Ameri is silent again

"Everyone is born, but not everyone is born the same. Some will grow to be butchers, or bakers, or candlestick makers. Some will only be really good at making Jell-O salad. One way or another, though, every human being is unique, for better or for worse."

Opening lines of narration from

Mattilda - 1996

Ameri is thoroughly a child of the microwave, the George Forman grill and Orville Redenbacher’s "Pop-in-Bag". Boiling a pot or rice to achieve loose individual grains is not in her repertoire. For someone to learn to cook one must observe the workings of a capable cook. One must read from a recipe and follow hints and suggestions from an accomplished cook. Yesterday I gave you a list of my talents. I wish to add to them. I cook. I watched my mother. I can butcher but not slaughter. I watched my dad. I can prepare and bake a pie shell. I watched my mother. I can flush, lead and bring down a quail with a small gauge shotgun. I watched my dad. I can tear down to loose bearings and spokes and rebuild a bicycle. I watched Louis the bike guy. Ameri has a natural talent for mechanical things and some cookery skills but she is incapable of taking instruction or following a lead. It is too full of anxiety for her. She had to learn to do for herself early and under threats and pressure so she is hardly receptive to team effort. Even individual mastery of tasks is difficult because she is unable to observe patterns or intuitively follow obvious sequencing. She resists directions, helpful hints or any such typical ways of gaining mastery. Her current drama is being played out in just such a manner. It is not that she feels that she knows everything but rather that anything that anyone tells her is useless. Unless it as a brazen untruth, or an out and out fraud, she refuses to believe it. It is a very strange world that she carries around in her head. She is relatively fearless in approaching strangers. She has panhandled her way around the town she is in. She is unafraid to drop by the police station and ask for a ride somewhere. She is nervy, persistent and unyielding. She is a natural sales geek. If she survives the winter in the Midwest , can rise above the mire of faulty thinking she is in, and she can find a spot. She can sell.

It has been thirty six hours since I last heard from her. Forty eight to seventy two hours is about the limit. She will call tomorrow.