On Life as a Sarcastic Fringehead

As usual, my friend Flood was right. I do need working titles for my fragments. It might be confusing, now that I have more than one going on at the same time, to refer to the fragments as this fragment and that other fragment. Until she rescues me by comment and suggestion, in this post is "a new fragment that has nothing to do with the Stillwater/Parker fragment". I'll work on it more later.

The weirdest dreams I’ve been having lately. When I’m in the dreams, I know I’m in a dream and, in the dream, I’m okay with that. Lots of boxes. Fabric stretched over box-shaped frames. I’m standing in the middle of them, looking around. People are coming in and people are going out. Nobody is really noticing me and this is not a concern of mine, being noticed.

I wake up from one of these dreams and walk to the refrigerator in my pajamas. Cotton pajamas. I have to buy those for myself. When I get pajamas as gifts, they are the silky polyester blend pajamas and I’m not into those for sleeping. Cotton pajama pants and a little t-shirt, those are for sleeping. I’m at the refrigerator and I pour a glass of orange juice. Leaning my head against the cool metal, I’m in the moment relieved.

My father named me Ali after the great fighting Ali, and he used to say I was just as pretty and just as strong. When strangers call me Alley at the sight of my name on paper, a seismic shift in tone occurs when I correct them to Ah-LEE. It’s a fight in perception, and I am always ready for that. When I was young, people were most curious at the discovery of a redheaded white girl named for a converted Cassius Clay. Today, the perception is all about religion, and no one gives a second thought about to boxing.