Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, and I called her last night. We talked for a while, and one of the things she mentioned is that she occasionally checks in on my blog to ‘see how things are going.’ My mom reads my blog, and she’s apparently been doing it for some time now.
Great.
With all those posts I’ve written about Satan and feces and third grade memories, not to mention all the copious amounts of premarital sex weird dreams and my judicious but regular smattering of naughty words, she probably thinks that her real baby son must have somehow been swapped in the hospital for this devil’s spawn.
But the most egregious thing of all (for her, anyway) has to be my non-stop trash-talking about Yakima, which is decidedly well-deserved, but she can’t stomach it. I have a kinda funny story about that, actually, which involves my niece’s favorite TV show, which we all couldn’t help but watch with her while we were at the beach a few weeks ago.
It’s a national show, which you probably haven’t seen, let alone enjoyed, if you’re over the age of ten. It’s about PrecociousTeenageGirl, and it’s set in Seattle, where Niece lives. The grandparents on the show even live in Yakima, where one set of Niece’s grandparents live. The hijinks ensued in one episode when it looked as if PTG was going to be sent to live with her grandparents. She didn’t want to go, and she kept making all these lame jokes about Yakima and how bad it is (“oh, the sweet smell of Yakima”, et cetera). I kept waiting for them to actually take her there, and have some scenes set in the town, which I’m sure they would have filmed in Salinas, California instead, anyway. It has the exact same feel and look as Yakima, except for the fact that Salinas has the brilliant John Steinbeck rooting for it. Raymond Carver and I are Yakima’s vox populi spokespeople, and we have nothing good to say about the place.
But that’s neither here nor there.
I found that episode surreal and hilarious. No wonder it’s Niece’s favorite show; the writers practically frickin’ wrote it for her, and set it in the two places she knows best in the world. I couldn’t stop cracking up at the irony of the situation, so between my incredulous laughter and the show’s cloying laugh track in response to every generic joke, my mom got angry and had to go upstairs to get away from it all.
I couldn’t tear myself away from the stupid show, and I actually watched the thing in its entirety. You’ll be glad to know that PTG did not, in fact, get sent to live in Yakima, because GenXGuardian (her older brother?) came through in the end to prove that despite his slacker appearance, he really was quite the responsible young gentleman when it came to raising her. Awww. Wipe my tears and cue the organist.
I suppose I don’t have a real reason to feel weird about my mom reading all this. She knows (pretty much) what I’m like, this is all real stuff, and I feel like it’s a good representation of me, slightly-glossed-over warts and all.
But it still does feel weird. I’m sure you understand.
