Life Is Funny That Way

 

 

Life is funny sometimes. A few months ago I was reading through all of the birthday wishes on Facebook, thinking again how nice it is that so many people take the time to say happy birthday on Facebook. 

Yeah, I know, they tell you whose birthday it is and they supply all of the words, in case you don’t have time to think up something clever on your own, or in case it’s someone you only know on FB, rather than as a family member or an in-real-life friend. The internet has made it easy – and sometimes vastly impersonal – to contact people.

I don’t usually single people out for a blog, and I’m not naming names, so I hope this isn’t embarrassing.

The day after my birthday, while I was finishing up thanking people who had left messages on my feed or in my notifications, I noticed what I call a “Facebook email” from a friend. I was surprised by a lot of it, and she seemed a little surprised that we had so much in common politically, socially and even the challenges we’ve faced.

I didn’t know those things about her. She discovered them about me by being on Facebook with me as well as reading my blogs.

A little background. This woman and I were born a day apart in the same hospital. In fact, our mothers were in the same room. I was a preemie, and my mother once told me that her mother said she thought her baby was the smallest she’d ever seen until she saw me. In fact, if I’d been born an hour later, we would have shared the same birthday.

So we’ve kind of known each other since birth. And we were in the same parish, so we saw each other in church on a weekly basis, and then were in school together, I believe for the full 12 years, although we weren’t in many, if any classes together in high school. I’m not even sure if we were in the same class every year in elementary school.

I always considered her my friend, and said hi to her as we were leaving church. We were friendly in elementary school, but we lived a town apart (actually less than a mile apart, but I didn’t know that growing up), so she had friends from her neighborhood. My so-called neighborhood friends were not in my grade, so at recess, I generally did not have friends. 

I did the rounds of the recess yard until I found someone who would let me play with them. If that didn’t happen, I played Jacks by myself or wandered around imagining. I was never me in the recess yard. I was one of my characters.

Since she had her friends, we didn’t often play together at school. It was enough for me knowing that I knew her, and we had our birth “friendship” that somehow always made me feel a connection to her.

When high school ended, I went to Penn State, and she went – wherever it was she went. We lost contact. For me, that happened with most people, although I do have a core of three other people I went to at least part of elementary school and high school with that I’ve generally kept in contact with most of the time since high school graduation. I even went to two of their weddings.

It never seemed strange to me that I didn’t keep in contact with people. Most people thought I was weird or boring or whatever they thought.

I had a friend a year younger that I met in high school. Everyone thought she was my sister. I don’t have any sisters, but even my mother thought this girl looked like she could be my sister. Well, the fake sister moved away at the end of my sophomore year in high school. I was devastated because we had a blast together. I think I was at my funniest when I was around her.

We pledged our undying friendship, like Anne of Green Gables and her bosom friend, Diana, promised to write, and then she moved. We had each other’s addresses. Yet somehow, we never managed to get around to writing. I’ve often wondered what happened to her, and I do think of her often.

And like my “fake sister”, my “birth friend” and I, while not pledging unfailing friendship or promising to write, went our separate ways, and every time there was a class reunion, I’d wonder if she’d be there. I went to most of them.

I only recently discovered how much we had in common. I knew we were both left-handed (I always know which of my friends are left-handed; it’s a lefty thing.). She’s the oldest and only girl in her family, and I think she has two brothers.  I’m the youngest and only girl in my family, and have two brothers. That was pretty much what I knew of our commonalities.

It turns out we both married later (late 30s), never had kids, and we both like big dogs. Apparently we also have some of the same challenges I’ve written about in my blogs in common. It could have acted as a bond between us had we known.

I just never thought people were much interested in me or the things I did.

I don’t know many people who write or are as passionate about writing as I am, so there aren’t many people I can talk with about writing. Most people get bored once you start talking about your characters. After all, according to them, the characters aren’t real. It’s not like them talking about their children. (I suppose they’ve never read The Velveteen Rabbit to know what becoming real really is.)

It made my day to hear someone who, until our reunion in 2023 hadn’t seen me in 50 years, express similar anxieties growing up that I’d had, someone I thought was so together and talented. The idea she expressed, that my writing touched a lot of people was something I never really considered. I don’t think of many of my topics as important.

I always think of myself as being a bit of a nuisance announcing my blog on 3 group pages, my own page and my author page on the chance that a couple of people want to read them. I picture people rolling their eyes and saying, “I wonder what she’s on about this time.”

Yeah, some people may be interested in some of my topics. But I do get worried when the readership numbers drop considerably. I think, oh, did I say something offensive last time? How do I rectify that? Because I get few, if any, comments on my work.

Yes, I try to take into consideration that between Thanksgiving and New Year’s people are busy and just don’t have time to read some silly blog. And I never know what people are behind the readership count.

I always feel like I come off as a bit self-absorbed when I talk about my books and where people can find them. It’s not like I have a real publisher. They’re all self-published, and you won’t find them in bookstores – there are still bookstores, right? 

And I also have to mention my pen name, Bridget McGowan, since you wouldn’t find my books by looking under my given name. So in my defense, I have to let people know about my books if they’re ever going to find them.

I do like talking about my books, though. It isn’t a, “Hey, look at me, I’m some bigshot author,” though, especially since I haven't sold more than 10 of any of them. It’s “Let me tell you about my current best friend.” And that would be the main character of the book.

People look surprised when they ask how many books I have on Amazon and I say 17. I guess they’re expecting me to say one or two. 

The thing is, I’ve written 25. I just don’t have covers for the rest (people who do covers are very expensive, so my husband, Blue Scream of Jeff – read his blogs – has done most of my covers.) I designed two, but he had to do the computer stuff to them, since he won’t teach me how, and I don’t have the program, anyway. So I’m waiting to have covers done for the rest. 

Meanwhile, I’m working on the next novel, with two that I’ve promised to write in mental storage, and another idea in its 5^th month of gestation.

But my birth friend gave me encouragement to keep going, knowing that somehow I’ve touched others with what I had to say. Wow. Who knew?

Senses and Sensibility

 

 

Several months ago, a friend of mine that I’ve known since I was about 15, asked me in a text if I might be on the autism spectrum. The question was based on something I’d said in one of my blogs, but came so out of left field that it was a true WTF moment, and kind of gave me mental whiplash.

While I believe what I said is that I often don’t pick up on social cues, which, while it can be part of an indication of autism, is also an identifying characteristic of several other “disabilities,” including attention deficit, with which I was diagnosed as an adult. An autism diagnosis requires at least three identifying characteristics, and where you are on the spectrum is dependent on how many characteristics you exhibit, and the severity of those characteristics.

So to the question, a resounding no; I am not remotely autistic.

I also tend toward lower muscle tone, but that doesn’t mean I have Cerebral Palsy. I do not. Having been a 34-week preemie, it’s generally the norm to have slightly lower tone, which expresses itself in hyper-extension of fingers, knees and elbows. The hyperextension has decreased with age, but not because I’m cured. Rather, arthritis has a say in what my joints do now.

I suppose, as a therapist, I’m keenly tuned in to my sensory sensitivities.

My two strongest senses are taste and smell.

I often think I was born with too many taste buds -- but not necessarly too much taste. I have been told several times in biology classes that I can’t taste bitter because I don’t have the receptors. 

Oh, but I can. Either my bitter receptors are in the wrong place or I’ve developed a keen ability to combine a couple of other receptor types to interpret bitter. In either case, a bitter pill is just as hard for me to swallow. I can't, however, tell the difference in taste of a vanilla milkshake and a chocolate one.

I remember when I was little, being expected to try a variety of foods. I could never understand this because I could tell by smell if I wasn’t going to like something. But taste was far more intense. I used to think to myself – and may have actually said it a few times – that some things had too much taste in them, so I didn’t like them.

Cooked broccoli was one of those things. Of course, we didn’t have broccoli much, if ever, since my dad didn’t like it. Ours was a household where corn, green beans, peas and carrots were what anyone was talking about when vegetables were mentioned, and there was also salad. Special occasions, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, had asparagus. My mother and one brother ate spinach. Baked beans, and beets also made an appearance from time to time. I would eat salad or celery, and corn. I even liked radishes, and would eat one on its own. But anything else had too much taste.

While I liked spaghetti sauce, trying to pick out all of the tiny, diced pieces of onions and peppers my mother insisted on putting in before the sauce got cold was an Olympic event. To this day bell peppers of any color cause me actual digestive pain, and I detest the fact that raw onions will not leave. I hate waking up the day after consuming something with raw onions with the taste of onions in my mouth. No amount of scrubbing my tongue until I gag will rid me of that awful, left-over taste. Talk about something with too much taste!

Oddly, though, cooked onions, while I generally don’t care for them, don’t present the problem their raw counterpart does. And inexplicably, I actually like French Onion soup, and onion dip with my potato chips. Of course, this is something that came with maturity. I couldn’t have eaten those things as a child. (I didn't even like pizza until I was 10.)

Even broccoli, which I now like, is something I can only eat in small doses – like a half a cup maximum – if it’s cooked. More if they're raw.

All of the vegetables I don’t like are because they have too strong a taste to me – except baked beans, which are simply too disgusting in that brown slime they’re served in – and beets, which taste like dirt, no matter what you do to them. I was never one to eat mud pies as a child.

What could have mitigated my picky eating habits as a child is the fact that raw vegetables are much more palatable to me. Raw broccoli and cauliflower, even raw peas if they’re fresh, are preferable to the overpowering taste they have once cooked.

My mother came from the school of belief that you couldn’t simply eat vegetables raw. They must, unless they were salad, be cooked. Otherwise, they would give one a stomach ache.

I have eaten an entire raw potato without ill effects, and no other raw vegetable has ever come back to haunt me except peppers and onions.

I do have ones I prefer to eat cooked: zucchini, eggplant, spaghetti squash, acorn squash and butternut squash. Anything else is fair game either way, although I do prefer cauliflower raw.

Carrots are the one exception. I don’t care for them raw unless they’re shredded in a salad so as to have no taste, and can only eat them cooked if they’re in a stew or mixed in mashed potatoes to disguise their bitter flavor. Or as carrot cake. Why can’t all vegetables be cake?

When it comes down to it, I actually do eat a fair variety of vegetables; I just can’t handle them if they’re spiked with onions and peppers, as people so often do to them.

For the things that I can’t eat, it does no good to say, “Eat it anyway!” As I try to swallow something I don’t like, my throat closes as if I’m about to take poison, and the thing won’t go down. It takes huge quantities of liquid to entice it down my throat, and that’s no guarantee that I won’t gag or that the offending item will stay in my stomach.

Fish is another thing that often comes with too much taste. I’ve often said, only half in jest, that I believe fish should be served square and breaded, as God intended. And it needs a fair amount of either ketchup or cocktail sauce – and never, ever tartar sauce. Fish sticks are the French fries of the fish world.

As a child, I didn’t like shell fish, which is good because they’re often at the pricy end of the food chain. I would eat crab cakes, provided there weren’t pieces of shell lurking in them (and I've had that experience, even in pricey restaurants). At some point after puberty, I developed a taste for shrimp, lobster and scallops.  I’ve always liked clams and oysters, provided they’re completely cooked. None of that slime on the half shell, thanks. 

I suppose I could never get on with the rich and famous because I can't stand caviar. That tastes like a dead fish that's been rotting on the shore for several days smells. I do not like raw fish. Period. End of story.

My preferences in fish tend toward flounder, cod (only in the UK, breaded, from a chippy), haddock, tilapia and tuna fish from a can, packed in water, not oil. And those fish had best not have a single bone in them. If I get the slightest piece of bone in my mouth, I’m done. I would gag on any other attempt at that same fish from my plate. I don’t consider it a good presentation to have head, tail or skin on a fish you expect me to actually eat. Fish with bones, head, tail and skin belong in an aquarium, not on a plate. As you can see, I’m more comfortable at a fish and chips shop than a fine dining restaurant if fish is on the menu. And I absolutely can't swallow any form of salmon. I think I may truly be allergic to it.

I’m much less picky about meat. I like chicken and turkey. Duck is okay, but it’s greasy. I like pork, including ham, beef as long as it doesn’t have a lot of marbling to have to pick through, and Bambi steaks are okay, although I don’t care for ground venison. I used to be able to eat veal, but I was once served undercooked veal, and haven’t been able to wipe that taste from memory, so all subsequent attempts have tasted like that undercooked baby.

One meat I can’t eat is lamb, and presumably mutton. Aside from the thing tasting the way it smells in the barnyard, it’s very hard to breathe after I eat a piece of lamb, as if the meat sucked all of the air from my lungs.

Of course, I don’t eat organ meats. I know what those organs do inside the body, and I wouldn’t want to put things that perform those functions in my mouth. Besides, they have too much taste, which hurts my taste buds.

Nonfood smells frequently bother me, so it’s not just picky eating. Usually, the offending smells are not those that occur in nature, but those invented in a lab.

While I detest the smell of lavender in soaps, perfumes or air fresheners, I’ve never noticed that lavender in the field is offensive. Essential oil, air freshener, etc., are just horrible. 

I also don’t like the smell of most detergents. Just walking down the laundry detergent aisle at the store sets me coughing and sneezing. My laundry detergent is unscented or the “Sensitive skin” variety. To have something washed in regular detergent near my face is simply asking for problems. For my own protection, I have started bringing my own pillowcase with me whenever I’m staying overnight anywhere, just in case I need it.

If I’m buying floor cleaner, I’ll get the lemon scent. “Fresh Scent,” “Spring Scent” or “Citrus” that isn’t specifically lemon, are too risky for my nose.

It goes without saying that I don’t use plug-in air scents. I’ve tried a few, and none are breathable. I also don’t like headaches they cause.

So those who have always accused me of being a picky eater now know, it’s not just food; it’s tastes and smells. I’d be happy to find a vegetable with no taste, just a crisp crunch. Oh, yeah -- celery.

Springsteen Revisited

 

In my December blog, I discussed Christmas songs that I love and hate. One song I mentioned not liking was Bruce Springsteen's version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."

Yeah, so what? Right? Everyone's entitled, eh?

Well, no. I live in New Jersey, home of Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi. 

It's almost a rule in NJ that you have to like one or the other, if not both. Stating a preference for one, you still don't diss the other. It's like being asked in the 1960s whether you liked The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. (I liked both, but I liked the Beatles better.)

Since I'm not from NJ -- I spent my first 39 years in PA -- I never felt like I was required to like either of them, although I have several Bon Jovi CDs.

I don't hate Springsteen, although apparently some people came to that conclusion because of my dislike of one Christmas song. I don't mind his songs. In fact, one year, when we were vacationing in Spain and Portugal, we spent July 4th in Madrid, where we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe with a group of other Americans. When the song, "Born in the USA" came on, our entire table (including me) stood up and sang the song with the record, so I even know the words to his songs.

I just don't have any of his records. But I don't mind hearing his songs on the radio.

I am, however, a radio button pusher in the car. If I'm not in the mood for a song that comes on, I will click through my six Serius XM stations looking for something better. And sometimes a song -- no matter whose -- is just not what I want to listen to at that moment.

But apparently I put some people off by criticizing a song -- even a seasonal one -- by the Boss. He just doesn't sing the kind of music I usually prefer to listen to. That's my taste, not his singing.

However, even the bands I love have songs I don't like.

I loved the Monkees back in the late '60s, and still do. I had the first seven of their albums. But I hated Head. It wasn't what I wanted for the Monkees, just like Sgt. Pepper wasn't what I wanted for the Beatles.

It probably helps to understand that I was a little kid, or at least not at Middle School level at that point, and they were adults. My tastes were not theirs, nor were my experiences. In my head, I wanted to one day be in the band, and I was very good at pretending. I was a good bit less skilled at growing up. (I still like watching Pretty in Pink and Dirty Dancing.)

With the Monkees, even in the first seven albums there were songs in the other six (besides Head) that I didn't like. I tended not to like Mike Nesmith's rockabilly songs, and absolutely abhored "Aunty Griselda". I couldn't believe Peter Tork could sing so off-key. 

Lest the Mike Nesmith fans shoot hate thoughts at me, I did like "Different Drum," a song he gave to Linda Rondstadt and the Stone Poneys.

A Welsh band, The Manic Street Preachers -- a band eons away from the Monkees -- is a more recent favorite of mine. I have all of their albums exept the most recent one. While I like almost all of their songs, they have an entire album -- actually the one dedicated to a former band member who disappeared and has since been declared dead -- that I like nothing on. I don't care for the cover design, and the songs are simply not my cuppa. An entire album! But they're still  my favorite 90s band.

There are some bands I used to like, but usually because of being overplayed on the radio, I can't stand to listen to anymore. Billy Joel is somewhat like that.

What?

I do like his, "Always a Woman" and almost everything on Nylon Curtain, but those songs rarely, if ever, get played on the radio.

"I Love You Just the Way You Are" has been so overplayed on the radio, as well as being center stage for almost every wedding reception I've been to since it came out, that I can't stand it anymore. "Piano Man" and "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" ( Y'know, "bottle of Red, Bottle of White...) are two others that will make me change the station when they start playing. They're just overdone, and I'm just over them.

The Carpenters were never a favorite of mine, but their songs on the radio didn't much bother me. Then I joined the Glee Club in high school. For four years I had to sing "Close to You" and/or "Rainy Days and Mondays" -- the choral versions, which are devoid of any emotion you might have been able to pretend to hear in Karen Carpenter's voice. And that  definitely dimmed me on the Carpenters.

Then there are the earworms.

I loved Air Supply when they came out. Apparently so did everyone else. Now I can't bear to listen to them. It isn't that I no longer like them. I still do. But their songs are the kind that, if you hear one of them, it will linger in your brain on constant replay for days, if not weeks.

"Miracles" by Jefferson Starship is another earworm for me. Beautiful melody, if somewhat raunchy lyrics. But something about that song just burrows into your brain, and it's not even the, "Are they really singing what I think they're singing?"

I once went for a month where every time I relaxed or was about to fall asleep, the chorous of  "Miracles" would play in my head. It kept me from falling asleep, and generally annoyed the heck out of me. I would have to actively start thinking of some other song -- ironically, it was often "White Rabbit" or "Go Ask Alice" from Jefferson Airplane -- to dig it out of my brain.

Eventually, that worm died, but I don't ever want to hear that song again in case it resurrects itself.

I'm not generally superstitious, but there are actually songs that I don't dare listen to because -- probably coincidentally -- every time I listened to them in the last century, something bad or at least unpleasant has happened shortly after hearing those songs. Two that I can think of are "Tempted" by Squeze and "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins. I happen to really like both of them -- even though I'm not quite sure what the  Phil Collins song is about -- but I spent years switching the station if they came on the radio. Just in case.

Recently, since it's been a few decades, I've started tempting fate and listening to these two songs if they're played on the radio. Dangerous, I know, but so far, once I entered the 21st century, nothing bad has happened as a result of hearing either song so perhaps the jinx is over.

Music is a huge part of my life. As a singer and guitarist, I try to improve my performance skills. I spent years learning that piano isn't my instrument (I really need to be able to play something I can sing along with, and with two separate staffs to pay attention to, I just can't). I hope to be able to resume taking violin lessons soon, even though I know I won't be able to sing to that.

But singing is my  primary talent, and I like listening to songs I can sing to.