The Ninth Child Syndrome

My magnificent cousin Jim died unexpectedly this past October, and even though we met in person only once, we connected on social media back in 2010, and I quickly became his lifelong fan. Four months after his death and I still find myself drafting messages to him in my head, only to be gutted when I remember that he's not reachable anymore. Jim was brilliant, delightfully curious, interesting and interested, a fantastic writer, unfailingly kind, and I ended up loving him like a brother. Except he was easier to love than my actual brothers, because I didn't have a single bad memory with him.   My cousin Jim never once threw a dart with such force that it stuck in my back. He did not join the phalanx of my actual brothers with their actual BB guns on the front porch, awaiting the arrival of a sweet soft-spoken beau of mine in high school, and did not help deliver the pointed threats about what would happen if that shy, tender boy besmirched my honor.  He did not discover...

While I appreciate the idea of the whole 'rainbow bridge' thing, even typing those two words makes me feel like I'm a Precious Moments figurine - way too saccharine and hackneyed, like how everything nowadays is a 'journey' - weight loss, divorce, menopause, constipation. Not everything needs to be injected with meaning.  This past Wednesday, my youngest and I took Dottie the Elder, our 19 year old cat, to the vet so she could begin her next assignment. We had her euthanized, just with a different euphemism.  Dottie Kittaen Dottie was a good cat, and I've written about her before so will skip the obituary, but I am surprised that the removal of one 5 pound elderly feline could leave such a noticeable hole in the Pleasant Street compound.  The kid was understandably bereft, having known Dottie for as long as they can remember. I cried too, but most of what I felt was gratitude that we can do this for our pets when they're not having any more fun. Gratitude fo...

Look, I don't know if there's an afterlife. I don't know if souls continue when the meat expires. Talking on the phone is gross and should only be used to report deaths, but I tell you what - if I could find the digits to reach my friend Milo who died last year - I would have him on speaker begging him to sing his guinea pig song to me faster than my bra comes off when I get home from work nowadays. I'd share the link to James McMurtry's song " Long Island Sound " and eat up his reaction. I'd ask him where to go after devouring all the Travis McGee and Dave Robichaux novels.  I'd tell him I miss him. I'd tell him I love him.  Digital messaging would be ideal, because I'd really like to send my old high school friend C.Z., who died a few years ago, a link to the cheesy "Eye of the Tiger" video and poke fun at him for purchasing the trumpet sheet music in middle school, though I was a chum and helped him learn it.  Recently the Rock...

Dottie the Elder, the monochromatic old lady cat with the mysterious punctuation mark on her nose that my brilliant chum Samantha calls her ‘catastrophe’, was nestled in my armpit staring at me serenely while I whimpered and whined to her about feeling like a birdhole. I’d hit yet another impasse with the fella I love, but can’t seem to feel sure of, since I’m keeper of a never-ending spreadsheet of evidence that He Loves Me / He Loves Me Not. Yes, he said he loved me on the phone earlier, but then he responded ‘ok’ to a sweet text I’d labored over, and those two little missing letters, the absolutely crucial ‘ay’ on ‘okay’, told my birdhole brain that he’s sick of me and I need to shut my bird-pie-hole. And on and on. I’ve exhausted him, I’ve exhausted myself, I’ve exhausted Dottie. Dottie, who isn’t even my damn cat.  Dottie, Knitting Assistant I mean, yes, I’ve had her since December 3, 2006, when the kids and I went to Wayside Waifs with my then-beau S. to check out the cats. ...

Reddit is the preferred venue for crowdsourcing feedback on one's questionable choices in the popular "Am I The Asshole?" threads. I haven't participated because most of the time I'm keenly aware of my asshole activities, though the coworker who sent out the brand guide this week and received my immediate response flagging the typos in it may beg to differ.   When I was in college, I went to Connecticut to get my very first tattoo -- Max in his Wolf Suit making mischief of one kind and another from Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. Not long afterwards I was introduced to a fellow student who hissed at me when he heard my name, because he also had a Max tattoo, and in fact - had it before I did. While my love of Max is lifelong and legendary, and I do not remember knowing about the student or his tattoo before I crossed state lines to get inked that first time,  I *had* to have heard about it. I was an inadvertent copycat, and he was right to hiss at me. Whi...

There's a celebration of my sister Martha's life in my hometown tonight, and even though I had a multitude of excuses not to go (some good, some weak), I am shocked by the amount of regret I'm wallowing in right now. I like to think at 53 years old I know my own mind, but I guess it's still got a few tricks up its brain-sleeve. The event is at the Silver Derby, which is a little piano bar that Martha and my Mom loved to go to in the A.D. era (After Dad.) There was a 'little old lady' (Mom's term) named Jean Miller who played piano and the patrons would sing along. Mom had a savant-level gift for remembering song lyrics, and Jean knew endless songs, to the point where Mom could say "Play my kids, Jean" and she'd do ten songs in a row, one each with reference to Leslie, Melissa, Amy, Martha, Ellen, Craig, Sam, Ben, Margie, and Jim. I'm sure Ben probably got "Benny and the Jets" but I always hoped it was Michael Jackson's song to...

Once again earning the gold medal for Most Troublesome Organ for the 53rd year in a row, Madge's Brain takes a victory lap. Nobody cheers.  It's a ludicrously beautiful day. I have windows and the patio door open, and the dogs have invented a new game of rolling in the dried mud and coming in to see me so I can pet them and compliment the enormous clouds of dust that waft off them with each pat. I should go outside and play with them, but the enormous fallen limb in my back yard that I have not yet been able to figure out how to get rid of (buy a chainsaw? Hire a stranger? SET FIRE TO IT?) upsets me every time I see it, so I'm stuck inside. My place is a mess - dust and pet hair everywhere, piles of junk mail, dirty and clean laundry, Something is glistening on the floor near the kitchen that I suspect may be cat vomit, but I haven't yet worked up the gumption to investigate. I have work to do, and chores to do, and nine million little stupid tasks that I keep putting o...

My sister Martha, number 4 of my 10 original siblings, died yesterday at 3:50 AM of liver failure in the hospital near St. Louis. Siblings #10 (Jim) and #3 (Amy) were holding her hands, and I was at the foot of the bed. It was peaceful, yet jarring. Serene, but catastrophic.  I’m back home today, and I’d meant to go to work today, but my Dear Boss, in all his wisdom and knowledge of me, told me to stay home. He was right - I thought I was okay, but had an unexpected shower of tears at the grocery store in front of the pickles. The man a little bit down the aisle considering his mustard options gave me a confused look and walked away swiftly, which got even more embarrassing when I realized what shirt I’m wearing today – the poor fellow must have thought I was having a breakdown because my favorite sweet baby gherkins weren’t there.    “We may be pickleheads, but we’re the best damn pickleheads in the state of Milwaukee.” - Squiggy, or Lenny, I can’t remember, Laverne and ...

This weekend I bit my fella’s armpit. Because even though I’m 53 and he’s a smidge older, and we’ve both been around plenty of blocks, I still want to thrill him - and myself -  by doing new things together. So I announced my intention, promised I wouldn’t break the skin, and he very kindly let me bite his armpit. Because I want to be the only one who has ever done that to him. It’s SPECIAL.  When I’m forced to be social, I so often repeat the same stories, because I know that they’ll get the same laughs. With him I don’t want to don the self-deprecating comic persona I use as my shield. I love telling him things that I have never told anyone before. I love searching for words rather than reading from the script. I love the way he watches me when I’m purposefully putting my words together, building the story just for him. It was one of those times when I confessed to him an odd secret bad phase from my youth. When I was little enough that I needed to pull a chair over to climb...

The Clash's album Combat Rock  came out in 1982, and it was one of the first albums I bought with my own money. I bought it early enough that it still had the 2000 Flushes ad in "Inoculated City" before those flush-folk figured it out and threw a hissy fit, demanding that it be removed. That's always been a singular point of pride for me.  1982 should have been peak awkwardness for me - 12 years old, daily shifts from pre- to post-pubescent, still reeling from the trauma of losing my dad, and the general horror that is middle school. MTV became hugely important to me, and the uncontrolled nature of it had an astonishing ability to affect my mood. Bowie's video for "Heroes" would pop up and I'd be overcome with a great rush of feeling that I didn't quite understand. It was my first taste of FOMO - fearful to turn the TV off because something really good might be on next, and I couldn't bear the thought of missing an all-too-rare showing of ...