Chapter Three: The Uniquely Dis-Figured Drawing.

Besides Miss Marge, there were several other people there. A group of older girls (Sheryl, Joy, Joyce, Bridget), and two pastors (Chris who was married to Sheryl, and I can't seem to recall the other because I rarely saw him). Chris and Sheryl had a baby named Ian later in the year. I wonder how they are doing today.

One day, they had all assigned the kids to lay on giant posters and trace each other. We had to draw our faces, clothes, and hair on to make "ourselves on paper" basically. Every poster I had come across had a perfectly healthy straight legged child on it. Mine was the only one with a bent knee because I didn't have a choice. It really wouldn't go anywhere. I was somewhat upset, but it didn't bother me a whole lot. I was just more confused than anything. Why was my leg bent and not any of theirs? That was the main question.

The class was always assigned to sit on the floor in the classroom either in a straight line across the room, or in a circle around the room. All but myself were always commanded to stay sitting Indian style, or "like a pretzel" as they called it. I didn't have to because it was impossible for me of course, for the right knee was bent, but not all the way.

I didn't socialize with anyone there really. I would talk to Brianna every once is a while. She was cute. She had really long white hair down to her tush that she wore in a braid everyday, and on occasion it would be in high pigtails which made her look like a puppy.

I was always the quiet confused one. I was always the observer. I never really followed what people were doing. It's not that I wasn't capable, I just didn't have the urge to be too social. I never understood what socializing was all about. I liked to just watch people do so. Being social seemed as if it would be too exhausting to me. I was already fatigued and confused from the arthritis. (I now understand what the term "introversion" means. I have always been the perfect example of an introverted being.)

Instead of playing with friends, I layed around reading books. My favourite series was "Busy Town of Richard Scary". I mean, how awesome is a worm piloting an apple helicopter around, and a monkey driving a stereotypical banana car, or some other weirdo driving around in a pickle car? Pretty awesome I must admit.

I have always had such a vivid imagination. I didn't spend time with other kids because I was too sick. Therefore, I sat around the house either reading, playing with the animals, and making up stories. I even used to make pictures with my food. I thank my godmother Lauren who we all call Bubba for introducing me to this act of "food art". We used to sit at the coffee table in my grandma's living room making pictures with veggies and mashed taters. There were these plates with cartoon kids on them that my mom made when she was young that we used to make boobs on with the food. Weren't we mature?

Bubba also introduced me to a very special condiment called ketchup. We would put it on our mac and cheese and egg noodles. Yummy stuff. Yeah it sounds gross, but so does tofu, and tofu is amazing. You don't know until you try. It's called being open minded. That's what life is about.