As you know, I’m a role model to my 17-year-old niece. Let me remind you again that I take this responsibility VERY seriously. This bond runs so deep between us that she even plans to attend my college alma mater.

Now, we don’t live in the same city, which is a bummer. Until my mother needs help with her computer, or is arguing with my dad, then living apart from family isn’t such a bummer. My niece and I are about three-and-a-half hours away from each other, but that doesn’t stop me from being an influence in her daily life, all thanks to Facebook.

I frequently visit my niece’s FB page to keep tabs on her, offer advice, and just plain lead her down the right path. Take my wall post from today as an example. It’s regarding her younger sister’s cat that I helped raise.

Heather: Tomorrow is Ratchet’s first birthday. I know you will plan something very special for him. And please, remember me, his foster mother, in your birthday gifts. (Thank god I didn’t have to breastfeed him!)

After I posted that, I realized I might have inadvertently discouraged her from breastfeeding. Sure, I’m relieved I didn’t breastfeed a cat, but that’s where it ends. I breastfed both of my boys for a year or more and absolutely loved it. Once the cracked nipples healed. And before they started biting my nipples. But in between those times, I loved it! I want to encourage my nieces to breastfeed (human children), not discourage them. So I went back and said this:

Heather: Not that there is anything wrong with breastfeeding. It’s really the best thing in the world for your children. Why, look how great mine are! They are wicked smart, and good-looking too. And despite myths, my boobs still look great. But breastfeeding cats? Well, that’s just weird.

I’m glad I cleared that up. I can sleep tonight.

But then? I saw this post of hers, which I’m sure is a quote she found somewhere:

Hey y’all!

If you can’t tell from the salutation, I’ve been to The Country again, the land of my roots. It’s been nothin’ but “ain’t” this and “y’all” that, and enough double negatives to make me cross-eyed.

Truly, this place is awesome. After three large glasses of wine.

Wine! You didn’t think I went on a weekend visit with family without my mandatory bottle of wine, did you? I may sound like an alcoholic, but fuck if I care, y’all. I’m just putting the FUN in dysFUNctional. So it’s a bottle of wine or estranged family.  Estranged, deranged, it all kind of rhymes anyway.

So I’ve turned this self-medicinal necessity into a bit of an adventure, actually. Every time I go, I experiment with a new bottle of wine. This particular trip was a French red that I won’t even attempt to pronounce, but it was the fanciest sounding wine over $10 at Wal-Mart and that’s why I bought it.

I hope learning I bought French wine at Wal-Mart conveys how deep of a necessity this mandatory bottle of wine is for me. Don’t judge me, but feel free to pity me in the way of wine store gift certificates. I was desperate and very short of time.

I prefer to buy my Trip Wine at Super Target. I feel slightly higher class when I do. I usually pick out merlots, pinot noirs, or just a table red…basically anything that isn’t Boones Farm…because I know my mother or sister won’t like it and that means I get the ENTIRE BOTTLE to myself.

Strategy, people. I gots it.

Oops, bad grammar. I apologize. I’m still in the process of detoxing. I’m waiting for the sound of commercial jets to erase the memory of redneck truck mufflers from my mind. Perhaps I should lick some concrete to speed things along. Maybe drive by yet another suburban neighborhood lot they cleared of all trees and vegetation, pausing to remember Payton running in that grassy, wooded lot, chasing butterflies.

“Look, mom!” he said Saturday night as we roasted hot dogs under an inky country sky. “The stars are all coming out, dot-by-dot!”

Quick, I better sniff exhaust fumes from my minivan and acclimate back to suburbia before not only depression sets in, but also insanity. I spent the entire three hour drive back thinking of ways I could turn my barren postage stamp backyard into six acres of wooded land, all through Lowe’s garden center.

I’m afraid I may need an suburban intervention before it’s too late.

To further prove there was probably a mix-up in the hospital nursery when I was born, my sister came for a short visit this weekend and she didn’t even attempt to hump my Le Creuset pots. I had them out on display and everything. Not even a glint of lust in her eye as I showed her my entire collection. I offered to let her touch it. Nothing. She didn’t care.

Also, she thinks the F word is unnecessary.

What the fuck?

Could it be any clearer that we aren’t blood relatives? I should demand a DNA test.

When she announced this insane idea about the F word, I spoke up and said, “I don’t know, sometimes an good F bomb is completely necessary to make things better.”

I said this with much authority because my 17-year-old niece was in the room and, remember, I’m a role model. I take that responsibility seriously.

In other news, we purchased new living room furniture and Parker would like you to know this is a national tragedy. The calamity went down like this:

Me: Children, we are purchasing new living furniture. This is good because now we’ll all have somewhere to sit as we bond over Star Wars the Clone Wars and nachos on Friday nights.

Parker: We’re keeping this couch too, right?

Me: No, there is not enough room for that much furniture. We bought all new furniture! Won’t that be great?! You won’t be allowed to eat or jump on it, how fun!

Parker: But I love our old couch. LOVE IT! I want to marry it. For life. It is the only couch for me.

Me: I’m sorry, son, but the new furniture will be here this weekend.

Parker: Horror! Here is my heart, stomp on it, just stomp on it, woman! Our old couch is all things good and bright, like unicorns and rice krispy treats. Now my world will be filled with rock cakes and trolls.

Then Parker runs to his room where he constructs a wailing wall from Legos so that he can mourn our old couch properly. After all, the couch held such lovely memories, like when…

… his brother used the back of the couch as support as he whooped up on Parker and mother took the time to snap a picture before intervening.

Such good memories. Like unicorns!

And let’s not forget the other good times when…

…the same older brother whooped up on the same little brother in the recliner. Oh, such bittersweet memories. Especially when they broke it!

Yes, I can see why he is sad. But he shouldn’t be. We’ll make new memories with our new furniture.

Just as soon as they turn 25 and are allowed to sit on the furniture again.

_______________________________________________________

BlogHer ‘10 is coming to NYC this summer and some of my Mouthy Housewives cohorts (together with Aunt Becky!) have put together a proposal for a room, called Dear Abby 2.0: Giving Advice in the Blogosphere. It’s going to be fantastic, but we need your help. Just click here, log on to BlogHer and then click “I would attend this session” (it’s just above the title: Dear Abby 2.0). After you click it it will miraculously say “I would not attend this session.” This means that your vote for the session has been successfully registered. Thank you!

I wonder if my readers think I’m exaggerating when I say I’m raising truthsayers, possibly the next Gandhi. Let me assure you, I am not.

As evidence, I offer this conversation I had yesterday with my oldest son, word for word. For you grown ups out there whose mind hasn’t atrophied from too many episodes of SpongeBob and Chowder, that means verbatim.

Really, I use the bigger word for those people whose minds have atrophied from Dora the Explorer and her Nick, Jr. comrades whose plot is to weaken the minds of stay-at-home parents across the world. I’m slowly clawing my way out of the two-syllable word darkness and invite you to do so with me.

Anyway, here’s the conversation. Verbatim.

“Girls are the craziest people on the planet.” he said

“Yes, this is true.” I reply, beaming quite brightly. We are crazy. I have prepared him well for his future dating years.

“And boys are the biggest nincompoops on the planet.”

“Oh yeah, that’s true too! Why do you think they are such nincompoops?” I ask.

“I dunno, they’re just that way by nature.”

I hope you are writing these down as quotes in your Golden Book of Life Wisdom. I’m sure you’ll want to refer to them often. I’m not sure even Gandhi spoke Truth with such clarity.

And since we’re speaking of quotes, here’s another one:

“To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass.” -Anne Lamott

So all those years my son was obsessed with lining up Hot Wheels, then Thomas the Train, and then marine science and now the breeding of cats weren’t signs of perseveration or fixation or any “-ation” at all. He was simply keeping his head out of his own ass.

Good to know, and I share this wise quote for all those other parents whose kids may appear to fixate or perseverate. I can’t tell you whether it’s a good or bad thing, but for me, just questioning the idea such a trait is somehow wrong or flawed is enough to keep me marching along this unbeaten path.

Now back to this idea that girls are crazy. In my last post, Texas Red wondered if my nieces were too young to know not to talk about v’ibrators, or if I’m the cool, crazy aunt and that’s why they told me the v’ibrator story. I’m crushed the answer is not obvious.

I’m the cool, crazy aunt.

You know, the non-Republican who brings goat cheese truffles appetizers and a new wine to taste, and doesn’t believe heaven or hell are actual places we go when we die.

The one who thinks gay marriage is fine. If homosexuals want to suffer with the rest of us crazy fuckers and line divorce attorney’s pockets, why not?

The one who doesn’t (gasp!) use double negatives.

So, yes, I’m the off-her-rocker aunt who maintains the “cool crazy” status only because I keep them in a state of confusion by occasionally reverting back to double negatives and incorrect subject/verb agreement, making them think I’m just like them. That probably don’t make no sense, but it was how it is.

See, I bet you’re confused now too. I can even get away with anti-Republican sentiments when I speak like that and they ain’t got no clue!

Before the v’ibrator conversation and thus my brain melting out of my cranial orifices, I had a different conversation with my 17-year-old niece. But not the one where we accused the 13-year-old of being a cougar in training. No, no, another one. The one where the 17-year-old said her math teacher reminds her of me.

I just had to know exactly what it was about this teacher that reminded her of me. Her devastating good looks? An Albert Einstein-esque quality? The ability to mesmerize a crowd of people every day?

Before my niece could explain, my mother (my mother) piped up and asked why my niece wanted to insult her math teacher like that. What the hell? I’m not changing her diaper when she’s in the old folks home.

My niece ignored her and went on to say that her math teacher is “just so crazy. She’s just, like, out there, I dunno. She’ll be talking about one thing, then all the sudden go off on something else, and then yell, ‘SQUIRREL!’ She’s just crazy.”

“Um, I don’t yell ‘Squirrel!’”

“Oh, I know, but you know what I mean. She’s just out there on the edge.”

“Well, hon, it’s the only place to live.”

“I know. I want to be that way too.”

Oh shit, y’all, I think this means I’m a ROLE MODEL.

Everyone hide.

There is a reason other than the baseboard cleaning mutant swine flu virus that I’m not writing that much. It’s also that January is such a dull month and there is nothing going on. The entire month is a letdown after the holidays, it’s cold, it rains a lot.

February will be a much better month, what with my birthday where I can wring my hands over the fact that I’m now on the downhill side of my 30’s and still have no career direction, how awesome!

And Mardi Gras is in February, so, woohoo! Can’t wait for that drunk blogging. And on top of that, my boss/mentor/surrogate stepmother’s daughter is coming to Mardi Gras this year. This will add a new story element to my drunk blogging, I’m sure. I’ll have a partner in crime!

I think Carla will end up being a surrogate sister too. I mean my own sister is coming next weekend for the Senior Bowl game, but claims she can’t come to the parade Friday night because she has to work. WTF? You don’t let something like a job interfere with Mardi Gras parades. Doesn’t she understand the irresistible thrill of yelling for cheap plastic shit and beads and stuffed animals you don’t even need?

It’s like I wasn’t even born to the right family.

And let’s not forget Valentines in February too; the holiday where we long-term married people laugh at and mock the superficial romantic acts all the romantically immature couples do on that day and then secretly wonder if there is something wrong with us on in the inside.

You know what happens in January? Run-on sentences, that’s what.

I’ll tell you what else happens in January. Finding out your 17- and 13-year old nieces know what v’ibrators are.

This was revealed to me before I even had a party cocktail. In fact, there weren’t even cocktails at this party because it was a birthday party for Southern Baptists, which basically means you have to be around your family and enjoy it without the help of the Devil. As if.

And then they drop this v’ibrator bomb on me. Apparently my 11-year-old niece has been testing out her creativity and making up new names for things, like cell phones, which she began calling v’ibrators. Because they can v’ibrate!

I can see their dilemma.

“Mom, your vibrator is ringing!”

Do you really want your child to say that in the local small town hot spot? I know a lot of tacky, uncultivated things happen at Wal-Mart, but surely there is a line and loud conversations about ringing vibrators must cross it.

So I get it. 11-year-old had to be corrected. This understanding comes from the women whose 7-year-old yelled out in TJ Maxx “There’s nothing more important than peeing when you have to pee!”

(Such truthsayers I am raising. The next Ghandi, I swear!)

But what I don’t get is my 17-year-old niece telling me the story and when my eyes got big and I asked how she even knew what a v’ibrator was, she said, “Heather, even (name of 13-year-old niece) knows what they are!”

*thud*

They had to revive me with smelling vodka.

Maybe January isn’t that boring after all.

You’ve been with a man for almost 16 years and you’d think you would know all the interesting stuff about him.  So how is it I didn’t know until this Easter weekend that Wally never hunted Easter eggs as a child.

Wally was hiding the eggs at his parent’s house for our boys to hunt when my mother-in-law said, “I never did Easter egg hunts for Wally and his sister.”

It’s entirely possible I looked at her like she’d just announced a new career as a stripper for the senior citizen center – a look of surprise and distaste.  I don’t know what I did I was so shocked.

Not hunting Easter eggs on Easter Sunday in our small, southern, Baptist hometown was just not done. It’s a concept I can’t wrap my mind around. In a town as small as that, there is absolutely nothing to do for fun, so you had to make the most of your holiday fun, or else you’re left finding your fun in sticks and cow patties.

Then, when I made a derisive remark about the Twilight books, my mother-in-law piped up and said how much she enjoyed them.  What respect I had left for her evaporated. You can’t have a relationship with the insane.

When we got back to my mom’s, I told her what my mother-in-law said and then asked Wally why he never told me he didn’t get to hunt Easter eggs.

“I don’t know.”

“My god, what is wrong with your mother?!”

Wally’s nonchalant reply was, “It’s not like I never hunted eggs. I got to do it at school.”

“I just can’t believe you grew up never hunting eggs with your family.” I said, heatedly.

“Well, we didn’t.”

“WHAT DID YOU DO FOR FUN, FOR PETE’S SAKE!”

“Why do you think I joined the Army at nineteen, Heather.”

“Poor thing, you didn’t know fun at all until you met me, did you?!”

“Nope.”

When I tried to insist Wally got to hunt eggs with the kids this year, he got pissy with me.

“I don’t know how you can be so blasé about this.  You should be in therapy over it!”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I’m angry for you!”

“It’s in the past. I can’t do anything about it now. I do Easter egg hunts with the boys. I’m not scarred by it.”

Gesh, it’s like he doesn’t know how to have a family feud at all.

I’m so sorry I left you hanging on Friday with the story of THE PHONE CALL. Right now, I wish I hadn’t posted on Friday because I myself am tired of the in-law story.

Le yawn.

But I hate to not follow through on something I started. It’s a pet peeve of mine, really, not following through on something I said I’d do, so I’ll try to write this in a way that doesn’t make you le yawn also. I’ll do us both a favor and shorten this to only the enlightened half of the conversation, leaving the sad part out for now.

And watch how I sneak religious talk in here. You know what they say about that and politics. Controversy and in-law angst all in one post!

While my conscience, aka Susan, uses the Paradoxical Commandments as a sort of compass while playing this human game, that’s not all my conscience is about.

Oh no! We could never ever live by one creed alone. That would be boring and dull and very dogmatic. We are the anti-Dogma (not to be confused with the anti-Christ.)

My conscience (or Susan) is a potpourri of wisdom. Not only do we pull from these Commandments (not to be confused with the Ten) and quantum physics, but we use pretty much any teaching that lends to the wisdom of humanity, and this can include The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

When faced with a sticky situation, Susan often advises me to seek first to understand, then be understood. Like the Paradoxical Commandments, I find this idea appealing, however, there are times (like these) when I must modify it.

Before I called my MIL, I made myself the strongest screwdriver in the history of the world. I knew this was a delicate phone call and I needed my wits but the nonchalant air one strong cocktail brings me.

Me: I’m confused. I don’t understand the problem with Parker’s birthday party.

Her: Problem? There’s no problem except the pond isn’t anywhere to hold a party. The bathroom there is awful, there’s no where to sit, it’s a complete mess out there, there’s no shelter, what if it rains? It’s an embarrassment, really.

Me: Really?

Her: I swear, I swear, I swear that’s all there is to that. It has nothing to do with anyone. I swear.

I’m paraphrasing, of course. Already, this post is too long for late November, the God-forsaken month known as NaBloPoMo. Who wants to read super long posts when your Google reader reaches out to choke you every single time you open it?

This quick into the phone call, I have two options:

A) I can give her the benefit of the doubt and believe that’s all there is to it.

Or?

B) I can look back at history and count the number of times she’s denied there was a problem when there really was one, and believe she’s a lying hag who hasn’t changed a bit.

If I choose A, I could feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. And isn’t that how good people feel on the inside, warm and fuzzy?

If I choose B, it fucks with all sorts of beliefs. This is where studying quantum physics mixed with spirituality gets fun because it makes you own your shit. You create your own reality and you know what that means? I’m creating this reality with my MIL for my human self.

Even Jesus talked quantum physics, but back then it was called Matthew 9:29 and not quantum physics. It is done unto you as you believe = create your own reality. Tada! Quantum physics straight from the Bible.

Honestly, I can’t understand the separation of science and religion? It’s right there in the book.

Choosing option B, I would fall back to the old idea that people can’t change. Do you know what that means? It means you and I can’t change either and we’re still the know-it-all asses we were in our early 20′s.

Now, I know I’ve changed over the years, so that puts a big fail whale in option B, unless we consider the unprovable but interesting quantum possibility of split universes and half dead cats in a box.

See, just like religion, quantum physics has many unanswered questions. And dear reader, I can hear your questions now…

Not all people are capable of change, right? You may have changed, but what if the in-laws haven’t? Or you may have both changed, but the change could be in different directions? Say, a direction to another semi-parallel universe?

Yes, dear reader, those are all valid questions. But I have a new question to add in the mix.

What if I’m the only one who has to change?

If nothing is real until it is observed, then me changing my observation will change the observed.

Wait. Was that all sorts of crazy that just farted out of my brain straight to the keyboard?

Oops, I’ve really fucked up now, letting you into the vast depths of my brain. Let’s back up so I can eat my words and then simplify them into something more sane-sounding.

What I’ve learned so far is that deep, deep down, I must wish to see less phone calls in the world. My MIL said they would call us back about Parker’s party, but we’ve yet to hear from them. There’s still time, I suppose, so I’ll keep holding my naive breath just a little longer.

P.S. I was completely sober the entire time I wrote this post.

P.P.S. That one sentence above is probably scarier than this entire post, isn’t it?