The Ninth Child Syndrome

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...