the sick thing is, i’m sure that someday this is going to come back to haunt me. that someday she’s going to say i led her on, when the truth is i was only holding her off. i have to set her up with somebody else. soon. it’s not me she wants - she just wants anybody who will make it all about her. and i can’t be that guy.
when i get back to the living room, pride & prejudice is almost over, which means that everyone knows pretty much where they stand with everyone else. usually my mom is a crumpled-tissue mess at this point, but this time there’s not a wet eye in the house. she pretty much confirms it when she turns the dvd off.
mom: i really have to stop doing this. i need to get a life.
I think she’s directing this at herself, or the universe, not really at me. still, i can’t help thinking that ‘getting a life’ is something only a complete idiot could believe. like you can just drive to a store and get a life. see it in its shiny box and look inside the plastic window and catch a glimpse of yourself in a new life and say, ‘wow, i look much happier - i think this is the life i need to get!’ take it to the counter, ring it up, put it on your credit card. if getting a life was that easy, we’d be one blissed-out race. but we’re not. so it’s like, mom, your life isn’t out there waiting, so don’t think all you have to do is find it and get it. no, your life is right here. and, yeah, it sucks. lives usually do. so if you want things to change, you don’t need to get a life. you need to get off your ass.
of course i don’t say any of these things to her. moms don’t need to hear that kind of shit from their kids, unless they’re doing something really wrong, like smoking in bed, or doing heroin, or doing heroin while they’re smoking in bed. if my mom were a jock guy in my school, all of her jock-guy friends would be saying, ‘dude, you just need to get laid.’ but sorry, geniuses, there’s no such thing as a f**k cure. a f**k cure is like the adult version of santa claus.
It’s kind of sick that my mind has gone from my mom to f**king, so i’m glad when she complains about herself a little more.
mom: it’s getting old, isn’t it? mom at home on a saturday night, waiting for darcy to show up.
me: there’s not an actual answer to that question, is there?
mom: no. probably not.
me: have you actually asked this darcy guy out?
mom: no. i haven’t actually found him.
me: well, he’s not going to show up until you ask him out.
me giving my mom romantic advice is kind of like a goldfish giving a snail advice on how to fly. i could remind her that not all guys are dickheads like my dad, but she perversely hates it when i say bad things about him. she’s probably just worried about the day i’ll wake up and realize half my genes are so geared toward being a bastard that i’ll wish i was a bastard. well, mom, guess what - that day came a long time ago. and i wish i could say that’s where the pills come in, but the pills only deal with the side effects.
god bless the mood equalizers. and all moods shall be created equal. i am the f**king civil rights movement of moods.
It’s late enough for isaac to be home, so i tell my mom i’m heading off to bed and then, to be nice, tell her that if i see any cute guys wearing, like, knickers and riding a horse sexily on the way to the mall, i’ll be sure to slip ’em her number. she thanks me for that, and says it’s a better idea than any of her friends at girls poker night have had. i wonder if she’ll be asking the mailman for his opinion soon.
there’s a dangling IM waiting for me when i banish my screen saver and check what’s up.
boundbydad: u there?
boundbydad: i’m wishin’
boundbydad: and hopin’
boundbydad: and prayin’
all sorts of yayness floods my brain. love is such a drug.
grayscale: please be the one voice of sanity left in the world
boundbydad: you’re there!
grayscale: just.
boundbydad: if you’re relying on me for sanity, it must be pretty bad.
grayscale: yeah, well, maura stopped by cvs for a hag audition, then when i told her that tryouts were canceled, she decided she’d go for some
grayscale: nookie instead. and then my mom started saying she had no life. oh, and i have homework to do. or not.
boundbydad: it’s hard to be you, isn’t it?
grayscale: clearly.
boundbydad: do you think maura knows the truth?
grayscale: i’m sure she thinks she does.
boundbydad: what a nosy bitch.
grayscale: not really. it’s not her fault i don’t really want to get into it. i’d rather share it with you.
boundbydad: and so you are. meanwhile, no big saturday night plans? more quality time with mom?
grayscale: you, my dear, are my saturday night plans.
boundbydad: i’m honored.
grayscale: you should be. how was the bday celebration?
boundbydad: small. kara just wanted to see a movie with me and janine. good time, lame movie. the one with the guy who learns that the girl he marries is a sucubus
boundbydad: sucubbus?
boundbydad: succubus?
grayscale: succubus
boundbydad: yeah, one of those. it was really stupid. then it was really boring. then it got loud and stupid. then there were about two minutes where it was so stupid it was funny. then it went back to being dumb, and finally ended lame.
boundbydad: good times, good times
grayscale: how’s kara?
boundbydad: in recovery. grayscale: meaning?
boundbydad: she talks a lot about her problems in the past tense as a way to convince us they’re in the past. and maybe they are.
grayscale: did you say hi to her for me?
boundbydad: yeah. i think i phrased it as ‘will says he wants you inside of him,’ but the effect was the same. she said hi back.
grayscale: **sighs forlornly** i wish i could’ve been there.
boundbydad: i wish i was there with you right now.
grayscale: really? ☺
boundbydad: yessirreebob.
grayscale: and if you were here . . .
boundbydad: what would i do?
grayscale: ☺
boundbydad: let me tell you what i’d do.
this is a game we play. most of the time we’re not serious. like, there are different ways it could go. the first is we basically make fun of people who have IM sex by inventing our own ridiculous scornographic dialogue.
grayscale: i want you to lick my clavicle.
boundbydad: i am licking your clavicle.