Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right?

But this is me, and we all know I never joke about anything (hey, Juice Boxes ARE for Pussies).

Bright and blurry Saturday morning, well before any civilized person should get up (8:30AM is, like juice boxes, for pussies), my friend Dawn showed up bearing coffee and donuts, looking as The Guy on my Couch and I both did – like we’d been run over several times by a gigantic truck. Or beaten with the ugly stick. [insert some other euphemism that hilariously explains why, in fact, we all looked like we needed a good scrub in the back yard with one of those steel brushes and some bleach]

It was unfortunate, really, the way we looked, since we were going to go get our pictures done. Unfortunate but unsurprising – everyone looks weird on Picture Day. My freshman year in high school, I got appendicitis on the day of picture retakes, and agonizingly, I sat through that photo shoot. In those photos, I look as though a gigantic rubber fist had been inserted into my rectum right before the guy said, “CHEESE.”

But this was for charity, so we tried not to complain too much. I thanked my lucky stars that we have a graphic designer who can (hopefully) make me not look like death in print.

Once happily ensconced in the car, directions in hand, bag full of ridiculous clothes and some (jazz hands) mysterious Christmas lights at my feet, coffee in my gut, I began to relax.

Until, that is, we got off the highway. At that point, I locked the doors and tried desperately not to make eye contact with anyone. It’s better that way.

I *knew* we were going into a rough neighborhood, but it was daytime on a Saturday morning, so I didn’t bother packing my semi-automatic or a shiv. I figured we’d fit right in – three white kids in a nice suburban-looking SUV. Just your average day in the ghetto, right? We could’ve had legitimate bizness there. LIKE GETTING OUR PICTURES DID.

Oh, wait. We DID have legitimate bizness there.

We parked next to an abortion clinic, flanked on both sides by buildings that had clearly been burned out. Windows missing, char-patterns making neat patterns on the brick outside, the occasional boarded up door. Everywhere we turned, there was broken glass. Dawn, who has apparently never been anywhere but the Loop and the suburbs, bothered to ask what was up with all the glass.

“DRINKIN’ 40’S” I hollered, in my obnoxious, ‘I’m-a-drunk-frat-boy’ voice, hoping the people who lived there found it to be as hilarious as I did.

On our way to the studio, we passed by BUT DID NOT PICK UP a random (EMPTY, DAMMIT!) box of burn cream. I’m not sure the two are related…but I’m not sure they aren’t.

We got to the studio, where my friend Josh Hawkins, who happens to be an awesome photographer AND my friend, greeted us. Immediately we realized our mistake: we’d forgotten to bring anything to drink. I turned to Dawn and whispered, “I need a diet Coke.”

She replied, “I think there’s a guy on the corner selling shit inside his trench coat.”

Me: “Think I can get a faux-Lex*?”

Her: “I’m sure.”

I hadn’t actually seen the guy, so I’m pretty sure Dawn was full of the lies. The only place that looked like it might have, at one time, sold items other than crack was a boarded-up (we’re assuming) restaurant (although it could’ve been a massage parlor) with a handmade sign that read, “Munchers.” Had it looked any more inviting, I’d have risked it for a diet Coke. As it was, I wasn’t about to try it. Besides, I had a stylist I was waiting on to make me look, well, better than I had walking in.

Which was going to take some work.

To. Be. Continued.

*Fake Rolex. Get it? FAUXLex?

When I found out that Hello Kitty was launching a line of wines, I was thrilled. Partially because I love everything Hello Kitty, but mostly because it means that I no longer have to shell out for juice. Because juice boxes are for pussies. And my babies aren’t pussies.

They’re not so much into hard liquor or meth, but my babies do like their wine. And wine with whimsical cartoon kitties is a win for us all. Why, it’s practically begging for my children to chug it!

I know, you’re not supposed to give babies booze until they’re at least 12, but they like it! I swear! Plus, it makes them sleepy, and when they’re sleepy, Aunt Becky is very, very happy. Because then I can drink more of that silly kitty wine without my crotch parasites crawling around at my feet, asking me to do shit for them like give them them more of Momma’s wine or help them with their dumb homework.

Like I tell them, what the fuck good has homework ever REALLY done for anyone anyway?

And I read some article in some medical magazine or heard it on Maury or some shit that wine is good for the heart. I want my babies to have strong hearts, so I make sure that I give them wine with every meal. It’s HEALTHY and shit. Especially because then they shut the fuck up for once and I don’t have to listen to them babble on and on and on.

I swear, no one told me kids were so fucking loud or I would have gotten some fucking muzzles from the hospital. Duct tape just doesn’t work as well.

So I’m serving Hello Kitty wine at every birthday party and if all those fucking crotch monkeys that my kids invite don’t like it, well, they can have some of the bourbon.

But not the good shit, like Old Crow because that’s reserved for me.

It’s also AUCTION TIME. Go and check out the Band Back Together auction – I even donated some of my old kids clothes. There’s a lot of cool shit there and it’s all going to a good cause (not my shoe collection.).

So go! Bid! ENJOY!

(also, as always we welcome your submissions – some guidelines are here – about anything you want!)

Dear Alexander Joseph,

When I got pregnant with your brother, I don’t know that one person (besides your Aunt Ashley) said, “Congratulations.” Certainly it was a tumultuous time: I was twenty (not quite ready to be a parent but not so young that it was scandalous) , Ben’s father was less than kind to me, I was in college, and my life was, well, adrift. When I was 8 months pregnant, I waddled home, proverbial tail between my legs, to my parents who accepted my delicate condition. I find it hard to believe that anything that packs sixty pounds directly onto my ass  is “delicate,” but alas, I digress.

While it was incredibly kind of your grandparents to take me in, it came with some fairly long, painful strings attached.

When your brother was born, I spent the better part of four years trying to make it right. The end goal was to have another baby the easy/ier way. A way that didn’t involve being undermined my parents. A way that didn’t involve being treated like I was, very possibly, the stupidest person on the planet. A way that allowed me to feel like I was, in fact, a parent.

Your brother, well, he’s different. He’s on the autistic spectrum somewhere, and as a baby, he wanted nothing to do with me. I was turning my life into something that could make him proud, and he’d barely allow me to hold him. It didn’t change much as he grew – he was aloof, distant, heartbreaking. They have therapies available for autistic children, but none for the parents; parents who crave such things as a display of love in a way that’s easily understood. It’s never been that your brother didn’t love me, it’s simply that he shows it in a much more different way.

Finally, after graduating nursing school, getting married and moving your brother, father and I into a real house with our name on it, it was time for me to finally try for my next goal: another baby. All of that time I spent in school, working full-time, running my ass around to get graduated, all I wanted was to have another baby.

Month after month we tried and tried. Month after month, my heart broke into a zillion tiny pieces as I stared at that pee-stick, willing it to show me something – an evaporation line, anything. And month after month, I wept as the lily white stick stared back at me, mocking me. Pregnant bellies began to make me furious as I looked into fertility treatments. I was beyond confused – I’d gotten pregnant with Ben while on the pill and barely having The Sex – certainly this was bound to be easier.

Eventually, one Friday night, I took a pregnancy test while drinking a tall vodka/Diet and chain-smoking cigarettes (not at the same time, I’m not that coordinated). I was hoping to get the disappointment out of the way so I could enjoy the rest of my weekend (read: cry like a weenie).

When the digital test I’d just bathed in my urine popped up a “PREGNANT,” I actually said to aloud, “No fucking way.” I brought it down to show your father, who had been waiting for me to return in hysterics, and we both stared at it, bewildered. We’d finally done it.

The very next day, your father drove to the hardware store and painted your bedroom a nice soft yellow – niftily covering the barfy pink walls. He was so very proud to be having a baby.

It was the next week when the panic began. I’d somehow managed to get everything in my life right: I had a five-year old who was happy and healthy, I had a husband who treated me with respect, I had my very own house, a degree – with honors – and a life. It seemed too good to be true.

So when I began to spot fairly heavily around week 7, I just knew that my luck had run out. I couldn’t be so lucky; I just couldn’t – hadn’t I learned that by now?

It was a subchorionic haematoma, the US tech said, my head turned away from the US screen as I awaited her words. Look, she said, as I saw the flickering of that strong heart on the screen, that’s your baby.

And it was.

On March 30, 2007, after months spent miserably on the couch (prepartum depression is an ASSHOLE), I was admitted to the hospital to have you. All I wanted, I confessed tearfully to your father, was a baby who loved me. And after a whopping three pushes, there you were. You opened your mouth and began to scream. I don’t think you stopped without a boob in your mouth for a solid year after that.

I couldn’t have been happier.

You showed me what unconditional love felt like. It was the first time I’d experienced that type of love, and it made me whole in ways I didn’t know were broken.

So to you, my second son, the one who has made me whole, I wish you the very happiest of happy birthdays.

Love,

Mommy

I got an IM from my friend Kat yesterday. That, in and of itself isn’t particularly noteworthy – I get IM’s from such good, clean chaps and lasses as “bigdick764” and “babiecherie73” who are kind enough to direct me to their websites where I can “see more pictures.”

Kat, however, isn’t a spammer. Or, at least I don’t think she is. I mean, I went to Seattle or one of those other states that aren’t Chicago to visit her and her daughter and she didn’t LOOK like a spammer. But I guess she could’ve Sharpied my back while with a website name or something – I didn’t look.

Anyway.

Yesterday, her IM said something to the effect of, “OMG I MISSES OF YOU.” Which sounds like improper English, but compared to the shit I normally IM, it’s practically the Queen’s English. I responded in turn, I too, missed of her.

“Can you believe it?” She screeched through my computer.

“What?” I asked, clearly distracted by dancing kitty videos and the proper spelling of “Sharpie.”

“I’m thirty and I’m working as a photographer!” She announced.

Holy.

Shit.

“Can you believe it? We MADE it!” She continued.

I sat there, stunned.

I hadn’t thought about how far we’d come – I was too busy keeping up with the day-to-day life and dramaz of Your Aunt Becky.

I met Kat when our babies – who look shockingly like sisters – were very small. Out of the blue, she IM’d me to tell me that she’d caught a grammatical error on my recentest blog post. While I’m normally annoyed by that – I mean, you’ve only caught ONE error? – Kat was fairly charming.

We became fast friends during a time in my life that I’d never quite felt so alone; so worthless, so miserable. I’d created this life for myself – 3 kids, 2 dogs, a house, a husband, and I’d never been more alone. I’d always known I would “do something” after I popped out the kids, but the unexpected crush of PTSD following Mimi’s birth made seeing the world as it was almost impossible.

Birthing a sick baby is one of the most isolating experiences I’ve been through – and Kat understood it. Her Avi is mere days apart from my Mimi, and while Avi was not born ill, Kat understood why it was hard for me to even walk outside some days. Days like that, she prayed for me. I’ve never understood people who were offended by that sort of thing – when someone prays for me, I find it an unexpected kindness.

She and I were both miserably trying to eke out a life for ourselves – she as a photog and me as a writer. I was consumed with writing a book – it was the only way I could see lending some legitimacy to my life; something I desperately craved – while she worked tirelessly overnights and on weekends to beef up her portfolio.

The months blew by us, both working desperately to “make it” and prove our worth to the outside world. Life happened around us. The publishing market crashed. Kat got laid off from her day job. We both scuttled around to reform our plans.

While my daughter grew and thrived, kicking her diagnosis in the ass, as she met and surpassed her every milestone, Kat’s husband, the father of her child, who was 27 years old, had a stroke while they slept. As doctors searched high and low to try and understand what had happened and why, Kat spent her days and nights alongside her husband, guiding him through rehab and therapy. She slept at the hospital on one of those uncomfortable chairs with their daughter, Amelia’s clone, Avi.

The diagnosis was a long time coming – Alpha-One Antitrypsin Deficiency – and when it did, it wasn’t good. It’s a rare genetic condition that has no cure – only management of the symptoms.

As she reeled with this news, her husband had an incurable genetic condition, the bad news kept coming – her daughter, my Mimi’s clone, she had Alpha-One Antitrypsin Deficiency as well.

It was my turn to pray. And I haven’t stopped. Kat saw me through some of the worst times of my life, and now, I’ve done the same for her.

And somehow, through all the bullshit, all of the drama, all of the other shit, Kat and I have emerged on the other side. We’re not the same people we once were, but who is?

Kat’s a full-time photog now. And I’m, well, I’m a writer. It seemed only appropriate that I learned yesterday that the book I contributed an essay to is now available on pre-order. It’s not my book, but it’s a book. And my words are in it. More importantly than any vain book ideas, I founded an (almost) non-profit organization for other people to tell their stories. I’ve used my nursing degree to create resources to help people learn about the things they’ve been through.

We’ve both come so far.

I can barely wait to see where we’ll go next.

Last night, I dragged The Daver and The Guy on my Couch outside to play with the two smaller kids – the big one, Ben, was off doing his chores. While Daver hid out in the tree-house with Amelia, Alex and The Guy on my Couch began to play a rousing game Alex called “Goomba,” which was, to the best of my knowledge, Dodge Ball with a Mario theme.

I sat nearby, weeding my rose garden, cursing myself for spraying anti-fungal shit on it too soon in the season, listening to them play.

After a half an hour, my eldest, Ben, burst out of the back door of the house like he was being chased by a particularly vicious washcloth.

“Oh. Em. Gee.” he sputtered, punctuation clearly evident in his speech, “THERE you are.”

I laughed at his vehemence, “Where’d you think we were?”

“I. DON’T. KNOW.” He staccato-ed out.

“Did you think we’d been abducted by alien ghosts or something?” I asked playfully.

“Mom,” he looked at me, hand on his hip, dead serious. “I’m SO over ghosts.”

I giggled.

He went over and got on the swing-set as Daver took Amelia up to bed. (Big) Ben and Alex continued to play their bizarre game, giving each other 1-Up’s whenever they’d get hit with the ball. Dave soon joined me on the patio, my roses long weeded.

“I can’t believe you’re going to spoil my kids,” Ben semi-hollered from the swings.

Without missing a beat, I replied, “It’s called payback, my son.”

(He’s referring to a conversation I had with him threeish years ago wherein I told him how excited I was to spoil his kids when he got older. I listed out, in no particular order, all of the various ways I’d planned on spoiling his kids rotten. He finds it hilarious.)

(I’ve learned, for those of you playing along at home, that certain kids on the autistic spectrum will vividly remember conversations and events that occurred many years ago and bring them up in conversations as though they happened yesterday. I only wish he were so dedicated to remembering to wash his hands after cleaning up the cat boxes)

He hollered happily, “Oh MOM! You can’t give my kids candy all the time!”

“We won’t,” Daver teased. “We’ll do pizza too. Lots of pizza.”

“Oh DAD,” Ben giggled before he yelled, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”

“Uncle Ben will buy them tons of video games, too,” The Guy on my Couch chimed in. “Especially the kinds you don’t want them to play.”

“BIG BEN,” my son hollered, laughing so hard he nearly toppled off the swing, “NO! YOU CAN’T DO THAT.”

“Before you drop your kids off, I’ll buy them each a five pound bag of sugar and dump a can of Mountain Dew in it,” I contained. “I’ll give ’em that to drink before you pick them up!”

“What if my wife doesn’t like that?” Ben giggled, still swinging.

“I will be the one choosing your wife for you, Ben,” I said, as sternly as I could. Dave and Big Ben burst out laughing, “THAT’S gonna go over well,” Daver said.

“Sorry I can’t date you,” Big Ben chimed in, “My Mom says your name is stupid – and I can’t date girls with stupid names.”

The laughter woke up the birds trying to sleep in the big pine tree in my backyard.

“Okay,” my son said, still laughing, “What if my wife doesn’t want kids?”

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “You can BUY kids off eBay. Or the gypsies.”

He laughed and laughed and laughed.

“When I grow up, I’m going to work at Band Back Together dot Com with you guys. And then I’ll tell the REAL story,” my son countered.

“We got editors for that sorta thing, Boy,” The Guy On My Couch (Big Ben) bantered.

Back and forth we lobbed it until it grew dark and the wind began howling, indicating that it was, at long last, bedtime for kids.

“Alex,” my son said conspiratorially to his brother as they walked into the house together, “be careful. Mom might make you buy kids.”

“I want a Yoshi – not babies,” Alex replied.

Touche, my (second) son.

Touche.

In an odd twist, I am taking the day off. You’d think, “Aunt Becky, didn’t you just have two days off?” And the answer would be, “Bwahahahahahahahaha! I got three crotch parasites who, unlike OUR parents before us who’s answer to ‘I’m booooored,” was to boot us outside and lock the door, I can’t stand the way they stare at me through the windows until I let them back in. So I played with them instead.”

That meant that I was introduced to those stupid Crayola colored bubbles which are like kid crack and yet, such a bad, bad idea. Just trust me on this one. Colored bubbles = no bueno.

Today, I’m going to go and venture out into the real world, where people don’t speak in hashtags and LOL Speak. Which, also = no bueno.

So I leave you with this, a copy of my newest edition of MS word:

It writes letterz n shit, yo.

Also? The Band Back Together Auction is live. And here is a link to read the site. It’s pretty rad.

Many, many moons ago, before I was Your Aunt Becky, I was Nurse Becky. However, Nurse Becky had a problem – namely, she didn’t want to be Nurse Becky.

(okay, that’s me being done talking about myself in the third person)

No, I’d given up my medical school dreams for a young lad I’d indelicately booted out of my crotchal regions at the tender age of 21. Me, not him. That would be pretty weird – pushing a 21-year old outta my vagina. Mental picture of a full-grown frat boy (including crappy shamrock tattoo from one drunken night in Cancun) climbing out of my vagina is full of the awesome, though.

The biggest problem I had was that I had no desire whatsoever to actually BE a nurse. Which came to light day one of nursing school. I held on, worked my ass off, and graduated at the top of my class, hoping something – anything – would change my mind.

Of course, it didn’t. The same way I’d make a terrible teacher because, hello, it’s not as though I should personally be ministering to small, impressionable minds. Parents would take one look at me and run for the hills quicker than you can say, “bong water.”

So there I was – freshly graduated, diploma in hand, mind not magically changed to, “Imma let you finish – then Imma administering you some morphine – can I have a drag?”

Not the image of someone who should be giving you drugs. Legally, I mean.

Blithely, I applied – and got – a job working on a cardiac floor at a hospital in Elmhurst. That lasted six weeks before I quit. I’d been told that the floor I was on was one that “made a lot of people ditch nursing a career.” Apparently, I chose even more poorly than I’d thought.

When we moved to our current house, faced with the prospect of dueling mortgages (this was almost immediately before the housing market bubble burst), it was decided that I’d go back to work. After spending a few months sitting alone in our condo with a small autistic boy all day, I was more than happy to get back on the (work) horse and ride that fucker all the fuck over the place.

This time, I knew better – I wasn’t going back to a hospital – oh no. That shit was for the GOOD nurses out there. Instead, I chose a desk job working for a major insurance company. I’d be approving certain claims as well as finding ways to extend the benefits for people who were using in-home hospice.

Now hospice, if you don’t know, is for people who are no longer pursing active treatment of their terminal illness. Hospice is designed to let you die with some dignity at home (or in the hospital) as comfortably – and pain free – as possible. Hospice is also one of the last options for people who are terminally ill, which means that most people don’t stay in hospice for very long before they pass.

However, some people had certain hospice benefits provided through my company – but the terms and conditions were, as many people forget, set by the employer – and some of their hospice benefits were way weird. So it was my job to look for loopholes, draft care plans, and show the insurance company as well as the employer that being in at-home hospice was far cheaper than being hospitalized.

It wasn’t as glamorous a job as, say, BLOGGING, but I liked it – I was actually helping people in a way I knew how – by finding and exploiting the system.

But elevator conversations always turned sour:

Someone Else: “What do you do for a living?”

Nurse Becky (prays they’ll stop questioning there): “I’m a nurse.”

Someone Else (warmly): “My [insert relation here] is a nurse! That’s so wonderful! You’re a very special person for doing all that you do. Where do you work?”

Nurse Becky (mumbles): “[Company that shares a name with an airline]”

Someone Else: “Oh, FUCK YOU! That’s a fucking BULLSHIT company. I fucking HATE them – you know they denied my claim for a routine appendectomy? HOW THE HELL COULD YOU WORK FOR SUCH EVIL CORPORATE BASTARDS? You’re one sick puppy, you know that?”

Nurse Becky (mumbles): “Well, I’m one of the good guys – I look for ways to….”

Someone Else: “Fuck you and fuck your mother for birthing you, you soulless bitch.”

(storms off)

Nurse Becky (crestfallen, to herself): “I gotta remember to say I’m an astronaut or something.”

Eventually, the soulless heart-slurping company switched my job to that would primarily involve cold-calling people and giving them health examinations over the phone – not my cup of tea. This, at the same time I’d found out I was pregnant with Alex and couldn’t stop yarfing everywhere meant that it was time for me to mosey on down to greener – nicer – pastures. Like blogging. And wearing ass grooves into my couch.

At least then, only my couch could really bitch at me.

I was born jaundice – some kind of issue with blood incompatibility and got to hang out under those wicked baby sun-tan lights for awhile (I hope my mother was sensible enough to give me some wee baby Ray Bans) before I got to go home and annoy the shit out of my family with my lilting wails.

At my six-week well-baby checkup, I had an ear infection.

It’s been like that ever since. Excepting the Ray Bans – never owned a pair. And I stopped crying and started yelling – it’s more effective.

Wailing non-withstanding, I’m the Sick One around these here parts. I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t something wrong with me*. I was plagued by ear infections as a tot. When I grew out of those, it became strep throat – which I had at least once every three weeks until I turned 14 and got my tonsils out (this was back in the day when they didn’t put in ear tubes or lop out tonsils very often). By the time those puppies came out, they were necrotic – er….dead. Like for reals.

You’d think that by lopping off my dead tonsils, I’d somehow get an immune system – I mean, why else would you go through that particular type of agony?

(answer: Vicodin)

I try not to talk about my shitballs immune system very often, because the conversation invariably goes like this:

Anyone Else: “How are you?”

Aunt Becky: “UGH. I’m sick.”

Anyone Else: “AGAIN?”

Aunt Becky: “No, I mean I’m STILL sick from the last time I told you I was sick.”

Anyone Else: “Wait – that was like 6 months ago.”

Aunt Becky: “Yup.”

OR THIS:

Anyone Else: “How are you?”

Aunt Becky: “Sick.”

Anyone Else: “You should try standing on your head 18 hours a day – my friend’s friend’s barber’s wife did that and she’s feeling better than ever.”

————

I get a couple of days a month that I’m in decent shape, but most of the time, my walking, talking, breathing, pissing, moaning petri dishes of children bring me home whatever lovely virus is currently circulating around. I invariably catch it and am laid up for longer than anyone should be.

And you know what, Pranksters? It’s damn depressing. I *loathe* being sick. I’d gnaw off my ear if it meant that I’d grow an immune system.

Rather than sitting around moaning about it – it sucks, we all know it – I’m trying something new.

I took my happy crappy ass to the local health food store and picked up some motherfucking herbs and homeopathic shit. I figure, modern medicine isn’t doing a whole lot for me, I may as well try something else.

I’ve been drinking gallons of tea that tastes remarkably like garden clippings, downing all sorts of vitamins and supplements that make my pee electric yelor low, and trying to spend some time away from the computer. I’m one small toke away from bathing in Patchouli Oil while listening to my Grateful Dead LP’s.

So far? I’ve gotten a chest cold. And my pee is hilariously colored.

But I’m willing to try anything**.

So, Pranksters, give me your tips and tricks. Tell me all about the weird shit you do to keep healthy.

Should I bathe in the blood of vestal virgins (assuming I know what “vestal” means, because I don’t)? Should I sacrifice some goats? Find a voodoo priestess to take this curse from me? Sleep with a raw egg under my bed? Perform some weird black magic to get this evil eye off my fucking back?

*BESIDES my sanity, naturally. That’s been gone for years.

**I will not renege on my New Years Resolution to “not become Lil Wayne” even if it means I’ll be healthier. Probably.

I remember when I got a pager. The thing was gold, tiny, and worn by a nice white suburban girl who was all Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster. I think it increased my street cred by at least -37 points. (those are NEGATIVE points, yo). If the thing played music, it’d have chosen with, “Up Town Girl.” It was THAT cliche.

Apparently, I’ll never be, “Becky From Tha Block.” Which is prolly good – I don’t want J Lo or Jennifer Lopez or whatever her name is now to be all, “bitch you be stealing mah shit,” as she smacked me in the face with stacks of fat cash. This is how I envision it – I’d probably just get a cease/desist letter from her lawyers, which, SO not fun.

Anyway, back when I got the pager, my friends would page me and I’d have to scramble to find 35 cents to call them back (like I was ever HOME or anything) Usually this was our conversation:

Aunt Becky: “Hey, what up fool?”

My Friend: “What up, stinky-butt?”

Aunt Becky: “Whatcha doing?”

My Friend: “Nothing. Wanna hang out?”

Aunt Becky: “Sure! I’m doing XYZ – come join us.”

My Friend: “Only if we can go whip donuts at old people.*”

Aunt Becky: “Whaaa? Okay.”

Then we’d scamper off into the night, merrily pranking our way through life.

I proudly showed it to my mom one day. And by “proudly” I mean that I said, “hey, can you pull over? I gotta make a call.”

She shook her head as she pulled over and allowed me to make my very unimportant call. When I popped back into the car, she sighed deeply and said, “I don’t know why you do that.”

My mother, always oblique, confused me, so I waited for her to go on. I knew a rant was a-brewing.

“You’ve gotten this thing that connects you to the world – why the hell would you want that? Don’t you want times of your life where you’re unreachable?”

No, no I didn’t. And I told her as much.

She shook her head, “Someday, you may feel differently.”

I was pretty sure she was full of shit. Until recently. Recently, I’ve been kinda digging on the time I’m able to unplug. I’ve got just about every sort of social media outlet, just about every type of communication device you can think of – usually multiple accounts. Therein likes the beauty (read: rub) of being the founder of a site that staffs upwards of 100 volunteers (that would be The Band Back Together Project) – someone always needs me for something.

Generally it doesn’t bother me. I love what I do, I’m thrilled to do it, and I’m over-the-moon that I’ve found such an amazing group of people to work with. I know how blessed I am.

But damns, it hurts to say this.

(small voice) My mother was right.

(somewhere she’s rolling her eyes at me, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction)

There are times that I simply don’t want to be dealing with anything but whatever is directly in front of me.

The worst part? My mother was right BEFORE her time – BEFORE email became the standard method of communication. Before The Twitter expected that you reply to each! and! every! response!

Before the world became so fucking urgent.

Sometimes, it’s nice to stop and remember that life? It’s not always such Serious Business.

Sometimes – it’s worth it to stop and smell the tulips**.

*still don’t know what that means.

**I don’t think tulips smell. But DAMNS they’re pretty.