My absolute idea of beautiful was Rachel Ward. I loved her olive skin, brown eyes, thick dark hair; her voice was the delicate tapping of fingernails on polished granite. I envied her long lean body that moved like a tiger with all the time in the world, or seemed to. To her perfection I'd compare my pale freckled skin, green eyes, and spider web wisps of reddish brown hair; my voice was too high and I was too short. Since Rachel I've embraced new…

When on vacation in the summer months I wear less makeup, less clothing, less of who I am at home. I have a "self" with a certain standard when I'm anywhere but on vacation. Clothes, make-up, hair, jewelry, shoes -- they're a form of presentation; the choices range from Walmart t-shirts and a ball cap to a well-polished look, but the make-up stays pretty much the same. I've wondered if women lie with make-up, since most men don't wear any, then I try to justify its use by thinking…

In 1984, 15,000 adults and infants in Bhopal, India died and a half-million others were affected by the worst industrial disaster in history when Union Carbide leaked 40 tons of a toxic gas killing thousands instantly.

In mid-June of this year, a 15-year-old high school student was shot dead for allegedly throwing rocks from the Mexican side of the border; barely a week after, another man was shocked to death with a stun gun while being deported from…

The four year-old is playing with the dog, Chester (17 lbs, nothing fierce, but I have to keep an eye on his mood because sometimes he gets tired of playing). So I'm watching out of the corner of my eye while getting dressed when suddenly my daughter yells, "Mom! Chester's butt is getting LONG!!!"

She's referring to his "tummy tail", his male "rigor-matic". He's squinting, hunched in a crescent shape, humping my child's arm so I tell him to "Put your butt back where…

Amy lay face up beside her new swimming pool with a cell phone against her ear, "Yes, this is his last week -- yeah, Kaposis Sarcoma. The guy has AIDS and....I know, and his wife is due with their third child any day but hey, you play and you pay. Hank, look, the pool guy is here so I gotta go but call me later...okay...love ya, bye."

Amy stood up and walked over to the tan young man, "You must work out," she said, flustered for no reason other than he was perhaps the most…

The nurse opened the door to the waiting room and called his name, "Blake Edwards?" She led him to an exam room and told him to undress from the waist up, to wear the gown open to the back.

Dr. Gleason entered the room a few moments later, "So you're concerned about a mole, Blake?"

"I'm not worried but you know Doris."

Dr. Gleason studied the dark half-inch oval on Blakes left shoulder before referring him to a dermatologist. Then he smiled and…

Doris hadn't felt like going to work lately but she couldn't sit around the house all day while the boys were in school. That's when her mind spun the most, when she was alone.

She arrived at Daphne's Boutique just before 9:00 am and opened new boxes of inventory. When she heard the bell on the door out front she left the stacks of boxes to greet the customer. She was happy to see Dr. Gleason, one of her regulars, "Here to pick up something for your wife?"

"Yes,…

Hank straightened the desk before gathering his things to leave the hotel. He called Amy to tell her he'd be home in twenty, then paused before saying, "Oh, he's here again."

"Who?" Amy asked.

"That guy you work with, what's his name -- "

"Blake, yeah, I know; did you see who he left with this time?"

"He always leaves alone, but within five minutes or so another guy always follows behind and like I told you, they meet at Blake's car…

"Who is that?" Doris asked, feigning cheer.

"That's Amy, married to Hank, the concierge at the Omni -- the hotel where Phillips always hosts the company Christmas party," Blake said with his usual calm, eyes on the soccer field and his precious boys.

Doris remembered Amy now, a sweet redhead who worked in the office with Blake, in charge of setting up Phillips Petroleum lunches and other extravagant affairs. She'd attended the last Christmas party a few months…

The twins, Danny and David, finished off their eggs while engaging plastic dinosaurs in a takeover of Planet Eucalyptus at the center of the table. Doris scooped the last of the eggs onto a plate for Blake, smiling at the warmth she still felt from the night before. He'd initiated the act, his right hand tunneling down the front of her denim, his left arm curled around her waist, pulling her back against his firm erection.

After breakfast the couple drove the boys to Austin…

Blake called Doris on his way home from the office, "I've got a late meeting tonight so don't bother with cooking." She was civil on the phone, more or less recovered from their argument a week before, and Blake was grateful she forgave him so easily, more easily than he could forgive himself.

After parking his black Audi at the hotel, Blake pulled down his visor to look at himself in the mirror. He was still a handsome man with more than enough good years left. He exited the…

Her favorite earrings are missing, the ones she wears for special occasions. She noticed they were gone yesterday, that they weren't in the the jewelry box where she's always kept them. Though she mostly trusts the maids she hides the box when they come except last week when she was in a rush. The maids must have chosen to take the earrings since they were small enough for a pocket but large enough diamonds to bring in a fortune, three carats at least. The maids will come again…

"How can I respect you when you complain all the time?" Blake asked.

"I just need some support -- you're never here, you don't help, and these kids were your dream." Doris said.

"I don't whine about my job -- you have a perception problem."

"No, my perception is dead-on: You're an equal-opportunity asshole, a love extortionate. You threatened to annul our marriage if I wasn't able to get pregnant and I should never have…

Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in Letters To A Young Poet, "Works of art are of an infinite loneliness and with nothing to be so little reached as with criticism. Only love can grasp and hold and fairly judge them."

In a recent 6S discussion someone mentioned that there was once a Sixer who was "obscene, violent, raw, grammatically disastrous and breathtakingly visual and imaginative. He's gone, which is a pity." What a loving, insightful comment about the fragile process…