Finally the first Cyclone ride of the season. My best friend has convinced me to come to a really poorly organized war protest on the beach. While we are waiting for them to figure out what they are doing, we go to Nathan's. It's not even 11AM, but hell, that can never be too early for cheese fries, particularly not when eaten al fresco with cops, bikers, kids from the PJs across the avenue. We still have time, so I start mooning at the rollercoaster. It doesn't open until 12, and that gives me half an hour to call my friend chicken, using a less polite and more gynecological term, about 50 times, for not wanting to go on it with me. He's never ridden coaster in his life and now I have decided it is time to push him beyond his comfort zone, which is both a gentle kindness and incredibly obnoxious. This would be what I call "the black eye of happiness" I sometimes administer to those I care about--hey, sometimes joy is rough stuff, but it is joy none the less.

So, yes, he acquieses. But we can't sit in the front (crap!) and he has to be able to hug me (okay). The resulting photograph, snapped sometime during the proceedings is a hilarious depiction of the masks of comedy and tragedy, I am screaming with delight, he looks like foot-long surgical needles are being inserted into his kidneys. He looks so miserable it would give me pause, well, in fact I would feel terrible about pushing him too far, making him so uncomfortable, except I know he then went on to brag all over himself about it at last night's dinner party. Yippee!