Doppelganger

Okay, here is the setting: A young college student at an airport waiting to return home between terms for Christmas talking on the phone with her mother when she suddenly tells her mother she has to go because a member of their church just went past her. The young lady named a specific person who should have been at home in the same city where her parents lived. But neither this lady nor any of her family had been seen at church that day, leaving the young lady’s family confused. Was she home or two states away and why would she be over there anyway? Clearly she can’t be two places at once.

A little while later the family got another phone call, and low and behold, it’s from the same lady the daughter said she’d just seen.

Can you just imagine what the family is thinking?

The father takes the call, commenting on the fact they hadn’t seen her family at church, which she confirms saying, “I know, we’re all home sick right now.”

Okay, so his daughter didn’t see this lady at the airport.

When he asked why she called she told him. “My sister is at the airport and ran into your daughter. They’re coming in on the same flight.”

You can guess the conversation from there. But let me insert the conversation between the sisters before calling the father.

A few minutes earlier Bonnie called and said, “You’ll never believe what just happened.”

“What?”

“Someone just walked up to me and asked if I was related to the Enos’.”

In my mind I immediately flashed to the fact it was the Sunday before Christmas and the airport she was at was nearest to the school a number of kids from our area were going to and some of them might be flying home.

I asked for a description since she didn’t know the young lady’s name and then asked Bonnie if she could, given the chance, ask the girl her name, mentioning who I thought it was. Well the young lady had told Bonnie her name and she remembered it as soon as I said it. So I got off the phone with Bonnie and called her family where I found out they were a bit confused as to where I was, because of the earlier conversation with her mother.

I assured her father that his daughter hadn’t seen me, “Just very very close.”

Anyway, Bonnie spent a week with us and this Sunday went to Church with me. Because of parking, I dropped her and my daughter at the door and went to find a parking space so they walked into the chapel without me. The first person they saw was astounded when my daughter introduced ‘me’ as her aunt and he told me so when I finally came in. He’d thought I’d changed my hairstyle.

My daughter also noticed another man doing a double take looking between us, but he didn’t come up to us.

Then as we were leaving another lady passing us said, “You could be twins.”

There’s only one response to that and we both said it. “We are.”

I did introduce my sister to several people at church, it’s just those were the most obvious reactions to how much alike we look.

But then I noticed something. Not everyone focused on how we were identical. The first man who saw her at church noticed her hairstyle was different. Others realized we were sisters but didn’t focus on the fact we were identical. And the young lady who saw her at the airport? She did think she saw me go past her, but by the time she was looking Bonnie in the face she realized it wasn’t me. She could see the difference.

And, as my youngest daughter says, “How can anyone mix you up? You don’t look anything alike.”

You be the judge.

Plagiarism and the Law

This is making me angry, so I have to get it off my chest. Here is a blog about one author’s struggle with a plagiarist http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/11/prweb12348653.htm and the part I find hard to take is this statement by New York Times bestselling author David Farland, “The legal system considers plagiarism to be a civil matter rather than criminal.”

Why isn’t it a criminal offense?

We’re not talking about some lazy kid slapping their name on someone else’s term paper or essay for an easy A, we’re essentially talking about a forger stealing someone else’s hard-earned paycheck and cashing it. How is that not criminal?

I mean honestly, if a man took a log in one hand and knife in the other and spent hours, days, weeks, months, maybe even years little by little turning that log into a sculpture then once it’s in its final form the man sands all the rough places. After that he takes a palette of paints, adding color to his creation, and finally he takes the time to add a layer or two of varnish to make it shine, only to have someone else come along, take the piece, change the paint job a little, claim it’s his creation and sell it.

Would anyone argue that wasn’t a crime? Of course not! It is a crime.

So how is that different from a man sitting in front of a computer and spending hours, days, weeks, months, maybe even years word by word filling the screen with a story of thousands of words. Then after all that, he goes through the whole manuscript several times, first fixing the grammatical errors, next tweaking the details, and other times to fix problems with the characters, and another time to work on the story flow, and on and on for up to a dozen or more revisions.

Only to have some unscrupulous cretin take all that work and effort, make a few minor changes, slap his name on it, and sell it! How is that not the same crime as stealing a sculpture and selling it as your own work? 

Do you honestly think authors don’t go through all those steps to create a novel?

Think again!

And I’d like to see any creative person have their creation stolen by someone else, and that someone then sells said work as their own and not cry foul. It is wrong. It is stealing. I mean, really, just look at the words the Thesaurus says you can use instead of plagiarism.

Stealing

Bootlegging

Piracy

Fraud

Theft

Thieving

And finally:

Illegal use

Those are all crimes! Why isn’t plagiarism?

I think every artist in the world will agree with me that this is not right and needs to be changed. Do you?

I would also hope everyone who agrees would help Rachel Ann Nunes pay her legal fees. This just isn’t right.

DOUBLE VISION

Last week I was on Facebook and saw a couple of videos of young kids, toddlers or younger, reacting to seeing twins for the first time. One was a little girl, toddler, reacting to meeting her father’s twin brother.

Since my sister and I can’t see each other every day because of distance, we’ve had some experience with this reaction. I had two daughters, both under three, when my sister and her husband were able to come visit us at my house. (We’d seen each other a couple of years before at our Dad’s place.)

When my sister walked in it was fun watching the kids look back and forth between the two of us trying to figure out what they were seeing. My older girl, who was pushing three, had actually met my sister at our Dad’s place. Her eyes got big but she accepted my introduction. She was then and always has been a very friendly girl, though a bit shy at first. She had no problems with her Aunt Bonnie.

Now, my younger daughter hated strangers. In fact if she couldn’t see Mommy well then she better have Daddy, or Grandma Sharon (all of which she lived with). Anyone else and she’d scream like a banshee until I picked her up again, and I mean for hours on end without stopping. And she’d probably start screaming for both Sharon and her daddy if I didn’t show up fast enough. So I held her for her first meeting with her Aunt Bonnie. And like all babies, the sight of two faces so similar confused her, but she had mom and was fine.

Then at one point during Bonnie’s visit I needed to run errands and left Bonnie with the kids while my baby was asleep, but I hurried concerned she’d wake up and start her banshee impersonation. However, when I got home I found my kids on the couch with their aunt Bonnie reading a story to them, and my baby was fine.

I avoided the couch and did some chores that needed done while I had the reprieve. And it lasted until my daughter got hungry. At which time she got really upset when she realized the woman holding her didn’t have anything to feed her.

But, besides the people she lived with, Bonnie was the first person who could take care of that particular daughter without earplugs. The next person who walked into her life who ever managed that ended up becoming her favorite uncle.

Anyway, it’s fun watching kids react to seeing two of the same person for the first time. And their confusion can be hilarious if one of those twins is someone they see all the time and the other one isn’t. Kind of reminds me of the incident in eighth grade when the Neilson boy, started talking to me outside our fourth period classes (which were across the hall from each other) and while I was trying to figure out why he would even talk to me Bonnie walked up all happy because we were actually being nice to one another.

He gasped. “There’s two of you!”

At which point I saw the Neilson boy walk into his fourth period class down the hall. “That’s nothing. There’s two of you too.” Which solved the problem of why Bonnie liked him and I didn’t, and apparently solved the same issue for the two of them.

Happy Holidays

Dang, I have been so busy writing, finishing my Christmas shopping, and wrapping presents, I totally forgot to write a blog.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Tribute

I know I normally write about twins and being twins but as I sit down to write this I’m thinking about the loss of someone near and dear to my family. Rusty walked into our lives several years ago when my husband spotted him walking the streets near our son’s school, clearly homeless. Jerry called him over to the car and he hopped right in and into our lives.

He walked into our house and greeted all family members, with and without fur, with an attitude of, “Oh, you live here. Well, I live here now too.” He wasn’t domineering. He didn’t try to boss or take over. He recognized Lani, our oldest and only female pet, was the leader of the fur covered family members, and he took an immediate shine to Jerry, understandable since he is the one who rescued him.

We called him Rusty Bear. Rusty because of the color of his fur and Bear because he sure looked like one. But he was the sweetest, gentlest one in the bunch, unless you got his paws. He had no collar and we had our vet check him for a chip. He had none. We posted notices everywhere and no one called. We tried finding him a home but before long we knew, he was ours for good.

He loved long walks and the kids said people in the neighborhood would move to the other side of the street when they saw him coming and often ask the kids, my girls especially, if they were sure they had a firm grip on his leash. The thing is, if you dropped his leash he’d stop in his tracks, unless he could see our front door, then he’d just go home. The only person he ever terrified is my sister-in-law and I half suspect he barked at her like that because she was drunk.

And even though all the pets are allowed on the furniture, he never did. He’d get on the couch for maybe two seconds. His preferred place to sleep was by the front door.

He loved human food and eating meant getting a wet nose nudging your arm as he asked for his share. We tried to get him to learn “Sit”, but he was never very patient and it had to be repeated several times during a meal. More than once I got frustrated with him and had him banned to the back yard so I could finish in peace.

Then again when he just wanted attention you could end up with a wet nose on you or he’d rub his head against you. Other than Lani, the one pet he got along with the best was Tiger, our cat. They were always rubbing against each other and he was the one dog Tiger got along with the best.

From the start He’d have problems with throwing up occasionally, then recently Jerry noticed he wasn’t as energetic as usual. He took Rusty on a short walk and it was too long for a dog who normally loves going for at least an hour. Then he threw up several times in one night.

A trip to the vet showed he lost a great deal of weight over the last month. After several tests we finally found it was a large tumor.

So on Sunday November 30, 2014 Rusty Bear Enos peacefully went to sleep in the arms of his dad (Jerry). He will be greatly missed by his whole pack (with and without fur).

Yin and Yang 2

My memories of grade school were of always protecting Konnie, however, I never thought her shyness would cause me any difficulties once we entered junior high. Though honestly, I didn’t really experience any glitches in seventh grade, since that year, the only guy who ever talked to me in the halls was the president of the student body who, for some strange reason took a liking to me on sight.

He just didn’t realize until around the middle of the year that two girls were ignoring his come ons. But I didn’t have a problem.

The first time I realized I had a problem with Konnie’s shyness was in eighth grade. That wasn’t until several months into the school year when I entered my third period class and a ninth grade boy in that class didn’t say hi to me for the first time all year. For next several days, every time I tried to catch his eye, he looked away.

I so wanted to know what was wrong, but my fourth period class was completely at the other end of the three-story building, I barely had enough time to make it to class before the tardy bell rang, and I never saw Greg (the guy in third period) at any other time during the day.

Then, a few days later, instead of fourth period, there was an assembly. Since there was no fear of a tardy bell, I stopped him before he left the class, and asked why he was mad at me.

He told me that he’d seen me in the halls the other day and he said hi, but I ignored him. I looked him in the eye and said, “When and where?” worried I had inadvertently not seen my friend.

He told me between sixth and seventh period down by the gym. I sighed with relief. “That wasn’t me.”

“It was too. I swear!”

I told him exactly where my sixth and seventh period classes were, both on the opposite end of the building as the gym. He repeated that he was sure he saw me; I smiled and said, “I’m a twin. And she has gym seventh period.”

He groaned and apologized.

After school that day was the first time I gave Konnie my, “If a guy says hi, say hi back because I might know him,” speech. And I really enjoyed moving to that smaller school in ninth grade simply because everyone knew both of us, there was no chance of her offending some guy friend of mine, and I didn’t have to worry about Konnie roaming the halls. Then we moved.

Fortunately, none of the guys at this school took offense by me apparently ignoring them. They asked me why sometimes I smiled and said hi while other times I looked down, blushing.

I told them, “That wasn’t me.”

They didn’t want to believe me, but a couple of friends who knew us from church were present for that conversation, and they backed me up, which started the discussion on how to tell us apart. I said, “If the one you see says hi back, it’s me, if she doesn’t say hi —”

And on of our church friends said, “You both say hi to me!”

“She knows you!”

“Well, how do I tell you apart?”

“Jeez, you see us together first thing in the morning. Figure it out!”

Anyway, despite it being a bigger school, I didn’t notice any huge problems with how shy Konnie was, but all that taught me one thing. If someone I’m sure I don’t know says hi as if they know me, I ask them how they think they know me.

And I’ve got a few fun stories of doing just that.

Anyway, that’s what being a twin is like for me.

Yin and Yang

The one saving thing for me growing up was having my twin by my side most of the time. Then we hit middle school, with different classes and very few of them together. For the first time in my life I had to navigate the halls of school on my own.

And this is where we first ran into a big problem.

I would walk down the hallway blithely ignoring greetings from strangers, guys, because I was far too shy to talk to them only to have Bonnie later come up and bop me on the head because I’d ignored a friend of hers.

I don’t remember such incidences in eight grade then in ninth grade we moved to a small school. The minute we walked in the entire student body knew there were two of us so we had no problems with mix ups until we moved again.

This last school was the largest yet. Here I handled it the same way I had in seventh grade, much to Bonnie’s dismay. I simply ignored greetings from any guys I didn’t know. So when her friends asked why sometimes she ignored them she had to respond. “Those times it wasn’t me.”

Of course by then she’d already given me the ‘if a guy you don’t know says hi to you he’s probably my friend so say hi,’ lecture several times. I never did.

Then there was the previously mentioned incident in P.E. class where my friend asked how to tell us apart.

After thinking about it a moment, I said, “Well, if you know her and see one of us in the hallway and say hi and get no response you have me. And if you know me and see one of us in the hallway,” I paused. “Well, you still don’t know which one you have.”

“That doesn’t help me. I know you.”

Bonnie always figured if she didn’t recognize someone saying hi to her than they must think she was me so she was friendly back. Me? There was no way I was talking to a stranger, especially a strange guy, so Bonnie’s friends got ignored. A lot.

But that is the yin and yang of being twins. One tends to be the quiet shy one and one tends to be the outspoken one. For us, I’ll gladly accept that I’m the quiet one.

I’m the one who quietly accepted walking past a guy friend of mine every day between second and third period passing at the drinking fountain so close I could touch him without ever saying a word.

I could end the story there but actually one day, at an after school drama activity, he mentioned to me that he hadn’t seen me in a couple of weeks and asked where I’d been. I told him where and when I saw him every day, saying, “Look down once in a while.” The next school day he was looking down as he came around that corner. He didn’t miss me anymore.

You would think I’d learn to speak up after that, but I’m still the quiet one. And though I’m not as shy now, I’m still the quiet one. I think it’s a twin thing.

Staying Connected The Twin Way

Okay, each year in the month of November is the online writing challenge http://nanowrimo.org  and I participate. Now Nano (as it’s called) is a well-organized event that even includes real time meetings in the real world called Write Ins, and this past Saturday I attended one such event.

As the meeting was winding down, and everyone was gathering their equipment, the leader of our local group said, “Now don’t forget to backup your work on a flash drive,” then went into a story, which happened to a guy in our group a couple a years ago where, near the end of the month, he lost his entire manuscript.

While the other ladies present all promised they had flash drives, but my first thought was, “Dang, I need to email K.De,” (my twin’s nickname) and the next second it struck me how out of place that would have sounded had I said it out loud.

But it wasn’t out of place. As loving sisters, we want to help each other, so we save copies of each other’s manuscripts on our computers as a backup.

It is also why a few days ago as it neared my bedtime and I hadn’t seen Konnie online all day, I called her, just to make sure everything was okay. And she’s done the same for me.

Back before we entered the modern internet world we kept in touch with periodic phone calls, which we never planned or expected, but I can’t tell you how many times I was busy when the phone rang and I told my husband something on the lines of, “Tell her I’m busy.”

The first time this happened, he stared at me. “Tell who you’re busy?”

“Just answer the phone!”

Of course, when he did answer, it was Konnie. I knew it was.

I can even remember a couple times when I asked my husband if he thought we could afford me calling Konnie when the phone rang and I said, “Never mind,” then answered her call.

My husband rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered, “Oh brother.”

And I drove him up the wall a few years ago when some work our landlord did at the back of our house knocked our phone line down. We were without phone or internet for four days and that whole time I fretted, “Konnie’s trying to get ahold of me!”

Of course, by this time we’d been married long enough that Tom didn’t try to tell I couldn’t possibly know what Konnie was doing clear in another state. He simply kept reminding me we’d done everything we could. The phone repair people would come on Monday. But, boy, that was one miserable weekend!

Now days I have cell phone, and I programmed her number with a special ring tone. If you hear music coming from my cell, it’s Konnie. But I do still have a landline. This is a fancy job that will vocally tell me who is calling, but even before that system kicks into action, I already know when it’s Konnie calling. Technology can’t trump genes! :)

Telepathy

What’s it like being a twin?

Yeah, people actually ask that.

I’m always tempted to ask them what it is like being a singleton. And before you say anything along the lines of normal, remember our frame of reference is different.

Let me illustrate being a twin. I’ll start with twin telepathy.

I can give lots of illustrations of us using our telepathy, here are just a few. The first one is the first time anyone suggested we could use our connection to cheat. It was a teacher.

No, he didn’t suggest we cheat.

Our high school biology teacher separated his students for tests, no one beside or in front of or behind anyone else, so no one could glance at anyone else’s paper.

He explained this, counted the students, and then said, “We don’t have enough seats.” He counted again, then picked up his briefcase and walked over in front of where Bonnie and I sat. “You could cheat even if I placed you in opposite corners. So, you can stay here, just turn your backs to each other and I’ll put my briefcase here.” Which he then placed on the table between us. Then of course we proved we wouldn’t cheat when she couldn’t get mitosis and meiosis.

Then a couple of years later in another class, our teacher had split everyone up in the manner our biology teacher had wanted to, including Bonnie and I ending up several rows apart. As students finished their test they handed it in and left the room. Finally our teacher stood in a row of chairs between where Bonnie and I were still working and ask the last three students if we were done yet.

The young man stood to hand his in.

I said, “Just double checking my answers.”

Bonnie said, “I can’t remember the answer for number five.” (Okay, I’m not sure which number it was now, but I know she was specific then.)

I glanced at my paper. “Oh, that’s easy.”

She said, “Oh, yeah.” And apparently furiously wrote the answer or so I’ve been told. (Remember the teacher stood between us.)

Our friend who hadn’t left yet pointed and said, “Cheat! Cheat!”

The teacher said, “Yeah, but I can’t do anything about that kind of cheating.”

And that is the only time we have ever cheated on a test. Well, at least that I know of.

Then there are all the times I’ve called Bonnie’s house and my brother-in-law answered. The conversation went something like this.

“Hello.”

Bonnie in the background: “Tell K.De I’ll be right back.” (K.De is my nickname.)

Tom said, “What makes you think it's K.De.”

Me laughing. “Because it is. And I heard her.”

My point is twin telepathy is real. Bonnie has mentioned it in her posts. And it happened to me, earlier, before writing this post, I was sitting at our kitchen table with a guest and I heard a phone going off. Mind you there are five cell phones in my house with similar rings tones and four of them were in the far reaches of the house. But without error, I knew it was mine, because I knew it was Bonnie calling. No caller ID necessary.

And no. It wasn’t our shortest conversation ever.

Some Good Twin Stories

Now that I’ve talked about what I don’t like in the media when it comes to twins, let’s talk about what I do like.

I’ll start with a movie. Now normally, I don’t like remakes. For the most part, I can’t stand it when they change the story in anyway, but there are a few exceptions (all of those Disney remakes) where I prefer the newer version and one of those remakes has twins in it!

The wonderful remake in question is “Escape to Witch Mountain.”

In the original, Tony and Tia were siblings but not twins, in the remake — they’re twins, and that’s just the beginning of the changes done in the remake. But those changes work! It’s a fantastic story. As much as I like the original, I really love the remake. Nice job Disney. :)

Now for some good books about twins. :)

One story I’ve read that I liked was “Jacob Have I Loved” by Katherine Paterson. This is one story that doesn’t have any stupid changing places or evil twin/good twin junk and it does deal with something that can be an issue for twins.

I came across this book in high school and I really enjoyed it. Not that my twin ever stole love and attention from me, I’m not even the older twin, but there was that issue with wondering if I was the evil twin. Sometimes I did feel unloved and unwanted especially by my father, so this book spoke to me.

It resonated with me so well that even after all these years later I haven’t forgotten that book, which I’d checked out of the school library. So much so that I recently tried to see if, I could find it again. I wasn’t even sure that I remembered the title correctly, but I did!

Amazon has it in both paperback (used) and reader form. I finally own a copy! I can’t wait to read it again.

Katherine Paterson got it right, and I’d like to thank her for a job well done. :)

A second good book with twins in it is “The Harbor of His Arms” by Lynn Bulock. This  is a Love Inspired novel that I’ve read several times, not because of the well written twins in it but because it’s an engaging story, which is of a widow mother of twins who needs protection and gets it from an old friend of her husband’s and well, it is a romance, so they fall in love.

I guess I could copy the blurb from the back of the book to say more, but I’d prefer to talk about how well written her sons are. I would hazard a guess that Bulock knows such a set of twins because she got them so right! And cute. :)

I really love how the boys finish each other’s sentences, and even better, they had different personalities. It’s an excellent job inside a well-written and engaging romance. Nice job, Ms. Bulock. :)

Another good story with twins in it is “A One-of-a-kind Family” by Holly Jacobs. I was to the bottom of page 22 when these lines started:

“She showed Anna into the living room where there was a man who looked remarkably like Liam Franklin. More than remarkably like him — he looked exactly like Liam. They were twins.”

And I thought wow! The hero and his brother are identical twins, yet she gave them different personalities!

And yes, I knew that right away, because you see, Liam (the hero) hired Anna (the heroine) to help him with his brother Colm who was mentally a child. I have to admit it’s a sad reason they’re different, but still, Holly Jacobs did it! This Harlequin Super Romance is a very sweet story despite the sad backstory. Nice job, Ms. Jacobs. :)

A Thousand Words Times Two

Today I’m continuing my posts about funny conversations, though this one isn’t necessarily about being a twin it did come about because, well, I am a twin.

To set the stage, our father was a shutterbug, even a semi-pro photographer, so as a kid we got our picture taken, a lot. I can remember when we were seven or eight visiting Grandma’s house and there were numerous other people there, lots of Dad’s cousins. The whole mill included several sets of twins and someone suggested getting a picture.

Dad got out his camera and arranged us. The oldest two sets (including the only boy set) sitting on Grandma’s couch and the youngest two, which included my sister and me, kneeling in front. I can remember posing for the picture, and I can remember glancing over at my sister just as he snapped it. Because we didn’t live with Dad, I don’t remember seeing the picture until several years later.

Five or six years after that, our older sister’s boyfriend mentioned a friend of his was going to a birthday party he’d heard about and we could go with him. From what I understood, we’d be crashing it, but we’d be welcome. Wanting something to do that night, I went with my older sister. (All three of us girls may have went, I don’t remember.)

The hosts, birthday girls, yes twins, held the party in their front yard, but at some point I asked permission to enter the house to use the bathroom. As I was going back outside, I glanced over a display of family pictures in the hallways as I walked past them, then stopped short.

In the middle of the display was a picture of four sets of twins, the two oldest sets in the back and the other two sets kneeling in front.

I was still staring in shock when one of the birthday girls came looking for me. I asked her who was in it.

She said, “I remember we’re all cousins, well except the youngest set, their dad is our cousin. I think he took the picture.” She pointed to the oldest set of girls and named them, then said, “I don’t think I’ve seen the boys since. I don’t remember them, or our cousin’s girls, but Mom might.”

I pointed to me in the picture. “That’s me. Dad took it at Grandma’s place.”

Needless to say it was rather funny getting invited to a stranger’s party only to find out they were your dad’s cousins, first cousins no less, and they had a picture to prove you’d met before.

As an addendum, with the advent of Facebook I’ve come in contact with several extended family members who I really only know because I can trace our family ties. One such young lady on Facebook I friended knowing she was part of the family but unsure where she fell in our extensive tree. Then one day she posted a family picture and the mother in it was ever so familiar. I asked her if she was the mother of one of the three daughters in the picture. The young lady said she was one of the daughters. Yeah, I know exactly who her mother is, more or less. One of said twins whose birthday party we crashed all those years ago.

Pet Peeve #3

My third complaint is that it seems when the media does any story about twins they go with identical twins. There doesn’t seem to be as many stories on TV and in print about fraternal twins. I even once met a woman who was a fraternal twin who informed me that more than once growing up, someone had told her that her and her brother could not be twins because they weren’t identical.

She’s the only one that ever told me that, and I do know other fraternal twins, including relatives, so it isn’t a big problem, but it does exist. And when I first thought about writing on this topic, I was thinking I didn’t know of many stories with fraternal twins.

Until, of course I remembered Dick Francis. He has two such novels, both with the same main character, Kit Fielding. He has a fraternal twin sister and you can meet both of them in Break In published in 1985 and Bolt published in 1986. I’ve read these and I particularly like the relationship between Kit and his sister, wonderfully portrayed. Of course, I haven’t read a Dick Francis I didn’t like. (I also happen to like his son Felix Francis too.)

On top of this, Konnie informed me Tamora Pierce has a character named Alanna in a series of hers, and this Alanna has a twin brother. I also recently watched an interview with the actress playing the twin sister of the character accused of killing his wife in the movie Gone Girl.

From what they said on TV, Gone Girl is a book too, though I can’t say I’ve read either this book or anything by Tamora Pierce. Konnie tells me Pierce does seem to know twins, but, with apologies to my fantasy reading (and writing) twin, that’s not going to induce me to read the stuff. (Give me a break, I have read Chronicles of Narnia and her fantasy and I’ve seen a cartoon version of The Hobbit. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a lot.)

Except all of the aforementioned stories, excluding The Chronicles of Narnia, are of male/female fraternal twins, is anyone out there aware that fraternal twins can be of the same gender? Think about it folks, all the examples I’ve given are either of identical twins or of brother/sister sets, and I can’t think of any stories that have fraternal same gender sets. Can you?

I do know of one (ridiculous) movie, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twin brothers, which is a good start, except they ruined it by the script calling for everyone talking about how alike they are and how they supposedly can’t tell them apart. The trailers turned me off. If you can’t tell the difference between DeVito and Schwarzenegger, you’re blind as a bat! Ergo, the movie was ridiculous.

Why do the people of the media find it necessary to pretend two completely different actors are identical twins? This is worse than having one actor playing both twins. Frankly, I can see the need for having one actor play identical twins, their only other choice is to find actual identical twins to play the parts, which I’m sure isn’t always possible, but when there are two actors playing the parts, let the characters be fraternal! Don’t pretend they’re identical.

Don’t you agree any other way, is just insulting our intelligence?

Who Are You

Over my lifetime I’ve had some memorable conversations having to do with being a twin. Some I’ve mentioned before, when people recognized me because they knew my twin. But I can think of two really funny conversations because I’m a twin.

During most of my high school years I lived near a small college but moved away before I graduated. After high school, I returned to that college and, as expected ran into friends I hadn’t seen for at least a couple of years.

One day I was walking across the quad and spotted a young man. I knew immediately who he was, well more or less. You see he was a twin too.

One of the Nielson boys my sister had befriended in eighth grade and we both liked him. The other, well, let’s just say he and I were oil and water.

I stopped to talk. “Hi. Long time no see.”

“Yeah. How have you been doing? Where’s your sister?”

“Fine. She’s back home. How’s your bother?”

Our conversation continued giving some detail as to what our respective sibling was up to without ever saying their name.

I personally was getting frustrated. I knew I’d have to tell Bonnie I’d seen one of the Nielson boys and she’d ask me which one but at this point our exchange had given me no clue. At no time did he mention his brother’s name, and I had hoped he would. Though in hindsight, I never once mentioned my sister’s name either.

I finally realized I couldn’t stand there talking much longer and made some indications I should be leaving. He agreed with me. I’m not even sure which one of us suggested giving greetings to our respective siblings first but I know we both did. But that still posed a problem. I still didn’t know which twin he was.

I finally decided I needed to ask and apparently he’d come to the same conclusion because we said in unison. “Now who are you?”

We literally heard gasps all around us. It was so funny I couldn’t help laughing even though I’d been talking to the Nielson boy I couldn’t stand. We exchanged a laugh and quickly parted ways while agreeing to convey our messages to our respective siblings.

Then not long after that I was walking towards home and found the path blocked by three people in conversation. One young man had his back to me but I could see the faces of the couple he was talking to. I knew both of them, again from eighth grade.

I peeked around the man I didn’t know, saying, “Hi.” Letting my presence be known.

My two acquaintances brightened at my appearance, hugging me and gushed with enthusiastic greetings, which, like the Nielson boy, included asking about my sister.

After several minutes of polite inquiry into what my sister and I were up to they both deemed they must be courteous and introduce me to their friend so the young lady asked, you guessed it. “Who are you?”

The completely stunned expression on the poor man’s face was priceless and of course his first response was, “Don’t you know her?”

I believe it was my male acquaintance who explained it. “But there’s two names for that face.”

Sometimes, it can be funny being a twin.

Pet Peeve #2

My second pet peeve about twins in the media is stories about twins switching places. The first one of this variety I can think of is, of course, Parent Trap, but that’s because I’ve seen that one. However, in browsing through bookstores or the library I’ve come across tons of stories about either one twin replacing the other or someone mistaking one twin for the other.

And I hate them not because there is no way I could ever fool Konnie’s family (even though I know I can’t) but because the one, and only, time we ever tried to switch places I was completely lost stepping into her classroom, even though she showed me around in advance.

I’ve read blurbs, and only blurbs because I refused to read the book, where the main character moves to wherever her twin had been living and takes over her life, including her twin’s significant other, without anyone figuring it out! We’re talking unplanned, she got dragged into pretending her sister wasn’t recently murdered in order to find the killer, and her sister’s love interest is one of the suspects.

Now come on people! Konnie and I once planned for weeks to switch places on April Fool’s day and I lasted at most five minutes before her teacher figured it out. I promise you, if a mere teacher can figure it out that fast, a love interest should be able to, especially if they were serious. Or at least I would hope such a person could, which brings me to the second scenario: someone mistaking one twin for the other.

Okay, folks, that does happen. It happens a lot, but I’ve seen blurbs (again not reading the book, because I hate the concept) where it’s some idiot sleeping with the wrong twin. Really?

When Konnie and I were in high school we took a class called Marriage and Family, and one day the teacher instructed the class to individually make a list of ten things we were looking for in a mate, and then rank them in order of importance. Near the end of class, the teacher started around the room asking each of us to share our top priority.

When she reached Konnie, Konnie turned to me and I faced the teacher and said that we couldn’t decide if religion or being able to tell us apart was the most important.

The teacher said, “Considering how religious you two are, I would think religion is paramount.”

My response?

“You’re not a twin.”

And that really said it all. Around that same time, our father had walked past the kitchen and entered the living room. When saw me watching TV, he demanded to know why I wasn’t in the kitchen doing the dishes, as, he insisted, it was my chore that week. Konnie came charging to my defense, drying her hands on a towel as she did, because she was doing the dishes, per her assignment.

That wasn’t the first time he made that mistake either. And don’t get me started on our youngest brother who insisted on calling us both by Konnie’s nickname. As for the oldest of our brothers, I honestly think he mixed us up just to irritate me, but I promise the mix-ups were annoying especially when our Stepmother could tell us apart easier than our mother could.

We had discussed the subject before and after that class. Thanks to the stepmother/mother situation, we knew telling us apart wasn’t a matter of being related, truly caring was all that mattered, ergo we wanted to find men who truly cared.

And I promise that is what we found.

I admit the first time my husband (okay, I’ll admit it, his name was Tom), ever saw Konnie, he said, “Hello, you must be Konnie, where’s Bonnie?”

And this was only days after our first date!

The first thing Konnie said that day, after he left, was, “Now he’s a keeper.”

Yeah, I kind of noticed that one already. J

When it came to Konnie getting married, well, I was in Norfolk, Virginia where Tom was stationed at the time, and Konnie was in Tacoma, Washington. We’re talking right around the time that Iraq invaded Kuwait and (okay let’s just get this over with) Jerry (yes our husbands’ names were Tom and Jerry) was also in the Navy, stationed at Bremerton.

Because of the situation he was told to get ready to ship out at a moment’s notice and they decided to hurry up and get married before that happened. I didn’t even have enough time to plan the trip, let alone find the money to pay for it. So the first time he saw me was sometime later, when their oldest daughter was an infant, and he arrived home from work to find me on their couch holding their daughter; he took one look at me and said, “Well hello there, nice to meet you, where’s my wife?”

So, I honestly think this is a case of where: “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time,” comes into play. Not even identical twins can do it, and I think the people in the media should stop trying to tell us they can!

Identical

I spent most of my growing up years with my sister somewhere near me; to the point that everyone I knew was fully aware I had a twin. Then halfway through our junior year in high school we moved, to a new state and a large city with its huge high school.

Then one day it happened. A friend in PE commented I’d changed since that morning. After clarifying she meant what I was wearing before dressing down for PE wasn’t the same clothes I’d had on when she’d seen me before school started, I had her describe what I’d been wearing, which of course was what my sister was wearing that day.

The whole conversation was funny, and has brought me much enjoyment over the years, but her question on learning I was a twin was logical. She asked how to tell us apart.

Logical, but hard to answer. After all, we are identical.

Since then I’ve had dozens of occasions when people I knew learned I was a twin. Now I understand people asking me questions about my sister. I also understand saying you’re a twin doesn’t give anyone much information beyond the fact your mother had two kids in her womb at the same time and you were one of them.

So while I can understand the questions about my sister the usual gamut of them is perplexing me.

To illustrate my point is my most recent encounter with someone learning I’m a twin. Granted this is someone I’d just met. But in the course of our conversation sisters came up and I mentioned mine− well, at least the one.

I’ve had this conversation enough that I rarely just say, “I’m a twin,” because it doesn’t give any real information. I generally say, “I have an identical twin sister.” And if I don’t, I manage to slip that uniquely definable word into the conversation somewhere, mostly because it should answer a lot of questions.

You see one of the first questions I’m asked is what my sister looks like. My co-worker asked to see a picture of her.

I don’t carry hers around. I wouldn’t think it’s necessary.

The mere definition of the word identical should make it obvious that seeing one of us means you have a pretty good idea what the other one looks like.

As I mentioned in my last post, it has happened, and on more than one occasion, where someone I didn’t know called me by name simply because they knew my sister, and knew she was a twin and she couldn’t be where we were; and correctly assumed I was her double. Then there are all the times we were mistaken for each other.

So why do people ask what she looks like or ask to see her picture?

Seriously? What don’t you understand about identical?

 

Pet Peeve #1

What I really hate is stories about twins, not all of them, just most of them. The first kind of twin story I hate is the evil twin.

These stories bug me because, growing up, they were all over the place, not only in books but also in the movies and TV. They were so prolific it got to the point that I questioned if I was the evil twin. After all, it seemed to me like everyone thought for you to be twins one of you had to be evil and one good. And quiet, shy, peacekeeping Konnie was certainly not evil, whereas my temper is — well, quite honestly, horrible.

Then again, people labeled both of us goody-two-shoes.

I remember once watching an episode of Colombo where the killers were a set of twins. I was thinking it was an excellent episode until the end of the show where one twin — I can’t remember, she either killed or attempted to kill her sister. It started out so well and then it was still the evil twin story. UGH!

Listen up people. Twins, particularly identical twins, who are what the media is obsessed with, are more in common than they’re different.  

Look at us. How do we differ?

Let’s see:

In looks, well, yeah, we’re identical.

In personality — okay, clearly we are not quite the same. She’s shy, I’m not, and I do have a temper, but when it comes to things we like and dislike — well I’m not much into fantasy, which she is, and I’m more into sci-fi than she is, but we both read, and write, romance! We even prefer the same type of romance, either sweet or inspirational.

And when it comes to political views, we rarely disagree, and we have the same religious views.

The big differences really the fact that she has a husband and five kids and I’m childless widow and that certainly has nothing to do with our genes.

And yes, we are mirror twins. Please take to into account that she’s a soprano; I’m an alto. She’s, well, a natural lefty. Having grown up in an era where teachers insisted on teaching all children to use their right hand, she eventually figured out how to do it, so she’s ambidextrous. And I’m right-handed. In other words, I’m right dominate while she’s left dominate. We’re mirrors.

And I think I illustrated it quite well in my blog post of July 9^th, titled Choosing Twin-ness. And I’m telling you right now, that mirror exercise was dang hard once Mr. T paired us with other members of the group!

The thing is I have never met a set of twins where one was good and other bad, not one. And folks, twins, especially identical twins, run in my family. Yet to go with the media’s take on the issue, this is common. People, I don’t think it even exists. What you do think?

Illusions

Ever listen to a recording of your voice? Didn’t it sound odd to you? The reason is because you hear your own voice both internally and externally but can only hear the recording externally.

You know what I hear when I listen to a recording of my voice?

I hear my twin.

I have, in fact, listened to a recording of us having a conversation. I couldn’t tell you who spoke when, even though it was right after we chatted. My brother-in-law heard a similar recording and asked my sister why she’d been talking to herself. (I suspect he was teasing her.)

Now find some old family and school pictures. Can you pick yourself out in all of them?

I have pictures I know I’m in but I could never tell you which one is me. I have others of just one girl where I’m not at all sure if it’s me or not. Then there are others where I can tell you if I’m in the picture and which one I am, but that’s because I remember the day or the shot or the clothes, or some combination thereof.

I’m sure there are people in this world who don’t fuss with checking their appearance very often, but how many do you know who would just as soon not even glance in the mirror?

Most bathroom sinks have one prominently above the sink and I rarely even glance, pretty much for the same reason I don’t like listening to recording of my voice. I see my twin.

Okay, I know her grey is all in one streak down the back of her hair while mine is most visible when it’s pulled up in a ponytail because it’s scattered mostly in the bottom layer. I know our hair is distinct lengths. I also think our glasses are different. I also know she doesn’t have the same freckles I do and I don’t have the scar she does.

We still have the same forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, well, everything.

I see and hear her which is disconcerting.

So I avoid mirrors and listening to recording of me.

So next time you want to ask a twin the age old question: What’s it like to be a twin? Think about this first.

How would you feel if every time you looked in a mirror or heard a recording of you, you didn’t hear or see you, but that person who looks and sounds like you?

How would you feel if a total stranger could recognize you?

Oh, you don’t think it could happen?

Once I went to the mall in Tacoma, Washington with Mom. While there I spotted an older lady pushing her double in a wheelchair.

As the shy one, I looked, and commented to Mom, but didn’t approach them.

The lady pushing came up to us and asked if I was me, by name!

Turns out she knew my sister and figured I had to be her twin since my sister was in Idaho. I do have other similar stories.

Think about it.