One, You lock the Target.....

Ah! Tuesday! Monday's Bastard Cousin. I caught up on all the sleep I normally lose going back to the 9 to 5 world from my penchant for staying up late all weekend, so I am oddly energized. I think it's this flavored coffee that flows so freely at work though that has my brain racing...

So, Yesterday, I was hangin with my friend Elise. I won't say too much about her except that we've been friends for 15 years, and we've shared things that I since gave up long ago. She has recently been in her own personal renaissance, remolding herself into a new adult. She is eschewing some aspects of aging, and instead dressing younger, feeling younger, looking better than I think she ever has, and losing a bunch of weight in the process. I am very proud of her accomplishments. With this newfound energy and vitality, plus her own recent Relationship end, she has found herself travelling the concert circuit of her favorite band, and thus getting lots of new clothes and stuff to adorn her new, more svelte frame. Now, Elise freely admits, she will always be an imposing woman as it were, but it does have it's advantages. Due to a recent slip up and unfamiliarity with English shoe sizes, I received an Early Christmas Present from her of a swank pair of 14 hole, Cherry Red Doc Martens. Ah! Doc Martens! With that Air Cushioned Sole!

Sliding into this fresh new pair of boots, straigh lacing them as I learned to over 15 years back, It made me reminisce. I used to wear Docs all the time... exclusively. I had Blue 10 holes, Black 10 and 8 holes, Oxblood Steel Toe 3 holes, Doc Wingtips.... I used to love Doc Martens....But, I kinda gave them up a few years back, when they stopped making my favorite kind. I never had though, and always wanted a pair of 14 hole cherry red steel toe boots. SUre, I'm older now, but they are still comfortable, and what a pair of s**t kickers they are!

I had a friend, who, as so often happens, I lost contact with some 3 or 4 years ago, Jenifer. We were about the same age, and when I still lived with my Mom and was in High School, we hung out all the time. She used to have a pair of similar boots, and it was a fateful night at Medusa's (an underage Juice Bar in Chicago at the Time) where she had them stolen from her at knifepoint or something similar. That memory always stuck with me, and I remembered hangin in the Band Room there, which was dark for the evening, sitting with her, Ozu, Sandy, Spider, and Jenifer's Boyfriend Mark the Skinhead, while she fretted about what she would tell her Dad when he came to pick us up later that evening. When he did come, we had decided the best way to get around it was to not tell him, so Jen ran to the car and hopped in the back without her dad seeing, and the rest of us all piled in. We got about a half block in the post Medusa's Traffic Nightmare on Sheffield, when all of a sudden, Jenifer bluerted out that she saw the people who took her boots, and she and her Boyfriend Mark booked from the car to try and get them back, leaving Me and our other friends in the car to explain what happened to us that night. She never did get the boots back, and I don't know if Mark and his friends ever gave those a-holes the ass-whipping they deserved... But that night always stuck in my memory.

Nowadays I find it amazing just how close we sometimes got to being killed, arrested, you name it! I have few regrets, except that those days aren't here anymore, and in some instances, I can now relive those memories while struttin around in my brand new boots.