In the morning, after I finished making our tea, filled our little crystal holders with the proper blood pressure pills and sat them at our respective chairs. I, at last, sat down to read the daily.

My lover walked in, as always after the morning ritual of tea making, paper getting and dog care and sat in his respective chair. The one with the best view of the aquarium and the goldfish that are busily eating the food I dropped in, when I lit the tea candle to keep the tea hot.

"Where were you last night?" he asked, picking up the front page while I held onto the local news.

"Here, where I always am. Right here." I spoke with the paper held in front of my face as a filter, to muffle my thoughts, my view, my words.

"When did you come to bed?" he said, taking his pills and tea.

"Late."

"What were you doing?"

I thought if I should really tell him. I thought, did he really want to know? Know exactly where I was? My other world, the world just outside the back door in the far back of the yard where the vegetable garden grew seedlings of lettuce and radish. Where the turnip seeds spilled over into the salad greens and flourished. Did he want to know of the struggle of the sugar snaps to find the string I laid for them to climb on. Or did he want to know of the visitors I had? Perhaps that is what he really wants to know. Not the parsley's second season, or the rebirth of the chives. But of my old lover that died ten years ago.

It's so quiet in the evening. The birdbath shimmers in the night's light and crickets' sing chants to the shadow world. A wood bench sits in the far back to the right of the vegetable garden. Johnny had managed to get the damn broken down car towed out and about two tons of oiled soaked soil removed where a junk yard once stood. We used pick axes to break the soil. Hauled horse shit by the truck load. We built a picket fence, because I always wanted a picket fence with a gate around a vegetable garden. Part of the fence is still there.

He sits with me, Johnny does. We just sit together and think about all we did in the twenty years we had with each other. Johnny looks forward to our visits and so do I.

"I wanted to make sure the snails found the beer traps. I think the dogs are drinking the beer instead of the snails and wanted to see if one of the slimy bastards knew it was beer and not piss I put in the damn trap for them."

"Oh." He then turned the paper and read.

Later, after I poured a second cup for us both he said, "Did the beer work?"

"I don't know? I didn't see any snails or slugs, but maybe tonight." I turned to Calender and read, Dear Abbey.

 

My biggest goal is to get a Constitutional Amendment for the government to support writers. We are in desperate need of funding and because of having to work to support our writing, we are in grave danger of losing the craft of writing. If the country can support a war, build a nation, and still have time to limit marriage to privileged sexual partners, then we demand a share in America too. Oh, and I want another Constitutional Amendment to bring back cartoons to movie theaters. When was the last time you saw a cartoon at the movies? This is because of subversive elements that have entwined themselves into our culture and the only way we can bring America back is Constitutional Amendments and more of them. So lets get out there and get Constitutional Amendments. You want your way don't you? Damn straight you do, that's what made America great

Does anyone else feel like we’re returning to the dark ages?  A time when superstition, fueled by religious morality enslaved most of Europe.

 

There is Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion,’ or as I like to call it, ‘How to Torture a Jew.’ Somehow I think Jesus would prefer us to remember him has a kind and gentle healer that turned a fish and a loaf of bread into food for many. A man that when asked, made great tasting wine and healed the sick. A man who taught humility and lived it, a man more accustomed to the company of prostitutes, thieves and outcast then to the religious right.

 

We have a President who has no problem declaring war and then finding a reason for it, and if that reason turns out to be wrong, gives the public another reason. So simple really, I’m sure he has fifty more reasons—only better. Now he wants to change the Constitution to discriminate against a group of people for no other reason then religious intolerance. This comes from the Christian right, the same people that can’t see enough of Mel Gibson torturing Jesus. I can’t help but think they enjoy watching his suffering as punishment for the wine he made for people having fun at a party. Certainly for hanging around whores and outcast, after all what decent Christian, does that. Yes, better to remember him nailed and dieing, than for laughing and touching the untouchable.

 

Looks a lot like the Dark Ages to me.