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8.19.2005

The cruise of hell started in the first ring, better known as "Miami".
my parents, living in the suburbs of hell, were quite pleased to hear that we would be visiting the ez-bake oven that they call home.
(taking their daughter and their granddaughter for a week long vacation may have aroused their suspicions, so we were forced to advise them of our plans -but believe me, a late night boat lift was discussed)
as im sure i've mentioned, on not just one occasion,
my mother is crazy.
and not of the 'wild and..." Variety.
she is from the "one incident from the bin" phylum
and i can probably give you 1 reason for every day that she has been alive, why that is so.

so after some phone tag, where my mother delights in leaving messages such as:
"YOUR IT!!!"
or
"TAG!!!! PLEASE TAG BACK!!!"
and hanging up, she finally called me from my grandparents house, fooling me into picking up.

Landry's mom: Hiiieeee honey!

Landry: oh hi mom. why are you calling from grams number?

Landry's mom: (mumbling something inaudible about disguises)
you and Liz are going to be here on friday after your trip, right?!?! PLEASE come to karaoke with your father and me?!?!? PLEEEEEESE.

ACK!

Landry: im not going to ask if you are crazy because that seems too OBVIOUS,
but the answer is no.

Landry's mom: whyeeeeee?!?!? come on!!! it will be fun! We are (and i SWEAR TO GOD she said this) karaoke rock stars.

Landry: (laughing so hard she was almost run over by a bike messenger on 38th and 8th)

Landry's mom: go ahead and laugh Jennifer, but if you come, you will be treated like (and again I SWEAR) karaoke royalty.

Landry: (writhing on the corner with the pain of the laughter) what the FUCK is 'karaoke royalty'?!?!?!? and before you even answer that, the answer is no.

Landry's mom: Jennifer Janet, you are a snob.
I used to think karaoke was geeky too and now....

Landry: ...and now what? now you have been shown the ways of karaoke and you realize that all these years you were just waiting for karaoke to come along and save your life?!?!?
FORGET IT!
Im not coming.
call us even for all of the things that you didnt show up to, like class trips where you were supposed to be one of the two parent chaperones but you were too hung over, or one of the times where i was singing Handel's "Messiah" dammned near solo AND acapella!!!

Landry's mom: (quietly) i came to a lot of your things.

Landry: mom. you missed my graduation from high school.

we went to see her sing karaoke.
and she wasnt awful.
she says that i always thought her singing was horrid, which simply isnt true.
i have a great amount of respect and admiration for my mother's courage against things that seemed impossibly difficult, but she enrages me with her lack of self control, her willingness to fall prey to her self-inflicted 'victim status' and her need to be loved which is bottomless and irrational.
and the filling of all of those holes with drugs, alcohol, pills and now...

...karaoke.


**** the one disclaimer that i will make is that my mother missed my graduation from high school because she was in medical school in Dominique.
(why the undergrad president of Beta Beta Beta and 4.1 pre-med student would have to go out of the country to go to med school is a story for another day but lets just say there were not a lot of med schools who wanted to accept a 38 year old woman with 2 teenage children)

.: posted by landry 11:56 AM

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