Excellent question. I mean I am a girl and should therefore (according to Mom) be attracted to lace and tea and, well you get the idea. Not me.

As far back as I can remember I’ve been drawn to the paranormal. Maybe I have one of those Abby Normal brains. Saturday afternoons was when the science fiction movies were shown – aliens, monsters, vampires, etc. and I was there, mesmerized. I never saw them as horror, they were exploring the unknown. Rod Serling, I love you.

I was a young teenager when Dark Shadows came on. A daily paranormal show! I missed an episode only when there was no other possible recourse. There were no VCRs back then. I was taking shorthand in school and was supposed to practice every day. I literally took down the dialogue of the show, getting every word and still have them in a box in the attic. No I wasn’t obsessed. (And it’s still the only time I’ve actually used Gregg shorthand outside of a classroom).

Bewitched was my kind of show and yes, I did name my daughter Samantha – not for my father-in-law, Samuel, but for the witch who could do all kinds of things long before Harry Potter was born, and was also one of the most beautiful women on TV.

I had such high hopes for the Batman show when it began airing, but they wimped out and made it campy. That was horror to me and I was stunned at the sacrilege. I’ve never really forgiven them or thought much of Batman since, though I understand they have redeemed the franchise.

Years later along comes The X-Files and then Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Talk about heaven on earth for us weirdos. The little redhead and the little blonde could really kick ass and look after themselves and all the big boys around them. (And who wouldn’t want a little David Duchovny to look after).

Now this kind of show is everywhere – Supernatural, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Warehouse 13 and I’m in hog heaven. I’m sure the pendulum will swing away again someday, but I’ve got the DVDs . . .

Okay, everyone who knows me, stop sniggering now. They all know I haven’t done housework in decades – at least not willingly. Not that I was ever very good at it. It helps to marry the perfect man. And as for cooking – when my children bring their children to my home someday for their favorite childhood meal, little Happy Meal boxes will circle the table. I know it. I have a lovely kitchen because it came with the house.

But it’s because I have no passion for it.

It all just has to be done again tomorrow or next weekend. I get rid of the dust but it just comes back. The clean clothes get dirty again and carpet needs vacuuming. I’ll cook whatever you want (I actually can cook – but don’t ask me to decide what to make), but the meal will be over and the next one is coming. The dishes still have to be washed.

But writing . . . I’m creating something that will last. I can read it over and over again. I can write it and put in some little thing that bring a fictional person or place to life. And others will read it and maybe they’ll remember a line or a character and then it’s real and part of their lives forever too. What I write can put a picture in someone’s head and they can follow me. Maybe their picture isn’t exactly like mine, but that’s okay, they’re still seeing something I created in their own way.

I can still remember reading about Trixie Belden’s little house down the road from Honey’s mansion and the fun they had with Jim and Trixie’s brothers. No one better try to tell me that Hogwarts isn’t real or there are no Ents. Now I can be part of the magic.

Now that makes me passionate.

This assignment wasn’t easy for me – I haven’t been on a date in 30+ years. But after pondering it of course one came up. There’s always one.

I was in college and my roommates and I were invited to a party with blind dates at a military college.  No names here, but think about it. Doesn’t that conjure up the picture of those luscious cadets in uniform, looking all hunky?  Believe me, those guys are models hired for the brochure. No one from the same universe as those hunks was there. I’m 5′ 7″, on the tall side for a girl (at least back then) but my date came up to my boobs, which were much perkier prior to nursing two kids.

— Aside to say that later he and I became good friends. He was fun to talk to and hang out with, just not for dancing, and he had no control over this party —

Anyway, the legal drinking age back then was 18 because my generation had reared up on its hind legs and said, if we can’t vote or drink, you can’t draft us! We still have the vote but some time without my notice the drinking age drifted back up. So there was drinking, a lot of drinking. I was, as usual, the designated driver. I was born with the job and it’s not really that bad. I could act as stupid as everyone else, but I could remember it the next morning and didn’t have a headache.

The plan for the evening apparently was to get completely bombed and ‘get some.’ Note for any guy reading this – that is definitely the wrong order of activity because some things don’t work at peak performance when one is bombed.  But I digress and it has nothing to do with this particular memory.

I have no idea if such things as fire codes existed at that time, but we had to have broken it by at least a couple hundred people. I do remember standing in line at the women’s room for quite some time only to discover when I got inside that due to overcrowding, girls were also peeing in the sinks. Can you tell what a great time I was having?? After three or four hours of ear shattering music, no place to sit and the inability to hold a conversation, I’d had enough. After locating my roommates—who couldn’t hear me and I did hate to shout “Let’s get the hell out of here!” at a volume that could be heard—I leaned over and took the cigarette out of one of the girls’ hands and took a puff. That got their attention (and still remains the only puff I’ve ever had on a legal cigarette – but that’s another story) and we headed out, dragging our drunken cadets behind us. Thanks to us, they were some of the very few cadets who weren’t walking squares as punishment the next week. I do wonder if they remember they’d had dates . . .

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Oh yes. She saw him surrounded by women. He would see her. She’d calculated everything carefully and he would not be able to ignore her now.

Would he recognize her? She didn’t look the same, she didn’t feel the same. Yes, it was risky. But everything about her had changed. She was confident now, on her own financially and emotionally. She’d heard rumors about him, but they were only rumors. Probably started by jealous ex-girlfriends. Women who couldn’t handle him.

He turned slightly and she saw his profile. Even her confidence dipped a little. He looked too good to be true. No, he needed someone like her in his life now that he was going places. She had turned herself into this woman in order to live that role. And live it she would.

She straightened her spine, lifted her chin and moved in his direction. He turned and she glanced in his direction quirking an eyebrow. Then glided past him toward the bar. She knew this man was not used to being ignored and felt him stir as she continued on without a backward glance.

She was not surprised when she reached the bar to hear his voice overriding her own, ordering a glass of champagne for each of them. With long elegant fingers, he extended the second glass to her. “Adrian Montgomery.” He bowed slightly and she took the glass. “And you are?”

She looked him up and down as though sizing him up. “Victoria Grant.”

*****

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