How I met my husband

      
         One day when I was working on my Ceramics Grad show at CSUN, a 
person came into the Ceramics room, walked right up to a row of my pottery 
and asked who had done it all because he really liked it.  I introduced myself
and then we ended up talking about John Lilly, Raymond Moody,coma and 
near death experiences. He said that his name was Steve Jordan. He also told 
me that he had been declared legally dead at the age of thirteen after a VW 
van ran into him as he was riding his bicycle. (He was  airlifted to the hospital and revived.)

	  Steve started visiting me more and more often at the Ceramics lab 
and we would talk while I threw pottery.  He kept mentioning this guy who he
thought  I should meet, who he said I would probably get along with really 
well  because we were so much alike. The fellow's name was Joe, and Steve 
arranged for us to meet. 
          I met Joe at the Dupar's on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City.  I ordered
fish.  He came late.  He was wearing a black leather jacket and had long blond
hair.  I looked at him and thought, oh this isn't how I thought he would look 
at all. Then I asked myself just what I had thought that he would look like 
and then I realized that I had had no idea. And that he looked just right. It 
turned out that we both liked almost all the same literature and music.
 
          I took Steve and Joe to my place after dinner so I could change my 
clothes, and they could see my apartment. Joe said my apartment
reminded him of a shrine.  I liked that. Then we all drove to Sun Valley because
I was house-sitting and had to feed my friend Richard's animals.  

	  It was an October night.  We opened the windows and the doors at 
Richard's place and an  electric breeze rippled though the house.  Then we all
sat down on the wooden floor.  I put  Armenian Dudek music on the stereo, 
with its slow musical wolf whine across those vast steppes.  Lightening  bolts
lit up the sky outside the windows. 

          Pretty soon there was this big phone conversation when Steve called 
home to see if he could stay out past his curfew (Steve was 24 or something 
at the time.) His parents told him he had to come home right away. So Steve 
left and Joe and I walked into the hills.

          There is an abandoned swimming pool in those hills. It is next to the 
chimney of the house to which it used to belong  -  which had  burned down 
five years before.  The lightening still scratching the sky we talked about 
ourselves and our childhoods.  Then we walked home and played a game of 
chess and I gave Joe a very elaborate back massage, we seemed to slip inside
each others skulls. He smelled like curry and grapefruit to me. 

          We went to sleep next to each other on the floor after saying that we 
trusted each other entirely.  We had our first kiss the next morning. Joseph 
had an appointment that he canceled and then we spent the morning together
kissing.  
	Then suddenly Richard was home from his trip (unexpectedly early)
and I rushed  Joseph into the bathroom.  Richard and I had dated each other 
eight years before but he still acted  jealous sometimes so I had to explain 
that I had met this guy who was in his shower.  Richard was dripping attitude.
  
	 A short time later, things at least explained somewhat, I walked outside
and sat next to Joseph on the wooden stairs of Richard's front porch.  We 
showed each other our driver's licenses, which  actually strikes me as pretty 
funny now. Then Joseph wrote my number down and gave me one of his cards
which I folded and tucked into my shirt pocket. He also gave me one of his 
purple pens and then he walked to his motorbike, got on, and rode away.  I 
thought, well I will probably never see him again but it was nice to have spent 
some time with him. 
 
	 Richard and I talked more and later that day  he accidentally, he still
swears to this day that it was an accident , washed the shirt with the phone
number  in the pocket. 
	Later in the weekend, Joseph called - he'd lost my number too and had
to call Steve to get it. . I called him back and we set up a date to see each 
other the weekend after that. We started to send each other art and 
poems in letters.
        
 	 The first time we made love it was inside of that abandoned swimming
pool, in the rain with the lavender glow of a sleeping bag enveloping us.   A fire
engine wailed in the distance.  And we felt like we were married right then.