For 40 plus years I have had this very bizarre memory of watching a movie on tv as a child that was way too grown up for that time period and _especially_ for a child. 

Though I don’t like to remember this, I think my family and I were staying in Tennessee in the late 70s, definitely no later than 1978. 

Onscreen,two women were at lunch and one of them was digging her fingers into her right hand so hard her palm bled bright red. The woman doing this had honey-colored hair and was dressed all in red, also bright.

The oddest thing is I associate a strong perfume with that memory, but no one in the room would have been wearing it😳

…So maybe this is a real memory?

Because I’m convinced it was an ABC TV Movie of the Week, I’ve been reading this to jog my memory. It’s very weird yet also strangely compelling.

I think I now have probably a dozen Alfred Hitchcock presents anthologies on my iBooks app. 

When I was a kid I read them and they scared the crap out of me. Now reading them I feel like they're pretty tame. 

But some of them are actually quite good at least the stories not the whole collection… More on this later.

Postscript: there will be mistakes in here probably because I'm talking into my journal not writing. I'm sure this is a novelty and then I'll go back to typing soon…

I’m keeping exactly what comes from the mic snd I know I will be itching to correct mistakes, not leave them as they are…

Good evening! I'm sitting here, using an audio form of journaling, with my favorite purr-son. Henry is the best kitty cat in the whole world. I love him so so so so so so much.

These are random thoughts I'll probably get rid of them heater not heater later. That's the problem with this kind of stuff, you’re talking into a mic and it hears and transcribes things you didn't really say. 

But I'm still gonna try anyway I have very random thoughts lately random thoughts but random words to that's a double 0 what's wrong Henry OK sweetie pie 

🤣

Ok, maybe this isn’t the best way to record your thoughts, but I’ll get the hang out of it.

I have a slew of “new to me” shows I want to watch and all I have been viewing the past few nights (besides the wonderful and, oftentimes, silly Grace and Frankie) is Monk, my ultimate comfort, sometimes even healing, tv show.

Monk is such a special show for me because of the character himself (so poignantly played by Tony Shalhoub). Not everyone, both within the show and with viewers, has patience with him. Monk can be quite trying at times with his obsessions and often serious manner. 

Even so, his underlying feelings of loneliness and of being at odds with the world is as touching and painful as his undying love for his wife, whose loss he’s never quite accepted.

The show isn’t perfect (the cast could be more diverse and there is a definite male-centric heft to “Monk”) but its routine and overall coziness still keeps me on repeat somehow.

If you are a “Monk” fan, too, I highly recommend the novels based on the show, original mysteries apart from any of the program plots…

I see her and my heart still skips a beat (whenever I see her, really) after all these years…how silly and wrong and out of line am I? 

As ridiculous as this may sound, I am so very sad about it, liking her so much, with a weird warmth and deep caring that makes no sense whatsoever. 

Not only because she and I aren’t friends, but also because (horribly I admit to you, diary) I usually don’t “do” deep caring. I am almost always more comfortable around animals than humans.

I feel like I’m trying to solve a decades old mystery of what and who I am, when it comes to love and emotions and romance (but not sex)…

I shouldn’t care about labels, but I still want to know if I’m alone, living emotionally snd romantically in this weird, indefinable space between asexual and lesbian…or if other women feel like I do.

Suddenly I can’t shake that if I can “solve” this I might solve 40 years of wondering why I feel the way I do about women versus men..

…If that makes sense 

(To Be Continued)