what walks down the stairs, alone or in pairs?

When I moved into my first apartment I bought a shower curtain that had a print of strange cartoon-like creatures that looked like hybrids of birds, bugs, reptiles, and rodents.  I was quite enamoured of these peculiar little critters and spent a lot of time studying their faces while washing my hair.  I was particularly fond of the two-legged, pointy-eared guy next to the blue rabbit.  I liked his sidelong glance and his crooked little mouth.  This little dude clearly knew stuff he wasn't telling, and he had an opinion about it too.  But he knew how to be cool.

When I got my new drivers' license in the mail today I recognized a nearly identical expression on my own face in the photograph.  The woman taking my picture had clearly told me not to smile or make any kind of facial expression at all.  And I hadn't, not on purpose.  But the picture came out looking remarkably like the guy on the shower curtain I used to chat with while I got ready for school in the morning.  Eyes looking up and off to one side, mouth slightly askew.

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My new job continues to force me to have difficult conversations with people with whom I would not normally choose to have any kind of conversation whatsoever.  Today I told a mother she would be irresponsible to continue not to take her depressed daughter to see a doctor.  And I told another mother her son had chosen not to graduate and needed to be held accountable for that decision.  Neither of these things are things I could have said six months ago.  I may finally be becoming an adult.

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My husband's hair is astonishing.  For reasons no one understands he has stopped cutting it and allowed it to become enormous.  Something I did not know about his hair when it was short is that it is extremely coarse and very curly.  And now that it is so long, I find it all over the house, especially in the bathroom sink.  Like millions of silver slinkies.  (A slinky, a slinky, it's a wonderful toy.)  It's as though a toy box has exploded.  I have feelings and thoughts about the slinkies, but I say nothing.  I look heavenward (up and to the left) and hold my mouth crooked.

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