Sample of “On Being Velma-less” from EMPTY ROOMS LONELY COUNTRIES

               At the bar, I strike a chord with a woman I had met before. I almost didn’t recognize her at all. The last time I saw her she was dressed as Velma from Scooby Doo with such a precision for detail, that it was literally breathtaking. She had the glasses, the short cut hair, the orange turtleneck shirt with the short skirt, the stockings and that lesbian disposition that made Velma so blasted intriguing to begin with. The problem, however, was that this costume made her so erotically charged that she sparked impure thoughts in me for weeks.

      And all these years, I thought Daphne was the one for me.

      We have a good conversation with no awkward silences or advances to look at her watch. There’s a lot of eye contact that enriches the textures of our discourse and I am feeling that surge I always get when I am enjoying the moment with someone new.

      I start planning our first date in my head. First we would have dinner, then I figure we could cruise around, eventually meet some old man named Mr. Farley, stumble on some type of petty crime, get chased around by some monster that is obviously a man in a silly rubber suit, somehow turn the tables and catch the monster, unmask him to discover, much to our surprise, that the monster is actually Mr. Farley. Mr. Farley would confess his crime and then say that he would have gotten away with it too, had it not been for us rascally kids. Then maybe we’d catch a movie or something.

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