It’s So My Mom.

Photo from Slate.com

So I was watching how the Real (BARF) Housewives of Orange County interacted as one’s house was turned into a “bow-tique” (the brunette housewife’s words) of designer duds at a girls-only party. The “friendly” cougar infighting over wardrobe selections somehow made me wonder why my mom doesn’t have such, um, engrossing friends. Hers are mostly boring, annoying, or out of the picture, now that her kids and theirs have graduated the same schools.

I like only one of my mom’s friends. Grace is seemingly normal, and cute. My mom talks of lounging in the “cabana” of Grace’s “unbelievable” house, which is exactly what my mom needs. What she doesn’t need, in my (and dad’s) opinion, is that particular one that lives to proselytize about Jesus, the “conspiracy” of Hormone Replacement Therapy, and the expensive Shaklee vitamins she peddles. (The kook’s daughter was “extremely talented” as a Play-do sculptural artist. She attended a San Antonio university as a lackluster art major, because, she proclaimed, she was just passing the time to find a husband, anyway.)

Anyhow, as I beheld a brief moment of the housewives’ reclining and relaxing in leopard print, I immediately thought of my mom and Grace, gossiping and munching, poolside.

I even inserted myself into this fantasy—now of age, just one of the women (ahem, the younger one). But with enough wherewithal and stature to joke with my mother and Grace: “Come ON mom, the blog wasn’t that bad. Didn’t you like this and such part?” Like friends do. I just don’t have that sort of relationship with my mom.

If holidays remind you of family crises (the cousin you made out with; the brother you’re sueing; the mom you’re writing a blog about), you can relate to guest blogger and Short Change author Tamre’s Christmas card debacle:

“My family is extremely traditional when it comes to absurdly lame traditions. Such as sending out a ‘family letter’ with Christmas Cards. Usually it entails some sort of photo of the entire family together. The past few years, we’ve just done little blurbs about what’s going on individually and a photo of each person. The year my sister turned 21 we used a picture from her birthday, the two of us together posing with that little man who pretends to be a leprachaun on St. Patricks Day. So imagine my surprise when I send in my picture which happens to be from a stadium tour at Lucas Oil Stadium and this is the response I get:”

Hi Tam,
Got a copy of the photo you sent to use on the Christmas card.
It is a very nice picture of you and Patrick, but I am wondering if you have a picture of just you that we can use.
I like Patrick a lot, and when he is a member of the family I have no problem with using a photo of the two of you, but for this Christmas, I think it would be more appropriate to use a photo of just you. What do you think?
If you agree and can forward a photo of just you asap, it would be appreciated as we would like to order these cards soon.
Love
Dad

“Really? Come on. Then I had to try to find a picture that I could send them. I start scanning my myspace page - old photo, old photo, holding alcohol, photo with friends, photo with friends, photo with friends AND alcohol. Oh, here’s one at the Rathskeller 2 minutes before I almost got the crap beaten out of me by lesbians for calling them out! I had to go waaaaay back to a photo of the ‘07 Colts season where I threw a party at Fox & Hound. It looks like a senior picture. I know I’m already 2 sheets to the wind and 1 shot away from making a fool of myself playing shuffle board. I’m pretty sure I took a nap in my car after that party. Classic. The other photo was from a Reds game 2 summers ago - I’m posing with Mr. Red. I remember running in a full sprint down the concourse at Great American Ball Park to get that photo. I think I spent the night playing Guitar Hero and drinking Woody’s Ice (disgusting and we gave the rest away as a joke) at a friend’s house.”

“So my dad picks the photo from the Colts game party. At least my hair looks good!”

“I immediately get on chat to vent to Jennifer. We decide that we should take a photo of me passed out half naked around numerous bottles, shot glasses and empty beers, preferrably leaned up against some 22 year old guy majoring in Sports Management from Butler. Unfortunately, the night I end up on stage singing with a band in Broad Ripple we both leave our cameras at home. Go figure.”

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.

“I need to talk to you, so carve out some time.”

Those were the words that my mom greeted me with back home in Texas last Wednesday morning (my excuse for not blogging the past week).

I knew exactly what she wanted to talk about. I had never expected to hear these words from my mom after I was grown, out of the house, and on my own payroll. But then I had to go and start a damn blog about us.

The tension wouldn’t stop us from shopping. Hours later, we were standing in line at Nordstrom’s Bistro. I was trying to figure out how to broach the subject; she was unnaturally terse.

We ordered. We sat. And then I asked what she wanted to talk to me about.

She started slowly but dismissively, mentioning that she didn’t appreciate the blog. How she thought I was ridiculing her. How she had initially been struck with the thought that I harbored hate for her. How she’s not a public person, and I shouldn’t make her a public person, even if I’m quasi-public.

I assumed she was angered mostly by the very personal family info I put in the “Ice Queen” post. So I started to defend the disclosure of those specific family matters as the lens through which I view my own relationship. Her reaction to the info disclosed made it obvious: She hadn’t read the post. Oops.

None of the blog was meant to be mean-spirited, I told her, maybe a bit too defensively. I wasn’t ridiculing her but trying to recreate her persona. “A caricature,” she retorted. She referenced the “Citgo” and “Palin” posts, which I thought were harmless. She said I was making fun of her. She says I misquoted her about the white hair/kinky hair quote.

At one point I called her selfish. Oops.

Our poor waiter was approaching the table like a stray cat slinks toward a human with food. He skulked to and from our table, and apologized profusely whenever he interrupted our conversations with drinks or food.

In fact, I think the whole restaurant was staring at us.

When it was over, we hadn’t come to an agreement. We had come to a stalemate: my mother looking off with red eyes, me contemplating leaving the bistro. Maybe it would be for the better, I thought.

And then we ate some chocolate cake in silence. And then my dad called. And then there was a little more non-blog conversation. And then we left, went to the bathroom, ran into some old friends, and continued shopping, like nothing had happened.

Just in case my boyfriend wonders how I can go from bawling and chewing him out to professing my love.

…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?

Image by sheilaz413 via Flickr

I still haven’t spoken to my mom since she called Saturday morning to tell me I didn’t need to stay at home when I visit San Antonio tomorrow, because if I wasn’t going to actually stay with my parents every night, they’d just be tripping over my suitcase in my absentia. That’s apparently sufficiently annoying to tell me just to stay with my boyfriend, or friend Shanel, etc. My dad called me and told me I was welcome to stay over there. Thanks dad.

I’m sure this has something to do with her discovery of this site. It gives her reason to direct her frustration and anxiety toward me because she feels she has to pull off the holiday at my grandparents’ alone. She won’t let me help. My aunt is coming in the day of, so she won’t be of any help either. Mom is forced to pull together an entire dinner for our family while still facilitating my grandmother’s care.

Neither me nor my dad understand why mom won’t just put grandma in a nursing home. My grandmother is terminal. She cannot speak or walk, only nod and make noises. She sleeps most of the time. So why not put her in a place where she can be taken care of by professionals? My mother and grandfather wouldn’t visit her any less, of course–they just wouldn’t feel the 24/7 pressure of taking care of her all day: changing her; feeding her; doing the work that trained medical professionals should. And yes, my grandparents DO have the money.

I tried to tell my mom this last visit; that it’s well documented that people often fall into depression when taking care of their terminal or Alzheimer’s-stricken parents, and that she should shift the burden a bit to others and make sure her mental health is good. Of course, she turned to me and asked, “Is that what you’re gonna do to me? Stick me in a home?”

Well, yeah. I’ll visit you every day and make sure you’ve got everything you need. But why wouldn’t I sign you up for a nursing home if the task of taking care of you is more than I can handle? Sandra Day O’Connor quit the Supreme Court to take care of her husband with Alzheimer’s. But he was already enjoying a better standard of living–having literally forgotten about her, he found a new love in his nursing home! Not exactly the happiest of endings, but not the worst, either …

The Mean Mommy blog. Almost makes motherhood look cool to a selfish twentysomething like me.

Hilarious. She even dedicates a post to her fav kid (if I had a kid that sounded like Michael Jackson, they’d be my fav, too. I wouldn’t let them near the other ones, though).

Oh. And my friend Rima is a cool mom–hot, funny, and with two adorable chillins. And she thought the Motrin Moms outroar was a bunch ‘o crapola, too.

And my ex-coworker Abby is a cool mom, with the coolest “Little Orange Haired Dood” kid that’s gonna make his parents millionaires one day. Too bad I didn’t know her in time to be the godmother. And Chrissy, my other ex-coworker. She introduced me to Ze Frank.

Abby and Chrissy are also cool because they’d never miss my Meatball Tuesday homecoming at the ol’ bluehair bar next Tuesday, either. You should come, too.

I am apparently not staying with my parents this visit. My mother doesn’t want me leaving my big, annoying suitcase in the guestroom in the event that I stay over at my boyfriend’s or a friend’s. So it’s best if I just stay elsewhere, she says.

So this will be quite a homecoming.

Having a hard time finding a famous male model to strike your fancy? Leave it to the gay men at one of my new favorite sites, GayestEver.com. After all, they were put on this earth to be impeccible arbiters of good taste (although their tastes can run to the skinny side).

I’m becoming more obsessed with gay men as a I get older, just like mom. Though for a different reason than her: I think they’re hilarious. I got in trouble with my bf for interrupting his optimizing my blog last Tuesday to make him look at the extremely gayified preteen boy dancers on Dancing With the Stars. Slicked back hair, waxed everything and deeply open shirts–these boys looked like Paris Hilton’s dog, unnaturally coiffed and hairless.

My mom however is preoccupied with making sure everyone knows that Tom Cruise and Ricky Martin are gay. She takes this job very seriously.

<Suri Cruise flashes across screen>

Mom: [Head snap immediately to the person next to her] “You know that’s not his baby, right? He was married to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman before Katie Holmes, and NEITHER ONE got pregnant. He’s gayer than a two dollar bill, man. He is GAY.”

<Ricky Martin scene [circa 2000, of course]>

Mom: What a shame.

Me: What?

Mom: You know he’s gay, right?