The first woman – ever – to chair a department at University of Illinois, she knew exactly what she wanted. She didn’t let her gender get in the way of doing things her way, during a time when gender dictated everything. That chair happened to be Chemistry, a synchronicity I found charming once I’d met her.

She was a career woman before her time, never settling down, having children or getting married. Until she met my Uncle in the 1980’s.

She adopted me as her own when I first met her. Peas in a pod, my mother called us, and rightly so. Every time I saw Ruth, she brought me a new present or bauble; the sort of things a kid likes. Even without bearing her own, she understood children.

Being a lonely kid, I loved her immediately. Whenever she was around for a visit, I’d clamor to see her, probably annoying my parents and everyone around me half-to-death.

When I couldn’t see her, instead I wrote her letters. Who knows what I’d blathered on about in those letters, but I wrote them diligently. She’d lovingly send me back another letter, each time I took crayon to paper.

As I got older and more independent, I’d fly out to visit her where she’d ended up: Sun City, Arizona. It’s a retirement community nicer than my own neighborhood, where old people zip around in golf carts and Live Life.

Remembering I loved Chinese food, immediately after picking me up in her car – one of those gigantic things that make you feel like you’re riding in the cockpit of a very comfortable living room – she took me to the local Chinese place, fussing over me and making sure that I had at least three different entrees in front of me at all times.

She’d gone to the baker and bought me a bourbon pecan pie, too, and even though I’d never had one before (they look, well, SCARY), it was delicious. Now that I have my own oven and a decently good recipe, I make the same pie each year for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The china and silver she gave me when I was 16 still sits in my china cabinet, waiting for a day when my children aren’t so small; a day when I can cook a meal that isn’t made of one of three food groups: pasta, chicken bits, and something else I can’t remember. Some day, we will eat off my finery.

And when we do, I will share with my babies the stories of their Great Great Aunt Ruth, who loved their Mommy very much. Who took life by the balls and made it her bitch during a time when women were supposed to be in the home, cooking and cleaning. A woman who never stopped; never took no for an answer, and followed her dreams and her heart where it took her.

A woman with a heart a million miles wide; who loved deeply and without regrets.

A woman who we all can learn from.

This is what I will tell my children as we eat Chinese food and bourbon pecan pie off the very finest china given to me by a woman who loved beyond words.

———-

Two days after my son turned ten, on August 22nd, 2011, my great Aunt Ruth passed away. She had a full life; more than I can ever hope for, but that doesn’t stop the aching in my heart when I think about what the world is now missing.

I’ll miss you Aunt Ruth.

Always.

I remember the first time it happened to me: I was recovering from surgery, stuck on the couch, hopped up on pain pills and crying because, well, that’s what pain pills do to me.

See also: abdominal muscles are ACTUALLY pretty important.

See also also: humiliation when you suddenly cannot pee by yourself because standing up hurts like a motherfucker.

I’d stupidly written a post about my struggles with weight and although I hadn’t titled the piece “Being Fat Made Me Invisible,” (which was what the site owner went with) the post was fairly heartfelt.

Now Pranksters, if you learn NOTHING from Your Aunt Becky (besides, “it’s always better not to be Aunt Becky.”) learn this: The Internet has lots of opinions about weight. And people can be cruel.

Anyway, someone got chocolate salty balls about my post – in which I was talking about my OWN struggles with weight, not telling the world to drop a couple LBS – and left a fairly hurtful comment. The pain pills exacerbated my hurt feelers and suddenly I was weeping about the comment. It was just so…mean.

And what’s worse? I couldn’t do shit about it.

On my own blog, I have no shame in deleting a particularly cruel comment. I don’t get them often, but you know what? I don’t need you to take a shit on my nicely swept porch. I know this is a hotly debated piece of the Internet (should you delete nasty comments?) but I, for one, have no shame in using the delete button. Go ahead and talk about how much I suck somewhere else, y’all. My front porch doesn’t need your shit slung on it.

It may surprise you, Pranksters, that I freelance around The Internet.

I also Site Master.

See: Band Back Together.

See also: Mushroom Printing.

The comments on either site are moderated, although, Band Back Together has a more strict set of moderation requirements, because people are pouring out their hearts; the least I can do is protect them from well-meaning-yet-unkind shit.

And recently, on my freelancing posts, the comments I’ve received have become particularly unkind. The sort that make you gasp and feel like you got punched in the gut. Because while you can laugh that shit off some of the time, sometimes, it really, really stings.

When you’re writing about your life – it’s still your life.

Being blasted for it sucks. Period. I don’t know how you’d handle it beyond doing what I do: ignore them. I do not read a single comment from those posts. I don’t need to know how badly I suck at life from Internet Mole People, especially considering my personal blog is an homage to my suckitude.

However, I got to thinking about it.

(shut UP)

(I can think sometimes)

And I genuinely believe that site owners – the sites that aren’t courting controversy – have a responsibility to their writers. Some sort of, “I got your back,” where negative comments are policed and removed. Because frankly, one less Internet Mole Person makes the world a better place.

How fair is it to let your staff get shit on so you can increase your comment count? Doesn’t the person who has the ability to write in non-text speak and know the difference between “there” and “they’re” matter a little bit more than someone flinging shit for the sole purpose of cruelty?

I say, yes.

Now, what do you say, Pranksters?

Should site owners protect their writers?

Pranksters, the time has come. Oh yes, it is time. Time to come to InterventionCon in DC and hang out with Your Favorite Aunt Becky. September 16-18, I will be hanging at the Con, selling my shirts and talking about how to be cool on the Internets. Or why Mommy Needs Vodka.

Which means, of course, I need to figure out HOW to be cool in the first place.

Any tips?

P.S. I’m driving from IL to DC, so maybe we can meet up along the way?

Dear Aunt Becky,

Saw these, thought of you, started rolling on the floor laughing, may have peed a bit, took a picture and attracted the attention of security. Not necessarily in that order. I mean, I cannot believe someone would have given up their entire collection with only ‘Mystic Throat Ripper’ and ‘Mystic Mark My Territory’ left to find.

Prankster, I’m only bitter that I wasn’t there.

You have no idea.

Dearest Aunt Becky,
A few months ago my sweet baby niece was diagnosed with a particularly bullshit form of cancer.

Long story short, I want to auction off some of her bad ass drawings online. Where should I get started? Suggestions please? Thank you.

Much love,
Megan

Dear Megan,

I’m so sorry about your niece and her bullshit cancer. Cancer is a fucking hot steaming pile of bullshit and I hate it hard. I think auctioning off her drawings is a lovely idear.

However, I am not entirely certain how online auctions go. If I did, I might, you know, SELL my nice DSL-R rather than simply let it gather dust.

So instead of telling you where to do it, I’m going to tell you where NOT to. My Pranksters will certainly know more about this stuff. (my only shitballs suggestion is to do it from your blog).

• ebay. Why? ebay is creepy. I am afraid of it. Like, deeply afraid of it.
• Craigslist. Why? Because Craigslist = Uncle Pervy. You don’t want her adorable drawings up next to someone’s penis picture. Because ew.

I don’t know about Etsy or anything, but I’d wait and see what the Pranksters come up with. They’re clever AND sexy.

Hey Aunt Becky,

You’re a pretty awesome woman-of-the -world or even just woman-in-general so I was wondering if you could give me some boy advice.

See, I started University this year coming from a school where I’d known all the boys from their grubby kindergarten days and now I see boys who I don’t know EVERYWHERE! And I have no idea how to talk to them.

Then 6 weeks ago (if you need the days and minutes as well I’d be happy to provide them)I saw this boy…sigh. I finally managed to speak to him one day on the bus (despite my nearly overwhelming urge to throw up) and at the time I thought it went well, but now what? How do I speak to him again without being weird? and what do I say? And how do I stop my voice from going really deep? (not cute husky deep, like weird deep).

Even if you could somehow teach me husky-deep that would be fine. Help me Aunt Becky!

your loving neice 🙂

Oh my sweet niece, how could I let you down? I cannot.

So here is Aunt Becky’s Advice for How To Deal With Boys:

1) Smack them across the head with something.

2) Bat your eyelashes at them.

3) Say, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to whack you with a 2×4”

4) Then they fall in love with you.

Or, you can always just do what my daughter does when she’s feeling shy. Cover your eyes and say, “Hi.”

Either way, the end result is TOTALLY the same.

Pranksters? Any thoughts?

————

As always, please submit your questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky and I will lackadaisically answer them with advice you should never take.

———–

I am at The Stir with two columns: Bowling for Babies and Stickers are the Minions of Satan. If nothing else, you should read the comments and report back because I can’t. Read them, I mean.

Also, if you want another side of me, you should read this: Meet Becky Harks. It’s a decent interview with probably non-hateful comments. P.S. Now you know my name.

Also, also: I hate to ask you about the whole “liking” me thing, but it would mean SO MUCH to me if you did. I hate myself for even asking.

I remember well, the day I sat in my friend John’s living room, having just bathed an ancient pregnancy test (found – oddly – in a wall in his house) with my pee. I don’t remember what day it was or what I was wearing or what I’d been planning to do that night. I do remember sitting there, smoking a cigarette, watching a line form. Not the first – YAY YOU PEED ON A STICK PROPERLY, DUMBASS – line; a second one.

Certainly it wasn’t a second line. There’s no way it could be a second line. I was on BIRTH CONTROL Y’ALL and really, no, just that wasn’t a second line.

I held it up to the light as it darkened; moving from a light second line to a dark WHOOPS! second line.

Then I made my friend John, in from shoveling the snow, look at it.

“That’s a line, right? It’s a second line? That can’t be a line. How could that be a line?”

John stared down at it, then looked at me with dawning horror. He didn’t speak. He just nodded his head.

That was the first time my life fell on it’s ear.

On August 20 (tomorrow), 2001, at a respectable 3:10PM, I pushed a baby boy from my nether regions, and while he looked at me with a similar look that John had given me – dawning horror – I wrapped him in my arms and kissed his damp head.

I was a mother.

Tasked with raising this extremely squally baby was a big job, I knew that much, but ten years later, I cannot think of a decision I’ve made since that hasn’t involved his well-being.

I dropped out of the medical school track and enrolled in nursing school. I found him a proper father. I gave him two siblings. We fought through autism and custody battles. I gave him the house and the yard and the kid sister and brother I’d dreamed of giving him, back when the days seemed darkest.

Because as blithe as I can be about things, there were days of only tears – no joy – because the decisions I made to better my life for son came with consequences. I was gone more often than not. I was taking a test when my son took his first steps. Speech and Occupational therapy met when I was in class.

While I was trying to give him the world, I missed out on so much. There were days I sat in my car and wept, trying to remember that this was all for the best, that in the end, I would be giving my son the world.

When I met Daver, Benjamin was two, and he took to him like nobody’s business. He took to Dave in a way he’d never taken to me, and while I was thrilled, it broke my heart a little more. I wanted nothing than to know that my struggles, killing my own dreams, everything I’d done, it was all for him.

In a decade, I gave my son everything I’d wanted and more.

He walked me down the aisle as I got married. He watched me march across the stage to graduate with high honors. He’s seen me become a nurse and later, a writer. He’s held his siblings when they were born, joy evident on his tiny face as they looked at him, their big brother, with awe.

There is not a single decision I have made in ten years that has not been for him or because of him.

When I say, “I don’t know where I’d be without Ben,” I mean it. I do not genuinely know.

And frankly, I don’t want to.

As I watch him scamper around outside, pushing his siblings on the swings while the screams of glee echo through my neighborhood, I can hardly believe that I’d once sat in my car, alone, weeping, worried about the future.

I’ve seen the future, and it is beautiful.

So is my son; my precious firstborn.

Happy Birthday, Benjamin. Without you, I wouldn’t be me.

Thank you for turning my life on it’s ear; making me a better person. For making me something I’d never, ever considered becoming: a mother.

Thank you to everyone who voted for me yesterday. I feel like a douchebag asking – trust me – but this would be so awesome for Band Back Together.

————

My children follow me around everywhere I go. I think they’re trying to ascertain what it is I’m going to do next, or at least, that’s what I tell myself when all three of them are crammed into my tiny bathroom, clamoring like a basket of wriggling puppies to sit on my lap as I pee. Or maybe they’re just trying to annoy me. Because really, who wants to yell, “ALEX GET YER ELBY-BONE OUTTA YER SISTER’S FACE” while peeing?

Not me.

My daughter is especially keen on following me around, yelling at me to do her bidding, because she’s two and that’s what two-year old’s do.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d wandered upstairs to look for a hot dog or get dressed or see if Rod Stewart was in my bedroom yet and, like a sassy puppy, my daughter followed me upstairs. Perhaps she, too, was wondering if Rod, The Bod, was in my bedroom.

I began to do whatever it was I was doing while Amelia spotted – in the corner – a bag. Not just any bag, mind you, a HELLO KITTY BAG. It had various office supplies in it, as I’m SLOWLY moving my office out of the dining room and upstairs (for better privacy to watch my cat videos) and I’d grabbed some things and hastily shoved them in what had been a birthday bag for me.

Mili, seeing the bag, immediately went nuts. Anything Hello Kitty is, by default, now hers, so before I could stop her, she dumped the contents of the bag out onto the floor, proclaiming, “DIS IS MILI’S HELLO KITTY BAG.”

Fair enough, kiddo. Fair enough.

While I had my back turned, the kid began to rifle through my jewelry box – a mixture of costume and fine jewelery – and delicately, she sifted through it. I remember that being one of my favorite things as a child – my mother’s jewelry box, not stealing my own crap – so I let her go through it, figuring she’d claim some of the more garish pieces as her own.

Nope.

Oh no.

No, my daughter carefully picked out the most expensive bits of jewelry and slowly placed each piece in the Hello Kitty bag. “Mimi’s necklace.” “Mimi’s ring.” “Mimi’s bracelet.”

When she’d thoroughly magpied my collection, she looked at me, smiled impishly, pulled the Hello Kitty bag up onto her shoulder like a purse, and walked happily out of my room and down the stairs. With my diamond collection.

She’s so her mother’s daughter.

Dear Pranksters,

I hate asking for shit like this nearly as much as I hate John C. Mayer (which, as we know, is a lot), but this is important. Like BIG important. It’s the nomination for Band Back Together (and me as an inspirational – not perspirational – Mom Blogger) and I could use your support.

Just go here and click “Like.” It’s not hard.

And it would mean the world to me if you helped me out. I’d love you bigger than Uncrustables AND hot dogs. Which is saying a LOT.

xoxo,
AB

It’s time to talk tattoos, Pranksters!

Now if you know anything about me, you’ll know that I am decidedly not a foodie. If it’s not prepackaged, I don’t want to eat it. I’m the first to admit I have “food issues” and the second to ask you for an Uncrustable. I probably have scurvy. Thank the Good Lord of Butter I take my (expired) vitamins.

But I’ve occasionally been out to those restaurants that add a zillion ingredients – all with many descriptive terms – to their menu.

And I’ve decided that in lieu of blogging as a career, mayhap I should go into writing descriptions for Foodie Food.

Let’s try this and see how I do.

I’ll start with a diner hamburger.

“The moist, succulent quality of the 100% Angus beef is fried in the fat of dozens of it’s companions, topped by an onion that was left out for three hours aged onion and a single piece of lightly browned romaine lettuce, with the soft, unresisting paper-thin piece of tomato, cut so delightfully thin to save money because OMG Mexico costs a ton to ship vegetables all atop the soft, and yet firm hamburger bun, dotted perfectly with little pops that are at least 90% sesame seeds. Throw on a dollop of perfectly aged premium generic ketchup and you will never look at a burger (or the toilet) the same way.”

Isn’t your mouth WATERING? Mine is. But that may be nausea, not hunger. I can’t tell.

Next, an Old American Favorite, Split Pea Soup:

“As it arrived at the table, I’m struck first by the smell as it approaches. That vaguely earthy smell of mashed up legumes that puts me in mind of spoon feeding a baby. My first baby. He taught me to never try that again, by projectile vomiting the strained peas back as fast as I could get them to his mouth.

I’m reminded of the Exorcist as I suddenly lose my appetite. As it is set before me, I’m lost, staring into the thick, murky mire of the soup. It’s consistency reminds me vaguely of drywall putty, or perhaps of that stuff that people use to polish brass. How does one describe perfection except to say that you know it when you’ve found it?

And this? Was perfectly abominable.

From the earthy taste of the peas, to the dried pieces of cilantro that were used as a “garnish,” this was a hot mess, from back to front.”

Wait.

That wasn’t right. I was supposed to make you WANT it. Not think of The Exorcist.

Guess you’ll have to keep Your Aunt Becky around after all, Pranksters.

Saturday morning, as I blurrily drank my eighty-niner cup of coffee while trying desperately to wake my sorry ass up, Dave bounded into the room and announced, “YOU’RE TAKING ME OUT TO LUNCH TOMORROW.”

For someone who is normally soft-spoken, he was BEYOND loud. Or perhaps it was merely a loud morning. I’m SO not a morning person.

I tried to reach the dusty recesses of my brain to ascertain why, exactly, I was supposed to be taking The Daver out to lunch. His birthday? Our anniversary? National Pancake Day?

I bit the bullet. “Why?” I groggily spat out.

“IT’S DAVE DAY! ALL DAVE’S EAT FREE AT FAMOUS DAVE’S!”

I stuck my fingers in my ears to deaden the noise a bit. Since he did say FREE, and FREE is always better than paying, I wondered if I, too, could pass for a Dave.

The following morning, I peeled myself out of bed, completely forgetting that it was Dave Day (HOW did that ever slip my non-Daveish mind?). Downstairs, the kids were dressed, fed and ready to go for the first time, well, EVER.

Dave was practically bounding off the walls with glee. “IT’S DAVE DAY!” he announced, loudly enough that I nearly punched him in the throat, just to make him shut the fuck up. “WE’RE OUT OF COFFEE!” he screamed. “I DRANK IT ALL.”

Like that was a surprise or something. I mumbled, “fucker” under my breath as I hoped he wouldn’t stroke out from the excitement.

Once I swept the cobwebs from my brain and cleared the sleep from my eyes, I finally looked at The Daver. Dressed in sweatpants and a stained t-shirt, I must’ve given him a look, because he said, “I’M WEARIN MAH EATIN’ CLOTHES.”

I’m not exactly certain when his Wisconsin-bred ass developed a Southern Drawl, but it was apparently the moment in which he realized he could eat as much BBQ as he wanted. For free. I’m sort of surprised he didn’t bust out my maternity clothes for the occasion.

I shoved a baseball cap on, so that I would be incognito with the hickish Southern Wisconsinite and off we went.

First thing they said when we walked in, “Is your name Dave?” Daver proudly bust out his wallet and showed off his driver’s license. He looks like the leader of the Aryan Nation in the picture, which made me wonder if they’d BELIEVE he was the same person.

Not only did they believe him, they also gave him a name-tag. I was SO JEALOUS. I love name-tags. I would have written “Shut Your Whore Mouth” on mine. I tried to score one from them, but was rebuffed because I am not ACTUALLY named Dave.

I sat jealously staring at Dave’s name-tag as everyone who walked by – also wearing Dave name-tags – said hello to Dave. A sea of name-tag wearing Dave’s sat in the dining room, each beaming as happily as The Daver was.

When Daver opened the menu, it was like the heavens poured out of his eyeballs, as he saw the amount of BBQ he could eat. For FREE. All for free. He happily chose some BBQ platter or another while I sipped my Diet Pepsi, amazed by the transformation of my normally geeky husband into a greedy BBQ-loving hick.

“I want ‘yer BBQ platter wif a side ‘o’ beans and cornbread.” I swear I’ve never heard him speak that way. But there he was, eating pants and everything, ready to take on the BBQ.

And he did. I’ve never seen such a small man put away so much food. When he was done sucking the marrow from the bones, he sat back, belched, and looked as contented as one can while wearing a stained tank-top and sweatpants.

I paid our check and rolled him contentedly out to the car.

He was in a food coma the rest of the day while I bitterly blamed my parents for not being forward-thinking enough to name me Dave.

Hey, Johnny Cash had a Boy Named Sue, I could totally have been a Girl Named Dave*.

*had I been a boy, my name would have been Leaf**.

**No, I’m not joking. Not even close.

Um. This is an ancient post. I have no idea why it posted here now. THERE’S A GHOST IN THE MACHINE.

I’m not the sort of person who’d been planning her wedding since the day I could walk. In fact, I always thought that the word ‘wife’ had a nasty sort of ring to it. My family also has also had zero interest in planning my potential wedding. In fact, they have threatened to show up to my hypothetical wedding wearing mascot heads and do ‘The Wave’ in the church. I am not and have never been mush-mush OR romantic in any way shape or form. That said, I must disclose a list of things that I believed would make my wedding ‘cool.’

First off, I wanted to dance myself down the aisle at the church to K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s ‘That’s the Way, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh, I Like It.’ What better way to approach the man I’ll be spending the rest of my life with? EVERYBODY loves disco.

In addition to this, I was convinced that the man who would marry me would be a certified Elvis impersonator. I would be married by The King, lip snarl, rockin’ pelvis and all.

Now lastly on my list of hilarious things for my wedding, I planned to have my first dance be extra memorable. I would have the D.J. cue up the beginning of a romantic and dramatic song, I’d meet my husband on the dance floor” and the sweet music would screech to a halt as the Y.M.C.A. would come blasting out. Yes, folks, that’s right, my first wedding song would be the Y.M.C.A.

Now everybody who I have mentioned this to has given me the most horrific look. ‘Aunt Becky, weddings are supposed to be SERIOUS.’ I can’t say that I’ve ever seen it from their point of view.

Dave thinks that I’m insane.

Just wait until he sees the ice cream machine I bought for the reception.