Me: (returning from my 7-11 pilgrimage wherein I purchased a Double Big Gulp of Diet Coke) “This Gigantic Diet Coke shall continue preserving myself from the inside out.

Me: “I like Britney Spears.”

Me: “Oh, I see the garbage has been taken away, I shall bring these recycling bins inside my garage so that I may fill them with more recycling stuffs.”

Me: “I’m Captain Motherfucking Recycling.”

Me: “I can’t carry three bins at once.”

Me: “I like donuts, too.”

Me: “I’m very lazy and do not wish to make a second trip down my twenty-foot driveway to carry in a bin.”

Me: “OOOOH PURPLE CAR.”

Me: “I shall use my foot to move the third recycling bin into the garage where I shall fill it with more stuffs.”

Me: “SHINY THINGS MAKE ME HAPPY.”

Me: “This is a BRILLIANT plan. I shall have to exert no more effort than I have to.”

Me: “HAHAHAHA. CREEPING PHLOX SOUNDS LIKE AN STD.”

Me: “I certainly admire these wooden-soled shoes that I am wearing.”

Me: (kick, kick, kick the recycling bin)

Me: “HAHAHAHA. CREEPING PHLOX.”

Me: (kick, kick, kick, CRACK)

Me: “OUCH MOTHERFUCKING OUCH.”

I knew from a very young age what I was going to be when I grew up. While the other kids focused their sights upon flying into space or fighting fires, in kindergarten I neatly drew a picture of myself, one that my mother has framed somewhere, that says, “Rebecca Sherrick” “Obstetrician.”

Because that was what I planned to be.

Would it have worked out if I hadn’t popped Benjamin from my nether regions, a pregnancy unexpected, a life forever changed by the furious meeting of two gametes?

I honestly can’t say. Who can see what might-have-been when what-is is right in front of our faces?

When I went back to school, a single mother with an autistic baby slung ’round her hip, I re-enrolled (which is highly UNLIKE Rick Rolling) as a nursing student, which meant two things:

a) None of the credits I’d obtained during my brief stint as a Bio/Chem major were accepted and I had to re-enroll in different, easier versions of similar classes.

2) I had to come to terms with letting go of a dream I’d had as long as I can recall.

The first year of pre-req’s was heaven for me. I’d already completed the more complicated and challenging versions of the same classes, so I quickly rose to the top of the class. I was chosen to TA for numerous science classes, putting me smack-dab back into the lab.

I couldn’t have been happier.

I left my first class as Student Nurse Aunt Becky in tears. I’m sure I looked half-insane, walking to the train, my bag full of books I didn’t give a shit about, openly sobbing the kind of ugly cry that comes from a broken heart.

Rather than entrench myself in sorrow any longer than I had to, I simply made new plans. I’d re-enroll in school and become a microbiologist once my son was old “enough.” I’d juggled single parenthood and schooling as much as I ever wanted to and I intended to see at least some fraction of the kid’s childhood.

I did and I have.

Nursing career handily abandoned as, for the first time ever, I was able to stay home with my son, things didn’t go quite as expected. The quirks I still found so charming made for lonely company as he preferred to live inside his head to being with his mother. Coming off an over-worked, beat-my-A’s-with-more-A’s high, I had hours upon hours each day to fill.

With something. Anything to make my life feel worth living again.

I obsessed over the grout between bathroom tiles – which, no matter how many toothbrushes I wore to nubs- could never quite come clean, my son happily watched the same video about the planets over and over. I waited for something, anything to tell me what the fuck I was supposed to do next.

“Why don’t you start a blog?” The Daver asked after I tearfully wept, once again, that “I hadn’t worked my ass off to sit around and wonder which fucking brand of dishsoap was better.”

I couldn’t have thought of anything I’d like to have done less than blogging. I’d never so much kept a journal, so blogging, writing down my thoughts so that someone, somewhere could be equally bored by them?

Fuck no.

Until I decided to do it.

Learning that I could write things that didn’t involve this:

was like learning I could breathe underwater. All this time that I tried to find meaning in the bathroom tiles had been for nothing. Because I had this ability and I could use it.

And now I do.

I’ve spent nearly four years here at Mommy Wants Vodka, and three before that at Mushroom Printing, telling stories. Some good, some awful, most mediocre. I’ve used my words to let you into my world. To see things as I do. To touch each of you reading these words in some way, even if it’s a disgusted “God, this chick sucks.”

The words I have written, the friends I have made, the connections I’ve foraged has been so much more than I’d anticipated. I have been beyond blessed.

And yet, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about going back into academia. To return to those glorious calculations and those beautiful microscopes, leaving the world of words squarely in my past. I wonder if that’s even possible; to shut one beloved door so firmly. I don’t have an answer.

So I’m left wondering: is this my legacy? A few pixels blinking on your computer screen? Words turned into sentences turned into paragraphs?

Moreover, is this enough?

Aunt Becky: “Lookit my garden! I planted it full of things that sound like venereal diseases!”

The Daver: (laughs)

Aunt Becky: “You’re not going to melt in the sunlight out here, are you? I know you’re allergic to air.”

The Daver: “I’ll dart back inside when I feel I’m getting crispy.”

Aunt Becky (sighs happily): “Isn’t it pretty?”

The Daver: “Yes. But I feel like it needs…something.”

Aunt Becky: (stares at him)

The Daver: “Like an accent or something. It all looks so random.”

Aunt Becky: (stares at him)

The Daver: “You know, an accent.”

Aunt Becky: “Like a clown that pops out with his penis dancing to the YMCA?”

The Daver: “Well, that or a rock or something.”

Aunt Becky: “A ROCK?”

The Daver: “Yeah, or something.”

Aunt Becky: “I’ll get to work on the flamboyant clown.”

—————

(at the greenhouse)

Aunt Becky: “They have accent rocks, Daver.”

The Daver: “Nice.”

Aunt Becky: “But they all say lame shit like, ‘if you weren’t my mother, you’d be my best friend.'”

The Daver: (stares into his iPhone, playing Angry Birds)

Aunt Becky: “I want an accent rock that says, ‘GO THE FUCK AWAY.'”

The Daver: “That’d be classy.”

Aunt Becky: “Or ‘Shut Your Whore Mouth.'”

The Daver: “Even classier.”

Aunt Becky: “Accent rocks are bullshit.”

(time passes)

Aunt Becky: “What about a gigantic cross with a life-sized Jesus on it?”

The Daver: “No.”

Aunt Becky: “You’re bullshit.”

The Daver: (laughs)

Aunt Becky: “I guess you better get to work, hiring the flamboyant penis-dancing clown to live in our front garden, huh?”

The Daver: “Guess so.”

Gee.

Thanks, Amelia.

P.S. I’m writing you out of the will for this.

P.P.S. HA! Like I have a will.

P.P.P.S. I’m actually giving your inheritance to out of work actors so they can howl at my graveside.

P.P.P.P.S. No, I’m not kidding.

Well, at least it’s not me ruining THIS summer. Other summers, well, that was all me.

When I was a kid, it was all, “DON’T TOUCH THIS, OR IT’LL BLOW YOUR HAND OFF” followed by a brief burst of light, a huge bang, and a ton of smoke. THOSE were the good old days, even if they lasted mere seconds and scared me into pissing my pants.

But now, I can’t find a sparkler to save my own skin. I can’t yell at my children to “STEP AWAY OR YOU’LL DIE” because there’s nothing with which they can lose even a single leg. Some call this progress. I call it bullshit.

It is my God Given Right as an American to shoot my own fucking eye out.

Sure, you wouldn’t know that fireworks were actually banned by the amount going off in my neighborhood for the past week or two, but that only further enrages me. How could I have been so stupid as to NOT drive over to a neighboring state for some dangerous fun? I’m sure Missouri isn’t quite as big an asshole as Illinois.

(Dear Missouri, Let’s make out. Love, AB)

Considering our new state motto, “We Impeach Our Corrupt Governors,” one might THINK that Illinois had Fun on speed dial, but without fireworks, it’s simply untrue.

Sure, I can still buy those stupid things you can throw at the ground that make a big SNAP! noise, but those are kinda piddly bullshit, you know? What kid is all “LOOKIT THIS, I CAN MAKE A BANG?” How can I create ACTUAL MEMORIES of acrid gunsmoke and brief flashes of awesome?

Simply put, I cannot.

Until, I suppose, I buy a semi-automatic weapon and use THAT motherfucker instead of fireworks.

That’ll learn you, Illinois, for being such an assmunch.

P.S. Despite my pleas, The Target won’t stock the lethal form of Jarts. I call bullshit.

Hey Aunt Becky!

First off, I’d like to say that I think you are an amazing, hilarious, smart, talented person. I’m not trying to suck up, I really do think this.

Secondly, my question is kind of simple, but I just don’t know what to do.

See, I’m probably one of your younger readers. As in, I can’t get my license right now because I’m not quite old enough. I am also depressed with borderline OCD, self-mutilation problems, and struggling with an eating disorder. As a teenage girl, most people just chalk all of this up to teenage angst and silly attention-whoring.

To be honest, they might be right. I’ve been getting better, slowly, but it’s difficult. Anyway, I’m just lost. You see, my older brother is going off to college in a few months and I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. I’ve had to deal with(and still do) years of emotional and sometimes physical abuse. I have an extremely difficult time talking about all of this, even to an anonymous place like Band Back Together.

Anyway, with my brother leaving, and more issues, I feel like I’m spiraling back down where I used to be. I don’t want to go back to the place I was in. I just don’t know what to do. Talking to people, is pointless, as they just tell me that my life isn’t that bad, so why am I depressed?

I realize this is long and rambling and kind of pointless, but I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to pull myself back out of this…shithole(excuse my french) that I’m stuck in. What do I do? Thank you for reading all of this.

-Stuck in CS

Oh Prankster, you’re breaking my heart.

First, you’re not an attention whore. People who suffer from mental illness – especially self-injury – often are told that it’s just an “attention getting thing.”

They couldn’t be more wrong or more dangerous. Self-injury is a symptom of disease, just like high blood sugar is a symptom of The Diabeetus. Mental illness is no different than The Diabeetus.

I’m sorry that no one takes you seriously, because I a) understand and b) think it’s bullshit anyone else doesn’t. Mental illness is a serious disorder and should be taken as such.

Clearly, you need to find someone better, who is not bullshit, to talk to. Do you have a guidance counselor at school (shut your whore mouth, I loved my counselor) that doesn’t suck? Will your family listen? A family friend? Because you need to get into treatment of some type.

I’m going to give you some phone numbers that I’d like you to call:

Boys Town National Hotline:

1-800-448-3000

Self-Injury Foundation
1-800-334-HELP

Teen Contact:

972-233-8223

You don’t have to be a dude for the Boys Town hotline, and I’m certain they’ll have some valuable information and insight to give you.

If you are still being abused, please call this number to report it: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) then push 1 to talk to a hotline counselor.

Prankster, you’re not alone, and we’re all rooting for you. I know how hard life can be sometimes (boy, do I ever) and I wish I’d had someone to talk to me during those turbulent teen years. I hope that you do write for Band Back Together, that you tell your story over there so it can help both you and others like you.

If I could tell my teen self one thing, it would be this: “it all passes.” Because it does. You’ll get through this because I can tell by your email that you’re a fighter. And anyone who doesn’t take you or your problems seriously because you’re a teenager is bullshit. Fuck them.

Keep reaching out. Grab the edge of that spiral and make it your bitch. You can get through this. I wish like hell it was easier for you.

Sending you love and light and a big, fat, hug,

Aunt Motherfucking Becky

———-

Pranksters, please help me help this girl. Give her some love and/or advice.

1) Oh PHEW! I’m relieved to note the chain email has not, in fact, died. How ELSE would I get those spangly angels praying at me?

2) Thank GOD The Facebook warned me about that crazed drug addict sticking needles under the gas pump to infect people with AIDS! I thought he disappeared back in the 90’s when those chain email forwards died off, but you know, I guess he’s back! Thanks, The Facebook!

3) “Hey, what ANGEL/Flavor of Coffee/Penis Size am I?”

4) You’re right. I do want a pink cow for my fake farm!

5) I should really email blast all my friends, asking them to vote for me. They’ll appreciate that.

6) Wow. This is great. So happy that I got tagged in THE WORST picture of me EVER. Now people are asking me if I have a penis. Isn’t that funny?

7) Phew. I’m so glad that The Facebook is trying to kill off blogging.

8 ) Did you know that breast cancer is caused by dioxins* in my water bottles? Because it totally is. The Facebook Said So. The internet NEVER lies.

9) I love logging into to a separate email so I can respond to my Facebook email that’s probably monitored by Mark Zuckerberg. It makes it so much less confusing to have 37 separate email addresses.

10) Oh now THAT’S HILARIOUS. Look, all the girls are posting their BRA color/where there purse is (none and I have no fucking clue) to make the boys think about The Sex! I should play along.

*plastics do not contain dioxins, no matter what that pinhead Sheryl Crow says.

Things I Have Thought While On The Facebook:

*sobs* WHERE’S TOM FROM MYSPACE? He was EVERYONE’S friend.

I saw it in his eyes – a brief glimpse of deep sorrow – before he began dictating to his nurse the clamps and implants he’d need to fix the encephalocele atop my daughter’s head. It was the same deep sorrow I saw in the eyes of every person in the waiting room at the neurosurgeon’s office realized that Amelia Harks was, in fact, not me, but a tiny baby in a carseat, no bigger than my arm.

In that brief moment, the neurosurgeon became human, not some arrogant doctor, about to saw into my daughter’s tiny head.

Now that tiny baby, no bigger than my arm, is a toddler with an attitude so reminiscent of my own that it’s hard for me to remember that they are one and the same.

As she grows, the scar does too. What once looked relatively small now encompasses much of head. Her curls, always in a halo, cover it, so I don’t receive the same sorrowful looks I once did. For that, I am grateful. For if I did, if I had to explain those turbulent first years of her life, I don’t know if I could stop the sobs.

People, well-meaning people, tell me the scar is “barely noticeable” that they can “hardly see it,” and I always thank them on her behalf. Inwardly, however, I wonder if they know how that hurts.

It would not matter to me if the scar somehow became invisible – although she might appreciate it some day – because it’s always there for me. The scar haunts me.

Most days, I am able to work through it, reminding myself that she, my warrior daughter, is here and that she is perfect – scars and all.

There are other days, though, that the limitless well of deep sorrow I once saw reflected in the neurosurgeon’s eyes, threatens to swallow me whole. The tears, hot and fast, course down my face and I am powerless.

I scoop that toddler, once a baby no bigger than my arm, up into my arms and I weep. Confused, she touches my tears with her tiny finger and asks, “Mama sad?”

“Yes, Baby,” I choke out. “Mama’s sad.”

And the three of them – flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood – climb atop me to squeeze the Sads out. It’s only then, with the pressure of three squirmy bodies on my chest, all elbows and knees now, that I finally feel whole again.

And I wonder, as they scamper down, screaming and chasing each other about the house, my tears drying to a hard crust on my face, the well of sorrow closing for the moment, how I got to be so lucky.

It’s taken me four years of painstaking work to get my house to look as though we’re not a family of squatters who just happened upon a house and moved in. Hell, I’m just now trying to get my downstairs painted from the hideous green that our previous owners decided was “soothing.”

It’s not fucking soothing. It’s INFURIATING.

(I’m also colorblind, so while it may APPEAR a nice color to you, it looks like cat shit smeared on the walls)

Anyhow, one of the first things I did, beyond repair our hideous downstairs bathroom was to start work on the landscaping.

Now you probably don’t think “landscaping” and “Aunt Becky” should appear in the same sentence, and you would be right. I nearly broke both ankles using a pickaxe last summer, to a chorus of laughter from everyone else involved.

(shut your whore mouth)

See what I had to work with here?

This summer has, thus far, been devoted to watching cat videos and replacing the stuff I ripped out last summer. So I’m outside a lot.

Last week, before I left for Assville, I was outside, planting some roses in the rain, humming the Pina Colada song (I always replace “pina” with “penis” because I am a classy broad) and I remembered something stored previously in the dark, dank recesses of my mind.

Those Geese.

Well, okay, I thought they were ducks, until The Twitter pointed out I was wrong. The Twitter is good for that.

But anyway, I was all, “self, whatever HAPPENED to those stupid ducks that people used to dress up in wee clothing? The ones that I may or may not have stolen clothing off of when I was an asshole teenager.”

I honestly couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen a goose in wee rainboots and that made me fairly stabbity. Not because I wanted to see one, mind you, but because geese are Of The Devil. Had they been otters – which rate high on the cuteness scale – I’d never have stolen their clothes.

But since the plaster geese seem to be extinct, I think it’s high time for something to replace it. ANOTHER animal for (old) people to dress up for the seasons.

And Pranksters, I’m thinking that what would sell like hotcakes are one of two items that I should probably get started on crafting immediately, if not sooner.

Don’t you want to PREORDER this guy in statue form?

Not convinced? Let me show you his wee clothes:

SEE?

Perfect for the holidays, Pranksters.

Now, Option Two is this Bad Boy:

You MAY have to include a note that says, “no this is not a vicious showerhead.”

But let’s see him in his clothes!

Oui! Oui! Oui! You can see the BASTILLE DAY Sea Lamprey has busted out the wine AND the adorability.

These motherfuckers are going to be selling like HOTCAKES. We should start preordering them IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner.

So that, perhaps Pranksters, will be how I finance the landscaping (and subsequent hospitalizations) I must do this summer. THAT is the way I can leave MY MARK on the world.

Statues.

Who wants in on this, Pranksters?

I was entirely shocked to find not a single Mountain Folk in Assville, NC, where I spent the weekend. I’d been hoping for some banjos, a dog named Blue, or perhaps, a fuckton of toothless yokels.

I saw none. I was mildly distressed by this.

In fact, Assville, NC, is a HIPPIE town. An EXPENSIVE Hippie Town. Who knew? My parents would have felt right at home.

(I did, however, eventually see a guy playing a banjo)

(that pretty much ruled)

Anyhow, I woke up Sunday morning and checked my email because I cannot possibly function if my email remains unchecked. I mean, what if TODAY is the day that House, MD calls me and begs me to write for his show?

My email was, as per usual, full of stupid sites whose email lists I cannot manage to remove myself from, and a curious thing. I had at least fifty new posts for Band Back Together. That’s, um, out of the ordinary. But, I congratulated myself, perhaps it was all the people I’d just MET. Maybe I had, in fact, strong-armed into writing for us and/or working WITH us.

So I clicked to see what the title of one of the posts was:

“The Many Benefits Related To Obtaining Superior Mortgages.”

FANCY. Also: SPAMMY.

I clicked through and saw that all of the fifty new posts were, in fact, spam. Well, that’s not so fancy. Spam users I’m used to. Spam posts? That’s a whole ‘nother ball game.

That put me in a not-so-sparkly mood.

As bloggers, we’re all familiar with spam. I currently have 500 spam comments that are awaiting my glistening eyes to sort through. That’s just from yesterday.

But Band Back Together is different than a personal blog because it’s not just my ass blathering away at you. See, everyone who posts must first create their own account – email, username, password – so really, it’s their blog too. Same goes for Mushroom Printing.

Spam users: joe@teethbrightening.com I expect. Spam posts? Not so much. But these posts just kept rolling in. I deleted over a hundred and thirty of them before installing a simple capcha for anyone registering. (It’s a math problem, not those stupid letters, because those letters are BULLSHIT.)

I was Furious George until I came across this gem in my inbox:

And then I felt my life was, in a word, complete.

Perhaps I should publish it. I’d bet that would help MORE than a few people.

————

I wrote this about Special Needs Parenting, over at Cafe Mom. You should read it.

————

What are you feeling ranty about, Pranksters?

(you can publish any snarky rants over at Mushroom Printing, too)