“So how come you’re here starring at the weekly bullshit session?”

“Belinda went out to get her hair done this afternoon. She got to yacking with another lassie in the hairdresser’s, and seeing as they were both going shopping at Tesco after they had coffee together. This lassie Gwen mentioned her old man was going out to the pub tonight. She said it was the men’s story telling night and invited her round for a girls night in with some friends and a bottle of wine or two. Now I ask you, how many retired professional liars do you know called Sasha? She found out which pub and here I am. I only live twelve miles a way. Christ, man, it’s good to see you. I’d wondered if you were dead.”

“Nah. Mark Twain had the right of it when he said, ‘The report of my death was an exaggeration.’

Dad was actually less embarrassing than I thought he would be. He told Michael, “I’ve heard good things about you, Michael. Just make sure you live up to them or I’ll turn my daughters loose. I seriously doubt you’d be able to better Lenska, but all of them? Not a chance, son.”

I’d had endless conversations with Harriet concerning the mental well being of a crew of ten thousand women and the ill wisdom of them only having sex toys, masturbation and lesbian relationships available to satisfy their libidos.

The truth doesn’t matter any more, Mum, because nobody wanted to listen to me then, and it’s too late to make a difference now.

NOTE THE SECOND PARAGRAPH CONCERNING THE PAEDIATRICIAN IS A TRUE STORY AS CAN EASILY BE ASCERTAINED.
THE REST IS A PRODUCT OF MY IMAGINATION AND IS A WORK OF FICTION. IT IS POSTED AS A WORK OF FICTION AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANY PERSON LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL AND UNKNOWN TO ME.
REGARDS,
EOLWAEN

Ashamed, and frightened of what I could have potentially done, I have never judged a parent since.

“You have to admit she’s a bit odd and has peculiar habits.”
“And you have a nervous tic and suffer from OCD, Doctor, so are we going to lock you up too?”

I wish I had dreamt up this piece, but this prayer originated from neither my pen nor my mind. I remember it doing the rounds many years ago, and I thought it worth sharing in an updated form. I wish to make it clear that I have no special axe to grind with any of the individuals mentioned. My personal list would be much longer and include every politician of every stripe on the planet, but by all means feel free to amend the list or append to it with politicians or others of your choice. As far as I am aware it always was unattributed, but if you are the individual who originated the piece, one I dip my knees to you, and two please let me know so I can credit you with its creation properly. In gratitude, Eolwaen.

I don’t deal with that type of woman because, one they are gross and treat one like something they scraped off their shoe, and two it’s dangerous. You can end up dead for the least perceived slight or failure of service.

Your mum is the archetypal Yiddishe Momme, poor, the only survivor of her family from the holocaust, genuinely caring and loving, incapable of guile, immensely respected by all who know her, Jew and gentile alike. She’s the epitome of an eastern European Jewess. She could have have come straight out of Fiddler on the Roof. When my mum and dad are at outs he accuses her of only marrying him because the obliteration of his family at Auschwitz makes her feel respectable, and he provokes her by saying she would eat a bacon sandwich if a Rabbi told her it were kosher.

I know from the look of you that you stole my share of the freckles, but whether that old saw that says every time a ginger steals a soul they earn a freckle is right or not, I know you didn’t steal my soul because it was always yours.

The girls came round later that afternoon, it was my turn to have them. Now don’t get me wrong I love my daughters, and I really enjoy our Sunday activities, but I do find the three hour Saturday afternoon Monopoly sessions rather dull. This week was different. The girls had a new set. New to them anyway.

The only person who made a socially acceptable living out of posing pre-pubescent girls and horses in the same tableaux was Norman Thelwell.

You are being far too hard on yourself. I know you used to give a lot of your time to homeless kids via that church program. When you were outed and kicked out of the program for being yourself that did NOT, and I repeat NOT, devalue what you had done for those kids. Neither the church nor their program deserved you. The kids didn’t care that you were trans, what mattered to them was that you cared about them.

Deirdre had inspired many to wonder if other gingers didn’t have souls either.

They all got a thrashing, and Liv Björn’s wife told me years later he still had the marks to prove it.

My three older siblings were girls. I enjoyed dressing in their clothes and liked pretty things, but there was nothing desperate about it. I think I could easily have lived without it, but by the time I was old enough to go to school such games stopped on pain of my father’s belt.

With little else to do other than wait till it’s time to take my medication I thought I’d finish writing up the story of my life. So far as it goes that is.

I’ve read that friends are ten a penny and come and go, but the hate a good enemy provides can last a lifetime and keep you warmer than a good fire on cold winter nights.

Despite Gilbert’s father undressing me with his eyes all the time, he keeps his hands to himself and I get on with him well enough. I certainly don’t object to his taste for long necked and skinny legged, thin chested females.

After all, this too’s just a story, a fable, a tale,
Best taken with salt, and whisky or ale.

Tragedy lives with us all. As a child one rails gainst fate, but none can truly be considered adult till they have swallowed that bitterest of pills and learnt that one can not rewrite history. All one can do is learn to live with it. But none ever wholly does and therein lies the child in us all.

A Shovelful of Writers
A lesser known sonnet – well, it has fourteen lines anyway.

Ja, ja! What a drinker! What a fighter!” Her voice softened, “What a lover!”