Light and Momentary

New Heights in Packrattery

Joe is a packrat. Don't throw away that crumpled piece of paper with catsup smudges -- it is a Precious Memento. Artwork must be saved or there are tears. In general I try to accommodate him (or be very surreptitious in my culling -- I've been burned before when I tossed something into a white trash bag and it showed through), but sometimes a person has to draw the line.

Last night he got a sandwich bag and announced that henceforth he was going to save all his toenail clippings in it. (No, really, I'm not making it up.) Later on I was tucking him in and he said, "Wait! I need my bag!" I assured him that there was really no need to sleep with his toenail clippings, that they would be fine without him overnight.

He said, "No, you don't understand. I just pulled off a little piece of toenail and I'm afraid I'll lose it forever if I don't put it in the bag right now."

And wouldn't that be a tragedy?

Is that a threat?

I wrote a letter to my HMO. I said, "You should cover my CNM's services. It will save you a ton of money. Outcomes for low-risk out-of-hospital birth are just as good for babies and much better for mothers. Also: much much cheaper for you! Save money! Support great (and did I mention cost-effective?) care for women! Cover my homebirth!"

They said no. I figured they would say no, but I also figured it was worth a try. One sentence in their reply, though, gives me pause. It says that if I pay privately for her services, they will refuse to cover any resulting complications.

Now maybe that's just boilerplate for out-of-network denials, aimed at keeping in-network doctors from having to pick up the pieces after out-of-network poor outcomes. If I were to pay for a nose job that went wrong, say, they wouldn't want to get stuck with the cost of follow-up care. But I've been wondering all afternoon -- are they threatening to refuse to pay for a transfer to hospital care if that's needed? If I hemorrhage and need monitoring afterward, are they going to attempt to stick me with the bill? If the baby needs help, are they going to deny the claim?

The doctor who wrote the letter quoted the ACOG statement. (For you non-earthy-birthy folks, the ACOG statement said essentially, "We don't like homebirth, evidence be damned." They cited no literature, because there is no literature for them to cite -- not a single study supports their contention that planned attended homebirth is more dangerous for low-risk mothers or their singleton full-term vertex babies.) But the C-section rate in my town exceeds 40% -- wouldn't you think the insurers would be on a mission to cut costs while improving satisfaction? Isn't it silly for them to turn me down when I hand them just such an alternative?

Problems and Solutions

I am doing my best to raise children who solve their own problems. Starting in toddlerhood my children hear the word "resourceful" used frequently as a compliment and an exhortation. My children know that we will help them to resolve their conflicts if necessary, but that the expected first step is to ask for what they need from the other party. This is not to say that I delight in uncomfortable conversations myself, or that I am the queen of conflict resolution -- only that I believe it is a crucial life skill, one worth a few awkward feelings.

I have been following the comments on this post with dread and disbelief. In a nutshell: newly divorced dad with weekend custody moves from suburbs to rural area and leaves his kids inadequately supervised. The predominant response from commenters: call CPS.

Now I accept that there are limits to the solve-your-own-problems mentality. When I observe that the utility pole in my yard looks like it would fall over if I sneezed on it, I'm calling the power company to come check it out --  not heading out there with a baseball bat to conduct experiments on how much force it can withstand. I want the people with utility pole experience to offer me an informed judgment about safety in that situation.

But if you have a difference of opinion with a neighbor, should your first step really be to call a lawyer? If the friendly college kids across the street are blasting their music at bedtime, can't you ring their doorbell and say pleasantly, "Hey, my kids are trying to get to sleep," before you call the police? And if you think a neighbor is missing the boat with his or her kids, can't you say, "I was worried when I saw..." instead of jumping right to CPS involvement?

I understand that there are situations you don't want to mess around with. I'm not going to walk into a fraternity house full of drunken 20-year-olds to ask them to turn it down. There are certainly parents whom I would not cross. But in general, if the issue is good intentions coupled with bad judgment, I just can't see involving the state as a first step.

I have been slowly drafting that final post on our CPS case -- slowly because I find it painful. I have seldom felt as vulnerable as the day I invited the caseworker into my home and said, "This is the kind of mother I strive to be," only to have him say, in effect, "Well, I'll have to get back to you about whether that's adequate." I still cannot get my mind around that neighbor's choice to call the police instead of saying, "Let's walk to your house together," or, "Let's call your mom and tell her she should come get you because you're not being safe when you cross the street." And then, as if that wasn't enough, to report me to CPS -- I still can't believe she thought that was a good idea.

If these Redbook commenters are representative, though, she's far from alone. Do people not recognize that calling CPS about questionable parenting isn't like calling the power company about a questionable utility pole? Do they really think it's a harmless choice? CPS caseworkers tend to be underpaid young adults with little parenting experience, confronting some of the most evil things human beings can do. Their mandate is to decide whether parents pose an imminent danger to their children -- not, repeat NOT, to spare you three minutes of awkwardness as you muster the nerve to say to a clueless new neighbor, "You know, we don't usually leave kids alone out here until they're quite a bit older. Some of us find babysitters through the local college/NanniesRUs/etc. -- would you like the number?"

I do agree, of course, that the dad in the story used bad judgment. But parenting judgment develops over time and is shaped by the community a parent is part of. I have learned so much from friends who were willing to say, "Did you ever think about...?" I hate to think of this man's neighbors saying, "Hey, welcome to the neighborhood! We can't be bothered to talk to you, but meet your new CPS caseworker."

Briefly

Erin kindly asked how I am feeling, and the answer is a little confused. I feel relieved, yes, and vindicated, but I also feel sad and vulnerable and intermittently angry. And loved -- I have been a little overwhelmed, in a good way, by friends saying they've got my back. People have said so many generous things about me as a mother since this started that it almost (not quite, but almost) takes away the sting of being investigated for negligence. One in particular, from a good friend's mother, makes me laugh with tears in my eyes: she said to my friend (paraphrasing here), "If they're investigating CJ, you guys [meaning our little circle of mom friends here in town] are all in trouble. You'd better just go down to the CPS office and turn yourself in."

I have one more post in me about the whole thing, and then we never have to talk about it again. Thanks so much, everyone, for your encouragement.

Finally

Determination: unfounded.

Apparently...

..."the middle of next week at the latest" actually means "maybe by the middle of the week after, if I get around to it."

..."by Thursday afternoon" doesn't even mean "by next Tuesday." I'll let you know what it does mean when I find out.

...returning phone calls is not part of the job description of CPS caseworkers in my town.

I wish patience could be supernaturally infused, instead of requiring me to face actual situations that make me impatient. Have I mentioned that I want this to be over?

Can I really pull this off?

To write a dissertation in my field, you come up with an idea that will fill in a previously unmapped corner of the field, or that will add some useful detail to an existing map. You explain why it matters, and what previous cartographers have sketched out (chapter one, introduction). You write about where you'll be surveying and what you're going to measure (chapter two, methods).

Then you meet with a committee that tells you what's missing from your chapters, and what's inadequately supported in your arguments, and what measurement tools you really must employ that you somehow overlooked. When they agree that you can proceed with your study, you can call yourself a doctoral candidate. (Right now I'm just a doctoral student.)

Since I learned I was pregnant, my goal has been to get to candidacy before the baby comes. I just got an email from a developmental pediatrician whom I asked to be on my committee, saying he'd definitely be interested but he'd need to schedule the committee meeting now. He's already booking up in December.

So it's great that he's interested, but I'm wondering -- can I really be ready by the beginning of December? Am I confident enough to say, "Okay, then, let's set a date"? Also, I've been assuming all along that I would be late again, but what if the unexpected happens and baby is early?

I suppose we can set a date for the first week in December, when I won't quite be 38 weeks along. I will just push aside thoughts of the ice storms we've had in early December in recent years. Global warming, right? And you know, I haven't missed a deadline yet in this program, so I suppose it's reasonable to be sanguine about getting two chapters written by mid-November. I hope. Did I just jinx myself?

House of Four Boys Redux

Elwood, God bless him, made the school supply run today and when he came home there was much sorting and divvying and arranging. The process was interrupted by dinner, though, and the unsorted stuff went to a temporary home on the dining room floor. After dinner the three younger boys enacted a sort of Battle of Five Armies with school supplies as the principals. "My tape cannon is blowing up your Kleenex box tank!" shouted one to another, with appropriate sound effects.

This was fine and good for ten minutes or so, but then I began to weary of the sounds of the glue stick M16. "Boys," I interrupted, "I need the artillery to fire more quietly or I'm going to call an armistice." Marty objected. "Mom, you can't have a quiet machine gun." "Fit it with a silencer," quoth I. Elwood rolled his eyes. "You can't put a silencer on a machine gun."

Tell me I am not the only one to see the irony there: you can spray bullets out of a hole punch and lay siege to a city with a box of markers, but it's too implausible to put a silencer on a machine gun? Maybe I should call it the House of Five Boys if my husband is going to side with the mad eraser bombers.

On a more serious note, today we walked down to school to find out the middle boys' class assignments. (And hurray! They both got the teachers I hoped they would!) As we walked, and then again at dinner, we talked about what to do if this neighbor who has caused such hassles for us should bother them as they are walking to or from school. Is she going to view a pretend swordfight, or an argument with raised voices, as further evidence of maternal negligence requiring immediate intervention? I'm not terribly worried about it since the police officer told me he would make it clear to her that she needed to leave my kids alone, but it has been niggling at me. They will pass her house twice a day, unless I tell them to take the route to school that has many times more traffic. I don't think I want to do that.

Tonight I told the kids that they had to remember, always, the greatest commandment. Loving your neighbor means you shouldn't be ugly or deliberately rude or vengeful. But I told them they should be assertive and forceful if she attempted to stop them, that they could shout something like, "NO! Do NOT touch me! I do not need your help to get home safely!" And possibly, "My mom will report it to the police if you touch me!" I think I will also call the principal and give her a bare-bones outline of the situation (probably just "we're concerned about a neighbor who exercised poor judgment in an interaction with Joe"), and ask to be alerted immediately if the boys have a run-in with her on the way to school.

I am still wrestling with the question of expressing forgiveness -- I was intrigued to see the range of possible responses in this comment thread. However that plays out, though, she cannot ever again restrain one of my children without my consent. I have poured a lot of energy into teaching my kids to treat adults courteously and with respect. It feels a little strange to say, "And really, go right ahead: bellow NO and run away if that's what you need to do." Different tools for different situations, I guess. But it's one thing to talk about shouting NO at a hypothetical stranger, and another to say, "You have my explicit permission to shout at this neighbor."

What would you do?

Things that make me happy

1. Baby hiccups. I love them. I'm terrible at figuring out what parts of baby are where. In every pregnancy I read about Leopold's maneuvers and think, "That can't be so hard," and fail utterly to distinguish head from bottom. There could be a squid in there for all I know (a lumpy squid). But hiccups are so distinctive -- I love knowing that a little phrenic nerve is firing, stimulating a little diaphragm to contract.
2. For the first time since 1996, I have no children in diapers. Hurray!
3. My children are planning a music video of the Romans 8 song. Production may be delayed while they find funding for the project. (They hope to buy, among other things, a dummy guitar for me to smash at the end, since I would no sooner smash in my beloved Taylor 410 than I would smash in my own head. Also, there may be a budget line for hair product, because they think I need bigger hair to be in a music video. First time I've ever been told my hair's not big enough.)

No update, but I'm feeling peaceful about the whole thing. The caseworker called Elwood yesterday to say he hoped to have things wrapped up by the end of that day. I decided to assume that "the end of the day on Thursday" in public-employee-speak translated to "next Tuesday" in actual English. We'll see if that's an accurate translation, I guess.

Present Tense

I have spent the past week in a state of wild oscillation. Much of the time I am confident that good sense will prevail, but too often I have been angry, fearful, tearful, impatient. Elwood is completely unruffled by the whole thing. He thinks I need to get a grip.

And maybe I do. After I posted yesterday about the effect this is having on my kids, I thought, "Maybe I'm part of the reason they're upset. Maybe if I weren't so upset about it myself, they wouldn't be as worried." Some of it I can't help, because I have been put together as a sensitive person. But some of it I can.

My best pal in town lives right around the corner. I had been pining to talk to her about this CPS mess but she was out of town for a week. Yesterday I went to her house for a cup of tea and a long talk, and came home feeling fortified. I pulled out my guitar and a couple of Bibles and started singing the end of Romans 8. I kept singing while I was cooking dinner and cutting the kids' hair afterward. There's something soul-settling in belting out "If God be for us, who can stand against us?" at the top of your lungs.

It vexes me that the caseworker said this would be formally resolved by the middle of the week at the latest, and yet I have heard nothing. It seems to me that it would take him 30 seconds to say, "I'm totally swamped with an emergency case but I'll get back to you as soon as I can." But no. I have been stewing all week about his refusal to take my calls and his failure to return my messages. I am resolving to stew no longer.

Last night I was playing around with phrasing, trying to get that "conquer overwhelmingly" bit of Romans 8 to fit the tune I'd come up with, when something struck me. I was singing,"We will conquer," but that's not right. It's present tense, not future: we conquer now. I've been thinking about that.

The single most important thing for me to do in this situation is to allow God to use it to bring our family closer to heaven. The most likely outcome is an unfounded determination. If that doesn't happen, we hire a lawyer to make it happen on appeal. (I have to think that a good lawyer would have a field day with this case.) I can't do anything about that right now. I cannot conquer bureaucracy; I cannot make the caseworker move faster. But I can seize this opportunity to conquer some of the things holding me back from heaven: petulance, impatience, anxiety. I can do that today, in the present tense.

Camazotz

Yesterday I was thinking about writing up the story of this month and pitching it to Brain, Child or another publication. Not just as <dramatic intonation> one woman's saga </dramatic intonation>, but as a reflection on shifting societal norms.

An example: when I was a kid, I played all the time in the creek that ran behind our house. A fellow fifth-grader drowned in that creek, but nobody ever told me to stop, or to make sure I had direct parental supervision. Those were some of the most delightful hours of my tenth and eleventh years -- poking around in the mud with my dog, swinging on the branches, naming my favorite spots.

These days a much smaller creek runs through our neighborhood. Honestly, a person would have to work at it to drown in that creek. But my kids are forbidden to play there. This is our fourth year here and they've never set foot in it. When I was a kid the line was drawn in one spot: it was normal for kids to play in creeks. Now it's drawn in another. How do we balance the suffering of the one family whose child drowns against all the hours of fun to be had playing in a creek? How much room is there for individual families to make decisions that go against the norm?

I was thinking that as an illustration I might mention Camazotz, from A Wrinkle in Time. Remember the neighborhood where all the kids bounced their balls and jumped their ropes in time? One child was out of sync with neighborhood expectations and had to be reported to the authorities for inappropriate ball-bouncing. I am not willing to live in Camazotz, I was going to say in my essay. But I was talking it over with Elwood last night when it occurred to me: even in Camazotz, for heaven's sake, children played outside without their parents.

The larger reason why Camazotz isn't a great analogy is that we're not out of sync with neighborhood norms. Yesterday I was talking about this on my front porch with another neighborhood mother who used to work for CPS. Two kids came running down the middle of the street, no parents in sight. "Look! Negligent parenting!" I said, and she rolled her eyes at me. A moment later a different trio came along from the other direction. "More negligent parenting!" This is the way our neighborhood runs -- our kids have some freedom. We all keep an eye out for them. We like it that way. Or at least most of us do.

My anger toward the neighbor who reported me has waned since last week, when I ranted to one of my friends, "I just want to go over to her house and...and...and spit on her porch." (That's me all over: my wildest revenge fantasies run to reckless acts of public expectoration.) I cannot stop wondering what she was thinking, though. What good did she imagine would come out of this for Joe? Because I tell you true: her decision to report a calm and carefully reasoned mothering choice to CPS has caused more stress to my children, and will leave a more enduring mark on them, than any consequence I would ever impose.

Funnies

Alex: "Hey, Joe, when you go back to school and your teacher asks you what you did over summer vacation, you can tell her 'I got investigated by CPS.'"

A few minutes later Joe asked Pete if he wanted to play Indiana Jones, and Pete stopped what he was doing for a second to say "Wes!" (He has no /y/, so we have "wou" and "wummy" and "wes" instead of "you" and "yummy" and "yes.") Joe said, "I am a bad guy and my weapons are these rulers." (From the upcoming movie, Indiana Jones and the Measurer of Doom.) Pete said, "I'm Indy, nursing," and resumed. First things first, you know. Can't fight the bad guys without the snack of champions.

Marty, just in from climbing in the tree again: "Mom, when I die, can you put my coffin in one of the two highest branches of our tree? I don't want it to be buried in the ground."

Alex again: "Mom, can we name the new baby Hoelun?" [to which I said, "???"] "That was Genghis Khan's mother." Better than Elvis' mother, I suppose. Marginally better than Genghisette, a previous suggestion, but not by much.

A funny from last Thursday: the caseworker was sitting at our breakfast table, filling out paperwork about whether I have visible drug paraphernalia in my home while the boys finished their muffins. Alex (he's 11) said, "Mom, I'm still interested in reading some Nietzsche. Can you recommend a good place to start?"

Not at all funny: caseworker isn't returning my calls. Still nothing in the mail. Trying not to let it get to me. I want this over.

An Unintended Workout

I wrote the post that follows and then was besieged by second thoughts about putting it up for all to read. Should I admit that my 8yo climbs trees without direct supervision? Is it good enough to be within shouting distance? Could this be interpreted as further evidence of negligence? I got a worried email saying I had taken a risk by posting that I'd taken the train to Chicago. For anyone else who wondered, there are nine Midwestern states from which a person could take a morning train that gets her to Chicago in time to hit the Art Institute and a concert. (I did think about that before I posted my agenda for the weekend. I am not cautious enough to take down posts without a clear indication, but I am cautious enough to spend 15 minutes looking at Amtrak timetables and googling college towns.)

I'm not going to let this CPS nonsense run my life, though. I am never going to be the kind of mother whose kids get their exercise on the elliptical trainer in the basement (bicycle helmets securely fastened, because you know elliptical trainers can be dangerous). My kids are going to climb trees if they want to, with diminishing supervision as they learn what they're doing, and they're going to spend time outside in accordance with neighborhood norms until I have good reason to re-evaluate those norms. So here's what happened:

Shifting Gears

I really appreciate all the concerned comments and emails and phone calls and prayers and good thoughts. I am mostly calmer. Elwood doesn't get why this has had such an emotional impact on me. He says, "Of course they're going to call it unfounded. What could it possibly be if not unfounded? We are not living in a Kafka novel."

But I am still feeling jumpy and weepy and uncertain. In some ways it would be easier if I had been reported for losing my temper with one of my children in the Target parking lot. I could agree wholeheartedly that you shouldn't lose your temper with your children. This incident makes me wonder what else I am doing that seems perfectly sensible to me but strikes strangers as appalling.

Tomorrow I am catching the early train out of here and going to Chicago. I'm going to spend part of the day with my best friend from high school and the rest of the day with my best friends from college. I'm going to the Art Institute and the Melissa Etheridge concert. I'm staying in Oak Park with one of my college roommates on Friday night, and I'm going to sleep until I wake up on Saturday morning and then walk to the farmer's market. On the train I am going to cast on a pair of Spring Forward socks in some soft and pretty Tofutsies yarn, and finally get past chapter one of Dombey and Son. I am going to take along a sheaf of articles for my dissertation, but maybe they'll get read and maybe they won't. I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it if they have to wait until next week. On Sunday morning I'm cantoring with my favorite organist.

Thinking about this neighbor has eaten up too much of the past week. I'm going to do my best to relax and enjoy the weekend.

Pending

He was here for almost two hours. It was perfectly pleasant, but I am a wreck now that he's gone. I am flabbergasted that this woman, not satisfied with calling the cops on me, called the state agency with the authority to take away my children and reported me for negligence. I can't stop crying when I think about it. I can't stop thinking about it. Pete wants to know, "When you gon' be happy again?"

The caseworker doesn't have the authority to make a final determination. He's going to talk to his supervisor this afternoon. Because they have a heavy caseload that contains actual emergencies, it could be the middle of next week before we get formal notification. He hopes not, he says.

This afternoon I have to get the laundry folded, get a report dictated for work, and get packed for my trip tomorrow. But first I have to stop crying.

9:00

The caseworker is coming tomorrow morning at 9.

Shaken

I've been reported to CPS. I assume this is the hostile neighbor again, unsatisfied with the cop's lack of outrage at my negligence. But maybe I offended some other neighbor, doing some other thing that struck me as normal. I'm waiting for the caseworker to return my call.

Stay tuned...

Coed Basketball

In early April, I went into the adoration chapel at our parish and knelt down in front of the monstrance. Immediately, a quiet voice called my name. It said, "You're pregnant. It's a girl."

I, alas, did not say, "Be it done unto me according to thy word." I said, "That is REE-diculous." I said, "I can't be pregnant. It's just not possible." By the time I left the chapel, I had persuaded myself that I had imagined the whole thing.

As I found out a few days later, I was pregnant. Today I learned that we're having a little girl. Also, that she is beautiful.

Having four boys attracts a fair amount of attention from strangers. They say, "All boys? Oh, you poor thing." I always lift my chin a little higher and say pleasantly, "I love having four boys." When they say, "Hope you get a girl this time," I say, "I'm not sure I'd know what to do with a little girl. And my boys are great." I always want to say, "I will delight in the children God has given me. I have been blessed beyond measure and I will welcome a fifth boy with open arms and a glad heart." --only a diatribe like that tends to put off random strangers at the library, so I just think it quietly instead.

But of course I'd know what to do with a little girl. We will have tea parties, with fairy cakes and finger sandwiches. I will knit her lacy socks and make her the prettiest First Communion dress you ever saw. Ruffled or plain, I'm on the job. We will read all the Anne books. Twice. And when we read the Little House series, we will talk about the fun stuff, like "Sunbonnets: Pros and Cons," and not the fine points of building a house without screws or nails.

She is only 11 ounces right now, so it will be awhile before she is interested in cucumber sandwiches. But just between you and me, internet, I've got plans for this little one.

A few more thoughts on kids and safety

I can't stop thinking about Friday afternoon.

Negligent. Or not.

This afternoon I was driving home from the county fair when there was a ruckus in the far back of the van. I have a low tolerance for ruckuses in the car. I told Joe that he needed to keep his hands in his own space or else walk home. He didn't. I pulled over and told him to hop out.

You should know that we were a quarter-mile from home, driving down the street where the boys walk to and from school. You might also want to know that we live in a walking neighborhood, on the southern edge of a decent-sized college campus. Lots of foot traffic, little vehicular traffic. It's Joe's stomping grounds. There are kids running around all over the place in the summer. I didn't think twice about it.

I got home, drank a glass of water, brushed Pete's teeth in preparation for getting to the dentist. We unloaded the stuff from the back of the van. I said, "Where's Joe?" Elwood said, "Maybe he sat down on the sidewalk in a fit of pique." (He was mad about having to walk home.) I took Joe's toothbrush and a water bottle along with me, and hopped back in the van. Joe was standing on the street corner with four adults: a neighborhood couple and two security guys from the nearby hospital.

They told me they'd called the cops, and that I couldn't go until the police arrived.

I thought briefly about saying, "Oh, get a grip," and loading Joe into the van. They were pretty serious about the whole thing, though, and I thought it would be better to talk to the cop than to have them write down my license plate number and report me to CPS.

The cop, who arrived right after I did, was very reasonable about the whole thing. Not so the woman. "He's only six years old!" she kept repeating, which brings out the snarky in me now. ("Six? Really? Are you sure? I'm only his mother; these details confuse me.") I pointed out where he lives and where he goes to school, and explained that he had walked this route hundreds of times. The woman was upset because he ran across the street and she didn't think he had looked both ways.

At first the cop told me not to overestimate the safety of the neighborhood, saying that there'd been some recent issues with property damage and petty theft. I said, "Property crime is in a completely different league from kidnapping." He said, "Yeah, that's a good point." I said, "If the school district thinks this is a reasonable walk for a 6-year-old child [and they do -- there's no bus service for kids in our neighborhood], I'm inclined to agree." He said, "Yeah, that's true." He said he'd have to file a report, but there should be no further action. (I had a friend in the next town over who had the same thing happen last year with her 6yo, and had to be interviewed by CPS as a result.)

This woman, though -- it was so clear that she thought I was negligent. She made a point of talking about the time that elapsed between when I dropped Joe off and when I came back for him. "He's only six years old! Six!"

Here's the creepy part: Joe told me later that she had stopped him when she saw him running across the street alone and asked if he needed help. He said, "No, I know how to go home. I want to go home." He said it repeatedly, trying to pull away from her. She finally yelled at him, "No, you have to stay here until the police come." Which, whoa. In my little world, if you are trying to be neighborly to a kid who needs assistance, you don't yell at him. Maybe you say, "Let's walk to your house together." Maybe you still report it to the police if you think the parents were negligent, but you treat the kid kindly.

I assume that if she is thinking about the incident, she is thinking about how inappropriate my choices were. I can't stop thinking about the incident, only I am thinking the same thing about her. It's a strange world.