Every five years or so, usually in the summertime, some nutso aunt sees it customary to host a Family Reunion, where all of your extended family gather for an extended weekend. So to prepare you for the 1 in 5 chance that you must endure one of these abominable experiences, jump on in.
Now, everyone getting together may sound amazing in concept, but has the potential to go horribly awry in practice. The Family Reunion only happens once every five years for a reason. It's like the Family Olympics. Even though the Olympics only happen every four years.
Look, just forget about the Olympics, okay?
The point is, you train for years to get to the point where you can be the best that you can be, so that when you see that hot second cousin of yours, even though you would never consummate your lust, you can make them seriously rationalize in their heads that making out with a second cousin wouldn't be nearly as bad as making out with a first cousin.
When we were younger, Family Reunions were great! They provided us the opportunity to bond with our cousins and meet that second cousin that one day we would have a totally inappropriate, but nonetheless hot, crush on. It was good, clean family fun.
Now that everyone's grown, but not old enough to have kids, and all the cousins are good friends and of drinking age, oh my God, do people get wasted.
Especially Nana.
And that's okay.
Yes, I just said it's okay to get wasted with family, which goes against my previous teachings, (Previous Teachings) but --listen carefully-- Family Reunions involve enough people and enough stress, that it would be wrong not to drink.
Unless you're an alcoholic. Then you most definitely should not drink. However, drinking adds to the experience.
For example, when your brother's perfect wife is taking pictures with her perfect kids, who are all wearing perfectly matching plaid outfits, you can act like you're at one of those interactive Sound of Music screenings where you get to drink and yell at the film. You can demand they all sing "So Long, Farewell", and when the children look confused and a bit frightened, and your brother gently suggests that you stop drinking, you can get up and start sprinting and pretending you're running to Switzerland.
Now to me, that's hilarious, only because The Sound of Music was one of my mother's favorite videos, and I watched it enough as a child that I have it memorized. To you, probably not so much. Brush up on your Julie Andrews days of yore, then we'll talk.
If you weren't drunk, you might not think it's amusing when your eighty-four-year-old uncle hits on your twenty-two-year-old daughter. With the benefits of alcohol, however, you find him humorously reminiscent. It sort-of reminds you of when he hit on you when you were twenty-two, but it was a little more serious because he was only fifty-four and now he can blame it on Maker's Mark and being senile. No matter. It's nostalgic to see your little girl has grown up so fast. Your daughter, however, does not find this incident particularly funny or sentimental. But when her second cousin sees her great-uncle hitting on her, maybe he'll get jealous, so she'll deal with it.
God. What drives me extra banana sandwich is when you get that great-aunt that is asking all about what you're doing in life, but they ask your parents instead of you.
I can field all sorts of questions from aunts, uncles, second aunts, third uncles twice removed, great aunts about what I'm doing with my life by myself.
This should be like a hay day for parents, cause they don't have to be constantly giving updates on their children. If someone asks how I'm doing, Mom and Dad, point to my general direction to where I'm smoking pot in a field, and go back to sipping your margarita.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Sex. I've already said too much.
I have my best friend's computer for a couple days while she's out of town, since mine isn't an Apple and took a gigantic shit on me and I'm in the midst of getting it fixed. So my apologies for the back-to-back blog posts, but I've got a lot that's built up over the last month that I need to just get out. One experience, in particular, has stood out apart from the rest. Perhaps something I should share, and in turn, you share with your parents...so that this never has to happen to you.
This shit is about to get real.
~
I walked in on my parents having sex.
Friggin. Gross.
I believe it was standard missionary position, though I can't be certain, as I immediately suffered from hysterical blindness. I ran back downstairs to my bedroom, crying, and soon after my mom ventured into my room and I demanded to know why her and dad would be having sex if they already had two children. Was I not good enough? (PS, I'm adopted, there's no excuse for my parents to EVER be having sex. Ever.) She assured me that I was good enough, and I'm pretty sure she said some other crap about two people and loving each other but I chose not to listen. So that sort-of made me feel better. Besides the fact that the image has stayed with me and the last 15 years of my life have been torture.
~
So, I am going to write this blog [while peeking out from my covered eyes - because the topic is that scary,] to all parents, everywhere. Consequently the writing process with be arduous and take three times as long as usual, mostly because I'll be typing with my elbows. This does not necessarily effect you as a reader, but I hope it gives you a lot more appreciation for the pain and suffering I'm about to endure on your behalf. I even had to TiVo my favorite show, Dogs With Jobs. Don't worry about me, I'll see Dogs With Jobs another time. I'll be left with the heart-warming feeling of seeing a dog with a job, which will help me to ease into the recovery process of post-parent-sex-writing....although then I will sink into a subsequent depression wondering, "If a dog can have a job, why is the unemployment rate so high?"
Now I'm just stalling.
In anticipation, I'm keeping an air sickness bag I stole from my last flight by my side, along with Gatorade and saltine crackers to help restore my electrolytes from the parent-sex-writing-induced vomiting. This will be unpleasant, much like a root canal or a pap smear.
You see? Even writing "pap smear" was gross.
Here goes nothin'...
Parents, you probably had a sex talk with your child when they were about eleven, not because you wanted to, but because your son started screaming uncontrollably at the sight of his giant erection, which he sustained while riding shotgun in the family Volvo on the way to Disney World. Whether it was the heat, the bumpiness of the road, his half-asleep state in which he was thinking about The Little Mermaid, or any combination of the three, you'll both never know. All you know is that stretch of road between Myrtle Beach and Orlando will always be seared in both of your minds as a turning point in your relationship.
The moment when there was such a thing as too much information exchanged between a parent and a child.
You have had plenty of conversations since then. Let's not forget the "I think about what my life would be like if I hadn't married your mother" talk. Or the, "I had my share of gay experiences when I was your age" conversation. However, since this was your first, it holds a special resonance.
Consequently for the rest of your trip, your son shied away from Cinderella and Belle for fear of a repeat incident, and has since beheld Disney cartoon heroines with a mixture of lust and fear. Actually, that's how all men view all women.
And never forget the conversation you and your spouse had later that night: "Honey, at least he's not gay." Not that you would have a problem with that, you'd love him the same, but there is some relief in knowing that in twenty years later he won't be visiting Disney World with his partner on "Gay Day". Because let's face it, that's just gay.
Or perhaps, your daughter walked in on you two doing it like no ones business, (Oh, God. I just got that feeling where your mouth starts to water before you puke. Okay, it's gone.) and out of guilt, you went downstairs to assure your weeping daughter that you weren't trying to have more babies because she wasn't good enough.
Either way, there's no mature or normal way to talk to your kids about sex. Maybe you think someday they'll just come to accept it?
No.
And from my personal experience, do not book adjacent hotel rooms with your kids and think you'll get away with mounting like jack rabbits. Your kids aren't eight anymore, they're twenty-one, and completely able to comprehend what's going on. That's disturbing enough in and of itself, but then your kids get to thinking it's not very fair that you're having sex and they're not, so you're footed with a $200 minibar bill the next morning. Really, you deserved it.
Yes, it's good for you that you're super freaking old and still having sex. Huzzah! I hope you feel like Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair. Just keep your personal relations around your kids under the deepest of covers.
Soundproof covers.
Neither you nor your child should ever awcknowledge that the former or the latter has had any involvement in coitus
Please also refrain from telling your child the story of how they were conceived. Yes, you may have taken the entire family to St. Croix, (which children really appreciate cause we can't afford such luxuries!) but that does not mean you can recount the story, over a couple of pina coladas, of how twenty-two years ago you and your spouse engaged in crazy, tropical, island intercourse...that eventually resulted in your child.
In conclusion, please never mention the act of sex, nor utter the word "sex," even in the most sex-less of contexts, like, "the amoeba has no sex organs," or "Grandma hasn't had sex in forty years!" -Oh, wait.
Oh, God. Excuse me.
Cue projectile vomit into stolen airline receptacle.
This shit is about to get real.
~
I walked in on my parents having sex.
Friggin. Gross.
I believe it was standard missionary position, though I can't be certain, as I immediately suffered from hysterical blindness. I ran back downstairs to my bedroom, crying, and soon after my mom ventured into my room and I demanded to know why her and dad would be having sex if they already had two children. Was I not good enough? (PS, I'm adopted, there's no excuse for my parents to EVER be having sex. Ever.) She assured me that I was good enough, and I'm pretty sure she said some other crap about two people and loving each other but I chose not to listen. So that sort-of made me feel better. Besides the fact that the image has stayed with me and the last 15 years of my life have been torture.
~
So, I am going to write this blog [while peeking out from my covered eyes - because the topic is that scary,] to all parents, everywhere. Consequently the writing process with be arduous and take three times as long as usual, mostly because I'll be typing with my elbows. This does not necessarily effect you as a reader, but I hope it gives you a lot more appreciation for the pain and suffering I'm about to endure on your behalf. I even had to TiVo my favorite show, Dogs With Jobs. Don't worry about me, I'll see Dogs With Jobs another time. I'll be left with the heart-warming feeling of seeing a dog with a job, which will help me to ease into the recovery process of post-parent-sex-writing....although then I will sink into a subsequent depression wondering, "If a dog can have a job, why is the unemployment rate so high?"
Now I'm just stalling.
In anticipation, I'm keeping an air sickness bag I stole from my last flight by my side, along with Gatorade and saltine crackers to help restore my electrolytes from the parent-sex-writing-induced vomiting. This will be unpleasant, much like a root canal or a pap smear.
You see? Even writing "pap smear" was gross.
Here goes nothin'...
Parents, you probably had a sex talk with your child when they were about eleven, not because you wanted to, but because your son started screaming uncontrollably at the sight of his giant erection, which he sustained while riding shotgun in the family Volvo on the way to Disney World. Whether it was the heat, the bumpiness of the road, his half-asleep state in which he was thinking about The Little Mermaid, or any combination of the three, you'll both never know. All you know is that stretch of road between Myrtle Beach and Orlando will always be seared in both of your minds as a turning point in your relationship.
The moment when there was such a thing as too much information exchanged between a parent and a child.
You have had plenty of conversations since then. Let's not forget the "I think about what my life would be like if I hadn't married your mother" talk. Or the, "I had my share of gay experiences when I was your age" conversation. However, since this was your first, it holds a special resonance.
Consequently for the rest of your trip, your son shied away from Cinderella and Belle for fear of a repeat incident, and has since beheld Disney cartoon heroines with a mixture of lust and fear. Actually, that's how all men view all women.
And never forget the conversation you and your spouse had later that night: "Honey, at least he's not gay." Not that you would have a problem with that, you'd love him the same, but there is some relief in knowing that in twenty years later he won't be visiting Disney World with his partner on "Gay Day". Because let's face it, that's just gay.
Or perhaps, your daughter walked in on you two doing it like no ones business, (Oh, God. I just got that feeling where your mouth starts to water before you puke. Okay, it's gone.) and out of guilt, you went downstairs to assure your weeping daughter that you weren't trying to have more babies because she wasn't good enough.
Either way, there's no mature or normal way to talk to your kids about sex. Maybe you think someday they'll just come to accept it?
No.
And from my personal experience, do not book adjacent hotel rooms with your kids and think you'll get away with mounting like jack rabbits. Your kids aren't eight anymore, they're twenty-one, and completely able to comprehend what's going on. That's disturbing enough in and of itself, but then your kids get to thinking it's not very fair that you're having sex and they're not, so you're footed with a $200 minibar bill the next morning. Really, you deserved it.
Yes, it's good for you that you're super freaking old and still having sex. Huzzah! I hope you feel like Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair. Just keep your personal relations around your kids under the deepest of covers.
Soundproof covers.
Neither you nor your child should ever awcknowledge that the former or the latter has had any involvement in coitus
Please also refrain from telling your child the story of how they were conceived. Yes, you may have taken the entire family to St. Croix, (which children really appreciate cause we can't afford such luxuries!) but that does not mean you can recount the story, over a couple of pina coladas, of how twenty-two years ago you and your spouse engaged in crazy, tropical, island intercourse...that eventually resulted in your child.
In conclusion, please never mention the act of sex, nor utter the word "sex," even in the most sex-less of contexts, like, "the amoeba has no sex organs," or "Grandma hasn't had sex in forty years!" -Oh, wait.
Oh, God. Excuse me.
Cue projectile vomit into stolen airline receptacle.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
How Jessica Simpson Became My New Hero
Well, now, that's not a sentence you hear, well, ever. Even 'ol Daisy Duke herself might be surprised to see that one.
Anywhoo. The other day bored at work I was reading my trusty trashy magazine and I saw a picture of Jessica Simpson during her baby shower. And as I saw her I thought to myself.. "Wow. She's gained some WEIGHT."
And then I read that she served deep-fried Twinkies at her shower, which triggered in my vague little brain a recalling of a few months ago about how she said on Jay Leno that she was craving some ungodly brownie creation involving cookie dough and Oreos.
And all of the sudden, I started to like her.
I mean she's not up there with say, Chelsea Handler or my grandma, but she's farther up than most famous pop singers.
Sure, I have never actually listened to a song she's sung. (She does make music, right?)
And I don't think I've ever finished a full movie she's been in. One I started just because Dane Cook was on the cover, then it wasn't funny at all, and then there was that one with the car and water and super short shorts that never held my attention.
And she doesn't strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed.
And I'm guessing we have slightly different approaches to life, considering she sold her baby shower to People Magazine.
However, despite all of this, she is my new hero - say, for the week - because she's a Hollywood icon finally acting like a REAL human being during pregnancy by eating too much.
FINALLY someone who doesn't look like they've placed a small basketball in their Gucci dress and called it a baby, with perfectly toned arms/legs/ass happily announcing, "I'm due any day!"
I mean, SHIT, Angelina...EAT!
Finally, a superstar that gets fat like a normal person.
Oh, yeah. Blah, blah, blah, I know. Health.
My point is that pregnancy is inevitably disgusting. That's why I'm on birth control....and abstinent.... So that I don't stuff my ex-butt-cheek-hanging-out-of-jean-shorts self with fried Twinkies. Yeah, I get it, pregnancy is beautiful, yackity, yackity, yack....as long as you don't ask your husband if that dress makes you look fat.
I'm just glad someone in Hollywood is embracing pregnancy for what it IS and not trying to make it seem like some perfect fairytale with 7% body fat and airbrushed skin.
And so, I commend you, Jessica Simpson for representing the poor choices women make during that special time, and every month during THAT special time, and for a week after every breakup. And for discussing it on television. And for publishing it in a magazine. Even if you did get paid millions for it.
Of course, now I hear you've already sold your post-baby-weight-loss journey to Jenny Craig or some crap, which means we've already suddenly lost touch with one another.
We had some good times, you and I.
It was good while it lasted.
But no matter how thin you get, no matter how many 5k's you run four months after your delivery, no matter how soon you divorce your latest flavor, and no matter how BAD your next entertainment endeavor is....I'll always remember you as the Actual Hollywood Human Female who ate horrible things during pregnancy, got fat, and admitted it. And for still being BEAUTIFUL and rocking high heels doing it.
So cheers to my new hero - Gooooooo Jessica!
Did I just write a blog about Jessica Simpson being my hero? God, help me.
Anywhoo. The other day bored at work I was reading my trusty trashy magazine and I saw a picture of Jessica Simpson during her baby shower. And as I saw her I thought to myself.. "Wow. She's gained some WEIGHT."
And then I read that she served deep-fried Twinkies at her shower, which triggered in my vague little brain a recalling of a few months ago about how she said on Jay Leno that she was craving some ungodly brownie creation involving cookie dough and Oreos.
And all of the sudden, I started to like her.
I mean she's not up there with say, Chelsea Handler or my grandma, but she's farther up than most famous pop singers.
Sure, I have never actually listened to a song she's sung. (She does make music, right?)
And I don't think I've ever finished a full movie she's been in. One I started just because Dane Cook was on the cover, then it wasn't funny at all, and then there was that one with the car and water and super short shorts that never held my attention.
And she doesn't strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed.
And I'm guessing we have slightly different approaches to life, considering she sold her baby shower to People Magazine.
However, despite all of this, she is my new hero - say, for the week - because she's a Hollywood icon finally acting like a REAL human being during pregnancy by eating too much.
FINALLY someone who doesn't look like they've placed a small basketball in their Gucci dress and called it a baby, with perfectly toned arms/legs/ass happily announcing, "I'm due any day!"
I mean, SHIT, Angelina...EAT!
Finally, a superstar that gets fat like a normal person.
Oh, yeah. Blah, blah, blah, I know. Health.
My point is that pregnancy is inevitably disgusting. That's why I'm on birth control....and abstinent.... So that I don't stuff my ex-butt-cheek-hanging-out-of-jean-shorts self with fried Twinkies. Yeah, I get it, pregnancy is beautiful, yackity, yackity, yack....as long as you don't ask your husband if that dress makes you look fat.
I'm just glad someone in Hollywood is embracing pregnancy for what it IS and not trying to make it seem like some perfect fairytale with 7% body fat and airbrushed skin.
And so, I commend you, Jessica Simpson for representing the poor choices women make during that special time, and every month during THAT special time, and for a week after every breakup. And for discussing it on television. And for publishing it in a magazine. Even if you did get paid millions for it.
Of course, now I hear you've already sold your post-baby-weight-loss journey to Jenny Craig or some crap, which means we've already suddenly lost touch with one another.
We had some good times, you and I.
It was good while it lasted.
But no matter how thin you get, no matter how many 5k's you run four months after your delivery, no matter how soon you divorce your latest flavor, and no matter how BAD your next entertainment endeavor is....I'll always remember you as the Actual Hollywood Human Female who ate horrible things during pregnancy, got fat, and admitted it. And for still being BEAUTIFUL and rocking high heels doing it.
So cheers to my new hero - Gooooooo Jessica!
Did I just write a blog about Jessica Simpson being my hero? God, help me.
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