Benediction

My aunt has a boyfriend. When my husband heard about my aunt's boyfriend, he breathed a sigh of relief. My aunt's eighty-eight.

"There's hope for me yet," said my husband. Actually he was only thinking this, but I can read his thoughts.

My cousin called last Friday.

"My mom has a boyfriend," she said.

"Yeah, but does she know she has a boyfriend?" I said.

"Well, the boyfriend knows," she said, "that works for me."

We had celebratory phone cocktails in honor of this development.

My aunt has alzheimer's. Now, apparently, she also has a boyfriend. I'm not surprised. My aunt's the hottest number in the Home. The new guy took one look and made his move. My aunt can't remember what day it is, or the names of her children, but she recognized a move when she saw one.

My grandmother also had alzheimer's. Back then they just called her senile. She spent her last days in a Home on the Range, where a guy in the next room laid under his bed all day thinking he was fixing his car. The last time I saw my grandmother, I pushed her through the hallways in her wheelchair as she waved the queen wave at passersby like a benediction. My grandmother recognized a parade when she saw one.

You might say I'm descended from a long line of hot numbers, the operative word being "descended." In my case, the apple not only fell far from the tree, it rolled into another orchard. An alternative orchard, not a fruit tree in sight. Whereas my mother and her sisters and their mother and her sisters had lain in their various cradles instinctively giving tiny queen waves, I lay in mine instinctively giving the tiny finger. Gene mutation designed to serve the particular world in which a host finds herself.

Isn't evolution a mindfuck?

Speaking of which, I also inherited the ability to read my husband's thoughts. I inherited this ability from my mother. Not that my mother could read my husband's thoughts, though god knows she tried. She kept overlooking one critical detail: my husband has the ability to, on demand, completely clear his brain of any coherent activity whatsoever. He inherited this ability from his father. His father inherited it from his father, and his father from his father, and so on. It's called Drawing a Blank. It's only found on the Y chromosome.

My mother was a master at reading my thoughts, however. Until I woke up one day, looked around at the orchard in which I found myself, and set a nearby leaf pile ablaze. Thus did I discover the ancient art of concealing cerebral activity beneath a cloud of smoke. Alternative smoke.

My mother's idea of "alternative" was to switch to the other hand when one's wrist hurt from waving. Likewise, her idea of "drawing a blank" was probably what she thought of my father's spermatic input the first time she saw me lying in my cradle flipping the bird. Albeit a teeny tiny baby sparrow, but a bird nonetheless.

We were sitting by the fire, having a glass of wine, when I told my husband about my aunt's new boyfriend. I watched him closely out of the corner of my eye, looking for any errant thoughtwaves that might slip through before he Drew a Blank. Sure enough, there it was, a splitsecond of heartfelt relief at realizing there was still hope for him. Then down came that curtain.

Sometimes I think my husband watches me. Not in any attempt to read my mind, an oxymoron if ever there was one. Rather, I think he's looking for signs. Of impending senility, the old genetic crapshoot, the long road to oblivion. Don't forget, I can read his thoughts: Has she taken another step down that road? Or is she just drunk?

My mother was probably never drunk, not once, in her life. I try not to hold that against her. And she was on her own road when she died, her brain intact, working just the way it always had. I try not to hold that against her, either. The last time I saw my mother she was standing outside her house, under a streetlight, under a full moon. I looked in the rearview mirror as I drove away, and she was waving.

Rules of the Road

Last night I was driving my daughter home from gym.

"I had blood drawn today," I said.

"Did they give it back?" she said.

I looked at her. I shouldn't have. I couldn't help it. These days I take my life in my hands if I so much as glance in her direction. But she seemed unaware of my blatant disregard of etiquette. Meanwhile the wipers slapped maniacally through the rainy dark.

"It's your blood," she said. "They should give it back."

I checked the Sass-O-Meter. Nothing. The kid was serious. I snuck another look. How could something so lovely be so...unlovely? So clueless? I must be an even worse mother than we both agree I am.

A week ago we were in the midst of The Plague, despite which the bad grades and the bad attitude just kept on coming. When my temperature came back down and I could finally hear again, I'd had it.

"You're grounded," I said. Make that hollered.

Problem was, she didn't know what "grounded" meant. She thought it meant she was supposed to stay in one spot and not move until the time was up. So she sat in her room at her computer for eleven hours and watched reruns of "Zach and Cody." It was the quietest Saturday I'd spent in over a decade. She only ventured out when her ass fell asleep. And I slept like a baby til morning.

But you wanna know what drives me absofuckinglutely insane? Mothers who get along with their teenage daughters. I'm like sitting here trying to figure out how to score a busload of crack so as to make it through the next five to thirty years, and some happy little mother is texting me about some happy little shopping trip. Not only is this vagina texting me (I'm still trying to figure out the Xerox machine), turns out she went on this little retail hegira with her fucking fifteen-year-old daughter! And they had fucking lattes at Barnes and Fucking Noble afterward!

I don't know about you, but there's something downright unnatural about that.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally saw my daughter's school photos. For some time I'd been afraid she'd had a stroke or something and her mouth would be permanently frozen in a grimace. Turns out her face is normal. Even pretty. Who knew?

I used to be pretty. Now I'm pretty spent. Which is why I decided to get the once-over down at the corner Medical Center. Last time I went in for a lube job Bill and Hil were still running the lot.

"It's like my 'Check Engine' light is always on," I told the doc.

She immediately scheduled me for the whole enchilada, which included the aforementioned blood-letting.

Good news is I have blood. Bad news is it's 180 proof. But what's a mutha to do? Go shopping? Not on this little roadtrip, baby. It's all I can do to keep my hands on the wheel. Ten and two, baby, ten and two. Which, contrary to what my daughter thinks, has nothing to do with the number of times I looked at her without permission on the way home from gym last night. I'll be paying for that little breach for the next hundred miles or so. Or until we run out of gas, whichever comes first.

BINGO??

No, H1N1 is not a Bingo call. Whatever it is, I've got it. Drink lots of liquids, take drugs, stay in bed.

Sounds like the old days.

I'll be back...(she said, hopefully)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biq_zNakkfA

(Gone to find the lake...

...back next week)

Nothing But the Truth

And the lies just keep on comin'.

I had a doctor's appointment the other day, the first in many moons. How many? Since Shrub took his first oaf of office, er, oath. Whatever, you do the math. I've been a bad bad girl. I don't know why I never go to the doctor, I just don't. I know women who see their doctors as often as their hairdressers. They call their doctor by its first name.

"Yo, Bob, how's the family? The golf game? Oh, and I've been feeling a little fatigued lately."

Well who the fuck hasn't. No reason to overhaul the healthcare system.

So I'm filling out this questionnaire in the waiting room at the doctor's office (these days it's called a Medical Center), and I'm checking all the usual boxes and priding myself on pretty much telling the truth, when the question of alcohol use comes up. Being in Truth Telling Mode, I answer as honestly as I deem fit, that is, just over the border into White Lie territory: "12-15 per week."

It's only later when checking my work (advice I've always given my daughter when it comes to school and which she's always ignored) that I realize the question was how many drinks per week, not bottles.

Details, details.

On the question of lying, I acquiesce to my mother, R.I.P., the once-reigning Queen of Little White Lieland. It was at her little white knees that I was first schooled in the ancient art of embroidering the truth. No intricate cross stitch of the Golden Rule to hang on the bathroom wall for that broad, nosirree. My mother's idea of a sampler was having several different versions of the truth to choose from. Like multiple choice.

"I'm sorry, my daughter can't play with your daughter today because..." (Choose one)

A. She isn't feeling well.
B. She has to work on her "Unknown American Women" project.
C. Her doll died.

These were the options in Little White Lieland. In Honestyland, it was always True or False:

"My daughter can't play with your daughter today because your daughter eats paste." (T F)

My mother wasn't big on the truth. She thought it was overrated. In her world, learning to lie was an exercise in creativity. It smacked of imagination and depth. Why settle for the mundane when you could have the extraordinary? And learning to lie with aplomb was a rite of passage for girls, right up there with never telling your real age and making sure your lips and nails matched.

She did, however, make a distinction between a Lie and a Little White Lie, and I was weaned on the latter. Kruschev and people from Chisholm lied. People with breeding and manners told Little White Lies. And a Little White Lie was not only creative, it was often the kinder choice, the classic example being:

"That dress looks like sausage casing on you." ...versus... "My, what a nice color!"

So when I casually alter my answers on the questionnaire in the doctor's office, I'm defaulting to an instinct buried deep in my marrow. Why complicate my doctor's busy day any more than necessary? She has bigger fish to fry. What happens in my liver, stays in my liver.

Plus, I want to present myself well, it's what people with breeding and manners do. How would it look to admit I fell out of an outhouse in a drunken stupor and cracked a rib? After all, I'm a direct descendant of the royal house of Norway. At least, that's what Mom always said.

Lower Level Disturbances

How do you know when someone's lying?

I know when I'm lying. And I'll bet you don't. Know when I'm lying. That's probably what makes me a Geiger counter when it comes to lie-spotting. It Takes One To Know One. I've got serious lying credentials. I've been lying since the Eisenhower Administration.

Do they even have Geiger counters any more? I'm going to resist Googling to find out. I Google everything, just like you. I mean, I think I've come up with a phrase or idea that no one else in the history of life has ever thought of. Then I Google it and get 15 billion hits. So much for original thought. Not to mention original sin.

Speaking of which, I should invent a program to spot lies. Then I could save what little is left of my sixth sense for more productive ventures. Like figuring out if that asshole in front of me is having a heart attack or simply stopped in the middle of the road to text her babysitter. Make that bookie.

Speaking of bookies, in New Jersey it's against the law to talk on a cell phone while driving. So what do you do if you're motoring down the turnpike and some asshole in front of you is blathering away on the ol' LG Dare? Call 911? On your cell phone?

(Note to self: Forget about moving to Jersey, just fuggedaboutid.)

But I'd like to move somewhere. Pretty much anywhere away from anybody remotely resembling a teenager. I used to be picky and persnickety about pretty much everything. A real headcase of oversensitivity. Like, if the wind blew, I got heart palpitations. To be honest, I've never liked the wind. Never trusted it. I always felt it was out to get me. Maybe this comes from having dumb hair. The kind the wind could blow right off your head, given half a chance.

These days I'm not so high on the picky-and-persnickety scale. Thanks to being the parent of a teenager. A state which puts everything else into perspective. There's "everything else," and then there's Hell. The state where you live.

Teenagers are like the wind. You can't control them. You can't trust them. They're out to get you. They make you feel dumb, and you pull your hair out. As an olympic-level lie-spotter and the parent of a teenager, I'm practically bald. I'm in a constant state of arousal. And not in a good way. These days my sixth sense is stuck in overdrive, texting its bookie, laying odds on whether I'll make it to next year. Make that next week.

Wanna lay odds on how many Google hits I'll get with "lie-spotter"? Here goes. Wow. Only 1,700. Nice round number. One of my more original thoughts, looks like.

Here's an original thought: I used to be a teenager. Many people think I still am. Not in the looks department, in the acts. Maybe that's why the ol' Geiger is working overtime these days: there's an adolescent in the building. And It Takes One To Know One.

Makes me want to move to Jersey. Or at least leave the building. These days I have to settle for just going outside. I mean, give me an upper level disturbance over a 14-year-old anytime. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the wind. These days I'd give anything for a good hard blow.

Life with a Flatted Fifth

The Preschoolers think it's hilarious that I used to be a baby.

"Every animal on earth used to be a baby," I say, "even me," I say, and they roll around on the floor like apples, laughing hysterically.

First of all, they can't wrap their little brains around the fact that we're all animals. They think, if we're animals, we should at least have tails. So then we riff on that for a few, imagining what our tails would look like, how they would move, etc. Teaching Preschool is a jazz thing. You go where it takes you.

Eventually Cali, who tends to remain introspective on the sidelines, raises her hand (not her tail) and shares with the class that, yes, she believes all of us were once babies, because her dad, who is very old, is still a baby, at least that's what her mom says.

This time I'm the one laughing.

Thus one of the fundamental laws of the universe is proved anew: everything is relative. Cali's father, who Cali regards as ancient, is young enough to be my...well, let's just say he's young enough. Meanwhile, here I am, older than Methuselah, still walking the planet. Make that shuffling.

My husband of late (I mean, he's my final husband, who has lately said this) has added a new item to his list of grievances: you know you're getting older when you wake up in the morning and injure yourself brushing your teeth. As for me, I'm content with waking up in the morning. Make that thrilled. Make that overjoyed.

These days, this is no small feat. Because we got Trouble in River City, pal, with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Parenting. Which infers the existence of One Who Is Parented, am I right? But forget Parented. Make that One Who Is. Because whether any parenting actually took or not is, in light of recent developments, Debatable. With a capital D and that rhymes with C and that stands for...

...coy. But I'm not trying to be. I just don't feel like talking about it any more. When you have an eighth grader living in your house -- let alone this particular eighth grader -- you start to sound like a broken record. Actually, you start to look like a broken record.

So...if I don't want to talk about it, why am I bringing it up? Because to go around pretending like everything's the same old drunken brawl it's always been is nothing if not dishonest. But forget dishonest. It's just nothing. And I'm not ready to talk about nothing. That last being an example of the language skills of the unfortunate person who called to report the latest alleged bad behavior of One Who Is:

"Them sweaters was designers," the unfortunate person reported, "every last one."

Which caused every last one of my hairs to raise. Or is it rise? Being a lifetime member of the Grammar Police and current acting Grand Poobah, I moved immediately to strike the above testimony from the record. Not the broken one, the other one. I mean, when one's default tongue is Kansas Trailer Park, one's credibility is highly questionable, am I right?

In the end, it's all relative. And it's always a relative, isn't it? I try to remind myself that the eighth grader was once a baby, too. I try to remember her curls and her dimples and her fat little fingers patting my cheek. These days, her hair is straightened and she scowls and she'd just as soon punch me as look at me. That's how it feels. More broken records. Broken promises. Broken hearts. I'm starting to turn into someone I don't want to be. I look in the mirror and Mickey Rourke stares back at me. I might as well have a tail.

Parenting. Preschooling. Shuffling. Policing. In the end, it's all jazz.