She struck a sour expression and it STAYED that way.

When I was a kid I learned to turn my eyelids inside-out. It felt cool. Better yet, it was the tool by which I could gain the upper hand over my sisters if I was feeling flanked. My brother? Naw, never worked on him ... he thought it was a hilarious trick. But the girls - my goodness, the frozen expression of revulsion on their faces when I'd turn to them with veined inner eyelids exposed was really something to savor.

Even today, I'll pull out the ol' 'flips her eyelids inside-out' trick for people who I know well enough and trust to not report me to a social service agency if they connect me to the tall guy living here. Mothers, apparently, are supposed to be much more staid - much more steady and responsible - than what I can muster sometimes. Oh well.

But the truth of the matter is that I still hear crabby old people's creaky voices echoing in my ears today. Those naggy unhappy people who couldn't stand for another soul to feel free so they'd nip any giddiness right there in the bud, thank you ma'am:

"If you keep doing that it's going to FREEZE that way and then where'll ya be?"

I wonder what kind of a spirit-killer I am for others without even realizing it when I'm feeling rotten. I mean c'mon, who sets out to be dismal? I think it probably happens like a self-fulfilling prophesy, this idea that if you stay a certain way long enough you'll get stuck there. And I believe it, too. But not where flipped eyelids or double-jointed elbows are concerned. I think it happens when we get stuck in a mindset of superiority, or of negativity, or of dullness, or jealousy, or well heck, name any of yer deadly sins.

I don't feel my best when I'm dour. I certainly don't shine when I'm crabby. And for goddesssake, I don't want to freeze either way permanantly. Maybe the answer is to keep my eyelid flipping trick in my back pocket (so to speak); to always have some creative comic relief for those times when I get just a little too serious or a little too big for my own breeches.

Cuz that stunt still has years of life on it before I unveil the 360d tongue-flipping trick.