The Beginning

The best place to start is the beginning:

I was born in the 70's - May - and was, by my father's accounts, the ugliest baby he'd ever seen.  I am not sure how many babies he'd seen at that point, but it was by no stretch a compliment.  My mother was overdue, apparently I was supposed to arrive in April, but I held on.  Despite being so late, I was not a big baby - 8 lbs or so.  My parents were both chain smokers (it was the 70's and it was the non-smoker who got odd looks) so the fact that I was that big astounds me.  Anyway, my father was pacing in the waiting room (fathers did that back then) awaiting his first child - something my sister and I still debate - while my mother and my godmother Stella (a nurse and whom I adore) were waiting me out, smoking in the delivery room to relax.  Yes, you read that right, I can't make this shit up.  Jehovah. 

Eventually I showed up but was:  a) purple, b) dry and shriveled up like I'd been in an extra long, hot bath, and c) not breathing.  So the doctor did what he had to do and away I went.  Dad claims to this day that he wanted to return me because I was in such rough shape. 

So that's how I came to be.  Ugly, shriveled, in a puff of Player's cigarette smoke with an IV in my head.  Good times.