Fun for a girl or a boy

My childhood bedroom. The shaggy pink-and-red-yarn rug, like the pelt of a muppet. My odd "pretend pet" phase. I kept a cotton ball in a container full of water. The cotton ball gobbled salt, right from the shaker. Occasionally, I would lift the cotton ball out of the water and let it slide from one palm to another as if it were a slimy white fish.

Then there was the pet slinky. With a set of tweezers, I fed it staples (slinky nutrients, the basic building blocks of slinky life!). The slinky joined the circus. A traditional circus with three rings, three orange bangle-bracelets. The slinky had fans. Rows and rows of glass marbles set up like spectators on the small, inverted drawers of my wooden jewelry box.

We had a real cat named Jack. He was much loved, and much traumatized. He was all-over-grey. And he was slinky. Why then the hallucinations over wet cotton and toys?