Rancho Tarzanadu: Miss Linda

Miss Linda is a dichotomy, in many ways. She dislikes attention, but she is always doing things to draw attention to herself. She dislikes being photographed, but she loves dressing up. Her fashion sense would be best described as 'strange'. Some have commented that she has an 'ugly-pretty' style. She is mostly drawn to fashions of the 1960's and 1970's and does not follow any modern day fashion trends. Much of her wardrobe is polyester psychedelic floral prints. She is very much a homebody, so mostly wears these outlandish clothes at home.

She has been doing yoga for twenty-seven years, and has a certification to teach it, although she doesn't like to be in a room full of people telling them what to do, so she hasn't taught for several years. She is currently studying massage therapy, and hopes to do that part-time while she pursues her creative endeavors, such as writing, songwriting, and making objects d'art from broken vintage dolls and thrift-shop oddities. Hence, the need for prospective boarders to bring in extra money. Although she loves being creative, and it makes her very happy, she realizes that she may never make any money from any of her endeavors, and thus, is trying to be practical. Miss Linda is not very practical at all, by nature. She likes to think of herself as 'mystical' and 'otherworldly'. Mostly others just think she's weird, although they are inexplicably drawn to her, as are children and animals. Miss Linda doesn't understand this herself, as she finds most people annoying. But she also enjoys their company when partaking in food and drink and most holidays. She enjoys the camaraderie of some, and probably more than she's willing to admit to herself, but she needs a lot of quiet time to pursue what's meaningful to her. She tends to feel nothing for someone, or too much, and sometimes both, simultaneously.

Miss Linda has been in Junior College for the last twenty-eight years. She met with a school counselor, who told her that she had enough credits for three degrees, but she needed to take Algebra in order to graduate. Miss Linda is horrible at math, which is ironic considering her father was an electrical engineer at Hughes Aircraft and did math problems for fun in his spare time. She keeps putting Algebra on the back burner, and instead takes classes such as Abnormal Psychology, Oriental Philosophy, World Religions, Women's History, and The Hero's Journey in Literature. She is well-versed in many things, but horrible at math. Ironically, she pays all of her bills on time, and is good at budgeting her money. She has grown to believe that the necessity for math in the school system for a Liberal Arts major is a governmental plot against artists, to hold them back from achieving their goals and reaching their true potential. She believes the government sees artists as 'dangerous', therefore throwing them a calculated curveball of calculus to screw them up, preventing them from making any real difference in the world or in the collective unconscious. Miss Linda thinks too much, which is also ironic because sometimes she is perceived as a blonde nitwit. She scored higher than her father when they took an IQ test together, one rainy afternoon. Just a few points higher. She was also in the 'gifted' program in grammar school, but she doesn't like to brag about it. People don't listen, anyway, or they're caught up in their own lives, thinking their own thoughts, or overwhelmed by the onslaught of media and are sitting brainwashed in front of their television sets, mouths slack and eyes wide, absorbing endless waves of nothingness.

Miss Linda has been very interested lately in energy work, and has been practicing the powers of levitation. She has told no one, not even Manuel, but she thinks he might suspect because of the looks he gives her sometimes when she enters a room a little too noiselessly. So far she has only been able to rise a couple of inches off the ground, and only for a few seconds at a time. Frankly, she finds it a little frightening. But too compelling to stop. She has also been having vivid dreams more frequently, dreams in which she is flying, mostly over the backyard, too scared to branch off into the city. Yet.

Miss Linda has three cats. She acknowledges, herself, that she is probably a crazy cat lady. That used to freak her out, but now she's okay with it. Two of her three cats play the piano, mostly in the wee hours of the night. Miss Linda praises them for this, and the more praise she gives them, the more they play the piano, and the better at it they get. She's hoping to record an album of cat music sometime in the future, once they have enough material worked up.

She has been working for the last thirty years, slaving for 'the man'. She worked for nine years at an Advertising Specialty Company that promoted things, mostly movies and TV shows. She came up with the ideas for these products. She enjoyed it at first, but then felt like her soul was dying. She felt like she was contributing to the giant landfill of the world, that was somewhere, out there. The company that she worked for  got acquired by a larger company, and one year later fired all the original employees after meticulously studying their work systems and taking all their clients. Miss Linda, along with her co-workers were out on their asses on the pavement, with no ice-cream cakes or gold watches to show for it. She got drunk with a fellow co-worker twelve years her junior and had sex with him in her ex-boss's beach condo in Santa Monica, while he was out of town on business. She'd do it again; it was a good night.

Miss Linda does not behave very well when dealing with authority figures, and tends to 'talk back'. When she is told what to do, she usually ends up doing the exact opposite. One of her ex-bosses told her that she was 'giving her attitude energetically', even though Miss Linda had remained silent, biting her tongue. Miss Linda rolled her eyes and snorted while walking away, and eventually got fired. She also throws her jury-duty summons cards in the trashcan, then claims she never received them, if questioned.

She wanted to change her life now, for the better and do something to further the world growth into one of serenity, harmony, and love. As much as individual people may bother her, she had grand hopes for the collective whole. She was not sure why she felt this way, however.

Miss Linda believes, above all else, of making lemons into lemonade. This is her saving grace.