You know hoodies? You know like the picture to the left? I have to force myself to call them hoodies because when I was growing up, my dad called them sweathoods...which is what I secretly call them.

The term sweathood is so dirty and nasty! I'm just picturing a hood all full of sweat. Now, it's not the most humiliating thing ever but I'm just trying to wrap my head around what other words my dad mistaught me. I know there has to be a lot out there since the man would write things like this:

zink=sink
bite-a-min= vitamin
skreen door=screen door

Amazingly, English was his first and only language. Even more amazing? I teach English.

Reveal something only moderately humiliating to me. Pwwwwweeeeassssssszzzzzzzze???

PS. Buy me that sweathood *ahem* HOODIE...it's flippin' sweet!

While giving blood yesterday my pal Ml must've been feeling a little woozy. She revealed secrets...secrets about me. Secrets that are most delicate in nature; about what I like to do in my free time--for example, maybe...just maybe...I get drunk and I put my dad's prosthetic hook on my hand. C'mon! Tell me! Tell me that you wouldn't do it if you had had a hook sitting on a shelf looking all lonely-like.

The person that Ml told looked shocked. Ml tried to explain, "Well, it's just like a hat. Let's say your dad died and he left you a hat, you'd wear it right?"

The girl looked directly at Ml and said, "But it's not a hat, it's a hook!" Which made me think of the scene in I Heart Huckabees where Jason Schwartzman's character tries to give the valet his bike and tells him to pretend it's a car. The valet says, "But it's not a car, it's my job!" That made me giggle, and then it made me think of this...

The girl came in today and confronted me, "Do you wear your dad's hook when you're drunk?"
My reply was, "Well yes, sometimes then. But I wear it whenever I feel like really, why do you ask?"
She gave me the look reserved for small children and animals that are behaving badly and she told me that I'm cracked in the head. I didn't deny it. C'mon, it's not like I wear the hook out of the house. Yet.

PS. That's the real hook above.
PPS. It is covered in camouflage duct tape.
PPS. I have no idea why.

Blame this post on watching One True Thing, the book slayed me and watching the movie (which isn't all that great) killed me a little bit more.

My mother has always played second fiddle to my father. She's my biological blood and yet she willingly took the back seat to my non-biological dad. Why? The only answer I can come up with tonight is the fact that she is an unfailingly good mother. I look at her (now, introspectively of course, but in reality, I've never really looked at her aside from physically...it's terrible), and I realize how truly blessed I am to have had the life that I've had--and it's all because of her.

She became pregnant at 18. She was unmarried and had been having a romance with an older man, I think it was all very exciting coming from the abandoned strip mine town that she did. She was (is) very intelligent and I was definitely going to "interfere" with her plans, her dreams...college. Because my family based our entire relationship on truth, when I was old enough she told me all about the feelings, the overwhelmingness of it all. She even told me that she went to an abortion clinic, that she sat in the waiting room, touching my non-existant self and when they called her name she stood up and walked out.

I don't see this as noble, I see this as an impulsive decision. I'm not against abortion (I know this will anger many people, but I could never decide for others. I don't believe that I would ever have one, but to choose for everyone?? That's not my job) I understand that I wouldn't be here had she not stood up and left...and believe me, I'm glad that she did. She made that choice at 18 as many women do, but when she did that, she became a mom. A real mom.

My mom almost never had a babysitter for me (two times that I can remember in my entire childhood). I blew out the candles on her 21st birthday, I have the picture to prove it. When I went to bed, her friends and my dad and her celebrated with bottles of champagne quietly after I was asleep. Date nights? I went on every single date my parents ever had. Was this healthy? Probably not, but it worked for all of us. I can't even imagine. My mom had no identity other than Mom and she never complained, although she probably should have.

Now my mom is 48 and my father (non biological), the true love of her life is dead and she started over. I'm proud of her. She met a man, has been with him for about three years and has built a life without myself and my dad. At first, I was jealous and vindictive child (at the age of 26). It's only now that I realize that this is the first time that she has a chance to live the life that she's dreamed (let me quote Thoreau if I may). This is the only time in her life that there has never been external expectations upon her...can you even imagine?? And she never complained, not once. Of course, there are people who would say that she couldn't complain because she made the decisions that she made, but this is reality, people complain daily. She never once did.

My mother is going to college at the age of 50, that's her goal and I'm proud of her. Because of my dad's tour in Vietnam we all received (basically) a free college education. As of today, I was the only one (out of the three of us) who took advantage of this. In fact, on graduation day my dad said to me, "It was almost worth losing a hand and a leg for this." I cried. I want to cry for my mom when she throws her cap. I hope that she does. She's deferred all her dreams and now, it seems, she is trying to live the life she was meant to live.

Every day since I turned 24 and a half I've been writing 24.5 in random places on my body trying to figure out where I would like to get it tattooed and how I was going to go about making it interesting. It's been 4 years and I think I've finally figured it out.

You see, my dad died when he was 49, and I realized that he probably never considered that 24 and a half was his middle age. So 24.5 is my own little version of carpe diem, it reminds me that I need to do all the things that I'm scared to do, all the things I want to do, and try all the things I've ever wanted to try.

So when the cash rolls in, the ink will go on...it's been a long time coming.