My childhood (request by Anna)

This was requested by Anna and I thank you, Anna for giving me something to write about.
How about a couch to lye on? Hmm and maybe you could put on a white lab coat and eye glasses.?
Could you please take some notes down in my file? Because the request comes from Anna, I'm smiling and feeling giggly. She has this effect on me.
Okay, enough, my childhood...just promise me, no more MRI's of my brain afterwards. I had 3 in 1 year, that's enough for me. no EEGs of my brain either, It's tough washing that toothpaste outta my hair.
Anna, lol, ahem,
My Childhood,
My Gramps and Granny raised me from age 2 through 8. Gramps was aloof and tough, no messing around with him.
Granny was sweet but too overly protective.
The youngest of three children, she favored me. She dressed me is sissy clothes, not dresses, but still pretty sissified. She got me white shoes and expected them to stay white but I was a boy, I liked to play rough. I got my ears chewed off for not keeping them white and pristine. So she got me another pair,these were to be my regular pair and the dirty ones, my "play shoes."
My memories of my parents during this time are fuzzy. I figured I was Gramp's and Granny's kid.
Granny bought me a coloring book. I didn't color beyond the lines but I did one catastrophic thing, I colored the oranges yellow cause I thought they were grapefruits. Ouch! Granny barked through my ears no end.
Anna.... where has she gone now????
She enticed me with more coloring books after that barking session, but I was DONE. No way could she ever get me into those coloring books again. She expected perfection in every facet of a young child's life.
Granny liked curly hair and began fussing and "training" mine into a wavier texture, again more sissification, but I loved my Granny despite the ridiculous do.
Grades K-7 were fun, fond years. I had many friends, boys & girls. I was pretty much a clown with a smart-alec attitude. I was very mischievous and curious. My grades were a mixed bag except in language, spelling and art where I got As and the usual (for me) F in math among the Cs & Ds.
When my parent moved before 8th grade, I felt misplaced. I was sent to parochial school and taught by nuns. My knowledge of Catholicism was extremely limited. I found the nuns in their black & white habits very intimidating. I didn't fit in, on the contrary, I became very withdrawn and sullen. During recess, I'd stay alone in the classroom, trying to teach myself arithmetic.
We moved again. I became even more introverted.
...Anna, wake up, please. You're falling asleep on me......Anna!
I was now a freshman and outcast in High School. I was in pain (emotional) during my attendance. I wanted to disappear. I fantasied a lot during school. I fantasied about utopia a lot, somewhere where I'd be happy and fit in.
My parents were worried in my shift in behavior. I was taken to a psyche doc who after several sessions found me so pitiable, he took it upon himself to release me from school for one year. I was tutored at home and finally learned math.
Anna..Anna, Wake up, Anna. After all you asked! lol.
Now I was a sophomore back at school. Unwilling to accept torment any longer, I carried a flask of whiskey with me to school and some Darvons I found. Between the 2 of them I got through the school day in a cloudy, happy, dazed kind of way. I learned nothing. I'd lost interest in learning and only looked forward to turning 16 and dropping out. I did make some friends with some very kind colored girls. Tracy, she had a certain walk, catlike..I looked up to her and she shared her cigarettes with me as we walked home together.
I didn't find my niche yet but was searching. I had high admiration for the homeless people sleeping in the park, all they possessed inside ratty bags beside them.
I liked their defiance of society. I liked their dignity. I admired their being dignified. I got to know them individually. I'd bring them pints of alcohol. They were always very happy to see me for that reason. They told me their life stories, the good the bad, everything. Now finally I was a disciplined student, studying LIFE, the realities of life on the streets. If they had graded me I'd probably be an A student. At this same time I met ..
Anna, you've fallen asleep on me,... Anna...ANNA!!!
Okay, that's better, try to stay awake, please.
I met Alf. Not the "alien life form" but a human life form. He was 4 yrs older than me, slept on a bench and ate from dumpsters. I got to know him, indeed a character. I taught him how to get free food from McDonalds and he educated me about a revolution in music.
He was so tall and reed thin and the way he dressed was a sight. He had huge, lifeless, sad blue orbs that were always sleep deprived.
He had friends who became my friends. We went to concerts, hung out,smoked pot. Pot made me laugh and then hallucinate with paranoia. I remember asking my friend Dave if he wasn't really a spy from outerspace getting information on Earthlings. I got suspicious. Passerbies too were spies. I'd be in outer space first level, then in middle ground somewhere if there was one and then back to reality and the park bench. I'd stall forever before going home because I didn't want my parent to see me so incoherent as I was.
No more pot for me. I bought The Plasmatics albums, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Black Flag, Anti-Nowhere League. I loved music and my friends. They liked dressing outrageously but I was pretty conservative except for some chains and my ratty leather jacket. It was around this time I began a preoccupation with dresses. I hid it.
They were older than me. A couple had girlfriends. One guy's girl was very boyish and flat chested and somehow got away with being bare chested like the guys. She's get punched out by her bf and it drove me insane. I socked him right back sometimes. She was sad and troubled. Once I really wanted to kiss her, though the bf was right there. She was crying after being punched for taking off her shirt by her bullying bf. Looking at her bare chested and crying, she looked so beautiful to me, but at 16 I was sexually innocent, sexually shy.
At a club, I sat beside a girl who just sprang over to me and asked for a kiss. OOOOooweeeeee! Now I was nearly there. But what would she think of my dresses?
Pass the tissues please.LOL!
She whispered things in my ears I'd dreamt about. Wow! Still I was too awkward & shy to take her up on it.
I'd need a dozen more hands to count the number of times I passed out on the dance floor, I couldn't keep track of the number of drinks I had once I was drunk and no desire to count them. I was reckless.
Anna's gone to sleep again. I've bored her to sleep. That's the effect I have on girls.
This ones for you Anna, cause "She's the kind of girl who wants to know your deepest secret world."

What's lost is gained...

I thought my post below was missing something, but as boring as it is, I thought "Heck,just skip it" Losing my virginity was The Best thing I'd ever lost my whole life.
Much more fun than when I'd lost my mind during Xanax withdrawal. Plus when I'd lost my mind I had to go searching for it. I thought about putting an ad in the Lost & Found. No one on earth would have any use for it. It didn't even serve me very well.
I think losing one's mind is not as painful as losing their soul and I have that intact, at least.
I don't have much faith in the relatively new science of psychiatry. I was diagnosed with clinical depression after the death of a close family member. The loss was deep and agonizing to me.
I couldn't bare the pain. My frail way of dealing with it was to NOT deal with it at all. Not coping at all, with the assistance of 10-15 mgs of Xanax and 100 mg of Limbitrol. I existed without suffering.
In a constant blurred, catatonic state, I kept track of my pill taking in a small note book I carried with me at all times. Because it was easy to pass out at any time, I scribbled the time and number of pills in my notes, (very illegibly, in case someone found me passed out and retrieved my pill info) I was (before this loss) stable enough never to abuse my meds. I was considered a responsible and reliable person. Now I went from doc to doc acquiring as much pills possible. Docs like playing it Their way. Some would deny the Xanax in favor of Valium, or with Paxil and Ativan, etc.... For about a year, I stumbled through the grieving period in a dense fog.
Apparently my keeping record of the pills was also impaired. I woke up a year later with tubes connected to all places on my body with tape holding them in place. I was in a coma for 3 days and unfortunately the psych docs found me very interesting and kept me 3 weeks as they rushed me through withdrawal from Xanax, Limbitrol and various other sedatives.
They seemed quite merciless, sadistic even as they watched people having seizures, biting their tongues and banging their heads on the floor. Watching someone having withdrawal seizures is just like watching a fish out of water. They flip and flop involuntarily at the same time getting themselves banged and bruised up.
It's a thing that's painful to watch and your first reaction is to put the fish back in the water. Such isn't the case by these psych docs. They prefer patients flopping on the floor and letting the cells of the brain weaken & wither away. I considered the entire process barbaric and cruel & unusual punishment. I've no respect whatsoever for such rushed means of taking chemically dependent people off their drugs. I was in a vegetative state, but can't forget the sight of people with the sides of their heads bruised and bleeding and the oral bleeding from tongue biting.
And yet, had I never experienced this game of "let's torture these guinea pigs" I'd never have gotten myself down to a dose of 2mg of Xanax a day! Something I'm very proud of having done.... and by myself too!
Slowly my brain's mechanism began restoring itself.
I would never again be at their mercy, I promised myself that much.
I'd accomplish this at my own pace.The prospect of going through that "professional," torturous ordeal again is way too threatening to me, even though I'm all too familiar with..pain.
I think, like the girl who couldn't keep her shirt on, that I really Needed to get this off my chest.
(no musical or visual accompaniment with this post, but I'd pick the song "Dirt" for this one after having been down so low)

thanks for......

Thanks for ENRICHMENT, the people who'll spare a smile in my direction,share a story with me though we're strangers.
Thanks for SINCERITY, I love that and even the word itself.
Thanks for not giving up on me when I already had.
Thanks for allowing me in your life.
Thank you for your concern, caring.
Thank you to the folks who may not know it but give me a sense of purpose.
Thanks for the guy on the corner who asks me for a buck every time I cross, you think you're just taking. But you're giving. I see your smile and it gives back to me tenfold.
Thanks for the people who do not judge.
Thanks for the people who touch my heart and give me my tears, you make me feel so human.
The list goes on and on.Practically endlessly.

Shelley Winters

I just finished reading Shelley's 2nd autobiography. What impressed me about it it most was, yeah, it was pretty funny and I like that she didn't ever seem to take herself too seriously. But the main thing was how she lived, that she was still frugal even with so much money. Also that she didn't play parts just for mega bucks. She preferred doing plays and traveling with whatever play she was into at the time and refusing big money offers for her passion of plays. That's pretty admirable!
Last week I got done with Soul of a Lion about the rancher turned animal guardian,owner of Harnas in Namibia, Marieta van der Merwe.That was also a good book but maybe not so much as Born Free, or Gorillas in the Mist.It's interesting how these women go to such primitive, isolated places in the world to look after wild animals.I guess women need to take care of things, be it dog, cat, baby or gorillas or lions.
Getting back to Shelley. Some of her dresses are breath taking, but I noticed she seems to have favored a simple tailored suit for many, many years.I can understand that too.

Good Song