The Time My Mother Found Out She's Not Straight: An Epic Car Drive of Reversed Roles

My relationship with my mother consists mainly of intellectual conversation.

We never yell, because there is rarely anything to yell about. I don't typically try anything crazy, and she typically lets me do whatever I want, which isn't much. Sometimes she talks about getting a sleeve tattoo, or dying her hair blue, and I say, "Mom, no," and she says, "Whatever, Shady."

We talk mostly in the car. I don't remember where we were going, but one day, we started discussing an article she had read on facebook.

"Being gay is totally a choice," she decided at a red light. I had an idea where the argument would go, and I sighed, disappointed that my mother was about to be wrong in such a stereotypically-parental way. My mother, however, did not disappoint.

"Like, I had this roommate," she began. "And she was really hot. I mean, she was beautiful. We traveled through Europe together when I was 18, you know? We saw each other naked. We, like, showered together, and stuff."

This was getting weird. "What?"

"You know," she said, waving her hand. "Europe." The explanation seemed to satisfy her. I didn't press the matter any further. "Anyways, I remember there were times I'd think, yeah, I want to kiss your face. I would have sex with you. But I'm not going to!"

"...What?"

"I mean, I just chose not to, you know? I could have. I totally could have. But I didn't."

A moment of silence filled the car as she turned through an intersection. No one spoke, for longer than what is comfortable. "And that doesn't mean I'm gay," she continued. "Just, you know, everybody is attracted to girls sometimes. They're hot."

"Huh," I said, nodding, trying desperately for the conversation to continue intellectually. "Well, you know, to be completely honest, I have to say I have never been attracted to girls."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I mean, girls are pretty, I just, you know, never feel like kissing them. Personally."

"Huh."

We drove in silence. She narrowed her eyes, slowly, and then said, decidedly, "Well, then I think I might be a little gay..."

Moment of Normalcy in an Abnormal Situation

He answered the door with the dog in his arms, a dark, furry, wriggling thing with shining eyes and wagging foxtail.

I typically pay more attention to the dog than the person, at least when the door is answered. It's a strange work, volunteer door-to-door bible education, and in this particular situation we weren't looking for the usual face-to-face, in-depth discussion, we were just handing out invitations to as many doors as possible.

It starts with the hand on the screen doorknob, watching it turn, realizing you are going to have to piece words together, then looking quickly and desperately up the arm to the chest to the head, searching in a frantic half-second for a judge of character among strangers. In the first second when the door is open and the screen is removed, you regard each other's faces the way dogs touch noses at a park: a slight panic, a quick survival instinct, holding each other's defensive gaze in a world where strangers touch strangers in newspaper stories of guns and knives and bombs, in neighborhoods of signs and dogs.

He smiled. He wore a clean white shirt and red plaid pajama pants, almost-matching nondescript socks, more than what most men answer the door wearing. The words I pieced together in my head so frantically at the turn of the doorknob were delayed, not exactly uncomfortably, but in the way some dogs hold noses together longer than others. They have more of each other to smell.

I stared, the air still held in my lungs, still cautious, still careful not to offend, impose, or interrupt more than necessary. Nothing moved. There was a softness to his edges like the air around a child after a nap. I quickly explained my reason for being there, placed the folded paper in his hand as quickly as possible - the hand soft and warm and intentional - and when he spoke he had the kind of voice that makes it easier to exhale, the voice of understanding.

The work is strange because it involves people finding people. It's not a podcast, not a pamphlet in the door or mailbox, not a television show. It's dogs touching noses. It's personal. And, every once in a while, people on porches meet people in doorways and find it easier to breathe, as if the work itself, the reason, were erased, and all that was left was the people and the breathing and the smiling.

He, in his rarely human peaceful softness, sock-footed and dog-holding, wanted to keep talking. It's not difficult to tell when you are wanted around or not. But the work this day was quick, in and out, a paper trading hands and then we're off to the next door. Two seconds of prolonged eye contact, an overly genuine, "Thank you" and "Have a nice day," drawing out the pleasantries in as many words as possible: "Thanks, thank you," "You're welcome, and thank you too," "Alright, you have a nice day," "Thank you, you too."

And then the door was closed and the smile was dangerously difficult to erase as I stumbled off the porch like a very real and typical teenage girl. Very rarely do I ever stumble upon accidental crushes on strangers. Rarely as in never. This is because of a conscious effort not to smile, not to exhale too deeply, not to look for too long or too meaningfully, not to accept compliments. Not to look up.

This lack of silly frivolousness is actually quite silly and frivolous. Sometimes young men in pajamas are soft and make speaking more difficult than usual. It happens. It happens regardless of situation or intention. Carrying a bible makes it no less probable, though probably more embarrassing, which is why I'm blogging the story. The image of a volunteer preacher blushing at a door, stumbling over words, giggling. I mean, come on, it's hilarious, especially since it actually happens.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Smiling sometimes is not a choice, and five soft seconds with a stranger can cure five hard months at once.

The Bigmouth Frog Joke

My older sister Story was a very bright child.

Borderline prodigy, it turns out. She skipped kindergarten and took most elementary school classes in the attic, by herself. She could spell her name and sing (and write) entire songs when she was 2 years old, but her best trick at the time was the bigmouth frog joke.

She told this joke to everybody. She knew how to be charming about it, too. Soft little blonde curls and bright, shining blue eyes. People loved it. They loved her. She tried to teach it to me, pass it on like a family trade, but I couldn't do it like she did. No one could. The joke is a legacy.

At dinner the other night, my sister was at work and my stepdad was gone, and it was just my mom and the kids and I. We were eating corn and vaguely burnt sweet potatoes, and my mother said to my five-year-old sister, out of the blue, "Hey, do you wanna show Shady the joke I taught you today?"

It was surprising, that she still taught her kids frivolous things like jokes. But there was my little sister, stuffing corn in her mouth, saying in the incredibly loud voice that can only come from the fourth out of five children, "Okay. So. Um. There was a frog, and she said -- 'HI I'M A BIGMOUTH FROG AND I DON'T HAVE ANY BABIES!'"

"No, it goes, 'Mother Bigmouth Frog didn't know what to feed her babies."

"Oh. HAHA! Okay. So, um, mother bigmouth frog did not know what to feed her babies. And she said -- um, so she went to a, um. A, um."

Like I said, no one could tell this joke like Story.

"Let me tell it," my mom said. My mother's parenting involves little involvement and few hugs, but it works well. (Correction: used to. There have been noticeably more hugs recently, or at least since Martensen showed up in a suit and taught the kids how to hold hands.) Her sentimentality is usually well-hidden, but in this case, I was reminded that she does have the same heart and memory I have. And I realized, as she told the joke to the table of messy eaters, if her heart were a pie chart of all that she cares about most tenderly, there would be a substantial section reserved for this joke alone.

"Mother Bigmouth Frog," she began softly, "didn't know what to feed her babies. So she went to the fish! And she said," she cleared her throat, looked at my brother out of the corner of her eye, and, opening her mouth as wide as possible, stretching the words over each other, said, "HI, MISTER FISH! WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR BABIES?"

My brother, always the slapstick comedian, collapsed out of his chair. The girls laughed, and my mom ignored him. "The fish said, 'I feed my babies moss from the bottom of the pond.' And the bigmouth frog thought, I don't want to feed my babies moss, so she hopped away. Then, she went to the..."

"Turtle?" I said, leaning on my elbow, waiting for it to be over. I knew this joke better than anything I had ever been taught. It was my alphabet song, first ten numbers, how to spell my name.

"Yes! Mother Bigmouth Frog went to the turtle. And she said..." my brother braced himself, "...'HI, MISTER TURTLE! WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR BABIES?'" My mother is very good at this joke. The boy fell under the table, his sisters erupted into giggles, and the joke continued. "The turtle said, 'I feed my babies little crawdads.'"

"Turtles eat lettuce," I interrupted. She frowned.

"No one asked. SO," she turned to the kids, "the bigmouth frog thought, I don't want to feed my babies little crawdads. So, she went to the..." leaning forward, eyebrows raised, "crocodile. And she said, 'HI, MISTER CROCODILE! WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR BABIES???" The question was quieter this time, equally big-mouthed, and my brother was too enthralled to remember his self-appointed cue. "And the crocodile said..." Her voice wasn't lowered comically like it was for the fish and the turtle. This time it was just her own, quiet and cool and eerily dangerous. "'I feed my babies bigmouth frogs.'

"And the bigmouth frog said..." Her mouth closed around itself, a tiny pinhole just big enough to release the small, high-pitched words, "Oh. Thank you very much."

The kids laughed and laughed, pounding the table, mouths full of corn. I frowned at the plate, contemplating. "Wait..." I said, old gears beginning to turn.

They looked at me.

And, for the first time in all my life, it clicked into place. I dropped the fork. "OH! THE BIGMOUTH FROG WAS TALKING WITH A SMALL MOUTH TO DISGUISE HERSELF FROM BEING A BIGMOUTH FROG SO THE CROCODILE WOULDN'T EAT HER!"

The kids stopped laughing. The two-year-old looked disappointed. "Wait," my mom said. "You mean all this time, you didn't get the joke?"

"NO! I just thought it was funny because your mouth did that funny thing! I DIDN'T THINK THERE WAS AN INTELLIGENCE TO IT!"

She turned to my brother. They were still laughing. "Toby, did you get it?"

"Uhh, yeah." My brother is barely above average. This is below average for my mom, dad, sister, and I. Plus he does really stupid stuff all the time, like light things on fire and stick the hose in the heating vent. And he has the kind of social skills that got him shanked in the neck with a pencil twice in kindergarten. I didn't believe him.

"At least I was smart enough not to get STABBED in KINDERGARTEN."

But by then everyone was laughing, loud, big-family laughs of spewed corn and uneaten sweet potatoes. My mother rolled her eyes and the dog climbed out from under the table, waiting for plates to clean. "Story should've been here. This was a very big moment. My life has come full circle. The stars have aligned."

Even though my moments of revelation only ever remind me how behind I am in the world, it feels good to finally get it, you know? To realize stuff for yourself, even if it's already been realized before. To hold the air still and line up the world in words. And it's nice to be reminded that my mother cares a lot more than the average person, though she hides it more than most, and it's nice to hear children laugh as the dog eats more sweet potatoes than anyone I've ever known.

surroundings: the exposed process of a blog post

There is a kitten in my lap.

I'm in a Dad Office, house-sitting for a strangely put-together-looking family of four. There's a corgi with separation anxiety and a fat orange cat who never shows up and a "rambunctious" calico kitten whose softness can only be described by a drawing rubbed down with the backend of a pencil, or a photograph pulled up on Photoshop with the contrast brought down a whole lot.

It smells good in here. Like Good Dad. It's a strange smell: comfort and safety, combined with middle-aged man. Kind of moth-y. There's a swivel chair and a closet of old coats and a notepad and jar of paper clips and pens. It's extremely stereotypical, with files and folders and Post-it notes. A book about volcanoes. Why is th... what...?

Cats are so warm. I'm bad at drawing cats. They're too fluid, the line of them is too continuous. I can't draw women, either. But I can draw dogs! And men. Even self-portrait-ish stuff, I draw myself as a dude just because their lines are easier. That paragraph has too many short sentences. Christie would be disappointed.

The kitten is mewing in its sleep, and I'm worried the keyboard is too loud. (That's a compound sentence, but it wasn't before I added the comma.)

I just realized I can't move. I have nothing profound to say today. I already made a post this morning about Victoria's Secret and mirrors and the patriarchy but decided against posting it. I keep doing that... not posting stuff. I do make the posts, they're just too much to publish. It's like I'm stuck in this spiral, where no matter what I talk about, or how long I talk about it, I always end up on the same subject. And I don't want to blog about that subject.

So I will blog about my surroundings. If you're still reading this, congratulations on dedication. Every window is open and this morning two guys were yelling outside and one of them said, "AT LEAST I'M NOT A RAGING ALCOHOLIC!" but he yelled it in a way and at a volume decibel that made him sound a lot like a raging alcoholic.

The trees look sick. All of them. The corgi is under the desk, with infinite enthusiasm to see me at any given moment.

The cat's just really sleepy, still sprawled across my lap. I can't move. She's so small, and delicate... I should figure out how to draw cats. And women. Nah, women are scary. Um, hm. Something profound about cats... They're animals, with teeth, and instincts. So are dogs. Without size and circumstance, they'd just eat each other. And us. Worth reading? Something to think about?

Oh, I'm not a prophet. I've got nothing new to say, I'm fifteen, you could do better. It's a beautiful day. The cat is awake, and watching me type. I don't think she likes me, I'm just warm. Wait. That's it! THAT'S THE PROFOUND CONCLUSION! THE RELATIVE ANSWER I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR! Oh, it's like when people touch me meaning to touch someone else, it's got nothing to do with me, I'm just easily available! Oh! Oh.

Is that sad?

I don't think so... I mean, I like kittens sleeping on my lap. They're warm too. But... they don't really, love me, they just sleep with me.

There ya have it, revelation. Brought to you by yours truly. Now I have to wrap it up with the punchline that ties everything together:

Thank you for caring enough about the life of Shady to read something this mindless. But the art is always better than the artist, unless you happen to do it right.

An Open Letter to Coffee (from February)

Dearest coffee,

     You seem to be the only reason I get out of bed in the mornings anymore. Lying sideways, checking for the monsters who must have crawled in and whispered memories of childhood trauma into the aches in my shoulders and back. Staring at the time, thinking of all the things I need to do, all the people to talk to, books to return, jobs to get done as sorrow curls up in bed next to me, none of those get me up anymore. It's just you. The thought of you, patiently existing, waiting for me to wake the house up with the smell of you. Not sunrise, not hope. Just you. You.

     You make me sick, you know. I thought it would get better eventually, thought it would wear off over the years. Thought time would heal me, like they say. Thought maybe if I ignored it, the sick, it would go away, get tired, but it didn't. It didn't. It stayed and I stayed and you stayed and I think maybe "loyalty" is a godly term for "addict" because you tear my gut up, coffee, you hurt me inside. I'm sorry.

     I love you, coffee. You know that, don't you? Maybe that's the worst part of all this. I do though, I love you. I love the smell of you, the sound of you, the warmth in my hands just to hold you. To kiss the surface of the mug. I love it. I love the touch of you before even taking a sip, just resting there in my hands, nothing getting accomplished, just a placid sigh released of another dream forgotten as the steam fogs up my glasses.

     You wash the dreams away, coffee. The voices and hands, monsters and men, ghosts of cruelly kind words which should never have been spoken, you wash them away like sunrise does to night. You make me forget. You make me think in a higher vocabulary. You warm me, you wake me, you align my scattered thoughts.

     It shouldn't worry you, should it? Every human being, as a fact, is driven by the burning plea at the core of their heart spelling "Love me. Love me, damn it." You are no different, are you? Of course you wanted to be loved, otherwise you wouldn't have tried so awfully hard. You would have started black and bitter. You would have stained my teeth. But you didn't, not until it was too late. If I give you a piece of my small, angry heart, you'll appreciate it, won't you? You'll treat me kindly? You'll soften my insides, make the day more bearable by the thought of you?

     I know you're bad for me, coffee, but you're just so good. Tea won't cut it anymore, I don't care what the hipster poets say, they don't know love until they know you. Or -- wait, was that Jesus? I don't remember, through your grace of forgetfulness. Take the memories, please. Test my greatness. Take the softness from the voice, take the truth from the answers. Make it mean. Make it purposeful. Make it want me to hurt and then make me forget, please, coffee.

     You're the only reason I get out of bed anymore.

     You make me sick.

     I love you.

     Yours, still addicted, unfortunately,                

February          

PS: This is really only addressed to coffee, I could never love a human like this.

Observations From The Orthodontist

Every kid in the county has the same orthodontist.

It's the only piece of 'community' we really all share; this isn't a small town. I'm sure there are other orthodontists around, but you never hear about them. You just assume everyone has this one thing in common. Like how there's only one downtown, only one bike shop, only one dome-shaped cathedral.

This orthodontist office is an extremely peculiar place, as far as orthodontist offices go. I only just realized this today. I've been going there since my sister got braces like four years ago, but it always just seemed normal.

It isn't. Not anymore.

The first time you go in, it doesn't seem all that strange. America's Funniest Home Videos on the televisions, strange little sculptures scattered here and there around the waiting room. Some photographs on the walls of the doctor with patients, teeth newly straightened. It's no big deal the first time you see him, the orthodontist, in some sort of strangely colored silk shirt, a shadowy beard as if his wife had forgotten to remind him to shave for a few days. Looking just a little off. Maybe just having a bad week or something.

You don't think too hard about it the first time, when it's just your sister getting her teeth tied together.

Years go by. You get your own braces.

And every visit, AFV still plays, on every single television. The televisions multiply. The photographs sprawl, you wonder if there is room enough on the walls for all the sets of straightened teeth, and you realize the rows and rows of patients are like a timeline and you wonder exactly how long this doctor has been doing this. You realize he never really shaves. And it's not even that he grows a beard from it, a nice, purposeful-looking, working-man beard, it just always looks like an accident. Forgotten and neglected. Like if depression were a beard instead of a clinical condition. Every shirt he wears is silk or striped or rainbow-tinted or polka-dotted. Anything you would see in a thrift store and pick up just to laugh at, he's wearing it.

It gets worse.

The sculptures multiply. I heard his wife makes them, it's the only explanation as to why there are close to one hundred paper-mache monsters crammed in the small building of dentist chairs and televisions. Strange, ugly, uncomfortable sea monsters of bright neon green and purple and pink and blue, with wide mouths and comical teeth, creepy frog fingers and wires hanging them from the ceilings, from the walls, they multiply. The monsters. They are everywhere. As if some sick artist decided to make a statement, something to comfort the kids who are about to be made ugly, telling them, hey, it's okay. You know why? You're all ugly anyway!

And it's true, each of the thousands of photographs proves it. Each kid looks just a little more proud of themselves, arm around a man in a depressed-looking beard and silk shirt, teeth straight, but still awkward. Still uncomfortable. Still sweaty or pimply or slouchy or nervous. As if the braces had not only straightened their teeth, but had left a permanent dent in their self-esteem, something not regained with the braces' removal. They take something from you, braces. It's in the eyes. All the eyes. Not just the monster eyes, the photograph eyes too, sprawling from the walls onto the ceiling, every square inch, eyes and names and dates.

It gets worse. The televisions. The home videos. The same host, same host, same host, you know he's done laughing by now, this is a lifetime of the same slapstick fall and lack of catch. Same torture. Same torture. Same torture. It's in the eyes, in his eyes, he's tired, he's sick, he ages eons with each show, it's only a matter of time before he straps a bomb to himself on live television. But then there is the question of time in the boxes. The people, they all look so old, so ancient. The show itself is old. Has it gotten cancelled yet? Do people still take home videos? Are they still alive?

It's almost like the televisions are stuck in a time warp, where each episode is older than the last. Time moves backwards through film quality. Slow, monotonous, repetitive. A kid is falling. There's another kid falling. Another kid falling. Another dog falling. Another mom falling. Another kid falling, kid falling, kid falling, your palms are sweating and you don't know why the audience is smiling when the child is crying and the people in the waiting room chuckle to themselves and then cough and feel ashamed.

Oh, and the sculptures, you know some nurse is going to hit her head on them one day. They crawl the place at night, you can tell. Small, palm-sized ones, tissue-box-sized, child-sized, bicycle-sized. They occupy every foot of the place, floor to ceiling. Huge plastic eyes and wire fingers with circular, colored discs at the tips, lips wide and curled in inhuman expression; constant, static, locked in time. Watching. They move somewhere, you know they move, you know they can't stay locked up here forever like the AFV movies and the photographs and the doctor, they are wild things with snaggled mouths and teeth and fingers and there are no windows. It's a trap. A cage. The sea monsters are trapped and they growl like a dentist chair. They rip each other's teeth out.

But then of course you know you are just being paranoid, and the beard can't help being depressed, it just feels like maybe it's taken a turn for the worst and needs to be locked up in a white-paneled room because maybe this life is too much to bear, maybe it didn't want to live in a room locked in time and AFV and sea monsters and silk shirts and ugly teenagers in and out and in and out and maybe the beard just wants to stay in bed for a few years until someone kind comes along and drills a hole through its head.

The beard seems to have more personality than the man who wears the silk shirts.

It is then, right when the nurse with the mask over her nose pushes the button where the seat goes whirrrrrrr and leans back ever so slowly, right when she asks you, "How are you, Shady?" you realize the only thing you know for certain is that you are not an okay person and this is not an okay place to be. You are one of the sea monsters now, one of the cats on the TV, and you will not be smiling when they take the photograph if they ever let you out again. But you say, "Good, how are you?" and then you surrender your mouth.

It's okay to tell him, when the orthodontist asks, and your mouth is already held open with all the stuff inside, cotton and fingers and metal things and whatnot, making speech impossible. When he asks, "How are you?" you look him in the eyes and say clearly, "I would like to bleed, sir," and he laughs at his own stupid question. The photographs stare and the sea monsters stare and the television laughs because someone fell out of a boat again, someone fell out of a boat.

A monster fell out of a boat in an orthodontist's office and I really hope I am not the only one who saw it.

saving miller moths

Saving miller moths is a very sad thing.

You see one there, struggling against the window, and you think, I can't let you die in here, slamming your head into a dimension you can't understand. So you say, "Here, come into my hand, I'll take you outside," and the moth flies away, shouting, "I CAN DO IT ALL BY MYSELF." And then it slams itself into glass again.

But this time you don't have a choice, you've already invested time into this moth, so you chase after it with your hand over the glass, saying, "I'm trying to help you, moth, I don't want to hurt your wings," but the moth doesn't listen and doesn't stop and doesn't see the open door.

And you're in this terrible war between good intent and desperation, the moth fighting for independence and you fighting for the moth. There are no glasses or cups in sight, nothing to help you help him, and eventually you just grab him as carefully as possible, tiny heartbeat pounding furiously into your fingertips as you run outside and let go.

You watch him fly away, and then you look at your hands, and see the wing dust on them, and you're crying, "I'M SORRY, MILLER MOTH! I DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT YOU, I JUST WANTED YOU SAFE, YOUR WINGS WERE SO BEAUTIFUL, AND NOW YOU'RE GOING TO DIE OUT THERE BECAUSE OF THE DUST ON MY HANDS I STOLE FROM YOU AND IT'S MY FAULT, IT'S MY FAULT, IT'S MY FAULT"

And this is why miller moths are a sad thing to save.

Adventures with the Ghost of Self-Pity