Story Time Sunday on Monday — July 14th 2014 — a tiny tale with one slightly risqué item 2/3rds of the way through

Today I met a lady in my online women’s support group who is a sword swallower. She is also a dermatologist, a juggler, a mother of 2 and an award winning pastry chef. Also a novelist.

Do people like that make you feel insecure?

Me too.

But I’ve learned to do what my mom always told me – make a list of my special talents.

1. I am very good at taking the bus. I know exactly where to put the change or the card, and even if I don’t I always compliment the bus driver on their cool sunglasses or great hair.
2. I am excellent at avoiding talking on the telephone. The phone makes me very nervous so I compose lovely letters to the pizzeria on cream-colored paper telling them about the pizzas I would like to have delivered to me in a week’s time.
3. I have been told that I am an exquisite TV commentator. No! Not sports commentating – but rather Hannibal watching, Battlestar Galactica watching, or even Antique Road Show watching and then talking about the stuff and the people and the details like the cannibal cuisine, the cylon’s dresses, and the carpets in the background or the cars. My daughter is great at commentating on PBS shows – her specialty. She once gave a particularly piquant explanation of why Huell’s Howser’s name sounds a bit like a person getting ready to – if you’ll pardon the expression – hurl.
4. Relaxing in bed. Seriously, no one does this as well as I do. I can relax in bed for hours with a cool drink, some carne asada fries with lots of napkins, books, Netflix, and depending on my mood – a vibrator.
5. Sitting around. I sit at the kitchen table and make up my list (this one) and I look at the orchid my friend who is a dramatist, and an actor and a scholar and a mother of 4 gave me. It’s so beautiful. Purple, useless, tall. It doesn’t toil and it doesn’t spin. Wait – that’s lilies. But still. You get the idea.

With thanks to Jo Scott Coe for the list exercise and Noel Pabillo Mariano for the fries. And to Erith Jaffe Berg for the orchid. And to who know who for you know what.