memories from a sleep deprived mind

I can’t believe I’m up before MTV Video Wake-up. I just finished working on an article that I left hanging last night so I could go to sleep and I ended up waking up at 2am to finish it. And now that it’s done I don’t feel like going back to bed. So I’m sitting here on the couch with some coffee and VH-1 trying to decide what to do with myself before Joey wakes up for the day.

Hm. What to talk about? Okay, I will tell you how I horrified my babysitter last week. Twice.

My dad takes care of Joey two days each week while I work. And so he gets an up-close look at the inner workings of my home and sees the gritty side of things we usually hide from outsiders. Like that our ice cube tray makes ice in the shape of penises. An unfortunate discovery my dad made when Joey caught his fingers in the toy box last Friday and he had to go into the freezer to find some ice to put on his hand. The strange thing is that he didn’t say anything to me about my perverto ice because if he had I could’ve explained to him that it was left over from a party we had recently and that’s not how we usually do ice here. But he never mentioned the ice and I only realized what happened when I saw the empty plastic tray of penis molds sitting on the counter that night.

Another morning last week, maybe it was the same day of the ice, my dad arrived at my house early and walked in to see me and Joey sitting on the couch enjoying a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on Tivo. It was a show where they all had mohawks and when he walked in they were jumping around the stage, singing about sex acts and promiscuity and Joey was staring at the television in awe. From the look my dad gave me I wasn’t sure Joey would still be here when I got home from work. I thought he might try to intervene on Joey’s behalf and deliver him to a more righteous life. A life void of perversion with a good wholesome family who would never give their child a sippy cup full of water with ice penises floating around inside to keep it cool.

To understand the upset I cause my dad, and have caused my dad every day of my life by being me, you have to know that he is kind of a prude. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but my dad has difficulty with sexuality, obscenity, behavior that is not proper and waste. It’s hard to explain without examples. My dad is very laid back until you assault his sense of decency, so to understand this better, here are some things I have done in the past to get my dad’s temper fired up: Say the word “fart” at the dinner table, throw a piece of steak fat from my plate across the kitchen and into the sink during a meal, try to leave the house in torn up jeans virtually every day of 1989, throw the almost empty bread bag into the trash when it still contained the perfectly good heel piece, refuse to drink milk that is approaching the expiration date, attempt to answer my mom’s questions about where I spent the night, sit on the couch with my boyfriend under a blanket to watch a movie, listen to music that contains foul language (mostly during my phase with Public Enemy and Eazy E). I recall more than once being told that my behavior was not “ladylike” when I was young. As though my actions were tarnishing the royal family name and the citizens of our great land would look upon us unfavorably and ask for our crowns back.

Okay and there is where I stopped because Eli woke up for work and came downstairs. I’m sure I would’ve gone on telling you about my strange, cool dad and all his funny quirks. Like how when we were older and too quick to get smacked, my brother and I would have contests at the dinner table trying to come up with any act sick enough to get my dad to slam his fork down and storm out of the room. I liked to burp and my brother would chew with his mouth open or put fries in his nose. Once my mom even got in on the fun accidentally when she burped a small burp into her napkin and my brother heard it and drew attention to it as though she had just blown her nose into the salad. “OH MY GOD DAD, Did you hear that? MA JUST BURPED LIKE A TRUCKER!” This cracked my mom up, so I had to think of something quickly to try and save her, “Shut up loser, it’s not like she farted!”

And that was the last straw.

Dad slammed his fork down and yelled, “ENOUGH!!! You kids make me sick!” and stormed out of the room. We repeated this kind of behavior so many times that my dad finally refused to come to the dinner table at all and began taking his meals on a TV tray in the living room while mumbling something about thosedamnkids.

So my dad. I never write about my dad here because it’s my mom who sucks all my parent writing momentum away. My dad is cool and quirky and even though he laughs at my stories and brags about me to other people, I think he might secretly hate my guts for all the uncomfortable shit he had to put up with in raising me. Especially with all the screaming that happened in the house between me and my mother. Our home was not peaceful when I was a teenager. As a testament to how bad it was, my brother does little skits for people who didn’t know us back then. Like his wife and Eli. The skits are hysterical but it’s probably just a coping mechanism he developed as a victim to the daily verbal unrest.

My brother plays all roles, using different voices for each person (and a slight bit of exaggeration for comedic effect):

Jaeme: I fucking hate you, I hope you die, why are you such a BITCH????

Mom: Get in your room, I don’t want to look at you. Did you HEAR ME FILTH MOUTH? GET IN YOUR ROOM I DON’T WANT TO LOOK AT YOU

Jaeme (stomping up the stairs muttering curses. At the top of the stairs she turns around to deliver her closing remark): I H A A A A A A T E Y O O O O U !!!!

(the door slams)

Silence

And then

HUGE CRASH as Jaeme begins throwing her furniture around in the bedroom to release her rage.

Mom (to my dad): Go up there and make sure she’s not drinking her nail polish remover.

End scene.

My brother usually tells these stories to highlight the emotional abuse he suffered peripherally as a result of the constant fighting between me and my mom. And sometimes he has to be gently reminded to suck it up buttercup because no one feels sorry for you.

There you go. This entry is what happens when I space out and forget that I’m not just thinking about things but my hands are on the keyboard and I’m typing them too. I feel like I just let you sit in on one of my therapy appointments.

Comments

[sherry]

I'm sorry there was so much unrest in your household growing up. Making your dad crazy by being "inappropriate" though? That's awesome. My friends and I used to do stuff like that all the time so we could sent to a kids' table to escape the boring parental table.

And the penis ice cubes are hilarious!