Amy's way or the highway

Jessica goes to Italy

I used to get mad at construction workers. I got tired of their whoo whoo's. But then one day I looked back, and I'll be damned, they were way more Whoo Whoo than I was. They were whoo whoo whoo whoo whoo! At least some of them. So now I whoo whoo right back. It's whoo whoo heaven.

I got this new bud. I'm telling her about this construction worker epiphany. She's agreeing cause I'm so smart.

I said to her "It's like with Italy. First, I got freaked out with all the men chasing me, yelling whoo whoo, bella bella, until one day I turned around and noticed they were whoo whoo bello bello themselves."

Jess said "I don't know what would happen to me in Italy." She looked out the window, like a child on a road trip with no end in sight.

I said "You'd lose your damn mind is what would happen."

She said, "Yeah, probably."

I said, "You'd learn Italian is what would happen. You'd sit across from a beautiful man and you'd both admire the other's visage. He'd say I love your face. You'd say I love your face. There would be a lot of face holding. Then, when your face got tired of being looked at so closely, you'd find a nice little room above the piazza with white translucent curtains and play pretend love."

Jess said, "I'd run away to Italy, wouldn't I?" But now she says it like a kid who just took the wheel when mom fell asleep. She's the driver.

The next summer, Jessica saved up every tip, forty dollars from every paycheck, and she bought herself a one-way ticket to Italy. When she boarded the plane, she felt so small, she stretched herself out like a kid peeking over the counter. But once in her seat, row 12 seat e, she started to feel her neck lengthen, her bones aching like she's becoming herself all at once, with no twenty years in between. She's shooting up, like one of those flowers in fast motion on one of those documentaries about nature. This is good, she thinks. She can feel every inch she is away from the earth. There is no tug to go back to Iowa, only gravity that separated where she is now from the ground thirty thousand feet beneath her.

She awakens with a small orange juice with melted ice sitting on her tray. It takes her a second to remember if she ordered it. The old woman next to her says "I thought you would be thirsty when you woke up." Jessica nods, takes the cup in both hands; it's luke warm. She drinks it anyway; she was not raised to be rude and ungrateful. The old woman smiles and returns to her Readers Digest with Brooke Shields on the cover.

"Italy is far," the old woman says.

"I know," Jess agrees. "Just far enough" She imagines the miles of airspace between what was and what will be. She looks out the window and remembers the car trip that decided her current journey. The clouds are acute she intuits; she is seeing them for the first time. They are mobiles and curtains. No, they are pillows and holograms. No. They are oxygen. They are vapor. She inhales. Nine hours is a very long time for no cigarette.

She wonders what his name will be or if she will meet him in a museum or in a square. Not a square, she tells herself, but a piazza. She whispers the word. Piazza. The old woman smiles because youth is so permeable and unprepared.  And lucky. Jess knows only one thing for sure; she will turn around when he calls for her. When he whoo whoo Bella, she will whoo whoo right back.

can men and women just be friends

"I don't think they can," my friend says. "It's not that easy."

Men and women friends, like lent, is it really possible? Is it really totally achievable, or only partly achievable? I can not shop, but I still think about it, long for it...sure there are moments that I forget about it all together, like people who aren't here anymore, but then it sneaks up on me and I think "Oh yes, I remember. Shopping. Shopping."

Like "friends" who are out late and the light hits one friend magnificently and the other friend thinks "Bob, hmmm?"

I have male friends, I think. But do I? I mean friend friends? Stay up late and talk on the phone, cry on each others shoulders? Those kind? No, not really. It's totally inappropriate, cause I'm married and I can't get into those kinds of relationships with men. So forget me.

Let's think about other women, single women. Can they be friends with men? Gay men, yes, most definitely, but straight men? Only if there is zero attraction. Or if there was attraction, but it totally wore off...it's history.

And people play games. People like to be liked so people are always crossing the line just to see if the other person likes them, even if they're not interested.

I don't know where I am going with this. It was just a story on the morning news. Maybe I'll get back to it later on.