Thank you for keeping us company along the way.  We hope you had some laughs, found a few new perspectives, and enjoyed the time, tales and words.

It’s been good for us.  It has made us remember, every day, that there’s more than one way of looking at things.  As souvenirs go, there are far worse to bring away.

Coast and Center, wishing you many experiences worth sharing.

“I have a meeting.”

“We have a gig tonight. I just found out about it today.”

“I need you to take me to the store for material.”

It’s spreading.

He has been waiting for a few weeks to hear from his sister about Easter plans. She called this morning. {Oh, argh.} [It's not quite so arghish. We're invited for dinner tomorrow after church, and we only have to take corn and black olives.] {You won’t take those ghastly tinned things, will you?} [Not if I can help it.]

At least, this is the plan so far as Center now knows it.

It could change.

Coast and Center, hoping for a minimum of argh.

He didn’t call in.

And he still has a job.

{You work at a church, but it’s still asking a lot to forgive that sort of thing.} [There were other factors at work, so to speak.]

This being Good Friday, the staff was urged to take the day off. Center, who has been sleeping two hours a night (at most), accepted the urging gratefully. He has been feeling exhaustedly incoherent of late, and that usually betides an oncoming illness. This time, however, the rest seems to have forstalled that.

[I still need hours, though, so I'll go in tomorrow.] {No rest for the Baptist — today excepted, of course.}

Coast and Center, wishing you all the rest you need — no matter the date.

It’s just before midnight on Tuesday in his world, making it Wednesday afternoon where she is visiting {and there is a 13-hour time difference, and shall be one for a little while.}. Forget being in separate time zones. We’ll be living in separate days. {We’re used to having a six-hour difference.  The intervention of a full night — or day — is unusual.}

Then again, as long as she’s there, Center will always know that tomorrow has come. {What reassurance do I get?} [I'm not sure ... but you get the proximity to great street food. I think you win.]  {I think you have street food where you are.  You’re envious only because mine is — to us — new.}

Coast and Center, timed and spaced out.

Many of our conversations include phrases such as, “Hey, could you please remind me to do this?”, “Oh, I forgot that.  Could you bring it, please, and save my life?” (We have moments of exaggerations.) and, “Could you check the blog?  I think I changed the date wrong, and it’s slated to automatically publish in 2024.”

We use voice mailboxes as repositories for notes.  We send ourselves text messages that we then forget to read.

Ours is the path of sticky notes, and the things we need to remember are buried beneath the things we forgot to remember yesterday — but we’re running.  Eventually, we’ll catch up with last year.

Coast and Center, going for the next hurtle.

None of them were ours. It was a young crowd, there more for the music than the art.

Nobody’s giving up, though. The unsold pieces were packed up, and the organizers — among whose number Center increasingly finds himself — will try again.

And again.

That will be true even after our pieces sell. Because as long as one person is bought or sold, the fight must go on.

Coast and Center, keeping hope alive.

She came close to missing her flight.  The six pounds of coffee she had in her luggage led to her bags being searched — slowly, piece by piece, in a friendly, learn-as-you-rummage sort of way. [The coffee really was to blame. Drug smugglers -- a subset of people that does not include Coast -- often pack their contraband in coffee grounds in an attempt to throw off drug-sniffing dogs.] 

Would the world have ended, had she missed her flight?  No.  She was happy enough to make it.  She shared the flight with twenty-four other people, including two nuns who were on her last flight.  {Yes, I took the hint and spent time speaking with them.}

She’s unwinding in a private, familiar place.  She’s looking foward to going to another one, and then to going someplace new — but there is backward searching, as well.  Time was short, and there were great demands on Center’s time and Coast’s.

There was no chance to meet for breakfast {There’s a restaurant I wanted to revisit.  We’ve not had breakfast there yet.  The place has a bonnie breakfast menu . . . and it has hot sauces.  Yes, offered with breakfast.  And?  Don’t you think Scotch Bonnets can get you started in the morning? A double espresso and protein with habanero . . . That works for me.} [Me, too. Next time, one hopes.]

Burnt ends (the kind that come on a plate) didn’t enter her recent life.  She didn’t get to any of the new-to-her barbecue places on either of their lists.

There was no photography walk.  There was precious little time to talk . . . but what time there was, was precious. [Yes, it was.]

If that’s all we learn from living in overly packed schedules, that every moment we have with friends is precious, then it was worth sacrificing a breakfast, barbecue and a walk in the shining of the passing springtime sun.

Coast and Center, planning to make each section count.

[She made the show before the show officially opened. How cool is that?]

In February, Coast and Center were able to roam around the Crossroads together on First Friday. Tonight, Coast stayed in or near Mildred’s while Center prowled the art district. His purpose was twofold: to gather material for his art site and to pass out flyers for Coast’s show. {People kept coming in and saying you’d sent them.} [Good for them. They took orders well.]

(And did we mention Coast made a sale, even before the show opened?)

Center had his own moment of chuffage when he discovered that a local magazine, Urban Times, had written about his site. {You already knew that they were going to do the story, didn’t you?} [I did, but it didn't count until it was in print.]

We’ve had good food and good things to drink. We’ve made new connections and re-established older ones.

It’s been an excellent day — and night. We’re glad and grateful … and tired. Sleep well and we shall {inshallah} see or be seen by you tomorrow.

Coast and Center, wishing you the best of times.

We understand that you had (or are having) a good time.  we grasp the fact that you are of an exponentially ebullient nature.  We comprehend a portion of your reality: You believe that it is good to share.

Here’s the hard news — Sometimes, it isn’t.  Sometimes, Virginia, sharing is bad.

We are not thunderstuck with thankfulness when you howl down the street (Center’s) or yowl in hotel hallways (Coast’s).  Our hearts are not warmed by you pausing outside our doors to yodel with your friends. We are not gladdened when you awaken Center’s kids or strip Coast’s nerve endings by yelling incoherently into your telephone.  We do not need details about your sex/romantic/discombobulated life, your romance, your fights with your roommates . . . We have the stuff of stories in our heads.  We don’t need auditory tabloids.

We didn’t like random acts of midnight loudness when we were teenagers.  We outgrew many areas of crankiness.  That one stays with us — and here’s more bad news: We are not alone.  Keep being noxious and obnoxious and, even if you’ve been dying your grey hairs for decades, someone will decide you’re not too old to be spanked.  It won’t be us.  We’re keeping our distance and hoping you will keep our peace.

We’re glad you’re having a good time.  We’ll chip toward tickets to your next concert, stand you — at a distance — the price of a beer, and pay your bus fare home.  Just promise us you’ll take another route and that, for the sakes and sanities of your neighbors, you’ll turn down the volume on the way home.

Save it for email.  Your friends will be happy to read it in the morning, and the folks along the street or hallway will be nicer come daylight for having been permitted to sleep.  Let there be a kindliness of hush all over the world tonight.

Coast and Center, saying, “Peace be upon us all — right now.”

That said, we don’t get the concept of using today’s date as an excuse to say something upsetting to a friend or loved one … and following up with “April Fool!”

There’s nothing funny about tricking anyone into believing there’s been an accident, that a tax audit is imminent or that a lover is being unfaithful (just to name a few of the old standards). The bodily damage inflicted by stress-released chemicals can’t be undone with two words and a forced laugh.

So if you’re given to that sort of “joke,” and your victim says something along the lines of, “You scared me half to death” … she might be exaggerating, but she’s not fooling.

Coast and Center, not laughing.