Day 58: Desperately Seeking Swivel

There's a researcher in Oregon who specializes in kids with imaginary friends. In the past few years, she's expanded her research in another direction: authors. She did a study with fifty authors, looking at the exact phenomenon I'm trying to bring to life in my book – fictional characters coming to life on their own.

There's an 'ism' for it: the illusion of independent agency. A name that takes the fun right out of it. But the fact of the matter is, these characters function in the same way as an imaginary friend with their own thoughts and feelings and actions. So, when your parents told you you were too old for one, they were dead wrong.

Only I never had an imaginary friend. So, I started mining my childhood, looking for a precedent for having an intense emotional relationship with someone who isn't there.

As a kid, I played pretend a lot. A lot of dress-up and a lot of pretend. We had this Winnie-the-Pooh toy box full of my parents' old clothing. Wild denim wrap skirts, polyester scarves, this awesome Saturday Night Fever dress, all slinky and mauve. Crazy high heeled shoes.

I remember a serious lip-synch-to-Madonna phase. Also dressing my sisters up for photo shoots, trying to turn six-year-old girls into supermodels. In grade school, I created a serialized soap opera with my friends. We performed one episode every week to the class. For some reason I always played a bimbo from the Bronx.

Obviously there's stuff here – creating characters and dramas, acting them out. But I wanted more. I emailed my mom and asked her about my childhood. This is always a good thing to do as a writer – call people up and ask them things whether it's about your own childhood or how a two-stroke engine works.

My mom wrote back with this song she used to sing to us: 'Oh, the girls of France, well they like to wiggle dance.' I'd forgotten about this. Interesting, given my penchant for performing (a.k.a. wiggle dancing) and for France. Maybe I can use this someplace. My mom made up a lot of songs, including such classics as: 'Melanie's my little girl, Melanie's my little swirl.' Only you have to say girl and swirl like gir-rul and swi-rul...two syllables.

One email opened up a huge closet full of memories. But it also contained a mystery: The Case of the Swively Lady. "Remember her?" my mom wrote. Nope, I don't. I have no recollection of a Swively Lady. And now mom's on a three-day train ride to Adelaide – so I can't ask her.

Who is the Swively Lady? Where has she gone?

Does she hold the key to my memoir? What if my whole book rests on her swively, wiggly shoulders? I've asked both sisters. I've put an ad in the paper. I've got a call in to Oprah, CNN and the Missing Persons people. But please Internet, please. If you know the whereabouts of the Swively Lady, call me immediately!