Mary Coomer taught middle school and told fortunes in Louisville, Kentucky and Queens, New York. She took up storytelling to bribe her students into doing their work by promising a story later. She’s been described as “an egomaniac with an inferiority complex,” “a walking battlefield,” and “just plain weird.” She freely embraces the paradoxes, ambiguities, and ambivalences of this list, having tried (and failed) at denial. She teaches senior fitness at the Y, tells fortunes, teaches Laughter Yoga, and dances several times a week.