I Prefer a Hooker with Hoof & Mouth Disease over a Positively Peppy Pollyanna

Even as a girl of 9 I recognized my own natural proclivities.  I have a snapshot memory of standing at our back door, gazing outside, thinking “I want to be good, I do God, but being bad is so much more fun.”  How did I get that idea in my warped little head?  What bad things had I done that gave me so much joy?  I know I didn’t begin masturbating until 10 or 11, hadn’t yet become a binge eater, didn’t even know how to play craps.

I was never brave enough to be openly defiant or obviously wicked because I was way too afraid of (1) my mother, (2) getting punched in the face and/or (3) going to prison.  I stayed with the only other option available, sly and sneaky.  It’s unsatisfying compared with an in your face “Fuck you!”  but still beats being a kiss ass.

My brother Scott once told my mom, “Say ‘when!’” as he poured her a glass of milk.  She didn’t say it.  He kept going as it hit the floor and probably her feet.  As far as I was concerned, his balls were a gargantuan work of art and I wanted to bow to their mastery. 

It’s possible that this is the event which pushed me to touch my boyfriend Richard’s testicles when I was 12, as we made out in the park across from the swimming pool.  I even named them.  I wouldn’t clean out a drain to save my own life until age 35 cause it was just too gross, but I would touch hairy nuts because I so totally wished I had a humongous pair.

For the most part I’m still a sneaky bitch.  I want people to like me, such an annoying trait.  Makes no sense, convincing other people that I’m milk white, vanilla, sweetness and light, when the peeps who prefer such tastes are not even the kind I like!   As I get older and the duct tape on my alter ego’s lips wears thin, the more my true self pops up unexpectedly.  I’ve muzzled the wrong voice, nearly forgotten how to be completely honest.

The most dangerous time of all for my wimpy fake front is when I’m writing.  I’m so fucking brave when face to face confrontation is just a conceptual problem facing future me.

Letters to the editor were my first fire bombs.  Standing on the school playground or sitting in a seat at a town council meeting, no doubt my lips held a goofy grin that begged to be under-estimated.  When my concerns were ignored or blown off I started writing letters.  I cannot exaggerate the power available to anyone willing to say the truth out loud.  God, does it ever piss people off.

* * * * *

Since I met my husband’s family, particularly his sister and her daughters, I’ve been aware that they would not be impressed with (1) my history, (2) my thought processes, (3) my refusal to behave like a proper wife, (4) my unorthodox parenting practices, (5) my enthusiastic use of foul language, or (6) my love of all things inappopriate.  None of that mattered when we saw them only 3 or 4 days a year.

I would yammer on ceaselessly, entertaining their mostly silent potato faces with endless nonsensical tales, curbing any potentially controversial or revealing subject material.  From all outward appearance, they loved me.  The girls are now grown and each has an infant son, the youngest is pregnant with #2.  Both now live in New Mexico. 

Daughter #1 has been a focus over the past decade, ranging from her perfect high school graduation, on to her perfect college career, her perfect job, her perfect wedding (that we were not invited to because it was held atop a mountain or some shit), and now her perfect child.  Daughter #2 has taken mostly a backseat, but her husband (#2) is also maddeningly wonderful, her life beyond magical and her son a blonde baby Jesus.

I pride myself on being able to see the good in everyone.  I would, however, prefer to seek it out than have it shoved down my throat.

* * * * *

Then came ~you might have guessed~ Facebook: the daily updates, the status lines, the multiple mother/daughter interactions put forth for the world to suckle that sickly sweet syrup straight from Aunt Jemima’s teat.

Along with my attraction to negativity is an aversion to enthusiastic, energetic, happy motherfuckers.  I wish upon these poor, naive fools just enough pain and misery that they may have a more realistic view of the world.

They remind me of girls I went to high school with, girls whose mothers did their hair and said “I love you, honey.”  The same girls with fathers who would one day walk them down the aisle, look lovingly into their eyes during the father/daughter dance and then leave them a fat inheritance.  Of course the bitches were smiling toothy grins like crackheads with a huge hidden stash!

The perfect storm: positive peeps who spout bullshit & a written form of communication.  All this time I’ve presented such a nice, happy front, like I’m living with the seven dwarves.  Then with just a few comments I expose myself as the bitch bringing the apple to Snow White.

It’s not even entirely me, it’s mostly them.  Consider a recent status line from Sister #1, who holds a master’s degree in geology:

“Dream job is coming up with the names for paint colors… What’s yours?”

And, God so help me it’s true, this was one of the responses:

“Following birds around in the forest all day to find out what they do in their spare time.”

And this (please note the affected spelling of ’shoppe’):
“Owning a dog shoppe and leading doggy day hikes in the mountains. “

Commercial break necessary as I beat my head into the nearest wall in an attempt to empty my mind of these hideous images of goodness and light.  I mean, I wouldn’t even lead children on hikes unless it was to a candy store and they all had money in their pockets and promised to share it with me and the SHOPPE was down the block, a flat block with no hills.

Followed by this entry:

“. . . is puzzled.  N. took 2 90-minute naps today, with hardly a wimper going down or waking up (the norm is 2 60-minute naps with a few minutes of crying on either end).  Watch out everyone, I think the world may be coming to an end! =)”

And after months of restrained silence, my response (note false tone of sweetness & insincere use of ‘honey’:

“Oh honey, you take this stuff so seriously. I never could have told you in a single day what nap either kid took or for how long or possibly even where, although usually it was in my lap. “Schedule” is such an evil, evil word! So is “normal.” Eeeeyuch!”

Which initiated this obnoxious response:

“Aunt Pam – Fortunately, N. is MY child when it comes to scheduling and being organized… as much as any toddler is on a “schedule”, N. is! =) When he takes his 60-minute naps… they last 60 minutes plus/minus 2 minutes (literally, you could set your watch by it, it was amazing!).”

Oh no, she didn’t really say that did she?  Oh, yes, she did.  So my alter ego got involved and increased the smart ass factor (with an LOL to keep it breezy):

“LOL – Are there any graphs involved in all of this? A sun dial perhaps?”

And that’s when she came out with the fact that she’s clinically insane:

“Oh, there will be — graphs for sure!! (I’m an excel addict, any excuse I can use to organize my life in excel… right now I track exercise and how much water I drink in excel!)”

* * * * *

At about the same time her sister was writing this:

“I laid B. down an hour and 1/2 earlier than normal b/c I need him to wake up sooner today and he went right to bed!! He makes being a mom too easy (sometimes anyway!!)- Im super scared for the new baby though…”

You might be wondering, as I did, what is she scared about?  Well, she’s afraid this new one might be BAD.  The brilliant “Ashley,” who may be an expert on Dr. Phil (my educated guess) said:

“Just like the saying behind a good man is a good woman, well behind a good child is a good mommy!!! and I totally believe that!”

Michele, who gets her parenting tips from Oprah, agrees:

“i also agree with ashley. V. is the most laid back kid ever….its all about how you parent!”

First, let me say I would like to take a horse whip after that fucking Ashley, who dare use the “behind a good man is a good woman” line.  Reading it again gives me convulsions. 

It was all going along so obnoxiously until the thread completely died when I mentioned:

“HAHAHAHA . . . I am hysterical over the people who think it’s all about how you parent. That’s so funny! I know wonderful moms who got kids with a variety of fantastical personalities, some who jump from high places and shave their heads and can get into things better than any locksmith.”

Hey, don’t judge me!  I left out  my sister-in-law whose daughter has her master’s in education and whose son spent time in Rikers Island and beats his pitbull on purpose to make it meaner.

I think my take on pre-natal vitamins, which were making her “SUPER SICK with HORRIBLE HEADACHES,” bothered them more.  (Are you fucking kidding me?  Why not add flecks of rat poison to your hot cereal?) 

After 12 replies I wrote the following and again was the last to jump in on the subject:

“I would never take anything that made me sick . . . but then I’m a baby like that.  And a brat.  I’m pretty sure they gave them to me with Rachel and I never took’em. Yeah, I know, practically child abuse, right? She might have weighed 16 pounds instead of just 10′11. She is a little slow with the multiplication tables though, but I figure she can always be a pole dancer. YES, I’m going to leave that line there. I’m in the middle of a midlife crisis and I’m going to start acting like a 70 year old woman who eats pickles in the street and wears purple and farts in the grocery store and blames the person next to her.”

Can you imagine not responding to such a heartfelt reply?

Meanwhile, I’m wasting my insight on a person who would post this bullshit:

“ATTENTION!!!!!!!  DO NOT JOIN THE GROUP CURRENTLY ON FACEBOOK WITH THE TITLE “BECOMING A FATHER OR MOTHER WAS THE GREATEST GIFT OF MY LIFE!”  THIS IS A GROUP CREATED BY PEDOPHILES WHOSE AIM IS TO ACCESS YOUR PHOTOS OF YOUR CHILDERN (sic)!!!  PLEASE ROTATE THIS POST TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK!!!!!!!!”

Which got the reply: “Great catch on that one, K.”

I need to return to my home planet as quickly as possible.

Twisted Siblings &/or Pre-Teens Prefer Solemn, Serious, Silent Parents

It’s true, my laugh can be obnoxious as hell, a hooting kind of cackle that’s embarrassing as shit if I hear a recording of my own voice.  However, my daughter seems to think it emanates only from a desire to personally attack her, as if I’m wielding a comedic weapon, trying to ruin her life with my joy. 

In the car tonight she lay back, turned on her side and covered her ears as if they were bleeding.  It’s just ridiculous. 

Plus, it wasn’t my fault.

I was on the cell talking to my brother Scott.  He was driving an 18-wheeler and regaling me with familial tales from the Kentucky front.  One story after another, the amusement and disbelief continued to build. 

It wasn’t enough that my mother’s third husband drove his pick-up truck into the ditch of their dry driveway once last week and blamed it on his dog.  Three days later he drove it into the ditch on the opposite side of the same driveway, a straight 200-yard path he’s maneuvered daily for 20 years.  A tow truck had to be called to pull him out.  Twice.  (No further explanation available.)

Would anyone really take a riding lawnmower for repair, pay a large amount of cash for the job, then allow it to fall onto the highway while transporting it home, more messed up than before you started?  Yes.

* * * * *

I was already laughing too loudly for Rachel’s taste when Scott informed me he’d been thinking and had the perfect answer for perking up my marriage . . .

taking a gourmet cooking class with my husband. 

It was then that I erupted into the kind of hee-haw that sends cats running for cover & makes my daughter long for a place of her own.

For some background, both Scott and this guy I’m married to are into cooking (they don’t have much choice cause nobody’s doing it for them).  Scott has a classier, more refined taste.  He was making a Cornish Hen just for himself the last time we discussed one of his menus.  Let me repeat, there were no guests invited.  He’d been off the road for 3 weeks and was moving in the general direction of metrosexuality, even while living in such serious backwoods that he does not get cell phone reception or an internet connection from home. 

I have never eaten a tiny bird with a special name, never considered buying it or even investigating such a purchase.  Scott grew up eating the same 7 meals I did, so I have no idea what happened. 

Here in New Jersey, Hamburger Helper Lasagna (with added corn) would regularly be on the stove if I didn’t put my foot down.  My extended Italian relatives would disown me.  I mean, they know I’m no cook but there are lines that cannot be crossed. 

Still, last week our household shopper brought home bologna and white bread.  He can’t seem to help himself.  He says I am haughty for insisting on serving chicken caesar salad or a nice pasta fagiole when people come over, claiming hot dogs and Ruffles are the perfect party menu.

If potato chips, ketchup or a can of ridiculously soft mixed vegetables can be added to the mix, the man who lives in my house becomes nostalgic for his Pennsylvanian youth.  That’s the type of  recipe he’d copy off his browser while sitting behind the Chief’s desk, wearing his police uniform & a sidearm.  (I’m desperate to ticket the whole freaking world but don’t have the power; he’s searching dinners that use Campbell’s soup as a binder.)

In the past six months or so I have cooked next to nothing.  It’s one more thing I’ve just given up on completely.  So the idea that I would go to a gourmet cooking class is snort worthy.  The only possible purpose of such a thing would be to find my husband a gay boyfriend.  I can only imagine how happy a nice guy might make him.  I’m not being a bigot here, I totally support gay marriage AND prostate massage.

But seriously, is there really a reason for ME to go to the class?  It seems that having a wife in attendance would only slow the courting process.

Especially because all the gourmet peeps would HATE me so completely.  My eating habits are pretty much that of an unhealthy 9-year old boy.  Do not put mushrooms on my plate or I must tell you their texture makes me think of penis, something you’re not supposed to bite.  Tomatoes make me gag, even the seeds left behind after picking out most of their pulp. 

Most vegetables sit along side the edge of my plate, ixnay on the zucchini, cucumber, cauliflower, & broccoli.  I don’t know anyone else who doesn’t eat watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches, nectarines, capers or eggplant.  I would no more eat sushi than take a bite out of a beached porpoise.  Meat with the slightest hint of pink is raw, I see no difference between bloody prime rib and a tampon.

Do I sound like a fucking gourmet to YOU?

I understand his point.  Scott thought maybe it would give R. and I something to talk about.  I think it would just be easier for Scott to call every Sunday and he and R. could discuss culinary technique and anal sex.

* * * * *

My poor daughter.  The laughter only increased.  I told Scott how Rachel was horrified by the sound of my voice, that she hates it so much when I laugh, when I’m happy, when I make a gleeful utterance.  He wanted me to ask her if she was crying, like she did when he drove us on a winding road through the Kentucky wilds at a rather fast rate of speed, crossing over the yellow line on more than one occasion.  So I asked her. 

She screamed, “NO!” 

Now that I think about it, she was pretty loud, too.  But if I’d drawn myself up into the fetal position and held my head the car would have left the road and then I couldn’t make fun of my step-father.

Scott then did me in completely.  In his deep voice with the drawling southern accent he managed to somehow remain serious as he said,

“Yeah, remember how awful that was when our parents laughed and laughed?  Oh man, I’d go up to my bedroom just to get away from the noise of them laughing so damned loud.  Man, it was terrible.”

The single funniest thing I have ever heard, made perfect with his quick, dry delivery.

The idea of his father or my mother happily annoying us with laughter was so ludicrous it took my breath away.  I mean Mom might wickedly chuckle after making someone so sufficiently miserable it momentarily satisfied her sadistic urges.  Scott’s dad would let out a sigh of relieved joy when Mom went away overnight for the State Bowling Tournament. 

But happiness instead of angry screaming expletives and/or an incredibly high misery quotient plus tears? 

No fucking way!

* * * * *

I still have a smile on my face as I think how lucky I am to have him in my life.  One single person who understands your perspective on the world makes everything so much better.

Finding My Twisted Voice, Did I Lose It In Farmville?

Somehow, somewhere, my written voice has been choked to death.  It was always a problem that I wrote and re-wrote to such a ridiculous extent, but now I don’t even begin. 

There seems to be a connection to Facebook, since I spend hours and hours looking at the page over at that idiotic site, the one where people say dumb shit in 12 words or less (or more commonly nothing at all). 

So what am I doing there?

I play games with fucking YOVILLE and FARMVILLE and MAFIA WARS, activities a person with an IQ of 50 could participate in as they dribble saliva down their chins and wait for the next institutional meal delivery to arrive at bedside.  As I do this stuff there is a constant running commentary in my brain, like an MTV highlight line, that says:

“I need to do something that makes money.  This is retarded. 

What the fuck is wrong with me?”

The answer is that this Facebook stuff is like crack for the masses, non-thinking hypnotic activities manufactured to put your mind in that subconscious zone most desired by advertisers.  Many of my fellow beloved bloggers are on Facebook and that makes it even easier to remain there, although I no longer read their blogs since I’m instead staring at an empty page appropriate for a monkey.  (Don’t get me wrong, I love monkeys.)

I miss reading blogs, at least some of them.  More than likely I need to weed my list down and then I wouldn’t be so overwhelmed by trying to keep up with too many.  We’re all a bunch of wordy motherfuckers and wading through 20 entries a day can overwhelm me to the point where I’m completely done in.  You’d think I’d dug 20 ditches instead of read 20,000 lines. 

How did people survive when they had to wash laundry by hand (often for families of 10 or so), hang it on lines (all that upper arm strength) and beat the evening’s meat with a hammer before coating it with some kind of crap meal and cooking it in a pan that later had to be scrubbed with a wire brush?

The worst part about Facebook is that everyone is so NICE and BORING there and not many people ever say anything politically incorrect or add much detail.  There are pages I visit where no one says anything at all.  What the fuck is that about?  Seriously, how is it possible that no one has something to say?  I ALWAYS HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!  Does that mean I’m the fucked up one?  When I start commenting on someone’s page it often seems I’ve taken it over completely (SO NOT COOL!). 

Most inane posts lack even a hint of creativity and contain either (1) game scores or (2) stuffed animals more appropriate for a nursery than a grown human being or (3) virtual beating hearts or (4) terroristic threats of the sort like this one:

“If you love your daughter like I love my daughter and you’re willing to say it (WHICH MOST PEOPLE WON’T BE WILLING TO BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TRUE LOVING MOTHERS LIKE ME) then post this to your wall for 45 minutes.”

I want to gut the people who post that shit, one of whom is my sister-in-law.  Her daughter does it, too.  The worst are the religious posts.  Honest to God, she put this on her page last week:

“WITHOUT GOD… our week would be: Sinday, Mournday, Tearsday, Wasteday, Thirstday, Fightday, Shatterday, Seven days without God – Makes one Weak! (If you are not ashamed of God, post this to your status.)”

Seriously, I need a divorce just so I’m not related to anyone who could have posted such nonsensical drivel.

But I can’t escape it, even my niece recently wrote: 

“For all of you that aren’t too proud to say thank you to your moms for helping you be the great person you are today… please copy and paste to your profile!  I expect to see this many times on my page! Some people no longer have their Moms here to appreciate! (But we can still say THANKS for their love and support!!!  If you love your mother and are willing to acknowledge that she made you into the wonderful person you are today post this.  Most people will not have the nerve or heart to post such a thing.” 

Now, mind you, this is the girl who grew up to have 3 children before she turned 23, who began using crack at age 15, who went to prison and had her children all taken into foster care.  Ahem. 

Let’s get real, her mom made a few mistakes along the way, just sayin’.

Did she really think I would post such utter shit to MY FUCKING WALL?!  I pushed the limit by leaving a message saying I’d be checking my sister’s status line to see if she was thanking our mother yet for turning us into babbling nincompoops.  (I acknowledge the lack of personal responsibility in that statement because my psychologist insists I have to.  Yes, that would be the psychologist who has not fixed me yet.)

So today there is a viral thing going around that asks you to post a picture of a famous person you think you look like as your profile pic.  A woman I know peripherally has posted a very attractive blonde woman, who I do not recognize, as her photo.  SHE LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THIS CHICK!  Every time I see the photo I want to ask (1) Who is that? and (2) Are you fucking serious, that’s what you see when you look in the mirror? and (3)  Are you fucking kidding me?

How wacked out is it that I can’t stand myself for not writing what I want to write?  How do I find that fine line where I am honest but not so honest that no one will ever speak to me again? 

There are two voices in my head (the loudest ones).  One is saying, “Who died and made you God?”  The other is saying, “Just fucking do it you big fat pussy.” 

As I’ve already told you, I’m not a fan of religious messages.

Follow Your Heart, Aunt Rose &/or Home Alone – Edition 49

This entry and certain photos contained within are potentially offensive

& inappropriate for minors and/or the workplace.

For the last two plus months my pseudo sister-in-law Rose has been staying in my son’s basement bedroom (the size of a small apartment with queen-sized bed, wall-sized flat screen & laptop with wireless internet).  Although in the past decade she once lived in a motel paid for by the State of NJ, next door to the schizophrenic owner of  a dog that bit her, she still managed to complain incessantly about a musty odor that my ridiculously sensitive nose cannot smell.

She is my son’s aunt, his deceased father’s oldest sister, the craziest chick I’ve ever known.  She has no connection to my current husband or daughter (other than driving them nuts & assisting them in creating an unbreakable bond of misery that instigates great eye rolling & whispered complaints).  I have known her for 25 years & love her like the sister you think might have been secretly adopted.

After she had COMPLETELY demolished the room with such an incredible amount of pure crap that it seemed to have exploded from a magician’s trunk (she has a touch of the hoarder) we sent a cell phone picture of his room to Bobby in California.  From 3,000 miles he seemed almost excited, so thorougly entertained he was by the chaos & unease I’d brought into our little world.

How do I possibly describe her?  A heart the size of Montana and a mouth larger than Alaska.  I am so completely entertained & tortured by both.  Following her around, I stay two steps back to (1) jump up & down with glee at her unbelievable antics, talking to total strangers & saying outrageous shit and (2) cover my face & pretend I don’t know her as I groan out loud, twisting with a reflective shame that can’t handle it at all.

As the oldest of 8 children, mommy’s helper from the age of two, she is a worker bee, she makes things happen.  She is a f*cking force of nature.  However, supposedly her heart was broken when I used those words to describe her after 48 hours in our house.  This from a woman who once walked in and yelled, “Pam, you’re pregnant!  I had no idea!” as a comedic way of mocking my recent weight gain.

She talks . . . A LOT.  Sometimes it’s more entertaining than others.

* * * * *

I moved to North Carolina at her urging in 1985, made a cross country move with a 3 month old and her sick brother.  It was monumentally stupid.  We were there a week when she realized there was no way she could fulfill the promises of help made to entice our nightmare into hell.  It didn’t seem to really phase her as she told me, “Yeah, well.” 

Along those same lines were a few other episodes in our bizarre decades long connection.  She once cut my toddler son’s hair while I was at work, did not call and ask if it was okay, thought it was ridiculous when I lost my mind.  (I can’t really explain why this is equal to felony assault, but IT IS.)

She invited her grandmother to NC, my son’s great-grandmother & someone I’d never met, then became annoyed with the woman & left her at my house for 3 days without even a phone call.  At that point her brother was already deceased & I was on shaky ground.  It didn’t sit well when I called to my toddler and asked, “Do you want a slice of cheese?” & got the reply “Sure!” from a shaky 80-year old.  It was not a good time for extra care duties.

After 72 hours Rose came by to take advantage of our community pool.  When I got angry she locked herself in her car & wouldn’t discuss the situation.  In a burst of maturity I kicked her car & screamed like a maniac.  She has seen me at my worst and accepts me as I am, something I can’t say about many people on planet earth.  She really, really knows me, far better than my own family.  It’s not always an impressive sight to behold.

Her life has always been chaotic, beginning with a 25-year marriage to an alcoholic, but recently she’s been living with a 71-year old Italian who fancies himself Tommy Soprano.  She left twice, he begged her to come back, it’s a rollercoaster.  When they hit bottom again at the end of September she told me a few specifics.  We hadn’t really spoken in months, yet my reply was, “We’re coming to get you.” 

For more than 2 years I’d controlled my impulse to say or do such a thing.  His mocking her appearance was the last straw.  He’d done worse & I’m not sure what instigated those unthinkable words escaping my mouth.  (It happened once before, more than 10 years ago, when I invited the school librarian and her two daughters into our home for a month.  We later found out she’d stayed in someone else’s home for over a YEAR.) 

I should mention Rose has FOUR SISTERS, none of whom have stepped up, who from my perspective have let her down beyond belief. 

Did I mention she can be a little difficult?

(Or that they’re heartless bitches?)

In the mean time, while nearly homeless, she’s still spending money on food & cigarette deliveries to her parents, giving her mother money for unpaid bills when she calls crying.  At least she was until her father chased her out of their senior residence with a skillet because she wasn’t willing to give him the cigarettes he saw in her purse.

This insanity is what my son’s father described as utter nirvana, a family equal only to royalty.  I believed him.

* * * * *

Surprisingly, after a rough start, I really liked having her here.  My daughter & her father did not.  He went along with it, actually went with me to move her things, due to the domestic violence element &/or because he can’t bear confrontation or disagreement with me.  Rachel chose to stay in the car, not carrying a single bag of crap down the three flights of stairs.

That first night, sitting in our den, this child of mine asked, “How do you spell ‘psycho?’” 

Rose asked her, “Do you think I don’t know you’re talking about me?”  Rachel blushed & snickered.  It didn’t get better.  The following day Rose grabbed her in a hug and whispered, “I’ll kill you, ya little bastard!”, then released her with a laugh & said, “You know I’m just joking!”  Rachel took a baseball bat to bed that night, ever the drama queen, although I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.

Obviously we would have stepped in if we didn’t think the girl totally deserved it.  She was unwilling to be civil, the expressions on her face mind boggling in their vehemence toward a 59-year old guest.  Time and time again she tried to convince me that Rose was smoking in the house as a way to get rid of her, evidently unaware that I have dog senses when it comes to nicotine.  I did wake up one morning in my upstairs bedroom to the smell of incense from two floors below. 

To her credit, Rose reacted instantly to any request she make a change, including the incense, flowery perfume & speakerphone conversations below the bedroom door at 3 AM.  She completely avoided the TV room.  (It was the only way she could keep herself from chattering throughout entire episodes of favorite shows & unheard movies, a relatively unforgivable sin to every single member of this household.)  We overlooked the cooking smells in the middle of the night and a crazed drunken message left on the counter, something she didn’t even remember writing.

She’s suffering from shoulder injuries (two years now), takes a good deal of pain medication(s), drinks more booze than she probably should considering that fact.  Add in the Sudafed she took multiple doses of daily due to the basement allergy, which made her hyper as hell.  No doubt she’s got Attention Deficit Disorder to begin with, as bad as any out of control grammar school boy.

* * * * *

She was the perfect accompaniment to the gay bar, minus a few nerve-wracking situations. 

Once I went to the car and got this text: “In bathroom, fight with tranny.”  I don’t know anyone else who would ever send me just such combination of words.  She met people, got phone numbers & used them!  After telling us about going to this same place previously with her sister

and pushing her into the pool with both cell phone & flip-flops,

which then got stuck in the filter and had to be retrieved by an employee, we carefully avoided standing near the water.  Now remember, we’re talking about women in their 50’s, late 40’s max at the time.  Both are really attractive, you would not guess their ages accurately, even minus the behavior factor.  This is me on the left, you’ll have to guess which of the other two is Rose and which is really a man.  Seriously, would you guess anyone in this picture is 59?

The first night she came along we immediately lost her.  Eventually I realized she was the woman on stage doing a spectacularly nasty humping move with a cute young man.  Since then not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES I have watched her dance with such enthusiasm & creativity that she accidentally ended up on the filthy floor. 

BOOM!

On Halloween I headed for the stage once again to see the costume contest.  There stood Rose with a husky man, his arm wrapped around her tightly, blonde hair cascading down his broad sweaty shoulders.  He was wearing gloves & a cute skirt with tights. 

We’ve since learned John’s preferred name is Tiffany, that he has Asperger’s & believes he lived previous lifetimes as (1) a German SS officer and (2) an extra-terrestrial on a planet where people morphed from bears instead of monkeys.  He was thrilled I’d done a past life regression myself once.  He desperately wants to make me over.  I’m not glam enough for his taste.  Yeah, no shit.

During our last conversation at the bar he used a vice grip to hold my attention.  His spiked wrist band was causing me discomfort, as was the fine mist of saliva he sprayed me with more than once.  His breath was horrendous.  When I mentioned it to Rose in the car she said, “Oh God, I told him he smelled like a gremlin as soon as I walked in the door!  Why didn’t you say something?!”

This is why I love her no matter what.

Can you believe it?  He later told Rose he thinks I have Asperger’s, too, because of my ability to concentrate on his words so completely. 

It’s not fucking Asperger’s, it’s called growing up in the midwest.  It’s having ridiculous manners, non-existent boundaries, and the concern that people like me to such a ridiculous extent that I don’t even want to offend some crazy dude in a dress.  (As I write this I want to puke.)

* * * * *

But that’s not even my favorite story.  She met another dude who took a liking to her, one who dresses like a man.  He’d rented a room in the attached hotel so he could avoid driving home drunk.  Evidently ATTORNEYS are very careful about DWI’s.  She had no interest in him as a date, but he was perfectly acceptable as long as he kept buying her drinks.  When I found them she already knew his life story. 

He was quite inebriated & got thrown off the dance floor for unzipping and allowing the ventriloquist’s dummy in his pants to take a peek around.  As the bouncer escorted him out of the room, Rose’s new pal yelled out his room number & requested after hours party-goers.

She felt bad he’d been forced upstairs before closing time (by just 5 minutes) & immediately began assembling a ragtag group of young people to accompany her to his room.  (Her fantastic sales skills are transferable to any occasion.)  I was laughing so hard I was crying.  Next I knew, I was standing in an elevator & Rose was nowhere to be seen.  I was surrounded by what could only be described as a group meant for casting in the next John Waters film (if he hadn’t died recently): men who look like women, women who look like men, varied colors of the rainbow & me (prior pale PTO secretary). 

I felt a moment of panic as I reconsidered my decision-making abilities & thought about what the fuck I was doing.

These things don’t happen when I go places with Roxanne.

When the doors to the elevator opened Rose had already arrived via the stairs.  She began rapping on the door as the diverse crew stood around, excited to see what was behind curtain #1.  They had no idea what prize awaited.  When a 300-plus pound man opened the door naked & excited there was a screaming chorus of

“OH MY GOD!” and “OH FUCK NO!”

and an avalanche of 20-somethings running for the exit signs.

Rose couldn’t believe they were so disappointingly appearance-oriented, yet she would no more go out with this guy than she would date a woman.  She probably would have been willing to enter the room if I had even given a HINT I might spend time in that potentially bedbug-infested cave with a man carrying a minimum of 30 pounds of impacted feces in his colon. 

It wasn’t happening.

* * * * *

I know you’ll be surprised to hear this, but she did a few things that left us nervous about leaving her in the house alone for long periods.  She lit candles & left them burning, forgot to lock doors.  So when a trip to Florida was planned back in October it was with the presumption Rose would be gone.  Otherwise, it was agreed that I would stay home.  I am not a huge fan of heat, pavement, traffic, or sheets previously used by multiple patrons, so it wasn’t like I was denying myself some fantabulous pleasure-filled treat.

I didn’t care for her story about paying for car repairs with Vicodin (the whole police thing).  So when I woke up Wednesday & the car dude was in our driveway using spray paint I was not happy.  She went to her son’s for Thanksgiving weekend and upon return mentioned the boyfriend had called.  It didn’t seem like a big deal until she left the house Tuesday on a date & never came back, for practical purposes disappearing from our lives in a matter of 12 hours.  I did call to make sure she was alive.

Just the day before my husband had actually had his first real conversation with her & advised he believed it was a serious situation worthy of a restraining order.  When she almost immediately chose to do the opposite it really pissed him off, not an easy thing to do.  More than once I suggested she come back & simply date the guy until receiving reassurance that things were really better.  She would hear nothing of the sort, not surprising since when she’s with him her personality undergoes a radical change that’s all about meeting his extensive needs.

She’d actually been surprised at how much she came to enjoy living in our house, the most low-key environment she’d ever experienced, my husband different than any other man she’s ever known.  No anger, no raised voices, no insistence that things be done a certain way in a specific time-frame. 

But Rachel’s advice?  “I think we should tell her to follow her heart!  CACKLE-CACKLE-CACKLE!” 

* * * * *

The trip was set for Friday.  Rose’s STUFF (3,000 small items and a busted up car bumper) is still in our house.  She also still has a key, thank God, or I would have had to get in the car and head south.  Instead, the girl and her father are staying in a 2-bedroom suite with 3 TV’s, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen, while I am home alone in New Jersey.

I am incredulous over what it feels like to be completely alone, loving it beyond my possible imagination.  Now I remember why people like living alone, choose to have no children and no spouse.  The rabbit in a hutch outside is a little more commitment than I’d choose at this moment.

It seems that even though I knew my daughter’s attitude and presence had an effect on me, I was unaware of the extent to which it changes everything.  As a pre-teen she does not like going anywhere, does not want to do anything I want to do, and is quite verbal with her complaints.  It’s like having an anchor around my neck.  I love her dearly but the experience of being on my own is so freeing.

My husband is another story.  When we are apart he tends to get a whiny tone to his voice that indicates he doesn’t like being alone.  Fuck me.  He has been instructed on how to deal with me but refuses to listen.  “Ignore me, don’t call me.  Be mean.”  He can’t do it.  This will be his downfall, the refusal to take my advice. 

On the other hand, he is the dreamiest father you could imagine.  She will have a better time alone with him than if I were there.  He is more outgoing, comes up with his own ideas to have fun & even sings in the car in my absence. 

WTF?

They had not yet been there 4 hours when he asked about finding a cheap ticket and flying me down for the week (they drove).  Meanwhile, I’d already been to a book sale, had lunch with Roxanne & watched “Slumdog Millionaire” until 5 AM.  What do you think my answer was to the idea of getting on a plane during a winter storm & leaving behind this opportunity to breathe on my own? 

You all know me so well.

There’s a Free Falling Flying Feeling When You Let It Rip

I so screwed myself today, but I enjoyed it while it was happening.  Can you really hope for more than that?

My sister called & that’s unusual, so I answered the phone.  (On average there’s only about a 23% chance I will do so before it stops ringing, even as it vibrates in the palm of my hand.  That percentage is based on people I actually LIKE, people I ENJOY talking to most of the time.)

Since my sister’s ex-husband (the father of my only niece & nephew) died of a heart attack just two weeks ago, and my grandfather & his girlfriend died 6 years ago to the day in a car accident, and it was the birthday of my brother-in-law who died of AIDS, death was again my immediate presumption.  (The advantage of age, actual hard evidence that you’re not over-reacting, even though the kid who says I do would still not be convinced.)

But anyway, I was wrong.  It was really our mother who put her up to it, saying, “Call your sister & see what’s going on in NJ.”   The woman is smarter than she looks.  She knows my concerns lie with my niece & the children, that I probably won’t even show up for HER funeral. 

I should have known, it’s December, time to talk about the holidays.  Mom was wondering if we might want to go to Las Vegas in January.  (I live 90 minutes from Atlantic City & can’t even afford to go there with a coupon for a free hotel overnight.  When I gamble I want wads of cash in my pockets, none of this petty bullshit.)  She also wanted to tell me about the Kindle book reader she purchased for over $200, as she swears her business is in free fall.  (If she gets me one of those I swear I’m turning it in for cash.)

* * * * *

The funeral for my brother-in-law was well worth the 12-hour drive at break-neck speeds.  People who have never lived in both places cannot possibly understand the differences between New Jersey & Illinois, at least the place I come from.  We’re not talking Chicago and we’re not talking high class.  It was really going home.

 To accurately depict my brother-in-law Willie, I will once again repeat that at his wedding rehearsal dinner (circa 1982) he loudly stated

“I’m so hungry I could eat the ass end out of a SKUNK,”

just as I watched the minister walk up behind him and stop to allow those words of wisdom to really sink in.  He hung his head for a moment.  I have no idea if he was praying or trying to breathe deeply, never a good thing when you’ve got skunk on the brain.  For years I thought he’d said “possum,” but my sister insists I’m wrong.

Honestly, I liked Willie.  I love memorable characters.  There are so many boring motherfuckers in this world that I really & truly appreciate an original.  He was nothing if not exactly that.

We got along well because of our common enemy, his mother-in-law, who loved describing what a piece of shit she believed him to be, right up to the point where she mentioned “Why bother having a funeral?  He had no friends,” which was an incredible & jealous lie.

My issue was that she couldn’t completely get off except when bashing him in the presence of his children.  The fact that he broke my sister’s nose not once but twice had nothing to do with it in my opinion, he was their father.  (If she had been my daughter, no doubt I’d feel differently.  He would have died much, much sooner.) 

But my sister chose to marry him, to drink with him, to fight with him, to let him live in her house for the last couple of years even though they’d been divorced since the early 90’s. 

I love that about my sister, that her heart is way bigger than her brain.

Only the experience of sitting in a funeral parlor can so clearly highlight the advantages of being the bigger person, the kinder person, when it comes to how you treat others during this lifetime.  In a variety of ways, she took care of him right to the end.

Willie was a simple dude who had tools from the construction trade and a Budweiser Light can on the display table next to his box of ashes, as well as a deck of cards and a sweaty old ball cap.  There was no kneeling bench, no sermon.  Most of the pictures of him in the collages my nephew put together — or “colleges,” as my sister pronounced the word — “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!” – showed him with frizzed out blonde curls standing 6 inches out from his head and a face clearly plastered from inebriation. 

He wasn’t a big guy but his personality was huge.  You would never, ever spend time in his presence without laughing out loud, sometimes unintentionally.  His repertoire was endless & unique.  He was a funny motherfucker with enough nervous energy to keep a windmill turning.   The last story I ever heard him tell was when I dropped my niece off after getting her out of prison.  His son was on his way to court for domestic assault after pushing his dad down a few times during a drunken brawl.  Evidently it was not the first time.

The son & his girlfriend had barely made it to their truck when we heard the lowdown on how Willie had come back to the house unexpectedly one recent morning and caught the 21-year-old mother of 3 (with another on the way) standing naked in front of the family webcam.  (Willie hated this girl so much he refused to speak to her 3-year old, the part of the story that really shows what a fucker he could be.)

Maybe because he was unable to show love in a typically acceptable fashion it made his kids go above & beyond to maintain a close relationship with him.  When I went on vacation with his son a few years ago, my nephew, the father/son duo spoke on the phone no less than a dozen times a day.  I was JEALOUS.  The relatonship with his daughter, not so much.  He did not treat her well in oh so many ways. 

Unfortunately his incredibly creative & masterful use of every nasty ass word under the sun did not curtail itself when it came to calling her names related to female genitalia or probably even venereal disease.  This guy could tell you he was going outside to get the mail and use all seven of George Carlin’s dirty words in a single sentence, then add in one of his own adjectives for descriptive purposes. 

I mean, seriously, of the thousands of people I met across the country in several decades, Willie was the king of profanity.  Most of you know I love curse words, but it’s way more complicated than mere cursing.  We’re talking “c*cksucker” was as common to him as “ketchup” would be to the man who serves hot dogs at a hockey stadium.  He could use the word “c*nt” in a sentence related to Illinois sweet corn in August.  Truly masterful. 

* * * * *

My personal highlight of the actual memorial was when my grand-niece, who is 18 months old, was allowed to run around the funeral parlor like Dale Earnhhardt at the Indy 500.  She smiled & laughed, crawled under chairs, nearly knocked over the lectern, hid beneath the guest book & continuously popped peppermints into her mouth then let the sticky goo run down her chin.  I was never so disappointed as when her mom sent her home with family friends about halfway through.

In New Jersey children are not invited to anything of the sort, not even weddings.  It seems so unnatural to me.  I mean you might as well get used to the fact that being a part of a family is a pain in the ass right from the get go.  Why pretend?

Wedding receptions are typically more than $100 a plate here on the East Coast.  In Illinois friends bring casseroles to the VFW hall and the bride puts on jeans and a t-shirt before she starts to dance.  As far as I know, the divorce rate is the same, maybe higher when you start out with a mountain of debt.

Experiencing these kinds of events reminds me that I’m not as weird as I sometimes feel here, even after more than 20 years, surrounded by tiny chicks with lots of vowels in their names, some I can’t even pronounce.

* * * * *

The funeral “after-party” was at my sister’s house, the one she hasn’t lived in for 5 years, the one her son and grandchildren & ex-husband have made it impossible to sell. 

I never would have suspected you could fit that many people into such a small place, more than 100 when you counted the screaming toddlers on plastic riding toys in the middle of the living room.  I’m not sure where they hid the dogs for that part of the evening, perhaps in one of the bedrooms.  Earlier my sister had been pleased when the German Shepherd finally drew blood from the Boxer she brought up from Kentucky, explaining that it had to happen.  I’m not sure it had to happen with so many children in the room, but whatever.  Clearly I’m an idiot.

It was the only funeral after-party where I guess I will ever have a chick show me her fake boobs, particularly as her husband (nephew of the deceased) sits between us and says,

 ”Can you believe those nipples?  Those are COMPLETELY REAL, they’re the originals!” 

He was not even bragging, not a little bit, cause it was a totally accurate statement, they were perfect!  He also knew exactly what they cost him, right down to the penny.  In a prior lifetime, like 1976, I worked with this woman’s older sister at a grocery store in town before she got involved with a guy, sold some drugs & ended up in prison somewhere in B*tt F*ck U.S.A.

Incidentally, I did ask ”Are those real?”, so you can’t really place blame entirely on the proud bearer of the nipple-tastic breasticals.  She was being completely accommodating, except for when she started to scream at her husband, Leland, as he stood at the doorway, dropped his pants and pissed out into the yard.  No one else really cared.  (Seriously, the house has just one bathroom & I came very close to peeing in the sink at our old house due to that exact same issue.)

Anyway, I am positive Willie was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes as he watched us celebrate his memory.  Really, it was the most appropriate send-off, except for the part where my nephew Clint drank nearly an entire bottle of Crown Royal, began screaming something unintelligible about how his father was dead, then lost consciousness and was carried to bed with limbs akimbo by 6 dudes who finally got to do something that remotely resembled the pall bearer role.

I was just glad he passed out before calling his grandmother.  When I tried to get the keys to the car away from him he got mad as hell and I reminded him we have two things that bond us: (1) we nearly drowned in the Atlantic Ocean together and (2) our hatred of the family matriarch.  It worked a little too well when he began scream, “YEAH, I WANNA CALL GRAMMA AND TELL HER SHE’S SUCH A BITCH!”

It’s times like that when I am reminded why my sister does not view me as the perfect sibling.

Don’t let me forget the best part . . .

When my nephew was carried in and laid down on the bed his girlfriend put her head in her hands and said, “Oh my God, I can’t take it.  He won’t let me have my bi-polar medication.”

Huh?

* * * * *

 Back to present day: by the time sis got me on the phone, Mom was already on another line.  I hit the mother lode on about the 10th question,

 ”How’s it going with your daughter living with you?” 

WELL, that was a half-hour conversation, only I didn’t have to speak at all. 

It was exciting to hear my sister’s side of the story because she’s such a careful person she rarely lets go unless she’s drunk.  If she’s drunk she repeats the same four facts over and over.  Sober is so much better.  New information continues to come to light instead of slurred repetition.

Evidently it’s not a perfect situation.  I’m shocked. 

I would have assumed that the 23-year old who was living life as a crack whore before entering prison would come out and be a relatively model kind of mother.  Who knew?  Man, I can be such a bitch I even shock myself sometimes.

* * * * *

So by the time I got on the phone with my mother it all came out in a rush.  “Oh, Las Vegas?”  And then suddenly I found myself talking about my brother & spitting out details of my current day life to the one woman who will be sure to

cook my ass like a fatty goose.

Everyone wants a mother, some imaginary entity who will accept them implicitly, even those who’ve been smacked by her time and time again, even when we all know that more often than not parents &/or children are the least accepting of all.  The best part is knowing I don’t care.  I am okay, no matter what she or anyone else thinks or says or does.  I will be fine no matter what happens, no matter who dies (as I cross myself & bless my children in a neurotic rush), even when it’s me.  (At least for today, with this particular personality in the forefront.)

This blog was created on the basis of letting it rip, of telling the tales, of revealing the secrets, even my own.

When I can respect & admire my loving little sister who picks up every stray dog off the street while I worry about insignificant fleas, even as I have no problem accepting the ultimate good in the spectacularly entertaining man who treated his own daughter like shit, love my niece the occasional crack whore with no reservations, adore my nephew who shows his ass while wearing his heart on his sleeve, & enjoy the company of Leland & J. (the breasticular peeps) more than most of the respectable assholes I meet,

then fuck it,

I need to start questioning this core belief that without perfection I am personally unacceptable, that I shouldn’t even bother to try.  I have to consider that perhaps there are people who will like my own crazy pieces best of all, as I do theirs. 

Maybe they are the only people who matter in the end.

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Instructions For Being A Big F*cking Thanksgiving Turkey

The holiday season has begun and I’m in rare form.  Whereas previously I’ve done things like gone to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan (spectacularly awesome) or shopped my ass off on Black Friday (exciting enough that I’ve very nearly sh*t myself)  . . . this year would have none of that.

* * * * *

I bought Thanksgiving cards, none of which I mailed or even addressed.  Well, I did send one, probably to the person least likely to care, cause that’s how I roll.

In my refusal to participate in this thankful thing I didn’t buy food, cook anything, or even wash a dish.  Pretty sure the reason my daughter hasn’t spoken to me in over 24 hours is that I didn’t want to sit at a decorated table, not when there are only 3 people, no dead grandparents, no screaming babies, no conversations of  political dissension, no familial hatred, irritation or annoyance.

Yes, I realize some bizarre oddballs would do it just for themselves, put out a big fat brown paper turkey and a plastic tablecloth, but personally I prefer to make myself and everyone around me miserable.  It’s a mind-set and you have to work at it to really perfect something so wicked.  If I cannot have the agony of family past then by God I will re-create it for a new generation.

When the phone brought Thanksgiving greetings I didn’t answer it.  Although I always think I will make calls on holidays, be a good friend or relative, I never do.  I’m more likely to just stop talking to the elderly blind woman who enjoyed my company so much that I decided I didn’t have time for her.

My niece called twice — the kind of enthusiasm I appreciate when I’m not thinking about how annoying it is when people love me & want to tell me about it – but I didn’t answer.  Maybe if she’d tried 5 or 6 times I might have acquiesced out of exhaustion.

(I’ve been supportive since she got out of prison, but could no doubt have done so much more.  I like telling her stories about what a fuck-up I am.  I make sure she knows details of ALL the familial sins, not wanting her to fall into that addictive thought thing where she believes she’s an original.  There is hope for the future.  She too can marry a decent man then years down the road ruin his perfectly controlled life when she lets her personality come to light after years of denying it.)

My brother Scott called too, but I missed it entirely.  At least that way I don’t feel guilty.  He’s decided he no longer wants a life of depravity & brought up religion recently.  If that wasn’t a downer I don’t know what could classify as such.  I mean REALLY?  You’re going to go from stories of swinger escapades where you accidentally left a condom inside another man’s wife to tales of meeting potentially sweet chicks at church, just as I’m ready to tell you I’ve gone off the deep end?  It seems so unfair!

When my son rang, of course, I answered and put on a smiling face and perky attitude that must have made him think I was popping amphetamines while decorating the tree with a martini in my left hand. 

“Yes, son, we can’t wait for you to come home at Christmas!  This family is all about happy tradition & by God we’re looking forward to seeing you my dear.”

* * * * *

I fantasize about holidays spent serving turkey to AIDS patients and wiping the asses of foster children, burning gravy while sporting gray hair that hasn’t been tended to because I’m so busy caring for others.  But none of that has ever really come to pass.  Well, it’s never even been attempted.  My mind is so much busier than my legs or arms or dialing fingers.

My alter ego believes in tending to others so much more than my real self can conjure up the motivation to actually do it.  Oh, but the thoughts of humanitarianism I’ve had could fill an orphanage with children who love me beyond words AND a homeless shelter with dirty bed-bug ridden strangers who would no doubt speak very highly of my loving nature.

* * * * *

I did eat a lot, all things that I am not supposed to: the french silk pie (a deep dark chocolate cream) was cut into around 4 AM the night before the day, but still technically on Thanksgiving.  Then it was creamed corn casserole (made incorrectly), stuffing (to perfection), mashed potatoes and gravy, plus vitamin & fiber-free white rolls with butter.  It’s a dreamy kind of diabetic recipe for leg loss.  (I hope if I ever do end up in a wheelchair someone just wheels me out to a deserted location and dumps my ass near a red ant hill.)

During most of the festivities I watched 8 hours of a Godfather marathon.  Part I was great, Part II not so much.  It ended at 4:30 a.m., so I finally went to bed.  The marathon was a lifesaver, all that blood & sadness, cause I didn’t think too much about anything else as I worried about Michael & poor, poor Sonny the emotional hothead who’d fuck anything that walked.

It did however annoy me that my husband stayed up until 3 just to keep me company, when I didn’t want it.  Instead I’d prefer he disappear into thin air.  That’s a whole other story and of course I don’t want that for my daughter.  He needs an invisibility cloak that works only for me.

Yes, I know I should be on anti-depressants but they make me gain weight and take away my ability to orgasm, which obviously would depress me.  Stupid, stupid fucking pharmaceutical companies.  Combine an anti-depressant with a diet pill that makes me orgasm without a penis and now you’re talking.

* * * * *

Holidays don’t bring out the best in me, if you hadn’t noticed, instead they make me want to fall in a hole and be covered by just enough dirt that I can continue to breathe.  I’m not QUITE suicidal, I have too much hope for the future.  It’s that schizo thing that alternatively saves me and frustrates me until I want to peel my skin off with a fork.

* * * * *

So yesterday was the day after Thanksgiving.

First, I slept until 11.  When my husband brought me the phone I looked at him with the hatred of a terrorist at Guantanamo facing her captor.  I spoke to my great friend Roxanne for a few moments from the toilet, nearly falling back to sleep on the bowl.  Promised her I would call back, which I never did.  (She puts up with a lot.)  Checked for a text that wasn’t there, then slept some more.

Coffee is the only thing that makes me smile every single day.  So I had some.

Eventually Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda were on the tube with “Yours, Mine and Ours.” It was beautiful & I cried tears of joy instead of the other kind.  But when it ended I was back to my real life and didn’t have 16 children and one on the way (because you know I am really incredibly fond of laundry and making sandwiches in bulk).

So we put in another film to further escape our hideous lives in this home that’s practically a mansion with its two acres, pool and flat screen televisions, a refrigerator full enough to feed a Sudanese tribe.  (Fortunately they were not here during my eat-a-thon because I might accidentally have popped one or two of those tiny people in my mouth without looking, mistaking them for licorice or beef jerky or a slim jim.)

I should be ashamed of myself but I’m way too white trash for that.

* * * * *

Did I mention I woke up this morning weighing 179 instead of the 249 I was at some point during a Weight Watchers weigh-in before the diabetic diagnosis?  179 might sound like a lot to those of you who live perfect American lives with women wearing jeans in a size 0 after a pregnancy that ended 90 days ago.

For me it’s a loose size 14 and the best I’ve looked in two decades.  It’s trading clothes with my 12-year old and doing dumb shit like wearing a t-shirt with a Miley Cyrus tag from Wal-Mart when I’m in the mood to be an asshole.  If I get any thinner my skin will further hang like fancy draperies.

My crooked bangs and big chiclet front tooth are still all I see.

Yeah, happiness comes from weight loss & a great house & a husband who adores you beyond his ability to express it without weeping (which if you’re like me will disgust you to no end).

Believe it & get a big surprise.  Happiness lives inside your head & you can make yourself totally fucking miserable in any situation at all.

* * * * *

So after Billy Bob Thornton and his dumbass movie “Daddy & Us” pissed me off completely I took 2 Xanax after sobbing on the toilet (back to my favorite place).  I went to bed at 8 p.m. and woke up & headed downstairs just as my husband was coming up at 12:30 a.m.

Holiday’s over.  Time to get back to normal life.

The problem is I haven’t known what that is for the past five months, ever since my brother died, I turned 49,  my son moved away, my daughter hit puberty & I XXXX XXXXX X XXXXXXXXXX XX XXXX XXXX X XXX XXX XXXXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXX XXXX XX.

So that is why I haven’t been blogging funny entries that are supposed to be entertaining and make you laugh, although this one did do it for me in spots.

Maybe I’ll try again later.

But Grandma Told Me To: A Lesson In Violating Parole

Talked to my sister and niece today.  Quite a slow learner, I was dumb-founded to discover Mom decided to ask the newly paroled 22-year old to drive her car on the trip from Illinois to Kentucky.  It wouldn’t be a big deal

IF SHE HAD A F*CKING DRIVER’S LICENSE!

Yeah, they’d just left

the Parole Office

and gotten the papers necessary to transfer out of state when Mom had one of her genius moments.  Of course, you’d think the girl who actually

SPENT TWO YEARS IN A CAGE

away from her children, living with stinky, ugly, sometimes large & horny women, would consider saying, “Grandma, I don’t think I should start breaking the law just yet, maybe it could wait till we cross state lines?”  But NO, of course not! 

I don’t think she even said, “Grandma, do you dream of seeing my face behind a dirty plastic visitor’s window again?”  Or “Grandma, do you miss having cup-a-soup from a fancy machine with me in the waiting room?” 

As I think about it again, though, Mom most certainly went right for the candy machine.  She no doubt would scarf down a Reese’s so quickly it would get caught in her esophagus because of the balloon surgery she had for weight loss and then had to give herself the fisting Heimlich in an attempt to get the swallowed whole tasty treat to go up or down.

My sister was the first one to tell me about the parole violation.  She gave no evidence of upset, just said, “Yeah, Mom thinks she should practice since she needs to get her license soon.”  Other grandmothers teach their granddaughters to make chicken soup or sew curtains, mine incites her beloved granddaughter to go for broke against the Illinois State Police.  

I said, “Oh, well I guess she waited to get out of Illinois?”  (Kentucky officials seem to be amazingly more lax about minor rule violations like tax evasion, shooting neighbor’s dogs and such. When my nephew was given a DWI in Illinois he was ordered into months of counseling.  Then he moved to Kentucky.  The woman he was directed to see there told him to “go to church” and “get a good woman.”  That was it, concise direction in a single session.  Kind of admirable, really.  A “no bullshit” therapeutic experience.)

It wasn’t until I spoke with my niece that she came out with the details: she began driving IN THE SAME CITY AS THE PAROLE OFFICE. 

 Who knows, maybe she drove right out of the parking lot?

Might as well ask the parole officer if he’s got a bottle opener you could borrow for the drive.

This is mother’s specialty, her equivalent to brain surgery, trying to GET OVER ON THE MAN.  I can just imagine the words in her head, “Nobody’s going to fucking tell me what I can do with my own goddam granddaughter!  If I want her to drive my fucking car she’ll drive my fucking car!”  Her beady little eyes narrow and her lip turns up in a sneer, highlighting the scar from when she put her face through the back door just before leaving with the police for the mental hospital 40 freaking years ago. 

Meanwhile, if they’d been stopped and a jail visit followed, it would have been the ticketing police officer’s fault, the State of Illinois’ fault, my sister’s ex-husband’s fault, and quite possibly the black man driving along side of them who clearly should have been stopped instead of some innocent looking white women.

She’s the same woman who assisted her son in hiding stolen merchandise.  He (1) stole his grandfather’s pick-up truck to (2) steal a soda machine from in front of a grocery store.  He hoisted the full machine by himself. 

In later years she peed in bottles so he could pass urine tests for over-the-road truck drivers since he was still doing drugs while driving a semi, something that clearly wasn’t in his best interest as a heart patient.

Considering the fact that he’s dead now and all that didn’t work out so well you’d think she might evaluate her attitude, but that would be like admitting she’s ever been wrong.  I can promise you that is not a possibility.

All of these jackassian nincompoops think nothing of driving without seat belts as well.  One report detailed 4 adults and 3 children in a crew cab pick-up truck (the kind with a backseat) for two hours with my drunken ex-step-father at the wheel.  The kids rode unbelted & my mother and sister screamed about (1) getting lost in the dark and (2) wrong turns and (3) dangerous maneuvers by a mad man who occasionally likes to tell a long twisted story about killing his ex-wife’s lover and (regretfully) the dude’s wife. 

I considered screaming like a banshee that I’d call the police myself if I hear any more of that kind of shit (you’d think I’m talking about the murders, but I’m back to seatbelts).  However, knowing the way children’s protective services handled everything down the line, I no longer trust them either. 

It starts to feel like I’m living in an alternate universe where people actually want to do well by children, escape spending time in a pen and avoid living with shit in their nostrils because their head’s so far up their own ass.

Don’t get me wrong, I can be a total fucking asshole!  But usually when it’s happening I REALIZE it, I can acknowledge it and call myself a moron.  I might even STILL choose to do whatever idiotic nonsense has taken root in my mind.  I mean I am biologically tied to this clan of fools, so what can really be expected?  Certainly not perfection.

* * * * *

We’re starting to think that my sister’s boyfriend, Mike, is the brains of the whole Kentucky operation.  (That would be the dude who’s still married for the fourth time, somehow can’t get the last divorce to go through and make sis #5.  Incidentally, he’s on federal probation for overdue child support in 3 states.  Plus one of the ex-wives went on welfare when he didn’t make payments and so now he must pay the state back for the cost of that PLUS interest.)

He recently sent me a dirty joke by text.  We managed to convince him that since he sent it on my daughter’s birthday I thought it was a greeting intended for the 12-year old, so handed her the phone without reading it.  Then we told him she dropped the phone, began to cry and ran away sobbing. 

He’s apologized several times since and we just don’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

My Alter Ego ~ A Twisted & Demented Superhero

Since I’m back to blogging I’m determined to post regularly.  Wish I could do it every day, but I’m a big fat loser and have permanent brain freeze when it comes to any kind of expectations.

I’m trying to quit my addiction to Mafia Wars but knowing my Cuban businesses are making money and that eventually the coffers will be full and unwilling to accept more if it’s not banked gnaws at me like a teething child at mommy’s boo-boo (or a grown man of a certain type).

So I’m going to make a list of things I could do instead of clicking that magical button that takes me to a comatose state similar to a quaalude (which I did ask my doctor for a prescription for but he refused).

1.) Bathe

2.) Clean the house.

3.) Take action toward earning money in the near future.

See?  I’m bored already.

4.) Send another text message.

5.) M*sturbate

We’re talking short-term here.  Neither of these take long at all.

6.) Wake up my daughter and make her day delightful.

7.) Send my son an e-mail that makes our lives sound like they are perky and wonderful and so much better than reality, in an effort to make him miss us desperately and realize that California is not that great if he can’t be near his adoring mother.

8.) Try and call my niece, who should be on her way to Kentucky right now in a car with my mother, the most hellish thing I can imagine!

9.) Read some blogs and comment so everyone knows I still love them dearly even though I seemingly dropped off the face of the earth.

10.) Call Roxanne & see if she’s going to laser tag tonight. 

Yeah, that’s what I’ll probably do. 

I really wasn’t meant to be unemployed. 

I need direction at all times, like an ADD-riddled child standing on the beach holding sand in one hand and a dirty cigarette butt in the other, wondering if he should eat the cigarette or throw sand in his sister’s eyes, therefore scratching her cornea and damaging her vision for the rest of her life.

* * * * *

Just so you know that I didn’t spend all my time on Mafia Wars just clicking buttons, there was an actual incident that occurred in which my assistance was helpful and I received a ‘Thank You” note regarding same yesterday.  Last week at 3 or 4 am, I forget which, I noticed someone leaving comments that sounded like “Help me,” “I can’t take this any more,” “I just can’t do this.”

Nosy bitch that I am, it was necessary to intervene mostly for my own mental health.  So I told the guy he was scaring me and asked what he meant by those apocalyptic messages.  After no response I instant messaged him and sent another request to his in-box, determined busy-body that I am. 

When he wrote back it was to ”Pamele.”  This was the first indication of his drunken state, such poor spelling.  Fortunately, since he was suicidal, I did not deride and mock him as I might have otherwise.  I did not tell him that my son won the whole school spelling bee in 6th grade & his current successes more than likely hinged on that fact.

BACK TO THE STORY AT HAND, MAINTAIN FOCUS PAMELE!

After half an hour of back and forth in the instant message box and repeated statements that he had to go because he needed to end it all, I finally looked up his profile page and called the police department located halfway across the country.  It took close to 30 minutes to explain the story, find his address & get an emergency unit to his house.  In the mean time I eventually had him on my house phone and a dispatcher on my cell phone asking if there were weapons in the house.  It was like an egomaniacal dream come true being in the middle of such chaos, a two-fisted chatterboxing life link.

He was quite soft-spoken and thanked me several times for talking to him, even though he continued saying he had to go.  I kept asking questions.  He told me I was such a kind person (clearly hallucinating at that point).  Then I heard male voices in the background.  They entered his home without even knocking, which seemed rather aggressive.   Then he REALLY had to go.  Afterwards I was instructed by a fireman who called my house that I needed to call the Emergency Room and give them any information I had. 

How do you explain at 4:30 AM that you live in NJ and you have never met this man from Illinois before, but you’re “friends on Mafia Wars“?  I felt like a certified lunatic.  Fortunately the game is so huge that the psych tech knew exactly what I was talking about.  Unfortunately she had a voice that made me think she could convince ME to commit suicide if I had to listen to her drone on for long. 

She instructed me to send copies of everything I could find regarding the things he’d written, then she gave me an invalid e-mail address to send them to.  It did not instill a feeling in me that my unskilled and off the wall crisis intervention would be followed up on properly.  Naturally I began thinking that maybe I should drive the 14 hours and give the only appropriate counsel available in North America, my own.  Because, you know, I am a fixer freak.  I’ve never truly fixed anything in my life, but in the back of my mind I KNOW that I’m PRACTICALLY the BEST at doing EVERYTHING.  That is because I am a GENIUS and all around me are IDIOTS.

Yeah, I tell myself that as I sit home contemplating whether to twiddle myself or brush my teeth.

So, anyway, Chris sent me a note yesterday saying that he was sorry he dumped his problems on me but was glad I was there.  I was tempted to write back and tell him it was the most important I’d felt all summer and could he recommend me to other suicidal peeps or would he prefer a cash remuneration? 

Instead I wrote something nice about how I would really freaking hate it if he was dead, all the while wondering if we panic at the suggestion of suicide because, hey, if we gotta stay here you do too!  Like, what if death is actually nirvana?  You just don’t freaking know!  I mean, he said he was in physical pain from an accident.  I really freaking hate pain.  I am a huge pussy, like f*ck that!  I would totally off myself if I was painfully miserable!

Yeah, not the kind of philosophizing you want to do with a dude who’s already questioning his commitment to breathing and blinking. 

I also stopped myself from saying “Call me any time you want to talk about your problems,” because I really wouldn’t like it if this was an ongoing thing and I couldn’t feel like I fixed him in 90 minutes or less.  That would just piss me off and eventually I would say something stupid like,”Stop with the f*cking depression bullshit!  I already told you, just go to sleep!” 

Pretty much the way I act as a mother when my children are unhappy.  Like, “DON’T FUCKING CRY, IT MAKES ME SAD & I HATE THAT!”

* * * * *

Growing up in constant crazy, my brain was permanently conditioned so that NOTHING makes me feel more content than contending with a crisis, as long as there’s nothing REAL I have to do, like cope with a dead body or clean up puke or see anyone completely losing their shit from injury or loss.  I don’t like illness or icky stuff or real human emotion. 

Who knew crises of a virtual nature would fit my criteria so well?  Good God, like I needed another reason to remain behind my computer screen, tucked safely within the folds of my superhero sweatshirt.

 

The End of My Twisted Summer Vacation &/or The Memorial Tour

Tomorrow the pool will be closed.  My summer was spent mostly on Mafia Wars, not poolside, but I like looking out the window and seeing the attractive blue color.  The husband spent an inordinate amount of time keeping it that way.  Fortunately he likes that kind of mundane task, the sort that make my eyes roll to the back of my head.  There were people actually in the water less than 12 hours total.  Personally, I did not spend an hour, not half an hour.

Except for a week on the road I sat with my laptop and cell phone in front of a big screen.  I learned to text message this summer, sending hundreds of them.  It would not have been a really big deal if I’d had no use of my legs.  (As it would happen, my favorite story this season was that of a man who met a woman on Match.com, then found out she was in a wheelchair only when he had to carry her to the car on their dinner date.) 

I thought living in a big house with all the associated accoutrements would make me happy.  Well, if finding out interesting things about yourself brings joy then I’m a gleeful mofo.  My mid-life revelations have all been surprising.  There are so many things I previously observed other people do and judged harshly,  insisted “NO WAY.”  Then I did them.  Pretty sure I would have eventually made the same revelations in a studio apartment. 

I am like my mother in so many ways that if I was really, really consistent and true to myself I’d commit suicide.  I am also unlike my mother in so many ways that it just saves me.

In August I drove to Kentucky (again) and took stops along the way in Pennsylvania and Illinois.  My daughter stayed in Pittsburgh with her paternal aunt and hated it.  It was her very first time being away from either parent.  She told me she believes I am “like a queen” now after “living in anorexia.”  We all live these private lives & have different ways of doing things that we don’t even share with our closest relatives.  They’re as foreign as if we were born in different countries. 

A single tiny chicken cutlet served with applesauce and canned carrots might as well have been a serving of pig’s feet in my daughter’s experience.  Her aunt actually told the rest of the family, “R is ALWAYS hungry.”  R no longer wants to call her “Aunt” Bev and insists I change our will so that she is not ever left in her care again.  For crying out loud, the girl grew 6 inches in the last year and is nearly 5′8″.

I drove on to Illinois and visited with a cast of characters.  My aunt and uncle, as always, were a happy highlight of the trip, reminding me that there are close family members who have never (1) spent time in jail OR prison or (2) resembled something off a “Po’ White Trash” calendar or (3) played pornography on the television during daylight hours with young children in the vicinity.

It was interesting meeting my brother Jim’s girlfriend’s new lover, a guy that’s both living in his house and doing his chick.  It would take approximately four of the new guy to even come close to Jim’s size.  He was utterly lovely and answered every single one of my very nosy questions without batting an eye, including being quizzed about how soon they got together and at what point he moved into the house.  No one could ever take Jim’s place, not even with Julie.  I was surprised to discover that her oldest daughter still calls Jim’s cell phone every single day to hear his voice.  Of course then I had to do the same thing, not knowing previously that the account still exists.

Burt, who I found on Facebook after years of searching, went along for the ride and provided moral support.  It was the first time we’d seen each other since 1983.  (Holy f*ck.)  We could have passed on the street without recognition.  I am now blonde, but had dark hair then: 

He was pre-Marine Corps and obviously now post:

I’d describe him then as a combination soulmate/hand-picked family member/favorite person in the world.  True to form, I ran away in search of depravity & self-destruction.  He still hates me for oh so many reasons.  My regrets are huge & he has replied to that statement with “Too fucking bad.  Live with it.”  No namby-pamby bullshit with him.

Even amidst the complications of his torturously photographic memory and my maniacally selfish behavior, he was still willing to take me to Steak ‘n Shake and travel through darkened corn fields to reach my hometown.  I’m pretty lucky he didn’t strangle me in the dark and toss my body between the rows.  After all, he is now a member of the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

* * * * *

It was my delight to be the person who picked up my niece from prison and took her home after nearly two years.  The end of that story has not been written, as she will be heading to Kentucky on Wednesday into the snake pit that consists of my mother, her mother (my sister) and a multitude of f*ckery.

Yep, this is the face of the prisoner.  WTF?!

When we arrived at my nephew’s house, where S would be staying until court, we were met by his beautiful 2-year old amidst the 20 or so broken down vehicles parked in the yard.  Hailee had used an electric razor to shave a 2-inch swath down the middle of her head, making a reverse mohawk.  According to my sister’s ex-husband, who also lives there, it probably happened when her mama was posing naked in front of the living room webcam.  He’d caught her entertaining someone that way a few days before our visit.

That would be my nephew’s fiancee, the girl whose parents were both on death row before her mother died in prison last year.  She’s both beautiful and crazier ‘n hell.  I’m sure that’s how she found our family, with dysfunctional sonar.

* * * * *

Kentucky was the last stop before saving R from Anorexia.  It was my sister’s birthday and the anniversary of my brother’s death two days later.  Our plan was to get matching tattoos, but the day to day details of taking care of three children ages 1, 2 and 3 made that impossible.  However, I’m still getting the freaking tattoo.   

Since this was my third trip in less than six months I was able to see a little clearer picture and experience more of the anger my sister barely contains.  She is miserable without her friends nearby, stuck in a house with either my mother or the kids at all times.  Her boyfriend is such an idiot that he’s jealous if the man next door stops by to play horseshoes, as if she would blow him on the kid’s trampoline.  (If she did it might at least take away a bit of her isolation and hatred for life in general.)

By the time I’d stayed just two nights I had both sister and mother in stereophonic sound stating that I wanted the kids to like me too much, acting as if I was being a show-off for trying to keep them happy even during things like clothing changes and bedtime.  Always a fan of the underdog, the boy is my favorite and it rubs everyone the wrong way when I make it clear I think he’s perfect in every way, when I insist he does not have ADD or anything of the sort.  However, arguing with my sister does not make it better for him when I eventually get in my car and drive nearly 1,000 miles to the east.

* * * * *

My niece has been out of prison for almost a month now and last weekend was her first time to Kentucky, her first time to see her kids.  She, too, was accused of being “too nice,” told she needed to “toughen up.”  When she took the baby to my mother’s house the toddler stepped in dog pee the moment she walked in the door.  My mother was angered by the ridiculous idea that her feet needed to be washed off thoroughly, what was the big deal?

Mom then offered S, a 22-year old, her old bras and underwear.  S gained weight during her prison stay, but she is still under 200 pounds.  My mother is over 250 & a filthy pig.  Mom advised her that her jeans were inappropriately tight.  This is the same c*nt who used to insist that I should buy my clothing in the men’s department. 

End result, my niece is no longer excited about going to Kentucky.

Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that she got drunk with her mother the last night she was there.  According to her reports she “only drank four beers” but then “threw up all over” her own shirt.  Yes, my 48-year old sister got drunk with her daughter the paroled crackhead.  Did she think it would be a bonding experience or was she just in the mood to tell her how completely she’s f*cked up both of their lives?  Either way, her motivational efforts had the opposite effect.

Although S has signed away rights to the children, assigning them directly to my sister, the idiotic familial expectation is that she will step right back in and begin taking care of them.  My sister and mother both feel so strongly about this subject that I could not speak up against it, could only stand there waiting for flies to occupy my mouth and throat.  In reality, after all the craziness, it might even be the best plan.

I did make a discovery that made it all worthwhile, the stash of photo albums hidden in my mother’s sunroom.  The scanning will take me weeks or months, but some of the pictures are priceless.  Here’s a sample:

This is at my mother’s wedding to her second husband in 1967, all six of us.

Penny (6), Scott (6), Jodi (8), Pam (7), Jimmy (3) and Shannon (3).

* * * * *

In the meantime, my son graduated with his Master’s degree and moved to San Diego.  He’s doing really well and seems happy, which is pretty much the best I could ask for.  He lives on the beach and tells me the people are “ridiculously beautiful,” then laughs.  Here’s a before and after of that, too:

* * * * *

Driving back to New Jersey late at night on the anniversary of my brother’s death, I decided to call Jim’s cell phone again.  As I listened to his voice the car lights lit up a big green exit sign that said “Pewee Valley.”  Our father’s nickname was PeeWee.  Dad died when Jim was only six years old and the sadness of that loss permeated his life.  It was the perfect wrap-up to my memorial tour, acknowledgment that Jim is with Dad and happy at last.

* * * * *

So how was your summer?

My 49th Summer: Facebook, Games, Gay Bars & Old Friends

Life is unpredictable and it’s necessary to roll with the changes.

God only knows, it couldn’t have been easy for this guy!

My son is apparently moving across the country within weeks.  My daughter has hit puberty with the speed of a gazelle and sometimes the charisma of a rattlesnake.  My husband is either at work, on a lawn mower, or snoring in his recliner (some things ARE predictable).

In August my little brother died a full year ago.  I kept wondering when this reality would hit me & suddenly it did.

I turned 49 in June and believe it was the beginning of a disgustingly trite & overdone mid-life crisis. 

I hate being predictable.  

As I sit here at 3:00 a.m. with my 11-year old watching “Slither” (one of the greatest & most bizarrely insane movies I have ever seen – www.slithermovie.net) I’ll agreeably acknowledge we’re living an experimental lifestyle.  We stay up all night on computers, watching recorded movies & playing games.  We rarely see the sun, except through a window. 

If we keep staying up later we’ll eventually be on a farm schedule, like that of my grandparents.  The real issue is I can find no reason to change the situation.  Does it really matter? 

I have no idea.

* * * * *

Facebook has brought many interesting people back into my life, one of whom is Linda, my old girlfriend.  She will be visiting soon and you will absolutely love her.  Finding people I adored years ago is like discovering a piece of my heart long abandoned, left to rot like green meat or black lettuce.  WTF?  How did I lose them?

No doubt it’s because I slept with most, cheated and abandoned them before they could do it to me.  Never mind that I did not choose people as cruel as myself, but instead eviscerated those with huge hearts.  I could not handle being loved.  I ran cross country both to escape my mother AND so I wouldn’t have to face my own behavior, in the hopes that no one would beat my ass like I deserved.

The people I didn’t particularly enjoy knowing before?  I clicked off 3 of those annoying bitches just yesterday.

The first full day I actually spent as a person at 50% of age 98, I found someone I’ve looked for off and on for 25 years.  I knew him before I moved to San Francisco, childless & barely out of college.  How strange that he appears when I again have little purpose, as I slowly but surely lose my chosen role.   After half a lifetime I’m back at square one.  He is able to fill in blanks that confirm how lost I was at age 23, how determined I was to self-destruct.  His memory is exacting, mine nearly non-existent. 

Anyone who attached themselves to me might as well have strapped C-4 on their chest with duct tape.  The question today is whether that statement still holds true.

* * * * *

Rather than complete annihilation, I began numbing myself.  As a result, in some ways I feel I’ve wasted half my life.

In an effort to live my final days (you think I’m joking?) with joyful abandon, I went out with my girlfriend to a popular bar catering specifically to gay men.  (There are also straight couples & lesbians, so we don’t look like total freaks, never fear.)  I walked in and immediately knew one of the bartenders, then saw an old neighbor on the dance floor.  Kiss, kiss!  It was like I was channeling Nathan Lane and screaming, “I’m home!”

We’ve gone twice and I’m thinking of applying for a job so I never have to leave.  It’s in a hotel and there are bars out by the pool, with lounge chairs and an upstairs deck.  Perfection, indeed.  Dudes humping dudes humping chicks.  It’s a free for all and I love it.

Dancing for a good portion of the five hours we spend there (Saturdays from 10 pm-3 am), surrounded by adorable boys who are alternatively (1) dancing shirtless or (2) dancing in thong only or (3) making out like they haven’t eaten in a year and their boyfriend is holding a hidden cheeseburger under his tongue, it’s the most fun I’ve had in forever.

The first time we actually stayed and closed the place down, eating breakfast in the adjoining restaurant.  A gay bar that also serves french toast dipped in Captain Crunch?  Is this heaven? 

Leaving the place at 3:30 we were approached by a young man on a bicycle peddling some type of “powder.”  It’s impossible to describe how grateful I was to discover I looked cool enough to be a crackhead.  I mean, honest to God, I should have tipped him for the compliment!

This past Saturday night we did not go to the bar.  I also did not make it to the video store, my husband did.  The only thing more depressing than watching movies where people get fingers chopped off and bleed incessantly, then spread the blood all about their bodies, is knowing I could have been dancing & laughing & jumping in time to great music along side men with what look like cucumbers in their panties. 

They’re just so sweet!  Last week a man bowed in our direction and called the two of us “Queens.”  Personally, I appreciate being considered royalty

even if it’s because I bear some resemblance to Prince Charles.

Most people go ga-ga over two chicks together.  I must disagree vehemently.  I am a devoted & incorrigible fag hag.  Those boys want nothing at all from me and I LOVE that about them.  They are welcoming, they look me in the eye and smile.  What more could I want?  

Fortunately Roxanne let me in on the fact that I have an unfortunate habit of opening my mouth and letting my tongue hang out while I dance.  I’m working on it. 

Do you think it could be the tequila shots?

* * * *

When I haven’t been bar hopping I’ve spent approximately 18 hours a day with my laptop, first in a virtual word called Yoville, decorating my apartment and my virtual self in bright colors, playing with penguins and robots. 

Really, though, how often can you redecorate?

So I opened an account in Farmville and added crops, cows, rabbits and pigs to my menagerie.  It’s a game that perhaps uses 64 of my IQ points.

When my new/old friend invited me to play Mafia Wars it was instant addiction.  Sometimes I’m only sleeping 4 hours in every 24 hour period.  Problems with insomnia?  I have the answer.

* * * * *

Things have to change soon.  My son graduates with his master’s degree on August 8th and I’ll make the trip south. 

In the mean time, you can find me on Facebook. 

Even better, Sunday mornings around 4 AM I’m playing Mafia Wars under the influence of tequila after spending the night at the bar.  Come join me.

Summer: POTUS, Travel, Concerts & Taco Bell

Summer is supposed to be down time, but it hasn’t worked out that way.  It complicates my blogging cause there’s stuff to write about but my ass is kicked before I can put it into words.  I LOVE my blog and I’m not into the idea of slamming something out just to get it on-line.  However, my electrician is starting to complain . . . (look on the blog roll under “Naked On The Roof.”)

Just in the last week we’ve been to two concerts (Raven at Great Adventure & The Jonas Brothers at The Izod Center), Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum & Ruby Foo’s restaurant in NYC, and a show called Drumline at the Mann Center then lunch at Reading Terminal Market today in Philadelphia.  Each activity was worth the effort & worthy of its’ own blog entry.

* * * * *

In the mean time, my husband met President Obama this afternoon, shook his hand and had his picture taken.  I wasn’t invited.  Probably just as well cause he had to wait behind a stage in the heat for over an hour before his 15 seconds came along.  I would have been like “HELLO!  I’M HOT!  WTF?!”

Last October he was in the unusual position of meeting President Bush, which means we will now have two outrageously incredible photos to hang on the wall.  Fortunately, he has very little hair and so there is no issue in that regard, he always looks fab.  Forget the president, my hair would have been the focus of the day, that and my chiclet tooth.  North Korea could bomb us to smithereens and I would still be commisserating the fact that my bangs separated in the middle and my chiclet looks weird with a flash.

My husband voted for Nixon in 1968, that was it, before he met me.  (Nixon brought him back from Vietnam, a super-duper reason to throw him a vote.)  His relatively objective opinion is that Bush’s handshake and demeanor were more manly (firmer) and charismatic.  But then all around him people were passing out in the heat and being taken by ambulance to the hospital.  Perhaps Obama was wilting, too. 

  * * * * * 

This morning my worst nightmare happened, people showed up at my door while I was still sound asleep.  Yes, they were invited!  I even set the time.  These are my favorite peeps, not like those OTHER peeps, the ones I might want to purposely annoy.

I am notoriously late for everything, partially due to my insane sleep patterns but mostly just because it’s a character flaw.  In addition to the usual issues my alarm clock was meeting with Secret Service and SWAT teams this morning & so he forgot to call and wake me up.  Eventually the ringing phone or the door bell or the screaming people in my driveway woke me from my dreams!

After a 2-minute shower & a lackluster attempt with the blow-dryer we were slamming down the highway.  It took 90 minutes to make it to a free show that lasted less than an hour (30 minutes less than advertised)!  By 12 p.m. we were left wondering what we could possibly do to make up for hauling three pubescent teen-type people on an extremely hot wild goose chase.  (Did I mention the air stopped working once we were 50 miles from home?)

What would you do?

We did the sensible thing & drove into downtown Philadelphia in search of fireworks.  We parked in Chinatown and then found out that such things are illegal within city limits.  So instead we went to Reading Terminal Market and bought various and sundry food items like Philly cheesesteaks and a beautiful pink sprinkled cupcake and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in an extra-special cone and cherry butter and fudge and Whoopee Pies and iced coffee and one tiny little bag of sugar-free red candies for moi.  (F*ck me!)  I will be returning to the Reading Terminal Market.

On the way home we made just one more wrong turn & then followed signs for the single fireworks store advertised along the I-95 corridor.  We found it and made a 16-year old boy bounce with glee, which was worth it all as he so adorably said, “What a great day!” and then mocked the hideous show we forced him to attend just one more time. 

We also stopped at a 7-11 to get a Monster Energy Drink (against his mother’s best judgment) for the 14-year old, hopping him up on caffeine instead of the other posed option (a Wendy’s Bacon-ator.)  Do you burn out the brain or clog the arteries of a teen-aged boy first?  Which is preferable?  The quarter-pound of fudge he’d already eaten seemed to be the deciding factor.

 * * * * *

My daughter’s recompense for being pulled from bed at such an early hour? 

After her father met the President of the United States (known as POTUS or Leader of the Free World) he went back to life as usual: side trip to Taco Bell on his way home for the #6, two chicken chalupa supremes, no tomato, hard shell taco and a Cherry Pepsi.

The Great Adventure

As mentioned in tonight’s prior post, we went to see Raven Symone in concert at Great Adventure with the “new friends” I’ve named “Control Freak and DD.”  Well, sometimes it’s so much more ridiculous than you even expect. 

The mother seemed entirely sane this evening, in comparison with her daughter.  The first thing her girl said to mine upon arrival was, “I didn’t think your house would be this big.”  The mother noticed the Christmas tree, still up in July, and didn’t blink an eye.  The woman impresses me in unusual ways.

Then I made the fatal error and got in her car to drive to Great Adventure.  It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, and when she pulled out her handicapped placard in the crowded parking lot my face broke into a grin.

We went inside.  They rode the Teacups.  The other girl begged and wheedled to do the log flume.  (We have season passes and they do not.)  Her life was going to be over if she didn’t do the log flume.  The sign at the back of the line said “120 MINUTES FROM HERE.”  My daughter and I acquiesced because I am a jackass.  I find myself regularly doing things for other people’s children in situations where I would laugh at my own.  Her mother sat comfortably on a bench talking with another woman, a stranger, while we stood in line with 500 other people waiting to spend 90 seconds in a plastic log.  The girl had the nerve to ask me several times, “Can’t we cut the line?”  I told her we would either be thrown out of the park or punched in the face and she finally shut up.

I hadn’t been in a crowd like this in a while.  It’s an art to avoid such large groups of people and I’ve become a master.  People are dirty, nasty, disgusting.  They sneeze, they cough, they sweat.  Their arms display gang tattoos.  But none of those individuals even came close to being as disgusting as the woman in front of us.  She didn’t expose her piggy side until we were about halfway through the 75 minutes.  Then she proceeded to hold her 4-year old daughter between her legs & finger her way through the braids at scalp level.  There is only ONE REASON I am aware of that causes a human woman to pick at her child’s scalp like a monkey.  When she began picking things OUT of the hair and flicking them to the floor my meltdown was in full swing.

I began testing the wind velocity and direction.  Ten feet became the minimum I could bear between my group and these disgusting menaces to society.  We had another 30 minutes to go.  As other patrons stood shoulder to shoulder, the lepers stood out.  Suddenly it didn’t matter that another child was with us, as the words “PIG” and “SCUMBAG” and “I HATE PEOPLE SO, SO MUCH” began flying out of my mouth.  It’s really not great for my daughter when I get that crazy look in my eyes.  She might believe that I can shoot people with my finger or electrocute them with my steely eyed stare, that’s how tense she gets while waiting for me to take one more step toward insanity.  The other girl LOVED it.  Really, it was the happiest I think she was all evening.  And I must say that when she’s happy she’s delightful!

We survived but not before the little buggy girl also SPIT ON THE FLOOR.  Seriously, what in the hell is the world coming to?  I was truly shocked at the level of hatred I could work up for a pre-schooler.

Finally someone showed up with a Fast Pass and cut the line.  The bug people were no longer directly in front of us.  Those folks aside, if I get any kind of disease in the next 72-hours I know where it came from.

The girls enjoyed the ride, they screamed, they got wet, they said it was worth it.  Whatever!  We headed for the concert.  The 12-year old we were with is a very unhappy child.  I didn’t notice it so much previously, but tonight she was a monster.  Nothing made her happy.  She pouted and complained for hours.  Her mother is either a saint or a monster-maker, perhaps both. 

We bought 3 VIP tags for $10 each and headed for the front of the stadium.  It was great until she wanted to use my daughter’s camera, then my phone to take photos.  When the answer was “No,” the girl ended up sitting back with her mother in the stands as my daughter and I had a blast.  At one point she said, “I want to go now.”   I told them “Go ahead!  My husband will come and get us!”  I guess they didn’t think we had any other options and suddenly the girl was trapped in her own web.  So she proceeded to sulk for the next 90 minutes. 

Fortunately the VIP tags came with bags of Starburst, which they ate while we danced.  They both have metabolic problems that are the reason for their weight gain, unrelated to Starbursts in any way, also unrelated to the french fries purchased on the way into the concert.

Did I mention that my daughter told me this girl asked her, “Why don’t you straighten your hair?”  Did I mention that?  Because nothing could piss me off more than someone trying to convince my kid to make her beautiful curls disappear.  No doubt it was out of jealousy, but I don’t care.  This lanky-haired little bitch was trying to mess with my kids head in more ways than one.

The worst was after the concert ended.  First it seemed okay, the girls rode three different rides, one rollercoaster twice.  They were laughing and running and getting red-faced with excitement as I sat talking with the other mother on a bench.  As you may remember, she recently had a TIA, which has now been upgraded to a full-blown stroke (no surprise there).  She cannot ride rides and her doctor actually has recommended she should use a scooter.  She does not because her daughter told her it would be “too embarrassing.”  I don’t know what to believe.

The aunt who died last week?  She was 91!  She was the daughter’s great-great aunt!  This is worthy of histrionics on Facebook in an effort to obtain sympathy?  It came up that she also cried about something entirely different during the funeral event, actually I believe she said, “I just sobbed.”  I was looking at her, trying to imagine her face melting, trying to imagine my discomfort if she should ever do such a thing in my presence.  I might run.

The highlight of our conversation was mind-boggling.  I asked how her daughter’s appointment with the endocrinologist went.  She told me she hated the doctor.  The reason she hated the doctor is because she “had no personality” and at one point in their time together the doctor began “squeezing her n*pples.”  As she said that statement I felt a buzz of electrical shock flood me, no different than if I tried to pet a horse across an electrified fence.  I remember thinking, “Oh my.”  I said, “What?” with a dumbfounded spacy sounding voice.

She said, “Oh, she was trying to see if she was lactating!  She was trying to see if she could express milk, to find out if they were making milk!  Endocrine problems can typically make such things happen!  But she just began twisting her n*pples with no warning!  I was like, ‘Don’t you think you could have told her in advance you were going to do that?’”  She doesn’t plan on returning to that doctor again.  It was at that point she mentioned for the 7th or 8th time that her feet were now “covered in blisters.”  We had barely walked the length of the park.

But that’s not the bad part.  The bad part was that at 10:00 at night this girl became insistent that we go to THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY, three words she repeated a minimum of 27 times as her mother nearly drove off the road in frustration while yelling at her daughter to stop saying “THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY!”  This is after I had heard about her desire for MEXICAN FOOD over and over throughout the evening, across the park, in every venue we visited.

When the Mexican food was mentioned at 10:00 at night I said, “I suppose Taco Bell is not your idea of Mexican food?”  She went on a tirade regarding fast food restaurants.  She, this 12-year old girl, said, “I just want to sit down at a table AND HAVE A NICE MEAL!  I HAVEN’T EATEN ALL DAY!”  It was as if she were channeling a 60-year old woman.  The girl would not stop.

This is where I don’t understand my own behavior.  I should have just said, “Take us home.”  But there is a part of me who never wants to disappoint.  I want people to be happy.  This girl had been happy for maybe 30 minutes of the 6 hours we’d been together.  We finally found a Ruby Tuesdays open until 11 p.m.  She was not satisfied with TGIF, absolutely threw a shit fit, she would not eat there.  She would not consider Sonic, which both she and her mother thought would somehow damage their car!  I mean I’m making suggestions and the girl is acting like I’m an assistant to the devil.  She’s acting as if her palate and taste buds are worthy off an exquisite French vineyard.

So we go into the restaurant and her mother refuses to purchase her first choice, A SIRLOIN at 10:00 on a Thursday night.  So what do you think she orders?  What does her mother proceed to tell me she orders everywhere they go?  You guessed it.  MOTHERF*CKING CHICKEN FINGERS. 

For the 437th time in 6 hours the girl spoke to me and I said, “WHAT?”  She is a mutterer.  She talks fast AND she mutters with braces on.  I can’t understand a word she says.  The other mother asked MY daughter if she was ”in a bad mood.”  I think I may have heard her swallow the words, “No, your daughter is just an obnoxious idiot and my mom won’t let me speak!”

At that point I began texting my husband, “Please come pick us up.”  I had a horrible fear that when they drove us home they would somehow come into our house and never leave.  They would sleep over and the girl would ask me to cook up some quail eggs and escargot for breakfast.  She would cut my daughter’s hair off in her sleep, then suggest she’d done her a favor. 

My husband tried to call but I wouldn’t answer the phone as it would blow my covert operation.  He texted, “Call me.”  I text, “NO!  PLEASE!  I’M BEGGING!”

So my husband, who paid for this magical trip to Great Adventure, took off his slippers and pajama pants.  He threw on a pair of sweats and made his way to the car.  He did not complain, he did not get angry.

As we sat at the table the waiter asked ”Is that your car out there with the lights on?”  We both said, “No.”  Meanwhile, I was thinking “Superman has arrived & I’m f*cking Lois Lane.”  I didn’t tell her until we were out the door, “Oh, that’s my husband over there!  This will be so much more convenient for you.”  She couldn’t believe I would do such a thing.

I left actually feeling bad for the woman.  We’re supposed to see them again in 76 hours.  I’m flabbergasted by that fact.  Clearly, part of me feels good when I’m in a situation where I appear all together in comparison.  There’s gotta be a better way.

Once again I would like to thank my mother for pummeling my self-esteem into something that resembles a kernel of corn, a dull jelly bean that’s spent some time on the floor.

Off To Great Adventure with Control Freak and DD

My daughter is perfectly happy sitting in her room 12 hours a day on the computer (she sleeps the other 12, mostly during daylight hours.)  She is a content little carbon copy of moi.  I’m not saying that’s a good thing, believe me, but it works.

She’s become such a book reader that she hit me and called me a bitch when I took her book off her bed last weekend when she wouldn’t get up.  I was quite impressed with her ethusiasm and commitment, considering the girl wouldn’t read a single page a year ago without sighing and twirling her hair and rolling her eyes.  My relief is palpable.  It just would not do for me to have a child who didn’t love books, completely unacceptable.  I don’t care that she’s reading the “Clique” series and the “It Girl” collection instead of “Little House on the Prairie” or Nancy Drew. 

A book store salesgirl attempted to steer us in a direction of something where “these girls really care about ISSUES and not just SHOES and PURSES.”  Rachel rolled her eyes and I dropped the book by the wayside somewhere in the non-fiction area.  I couldn’t care less if she was reading Enquirer magazine as long as there are words on the page.  I mean, she’s an emotional wreck over whether one of the characters is going to be suspended from school, ready to burst into tears.  YES! 

Yesterday I did convince her to leave the house for a Disney beach party and a hip-hop class.  It started at 8 p.m.  How perfect for our schedules.  Who ever decided that the early ours of 6, 7, 8 a.m. are when the day should begin . . . well, I don’t like those people.  We sit up and laugh at 2 and 3 a.m. and that doesn’t happen when pulled from bed at an early hour, doing fine imitations of fire breathing dragons.  Would I like to see a sunrise on the beach this summer?  Yes.  I plan to make it happen by staying up all night.

So our new “friends,” the control freak and her daughter, are coming to our house today for the first time.  Purposely, I have not cleaned it.  There are dishes in the sink.  However, the yard looks great!  They are obsessive-compulsive about cleaning and organizing. 

I am doing my best to disgust them in the hope that phone calls will cease.  (The ringing of the phone is like an air raid siren for me.  I just hate it.  Recently I left a message on my phone not to leave voice mails, either, because I don’t listen to them.  I had such fun creating this crazy recording about how you might want to send me a text or an e-mail instead.) 

We will be headed off to Great Adventure to see Raven Symone in concert.  They want to stand in line for an hour and a half before hand to get great seats.  I want to walk in at the end and take the left overs.  We’re leaving the house and I guess that’s a good thing, so I have to remember that fact.  Even though Big Brother starts tonight and I am an obsessed fan extraordinaire.  DVR has improved my life beyond belief.

Monday is the wax museum in NYC.  This chick canceled an MRI so she could go on a day we were free.  I’m not happy about that.  It seems utterly ridiculous.  On top of that, NYC can be difficult with the best of people.  We shall see how it goes.  We’re taking the train in.  No doubt, I’ll have a story for you.

37 minutes to go and I haven’t showered yet.  Yes, this is how I roll.

Updating My Status To Mood-Swinging Psycho &/or The Michael Jackson Saga Continues

Today I was home all day.  The Jackson funeral was on.  I couldn’t help myself.  Similar to the OJ trials, it was a “thing.”  I hate to miss out.

I watched it on Fox.  Does that matter?  Geraldo was quite riled up from the beginning and it was interesting cause it didn’t sound like he believed the reports of Michael Jackson’s various and sundry misdeeds.  Believe it or not, I kind of like Geraldo.  He’s got a short fuse and seems relatively honest, as least as far as reporters go.

It started and I was IM’ing with an old boyfriend I found on Facebook and haven’t seen in 25 years (DANGEROUS & BIZARRELY WEIRD EMOTIONAL TERRITORY).  So as it began I started watching without realizing what I was doing.

Mariah Carey came out and blew me away.  No matter how unusual she is, the girl can sing.  The song was “I’ll Be There.”  She’s just spectacular in every way.

When I saw Brooke Shields I thought she looked good in a very natural blotchy sobbing kind of way.  In recent years I’ve kind of come to think of her as a tight-ass and this made me expect very little from her time at the lectern.  Well, she kicked my ass.  She spoke sincerely and clearly and from the heart. 

It was then that I noticed tears streaming down my face and immediately thought, “Motherf*cker, now I have to admit this on the blog!”  It’s really not a surprise that death and sadness and the people left behind in abject misery are heartbreaking to watch.  We can all identify with that shit.

John Mayer came on and played what I think was a bass guitar.  Absolutely beautiful.  Magical.  I don’t think he spoke at all.  Magic Johnson told a story about eating KFC with Michael Jackson that was so, so funny.

Usher had a hard time making it through his song.  Smokey Robinson made me laugh.  He was great. 

Stevie Wonder, well, he’s like a god.  Same with Lionel Richie, who has one of my favorite voices on the planet.

The brothers all had sequined gloves on, which was kind of over the top.  Al Sharpton looks like he’s had weight loss surgery.  He’s lost at least 100 pounds and looks pretty bad. 

Queen Latifah started to choke back tears and even that was touching.

But when the little girl spoke of her father at the end, my heart broke for her.  The tears began all over again.

More than anything it was clear that everyone there really loved MJ and had nothing bad to say about him.  The commentator at the end actually mentioned something about how maybe we should take it easy on people who seem a little different and not judge them so harshly.  I couldn’t disagree.

* * * * * 

So I’m glad I watched it.  I don’t take back anything I said before, cause that would be renouncing my schizophrenia and it’s not going anywhere.  Michael Jackson did not define my life or my generation, but he was too young to die.  I’m not sure any age is acceptable, but especially not when young children are involved.

I still hate the news people who make millions off of saturating our lives with the story.

My husband’s statement when I told him about the tears was to be expected:

 “When does your period start?”

He knows me too well.