It’s So My Mom.

Oh yeah guys, forgot to tell you. My fiancé and I broke up. He was, as I hope has been conveyed in the blog, a great, bright, innovative guy and a wonderful friend, and I wish him all the best, not that he needs any luck.

But. It was the right thing. In the almost-year since breaking the engagement I have been significantly less crazy and more, you know, me. The downside is that I haven’t had much to write about here.

Surveying the archives after some distance (the blog is like, almost four years old!) I was a little harsh on poor ol’ mom, levying judgment on her cray-cray town as though it came from some sort of objective place. I should be more diplomatic. I’m sure in some societies, like the ones where you only wipe your ass with a certain hand (for real), that things like relegating one of two household bathrooms entirely for show could also be a completely cultural norm. And to be fair, clearly anyone who airs her dirty laundry to Joe Interwebs as I do is at least slightly crazy. I’ve also developed a fear of going to the bathroom since the breakup, for fear that I will wake up mid-stream, or worse. Because now that matters.

Point is: Justified or not, my crazy is not my mom’s anymore. And the following is funny, so I’ll share. In the interim, in case the other crazy comes back.

Last week I was in my parents’ kitchen, eating oatmeal amid the permanent morning ambiance: Dad in his loosie whities and black socks, filling a flowered coffee mug with mounds of instant coffee and Sweet’N Low. The Jumbotron preacher droning on from mom’s portable radio, blessing her with access, in the 21^st Century, to the non-denominational word of Christ in the kitchen, shower or den, between Real Housewives of XYZ commercials. Mom asking intermittent questions I couldn’t possibly answer (once: “Did you accidentally throw away the salad tongs without knowing?”) while I readied for work mode in Facebook.

Suddenly there was a suspended break amid the banter, like Wile E. Coyote sobering up over a chasm. PreacherMan demanded our attention, having increased his pitch and tempo for some undoubtedly pending revelation. And the payoff, what he says is—you can hear him walking around the stage in his three-piece Preachersuit, ready to bring it home—”You know what? The next time your friends wanna go shopping, you tell them (arm doubtless hurtled away from Jumbotron and toward crowd), ‘I have a better idea. Why don’t we go to the park and read our Bibles instead?’”

At which point dad and I lost our shit, which sent mom stomping angrily to another room, tin box preacherman in tow.

But she got me back later that day. My precious wild Alaskan canned salmon, part of the Perricone diet I’ve been following half-assedly in the way I conduct the rest of my life, was too many ounces to eat in one sitting, especially with the bones they leave in the big-ass-can version. So I left half of it, covered, in the fridge. Except that apparently my foil’s drapey dimensions didn’t meet Lonia’s standards for vacuum-sealing, and the “whole fridge smelled like fish.” It didn’t. But damn if she didn’t wrap that shit six times to hell, in aluminum and then plastic foil, as though Jesus’ libido was inside and fighting to get out. Of course, we know Jesus’ libido doesn’t exist. Like the stench.

… Into their horrificly opportunist mother Nadya with a sense of entitlement that’s probably large as the cow herself.

That’s the big hoopla here, right? The precedent set by Sulemen’s ravenous sucking on the public teet?

What about the more immediate impact she’s going to have on her children’s outlooks? Anyone want to project how much money her brood of 14 will burn through if they continue her communistic lifestyle (she gets $490 a month in federal food stamps and support for her three kids with disabilities)?

Check out her family Web site erected about a day ago. You can send a donation here, or leave a nasty comment here. Comments don’t show up anywhere on the site–wonder why?

You can also harass the Los Angeles-based Killeen Furtney Group for building the wretched Web site, no doubt pro-bono (I’ve sent an e-mail inquiring). I’d like to see how much they’ll make in the way of donations. Unfortunately they’re not compelled to disclose since they aren’t government engineered or forcibly publicly funded.

I can see the book from one of those fourteen kids, in 30 years: “It Takes a Village: How I discovered the joys of having ten-plus kids in a civilized society.”

To lighten the mood a little, here’s a brilliant, self-explanatory interlude from the Huffington post: “Top Ten Suggested Names for the Nadya Suleman Babies A to H.”

Image via Wikipedia

Okay, so make fun of me, call me backwards, the antithesis of a feminist (that would make my mom happy), etc. But I have HUGE news: There’s a Sex and the City sequel! Almost.

Not everyone will be happy about this. Overheard while watching the SATC trailer in a theatre last year in Vegas:

Eighteen-year-old-skank: “Ugh. Sex and the City? I’d rather watch titties.”

In a couple of years, honey, you’ll be eating your words. I did.

Samantha always reminded me of my mom–in looks only. And the way she articulates words. Ironically, it’s almost Dorothy(Wizard of Oz)esque.

Image via Wikipedia

No telling how many kids will be born on this fateful inauguration day, and no telling how many of them will take “Barack” or even “Obama” as their first or middle names. My boyfriend’s sister is actually scheduled to C-section today, but we were unable to convince her to follow “Jack” with “Obama” or “Barack.” It’s a shame.

Can’t wait to see the inevitable reports on the baby name … and if more people are choosing our new president’s first or last name to immortalize in the next generation …

Image via Wikipedia

Or she should, rather than pen another mom-daughter memoir. But buy my book when it comes out …

Braindead today by some legalese about old people I must read for a copy writing job. So here is a quick smattering of mom news:

1. A scientific analogy on mother-daughter differences. At the cellular level, man.

2. Carrie Fisher writes memoir about mom Debbie Reynolds.

Fisher and her family are Jewish, so I’ll forgive Carrie her obvious oblivion toward the Christian Serenity prayer: God grant me the wisdom to know the difference … between a book people will actually read and my C-list vanity project. “Mommie Dearest” was already written (that goes for you too, Tori Spelling. And you, Jennifer Aniston’s and Demi Moore’s moms). Inquiring minds would rather know: Did Paul Simon like the Leia braids in bed?

Ouch. That was harsh. Something a little lighter from my boy over at The Straight Dope:

3. Did Spartan mothers really tell their sons, “With your shield or on it?”

Image by tripu via Flickr

Or she could, with a book deal. When life hands you blackout sex in the men’s bathroom …

Tamre: that drunk mom is AWESOME.
me: ha ha ha
her pic, she’s all confused
26 tho, gotta hand it to her
Sent at 9:34 AM on Wednesday
Tamre: yeah…. jeez
lol
Sent at 9:36 AM on Wednesday
me: it’s all over the net
like, why is this such big news?
Tamre: yeah…leave her alone
it made me roll my eyes
but i’m not obsessed with it
me: yeah
Tamre: and she got fired
sad
Sent at 9:39 AM on Wednesday
Tamre: I will remember to bring a camera tomorrow
me: oh yeah
that’s bullshit!
WTF?
Tamre: yeah.
she worked at an assisted living facility
Sent at 9:41 AM on Wednesday
me: She should sue
she probly could
Tamre: i hope she does.
she didn’t deserve to get fired
Sent at 9:44 AM on Wednesday
me: She didn’t
she could at least take it to trial
or threaten to
and it would make national news
and they’d probably let her stay
of course, at that point, she probably wouldnt want to
but maybe she could get a book deal out of it
Sent at 9:47 AM on Wednesday
Tamre: out of something she doesn’t remember?
sweet.
i could write like, 10 books.

Got a message from the reader known as The Oak: “Just be happy that this isn’t your mom.”

Taken from Deadspin.com

If you haven’t heard about Lois Feldman, the mom who got so blasted at an Iowa football game drinking wine she doesn’t remember having sex with a 26 year old in the men’s bathroom, or being busted by police for it, where have you been? You must not peruse the Gawker network often. This kinda stuff is the biggest news to them.

I really WANT to say I think the outcry about this mom who, gasp, has actually stayed married through this thing wouldn’t be such an enduring one if it had happened to a man. But then, I remember how stupid it sounded when people dismissed Palin’s criticism as sexism, when really, it was wrought by her own stupidity. In the end, I think that’s what’s really going on here.

…Like me.

Mmkay, short post today, ’cause I have lots of junk to do before going home to Texas and indulging in meatballs.

But two short newsy items.

This just in: The io9 team just put up a post about females having babies later in life and thusly prolonging their life spans (at least according to studies on fly genes, of course, which are really reliable sources). The comments are better than the story. The consensus? Bitch and moan, we don’t want to live longer. Wahhh. Shut the hell up.

Sorry, I’m PMS. Big time. (Mom tie-in: From the first time mom used this shorthand to justify a particularly rotten temperment, the little linguist in me was perplexed: “You’re Premenstrual Syndrome?” This, of course, is not the question to put to the woman who is PMS.)

Other: I’m reviewing a new release from first-time author and fabulous Dallasite/single mom Kim Gatlin. Her new book Good Christian Bitches is such a guilty pleasure (the cleavage-heavy book cover caught the attention of every male within a mile of “my” coffee shop), and terribly familiar territory if you’re used to SMU sorority girls that never quite make it past that stage of life. Or if you were raised Catholic like me, where after services let out, people tried to run over each other in the parking lot.

How you say, C’est la vie in Latin?