![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Story of Normal
Since Em asked and Ali insisted, here's my "I'm a mutant" story. It's shockingly unexciting.
Or so the Heralds say. Actually it was kind of a balmy night for November, given that it was California and we don't actually have seasons out there.
So anyway, according to my mother, I was born at a very healthy 7 lbs 6 oz. though it just now occurs to me to wonder how she knows that, given that I'm adopted. It being the early 80's I was released home almost immediately. Like most babies, I was utterly bald. This is a significant detail. Because when my hair did start to grow in, it was the shade you see here today. Bright emerald green.
If my mother ever appears here with my baby pictures, not only will I die of shame but you will all noticed that before the age of 3 there are no pictures of me without a hat on. Bonnets, baseball caps, knit beanies, you name it I'm wearing it. Obviously this is because it's a Bad Idea to dye the hair of a toddler. However, sometime before my fourth birthday, my mother discovered the wonder that was Autumn Fawn.
There was never a point in my life when I wasn't a mutant. Even as a little kid, I knew that green was not a standard issue haircolor and for all it's vogue among punks and rebels, it was certainly not an acceptable color for a little girl in suburban So. Cal. Come to think of it, it's still not.
When I was about 10, I was no longer allowed to have slumber parties nor to sleep over at my friends' houses. My parents would wake me up in the morning and I would have any bit of metal in my room stuck to me. There's nothing quite like waking up and finding that you're cuddling a trophy. Eventually, I must have learned to stop that because it doesn't happen anymore.
I never felt cursed or blessed, I never felt freakish or outcast. I never forgot that I was a mutant--the chemical burns from the first time I tried to dye my own hair ensured that--but I never didn't consider myself normal. It wasn't until the Excedrin Commericial that swept the world that any of that happened.
I'd already been enrolled here for about three months but at the time, I was home for my cousin's wedding. Actually the wedding had been that Saturday. I was at my parent's house for a party. All the neighbors were there, my parent's friends and some of my friends who were still in town and not off at college. The headache, which I'm sure we all remember only too well, hit me and I collapsed screaming. At the same time, I send the tableware and every other metal thing in the vicinity flying. No one was seriously hurt, just some cuts and scrapes. Then everyone else had their turn.
Which is when everything really went wrong. See, somehow they decided that their headaches were my fault and it was "kill the mutant" before you could say "hey, Lorna, your lips are green!" (and wow, was that embarrassing. Because there isn't enough green in my natural coloring as is.) So began the three ring circus that Ms. Frost, Warren and Jubilee walked through to get me out of there.
I suppose I should now see all those separations that I never felt before but I still don't. 19 years of my life, I was a mutant and normal. Then all of the sudden, I was a mutant, not normal. I'm not saying that I haven't been lucky because I know I have. To have parents who worked to make my life as simple as possible is beyond lucky. I just think that I'm still normal. Mutations and all.
Or so the Heralds say. Actually it was kind of a balmy night for November, given that it was California and we don't actually have seasons out there.
So anyway, according to my mother, I was born at a very healthy 7 lbs 6 oz. though it just now occurs to me to wonder how she knows that, given that I'm adopted. It being the early 80's I was released home almost immediately. Like most babies, I was utterly bald. This is a significant detail. Because when my hair did start to grow in, it was the shade you see here today. Bright emerald green.
If my mother ever appears here with my baby pictures, not only will I die of shame but you will all noticed that before the age of 3 there are no pictures of me without a hat on. Bonnets, baseball caps, knit beanies, you name it I'm wearing it. Obviously this is because it's a Bad Idea to dye the hair of a toddler. However, sometime before my fourth birthday, my mother discovered the wonder that was Autumn Fawn.
There was never a point in my life when I wasn't a mutant. Even as a little kid, I knew that green was not a standard issue haircolor and for all it's vogue among punks and rebels, it was certainly not an acceptable color for a little girl in suburban So. Cal. Come to think of it, it's still not.
When I was about 10, I was no longer allowed to have slumber parties nor to sleep over at my friends' houses. My parents would wake me up in the morning and I would have any bit of metal in my room stuck to me. There's nothing quite like waking up and finding that you're cuddling a trophy. Eventually, I must have learned to stop that because it doesn't happen anymore.
I never felt cursed or blessed, I never felt freakish or outcast. I never forgot that I was a mutant--the chemical burns from the first time I tried to dye my own hair ensured that--but I never didn't consider myself normal. It wasn't until the Excedrin Commericial that swept the world that any of that happened.
I'd already been enrolled here for about three months but at the time, I was home for my cousin's wedding. Actually the wedding had been that Saturday. I was at my parent's house for a party. All the neighbors were there, my parent's friends and some of my friends who were still in town and not off at college. The headache, which I'm sure we all remember only too well, hit me and I collapsed screaming. At the same time, I send the tableware and every other metal thing in the vicinity flying. No one was seriously hurt, just some cuts and scrapes. Then everyone else had their turn.
Which is when everything really went wrong. See, somehow they decided that their headaches were my fault and it was "kill the mutant" before you could say "hey, Lorna, your lips are green!" (and wow, was that embarrassing. Because there isn't enough green in my natural coloring as is.) So began the three ring circus that Ms. Frost, Warren and Jubilee walked through to get me out of there.
I suppose I should now see all those separations that I never felt before but I still don't. 19 years of my life, I was a mutant and normal. Then all of the sudden, I was a mutant, not normal. I'm not saying that I haven't been lucky because I know I have. To have parents who worked to make my life as simple as possible is beyond lucky. I just think that I'm still normal. Mutations and all.