Small Town USA

OK. It's settled. When we retire, I want to live in Genoa, Nevada.

OK, maybe "settled" is too strong a word. Can we call it "on the short list"?

As a kid, I was sure that I wanted to live in a tiny apartment, preferably in a tall, narrow, aging home, in a big city. I'd walk to the quirky corner grocer, where I'd know everybody by name. When I could, I'd ride the train downtown to the theater and museums.

I never would have predicted that what I really want is a big, rambling house in a small town, maybe a town too small to even merit a stop light.

It should have occurred to me that my early childhood would affect where I'm most comfortable. When I was no more than 2 1/2 or 3, my parents or big sister would help me up onto the back of big, gentle Lady, our Thoroughbred horse, and I'd follow my sister or my mom, on sprited Querida, out of our back pasture and through the neighborhood, which was dotted with small ranches. There were two places within easy riding or walking distance where we occasionally went to watch the practice sessions of the local rodeo competitors. We ice skated in our back pasture. One of our dogs, gentle, razor sharp Duchess, was half coyote.

I was 12 years old before I ever vacationed anywhere except the wilderness. I was used to camping, fishing, swimming and hiking. Visiting my best friend in Sacramento, and then taking a day trip to San Francisco, was an entirely new experience.

I still didn't expect to spend my life in small towns. Then, just before our wedding, my husband's company transferred him to a small farming and ranching community. I was furious. I dug in my heels. "I'm not going. You can't make me. You can find a new job." Cooler heads prevailed, and I found myself in a town that had five brothels, but was just opening its first movie theater (two screens!) We had one grocery store, and a business that was a combination tire/craft/satellite store.

I loved it. We bought a home outside of town on an acre and a quarter, had two babies, built a chicken coop and brought home 24 baby chicks. We spent a lot of time on dirt roads, and discovered new favorite picnic spots.

When my husband's company offered him a transfer back to his old plant, we bought a home in a small town rather than face the culture shock of moving back to Reno. I loved our little town. It made the front page of the twice-weekly tri county newspaper when we got our second stoplight. The largest park, where the 4th of July festivities were held, was across the street from us. My kids performed at the community center in the yearly Christmas pageant. We were on a first name basis with the librarian.

Eventually, we moved back to the Reno area, buying a house two and a half blocks from the house I grew up in. (The ranches were long since relegated to memory; it was a ordinary, suburban neighborhood.) That's another story.

I still find myself feeling wistful when we visit small towns. I pick up real estate listings and think, "We could afford that." I daydream about ponds, a horse, farmhouses and trees. It makes no sense right now to move anywhere, but retirement and a place for my grandkids to visit isn't too far off in the distance.

I'm allergic to fur, but still find myself thinking about just one horse - just enough to pull a carriage. Doesn't that sound perfect for grandkids - and portraits?

This is what my kids did today:

We were about 50 miles from home, at an indoor pool that made this kind of activity perfect for a winter day, even though there was snow in sight of the pool.

I didn't feel like swimming; I felt like a solo day with my camera. So, off we went, to nearby Genoa, the oldest town in the state.

This is the equivalent of downtown:

This house is for sale, just two doors down:

My daughter tells me that no self respecting man would live in a pink house, but I work in the wedding industry. With its period furnishings and charmingly landscaped grounds, it looks like the ideal place to hold weddings. Would a self respecting man be married in a pink house?

Only steps away, on the corner, this girl fed three deer stale bread out of the back door of a cafe:

I know, it's always a bad idea to feed wildlife, but how charming is a place where this happens?

I spent the day shooting crumbling stone structures, horses, barns, and houses like this one:

Farm equipment sat in the fields like sculpture:

It was a day well spent, and a reminder of what might be someday.

Am I Blue

When I was a kid, I had fairly clear ideas about the color different rooms should be. No room should ever be green. Kitchens should be yellow – it just seemed sunshiny and breakfasty and cheerful. Bathrooms should be pink. Pink seemed like soap bubbles, shampoo and powder puffs.

(It's worth noting that I've never had a yellow room, or a pink one. Or green, for that matter.)

Blue has always been my default setting, my "go to" color for just about anything. It still took me a long time to notice that, given a choice, I'd decorate any room, and any occasion, in blue and white.

When I was a newlywed, the hot colors in home fashions were slate blue and mauve. This was a switch from the formerly hot colors of mustard yellow, avocado green and chocolate brown and, in my opinion, a big improvement. I loved the gray-blue and dusty rose colors that everything seemed to come in. Still, I tried not to overdo it, knowing that what's hot now is embarrassingly outdated tomorrow.

Geese were also hot. My first kitchen featured ceramic geese wearing big, floppy blue bows. I loved them. (They made my best friend want to vomit, but hey, it was my kitchen.) I had wrought iron hooks shaped like geese in my living room, and I hung heart shaped candles from them. They went with my painting of teddy bears in big hats and old fashioned dresses. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's causing tooth decay just to read about it. I like cute and charming. Deal with it.

My dishes were ivory stoneware with white and blue designs featuring, yup, the geese with bows.  My flatware had blue handles.

One Christmas (when we were several years past the newlywed stage) the woman in charge of our church's annual Christmas dinner decided to mix up the usual planning. "This year," she said in our women's meeting, "I thought it would be nice if we got to eat off of real dishes, with real napkins and tablecloths and everything, instead of paper plates and plastic forks." She passed around a signup sheet, so each woman who wanted to could sign up for one or more tables. We'd bring the linens, dishes, silverware, centerpieces and anything else we wanted. "I think it'll be fun to see everyone's decorations, and get a sense of what it would be like to have Christmas dinner at your homes."

I raised my hand. "Is there a color scheme, or any theme beyond Christmas?"

"No, no. Just set the table however you would do it at your house. Don't go out and buy anything new! Use what you already have."

I was pretty excited about this idea. I signed up to do one six foot table, with settings for eight.

 I wanted to see how everyone else would do their tables. Maybe someone would go with one of those silver tinsel trees as a centerpiece. Maybe someone would have a feather tree. Someone was sure to go with all out glitz, gold and silver everywhere.

When I showed up at the church to do my table, only two other women were there. I had somewhere else I had to be, so I hurried to set my table.

I lay down my white lace tablecloth, the one that had been on the cake table at our wedding. It was what we used for all special occasions. Then I put blue placemats, my blue and white dishes, blue handled flatware and blue napkins. For a centerpiece, I used my blue and white stoneware pitcher set in its matching dish. I had an arrangement of bluegreen artificial spruce, with frosted pinecones and tiny blue and silver packages, that I put in the pitcher. Instead of a runner, I had blue and silver bead garlands and globe ornaments that I ran down the center of the table. It looked exactly like it would have at my house if I was going all out for company. I loved it. I couldn't wait to see what everyone else did with their tables.

Every other table in the whole room was done in ruby red and deep, pine forest green. Every other table, including the ones set up for the potluck buffet.

Wow.

We all know people who simply must stand out, at all costs. They are the kids who'd rather be in trouble than feel ignored. They equate "ordinary" with "worthless," and will do anything to be seen as unique. I am reminded of Louisa in "The Fantasticks" pleading with the Almighty: "Please God, please – don't let me be normal."

Then we know people for whom conformity is everything. They never, ever want to stick out as doing something differently than their peers. They are sure that being the same as those around you insulates them from ridicule, judgment or mistakes. They must have up to the minute fashionable clothing and possessions.

Then there's me. I am sure that I am commonplace and my actions predictable. Then I emerge into the real world, where my Christmas table is an icy, pale blue island in the midst of matching jewel tones and Santas. I had not sought to either conform or rebel; I simply expected there to be more variety.

In the magazines I read, there's quite a bit of holiday variety. One magazine described a woman's color palette of lemon yellow and lime green as "a twist on the traditional green and gold." I saw a spread in which a woman did her home in pink and pale yellow for Christmas, even buying poinsettias in those colors instead of the traditional red. Any color combination can be adapted to the holidays, right? Besides, what's more wintery than snow and ice?

Frankly, blue and white is the perfect combination for any season. Think spring; forget me nots, robins' nests filled with pale blue eggs, fluffy white baby bunnies – tell me you couldn't decorate for the perfect Easter brunch that way. Summer is a no brainer – sand, sky, water, seashells, sailboats. Fall is perfect for denim, navy blue flannel, wool sweaters, plaid blankets and plaid shirts. Winter looks positively Dickensian in deep blue velvet and lace.

A friend recently moved into a new house, and wanted to keep the fresh paint the sellers had used. Both children's bedrooms were blue with white trim. She'd gone with sailboats in her son's room, but was having a hard time thinking of anything for her daughter's room. "It's just hard to make it look feminine," she said. She'd gone with a Peter Rabbit theme, tying the paint into the blue of Peter's jacket. For a preschooler, as her daughter is now, that sounds adorable. My youngest daughter had a Beatrix Potter theme in her first bedroom.  I immediately started thinking, though, of a theme for an older child. It would be easy to stay with the same nautical theme as in her brother's room. Artwork featuring 19^th or early 20^th century women and children at the seashore in floaty white dresses and hats, or charming sailor suits, with the homes in the background featuring intricate white painted gingerbread trim, would be charming. Anything pearl, abalone or mother-of-pearl would be perfect, as would seashells. Or, she could use a garden theme, furniture and accessories featuring the look of a white picket fence or trellis, accessorizing with lots of silk morning glories, hydrangeas and delphiniums, and maybe a mural with a cottage or a castle.

I didn't tell her that. I worried that I'd sound like a bit of a buttinsky. I hate it when people get overly involved in others' choices.

Besides, we've all seen that my taste is not reflective of everyone else's taste.

No one said anything about the Christmas table, either positive or negative. I didn't get any patronizing compliments, nor was I subjected to the lecture about how, "I didn't think we'd have to spell it all out for you. It should have been obvious." (I've gotten that lecture a few times.) As far as I know, it didn't bother anyone. Still, I can't quite get over the fact that everyone else seemed to be on the same page. Is there a code?

Just so you know, if you ever ask me to do any decorating for you, you'd better like blue. Or issue very specific instructions.

The Green Eyed Monster

I'm thinking, rather uncharacteristically, about jealousy.

I always think I have a handle on the human experience, that I understand other people's feelings, until I'm exposed to actual humans who seem so alien.

I figured that I "got" jealousy. Someone else has something you'd like to have, and you don't. Who hasn't experienced that? It seems so universal.

It's apparently not.

I was always annoyed by stories of siblings who were deeply resentful of each other. It seemed so cliche' and annoying. Now I'm reading another book with such siblings; one sister just has to have anything her sister has, and that translates into seducing every boyfriend of her sister's, and disparaging every accomplishment her sister achieves. I spent so many years dismissing such people as unimaginative fiction, but then I met so many of them that I finally understood where the cliché' came from. I'm still taken by surprise; I'm evidently a slow learner.

I grew up with siblings, and it never occurred to me to wonder who our parents loved best, or to covet what my siblings had. I thought my oldest sister was the most beautiful woman on the planet, but I was not resentful about it at all. I wished I looked like her, but I didn't. It was disappointing, but not anger inducing. I never wished that she was unattractive, or that a boyfriend would dump her, or any such thing. She was amazing – she still is – but I didn't think I was unattractive because she was pretty, or that because she was smart that I had to be stupid. We were all smart – I thought that it ran in the family.

I never avoided what my siblings did best, for fear that I'd never measure up, or insisted on redoing everything they did, hoping I'd outshine them. Sometimes I did the same things; I was a photographer like my big brother, and I won the middle school spelling bee, like my big sister. Sometimes I didn't; one of my sisters won track medals, and I was never going to be a runner.

Whenever one of the other kids compared themselves to me, whether it was positively or negatively, it annoyed me. That gorgeous older sister would forever make me, and our other sister, bare our teeth in the mirror and then lament, "My teeth are so yellow! Yours are white!" I hated it. My other sister would get weirdly competitive about things beyond anyone's control, like whether my chocolate chip cookie had more chocolate chips. "Let me see that," she'd demand, determined to count the chips, while I'd take a big bite and say, "No! Eat your cookie!"

"You had more than me! You just don't want me see it!" she'd say. Boring little pragmatist that I was, I couldn't understand how she could turn being given a treat into something to be upset about.

I did not value the qualities of being competitive or ambitious; those things just looked like misery to me.

Years ago, I asked my mother if I was just misremembering, and creating a little Zen persona that never existed. No, she said, all in all we were remarkably noncompetitive, and sibling rivalry or jealousy was the exception, not the rule, among the kids.

Once, after they broke up, one sister's former boyfriend asked if he could take me out sometime - "Or would that be too weird?" Too, weird, I agreed. I didn't gloat; I wondered why he'd asked.

It wasn't just my siblings. I didn't feel I was in competition with my friends, either. Sometimes I had the best grade or art project whatever else, and sometimes I didn't. That's how I expected life to work.

When another person got a part I'd wanted, I occasionally got angry at the director, but not at the person they cast. One director I worked with years ago was so deeply predictable in his casting that it got to the point that I could pick out from the group, before any of us had actually auditioned, who would be cast. He cast people he thought were beautiful. I did not qualify. That's the director's problem, not the beautiful people's problem.

Being a photographer was a big part of my sense of self from the time I was eight years old, and being a yearbook and newspaper photographer was a huge part of my high school identity. Still, my friends frequently asked to borrow the camera I brought to school every day. I let a couple of them borrow it on a regular basis. When one of their photos would be chosen for the yearbook, especially if someone complimented me on it, I'd say, "Scott took that one," or "That one's Ariane's." I was proud of having talented friends (and a nice camera), and glad we had a good variety of photos for the book. The other photographer and I couldn't be everywhere. The book was supposed to represent the whole school.

When I was a senior, Ariane took the camera to her science class, and got a great photo of the class python going straight up the side of the glass enclosure, while a student sat just inches away watching him. The yearbook advisor called me over when she saw it on the proof sheet (it's a film reference – either you're old enough to remember, or I can't explain it to you.) She assumed it was mine, and wanted details about when it was taken. "That's Ariane's," I told her. "Ask her. She'll know."

"I really want to enter this at Press Day. I think it would have a good chance of winning," the yearbook teacher said. Press Day was a competition for high school newspapers, held once a year at the local university. I'd entered things at Press Day, writing and photos, but never won. Press Day awards were the high school equivalent of a state title, and they were coveted.

In order to be entered at Press Day, the photo had to, of course, appear in the paper, and to appear in the paper, it had to be tied to an article. "What's going on in the science department?" the teacher quizzed us. "There has to be something we can write about!" Finally someone scrounged up something newsworthy, and the photo went into the paper, with Ariane's byline.

She was not nearly as excited about the photo being entered as the teacher and I were. "I'm not even a photographer!" she said.

"You took that photo, and it's good," I told her.

"But I'm not even on the newspaper staff!"

"Shut up. You don't have to be on the staff. You go here. That's all that matters."

The photo took first place in the photo category at Press Day. Our school hadn't won a first place for years, and the staff was giddy.

Later, someone asked me if I was angry or upset about it. "Why?" I wanted to know.

"Well, because you're a photographer, and you didn't win. She isn't even a photographer, and she did."

I can't even remember who asked me, but it was unwise. I was Ariane's biggest cheerleader, and defended her fiercely when I thought I needed to. Besides, aside from basking in her reflected glory, which I often did, there were so many ways I figured that this win was a great thing for me. I was Photo Editor of the paper, and we had the first place photo. Even better, my best friend took it, with my camera. Maybe it's self centeredness, but I thought the win had plenty to do with me. Even if it didn't, Ariane deserved it. I think I was at least as proud as her parents.

Would it have been great if it was my photo? Sure. But Ariane taking a great photo, or hundreds of great photos, didn't diminish my talent at all. It's not as if there's a finite amount, and in order to take a great picture she had to leach talent away from me.

My husband hates to go places alone, so we've frequently arranged for him to take a female friend with him when I can't go somewhere. He's taken some very beautiful women some great places. One of our friends was his "date" so frequently that she referred to herself as his "girlfriend." She still does, occasionally. I am not bothered. Neither is her husband.

So, I'm puzzled, really baffled, when I run across somebody who is deeply jealous. It makes no logical sense to me.

I've actually set the book with the whiny, jealous sibling down and picked up another novel. It was just too aggravating. I found myself wanting to smack this character once too often, so now I'm deep in a new Patricia Cornwell. I mean, sure, there's a psychotic killer, but you're supposed to dislike the villain.

Christmas Spirit

It happened again, predictably. I found myself thinking, on December 24, "Wait! It can't be over! It can't be Christmas yet!" I said something to my family, and got back, "It's not over yet. You still have tomorrow." They didn't understand; I didn't want another day, I wanted another month.

The Christmas season is too short for me. It's not about having time to shop – I aim to be done by Thanksgiving. Some years (hello, 2011) I don't make my deadline, but I try.

It's about the decorations, the carols, every single store and restaurant decked out in finery. I don't care if it's cheap plastic; I love it.

I climbed into the car on December 26, and was depressed that the radio station that plays carols all month between Thanksgiving and Christmas had stopped. I need it to last at least until New Year's Day! This year, they started a week early, and I writhed with joy. I'm not prepared to go cold turkey!

This is despite the fact that they massively overplay "Santa Baby," a whiny song that I deeply dislike, and the fact that I didn't hear my favorite, "Silent Night," all month long.

I've been told before that my love of Christmas must stem from unremittingly happy Christmas memories from my childhood. I have always loved Christmas, but I respectfully disagree with that sentiment. My childhood was hardly picture perfect, holidays included. My father was difficult, unhappy and possessed an explosive temper. Our family of six was supported by pension checks and a 20 hour a week secretarial job – money was tight during the rest of the year, but it practically squeaked in protest at the holidays.

I never understood the idea that the "traditional" concept of, "If you're good, and you tell him what you want, Santa will deliver fabulous gifts to every child on the planet" was supposedly the embodiment of holiday magic and joy. I did what any kid, especially a kid in a financially strapped family would do – I hoped Santa would bring the stuff that my parents could not afford. After all, he obviously had no money issues, not with the ability to deliver millions of wrapped gifts all over the world. He never quite came through, leaving me puzzled and hurt. The only two choices I could see were that Santa was prejudiced against people with little money, just like everyone else, or Santa thought I hadn't been good enough. Being good was very important to me, and I tried very hard, so to have a beloved figure decide that I wasn't was painful. Of course, so was deciding that he was an income bigot.

It was especially infuriating when some snot of a kid at school, the kind who swore and cheated and hit other kids and took their stuff was lavished with gifts from Santa. My mother tried to explain to me that the kid's parents had bought all that stuff, and just said it was from Santa, but this didn't help. I still didn't get what I wanted, and now some other kid's parents were lying to him, and other adults were OK with this because it spared his feelings! Maybe he needed to know that he was so naughty that Santa skipped him and his parents had to buy stuff and lie to him!

Charity drives were deeply puzzling to me. Why were people collecting toys? If those kids were good, Santa would bring them lots of toys! If they weren't good, and Santa didn't think they deserved anything, why should I? My mom again tried to distract me by pointing out that the kids in question had parents who couldn't buy them things, but that seemed to be completely beside the point.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to notice that every "Santa" you met looked and sounded different, and never remembered you or anything about you, even if you just saw him yesterday. I also hated the explanation that Santas in malls and stores were "Santa's helpers," there so small children could get the thrill of meeting him, while the real Santa was hard at work on gifts. Why was it OK to lie to small children? "So they'll enjoy it" made NO sense to me.

Yes, I was That Kid – the one with bad hygiene and ill-fitting clothes, having philosophical discussions with the adults even though I was only in kindergarten. Imagine how endearing all the other kids found me to be. Or not.

When I was 8 years old, I figured the whole Santa thing out, and suddenly the world made more sense.  Everything now fell into place, except for one thing – why in heaven's name were all the adults lying to the kids? They claimed it was so the kids would enjoy the holiday, but it did exactly the opposite! Why couldn't they see that? They could have saved me years of agonizing if they'd just been straight with me!

And how about the idea that it was OK to lie to other people, especially your own kids? Whoa, what a can of worms THAT idea opened. Did we even want to go there?

We kept the fact that I was now clued in from my dad for at least three more years, because he was one of those people who was depressed by the idea of kids no longer believing in Santa. I was the youngest, so he took it very hard. He spent my teenage years telling me how all the magic was now gone from the season. It was all I could do not to roll my eyes.

I've also been told that I must love Christmas because I can now redo everything that disappointed me as a kid, and create the perfect holiday.

Well, yes and no. My holiday never looks perfect. It sometimes takes me 3 days just to get the tree up and decorated, and we have an artificial tree. I can't remember the last time I even unpacked all the boxes of decorations. I'd love to be one of those people whose entire house is decked out to the nines, with even the bathrooms done up, but it's never going to happen. I can't find the time. Or the room – in order to deck out every shelf and tabletop, I'd have to pack up the stuff that's there now, and then where would it go? Or I could layer stuff in front of all my books, but then I couldn't get to the books, and that's just an undesirable outcome.

And there's always the time factor; I don't know why, but I always seem to be busy. Holiday baking at my house means boxed mixes and Rice Krispie Treats. They're yummy, we get to experience the whole ritual of baking for neighbors and friends, but who has time to do cut out cookies with piped icing and dragees? Not me. My oldest daughter always felt so let down when she'd say, "Let's make cookies" and I did chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. One year, when she was only 4, I was so sick the week before Christmas that I did no baking at all, and she marched up to my bedside and announced, very peeved, "We didn't make cookies! We're SUPPOSED to make cookies!"

Poor kid.

My husband frequently has to work on both Christmas Day and Christmas Eve as well. That's usually meant that he'd get home at 3:30 on Christmas Eve, and we'd have 2 ½ hours to eat dinner, drive around to see the Christmas lights and anything else we wanted to do before he had to be in bed at 6.

It also meant that, on Christmas Day, he had to be to work at 3 a.m., so we'd have to wait until he got home (from his 12 hour shift) at 3:30 p.m. to open gifts. Then we'd scarf Christmas dinner before, yep, he had to be to bed at 6. I've had people ask why we didn't get up at midnight, not realizing that that would mean 6 hours of sleep for Dad, or why we didn't open gifts on Christmas Eve, not realizing that the same time constraints applied. Long story short, folks – twelve hour shifts mean very little available time. You do what you can with what you have.

And yes, it was important to wait for Dad. It's always important to be together, in my opinion. Plus, my husband has spent his life feeling left out and overlooked, and I'm not about to say, "We're celebrating without you."

Telling kids that you have to wait most of the day for Dad can be a hard sell. They always did it – they didn't rip into gifts unsupervised – but there was much wailing and whining. I explained over and over that we'd also wait if one of them couldn't be home, or if I couldn't be home, but I was never sure they internalized that until my youngest was one and hospitalized the week before Christmas. Our twelve year old, the one who was always very vocal about how unfair it was that we had to wait for Dad on Christmas Day said, "If Hallie's not home on Christmas, we just won't have Christmas until she's home again." Luckily, she was released on the 23^rd, but it was nice to know that the celebration would have waited for her.

On the one hand, I feel that we go all out in our celebrating, but that usually does not mean extravagant, expensive gifts. I've always been shocked when I hear that other kids have $300 and $400 items on their wish lists. I nearly choked the year my nephews got $2500 go karts for Christmas. We probably didn't spend $2500 on all our holiday shopping combined. Occasionally, we've gotten pointed comments from relatives about the perceived "cheapness" of our gifts. Then, feelings are hurt on both sides. I can't believe that the sentiment, "I'm thinking about you, and care about you" is perceived to come with a price tag attached, and they can't believe that we got them something small when we "can afford better." That's unpleasant, but I'm not going to be emotionally blackmailed into spending money. The only time I've ever even gotten my own children something expensive is when I'm sending them on a trip (I will spend far more on experiences than on stuff).

I did do something about the Santa dilemma, though. No way was I putting my kids through the kind of angst I went through.

They always got 1 gift from Santa, delivered by the Big Guy in person. He comes to our extended family party ever year. The gift was usually in the $10 range. As far as Santa himself, I told them that anybody who wants to give without receiving anything (even credit) in return can be Santa. Put on the suit, and you commit your time, talent and person to the idea of giving and making people happy. A big part of our holiday has always been buying gifts for charity drives, "for Santa to take to kids whose parents can't afford gifts." Anybody can be Santa. He is very real.

He does not live at the North Pole. All those stories and movies are about how nice it would be if someone could be Santa all the time, not just at Christmas.

They're an actor's kids; the concept of putting on the costume and being someone else wasn't hard to grasp. They had no problem with this concept until other kids, and even adults, would contradict them. They'd say something like, "Santa isn't coming to our house," and others would assume that they thought they wouldn't get any gifts, or that they hadn't been "good enough" to get the gifts they wanted. "OF COURSE Santa will come to your house! I'm sure he'll bring you lots and lots of toys!" people would tell them, and they'd be confused. Even when I was standing right there, trying to get a word in edgewise and tell some well meaning adult that my kids already got their gift from Santa, last week, and plenty more gifts from us and their relatives were already under the tree, they'd keep talking about how, "I'm sure you've been good, so just wait! Santa's sure to come to your house!" Occasionally, when my kids went back to school in the early weeks of December and said, "Guess what I got from Santa!" other people would tell them that Santa hadn't come yet, even though they'd sat on his lap and gotten the gift straight from his sack.

I don't think it was any more confusing than the mixed signals every kid gets, and I'm sure it was less confusing than my childhood, but I still wonder why other people will butt in instead of, say, asking for clarification. As an adult, I've seen some kids who say heartbreaking things – "Santa's sick this year, so he won't be able to come," and, "We live too far out in the country for Santa to find us." I would never dream of telling them that they're wrong, even though I find that kind of fiction to be far worse than the "if you're good" fiction. I think everyone needs to rethink all the messages we're sending.

So, the idea that my holidays are perfect now also fails to be convincing.

Part of my love of Christmas is, I know, the fact that, as a Christian, Christmas holds far more meaning for me than the decorations, gifts, songs and candy. Either you share that belief or not, and I'm not going to debate it. You either view the birth of Jesus as miraculous fact or silly fiction, and that's up to you.

I do love, though, how the celebration of Christmas is embraced by Christians, atheists, agnostics, doubters, pagans and the religiously incurious and apathetic. All those people are among my loved ones and acquaintances, and they are just as excited about tree trimming, wrapping gifts, drinking cocoa, attending parties and singing favorite Christmas songs as I am. As much as is possible, we all agree for a month every year. That's part of the magic, too.

It doesn't really matter why I love Christmas; I just do. Everything about it – the smells, sights, sounds, the shopping, all of it, just makes me happy.

So, every year, there will never be enough time to watch all the movies (hello, George Bailey, Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch, Charlie Brown!), hear all the music, see all the sights, attend all the events and just soak it all up. I would love to bring back the old European tradition of celebrating the twelve days of Christmas from December 25^th through Twelfth Night, January 6, but even then, I'd feel  bereft when it was over. It never lasts long enough.

All I can do is try, like Ebenezer, to keep Christmas in my heart all the year long.

Skin Deep

I'm musing here on size and appearance. I guess a little of that is inescapable.

It's been a few years since I wrote this. My once painfully thin daughter is now much rounder. Now I hear about how I should put her on a diet. That's just as annoying as hearing that she's too thin.

Why doesn't anyone ever think that someone is, in Goldilocks terms, "just right"?

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I have, hanging over my dining room table, a replica of a newspaper ad from 1891. It's for a product called, "Fat-Ten-U-Food." "Respectfully tell the ladies," the headline blares, "Use Fat-Ten-U-Food to get Plump!" The copy is a scream. It trumpets your ability to become "plump and rosy, with HONEST fleshiness of form." It makes a point of saying that the pads, bustles and such in fashion at the time were dishonest and deceitful. Both the before and after images show women in their underwear, which, granted, cover more than most modern summer clothing, but was worn under all the additional pads. "Don't be like the poor unfortunate" in the "before" image, it warns. "Shorn of her artificially inflationary pads and devices, she must, in the confines of her bedroom, through shame, try to cover her poor, thin figure from the gaze of her beloved spouse." By today's standards, the "poor unfortunate" isn't even particularly thin. The look on her face, however, tells you that she's obviously mortified. She's holding her arms in a way that shields her bosom, indicating, of course, a flat chest. But wait, the ad promises, all is not lost! When you take Fat-Ten-U Food, you can walk "confidently through your bed chambers, conscious of YOUR PERFECTION of FORM!" The "after" image shows indeed, a plump, rounded woman. She's beaming and tossing her hair back. She has an ample bosom, dimpled knees, a well rounded stomach, and padded hips and bottom. Gone is the chiseled jawline of the "before" image. She looks like me with more hair.

 All this is followed by the requisite testimonial and photo. "In four weeks Professor William's famed FAT-TEN-U FOODS increased my weight 39 pounds, gave me new womanly vigor & developed me finely," the woman writes. She's sent in a photo of herself and her two sisters, who followed her lead and now, she writes, they all receive leading roles in the Grecian dance productions in Philadelphia. They too are wearing clothes best described as lingerie – fairly scandalous in that day and age, and certainly not designed to camoflage the body. They're very round and generously proportioned. My copy doesn't quite do justice to the original, which was displayed in the shop where I bought my print. In it, you can see far more detail. Believe me, you can pinch far more than an inch.

In my bedroom, I have a print of a Botticelli painting entitled, "The Three Graces." They're wearing diaphanous robes that again, are not designed to hide anything, including pounds. They're rounded and dimpled – no worries about cellulite there!

I display these things to remind myself, and everyone else, that the current obsession with being thin is very, very new. For most of history, thin people were pitied as being weak, sickly, and probably poor. Looking back through more ads of the nineteenth century, there are similar products sold to fatten up thin babies. The wording there plays heavily on parental guilt, and hints that people are saying unkind things about your poor, scrawny child behind your back. (Another benefit of these ads is to remind us that while we jeer at snake oil salesmen of the past, we're just as susceptible to miracle product claims as our ancestors were.)

It took me many, many years to be comfortable in my own body. That's true for almost everyone, I suppose; some people never do feel comfortable.

Marilyn Monroe was 5 foot 6 and weighed 145 pounds. MARILYN MONROE. In high school, I was 5 foot 8 and weighed 155. It was the early 80s, three decades too late to be considered Marilynesque. It was widely accepted by one and all that I was just too darned fat. I wore 12s and 14s while 7s were considered as large as you should ever be. The "guides" in magazines and such identified me as being "obese," more than 10 pounds above "ideal." My best friend since third grade wore size 3.

Even people who were trying hard to be supportive would say things like, "If you'd lose some weight, do something different with your hair, buy nicer clothes and learn to put on makeup, you could be pretty." I know they meant no harm, but it left me thinking: So, if nothing about me was the same as it is now, I MIGHT be considered acceptable? Gee, thanks. I feel warm and fuzzy all over. More usual were comments like this one, courtesy of my dad: "If you keep eating like that, you're going to get big as a house."

In my favor, even at my current, much higher than high school, weight, I've always had an hourglass shape. If I'd been able to carry myself back then with confidence, I would have been much better off. I'd still have been considered fat, but people wouldn't have constantly bugged me with their ideas for improving me. Judging by some of my photos, I could have passed for pretty as long as the viewer didn't have a waif fetish.

Just as annoying to me were my friends' efforts to change my hairstyle. I had long, naturally wavy, and, once upon a time, thick hair. I wore it straight down with nothing done to it for years, but by high school I was clipping back one or both sides with a barrette. That was it. Other girls, especially those with short hair, were itching to get at mine and make it over. Every now and then, at a slumber party or some such, I'd submit to having my hair done, usually to shut somebody up. I've never enjoyed that process. Anyway, most often they'd attempt to put my hair up in some fashion, because they could. I have a round face and a receding chin – if you put my hair up, I look like a senior citizen. I was a constant disappointment to girls who kept complaining, "Well, it should have worked." My favorite was the comment made after I'd had my hair French braided back: "You're right. You hair looks good by itself, but it doesn't look good on you."

Even my husband has never particularly considered me attractive. In his eyes, that's a good thing. He's always said that pretty women are conceited and high maintenance, which is why he doesn't want one. He'd also be unhappy with a wife people were hitting on behind his back. So, according to Dan, my not being pretty is good.

I finally came to the conclusion, well into adulthood and weighing much more than "ideal," that if people don't like the way I look, it's because I don't fit their taste, not because I'm flawed. Everybody's taste is different, and influenced much more by their culture than by any kind of objective standards. If I'd married a Polynesian man and moved to the islands, I'd still be considered scrawny, and they'd be trying to fatten me up. One size will never fit all.

I face the flip side of this coin with my children. You have no idea how much willpower it takes to be civil to people who say, "Don't you ever feed that kid?"

For whatever reason, I have children who have picked up the genes most apparent otherwise in my half sister and her second daughter. They're built like greyhounds. Much to my sister's, and sometimes their own, dismay, her other two daughters were built lush and curvy – more like me.

I am tired of relatives saying to my son, when he's wearing shorts, "Cover up those skinny legs!" I am tired of people telling my oldest that she doesn't eat enough. I am tired of hearing that my youngest has "a stick body." I am sick to death of body shape comments, from anyone or to anyone. I even hate it when they're positive comments. We are not cut out cookies, made by the same cookie cutter.

My youngest was fairly rounded at birth, but as she got older she thinned rather dramatically. I asked her doctor, when she was about eight or ten months old, whether I should be concerned. I wondered if, in the mess of her eating habits, she might not be getting enough to eat. His first comment was a flippant, "Oh, yeah, you've really got to watch that nursery peer pressure. It can be murder." He then told me that she was hitting all her developmental milestones and obviously happy, so not to worry. I still did, but I tried to keep it in perspective. All my children have had slight builds. If Hallie was smaller than her siblings, well, she's a different person. She's not going to be the same. Besides, I was aggravated to the point of screaming by the responses I got whenever I mentioned to someone that I was worried about her. "Oh, tall and thin – I wish I had her problems!" was typical. One friend said, "But you want little girls to be petite." We heard more variations on that theme. I was continually told how thrilled she'd be later in life. I wanted to slap people and say, "SHE'S ONE YEAR OLD!" I decided it was best to say nothing.

When she was thirteen months old, she was hospitalized with severe anemia. As soon as we arrived at the hospital, the nutritionist swooped down on us to talk about an iron rich diet. Hallie was still drinking formula at that point, because I was concerned about her, and formula has more nutrition, fat and calories than milk. Of course, one of the first things the nutritionist wanted to know was what kind of formula we'd used. I told her we were still using it, and handed her the container. She blinked and looked puzzled. "Well, this is exactly what I fed my kids," she said. After a few more questions, she was even more puzzled, so she ended up just dropping a bunch of literature on us and then leaving. We never saw her again.

After Hallie'd gotten well and been released, we were referred to a viral specialist, to see if she could confirm our doctor's hypothesis about the cause of the anemia, which he suspected to be human parvo virus. She seemed far more concerned with the baby's weight than with anything else. After the exam and review of her blood tests, she sent us on our way, telling us we wouldn't need to make a return visit. Then, she phoned our doctor and gave him an earful about how thin the baby was, and how it just wasn't right, and how she didn't think we were "concerned" enough about it. I'm sure the upshot of all this was that she thought we were unfit parents, and he had to get the baby out of our home immediately. The poor doctor spent the night awake, terrified that he'd missed something important, and called us into his office first thing the next day. His first comment when he came in to examine her was, "Well, that's just what Hallie looks like." She'd gained back a pound of the 1 ½ pounds she'd lost in the hospital, her color was back to a healthy pink, and she was cheerful and lively. Still, we put her on a new formula since she seemed to have a dairy sensitivity, and we went back and weighed her fairly frequently for the next few weeks. She gained slowly but steadily, the way she always had, and the doctor was satisfied that he hadn't missed anything. And lo and behold, she was still tiny. I don't think she ever got above the 5th percentile on the height/weight chart. He relaxed and wondered why the specialist had been so alarmed. We wondered how many other people we would run into who were sure we were lousy parents because our daughter was thin. They were as bad as the "thin is good" crowd, and quite possibly dangerous as well. A friend of mine had a miserable time sitting with a woman from Child Protective Services, trying to assure her that yes, her thin child ate as much as any other family member. The CPS woman was unconvinced, and my friend herself is built like a greyhound. I can just imagine the horror on a social worker's face when, gasp, fat parents have thin kids. You'd think with all the hysteria about childhood obesity people will be thrilled, but no.

I spend a great deal of my time telling my adolescents that they should no more expect people to have the same shape and size than they should expect them to have the same voice. My son plays sports, and we have never even hinted that he has to work harder than the burlier boys, or that the rounder kids are at a disadvantage. I won't allow anyone else to say such things to him, either. I'm fighting an uphill battle. WE SHOULD NOT ALL BE THE SAME SIZE OR SHAPE.

Come on Down! You're the Next Contestant...

This essay is six years old, but it's been on my mind lately, as the Muppets release their new movie. Right now, I'm thinking a lot about how and when I first fell in love with the Muppets.

So far this winter (where's wood to knock on?), I haven't been really sick yet. A friend has antibiotic resistant strep: there but for the grace of God go I.

One thing on my bucket list is a visit to Egypt. I've heard horror stories about infections from ancient mold in tombs shutting down people's lungs, and my kids frequently point out that West Nile virus is named after the Nile River. "You cannot go to Egypt!" they say. "You'll get sick!"

My husband is more pragmatic. "We're not going anywhere where we might be shot just for being American."

Mark my words, one day, I'm buying a plane ticket to Egypt.

Until then, I'll be glad that the Muppets are back in movie theaters.

***********************************

I have a cold again. Sometimes it feels as if I'm always sick. So many of my childhood memories involve lying on the couch in my pajamas, swaddled in a comforter. When you're looking at life through a fog of misery, it's hard to remember feeling any different. The memories that flood your brain are of fevers, headaches, sore throats, sleepless nights. I had a lot of those as a child.

Depending on what was wrong with me at the time, I'd have a tissue box and a wastebasket for my tissues, or I'd have a garbage bag lined trash can next to my head to throw up in. I might have a continually refilled glass of water, or my throat might hurt too much for me to swallow.

I came down with strep throat or tonsillitis at least once each winter. My stomach has always been fairly temperamental, and I'd get the stomach flu at the drop of a hat. Then there were all of the colds and flu that are inevitable. Still, it took me years to realize that I was sicklier than most people. If the schools would have had the attendance policy then that they had when my kids were attending, I would have failed several grades.

My dad retired when I was only a few months old. Both my parents were home with us until I was about five or six. Then, my mom took a part time office job, and worked from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. That left my dad in charge of me during the mornings when I was home sick.

Dad worried like crazy, but he wasn't very hands-on with children, especially sick ones. Even when I was very small, I could predict how the morning would go. After my mom left for work, my dad would pace around the living room for about fifteen minutes. Then, he'd say, "You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm OK," I would say.

"Well, I'm gonna go down to the Block S for a cup of coffee," he'd say. The Block S was a coffee shop type of business downtown. He'd meet up with his buddies there every morning, and they'd hang out, talk and drink coffee for about an hour or two. It was a very predictable routine.

"OK," I'd say, and off he'd go.

Even as a small child, I was not a boundary pusher. I wasn't going to use the time to play with matches, raid the wine or play with the guns. I'm a rule follower by nature. I never even left the couch unless I had to use the bathroom. No one ever worried about me being by myself while my dad was at the Block S, including me.

My oldest daughter always felt extraordinarily anxious if she was left alone in the house. She even felt anxious when she was babysitting her siblings. I never really understood that. She's home from college now, and if she gets home from work while the rest of us are out, it upsets her. When we came home recently, she ran from the other room to greet us crying, "People! People! Yay!" That's an improvement from her usual angry greeting of, "Where have you been? I've been here all by myself!"

As a child alone, I didn't worry about robbers breaking in, or kidnappers, or natural disasters, or fire, or anything else threatening my safety. I know now that such fears are very common. The only reason I could think of to worry was if I felt that my health would take a precipitous turn for the worse, and someone would have to be home to rush me to the doctor. Since such a thing had never happened and I felt sure it wouldn't, I felt completely comfortable being on my own.

My oldest child, one of my closest girlfriends, even my husband have always been the kind of people who equate being alone with being abandoned, unloved and in peril. I have always found it to be totally relaxing. It was the one time I knew I could relax completely. I didn't have to listen, talk, pay attention, interact or do anything else that took energy. I could just exhale and be.

I read and I watched TV – mostly game shows, never soaps. Since this was in the days before remotes, I often fell asleep with it on. That would be my day – watch, sleep, watch some more, sleep some more. I'd eat something if my stomach could take it; my mom made me lots of Jello. I'd spend all day or at least most of it lying on the couch. Then, at night, I'd go across the house and lie in bed. The thing I find most frustrating about being sick as an adult is that you have to keep up some level of functioning. You can't just sleep all day and all night. I'm sure I'd get better much faster now if I could sleep more.

I'm glad I didn't get hooked on soaps. Game shows may not be highbrow, but at least I was thinking.

I was never very good at "The Price is Right." Where do they get those prices from, anyway? I was very good at quiz shows, especially when the questions dealt with empirical data – what year did Napoleon suffer defeat at Waterloo, that sort of thing. "Family Feud" was a little iffier. Where exactly did they take their survey? Sometimes it seemed to be in a redneck bar after a few drinks, and sometimes in a corporate meeting room. Once I got a feel for what the "survey says," I could do OK.

After he got home from the Block S, my dad delighted in watching me play along with the quiz shows. I'd say my answer out loud, and even in the early elementary grades I often did better than the contestants. This pleased my dad immensely. "You should go on here!" he'd say. He thought I was some sort of amazing prodigy.

I thought it was because it had been too long since the adults went to school. They'd often be asking about things we had just discussed in school. I'd heard it weeks ago; the adults had heard it decades ago. My own kids often surprise me the same way. Just today, my seven year old saw a picture of a box kite. "Box kite! The Chinese invented those!" she informed me. How many adults would know that off the top of their heads?

Too, I didn't have a studio audience staring at me, bright lights in my face, and the pressure of millions of people watching. "I wouldn't do as well if I were there," I told my dad. He was sure I would. I disagreed, but usually silently, so he could be happy. One thing about my dad that you learned early – it didn't really pay to argue with him.

I loved reruns of the old Daniel Boone TV show. When I was about eleven, I watched the same actor, Fess Parker, play Davy Crockett in a movie aired while I was fighting strep throat again. That night I woke my mother in the middle of the night and informed her with wild eyes that, "The Indians want me to tell them where the gold is!"

She answered mildly, "Well, don't tell them, dear." Reassured, I rolled over and went back to sleep, saying, "OK." God bless my mom – she was always willing to sleep with us when we were sick, despite inconveniences like cold feet stuck under her for warmth, and feverish, delusional daughters waking her up to rant about "the gold." When I'd get thick, gluey phlegm closing off my throat, she'd rock me in the rocking chair in the dark. I didn't want conversation or entertainment; I just wanted comfort.

When I was eight years old, I discovered the Muppets. I came across Sesame Street on TV, and was delighted, even though I was years older than their intended audience. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair with all things created by Jim Henson.

I was too old for the instruction on letter sounds and such, but I was captivated by the wittiness of the segments. Since I had a much older brother and sister and had listened to their music, when I heard a Muppet sing, "Letter B," I knew it was derived from a Beatles hit. It was charming and funny, and I felt very much "in" on a secret, since I was sure that preschoolers wouldn't know the original. Anyone who's watched any Sesame Street knows how often those moments crop up.

The musical segments were probably my favorites, but close behind came Kermit the Frog's roving reporter. As he'd show up with his news cap and microphone to report on fairy tales, something always went wrong, and he'd come unraveled. The poor hapless diner always ending up at a table served by Grover had my sympathy. And I felt for Big Bird back in the days when he was the only one of the gang to see Mr. Snuffleupagus.

The idealized neighborhood really appealed to me as well. I've always thought that reality should look something like that – everyone knew and liked everyone else (well, OK, everyone except Oscar), no one cared how old you were or what color or what species. Nobody cared about how much money you had, or what you wore or anything else superficial. And occasionally, everyone would break into a beautifully choreographed song and dance number. It was grand.

I kept watching Sesame Street whenever I was home sick, long after I left elementary school behind. I discovered I was not alone when I was a sophomore in high school. Karen, one of my best friends, was in the school choir, and let me in on one of their traditions. It was tradition in the choir for any sick member to watch Sesame Street and report back to the other members about what had happened that day. Heaven forbid that someone should forget – they'd face the collective wrath of teens denied.

When the Muppets branched out into The Muppet Show on TV and The Muppet Movie in theaters, I insisted on not only watching, but making sure my family and friends watched. Years later, it was a total delight to me to be able to introduce my kids to the Muppets.

When my kids are sick, I let them swaddle on the couch in front of the TV. Now, though, we have videos for them to watch if they don't like what's on our dozens of channels of satellite TV. It's a far cry from the remoteless days of channels 2, 4 and 8. Often they want to do something else, like sit surrounded by a stack of books or play on the computer. I insist on naps, too, since I believe firmly in the restorative power of sleep. Plus, for a little while, the discomfort goes away – how magical is that?

Not too long ago, I was home sick while the rest of the family went to church. I watched a wonderful biography of Milton Hershey, the chocolate king. Then I still had two hours to sleep before everyone else came home. It gave me a bit of that old comfort feeling of being able to check out of the real world for awhile and concentrate on existing horizontally – just me in my pjs, the couch and the TV. I'll bet I healed faster than I do otherwise. I'm not one to wish away my adulthood, pining for a childhood long gone, but boy, I do miss the ability to sleep through my sick days.

Death of a Friendship

I still feel that it's my fault that my high school endured nine years with a teaching assistant in the theater department who couldn't brace a flat and once set the lighting board on fire. It's not displaced guilt; it actually is my fault.

The longtime theater teacher left just before my freshman year. The school asked one of the English teachers to take the department in his wake, with the understanding that it would only be for a year. Then, they gave the job to a brand new teacher, barely out of college. She'd never even seen a live production, and was extremely intimidated. Still, during her first year with us I was a constant cheerleader, sure she'd read some books, loosen up, do something to make it all work. At the very least, she'd turn us loose and let us do it without her. Her first year, it worked that way. She opened and closed the doors and was the required adult presence. By my junior year, things had gone south in a dramatic and awful way.

Ariane and I had worked on a summer school production with an alumnus from our school. I'd reminded him that he'd known my sister, and we struck up a friendship. We'd invited him to see our shows, and he had. We, in turn, went to shows he was working on. He was in the final stages of earning his master's degree in theater. The lure of having an adult at our school who knew what they were doing was strong. We'd described to him some of the fiascos we faced.

Our teacher, coming across the stage direction "(beat)" was baffled. We explained to her that it was a short pause. Think of it like a beat in music, we said. You take a pause indicated by the way the dialogue is flowing – one beat, just like a beat of music. She refused to believe this explanation.

"If it meant 'pause,' it would say 'pause!' I've read scripts before. They always say, 'pause' when they want you to pause!" As if this wasn't ridiculous and alienating enough, she added, "I'm not stupid, you know." Her explanation? Everyone onstage was to simultaneously clap once. Really. It was just beyond painful to try to work with her.

She was intimidated by the kids who knew more about theater than she did; and really, that wasn't hard to do. Personal conflicts got out of hand and loomed so large they jeopardized the entire department. We were desperate for anything that would help.

"Please, K," we said to the grad student, "please come student teach at our school!" He'd been appalled by some of the stories he'd heard, and agreed with us wholeheartedly that something should be done. So, he showed up at our school. At first, I think, he was considered a community volunteer, like a parent who stuffs envelopes, but shortly he was approved by the administration to have all sorts of authority. I don't know if they ever paid him; it doesn't matter.

During the summer school production where we met, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years, K had puzzled me with some of his behavior. Theater people are, by and large, rather physically affectionate, but K seemed to constantly be in my personal space with no clear reason to be. He frequently said things like, "Want me to show you all the good make-out places in here?" He often walked with his arm around me. Every once in a while, he'd make some remark about "getting together" away from the theater. I'm fairly dense about these things, and could never quite figure out how serious he was. It was flattering and creepy at the same time. He seemed OK with the answer "no," so that was enough for me.

Occasionally I'd feel taken aback. When he came to see me play Abby and Ariane play Martha in "Arsenic and Old Lace," the first thing he said to me after the show, as he was hugging me, was, "You'd slap me if I told you what I can see through that dress." The dress in question was my Abby costume, a floor length, high necked number. I looked down self consciously.

"You can't really see through this, can you?"

"Oh, put it up under the lights and you'd be surprised," he said. I was more worried about the costume than I was in ferreting out his reason for bringing it up. If my costume, under which I wore a slip, was see through, surely someone would have noticed and told me, I decided. Nobody would want an elderly murderess character to be flashing her underwear, however demure. (And they were; I wore very plain, staid underthings.)

He'd come for our closing performance, and hung around afterward while we all cleaned and packed up. It's common knowledge that there will be some sort of party after closing night, so I figured that he might want to come to ours.

Instead, he invited me out. Just me. I turned him down, but he persisted.

"I'm going to the party at Joe's house. You're welcome to come, too. It's just a couple of blocks that way."

"Oh, come on. Half of them won't even be there." This was true. Three or four carloads of kids had already left, headed to Disneyland. That was the official cast party. My mother hadn't wanted to drive all night, even though the temperature was better, so she and I were flying down in the morning. Tony was picking us up at LAX.

"I really want to go to the party. It's our last show this year." I was nervous and talking too much, so I added, "Even though most of them are mad at me because I get to go to Disneyland tomorrow."

He pounced on that. "It'll be much more fun with me, especially since they're mad at you already."

We argued a bit back and forth as all the rest of the kids left for the party. Now K and I were the only ones in the parking lot, and the isolation was making me nervous. I wanted to be in my car, to put the car door between us. He was standing much closer than I thought was strictly necessary.

He finally, grudgingly accepted my answer, but insisted that he at least needed a good night kiss. The kiss was within acceptable bounds; he didn't push too hard. I was relieved as I watched him walk to his car. I was also worried that I'd protested too hard and hurt his feelings.

I didn't say much about it. I probably only told Ariane and Lana. Months later, I made a passing reference to Joe about having kissed K. He looked rather shocked but sensed, correctly, that I didn't want to discuss it further.

I undoubtedly should have been reluctant to have him to come to work at the school, but I wasn't. I was actually sure that it would mean he'd have to tone it all down; after all, it was a high school, he was 25 and about to be faculty and I was 17 and a student.

We were so glad he'd decided to come help us out. We had high hopes for the next year, glad that we finally had someone in authority who'd actually studied theater.

The high hopes were short lived. We found K to be picky and controlling, and we were astonished that the master's degree, which he'd now earned, hadn't given him the skills to do something simple like brace a flat. Flats are the wood and muslin constructions used to make walls onstage. He couldn't seem to get the edges lined up, or stop the wall from wobbling. The tops of the flats would tilt toward the audience, making the bottoms tilt in toward the backstage. Yet nobody was allowed to question him or redo the work; he pulled rank. We had to try and cover up the gaps with wheatpaste – the papier mache type substance used to cover the seams in the flats. We also learned not to walk too close to the walls while onstage or backstage. If we walked too close or even too fast, they swayed.

He had new procedures he wanted implemented, and we all grew increasingly tired of hearing his mantra, "Safety first!" It wasn't as if we were juggling saws. I resented hearing that our lofts, our storage, virtually everything about the theater, was a fire hazard. When I heard, after I'd graduated, that K had overloaded the lighting board and it had literally burst into flames, I was sure that the irony was lost on few of us. He was soon universally disliked, and it was a source of anxiety for me that I'd actually been the one to ask him to come.

He and the teacher were soon engaged. It was amazing how quickly he went from feeling she was incompetent and we needed rescued to feeling that we were all snotty ingrates who needed to buckle down. At least, I figured, if he's sleeping with the teacher he won't be bugging me about scoping out make-out spots.

And he wasn't. But he was still far too touchy feely. I wondered if I was reading too much into it; maybe, I thought, I'm misinterpreting things. Maybe it actually was a mistake when he brushed across my chest when picking things up.

I gave that idea up when I noticed how carefully choreographed any physical contact with me was. Almost all of it took place out of the line of sight of anyone else. Most of it was such that if I made a fuss, he could claim innocence. Back in the days before zero tolerance and Mary Kay Letorneau, even hugging or rubbing my back could have been argued to be innocent, and he didn't venture into clearly forbidden behavior. Mostly he rubbed my arm, back or neck, or gave me a hug. He still stood too close to me too frequently. I was sure, and I was sure he was sure, that if I complained I'd sound like a petulant toddler having to share the back seat with a sibling. "He's touching me! He's on my side!"

By this time, I was no longer speaking directly to the teacher, or she to me, unless it was absolutely unavoidable. There was no way I was going to tell her that her fiance couldn't keep his hands to himself. So strong was the animosity that even teachers who normally supported me were sure that I just had a blind spot or overreacted when I had a complaint about anything in the theater department. I regularly marched myself in and demanded an audience with the principal about things that bothered me – "What do you mean, the school can't afford a lousy gallon of paint? How are we supposed to paint the set?" – but I was sure he would think I was making it all up to get attention or to upset the teacher if I complained about K. More than twenty years later, I still think so.

I didn't even say too much to the other students, outside of my closest friends. Ariane heard most of the complaining. "I wish he would just keep his hands to himself!" "He's engaged, for crying out loud!" She knew, too, that it was useless to complain to the adults, so she commiserated with me. I didn't mention it to my parents. My dad would have become dangerous, and my mother hated conflict. The one time she'd been angry enough to go to the school and complain about a teacher's behavior, the principal had told her he could not interfere. She wasn't likely to make any more complaints.

That spring, I was asked to work tech on the school's first faculty play. I was almost always in charge of props and set decorating for our department. K was the technical director, and an English teacher, Mrs. B, was asked to co-direct with the theater teacher.

All was not well in paradise. I clashed often with Mrs. B. For one scene, an actor was supposed to carry on covered trays of food and set them on the table; immediately the scene ended and the set went dark. The trays were onstage for a total of ten seconds. Mrs. B was adamant that we cook an entire turkey dinner for the scene.

"We don't need anything on the trays! They can be perfectly empty!" I told her.

She sniffed, "The audience will be able to tell."

"No, they won't. Nobody ever opens the trays!" If they need to be weighted, I told her, you stack them with books. Then the actor carries them as if they're heavy, because they are.

Mrs. B did not like being contradicted, or having her direction questioned, by a student. She treated me to a loud, ringing lecture about "shortchanging the audience" by "trying to cut corners." By golly, we would cook a turkey dinner, we would put it on china, and we would put the whole thing onto the trays that never opened. We would do all of this despite the fact that we had no refrigeration backstage for the food. "They don't have to actually eat it," she rationalized when I pointed out the spoilage factor.

Meanwhile, K and I tangled about whose job it was to hang the paintings and such. It had always been my job, and more often than not influenced by flaws or holes in the flats that we needed to hide. K was sure that he was to make all the decisions about the dressings and props, and I should just put them where he dictated – after he approved them in the first place.

The teacher in charge and I assiduously avoided any contact with one another.

I realized that in the real world, the teachers were in charge and the students aren't, but that assumed that they actually, you know, taught. Years of experience had taught us that if you wanted it done right, you did it yourself. Things ran smoother when the inmates ran the asylum.

My blood pressure hovered in the danger range, I'm sure. I spent most of my time arguing or angry. It didn't help that the administration had vetoed a student production in favor of the faculty show. The students bickered amongst themselves, too. I found myself snapping at Joe and being snapped at by Ariane.

One day during construction, I was roughly center stage saying something to K, arguing about hanging artwork. For a moment, everyone else disappeared backstage, into the rafters or out into the halls. No one could see us. K cuddled up, put his arm around my waist and started rubbing my back. He snuggled close and crooned very quietly in my ear, "I know you've been upset…"

I had one of those moments of blinding clarity. This stops, my brain hissed, right now.

I bellowed at the top of my lungs, "DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T YOU EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!" He leapt back, farther than he would have if I'd struck him, and stared at me. I was not even remotely finished.

"I'm assuming that you asked me to work on this show because I'm good at what I do. If you want me to leave and someone else to do it, tell me now. I'll be out of here. But if you want me to work on this show, then you and everyone else need to get out of my way and let me do my job!" Heads were popping around corners to stare at us. Several kids had emerged back onto the stage. We were now surrounded, and anyone who couldn't see me could hear me. I stood center stage, using an actor's voice trained to reach the back row of the theater without amplification, and I was on a roll.

I carried on for only a minute or two, pausing only to snap questions like, "Do you want me to work on this show or not?" K stared at me, clearly wishing the floor would open and swallow me. He answered me only in monosyllables. I barked one more instruction to leave me alone and never, ever touch me, and I was done. There. I'd put it out there, in front of everyone.

"I should have thought of this months ago!" I exulted to Ariane. K not only never touched me again, he started giving me a wide berth. He started avoiding eye contact. I no longer felt micromanaged. I don't know if it occurred to him that I was now 18, and unwanted advances were no longer criminal. I wondered how he could be worried about what I might say to his fiancee when we were not speaking. I was not, though, about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And, while I still had to make the stupid turkey dinner, when it turned green and fuzzy we got to throw it out and weight the trays with books.

By the time I graduated K and I rarely spoke to one another, either. I went to work that summer at the huge hotel/casino where he worked. I'd forgotten that he worked there until I saw him in the employee lunch room one day. Then I remembered that he worked backstage at the huge, splashy show in the main showroom.

Back when we'd been friends, he'd told me that he'd wanted to perform in the show, but the producers didn't allow him to audition. At 5'7", he was an inch under the male height requirement. I'd gleefully ribbed him about being 5'8" myself.

After avoiding him the first time I saw him, I decided to be a bit more proactive and a lot more irritating. From then on, if I saw him in the employee hallways, I'd walk along side him and ooze saccharine sweetness. "Hi, K! How are you?" I no longer worried that I'd offend him. The sole purpose of this exercise was to revel in the fact that he clearly hated it. He avoided looking at me and answered in little more than grunts.

That same year, the year after our graduation, Ariane and I went back to the high school to see our friends perform, "Butterflies Are Free." K was the technical director again – sigh. He sat directly in front of us during the show and ignored us pointedly.

During the show, an actor went through an onstage door and shut it. Not slammed it dramatically, just shut it. The entire wall containing the door groaned and fell over. Not flat onto the ground, mind you, the way it would in a cheesy sitcom, but at a 45 degree angle, just hanging there. We could not contain ourselves and began to snicker and guffaw. Even in the dark, we could see K's ears turn red. We could almost see cartoon-style steam coming out of the top of his head. He got up and stormed out of the theater, which made us laugh even harder. We apologized to our friends afterward, in case our laughter had disturbed them, but their take was, "He deserved it."

I swore I'd send him and his fiancee a sympathy card and contraceptives for their wedding, but I didn't.

I moved away a year later and lost all track of K. Many years later I found out the he stayed at the school for nine years. I felt there was some sort of horrible penance I had to perform to make up for that. All I could think was, good heavens, this is all my fault. But then again, maybe I was being too hard on myself.