Many of my childhood memories are fuzzy. Like, I have no idea how old I was in any of them.

I was home-schooled, leave me alone.

Some of them, however, are strikingly vivid. Like the one where my 6ft1 mother does a cartwheel in the living room and kicks me in the face.

Or the one where my brother and I take out all my dad’s tube socks and stick them to the ceiling with a set of Kendo sticks.

We were homeschooled and didn’t have any toys. Leave us alone!

But one particular memory looms large in my mind.

I’ve never really had much of a gag reflex.  I think a certain amount of morbid curiosity alleviated that potential. But one day I was going potty, totally minding my own business…

Some genius had decided about 5 thousand years ago to put blue shag carpet in the bathroom. Who does that? And why does it have to be blue?

And as I chilled, my eyes drifted over the aqua hairiness and thats when I saw it.It was in the corner.What was it?It was brown….
…and it had blue shag stuck to it….I think I would have been ok had my mind not immediately labeled it.
Said my face, uncontrollably.

Then it happened again.I’d never heard of a dry-heave and yet here I was, experiencing it for the first time with no one around to educate my confused little mind.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the mystery item.
And even when I finally did extricate my gaze from its grasp, the sight and imagined smell wouldn’t leave my thoughts.I would be doing this for the REST OF MY LIFE!

Finally my mother gave a concerned tap on the door…

I was a mess.I clenched down and forced myself not to speak or even think about the item.But it was no use.I pointed to the corner and hoped my mom could withstand the revolting blob.

She followed my finger until her gaze finally rested upon it.

Suddenly, and very-extremely-ridiculously-inexplicably, she reached down and picked the item up.Well, I just went nuts.She didn’t seem to notice my suffering, seeing that she was inspecting the item at a 2 cm distance.
Suddenly the clouds cleared.I realized that I would once again be able to live my life without this horrid thought-terrorist lurking in my mind. Waiting for me to let my guard down. Waiting for me to be in college before it jumped out and made me barf air at a sorority luncheon.

Just in case you think I make this stuff up.

Me circa 2000 and something. Chicago.

…but then I forgot what I was writing about and went off on a bizarre and meaningless tangent.

Sorry….

The Dark Knight and I lived downtown in Chicago for a few years. I loved it with all my big fat Texas heart. Our apartment was tiny but it was gross.  It smelled like pizza.
I painted it all better. I made us a home.

Only, after I painted it,  it smelled like painted pizza.  And it smelled like pizza all the time.

Want to know why?

But I loved the life of the city. Every morning I walked out the door and had the freedom to choose my mode of transportation to work.
On glorious days, I walked.

I took the bus a lot, though.

And sometimes the subway.

Or on a REALLY great hair day I might take a cab.

I worked in a funky furniture store with Willow, a girl from North Dakota.

Things were awkward in the beginning but we soon learned that were almost exactly alike in that we both had a stool to sit on behind the counter, and we both loved tuna.

Unfortunately for the store, scaffolding went up on the outside of the building and it killed business. We got so bored.

It got so slow that the owners decided to go on vacation. They left us all by ourselves.

The day before they left, I pinched a nerve in my neck. The doctor put me in a neck brace and made me take drugs. The drugs made me feel much better. And then much, much, much worse.

I took them anyway because I liked the Better.

The next morning at work was a little weird. Willow fell down the night before and broke her ankle.

Her doctor made her take drugs too. So we had a Much Better morning.

But by noon we were back at our stools and not so hungry anymore.

And the longer we sat there, the weirder things got.

This went on for some time. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. Who’s to say?

But then it stopped.And thats why you should never buy furniture from ANYONE from North Dakota.

This is totally a practice blog. I’m working on a fabulous blog but this is not it. This is a mediocre blog. Wanna know why?
BECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST BLOG CREATED ON MY IPAD!……
….. iPad doesn’t work with a capital “I” does it.
Anyway, learning how to draw on a 7×9 touchscreen isn’t as easy as it sounds. These are my first drawings and they basically eat dirt. They are awful.  But they tell a very, very important story.

Before I got my iPad, I was all…(notice the enormous white space above the picture. Gotta work on that….)

And then the Dark Knight offered to get me an ipad for blog whipping-outing and I was all…

(yikes that one was atrocious…)

And when we got to the Mac store I was all…And then when I had the prize in my hands I was like…

And while we were waiting for the Nerd, Boy puked on the floor and I was all…

But then, the ipad was MINE!  And everybody looked upon me with jealousy.Then I came home and started practicing with the stylus and now I’m like…

These will get monumentally better. And by “better” I mean “better than anything Boy can draw”. Mommy loves you Boy, but you really need to work on those fine motor skills.

I was driving to work the other night and listening to an author being interviewed on NPR when I suddenly found myself in a jealous funk.

Does every writer also have to be a master elocutionist?

I have quite a number of talky friends, actually. There’s my Dial-A-Friend (really the only person I EVER talk to on the phone).

And my Genius Marathoner friend in Denver…

And of course The Dark Knight runs in brilliant circles.

Its not that I’m stupid, its just that there is a concerning disconnect between the complex sentences in my brain and the noises that come out of my mouth. I was on HGTV once. They made me talk about my furniture. Apparently the camera deducts 10 IQ points from its target.  Or maybe its just me.

As a result of this I tend to avoid too much unnecessary social interaction.

So I decided to search out a speech therapist. He was no help at all. So here I am, afflicted.

Next time we meet on the street, don’t be expecting anything fabulous to come out of my mouth.Or even socially adequate.

So brace yourself for the worst possible scenario.