Chesapeake/Christmas/Reason 6582 Why I Love Children
Last night was the first in months that I've slept without Jenn. It was really difficult and cold.
It's a strange feeling to know that my sister is babysitting the kids that were in utero when I last lived here.
My sexuality is the latest topic of neighborhood gossip. Heh. Go to town, girls. Cassandra (one of them) was shocked that my mother isn't pissed. "What in the HELL? What in the hell is wrong with her?" Poor Cassandra. Her middle daughter is butch as hell. Just she wait. Thank God I don't have a mother like that.
Chance and Elise were asking about Jenn. When I said she's spending the holiday with her family, Elise said, "Awwww MAN!" That's a nice feeling. A weird feeling, though, is having Kevin's mother ask about her. We had a nice little chat despite the obviously awkward situation. I do miss her. Another awkward situation: having to talk to my molester cousin on the phone. His majors are computer science, electrical engineering, and molecular biology & genetics. Yeah right. He failed calculus. Yeah fucking right.
I found the best coat for Elise. It was on sale at Old Navy, and I think it's the most hideous combination of fashion don'ts I've ever seen. It's black satin with red and gold embossed floral print all over it and has a fur collar. Also, it is puffy. I tried it on to make sure it would fit her, and I couldn't wait to get it off.
I decided my mother should have something to read that wouldn't require a big time commitment, because she simply doesn't have that much to go around. She has several half-read books lying around and I didn't want to add to the collection. My first idea was a reference, since she can read an entry or two when she has free time. Keeping in mind her favorite phrases that she praises for their flexibility and precision, I thought something about profanity would be appropriate. I found (underline, fuck HTML) Watch Your Fucking Language: How to Swear Effectively, Explained in Explicit Detail and Enhanced by Numerous Examples Taken from Everyday Life. It seemed perfect from the title, but I found it was a bit too snobby for her tastes. One example for 'merde' provided a conversation in which the first person compared art to 'the existentialist thought of Sartre through the lens of Foucault' and the second exclaimed, "Merde!" as a preface to his own pointless bullshit. As appreciative of vulgarity and accepting of fluid sexuality as she is, I just don't think French expletives in the context of gender theory would be up my mother's alley.
Instead, I found three hours of David and Amy Sedaris on CD (Naked). I hope she can listen to it in the car while running errands or play it on the Bose while she cooks or cleans. I wrote on her gift that I hope she will laugh while rearranging furniture, because it's my favorite sound. I immediately thought of her when I saw Po Bronson's "Why Do I Love These People?: Honest and Amazing Stories of Real Families," but my dad and I agreed that it's not quite Christmas material. I might send it to her later as a random act of wintry kindness.
Jenn just called me to clear up a very serious matter. "Were you, at any point, watching The Sci-Fi Channel? The TV is on that channel and I did NOT put it there. I thought Kyle and Nathan were the nerds, but they said they didn't do it..."
"Yes, I watched some old episodes of The Twilight Zone the other day."
"Oh, okay. As long as you weren't watching STARGATE or something like THAT."
"...well, that came on afterward...and I watched it..."
"WHAT? I didn't know about this! I didn't know you had a SCI-FI THING!"
Worse yet is that when she called, I was in the middle of wrapping my father's gift: the X-Files movie. Supremely dorky, yes, but the one point in my life during which I felt any semblance of intimacy with my own father was in the nineties when we watched the show together every Friday night. Oh, boo hoo. But I also watched the Christmas episode of X-Files during my secret Sci-Fi binge, and I liked it. It guest starred Lily Tomlin.
I got Chance Legos - the good, tiny ones with some clear pieces - because he is better than the big preschool ones now. My 6,582nd reason for loving kids is because of him. I had the funniest bathtime experience with him tonight. Ever since his infancy, we've had little bedtime routines (for instance, after brushing his teeth, I dry his face with a towel with an embroidered taxi on it by 'crashing' it into him). While I was bathing him tonight, he was lying down in the water to stay warm. Since his ears were submerged, he was relying on lip-reading to understand my commands to turn over or sit up. One command was to lift his feet out of the water so I could lather them. Of course, I didn't phrase it that way. We have a routine for that. So, I crooked my finger and wiggled it menacingly and said, "Gimme your piggies," because I always tickle him when I wash his toes. He didn't respond. I felt a little hurt, because I was wondering if he'd forgotten or outgrown the tickling. I looked at him and repeated myself, but he only looked confused. Watching my mouth and gesture with bewilderment, he grabbed his penis and said, "This?" I suddenly realized that 'piggies' and a wiggly little finger could be totally lewd in a silent world. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. When I told my mother, I not only laughed again and heard my favorite sound from my mother, but actually got a smirk from my father.
While eating at Vivo with my dad tonight, I realized that we fold receipts in exactly the same way, and I've never seen anyone else do it. I think that's comforting.
It's a strange feeling to know that my sister is babysitting the kids that were in utero when I last lived here.
My sexuality is the latest topic of neighborhood gossip. Heh. Go to town, girls. Cassandra (one of them) was shocked that my mother isn't pissed. "What in the HELL? What in the hell is wrong with her?" Poor Cassandra. Her middle daughter is butch as hell. Just she wait. Thank God I don't have a mother like that.
Chance and Elise were asking about Jenn. When I said she's spending the holiday with her family, Elise said, "Awwww MAN!" That's a nice feeling. A weird feeling, though, is having Kevin's mother ask about her. We had a nice little chat despite the obviously awkward situation. I do miss her. Another awkward situation: having to talk to my molester cousin on the phone. His majors are computer science, electrical engineering, and molecular biology & genetics. Yeah right. He failed calculus. Yeah fucking right.
I found the best coat for Elise. It was on sale at Old Navy, and I think it's the most hideous combination of fashion don'ts I've ever seen. It's black satin with red and gold embossed floral print all over it and has a fur collar. Also, it is puffy. I tried it on to make sure it would fit her, and I couldn't wait to get it off.
I decided my mother should have something to read that wouldn't require a big time commitment, because she simply doesn't have that much to go around. She has several half-read books lying around and I didn't want to add to the collection. My first idea was a reference, since she can read an entry or two when she has free time. Keeping in mind her favorite phrases that she praises for their flexibility and precision, I thought something about profanity would be appropriate. I found (underline, fuck HTML) Watch Your Fucking Language: How to Swear Effectively, Explained in Explicit Detail and Enhanced by Numerous Examples Taken from Everyday Life. It seemed perfect from the title, but I found it was a bit too snobby for her tastes. One example for 'merde' provided a conversation in which the first person compared art to 'the existentialist thought of Sartre through the lens of Foucault' and the second exclaimed, "Merde!" as a preface to his own pointless bullshit. As appreciative of vulgarity and accepting of fluid sexuality as she is, I just don't think French expletives in the context of gender theory would be up my mother's alley.
Instead, I found three hours of David and Amy Sedaris on CD (Naked). I hope she can listen to it in the car while running errands or play it on the Bose while she cooks or cleans. I wrote on her gift that I hope she will laugh while rearranging furniture, because it's my favorite sound. I immediately thought of her when I saw Po Bronson's "Why Do I Love These People?: Honest and Amazing Stories of Real Families," but my dad and I agreed that it's not quite Christmas material. I might send it to her later as a random act of wintry kindness.
Jenn just called me to clear up a very serious matter. "Were you, at any point, watching The Sci-Fi Channel? The TV is on that channel and I did NOT put it there. I thought Kyle and Nathan were the nerds, but they said they didn't do it..."
"Yes, I watched some old episodes of The Twilight Zone the other day."
"Oh, okay. As long as you weren't watching STARGATE or something like THAT."
"...well, that came on afterward...and I watched it..."
"WHAT? I didn't know about this! I didn't know you had a SCI-FI THING!"
Worse yet is that when she called, I was in the middle of wrapping my father's gift: the X-Files movie. Supremely dorky, yes, but the one point in my life during which I felt any semblance of intimacy with my own father was in the nineties when we watched the show together every Friday night. Oh, boo hoo. But I also watched the Christmas episode of X-Files during my secret Sci-Fi binge, and I liked it. It guest starred Lily Tomlin.
I got Chance Legos - the good, tiny ones with some clear pieces - because he is better than the big preschool ones now. My 6,582nd reason for loving kids is because of him. I had the funniest bathtime experience with him tonight. Ever since his infancy, we've had little bedtime routines (for instance, after brushing his teeth, I dry his face with a towel with an embroidered taxi on it by 'crashing' it into him). While I was bathing him tonight, he was lying down in the water to stay warm. Since his ears were submerged, he was relying on lip-reading to understand my commands to turn over or sit up. One command was to lift his feet out of the water so I could lather them. Of course, I didn't phrase it that way. We have a routine for that. So, I crooked my finger and wiggled it menacingly and said, "Gimme your piggies," because I always tickle him when I wash his toes. He didn't respond. I felt a little hurt, because I was wondering if he'd forgotten or outgrown the tickling. I looked at him and repeated myself, but he only looked confused. Watching my mouth and gesture with bewilderment, he grabbed his penis and said, "This?" I suddenly realized that 'piggies' and a wiggly little finger could be totally lewd in a silent world. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. When I told my mother, I not only laughed again and heard my favorite sound from my mother, but actually got a smirk from my father.
While eating at Vivo with my dad tonight, I realized that we fold receipts in exactly the same way, and I've never seen anyone else do it. I think that's comforting.