February's Sun and the Pixie

Los Angeles, CA
February, 2009

She was 28-years-old, and tiny, as a pixie is tiny, with a lithe, athletic figure. Her hair was cut short, and always had a free-wheeling, wind-blown look. Her pretty face had the high, prominent cheekbones of her Polish lineage, and was clear-complexioned, with a hint of laugh lines around her almost-opaque hazel eyes. She had a quirky smile; it was slightly crooked, but not outrageously so. And she always looked as fresh-as-a-daisy in the morning, and, while I can not say I had a Great Love for her, I can say that she thoroughly fascinated me.

My last day spent with the Pixie had me playing host, as she had driven over to my apartment the night before to spend the day with me. She lived with her family (father, 19-year-old sister, and a pre-teen daughter) in a beach town that was quite some many miles away, and as she was the "Mother Hen" to that brood, i.e. she cooked the meals, organized family time, etc., it was getting more and more difficult for her to find the time to spend with her new boyfriend.

(A little about how we met: it was through a mutual friend, a skinhead gal-pal, who had invited me to hang out with her people, including the Pixie, for some drinks and danger. And while the drinks were very much of the "cheap beer" variety, and the danger minimal, the end result of that visit was spectacular: the Pixie expressed interest in yours truly to our mutual friend. Numbers were exchanged, and Nature, sweet, fickle Nature, did the rest.)

We awoke to a surprisingly sunny February day, and as I opened the curtains to let the sunshine in, I marveled at how magnificent she looked in the morning. Sweet-smelling, bright-eyed, and damned sexy. I was ravenous. We smiled and laughed as we rolled around my queen-sized bed...

I refused her offer to make the morning coffee — I was the host, after all — and made us a pot. We then sipped and began scheming the day's events — should we go for a hike? See a movie? Explore a new restaurant? Because her time with me was short, we wanted to squeeze every single thing we possibly could from the day. I knew that her family were not pleased about her being away for the night — she also handled grocery shopping and laundry and everything else — and it was a veritable scene of chaos at her house at that very moment. The cajoling she had to do to convince her pouty sister to watch her daughter was an exercise both in diplomacy and tyranny.

Ensign Samson

Los Angeles, CA 2004

I was in The Original Series (TOS) forum on startrek.com, when I came across a post someone made that the spanking-new DVD box sets were now available at Costco. Holy Jesus. Season One: Khan, Trelane, Edith Keeler, and where Kirk reminds us that "risk is our business." I had to have it: I haven't seen TOS in what seemed like eons, and now that it was visually remastered and with Dolby sound? Shazam. Granted, my home theater system wasn't the fancy-shmanciest in the land, but it sufficed for the dimensions of my apartment. And my DVD collection in those days was very spare indeed, preferring to borrow films from the library, or Netflix. You see, I decided when I first started collecting DVDs that I would only own the ones that I most had to have; during this period of my life I owned almost all of the Star Trek: The Next Generation box sets, some classic films, all of the Star Trek movies, and a handful of foreign flicks. And yet not even a single videocassette of The Original Series was in my house! I must posses it, I thought to myself. I must! I rubbed my hands together with an ecstatic flourish, plotting on which would be the quickest bus line to take to my local Costco, and relishing in the fact that I had two days off, with plenty of wine to drink.

Screeching tires-time. Pull back those reins, there, guy, because it totally slipped my mind that I had a commitment that I couldn't break.