Surprise, Redefined June 4, 2009

The Hubster: I have a surprise for you for your birthday.

Me: My birthday is a month and a half away.  And I think the fact that you told me about it renders it surpriseless.

The Hubster:  (blank stare).

Me: If you freakin’ tell me about it, I won’t be surprised. The thing that makes a suprise suprising is that I won’t be expecting it.

The Hubster:  But you hate surprises.

Me: I hate them because people effing tell you that you have a surprise and you spend time hoping and wishing it will be one thing and it turns out to be something crappy like a stun gun or some such shit.

The Hubster:  Well, you said you didn’t want a regular gun!

Me: So you thought I’d want a stun gun instead?!? It’s like you’ve never met me.

The Hubster:  We’ll you’re really going to like this surprise. 

Me:  Is it diamond earrings?

The Hubster:  No.

Me:  Are we doing something I want to do or something you want to to.

The Hubster:  Both.

Me:  Are we going somewhere that I want to go or somewhere you want to go?

The Hubster: We’re not going anywhere we haven’t been before.

Me: So you are getting me something I don’t want and we’re not going anywhere new. Gee, that IS a fucking surprise!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Google:  You again? What the fuck do you want now?

Me:  Well, I think I found a way to make some extra cash…I want to sell my melatonin to pasty rich people!

Google:  Melatonin is important in the regulation of the circadian rhythms of several biological functions.  What you are referring to is melanin, Chucklehead.

Me:  Why so tense?

Google:  Because I am an expansive, powerful tool designed to connect people globally and intellectually.  Instead, you use me to find hairstyles and shoes. Why don’t you try reading a book, you cabbage.

Me:  I read books!

Google: I mean something that doesn’t have pink text on the cover.

Me: Oh.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Front Desk Person: OK, you’re appointment is with Dee-yon-nee. She will be right with you.

Me:  Thank you (insert Jeopardy music here)

Dee-yon-nee:  Hi! You are meeting with me. C’mon back.

Me:  I love your name. I just had a conversation about unusal names. How do you spell it?

Dee-yon-nee:  D-I-A-N-E.

Me:  Like Diane?

Dee-yon-nee: No, like DeeYONnee.

Me: Hmmm.

(Why is this surprising? Because this is the SECOND woman I’ve had this conversation with in my lifetime)

It’s The End of the World As I Know It May 12, 2009

My mom is on Facebook.

Yes, that one. The one whose 20 pound of boob must have been the hampering source of all motherly instincts. Without the sag and stretch of carting around Wizard of Oz extras in her custom boobie Bjorns, her mind is clear to focus on the parts of my life that she has deemed…correction-worthy. Y’know, she’s smuggled in a truckload of White Out (which I cannot confirm wasn’t sniffed before she) brushed a thin white crust over the parts of our history where her decision making skills were…poor.

Now it is my hair. My weight. My spouse. Sentences like- “Maybe I’ll go with you on your cruise so I can get to know my son-in-law.” or “Now, be careful with your drinking. You know we have alcoholism in our family.” – appear to be innocuously normal things that a protective mother would wrap around her child. A care and desire to participate. But an addict’s kid learns to look for the strings at the puppet show. To study the picture until you see the sailboat. To translate double talk to a single listen. There’s no point in her getting to know The Hubster. He doesn’t define or explain me. She does. He’s not why I get up at 5:30am 3 days a week, why I fret over salad at lunch and gorge on ice dream at dinner, he’s not why I can’t get drunk. And he’s not the one on whose behalf my aunt asked me to lift the privacy settings on my facebook account.

My freaking mom is on effing facebook. And I got guilted into adding her as a friend by relatives who never lived in my house or my mind. The ones who choose to live near their mothers and find the thousands of miles between me and mine unconscionable. The ones who find blood to be thicker than pain and who store their history in books on top shelves of dusty cases in attics with collapsible stairs that don’t descend. Other than my dad, my family is mostly made of ornaments. Shiny and polished for federally sanctioned occasions. Pulled together to decorate mantels and craft quippy stories. “Did I ever tell you my ‘Thanksgiving Cousin’ story?“

Let me not trivialize my family too much. An aunt took me wedding dress shopping, a cousin settled engagement jitters, an uncle restocked our condo after everything of value was “stolen”, my brother shed a pre-toast tear at my graduation, and my sister sent me money when I was in college.

I guess I’m pissed because facebook makes it all too easy to be the catalyst for directing water under bridges. A digital reflection of a life that is well and good, pretty and sweet, and memorable. But I live in the village by the bridge. And my blog is my sandbag. Only now the blog has been removed from facebook because even I am filtered enough to know that a facebook wall or a graduation dinner are not the best places to ask “if you knew my mom was an addict, why didn’t you help get me get out?”. And now my sandbag is gone and water is coming in to smooth my rough edges. So I sit on the bottom of the river, a softer version of myself for them to point to and think a jolly good job was done by all. So she can see photos of my white friends and my spare tire and selectively choose the things she praises (oh, you and The ABFF will be friends forever) and add another daisy to her ‘accomplished mother’ flowerbasket. Jenn is working (pick), Jenn is married (pick), Jenn has friends (pick), has 2 degrees (pick, pick).

End rant.