My Olive Loaf, Myself.

Every time I visit a farmers market, it gives me hope that I’m on the path to becoming The Person. The Person is that person who wakes up at 5 am every day to do yoga on the porch, the type of person who makes her own clothes and knows exactly how much sodium is in everything, ever, the type of person who’s dresser drawers are neatly organized by color and have little handmade scented sachets inside. Then I buy an olive loaf at the market, and have to literally beg myself not to eat the entire thing in one sitting. And I realize.

It's normal to have stabbing nightmares featuring prominent convicts at age 11, right?

When I was a kid I used to have this dream that Louise Woodward, dressed in a princess costume, came to my house and stabbed me.

The dream would start in true Elm Street fashion. I’d rise up in my top-bunk, in the dark, as if I was waking up for realsies (DO NOT BE FOOLED, AS I ALWAYS WAS, HOWEVER: I actually was dreaming). I’d look out my open bedroom door, and see a shadowy figure. With a delicate, pointy hat. I’d think, “whatever,” and start to climb down the cold metal bunk-bed ladder. I needed to go downstairs and get one slice of American cheese out of the refrigerator, obviously. I anxiously walked by the shadow, with the sort of butt-cheek-clenching tenseness you experience when you walk by an ex-boyfriend at a deli, hoping he won’t recognize you.

When I got to the kitchen, I’d see her again, this time slightly closer, but in the next room over. Louise was a much more Michellin Man-ified version of herself in my dream, and she loomed puffy in the dark. The sequins and tulle of her costume glinted in the moonlight. Her squidgy face leered at me like a rancid hunk of pizza dough. I’d think in my dream-mind, “boy, this is awkward. Just don’t look at her.” I’d slink away from the fridge and climb back into my top-bunk.

Eventually, Louise came to my bedside. Her dough-face would be inches away from mine. I’d feel her crumpet-scented breath on my cheek. (When I was a kid I thought British people’s diets consisted entirely of crumpets. Even though I had no idea what crumpets were.) I had no choice now, I had to look at her.

At the moment I turned to look, she’d stab me in the arm with a kitchen knife, plunging it into my arm in slow motion. I’d feel the knife go into my arm, but not in a painful way. More like in a “ew ew ew there’s a bug on me, get it off!” kind of way. But you know, with a knife.

Anyways. That’s basically how I feel about this whole Casey Anthony thing.

Oh and hey, Lionsgate Studios, you are welcome to contact me about optioning this story for a major motion picture. May I suggest “Hell-ma And Louise” as a potential title.