Head Injuries Make Awful Love Stories

After yesterday's anti-sleep propaganda post, I sat and twittered (tweeted?) for a while. Then I tried to novel. And my eyes crosses and everything got pretty blurry. So just as the sun was finally lighting up the world (about 9:45... yeah, I know, right?), I went and curled up on my couch and finally drifted off to sleep. Sister woke me at 12:45 to say she was leaving to go shopping with Mom and offered me her non-broken, lovely queen sized bed for further sleep. I slept until a little past 3:00. At which point the sun was hanging low in the sky. So basically, I got about 2.5 hours of daylight yesterday. Oh, Far North, how I have mixed feelings about you...

I'm happy to report that I got about 6 hours of sleep last night and about three more this afternoon, which will hopefully only keep me up until 1:00 or so tonight and I'll be back on track. Or I'll become a bat and only flit about the world at nighttime. Whatever... Not that ANY of you cared to know this much detail about my sleeping habits. Because, seriously? Who else cares but me? And maybe my mother (Hi, Mom!). Moving on.

Since I spent most of yesterday like a zombie (LIKE a zombie, not BEING a zombie--hold off on your blowtorches and machetes, zombie killers) and most of today churching or napping, I don't have anything really interesting to report.

Well, except that Papa was struck with a very painful headache last night (rapid onset and high level of pain) and actually AGREED to go to the hospital to get checked out, which was pretty scary. He hates going to the doctor, so you know his pain has to be ridiculously high when he agrees to go. Anyway, it turned out to be an abnormal presentation of a migraine, not a stroke or an aneurism (not that my mind jumped to those conclusions or anything), but they gave him some pretty hefty painkillers and sent him home. The only thing is, he still had a terrible headache, he was now just woozy and disoriented on top of that, because the drugs didn't touch the headache. So Sister and I spent a lot of last night waiting at my parent's house for news about his brain and then an hour or so trying to be helpful with a very sedate and funny Papa.

But, again, that's probably not that interesting to you guys either.So I thought I would tell you a story. The story of my first kiss. I know. Awesome, right? Are you ready for this?

I was four (shhhh! I'm telling a story; don't interrupt with your laughter). His name was Jordan and he was three (which is kind of funny, because I have never again liked a younger man). His mother babysat me a few days a week (maybe less, maybe more... I'm not sure; I was four) and Jordan and I would play together for a few hours. My favorite thing to do was to dress up like Belle from Beauty and the Beast and make him waltz with me all around their basement playroom. It was my favorite movie at the time. I had a satiny yellow dress like the one she wears in the ballroom scene and my mother made me a blue cape with a hood, just like hers. So I would make Jordan be the Beast and I would play Belle and we would dance ALL DAY. Because I was a nice friend and never monopolized out playing time.

We also played other things, including Tonka trucks, which I thought were kind of awesome. We also colored, played in his sandbox, and did all of the general "kid" activities one does with a friend at age four. His mother was the first to introduce me to rhubarb, which I hate to this day. His mom also gave birth to twins at some point that year, which was the first time I had ever encountered that concept. Let's just say, my mind was BOGGLED by the idea of two babies at once and the fact that they could possibly look EXACTLY THE SAME (these two didn't, because one was a boy and one was a girl). Actually, I'm pretty sure that's why I have always wanted twins. The funny thing is, if I had been just slightly older and had noticed how tired and frazzled she looked and how difficult it was for her to get both of them to sleep at the same time, I probably would have a life long aversion to the idea.

Anyway, do any of you remember doing that thing, where you're at a friend's house and your parent shows up to take you home and you hide? Anyone? It wasn't a naughty kind of hiding, like I hated my parents or I was going to refuse to leave this person's house or I'm hiding JUST to frustrate and annoy my mother. It was more of a, "Hey, let's be funny and hide in this closet and giggle as Mom walks past on her way to the playroom, then jump out and say HI!" type of thing.

One day, I hear my mother upstairs, talking to Mrs. Jordan's Mom and he says, "Hide!" And I giggle and run around looking for a spot. He opens the laundry closet, which is basically louvered doors in front of a space exactly the depth of a washer and dryer. In order to do laundry, you have to open the doors and you can't stand in there when they're closed. But if you're four, you can sit cross-legged on TOP of the washer and the door closes just fine. So I'm sitting on the washer and I can see Jordan through the slats of the door. I hear my mother call for me and I giggle again. Then Mrs. Jordan's Mom calls for him and, being a very obedient three-year-old at the time, he immediately opens the laundry door to tell me we have to go upstairs.

But as soon as he opens the door, I LAUNCH myself at him, all flying squirrel-like. I hit him in the shoulders, knocking both of us to the floor and squashing him underneath me. Then, impulsive like I have never been since, I peck him on one cheek, then the other, then his lips. Then I jump up giggling and flounce up the stairs as if nothing has happened. I'm pretty sure my mother told me to say goodbye to Jordan, which I just yelled down the stairs in his general direction, and we were out to the car before he appeared.

And that is the story of my first kiss. It was a good one, right? I wasn't ashamed of it or anything, but I also never thought to tell anyone about it. Until my first year of college. A bunch of us girls were sitting around talking about our first kisses and I was slightly embarrassed that I was eighteen and had never been kissed. And then I remembered Jordan. So when it seemed like my turn, I told that story, not letting on that I had not been kissed since. The girls thought this was an incredibly funny and also enormously original way to kiss a boy.

And it became this thing. They would say something like, "I really like him! Maybe I'll take him to the laundry room and just tackle him, Elise-style..." with a licentious eyebrow waggle in my direction. And I would remind them that: A. the laundry room was not private, by any means, so they would need to be cautious if "tackling him" meant anything other than kissing; and B. the laundry room floor was poured concrete, which meant they were far more likely to concuss their love interest than they were to kiss him. None of them ever seemed to listen to me. But none of them ever tried it either, as far as I know. No traumatic brain injuries occurred in the basement of our dorm building while I went there, anyway...

One of my friends, who had been there when I told the story, was completely enamored with one of our guy friends. She claimed he had given her all sorts of signals, but she was still waiting for him to "make his move." And even though each of us had gently tried to help her see that he wanted nothing to do with her whatsoever and had told more than one of us so, she remained smitten. In fact, she would devote significant portions of her day (and our conversations) to planning their wedding and naming their children. She was a little... off-kilter. But she was particularly fond of my story and the idea of "tackling him in the laundry room." And every time I hung out with him, I had the strangest urge to go all PROPHECY VOICE on him and say crap like, "BEWARE THE PLACE WHERE CLOTHES ARE CLEANED" or "DETERGENT AND SOFTENER MEAN DEATH TO ANY HE WHO ENTERS HERE."

But, instead, I stopped spending time with crazy people and boys who play with girls' emotions. Three years later, I ran into both of them, separately, around graduation time. All she was could talk about how much she liked him and wondering when he was going to make his move (!) and he didn't know who I was talking about at first when I mentioned seeing her. She's engaged now and I think he's a priest. So it all worked out for everyone, I guess.

Except for me, the girl who STILL hasn't been kissed. And I used to be embarrassed about it. But when I think back to all the stories those girls told, most of them regretted who they kissed or it was awkward and disappointing. So I figure it will happen when it happens and when it does, it will be GOOD. And until then, I am content in knowing that I was once bold and impulsive and an example to amorous college freshmen and that I make an impressive flying-squirrel.