Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader: I’ve a story to tell you. Earlier this evening, a Fashionable Friend and I went to eat dinner at a Very Fine Establishment. Soon after sitting down at this Very Fine Establishment, she and I heard the symphonic sound of Harley engines nearing. Now, even though I’m quite aware of the fact that most bikers aren’t as sexy as Gar from Mask, or even Mel Gibson during the Mad Max years, I can’t help but admit that every time I hear a Harley coming closer, my heart beats just a little bit faster. My heart can’t help but beat with hope, Dear Reader. But with hope. But I am afraid to say, Most Fashionable Reader, that the bikers who entered this Very Fine Establishment resembled neither Gar nor Mad Max Mel. But still: they sat right beside us, and that is where this story begins.
Unfashionably Grizzled Biker: You know that shop down the road? The one that woman owns?
Grizzled Biker of Unfashion: Ramona?
Unfashionably Grizzled Biker: Yeah.
Grizzled Biker of Unfashion: Is she really a woman?
Unfashionably Grizzled Biker: That’s the whole point. See I walked in there the other day. So I said, ‘Ramona did you know that some people don’t think you’re a woman?’ I said, ‘So Ramona are you a woman or a man?’
Grizzled Biker of Unfashion: Uh huh. [Insert wheezing laugh here.]
Unfashionably Grizzled Biker: So get this. She says, ‘You take me to the bar and buy me a shot and I’ll give you some.’ So yeah I got me some that night.
What is most interesting to me about the above conversation, Dear Reader, is the fact that the Unfashionably Grizzled Biker never revealed whether Ramona was male or female. So the end of this story will always be a mystery.
O yeah! The poem! For this exercise, the Most Fashionable Vivienne and I read the first section of Ulysses and responded with a real-time imaginary conversation with a person of our choosing.
What is implied through studies of use and meaning? Through the hissing up of petticoats?
The water boiling in White Kettle with Teabrown Interior. The square leafpouch waiting patiently by the mug. The tea whistle indiscernible from the bikerband across the asphalt, bikerband indiscernible from Television Snowblare in Livingroom. (There being no free drinks on this island.)
– – I think I should be able to free myself. I speak freely of the collector of precipices. After I left, he bought a birdcage from the auction.
The buttercups leaping from quilt to Fireplace during this Phase of the Secondhand Moon. A wasted body bending its waist. Many hours shifting house in Polkadotted Dress with Teabrown Armpits.
A chorus whirling.
– – I remember nothing. Only ideas. Sensations. An odor of incense. Breath.
Posted by zeldafitzgerald 
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