be sure to check out Joan's latest on her website:

be sure to check out Joan's latest on her website: http://www.joanhilty.net/ (usually she updates her blog every Sunday evening but she can and will surprise you) **Special Note: all of Joan's archives are now up--almost ten years of 'bitter girl.' As Joan says, go wild!**

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Caution: Bees Drinking


This was the sign on the barricade that greeted me yesterday at the park when I approached the drinking fountain, in quest of liquid refreshment. And what were bees drinking? Why, water, of course--what else would bees be drinking? If I were a bee, I might be tempted to drink mead, which is fermented honey--the drink of choice among the old Anglo-Saxons of Beowulf fame--but this is probably why I wouldn't make a very good bee.
What were bees doing at the beach anyway? They were perhaps asking themselves what I was doing at the beach--and as well they might. I have seen dead bees at the beach, which I take care not to step on, but why they are there to begin with is a mystery I shall never solve.
There are usually one or two bumblebees that stake out some territory near those same showers, but up until yesterday it has had nothing to do with the water. There is an open trash container as well as a recycling bin, so I had always associated bees with the presence of juicy and rotting garbage. These were smaller honey bees (perhaps), but they still had this air of territoriality about them.
Otherwise it was quite beautiful but also very hot at the beach yesterday. We had a break in the temperature for a few days, which caused me to believe fall might be in the air, but now it's turned back into the furnace again--the blast furnace that you walk out into every day that everyone feels the need to hide and escape from.
But back to the beach--the usual suspects were out and about. And I had one very nice young honey say "Hello" to me and I said "Hello" back but that was the end of it--she was surrounded by all her friends and I don't feel comfortable making conversation with someone in front of an audience. Notice that I always have an excuse.
When I was in high school, my excuse was my acne, which was then quite acute. Afterwards in college and beyond it was my succession of trashy automobiles, along with not having my own place. I haven't had a girlfriend that wasn't just over the telephone or the computer in fifteen years. This has lead many people to conclude that I'm a homosexual. I am not--I'm just extremely picky.
But now I've run out of excuses. My current situation is untenable--if I can't get a roommate, a job, a publishing contract or some combination of the three, I'm going to have to sell my place and move somewhere, away from all these retired people who are losing their minds to dementia, Alzheimer's and time. But even if I do, my resume is still going to look terrible. Thus is the dilemma.