I was born in the year of the Ram. I am generous, sensitive and I have an unerring eye for beauty. I went to several day care establishments as an infant. One, I know, was a church; the other was named Parkway. I still have memories of things that went on there. Once, at recess, one boy, who I'd always thought of as a ruffian, had gotten hold of some staples. He was trying to press them into his thumb and had started bleeding. One of the old ladies, she must have been Mexican, saw him and went nuts. I just thought, "How stupid!" No doubt, he's currently a serial killer or a child molester. Strange, the things we remember.

When I was ready for kindergarten, they just bussed us from that day care center in the mornings and back in the afternoons. During those years was when I had the weirdest experience of my whole education. One day we had a substitute. This substitute was very old, very short and very old fashioned. She made us do exercises as a group and made us do it in unison. When that was done, she made us sit down and read books with no pictures. The worst thing about it was that she didn't even speak English. Now I'm sure it was Spanish or some latin tongue. I was completely shocked that the teacher didn't even know how to talk. "Even I can talk," I thought "She must be stupid." This incident alone forces me to categorize my whole childhood as bizarre. Wouldn't you do the same?

The first grade, for some mysterious reason, is mostly a blank to me. Now that I mention it, so is the second grade. Those were the years I spent at a private school named Pioneer Montessori. That place was also attached to a church. Now when I think about all the priests who are convicted of molesting children, it makes me wonder why I can't remember those years.