Is That a Phone or my Tinnitus? (L)

In a moment of revelation, I set my cell phone ringer to sound like an actual phone ringing (or some electronic imitation thereof). I decided I'd like to have my first thought when I hear it ringing be, "Hey, a phone is ringing!"

I enjoy imagining my purse on a park bench between my grandmother (were she alive) and me and hearing her say, "Well, I'll be, is that a phone ringing in your purse?" rather than, "I think I'm going crazy, I hear Pachelbel's Canon!"

I have a low brow Tracfone that doesn't give me the option of choosing the song that best suits my personality of the day. But even if I did, I think I'm sticking with a phone sounding like a phone. When it rings at the beach, there's no longer a domino effect of other mothers madly searching their bag. At first, everyone would just state quite confidently, "It's not my phone", because, after all, it didn't sound like music, it sounded like a phone. Now, they just look at me and say, "Your phone is ringing" before I can even slip my hand into my bag.

Maybe somewhere deep down inside me, I'm a bit old fashioned, even if I do Facebook. I would never "lol" for the simple reason that I would never write "laugh out loud", so why would I abbreviate it? I spent the first few years thinking it meant "lots of love" and that my nieces really liked me more than I thought they did. When I watch my daughter type an email (which I just broke down to), I want to slap her hand as I see her backspace over "see you later" and re-type "c u later". I tell her that's for texting (which she can't do because I won't let her have a phone) or IMing (which I also won't let her do) when time and space is limited. But she read in American Girl that it's better to write that way in an email because it then takes less time for your friends to read it. I told her it was promoting stupidity and American Girl should be ashamed. I was driving so I couldn't see her, but I'm pretty sure I felt her roll her eyes.

I've broken down and let her wear skinny jeans, if they aren't too tight, and I've even been known to "OMG" in an IM (it somehow seems less sacrilegious, and I say the full phrase around many a Christian). So, maybe it's just a matter of time before I give in to some things. Maybe you'll drive by my daughter when she's in high school, wearing skin tight jeans texting "LMAO" on her cell phone to some boy she's never met from Facebook. But for now, I take comfort in knowing that if my grandmother could read my emails she would understand every word I wrote, and if she heard my cell phone ringing, she'd actually say, "You'll turn that thing off when you're with me or, by God, I'll leave you sitting here".

Birthday Princess (L) June 4, 2009

Today is my first birthday without my mother. To say my birthday without my mother doesn’t feel the same seems redundant. Without our mothers, we would have no birthday. There isn’t a mother in the world that doesn’t remember something about her child’s actual “birth” day. The details of our children’s first Christmas, first Easter, even first birthday celebration get fuzzy and blend together. Pain makes memory more vivid, emotional or physical. It makes sense that this day remains crisp in a mother’s mind, the memory of a small human making its way out of your body in one form or another.

But this morning when I woke up, I was surprised to find that umbilical cord was still there, the end now dangling in the netherworld. I could pull it in hand over fist, and find its end raw and unattached. I waited for the reassuring calm and comfort that my brother and father have spoken of feeling enveloped in, as they feel my mother’s presence. But like my sister, I felt nothing. My mind then moved on to guilt. Wasn’t it too bad that I never said to my mother, “I can’t imagine a birthday without you.”, or “thanks for the life”, or even a simple, “thanks for all the birthday spoils”, of which there were many.

What my mother lacked in patience for traditional mothering throughout the rest of the year, she attempted to make up in holidays and birthdays. I often feel the strain as a mother to try and live up to the exuberance of my holidays past, and the generosity of my mother in my children’s holidays and birthdays.

When we were little, whether our birthdays will filled with just our family of 5 or with a few friends thrown in, there were always streamers and balloons and cake and numerous, numerous presents. The last present was always hidden in a treasure hunt led by creative, witty clues all written in my mother’s neat slanted script. Later in life, when she lacked the energy or ability to do the actual “leg work” of a party she was still always ready with the cash fund and usually some general orders. No one’s birthday went by without a dinner, a cake, ice cream and some presents, even when cash was tight.

My mother’s indulgence has damaged my real world expectations. When C and I were first dating, I remember being stunned when he forgot to buy me a present. How could that be possible? I was the birthday princess! This year, lacking the drive of my mother’s birthday spirit, C asked me “Do you want a cake?” I looked at him as if he was crazy, as if he had just asked me would I need my feet for the rest of the day or would I like them chopped off. You see, my mother has spoiled me. What a shame, now that I am acutely aware of just how much, that I can’t spoil her back.

Fuggedaboudit

Easter night I saw there was a preview for the TV show "Real Housewives of New Jersey" and OK, I bit. Being real, kind of a housewife, and definitely from NJ, I was curious. The characters? housewives? were an extended family with the men "in construction" and the women have children, buy stuff, and work out. And they're Italian. Ummm, hello? Italian, from N.J. and "in construction"? Isn't that white-people-speak for mob? You know like when someone leaves their job to "spend more time with the family"? Or when a guy has a "neat apartment, likes show tunes and Barbra Streisand"?

It's pathetic that this is the extent of being Italian American. I was a big "Sopranos" fan, I thought it was incredibly realistic and well done. I saw a lot of the people, places and things on the screen that reminded me of my relatives (one of them actually was a relative...). But there was at least some human drama--decisions made, actions taken. A wide range of characters and viewpoints. This reality show is so incredibly vapid and horrible (yes I can tell that from watching 15 minutes! Let me rant!) but I can't even really whine about stereotypes because these people are 100 percent real. Of course there's a lot of control in editing, but let's not split big hair.

I'm not going all b.s. highbrow on you either. I love me some mindless tv like the next person. During the first sleepless new baby months I watched a marathon of America's Next Top Model and then like a coke addict pawing through a shag carpet hoping against hope for a little forgotten nugget, started flipping thru the channels looking for more. Dark days. TV-watching does trigger the same responses as drug addiction. But I'm getting off my topic here.

I guess despite the fact that these people are fascinating in a trivial way and entertaining like a car accident, I'm just done with this stereotype. It's gotten so incredibly stale. Here's some other wops from Jersey: Bruce Springsteen, Janeane Garofalo, Tom Perrotta. More like these, please.

In the meantime I'd rather hang with the real real housewives of NJ, i.e., my friends down the street. Eeeeey. Fuggedaboudit.

Trails and Trials (L)

I don’t know if I can go about actually describing the moments, the reminders, the trails that lead to my sorrow these days of mourning my mother. Mourning, grieving, grieving is better-- mourning gives an illusion that there is an end, “a period of mourning”. I don’t believe there is an end. I believe I am in, or am entering into, my first real period of understanding of what my life is to be like without her. How many instincts, moments, there are that I didn’t recognize before; of thinking of her, bonding with her. How much of my life was lived for her approval--not approval, but in order to join her more. Joining her in her past was the only way I knew to get to her, it was there that she seemed the most content, the most “in life”. I suppose that’s why I am writing the story that I am.

Her living brought me great comfort, there were only a handful of months put together that brought me great stress. But I’ll admit the best of her evaporated when she left her home. That’s the real reason of the story isn’t it? My dream fulfillment of bringing her home again somehow.

Sorrow, real sorrow, it is a verb, it is a place, a plane of being. It can’t be explained, there are triggers that pull you there in a moment, but to try and capture them and hold them out for Chris to understand how I came there; it’s futile, pointless, because it’s not the moments that ferry me there that matter--to speak of them feels a distraction. How can you explain to someone who hasn’t been there? It is a place that will always exist on some level within me--because my mother will never be a voice I can speak to, a conversation, a story told, a question answered, an existence to be comforted by, eyes to see the pictures of my life. Part of me is now gone, half of my history swallowed up, dissipated, scattered. My favorite half by far.

How ironic the things you can’t understand about your mother until she is gone, I could never understand, truly, how she felt about losing her mother, such a huge loss for her, until I lost her. So many stories have come forward to me that I can’t query her about because she is gone, gone from me in the way I needed her.

I could curl up in this sorrow for a year and not be done with it. With work and babies and love and life, it sits below the surface waiting for the moments in a day to pulse out. It strikes now, blows to my heart and stomach, surprising me. It’s becoming familiar and I’m sure that the sharpness, the acute blunt force will dull with time, but the striking will not. Writing is my only hope of resurrection.

A Testament to Our Kindred Spiritness

I was just sitting here working like a fiend when it occurred to me that Facebook is the Devil. Beelzebub, Death Rusher, Time Stealer, Old Age Maker...you know, the Devil. I was thinking, "Huh, I haven't written on the blog in a while, maybe I should write a post about Facebook. In fact, I haven't even checked our blog in a while...wonder what my girls are up to?" When what to my wondering eyes should appear... but a like-minded rant, and all without beer! Ok, ok, I was forced to make it rhyme...sue me.

Which really all just goes to show...you can't fuck with kizmit. It will have its way. And thank holy crapinola for that.

Night of the Living Facebook

Speaking of Facebook, I've got two friend suggestions. One is a former member of my band, who actually lives in my neighborhood and I see around town. We have lots of the same friends and we're on totally friendly terms but have a wierd and awkward history that involves a drunken assault, passive aggressiveness, artistic differences and myriad other vagaries. I'm sure we've disappointed each other on many levels, despite the fact we both have mellowed since those days. There are also a lot of good and fun memories there, let it be said. I'd be totally fine inviting him and his family over for a neighborhood Sunday BBQ but I'm not sure we want to know every detail of our current lives in real-time. I wonder if my name is sitting there, unclicked on, in his friend suggestion box too.

The other is a friend from college during which I had a huge flirtation that never went anywhere due to the fact that I had a boyfriend at home. His personality at the time: wild, witty, smart as hell, piss-the-bed drunkenness, midnight motorcycle wheelies and a penchant for eccentric nonconformism for its own sake (a preacher's kid, need I say more?). I have no idea what he's doing now, and although I could find out with the click of a button, I kind of almost don't want to know. It's one glorious memory that should stay the way it is.

I also have a friend request from someone from my high school whose name sounds familiar but I can't recall a single conversation we might have had. She has something like three million friends and could be someone who collects 'friends' like serial killers collect souvenirs of their victims. Every once in a while I get a similar urge, just to see how many people I could accumulate. But what's the point of that? Will it make up for being an unpopular freak in high school? Not that I actually mind being that freak, I'm pretty happy to let that flag fly, actually. Maybe I am not cut out for the social applications of the oughts, just like I wasn't for the actual social interaction of the 80s and 90s.

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, vacillating wildly and frequently on its usefulness, but there is one thing I'm sure of: some memories of people should stay they way they were made, dying young and making a good-looking corpse. The alternate is a Zombie Friend, it looks and walks and talks like a friend but is actually an empty hull that wants to eat your brains.

Jesus is a Republican? (L)

Recently someone from my Tennessee past posted an anti-Obama status. Personally, I think political status updates outside of elections are tiresome (unless I agree with you, of course). Then someone responded to her telling of a bumper sticker they had seen saying "I'm a Christian, I own a gun, and I'm a Democrat." They went on to further imply that all three can't be true. I defriended her. (Not that all of my "friends" on Facebook are pro-Obama, but this comment from someone I barely know was just more aggravation than I needed that day.) It was either that or post these comments:

Really? Jesus was a Republican? I must have missed that part of the New Testament!

I'd say actually if I had to put Jesus in any political category, he'd be more of a liberal. Remember all that eating with whores and lepers? How about the mulitiplying the loaves and fish to feed the masses? I know the whole abortion thing doesn't jive with most people's view of Jesus, but I'd say the Republican Party's support of the death penalty probably balances that one out. I'll bet Jesus would actually say what is in someone's heart is more pertinent to their faith than which box they check off on a ballot.

Remember that little part of the Bible when Jesus was asked which commandments were the most important and he said "Love God above all others and love your neighbor as you love youself"? Ummmm, I don't think he gave any implication of an addendum of "unless you don't agree with their political views, or they are gay, or a different race than you, or they just smell like sinners to you."

If you're going to go about proclaiming to be a good Christian, you might want to review what that means.

I thought it was easier to defriend her.

(Now in defense of my friend in the previous post, I have to say, her mother was what I would consider to be a true Christian, and chances are, she is too.)

My favorite line regarding all of this comes from "30 Rock". Kenneth the Christian page says he doesn't believe in voting so he always just writes in "Our Lord Jesus Christ" on the ballot. Jack (Alec Baldwin) says "that's Republican. We count those."

Jesus Is Coming--Look Busy! (Alessandra)

Oh giant can of wormy goodness let us stick the blade in ... umm yes. There is quite frankly nothing worse than brainwashed fundamentalists of any stripe. The new Christianity of the QVC megachurch variety replete with soft rock albums featuring swaying, sweaty-palmed, sexually repressed teenagers is particularly loathsome because it seems to be pretty well understood that it is license to check any sort of mental vigor or curiosity at the door. These people have the blank stares of hardened cult members for whom all decisions are made. Their minds are made up well before any conversation. They have more in common with the wackjob terrorist Muslim fundamentalists that they are so scared by than they do to the Founding Fathers of the country they proclaim to love so much. But the blue eyeshadow is pretty awesome.

The most truly Christian people I know are among the most normal. They just live their lives as best they can. They show, they don't tell. They don't make you uncomfortable with that vaguely hostile us-or-them vibe that is a constant, nearly malevolent, presence among the brainwashed. So take heart L there are normal, spiritual people out there with a healthy aversions to pastel and ceramic figurines. You just have to look a little harder for them because they're not going to hit you over the head with their holier than thou faux piety. -A


Alessandra, I've tried to make a comment to this post several times, but it won't let me for some reason, so I'm going in head first. I know this to be true, this is why I lean toward the Catholic side of things pretty comfortably. Most Catholics don't feel they have to not listen to rock and roll or drink in order to be a good Christian. I know there are flaws in any organized religion, but I'll take one that gives you real wine at church any day.

Talk about brainwashing. I can tell you from my BB past that when we would go on Baptist youth retreats an inordinate amount of time was spent playing Led Zeppelin backwards to show you the evils that can pollute your mind through the radio airwaves. In college, after going through a minor resurgence, I went to another retreat led by a couple of which the man was a "cured homosexual", I then had to sit through hours of him preaching to us about how your virginity is the sticky part of the glue that helps you bind to another. I felt so sorry for his poor wife, can you imagine how long she has to wait outs in the car at rest stops on long trips?

I do have to admit I know quite a few people now that I would also call "true" Christians and you are right on the money that they don't go around advertising it or trying to make you feel bad about your life. I'm sure, in reality, that woman was a lovely person, but that does not make for a very interesting post...

p.s. You know how to nail it, your descriptions beat all.

-L


I like this format better. Sometimes you have more to say than that skimpy comment box.
Wow those retreats sound frightening. Let's hear more about them! I also wanted to tell you that I think "bringing the QVC" shd be nominated to our permanent glossary. I also just noticed that if you put our blog as an acronym it has TWAT in it...TTWATW!

But yes Catholics. Sin, torment, guilt, big flashy gothic old cathedrals, beautiful art, thoughtful writings, and the best part: the thinly veiled assimilation of paganism. Catholics are much more fun to hang around in general if you can just lay low during the "guilt" phase. Unfortunately as an organized religion they have a lot to answer for, death and molestation and corruption. Icky. I love how the newsletter from our local RC Church, St. Nicholas, went off on yoga; how it is the Satanic practice that leads to utter moral waste. Hmmmm....downward facing dog versus...Spanish Inquisition.... yeah. -A

Scares the BeJesus out of Me (L)

I love facebook, I love finding old friends and connecting with current ones in new ways. However, one weird twist to this for me is that I have a couple of people from my long ago Bible Belt days in Tennessee. It was strange during the election to be timid at first about posting all of my Palin slams (which you know I did) because my southern contingents and their string of friends were clearly McCain fans (as demonstrated by their "I'm a fan of John McCain" newfeeds). I'm betting that they had a prayer meeting in their church basement after the election results. One of them was my best friend from childhood. Getting to know her again and then meeting her in 1995 was amazing, it was like seeing my southern reflection. I was impressed that at such a young age we had actually found in each other true kindred spirits. She was smart and a rebel by southern standards (she has a secret tattoo) and had grown far from the awkward cute girl with braces I once knew, into a beautiful southern woman. I like to think I'd be better looking too if I lived in the south and was forced to keep up with all those standards. We still had an inordinate amount in common, though raised in very different lives.

I just clicked on her facebook "books I'm reading" page and saw a book of raising kids by the Bible and some other girly-too-flowery-even-for-Oprah book. I felt...betrayed, defeated, disengaged. It turns out, there are some girls you can't take the south out of and certainly can't take the Jesus out of.

Recently, I went to a gathering at someone's house I hardly knew. She greeted me and my friend at the door with a sweet fake hug and we stepped into her huge immaculate house filled with candles, angels, china dolls, and hand stitched Bible quotes strewn about like land mines for sinners, and I wondered if I was stepping back into my past. As I scanned for time portals, I studied her closely; she was blonde (fake), wearing baby blue and delicate gold jewelry, her make-up was thick enough to hide her gender, if necessary. Later in the evening, as we sat in her living room that looked like a staging set for a Sears portrait studio, I asked her where she was from originally, thinking here's the answer to it all...When she replied a town further south in Maine, I was scrambling to make sense. Then I realized it was not a southern connection, but a Jesus one.

This, if nothing else, will keep me from another altar call to the Baptist front--because, apparently, when you take Jesus to your heart he brings the QVC with him. Why is this? Is there no such thing as a cool hip Christian with a penchant for vibrant colors and clutter who likes to read intelligent funny literature?

I realize I am judgemental, I'm a judmgental biggotted anti-Christian fundamentalist (it's just the fundamentalists I'm a'gin). If they could read this blog, they'd send their Christ minions straight up here to try to cleanse my sinning soul and place collectible gnomes throughout my house.