Yesterday Franny recited a poem about mashed potatoes in front of her class. The children were given a couple of weeks to memorize their poems, which Franny did right away, and then sort of forgot about it for a week or so, then refreshed before she went in. Strudel listened attentively and was a good audience during her sister’s practice sessions, and when Franny returned home triumphantly and announced that everything had gone splendidly, Strudel jumped in and said the poem front to back without batting an eye. Strudel has a knack for memorizing things casually as Franny grapples with learning them, then spewing them out at inopportune moments.

“YES YES you have it,” snapped Franny, cutting Strudel in the middle of the final verse of the poem.

Strudel also finds other little fissures to thrust her tiny irritation tentacles into. Franny has low moments while doing math at times. Math facts sort of slide around and get mixed up. There is a particular deer in the headlights stare that Franny gets when what she knows leaves her and her mind is a blank.

I used to get the same look on my face. I was the last child to complete the timed tests that we had to take OVER and OVER and OVER until we passed. And by last, I mean weeks after all the other children had finished. My face burned with shame every afternoon as the teacher quietly timed me while everyone else did their silent reading.

Finally, it clicked one day. I had memorized the answers in their correct order. I did not even need to look at the problems. I had learned something, but probably not what I was supposed to have learned. I am fond of saying I did not really learn how to do math until I was 27. True facts.

Franny often lays her head down on her paper and taps her pencil while she takes a break from her math homework.

“A number times zero is always ZERO,” Strudel will say cheerfully into the anguished, frustrated silence. Franny sighs.

Strudel is deviling everyone at the moment. She is a huge fan of YOU ALWAYS and YOU NEVER and she will shiv a bitch if we cut her apples the wrong way.

I tried addressing the behavior and providing negative consequences, and the kid can hang on. I think her middle name should be “Tenacity,” which would be a totally awesome Pilgrim virtue name, don’t you think? I’d take Tenacity over Prudence any day.

One morning this week I woke up and it came to me–the thing I had not tried. It was time for a good old fashioned ignoring. Now when she flips her shit she is completely dead to the tribe. If she has anything remotely constructive to say regarding how she feels I acknowledge her, but otherwise she is shunned. No reaction, no need to continue the performance.

And I feel compelled to tell you the reason this letter is so utterly dull is because I really have nothing to tell you of any real importance. I was sick for a week and a half which is long for me. I suppose I could tell you that SeaFed tried to claim Franny on his taxes, despite not paying a dime in child support or for any of her insurance or upkeep beyond feeding her and clothing her on her brief visits to his far-away house. How we laughed. I am looking into buying a new desktop. I am going to Los Campisinos next week. Work is eating me LESS, which means my powers of evil are growing and returning. Soon orcs will be spewing out of my ears again and I will drive hobbits before me and hear the lamentations of their women &etc.

Hope you are well and xoxoxo,

SJ