Beheaded Before Skyward

I went over to Jen’s last night (we lived together for nine years, there’s a special bond there), and I had my South Beach snack and she made a veggie burger and we talked our heads off for many many hours. We talked about my life, her life, men, books, my book – oh, and this was funny – she had this random book on her coffee table and we could not stop laughing about it. It was called DIVORCED, BEHEADED, SURVIVED and it was a “feminist reinterpretation” of the wives of Henry VIII. But we could not take it seriously, and kept shouting, randomly, “What do you want from me? I was DIVORCED, I was BEHEADED, and I SURVIVED.” I was like, “How on earth does one SURVIVE after one has been beheaded?” Jen would burst in from another room and declaim, “DIVORCED! BEHEADED! SURVIVED!”

I filled her in on the whole Skyward drama, and we both started laughing so hard that it was like I had been punched in the stomach. It was one of THOSE laughs. Tears were streaming down my face, Jen was cackling – we were looking through my screen shots, and HOWLING.

In the middle of all of this, my blackberry buzzed with an email. Throughout the night, our respective blackberries kept buzzing, so we would keep chatting, but check emails as well. Obnoxious to some, normal to us. I glanced down at the email I just received – it was from my cousin Mike – who has now, in a matter of 48 hours – gotten me one-degree away from Ben Marley. I was three degrees of separation on Monday, now I am one degree on Thursday. This is what happens when you “know” people. You ask one question: “Do you know Ben Marley?” and suddenly emails are flying back and forth, the posts I’ve written are being passed on to the man in question, and things begin to happen. I adore it. Stranger things have happened. Dean Stockwell hugged me last year (story at 11). I WILLED that to happen. And Stevie helped make it possible. But since Jen and I had just been HOWLING about Skyward, crying off our mascara, it was even funnier. “Holy shit, Jen, listen to this …” I read the email out. We were dying!

Jen’s new man came over, and found us in this rather hilarious mascara-streaked state. He was nice and relaxed about it, nice guy. Jen said at one point, casually, to him, “Have you, by any chance, seen Skyward?”

We started guffawing. He had NOT seen Skyward, but he had seen all of the ABC Afterschool Specials, and we had a good reminiscing chat about all of them. They’re all on DVD now, and I really need to reacquaint myself with them. Especially Lance Kerwin.

I realize that Lance Kerwin is now doing a U-turn for Jesus full time (look him up, you’ll see what I mean – it seems like he is doing well, and that makes me strangely happy) -but I will always love him for his quivering sensitivity and victimized status in those ABC Afterschool Specials. The bowl cut and the sweet demeanor was not quite the over-the-moon effect of Ben Marley in his cowboy hat – but I saw the ABC Afterschool Specials when I was 10 and 11 and just a CHILD. By the time I was 12, I was ready for the glimpse of MAN-hood provided by Ben Marley in Skyward. It was like my response to Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back, seen at around the same time as Skyward. They came out the same year. A mere year before, I had been all pre-teen aching for the bowlcut sensitive underdog, and suddenly, a year later – through Ben Marley and Harrison Ford – I knew what the future was. Swaggering MEN. Not BOYS.

I didn’t get to bed until three in the morning last night, which is so unlike me, but the whole night had been spent curled up on Jen’s awesome vintage couch, having deep and emotional conversations, interspersed with guffaws of laughter about Skyward and my cousin Mike’s emails.

It felt like at any moment there would be a knock at the door, and it would be Ben Marley standing there, saying, “Hi … I hear you’ve been writing about me?”

I got an email from Mike at one point saying:

a) do you know who his father is?
b) GO TO BED

Of course I know who his father is. Look who I have had on my wall for almost 20 years.

But yes. I obeyed Mike. Time for bed. Do not resist the command of an O’Malley man. They have your best interests at heart.