White Dove Sail

An acquaintance posted a fun fill-in-the-blank game on Facebook last night

Fill in the blank. When I was little, I used to _______.

My answer is "eat frozen french fries as a snack."

Rita has lived all over the world, most recently in Nigeria. She now calls Barcelona home. Her Facebook friends are from around the world which def upped my interest.

A woman from Saint-Félix-Lauragais in southwest France responded:

“Play house in my grandmother's abandoned pig huts.”

Another from Fort Wayne, Indiana had this gothic and amusing reply:

“My brother and I used to bury dead birds, spray paint rocks to use as tombstones and have a little funeral.”

A young man from Kenya shared that he would:

“wash my hands every 10 mins. yes I was a really clean gay kid.”

I was Jean-Michel Basqiat BEFORE he existed!

Cute game. I wanted to play but the first memories to come up were all not fun or entertaining.

When I was little, I used to...

hide in closets until the yelling stopped. I waited a very long time for it, the fights, to be over. Sometimes I slept there.

When I was little, I used to...

hide under my bed in hopes that my unstable and violent brother, on days when he was on a tear, wouldn't find me.

When I was little, I used to...

lock myself in the can when my brother's friend, who'd threatened to kill me, came over. The doorknob lock was ridiculously flimsy BUT it was the quickest bolt-hole at hand.

No, childhood wasn't all giant piles of steaming rhino pooh. These were, however, the first thoughts to come up.

Get me to the catwalk NOW!

Baby's first feral

Why is that? I don’t dwell on this shit. I don’t live in these horror show memory corners so, wut up? Eh, who knows. Maybe it’s that I’m in the process of scanning childhood pics. My parents were quite the annoying paparazzi so, happily and interestingly, there're scads to go through.

I’m looking at these snaps of me as a young Cy Twombly, me as a wee fashionista, me as a budding cat doormat. I gaze into this past and remember such joy, confusion, peace, adventure, sadness and more.

I’m sitting here tippy tapping on the keyboard, wearing my leopard print bed jacket (I found a look that worked for me early and stayed with it -- leopard print!), jumping up to feed the latest stray to drop by (Gaston), swilling my french roast (wishing it was Italian), thinking two things:

1) Where does the time go?

2) I love my tiny house on the bay and I’ve the most wonderful family and friends on the planet (no, serious and true. Fer reals too!).

Ahhhh. Maybe some mega spicy Veggie Samosas, a dish of Baigan Bhartha and tiramisu from Saint Fratelli’s for dinner tonight?

Happy Friday!
Blowin' In the Wind -- Bob Dylan