Poe Starts a Blob

For those of you who don’t know me, I will warn that I am hopelessly neurotic. For years I hid this fact, desperately trying to look like Magnum P.I. It was no fun and I wondered why I felt so terribly isolated from the rest of the world.
I am happy to say that today I’ve learned to embrace my neurosis, even finding it sorta cute. The magic is that the more I smile on my dark side, the more attractive I am, at least to the nutty, insecure folks I hang out with.

I must say it took a lot of courage to start up this blob thing. I had to play three games of FreeCell just to calm me down.

My biggest fear is that nobody will come to it.

When I was 7, I read a book in which two kids set up a lemonade stand. (My favorite part was when a man comes by in his car and buys a glass. After one sip, he pours the whole thing down the side of his car.)
This sounded like a great fun. I got out a box and set up a stand at the edge of our curb. Only I didn’t want to make lemonade (probably sounded like too much work), so I pulled off a bunch of flowering tree branches off and laid them on my stand. I attached a “For Sale Flowers” sign and sat waiting for all my customers.
Then nobody came by. (I forgot to mention we lived on a dead end street; I think one car drove down the whole time. He didn’t stop.) After an hour or so I put my flower stand away, feeling deeply ashamed, discouraged, and out of touch with the rest of humanity. Of course, I was the child of an alcoholic; I always felt ashamed, discouraged, and out of touch with humanity.

Why am I telling this story? My hope is that somewhere out there a few friendly folks will wander down my dead-end street and stop at the little flower stand I’ve set up.

“What most pleases
a good God
is for
my little soul
to love my littleness
And my poverty.
That is blind faith
that I have in his mercy.”

St. Therese of Liseaux