Made All The Children Scream That Day

"Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" by Alvin Schwartz. Creepy fantastic illustrations by Stephen Gammell.

Every Wednesday at 12:30 I read to Charlie's second grade class for thirty minutes. It's only half an hour, but I always leave story time feeling really happy. The kids just eat it up, and I like seeing all of them get so into it.

Whether it's barely whispering through a really dramatic story or doing a modern take on a classic tale (like adding "dude" to the end of every Frog & Toad dialogue) or letting the kids finish the sentence of the books they all have read at home a million times – from sad stories to funny, I really lay it on thick. When the time is up they always give me some sort of clever group cheer, and often times they intercept me with hugs as I make my way out the door, asking me if I'm coming back next week.

Except for this last Wednesday.

This last Wednesday the cheers and hugs were replaced by, well, a group – scream. This wasn't an ordinary scream, mind you. This was the sound of twenty-five or so seven-year-olds screeching in unison. A scream so earsplitting, so sustaining, so echoing, so just freaking long and loud that I walked out of Cleveland Elementary that day afraid that I was going to look back and see the principal chasing me down the sidewalk – that I would be the first story time parent to get kicked out and asked to never come back.

Let me back up just a moment to say, I love telling stories. I used to think that this was just a character flaw of being too talkative. But then I realized I usually only get really carried away in a conversation when I'm retelling a story. Even in "the real world" I started to figure out that when I'm presenting a concept or idea, no matter how corporate the setting, that everybody still loves a great tale. I can really tell when I'm in the zone when I give myself goosebumps or even feel a little tears just barely starting to accumulate in the back of my eyeballs.

Then when I had my kids, bedtime reading (which frankly, can become mundane really fast, especially when you have to read the same book over and over again) flew by when I really let myself get carried away in the nuances of the story. And of course, the best part of telling stories, from the bedroom to the boardroom, is when your audience is entranced, hanging on every word and transported into this other reality that you are creating.

Now, secretly, this kind of lavish gratitude fulfills I know the creative professional need in me for constant affirmation and love of my "work." Since I recently made the leap from the advertising world to my own business, the client conversations have been more of the one-on-one variety (at least in the short term) and the big board room unveils (think Mad Men) aren't a weekly thing. So I kind of think the seven-year-olds of Charlie's class are in some way serving as a stop-gap audience for me as of late – better yet, one that is guaranteed to be receptive and responsive. Only, their feedback isn't nods or claps but giggles and big-eyes and belly laughs.

You know, except for this last time.

So last Wednesday was the last storytime before an extended fall break, and Halloween, for the class. So of course I had to read them some scary stories! I'm always rushing around right before I have to leave for the school, tearing myself away from my laptop, gathering up the books for that day – but this time I was trying to hunt down Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, an all-time favorite since I was a kid.

But my three-year old has become obsessed with looking at all the creepy ink and watercolor drawings that made that book so enduringly popular. "Scary bat." "Scary house." "Scary arm." "Scary zombie." That's how he "reads" the book to himself. Honestly, if the illustrations of Stephen Gammell weren't black and white they would be downright gory.

So of course, I couldn't find the book. (We found it later crammed under the bed next to an old baggie of Honey Combs and the one missing can't-live-without-it dragon from his collection of like fifteen dragons.) But at the time I was running late, so I made due with a bunch of more "cutesy" Halloween books that I quickly stuffed in my book bag, you know with cheery orange and black age-appropriate illustrations of silly ghosts and sweet witches and little pumpkins who dream of being plucked from the pumpkin patch and transformed into smiling magical jack-o-lanterns. Sigh. They would just have to do in a pinch.

So fast forward to me sitting in the storytelling rocking chair with all the kids sitting crisscross applesauce (that's what they call it now) on the storytelling rug all around me. I've already gone through the silly ghost book, the sweet witch book and am wrapping up the book about the little longing-filled and last-to-be-picked pumpkin who finally gets her wish and is whisked away from the pumpkin patch (to get her face hacked up, but whatever, they don't spin it that way) and "ta da," happy endings for all.

But dang! It's Halloween time. Come on! That is not going to cut it. I could tell some of them were a little disappointed because I had hinted the week prior that I'd be bringing the infamous Scary Stories book. Plus, I still had ten minutes left on my time slot. I couldn't stand it.

I told them that I could maybe remember one of the Scary Stories by heart. It is a tale called The Big Toe. The room got all hushed in anticipation. Some of those kids were downright drooling. A few of them silently mouthed the title to themselves. "the. big. toe."

And to make a big toe story short, I take them through the tale of a boy on a hill with a hoe who finds a big toe, brings it home for dinner, and after going to bed that night is haunted by a visitor. A visitor unseen, but definitely heard, who gets increasingly insistent with a very simple but repetitive inquiry – from front porch to staircase to breathing right above the blanket covered head of the terrified boy – "wheeeeeere's my big toooooe?"

I do admit I embellished a little bit, from the boy's mom grating the yellowed toenail into the evening's stew as seasoning, to describing how when the boy hid under the blanket, his own breath all hot and stifling, makes the blanket billow outward – that is, until the breath of his hovering visitor makes the blanket start indenting inward instead. Oh yeah, you could see the psychology of that tidbit really sinking into their super-absorbent grey matter.

So then I get to the part at the end where you're supposed to wheeze one last "wherrrrre's myyyy biiiigggg toooooeeee?" Then you grab the foot or toe of a kid that's closest to you and shout "you have it!" I probably should have taken a cue from my audience, that the suspense building around the foot of my rocking chair in the middle of a sunny afternoon, though ominously silent, was literally about to drive these kids to madness. And the classic campfire startle-grab ending? Maybe not such a good idea.

Some indicators that my audience was about to come unhinged:

1. several of the girls were all trying to stretch a single cardigan to cover them all like a makeshift tent-slash-canopy, like a shield between my words and their vulnerable little heads

2. several of the boys had literally started creating a silent pyramid, one crawling over another like crabs on a beach trying to keep their pinchers out of the tide

3. a couple of the children had simply removed themselves from the storytime rug, retreating to the back corner of the room

In hindsight I should have just had a funny, anti-climatic ending. Like a cute joke. "Where's my big tooooooe? Oh wait. I have an extra one in my pocket, dude. No worries."

But nope, I grabbed the toe of the little girl closest to me, and trying not to be too disruptive or loud (I mean, sheesh, we are in the middle of a learning establishment in progress here) I sort of faux-shouted at a medium volume – "YOU HAVE IT!"

And then they all went batsh*t crazy.

I have to say, it was probably one of my best storytelling experiences of all time. For about two seconds I was grinning from ear-to-ear. I know I get this from our dad, who could send any sleepover or slumber party into screaming hilarious terrifying hysterics within two minutes of lights-out.

For that one moment it was awesome. Then came the part where the scream didn't stop. I think it had to be a good thirty seconds. The teacher literally had to peel the kids off the ceiling. I had to quickly find a way to console one of the boys who (yes, you can boo me, now) started crying a little. I got him to tell me about his Halloween costume and he quickly dried up and started smiling, okay?

Then I asked one of the other boys who had retreated to the corner (I thought out of fear) to tell me about his Halloween costume, too, and then he informed the entire class that his family doesn't celebrate Halloween. Ack! I high-fived him on the way out the door and said "here's to fall! like leaves and stuff!" Double ack! But surprisingly he also smiled. Dang. This was like total spin control here.

Then I just embarrassedly made my exit, promising the teacher that I'd go back to peaceful, slow, Frog & Toad next week – "dude. croak. yeah, dude." I stepped out into the hallway, my cheeks burning and closed the door on a still-buzzing class that was never in a million years going to be able to focus on the afternoon assignments. I mean I'm supposed to be a teacher's helper, right? Not a riot inciter!

Then I realized how incredibly quiet the hallway of this school was, and knew that every single class in that old-fashioned 1930's schoolhouse heard the infamous scream. I think the class across the hall was actually testing – you know, the one with the open door and all? Man, I hitched my book bag up on my shoulder, and freaking high-tailed it out of there.

I seriously couldn't concentrate the rest of the day. Public school is strict you guys! I actually thought I was going to get a phone call any minute from the principal or the teacher or both, like on speaker phone, disinviting me to ever step foot on campus again! I was so wigged out about it, I even tried to ply info out of Charlie that evening after school. He's the one that helpfully told me (with a cringe) that the fourth graders had been testing across the hall. "Thanks a lot, Charlie. I feel soooo much better."

So, I just ended up sending a note of apology to Charlie's teacher in his backpack the next day. She sent me a nice note back, saying all was good, the children loved the story and that the boy who had started to cry was just really sensitive – to loud noises.

Or at least that was her story. I'm going along with it just to get over it. But if the school institutes a screening process for parent volunteer readers from this day forth I won't be surprised. A smidge proud, though? Yeah, probably. I do hate getting in trouble. It's just a hold-over from my school days. But that scream? As a storyteller – I think it was worth it.

Red. Dead. Redemption.

My favorite vintage western pearl snap shirt. My favorite violent western pastime.

Red.

Red Dead Redemption for Playstation, is like Little House On The Prairie if everyone drank and cursed and swore. Oh, and if you play the zombie version I'm playing, Undead Nightmare... everyone eats each other, too.

Dead.

Good thing I've got some zombie-kickin' boots. My father-in-law got me these authentic Justin boots, like down at the stockyards and all for Christmas years and years ago. I love them so much. But they are just a bit too small for me. Usually that means Kathleen gets them. But I like looking at them too much to let them go.

Redemption.

It's 8:50 pm. What are you doing?

Well, if you're me, you've just tucked your kids in, gotten a glass of water, maybe brushed your teeth, climbed into bed with your nice husband, and then said "honey, pass me the Playstation controller." And then he says, "sure, are you going to clear out Blackwater Farm tonight and perhaps rope yourself a spitter?" And I say, "well, I'm going to have to get some sniper ammo first, because those spitters are pretty nasty up close."

What can I say? I love video games. But since I sort of love my kids, too, I tend not to really ever play that much anymore, because I know I'll get hooked. See, I'm a video game purist. My husband, he'll just run around and dink around with people and stir up trouble and maybe use a few cheat codes while he's at it so he can like fly a UFO through the western frontier or something ridiculous like that.

But I check my maps. Check my inventory. And check off my missions. Every single scary one of them, spitter or not. (These might actually be called retchers. I have been too freaked out to do this mission, which is to lasso and hogtie a zombie who spits this toxic green stuff at you.)

Me and my brother Donny are just like that. He's really, really good at video games. Because, duh, he's a boy. But also because, duh, he doesn't have other obligations other than sticking shit in his face.

Of course, our love started with our old childhood Nintendo and our good friend Super Mario.

But the whole purist approach started a couple years after that. I was probably fourteen I think, and Donny was probably eleven. And on Christmas morning, we got Myst. For our PC. Cringe. It was so awkward and clunky compared to adventure, fantasy, total-geek-out-lose-yourself-in-another-world-like-Narnia-or-The-Shire types of games they have today. But we were committed to winning it.

In one day.

You know how Christian Bale lost all that weight for The Machinist (looks like he's up to his old manorexia tricks again with the new movie The Fighter... I'm convinced his agent told him if he got all scary-skinny again he'd win a Best Supporting, you know?)

Anyway. That's how me and Donny were about Myst. Except my mom would bring us leftover turkey sandwiches and other assorted Christmas foods every once in a while. We holed up in the computer room, eyes glued to the screen and figured that stuff out. I remember we even had a spiral notebook where we kept taking notes so we could figure out this Myst-land's alphabet and numerical system and stuff so we could crack codes.

Every once in a while Kathleen would come and stare longingly at us, but then just go back to playing with her Play Doh ice cream parlor or her little plastic potholder-making loom, or whatever seven year old girls used to get back then.

It got pretty dire at one point, when we got lost in this underwater maze in our strange victorian style submarine. But we finally, finally got through it. Basically, Christmas started at 6:30 am (what? didn't yours when you were kids?) and we won that game at 9:30pm.

I didn't realize until a few weeks later, when that game became such a phenomenon (apparently one of the most popular PC games of all time, except for the Sims, I think) that there were these Myst cheat books and guide books popping up at all the stores. At first I was appalled that 1.) you could even get cheats or tips for games, but then felt pretty awesome that 2.) Donny and I were some badass kids if grownups were needing help to win this game.

That was the only year we spent a whole day doing that sort of thing. And it might seem pretty un-Christmasy. But it is actually one of my fondest Christmas memories.

In fact, now that we only see Donny about twice a year, I always make it a priority to play at least a couple hours of some video game with him over the holiday break. In fact, last couple years, my husband has let me sneak away and spend the night at my parents before the full-on family Christmas really began.

We'd get on our pj's or sweats, Mom and Dad have already retired for the evening, and Donny's all grumbly like he doesn't love it (but he does) and's like "get me a coke in a glass glass, and a cup of chips" (Thomas's eat their chips out of cups) and then we settle in on the living room floor or in our dad's armchair and get started. Our past all-nighters have included Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Dead Alive just to name a few.

But now, I kind of think this whole zombie thing is reaching critical mass when it comes to popularity so this will probably be the last holiday it's cool anymore. Plus, I'm probably going to try to stop playing Red Dead Redemption before Christmas break is over this year, because combined with watching Walking Dead every Sunday night on AMC, it's starting to effect my sleepwalking/night terror affliction. Surprise, surprise.

I'm looking forward to just reading some good books, eating some cookies and milk, and not dreaming that there are zombies in my living room and I have five seconds to decide if I evacuate my kids from their bunk beds or just run out the back door.

Especially since I'm pretty sure one of them's a spitter. Or a retcher. The zombies, that is, not one of my kids (well, actually...)

Regardless. The back door vs. bunk bed question is one that will keep a mom up at night.

Kind Of A Long Story: The Girl Who Never Slept Alone

When Kathleen was little I used to say she looked like a gorilla baby.

Let me explain. This was in the height of Cabbage Patch doll craziness. And there was no way no how I was going to get one because our parents led us to believe we were poor when we were young.

True, our parents were thrifty, and had a spartan approach in general to spending but in hindsight I think this exaggerated sense of us being unable to afford anything cool... ever... was limited to designer fads (which were aplenty in the eighties) like Jams, Guess Jeans and Cabbage Patch dolls, but not stuff our parents liked (okay, and we benefited from, too), like... oh, say... a lake front house in the woods of East Texas.

I was an idiot kid, though, and thought the woods were boring and would rather have sidewalks to rollerskate on, and cable TV... and a Cabbage Patch doll.

But I got Kathleen. Since the dolls of the patch were so in vogue, that meant ugly-cute was in, so I was okay with Kathleen being a bit gorilla-ish in my nine-year old mind. Listen, I thought her nose was just a little, well, nostrilly.

But I also thought she was my own personal plaything. So once she outgrew her crib, and became somewhat interesting. I did everything with her.

And she never. Ever. Slept alone.

This photo of her is very deceptive for several reasons.

1.) Kathleen's nose looks kind of cute. Almost buttonish. It's the angle. Or, my perception has changed with age, and I realize that my fixation with Kathleen's nose was probably erroneous. But, the damage is done, since now Kathleen has spent her entire life willing herself into fabulousness. No serious damage, since it actually worked. She is fabulous.

2.) Kathleen is in a dress, like this is normal or something. In fact, to the contrary, she was often topless until she was four. Or in some oversized t-shirt that our aunt brought back from Holland.

3.) Kathleen is holding a kitty doll. This may have been her favorite at age two or three. But by four years old, the kitty was replaced with the first love of her life, Alf. How Kathleen got an actual Alf doll (that was not some generic concoction made by my mom out of old pantyhose... which don't laugh... was what she eventually made me a Cabbage Patch doll out of, and were so popular she'd sell them at the the country church craft fair) was beyond me.

4.) Kathleen is sitting sweetly upon her sweet, Strawberry Shortcake bed. Mom made the comforter, the quilted wall hanging and the alcove curtains. You can't see it here, but both our beds were set in alcoves, and we had these neat curtains on either side that we could close, and then pretend our bed was a stage or a secret clubhouse, or whatever. Both of our bedding was made out of miniature rosebud gingham fabric. Mine in navy and periwinkle. Kathleen's in pink and cranberry. But usually she was sleeping in my bed, or I was sleeping in hers.

With two of us in a twin bed, she'd often fall down the crack on the side of the wall. The padded Strawberry Shortcake wall hanging kind of helped her to not scrape the skin off her body on the way down. So, yay, form and function.

By the time Kathleen was getting all knees and elbows and getting too big to sleep with anymore, we got our mangy little Lhasa Apso family lapdog, Cecily. But Cecily decided she was Kathleen's, probably because I thought she was so mangy. So, naturally Cecily slept with Kathleen.

Then when Kathleen moved out, she lived with Donny in their stinky, dirty socks everywhere, pizza boxes everywhere, twinkly lights strung willy nilly everywhere college rental house. Not that she slept with Donny (although Donny did have a girlfriend once who got in a jealous rage over Kathleen and implied that they had some sort of Flowers in The Attic brother/sister thing going on.) I can only write that because it's so silly. I mean, duh, Kathleen never even slept in the apartment, because she was always at her boyfriends.' Donny had to befriend some skinny castoff stray little black cat so he didn't get so lonely and make imaginary friends out of dirty sock puppets and talking pizza boxes.

The point being, boyfriend turned to husband. And then husbands. Yes, plural... husband(s). Not in a Big Love way, like in a one-before-the-other-sort-of-way (which is another post entirely), all before the ripe old age of 26. So Kathleen, in short, is the girl who never slept alone.

Some might think that this is a personality flaw. How can you have never been alone? No My So Called Life lovelorn Claire Danes sobbing? No Ally McBeal single gal musical production pining? (Yeah, um, so that was kind of my m.o. obviously.)

And it's not that Kathleen has never shed a tear. You better believe she can wallow in a pity party. "Why-am-I-so-fill-in-the-blank?" Or "why-doesn't-anybody-think-I'm-fill-in-the-blank?" (Blow nose here).

It's just that the tears (and snot) on her pillow, are always next to another pillow. The pillow of a sister, a dog, a brother, a boyfriend, a hubby... a "other."

Maybe that's why her tattoo is an ampersand. "And Kathleen" by design but, take it or leave it, also by nature.

Ah, well. A nose by any other name would smell as sweet. And, I think she grew into hers after all.

Kind Of A Long Story: Sleepwalkers

It's one a.m.

While the cats stalk dust bunnies, and her hubby peacefully slumbers, Kathleen is chatting away to her pillow.

In the city that never sleeps, Donny is screaming at giant cockroaches on the ceiling (which in this particular Brooklyn flat at least are actually imaginary.)

And while little boys dream peacefully in their bunk bed, on the other side of the wall their mom, that's me – is intensely negotiating some sort of corner drug deal in the hallway. (That's what happens when I watch The Wire before bedtime).

Yes, it is a common known fact that we are a family of sleep talkers and even more creepily – sleepwalkers.

If you didn't think we were freaks before, please, be our guest. We've put clean sheets on the guest room bed. Here's a stack fresh towels. Would you like us to turn the ceiling fan on low or medium-low for you?

Oh, and by the way. If we burst into your room yelling about cretaceous period insects or threatening to pop a cap in your ass, oh... ha, ha. La-dee-da. Just go with it.

If this sounds particularly disturbing, try being one of our significant others.

One of the first times I "slept over" with my now-husband, Chris, was in college at his parents' house out in the country, while they were gone for the weekend on vacation. I woke up screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night. Chris nearly leapt out the window (which we had left open to listen to the crickets... awww). I lamely explained I thought I had spilled a glass of red wine on their bedspread. Hmmm. Guilty much?

Since then my husband has been subjected to years of my midnight mayhem, which usually involves me either shouting and jumping out of bed and running into the other room, trying to conversationally and quite civilly rationalize some very pressing matter with him (which he has to just go along with, because I get really defensive and pissed if he dares to tell me I'm sleep talking, which I'm obviously not), or sometimes is just me eerily creeping out into the dark house before I slowly come to my senses and wander back. Seen Paranormal Activity?

When our kids were little babies things got even more wackadoo (which we're not completely out of the woods yet since our youngest is still only two years old, and I pulled a number three from the list below just last week). The baby sleep-freakouts that Chris have been subjected to include me:

1 . trying to push him off of our baby that I'm convinced he's smothering

2. climbing over him to forage on his side of the bed to save the aforementioned baby

3. jumping up with a startling bed-shaking gasp because I forgot we had a baby and therefore had neglected to feed it or take care of it for several days (seen Trainspotting?)

I saw in a documentary once that when you dream you aren't really supposed to be able to walk or talk or move. And that if you are experiencing dreams while mobile or vocal, that it actually qualifies as a night terror.

And while I have been terrified at times (if you've seen that Trainspotting baby you know what I'm talking about), mostly my episodes are just very, well, vivid. Like trying to march (like marching band style) to the end of my bed, my phantom flute held high, on nights after high school football games. Like sneaking out of the motel bed and dumping all the change out of all my girlfriends jeans on school field trips. Like standing motionless in my college apartment living room, and after being discovered by (and scaring the crap out of ) my best friend and roommate, actually convincing her that she was the one being ridiculous for shrieking, and shaming her back into her room.

Okay, so maybe the term night terror isn't actually describing the experience the sleepwalker is going through, but rather describing the horror they inflict on others.

Case in point. Donny. His night terrors started at a younger age than mine, about nine or ten years old. So I'm having a slumber party. Picture a bunch of thirteen year olds just giggling away in the living room (along with my little sister, of course, hanging out like our little pizza-eating, brownie-nibbling mascot). When all of a sudden, the I'm-being-murdered-screams of a young boy start echoing down the hallway.

We all jump up, and start sort of shuffling-running-wrenching-each-others-clothes-in-a-crazy-scaredy-cat-single-file-line (you know, like how you do with a group when you're all going through a haunted house) down the hallway. I'm in the lead. I grab my brother's doorknob, and bravely, if not spazzily, fling open his bedroom door. The force of the "door wind," or whatever you want to call it, makes all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Batman posters fly up off the wall all at one time. Which made me scream. Which in turn made all my girlfriends start screaming their heads off.

So amidst all the tween screams I flick the light switch on. Donny is standing in his bunk bed with his eyes, I swear, like a possessed person, all big pupils and red irises and the foggiest, craziest look you've ever seen.

He's shouting that there are cockroaches on his ceiling. (Yes, a theme that will follow him well into adulthood.) Granted, in reality there were a bunch of those greenish-white glow-in-the dark little solar system stickers on his ceiling. Not really a good idea in our household in hindsight.

However, it was actually the highlight of the party. And, what the heck? Our parents never even woke up.

They did when Donny was a teenager, though, when in the middle of the night they were woken by the sound of the front door suddenly banging open. Donny had run, like all-out run, out the front door (in the middle of February in the ice, mind you) in nothing but his tighty-whities. He was halfway down the concrete drain-ditch that runs along the side of my parents' house before my they caught up with him and yelled him back to his senses.

One of the worst times Donny ever hurt himself in relation to his sideshow profession (except the mouse trap incident) was sleepwalking shirtless into his bed of nails, which was propped up against the wall, and left a pretty nasty wound along his side.

Kathleen never really went all Girl, Interrupted with her random nocturnal talking, and her little bit of sleepwalking here and there. You know, hers is just enough to be cute. And, honestly, until I started writing all this down, I always thought it was just an entertaining little quirk for all of us. Even with my dad, who once slept walked off the balcony of his college dorm.

So in review, perhaps it's less in the realm of cute, and more like in the vicinity of competency hearing.

Plus, if there was a movie about us, of course blonde bruisey Angelina would play Kathleen, and I'd end up being the girl who hid the chicken carcasses under her bed. Since there are no boys in Girl, Interrupted Donny would just have to be cold-sweat, sheet-writhing Ewan in Trainspotting.

With that damn baby climbing on the ceiling.

Just watch out for the cockroaches up there little guy.

Kind Of A Long Story: Kathleen Crush

My little sister Kathleen has been the object of her fair share of crushes. Certainly plenty of girl crushes. You know, like when you see a girl in the airport or getting coffee and she's got this effortless, scarfy, messy-hair, ballet-flat style? Those are the girls I want to be. Kathleen gets that, but she's never wearing anything quite as pedestrian as just a scarf and flats. She's got a little more edge to her outward persona, so to speak.

You can see other young women trying to casually give her the once-over without being detected. You can see their brains ticking. "Is she really wearing those tweed short-shorts with riding boots?" "Can I wear tweed shorts-shorts with riding boots?" "Yeah. No. I don't think so."

Sometimes if we're waiting in line somewhere I might see a little girl checking her out. They don't bother to be so inconspicuous. They just flat out stare at her. Consuming her with their eyes. Committing her to memory. Making a mental blueprint for their future selves, "short-shorts with riding boots, here I come."

One such time, the tables were a little turned, in that Kathleen was the one noticing this eight-year-old while we were waiting to board a plane (back to the airport here, but I find my people watching is uber-heightened in airports and on planes). This very put together little girl had on lots of layers – boots, black leggings, legwarmers, a short denim skirt and some sort of zip-up track jacket. Kathleen turned to me and said, "do I dress like an eight-year old?" because her outfit was identical. Kathleen was doing the staring this time, and the little girl finally flicked her eyes up at her and quickly back again as if to say, "what?... I know it."

Kathleen is notorious for her changing hairstyles. Most of these photos are by Simon Hurst or David McNeese, two rockin' photographers we've worked with on advertising shoots. Kathleen always gets some "test shots" in before we actually start photographing the actual subjects.

Then there are the people that see Kathleen everyday. Her family. Her friends and coworkers. There are probably some solid crushes mixed in there, too (boy and girl). But we mostly find entertainment in just waiting to see what she's going to walk in wearing that day. If you follow her blog, you too can actually see what she's wearing today. You can even get a comprehensive breakout of all the components of one of her favorite outfits.

From Kathleen's blog, Jeremy & Kathleen.

So now, anyone can have a crush on Kathleen if they want.

But let me tell you about Kathleen's ultimate crush.

I mean the person that she is most obsessed with. This is not a girl crush (you know, like Chloe Sevigny or SJP or Meryl Streep, even) this is a full-on boy crush. Although he is a bit androgynous. We get that from our mom. She always had crushes on girly-men celebs like Steven Tyler or David Bowie. When we were kids she would literally rewind that scene in Labrynth when Jennifer Connelly goes to the masquerade ball with David Bowie, and the lense is all foggy and it's all bubbly and dreamy and David Bowie is like this fairy king (uh... hello, Mom?)

More on our mom to come in the future, but for now, back to this crush.

Now, I could easily be referring to Brian Boitano here. That was Kathleen's first big-time celebrity crush when she was about seven years old. Remember the Olympic ice skater? But it's not rhinestone-studded-unitard-clad Brian I'm referring to here.

However, as a side note, once as adults Kathleen and I went to Celebrities on Ice when it came through on tour. I scored us some free tickets and as we sat in the crowd full of bow-headed tweens and their moms, we kind of stuck out like sore thumbs. Mostly because whenever Brian would skate by, like as he was building up speed for a big jump or russian-named arial trick – the triple-pembchenko, let's say (I just made that up) – the crowd would be hushed in silence, the roaring applause saved for the actual trick, but Kathleen would belt out this screeching "I loooove you Brian!" into the frosty dark anticipatory silence of the arena, and all the bow-heads and their moms' blonde bobs would turn in angry unison toward us.

It didn't really phase Kathleen, since I forgot to mention the other side effect of her "edgy" style, is that sometimes instead of getting jealous, curious, or admiring stares when we're in public, she sometimes get straight-out hateful, evil stares. From total strangers. Usually in the shopping mall. No joke.

Beyond the Bow-Head. Kathleen at eight or nine years old. When she really first started to assert her style. On school picture day no less.

Back to the crush. You may or may not recognize the name of Kathleen's unrequited love, so it may be anticlimatic for you. But his name is Alan Cumming. I could actually hear Kathleen sighing somewhere by sheer telepathic instinct, as I typed his name. He plays a lot of strange characters. In mainstream movies he's probably best known for... hmmm... it's hard to say... that blue Nightcrawler guy from X-Men? (X-Men 2, actually). Or maybe as the demented children's TV show host on Spy Games?

But Kathleen first got her crush on him in her teens, when he played the slimy, weasley, uh... thwarted rapist... in Circle of Friends. You know, that Scottish movie when Minnie Driver was kind of chubby?

Then, in the later nineties, he got some big-time Broadway fame as the Emcee in the revival of Cabaret – our family's favorite, favorite, favorite, musical. We grew up watching movie musicals. And we especially loved ones that had a bit of cross-dressing, Cabaret, Victor/Victoria, Jesus Christ Superstar. What? Jesus wore a dress.

Alan Cumming in Cabaret. Kathleen's favorite Alan Cumming movie, Anniversary Party co-starring Jennifer Jason Leigh. And, no, that is not Alan Cumming in the bottom right-hand corner. But I think Kathleen's preteen precursor to her lipstick-wearing Alan crush may have in fact been Pee Wee Herman. That is not an insult. My kids have recently been getting into Pee Wee Herman, so I've been watching him a lot lately, and he's kind of, I don't know... charismatic? Maybe this post should be about my weird celebrity crushes.

So a couple years after Cabaret, Alan (we'll just go first-name-basis here) was starring in Threepenny Opera on Broadway. It was a total bomb. But we were in New York City at the time, so we had to go see it. Especially since we had just barely by-the-skin-of-our-teeth missed Alan's Emmy-winning run in Cabaret. He had literally just left the role the month before we went to New York and Michael C. Hall was playing the emcee (you know, Dexter?) He was great, but he wasn't Alan. Which, in hindsight, was fortunate, or there probably would have been a panty throwing incident.

Okay, so we go see Threepenny Opera, which was also costarring Cyndi Lauper. It was cool and all, but the real goal was to wait at the stagedoor after the performance to see if we could catch a glimpse of Alan, and maybe even get an autograph or something. Well, since the show wasn't very popular, we were like the first people in line at the stagedoor. "Line" is a gracious word, since it was literally like four people, in addition to me, Donny, our mom, and Kathleen. Kathleen, who was a ball of anxious energy.

It was raining. It was dark. It was 11:45 at night, and we probably stood there for a good forty-five minutes. I think a few people even gave up and left. Kathleen was convinced that patience would persevere – that Alan was probably just doing lines of coke or something in his dressing room and we just had to wait it out.

So finally the stage door opens, a few people kind of trickle out and then all of sudden, there's Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper. Together. Like they were pals. 'Cause, you know, no one likes to do coke alone.

Alan had on a green zip-up American Apparel style track jacket, horn-rimmed glasses and a little mohawk. And Cyndy had the cutest cropped platinum blonde hair. And can I say? Her skin was flawless. She was adorable. And she was like, fifty. She looked thirty.

So Alan sort of shyly, awkwardly turns toward his... uh... six fans waiting at the line. He signs maybe a couple Playbills, and then gets to Kathleen.

This part is a blur. Mostly I remember chatting with Cyndi Lauper while Alan and Kathleen had their exchange of words. Kathleen's first husband, Travis (gasp!) Yes, there was a first husband, was actually the one talking up Cyndi, who thought it was so darling that Kathleen had this paralyzing crush on Alan. I mean, Cyndi was actually leaning on the line barrier with one elbow, her chin on her hand, casual-as-can-be admiring Alan and Kathleen, and sweetly waiting for her friend (who may or may not have been her "coke friend" ) to say his goodbyes to his stalker.

I pulled out my camera and got a great picture of them. As I raised it up to get the pic, I remember Alan saying he loved my bracelet (it was like a big bunch of stretchy fake pearl bracelets), and then that was that.

Oh. Except, then... he hugged Kathleen.

Oblivious to how momentus this was to my sister, Ms. Lauper and Mr. Cumming then smoothly stepped into their car and drove away in the drizzling rain. We then simply started walking down the street toward the subway station. Finally. And Kathleen cried all the way there. She was all red-faced, and shaky... and literally weeping.

Alan, Kathleen and Cyndi (miss-Lauper-if-you're-nasty). Kathleen's brain is literally about to explode. Look how she's all flushed and crazy-eyed.

This Broadway encounter was not our first, but I believe it was one of our last. Just because we never had the motivation to hang around a back alley again, plus our theatre-geek-out phase sort of tapered.

I did get Matthew Broderick to sign my Playbill in the stage door line after The Producers once. I asked him to sign it "Mr. Carrie Bradshaw." He just slowly looked up at me with his big brown mousy eyes (way up, the guy is petite to say the least) with the blankest of blank stares. I think I really pissed him off, but I was the only person he even acknowledged as he made his way scribbling autographs down the line (this was a true line) as frat-guy-types who probably visited the lobby bar one too many times, and were just there because their girlfriends or wives just had to see The Producers as it was all the rage from Manhattan, Kansas to actual Manhattan – kept stupidly hollering "hey Ferris!" from the back of the crowd.

Once we ran into Ben Vereen by sheer accident as he was stepping out of his show at the time, Fosse. We told him we grew up watching All That Jazz, and with a tip of his purple fedora (which matched his floor-lenght purple trenchcoat... and these were his real clothes, not his stage costume) he said to our mom "smart mom" and gave her a charming devilish wink.

Those were cool moments, sure.

But to Kathleen, none could compare to her close encounter with her eternal... crush.

Kind Of A Long Story: Family Trip To The Sideshow. Donny's Trip To The Dentist.

My recent road trip reminded me of how much my family has traveled together. The first time went to New York City, we were totally infatuated. Me, my brother and sister were in our late teens at the time.

For me, that instant thrill came from having grown up watching years and years of TV and movies, practically half of which set in Manhattan. So while I knew my path would realistically never lead me to live there, it still didn't stop me from belting out Carly Simon's "Let The River Run" over the rail of the Statton Island Ferry. Waves crashing. Statue of Liberty in the distance. A complete Working Girl geek-out. Most people sing New York, New York, I choose to honor my favorite eighties Melanie Griffith movie.

For Kathleen, it meant fantasizing about becoming a fashion designer, or a heroin chic model with some little east village 200 Cigarettes loft and a matchbox-size closet full of black clothes. As a grownup she would find that cool is where you make it, home can still equal style, carbs (or possibly cheese) are the best drug, big closets are a life requirement, and all-black clothes are boring.

For Donny... it changed his life.

So six years later, and several New York trips behind us (we would return every year after), Donny moved to the city, with one singular goal: to become a performer at the Coney Island Sideshows by The Seashore.

He became Donny Vomit, The Human Blockhead as well as the master of ceremonies for the sideshow. (The sideshow is a Coney Island institution, second only to Nathan's Famous Hotdogs, the ancient Wonder Wheel, and the bums sleeping under the boardwalk). In addition to his own acts of danger and stupidity, he also became the "talker" of the show. That means Donny introduces all the acts, like Insectivora (the fire-eating, tattoo covered, dredlocked lady, a very sweet chic, actually) or Roc (this green-haired German dude who swings dumbell weights from his pierced earlobes).

Coney Island Sideshows by The Seashore, Brooklyn, NY

Donny became the glue that bonded all these "colorful" acts together and the link to the crowd which included all sorts – from families to hooligans, from hipsters to the occasional celebrity. He lulls the crowd into a sense of comfort with very throwback stuff like "come one, come all, young and old, you're not going to want to miss this folks..." and then freaks them out later by eating a lightbulb. That is, if Insectivora and Roc haven't already sent them running to the exits.

And even though Donny has gone on to bring his, er... talents, to people across the country, either on one of his tours, or on the occasional TV appearance – Coney is where you can still catch him in all his vomit-inducing glory.

The Donny way of lighting a smoke.

(This was before he grew his handlebar mustache. Or lost all his hair. It's stressful, you know?)

Dad art directed this shot of us descending into the subway.

"Thomas Siblings And The City."

Donny's apartment in Brooklyn. Not as cool as it sounds. It's in Sheepshead Bay. Just sayin.

The iconic Coney Island Wonder Wheel.

"Dad Lunch" is still a dad lunch – even on the boardwalk in Coney.

I can already tell you whatever he's eating in this photo, was on his shirt the rest of the day.

It was Donny's first year at the sideshow that my family made the trip to visit him in his element. Me, my mom, my dad and Kathleen – see his shady Brooklyn apartment, take the train out to Coney, watch him "do his thing" for the crowd. Beam with pride and pat him on the back later behind the curtains.

Enter the mousetrap.

It may have been a rat trap. It was pretty big. And it was the third part of his act. Part one being some sort of knife or chainsaw juggling routine (the details are fuzzy now, it's all about that trap). Part two was the human blockhead – his piece-de-resistance, hammering nails into his nose, and/or sticking a power drill into his nose, that sort of thing. Part three? That was when he stuck his tongue... wait for it... into the trap.

Apparently this is one of his least challenging feats. I guess it's all relative if you're comparing that to say, oh, eating a lightbulb. So he should have had it in the bag. And to the clapping, laughing, gasping and gagging observers (and apparently to everyone else in my family except me) it seemed like he had pulled it off just fine. Tongue out. Trap set. Snap. No sweat.

But I could tell something had gone terribly wrong.

On a side note. People often ask "where did your brother learn to do, uh... that?" And really, he just started picking it up at first. Can you say latchkey kids? But soon he became a studious follower of all things sideshow, vaudevillian, Houdini-esque, and freakshow-centric. He began to hone his craft. It's all real, by the way . He's not a magician. There's no slight of hand. He just does this stuff. Carefully.

Like with the mouse trap.

The first time he started his animal trap stunts I was actually with him. It was some middle-of-the-week day, and we were both at my parents house while they were at work. Can you still be a latchkey kid in your twenties? So I'm there because I'm in college, and when you're in college you can do stuff like laundry at your parents in the middle of the afternoon. I think Donny was actually living with them at the time, and was regularly playing Tomb Raider in the middle of the afternoon. Hence my dad encouraging him to just move to New York and become a freak and do something with his life already!

So a package arrived. It was for Donny. And it was animal traps. For raccoons I think.

He had ordered them a week before, and had been reading up on how to stick his hand into their rusty jaws without breaking his fingers. I thought it was so novel that I was there to watch him learn how to do it.

We both said a brief adieu to Lara Croft (okay, so I was also addicted to Tomb Raider at the time, too – keep in mind this was pre-Angelina Jolie by the way so Ms. Croft was still just a cartoon, granted a big-boobed, cartoon) and practiced mastering the animal traps with pencils and carrot sticks. Donny practiced. I just kept running to the fridge to get more carrot sticks.

Once he got the hand-in-the-trap thing down (or more like once his hand hurt too much to try it anymore) I was the one that said "stick your tongue in it!" He didn't try it with the raccoon trap that day, but it soon became one of his staple schticks. With a mouse trap that is.

I still think maybe it's a rat trap, though.

So back to the sideshow. The mouse-trap-maybe-a-rat-trap is dangling from the middle of Donny's extended tongue. He's egging the crowd on with his give-me-some-applause hand swoops, and everyone is cheering. He pries off the trap. Throws it to the ground. Says some joke like "now that we're speaking in tongues..." (that's not really the joke, but you get the drift) and like clockwork starts segueing into the next act, which involves assisting a scantily clad girl into a coffin-like garish red box painted with octopus tentacles and then inserting 60 blades into it.

So Donny's talking up the crowd, their attention now fixed on how this girl can still be in one piece inside this box, the mouse-slash-rat trap now being last minute's forgotten news. The trap, or should I say the unseen results of the trap trick had not, however, left Donny's mind. But outwardly he is still going through the motions of inviting the audience to come up on the stage (for a small donation of one dollar, five dollars, sometimes the rare ten dollars) to peek inside the box and see just how that beautiful young lady could still be whole.

This is where my family got up to sneak quietly out of the theatre. See, we had already watched the complete show one time through, gotten the back stage tour, met Donny's coworkers complete with multiple face piercings and pet snakes, and were just staying to watch the first half of the routine again (the sideshow continually rotates on busy boardwalk days) before we had to head back to the city for a more respectable but less dangerous, Broadway show that night. On second thought, our tickets may have been for Jesus Christ Superstar, so there was some hammer and nail action going on there, too – but I'm pretty sure it was fake. Unfortunately for Donny, his was not.

So we're trying to discreetly exit, and Donny (who was acting like we were just regular joe's in the crowd and not his family) shouted out "ladies, gentlemen you are NOT going to want to miss this!" To us. My mom and dad were still kind of confused, thinking he wasn't calling out us. We had already said our goodbyes, were halfway out the blackout curtain and about to step into the lobby, but I knew something was up.

I urged my family into the single-file line behind the other onlookers and up onto the stage. I pulled out my dollar bill to look all nonchalant. Donny kept herding people past the open blade box behind him, and as I approached he barely broke out of character as he ushered me past, still "talking" up the girl. "How does she do it folks? Witness her limb-bending abilities as she contorts and twists her fair body around the unforgiving steel blades." Then I hand him my dollar, he looks directly in my eyes, and says all whispery and urgently in between his grandiose delivery, "I busted my teeth out," then back loudly again, "keep moving folks, keep on moving..."

I was aghast. I just walked straight off the stage. Walked right out the curtains into the lobby. I don't even know where the rest of my family was at that moment. I went directly up to some muscled strong-man guy sitting on a stool out front and said "Donny busted his teeth out." He said "aren't you, like, his sister?"

All of a sudden, Donny comes out in the lobby (as Insectivora's sexy fire-breathing act would take up at least the next five minutes of the show). He's playing it up all cool in front of the few members of the sideshow staff who are milling around the lobby (the strong-man had vanished to get Dick, the propietor of the whole get-up).

Then, all cool as a cucumber, Donny yanks our family into a side hallway away from everyone else. And then he's not Donny Vomit anymore, he's our Donny. And he's scared. He's all shaky and you can tell he might, you know, cry any minute. He opens his mouth and shows us the gaping black hole where his two front teeth used to be.

And instantly he's just my little brother again. And I am completely horrified.

Mostly because the first thought that flies into my head was, "Donny always had such nice front teeth." Whereas I always had one of those gaps front and center that are cool when you're Madonna, but incredibly embarrassing if you are some lame eleven year old kid.

Donny was mostly wigged out because – well, you know how everything seems completely exaggerated when you're feeling it with your tongue? I know that sounds dirty, but for instance, you have a cut in your mouth or a piece of food in your teeth and it just feels huge. Well, to Donny it felt like the whole front of his upper choppers was just gone.

But what it really looked like was just two jagged, broken, pathetic little stumps where his two front teeth used to be. Apparently the trap (which mind you, is one of the easiest things he does) was just a little too high on his tongue. So when it snapped... bam! So long pearly whites.

Our dad, who usually has a spazzy melt-down if, oh I don't know, he has to make a left turn at a stop light or if he can't find his reading glasses... was totally calm and told Donny it was going to be fine. My mom, too. It was like Donny was eight years old and had just scraped the skin off his knees skateboarding – and it was just no big deal.

Kathleen and I, on the other hand, were freaked.

Freaked. The F. Out.

Plus, I really didn't want Donny to cry in front of his peers. You know, the other freaks.

Right then, Dick, the sideshow owner swooped in. He completely took charge in the most calm fashion. Shout-out to the grownups I guess. While Kathleen and I, all saucer-eyed, were completely useless. So Dick whipped out this business card (what? freak-show owners have business cards, too) with a number written on the back in blue ball-point pen.

He said, "Donny, take this... this guy'll fix you up."

You know how mobsters have these mob-doctors that stitch up their bullet wounds on the down-low in some sweaty back room on a card table or whatever? Well, apparently there's a sideshow – dentist.

Dad took the train to Queens with Donny the very next day to this dentist. The good doctor capped Donny's teeth with very nice veneers that afternoon. For free. Which, is good, because, um... yeah, human blockheads don't exactly have health insurance, so forget dental.

People always ask if Donny ever gets hurt. I mean, it would seem to come with the territory. And he has gotten some bumps and scrapes along the way, sure. Actually, the worst he ever got injured was sleepwalking straight into his bed of (rusty) nails that were propped up against his bedroom wall. (He does a bed-of-nails routine, too, of course). Scraped up his ribs something awful. But the teeth trumped that one.

Since then Donny's learned that it's the easy stuff you have to watch out for. That's when you're not paying attention and make a mistake. Stands to reason if you're swallowing a sword, let's say, you're going to be concentrating.

So that was our family's first trip to the sideshow. Guess we were bad luck. But... at least it made for one bad-ass story.