Sometimes I like to put something weird up here for various reasons and today is one of those days. I have a a very queer memory. It is renowned in my circle and there is nothing I can do about that. Whatever my problem is, it’s longstanding as I recall telling people I was missing a brain lobe in my early 20′s.  How I can recall and write dialogue, verbatim from conversations that took place 30 or 40 years ago is definitely a quirk and I have some others.

I do have Venus square Neptune in my chart and terrific sensitivity to music. I can cheer or torture myself with it, that’s for sure and once, HQ asked me where I got my morals and I told him the truth, “I heard them in a song.”

In whatever case, there are songs I don’t like to hear as I am sure is true for most everyone but it’s the reason I hate to hear, Promises, by Eric Clapton that dogs me.

I was never a Clapton fan but my friend who I used to call, “Jewish Girl” was.  Jewish Girl was Scott’s sister and my best friend there for awhile. I once went out with her with a snot running down my face, that’s what good of friends we were.  I literally had snot dripping down my face but she begged I go out with her due her boyfriend trouble so I did it, although I did insist we go to a gay bar figuring there would be no men there interested in me anyway.

I wrote about that night and some of you probably remember. I quit writing about “Jewish Girl” because I was told it was offensive. Not PC, I guess and frankly it’s just not worth it to try to skirt around all these rules when you have a story to tell. Hey!  Jewish Girl was Jewish. It was part of her identity like I am Italian, although I was thought at the time to be Mexican and lying about it. She loves her Jewishness quite a lot so what do I call her? Innocuous Girl? Unidentifiable girl?

Anyone who can talk their otherwise sane friend into going out with snot dripping, and I mean pouring from their nose has got some kind of vibe but anyway, the song.

Jewish Girl liked, Eric Clapton. She also liked some other musicians on the periphery of my taste and having Libra, and being very secretive, whatever you listen to, I listen to so I heard Eric Clapton now and then.

Of all his songs I liked, Promises, best. It was bouncy and cutting and candid but what happened is I had one of those tidal waves in my life that seem to come as a matter of routine.

It started when I was unexpectedly caught in my house with a pervert with his dick out, one evening after work. I managed to get him out of the house but he stood in front of the picture window, staring in at me as I called the police and various other sundries and potential remedies.  I could see him from the phone, see? Our eyes were locked and it is a crazy bastard that stands in front of the window and stares at you while you are obviously calling the police but anyway, the night I left town.

Yeah, they couldn’t find guy when the police finally got there and I didn’t want to stay in the house and wait for him to come back so Jewish Girl and I went on a road trip.

Now the day before, her brand new, 24 hour old car was hit and destroyed by a train so it was a queer time and long story short, I came home from that road trip so destroyed… so devastated, it drove me to making my first long distance call of my life.

Yeah, I was 19 but I had never called anyone long distance. I grew up without a phone and while by then someone had called me long distance, I had never made a long distance call myself and I didn’t know how to do it.

I told Jewish Girl, I wanted to make the call but could not afford it.  She said I could use her phone as her dad paid all her bills and I asked her if he might be mad if he knew *I* had made a call. Paying her bills is not paying mine, see?  I mean, this was her privilege not mine but she said it would be okay so I asked her how to do it.

“You don’t know how to call long distance?”

“No,” I said. I was 19 years old. ‘Is it complicated?”

“Do you have the number?”

“I have a long number…”

Next thing you know I had dialed the number very carefully and the phone ringing in my ear.  “Promises” was playing in the background.

The call went well. It was one of the calls of a lifetime, I’d say but my emotions in that moment were so intense and… inexplicable, I don’t like to recall them.

When I hear the song, Promises, I do recall them. I am hoping that by writing this, the power of the song dissipates and while I am at it, you get some other value from this story.