Stop Dragging My Heart Around

I remember being 15-years-old and listening to Stevie Nicks records with one of my closest friends. We didn’t have a care in the world back then. Oh what a difference 16 years can make, I thought as we made our way to see Stevie live at the Hard Rock…

With so much going on the last few months, we decided to play catch up on each others’ lives before the concert. She caught site of the earrings and gave me a blank stare.

“The man who has no money spent $5,000 on earrings for a wife he no longer wants to be with. Hmmmmm. I thought I’d heard it all,” she said sarcastically.

OK, she hadn’t heard it all. But she had stood by with an amused look on her face while J-Fed argued with me about dinner, about the money I was supposed to get for him at the bank and his need for Fraps before I left for my big night out. Now, while I was happy to give him the money I owed him; there was no way I was going to get his fraps. My friend would have shot me dead in my tracks as a mercy kill if I had.

“What am I supposed to eat?” he asked.

“Eat the pork from last night,” I replied.

“That pork almost gave me a heart attack last night. There’s no way I’m eating it again,” he whimpered.

“Death by pork, J-Fed. Would it really be so bad?” If the pork didn’t get him, the daggers shooting from my eyes would surely impale his whiney ass.

As I went to exit the house, I heard him sniffle. Do you know why he sniffled? Well, because he had to watch the children while I went to the concert. Of course, all of his friends were celebrating at a party up at the local watering hole. Poor J-Fed was basically grounded, and there was no one to sneak him out a window. I should have had enough courtesy to leave him a box of tissues.

Anyways, once we’d finally escaped the house of horrors, we arrived at the concert. But our fun didn’t stop there. We may have gotten past J-Fed but guess who got seated next to the Stevie Nicks Tribute Band? That’s right. Memememememe. Yes, there was an entire stadium filled with people – young and old, fat and skinny, white and black, rich and poor, loud and quiet. And who do I get stuck next to? Why Miz Bad Karaoke. I call her that because she sang along with every Stevie Nicks song as if she was Stevie. While she wasn’t Stevie, she was exactly one beat behind on every song. It was like sitting next to a speaker with bad feedback.

And I don’t know what was in those fruity drinks she kept slamming down, but her behavior got more bizarre by the moment. I prayed that she didn’t accidentally pee in my Coach purse, some sort of post traumatic stress disorder I’d gotten since the fedster peed in the armoire.

We made it safely through Stand Back, Dreams and Rhiannon, but then came Edge of Seventeen. And that’s when Ms. Bad Karaoke started doing off-the-wall interpretive dance moves. She swayed. She sloshed. She made bird motions with her hands. And then she put made circles around her eyes with her hands.

“Will you see if I can borrow her binoculars?” my dear friend shouted over the music.

“There are no binoculars,” I explained, doing my best impersonation of someone in a straight jacket.

We both laughed and laughed. And suddenly I started feeling sentimental since for once this week I was laughing at someone besides J-Fed. The last time Stevie had been in town J-Fed and I had gone together. It had been one of our good nights. But here we were, in a broken marriage, and the good old days were gone. For once I didn’t just hear Stevie, I listened to her. And she said...

Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
It’s only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat.. drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost...
And what you had...
And what you lost...

Oh Stevie, truer words have never been spoken.

Too bad J-Fed wasn’t around to hear them.