Boundaries? Not really.

I have about seven minutes (perhaps less) to post before I must return to my living room and join my roommate for a back episode of Project Runway.

What's that, you ask? Nina... has a roommate?

Yes. Yes, Nina does. LAS and I are now roommates in New York City. What's that? You think it's really risky to move in with someone you met on the internet?

Well... for me, this move involved relocating about 2 miles east. For LAS, it involved relocating about 883 miles east. Bigger risk for her for sure. Plus we have been getting to know each other for... four years. That's long enough.

And what about the old advice that you should never become roommates with your best friend?

Well... this is about the most uncomplicated and unconfusing decision I have ever made in my life. I have no doubt this is going to work out, whatever smart people might say about boundaries. LAS has been here a week and we are having tons of fun.

So how are all of you?

In which I make myself very unpopular

Hello.

There really is no dignified way to start this post, so I will just say it: I watched porn.

Let me explain: I am 41 years old, and it occurred to me recently that I have never seen pornography - not even Playboy. I might have seen a few naked pictures here or there, but basically, I had no experience with the industry and had never "seen" people doing stuff.

I decided that since I wasn't interested in getting turned on - and since I wasn't going to pay for any yucky material - that it would be ok for me to google to google the word "fuck" and click on one of the options in the spirit of education.

Well, well.

Hello, internet. It's nice to meet you...? Did you know that if you are a bored, indifferent, 19 year old girl, you shouldn't yowl on queue and look bored while some dude in his forties infects you with chlamydia?

Did you know that if the guy wearing tightie whities and a coyboy hat offers to go Alamo on you -WAIT- STOP- he is going to shove his stuff somewhere it doesn't go?

Aside from the fact that porn is incredibly boring, I was disgusted by how, duh, unsafe it is. Woman after woman was apparently OK with anal, vaginal, and oral penetration without a condom. HELLO, what planet are we living on?? Plus, these girls were visibly bored and in it for the paycheck. How sad.

Given, that I am about two degrees removed from a pilgrim in terms of sexual morality, I want to say the following:

I want very much to say that erotica has a place in human sexuality - remember the simple thrill the first time he held your hand? Remember the time you looked into his eyes a bit too long and saw everything, saw the whole world, ultimate happiness, right there in his eyes? Remember what it felt like the first time he slid his hand through your hair?

But porn? It wasn't even erotic. It wasn't - truth be told - even sexual. It was mechanical, scummy, and dehumanizing to the people who participated. Seriously --- I find it absolutely impossible that any human person could get off on watching what I saw. It was like watching hogs led to slaughter.

I must be crazy, because this crap is all over the internet.

What did I think would happen?

When I was 14 I made a BFF pact with a guy who went to a neighboring all boy school (I was in the all girl school; this all made so much sense at the time). We were very close - told each other everything, talked all night on the phone, went to each others proms, etc. Or did we? We can't remember, but there are pictures of us together all decked out for something.

Anyway some people have a friend like this one in high school and some don't. I have to say that I was the better for it.

Enter Facebook.

Yes, we are reconnected after 20 years and we are like OMG how fast can you tell me everything? We agreed that instead of trying to wade through it on chat we are going to summarize different bits of our lives and email them back and fourth until we get caught up.

Then I started trying to summarize college, and I realized these snippets would make good blog posts. Good news for us all, I guess. Check back tomorrow for installment one.

(hint: drinking, failing micro-economics, losing my virginity, sucking at sports, and majoring (finally) in English).

So I sold out.

I put ads on this blog. Why? Because I am fairly broke and because anything would help and because I trust that 99% of you come here to read my posts, not look at ads for anti0-aging remedies. (That does NOT mean you shouldn't click on those ads if you like what you see).

Let's see... other happenings... I threw away all the angry fat clothes I accumulated when I was several sizes larger due to extreme stress. Please note that this statement does not imply that I m now a size zero. It merely suggests that I am smaller than a baby rhino and am getting healthier. Take what you can get. I certainly have to.

HMMM. In other news, I joined APOCALYPSE! APOCALYPSE! Facebook this week after years of intense pressure. No, you can't find me on facebook because you don't know my real name. Maybe all this therapy will help me get over my internet anonymity issues and we can all be together, names, faces, and all.

To make up for all my perfidy, here is a picture of me naked. Too bad it does you so little good.

Love, love.

Oh My Heck

So much has happened.

And yet nothing has really changed. I am the same underemployed college adjunct as I was and I have gathered no steam on the Phd front. I have only the most filmy vision of the future.

What's interesting is my total conviction that although things are not so great financially right now, they will get better. The getting better might be greatly facilitated by my getting off my ass and finding an additional job - but something (probably irresponsibility) is preventing me from taking that course. Something else seems... pending. I have started writing again suddenly, and it is not just a meandering trickle of over emotionalized clap trap about my hurt feelings or my wounded sense of entitlement. It is ever so much better than that - but I am not ready to share it yet. Soon.

I have missed you all. What happened? Well. What happened is that for a long, long time, this blog was fueled by a narrative. A story. A bad and terrible story, yes, but people want to know how it ended. Now that it has ended, good heavens what is left for us all to say to each other.

I really like to think that there is more to say. There must be more to say, because I think about you all so very much. Sizzle. LizB, KateP, LAS. All of you. But no one more than Adam Avitable. Adam, honey, I am trying to get my shit together and be a good friend. I am narcissistic and complicated and downright fearful that if you really knew me, you'd pass. But these are no excuse for my rudeness, and regardless of all other considerations, I adore you and your blog. And did I mention you?

The end.

Dig if you will...

OK.

It's a drawing.




This is where I am moving on Saturday. It has been a long time coming. (Don't be sad if you can't quite understand the floor plan. It confuses me too.

Since you are here, go give a big kiss to Adam, who recently moved also. Times are a' changin' for him, too.

Love,

Nina

Learning

Things I have learned this year:

1) People really can change. I have changed several times this year.

2) It is possible, with the proper motivation, to eat an entire bag of Veggie Booty.

3) And then drink a beer

4) Good grammar is wholly unnecessary if the sentiment is sincere.

Place Holder

In order to maintain my "back" status, I am posting this uselessness.

Is it useless?

It depends.

Have you heard of Joseph Arthur?

....

Good heavens.

....

Get you some.

Liar

There is a commandment somewhere on the tablets the anthropologists can't manage to find. It says (reportedly): don't lie.

Oh.

Eek.

I lie all the time. I do it to protect other people from truths I fear people cannot - or should not have to - handle.

Sometimes I lie because the truth would break the hearts of people I love.

But I also lie to make money. (I have two jobs and neither employers knows the other exists).

Other times I lie about where I am going (Kate doesn't need to know that I am going out at 9pm for a cheap bottle of hootch because I can't sleep and oh dear God please tell me that in heaven, everyone sleeps, all the time. Please? Thank you).

My lying concerns me. It is true that I can go to confession and bore some sweet old priest with a list of all the times I told my brother I was really feeling fine, and thank you for asking, when the truth was I was sharpening my knives and looking for a way to commit the deed - and still look pretty in the casket.

But we - the priest and I - would be there in that hot and uncomfortable cell for a long time if I gave all this information. And sometimes I think to myself: how terrible for the priest who has to listen to people's sins.

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession. Twice I drank a bottle of Night Train and ran naked through Cooper's Square. Nine times I interfered with myself while thinking of Anna Nicole. I hate animals and children because they are loud and smelly. I rarely bathe and I have not flossed in a year. Oh! And I got fired from my job for drunkenness and something they call sexual harassment. Bastards! Is that their sin, or mine? Okay! That about covers it. What's the penance?"

Where was I?

Oh. My lying. There has been something (lately) that I lie about all the time, to everyone. Even to Lindsey.



Sometimes when work is slow and I have the inclination, I go to Woodlawn - all the way up there in the Bronx. There, I sit in the cemetery (it's a big one). Because my parents don't have graves, looking at those of other people gives me peace. I do not know the people buried at Woodlawn, but I wonder who those people - all those people - are. And I hope they don't mind that I come and sit with them, even though my visits are for my own benefit - that at best, their resting places are a proxy for the graves of my deceased parents.

It is not a sadness thing. I don't go up there and cry or cling to a stranger's headstone. But I do spend hours and hours there. I sit and think about there people buried there, and I wonder who they are, and I ask myself if I could talk to them, what one thing they wished they had done differently before it was all over.

My mother, who went out with real style, said on her deathbed, "I wish I had worried less and laughed more."

My father probably said something but I'll never know what it was. I wasn't there. But I can damn sure tell you what he would have done differently, and if you have been reading my internet diary this long, you know, too.

But that was not my point.

Lying. I lie far more than my conscience allows.

How much lying do you do? Do you have regrets? And if lying is ever legal, when? why? how?

Air

Love is in air, or at least the air between my ears.

His name was (is?) Torrey. I could just go for it and embarrass myself, but the post would confuse us all.

But I will divulge that there was a man named Torrey and though I have not spoken with him in years, I loved him like I have never loved anyone else, ever.. He brought me back to myself and made me feel again. In that sense, he saved my life.

Of course, that is not the whole story.

But oh, Torrey, Oh lord. I loved Torrey. Writer, poet, lover, vagabond, boy of no fixed address. My darling.

The relationship is over. But the love, the innocent good intentioned kind, is forever. I have never stopped missing him.

What about the rest of you? Who rearranged the workings of your heart, forever? Who do you miss?

Come on, tell. I did, after all.

Love,

Nina

M15

This post reveals facts I am uncomfortable sharing. OH! My blog is (nominally) anonymous.

Though Cathead died on Saturday morning, I did not dispose of his body until today. Why? Because the humane society closed early, a development I welcomed.

Por Que?

Because I was not ready to let go.

Internet, I did not like my cat very much. I loved him a lot, but like him? No. Herewith, some highlights of Cathead's life:

1) When he was a kitten, he bit my dad so badly that only a trip to the emergency room prevented my dad from losing his right arm. (No lie).

2) The night before my best friend's wedding, Cathead bit said friend so badly that she had to go to the emergency room. And when she got there, the ER doctors put her on anti-biotics so serious that her birth control was rendered ineffective. That's right, people. Condoms on her HONEYMOON.

3) Once, when I was asleep, Cathead chewed off a large hank of my hair. Then he decorated my apartment with it.

But we did have our good times, too. The night my dad died he slept in my arms and patted my crumpled face with his tiny paw. The day we moved into Bob and Kate's asylum for middle aged refugees, he did a charming rendition of "The Sun will Come Out Tomorrow" on the pool table. He scattered about 50 puzzle pieces onto the floor, but the sentiment was genuine. And as Julie notes, back in his happier days, nothing pleased him more than to steal my rosary beads and entangle himself in their sparkly goodness. In the floor of my shower. Where (I assume) he prayed all day that I might turn my heart and mind back to God - or at least get some compassion skills. (It did not work).

I am trying to get to the comedy of today. The segue is just not happening, so sloppy segue. Here it is.

This morning, I had to take Cathead to the Humane Society for cremation. I put him in his cat carrier (please, oh please don't ask me how I kept him cold all night. Use your imagination. Or check Twitter). I was composed during the loading process and I was numb during the walk to the M15 bus station. It was the activity on the bus that did me in.

Cathead died with his eyes open. Therefore, people could see his eyes, and because lots of people who ride the public bus are not very bright, many of them wanted to stick their hands into my cat carrier and pet my deceased cat.

I kid you not.

Please note, internet: cats who do not blink are DEAD. Cute they may be, but they are DEAD.

I managed to keep the hands of my fellow metro riders out of the box of death by explaining (lying). I told them Cathead was sedated, you know, since he had just been to the vet. It worked. (Have I mentioned that some people, while children of God and possessing excellent hearts, are stupid?)

I arrived at the Humane Society, I stood in line for a few minutes. That was ok.

Until the woman behind me spotted the dead cat in my carrier and started sobbing. For my loss.

"Oh, I know you are grieving," she said. (Have I mentioned crying is contagious)?

"Yeah," I sobbed.

"How old was he?" she said.

"Seventeen," I sniffled.

"OH! Mine is seventeen. It could be any time!" she sobbed.

So we cried and we made asses of ourselves at the Humane Society. I cried for Cathead and she cried because she knew very soon she would be just like me, standing in line in an animal shelter carrying a box of DEAD.

Here is my last living picture of Cathead. I like it because it captures both his repose and his restlessness. He is chillin' because he is in his favorite chair. But his ears are up because he is about to smack the shit out of an unsuspecting spider.



I think about justice all the time. It is the only thing that offers hope that we live in a world with meaning. If my hope is not in vain, Cathead is at peace, praying the rosary, and beating the ever loving shit out of whatever displeases him. That's what he loved to do, and though he was... challenging... he was my kind of challenge. He was my first, my last, my only. My Cathead.

Waiting, part two

My cat is on my bed exactly where I placed him last night. The food and water is untouched. And my cat is dead.

I feel surprisingly emotionless about it... so far. I keep telling myself that I have cleaned up my last sand dollar of cat puke. I keep telling myself that he will never scream at me again and again and again for no reason. I keep telling myself that he was old and that he was tired. (He was). Also it had to happen someday. And he was (obviously) suffering (last night, anyway). But I still feel like shit.

Should I have taken him to the vet last night when I realized he wasn't breathing right? Should I have gotten on the cat boards and hoped that cat fanatics on the west coast had an answer? Should I have been done something other than shove food and water at him? What could have saved him?

Well, whatever the case may be, he is not saved. I have stressed tested him and he is most assuredly not living.

As I write this, he is just where I left him on my bed last night, and yes, I know that is a violation of something or other. I'll have to take him to be cremated today (isn't that what I am supposed to do)? But right this minute, I am just waiting until I feel up to putting him in a duffle bag and taking him to the vet. Let's hope I get that going before the flies arrive.



Bon Voyage, Cathead. I loved you. I liked you. I wanted to feed you to other, foul-tempered animals.

But mostly I loved you. (You were darn cute).

Love,

Nina

More Again?

My family continues to shrink. My sister's husband has abandoned their marriage after 9 years. They dated 5 years before they married in 2000. I would post a picture if it were not a violation of their privacy. And I have to say that although my sister is her own special snowflake, I couldn't be married to her for ten minutes. This post is not about blame. It is about grief.

Regardless of my feelings or opinions about Chiara and her marriage and her spouse, I am heartbroken.

Is it normal to feel heartbroken when a marriage fails? A marriage that is not your own?

I suspect I am suffering from transference; am I making all the sad I won't let myself feel about the loss of my mother and my father come out through this seemingly ordinary civic event.

So much loss. So much regret. So much sadness. So little to hold onto. My sister's husband was (is) just a regular guy, but once the gates of my family corral close behind you, they close behind you forever - or so I thought. It breaks my heart to think that anyone would want to get out, to no longer be one of us.

Then again

I don't want her to die. What a hateful thing to say. And not what I meant at all.

What I am resenting is that no one in my entire family is willing to confront her except me, and frankly I feel that since I have already told her off, I am no longer obligated. I should get to log off this problem.

Except that I don't, but for a different reason. It is a reason I don't like at all.

The reason is that forgiveness is a problem, and it is not a tiny little irksome fly in the ointment kind of problem. It is a genuine fat ass issue. And thinking about the issue has brought to my attention a certain defect of character that I can no longer avoid confronting.

I suck at forgiveness. For years I just didn't do it at all. People who wronged me got cold and stony irreversible nothing from me forever and ever and ever and ever. I did more than just hold grudges. I completely removed offenders from my life. (This is the reason why so very many of my ex-boyfriends haunt me for years after we break up - often well after they have married other people and had children and the whole show. It is because they hurt me and I shunned them and they feel... like... crap. As they probably should. Oh I am sorry. I am digressing. Let me stop that.

Oh wait just a little more digression. Please note that I still shun people who hurt me and I defend my right to do this because I don't think there is anything in the bible that says you have to let people kick you in the face twice. There is that thing about turning the other cheek but I think whoever put in the bible should have left it out. I hope it wasn't Jesus. Was it Jesus? Ugh).

Back to my story. One fine day, I made a great stride, a breakthrough in the forgiveness area. I was reading a book about the last words of Christ and some incredibly smart person pointed out that there is more than one way to take this one thing that Jesus said. Here is the thing:

"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

At first glance, this just looks like forgiveness muckity muck. Nothing special. However, if you look carefully at the grammar of the sentence (which is exactly the kind of thing I like to do in my spare time), you will see that the word "for" in this case could be translated as "because". When one reads the sentence as "Forgive them, because they know not what they do" or even closer to today's vernacular "Forgive them, because, seriously, if they knew exactly how bad the thing they are doing right now was, WOW. They would SO not do it." Jesus put things with more elegance, even when in terrible pain. He was... well. Let me just get back to my point.


So I got much better at the business of forgiving because I got to apply the idea that the people who were kicking me in the face simply wouldn't do it if they were aware that they were hurting me so very badly. And so then by that logic, well, of course I could forgive them. No one who knew they were being such a total ass hole would behave in such a way, so obviously they were under the influence of a terrible portion of ignorance - a portion so enormous that I could even feel kind of sorry for the person who kicked me in the face.

So now I can forgive people. Some of them. The ones I can find ignorance or error with, the people whose real intention wasn't to kick me in face.

But her?

She knew. And my dad?

He knew too.

And they both did it anyway and I can't forgive them. And that is likely to be the biggest spiritual problem of my entire life. Good thing I got to it this early. If I live to be 100, I might maybe work it out. But I am not hopeful.

And anyway, is anyone else as sick of this subject as I am? I am so tired of it. I am tired of writing about it and I am sorry for continuing to dwell on it. The fact is, I am mentally better all the time. It just doesn't show here because it's hard to write about being happy or feeling better because everything is fine over here posts are pretty boring and I am pretty sure that is not what you come here for. Is that what you come here for? I don't even know.

Whatever your reason for coming here, thank you for reading.


Love,

Nina

Time again

What happens next?

Seven months after moving into Bob and Kate's Asylum, I have been thinking a lot - probably more than is healthy for a girl like me.

Everything I assumed would happen in my life did not happen, and a whole lot of other things happened instead. Let me assure you that this is not whining; it is a simple statement of facts.

I wanted to graduate from college without having learned anything temporally relevant, and for the most part, I succeeded. Byron, Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath - cool. I even composed a performance art piece during which I extinguished candles on various parts of my body. (I got an A on in that class).

I am not constituted to solve world famine, genocide, dirty terrible people of other cultures were the jurisdiction of other young idealists. I just wanted peace. Green grass. Leafy trees, waterfalls, smiling babies. This makes me a lightweight. Morally speaking, of course.

And of course, because on the very best of days, God thinks I am fit for... what? a spittoon? I find that I am the person my family and my therapist believe is responsible for confronting the evil of Erika. Why? Because of everyone in my family, I was the one most injured. Also, because no one else in my family wants to explain it to her because it's all so very untidy and Gosh, what to say? So Nina should just do it.

Normally I am up for a writing project, especially if I can be vituperative and profane.

But this time? This time... internet, I confess that I simply would not know where to start. I just want her to die. But before she does, I want her to know perhaps for the first time, what she did to me, my family, and my father, the love of my life.

Crazy train? I'll be at the bar.

Love,
Nina

Sister

I left the house tonight to go buy intoxicants.  (We'll talk about that later). 

As I rounded the corner, I threaded my way through a half dozen guys.  

Internet, in case you were not aware, I attract the attention of people who linger on corners.  The usual greetings are variations of: 

Baby, you fine. 

Mama, take me home. 

Bring it, sistah. 

Baby, I'm your man. 

Etc. Etc. Etc. 

Most women find this kind of attention insulting.  I do not.  Why?  Because these mildly disrespectful greetings acknowledge that yes, I exist, and yes, despite my vice-like grip on celibacy and a single life, men still find something, anything about me worth comment. 

Today, however, was different.  As I rounded the corner, the guys did their gawking and I did my walking and I heard, plain as glass:  "Girl, you go on with them 40DDDs. " 

And internet, something happened.  It happened in the region of my brain responsible for poor decision making.  Instead of chuckling inwardly, I turned and faced the man and his poor estimation of the size and character of my breasts.  

I said, "Are you kidding me?  Not even close.  Want to hold them?" 

And the man who had spoken the numbers to me laughed so hard I thought he might lose a lung.  His friends laughed too.   And frankly we all had a good laugh about my boobs and then went on with our evening.  Half an hour later as I passed those very same guys on my way back from the store, they treated me with reverence typically reserved for nuns.  The very corner dweller who guessed my bra size tipped his hat and said, "Good evening, sister." 

So to him I said, "Good evening, sir." 

And a good evening to you, internet.  

Love, 

Nina 

Attendance

If you are still reading (bless you), please comment so I know who you are.  Include also any recommendations regarding content, style, design, polish color - whatever.   Rethinking things and I need some ideas.   Help Nina out, por favor.  

I love you more than ever.  

Nina is naked

Ok, not really.

But take a look anyway:



I left here some number of months because I feared I could not speak the truth about the day to day everything going on in my life without injuring others and bringing Nina (who is, after all, me) into personal relationships with readers - and finding myself by way of such conduct - unable to live up to whatever it was I thought Nina was. I felt unequal to the challenges I saw looming ahead if I continued to write here.

That feeling of inadequacy, more rightly called ineptitude, was easy to spot (and easy to despise) when I held my own blog up against those of people who did not work so desperately hard to maintain anonymity or privacy - in other words, people grown up enough to lay it all out there and say "take it or leave it." I love their blogs and I admire their transparency. In no particular order:

Neil Kramer, famed author and standard bearer for our beloved Citizen of the Month. Neil is,first and foremost, a wonderful writer. To prevent myself from rambling further, let me say that Neilochka is what we who despair of ever finding such call a good man. Go instantly and give Neilochka the worship that is his due.

What can I say of Avitable? I have knitted the gentleman one sock - and declared it not nearly pretty enough for his excellent left (or right) foot. So I still owe Adam a pair of handmade socks. I have committed other crimes against Adam that I will not describe here. What I love most about Avitable (aside from his extremely forgiving nature) is his openness. Those of you familiar with avitable know that what you see if what you get when you read Adam's blog. He writes about any and everything and somehow manages to protect his marriage and his business from the becoming involved in the blog. I resoundingly failed at doing what he seems to do effortlessly.

Everything I just said about Adam, I want to say about Lisa. If you have followed her story, you know she is fighting cancer for the third time, and doing so in a heartbreakingly public way. And yet she, like Adam and like Neil, has managed to share her life with other people while still protecting her privacy and that of her family. Lisa's time left is limited, but she has Karl (also an excellent blogger) updating her blog. Go see these excellent folks and appreciate their greatness.

I thought I would never return here, but I do so now. Naked. (Sort of). Why? Mostly because it is time for me to grow up and take responsibility for what I have to say online. If people get pissed or run screaming away from my internet diary... *yawn. * It can't be nearly as tragic as I previously imagined. In any case, if my cover gets blown or someone figures out where I work or where I live, hell with it. I ain't Princess Diana. It's simply not that important. The blog is mine and I belong to the blog and I'll take whatever consequences arise, whatever they turn out to be.

Summary: I am back. Long time no see. I have missed you. How have you been?

Love,
Nina

Another crack in the firmament

This weekend, I broke my all anonymous, all the time rule. I met LAS of This Too Shall Pass in New York City. She was here to visit friends, and since we spend most every day on chat tied at the back of the mind, I figured it was cowardly and absurd not to meet her. Several thoughts went through my mind as I contemplated this meeting. In no particular order:

1) What if online simpatico does not equal real life simpatico? What if in person the whole thing is just wrong?
2) What if she thinks I am stupid, ugly, fat, or smelly?
3) What if we can't agree on whether to eat nachos or burgers?

Like all post-modern problems, these seemed terribly important until the moment when LAS got out of the cab and we met on the corner in front of the house (the one I live in now).

Really knowing someone over the internet is not easy to do. To read a person's blog is not to know the person. LAS and I didn't really know each other when we met on Saturday and now we do. I am glad of this and I hope she is, too.

Sidebar: my befuddlement continues. I am doing much better, but finding myself hesitant to write about the really interesting stuff in my life right now. This might be the time to make a natural break from blogging - or to at least find a new home. Wordpress? Anyone with any strong opinion is invited and encouraged to let me know.

I miss reading all your blogs and I miss writing mine. See the above befuddlement. "It" is not over, but it may, in the long run, be different.

Love,
Nina

Belately, my dear mother

I must confess to the world (or, the four people who still read this blog) that I went to work on Friday wearing no undergarment (save an ill-fitting bra).  

My sainted mother, who would have killed herself had she known she could have raised a child such that the result would be thus, would have turned 65 yesterday, had she not died of breast cancer at 52.  For all to see, my beautiful mother:

There was nothing else I could do, under the circumstances. I hope my most indulgent mother will forgive me for the insult to both her character and mine, as I found myself without any resources to prevent such an un-ladylike showing. If it were not for my pale, blond, an uninteresting feminine area, such a crime against civility and decency would have been impossible. And for those genetic factors, I must thank my mother, the fairest creature that ever walked the earth. Shall we see her again? Yes, we shall:



Will she ever forgive me? Shall I endure my remaining days in shame? I shall not. I think my sainted mother knows the hearts and minds of her children - and knows under what treachery they now suffer. I may be to kind to myself, yes. I find myself with few others that would be as kind to me as she was, and so I soldier on, knowing that on a better day, I will fulfill both my debt to decency and civility as my mother taught me. That day that was Friday, October, 10th, will be disregarded.

Belately, happy birthday to you, my sainted mother. May you always have those who remember you in their prayers.