A wish for my kid sister (and yours)

May she enjoy her youthful early 40s blissfully unaware of the seventh circle of hell that is peri-menopausal PMS.

May she remain at a comfortable temperature, look good in her clothes and not be overcome with bouts of near-homicidal rage.

May she be blessed with the sympathy of women friends and the (possibly fear-induced) empathy of the men in her life.

Amen.

I once had a six-hour layover in Newark, N.J.

That’s not even the scary part.

I was escorting my seven- and five-year-old nephews back from Vermont to North Carolina solo. I couldn’t smoke. The little one had a bladder infection and had to pee every 15 minutes.

Because the big one was “too big” to go into the “lady bathroom” with me, and there was no way in hell I’d let him stand outside it by himself, I had to make the choice to send them into the men’s room together. Every 15 minutes.

Every 15 minutes, despite the fact that they assured me they’d hold hands, go into a stall, scream really loud so I could hear if anyone talked to them, and wash their hands with soap, I stood on eggshells right by the entrance to that men’s room. Those two littles were my entire heart and I was terrified for their safety any time they were out of my sight.

It certainly never crossed my mind that a transgendered man would snatch them any more than it ever would that a transgendered woman would attack me in the lady bathroom. Because why would it?

2HB2 is not about protecting “our women and children,” as one N.C. elected official so adorably put it. It’s about discrimination, pure and simple. #wearenotthis #ncnative

In which my Sainted Southern Mother wins the Internet for the day

(Ranidaphobia is defined as “a morbid and irrational fear of frogs”)

Emailed my Sainted Southern Mother the following, under the subject line “Baby Steps”:

“Your son-in-law is in Iowa, so I did the trash and recycling. I opened the recycling bin and a nasty, eyeball-sucking-out tree frog was stuck to the inside.

“I was very brave, if your definition of brave is also squealing, banging on the outside of the bin to try to get it to leave, fetching a broom, coaxing it onto the broom, then squealing even louder while flinging the entire broom into the backyard.”

My Sainted Southern Mother immediately replied a single line: “How long did it take for the police to get there?”

Middle-school paparazzi

So I was minding my own business walking down Jones Street past the entrance to the natural science museum, where approximately eleventry hundred field trip kids were waiting to board activity busses back to their small towns in far-flung counties.

"Look! That lady has pink hair!!!" I heard them squeal as they started taking my picture. 

This. This was my punk-rock moment. This was where I was supposed to shoot double birds with a cigarette dangling from my lips.

But I didn't. I was very mature, because I hope one or more of those small-town kids saw me and aspired to move to Raleigh and be a weirdo, like I did on my own 8th-grade class trip.

How it all began

One Sunday when I was eight years old, I hemmed and hawed trying to get out of going to church and was not dressed when my Sainted Southern Mother and little sisters were ready to leave for Sunday school. 

"You make sure she gets dressed and is in that sanctuary when service begins," my mama hissed angrily at my daddy (who didn't have to go to church) while glaring directly at me.

Daddy let me just stomp around mad for a little while before laying down the law: "Go get dressed NOW!"

So I did. I put on an awesome outfit and immediately felt fierce and ready to be seen and admired after Daddy dropped me off. And when I walked into the proper Methodist church, past the grownups to the front pew where we kids had sit and behave, my SSM looked down at me from behind the organ she played and was horrified.

I was wearing one of my long, 1970s church dresses and my favorite white Converse.

Memory revival!

I was talking to my Sainted Southern Mother when the conversation turned, as conversations do, to Ray Stevens' "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival."

SSM told me the story of a fella who attended Wednesday night services at the Pentecostal church by her childhood home out in the country. He had a proclivity for getting his Holy Ghost on and running around the sanctuary.



One night, he got so taken by the spirit he ran right out the front door and jumped off the front steps. The two sleeping, unsuspecting hound dogs he landed on weren't particularly filled with Christian forgiveness.

I like to imagine being inside the sanctuary, hearing the dog yelps then snarling attack sounds and saying, "Somebody ought to go out there and check on Earl."

In which I learn a valuable beauty tip from a proper Southern lady

Today at the costume shop, a very well-outfitted, attractive, charming 70-something couple drove in from Kinston (a couple of hours away down east) to find her an outfit to wear at the benefit to celebrate the 100th anniversary of a children's home in Kinston, located in a Civil War-era house on 122 acres. She would be leading tours of the historic home and needed period-appropriate attire.

It's not unusual at all for us to help outfit doyennes from historical societies in a 100-mile radius for their celebrations, so I knew what I was doing. They both had limited mobility pains, so I brought the gentleman a stool to rest on while showing his wife different options to try on. When she stepped into the dressing room, he went with her to help dress and zip. I stood outside and she called out, in the most beautiful Southern accent people of that generation still have, "Honey? Do you mind coming in to help us?"

I stepped inside and immediately felt the palpable love and trust they had between them. We did this for three outfit changes and I fell more in love/charmed with her each time. She didn't even bat an eye at my blue hair and trusted my responses when she asked, "What do you think, young lady?" 

After we found the very perfect early-20th century dress that completely flattered her figure and color, I started writing their rental contract and chatting with them about the fundraiser and charity.

"I was seven years old when I arrived there," she said. "There were four of us and I was the oldest. We had a horrible home life before the state stepped in and got us out. I still remember how wonderful it felt to have my own bed and a place to put my clothes, and I had no real clothes of my own before.

"Everybody had chores, and mine was sweeping the dining hall. My little sister wasn't kindergarten age, but she still remembers her first job -- taking a pan of melted butter and brushing the toast for breakfast.

"We rotated chores every three months so everybody learned all the jobs it took to be grownups. Of course, at the end of each three months, we all got anxious about which jobs we'd get assigned next, because some were more fun than others."

She asked me if I was old enough to remember Nancy Drew. "Yes, ma'am," I replied. "I loved Nancy Drew!"

"We called ourselves the Nancy Drew gang. When we had laundry job after school, we had a set number of shirts we had to do. Honey, to this day, I can iron fast and well, because when we were done, we could take off and run. We'd cut through the cornfields so no one could see us and go right on down to the river!

"We alumni are getting older, but we're looking forward to getting together for the reunion and sock-hop. Spending money here is the least I can do, I'll tell anyone I would do cartwheels across America to give back to them for what they did for me."

I had hot tears streaming down my face. She dabbed at her own before saying, "You need to wear waterproof mascara, honey."

http://www.kennedyhome.org/