Art was the only subject that held my interest and of course, boys. I dated so many different boys, starting from Eagle Rock, and Glendale, through Hollywood, onto Beverly Hills, then Westwood, Brentwood and so on; all the way to the beaches of Santa Barbara. Truly, a feat. No guy was safe.

Mike didn’t mind, because he knew that my flitting behavior was in direct correlation with my mother’s ruling of not going steady.

Just as I wasn’t able to turn down a date, I also couldn't help accepting a better one. Some nights I had as many as four dates, only to ignore them all, so I could cruise Hollywood and the Strip with the girls. I drove my mother crazy as one date after another came to the door, only to find that they had been stood up by me; thus I gained the reputation of being the ultimate P.T.

The only boy I felt committed to was my dark and handsome Michael, and our relationship. The depth of our affinity, still unknown to my family had, grown, under the hidden intimacy. Michael stepped into the Bohemian culture. Holding out his hand to me, I grasped it and followed. My mind was becoming a recycling plant, using old salvageable knowledge and applying it to the new; tossing the useless junk away. I reached out and away from the bourgeois comfort zone; my life line and diffidently sought individualism, within the safe compounds of social mediocrity. Something of me inside kept saying . . . Break away, break away. Step into the deep end.

"Try smoking some of this." First time, Mike handed me a joint, we were alone in his house in a small room with a tiny mattress and painting on the wall.

"Why, that is marijuana!'' I had been taught all my life that marijuana lead straight to heroin and opened a door to tawdry darkness. Mike just gently laughed at me in that amused way of his. "I will not.'' I said, stubborn. We sat in silence. He, puffing away, relaxed on his couch, staring into my eyes, all the while I sat rigid, uptight in a strait back chair. After a few minutes of this, I suddenly caught a cartoon visual of our silly crescendo and broke into spasms of giggles.

As usual, Mike already saw the scene long before I did and gave me his patiently teasing, sexy look. I was weak when it came to his sweet mocks.

"O.K.” I reluctantly reached for the joint. “I’ll try it.”