Peace

It occurred to me the other day--because I have a lot of time to think now that the kids got their own house--that where I went wrong in my early life was in not being to identify the exact category I occupied.

Because I realize now I was a nerd not a cool person and trying to achieve cool personness really screwed up my basic propensity to just la la through life happily, assuming it a would all work out if we just kept going.

The internet would have been a profound help, but we didn't have it then. Of course, it would have also almost certainly gotten me killed, but still. I do remember me in those days to a certain degree.

If I hadn't died from meeting a serial killer in the vampire chatroom I would have ended up in trouble with some branch of extreme witchiness, joined a serious religious cult that ended in things like gunfire, or possibly just trusted enough completely wrong and crazy people to ensure I would have ended my days in the asylum, completely barking mad.

Ah, youth. You couldn't pay me enough to make me do it again.

Anyway, back to the story. I should have realized I was a nerd. It's why I had never heard of Lynrd Skynard but could tell you how Mozart played piano at age three and why I love his music and his life story. No one but me cared, but still.

I cared about things like the six wives of Henry the Eighth, what happened to England after the whole Tudor thing, what the French revolution said about social welfare in our own age and how you (traditionally speaking, anyway)got that little divot above your upper lip.

I may have stopped encouraging my inner nerd (who I should have been embracing) because there was also that whole Aspereger's thing and I had a tendency not to notice the eyes glazing over until some kid did something rude and obnoxious to make me shut up.

And I can entirely see why, when one is fifteen or so, one is not too adept at nice ways to deal with complete sensory overload. It's unfortunate, but there you are, that's life and you can't change it. I mean, I could have dealt with it nicely, but then I think we can agree I was the nerd, and my experience was not average.

So anyway, I don't remember why I started this, but it had something to do with too much time to think, and WAY to much time to study and reflect since my horrible second son and his horrible, cruel wife had the unmitigated gall to get their own place and actually think they had the moral high ground when they wanted my grandchildren to live with them!

It's completely absurd.

So there's nothing to do but clean the house and I already did that. I also reorganized the cupboards, put all the dishes in the sideboard according to color and function, thus making sure Chad cannot even find the silverware without a map, did the fall cleaning, waxed all the floors, sanitized the bathroom and even considered whether I could shingle a roof if I were bored enough and wore a blindfold so I didn't have to know I was more than twelve inches above the ground.

I've decided that no, I probably couldn't. I have not entirely dismissed the idea, however. Jean's rabbit got loose and I could go try and catch him, but he's not nearly as much fun as Aiden and anyway, I think he went to live in Morrie's yard (that's my neighbor) and why shouldn't he get to have Mr. Bun for a companion and flower bed critic?

Mr' Bun just eats the things he figures you shouldn't have planted anyway and occasionally deigns to nibble on a weed. Rarely.

So, anyway, now I'm going to take my nerdy self over to Lacey's so i can take her and the girl's to the clinic, again. Oh, happy day, more blood drawing and analyzing of bodily fluids.

I wish I were a forensic pathologist, but only if I could do it here and never have to actually speak to anyone but the dead. The rest of you could just read my report, it would work out quite nicely. I like to take apart the dead, I just don't like to talk to the living. The dead are quiet and perfectly acceptable as subjects.

But the chances are, no one is going to let me do that and since that whole incident with the sheriff's deputy and the gun and the insane people and that whole Xanax thing, I probably am not going to get to go play with the dead anytime soon.

More's the pity.

But that's another story and one I can't tell you until after it's been sorted out. But I still say anyone would have lied about the damned gun. It's not like the actual presence of a firearm was going to somehow improve the whole situation, it was perfectly reasonable to lock the thing up.

Okay, lying might not have been strictly speaking the best policy, but telling the truth was just going to lead to the ridiculous complications that have now occurred and all because some Deputy couldn't just trust my judgement and shut up.

Well, it was interesting, anyway. Never a dull moment, really. I think I'll go wax the floor again.