Showing posts with label Evil Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evil Stuff. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

I just drove 548 miles with an unpaid stand-up comedian, a maharajah, a mustachioed brigand and a Christian-phobe.

I just drove 548 miles with an unpaid stand-up comedian, a teenage maharajah, a mustachioed brigand and a Christian-phobic person who is trying to tour the U.S. by way of leaving his personal belongings in as many different cities as possible.


We all went out of town this Thanksgiving, to be present at the eight months belated memorial of my 101 year old grandfather and to be with my extended family for the holiday. We had to get up early and drive to Tucson on Saturday morning the 19th.

So I spent several days before, busily scurrying around and gathering items to bring with us, fussing loudly and trailing various lists in my wake: Lists of items to go in the cooler in the morning. Lists of things to do at the last minute. Lists of clothes to bring. Lists of general agenda items. Lists of which lists to refer to. That kind of thing.

My husband, Mike, sat on the couch, tired from working all day, and tried to ignore me while I thrust various bulletins at him. Then we got in a fight about how I do all the list-making work, while he just waits and throws everything in a bag and then does all the driving while I sleep fucks everything up.

And so on.

Then, on Friday night, I was so tired from making all of these lists, and choosing which scarves to pack with which socks, that we had to go out to eat. We brought my mom with us, who was going to be doing the unpaid labor of running our insane asylum for ducks house sitting for us for a couple of days, until she left for her Thanksgiving trip to Maryland.

My mom had brought prints of a photo she had taken of our kids and our canine-donkey hybrid dog that she wanted to show us, to the restaurant. Some were in color and others were in sepia tones. Obviously I have never heard anyone actually say "sepia" before, because when she said it, I told her she was saying it wrong.

Yes, that is straw. We are wanna-be farmers. That's just how we roll.


Me: "I think it's "SEH-pee-UH."

Mom: "I'm pretty sure it's "SEE-pee-UH."

Me: "That sounds like a condition. Like something potentially fatal. 'I'm afraid you have SEE-pee-UH, ma'am.' (turning) Mike..."

Mike: "What?"

Me: "Do you say "SEH-pee-UH" or "SEE-pee-UH?"

Mike: (pauses) "No."

So, we ended up sending my eldest Rowan over to my friend Jenn's table to find out how it was really pronounced, and it turned out I was wrong. Meanwhile, Mike kept telling everyone that the correct term was "chromatic".

Rowan somehow ended up with a coloring book of biblical stories to entertain him while we waited for our food. This made me nervous. I don't want to end up being known as the family of heathens whose teenager defaced sacred coloring books at the Hill Diner. Nevertheless, since I obviously am incapable of substituting good judgement for a desire to amuse myself, I found myself suggesting that he tarnish a page full of archangels.

The page had four angels on it and said "Which one of these angels is different?" One of them had no wings, so the answer was gratuitously obvious. I couldn't help thinking it would be more interesting if one of the angels had horns and fangs, for instance. Having said that, I then had to insist that no one actually disfigure any heavenly creatures.

Which is what good parenting is all about.

"Which one of these did Jesus give to people to eat, Mom?" Rowan showed me a page with a puffy loaf of bread, a weird plant that looked like it might be part sea anemone and a broadly smiling fish that looked like a cuddly stuffed animal. Meanwhile, my mother and husband lapsed into discussing theology. This is normal for them.

Mom: "I read about one guy who claimed that he believes in what he calls 'prosperity Christianity' and says the justification for this is that the wise men brought the baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh and that he accepted them."

Me: (disgustedly) "He accepted them???"

Mike: (making wide, adorable eyes and holding open his arms with infant-like excitement) "Gold! Ga ga goo goo! Myrrh! Ba ba boo boo!"

The thought of a Capitalist Baby Jesus caused all of us to laugh uncontrollably and, for no apparent reason, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, for most of an hour. I can hardly wait to have another baby so I can put frankincense and myrrh on my gift registry.

Idiosyncratic behavior also characterized the next day's car trip to Tucson.

He is...the most interesting man in the world.

At the half-way point, in Socorro, Mikalh, who is six, bought a mustache he could stick on his face like a sticker and wore it all day. We forced Rowan to make a phone call about his church service project, which almost lead to a public full-bore family rift when he threatened to walk out of the restaurant before relenting. Devin, my sixth grader, turned out to have lost the biography he was supposed to be reading at the restaurant we ate at.

Rowan's tombstone will probably just say: "What?"
We kept driving.

"Let's tell jokes!", said the newly mustachioed Mikalh. "What is a vampire's favorite food?"

"What?" said everyone.

"BROCCOLI!!" he announced happily.

(silence.)

"I think it'd at least be...red meat," Rowan offered delicately.

"BROCCOLI!" Mikalh insisted, becoming increasingly angry. An argument ensued and was quelled. The jokes continued.

Mikalh: "What is the finger's greatest enemy?"

Everyone: "What?"

Mikalh: "The GALAXY!"

(silence.)

Me: "WHY?"

Mikalh: "BECAUSE he doesn't like it."

And so on.

By the time, we hit Tucson, everyone was weak with hunger and desperate to find a place to eat. The kids were enlisted to do a visual scan for suitable restaurants. The guidelines were that we needed to ID places likely to have lots of vegetables available, and options other than pasta and cheese.

Devin, nervously contemplating the Fast Food Inquisition.
At some point, we drove past a Church's Fried Chicken, and Devin declared his disapproval with a voice full of dread.

Devin: "We can't eat THERE. I went there with the Smythes and it's a CHRISTIAN restaurant."

Me: "What do you MEAN by that?"

Devin: "They close on Sundays. And they asked us if we wanted the Christian chicken."

Me: "How can you even tell if a chicken is Christian?"

Mike: "It's simple. The chicken has accepted Jesus Christ as its lord and savior."

Me: "Or is it like a choice they offer: 'Do you want the Original Recipe, Christian, or Extra Christian Chicken?'"

Devin: "I'm not kidding, Mom."

Rowan: "I see an Italian restaurant!"

Me: "Too much pasta and cheese."

Devin: "What's wrong with pasta and cheese?"

Me: "Mike and I can't eat dairy or flour, still."

Mikalh:  (confidentially) "Milk makes me FART."

We ended up at a Teppanyaki grill, which was really good, and, through pure force of will, I made Rowan order a real Japanese dish instead of the fucking chicken fingers. The chef expertly tossed cooked shrimp into my boys' open mouths, and everyone had great fun. We even had enough vegetables. (Mike and I each have to eat twelve ounces of vegetables at lunch and dinner. Don't ask.)

Devin: "Mom, why didn't the guy toss you any shrimp? He tossed some to the other grown-ups over there."

Me: (sighing) "Because I'm uptight and he can just tell. He can tell, even though I'm wearing double pony tails and a tee shirt that says "Little Miss Sunshine", that it would be a bad idea to throw shrimp at me."

And then I got depressed.

But, after the landlord was done being mad at us for arriving so late, and Mike had come back from racing off  and leaving his Teppanyaki meal getting cold to go and get the key, we were happy because our rental was beautiful. And the week had just begun.




Thursday, March 8, 2012

Advice from the Medical Expert



Dear Medical Profession,

Hi, it's me–the curly-haired, pale-looking person who keeps making appointments with you. You've probably seen me in your waiting rooms, looking for a magazine to read that isn't on either hunting or beauty advice. I have a writing prompt on confrontation and you just popped right into my head.

At one time, I wanted to be an expert on world mythology. Later, I studied to become–at least in a small way–an expert on child development. I have many interests. However, without meaning to, I have become an expert on going to doctors.

Let me qualify that for you. Within the last four years, I have been to see an ear, nose and throat specialist, a sleep doctor, an allergist, a neurologist, two rheumatologists, a chiropractor, a podiatrist, and an endocrinologist. I have visited my primary care physician so often that we are practically joined at the hip. He is moving in May and I feel personally betrayed. It's a bit like being left by a lover. A lover with an encyclopedic knowledge of my complicated medical history.

I am also getting to be an expert at taking medications. I once tried approximately fifteen different medications, at different times and in different combinations, to get my allergies and asthma under control. Currently, I am taking a cocktail of medicines for my fibromyalgia and migraines which allow me to get out of bed and function, but which have robbed me of my short-term memory and forced me to use an online thesaurus to remember what I am trying to say.

I am an expert on getting medical tests as well. I have had an ultrasound of my thyroid and abdominal areas. They have X-rayed my chest twice and my sinuses once. I have had an MRI on my brain and an abdominal CT, which was one of the most hilarious experiences of my life. A sleep study was conducted. Blood enough to happily feed all of the vampires of Bon Temps has been extracted from my veins and analyzed. Urine has been taken. I have had spirometry and an echocardiogram.


Having spent one-third of the last portion of my life at doctor's offices, and seen the good, bad and the ugly, I would like to make a few comments on what doctors and their staffs could do to better help their patients. Strictly from a constructive point of view, you understand.

  1. I don't mind having to wait five minutes to speak to the receptionist during busy times at your office. I know this is outside your control. However, I would prefer not to spend that time listening to a symphony rendition of "Hey Jude" punctuated every thirty seconds by a reminder that my call is important to you. Shut-up and let me look at Facebook in peace while I wait.

  2. Stop weighing me already. You weighed me last week. I don't give a rat's ass what I weigh and I am dizzy. I am here to treat my medical condition, not because I can't afford Jenny Craig.

  3. Don't ask me if I have contacted a dentist to see about teeth grinding, or employed a variety of other strategies no one has ever suggested, as if I should know that these would be the appropriate actions to take. I'm not the expert. You are. That's kind of the point, right? I am busy surviving my pain, loving my children, and sucking the marrow from each lucid moment I have. Honestly, I'm not spending much of that precious time researching what's wrong with me. If I need to see a dentist, please tell me so.

  4. Stop asking me, when I am having trouble walking into your exam room without my husband's help, if I am able to get regular exercise. No, I'm not.

  5. If you are going to prescribe me something that will make me feel nauseated, lose all interest in sex, forget how old I am or not be able to feel my legs, a heads-up would be helpful. Honestly, I may still take it. I'm that desperate. But I'd love to know about this little detail. 

  6. If I suffer from migraines and you prescribe a drug with a side effect of headaches, I have a great  idea. Give my neurologist a call first. Since I have a history of asthma, drugs that can worsen breathing should be discussed with my allergist. You guys have the medical degrees. I'm just the poor asshole with all the medical conditions. I don't want to play "telephone" with a bunch of specialists. 

  7. I know that you are sincerely trying to be nice, but please stop telling me that we are going to get this all figured out and I am going to feel better, that I just need to be patient. While I have been waiting for the next medication we are trying to work out, I have had to miss work four times. While I waited for a bunch lab results to get sent to my PCP, I spent three consecutive weekends laid up missing time with my family. All these fragments of waiting for one piece of information or another have now added up to a year and a half of my life spent waiting for something to work. That's long enough for two babies to be brought to term. It may be easy to tell me to be patient, but it isn't the most useful thing to hear anymore.

  8. Fax the motherfucking records. I shouldn't have to call you twice or walk to your office or fill out a special form so that I can get a copy of my own medical records to give to another doctor. Stop acting like I am stealing your favorite Pokemon cards.  

  9. Train your office staff to act more proactive than observers casually munching Cheetos at the scene of a car wreck. If I walk in to say that I have developed hepatitis and need to see my rheumatologist, don't just tell me she has no appointments and go back to shuffling papers on your desk. If I am out of a medication right now that will cause withdrawal symptoms tomorrow, your staff should not insist that we have lab work done before the doctor will write a new prescription. That's stupid.
In summary, if you could remember that I am a real person with a real life, more than one major system in my body and limited time and resources, it would go a long way. A waiting room espresso bar would also be nice.

Sincerely,

Tara Adams
(Think of me as a mystery shopper for medical care.) 



Tuesday, March 6, 2012

I have this parenting gig well in hand.


I have reached the stage of my blogging career where I am prostituting everything I write on virtual street corners. I say prostituting, except that I am getting paid in comments and page views instead of cash.

I wrote a letter to give my son Rowan, in honor of his adolescent coming of age ceremony Sunday, and he will not allow me to publish it to my blog. That I wanted to publish it–and that he said no–are not, in and of themselves, terribly problematic. What troubles me is that the evil desire to do it anyway is like a crumb in my bed sheets. I itch to publish every single artfully strung together collection of words that I produce. It happened again today, when I emailed a blogger friend, continuing a delightful back and forth which I look forward to the way other people anticipate American Idol. Afterward I thought, when I had sent the email, that there were some good lines in there. And yet I sent them in an email and can't post them on my blog.

Here begins my spiral into serious mental illness. Have you conversed with me in the staff room? If I tossed off a clever line, be sure to look for it later on Faith in Ambiguity. Heart to heart conversations with my kids? Captured on audio to be later transcribed into pieces for Blog Her. Pillow talk? Recorded for posterity. Look for my shopping lists to appear on Twitter. Nothing I write is unworthy of your public consideration.

I have clearly lost all sense of perspective and purpose.

Maybe I'm dreaming of whoring out my day-to-day written communications because I can't seem to write anything else today. I sat down this morning and spent forty-five minutes on a single paragraph. The topic metamorphosed from spiritual transformation to writing advice to reflections on working with teenagers. I deleted more text than I committed. After carefully sculpting one single sentence with the same effort that Pygmalion beget Galatea, I looked at what I had written and realized that it was self-involved twaddle so boring I didn't even want to read it. And so, whooshing down the drain went the carefully safeguarded writing time for which I sacrifice sleep, exercise and worldly accomplishment.

I am, however, making this lost time up now through a means which is the tried and true stand-by of parents whose muse strikes at the wrong time: Parental neglect.

This is O.K. Many parents have pursuits which are important to them, and to their other family members, I tell myself, and these can sometimes cause disruption to the evening routine. Par for the course. One practice many parents seem to have abandoned is the preparation of dinner. This, at least, is the only conclusion I can draw from the following typical description of an afternoon's activities as related to me by mothers made of much stronger stuff:

"In five minutes Little Bobby and Betsy will be home. I have to take Betsy to violin lessons and Bobby to hockey. After that, my husband Jim is going to be home briefly before he heads out with Betsy to soccer practice. Then I promised to bake cookies and bring them to a PTA meeting. So I should go now."

I guess I can't do as much as other people. My feeling is I can  hold down a job or I can clean the kitchen. I can either have three children or go to the Post Office. But not both. That is much to much for me. However, I can damn well cook.

Clearly, these people are doing it wrong. They are serving their kids crap. Or sandwiches. Which are pretty much the same thing. What I do, on the other hand, is carefully plan and prepare nutritionally balanced meals with two or three varieties of vegetables apiece. I put these in front of my kids every night and afterwards, we compost them. It's part of the cycle on Nature.

So at least my neglected children, whose right to privacy has been undermined at every turn, will have had the opportunity to look at produce every night. And I can rest easy, knowing I have this parenting gig well in hand.





Saturday, February 4, 2012

On Dead Beavers, Feline Gremlin Attacks and Herman Cain

I cannot think of anything coherent to write for you this Saturday, so, after torturing myself by attempting to wrap my mind around several subjects which went nowhere, I have decided to share several random thoughts with you, which are of great interest to me.
  • There was a beautiful woman in Trader Joe's today wearing a hat that looked like a dead beaver. The dead beaver was arranged so that its lifeless limbs dangled on either side of her cheekbones. I believe these were intended to be something like straps. She was otherwise nicely dressed, but behaved quite aggressively in the crowded aisles, very nearly elbowing aside aging hippies to get to the evening primrose oil–that kind of thing. Trader Joe's is an interesting place.

  • I have discovered that there is a place on my cat's back, where if he is scratched, he suddenly becomes a vicious, snarling attack gremlin. It is 100% reliable in all tests that I have done that scratching here will produce this behavior. If I stop scratching there, he returns to purring in a relaxed fashion but waves his tail menacingly to warn against future scratch attacks. I tried to get a picture of this for you, but my cat became distressed by the presence of the camera and ran off set during the photo shoot. You will have to take my word for it.

  • My whole family has become obsessed with Bad Lip Reading videos. They have changed our lives. Thanks to "tangledlou" of Periphery for sparking this particular inferno of mental lollygagging. (If you haven't seen these, you won't understand what the fuck I am talking about. However, that is probably normal for my readers. That said, go watch them all right now!) We are so enamored that I am now waking up and saying to my husband by way of morning greeting, "We ain't never had this–an old, rotten eagle's nest." to which he replies, "Jackpot, fishy poopy pants! You're gonna wish you could buy me a tin cup for all these nickels. I'll get you!" My fourteen year old says to me while clearing the table, "If you refuse, I'll haunt your prostate." and my sixth grader periodically interjects into conversation the statement: "That's why the thick, Spartan women are so important."
Somehow, in the Land of Faith in Ambiguity, random absurdity makes sense in a way that institutional religion, organizational theory and politics just don't. So, thank you for reading me. It's nice to know someone wants to engage with you at all when you dislike simple solutions, institutions and small talk and instead prefer to spend your time writing and thinking about humor on the approximate level of Pig Latin for adults.

"Everybody needs Toucan Stubs." Have a nice weekend.





Saturday, December 24, 2011

THAT is what life feels like when you are a misfit.

I seem to have a new, totally free built in fibromyalgia alarm clock that wakes me up at 6 AM, despite the fact that I am on vacation. It uses nausea, burning muscle pain and the overwhelming urge to stretch instead of a buzzer.

Photo by Paul Downey
So I write. Because God gave me fibromyalgia so I would write. Or because he's an asshole. Or because he doesn't exist and, infuriatingly I have fibromyalgia for no reason. One of those. But this morning I woke up and looked at all the Reverb writing prompts that I have missed, or that are coming, and realized I can't write on any of them because I'm a misfit.

One is asking if my life was a board game, what it would be like. I just can't answer that without sounding like an asshole, so I won't. I have no specific memory of, or interest in, my favorite Christmas gifts, given or received, and you will NOT want to read my post on whether or not I am a romantic person or "more non-traditional." All of my responses to these posts will serve only to prove that something is terribly wrong with me.

Do you know how you feel when you are excited to be around people with a common interest and you're all getting warmed up to share about what you really think? Imagine this scene:
You are about to meet with a group of these other people, almost all of the same gender as yourself, to discuss and engage in the thing that you do that is closest to your heart-whatever that is. Acting. Gardening. Calligraphy. Whatever. Maybe it's something you don't get to share about a lot with other people because you don't happen to have many friends with that common interest. So, sharing your thoughts and your work here is going to be a blast. You arrive at the event in question slightly late, after the discussion has already just begun and slip quietly into a seat. You're so excited, having been looking forward to this as if it is the answer to some question you didn't even know to ask. This is going to be great.

And it begins with a get-to-know-you exercise. Someone addresses the room, "What is most important to you in life?" The first participant, an attractively dressed woman, quickly raises her hand and confidently says "Dental floss!" Everyone else nods in enthusiastic agreement.

Well, THAT is what life feels like when you are a misfit. You are always smiling and nodding while people talk about their personal (and strangely abusive sounding) relationship with Jesus and their deep love of nail polish and romantic comedies while you are wondering how quickly you can find a way to be in another room without being rude.
This is why I am married to Mike Adams. He shares my inability to make small talk. The two of us together are the worst possible couple to have at a light social hour and the best two people to ruffle the feathers of a committee of church members on any subject. Our social interactions go like this:

Normal Person:  (sweetly) "So how are you guys? How have you been?"

Me: "Well, at long last, I finally learned that I suffer from fibromyalgia so I've been exploring and writing on the nature of pain and how it defines our sense of self. Going through this illness and the process of trying to get a diagnosis and the effect that it's all had on my social ties; it's allowing me to reflect on the whole idea of compassion and see where it is that we stop practicing compassion, and the tremendous cost of that......Oh, and how are you?"

NP: "Fine....I guess. I've been...skiing. Tara, have you seen Dr. Dung? She's a great Oriental Medicine doctor?..."

Mike: "I think that what Tara's pointing to is the larger societal cost of our lack of compassion, by contrast to who we say we are. For instance, here at church, we begin every service with the statement, 'Whoever you are, wherever you are on your life's journey, you are welcome here.' But then, do we really live that? Are we actively welcoming people of different theological perspectives? People of limited means?"

NP: "Sounds...interesting. I think I left my....

Mike: "This country passed a law called 'No Child Left Behind' and yet we are leaving children behind all over the place. People in this country, on Indian reservations and other places as well, live in abject, third-world poverty. Why is this acceptable to us?"

NP: "It isn't."

Mike: "It IS."

And so on. This is why we have to be Unitarians. Sorry about blowing off the writing prompts.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

I went shopping on Fourth Avenue in Tucson and decided my son can go to college there because they have newspaper stands that look like robots.


This is my son Rowan. 

Rowan is smart. We are pinning a lot of our hopes for the future on him because he can do math, as well as vacuum and unload the dishwasher. 

We figure this more or less qualifies him for just about anything he wants to do. The sky's the limit. 

And once he makes it good in the world, he can take care of us.

Right now, he is fourteen and in eighth grade. So, he is pretty much only interested finding places in conversation to say "That's what she said." and setting things on fire. 

But you can see that potential just simmering underneath everything he does. (Like telling "That's what she said" jokes but with impeccable grammar and reading comics, but comics based on Greek myths, that kind of thing.)

I think a lot about his future, mainly since mine is already pretty much botched, and I would like to be able to send him to a good college. 

In order to fulfill on this, the method I am currently employing is to check his grades online repeatedly and question him about every mistake he has made so that the prospect of failure becomes a sort of unlivable disaster in his mind. This is what is called positive reinforcement. 

It is a very powerful parenting technique. You should try it. As a result of my approach, my son has very high grades and will probably kill me in my sleep before he ever graduates high school.

Anyway, as I've said, I was recently in Tucson, Arizona, visiting my extended family. On the last day before we had to depart, my two oldest kids had already flown home to spend Thanksgiving with their dad, and my husband, my youngest son and I had dropped my father and his girlfriend off at the airport and were looking for some place to act like tourists. Primarily, I wanted to buy a spoon that said "Tucson" so that when I am an old lady, I can have a wall covered with an array of tacky spoons to prove that I once left my house.

We ended up visiting Fourth Avenue, which is the hip college area of Tucson. I was just looking to kill a few hours and find a spoon, but based on my findings, I have decided that Rowan can go to college there. 

I haven't actually seen the actual University of Arizona, nor do I know if they have any programs that will be of interest to my son, when, four and a half years from now, he graduates high school. I can't afford the out-of-state tuition, either, but a little debt never hurt anyone anyway. Stay with me, though, because THIS is what the newspaper machines look like:


We looked around for several hours and entered various stores. I shopped for a long time because choosing a college for your fourteen year-old is an important decision which requires a lot of browsing. Some of my additional findings were:



Awesome garbage cans!


A communist coffee shop. Every good college town needs one.


Excellent pop culture stores with cool signs. 


A hydroponic store for growing "vegetables".


A nearby hookah lounge for smoking "vegetables".
(I am not trying to promote drug abuse. I have not smoked "vegetables" for the last nineteen plus years. I am just documenting the fact that there was a hookah store. I associate hookahs with Alice in Wonderland. That's because I'm so geeky highly literate. I figure if there are hookah stores, there may also be walking chess sets and talking eggs. It just seems logical.)


A mural depicting dead hippies on the wall at a major intersection.


This is some seriously bad-assed shit. AND, as if that's not enough,  you can buy your own mason jar wine glass in a store there!


So, the upshot is that what I really want is for my son is to go to a school where he can grow marijuana, become a sort of New Edition Beatnik and then drop out to join the Communist Party. All so I can go visit a place that makes me feel like I am still sixteen and shopping on the Haight, except without as many people trying to sell me acid (probably just because I'm with the six year old).

I can hardly wait to come visit him there. It solves all of our college problems! It's close enough to drive. We can make sure our relatives keep on eye on him and I can save up until I have enough money to buy a complete set of mason jar wineglasses (you know, for when we have company). We don't drink wine, but we can use them for grape juice, or perhaps, cooled mint tea sweetened with a hint of organic agave nectar (since we can't even drink juice these days, either). 

I've looked into it online and I think, if Rowan continues to get good grades, they may accept him at an in-state rate.  But if you say anything to him, please don't mention the hookahs. 

I'm trying not to be a bad influence.





Friday, November 18, 2011

This one is for the other closet trailer trash among us.

FOREWARNING: Please don't read this if you're just going to become annoyed. Life is much too short. If you are annoyed by any of the following:

  1. The Coen Brothers
  2. Samuel L. Jackson
  3. Renowned American authors whose greatest works include hand-drawn sketches of assholes...
...you will not like this post. Go read the Bible and knit sweaters for your kittens. We should all do what we enjoy. Just sayin'.


I don't know if you've noticed, but I swear a lot.

I didn't always. And I don't do it while teaching elementary school students how to read, or while sitting in as youth advisor on Sunday to a group of mid-schoolers. (Because I don't have Tourette's Syndrome.) That said, I refuse to feel bad about it.

I'm just sort of in hiding.
-Kurt Vonnegut, from Breakfast for Champions

I secretly happen to think I can lay claim to a certain amount of crassness as the cultural contribution of my generation, and the one before, and I mean that in all sincerity, and in a way that suggests that it is every bit as valid as jazz, or women's liberation, in terms of the advancement of the human species.

Let's just put "motherfucker" right up there with penicillin in terms of human achievement.
Thank you, Samuel L. Jackson.

This proviso: Kurt Vonnegut, from whose singular style I've poached my favorite line, was the author of the great work Slaughterhouse-Five, which was peppered periodically with the aforementioned word. Vonnegut remarked, some years after its publication and after years of uproar and of attempts to ban Slaughterhouse Five from schools and libraries that "Ever since that word was published, way back in 1969, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows."

And so on.

If you want to consider the necessity of crassness, please take a moment (while your kids are in another room) to watch this great moment from the cultural memory of Gen X:



O.K., if you're not finding this funny, I'm thinking you should stop now, and wait til I post about something else, because I'm probably going to start really irritating you now. I also think this is really funny. (You really should listen to it. At least if you were a teenager in the late eighties or very early nineties before rap and metal ever crossed genre. But not a teenager who liked the New Kids on the Block.)

So, despite all the evidence you've just seen, and although both my parents swore freely, but not prolifically, in front of me, on the assumption that I should be able to determine when it was appropriate to swear and when not, I was not a foul-mouthed kid. They were right. I did not seem to feel compelled to swear. If anything, I felt superior to my mom, who called bad drivers "turkeys" and worse. So, I didn't swear a lot, and never got in trouble for swearing that I can recall.

Until I became a teenager. 

And I just fell in love with crassness. Because I was angry and the "in the face"ness of crass humor just appealed to me. And it still does.

If you take all the "fuck" peppered generously through Eddie Izzard's epic comedic performance of Dress to Kill, which is otherwise largely inoffensive, it isn't as funny. Being "awful" just isn't as funny as being "fucking awful", even if it is said with an English accent. 

In fact, the Brits do the word "fuck" better than anyone else. They make it sound sort of...sophisticatedly frank.




Americans do a better job with "motherfucker", really.



Periodically, my secret life as a foul-mouthed white trash peon has come into conflict with my public life as a Slightly Hipper and More Educated version of June Cleaver, which is what I am attempting to project at work. (That or the Enlightened Secular Spiritual Powerhouse that I am pretending to be at church.)

These are some instances of that, all with relation to my offspring:
  • Fourth grade (circa 2007), my son Rowan, gets hurts on the playground swings at his school, apparently due to an other child's stupidity, and remarks (and again, he does not swear any more often than I did as a child): "So-and-So, that fuckin' HURT!" This gets worse. The teacher on duty, who happens to be pretty strict, marches up to Rowan with the child he has sworn at, who has now told on him, and says, "WHAT did you say, Rowan?", to which my highly literal child faithfully repeats EXACTLY what he said and ends up being written up for disrespect to an adult for having repeated it to her. And I am forced to apologize for her over email for his offense. Whoops.
  • Mikalh, in kindergarten, while going to school two doors down from me,as I am working in kindergartner as an aide at this time, loses at a game he is playing with other kids, under the supervision of a parent during a class party, and yells "GOD DAMN IT!" loud and clear into a classroom of parents and kids. All of which I find out about while still at work. Joy.
  • Backing up a bit...My son, Mikalh, who is four at the time, says to me after overhearing me remark that something (most likely something he overheard his dad and me saying about politics) is "stupid", "Mom, you should not say STUPID. And also....(he looks at me, doe-eyed, with the indulgence of a patient and loving teacher)...you shouldn't say FUCK."
I am happy that now two of my children are old enough to swear or not at their own discretion and have learned most of the popular swear words without any of my help (thanks to Lonely Island, their friends with more permissive parents and the internet), so I don't have to be so cautious. I still try to avoid repeating anything I think Mikalh is likely to enjoy echoing while attending first grade, lest I have to explain myself, especially anything that could be construed as hurtful.

But there are slips, by adults and older children. 

The other day, Rowan, while trying on his brand new, awesome shiny black dress shirt, tie and slacks (in which he looks like a very blond junior Mafioso), joked "I'm sexy." Naturally, Mikalh then demanded to know what sexy meant, and Rowan, having been caught, said "Ummmmm, it means you look nice." 

"You look sexy, Rowan.," Mikalh announced then admiringly. GREAT. I can hardly wait for him to tell his teacher she looks "sexy".

Hopefully, he won't, and also no one will overhear me, alone in my classroom, saying,

"Where the mother-fuck did I put the Dr. Suess stickers?"


The butthole image is from http://ijustreadaboutthat.wordpress.com. All the videos are from YouTube. 

Saturday, June 25, 2011

How To Tell If You Are a Cool Enough Parent

I originally published this piece in June of 2011. Very few people read it, which is probably very good, since I was able to keep my job and my reputation. I am going to publish it again because I guess I don't care that much about my reputation after all...

WARNING:
This post is offensive, rude and immature. Sometimes I slip into an offensive, rude and immature sort of mood. If you're the kind of person who finds that sort of tongue-in-cheek mental diarrhea funny, read on. If not, wait 'til I write again about spirituality or winter vegetables. But don't comment that you were offended. I WARNED you.

This is not me. I was too young and disorganized to make it to Burning Man before having kids and too chicken-shit after. Photo Credit: Flickr

You must already know that, if you have kids, it is very important that you maintain your adult role with them. One must always espouse a sort of wonderfully authentic moral rectitude which will allow children to grow and develop in the right way. After all, if you don't model what you teach, they say, you are teaching something else. Very true. Very good. And very true.

That said, after years of enthusiastically listening to Raffi while driving to the local hippie Gymboree group, after having stopped for organically grown, sugarless cookies made entirely from brown rice for my two sons, I found myself wondering,

"When the fuck do I get to listen to Pantera again?" and also,
"Why am I wearing a peasant blouse and baggy jeans?" and
"Will somebody please shoot Raffi in the head?"

So, now without being so cool that I am doing things like dropping acid with my kids (Yes, people really do this-I went to high school with their kids and that sort of parental behavior is not helpful!), I think I have gradually re-adjusted to become what I like to think is a "cool mom".

I know my teenage son doesn't think I'm cool. But that's because he's such a poser.

So, since most of the moms I know tend to enjoy such activities as "getting a mani-pedi," "watching a chick flick" and "having girl time" in their spare time, I have decided to provide them with a helpful guide to what would actually make them cool. Like me.

You Know You are a Cool Enough Parent When...

1. Your pre-schooler happily skips off to class in the morning at his play-centered, developmentally appropriate "play school" singing "Let the BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! Let the BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!"

2. Instead of lobbing spelling words or math problems at your fifth grader,you play "Identify This Recording Artist in 10 Seconds or Less" on long drives.

3. Your pre-adolescent son comes to you to suggest thoughtfully that you might re-think your inclusion of "Down With the Sickness" by Disturbed on his IPod because he believes it is inappropriate for him. (Note on this: When you review "Down With the Sickness," even you have to ask yourself what the fuck you were thinking when you put that there!! Worst. Parenting. Moment. Ever. Now commemorated on the internet.)

4. Your male children all have one pierced ear before the onset of puberty.

5.Your child learns to play "My Country 'Tis of Thee" on his baritone and says it reminds him of "Anthem of the Royal Canadian Yaksmen". (Uh-oh-If you don't know what I'm talking about, this means either that you are not very cool, or that you are a few years older or younger than I am and never watched Ren & Stimpy, or that you have a stick up your butt and so you think it is "not funny".)

6. You are waiting impatiently for a time when your children will be old enough to watch "Pulp Fiction" with you.

7. You consider going to see System of a Down with your whole family (well, maybe not the kindergartner).

8. Your eldest child is getting straight A's and wants to attend U.C. Berkeley. But he is doing this so he can hang out on Telegraph Avenue.

9. Your children regularly ask you to turn down the music and tell you that it is too early in the morning to listen to Linkin Park.

10. Your youngest child has never heard of Raffi.

Scoring

Please give yourself one point for each item which applies to you, or which very nearly applies to you (i.e. your family went to see Korn together, rather than SOAD.)

8-10: You rule. You are so cool you might even be able to hang out with me. Unfortunately, there is also a real possibility that, despite your coolness, in an effort to rebel, your kids will end up liking lame music played on a Top 40 radio station and dressing like posers, in which case, you may have to distance yourself from them.

4-7: You are a little bit cool. You still remember your teenage years, but you probably think Ratt is a great band, so you are also a little bit lame. This can be worked with. Start by playing music that is inappropriate for your children while they are somewhere else and work into it.

0-3: Either you were never cool or you are still so attached to the kind of cool you were in high school that you haven't noticed it isn't cool anymore. You probably also believe that your children will suffer greatly from exposure to stuff you would have loved when you were their age.

Make sure they don't read this blog.

My Zimbio
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Faith in Ambiguity by Tara Adams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License