Spirits Having Flown

I never lack for opportunities to be surprised. Yesterday's learning experience came in the person of Miss Lorrie Lanphear. She was a very nice lady in her early 60’s with a history of bipolar disorder (twenty years ago, she would have termed a “manic-depressive”). Slightly built with unkept and stringy grey hair, she looked a lot like a somewhat more beatific Grandmama Addams except for the quarter-inch thick coating of antacid on her lips.

She came today because she was worried about Timmy. Timmy was a guy that she met at a cookout. She knows him, but not well. Timmy is a crack addict. But nonetheless Timmy continues to show up at her house from time to time. And when Timmy drops by he is, by her own admission, a hallucination. “He’s there and he’s not. (Perhaps he’s the Flash.) He comes at all hours of the night.” Fortunately, Timmy is not saying anything particularly noxious to Lorrie. He is not telling her to overthrow the government or lip-sync at karaoke night to “Oops, I Did it Again.” But she is concerned that he may have filled her body with crack cocaine, and we would be kind enough to find out, please?

Turns out I only got part of the story. Our psychiatric screener learned that Ms. Lanphear has a tattoo on her ankle that says “LLG.” This stands for Lorrie Lanphear Gibb. Apparently during one of her manic episodes last year, she became convinced that Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees was going to marry her. She bought a dress, sent out invitations, and got a tattoo to commemorate the occasion. She was greatly annoyed when the high-voiced tenor jilted her at the altar.

“More Than a Woman,” indeed.