Platonic Love
March 1, 2016
Gosh it is such been such a silky wonderful unexpected 7 days….
A Fabulous feeling when your tax man tells you….that you owe only 20% of what you Thought you owed….
the hard loan (interest only with penalty for prepayment)…that I had to take out to buy this bungalow ….
as the seller wanted ALL Cash.. cost me 14 grand plus…but it turns out it was all totally deductible and helped me immensely as it prevented me from being thrown into a higher tax bracket…
And then when a man you have always loved platonically …a dear friend comes back into your life after having to help his mother through breast removal due to cancer… having her leg amputated due to diabetes….
what I have ALWAYS admired and loved about Nacho…is that…
well let me preface..
the Mexican government Only pays for children to go through 6th grade…after that it is up to the parents to pay…
Nacho was born in ABSOLUTE poverty….
he told me how wonderful it is eat the fruit of the cactus…how you take a rock and scrape off the thorns….and the fruit is delicious..
often they had nothing to eat except a soup made from boiled weeds….
his mother had to steal a chicken once…(there are 10 son siblings in his family)…and being a Fabulous Catholic…felt Soo Guilty about it……
(Nacho said tho she (at 80 something) has lost her breast… and her leg..d … is Mentally clear as a bell and Laughingly Happy…awaiting til she can go back home to Mexico and hear her birds sing….)
the first class (7th)… after 6th grade (in Mexico) …well you needed a typewriter for..back in that day…
…and bring it to class…
his parents did not have the money for one…
Nacho use to pass a store on his way to school where a brightly shiny typewriter was displayed…..
so his mother pushed him to cross the border illegally..
through the oh so long waterless desert…..guided by coyotes he had never met……
to join his brothers up in Northern California…
they lived in trailers picking lettuce…
they did not give him any clothes or money for new clothes..as they did not have any
.he had to walk 8 miles to school and then back from school….was able to finally get a job at McDonalds and buy a bike to go from home (his brother’s trailer) to school..
he went on to get FULL scholarships to college …dorm paid for….
(an aside my Mexican painter yesterday told me it will cost him $18,000 for his daughter’s college next year…and he does NOT know how he will do it….he hopes she gets a scholarship)…
Nacho then went on to get a job as a teacher with the LA school district…and this is when he entered my life…as he answered an ad I placed looking for a renter for my spare room…..
he has gone on to get his Masters in Psychology……and has bought two condos in the downtown art district of LA…the hot area..in which one he lives…with a roommate who pays him……the other he rents out….
what I have always admired is his love and care for his mother and family…
the ONLY one Who was truly educated…and Who GIVES….
and the very weird thing for me is that if I needed any help he would be there for me in a nano-second…..even tho we don’t hang out or see each other that much…..it is just something that IS…
It is the same way I feel about the wonderful roommates who a few years later rented the same room…The Fabulous Actress Meg Steedle…and her lover the Oh So talented writer Zach Bandler…gosh I love them…and Zach even wrote, produced and directed his first movie based on some of my old stories that is now touring the Indie circuit…
I had asked Nacho ..well texted or emailed..as I HATE phones….to come down to see my new bungalow……
I was soo soo wonderfully surprised…..when he texted me last week……..
Friday he met some of the “Boozy Bunch”…and fell in love with all of them…(he has always stunned me….. how wonderfully he can socialize with strangers…an ability I have Never had)
we spent Saturday …before going to Wonderful Tom and Paul’s Fabulous house for dinner….
driving through Joshua Tree National Park…such Amazing scenery….I have to go back and explore….especially during the Full moon when they conduct a tour…
it is funny how people can change you….and influence your life…
like this wonderfully older…greyish haired woman …a fox stole on..(yes it was a LONG time ago)
…sitting on a bar stool….. the first time I went to Vegas…way back when….
I was trying to open a new cigarette package…we had introduced ourselves earlier….
she said Robby..THIS is the way you open it….
she peeled down one corner…and then the next….saying SEE…makes it easier doesn’t it…which it sure did
we chatted…turns out she was the secretary for the head of the UN…..think her name was Millie…she had the Brightest Chinese Red lipstick…the most Wonderful smile…one tooth had a slight gold side to it…that glinted like a gold diamond ….. in the smoke filled light from the bar..
and Man could she blow these PERFECT smoke rings up…with this delicious bourbon laugh…that hit the oh so far ceiling…shattering my amazement
60 years later I can still see her
..mink stole on… shiny …mesmerizing red lipstick….
arch her back…blowing those oh so Perfect smoke rings…
laughingly…toward the Heavens
how I miss her…..
and I only knew her for 3 hours on a bar stool in Las Vegas…..
..she was just GORGEOUS to young naive me…..
I platonically fell IN Love with her……(sigh)
