the kid conversations

funny things happen all the time at my house that i am not allowed to laugh at. and just so you know, holding a laugh in is similar to holding a sneeze in. it kind of funks up your head.

like this morning. my girlfriend had a dentist appointment so she asked if she could drop her son off for swim practice to go with us. now, her son is THE WORST CHILD i know. he's only finished first grade but is already on a first-name basis with the principal and all of the principal's pals at school. so i said sure, because i like my friend. and i purposely waited until this morning, 10 minutes before his arrival, to tell my kids he was coming.

"WHAT?!?" said my oldest son. "OH GOD WHY ME," he said. "I CAN'T STAND THAT KID."

"you'll live," i said. hoping the same could be said for my house and my own self.

so i did what any good mother would do. i bribed both my kids to be nice to him, reminding them that their promised trip to target this afternoon now hinged on their including him.

my youngest son ignored him completely. that is how he rolls. that, in his world, is being nice. he has no diplomacy button and he knows it, so he just shuts the hell up.

my older son....he is the nicest child. all kids love him. it has always been this way. and he can say the rudest things in the most charismatic tone you have ever heard. so the conversation goes like this....

visiting child: "ben, what level are you on in pokemon? what's the highest level you can get? how long did it take you? how'd you get requesa? do you use cheat codes? how'd you get it onto your wii?" and so on.

ben looks at me, rolls his eyes back in his head, and answers each question in the flattest tone you have ever heard.

then the visiting child says, "hey ben, if you come to my house sometime can you help me get requesa onto my wii?"

and ben says - and this is the part that had me stifling full-out laughter - in the MOST polite tone, "well, if i *ever* go to your house, which i don't know why i *ever* would, i guess maybe."

and the visiting child, totally oblivious to the insult, says, "awesome! thanks, ben! awesome!"

i cannot laugh. it would be too rude.

so then saturday, at a fish fry, one of the little scouts there had the worst mouth i have ever heard. he is 6. and it was compounded by the fact that his father did not correct him in any way, which led me to believe i had misheard him each time. until he came out to sit down and there were no chairs, and the child said, "where is my god-d***ed chair??" i almost fell out of my seat.

ben and i gave each other looks like, holy shit batman did you just hear what i heard, and kept eating.

so then later, the kid says about someone, "oh, i hate that bastard."

i mean, it was funny. but also shockingly inappropriate. so later at home, i'm explaining to my own foul-mouthed 7-year-old that the words his friend used are very bad, and to please not repeat them.

"which words?" he asked, totally fascinated with whatever new bad words he had never had the pleasure of hearing. so i skipped the one with god's name and just told him "bastard."

"baster? what's a baster?"

"no," i said. "BASTARD. and it doesn't matter what it is, it's a very bad word and i don't want you to ever say it."

so he is thinking very quickly and says, "but what if someone is about to kill me, for no reason, can i call that person a baster?"

well. he has a good point. "yes," i told him. "that would be an appropriate time to use it."

and i cannot laugh. because it would confuse the situation.

and then the last thing, which to me is just cuteness beyond words. my young son comes to me with a note he has written for himself. "rember" it says, instead of "remember." then it says "play club penguin july 3-5." he is asking where he should put this note to remind himself so he won't forget this very important piece of information.

"oh, honey, but those days have passed," i tell him.

he looks at me with pity, sighs and says, "mom. this is for 2010."

i am stunned, but i get him a thumbtack to hang it on his bulletin board.

and i cannot laugh. because he did not laugh at me.

my life in compartments

years ago in college, i remember one sunday driving with my (gay) friend andy. i had to drop off a cassette i had borrowed at a (platonic) friend's house. it was a newspaper friend, glen, and he lived in an odd house in a church parking lot. we went in, chatted a bit, and left. i guess my easy rapport with glen threw andy for a loop.

"i can't believe you have friends i don't know about," he said. "this shocks me."

"why?" i asked.

"because you are always with us," he said. "i had no idea."

this pleased me to no end. once again, i had kept worlds from colliding.

i have been doing this ever since i can remember. and i thought i was the only one until a few years ago.... a single fellow at work used to be very private and mysterious about what he did after hours. the girls at work would all tease him, ask him if he was dating anyone, why so secretive. i have two worlds, he said. work and not-work...and never the twain shall meet. i began to see there were more like me.

in high school i had my friends i had grown up with, and i had my alter-ego life that included misty, a friend who drove an unmarked police car, and cindy, my friend whose dad sold pot out of a garbage bag from their living room. we were good girls but we did like to go to clubs and hear bands play. and dance. and perhaps once in a while egg or toilet paper someone's house.

in college it got a wee bit more complicated because i had my high school friends, then my newspaper friends, and then my core-group of coolest-people-to-ever-walk-the-planet friends. i still did not want any crossover. because to me it was like having a plan B and C. like if one group didn't work out, i had something to fall back on.

flash-forward years later to me about to get married. and in planning a wedding i realize that four very distinct groups will collide: my mother's conservative church friends. my redneck relatives who have no filters. my rowdy college friends, also lacking filter and sometimes clothes. and my husband-to-be's filipino relatives.

this was my worst nightmare come to life. these people, all in one room, with alcohol. with me as the center of attention. and all that i could see myself taking from this coming together of peoples was a migraine headache and the mother of all culture clashes. no, this must never happen, this was the very reason for which elopement was invented.

and now for many years my worlds have not collided. and that is pretty much because they have all but ceased to exist. when you are busy shuffling off to swim team and baseball and scouting events, your world once again closes in and becomes rather small. manageable. aligned. until the internet invents something called facebook.

and here is the catch-22 of facebook: all the people you have ever met/known/seen/spoken to show up and want to be your friend. they all show up and look at your life, spy on your words, or maybe they participate and get in a facebook quarrel with someone they've never met. maybe someone who has loaned you a wig gets mad, threatens you and deletes your friendship. the praise-god christians show up to help you with your life. do you think i am kidding? sadly, all of this is fact.

it is, hands-down, the biggest intergalactic collision of worlds i have ever seen.

and now my worlds consist of college friends. old newspaper friends (from a real newspaper this time, not the college one). some cousins. and the PTO. yes, i know, it sounds like snoozer categories on jeopardy. and which of these does not fit? oh well that would be the PTO. they are lovely people, but they are not to be invited to the wedding. and by PTO i mean pretty much anyone associated with my kids' lives. they are in a compartment all their very own. i adore them, i see them everywhere i go, and that is why i do not need to see them every night on my computer.

i need my peace and quiet. and that quiet you hear? that is the sound of my worlds not colliding.

farrah and michael: sadder still because they were tragic figures?

leave it to michael jackson to upstage farrah and steal her last moment in the spotlight. but as one radio announcer pointed out, MJ is getting all the attention because his death was sudden and unexpected. farrah's was not.

i got overly sentimental about farrah last night after watching the barbara walters special on 20/20. but not because i was a huge fan -- although i do have happy associations with her, the 1970s, and charlie's angels -- but because she went from this beautiful girl to a caricature of what can happen when you subscribe to hollywood's prescription of plastic surgery, pills, and people who are not good for you.

this is how i like to think of farrah:



not this:



and not just because she's older. i love it when people age naturally because then you can see some semblance of their younger self in their face. to me, in the last few years her skin looked stretched too tight. she no longer had the huge magnificent smile.

i think it's tragic that her one and only child is a drug addict in jail. i think it's awful that her partner, ryan o'neal, was arrested for doing meth with his own son. she had a rocky relationship at best with ryan, but it is terribly moving that they showed up for each other in later years when they both faced serious health problems. he was at her side when she passed, and his words about it ("she's gone. she now belongs to the ages") were perfect. a perfectly tear-jerking story that is all too real.

and michael. the very definition of hollywood tragedy. the very worst things that can happen when your parents pimp you out and no one is there to be your safety net.



my kids see pictures of michael jackson now and ask why does he look like that. why did he try to turn himself white. why does he look like a girl. what happened to him.

in no way would i ever give him or anyone a free pass for molesting children, just because some terrible things may have happened to him. but who were those parents who let their children go to his home? and let them spend the night? they are just as much a monster as he was, if not more, because they knowingly put their child into danger and left them there. and for what? a possible lawsuit? a good time at neverland? please. there's always enough blame to go around.

i love his music, and so does most everyone i know. he just got progressively weirder as the years rolled by. he lost complete touch with reality. and i can't help but think that at least now, his three kids might have a better shot at some normalcy. depending on who gets them.

i don't think his death is tragic. i think his life was tragic. and sadly he'll be remembered just as much for his dark side as his fantastic music. that's the price of immense fame. a lion's den but as many free passes as money can buy. and it can buy a lot.

RIP farrah and michael. you need the peace.