The Secret Life Of Mom

I found Lady GaGa here

Yesterday while I was having my hair color updated I text messaged TG a formal dinner invitation. I was so caught up in my own spontaneity that I forgot to check with Beav to see if he had made plans. That was stupid and almost led to a lot of disappointment on my part because he wanted to be at Young Life movie night (Zoolander! Yay! That's my boy!)and I wanted to be on the complete opposite side of town at a restaurant eating overpriced appetizers in a chi-chi room filled with The Incredibly Young And Hip. Because I'm not 100% selfish and TG is 100% understanding we took a rain check and Beav had a movie and poker night with his friends. (We'll discuss the movie and card game choice at another time)

On the way home from Stepford I played a especially chosen and burned CD for The Girl. I thought she was going to squeal (maybe she did?) when the opening strains of "Just Dance" came out of the speakers. Lady Gaga's song induces people, all sorts of people, including my very self-conscious older son, soldiers in Afghanistan and older women in Sephora stop whatever it is they are doing and dance. Because everyone needs a daily dance break. Ellen DeGeneres started this on her show and if you watch the audience, they anticipate it because the joy they feel and the unmitigated joy she exudes is infectious. I think it's vital for mental health. It doesn't matter if you can't keep the rhythm or you look like Paula Abdul. Just stop what you are doing and dance.

We car danced to Lady GaGa all the way home and when we made it home after our Lady GaGa break we rearranged the speakers for better surround sound and turned the music up very very very loud and danced to everything from Lady GaGa and Moby to Neko Case and Marc Anthony. It was about a million times more fun and fifty times more spontaneous than dinner out.

I missed Beav's phone call--made per my stern instruction--telling me what time to pick him up. Bad mom. And I heard about it when he called back, annoyed asking where I was. But hey, he didn't leave a message and I'm not telepathic. He calmed down in the twenty minutes it took to get to the Stepford Young Life house and then he asked the 365 thousand dollar question I was praying he would ask:

"So what did you and TG do tonight?"

"Nothing. Just hung out, watched a little television."

Deadpan. I should be in the cold. CIA. International woman of mystery. Boy doesn't know what he's missin' when's he not at home.

Life Is Scary...Let's Go Shopping!

Isn't this just the most awesome picture? I found it .here. It looks like TG and me this week as we gallivant from one thing to the next. I'm really not a social butterfly and we have a small circle of friends versus a herd of chums who spend every waking moment of leisure with one another. Which I think of as one of the many "Lesbian Behavioral Traits" and one I lump in the category of cats and sensible shoes: not for me. I don't like spending that much time with anyone except maybe myself and then she gets a little whiny and self serving and preachy and obsessive a lot of the time and you have to pointedly glare at her and say something like: "STFU, K? You're not only annoying but you are super boring, too!"

So between the necessity of a job, our surprising social events, the teenager and young adult rodeo that seems to be my household; I'm running headlong into a big project that I've invested actual real money into so I can't turn back or quit because I'm scared. And whenever I invest actual money into a dream the first thing I want to do is go shopping. Just like those precious slogan tee shirts say: "Life is scary, let's go shopping."

So I want to grab TG and go shopping like these jaunty girls swinging their hat boxes. TG isn't exactly a clothes horse (not room for two in a relationship) but she likes to go shopping and she has beautiful taste. Her bubbling enthusiasm and sense of fun is infectious, too. It's especially fun to watch her in places that play dance music because she is prone to stop what she is doing and dance. In the aisles of any given store. And when she dances, she doesn't dance like she normally does, it's a caricature of how white people dance. I have witnessed the stopping in tracks and dancing in two foreign countries, and three separate states. The Khmer stall keepers in Psar Chaa didn't think we were funny as danced to Lady Gaga in the middle of their market.

See the disapproving stare?

But usually people just give us a wane smile as they move on with their lives…quickly away from the obviously deranged dancing middle-aged women. She did induce one of the Sephora goddesses to dance with her a week or so ago. This woman was a gorgeous sixy-something and could bust a move. Sometimes, I pretend to be all eye-rolly but really I'm charmed. The funniest thing she does when she shops is pointedly keeping her hands in her pockets. The woman stops at the door of the shop and you can hear the dialogue: “Now Girl, keep your hands in your pockets so you don‘t touch anything.” I asked her about the whole pockets thing and she told me: "I have to or I'll just touch everything and I don't want to break stuff." TG has the most remarkable self-insight into her behavior. That we all had such insight…therapists would be forming bread lines because I watched her stores when she forgot her rule and she really does have to touch everything while she whispers to herself: "oOooohhhh that's nice...I like that...ohhhh I like that..." It isn't particularly dangerous if we are looking at sweaters or blouses or lawn mowers but the other day she made me really nervous in Crate and Barrel. I had to ask her to put her hands in her pockets but she didn't because she was too busy swinging the little brass watering can back and forth . I gave her a "mom stare"and then belly laughed at her as she was about to swing the damn thing into a giant wine glass with a microscopically thin stem standing in the middle row of the precarious Pyramid of Big Glasses That Would Shatter Into A Million Pieces If Dropped. In fact, I think Crate And Barrel should be renamed that: "Pretty Things That Break Easily". I feel much safer with her when we are in the Cephalon section…but it just occurred to me if we actually bought one those behemoth pans I would have to carry it so she wouldn’t be tempted to take out a display of glassware and china with one big swing of a frying pan as she sang to herself and grooved to “Rock That Body“ or Ke$ha.

Yeah, I think we need to work in a trip to the mall this week because she’s just so damn fun. And frankly, I need to dance.