant to send it to someone else.

"Call me when you leave the hospital so I can tell you how I am a fucking loser with no game."

Hospital? Was that slang for nut house? An oblique reference to my office? It took me a second to realize the text was not intended for me, long enough for her to realize her mistake.

"At least you can entertain your blog readers with the fact that your presence obviously flusters me and turns me into a nervous idiot."

For some reason that revelation was very endearing. I responded by reminding her that I was far too down to earth for her to be that nervous.

"You are, but I suppose it has something to do with the hot/sweet/smart thing you have going on. I'm not really sure why I can't stop acting like a moron."

Hot, sweet, and smart? I think I might be blushing.



Let me just take a moment to say I don't know which dating/sex god I managed to appease or if my good karma just suddenly kicked in with a vengeance, but I am beginning to realize that life ain't too bad for Ms. Post No Bills here. There have been numerous people lately who have shown an inkling of wanting to get up in my business. And I'm not opposed to whoring myself around a little bit if given the opportunity -- maybe that's why I didn't feel so guilty about inviting a lady friend back to my bedroom.

Ah, summer . . .

"I need to measure your pocket."

Spread out in the dentist's chair, a suction tube hanging out of my open mouth for a routine cleaning, I wasn't sure if I heard the dental hygienist correctly. It sounded like, "I need to measure your pocket."

"What?" I asked except it sounded more like aaahhhh? with the tube impeding my speech.

The hygienist, who hovered above with various sharp metal instruments only inches from my eye, repeated herself. "I need to measure your pocket."

Even though her words were slightly muffled from the surgical mask over her mouth there was no mistaking her. A pocket? What's a pocket doing in my mouth?? It sounded like a problem of a highly personal nature!! I wanted to ask more but I was at the mercy of the suction tube.

A parade of items passed through my brain, items that one would normally find in a mouth. A tongue . . . teeth . . . a toothbrush . . . a pocket? It was like a game of one of these things is not like the other.

When the cleaning was all over I saw the small heap of bloodied gauze on the tray before me, my gums aching. "Did you say that I had a pocket in my mouth?"

"Yes. About five millimeters where the gum has receded towards the bone and where food gets trapped. Just floss more and it will get better."

"Oh."

So I have a pocket in my mouth. I'm sure all of you out there were really burning for that information but it was news to me. I thought I'd share.

"I like you and I think we should go out again."

I've been tagged -- tagged by two people (Rusty and Curly) no less. I've been given the chance to blather about eight random facts and this being Post No Bills, I've decided to tip my hat heavily towards my dating history. Seeing how Ms. K and I are meeting for lunch tomorrow, this will give us something to talk about.

Oh yeah, and apparently there are rules to this whole getting tagged thing.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Blah blah blah. Yeah we get it.


Random Fact No. 1!

The strangest date I ever went on started out promisingly enough. We met at Beast in Prospect Heights for a glass of wine and it seemed like we really dug each other. Despite the fact that she didn't eat cheese, I saw some possibilities. Then after we joined up with some friends for an L Word viewing, she suddenly ditched me with the ruse of going home a block away to change her shirt that had some wine spilled on it. You can read more here. It could have been funny except for the rejection part.

Random Fact No. 2!

I was once engaged to my first girlfriend; I was 19 years old and didn't know better. We even had matching diamond rings to celebrate our ill conceived love. Later as the rosy sheen of first love began to fade, I realized that she was had feelings for a mutual friend, the same mutual friend that she would later cheat on me with. They are now married in living in Massachusetts. Though it hurt at the time, I now realize that the mutual friend was doing me a huge favor. Thankfully I haven't seen either in seven years.

Random Fact No. 3!

Apart from three unsuccessful blind dates with people whose names I can't remember, I didn't date from January 2003 till March 2006. Three-fucking-years of nothing after three years of successive long term relationships. I was beginning to wonder what I had done wrong in a past life. Then I decided to be more proactive and thus began Operation Find The Lesbians.

Random Fact No. 4!

I never dated anyone in high school or even middle school. I was a social pariah made awkward by the fact that I couldn't quite figure out why I didn't like boys, especially when all my friends were drooling over the requisite teen crushes of the day. However I was really good at pretending that I thought that Christian Slater was really hot.

Random Fact No. 5!

I've only owned a strap-on once in my life and it made for an interesting trip through security through Waterloo Station on my way to Paris with my girlfriend. I don't even want to know what it looked like through the x-ray machine. Guess it looked suspicious enough because they pulled aside my bag and searched it.

Random Fact No. 6!

Switching gears from my dating life, I was once an exchange student in Wyoming. Although parts of the American West feel like a foreign country to this East Coast, city girl, I have since visited nine countries throughout Europe and the Americas. I have always felt an affinity with world at large and wonder if it's because my parents met and got married while living in West Berlin thirty years ago.

6a! My parents could have named me Berlin, but since I was conceived in Savannah, Georgia, they briefly considered naming me Savannah Sue. Luckily they passed on that idea.

Random Fact No. 7!

I had two roommates simultaneously with the same name. Both later went on to meet, move in with, and get married to men from the UK.

Random Fact No. 8!

I have a crooked toe on my left foot and a crooked index finger on my right hand. The former I was born with, but the later came when it broke after some rough housing with my brother when I was 9 years old. Not realizing that it was broken, it set in a wonky position. I now like to say that it's ribbed for her pleasure.

Bonus Revelation!

I am a grapheme synesthete, which means that I see numbers and letters in color.

I tag . . .

My Secret Ennui
Write Again Soon
Wish To See
A Little Maryment
Bad Apologies
Sugarbutch
Bird on the Wire
Hyperdonut

Dear Tammy Faye Bakker,

Forgive me when I say I never followed your life with much more than a passing interest. Yet you caught my eye because you were camp, over the top, and you loved everyone. Everyone! And how the gays loved you back! You were strong in the face of personal crisis -- something that garnered great respect.

I was so shocked to see the YouTube clip of you on Larry King. Emaciated and only moments from death, you were still strong. Even when King crassly asked if you were afraid of death, you were strong. Even when your voice faltered, heavy with the ravages of the cancer that had spread to your lungs, you still smiled. For some reason that YouTube clip really got to me. It showed me what true strength was -- strength in the face of great pain and certain mortality -- and I realized that I had so much to learn about life.

God bless you, Tammy Faye. You died on Friday after a protracted battle with colon cancer. I can only hope that you are finally at peace. But I am sure you're still going strong on the other side.

"Do you want to know how it ends?"

Pardon me while I spend the next couple of days reading.

"And here’s an account from Post No Bills"

Although it wasn't a huge surge in traffic, having the upstanding New York Times link to yesterday's post was the equivalent of unannounced company arriving when I hadn't had the chance to clean things up. I mean for one thing I say fuck an awful lot. And I have been known to say motherfucker upon occasion. Then there are the innocent typos that I try to catch by rereading every post about 4 bazillion times. No it's not narcissism, but rather the fear that I just might make that much more of a fool of myself.

I'm enjoying the fact that any new Times readers who decided to stick around my blog got to read about how my date and I had hot lesbian sex.

"Steam Pipe Explosion Unnerves Manhattan"

For 30 minutes we all thought the worst had happened.

Sticking our heads out our office windows, my colleagues and I looked north along Lexington Avenue and saw that Grand Central Station and many of the neighboring buildings had disappeared behind billowing plumes of smoke. The growing pitch of sirens and the steady stream of people below played to our worst fear that somewhere behind the white cloud lay something that every New Yorker had been silently dreading for the last six years. Had Grand Central just been bombed at the height of rush hour?

Three other coworker friends and I grabbed our stuff, shut down our computers, and quickly left the building. When we were outside we joined the throngs of people looking north towards the unfolding scene of disaster. People had said they had seen an explosion of rubble. Someone said a building had collapsed. A man next to us had left his office so quickly that he left his phone behind. Those of us who did have phones whipped them out to take pictures or call loved ones. I managed to call my parents and tell them I was okay before phone service crapped out from overload of callers. For those 30 minutes we all wondered if we were experiencing a replay of 9/11.

We walked along Second Avenue for a while before coming to a bar that had the news on. A crowd three deep of people gathered around the open windows for answers to our fears. Information had just started to come in that it was not a terrorist attack but a steam pipe explosion. Relieved yet still shaken, we found another bar where we steadied our nerves while drinking successions of bourbon and Johnny Walker Black.

False alarm. Heart rate returned to normal. I held up my glass of bourbon to my friends and toasted their company during the crisis. "To life," I said and we all drank deeply.

Photo from nycmoments's stream on Flickr.

"You should also be made aware of the fact that you are a really really good kisser -- seriously put it on your resume."

The problem with getting only three hours of sleep or so is that despite all the caffeinated faux energy of the morning, a crash inevitably comes sometime around 3 pm. Now why did I only get three hours of sleep? I guess you can say that my date kinda sorta came home with me and we didn't get to sleep till 3 am or so.

Drinks led to tapas which led to more drinks which led to making out which led to more drinks which led to an R rated cab ride back to Brooklyn which led to . . . use your imagination.

Does this make me a slut?

"This is how your soul grows old, and how the music and the strong drinks, begin to make sense."

I will be meeting Ms. K after work today for a cocktail and presumably she has formed a mental version of me by reading this blog and conversing with me via email (and even via the dreaded telephone). And so this leads me to one of my more recent insecure thoughts:

What if the literary version of myself doesn't live up to the flesh and blood version?

Wait. I'm awesome. What the hell do I have to worry about? I even have pretty shoes on. Are my words dishonest? Have I actively cultivated a persona that is not myself? The answer is no. But . . . but . . . .

Oh just fuck it. Enough with the blather. I'm off to have a bourbon and a good time.

* * *

PS -- I stole the title of this post from my friend Rachel's blog.
Do read it.

"And I'm still fairly certain that you are in fact a blog celebrity . . ."

I came. I saw. I participated in the roasting eating of weenies at the GLBT Weenie Roast . . . even though we were all roasting ourselves on the metal deck of Brooklyn's Cattyshack. Unfortunately I was hungover and mostly spent the time indoors with a couple of blogging queer friends just trying to stay out of the July sun. What I should have been doing was mingling and making connections with other writers. Instead I sucked down the gin and tonics thinking it was the best way to battle the heat and the hangover.

For those I did meet, so lovely to see you -- Tina-cious; House of Jero; The Misadventures of an Adult Onset Athlete; Confessions of a Southern Boy in Yankee Land; Rusty's Balcony; The Lunar Gemini; and Joe.My.God. We really should have had name tags.

Oh and I took photos, Ms. Snarker. Even got one of Ms. McDimple and I. Sadly the rest of the photos are more banal than salacious.

"For the love of christ, I took one week off of work and I haven't the hour needed to read your PROLIFIC postings."

Can an entry for My Friday Fave be about a preference rather than a favorite? Doesn't quite have the same ring, but nonetheless I have a preference for electronic communication. Christ, what did people do before 1996? Throw message covered stones at each other? Oh right. The TELEPHONE. I'm still trying to remember through the haze what the world was like before mobile phones.

My point is that because I have a preference electronic communication -- email and texting -- I don't talk very often on the phone. I also sound like a goon on the phone, stumbling over words with a bad penchant for mumbling. So it was with great trepidation that I called Ms. K, the previously mentioned blog reader that I have been electronically corresponding with, hoping that I wouldn't sound like a complete moron. Sometimes I think I write a better game than I talk. Verdict is still out on whether Ms. K thinks I'm a moron, but we will perhaps be meeting up for a drink very soon.

All this disdain for my speaking voice is ironic since I have found myself really enamored with the idea of doing a podcast. Surely better ideas have been hatched during the history of civilization than me talking into microphone for however long and recounting my moronic attempts at dating. Surely . . . . Oh but I do love new fangled technology.

And since I couldn't make it to the free Spoon show on Wednesday,
I will instead serenade you all with this:

"I think if you stopped [being candid], your droves of lady blog reading admirers would be devastated, and some kind of revolt would ensue."

When I spoke yesterday of my reticence of having my real life encroach on my blog life, what I should have written was that I was feeling very vulnerable since I have been corresponding with one of my readers over the last few days. Reading back through my archives, she came across my dating manifesto and felt enough of an affinity to my plaintive demands to write me her very own well crafted response. Pleasantly surprised by the quality of her email and her lack of craziness, we have been writing back and forth since.

This woman actually makes the second blog reader in how many weeks to respond to my manifesto. And while things didn't work out with
Ms. Y, who after two dates saw us more as friends, I have the nervously expectant feeling that comes when someone likes me enough (albeit the literary version) to pursue something -- nervous because I've met so many people over the course of OFTL/OFAG and have been on so many first (sometimes second) dates that it's hard to suppress that voice that tells me not to get my hopes up lest I have them dashed yet again. But since I'm not completely filled with cynicism, there is still that part of me that has perked up with hope like a machine slowly coming to life.

I could have not talked about this. I could have quietly censored this from my blog life so I wouldn't feel so vulnerable, but I didn't. I'm trying that whole fuck all y'all stance where I pretend that only my friends from back in DC are reading this.

Not that I don't love the blog comments . . .

Scorpios don't like to feel vulnerable. We like to feel that while the rest of the world thinks we're showing all our cards, we're secretly holding onto a few of them. Not so with this blog. All my cards are here. All my dating foibles, insecurities, and laughable ineptness. Enjoy!

"The fate of the world of may lie in a Longfellow poem."

Three Things

1. State of the Mental Union

I've come to the realization that while 2006 was marked by the great outward push known as Operation Find The Lesbians, 2007 thus far appears to be defining itself by the opposite, much like a tide retreating from the shore after a wave. If OFTL represented a tsunami of energy, I am currently experiencing the inverse. What did Newton say in his Third Law of Motion? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction?

Yeah.

This occurred to me as I sat for a beginners meditation class at the Tibet House yesterday trying to pay attention to the rather long winded instructor. He talked of intention and what brought us to the class in the first place. Although I had originally intended to decrease the pile-up of stress that worked has heaped upon me, I realized that another one of my intentions was far more personal. One of the crucial components of Operation Find a Girlfriend is knowing thyself and being at peace with all my neuroses, psychic wounds, and baggage. Then perhaps I will be truly ready for dating prime time.


2. Too Close to Home

If I had my windows open in the early hours of Monday morning I would have the heard the gun shots that marked the moment when two men in a stolen BMW SUV opened fire on two cops, gravely injuring one. Since I had the AC unit cranked in an effort to battle against the stifling summer heat, I didn't notice the sounds of helicopters and police cars till after I woke up -- sounds which barely registered beyond a Hey, that helicopter sounds like its hovering right above the house . . .

Later when I realized what had transpired, I was even more shocked to learn that the shooting had happened right around the corner from where I live. Then end of the street was a mess of police cars and crime scene tape. Since the iconic image cops and firefighters is deeply ingrained in the psyche of all New Yorkers, the local media has predictably gone ape shit while the rest of us can only pray for the one cop still on life support.


3. Anonymity

Whoa. Way too many of my friends in New York now know that I have a blog. And with the Weenie Roast this Sunday, more of my anonymity will be shed. Why am I less weirded out by the hundreds of strangers around the world reading my most intimate thoughts than the people I hang out with? And will I find it harder to write honestly about my love life when potential suitors are reading? Or will I just adopt a fuck all y'all stance and continue to write as if my readership was back down to four people and hope that I don't write myself into trouble?

The Scorpio in me is having issues.

REMINDER: GLBT Weenie Roast This Sunday!

As mentioned around the blogosphere (or perhaps only just here and here), there is a GLBT blog summit in Brooklyn this Sunday afternoon cunningly disguised as a weenie roast. I will be there as will event organizer Ms. Ham & Cheese on Wry. If you're in the Brooklyn area and want to hang with ladies (and our gay brethren) on Cattyshack's fabulous roof deck, please come out and support your GLBT bloggers! I will try to remember to get a battery for my camera; Ms. Snarker has requested photos.

When: Sunday, July 15, 4PM - ???
Where: Roof Deck at Cattyshack
249 4th Avenue, Brooklyn [ map ];
(between President & Carroll Streets)
Directions & more info: cattyshackbklyn.com

Gay boys, breeders and non-bloggers (oh my) welcome!

"Does anyone else have access to your pin number?"

To the person who stole my credit card number and used it four times over the last month to purchase $200 in items from an Amoco gas station in Valley Stream, New York. May you find yourself stranded in a desert, covered in honey, and surrounded by a gathering tide of various flesh eating insects.

Oh yeah and fuck you too.

". . . brittle with sorrows, as tart as curds, and shrill enough to grate meat from a coconut."

Not too long ago the discussion of favorite books came up while myself and a couple of friends of mine waited along a busy 4/5 subway platform. In between sticking our heads out over the tracks to see if the train was coming, we traded our favorites and defended why they belonged on our top list. Some had a list of 10 books. Ten! Clearly I was not the literary girl I thought I was.

After an easy choice of four books (sort of), I struggled to fill out the list. There were clearly some good reads to chose from, but what about the chest thumping, profoundly good reads? The sort of writing that makes me drink up and covet every last word? I racked my brains easily coming up with 10 favorite albums before I could 10 novels.

And then I read The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri and I immediately felt like the most inadequate writer in all the English speaking world. Even though I sulked at the realization, I knew the book would have a place in my top 10, which is:

1. Atonement by Ian McEwan

I finished the book with a tear and a gasp.

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I have a soft spot for stories about the corruption of good people.

3. The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Good God, can this woman write? Her attention detail and her use of description had me savoring every adjective and metaphor.

4. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

Deliciously dirty as if Dickens had written a very long letter to Penthouse Forum -- except if Dickens had been a modern day Lesbian. Since I have the attention span of a gnat, it's worth mentioning that this book had me up all night to finish it.

5. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

A 1,000 plus page manifesto disguised as a novel? While I'm not a fan of her politics, you can't fault Ayn Rand for writing an epic of a novel that floored me when I (finally) finished it.

6. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling

Despite starting out as a children series and despite language that pales in comparison to some of the other writers on this list, Rowling can write a pretty good fucking story that has managed to keep millions reading for 10 years -- including this woman. So sad that the series will finally end in only a couple of weeks.

Other books rounding out the list? The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides; The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver; and Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert.

"Have you come for another spell?"

The dream started off in the winding dense streets of a city. Not New York, but someplace vaguely European. London? Paris? Perhaps the sort of city that an Impressionist painter would have been familiar with. I wandered in search of something, my limbs moving as if my body knew where to go although my head didn't. Two and three story brick buildings greeted me along the way. And with each turn I made, the more familiar my surroundings seemed to become.

I came to an old store tucked somewhere deep in the urban maze and upon entering I felt a strong sense of déjà vu. The spacious interior gave the impression of an old apothecary with shelves of glass jars and dark wooden drawers studded with brass pulls and fading labels. From behind a long counter stood an old woman wearing a blue cardigan. Like her smile, her wispy white hair was pulled tight into a bun and she greeted me as if I were a regular customer.

How could this be?

At first she was pleasant and engaged me in light conversation, which gave me time to study her translucent skin and pink cheeks. "Have you come for another spell?" she asked, her tone clipped.

"A what?" I answered after an awkward hesitation.

She didn't repeat herself, but instead poked noisily around the many drawers and jars that lined the shop. After a minute of searching, she seized upon a small blue vial from a selection of equally small bottles and removed the stopper. With quick dip of the hand she poured a small amount of the blue vial's contents into her open palm.

I blinked to confirm what I was seeing because the drop of liquid instantaneously formed a swirling red cloud. It was as if her hand suddenly contained a miniature electrical storm both beautiful and frightening.

"You said I came here before?" I stammered to the old woman, unable to take my eyes off the tiny storm.

"Why yes, dear. Of course you don't remember, but you came in here only recently for a binding spell."

The news greeted me like a sledgehammer. I had been here before? I had purchased a spell from this woman? And I had no memory of it?

She read the look of confusion and fear on my face. "Losing something is always what the universe demands in repayment. Yes you have no memory of the last time you visited me, but the real price was the loss of something to you. Pity that you might never discover what."

Perhaps she hadn't intended to, but her words rang sinister. Had I really cavalierly purchased a spell, given up something as sacrifice, and yet I had no memory of what?

"So what will it be this time," she continued, palm still outstretched. "Another binding spell? A love spell?"

No, I wanted to scream.

That's when I woke up. I was not in an old shop, but in the North London apartment of my friend Karl and splayed across the foldout couch in his darkened sitting room. The dream was so powerful and the sense of urgency so pervasive that I couldn't shake the feelings nor the image of that woman with her open palm. I still to this day don't know what the dream meant, but I was reminded of it when I was reading this article in the New York Times. "Big dreams" Carl Jung once called the sort of dream that wake us with its vividness, crashes through our psyche like a thunderbolt, and stays in our memory for years with utmost clarity. My dream of the old woman and the spell was one of my "big dreams."

"Aren't you going to say I told you so?"

As predicted the reunion of Laura and her psychotic Ex was short lived -- a whole two weeks to be exact. And like I further predicted, I was there to help pick up the pieces. Le sigh.

Apparently despite assurances of the opposite, the Ex continued where she left off, screaming, crying, calling Laura all manner of names whenever she felt jealous or not paid attention to. When Laura recounted the events of the prior two weeks that led up to her telling to Ex to leave, I couldn't help but listen open mouthed in disbelief. Between the Ex's drunken rages and unprovoked threats of violence, I seriously worried for Laura's safety.

"Change the locks," I demanded. "Get the landlady to change the locks. Pay the landlady to change the locks."

Laura gave me a long sigh that hinted that maybe she had already thought of all the following.

"I just kept thinking back to the disappointment in your voice when I told you the Ex and I were getting back together. I couldn't forget who you told me, 'Have some self respect.'"

We were sitting at a bar when she said this. She looked distressed or perhaps tired. Her eyes were battle weary and I knew then that I had done a good deed by offering to get a drink with her after work. I was conciliatory.

"When I said those things I wasn't trying to be mean. I was saying them because I cared about you and I was trying to stop you from making a huge leap backward."

"Aren't you going to say I told you so?"

"No. I don't need to say it."

Later Wendy recounted a conversation she had with Laura that went something like this:

"Why didn't anyone say anything to me?!" Laura demanded indignantly.

"Rouge said something," Wendy shot back.

"Oh."

Sometimes we have to make our own mistakes in order to learn. Maybe she would have listened sooner if I had played her the song Your Missus Is A Nutter by Goldie Lookin' Chain?