Life With Eddie and Marion...

My friend, Eddie, is afraid of the woods. They make him feel "claustrophobic," he told me. "All that nature," he whines, crinkling up his nose. "It's just a little bit, well, creepy crawly, don't you think?"

A chipmunk rustles around in the leaves below my friend, Marion's deck, and Eddie can't stand it. "Bears live in woods!" he screeches.

"Gee, Eddie, ya think? I thought only the Pope lived in the woods," Marion snipes.

That's, of course, before he smokes a joint and the two of them break out the Wild Turkey. After that, you could roll a tank through Marion's tee-ninesy back yard and Eddie wouldn't give a rat's tail about it.

Of course they get the giggles. I listen to them laughing about stupid stuff, thinking what a giant waste of my time! And how do you really spell the sound of a giggle? Hee-hee-hee, doesn't seem to really cover it, but I type it in anyway as I'm trying to transcribe their every syllable.

I'm about to reach into the book and steal a shot of their Wild Turkey when both of them get quiet. Marion's staring into the fire Eddie built in the chimenea, but Eddie, he's got tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Poor Nadean," he whispers.

Marion stops staring into the fire and looks at Eddie. She's got that "Mom" look Eddie's so fond of, but he doesn't see her. He's too messed up to see much of anything at the moment.

I sigh, put the Wild Turkey back on the picnic table behind them and dash back to the computer.

"Who's Nadean?" Marion and I ask him but he only hears her, because after all, I'm just the book's transcriptionist.

"My mom," Eddie whispers.

"Huh?" I say, sitting up and paging back through the neatly typed manuscript. "No, she's not your mom. You said your mom was Nora. It's right here on page 64!"

Marion's on it. "I thought Nora was your mom," she parrots.

Eddie shakes his head. "I said she was like a mom."

Marion shakes her head. "Nope, on page 71 you referred to her as your mom," she insists.

I check. Marion's right.

Eddie's still shaking his head. "I lied," he says. "Now I'm too high to lie."

"That's right," I tell them, disgusted. "Make me a poet now. I don't care!"

"Did you hear something?" Eddie asks Marion. "You think them bears are back?"

That is what it's like living inside this author's head today! So, it was pizza for supper, no lipstick and frizzy hair when I did go out, and all of the Eldest Unnamed One's dark clothes crammed into one load.

But hey, at least Eddie and Marion are happy!