Weirdness

I’ve been memed by Eve (love that name) at Must Be Motherhood. Thanks for the royal title! I am fully digging it and I hope to someday live up to it.

I like the topic of this meme: weird things. You know, about me. Settle in, shug. I’ve got some for ya. Oh, to choose just seven….

Many sensations overwhelm me. I can’t stand tags, seams (I wear many things inside out), anything even remotely related to wool on my skin, or anything tight-waisted directly touching me (I must wear a cami top under almost everything). I just. Can’t. Stand it. A professional massage or getting my hair done or whatevah starts to bug the crap out of me about 15 minutes in. I simply cannot be still for manicures and pedicures; I turn into a jumping bean and always screw up the polish. My hearing is so acute it has been suggested I become a spy as I wouldn’t need to bother with listening devices. It has provided me with a lot of insight into people’s lives via unintentionally overheard convos. My superhuman sense of smell has detected what would have eventually become an electrical fire in our fusebox long before it ignited anything, and I’ve detected oncoming illnesses in a couple o’ boyfriends before they even knew they were getting sick (it’s subtle changes in the way breath smells). Huz says I can smell a mouse fart a mile away. Call me loopy, but I knew I was meant to be with him (in part) because he has the right natural scent. Nobody else does. It’s something I can’t explain. So basically I am a either a superhero of some kind or mentally ill, haaaaaaaaa. A therapist I had a brief dalliance with called it hypervigilance. I call it annoying. Seriously, though, I figure my physical hypersensitivity has given me a vast amount of empathy for students I’ve had with special needs. Sometimes kids freak out because they are just so damn overwhelmed. Me, too.

I am the whitest white person you will ever meet this side of someone dead and perhaps but not definitely an albino. I hated this characteristic as it caused me to be teased mercilessly while growing up in FL. I got a whole lot of, “What ARE you?” insults in disguise as questions. It still does cause teasing; my in-laws say I look like milk, I am fluorescent, etc. Fuck ‘em all. I like it now. It’s very dramatic-looking when I dress up.

I once dated someone rather famous for a while before I had any idea who he “was”. It just didn’t occur to me at first that he could be him. All of the hooha that went along with being rich and rather famous ruined what was otherwise a fairly pleasant relationship. Truly, the saddest and loneliest people I’ve ever known were either rich, beautiful, or both. Yay, broke and quirky!

I have to push myself past a naturally agoraphobic tendency daily. I like my little world and the cozy safety of being indoors.

My mind races. Always. My mouth often follows. It was a joke for the foreign students in grad school that if you could understand me, you had mastered the English language.

I used to be deeply serious and goal-oriented. I punctuated the intensity with infrequent but somewhat excessive indulgences. Now my only goal in life is to carefully enjoy it. I still tend to fret and fling myself about, but I am getting better about it.

Huz and I have a years-long, ongoing joke that nobody thinks is funny but us. We use a variation of it pretty much every day in our conversations, and sometimes many times a day. We laugh every single time. The joke doesn’t even make any sense but it doesn’t get old.

So how ’bout it? Who else is willing to lay seven or so of their weirdnesses bare and get some people to reciprocate? It’s fun and only slightly painful.

280 Main Street?

Antebrachial Achings?

blue milk?

Chaos is Normal?

momomax?

My Fairbanks Life?

not that i don’t love my kids…?

subarctic mama?

the road less traveled?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

I usually loathe this sort of classification thing

even (and sometimes especially) in jest, but this is kinda me (not really but it could be if I were not so obsessively self-evaluative) and it is pretty freaking hilarious.

Trust me, though, I am stupendously aware that I am not even remotely hip, even as I do “insist upon living in an urban setting populated by 20-year old art students, but spend a good deal of time complaining that there’s no other parents in (my) “tragically gentrified” neighborhood”. And I don’t regret my tattoos. They’re right sexy.

Touche, Monsieur Pussycat!

If you can’t poke fun at yourself, who are you really fit to poke?

The me, she is a-changing (10 things)

Wasn’t Bob Dylan just sex on a stick? I mean it, I would have kissed those lips right off his face. He’d have needed a manicure first as those banjo picking nails look dangerous, but after that I’d have turned him into skinny whiteboy snack (I know he’s not dead or anything but all that smoking has taken its toll). I so would have been on the suspected Commie list back in the day. I love me some artists and musicians.

Okay yeah, I am procrastinating because I want to respond to a tag but I am not sure how at this moment. Hmmmm, ten things, ten things. What I like about me…ummmm…not that I don’t like myself or anything, but I expect the things I do like will read like a cross between an acoa characteristic checklist (fiercely loyal, yadda yadda yadda) and a soft core porn novel (my full lips and shelf booty). I will pick the theme that froglette alluded to in her tag so we can avoid that. Ahem. My list of 10 things I like is about what has positively changed in me since I’ve become a mother. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to read like a Hallmark card or one one those Chicken Soup things. I’d rather choke.

Here goes: Since becoming a mama, I like that I now…

1. Trust my intuition - I was right about my early contractions, I knew I should have refused that one procedure, I was right about the thrush, I was right about Bean’s belly, I was right about our initial sleeping schedule and should have never messed with it…gaaaah! You know that scene in the Color Purple where they sing God is Trying to Tell You Something? Yeah, well. S/he was trying to tell me again and again to listen to myself. I am now. See, Daddy? Sinners have souls, too.
2. Love Huz more - after all, it is kinda in my best interest to do so, ha! Seriously though, we’ve been in each other’s lives since we were 13 and 15 years old. I didn’t think we could get to know each other better and connect even more. We have.
3. Surround myself with a circle of women - I have always had strong and intelligent females as prominent figures in my life. Thanks to the shared experience of motherhood and the zippetedydooda of the interweb (go go powers of meetup and wordpress), I now have a whole lot of them, all of whom I am grateful for. I am a stronger woman because of them.
4. Parent myself - I kinda knew this needed to happen pre-Bean, but now it is essential. I will not be broken for him. I must be fully present.
5. Trust the universe - if I had chosen the midwife instead of the M.D., if I had gone back to the rock star, if I had never gotten laid off, and if a bajillion other things that seemed so completely wacked out at the time had gone differently, I wouldn’t be here having this amazing and deeply happy life with Bean and Huz.
6. Don’t hate to cook - I rejected cooking because I viewed it as a housewifey thing to know how to do and screw that because I am a feminist, dammit, and besides, who needs the pressure of cooking for a chef? Turns out I do take satisfaction in putting together big dinners for lots of people (on occasion) which is something I never had the inclination to do before people started coming around to see Bean. Who knew I could do this? Who knew I would want to? It’s weird, but good.
7. View the way I feel things as an asset rather than a hindrance - my abysmal capacity for empathy was always something I viewed as a handicap, but it sure does come in handy with a kid. I’ve got such a good feel for him now.
8. No longer want to escape from my life in self destructive ways - it may be an overused sentiment, but it is the simple freaking truth: I am living for more than myself now. Besides, life is pretty freaking beautiful these days. Why would I want to leave?
9. Have greater self-awareness and acceptance - this is still a struggle because a part of me does seem to love mucking around in pain and regret, but I am getting much more comfortable with being me. This bloggity-blog is kinda my public proclamation of selfhood, it is a declaration of me accepting me, and I wouldn’t be writing it, or at least most of the content in it (seen my tag cloud lately?) if I hadn’t become a mama. This also includes being comfortable in and finally feeling complete ownership of my physical body.
10. Know how to just be - kind of a variation of #9, but kinda not. Bean has taught me that I do not have to be the best at anything or accomplish a million things. The way I define being a ”success” has completely changed. I now define it as being a whole person (sounds deceptively simple) and nurturing the development of Bean as a whole person. I do not need to prove to him or anyone else that I am a career-oriented/hip/earth/urban/alt/other mama; I am exactly what he needs exactly as I am. And I belong here.

Huh. I am glad I did this. Motherhood: it’s not for wimps.

Lemme spread the love (how perverse is that expression in my mind? Is it just me? ha! I love it). How has motherhood changed the women I have listed in my Bawdy Broad Records?

blue milk

Chaos is Normal

Mom is a religious nut…

momomax

My Fairbanks Life

not that i don’t love my kids…

subarctic mama

walking through doors

And if you are reading this, how about you, Jess? 

If anybody else wants to tell me, please use the comments section or write to me. This was a question I kind of immediately recoiled at but I am glad I answered for myself. I really want to hear what you all have to say. What are ten things you like about yourself now that you’re a mama?

xoxoxo,
B.

My retirement plan (to be updated here and there)

I like thinking about me old. I look forward to aging. After I am finished making my fortune, be it large or small, I am going to be a cool old broad who won’t take shit from anyone.

My retirement plan goes like this:

My primary occupation will be Lounge Singer, one who specializes in Billie Holiday and George Thorogood tunes (whoooo do you luuuuve? aaaahh-ooooooo!) and has a knack for choosing just the right song to sing (bad to the bone!) while other silver foxes (yeah that’s right, I will be silver-haired and foxy) enjoy strong cocktails and even stronger dancing.

I will allow my hair to go completely grey (see above) and keep it cut in a very sleek manner (I am already quite grey, but too vain to let it stay so). I will decorate myself with clothes and jewelry made by my friends and me.

My secondary occupation will be to travel (naturally). Good fortune will have me doing so with an older and craggily handsome Huz, as well as a vibrant young man called Bean. If not, I expect it will be with that woman from my vision, the one with the kind eyes and smile and fetchingly bobbed hair.

I will take up the smoking of an elegant but serious pipe filled with finely flavored tobacco.

I will learn to shoot a rifle with great accuracy, to be used only for self-protection against attacking bear, random deviants and perhaps my government (see random deviants) during solo visits to my rustic mountainside cabin. The cabin will have an indoor/outdoor swing large enough to fit my grand and unfettered ass comfortably for hours. And a hammock. Of course.

I will work on a small farm during certain seasons; perhaps the farm will be my own, perhaps not. I will utilize an old barn for massive art projects that are well beyond my currently known capabilities.

I will take classes in all of these things.

I will surprise people with unexpected letters, gifts, and money. Often.

I will likely have survived an injury or illness either personally or vicariously through someone I love deeply. I will create something of substance that will help others going through the same thing.

I will be a foster mother to at least one child who is considered unlikely to be adopted.

I will drive an old Ford truck, or perhaps a Cadillac. That is, when my personal hovercraft is in the shop.

I will alternate between barefootedness and sturdy boots for all occasions.

I will bake overly large and highly decadent cakes stacked dangerously high with cream filling between multiple layers to celebrate the birthdays of my family and friends and random Wednesdays. I have always liked Wednesdays.

I will be someone that others roll their eyes at only somewhat affectionately and with great exasperation.

I will surround myself with women. We will laugh and laugh and laugh.

To be continued…

Searching for something?

To those of you who are finding your way to bianca bean via charming search terms such as “milfs in action”, I give you this:

This, lovely dear, is a 100% genuine milf in action. It is the hotness, I know. Just ask my husband.

I must admit, I was initially alarmed when I saw the search terms that were leading some people to me thanks to my prior “all the moms I know are milfs” post, but I am now embracing it, just as I have embraced the term milf. I receive and use this acronym as the highest compliment, much as my dear friends, the Beavers, do our beavery. The word cunt is also now flattery of the highest form, with beaucoup props to Eve Ensler for her monologues, of course. Even before her marvelous interpretation of the “c word”, however, who wouldn’t have wanted to be considered warm, enveloping, coveted, and mysterious, with all the beauty of some strange hothouse flower? (yay for interpretations by Virginia Georgia O’Keefe; I once gave an anatomy lesson to my gay boyfriends via a print by her. They were dumbfounded.)

So, if you are utilizing search terms including milf, cunt, or beaver, and have unexpected found yourself here with me, if I have perhaps derailed you from an otherwise undignified hunt, I have just one thing to say: you’re welcome.

Much love, B.