All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp

Sometimes, Richard felt, Lola was just way too hard on him, too demanding. What did she want from him, what did she expect? Didn’t he love her more than the moon and the stars, and didn’t he spend every last dime he had (and a few he didn’t have) taking her places he couldn’t possibly afford?

Occasionally, when she wasn’t aware that he was looking in her direction—when they walked by a storefront window and Lola was busy looking at her reflection in the glass, or when he took her shopping, and she would gaze in the mirror at her image, dressed in a stunning new outfit ----Richard would catch a glimpse of Lola, and on those occasions, he felt as if he were seeing the true Lola, Lola as she really was: not just a beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful woman who had immense sensitivities to the world and a substantial talent for acting, but a hardened, invulnerable character who had learned to protect herself from everything and everyone, even the man she said she loved, by growing an impenetrable ‘exoskeleton’ of emotional defenses and aggressive complaints.

Sometimes, especially after one her infamous “episodes” ---belittling remarks about his undeniable short-comings,---Lola’s criticism made Richard feel as if her were little more than peel-and-eat shrimp, and Lola was happily dining at one of her favorite, all-you-can-eat Restaurants---and the “bill was on him.”

Just a Little More 'Umph'"

"My battery is always running out of power," Richard complained, as he snapped shut his clam-shell cell phone.

“You can say that, again,” Lola sniggered, unsparingly.

Richard looked wounded as he gazed at Lola’s smirk and wondered why she was always criticizing him?

“I was referring to my cell phone,” Richard continued, as he caught Lola’s jibe.


Lola looked at Richard, her eyes softening now to a merciful concession, “Well you’re pretty good, honey, but sometimes I really wish you DID have a little more energy. You know, Richard, sometimes maybe just a little more “umph?”

Blind Leading the Blind

Half-way through her next session, Lola confessed to Jackie the obvious irony of the partially ‘sighted’ seeking directional guidance from the totally ‘blind.’ “People are writing ME, sending me comments on my blog, at LA 29! They are asking ME for advice! Can you imagine that? Asking ME for help with their careers, their futures, my god, their relationships!! Can’t you see the joke in that, the ultimate hilarity?” Lola pleaded rhetorically, as Jackie smoothly nodded a neutral, therapeutic “ummm, ” neither revealing her agreement nor disagreement with Lola’s utterly accurate, indeed, un-debatable, self-observation.

Rinse and Repeat

Matter-of-factly, indeed, blankly, Lola stared into Richard’s eager face and conceded an emotionless “Yes.”

Richard nearly fainted, but in less than a breath’s time, found himself in Lola’s much-too-small bed. They made love.

They made love, again.

Later, as Richard lay exhausted and nearly asleep, at her side, Lola gazed up at the ceiling hovering above her bed, and wondered about the directions on the shampoo bottle: rinse and repeat.

“Is it really necessary?” she wondered.

Writing Hero

Lola was getting more---not completely---but ‘more,’ comfortable with giving advice to the total strangers who read her column. “Lola Sez,” her column at LA 29, had received a lot of hits during the last few months, and this made her feel affirmed, even if the advice she gave sometimes sounded like it was coming from a quaint Ann Landers. "Better Ann Landers, than Miss Lonleyhearts," Lola thought.

She ended this week’s “Lola Sez” with, “If you start something, you must not be afraid to finish it. You must have the courage to love, and the courage NOT to love.”

She shut her computer and thought, In writing, at least, every coward, and most fools, can be just as brave as an action hero.

Burning at Both Ends

Lola sat at her keyboard, no lights on in her bedroom, her face glowing a blue-white tint as it reflected the cool glimmer of her laptop computer’s screen. Her worried fingers began to peck out the first lines of her new advice column for LA 29, her friend Beth’s e-zine. She began typing, then paused for a moment, as she thought about the advice she would give her new, predominately West LA and San Fernando Valley, female “readership.” She wanted to type, “DON’T EVER FALL IN LOVE,” in bold capitals at the top of the page, but instead typed, “For the post-modern woman, it is sometimes hard to know if falling in love signals either the beginning, or the end, of romance.” She had no idea what this meant, but she knew from experience, that love was like a candle that burned at both ends, toward an inescapable, defenseless, and ultimately, near-fatal, center.

She sat motionless now, her hands hovering above the keyboard, as if she were trapped in a reminiscent trance, picturing not Richard, but a lover from long, long ago.

Wanting it All

“I wanted it all---then entire ‘world’ and everything in it. At least, I thought I wanted it all…all the pleasure anyway, but I realized, of course, the world is filled with pain, too. But I wanted everything…everything. So I started writing, because by writing, I imagined I could have everything, I could possess the world.”

Jackie listened attentively as Buck, dressed in his perennial jeans, striped shirt, and cowboy boots, sat before her with the recognition of his own original innocence washing over his increasingly astonished face. Buck spent the next hour or so, confessing his original sin—the sin of desire for the world---and imagining for Jackie, all the lesser sins he had, yet, to commit.