untitled to be continued

It could have been The Electric Company that did it. I mean it certainly began there. When I was a wee one my mom allowed a few television viewing experiences for me that remain with me to this day. There was coming down from Canada “Mr. Dress Up” who had Lady Elaine and I was sure that she was named after my mother. There was the Magic Garden with the awesome Mona Lisa hair twins who swung on swings, played guitar (see ya! see ya! hope you have a good good morning to ya!) and got corny jokes from the chuckle patch. Of course, there was Sesame Street, which is where I began my long term life goal love affair with brown stone outer borough living. And then there was the ultimate show of shows, The Electric Company. If I didn’t hear the opening, my mother would do her best Rita Moreno impersonation out the back door, up the stairs, whatever, she knew I had to see it. So I’m pretty sure that’s where the narrations started.

See, like ever since I can remember, I have this running narration in my head of my life, like a voice over, and ever since ever it’s been Morgan Freeman. “Alexis had no idea the impact that decision by the pool would make on her life for years to come.” It sounds really poignant when you imagine Morgan Freeman saying it while looking at an image of me all like awkward and 12 choosing the bad boy over the nice boy with the popsicle. It has continued my entire life thus far. I remember hearing him when I hiked Mt. Washington. He was totally there during the marathon when Lars started keeping pace with me. He was on a rampage during the time I decided to go back to school. And he was of course the first words I heard when I first started to fall in love. So like in this weird way I wanted Morgan Freeman to be my dad and Florida from Good Times to be my mom. She had that awesomely big bosom I could cry myself to sleep in. And I wanted Maria from Sesame Street to be my sister.

Mostly I just wanted a sister. Like any sister, but Maria would have been the total gold medal of sisters. So when she came to see a staged reading I was in like 3 years ago and came up after and told me she liked my work I of course burst into tears. Because I am very suave around childhood idols.