Today is Mother's Day and I hope you are all celebrating by telling your moms how awesome they are or by having your kiddos smolder you with hugs and kisses.
I am very sad because I can't be with my mommy today but I will be seeing her beautiful face on Thursday and hopefully I'll be able to make up for it then. I hope she's having a good day despite my absence! I sure do miss you, momma. I can't wait to come home even if it's only for a few days. My mom is hands down the best mom I could ask for. She's always there for me when I need her and she is a wonderful best friend.
So there I am, minding my own business, walking through the HEB parking lot when all of a sudden from behind me I hear, "Yo, mommy what's good?" Now, I can overlook the complete lack of English speaking grammar in that question; I can even look past the fact that it was yet another sleazy come on from a hommie at the Riverside HEB. What I had a hard time swallowing was the word, "mommy." Boy, I ain't yo momma.
Apparently, among my generation, a trend has formed in which you are to refer to your significant other (more often than not, in a strictly physical situation) using the slang terms "mommy" or "daddy." Come on. I can't be the only one that finds that disgusting. I have one daddy and his name is Terrence Alan Grisham. I have called him daddy since I could speak and that will forever change. So the thought of referring to a man friend as "daddy" makes me want to drive my ass straight to therapy (or confession...whichever is closest). So, seriously, who thought this was sexy? Why would I want a guy looking at me and immediately thinking "mom!" Oedipal complex much? DEAL. BREAKER. I have a name and if you haven't asked it yet there are a vast number of adjectives you could in the meantime. Check your birth certificate-if my name does not appear, you don't get to call me "momma."
Very true to form, in times of great stress I am getting sick. I can absolutely guarantee that I will have strep throat by the end of the week. I can feel strep coming from a mile away. It's right on schedule. I get strep like clockwork every semester so I like to keep a little penicillin handy so I can start before I have time to get to a doctor. And considering that I won't have time to see a doctor until the afternoon of the 16th, I'd say my system is pretty smart. When my tonsils attack I like to be right there to attack back. People tell me all the time I should just get them taken out and to those people I say, I tried, but then I got strep. And my father saw that as a sign that I shouldn't have surgery. So here we are.
Aside from getting sick, I'm having a rather good day! I'm still very stressed, but I have made peace with the fact that it's just not going to let up for a while so I may as well just get used to the constant brick on my chest. That being realized has allowed me to take today off for some Barton Springs fun. I was recently elected Vice President of the St. Edward's Communication Society and we all wanted to have an end of year social so we picked a day at Barton. It was very fun! The sun was shining, we had a great picnic, and good company. It was very relaxing and a nice way to end the weekend.
Caroline, Me, Ilse, Angela, Trisha, Bea
To end my night I'm just going to drink lots of water and orange juice while watching Law&Order SVU (because there's always a marathon on tv) and My So Called Life. Because those shows have so much in common....Whatever, I just have diverse tastes and I'm fine with that. Get on my level.
Let's talk about sex, baby. Yeah, I said it. What? Does that make you uncomfortable? Well get over it.
I'm sitting in my bed right now watching the MTV show "16 & Pregnant." A lot of people think this is a deplorable show, and in all honesty it sends some bad messages: get pregnant and MTV will finance it, domestic abuse is fine as long as you're in looooove, marriage will fix everything. Obviously those things are not quantities I would want young girls to learn from this show, but there are more important lessons to be learned here: it only takes one time to get knocked up and your very young boyfriend may not be the prince you think he is. These girls go through a lot of shit and it does not make motherhood look easy. It gives young audiences a pretty good perspective of what teenage pregnancy really means.
I just do not understand the concept of having unprotected sex. Buy a five dollar box of condoms or pay thousands of dollars in medical bills? And a lot of girls say, "well talking to my parents about birth control is awkward so I'd just rather not." Yeah, you're right, it's awkward as hell. But would you rather say, "hey, mom I should probably go to the gynecologist to get on birth control" OR "hey, mom Paulie Bleaker, over here, got me pregnant and I should probably go to the gynecologist to get an ultrasound."??? I'll take option one any day.
All I'm saying is, I'm 20 years old. I know that I am going to be a great mom one day, but that day is not anywhere near today. No baby is a mistake, I would never say that, but the younger you are, the harder it is.
My hair is a dead giveaway of my mood. If it is straightened, I'm having a good day because I actually spent the 45 minutes it takes to make it straight. I love my hair straight, I think it's a pretty look. If my hair is air-dried curly and down that means I am in a good mood, but I want to chill and relax. That happens quite a lot during the Summer months. If my hair is in a braid to the side it means that I wanted to straighten my hair but I'm having a busy day and didn't have time.
But if my hair is up? Run. At the first sign of stress and/or anger my hair immediately goes up. If it's in a braided bun it's probably best to avoid eye contact because there's a 136.78% chance that I will attempt to physically harm you. Want to take a guess what my hair looks like right this second? Here's a hint: I was up until 4 am writing a paper, I also had a paper due on Wednesday. Today I had to register for classes and of the 6 classes I planned to take in the fall 1 was open by my registration time causing me to have to take my summer classes in the fall putting me a semester behind where I aimed to be. Words cannot express my frustration. I want to crawl under a rock and emerge only when this nightmare of a week is sufficiently repressed in my brain. In light of the fact that I have yet to spot a large enough rock, I just have the serenity prayer on repeat in my mind.
Do you have those songs, shows, movies, etc. that you really love but you know other people would/do totally make fun of you for loving? I sure do. And you know what, I'm fine with that. I'm just fine with the fact that I am a pale-ass, suburban white girl and my theme song in life is Damn It Feels Good To Be a Gangsta. If you see me blasting that shit in my car, you go ahead and stare all you want because I'm not turning it down and I'm not going to stop rapping along (you're damn straight I know all the lyrics). Yeah it's a horribly vulgar song, but sometimes I think I'm thug. I may look stupid as hell to you, but I feel awesome when I hear that song. Really gets my blood pumping. Makes me want to hit faulty office equipment with baseball bats and shit. I do what I want.
Also I love the show Sons of Anarchy. I am fully aware that everyone else thinks that's lame, but get over it. I am enthralled. It's based off of Hamlet which is also one of my favorite plays. So mix the Hamlet archetype with a sexy, brooding, angry-but-good-hearted biker and I'm hooked. So get off my nuts and let me enjoy my peaceful downtime filled with the woes of conscious-driven motorcycle gang members.
Lastly, I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I love Harry Potter. The books, the movies, the theme park. My mom read me the books as a kid and I listen to them on audiobooks as an adult. And I am not the slightest bit ashamed about it. Don't even pretend you didn't wait for an owl to show up at your house, Hogwarts letter in hand, when you were 11. That would have been mind-blowing and you would have been stoked. Swish and flick.
Tomorrow my little cousin, Haley will turn 16. THAT IS SO WEIRD. I can't believe how grown up she is. I blinked and she went from 4 years old to this incredibly beautiful, smart, funny and amazing young woman. I have never seen someone dance the way she does; it's like she just transforms to the music. I am the klutz of klutzes and here I'm related to this perfectly poised and graceful ballerina. I would be jealous, but I don't know if I would be able to put in the work she does. The commitment it takes to be a serious dancer in high school is astounding but she endures it on top of making exemplary grades. One day everyone will know her name and I'll get to say, "That's my baby cousin." I hope she has a wonderful birthday (even though she has a performance) and I know that 16 is going to be a fantastic year for my girl.
All this 16 year old talk has gotten me remembering my life at 16. I'm not going to lie, when I was 16 my life was badass. I had the best friends, the coolest mom, the party house and I was the first one to be able to drive. As soon as I got those car keys I was home to sleep and even that was rare. I taught my friend Nick how to drive in my car. I used to drive around with my windows down, Lil Wayne blasting and my bass shaking other people's cars. Yeah, I was that guy. Catherine and I were always late to school, but her mom used to make us these bomb as hell sausage biscuits in the mornings so being late was always worth it. I used my car an extra room, there were more clothes in that damn 4-Runner than in both of my closets combined. People criticized this but I'll have you know that I was always warm on cold days because I always had extra layers.
But I really did have the world's greatest friends. And I am very proud to say that I have maintained almost all those friendships. We are all in different places now but that doesn't make much of a difference. We did some crazy and fantastically stupid shit in high school, but by the grace of God we lived to tell the tales. They are still some of the coolest people I've ever had the pleasure to meet.
