Thanks to inspiration from OTA I’m joining The Great Discontent ‪#‎The100DayProject‬, a celebration of process that encourages everyone to participate in 100 days of making, empowered by the accountability of doing a project alongside others in a very public way. Pictures of these projects are posted daily on Instagram.

I asked myself, at the end of 100 days, what would I like to have amassed? The answer, for me was 100 first drafts.  So, I will write and post a 500 word story a day with the hashtag ‪#‎100DaysOfHorribleStories‬. Why horrible? Because what can go wrong if I aim for horrible and fail?

CLAMS, DRAMS, & THANK YOU MA’AMS

When we actually made it to the beach, it was well past sunset. But the party was still going, and by the looks of them, no-one noticed our absence.

We’d been invited to a birthday clam-bake, Chuck and me. Not together mind you – separately. He was my best friends brother, and I was a friend of his older sister. We weren’t really a couple. Oh we’d had our share of make-out sessions, in a back seat, or someone’s basement, but we’d always gone our separate ways. It was just too weird to be in a relationship with someone you’d practically grown up with. On that point we absolutely agreed.

He’d picked me up at work, because, well, it was on the way. I changed clothes in his back seat, because, well, I’d done it a hundred times before. We stopped at the liquor store and bought a gallon of rum and a case of Diet Coke from the cooler to bring to the party. We sat in the parking lot and gulped the top half of a couple of cans, to make room to pour in the rum, then lit up a joint while we sipped our cocktails, watching the sun set behind the evening traffic creeping over the overpass.

“Why do you think they tell you how many ounces there are in this rum bottle, when you can tell just by the shape?” Chuck mused, to no one in particular. Since I was the only one there, I answered. “Well, it probably has to do with some ancient custom, you know, like how you get your drink in a certain kind of glass depending on what you order?”

“Yeah!” he said, suddenly turning toward me, as if I’d suddenly explained the mysteries of the universe. “Like you totally wouldn’t get a beer in a martini glass, right? And a shot of tequila always comes in those teeny glasses… what are they called?”

“Shot glasses?” I said, smacking him upside the head. I loved the way his hair fell just to his shoulders in natural waves. I tucked the lock I had smacked loose back behind his ear, and plucked the joint he’d been bogarting from between his lips.

“Thank ya ma’am.” he drawled.

“Actually,” I continued, “When my uncle wants a shot, he calls it a dram. ‘can ya pour me a wee dram of that whiskey’ he says. But he doesn’t mean wee, he means here, fill up this water glass.”

For some reason that made me laugh. Not just a giggle, a full on ugly snorting laugh that made my eyes water. Which, of course made Chuck laugh. And we sat there laughing uncontrollably until I thought I was gonna pee my pants. And that’s when he kissed me. A kiss that lasted until the street lights came on.

“We’ve got to stop doing that.” I said.

“It’s just too weird.” Chuck said.

On that point we absolutely agreed.