Life went on. I worked my crazy schedule of part time jobs, still volunteered at the shelter when I could, but I couldn't shake thoughts of Kesey when I was there and I slowly began to emotionally withdraw to the point where Maria and Steve noticed. They were kind enough to ease me out and make it seem like a mutual decision. I truly believed them when they said they would miss me, but they were already missing the old me while the withdrawn me was still there. We all agreed it was time for a change, wished each other well and promised to stay in touch. Which we did to varying extents for decades.

Meanwhile Colin and I grew closer. Friends considered us inseparable. At a party after a show where Colin was a sideman, the band's bass player Lincoln drunkenly began referring to us as 'Colive' and soon everyone was doing it. I think they originally meant to annoy us, but I thought it was kind of charming from the moment I first heard the drunken Linc say it. Anyway, after that party, and among our mutual friends, it stuck. Which was fine with me since we actually were kind of inseparable.

When he didn't have a gig, Colin would keep me company in the projection room at the lightbox. We'd snuggle watching Goddard, Fellini, Barbet Schroeder, Luis Buñuel, Konchalovsky, and Truffault. I'm not so sure either of us consciously planned it, but it seemed at some point in time we realized we had become 'a couple'.

I think when I finally realized it was at Aurora Lancaster's Halloween party.

Colin and I were invited ...in hindsight, Aurora invited us together, with an effervescent 'You guys have to come! It's going to be the grooviest party in SoCal!'

So, of course, we did.

I went as Valentina Tereshkova in a 'spacesuit' Colin borrowed from a glam band he occasionally played with called 'Soyuz Seven'. It seemed pretty realistic to me, but Colin kept begging me to go as Barbarella instead. When I told him I would consider it if he agreed to go as Pygar the blind angel, he backed down. Instead I went as the first real woman in space.

And Colin went ...as Underdog. Which was sort of an inside joke, since so many people commented on how he reminded them of a 'Rock 'n Roll Wally Cox'.

When we showed up at Aurora's party, everyone commented on how we weren't in a 'couples costume'. Many commented on how we'd have made a kickass Sonny & Cher, but conceded that they would have been OK if we were just Bonnie & Clyde, Morticia and Gomez, or even Liz Taylor & Richard Burton. It was instantly clear that everyone expected us to come in a couple's costume.

It didn't even matter if we came as Jesus & Mary Magdalene.. as long as it was a couple's costume.

It was, I think, at that moment, that we realized that we were perceived as a single unit.... 'a couple'. And maybe when we began to perceive ourselves as a couple.

But for this party, we were just the cosmonaut and the cartoon character. Although I have to admit, Colin's Wally-Cox-as-Underdog costume ..and impression... was one of the hits of the party.

He 'broke character' when Lavender Conundrum asked him to fill in for their guitar player who was a little too drunk to play. They were all old friends from other gigs and Colin fit in well, except the image of this glam band of chic shiny Ziggy Stardust clones playing their Bowie, Mott the Hoople and Velvet Underground covers with Underdog on lead guitar was an image no one at that party would ever forget.

Since most of the people at Aurora's party were artists, the makeup of the band was as fluid as a lava lamp all night long. Colin would always push it to the stuff he wanted to play like Kinks and Link Wray while his friend Bennett kept trying to veer the music to the subversive cabaret he liked, like Kurt Weill and Hoagy Carmichael, which Colin and his mates tried to rock up.

At one point, I don't know whether it was driven by drink or a dare, the band broke into Wayne Newton's Danke Schoen, and Colin stole the oversized jacket from his friend Chet who came as 'Feeman the G-Man” in black suit and fedora, draped it over his shoulders and spun to the mic startling the room with a dead on Wayne Newton.

I think he expected to get a laugh, but the crowd just stared. Not that it wasn't funny, but because no one could believe how perfectly he captured it. Midway though the song, Colin was getting more uncomfortable that he wasn't getting a laugh. So he kind of turned the song into a medley, mixing it up with Brenda Lee's 'I'm Sorry'.

I knew instantly what he was doing, since we once had a rather long talk about this. He kidded that Wayne and Brenda would never appear together on tour because they sounded like the same person, then he tried to imagine what a duet between them would sound like. We laughed about it at the time, and now he was doing it as a bit at the party. It got laughs alright, but most of them were nervous. I suspect because no one had previously noticed how alike the two sounded, and because Colin was on stage perfectly imitating them both ...as Underdog!

That wasn't the end of the weirdness though. Later as Colin and I were talking with some friends, a guy came up and pulled Colin aside for about five minutes. He came back grinning and shaking his head.

“Trippy....” was all he said, still smiling in mild disbelief.

When we pressed him, he spilled. “Dude wants me to call him. He works at a studio in town. Does jingles for ads and stuff. Wanted to know who else I did.” He grinned.

“When I finally clued in, I told him I didn't DO anybody. I'm no Rich Little or Vaughan Meader.” He grinned. “He told me he thought I DID do people but didn't know it. And there could be good money in jingles and stuff.” He held up a business card. “....crazy....” he muttered.
“Crazy.” We all concurred.

Colin and were inseparable through the holiday season