Girl

   There's a ghost living in my house.

   Hi, there. It's been a while, I know, but it was a long year of coming to terms with my finite self, which sounds super deep and mature, but is really just code for stayed-alive-because-I-hadn't-time-to-die. My doctors disagreed about how best to kill me. My careers imploded in a spectacularly pathetic manner. The second grader brought home enormous packets of volunteering opportunities because his elementary school is home to the most militant PTA I've ever had the misfortune to meet. The preschooler attended the local Catholic preschool, where she appalled everyone with her macabre interests and led me into accidental heresy by gifting me a handmade rosary which I mistook for a necklace, and then all the Catholic mommies stared aghast as I struggled to free my head from the rosary and I stammered, "Ha - ha - .... protestant problems...." and no one laughed (except the protestant teacher).
   And then our landlord was all, "Hey - I wanna move back into my house - can you leave?" and then we found a house, and then it fell through because HELLO, asbestos check? - and then the house we managed to find last minute was torn apart by squatters and I had to scrub out the smoker smell and patch the holes in the walls and tape the broken windows and anyway --

    I was just trying to say, blog readers, that I  have missed you. And I owe you a ton of back stories.

    But the most pressing issue at the moment is GIRL.
    I need to explain as quickly as possible, because one never knows when that creepy violin music will begin and I'll be out of time ---

   As I mentioned above, the new house is  quite a fixer-upper, and since we are renting yet again, several issues must wait upon the landlord. The guest room has two enormous holes in the wall and is painted two shades of brown, so has been dubbed the Snickers Turd Suite. The upstairs drains are confused about where water is supposed to go (down - it goes down), and the light over the shower inexplicably turns on and off; I mean, middle of the night dear HEAVENLY-FATHER-DID-ALL-THE-LIGHTS-JUST-TURN-ON-BY-THEMSELVES?! Or, when one is halfway through shaving a leg (like, super gracefully), the lights suddenly turn off, and there's a very Hitchcok-ian moment where I rip the curtain asunder (while weilding a three-bladed Gillete) and scream, "WHO GOES THERE?"

   It doesn't matter if the switch is on or off or halfway - it simply has no control over the light.

   I mentioned this to Beloved Friend. Friend said, "Oh, you have an electrical problem."
   "Have you met me?"
    She immediately amended, "You're right. I was forgetting. You have a dark demonic force living in your bathroom."
 
    Reader, she was right.



    Since moving into the Yellow Castle-Tree-House, our five year old daughter has found a new friend. Her name is Girl. Girl is three, or four, or five - she has many birthdays. Girl likes particular foods, and despises other foods - and I know what you're thinking, but Girl has completely dissimilar tastes from our Princess Annie (her contract dictates that I use her correct title).  She likes random colors, while Annie only like red. She has moods, and takes naps, and almost never comes with us on car rides.
   Annie will inform me, "Girl says I should do this," or "Don't do that, Mommy. Girl doesn't like that." And while I like to chuckle and gently remind my daughter that we shouldn't do what the Voices tell us to do, there's always a moment of horrified silence. It wouldn't be so creepy if she would only grant this mysterious friend a name, but Girl is apparently very reticent about monikers.
    She is Girl.
 
    Creepy, right?

    It gets better.

    My almost-eight-year-old son, who is Very Responsible and a Medium-Sized Man now (not to be confused with the endearment "Little Man", which is not appropriate for 7 year olds), came to me this evening for his nightly hug and kiss before bed. He overheard me explaining the mysterious Girl to our visiting Grandma.

 
 "Girl," I muttered, "is Annie's creepiest friend to date. I didn't mind the Baby Brother she carried around, or the Dragon with no mercy. But this Girl is weird."
   "Hey!" Jack cried. "You don't need to worry about Girl. We were talking about her yesterday."




   "Oh... yeah?"
 
   "Yeah! We were playing, and I told her to go away and play with Girl, and Annie said, "GIRL IS DEAD."

   *silence*

    "That doesn't make me feel better, buddy."

    "Oh. Okay. Goodnight!"

     Right. Like I'm going to be able to go to sleep now. Or ever.




*if I should die under mysterious circumstances, do not enter the Master Bathroom. It's because of Girl, not because it's a total mess. Mostly.*