Twisted Family Antics

I haven’t blogged for a week, as you may have noticed.  My perfectionism is in full bloom and the idea of writing something that I will then edit for 7 hours is too much to bear. 

So I’m going to try and just let it rip, uncensored, uncut.  In other words, this is a lengthy mess, a trip inside several of my brain farts.

I think it may have something to do with next week’s college graduation.  The boy below is the graduate, sitting with his great-grandmother, Nanny:

If you watched Oprah’s show on hypnosis and past life regression last week - FANTASTIC - you know Nanny will be attending the graduation ceremonies even though she’s dead.

We have actual live family coming in from out of state for this event.  They are the normal part of my family, better than average, practically perfect, funny & smart.

And since it’s important to me that I look normal, even exciting & fantastic – which I’m really not — I am catatonic.

Instead of cleaning my house or scheduling restaurant reservations, making picture collages or buying graduation gifts, I read two books yesterday and watched twelve television programs.  It actually may have been more than 12, maybe 18.

The Reader by Bernard Schlink was my favorite of the books, better than Jodi Picoult’s Picture Perfect.  What does it say about me that I’m in the mood for a book about a 15-year old immersed in a sexual relationship with a woman who he later discovers is on trial for her time as a Nazi guard in a concentration camp?

Since I fully intended to lose 15 pounds before this brouhaha, I have been eating things I should not eat like brown sugar from the bag & greasy garlic knots, followed by psyllium & prunes.  To simplify, I’m a fucking genius. 

Since I knew I was completely out of controI, I made the mistake of taking two prescription diet pills in two days.  The initial serotonin flash was impressive; the depression that hit on the third day, when I didn’t take one, was immense.  48 hours later I realized the diet pills were the culprit in my incredible malaise.

I was thinking that perhaps it was a simple case of MENOPAUSE, since it seems that might be happening, too.  I keep pretending I’m just pregnant.

The psyllium caused my stomach to blow up like a hot air balloon.  Gas pains were shooting through my body like bullets.  Just craziness.

I’m a bit of a mess.

Next, my in-laws let me know that they expected me to drive 30 miles south, then backtrack another hour north, delivering them to the graduation like a limo driver in NJ traffic.  Why they cannot drive to my house is unknown.  I was so floored that I could not speak, thus did not ask the question.

It’s bad enough that we’re not having a family party because a couple of the cousins are such criminals I don’t want them in our home.  I get the impression some relatives think I’m a hyper maniac because I believe it’s a big deal for one cousin to rip off another in a drug deal for $1,700. 

My mother-in-law did not realize that I knew about all of this.  She couldn’t understand why I’ve been distant.  I was finally completely honest.  Her answer?  “Well, I don’t think they’d come anyway.”  Her denial is alive and thriving.

This is my mother-in-law with her favorite son, about 23 years ago in San Francisco:

Next, I got a call from my father-in-law, Poppy, the one male blood relative who you’d expect might attend the graduation ceremony of his only namesake. 

However, the reality is a different story.  He’s been completely fucked up since the guy in the picture above died, my son’s father. 

Poppy will not be attending graduation, I learned from his voice mail.  Something about having no bottom teeth, a dentist who’s willing to do all the work but only on the same date as the graduation.  Of course he does not want to attend with no teeth.

His wife made him make the call because she’s too angry about the situation to speak.  The voicemail itself, the sentence about having no teeth, was the highlight of my week.  I played it more than once, becoming more hysterical with laughter each time. 

I’m hoping my son won’t be disappointed; he wouldn’t express it if he was.

I’m actually relieved that Poppy’s not coming because he’s ridiculously intense.  While he’s speaking — which may go on for 20 minutes or more without pause for breath — it’s necessary to look at him as if you know what in the hell he’s talking about.  He’s easily offended, sharp as a tack at 75, and too much for me sometimes.

As an added bonus, their entire family thinks nothing of mentioning that I need to lose weight, discussing how attractive I used to be.  Poppy himself will go on about how he used to train me and what a set of calves I had, what a body, as if I’m not in the room and he’s not an old man talking about his previously sexy daughter-in-law.  It’s all really gross.

And did I mention that the entire graduation process costs money?  Money, money, money.  In my base monkey brain I believe that I should be showering my kid with cash & prizes to show my happiness, to directly express congratulations and pride in his princely self.  My husband is drowning in my monkey brain desires.

To top it all off, my mother expects us to show up in Kentucky at the end of the month.  This is my mother, stepfather & myself at my own college graduation:

So my focus throughout all this, as I read, eat and watch TV, is whether we disappoint my mother, stay at her house full of dog hair, or reserve rooms in a hotel which could quite possibly be infested with bedbugs.

I’m a little bit stressed out and not handling it very well.

P.S.  My husband insists I make it absolutely clear & understood that the in-laws I speak of are NOT his parents.  Obviously there is no possibility of an accidental or misinterpreted association, due to the fact that he is a normal, centered, well-mannered, well-behaved, disciplined individual who never mentions the size of my ass, never requests that I drive him anywhere, and has yet to ask me for a loan.