Most people put off my mother's erratic behavior to the fact that she was a writer, as if that just explained everything. To me that was just an excuse. I mean, brain surgeons can be crazy too, but no one says that's all right. Fortunately for my mother, I am alone in this opinion.

call it crazy, or just chicken salad. But within reason, or without it i was in it too.

Are you crazy? Flirting with Eli Stock in front of Belissa Norwood, in Belissa Norwood’s house, while eating Belissa Norwood’s cupcakes?

Everyone laughed, and just like that, the conversation shifted, jumping to another topic. It was fast and furious, the talking, the emotions, the back-and-forth and forth-and-back. I realized that if I tried to focus on it too much, I got overwhelmed. So I just decided to relax into it, bumpy and crazy as it might be, and try for once to just go along for the ride.