WAY O.T. -- That *is* how I meant it...

At my house, for years it was, "Are you transmitting or receiving?"  Recently it's been, "You must be transmitting again."

This kind of stuff:

My not-so-favorite customer who drove me insane "chewing the fat" for two hours hadn't been there for weeks and weeks, then he would suddenly be in my head and I knew he was coming that day.  Like an early-warning system.  It was right every time.

I'm sitting and sewing and suddenly start singing at the top of my lungs (never a good thing for the neighbors), "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."  Who in the hell would think of a song like that?  My mother walks in, turns on the TV, and it's an old (old) Lawrence Welk and the guy is singing "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."

Pretty typical of most people, I think.

For the past couple of years, though, the "transmitting" is getting a little weird:

I'm sitting with somebody for five minutes compulsively going over and over something I want to say to make sure it comes out right -- and they say it instead.

I've been going over and over an original idea (totally unrelated to any conversations we've been having, any upcoming events, etc.), and somebody in my family suddenly comes up with the same thing.

Or we're sitting at the table, I open my mouth to speak, and almost exactly what I was going to say comes out of somebody else's mouth.  It's so weird, sometimes I think I'm not transmitting at all but I'm really a split personality and the "me" I'm not aware of is a ventriloquist.

It's very, very weird.

I'm undecided about "life after death" (although I really want to believe it).

In 1976, a couple of weeks after my husband died, we were sitting around my in-laws' kitchen table talking about that very subject, and I blubbered, "I just wish Lloyd would do something so we could be sure," and the lamp above the table started swinging.

A couple of years later I was going through a pretty bad "delayed reaction" and I was in the shower bawling and saying, "PLEASE do something to show me you're okay," and the phone rang.  I clambered out so I could pick it up, and it was "empty."  I say "empty" because it was not a dead line, but it wasn't an open line either.  It was different, and I can't explain it.  I didn't think anything about it (except to cuss about being soapy and freezing and having a wet carpet).  I got right back into the shower and back to my misery ("PLEASE do something..."), and it rang again.  I still didn't think anything about it (except I was *really* pissed by then), and I got out and it was the same "empty" line.

I don't know.

My life is full of that kind of stuff.  It's never been about anything terrible, thank God, but I have gotten off the freeway once and off a mountain road another time because of a very powerful "feeling" -- and when nothing happened, I ended up feeling like an ass (but of course I have no idea if something might have happened if I'd stayed put).

Don't you think everyone has those experiences and maybe they don't notice or pay any attention to it?

Luv,