First Boyfriend: Darin. From kindergarten to second grade we were quite an item. Apparently, he found my bowl cut to be quite sexy, but what does a five year old really know?

First Pet: Tigger. A very unattractive female calico. She was a stray who arrived with “baggage”. After the second litter of kittens, she was taken to the shelter. Ironic, my mother became a family planning nurse years later.

First Wheels: Fifteen year old go cart. Originally my brother’s, then sister’s, then mine. By the time it reached me it had a new bottom welded on, fifth or maybe sixth clutch. After me, it had a new axle. After I got my license, I had a VW Beetle.

First Kiss: See First boyfriend above.

First Alcohol: I don’t remember how old I was, but I’m pretty sure my sister was the supplier.

First Experience with Harassment: Age sixteen. First real part-time job. Sadly not the only occurrence on my resumé .

First Concert: Chicago, 1984.

First Date: Seventeen. I don’t actually remember his name. It was a fix-up and he was a nice guy, just not my type.

FIrst Cassette: Cyndi Lauper, She’s So Unusual. At least the first purchase with my allowance.

First Job: I tended horses, and did odd chores for neighbor when I was fourteen.

First Trip to the Emergency Room: I was three or four and broke out in a rash after a Mr Bubble Bath. My grandmother freaked and took me to the hospital. I haven’t been back since, due to my own stupidity. Super glue and painter’s tape solve numerous problems.

First Time I Felt Like an Adult Took Me Seriously: I was maybe 23, and my former high school art teacher confided in about her husbands affair. It felt heavy.

First Time I Felt Apart of Something Larger than Myself: Six week study abroad program in my final year of college. Sixty people I didn’t know, a culture barrier, and copious amounts of alcohol can do wonders for a person’s self esteem.

First Time I knew I wasn’t Like Others: Twenty years ago when my brother pulled me aside the week before his wedding and “coached” me in the art of dressing more conservatively, wearing make-up, and blending in with the mainstream, so I could hang out with the cool kids. To each their own.

First Wreck: Sixteen. I put my mother’s station wagon in a ditch on a dirt road. Minor damage to the car. No damage to me. My rescuers were to inebriated roofers. Nice.

First Airplane Ride Atlanta to Davenport, Iowa to see my nephew.

First Pair of Come Fuck Me Shoes: Yeah, like I could walk in those…

First Time I Swore in front of my Mother: Age four or five. I didn’t really understand what I said, I was mostly repeating what I had heard from my older siblings. I said something about not wanting to clean my damn room.

First Trip West: SanDiego. My husband and I had been dating for six months. It might seem ordinary, but at the time it opened up a new world of traveling the world. I still enjoy CA.

First Time I Felt like a Grown Up: Still waiting.

I’ve Stared Evil in the Eye….and thy name is poison ivy.

You thought I was going to out her and post an unattractive photo, didn’t you, Meno?

So ten days ago, we went on a walk in the woods for what is best described as a covert mission under don’t ask, don’t tell.The trail to the lake was flanked with the diabolical three leafed vine. It was never a question of whether I would get a poison ivy rash, but how far would it it spread and how long will it last.

It took almost five days for it to appear in all its glory. Undoubtedly it started with a patch the size of nickel, until I spread it to my stomach, neck and shoulder. Nice. While not as grotesques as previous outbreaks, I had to beg for a poison ivy pity fuck.

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I hate not posting a blogroll, but since my familial stalker has been lurking on blogs I linked to, I feel more protective about such things. I see no need in the rest of you being stalked be someone emotionally unbalanced.

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I visit Woolgathering and Urban Sketchers, drawing blogs. I like the goal of sketching everyday, but I lack the discipline necessary. I can’t commit to a regular exercise schedule, so executing a drawing a day seems unrealistic, but taking the time to sketch more frequently…

This week, we’re been spending evenings downtown on the riverfront attending concerts. Typically, we arrive a couple hours before the concert to claim a spot for our lawn chairs. I’ve been passing the time before performances with my sketchbook. It isn’t about productivity, it’s about developing good habits, do for the sake of doing and eventually it will come naturally.

Opening Night Stage. Willie Nelson performance.

Lawn Chair Couple. Train performance.

Draw Bridge. Three Dog Night and the Chatt Symphony Orchestra

Frequently my criteria for getting sucked into other people’s problems is low. It appears my brain has established a mental curve allowing people who ask little of me, more latitude, than people who insist upon nagging the snot out of me, and then there are those who ask little and then proceed nag me once they are receiving the help they desire. Insert squiggly line here representing utter disgusst like one of the Charlie Brown characters might express.

Case in point; while the Mister has been away on a six day work trip, I spent eleven hours in a car so that I could help my mother clean out her wood working shop. Ostensibly, we were supposed to be cleaning out clutter, organizing tools and freeing up space. In reality, we DID organize the tools, but the other goals were merely illusions to falsely motivate me into spending all that time in the car.

In short, I wasted a lot of time, energy and increased my carbon shoe size, on good intentions, totally lacking in intent on her part. I’ve read enough posts recently about ungraciousness, to realize the importance of stating she was grateful and appreciative of the effort, in “her own way”. But anyone who haas been treated like a petulant child with a milk mustache knows, phrases like “in her own way” are simply euphemistic of placing a big, fat “but” into an antagonistic relationship between a parent and an adult child. Animosity with an exponent.

One (as I have many) of my shortcomings in this relationship is the lack of tolerance for extensive criticism. I will quietly endure it to a point, saying nothing and rolling my eyes restraining my tongue. This is effective in the short term, but when required to work together for hours, I graciously allow myself the luxury of snapping and going verbally medieval.

Being berated because I insist one stapler is enough, one jig saw is enough, you don’t need a ball trailer hitch (as the house is flooded with refinished furniture with no buyer), 5 pounds of roofing nails. At one point, I asked why I was there, since we were eliminating so little in waste and excess.

The relentless disapproval forthcoming after I forfeit my time is unacceptable. If I expected to behave like a thirty-something grown-up, then I should be treated like, not the eleven year old hormone stupored pubescent she came home to after rehab. If she has changed and grown, chances are, so have I.

I left sunday morning for parts more humidly oppressive. A route I’ve traveled often these past six months. A perpetual journey to inevitability. This time was different. I was held captive by my own thoughts rather than the light hearted banter I typically share with my partner. Usually he drives. I pour myself into a newspaper so I’m not visually connected with the traffic subjected to his impatience and uncharacteristic profanity. I’d rather not know who passed us on the right or why he is engaged in passive aggressive tailgating. I’d prefer to send my last moments on the planet engrossed in a crossword puzzle, something I enjoy, rather than engaged in a white knuckle grip of the oh shit handle, something I hate.

Passing the carpet warehouses, I noticed I sheet of paper fluttering across the highway in the wake of passing cars. It passed left, then right, caught like a butterfly in a transparent vortex. Ordinary. White paper. Unworthy of memory. Until a gust slowly shifted it so that I might make out a single word, James.

Six hours is long time to be confined to your own thoughts. James, however was not my thought, but my distraction of all things self-centered. For the next hundred miles, I contemplated James. Who was he? Am I being sexist in my assumption, or is it possible James is female. That would be unusual, but certainly not impossible. Perhaps James is nickname? Jameson?Hmm, kind of pretentious sounding. I went to junior high with a guy who said he wanted to name his son, James. That’s unusual. Not the name, James, but that a thirteen year-old boy is contemplating his future children, and naming them. I wonder if he ever had a son, and named him, James?

I see signs like this at the airport, walking through arrivals. The signs usually have last names, not first names, and the people holding those signs tend to look business-like, almost solemn in their demeanor. I guess it’s possible someone was walking along the interstate looking for James. Highly unlikely. Most likely this was a sign taped to James’ crap packing in the bed of a truck, covered loosely by a blue tarp, frayed and flapping in the breeze. So, why was James leaving? Was he going to someone or leaving someone?

And so the mystery of James accompanied my through downtown Atlanta.

Eventually, I became distracted by other things, as to their importance, I cannot say since I don’t actually remember what those details were. When I arrived at my destination, I found the paper with James’ name clinging to my front bumper. Maybe on a subconscious level, that was the reason I became obsessed with James, or maybe Jamesjust needed someone to consider hims for a moment in time.