Haley: Part Poet, Part Muppet. She’s a Moet. Or Poppet.

She wasn’t hiding in the canebrakes when the imagination was passed out. Brill writer, excellent student (now that she’s in college), naturally gifted singer, actress and dancer, she has an uncanny instinct for physical humor. Watching her turn a song from the radio into a comedy act that renders me completely helpless with laughter, I swear I must have had a drunken liaison with Kermit the Frog some forgotten night about 28 years ago.

Haley’s the type of person who walks into my office, declaiming intensely, “Dying is an art; I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell . . .” or “Ohhhh, Baudelaire, you’ve made worm’s meat of me!” or a quote from Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies while all around her people fall silent and I clear my throat and ask how her day has been.

Life is rarely serene around Haley; she was the one who always rushed in and dropped a large-scale fission device on me while I was asleep, falling asleep, or hoping to start falling asleep. She might just as well have kicked the door in and sprayed me with a firehose because from that point on I was permanently awake.

Knock knock knock OPEN
“Something happened to the car. Do you want to hear about it now or in the morning?”

Knock knock knockknockknockknock OPEN
“Sam got married!” (Sam is her sister.)

Knock knock knock knockety knock OPEN
“When people throw up blood, is it bright red?”

I worked hard with her on understanding the principle that if there’s nothing I can do about a situation at 11 o’clock at night, for God’s sake at least let me deal with it in the morning, with a decent night’s sleep behind me. She did improve but I guess she didn’t think this covered breath fresheners, because not long after one of these discussions she came to my bedroom door, knocked briefly, and entered.

I was very well wound-down, in fact could see the Dreamland Express rounding the corner.

“Here, try this!” She held out a small semi-transparent plastic square that looked like an aqua tab of clear adhesive tape.

“I don’t want it. I’m going to sleep,” I mumbled, trying not to become fully conscious.

“Please, trust me!” so to get rid of her I stuck out my tongue and when I was a little girl going to Mass, I used to imagine what might happen if I were in a state of mortal sin but took Communion anyway, and now it was happening to me. A 50 kiloton explosion on every nerve on my tongue and the inside of my mouth. It took me about an hour to find all the pieces of my brain and fall asleep, but boy was my breath fresh just in case Patrick Stewart came in through the window and it wasn’t a dream after all.