Oh Internet, how ye foil my vain attempt to proclaim this day in history as "Jen Becomes Adult Day". Can't frickin' be an adult if you can't access your (ha!) assets in order to flog yourself with how far behind you are in paying your bills.
Can you tell I thought I'd be further along the financial food chain by this point in my everloving life? The fact of the matter is that in the last few weeks I've gotten overly sick of my brain, my body, the internet, the house that is.never.clean.or.finished, and, well, everything about my self. Add to that the strange omnipresence (in the last two or three weeks) of my mother's ghost and you've got me: a woman on the edge. A me finding my ass suddenly aflame with the desire to do.some.fucking.thing.about.it. If only I could find the right zealotry.
So far the best I've been able to come up with is to go back to being totally anal retentive with my pennies, clean like someone with OCD, make incessant lists (and actually do (!!) them), and just return to what seemed to work on some level for me in my 20s by going all perfectionist on my life. The problem with my doing that, and the reason that I've ultimately been so resistant in the last few months, is that not too many people were willing to be part of my life then. I mean, they were part of my life by dint of proximity, but they weren't actually willing. It was more like I was a force of nature that just sucked up everything around me and then threw it all back out, spent and shrivelled. I thought I was so "advanced" with my volume-at-11-emotions but I was totally unbending and completely unforgiving of the faults of those closest to me. I'm not the most consistently social person yet, but now that I've got people around me who actually enjoy my company and stay in contact with me, as God is my witness, I never want to go hungry again!
Working toward adulthood has been a fine line to walk and I'm not sure I'm doing a great job of it. In fact, I've been a lazy shit. Which is probably why yesterday I took advantage of the fact that all of my female siblings were home and suggested we go through Mom's closet. It wasn't originally my intention to do that when I got down there, the idea and the words just sorta fell out of my mouth. And, despite the fact that the clothes smelled like she'd just worn them yesterday and some misty eyes, it went smoothly.
Mom wasn't much of a fashion plate in her later years, but she had saved so many old clothes from her youth that there were things back in fashion. We all had emotional responses to different clothes, but it was the 70s era clothes that made me miss her the most. She was so pretty, so thin, so everything this chubby-little-girl-everyone-always-mistook-for-a-boy wanted to be. Cathy tried on one of the cocktail outfits and instantly I was five again. Dad didn't remember that outfit, but I sure did: a black, one-piece looooowww-cut, halter topped, flare-pants jumpsuit with the accompanying lace-backed, bell-sleeved jacket. I don't remember knowing what sexy was at five, but I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen walking out the door wearing that, tossing her Farrah hair over her shoulder and telling me to behave for the baby-sitter (who proceeded to drug me with cough syrup so she and her friends could drink all the alcohol in the house). Cathy looked really good in it. She said she was going to use it for her Halloween costume this year...I think she's going as a hooker.
I miss my Mom today, but I'm ok about it. Because I know somewhere out there she's throwing around her Farrah hair and totally flirting with Peter Jennings. We both had a crush on him but I'm ok with Mom getting to him first--because she's so smokin' hot. Rock on, Pete, you don't know what's about to hit ye.
.......
In this photo I am thinking how wrong it is that my Mom is so durn cute.
My Dad said that a Gunny he works with said "Who's the ugly dame?" when he saw this picture last week. This, people, is my father's father and is the gene pool from whence I come. Thank the Christ I got his sense of humor as well.
Looking back at your Mom's pictures, she blew me away she was so georgeous. I never knew her when she looked like that. Amazing!!!! I think the twins look a lot like her.
Posted by: Linds | August 08, 2005 at 04:47 PM
yeah, the twins got lucky with the genetics. I, unfortunately, look more like my dad's side of the family. this is great if you're a guy, but not so much if you're a girl.
and, last night when we were looking at photos I'd never seen before, we discovered that *you* look quite a bit like her.
Posted by: tbtine | August 08, 2005 at 05:04 PM
I've only ever been accused of laughing like her. I'd like to see more pictures of her when she was younger, because we're still trying to figure out who Ty looks like. He's definitely a Beck for sure.
Posted by: Linds | August 10, 2005 at 10:21 AM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
Posted by: lop | August 10, 2005 at 11:08 AM