My Grandmother's Shoes

My Grandmother had those shoes that click, click, click, all down the sidewalk. Grown up shoes.
My mother's high heeled Italian shoes click, click, clicked through sophisticated places like the hard floors of international airports, vast shopping centers filled with fabric vendors and jewelry, and the marble terrace of our New Delhi house, crowded with diplomats in fancy suits and plunging summer gowns, but my Grandmother's shoes held a special fascination because I only saw them one a year, on my trips back to England during the summer. They clicked with a  sort of soft, squashy click that sounded like stockinged feet, and felt like the scent smell of lavender, baked beans on toast, chocolate biscuits with tea, and moss growing on a stone wall.
 
We made our way into the village of Fulbourne every morning at nine, shopping bags in hand, to collect the ingredients for today's dinner. Lamb chops from the butcher, fresh peas and new potatoes from the greengrocer, one white and one wheat from the baker, and jam tarts for dessert. We held hands, click, click, click on the wooden floor of the sweet shop, stopping for a paper packet of jelly babies. Click, click, click at the supermarket for a pint of milk and some  Blackcurrant Ribena, click, click, click on the ancient paving stones of the village church as we stopped to say good morning to the vicar's wife.

Back at my Grandmother's cottage on Petit's Close, she sent me with the clicking shoes in hand, to her bedroom closet, to swap them with a pair of slippers. I knelt on the carpet, breathing in mothballs and lavender,  proudly lining up Nanna's walking shoes with the others. Tomorrow, maybe I would pick her out the brown pair.

Today, in Texas,  I noticed that my own shoes click. I was walking back down my own stone garden path after feeding my Boston, Rosy, breakfast. My steps sounded hurried and very grown up. I am a Converse sort of girl mostly, even in my forties, but suddenly I noticed that I have shoes that click. And I was overwhelmed with a smell of lavender. 

Dreadlock Blanket

I have this phobia of hair. It has a technical name. Chaetophobia. That comes from the Greek for "flowing hair," but in my case it not flowing hair which bothers me, (I kinda love that and envy it) but disembodied hair. Supposedly childhood trauma is supposed to precede this condition, and I can think of a few.

At one point, I pulled my hair out for at least a year to deal with anxiety, leaving myself with a sizeable bald spot on the top of my head which only pony tails would cover. I also had the world's longest, most dense, purple shag carpet in the my bedroom of the house we rented during or five our stay in India. My bed became a safe island in a sea of embedded hair from previous tenants, which I tried hard to cross in as few steps as possible. Public swimming baths with their slippery floors, writhing with wet hair, and webbed hair plugging drains, left me cowering or my mother to carry me out.
Is this normal? I don't think so. I think it is drama which could possibly be tolerated in a seven year old  girl in a swim suit...with  bald spot, (possibly caused by a purple shag carpet) but when this fear manifested itself in my adult life, I had a harder time living it down.

My husband and I had just driven ten hours straight through, to Columbus, Georgia for D's residency interview. Both poverty stricken students, we cruised the row of pawn stores, strip clubs, and rent by the hour motels for a place to stay for the night, and pulled the rattling 1984 Chevy up to barred office window to secure a room.

The room. Another shag rug. Orange this time. I remained rooted in the doorway while D flung himself wearily on the queen sized bed.
"Come on, lets turn the lights out already. I'm beat." D, impatient and groaning.
I took my customary bounds across the carpet, landing in a cold sweat on the bed, but found myself trapped in the worst of all positions, sitting on what appeared to be a dreadlock blanket. (gag) Greyish black, woven with the hair of every guest who had stopped by for an hour or a night and contributed short, curly, long, textured, dark, ginger, bleached hair from every area of their body, it draped the entire mattress to the floor. No island of escape here.
 
I practically levitated.

I don't think I even touched the carpet on my way to the door and there really was no discussion about vacating a room we had already paid for.

I know the drive to the section of town with higher priced, and higher class motels was a grim one, D reminding me that we didn't have the money for this.
But I would not have survived the night sleeping on, or under that blanket. I have not shaken the feel of it. And I still see hairs everywhere. There is one on my screen right now.....

I've been Plumbed!

This is the color of rage. This is not the color of relief or of redemption. This is the color ignited by a full day of phone calls to the troll plumbers, resulting in unfulfilled promises, wasted time, a dress that wasn't hemmed. packages that weren't sent, a college expo that my husband is now enjoying with my son rather than all of us enjoying together, and the final pinch of salt in an increasingly dirty wound; both troll numbers only going to voice mail. May I say that it is eight hours and fifty minutes past the appointed time of arrival.
This is also the color of having written a check for a service fee last night and handed it over into Troll A's filthy hands.
Should I have known something was off when he said he would stop by to finish the job BEFORE his court date in the morning?
Why yes, the average person would have let their pen hover over the check substantially longer.
Should I have further mused that my freak magnet was flashing again as he told me that his father (the original Max in Max's plumbing) had been in the hospital for three months after being hit by a car and having both legs, all his ribs, and one arm broken.
The answer is yes. Ding, ding, ding!
But I felt just a twinge of nausea as I handed the check over. Mostly I felt glad that they were leaving my house, and strangely curious what someone looked like in a full body cast with all those limbs snapped. Especially someone that short.
Today however, I am considering putting my reviewing talents to use.
Tomorrow, I will likely be paying my bank to stop payment on a check. (I never understood why I should be charged the extra insult for having been screwed over).
And after that? Looking for a plumber?

Part Two: Let the Plumbing Begin.

This is the color of relief. It is not the color of redemption.
I did not ask the plumber if he saw the inside of my toilet. I did not need to, because anyone who spends an hour, flushing and re-flushing said appliance, is bound to lift the lid at some point. The best part about all this was that, the moment I opened my front door, I ceased to really care whether he took a peek or not, and as the hour went on, I kind of hoped he dipped his head in the bowl. 
Maybe I am an insensitive person, but I ceased to care on presentation alone. Plumber A. stood on my doorstep covered in layers of unknown sewage, hair encrusted with days, if not weeks of dirt, his brow dripping with sweat, and proceeded to snort some hideous concoction into his T-shirt sleeve before even greeting me. Plummer B. was obviously this gentleman's twelve year old son, equally as plastered in greenish filth. Each stood a head shorter than me, and I am by no means tall.
Sure I let them in. That's what you do when the Plumber calls. Right?
I followed their dirty size 16.9 sneaker tracks up the stairs to the kids' bathroom. Big feet....big....heart? Yes?
For the next hour,  I listened to this:
"go turn it off"
stomp stomp stomp (downstairs)
"shiiiiiiiiiit"
stomp stomp stomp (upstairs)
"go turn it back on"
stomp stomp stomp (downstairs)
"DAMNit"
stomp stomp stomp (upstairs)
"dammit cain't you shut up and let me do my job boy???"
"go turn it off"
stomp.....
"hey, you got a mop?"
ME: "ahhhh, no" (really, I don't. is that bad? I use a Swiffer?)
"got towels?"
ME: "suuuure" (don't plumbers come with their own...towel/mops?)
So this comes to an end when Plumber A. tells me that he has stopped the leak but has to return in the morning with parts. (oh joy!) Plumber B. hands me a sodden, blacken towel, (thanks kid, I'll burn it) and stands there staring at my daughter do homework (she's too old for you and anyway, she goes for men with heads bigger than their feet.)
Can I say  made the right call when I found Max's homegrown plumbing in a google search, complete with a 4 1/2 star review? Maybe on this occasion yes, because the issue of my dirty toilet bowl completely  left the building, but the jury is still out.
That night as I flushed my own, pristine toilet before bed, the tank lid practically blew off as water surged over edge.
My daughter was treated to, "what the fuck has that troll done to my house?" as I reached through warm, Texas toilet tank water to shut the supply valve off.
So far, no more incidents with my personal toilet (I tested it several times....perhaps a pressure build up in the pipes from too many "turn it off, turn it on's?)
But it is an hour and half past the morning appointment time and those parts have still to be delivered. The story continues.

Part one: before the plummber arrived.

I was concerned that my toilet was dirty. Not just a little ring around the bowl, but more like that scene from "Candy Man," when actress Virginia Madsen creeps warily into the housing project public toilets to look for a missing child, and is met by more shit than bowl.
From the outside, my toilet looked like anyone else's. Pretty much white. Except for the fact that the tank wasn't filling, the pipe on the wall was dripping into a cereal bowl, and that annoying slurping sound meant that my water bill was creeping up by the minute.
I had already been through the futile, "fix it myself" stage, bringing home a little plastic baggie of rubber parts from the hardware store, and rummaging armpit deep in the tank, only to have all the water I had just hand poured into the tank sucked away, never to return with my next test flush.
Yes, I had resigned myself to calling a plumber, and it was only then, that I raised the lid and realized that either someone in my family was suffering from chronic explosive diarrhea, or that relying on my teenagers to clean their own toilet had backfired on me in more ways than one.
The plumber was minutes away. My children fled the scene, and the toilet scrubber, a mere toothbrush to scrub the titanic, was impotent anyway without the ability the flush!!

I foisted her off on a BOY?????

WHAT came over me yesterday, that I would foist boys and all the drama that comes with them on my fifteen year old daughter? Let me explain. I have a child who has shown no real interest in dating, and prefers to hang out with a group of guys to swim, watch movies, walk in the park, and other inoffensive activities. She is content to Skype or text or play a game of internet Minecraft with her guy friends, sitting right on the couch next to me, laughing and letting me in on the conversation. This is a GOOD thing. A VERY good thing. The closest my daughter came to having a boyfriend was meeting a boy on the swings every day in fifth grade during lunch and daring each other to do grotesque things like lick a tire, or eat a graham cracker found on the floor of the car over a summer spent playing dragons and rock trolls together.

Yesterday, when I picked her up from Region choir rehearsal, my daughter sighed audibly while stabbing at her phone, and in true, "ask me what's up" form announced that she was "going to get to the bottom of this madness!"

All of a sudden, not one, not two, but three boys from her group of boy "pals" have become interested in asking her out. This coincides nicely with the upcoming Homecoming dance which my daughter looked at me and with true innocence said, "Mom, what IS that anyway??" Yes, three of the group are having a hard time deciding who will be the one to ask her out since there is a friend rule and they have no idea how to breach the unspoken law that "no bro shall ask out a woman that his bro has expressed love for." My daughter was flabbergasted to receive a text asking her first, if she "loved" one of her friends, and then what her response would be if another asked her to the mysterious Homecoming dance, and then, (by way of the poor young man's ex) that another wanted to ask her but was afraid to.

The reason she hangs out with boys, you ask? "Because hanging out with girls is too much drama, Mom"

That theory out the window, I put my foot squarely in my mouth and asked her which of them she would be interested in going to the dance with or possibly going out with. Wouldn't it be "so-and-so," I mused, idiotically. I was met with a rare contemptuous look. Did I know nothing? She likes them all in their own way and could not pick. Not only had she told me this, but she had done her best to explain this to her fan club. Rather than deter them, it seemed to have started a jousting competition, each guessing what her "true" feeling are, and the "look" that I received was because now, I too, was trying to guess her true feelings.

I remained mum on the matter, still tasting shoe leather, until she baited me again with, "I think I may have scared them off by saying I don't like them that way. What should I do now?"
Well, here are the pros and cons of dating, I began, like the wonderful mother that I am, opening the door for this whole true boy friend thing to go down the toilet. I never received an answer last night, just a wary look, but this morning I dropped off a daughter with a Mona Lisa smile which left me almost ready to beg for information.

Why oh why did I not just tell her that her plan not to date until senior year, college, or whenever she didn't have so much homework, was a GREAT one.  Why oh why did I buy in to her sweet, flushed cheek surprise at having a suitor (or several)? I want her to enjoy the pros, not the cons of dating, but at fifteen, there are more cons than pros! Immaturity, your boyfriend playing Grand Theft Auto in marathon sessions, feelings being out of bounds, having a healthy interest equated with cheating, a girl who doesn't kiss being boring, a girl who does kiss being a hoe.....oh, I am glad my daughter has good self esteem. But is anyone's good enough to withstand all that??? 

Four thirty can't come fast enough for me to find out if any one of her valiant boy pack was bold enough to make a move, who it was, and what her response was. From there, we will deal with nice things like pros and ugly things like cons because I am exceptionally lucky to have that daughter who still shares the couch, and her conversation with me. For now!

Can News Media Perpetrate Cyber Bulling?

I find it somewhat difficult to be critical of a news station which brings us stories like "The Bully Effect" in an obvious effort to change social attitudes and bring awareness to the new difficulties that our youth face in the form of cyber bullying. But a fairly recent story which was widely covered on CNN has weighed on my mind, and I want to make note of some of the troubling ways in which it was reported.
When Hannah Anderson was kidnapped in California, the nation's immediate reaction was shock, but I could not help but notice even CNN news reporters making reference to her "potential" involvement in the planning of this event, or in her potential collaboration with James DiMaggio. It was on perhaps the second day of her kidnapping that I heard a comment which really grated on my ears; that teenagers do crazy things, and she may indeed think that she was eloping with him. This was said during discussion and complete hearsay about a situation which should be assumed to be nothing other than what it looked like; a straightforward kidnapping and victim situation. This was a child ripped from their daily life, her mother and brother murdered, and her life in danger from the same man who committed these crimes. Where was this speculation coming from and how was it appropriate? If such things had been said about Polly Klaas when she was stolen, the nation would have, rightly, erupted in fury.  I continued to hear news anchors refer to possible sightings of "the couple" during the next day or two. They were not a couple. This was a dangerous criminal and his hostage.
As I watched and listened, I became increasingly upset, feeling that this young teen's identity was being changed from that of a child and the victim of a brutal crime, to that of a seductive young woman with charms and desires, who may possibly have some involvement in DiMaggio's actions. Perhaps this happened after a friend was reported as saying that DiMaggio had a crush on her and would date her if she were older. There was nothing inappropriate about reporting this information, but obviously so much inappropriate about the comments. However, it seemed that after this, discussions about this child did not center around how she had been the victim of a pedophile who had been incapable of controlling his comments about her, but to how young women can have stars in their eyes when they think someone adores them and can easily become complicit in things they would not ordinarily do.
I imagined Hannah Anderson watching these inane discussions if she had access to television news, and I imagined her heart sinking as she saw the nation picture her as a rebel teen gallivanting across the country with the killer of her mother and brother, or worse still, believing that perhaps she even helped kill them to elope with him. I imagined her humiliation. I imagined her loss of faith in those who could help her out of this terrifying situation, and I found myself hoping very much that she was not able to view news reports, when ordinarily I would hope for the opposite.
The discussion did not change much after Hannah was rescued. Don't get me wrong, the nation was thrilled. But it seemed also, that people were thrilled to have a new story to cling to, which many on Carol Costello's Facebook feed referred to as being "like a Hollywood story," and "something being off about that girl." The media again changed Hannah Anderson from a very young victim of violent crime to a symbol of intrigue and speculation by glorifying the possibility that DiMaggio may be her father, by speculating that her ability and willingness to grant an interview so soon after such a terrible loss, was somewhat odd and unusual behavior.
All of this prompted me to ask if any of this information was in the least bit relevant. Why should we need to know if there is the remote possibility that DiMaggio had fathered the child he then said he would date, kidnapped, and held hostage in a tent? If any of this information were true, should it not be absolute fact before it is spread over the media like a cheap romance story? Why indulge the demands of DiMaggio's sister?
Again, I thought of Hannah Anderson a great deal in the next few weeks. I thought of cyber bullying, and I thought how terribly sad it was that many of the awful comments she must be receiving were, this time, prompted, perhaps unwittingly, by disgraceful coverage of a violent crime. Did she see herself as responsible for her mother and brothers' murders? Did she think the nation saw her in a sexual light rather than a frightened young girl? Did she think that the nation was more concerned about whether what little was left of her family, and the man she knew as daddy, was even her father. Did she feel that people saw her now as a renegade, a slut, a criminal, someone's bastard child. Just think of the fodder this reporting could provide for bullies.

Cyber bullying. In this case I feel it began with the news media. Not just CNN, but any news station which speculated on information which should have been factual. Any news station which took away Hannah's true status as child and victim, and placed her in the light of woman and complicit. How awful that a news station which cares so very much about putting an end to Cyber bullying could foster this kind of despair in a young crime victim. I chose to write to CNN, of all media, about this issue because I trust that CNN will be the first to recognize mistakes that were made and connect speculation stemming from news media discussion with bullying behavior.

My hope for Hannah Anderson is that she no longer has to hear how her brave behavior is questioned or seen as odd, that she is not sad enough, that she no longer has to worry that she will hear her name associated with running away with a forty year man, and that she will no longer have to hear the despicable speculation that she may have been involved in the deaths of her mother and brother. But I know better. I know that once cyber bullying has started, it does not stop in weeks or months. I know that once a thought like this, of guilt and doubt, is placed in a young girl's head, she is likely to dwell on it, especially when her mother is no longer living to help her deal with the pain.

As often as we hear about suicides resulting from bullying or shame, I am afraid for Hannah Anderson. I hope that she is strong and determined and that she has all the support she needs, but I feel that the media and the nation owe her an apology. A quiet, and unsensational apology. 

Ask, and I will review

I have a new goal. I no longer want to write a novel which will be read for generations to come, handed out in classroom sets for deep anaylsis, promote me to Initial only name status, or make my granchildren proud. I think I can gain equal fame through writing product reviews. On the internet. Because everyone wants to know how that unexpected inside zip pocket on the purple camera case perfectly fits exactly two spare 8 GB memory cards for the few thousand extra pictures one may have to take on that trip to the zoo, or one piece of Wrigley's gum, spearmint only.
For someone without a job, or perhaps I should say, a starving writer whose closest brush with publicity came when I accidentally left my journal on the dining room table in ninth grade and my mother immediately made a therapy appointment, checking email every day and being asked to review an Edward Elrich Cosplay cotume, to a set of vintage British pub darts, or a flannel shirt scented candle, is a wonderous experience. Blown out of all proportion, morning email can be seen as a list of job offers and invitations to hear my literary voice. At the very least, writing a few reviews can count as my hour of the day in which "writers write."

So far I have managed to push the rather disturbing reality that each of these products has not been purchased by a total stranger, but by myself, probably while consuming corn nuts or chocolate covered peanuts late at night with ancient episodes of Criminal Minds playing in the background. Being single leads, in my case, to strange hours, poor sleep, internet browsing,  and a whole lot of crumbs in the bed.
Perhaps my goals will change. This new fad of writing reviews is incredibly new; only about a week old, in fact. But for now, it seems positively ingenious and fulfilling on the most unsophisticated level. Right now that beats the great void of writing nothing at all.
How do YOU feel about slumps in your writing?
What do you do to keep a sense of humor when signing your children's classroom conduct forms is all you wrote for the day?

These Scales aren't Balanced

I found it interesting to watch CNN's Anderson Cooper report on the news station's own shocking non-reporting of the mass shooting in Chicago which injured thirteen people on  September 19th, 2013. Just three days earlier the country was rocked by a mass shooting in the Washington DC Naval Yard , where thirteen people, including the shooter, were killed. On that day and those afterward, CNN dedicated almost every hour of news coverage to the Naval yard shooting story, repeatedly playing the same tape of streets full of ambulances, helicopters hovering above the scene, and updating every minute detail as it came in. Quite honestly, during the morning hours, thee was little to update, and some information was speculative, and filler material simply to keep the story on air until more could be learned. At the time I began to feel that it might be better to break from the story temporarily, and then come back at an appropriate time with more details. After all, this was not the only news of the day, and, much as I wanted to know what was happening, I also wanted accurate information, which seemed more likely to come with time. I was not opposed to coverage, but I certainly felt that the coverage was gratuitous.

On Friday, having read about the shooting in Chicago on the internet, I tuned in to CNN's Wolf Blitzer in hopes of learning more, but as I watched with my seventeen year old son, the promised story was almost dismissed in a few sentences. I cannot even say, "five minutes," because the story was not even given this much time. Sadly, my son commented with cynicsm that he did not expect to see much more because this was"just" Chicago.

Later in the day, I watched Anderson Cooper 360. It seemed as though "not mentioning the Chicago shooting enough" may have prompted some national dialogue because the subject of that show was how "we as a country should be just as concerned about mass shootings in Chicago as we are about shootings such as those in the Navy yard, in Aurora, or Newtown." However, CNN, having scolded not only the American Public, but themselves, for lack of reporting, could not even dedicate the entire one hour show to the story, and drifted into the "rediculist" and other news.

I am not sure that the Chicago story would have made more than a passing story on CNN had a three year old child not been shot in the face. yes, I did just say that. Had it been the usual black youth, shot by gang gunfire, this story would have had much less shock factor, but young Deonta, who lost most of his face during the shooting, became a symbol of everything wrong with Chicago violence. How could they shoot a baby?

The four people who have lost their lives in Chicago in the twenty four hours since the basketball mass shooting, and another ten who have been severely injured, have been lost completely in the National news, and only make statistics in local papers. They are dead, and injured, none-the-less.
I don't have a magical answer as to how the media should cover shootings, but I do know that when two mass shootings occur in one week, it is blatantly wrong to give one the "appeal" of a mini movie marathon, complete with dramatically themed news music every time the story comes back from commercial break, interviews with family members, and endless details about the murderer, yet slide the other mass shooting nicely into a one hour time slot.

I would like to comment also, that I am a fan of CNN news, and learn a great deal of information from this source, but something is wrong with this picture. Hey, I know I am not the only one to point it out!!

Suicide and truth

Suicide is a word that many people don't often want to say or think about, but when I think of the word, I think of a need for truth and openness. These are the only ways to silence the relentless voices which urge suicidal individuals to act. I know because I have been at that point several times and I have not had the luxury of truth or openness, and my own brush with suicide on two occasions was far too close. I shouldn't be saying all this. I shouldn't be admitting that I came that close to taking my own life; that I lay in an emergency room having my stomach pumped, leaving two completely empty bottles of prescription pills, my enraged and abusive husband, at home, and my two young children at a neighbor's house. I should not be saying something so sick and dysfunctional. Who am I to be trusted if I acted so irrationally and almost committed such an appalling act? My husband was quick to remind me over and over again what a terrible person I was, and how this could forever be used against me in the future. But I believe in truth. It was secrecy and fear, and hiding the truth which led me to that terrifying, lonely day. If I am honest, suicide and thoughts of suicide linger and push their way to the front of my mind on a regular basis now, ten years later. I push them back. I have even spoken of the thoughts to a therapist, but I cannot be quite as honest as I would like. I need to always say that I have no plan, when in fact, I know that if things got bad enough, I have every step planned out to the last moment. I have done for years. How many of us live this way, with invasive thoughts of suicide? How many of us rarely, if ever think about taking our own life? I often wonder if it is just an obsession, or if it is what it feels like; an inevitable end to my life because I see no other way out. I wonder how many are weighed down by these debilitating and intrusive thoughts.
Two weeks ago, at my son and daughter's school, a young man, fifteen years old, killed himself. It was the second suicide at the school in four years. I was shocked. I was distressed and horrified for his parents and I imagined the horror my children would feel if I were to end my life. This is why I wait. Right now my children make living a beautiful thing, but without them, when I have lost everything that means security, love, and companionship in my life, and when I am incapable of taking care of myself alone, I see that I will become a burden, and that escape will become a more seductive option. It will become easier for me to justify saying that I have no worth.
Writing these words feels, not honest, but practically illegal. How are people like myself supposed to have an open dialogue about feelings which can legitimately lead to death, depending on the day, the impulse, the strength of the feelings which come in overwhelming waves, if there is so much shame associated with the mention of suicide? How can we erase the stigma attached to depression and suicidal ideation, and allow those who suffer from its effects to put their cards on the table? 
Any other child who lost their life at the High School would have been honored and memorialized, and every student would know about their death, and have a chance to grieve their loss. Yet, this young man's death went unmentioned by anyone except the tennis team he was a member of. I spoke to the principle, expressing my understanding that he must carefully balance the privacy of a grieving family with the needs of an entire campus to understand a loss. He assured me that the school would take this opportunity to reach out to students who may feel alone, to help all those who felt the loss, and to take a chance to stress suicide prevention. As I said, I have been at that point more than once and I live in fear that the feelings will overwhelm me again. I remain ready at any time to act on them, because I know how important that feeling of control is when it strikes. Still, nothing was said to the student body, who knew that a young man of fifteen, struggling with unimaginable self doubt and isolation, had killed himself and would never be coming back.
I believe in truth. I believe in saying it how it is. I believe in honesty and open talk about things that matter. Life and death are surely, things that matter.

Freak Magnet

I have a freak magnet attached to me; possibly on my forehead. I believe it to say something along the lines of, "if you have a messed up story and want to mess up mine, come on over, I will listen." This magnet secured itself to me relatively painlessly some time in early puberty when I became know as the shy friend who didn't say a lot but who would listen to anyone's life story and offer unquestioned support with a dose of compassion.
The first time I missed my midnight curfew in high school was not to sneak kisses with some budding literary Orpheus, whispering promises of undying love in the back of a sixties mustang. Rather, I was listening to my on again off again friend confess that she was the latest victim of the neighborhood rapist, and that her drunken mother and lawyer father, and all the police knew, along with everyone else I suggested she tell, and that I should now leave in disfavor, much to my dismay, for having been disloyal enough to suggest she seek help. Thus began her game of catch and release that went on for the next ten years or so, which I was oblivious to.
When my boyfriend called me one night, enraged, to tell me that he was confined to his room, thanks to me, for having felled his closet door with a hatchet because he mistakenly thought I was at the movies with another boy (that boy was actually was my mother), I told him how sorry I was that he was in trouble. The part about the hatchet and the  disturbing possessive behavior went unnoticed, except for a slight twist of anxiety in my chest.
Basically, acting strangely did not throw up any red, streaming flags in my face. At most I let out a sigh, and wondered at how complicated life could be.
So my freak magnet set up home like a lit neon motel sign, welcome comfort for visitors, bigger and more visible as the months and years went by. 
Oh the stories!

Antisocial breakthrough!

This has been an unbelievably  ambitious evening for a complete introvert. You must understand that by introvert, I mean not having seen anyone socially since before both my children got out of school in June, and that last social interaction was to watch my friend feed her horse, wheel a barrow of fresh dung to the drop off point, and make idle chit chat until we were all too thirsty and too dangerously bitten up by stable flies to stay another minute. The hard work made conversation easy, and my daughter helped fill the spaces where I would have found myself tongue tied, yet I had been nervous even that day back in late May when we went to learn Gypsy's feeding routine.
Today was a grand step. Today I took my daughter to a friend's house with the intention of dropping her off and coming home to spend the evening in  bed watching  "Lockup" and "House Hunters International," but I ended up staying with my German friend and turning small talk into conversation which included everything from Hitler in his Bunker,  to the chances of "The Cure" playing at Austin City Limits. Every ten minutes I intended to leave so that I could pick Abbegayle up later, but the conversation moved along easily, as it does when discussing the banality of men who simply don't understand quality women, and besides, the background entertainment of eighth grade boys singing surprisingly energetic and bold rounds of karaoke with both male and female voice parts, really made leaving an impossibility.
My daughter called me from the depths of the host teen's bedroom, where a group of friends were watching "Inception" and gasping at the confusing dream sequences. She called me from two rooms away. This is normal behavior for my daughter. We can "chat" in the same room, so a call from the same house did not seem too odd. The result was a deal for a friend's father to drive her home at the conclusion of the movie an hour and a half later, but I had already spent over four hours at my friend's house, actually socializing. My head was pounding, my face hurt from smiling, I felt emotional exhaustion, and I left with the feeling that I could not face this again for quite some time because my anxiety level was making my lips tingle as I put my car into motion to drive home.
An introvert's breakthrough, but a reminder that I prefer my solitary ways.