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I am going to start my juicy tidbits from childhood and work my way up to the present. You have been warned.

1. My first childhood memory is of a 3 or 4 year old me in a snowsuit in New York trying to cover my brother Orion in snow. He is 2 years younger than me. As far as I can remember, he was standing up and I was systematically covering him in snow so that my mom would mistake him for a snowman and leave him outside. I did not think she would notice that he was missing. This would eliminate so many problems for me... but alas, according to my memory, she caught me. Oh well. I like Orion just fine now, so I guess it worked out great.

2. I deeply wanted to be anything other than myself from a very young age. When we were living in LA (the city, not the state.) we had a black nanny. My mom used to have a nanny for us. They would live with us. (I don't remember ever having a nanny who didn't have kids.) Our black nanny had daughters. They were beautiful. They had those cute little twists in their hair with the little colorful plastic barrettes at the ends. I wanted to be black too. They were so much prettier than I was. So I started to include (silently) in my nightly prayers a request to be black by the time I woke up in the morning. This never happened. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized why...

3. I found out about the birds and the bees when I was 5. It was an accident involving my moms boyfriend at the time putting the wrong tape in the VCR. I thought I was turning on daffy duck cartoons. Not so much.

4. We left LA in the middle of the night. We threw everything we had into our car and the cars and trucks of a few trusted friends and ran. To Brea. I thought it was another state. It was only an hours drive. I didn't know why till I was much older. Turns out the boyfriend mentioned in #3 did something scary and so we disappeared.

5. One of the men who helped us move became my moms next boyfriend. He was an ass. He used to beat my brother and me when my mom left us alone with him. I used to put myself between him and Orion. Better me than him. I was bigger and stronger and already had a box I could hide in inside my head. So I got beaten and my mom never knew cause I was such a klutz that she believed me when I would tell her that I had fallen again. (mom if you ever read this, I am sorry that you found out this way, but there you go.)

6. One of the people who worked for our apartment complex that we lived in until my mom and step dad got married tried to rape me. He failed. When I realized what he was doing I kicked him in the balls and ran home to mommy while he laid on the floor wondering if I had burst one of his testicles. I told my mom what had happened. She told the apartment manager. I never saw him again.

7. I met my step dad, Gary, before my mom did. I had a huge crush on him. The moment my mom started dating him I stopped having a crush on him and desperately wanted him to be the dad my biological father never was. He did not disappoint me.

8. My mom and dad asked Orion and me for permission before they got married. We were of course thrilled.

9. My dad is my hero. He was young and could have lived up his young bachelorhood. Instead he fell in love with a woman 3-ish years his senior who already had 2 kids and he decided that he wanted to keep us. To my knowledge he has never regretted that choice. He has done all of the things I always dreamed a dad would do with/for me. As far as I am concerned he is my real dad.

10. I hated my elementary school. I was teased. They called me the brown cow. I was not a toothpick (although not fat. My childhood pictures are posted here) and I was brown. Brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes. I still hate the color brown to this day and I cried when my son called me a cow. (he saw it on a TV show and had no idea it was a bad thing to do. You should have seen his little heart break when I collapsed into tears on the floor.) Some wounds never heal.

11. My parents asked us if we would mind if they had another child before my mom had the surgery to reverse having her tubes tied. They wanted a baby. Inside I wanted to die cause I wasn't enough for them to be happy. On the outside I smiled brightly and asked if the baby could live in my room. I was in 4Th grade.

12. I was wanted to kill myself when mom told me she was pregnant and would I help her surprise daddy with the great news. I was in the 5Th grade. I helped with dinner. I did not attempt suicide.

13. I helped my parents remodel the house that they still live in. Mom was pregnant, so I had to help dad as much as I could. The house had pepto pink walls and tricolor tangerine shag carpet from the 60's. I loved every minute of helping. I want to buy a piece of crap house like my parents did and turn it into a beautiful family home like they did.

14. One day on the way home from church my parents were gushing on about how perfect the new baby was going to be. I felt sick. I quipped up from the backseat "what if she is not perfect? What if she comes out with no ears, or she is retarded, or she only has 9 toes. Do you really think it is fair to her for you to expect so much from her?"

15. I was home from school "sick" the day that my mom found out that she was going to have my sister two weeks early. My allergies were so bad that day that they sent me home. Mom had a leak in her amniotic sac. Not big enough for her water to just break... just enough for her to leak, and possibly let in a baby killing infection. I secretly hoped it was already to late.

16. My whole world changed the second I saw Rachel for the first time. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Even the large red birthmark on her face did not Mar the perfection that was Rachel. I was totally and completely in love and I would never look back. For a long time I hid the memories of my original hatred in the same box I used to hide in inside my head. I forgot about them until I was pregnant with Aeddon and I wondered if Alexander felt the way I had...

17. I wanted to hold Rachel in my arms at my 6Th grade graduation. I saw nothing wrong with having her in my arms as I walked across the stage. My mom said that maybe that was not the best idea. I didn't understand why at the time.

18. I loved sharing a room with my sister. If she would wake up in the middle of the night I would go pick her up and she would spend the rest of the night sleeping on my chest. Eventually, once she was old enough to climb in my bed herself, I would find her next to me every morning.

19. During the summer between 6Th and 7Th grade my Nana had several heart attacks. Mom Rachel and I went to Arkansas to help care for her. At one point my mom and I got in a fight and I barricaded myself in the room that I was staying in by putting the dresser in front of the door to the room. I fell asleep crying. Several hours later I woke up to my mom pounding on the door. I moved the dresser from in front of the door and opened the door. Mom was furious. Somehow the words "fuck you" had been scratched/written deeply into the wall of the room mom was staying in. I was blamed. I have no memory of doing it. I wonder if I moved the dresser in my sleep and vandalized and then put the dresser back. I still have no idea what really happened.

20. I had my first boyfriend in Jr high. His name was Jere. I snuck out of the house one day when I was left home alone (I was grounded) to go with him to see his brother do a civil war reenactment. There was a little carnival at the park that day. Jere and I went to the carnival instead. He never kissed me, except on the cheek. I thought I was unlovable. Turns out Jere was gay. He figured it out shortly after I dumped him for agreeing with me when we were having a fight and I sarcastically called my self a bitch. ( he did have one more girlfriend after me... but I think he already knew by then anyways...)

21. While Jere and I were still dating my dad caught us talking on the phone at 1am when he came downstairs to get a roll of toilet paper for their bathroom. I was still grounded at the time for sneaking out. Dad was so mad that he cut the phone line off deep inside the wall in my room. As far as I know it has still not been fixed.

22. During that year (8Th grade) I was in love with another boy. His name was Jason. I was going to tell him I loved him when he quite suddenly told me that he had a thing for my friend Mikki. I set them up as a couple and then told Jere I would date him while I was still totally in love with Jason. Mikki and Jason's relationship lasted longer than mine and Jere's did. Jason talked to me more than he did to Mikki the whole time they dated. I put together his birthday present that she gave him. When they broke up I told him how I felt. He informed me that he could not date me cause we were to good of friends and he needed me to badly to jeopardize that.

23. A few weeks latter Jason started dating my best friend secretly. When I found out I was devastated. I ended my friendships with both of them. Ginny and I made up at the end of that year when there relationship ended. I was still in love with Jason. He was oblivious.

24. I ran for student council for 9Th grade at the end of my 8Th grade year (You ran for student council at the end of Jr high so that you could go to student council camp in the summer.) I did not win. I don't even thing anybody voted for me. I didn't vote for me.

25. I walked at Jr. high graduation, but never received a "diploma". They thought I lost one of my text books and held my diploma hostage until I returned it or paid the $65 to replace it. I refused to pay for it cause I knew I had turned it in. My brother was assigned the book in question two years later. I never got my diploma, although my name was cleared when I went in to the office with my/Orion's book in tow and said "see I told you so!"

The next segment will be all about high school folks.... so stay tuned....