Lethal Eye Contact

Here's the scenario...You're doing a really important presentation. Like one that determines, say, the future of your entire life. And one of your siblings decides to support you by showing up. In normal families this gesture would be actually appreciated. But I don't come from a normal family.
I come from the crack-up family. Weddings, funerals, business meetings...nothing is sacred. We just remember the crack ups...those moments when you try so desperately not to, but happen to catch a siblings' eye at time that is so inappropriate, and you start to laugh.It just happens. It's actually embarrassing to admit that we rate our crap ups....Joey, Julie and I have done a lot of Def Com III's.Serious crack-ups.

Which brings me to my dilemma. My youngest Annie has to present her Senior Research Project. It's a big deal....lots of research, preparation, and a public presentation. But she invited her SISTER to watch her. Hello Annie??? As if you're going to stand up on a stage and present your project with MADELINE sitting there watching you? And you two aren't going to dissolve into a major crack up as soon as you even GLANCE at each other?

Maybe they'll pull it off without a crack up. But I doubt it.They're Nicolazzo girls...and a major crack up is in their immediate future.

And The Award Goes To....

It's politically incorrect to use the word "retarded. " I get it. As a technical diagnosis it's been retired, and for many good reasons. But as a lifetime Massachusetts resident, I will not apologize for using the term for people who actually deserve it. I'm referring to people who are not developmentally delayed, but whose stupidity is so mind bending that nothing but head scratching, incredulous, "REALLY?" dumbness earns them the title of "Wicked Retarded."
Since no one is actually reading this, I am announcing an annual Wicked Retarded award. It will be a very important award as soon as my family starts reading my blog. And this very special inaugural Wicked Retarded Award goes to Dennis Rodman.
Why Dennis, you ask? There are so many contenders! But even the most cerebrally challenged, slightly aware person wouldn't purposefully visit.a fat loser kid murderer Stalin Wannabe dictator of a country where people are literally starving to death, sit next to him at a basketball game, and then try to explain to the world press that the chubby sociopath dictator is actually just a really good guy who cares about his family and his people.
So Dennis gets the Wicked Retarded award this year. And his prize? A lifetime stay at one of Kim Jong Ummmmm's Gulag Retreats.

Alice's Restaurant and TMI

Global Warning....I spell for shit. I don't know why, but I'm sure it was my third grade teacher Mrs. Jackson's fault, but I'll get to her later. Everything's her fault. But since Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, I get to say whatever I want about her.

I was driving south on 495 with my daughter Annie on Thanksgiving day. We hit the road fighting at around 11:15, and then I remembered that Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant gets played on the radio every Thanksgiving at noon. I told Annie I wanted her to hear it, but she was pissed at me about something and wanted Radio Control so she could hear the same five songs that they play over and over again and frantically changed the station just in case she missed one of those songs, but I stood firm. I was going to hear Alice's Restaurant whether she liked it or not. But she showed ME, and put her ear plugs in to listen to one of the five songs she might have missed because I wanted to share an experience with her.

I'm an historian...it's in my DNA. I am fundamentally incapable of experiencing anything without attempting to figure out its roots. I'm not PROUD of this fact..it's just the way I'm designed. Alice's Restaurant is a classic....very funny and at the same time very profound. And I would have loved to listen to it with my daughter, but hey, there might have been a Rhianna song on at the same moment.

Despite what the stats say, I'm not a Boomer. But my older siblings are Boomers. I was just a kid who managed to walk directly into moving traffic, drank Drano, and ran through glass doors while my older siblings were busy being Boomers. I was just a witness to their anti-war hippie antics. I worshiped them (my parents made me) and learned a lot on the sidelines.

My brother Michael was just at that age during the Vietnam War where he had a number. Ask any man in their sixties about their number, and about the experience that Arlo Guthrie talked about in Alice's Restaurant, being called up by the military to check if they were fit to fight, walking around some compound with dozens of other men naked, scared shitless, and examined by military doctors. My parents' ardent fight against the Vietnam War might have been personal-their son was not going to go there-but they were actually right. And every person who was responsible for engineering that war hopefully is rotting in Hell.

But I will tell you, as a wide eyed young bystander, what those years were like for me. I was a kid, but I remember seeing a young John Kerry at an Anti-War Rally in Boston Common. I have a weird memory snapshot of him. I remember an Anti-War Rally at my own house, where our livingroom was packed with teenagers wearing black armbands, and my father had to take a phone call from some angry adult who called him a Communist. Yikes! A Communist! That was worse than being called a pedophile at that time! And Mrs. Jackson yelled at me in front of my Third Grade peers, and told me my brothers were "hippies,' who wore "Love Beads." And I couldn't even do a cursive "S" to her satisfaction. Bitch.

I wanted so much for my daughter to listen to Alice's Restaurant. It's twenty five minutes of a guy, with a guitar, so funny, telling his story about the still unresolved irony of young people being asked to fight wars that old people create (SO not my words!) I got a really awesome education growing up (despite Mrs. Jackson). My parents fought for what was right....my other friends' parents were never as brave....and I got to listen to The Who and Joni Mitchell, when everyone else was listening to Donny Osmond..

And as an historian, I will tell you that not much has changed. We need to listen to Arlo Guthrie a whole lot more.

Bemis and the J's

My parents had way too many kids. Eight because they were Catholic in the 1960's...they might have had more until my mother finally discovered that we had a living room couch.

Of the eight, I was one of the "Four Girls." Because my parents thought it would be wicked cute to give all of us girls names that began with the letter "J.", this is how my dad would refer to us when he needed to speak to anyone of us individually if we might have POSSIBLY done something wrong: "JoanneJanetJoyceJulie...Or whatever the Hell your name is! My sister Jean was exempt, because she was close in age and thus a kindred spirit to the Holy Patron Saint Michael of The Sacred Church Of Five Howard Road.  Or so she was told until she said "Huh? What's so fucking great about Michael? I had to tell HIM there was no such thing as Santa Clause!"

Not that any of us Four Girls JoanneJanetJoyceJulie did anything WRONG, by the way. No sireeee. When SOMEONE sprayed my dad Bemis's shaving cream all over the closet and he was so pissed and we were scared and we were never scared of him, it wasn't ME. It was Richard. It was always Richard. But if it wasn't Richard, it was Joanne. Because who can get mad at Joanne?

Virtually all of my friends grew up in big families, and we all have the same advice to anyone getting all Brady Bunch or Kennedy nostalgic on us. Birth control is awesome. And if that doesn't happen and someone in your undoes something really stupid to piss your parents' off, just blame it on my brother Richard. Because he probably did it. I know it wasn't ME.

A Wicked Wonderful Life

We all know the movie. George Bailey (The terminally sexy Jimmy Stewart) gets into financial trouble during the Great Depression, because no one except George Bailey had money problems during the Great Depression, and he just decided that everything would be better if he had never been born etc... (My daughter recently told me that the "theme" for the Junior Prom at her school this year would be the 1930's....and I said "Cool. I guess everyone will save money on their dresses and tuxes since they'll be showing up in ragged overcoats with tin cups begging for money...and the meal will be like a soup kitchen! Buffet style! And she said "Oh...I meant the 1920's"  But my daughter is REALLY pretty!)

So George leaves Mary and the kids and ends up getting drunk and crashing his car and meets the angel Clarence and the pristine haven that was Bedford Falls becomes the Sodom and Gomorrah  "Pottersville" where everyone is hanging out at bars and going to brothels on Christmas Eve and George is running around not being recognized with a bloody gash on his head acting all weird because he's never been born.

Allow me to confess that I've been watching way too many Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. Even Lifetime has them. I'm sort of obsessed. They have titles like "The Christmas Miracle," or "A Bride For Christmas." My daughter is concerned about me. When she walks into the house and sees me watching them, she just rolls her eyes. Recently she said I had "A Problem." Oh yeah Missy? "You just wait until YOUR Christmas Miracle happens and the angel on the tree becomes magical and I find the perfect man of my dreams who was actually right in front of me the entire time to make our Christmas perfect and magical and the best Christmas ever ever ever!" And she said "Good luck with that mom. I'm gonna go get my belly button pierced."

Now, let me just give you a synopsis of the classic "On Strike For Christmas" Lifetime movie. Perfect woman with a perfect family and a perfect house is just so darn TIRED of being taken for granted when she does Christmas all by herself while still running the amazingly successful "Black Friday at Wal Mart" Yarn Store. She put her heart and soul into that place, or at least five minutes during the movie when there was a whole crowd of people in her store, buying YARN. .So by God, enough was enough. When she saw the local supermarket employees on strike, she decided to go on strike too! And after her husband and sons TRIED to make her homemade cookies and only managed to make a mess of the kitchen, By God, they realized how important she was! And then they all sang at the end, realizing that Christmas was all about being together. Sigh.

But my favorite Christmas message comes from It's A Wonderful Life. Clarence did an awesome job teaching George how important he was, so when they got to the cemetery and Clarence told George how his brother died because he wasn't there to save him from drowning so then a crapload of OTHER people died because his brother wasn't there to save them during The War, George asked "Where's Mary?" (or something like that.) At that point angel Clarence lost it. He could barely choke out the words.

"Mary is a spinster. She never married George." OMG! And where did George find Mary? At the LIBRARY!!!!!!! Wearing glasses!!!!!!! And a grey suit, clutching books. No wonder George finally came to. It was a Christmas Miracle...Mary got to ditch the books and take care of George and a pile of kids again!

Protect

I can't see at night, so when I'm driving, I basically rely on memory.  I stick my chin out over the top of the steering wheel and squint, because everyone knows that when you can't see anything, shutting your eyes even tighter is super helpful. But I live in a relatively small town and don't get out much, so if you're walking at night in my town when I happen to be driving, not to worry, as long as you're wearing a florescent orange space shuttle suit and a fully equipped miner's helmet.

But while I was tooling along at a reckless possible 20 mph tonight, there he was. A crafty, highly trained crime fighting machine; a small town Officer Of The Law, hidden away in a cemetery, cruiser lights off, just far enough away from the road so that no one could possibly see him. Except ME. Or Helen Keller. Or any satellite that can detect a terrorist training camp in North Africa. 

Now, no one is going to accuse small town Officers Of the Law of being intellectuals, but I'm curious about what this hiding in the cemetery shit was about. First, was this some attempt at camouflage, like anyone would think a cop car with beaming neon YOUR TOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT letters plastered all over it parked in a cemetery without its lights on was a tombstone?

But I'm happy they're here. I'm safe, because my town's cops have a Zero Tolerance Policy for black people and teenagers. I watched them in action once, "pretending" they were getting coffee at the local convenience store while their eyes were totally fixed on the black couple (I think there might be three in our town) acting shady, picking out what kind of cereal they were going to buy while they were clearly being black. But the black people weren't going to pull  anything over on OUR boys, and I hung around long enough to watch the couple actually PURCHASE their cereal. Whew! Crime thwarted!

And as for teenagers, well, don't even THINK about being a teenager around here. Because that's illegal too. Our cops are fully armed with tazers, night sticks, bullet proof vests, drug sniffing dogs, semi-automatic weapons and way cool badges to make sure that there are no teenagers anywhere. But since they aren't superhuman and can't actually taze all teenagers out of existence, they make sure the rest of us semi blind while driving at night citizens are protected from the under 18 crowd.  Because they might gather together, become "Gangs," then "Do Drugs" and "Bully" people.

So our small town Officer's Of The Law are brave soldiers who can actually fight crimes before they actually happen. And at the end of a busy weekend night, they will have a teenager in custody for possession of a full bottle of Mike's Hard Lemonade

Shirt

I would like to start my new blog by saying that I'm honest. Pretty much always, unless I'm not.. Honesty is overrated . But I also have very little dignity. I'm a teacher, so I'm being reformed constantly. But tonight, as I was getting ready for bed, I realized that I was wearing my shirt inside out. All day. I stood in front of over one hundred high school seniors, chatted with several colleagues, and had lunch with at least seven of them. And no one mentioned the fact that my shirt was inside out. So SNAP Glamour and Cosmo...I have a magical inside/out shirt.

I'm blogging because I like to write. Randomly.