Sim Carter: Past Tense Imperfect

Leaving Home: The Beginning I looked at the clock glowing on the dashboard; just after eleven... Leaving Home: Part Two He was tall and almost cool with aviators and a mustache that matched his shaggy golden brown hair... Leaving Home: Part Three The next couple of months blurred by. Phillip kept up, I don't know, I guess I'd call it a full frontal attack, but gently. First came the awkward acknowledgment that calling all over Vegas, hunting me down, was going too far. He neighed his whinny of a laugh. "I guess I got a little crazy." In return, did I tell him I didn't need crazy in my life? Did I tell him to scram, to get lost? Did I tell him we were on two separate journeys? Or instead did I say nothing? Did I find his fascination fascinating and blush demurely when he talked about the skin in the hollow of my throat or told me I looked pretty in pink? Funny how something like that, a compliment when you're craving one, can stop up a hole...

#15 Euclid Street, Santa Monica Last week I posted the first part of this transition piece, the story of my first marriage, the tale that took me from my parents' home to my first place.  Leaving Home: The Beginning   is #15 of the On The Street Where I Live stories . You may want to read it before you read this. Here's the second installment. Leaving Home: Part Two He was tall and almost cool with aviators and a mustache that matched his shaggy golden brown hair. What made Phillip uncool was the way he had to shove those aviators up his slippery nose over and over, an act of uncoolness I could relate to all too well. The other thing that marked him as uncool was that he was full-time; a management trainee at Drug Star in Santa Monica. The rest of us that worked there, the young ones anyway, were part time. We were going to school, trying to be something else, trying to find a real place to start our careers. The drug store as a place to have a career? Definitely n...

#15 Euclid Street, Santa Monica, California I've been married twice; one that didn't take, and one that did (knock on wood).This is about the one that didn't. You'll notice, it's only the beginning. I'm not sure how long it will end up being, as long — or as short — as it takes I guess. It's one of those transition pieces, the story that took me from my parents' apartment on Fourteenth Street in Santa Monica to a sweet little back house one short block away on Euclid, #15 of the On the Street Where I Live stories. If you've been here before you know this isn't a story in the fictional sense of the word, it's memoir. I'm of an age where I'm looking back, trying to figure out the route my life has followed. A few of you have showed an interest; thanks for that. Also, I hate titles; mainly because I'm no good at them. I think I'll call this one  Leaving Home I looked at the clock glowing on the dashboard; just after elev...

I came face to face with Jaclyn Smith the other day. Well, not exactly face to face. The former Charlie's Angels TV star was smiling down at me from a banner mounted above the clothing racks and shelves at Kmart. The racks stuffed with the cheaply made clothing lines of Sophia Vergara, Nicki Minaj, Adam Levine and Jaclyn Smith herself. "Hi there, Jaclyn," I thought to myself. "It's been a long, long time. Wow, are you ever looking good!"  I certainly haven't aged as gracefully. I was a twenty-something in-house copywriter at Max Factor, fond of red eyeglass frames and rainbow suspenders, when we met briefly back in the early 80's.  I spent my time trying to come up with color names, writing package copy and sales material.   And Jaclyn? She wasn't just the gorgeous spokesperson with the sultry voice who touted Max Factor's Epris fragrance—remember "Part of the art of being a woman is knowing when not to be too much of a lady,...

I thought he was God. Or Robert Young on Father Knows Best. Take your pick. Except that in my eyes my father was even more glamorous than Robert Young. I didn't know about God. He and my mother met at the tail end of World War II when he was home on leave in England. He wooed her in French, Italian, Spanish, and Arabic and he danced like a movie star. They fell in love and then he went away again, back to the western desert, back to the end of the war. Her family, her friends, all warned her about him. He was no good. He'd been around. She was only twenty. He was thirty. Forget him, he was too old. At thirty, her grandmother pronounced, he would have done everything already. He would be jaded, world-weary, they'd have little to share together. Forget him. She couldn't forget him. He sent stockings, Italian shoes, and letter after letter from the prisoner of war camp in North Africa where he was coaching the Italian prisoner's football team. He came home and th...

                    I'm deep into my high school head space right now - the last bit of memoir I wrote and posted this past week, "  I Was Just 17  " takes place the summer before my senior year, and since it's June I've got Graduation Day on my mind. I wrote this almost twenty years ago with the class of '95 in mind; it's painful to see that  the essay, published in the Daily Breeze in 1995, shows that the issues I struggled with back in high school are the same issues I struggle with to this day. What a waste of time. It's possible that if I spent less time flailing with self-doubt and spent more time honing my skills I might have not have given up, I might have something to show beyond a handful of old publishing credits. Again, I say, what a waste of time! Do yourself a favor, don't waste yours.  A Familiar Trip We were the class of '71 and believed that graduation day (now over 40 Junes a...

How sweet it is! The Good Men Project ran my piece Seven Reasons Older Women Love Older Men ! A response to their Seven Reasons Men Love Older Women. When I turned sixty my one thought was, wow, sixty is shitty!   Really! I wished I felt like rocking some sort of 'sixty is the new sexy' tattoo except for me, sixty sucked.  But I've had a change of heart. Looking back at some photos of younger self, I know exactly how critical and self-loathing I felt at the time. I could fill a page at least, listing all the things I've hated about my inner or outer self at one time or another. And I know that while the dreaded sixty isn't pretty, it's perversely going to look a whole lot better when I'm sixty four. While sixty four, in turn will feel even worse if I continue to focus on the lines gathering like a perfect storm on my face. What a waste of perfectly good time that would be! The inexorable march of time moves on, what are you doing to embrace it? •••...