Love the Freak in Your Family

We went to see the movie, Lars and the Real Girl, on Tuesday and it was so terrific. The premise of the story is that Lars comes home one day with a girlfriend...a girlfriend that is a sex doll...a girlfriend Lars believes is a real person.

I could relate to this movie because for a few years after college, I lived in the same apartment as my crazy aunt. My father was kind enough to allow his sister to live in one of our apartments in Queens, NY -- so when I returned to New York City, I took over one of the other bedrooms in the apartment. At this point, she had lived in the apartment for years, not paying any rent, hardly ever coming out of her room. She would sit in her room and watch television and she made her money on the stock market. As a child (she talked more to the children in our family than the adults - and once I became an adult...well, you get the picture.), I asked her why she was so interested in the stockmarket, and she actually said:

"I wanted to make money doing something where I didn't have to leave the house...something I could continue doing even into old age."

Too bad for her, there was no INTERNET at the time. Perhaps she could have started an interesting blog, such as, "My Stock Pick of The Day," or "How Many Days Can I Go Without Coming Out of My Room."

It was very strange, living in the same apartment as her and...not interacting with her. Sometimes I tried to talk to her (let's say, when she walked into the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice) but she politely ignored me. After a while, I got used to it, and it just because a part of my everyday existence.

Occasionally,I had friends over, and she would hide in her room the entire time. My friend Gus used to come over a lot, and stay pretty late, too. And one time he said, "You know, I don't believe that you live with anyone. I think you flick that light on in that room so that I can see it under the door, and you've been pretending this whole time."

Once I had a wild party, where we ended up staying up all night and going for breakfast in the morning...a breakfast of beef noodles from the Chinese restaurant down the street -- and not one peep from her. I think everyone was excited about the possibility of her making an appearance.

The movie made me feel that you should just love and accept the freak in your family, because you never know...One day, the freak may be you.