Plinky prompt:
If you could be any book character, who would it be?

This was the first thing that popped into my head. I tried to think of others, but I came up blank. For what it’s worth, I have a doctorate in English. From Harvard. I’ve read a whole lot of books. In other words, I’m a *highly educated* fangirl. An obviously defensive fangirl. Moving right along.

Pyanfar Chanur is a hani (those big dangerous-looking kitties). She captains her own small (meant for five-ish crew) starship ( Pride of Chanur) and comes from a society where the women kick butt and the men sit around and mostly look ornamental.

Pyanfar’s universe consists of several different space-faring species, all of whom have . . . challenges in getting along with each other. In this first book, they make contact with a new bunch–those funny naked monkeys, one of whom ends up on their ship. Much of the plot comes from trying to keep the poor bastard from being made into sushi, as his species are newbies and a commodity.

Pyanfar just keeps rolling with it. OK, got a human. Whatever. She later ends up with a kif (think the Empire) as well as her own big fluffy husband, all of whom manage to find places on her ship. She is brave, smart, incredibly loyal, thinks on her feet, handles the insane diplomacy with aplomb–and doesn’t take any crap from anybody. She’s the captain; this is her crew, and by God, stay out of her way.

(Yeah, okay, the retractable claws. Confession: While writing my dissertation, I got a cartilage piercing so I could have an earring at the top like the hani do. It wouldn’t heal over a whole year. 😦 I was really bummed. Maybe I should try it again. And . . . *mumble* golden red *mumble* fur.)

BUT I’M NOT A FURRY!!!!!

Poor stupid bastard. That sucky spike through the wrist thing was apparently a waste of time. The crown of thorns is still an asshat.

The gay people I know best have wedding bands, and I found it eminently endearing to hear a man refer to his husband.  That said . . . I live in Massachusetts.

The bottom line is that the denial of literal gay marriage is solidly based on the palpitations of the bewildered masses, who are claiming that God Himself finds this problematic. Thus, the whole thing  is really a matter of church and state. However, the problem with that appealing notion is the irony that it can be argued that that isn’t in literal fact the case.

I’ve been stunned that I’ve heard NOBODY aggressively ask–and catechize–the people audaciously calling themselves Christ-ians about what Jesus said about it. He was only around for 30 years and apparently was well aware of the time crunch–I’m not sure why this wasn’t covered, seeing as He knew He was under a deadline. He was undoubtedly distracted by all those tiresome people He rather disgustingly claimed to love. I mean, God the Father actually spelled out the adultery thing in an actual Commandment–and what does Jesus do in John 8: 3-11?

Thank Heaven that He realized the breadth and depth of His screw-up and zapped Paul so as to provide editorial footnotes, before even bothering to nudge the writers of the Gospels. It’s obvious that the Evangelists were too hung up about this idea of  trying to talk about the actual Jesus guy. Maybe they figured that Paul beat them to the press on a lot of stuff (Paul and Peter had themselves a bitchout, which Paul lost)–or maybe they were just working on spin. Maybe they were queer themselves–although there is certainly no real indication of this, as opposed to the substantial evidence that James I was at least bisexual.  (But Jimbo was inspired by God to produce the only Bible that really matters, so I guess that evidence goes the way of the dinosaurs.)

Yes, it’s really too bad that He overlooked this vital issue, but there it is; and we should pick up the ball and run with it, especially since He was also ignorantly nattering on about “judge not” and whatnot. As Luther said, “In Christ’s realm no punishment is to be found.”

These modern counterparts to Jesus’ cranky Pharisees are the ones who are controverting the will of the person they call their God.  But that’s OK.  The Constitution they’re also controverting gives them the privilege to plop this thing of theirs in to rock’em sock’em with the Flying Spaghetti Monster–it’s all good. But they’re metaphorically infringing on an a copyright upon which they themselves insist; and by gosh, they’re getting away with it, because the average leftist is apparently better equipped to talk math with Stephen Hawking.

I’ve capitalized His pronoun deliberately here to make my point–anybody stop really paying attention to anything I’ve said as soon as they hit it? Tsk. Those black eyes from the knee jerk can be the dickens.

( Helpful hint: The traditional heretical beefsteak should be acquired from the supermarket in the tonier areas–it’ll be substantially cheaper than the one sold in de ghetto.)

I recommend that liberals see that their political stances will be far better informed when they stop sneering at the “fucking holy book”–a phrase with 2,420 hits–and study it thoroughly, despite the stomach-clenching prospect of laboriously acquiring their own data. (Got some links over there to the right for ya.) It’s a pity, since the left has made a few laudatory efforts to blunder about trying to stick up for people following a holy book for a few years now.

In fact, it is abundantly clear that nobody on the left can afford not to understand the central text underlying Western culture. Read the thing; read it again; then read the exegesis. Several of them. (Who was Paul? Who was Moses? What does “synoptic” mean? What’s a canon and who says so? Why do those questions matter?)

In any event, ignorance of Biblical history is sadly understandable in a country that reads at a 7th grade level; but surely we can work on the last fifty years, where we have pictures.

Remember the firehoses? They were only hung up when those pictures hit the nightly news and thus became real. Queers are invisible, and there is no clear line of demarcation to pacify the haters.

Just as the Tea Parties are really modeled on the Civil War, instead of the Revolutionary, protecting the rights of gay marriage isn’t akin to the Civil Rights Act per se–it’s all about context, kiddies.  The Act itself has changed the world, which now only vaguely understands its deconstructive implications. The modern but-it’s-all-those-bad-guys’-fault fingerpointers lack the backbone and the stamina of their recent Democratic forebears. I’d like to see them filibuster as did the Democratic 18 out of 19 Senators  who opposed the Act!

But we’re all kind of dumb, and Obama ain’t Kennedy, or even Johnson. He–and the concept of gay marriage–both lack a sufficiently broad base of at least grudging tolerance.

I’m not surprised by Obama’s decision. What did y’all expect, people? For over a year he scampered away from the far less controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” issue–which he *did* campaign on, if memory serves, which can’t be said about gay marriage. Yes, he’s an accommodationist–but maybe that’s not a bad thing, all considered.

Honestly, at this point the Teabaggers would have overloaded into public actual physical violence. So far, queer people have been gradually gaining acceptance, and so far, the Teabaggers have refrained from openly attacking–yet. (Um, while you’re going over that Wikipedia article–use your finger, it’s okay–do a little crayoned collage on why it actually-in-fact-sorry-you-don’t-like-it-really-indicates-change that they haven’t definitively and unashamedly outright called the POTUS a jigaboo. We have also made an important linguistic victory by the substitution of “entitlement people” for “nigger,” as it focuses on a behavior instead of a “race.”)

But junkyard dogs bite when cornered; and as we have let them steal the rope for nooses instead of ourselves commandeering it for leashes, it’s presently good tactics to duck and cover until we really get our shit together–or the Mexicans will just have to make room on the wall.

Or maybe they’ll just drag out the crosses. It’s been done before;  marshmallows optional.

Who knew?

“You’re a finisher!”

I was recently talking to my friend Annaliese, whom I haven’t seen for a while, and sharing some of the things that have happened to me since we last really caught up. (The time spread of this list whapped me upside the head. Sorry, Annaliese. I’ll pick up my end of the stay-in-touch thing and wave it like a happy flag.)

Anyway, I talked a little bit about the process of completing my dissertation. (English and American  Literature and Language,  Harvard, 2006.) I entered my graduate program back in 1992, but ended up taking a seven year hiatus to do things like get divorced and Have Adventures.

During said Adventures, I managed to hang on to my AM diploma–which, ironically, I only picked up because I filled out a form to officially get the degree; I needed to teach. It hung on my wall as a reminder that once upon a time, I had belonged somewhere. Harvard had been wonderful to me, and I looked at it as a sort of heaven from which I had cast myself. I never really thought I’d go back. I was, after all, a loser babe; see “Adventures,” above.

Then a number of self-perceived and inflicted obstacles vanished; and there I was, back in Cambridge. I was getting financial aid, which I needed to feed myself and my kid, as said Adventures had included  making a really bad job decision which bit me on the ass. (Short moral: Academics teaching high school should be aware that “career changers” are often viewed with extreme hostility.) Thus, I viewed making sufficient progress on the diss as my job. I knew I’d eventually fail; but one of my self-imposed obstacles back then was a sense that things happened to me, and that I was powerless to push these looming bad things away. (Loser babe.)

But . . . I have an endocrine disorder, called hyperparathyroidism, which is four feet of trochees and a serious nasty pain in the ass–or in my case, bones. (Short moral: Take your vitamin D, kiddies.) I wasn’t able to hike the mile or so to the library, but Harvard has a short bus. So every morning at 10 am, I would drag my crippled ass out and get on the short bus, which would dump me out at Widener, and collect me again at 4:30.

And if it hadn’t been for that bus, I’d probably still be looking at my AM diploma and whimpering, instead of looking at it and grumping that its pal is missing because I owe Harvard a whole lot of money, and it’s held hostage. So–250 pages later–I completed the yah-da yah-da requirements so on and so forth, got to wear the big pink dress in an inevitably raining Tercentenary Theatre, and ensure that regardless of term bill, a phone call to my department will affirm that yes, I are a PhD.

I finished.

But it was a fluke, brought on by the short bus–no, actually, by not wanting to make Bonnie unhappy. (Bonnie is the incredibly nice lady who runs the short bus, and we had a number of lovely conversations.)

Meanwhile back at the notebook: As I hope all writers know, the best way to start to write is to start to write. And so, while sitting in Child Library on Widener’s third floor, I would somewhat guiltily spend my first hour or so noodling about, writing fake email between me and my imaginary friends. (Oh, yeah. Like most writers don’t have them. Pull the other one.) This correspondence got somewhat involved; and unbeknown to me, the friends were gathering depth. Slowly, imperceptibly; like that small-flake cold snow which whispers into many-inch drifts, and stays there.

And meanwhile back at the TV, Angel was being canceled. This was upsetting. Mr. Boreanaz is lovely to the eye, and other viewers will recall that they were plotting themselves into a corner; and I wanted more. Well, no. But over one weekend, I found myself thinking about vampires, and what if they were or could be real, and how would that work in terms of biology–and within the space of a very few days, my friends were all alien vampires.

I kept poking around at the biology part and reading up on things like transient amnesia and hematopoiesis. And then I wrote a short story, and looked at it for a while. I’d never actually finished a short story that was worthy of the name. It felt weird. So I posted it on deviantArt, and sort of looked at it, wondering if I could write another. But I knew I couldn’t. I was a loser babe who’d tried to write fiction before and failed. So it was a fluke.

Poor vampires. But they wouldn’t get out of my head, and pieces of their culture joined the snow.

Then, out of the blue, one of these guys poked me hard in the ribs; and I started telling his story, and I told it for five years. I carried a notebook with me wherever I went: On the T; to set painting for MIT’s Gilbert & Sullivan group; to and from a really good contract job. Terry talked and talked and talked. I became aware that I was writing a book, and he became my anchor.

And then I got sicker, and had more Adventures. Being a loser babe, you know. So Terry, the notebook, and I went to various poverty offices; and then to a homeless shelter. (Can’t work=no money=can’t pay rent=get evicted=that’s the way it goes if you don’t have family.) I was a loser babe, and I knew it. For three months or so the third or fourth filled notebook sat in a little pile. But I knew Terry was still there, and that somehow he thought I was still the person who told his story, and the story of all the rest of his fang-pumping pals. So I wrote one of the climaxes of his narrative on a little couch outside of our room in the shelter, and every week I would haul down to Harvard and work for the afternoon. (Choir practice took the place of the short bus.)

And then we got an apartment, where my perceptive friend Preston (who was graciously reading the damned thing) pointed out that there was stuff Terry really didn’t know–so I spent months turning half of his narrative into third-person. By this time I had realized that my role in this movie was to be the writer, and that a goal here was actually publishing the damn thing and making money. Then I started worrying about the fact that it was a little more novel-y than the genre novels its likely readers enjoy, and that it needed pizzazz. So I thought that vampires needed slayers; and hey, how about a serial killer?

Poor Damascus started out as something of a sleazeball, and I began wondering how he ended up that way. So just for my own edification, I started telling his story off to the side. When I was finished, Damascus was more than a plot device, and I started thinking that I really was writing one damn fine book.

Which would never happen, because I’m a loser babe. I knew I’d never finish, and my daughter and Preston would be disappointed in me, but that’s just how my life was.

We all moved back to Cambridge, where I’m currently on disability. Terry went off and sulked for a while–but by then a whole lot more people were telling me about what was happening in the third person part; so screw Terry anyway.

About a month ago, I found out exactly how it was going to turn out, and stared at the chapter outline in the table of contents. And I realized that some unseen and unknowable force inside of me was going to bail; because for the entire five years, I knew at bottom that I’d never actually finish it. I finally winced through a word count, and discovered that I had somehow managed to spend five years writing *two* books. But on I went down the home stretch; Terry and I had a come-to-Jesus;  and in two manic RSI-risking days . . .

. . . I was finished.

Well, the first draft, anyway; but that for me was the hard part; and now I get to do the fun part of transcribing it into an automatic second draft. But–it’s finished.

All that said, the reader by now has picked up the rhetorical emphasis on my essential core self-concept being that I’m a loser babe, and so when Annaliese said proudly, “You’re a finisher!” it hadn’t occurred to me that I was.

I have ADHD, and I do the usual thing of starting a lot of little projects and wandering off; and, being after all a loser babe, that was just the way it went.

But by golly, it turns out that I’m a finisher. So I went back and read my own resume, as it were–and I’m a finisher. Not a loser babe. Heh. Who’da thunk?

I am fighting off a migraine. Took Imitrex, which should work soon. Meanwhile, of the best things to do is to lie down in a quiet place and wait. Unfortunately, the quiet hasn’t been cooperating.

I was awakened about 45 minutes ago by meowing. VERY LOUD meowing. It didn’t sound like Ripley, but ya never know. Cats are creative. Pad-pad-pad. Nope, asleep on the couch. Pad-pad-pad. Maybe it’s stopped. (Five seconds later:) Nope.

wait-wait-wait *call Animal Control?* wait-wait-MEOWWWWW *alarm clock a lá Tom & Jerry* MEOWWWWW!!!!

jammies(no, don’t sleep in ’em)-pad-pad-open balcony door

Mr. Cat is on a windowsill two buildings down. He is patting and meowing at the closed window. Poor kitty!! What bastards! How dare they rent some other cat to violently tear out the screen and leave its shreds open to taunt you?

I know how destructive cats roll, and I can just picture the day-in, day-out scratching and pushing at that screen. My God, there’s a whole world out there! The damn thing’s just nylon! I have claws! I have beaten my owners into submission! Mwah-ha-ha-meow!!!

ME-OOWWWWWWW! MEOW! MEOWW! (lather-rinse-repeat at regular 2 second intervals)

Perseverance got him out; he is convinced it will get him back in.

Meanwhile, back at my ranch: Unfortunately and unfairly, the lady upstairs is très ghetto. MEOWW!!/I’ma fuck yo fuck-ass up!!/MEOWWWW!!!

This woman really does have the limited vocabulary our teachers told us about. I’m fuckin’ serious. That fuckin’ woman says “fuckin'” every other fuckin’ word. Fuckin’ drives me fuckin’ crazy! And she is fuckin’ loud. I’m serious. I can fuckin’ hear her fuckin’ screaming from her own fuckin’ apartment; outside on the fuckin’ stoop (where she is joined by people who mercifully listened to their teachers). She fuckin’ yells at her fuckin’ kids; she fuckin’ yells at the fuckin’ neighbors–

You get the point. I have never put “fuckin'” into command-V before. She is also audible through the bathroom vent. She does not just use the “f” word. She uses four f’s: fuckin’ forte forte fortissimo. She just doesn’t quit. She perseveres in her attempt to subdue her surroundings and make herself known and heard.

MEOWWWWW!!!!/(unintelligible and peppered with “fuckin'”/MEEOOOOOWWWWWW!

So much for retreating to the living room. No quiet choices here.

MEEOOWWWWW/Go get yo’ fuckin’ cat!!!! Fuckin’ asshole!!!!

*Eh?*

MEEOO-

*hmm*

quiet/quiet/fuckin’/quiet/quiet/quiet

Fuckin’ awesome.

The nice thing about the Plinky prompts is that they’re at the very least a workout to keep muscles limber–and it really does nudge me further along the path of what I actually more or less planned to write about. Although it still is tumbling on the dryer, pretty much. I’m sort of on Damascus’ heels, but now that Terry’s narrative is going to go back to being more than just a frame for the Damascus backstory, I must check in with my 6’7″ pain in the ass and see where he’s at. I realize that I’m ducking Terry. I strongly suspect that’s because he has Something To Say to me.

I’m a tad less depressed today. At least, I think I am, considering that today I found out that my therapy time is going to be cut to a standard hour at the end of the summer, because I’m getting transferred to a staff person when my fellow leaves.  So I was bummed. Change, grr. It doesn’t help that the prescriber I picked because she actually laughed at my jokes is also leaving. I feel therapeutically Unloved.

On the other hand, I was wearing my 360 achievement shirt “Left the House,” and so this nice fanboy and fangirl started talking to me at the bus stop. “Ooh, story!” she caroled, when she saw the manuscript in my paw. I felt simultaneously shy and gratified. Well, yes, it is a story. It most certainly is.

. . . My mother used to say to me . . . "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant." For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

–Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey (Mary Chase)

I couldn't think of an answer off the top of my head, so I (duh!) went to my Facebook info page. I have a bunch, but *wham*–this one was it. And it's surprisingly hard to talk about.

The first time I heard this as a kid, I felt sad and hurt. "Smart" was once again being dissed. It was made really clear to me that I was a freak in grade school, and it took a long time for me to stop resenting that But when I ran across it again, I finally understood what Mrs. Dowd was saying.

I'm wickid smaht–oh-please-*yawn*-oh-go-away-you-Mensa-asshole smaht. It's screwed with my life substantially, because it intimidates people.

"You sound like you think you're smarter than everybody else." Well, um, ah, if you really want to go there, for the 99% majority of "everybody else," I *am* by some common standards. But I never, ever mean to sound like that. It's just that there's nothing I can do about it–except be pleasant. I have agency there; I can choose to be pleasant; and I do.

Fortunately, I am also wickid nice by nature. Sweet, cheerful, funny, you name it. I *like* being pleasant. It's easy for me; it's my default. Mind you, my default is also to talk in complete paragraphs, or so I've been told; but what really matters is what one says and why one says it.

I tend to meet people where they're at, if at all possible. It's kind of a sociolinguistic thing, in a way. It drives my daughter insane that I pick up a "fake" Boston accent when I talk to blue-collar Bostonians. (Bear in mind, by the way, that my daughter calls me Mawm, and frequently pronounces 25-cent pieces as quotas.) But it's not fake.

I do it automatically–and I do it in a number of different regional places. Its jargon term is codeswitching–and what it means is that people are happier when you speak their language; and your life is easier as a result. The Hahvahd PhD language is swell–but I can speak many others.

I like people a whole lot. As Ruth Gordon says in Harold and Maude, they're my species. Being pleasant encourages people to let you in, not keep you out. And I've found that to be a wickid good thing.

First of all, Mr./Ms. “how to eviction somebody,” keep your illiterate-ass searches out of my “homelessness sucks” blog. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

*ahem* I’m getting scarily close. I’ve finally decided (ok, for this week) to just shove all the serial killer’s backstory to the front of the “past” narrative. I’m also returning a chapter of the good old ultraviolence, because it’s character development. (“Adventures in Peru” goes in there; I’ll have to move it from its current slot.)

And I’ve laid out the final several chapter outline–before now, it was too not-done to even think of a realistic outline.

I’m frustrated right now, because I’ve been on a roll for the past couple of days, but I’m now at a point where I need to let it tumble around in my creative dryer-mind for a while–think I know what Aria has to say to Damascus, but not what he says to her; I need to get Terry’s poor head in gear in a way that doesn’t make him sound like a reactive manic version of myself. sigh

I have to go call the friend I am actually going to socialize with tomorrow; meanwhile, please send me glowing warm psychic dryer-quarters of love.

I know that Child Protective Services can be demonic. One afternoon, I came home from work to see a nice lady patiently waiting at my door.

My then-7-year-old son, whom I’ll call Coatikit, has top-of-the-chart ADHD (which admittedly he got from me) and he has always been what can charitably called a drama queen (see last answer, sigh). He had been crying when he had gotten on the bus that morning, claiming that he was afraid his mother would yell at him (why, not even he knew by the time he got home) or maybe give him that dread punishment: A (single) Whack On The Butt. And they really had to check it out. Of course, I was terrified beyond belief, as the nice lady had the power to walk out with Coatikit and Tigercub that very afternoon.

Luckily, the nice lady got Coatikit’s number immediately, (and, completely off the record, validated The Whack On The Butt.) But scared as I had been, in a way I was glad she had checked it out–and the following explains why:

Lonely child

Tiger lived in an ongoing nightmare at home: no heat; no hot water; food availability was random at best; and her abusive parents were mentally ill and alcoholic. She would have immediately have set off modern alarms; but in 1975, when she came to school unkempt and in dirty clothes, the other kids mocked and the teachers sneered.

One afternoon in 7th grade, one of the nuns took her aside and, in a kindly way, attempted to help Tiger out.

Bathing and clean clothes, she said, were essential things. She was immediately completely embarrassed, and tears came to her eyes. She flinched. Sr. Katherine was nice; in all Tiger’s school career, she would be the only teacher who cared enough to even address the issue. Despite wishing she were anywhere else in her shame, Tiger became hopeful. Surely this nice grownup would scold her parents; make them fix it.

“We don’t have hot water, or any heat for that matter. But I can take showers in the summer when it’s hot.” Their boiler had broken a few years ago and never been repaired. Tiger felt horribly guilty, because it had been “her job” to watch the water gauge, as she played in the basement. She was too ashamed to admit this to the nun.

“And we never have money for the laundromat.” Cigarettes and booze, yes; but not non-essentials. Her father ate at his drinking buddies’ houses, and her mother ate anything and everything she could get her hands on. Plain grits and rice were fine; anything to fill her up.

But Tiger was a growing eleven-year-old guilt, and she herself was always hungry. As she brought some of the grits out to feed the dogs (who eventually starved to death from protein deficiency–mercifully, Tiger usually had peanut butter) she sympathized. There was one weekend where there was some cabbage to fry up with the grits, and Tiger felt she was at a feast. Once a month, when Tiger’s father got paid, he would bring Tiger home a Whopper from Burger King, and she would wolf it down in ecstasy, keeping an uneasy eye out for her mother, who would wheedle some of it away.

Similarly, she was sometimes literally “on the rag.” But not all the time; when she went to pick up the cigarettes, she could usually ask for a little extra for Kotex.

She made it sound pathetic, which was easy, as it was all true. *helphelphelp,* she thought. But it was the ’70s; the nun had grown up in the ’40s; and Tiger was dirty.

“Well, you can boil a pot of water on the stove, and wash in the sink,” was the prompt answer. “And you can wash out your clothes the same way. You’re a very bright girl, Tiger.”

Tiger cried. She felt hopelessly inadequate. She was very bright, and she knew that what the nun was suggesting was quite doable. But as she sobbed, she was angry.

“But that’s not my job. They’re my parents. They’re supposed to take care of me.” Wasn’t that fair? All the other kids had hot water, food, and clothes.

“Well, I understand that,” said the nun. And she did; but what worked for the poor in the ’40s would work forever. It didn’t occur to her that for a child of the 70s, surrounded by ordinary assumptions and expectations, her advice was akin to suggesting that Tiger could solve her food problem by fishing in the polluted Hudson and laying wires for squirrels in the Park. “But you have to take care of yourself.”

There was nothing Tiger could say. Her cheeks burned, but she knew the nun was right. It was her job, and it was her fault that the boiler had burst. She could have done this all along, and it was her fault for whining. Her father washed in the sink himself, as he had to go to work; he had occasionally scolded Tiger when he randomly noticed her state. But after all, as he would continually remind her, it was her fault the boiler had burst.

Bad enough, thought Tiger miserably, that the nuns were disgusted by her obstinate failure to come to school in the same crisp cleanness of the other kids, with their pressed clothes and shiny hair. But she nervously covered her forearms, hugging herself. Sr. Katherine was the nicest nun in school. If she saw the bruises from her mother’s cane, she would know that Tiger was actually a very bad girl to deserve to be beaten like that.

She was completely humiliated. Every time she saw the nun after that, she averted her eyes. Sr. Katherine knew one of those horrible secrets: It was her fault she was dirty. But at least she didn’t know the other one.

She was bad; she was lazy, and she was greedy. It was always Tiger’s fault.

Coatikit is 19 now, and he did eventually learn how to swim. And no, of course Coati had done no such thing, and never ever would have. But dying sort of short-circuits parts of the brain.

113/365 Drowning

After several hours in a hot car with two preschoolers, Coati and Tiger were looking forward to the motel pool. It was unlit, but both parents swam, as well as Tigercub. But Coatikit was only three, and so he and Tiger played horsie in the shallow end.

As Coati stayed with the ecstatic Tigercub in the deep end, Tiger happily bounced around with Coatikit on her shoulders. But instead of the usual gradual rake, this pool's transition between shallow and deep was a steep and sudden fall. Tiger couldn't swim with 30 pounds of kid on her shoulders; and down they both went under the black water.

She struggled frantically. Coatikit had reflexively tightened his grip for literally dear life, and she couldn't dislodge him. She could hear him scream desperately for help: At least for the time being he was above water, and she held her breath as well as she could; but it took too long and too much energy, and she breathed in water. She intellectually noticed her lungs' outrage at being filled with non-air.

This is drowning. I am going to die. Oh God, Coatikit is going to die too. Oh no no no no. She flashed on a future news story: It was on the bottom half of page two of some local tabloid: Mom and Toddler Drown in Tragic Motel Pool Accident. She could see their blurry pictures from some happier time. Coatikit was as usual joyously showing his dimple. His ringlets were Coati's dark blond; his eyes were Tiger's dark brown. Oh no no no. Not my Coatikit.

Where was Coati? Couldn't he hear Coatikit scream?

Finally, she shook Coatikit free just long enough to surface and give one desperate yell for help–and down she went again in despair. But Coati came and grabbed Coatikit, and she was able to choke and paddle her way to the side of the pool, where Coatikit was howling hysterically.

Back in the motel room, Coati was wrangling the two frantic children (Coatikit was blessedly completely fine) while Tiger coughed and cried alone on the edge of the bed. She felt abandoned and frightened.

"Why didn't you come earlier?" Tiger gasped. Coati logically explained that Coatikit yelled for help ALL the time–for imaginary dangers; that it wasn't until he had heard Tiger's own plea that he realized that it was for real; and that he was just about to head back to her when Coatikit was safe.

But even the breath of Death puffs away reason, and for a long time the terrifying thought slithered in the back of her head: Their marriage was less than perfect. Had he left her there to drown?

Weirdly dumb people. Like the ones who circulate urban legends on FB and get people all fired up. Before I changed it, my name was "Honor," and I had it on a nametag in the store where I worked. A lot of people commented on it, but then there was this perfectly normal-looking (American) lady who said it was nice–and then asked me what it meant. How do these people shamble through their days?