Watching You Without Me

As I asserted yesterday on Running Scared, though my parents (Abner and Louella) were roughly Miss Sasha's current age when I was born, they adapted a feminist approach and raised me to believe I was the smartest person on earth, my talents were endless and my future as big as I wished it to be. My babydoll was brown, not petal-pink. There was no discussion of my wedding, my husband, my babies; we talked about graduate school. The school system bought into this fantasy despite abundant evidence that I was not, in fact, the smartest person on earth. I was one of those self-conscious show-pony kids: trotted out by the school when it called the local papers for some odious display. To this day, I can't think of Joyce Kilmer and that fucking poem without thinking of fourth grade and the Somerset Spectator. I was the gifted and talented program in my school until I refused to talk about my family while my parents (Jean-Claude and Amelie) were breaking up. For a long time, I bought the bullshit and was sincerely confused when I encountered someone obviously smarter than I was.

Just a note to parents (hypothetical Billy Joes and Bobby Sues): don't foist this smartest-person-ever crap on your kids. Statistically speaking, it's staggeringly unlikely, and your precious will devote pointless hours and hours to figuring out if they're deranged or you are.

Tata: At least once a day I slap my forehead and wonder why I did something that stupid.
Corinne: Does that leave handprints? 'Cause I'd like to see that!

Two nights ago, I fell asleep after 11:15 and slept until a piercing, omnipresent whining noise woke me. I looked at the clock but don't remember what it said. I jumped out of bed and stumbled around the apartment trying to locate the source of the sound. After a minute or two, the sound stopped. I climbed back into bed. I looked at the clock but don't remember what it said, and fell back to sleep.

A short time later, a piercing, omnipresent whining noise woke me again. I looked at the clock but don't remember what it said. I jumped out of bed and stumbled around the apartment trying to locate the source of the sound. I realized the sound was coming from outside my apartment and threw open the door. One of the something-detectors was squealing, then stopped. I climbed back into bed. I looked at the clock but don't remember what it said, and fell back to sleep.

Soon, a piercing, omnipresent whining noise woke me a third time. I looked at the clock but don't remember what it said. I jumped out of bed and stumbled to the front door to find the sound. I threw open the door, and stared at the squealing detector. Where were my neighbors? Why didn't they come outside to find out if they were in danger? I went back inside and grabbed my ladder. Standing atop the ladder, trying to pry the detector open, I realized this noise has awakened me for some period of time around 2 a.m. every night for days, possibly weeks, and when I went back to bed, I simply forgot.

Wide awake and freaked out, I couldn't go back to bed. I spread out on the couch and flipped channels. I settled on something but couldn't really pay attention. Half an hour later, I curled up inside a frou-frou quilt so only my nose stuck out. When the alarm rang before 6, I called out and climbed back into my bed, certain that noise would not roust me out of bed again. I was right about that much. When I woke up, it was after 11 a.m. I called the landlord and pleaded for someone to put that device out of my misery.

This morning, I go back to work. My co-workers ask, "Do you feel better? Are you okay?"

I tell them: noise, device, every night, forgot. Uniformly, they hoot: this never happens to them! They remember everything! Am I sleepwalking? Have I gone 'round the twist?

In the back of my brain, I believe I should have the answers. In the front of my brain, I think sock puppets are fun! If I'd gone to Harvard like I was supposed to, I might be an undersecretary at the United Nations now. I might be an executive at a major international aid agency. And if I were, and found myself on a ladder at 2 a.m., hammering at a device that inexplicably wasn't annoying my neighbors, my high-priced hospitalization would make Page Six.

Instead, I do half an hour of stand-up every morning about stupid last night.