HI MOM!
(I am SO busted!)

song du jour: Night & Day, Ella Fitzgerald

mood: crimson

Among most of the bloggers I know is the running joke that the day one's family finds one's blog, said blog will be pulled off the web, available forevermore only briefly, when and where cached. So imagine if you will, all you artistic people, the exact shade of red my face turned tonight when my mother said, "I googled your name. Do you know what comes up?!?"

Yes, my mom found my blog. She claims not to have read it, and since I was picking up Skyler from her house after I finished teaching, I know quite well she couldn't have had much time to, nor, since she reminded me that she is either always working or playing with the shorter younger version of the man of her dreams, is she very likely to have much time to read it in the near future. Still, like any good 5 year old, housed in the body of a so called grown up, I began mentally scanning my mind for which blog posts might, uh, disappear, but I'm strangely happy to say the answer is none. At least until she has some vacation time on her hands. ;-)

However perfectionistic and obsessed with work and success I appear, believe me, I pale in comparison to my mother, and so she questioned, as I always knew she would, the wisdom of potentially tarnishing my image with blogging. I just smiled and asked her if her mother approved of everything she'd done. We both laughed, knowing that my grandmother never even approved of my mother working outside the home, which is so very sad, because had my mother never pursued the careers she has, hundreds of children and adults would have had infinitely less happy and fulfilling lives. - And I'm not sucking up, Mom. It's how I've always felt...and I know I just started a sentence with 'and.' ...and that you would have put "" around "and" instead of ' ' (I have no idea where to put the period in that sentence.)

Joking about our families finding our blogs is just another metaphor for the feeling we get around the table at holidays: "If these people really knew me...knew what I'm about...knew what I believe...knew my dreams and aspirations...knew what I did last Saturday night...they'd never speak to me again, think I was nuts, tell me I'm crazy. All in all, we fear rejection. Being the only child of a single parent has always left me with the dualistic sensation that my mother knows me better than anyone and yet not as well as strangers, who glimpse into my wild and crazy world via this medium of conscious self publication, and I often wonder if one day Skyler will feel the same way about me. It's all part of this wild ride called parenting. One thing for certain, my mother may not approve of everything I do, but she is never surprised by anything I do!

My mother is also Queen of Time Management, and so if I complain about my lack of time do to anything, there will undoubtedly be a mention of this space, but I've always joked this space is my virtual water cooler. For the self employed, work from home, solo parent, there are no coffee breaks, no meetings, no lunches with colleagues, or even usually adults for that matter, and so if I were going to give into the need to justify the time I've spent writing, I would say that an extrovert can only be a good listener for so long before she will explode some time somewhere. That space-time is here.

In the end, our actions or lack of them are based on our authenticity, whether we assert it boldly for all to see or tentatively push it out there for those, who are curious. Even when we believe we are too afraid to show who we are, we still do. All the energy hiding our real selves at holiday dinners is wasted, for it took me more decades than I'd care to admit, but one day in the middle of the creamed corn, I had the presence of mind to notice that everyone except Skyler, three whole generations, felt the same damned way. So my take on Middle Eastern politics, my love and criticism of integral world, my crazy tales of dates gone wrong, my passion for Egyptology that I assume will put everyone to sleep but that amazingly gets many positive comments, the salsa saga and the tales of wearing the wrong thing under a dress the night I fell, even my brazen posts about breasts stay put for now. Perhaps one day my fame as torch thrower chick extraordinaire will change all that, but I'm actually quite proud of this space, the lessons I've learned creating it, and the thousands of visits that last more than 20 minutes per post.

Good night, Mom. Yes, I'm going to bed now. Yes, I ate. Yes, the doors are locked. You have a good day tomorrow too! I love you.
:-)