Like Old Times

The other day at work I was approached by a second grader named Terrell. Terrell has some respect issues, and some anger issues, but we're working on it.
One of the areas where he gets in trouble sometimes is the football field. He loves football, and he's good at it, but he's working on the whole sportsmanship thing. He gets frustrated easily, which leads to yelling, obscenity, pushing and shoving, general fighting. He has, however, made progress since he enrolled, and I have hopes for him to one day go through an afternoon on the playground without sitting in time out.
For whatever reason, Terrell likes me. At first I couldn't believe this. I am constantly putting him in time out or lecturing him, but still he seeks me out on the playground. He gets excited when I throw the ball to him. If I make a joke, he slaps me on the back and laughs and goes, "Yeah Mr. E! HA! Good one!" This is a little awkward, but cool.
The other day I was explaining to him why I couldn't go get the football from the other side of the fence for the second time in one day, when we had the following interaction.
"You know, Mr. E., you kind of talk like old times."
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
So he repeated what I had said to him just a minute before, annunciating absurdly for effect--a black person trying to sound like a goofy white nerd.
"'Are - You - All - Right? What - Is - The - Matter?' See, like old times."

A Comment on the movie Big.

It's finals week, and I am almost finished with the semester. I have one exam left, so in keeping with tradition, I am watching movies on cable to prepare for it. I was enjoying this a lot, until a moment ago. I was preparing some spaghetti for my lunch (I'm loading up on carbs to get ready for this half-marathon I'm running this weekend) when I heard some tinkly, ultra-sensitive sounding, new-age style piano music coming the television. I knew without looking what it was. It was the scene in Big where the ten-year-old boy in a man's body has sex with a grown woman.
How the hell did that ever get into a mainstream Hollywood movie? And in such a particularly creepy way. There's no real evidence that the makers of the movie really considered the weight of that particular plot point. He's ten. He has sex with a thirty-ish business woman. Do you know what kind of therapy they both would need after that? Jesus Christ. That scene at the end of the movie, where Elizabeth Perkins looks wistfully down the street as the ten year old she's been banging goes back to his mom's house? How is she not tearing her hair out at that point? She accidentally fucked a little boy. And instead of being horrified, the audience is supposed to be sad that it didn't work out for them to be together. Gross and weird.

Outage

Monday I was sitting in my apartment doing homework, and I heard a small explosion outside, immediately after which the lights went out. I knew what had happened- there is a transformer close by, and squirrels have been climbing into it and causing it it to blow. It usually takes a few hours for the power company to come out and set everything right again.
I couldn't finish my school work in the dark, so I got dressed for work in the dark and decided to head in early. Going down the stairs to leave, I ran into two maintenance men with flashlights talking to my downstairs neighbor (This is the old woman who yells to her cat Rusty at all hours. 12:30 am: "RUUUUUUUSSSSSTTTTTYYY! RUSTY! RUSTY GET IN HERE.")
"Squirrel blew the transformer again?" I asked.
"Yeah, you got it," said the first maintenance guy.
"Yes, but it didn't kill him!" said the old woman.
The first maintenance man looked at his feet. The other shook his head and mouthed the word "Dead."
"That's wonderful," I said, and headed to work.
"That's wonderful," is something I say to kids a lot. "That's wonderful," and it's counterpart, "I'm sorry to hear that," are what you say when presented with a situation you don't know how to respond to. A kid holds up a picture of blue and black scribbling that she is obviously proud of? "That's wonderful!" A kid comes to tell you that Brian is going down the slide backwards, and you don't feel like going into an explanation of tattling and why it's a bad idea? "I'm sorry to hear that." A crazy old woman who loves animals a little bit too much mistakenly believes that a squirrel survived electrocution by a transformer? "That's wonderful!"

Letter From My Mother

Recently my computer died. This was bad for a lot of reasons, but the one thing I was particularly scared of was losing some files that contained writing by now-deceased mother. The good people at the Apple Store saved them, and I was re-reading some of them just now. I felt like sharing.

April 15, 2000
10:34 pm

Dear Andrew,

Your father and I went to the symphony this past Saturday.

We started with dinner at Joe's Inn. We got a table right away, amazingly enough. We usually have to wait at least 20 minutes. The waitress was very slow arriving at our table, however. So slow that one of the managers came over and took our drink order. After we had had our drinks for what seemed a lengthy period of time, the waitress came over and thanked us for being patient with her. We placed our order - I substituted a baked potato for the rice.
We waited for another lengthy period of time. Someone other than the waitress eventually brought us our food - minus the baked potato. He said that it was not on the order, but he brought me one. We were eating when the waitress showed up to refill our drinks. She poured water into your father's iced tea. When he pointed out the
error, she apologized and went to get him another glass of tea. Awhile later, when we were close to finishing the meal, she returned to box up the rest of your father's food. She dropped his fork on the floor, picked it up and continued to use it to shovel his leftover food into the box. When he pointed out that she had just dropped the fork on the floor and shouldn't use it for that, she stopped - apologized and put the fork in the middle of the food on my plate which I had not finished eating.
We left the restaurant, and I’m pleased to say that we have not contracted any diseases as of yet.

I had not really wanted to go to the symphony, but thought that hearing Beethoven's 7th symphony performed live would be worth the effort. When we took our seats and opened our programs, we discovered that the we would not be hearing the 7th. Instead, the Egmont, the 3rd piano concerto and the 6th symphony would be played. The 7th was played earlier this month.
The lights dimmed. The concertmaster came out to warm everyone up. We clapped for him. The orchestra warmed up. The conductor came out and we clapped for him. Have you noticed how we clap for people when they haven't done anything yet?
Finally, we heard the Egmont. Familiar and not too bad. Short.

Then the piano concerto. We clapped for a new person who had not done anything. Concertgoers have great faith in the performers.
The first movement began. Not too bad but fairly long.
Fanny fatigue was starting to settle in. I noticed that the pianist played with only one hand fairly often. It seems that they did not dock his pay for this. I noticed that the other orchestra members consistently played with two hands.
The first movement went on for quite some time and finally ended fairly loudly. I hoped that it was the end of the entire
concerto. Not so. The orchestra took a little break so that the pianist could mop his face with his handkerchief while the conductor stared at him . At this point the audience did not clap. Apparently the protocol is to clap for people before they start playing and when they finish playing, but not during the breaks in the middle. This is different from your school concerts that we used to attend. There the 14 parents in audience used to applaud anytime the performers drew breath. They regarded it as their parental responsibility to provide applause at every opportunity.

The second movement was slow, dreary, boring and interminable. I do believe Beethoven was on sedatives when he wrote it.
Then there was the 3rd movement. I have noticed that Beethoven is fond of the fast, slow, fast pattern. The third movement might not have been so bad if I hadn't just had to sit through the second.
At last it was over. I could not have been more relieved. The audience seemed thrilled with Beethoven, the pianist and the orchestra. They clapped at length. Many people stood up. One woman leaned over the front row of the balcony waving her arms. After about four curtain calls, they brought the lights back up. It was intermission.

I picked up my coat and umbrella and told your father I really needed to leave. He was disappointed to not to hear the 6th. I was disappointed that they had not played the 6th first. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more. On the other hand, Beethoven's notes about each movement of the 6th symphony in the program went like this -

The Awakening of cheerful Feelings at the Arrival in the country
Scene at the Brook
Merry Gathering of the Peasants
Storm
Shepherd's Song: Joyful Thankful Feelings after the Storm

It is a good thing Beethoven wrote music and not poetry. It would also help if he would stay away from the sedatives.

I think that all in all the orchestra is to be commended. At least no one threw up on stage. This happened during the concert at the last PTA program at my school. A girl in the front row threw up all over the floor. The chorus kept right on singing while a teacher hustled her off the stage and the custodian came up with the mop to clean it up.
Also, none of the performers threw instruments across the stage. Remember when you played the chimes at the PTA meeting in elementary school and hurled them across the floor.

Your father says that when we go to the next concert he is not leaving during intermission because Mahler is the second half. I told him I was sure you would want to go to that one with him.


Looking forward to seeing you at home for the Mahler.

love, Mom

Kids Say The Damnedest Things #437

A five year old girl with curly blonde hair and big blue eyes stands at the water fountain for a moment, drinking. She has just started kindergarten, and with it my after-school program. She stands back from the fountain, scrunches her face, and when asked what's the matter answers,
"That water tastes like vaginas."

Awesome Crazy Radical Outlandish Super-Terrific Intelligently Created Poems!

The first day of the fall semester this year I walked into a classroom and saw it covered in acrostic poems, written I assume by education students at VCU. Education programs like to make prospective teachers engage in activities that they will later give to their students. I agree with this idea, but I do not agree with acrostic poems. I have no evidence to back me up, but I suspect that writing an acrostic poem makes you dumber.

Magical
Energetic
Good helper
Active
Nuts

Oh Megan, I feel as if I know you.

Brainy
Real
Intelligent
Attitude, good
Nice to hang out with

Let's not get full of ourselves, Brian

Another Joke Safely Defused

My sister was in town the other day, and tried to tell me a joke.
"Hey Andy, what's the difference between jam and jelly?"
"Uh, well Sarah, jelly is made with juice and jam is made with fruit."
"Oh. I was gonna say, 'I can't jelly my dick up your ass,' but that's cool."

Fudge and the Freedom Trail

The summer after I graduated elementary school my family had a bit more money than was usual and took a trip to New England. We went first to Danbury, Connecticut to see the grave of my father’s hero Charles Ives. I still have a picture of my mother, her face full of comic over-sincerity, standing beside my father, who had his arm around her and looked more genuinely moved. My father has always loved Charles Ives, and the trip was something of a pilgrimage for him. We saw the grave, we saw the site of a reproduction of the cottage he grew up in that was not due to open for several years, and we went to New Haven, Connecticut so dad could look through original Charles Ives manuscripts. This was a special thrill for the old man—Ives was notoriously messy, and left ink blotches all over the page, scratched through things, and left little notes to his editor in the margins saying things like, “Don’t change a goddamn thing.”
I later grew to like Charles Ives too, but at the time of our vacation the whole thing was baffling. His music is difficult even for adults, and even though I tried to like it for my dad’s sake I didn’t get very far. I was more taken with the stories of Mr. Ives screaming at airplanes as they passed over his house and calling his audiences “old ladies.” Anecdotes aside, the trips to Danbury and New Haven were only a distraction from what really mattered to me: the four days we spent in Boston.
Back in the early nineties I was a diehard Red Sox fans. For some reason a station in Norfolk carried all their games, and I watched them whenever they were on. I knew all the players names and positions, I collected their baseball cards, and I wore t-shirt with a picture of Roger Clemens pitching above the legend- “Rocket Roger!” The highlight of the vacation for me was seeing Rocket Roger pitch against Juan Guzman and the hated Blue Jays. That night a player I can’t remember stole home plate, and for the rest of our trip my father told many passing strangers about it, and that “you only see that once in a blue moon!!” I had yet to cross over into adolescent embarrassment of my parents, and the remark seemed full of wisdom to me, and worth repeating.
The day after the game was our last in the city, and after doing seeing lots of Boston Common and Quincy Market in the morning, my sister’s legs gave out on her that afternoon. Growing up, my sister often had a problem with her legs. If she stood for too long the blood would collect in them, she would become light-headed, and pass out. We discovered this in church one Sunday when, after repeatedly pleading with my mother to be allowed to sit down, she collapsed, smacking her head on the pew on the way down. She never had to stand in church again, and many was the Sunday that I looked at her jealously, certain the entire thing was an elaborate ploy to make the Nicene Creed more bearable.
Now she was tired of walking around Boston, and she declared that if she went any further she would pass out. My mother, taking this very seriously and also fairly tired herself, volunteered to stay with Sarah while I went with dad for the afternoon’s business—a long walk to the Old North Church and the Bunker Hill Memorial. I was delighted. Let these women sit and fan themselves! The men were not tired, and we would undertake a serious visit to very important historical landmarks that would improve our knowledge of the Revolutionary War.
My dad’s legs were, of course, significantly longer than mine, and once we got under way his stride was hard to keep up with. I spent much of the time running behind him, too embarrassed for long intervals to ask him to slow down. I was winded quickly from this, and maybe my dad noticed, because he suggested we stop and buy some fudge. This was almost too much for me. First, I get to go on a special man trip, and now fudge? My father’s generosity overwhelmed me, particularly when I saw how much he bought me: two pounds!
Well, we started walking again, and while two pounds of peanut butter fudge was a lot even for the chubby ten-year-old version of myself, I willed myself to eat it all. Every bit. It took roughly ten minutes, and I was running behind my father the entire time desperate to keep up, and afterwards I felt fairly sick, but I couldn’t do something so ungrateful as to not finish my father’s gift, to throw it away. What would he say? So I wolfed the entire package, and struggled to keep up.
We were approaching the famous statue of Paul Revere on his horse when my father said from several feet in front of me, “How about some of that fudge, Andy?”
“What about it, Dad?” I asked tentatively, confused. “It was really good.”
“Can I have a piece of it?” he asked, not breaking stride.
And then I realized that I had eaten all of what was supposed to be for our entire family. I don't exactly know how it happened-- maybe he had underestimated the rate at which his son could eat, maybe he had given instructions on how much I could have and I couldn’t hear him from his position several feet in front of me. Whatever the reason, there had been failure to communicate, and I was miserable over it. I apologized several times. Dad was nice about it and said “Don’t worry,” but he couldn’t completely hide the look in his eyes that said, “Holy shit, my kid is disgusting.” I felt it keenly, and as we headed towards Bunker Hill the afternoon was soured for me.
I think I was still able to eat dinner later.

I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn.

My freshman year of college I lived with my best friend from high school, Nick Bognar. He'll correct me on the accuracy of this story, but as I remember it, one Saturday night we decided to take a break from our many drunken parties with the attendant new friends and hook-ups with hot girls, to spend a little quality "us" time. Nick suggested we go to the library and play Gin Rummy. I suggested we play pool instead.
"Only if we gamble," said Nick, who even at this early age was showing signs of the sickness that would haunt his late twenties (Have you seen The Gambler with James Caan? That's pretty much Nick. Shit is sad.)
So we headed out into the bustling metropolis that is Fredricksburg, and found ourselves a pool hall. We were both exceptionally fine pool players, and after we had been there for a few minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of regulars, all of whom wanted to catch a glimpse of our epic eight-ball battle, and I told them all that Nick liked to go by the nickname "Fats."
We had each won a game, when the song "Torn" (a haunting pop ballad that never fails to move me to tears) as covered by Natalie Imbruglia (one of the great unappreciated talents of the late nineties, the owner of a haunting voice and flawless sense of musicianship) came on the jukebox. I was not yet a fan, however, and as it played I derided the song. I might have used the word "retarded." I may even have implied that Ms. Imbruglia was not a singer, but merely an attractive young woman attempting to parlay her looks into a music career. I shudder to think of it, but I think that is what I said.
"Alright," said Nick, interrupting my remarks, "If you win the next game, I will give you my car."
I was shocked.
"I would certainly love to drive your beautiful eggplant-colored Ford Taurus," I said to him, "it is as fine a vehicle as e'er I've seen. But what would I give up if I didn't win, as unlikely as that might seem?"
"If you lost you would have to promise that for the rest of your life whenever this song was played, you would have to talk about how wonderful it is and what a genius you think Natalie Imbruglia is."
"It's a bet!" said I.
You may infer for yourself how the game went.

At Least They Can't Make Me Go To Church

1) We were comparing the working conditions of 19th century factories to those of our modern day, and my professor was making a point that was way too interesting for a 200 level history class:
"We tend to think of ourselves as free, being at liberty to do what we want. But think about the ways that people's jobs control them. Think about the hours that some people work. Has anyone here ever had to pee into a cup for their employer? Isn't that a control of your leisure time? Has anyone here ever worked a job where they took home a pager or a cell phone? My husband wears a cell phone and has to answer it whenever it rings; he basically works all the time. That's not to say that our working conditions are in any way comparable to what people faced during the Industrial Revolution, only to say that before we start thinking, 'Oh I would never work a job that treated me that way,' we need to reconsider some of the things people do today for their employers."
I pondered this as a girl on the other side of the auditorium raised her hand to point out that her boss didn't regulate her morality, as employers in the 1800s often did by forcing workers to go to church on Sundays, firing them if they drank, etc.
I raised my hand.
"I know my circumstances might be unusual, but I work at a daycare and I definitely feel like my morality effects my work," I said.
"If I got a DUI I think I would lose my job. And I have to be extremely careful about what I say-- I work at a place where if I said the words "shut up" it would be a big deal."

2) "LIIIIIIIIIIKE A BRIIIIDDDGE OOOOVER TROUBLED WAAATER, I WILL LAAAAAAAAAYY ME DOOOOWWWWN, LIIIIKE A BRIIIIIDDGE OOOOOVER TROOOOOUUBLED WAAATEEERRRRR, I WILL LAY ME DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWN."
We were playing a game at work where the kids were on two teams, each sending up a representative to compete in a sort of musical Family Feud. My boss would say a word, perhaps 'world,' and the first person to start singing "You Get the Best of Both Worlds" would win the round. In the event of a tie, the person who sang the most of the song the loudest would win. The kids had a great time with it, but then my boss called up the teachers to participate. I was facing off against a co-worker, and the word was 'bridge,' and Simon and Garfunkle was the first thing I thought of. She started singing some song I never heard of that is apparently on the radio and much better known than 'Bridge over Troubled Water.' Wanting to win, I was forced to sing most of the song as loud as I could, and when I got to the end I started over, hoping nobody would notice I was repeating myself. I think the other teacher did the same thing. Eventually my boss called it a tie.
I am a very competitive person, and this tie got under my skin. I was feeling particularly frustrated because I was no good at this game, and was losing badly. "Bridge" had been one of the few words I had a song for, and I all I could get for it was a tie.
"Okay," said my boss, "This is the last round, and our two teams are tied. So the winner of this round will win it all!!" The kids all screamed and cheered. My old boss was good at building this sort of thing up and making the kids scream a lot.
There were four teachers standing in front of a crowd of roughly sixty children, who finally fell silent as the last word was about to be called. There was palpable tension in the room. And then my boss said "Home."
I thought for a second too long, and another teacher started singing "Home, home on the range," and, completely forgetting myself, I stomped my foot and said loudly and clearly, "FUCK!"
Immediately recognizing what I had done, I clamped a hand over my mouth. I looked around the room, expecting to see mouths open in horror, kindergartners crying, third graders laughing and saying "Fuck," over and over, but somehow nobody noticed. Even though I had practically yelled the word, I had yelled it while the kids were cheering the teacher who sang "Home on the Range," their enthusiasm masking my tumble into profanity. The only person who caught it was my boss, and I saw her eyes practically bug out of her head as we exchanged a series of glances that said the following:
"Am I fired?"
"No, but only because nobody else heard you."
Later my favorite kid ( the girl who farts) would come to me and ask why I had covered my mouth and acted so embarrassed. I would tell her I was ashamed of losing, and she would laugh at me, and remind me of how often I tell kids not to take games too seriously.

Imaginary Conversation I Will Never Actually Have With My Downstairs Neighbor

Me (possibly taking out my trash): Hey, how's it going?
The Old Lady Downstairs: Oh hello! Wonderful weather we're having!
Me: Yes, it is.
The OLD: Sometimes when it gets warmer like this you need to take the trash out more often.
Me: Yes, I believe you're right. You know, I've been thinking. Sometimes I play my violin, or even just my stereo, and I think too myself, 'Wow, I hope this music isn't bothering anyone else. I would hate it if I found out I was in anyway irritating those who lived around me.' I think that. You know what I mean?
The OLD: Oh don't worry, I love when you play the violin. You play beautifully.
Me (perhaps blushing a little bit): Oh well, thank you.
The OLD: And don't worry, I don't think I've ever heard your stereo.
Me: Well, good. That's a load off of my mind. (Frustrated, I start to walk to the dumpster, but stop and turn back.) Can I ask you something ma'am?
The OLD: Well I don't see why not. (Smiles toothily.)
Me: Who is Rusty?
The OLD: Rusty? Rusty is one of my cats.
Me: That's kind of what I thought. I know you have a few cats.
The OLD: Well they aren't all mine. A few of them are strays.
Me: But you feed them all, and you love them, I can tell.
The OLD: Oh yes. (Smiles again, extra toothily.)
Me: Perhaps you don't get out much, don't know many people, and these cats fill some of that void for you.
The OLD: I guess you could say that.
Me: Can I ask, why is it that at 6 or 7 am every morning you come out your door and yell at the top of your lungs, "RUUUUSTY! RUUUUSSSSTY!!" What is that?
The OLD: Well, I wake up around 5:30 every morning, and I like to make some coffee, and then have breakfast with my kittees. I pour a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and I put dry food out for the cats. And a lot of times Rusty is off chasing a squirrel, or birdy, or maybe hiding in a sewer grate, so I have to yell RUUUUUSSTY! so he can know it's breakfast time.
Me: And why do you yell to him again at around 11:30 pm every night?
The OLD (beams): Well, I like to hug him goodnight before I go to bed.
Me: Okay. Well awesome, you've answered all my questions now. I guess I'll take my trash out. Thanks.
(I head to the dumpster, smiling awkwardly at the neighbor when I come back. Even in a fantasy like this I don't seem able to tell a nice old lady to be more considerate and to please refrain from yelling to her cat early in the morning. )

Up at 4

I awoke at a little before 4 o'clock this morning to the sounds of a woman's pained screams and the sounds of a struggle. It dawned on me that I had to be listening to a rape, and that it must be going on in the alley below my window. Horrified, I went to the window to investigate, phone in hand and ready to call the police. Several months ago I had heard gunshots outside in the early morning, but this was much much worse. My heart raced as I looked for the woman struggling to fend off her attacker, but I saw nothing. Within moments the sounds grew muffled, and I began to think they were moving away from me. I debated whether I should call the police. Should I go outside to help her? But why would they be moving away from me?
The grunting and slapping returned to full volume as I headed back across the room to my bed, and I realized then, to my relief and disgust, that what I was hearing were the sounds of my next-door neighbor having sex. Irritated and still not entirely awake, I got a glass of water and turned on the television. The grunting and hollering continued into the wee small hours, and I tossed and turned, wondering what I'll do if this becomes a recurring problem.

Learning and Growing Together in the Trust Circle

I'm in school so that I can become a teacher, and so, as one might expect, I am taking education classes. So far I don't like education classes, possibly because over the years I have become accustomed to learning things from the classes that I take. Education classes, ironically enough, don't involve much learning. What they do involve is a lot of jargon dressing up common sense to make it look less familiar, ten question surveys about your individual "learning style" (I'm aural/reading and writing!), in-depth class discussion about alcohol killing brain cells, earnest requests for feedback on assignments which nobody seems to care if you turn in, sweet but frustratingly vague and disorganized professors who refuse to give guidelines on length for papers, completely open-ended paper topics apparently designed to prevent anyone from scoring less than a ninety, and classrooms full of slow-witted girls in their early twenties who nevertheless manage to scores seventies on these papers.
Today in class we reviewed for a test that is coming up in a couple of days. The instructor tells us to always call them "tests" and not "exams." Apparently the word "exam" stresses people out.
One of my learning-buddies ("classmates" seems too austere for an education class, too close to the world of "exams") raised her hand to ask the question,
"What about that movie about the girl, is that gonna be on the test?"
"No," said my knowledge-sherpa, "you don't need to worry about the film. I would never put a film we watched in class on a test. I wouldn't want to penalize anyone who didn't come to class the day I showed it."
I stared in disbelief. I think two guys in the back of the room high-fived.

Routine

Today on the playground I spotted a seven-year-old girl whom I know well-- alone, crawling on all fours, and periodically gnashing her teeth.
"What animal are you today, Emily?" I called to her.
"A cougar," she answered.
"Great, don't get your knees too muddy," I called back.

Trouble in Mind

I haven't posted in awhile, in part because I've been under a lot of stress. The VCU Financial Aid office took away my financial aid, and for a week I didn't thinK I was getting it back. That caused me to start having panic attacks. I was pretty sure I knew they were panic attacks, but I was freaked out anyway-- afraid I would die or have to drop out of school or both. I had chest pain, arm pain, thigh pain, ear pain, neck pain, light-headedness, all of which seemed attributable to anxiety, but in my less rational moments I was picturing my funeral and wondering which of my friends and family would end up with my belongings when I fell dead from a heart attack. Worse still were fantasies where I suffered a stroke and was left paralyzed in bed for the rest of my life, possibly writing a book by blinking my left eyelid.
Today, after some health insurance related delays, I finally saw a nurse practitioner, had some blood drawn and an EKG, and found out I was pretty much fine. They gave me a pamphlet about managing the stress of college life.

Feeling better, I headed to work. There on the playground I ran into a six-year-old roaming the mulch in an oversized pink coat. She had a headband pushed halfway back her head, and stray hairs were coming out from under it and going in all directions. Her face was splotched with dirt, and for some reason she kept scratching at her tongue with her fingernails.
"My tastebuds are coming off," she told me. "That's when your taste buds fall off your tongue. I'm pretty sure it's because of my toothbrush."
Not at all upset, she bopped off to the sandbox, and I reflected on how this girl, whom I'd always pegged for crazy, suddenly seemed marginally sane.