Debbie Does Drivel

On my agenda for this weekend:

1) Work 14 more hours freelance editing
2) Read 12 story chapters for my crit group and provide crits
3) Celebrate 6th wedding anniversary
4) Create marketing presentation for client
5) Figure out Dad's 70th birthday celebration

and

6) Teach my kid the breaks of life

#6 will be the most heartbreaking of all my weekend tasks. My three-year-old is currently experiencing social isolation at pre-school and it hurts like a mother (for once, the cliche makes sense). Mean, pink-shirt-wearing, flowy-brown-hair-flipping Ashley is regularly ignoring my daughter who is trying so hard to be her friend. Last week, I watched my daughter's face fall when Ashley (who is almost 5) called Alexa a baby and pushed her out of the social circle.

Yesterday, when I came to pick Alexa up from school, she informed me she had to say goodbye to Ashley. So, she ran over to the jungle gym and earnestly called "goodbye" to Fluffy Head. When Ashley didn't turn her flowy hair head, Alexa began climbing up the jungle gym, hoping to catch Ashley's attention (who was patently ignoring her). Alexa determinedly kept trying to say goodbye to Ashley, who determinedly kept ignoring her, until I'd had enough and swept Alexa away. Not an appropriate response, I'm sure, but I couldn't stand another second of Alexa feeling her first hurt at the "popular" girl shutting her out.

Doesn't this bitchy popularity crap happen later?

Alexa looked so much like I'd felt when I was the geek in grade school and trying to fit in, that my heart ached. I want to spare her that. Plus, it was creepy to see myself in the mirror that is my daughter. I want to tell her that being popular doesn't matter and that past high school, it doesn't mean crap. And that cream rises to the top. And that even when I finally achieved my popularity in high school, I truly found it wasn't worth it.

Maybe I'll just teach her how to punch. It worked for my dad.

As I applied a new lipstick this morning, I smelled my past.

The lipstick scent instantly transported me back to high school and I felt like I did then -- the excitement before going to a football game, curling my hair in Ellen's bathroom while she picked out a rugby to wear ( '80s midwestern prep alert), hanging out at Bill's Pizza post-game and hoping my crush would nod my way.

Seriously: I felt the emotions ripple through me all over again. I kept sniffing the lipstick, hoping to catch another high school high, but seems the waxy smell of L'Oreal Sea Lily (as it was called then) evaporates after one inhale.

But I remembered more anyway: applying the irridescent pinky-purply stuff religiously before school every day, carrying the tube in my bra so I didn't have to bother with a purse, digging my fingernails into the lipstick to scrape out the last bits of it.

Which brings me to other smells that would bring me back --
Anais Anais perfume, Budweiser and wool.

Yep, smells like Catholic school.

The other night at 1AM, as I was making tuna during my pre-dawn panic attack, I could have sworn I heard someone whisper my name. It was most definitely one of those "Most Haunted" or "Ghost Hunter" EVPs and it came through most clearly.

So, I'm thinking: is this just the sound blood whooshing in my ears as it pulses with my elevated heart rate and deep-breath taking? OR: something more sinister?

Then I get to thinking: we've recently assumed a lot of stuff lately from those who've "gone beyond," and maybe they're still attached to their things and I am picking up on their energy or they want their stuff back or they want me to treat them better or they just want to freak me out or something.

But why not whisper "give it back" or "beware" or "GET OUT?" Why "Deb?" And it was a male voice.

And the person whose stuff we have the most of, didn't even know me. So that's out.

But, there is the power of threes at work. There are three people whose things we've assumed in the past 7 months. And maybe they've been talking? And the one who knows me told the other two about me?

I feel a little weird about our neighbor person who crossed over. We didn't know him. He was in his 30s, felt sick one night, went to the hospital and died unexpectedly. First of all, I hate those stories, as would any self-respecting hypochondriac. Secondly, his poor wife moved out last month and obviously just wanted to have any reminder of her heartbreak gone.

SO, Kev, who was in the garage as she was moving out, and helped her move some of her things, was the unwitting recipient of a lot of her husband's possessions. A whole tray of CDs (including personal music mixes), watercolor paper with self-portraits (we didn't know this until later), little knick knacks and -- even a boatload of his receipts (long story).

We currently have one of his little Native American looking vases in our living room. Kev -- a natural pack rat and assumer of all things unclaimed -- was so obviously thinking I'd be thrilled with this find, that I didn't have the heart to not display it. So there it is.

Right! There it is! Native American spirits! Of course. Everyone knows they're master haunters. But why call me "Deb" and not by my YMCA Indian Princess name "Little Running Deer?"

The mystery continues.