Terrible Mother

Bad Religion

Thing Three: Today, we went to the library to look at books with a partner, and my partner was Jon.

Terrible Mother: Okay.

Thing Three: And Jon found a book called "History of the Earth."

Terrible Mother: Sounds not terrible.

Thing Three: Well, except it was a book about Christianity.

Terrible Mother: Ohhh...

Thing Three: And Jon didn't know anything about it at all! So he kept saying things like, "Why are these two people wearing Hawaiian grass skirts?" and "Why is that snake in a tree?"

Terrible Mother: So what did you do?

Thing Three: I explained the whole story to him. Adam, Eve, the whole snake in a tree, and the apple thing.

Terrible Mother: You...you knew all that?

Thing Three: Yeah. It was on an episode of Futurama.


[later, while re-telling this story at the dinner table]


Thing One: Yeah, and wasn't it like Adam and Eve were naked because they didn't feel shame or something?

Terrible Mother: Yeah. And they didn't feel sexual desire either, since there was no need to procreate.

Thing Two: WHAT? THEY DIDN'T HAVE SEX?

Terrible Mother: No...

Thing Three [rolling her eyes]: Yeah, that happened. Good one, Bible. No sex with a bunch of naked people.

*tm

Notes Regarding Thing Two

Tonight, around the dinner table:

Thing Two: I'm worried about global warming.

Me: I am too, buddy.

Thing Two: So I've decided to give up designing computers for a living.

Me: Because they cause too much pollution?

Thing 2: No. So I can concentrate on becoming emperor of the world and then make people save the environment.

Me: Ummm....

Thing Two: First, it would probably be helpful if I were immortal.

***
Thing Two: I'm just really tired of people in my school using the word "ghetto." Like, seriously, we're all white people who live in a white town in a white state. We shouldn't be saying that.

***
Thing One: Why does Ivan say "I love you" all the God dammed time?

Me: What do you mean?

Thing One: Like whenever he gets out of the car or gets off the phone. He even says it when you run to the store for ice cream!

Me: Because I told him once that people liked to hear that they were loved, and it was important to say that to each other.

Thing One: Okay, but then why does he say it all the time?

Me: He doesn't know when to say it. So he says it a lot just to make sure.

Thing One: Well...now I feel like an asshole.

Me: You know, you could fix that by saying you love me.

*tm

The Language of Neighbors

I live in a tiny complex that is comprised of exactly one thin row of townhouses.  There are six townhouses, to be exact, and we are the last in the row.  Number 6.  This is good because it means we share only one wall with neighbors, while the other wall edges a quiet back yard and treed area. 

It's also good because almost all of our neighbors are of the undergraduate variety.  They can be loud and annoying, and certainly inconsiderate. 

This, then, is a brief collection of various phrases, acronyms, and sentences my kids have heard me utter as a result of living near these people. I tend to see these as falling into one of several categories.

 

First, some phrases I've used to describe their lack of responsibility:

"Irresponsible twat"

"Human crap holders"

"Waste of electricity" [in reference to their music, specifically]

Second, acronyms I use as an attempt to avoid cursing while still getting the sweet relief a good curse phrase provides [note: this does not work well]:

"FFS"

"WTF" 

"WTFBBQLOL"

Third, phrases I use to describe the various male-male interactions I must bear witness to:

"Bro-mance"

"Bro-mageddon"

"Bro-bro"

"Phallic symbol"

"Homoerotic overtones"

Fourth, sentences that allow me to express my full emotions about our neighbors:

"Fucking Christ on a Popsicle stick!"

"Do you know what my favorite numbers are? 9-1-1."

"I swear to God they have more incense than anyone. It's Eugene. That's saying something."

"If this clock vibrates off my wall one more time..."

"I pay for a parking space! I don't pay to be pissed when there is no parking!"

Finally, these last are sentences I have found myself saying to the kids as means of explaining previous comments:

"Yes, Chloe--beer pong is for business majors and undergraduates. Sometimes both."

"No, Ivan. Homoerotic doesn't refer to pornography. Well, in general, anyway. Or, at least when I refer to it."

"I could throw dog crap on their cars. I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm just saying...well, do you think they'd know it was me?"

"I know I'm the only parent who lives here. Well, as far as they know. All those bros could TOTALLY be parents!"

"It's like living in a third world country here! A fucking LOUD third world country!"

"If I wanted to hear loud, drunken sex I would start dating again!"

"No, I swear that isn't really how my dates go."

"Well, when you love someone it isn't gross...."

*tm

Miscellany: The Righteous Indignation Edition

Before I launch into my typical miscellany-type post, where I bring together disparate scenes of my life, I would like to welcome you to the newly redesigned Terrible Mother.  And I need to give credit for the design to Sweet Blog, which did a bang-up job. 

Anyway—on to the miscellany.

A conversation with Friend R:

Me:  Do you have that recipe for no-knead bread handy?

Friend R:  Yeah, I can send it to you.

Me:  Does it work?

Friend R:  It must because all the hipsters have had the chance to go from "I love it because I'm the only one doing it" to "Everyone's doing it so it's not cool anymore” to "Damn, that's some good bread. But don't let my cool friends know I'm using it."

Me:  I didn’t know hipsters ate.  I thought they rode single gear bikes and bought uncomfortable furniture.

Friend R: Do you know what the newest trend in self-righteous hipper-than-thou cooking is?  Grinding your own wheat to make bread.

Me: What. The. Fuck.

Friend R:  The name dropping is insane. "My grinder's Danish because the Danes know some shit about grinding wheat." Right. They've been grinding wheat for centuries. When they weren't out raping, pillaging, and stealing other people's flour because grinding it yourself is a pain in the ass.

(pause)

Me:  The Danes stole flour?


***

I was invited to this potluck wherein parents from Thing Two and Three’s elementary school are together and discuss the merits of changing the cafeteria offerings to healthy (and likely organic food).  We’re each supposed to bring a dish that’s something we’d like our kids to eat at school.  I am totally behind this idea, but I keep thinking of making some anonymous-looking casserole and labeling it “Trans Fat Sprayed with High Fructose Corn Syrup!”

Am I a bad person?

***

A conversation with my mom, about her upcoming wedding:

Mom: So, my colors are off-white, champagne and…mermaid blue.
Me: “Mermaid blue”?  Is that a color?

Mom: Yes.  Sort of aquamarine.

Me:  I see.

Mom: So the girls I’m gonna get dresses for in the mermaid blue color.  But you can pick whatever color you want out of those three.

Me:  Okay.

(in the background, Thing One starts pantomiming choking herself).

Me: Thing One is really looking forward to that.

Mom:  Well, good!  And tell her we’re going to attach seashells to everyone’s dresses too!

***

Excellent Swimmer (a new character!) and I have three kids between us that go to the same elementary school.  It’s a new school, having been a combination of two other schools--Eastside and Potter--with two different demographics.  One day, we started talking about those demographic differences.

ES:  Yeah, I worry sometimes about the Eastside parents because they have more money, and you know how that goes.

Me:  Yeah, I know. 

ES:  Do you know anyone from Eastside?

Me:  Sort of.  There’s this one guy. 

ES:  How do you know him?  Work?

Me: Actually, we dated for awhile, I guess. 

ES:  You dated, you “guess”?

Me:  Well, he eventually came around to telling me he wanted me to be his “second wife” or something. Maybe second girlfriend?  I don’t know.  He’s married.

ES:  What?

Me: Yeah, I’m not kidding.  We went on three dates before I even knew he was married!

ES:  Oh my God!

Me:  Right?  So you’re worried all the Eastside parents are going to all be classist. But mostly I’m worried they’re gonna be polygamists.

(pause)

ES:  Which is worse?

Me:  Good freakin’ question. 

*tm

Miscellany: The And I Work Here? Grammar Edition

Capitalization:

Ike: Don't capitalize this title.

Me: But it's a proper noun and a title. And we've always capitalized it.

Ike: I know, but I want to call attention to the other title in the sentence, since it's more important. So capitalize that one but not this one.

Me: Capitalization doesn't work that way. And you can just reword the sentence if you want to stress one over the other, or join two phrases with a subordinating conjuntion to do it.

Ike: No one will understand that. This makes more sense, anyway.

Use of Adverbs:

Ike: You cannot end a sentence that way.

Me: Which way?

Ike: With "unanimously."

Me: What? Why?

Ike: You can't end a sentence with an adverb.

Me: Yes you can. You can end any sentence with an adverb. You're thinking of a preposition. And that's an old rule anyway.

Ike: I wasn't even talking about prepositions, but you can't end a sentence with those either. I'm talking about adverbs. You need to pay attention.

Me: Look, people end sentences with adverbs constantly.

Ike: Not correctly. And I don't want you doing it anymore*.

Use of the Past Perfect:

Ike: Why do you have all these "hads" in here?

Me: Where?

Ike: Here and here and here.

Me: It's the past perfect.

Ike: That's ridiculous. No one even knows what that is.

Me: Sure they do. It signals to the reader that the text is referring to something that happened before.

Ike: But it's already in past tense.

Me: I know, but sometimes things happen before that and you need to refer to them.

Ike: Everyone understands it happens before because of the context. You don't need to use them.

Me: Actually, you do need to use them. That's why we have them. To make it less confusing.

Ike: It's just some way for writers to make themselves feel smarter.

Me: No, I'm pretty sure it's just grammar.

*tm

*the rest of the day, I walked around saying things like "I am going to print these files....quickly," and "I have to go to the bathroom...slowly." Yes, I am that petty.

Miscellany: The End of Dating Edition

Me: I'm getting a lot of responses to my personal ad.

Fort Awesome: Yeah? What kinds of things did you put in there?

Me: Lots of the smart and funny. You know, like I tell that story about how Jon and I bought each other completely dissimilar Christmas gifts that one year.

Fort Awesome: You put that on a personal ad?

Me: Yeah. It's funny and punchy and I revised it a few times to make it work.

[pause]

I also wrote about that time you said my house was sponsored by the Dairy Council.

Fort Awesome: So basically what you're telling me is that you're using your MFA to construct the best personal ad ever?

Me: [thinking] Shit. I think I am.

Fort Awesome: That is a depressing commentary on our society.

Me: The fact that it takes an MFA to write a good personal ad or the fact I'm $60k in debt and all I have to show for it is a good personal ad?

Fort Awesome: [pause] Are those my only options?

*****

Two months ago, post-AWP:

Thing One: Are you crying, Mom?

Me: A little.

Thing One: Did someone break up with you again?

Me: No!

[pause]

Sort of.

Thing One: Was it The Nefarious but Adorable Poet?

Me: What?! I haven't even said anything thing about him!

Thing One: You showed his book to five people. You never show anybody's book to anybody.

****

Terrible Mother: Dating is a nightmare.

Friend Omega: Dating is fun. I'm having a blast.

Terrible Mother: It's awful! How anyone even procreates is beyond me!

Friend Omega: Well, you have three children. So if it's beyond anyone, you should not be the anyone.

Terrible Mother: Shut it, Omega.

Friend Omega: Okay. But really, I'm having fun. It's frustrating and annoying at times, but really it's fun. I get to tell my same tired, boring old stories to new audiences!

*****

Three words that would scare anyone right out of dating: Raw Food Guy.

*****

Friend Omega: I don't know, TM. Have you considered dating someone from the state of Oregon?

*****

Fort Awesome: that picture of you on the dating site is not ok.

Me: which one?

Fort Awesome: Are you wearing a cowboy hat?

Me: You don't like that photo? It's cute! Everyone loves that picture!

Fort Awesome: Are you wearing a COWBOY HAT?

Me: It's an ironic cowboy hat!

Fort Awesome: What, like an ironic swastika?

*****

Tim-Tim: Why do these people have to be smart to date you?

Me: Why? Because I fall into long-term relationships like saber-tooth tigers fall into tar. Or something like that.

*****

So all, after some really bad goings on (really bad; terrible, in fact, to the point I don't even know how to write about them) I've decided to officially Stop Dating. No more men. None. I will write and garden and knit and watch Buffy and Battlestar Galactica and not think about men.

Also, I'm thinking maybe I should change my tip jar title from "Will Blog for Food" to "Will Blog for Vibrator," but that might be a little outre, do you think?

*tm

The Comment Revue, 2006

One of the best things about *terrible mother is the readership. I've got loyal, smart readers here, and any blog which can sustain a lengthy debate regarding the sentimentality of the postmortem worship of Kurt Vonnegut has some kick-ass people commenting. So, as an ode to y'all, I'm posting my favorite reader comments of 2006.

First, the faux-frustrated at Terrible Mother posts:

you mistakenly called friend two by the name of friend one. multiple times. this is nearly unforgiveable. also, i don't have to buy you a drink at awp because i've already bought the hotel room. duh, you're beholden even if you don't sleep there. whore.

sorry, did i mention i was drunk?
-Friend One, to Miscellany, 11-2006

-----

Just a few notes:

1) When you asked me to deal with your wasp problem, you offered me a stick. I suggested the wasp-killer spray, and you apparently purchased it, but only after I'd already gone to deal with chickens. Granted, I'm man enough to take on a wasp nest armed with nothing but a stick, but I'm not stupid enough to do so.

2) If you give handjobs like you hold a pool cue, then I'm glad I'm gay. Not that you're offering or anything.

-Friend R to Miscellany, 8-2006

-----

Good god, woman. Stop braying about things you've brought upon yourself. Finish the test, ace it like you know you will, sleep for a day, and then fuck the life out of sweetboy.

I'm sorry to be the one to have to say it

-badfreak to It's Almost Over (and brought on by my complaining of the MFA Exam)

-----

What makes you think I don't already know about amputee sex?

Also, the fanbase thing? Seriously. Get over yourself.

-badfreak to What the Hell Is Love Anyway? (and brought on by my announcement of dating an amputee and declaring I had a fanbase. Let it be known that Freak took back the latter at a later date. Oh yeah, I think it was the post immediately following the one in which he told me to get over myself. Not that I'm keeping track).

*****

Second, the non-sequitur posts:

You say OCD with bathrooom stalls like it's bad thing.

-Kari to Miscellany, 8-2006

-----

handjobs difficult? maybe not. to do well? hmmm...

see, the thing with receiving a handjob from someone else is that it's moronic. when the recipient at one of these lame, sophomoric attempts at intimacy, i generally look down (literally and proverbially) with pity and sadness in my eyes.

sometimes, i remark that "baby, you're dealing with the master." trust me... i can do that quicker, better, and much more efficiently on my own. you're just embarrassing yourself. like emeril's mom insisting on making turkey at thanksgiving and it comes out all dry and gross and BAM! mom just let me BAM! make the BAM! turkey next BAM! next BAM! next year.

i think emeril has tourette's.

-Friend Omega to Miscellany, 8-2006.

-----

Terrible Mother's Favorite Haiku:

There's this guy I know.
He's a real fucking asshole.
Yes, that guy is you.

-Friend Omega, in Poem of the Week.

*****

Third, kid-related comments, which I big heart:

I love it when they dress like flatchested and relatively demure college freshmen. LOVE IT. Love the forays into accessorizing, glitter, hairties and wheeled sneakers. My own feral child asked me if she could use my deodorant the other day--she wanted very much to slide it onto her pristine underarm. I had to go into my room and laugh.

-Fatally Hip Single Mother to Miscellany, 9-2006.

-----

My kiddo is already worried about shaving, as in his balls. I kid you not!!! He has told me twice he does not want to grow hair on his balls, and I told him, "It's OK, honey. It won't happen for a while." (See I read him this book called "What's Happening to Me: A Guide To Puberty," which is a marvelous book, and we had fun reading it together, and it sparked a great discussion, and so I recommend it to other parents for sure) but ever since then my kiddo doesn't want to grow hair on his balls.

God, I know, it makes me laugh.

Anyway, so then he came up with the idea he'd shave his balls. Except ten minutes later he said, "But that might hurt."

So I told him, "Listen, honey, by the time you get hair on your balls you won't mind it. Trust me. You'll have other things on your mind by then."

-Alana, to Miscellany, 9-2006.

-----

I think that a book about a single mother taking a road trip with her three young children sounds like something I would never read, even should I live to be a hundred.

-Friend Omega, to Have Kids, Will Travel.

-----

This is the sort of thing they'll use against you when they're trying to justify sticking you in a home somewhere:

"Well, there was the story of my birth put out on the internet, so, yeah, let's go with the cheapest place we can find."

-badfreak to Happy Birthday Thing Two.

*****

Fourth, what I call Little Bumper Cars of Witty Repartee*:

I did NOT mean to suggest that you used your vagina to cook a turkey. I mean...it wouldn't really be warm enough to be safe from bacteria, would it? Not that you're full of bacteria or anything. Remember "The Accidental Tourist" 225 degree oven? I'm sayin. My body temp tends to run a little low. I could maybe pull off warm tapas olives and chickpeas.

And - a turkey's pretty big. Well, HUGE really, so there's that to consider. I'm not saying it couldn't be done. Someone's probably doing it right now. And maybe someday you'll figure out how to do it and show the rest of us.

Right?

-Pink-Haired Housewife, to ThanksEarly.

-----

I like Miracle Whip, the as-yet-unmentioned eye-patch sporting best friend who likes to put Miracle Whip on his fries.

-badfreak to Friend One Rules.

-----

"friends with money" is the second best film i've seen this year, after "thank you for smoking."

i didn't find it depressing. i found it very touching and beautiful. i like characters who are as empty inside as i am.

-Friend Omega, to A Gin and Garden.

-----

And you must read the entire the entry (and comments, natch) entitled Austin and Everything After, part II, which was only interesting because of the barbs Friend Omega and badfreak slung around.

-----

and, finally, perhaps my favorite comment of 2006:

david bradley thinks that he is the r. lee ermey of creative writing.

–Friend Omega to Former Incarnations.

*tm

*yep Fort Awesome, I totally stole that from you.

Poo-tee-weet

I read Slaughterhouse Five, the first time, when I was ten. I remember it clearly because I consumed the book more than anything: I had never read anything that so clearly used the style and conceits of science fiction while still being literary. I had also never read anything that so precisely captured the essence of war and the mechanics and grief of the kind of human suffering inflected by other humans.

It's a complicated book, a complicated work, and I can vividly recall curling into my father's La-Z-Boy to finish the last few chapters. It was summer, hot and sticky in Central California, and my brothers were outside playing in the sprinklers. It was a few years before things got terrible in my family, though the harbingers of those times were starting to show: worn edges of t-shirts and the too-empty freezer and the oil stains in the drive way from the cars we kept trading down.

And there was this book about war, but about so much more than that. It's about memory and loss and suffering. But like all of Vonnegut's work, it retains in it a simple, sad beauty so profound that, when I finished the book, I laid it down and cried. I didn't understand all of it, to be sure. I was ten, afterall, and even a precocious ten-year old is still just a ten-year old. But I felt something that went beyond all the books I had read before, and I felt it, even though it would take me 20 more years to be able to explain it the way I am now.

Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday, April 11, 2007 at the age of 84. "When Hemmingway died he put a period on his life, old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut once said. He said this with a measure of bitterness; his own suicide attempt in 1984 had failed. I think, though, this is one of the few times Vonnegut had it wrong, and I can't help but think of the German farmer in Slaughterhouse Five, his voice calling out to the POWs he's given harbor to in his barn. In the doorway, he turns back to them. "Good night, sweet Americans," he says. It is quiet and it lingers. It's no period, certainly, not even quite the end of the book. But it's a kind of ending, all the same.

*tm

Unspeakably Awesome

You all can just start calling me Fort Anderson after this. As Omega said on his blog, this may be the single best commercial ever.

*tm

Miscellany: The Duh Edition

A conversation between Fort Awesome and I two weeks ago as we drove 45 minutes to hear Deborah Eisenberg read:

Fort Awesome: I liked that movie, but it reminded me of Ken Burns.

[long pause]

Terrible Mother: Who's Ken Burns?

Fort Awesome: Shut up.

Terrible Mother: What?

Fort Awesome: What the fuck is wrong with you? "Who's Ken Burns?"

Terrible Mother: What are you talking about?

Fort Awesome [voice rising]: Ken Burns! KEN BURNS! BASEBALL! JAZZ! THE DOCUMENTARIAN! THE KEN BURNS EFFECT! KEN FUCKING BURNS!

Terrible Mother: See, when you said "Ken Burns," I really thought "maybe 'Ken' is Mr. Burns first name."

[silence]

Terrible Mother: You know. From the Simpsons?

Fort Awesome: You cannot have a Master's degree. You cannot. There's been some terrible mistake*.

*****

An IM with Fort Awesome a week later:

Fort Awesome: I big heart Malcolm Gladwell- do you think he will marry me?

Terrible Mother: who is that?

Fort Awesome: holy shit

Terrible Mother: Oh God. I hate this game.

Fort Awesome: he writes** like every other month in the New Yorker!

Terrible Mother: I am now scarred, can't even begin to ask "who is that?" Because I know it's going to hurt when I don't know.

Fort Awesome: Can you at least recognize the name?

[long pause]

Terrible Mother: Yes?

Fort Awesome: Blink, Freakonomics***, The Tipping Point?

Terrible Mother: Are those essays he's written for the New Yorker?

Fort Awesome: They are books. Books.

Terrible Mother: Oh yeah. "Freakonomics." I think I read a review of that on Salon.

Fort Awesome: You're hopeless.

Terrible Mother: I'm not hopeless! I have a good memory for certain details! Conversations, for example.

Fort Awesome: Apparently no one you have ever known has talked about Ken Burns or Malcom Gladwell. Anyway, have you seen the preview for the movie based off So Much Water So Close to Home?

Terrible Mother: no

Fort Awesome: here

Terrible Mother: It looks fucking fabulous

Fort Awesome: please god tell me that's sarcasm

Terrible Mother: What? It looks good!

Fort Awesome: They've turned it into a thriller.

Terrible Mother: But I love Laura Linney****.

Fort Awesome: It's a dumb thriller.

Terrible Mother: But it's won awards. And all the awards have laurel leaves around their titles. I'm a sucker for the laurel leaf awards.

Fort Awesome: But it was this great quiet feminist story.

Terrible Mother: Really? Who wrote it?

[long pause]

Fort Awesome: Please stop talking.

Terrible Mother: Oh no. It's someone I should know isn't it?

Fort Awesome: Raymond Carver, TM. Raymond Fucking Carver.

Terrible Mother: I knew it sounded familar!

Fort Awesome: Ehud would kill you. If I ever want to be the favorite, I'll just email him this IM.

Terrible Mother: It's like the time I asked, "And who wrote The Seagull again?"

Fort Awesome: Please. Please just stop talking.

Terrible Mother: Done and done.

*****

Two years ago, at the end of a long conversation between Friends One and Two and me, I described a dramatic moment in class by saying "It was the epitome of dramatic. It was like that scene in The Karate Kid."

Friend One looked at us. "Which movie was that again?"

This caused Friend Two and I to look at each other aghast. Then we stood up at the same time. "You know, The Crane Kick," we were both saying, chattering over each other. And then in the middle of Allann Brothers Coffee, we started miming said Crane Kick. And all the while Friend One looked confused. "I'm not sure I've seen that movie before," she finally said, as Friend Two and I became more agitated, saying things out of order like "Sand the floors, Friend One!" and "Daniel-san!" and "Cobra KAI!"

I think we just confused Friend One more.

*tm

*And the entire evening of the reading, I kept asking people "Do you know who Ken Burns is?" trying to prove that someone else wasn't as lame as I was.

Did it work? No. It didn't. Not even a little.

** And he has a decent blog.

***Also, MG didn't write that book, which makes me simultaneously feel vindicated (Ha! Fort Awesome was wrong!) and lame (Oh. But that's the one I sort of knew about). It's like life. Only on a much smaller scale.

***Notice how I didn't get any credit for at least knowing who she is? See that? Shenanigans I say.