Sim Carter: Past Tense Imperfect

California Incline, Santa Monica. Stan Cline/Nostalgia Gallery I have no idea where Derek is these days but he’s got a permanent place in my hit parade of memories from the 19 70s.   Here’s another story about a boy. Curbed I sat on the curb outside  Derek ’ s house, legs bare,  stretched out in front of me  in a pair of denim cut-offs, arms freckling in an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse I’d picked up in Olvera Street. Just catching some rays in the hazy sunshine of a predictably sunny summer day in Santa Monica. Never too hot. Never too cold. Just ... right. Derek’s head safely under the hood of his GTO, futzing around with the dipstick, I took a quick swig of Coke, bringing  the bottle up to my mouth, suddenly embarrassed at the phallic shape, wishing it was  a can instead. Derek popped his head over the hood, mustache twitching up in a smile, holding his hand in the air expectantly like a baseball pitcher standing on the mound, waiting ...

If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings.  Here are the previous days . This is Day 40. We're still on the Piccadilly Line. Here’s the truth. I know f@#k all about American football, less than zero about British footy. Better known as soccer here in the U.S. The only team names I know are Manchester United. Because David Beckham. Liverpool and SAnd I gather the last two are rivals? In America, soccer is still mostly popular as a sports alternative to t-ball when the kids are little, and football when they’re in high school, and then to be honest, it seems to mostly appeal to females. Hardly anyone except transplanted football fans from Europe and Latin America follow the game except at World Cup time...

We were such a cliché. We sat in Derek ’ s car for hours that night. Just talking. His dark blue and white GTO parked in front of my apartment building,  everything  quiet, the street dark, the  grocery  store parking lot across the road, empty. Once I noticed a shaft of yellow shine down from our 2nd story living room window; someone, my sister, my parents maybe, pulling back the curtain to peek down and check on me. I looked away quickly, like a kid covering her eyes—if I can ’ t see you, you can ’ t see me—praying no one came down and made a scene. The way my parents had when I didn ’ t get home from Disneyland until after 2 o ’ clock in the morning . Songs must have played  on Derek ’ s tape deck. Or maybe it was the radio. It could have been the Stones, it could have been the long version of American Pie. Like a soundtrack to a movie it was  just   background  music. The audience might notice it but to the actors, wrapped up in thei...

If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings.  Here are the previous days . This week I'm following the Piccadilly Line. This is Day 39. I'm sorry. What else can I say? I took off on an impromptu road trip with my hubby last week, abandoning my weekly London walk on Friday, ditching my commitment to Joy's British Isles Friday meme, and leaving you, gentle reader, in the lurch. Well, not in the lurch exactly, more like the environs of Bloomsbury where I was supposedly off in search of a bookstore to buy a novel by Virginia Woolf. In reality , I was off with my hubby on a trip up the coast of California and I forgot to pack a book altogether! Instead of reading in the evening in our motel room, I spent a lot ...

This week's Saturday on SoundCloud piece. Originally posted December 2015. Here ’s more of that true romance from the seventies I last wrote about in E Ticket to Ride . Do I really remember the color of Lena’s couch? No but I remember Derek. In the Cups Derek was already there when I walked into Lena ’ s place. Viviana was sitting in the corner of a love seat, Derek straddling a kitchen chair, facing her. He was making her laugh about something, her lips curved over flashing white teeth and I wished I could walk right back out the door.  I could see he’d come straight from work. H is idiotic wig was off but he was still wearing his white work shirt. Leaning forward, tails untucked, his pale blond hair and shirt were  bright in the otherwise darkened room, caught by the light coming from the kitchen. The same light that lit up Viviana’s mouth. Lena, grinning from the kitchen door, beckoned me over.  Thanking me for coming, hugging me to her warm, soft body, she g...

If it's Friday we must be back in London.   Every Friday I take a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide & my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings.  Here are the previous days . Piccadilly Line, Day 38. We spent last week exploring the Covent Garden area, this week we'll hit the British Museum, trying to reserve some energy to explore Bloomsbury, the area made famous for being the meeting place of the Bloomsbury group, an informal gathering of artists, writers and intellectuals including Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell. Big day ahead so let's get started. It's just a half mile to the British Museum, most famously home to the Rosetta Stone, which dates to 196 BC. The face of the large rock— 3′ 9″ x 2′ 4″ x  11″—is inscribed with a decree affirming the royal cult of King Ptolemy V on the...