What's Happened To You, Mom?

This morning the thermometer read eleven degrees. Give or take. The little black lines were blurry; it was too damn cold to put my glasses on. 


Add wind and it was colder than a witch's tit.


What the hell does that mean anyway? I've heard it for years, especially when I lived in Vermont. How about colder than a wizard's fat ass? 


I'm so sorry. Seems something broke loose inside me after the Christmas tree *episode on Saturday. I feel reborn, washed clean. I'm chanting a new mantra: Say what's on your mind and don't feel bad about it. Om shanti, om shanti...


It's a fucking miracle.


Hey, guess what, people! Chewy is the FAMILY DOG. Someone else can go out and play ball with him and get whipped around by a wind chill of three at seven in the morning!


Honey, are you going to jog the dog around the neighborhood as part of the work-out program you've been saying you were going to do for the past two years? Sorry, ten years. Here. I got you new running shoes. Put the newspaper down, slowly. Now. Run!


Excuse me, Dad? You want to move back to the mountain house, again? In the dead of winter, without a car? You don't care if you get snowed in? Okay. Don't let the door hit your skinny ass on the way out.


Oh swell! Another school holiday celebration. Sure, Claire, Mommy will bring a craft for the kids. How about going out to pick up litter? We'll wear Santa hats. That's festive.


I know. Dreadful, right? 


Not according to my family...


This morning, as my newly-birthed, Bad Mom/Bad Wife/ Bad Daughter self was holding court in the kitchen, Michael and Claire were busting a gut. The badder I got, the more they laughed. At one point, Claire was doubled over, tears streaming down her face. 


"What's happened to you, Mom?" Claire said, "You're happy."


read: Turn It Into Firewood/ Dec. 12, 2010