Disappearing Act 1985

First you need to understand the layout of my basement apartment. The front door had a window in it. Through that window, you could see my living room and on through to my bedroom. In the bedroom was my bed—also in full view.

Anyway, I had been dating a guy named Jon. He was a very sweet guy and handsome as the dickens, but after a while, true to form, I grew weary of him and stopped returning his calls. 

One morning,  I was in lying bed after an late (early) morning at the clubs and Denny’s. I was trying to shake the cobwebs from my head when there came a knock at my door. It was Jon. He wanted to talk to me. I sat there, frozen like a rabbit hoping that he wouldn’t see me. He knocked again. I drew the covers up to my chest. “Open the door. I want to talk to you!” I drew the covers further up to my chin. “Come here!” Still frozen. “Come here! I can see you!” I didn’t make a move or even breathe. I was invisible. Stymied, Jon threw up his hands and walked away. My ruse worked. He didn’t see me. I never saw him again, either. 

And you ask why I’m still single.

Disappearing Act 2014

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Ivins. I was a bit stressed out so Mom suggested we visit the art show over in Kayenta. It would do us both good to get out of the house and Frida is always up for a walk.

Once we arrived, we headed toward the festival with Frida stopping to sniff every sagebrush and pile of rabbit poop along the way. We entered the plaza and were blessed with the aroma of handmade tamales and oven-fired pizza. Mom said that it was good we had lunch already. I thought to myself that a tamale would be a good way to get the taste of that Wendy’s chicken sandwich out of my mouth.

We stopped at our friend George’s gallery to say hello and he greeted us at the entry. He’d been a good friend to mom over the years and, as a therapist, took a stab at fixing a multitude of my crazies while I lived down there.

We chatted for a while as Frida tugged at her leash, talked a bit more and said our goodbyes.

Mom said that an artist had been looking at us the whole time we were visiting with George. She wanted to see what she was up to. We went up and said hello and took a peek at what was on her easel. Mom said, “That’s us!” and surely enough she had been painting us the whole time.

By “us” she meant Mom, Frida and George. I was conspicuously absent from the painting. I guess I really have turned invisible after all.

As we walked away to see the rest of the festival, Mom, as any good mother would say, said “It wasn’t a very good painting anyway.”