Long Enough to Know

you know i have now lived long i enough to be able to declare publicly that I know that I can be quite a pain in the ass

this is not news to me
this is not some awareness that goes with advancing age
this is simply my opportunity to tell you the truth
this for you folks that have this thing I have
YOU WILL TOTALLY GET IT! Ya, you've come a long way baby.


My truth is that I have enjoyed being a pain in the ass.
The actress in me needs a stage, so being
the practical gal I have always been
i am abstract random sort of person who worked for most of her life in a concrete sequential world
i have developed many personas to keep things interesting to me

one persona is the bookish, tailored pants and oxford button down collar kind of woman
Oh, yes. She IS the real Paula. She is the girl who fell in love with Dick Cavett
when she was sixteen. Yeah, even though he was a man of small physical stature, she realized that
it was his Intelligence that turn her on. This intrigues her because she was not usually attracted to small men.

Why she has been reading since her mother was reading to her.
Mom would run her pointy red fingernail under each word
Making certain to enunciate each one.
Shecaught on fast
The highlight of Friday night was going to the bookmobile where Mom and her and Melanie got new books to read for the week.

another persona is the artistic
this gal has been here all along
this gal is the one who cancelled her marriage to her college sweetheart one month before the wedding
During her student teaching, she fell madly and passionately in love with a thirty-year old real Beatnik
he was her southern Bob Dyan and William Faulkner combined
the marital dress was cancelled at Maas Brothers
Marcia her mom just freaked out. I mean freaked out. Oh my daughter was about to wed
the son of a very prosperous family. And she is what? Calling the whole thing off.
Oh my baby, you know not what you do.

and then there is this basic woman
an average woman who getting happy when her counter are all clean
a woman who loved to look at home design magazines when in line at Publix
a woman who is easily content and happily so
a woman who like the "security" of knowing the woman who rings up your groceries by name
a woman who loves to wander through her room and admire what she sees
a woman who is pretty lucky, and she knows her. Oh yes, she does.


finally there is the one that she does not know yet.
and that prospect is darned well exciting
this life it is just an adventure
she does know one thing about this person
this person does not the ambition she once thought she
and she is happy as a pig in shit about that fact