AAAAAHHHHHHH!!! (Mommy Needs Some Terra Firma Now, Dear)

If I ran the world, children would not be allowed to drive or date until after their parents are dead.

What was I thinking, letting my kid get a learner’s permit? Somehow it didn’t really occur to me that she was going to want to, you know, drive.

But then three things happened. First, she started asking if she could drive. The nerve! Second, someone (you know who you are!) pointed out that when she’s 18 she won’t need my permission to drive and it might be good for her to get lots and lots of practice before then.

And third, her father lets her drive. Dad is great, but he drives aggressively. Frankly, I’d rather she doesn’t pick up his bad habits.

So, I let her get behind the wheel yesterday. And not just in our quiet little neighborhood, either. From home to Little Five Points to Phipps Plaza on a busy Saturday afternoon. And all the way home again after dark.

My kid will actually be a good driver. Considering it was only her third time on the road (as opposed to bank parking lots on a Sunday afternoon), she did really, really well.

As for me, though… Well, I had a death grip on the seat pretty much the whole time. But I met the nicest paramedics later, when they they pried me out of the car with the Jaws of Life.

It really was quality mother-daughter time, though (and I’m serious about that; it really was). We even developed some new special, secret mother-daughter lingo. Let me share it with you now.

ME: “stopstopstopstopSTOPSTOP!!!!!!!!!!!”
Translation: “Sweetie, could you please brake a little earlier?”

ME: “DRIFT!!!!!”
Translation: “Darling, you’re drifting to the right again and I’m afraid you’re going to rip the passenger door off of the car and then I’ll be impaled on that tree.”

MY KID: “Isn’t it nice that you don’t have to drive anymore?”
Translation: “If you don’t let me drive, I’m going to have Dad teach me.”

MY KID: “I am sooo driving us to Phipps.”
Translation: “If you don’t let me drive, I’m going to have Dad teach me.”

MY KID: “Dad was calmer than you.”
Translation: “I mean it, Mom! Dad’s gonna teach me!”

ME: “You did really, really well today. I’m proud of you.”
Translation: “You did really, really well today. I feel pride, sadness, happiness, fear, guilt, gratitude and wonder watching my incredible kid become an incredible, independent adult. And now, Sweet Pea, I'm going to go get my affairs in order. You know, just in case.”

Sigh.

Good Ole Miss

Let me be very clear about one thing: I loathe team sports. I don’t care if I am a lesbian, I just hate them. I don’t care if it’s college or pro or football or hockey or baseball or volleyball or whatever. It’s all just so much bullshit to me.

Don’t get me wrong. I know from sports. Football is the one with innings and basketball is the one with the tight ends, right? Oh, of course I know that’s wrong. I’m just playing with you. Even I know that baseball is the one with the tight ends. (What the hell is a tight end, anyway?)

Okay, so I wasn’t a jock. Is that so bad? I admit, maybe I have some painful memories of gym class. And maybe I do resent – just slightly – every past president of the United States of America for that goddamned President’s Physical Fitness Test they made us do every year.

And I suppose I’m still not too fond of the teacher’s aide who felt it was her sworn duty, at said fitness test, to call out my weight loud enough for it to echo off Camelback Mountain and back again, just to make sure that everyone in Phoenix and Scottsdale knew that I was Officially Obese. Every single fucking year.

And perhaps I have just a teeny little resentment against every gym teacher I have ever had (except Mrs. Gans, who was perpetually pregnant and gave me a “B” for trying hard, to which my dad said, “Wow. How did you manage to get a B in gym?").

And okay, so maybe I’ve thought some unkind things about that big brute of a fourth-grade gym teacher who made me run around the field even when I told him I couldn’t, and I got my one-and-only-ever asthma attack and they had to call my mother. I told you so, asshole.

And maybe I do think that dodgeball is the funnest game since “Let’s Pull Everyone’s Teeth Out Without an Anesthetic and See Who Bleeds the Most.” I read somewhere that Bluto invented dodgeball just for Popeye and Olive Oyl, and then Benito Mussolini took it from there. Yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s true.

And all right, so the first time I ever had to undress in front of anybody was in the showers for gym class in a brand new town at my brand new middle school, and all the girls kept calling me a lesbian and since I didn’t know they were right it didn’t occur to me to just say “thank you.”

And by the way, I think history will show that the squat thrust was invented by some sick, perverted pedophile.

Umm, where was I?

Oh, yeah. Ole Miss. They’re not going to let the band play “From Dixie With Love” anymore at football games, because the crowd keeps yelling “the South shall rise again!” before and after. Good for Ole Miss.

What, you were expecting some insightful sports analysis? Please.

P.S. A great big thank you to the group of girls in the fourth grade who lifted me up while the teacher wasn’t looking so I could say that I had done one chin-up. I adore you all.

Oh. My. God.

I'm home sick today. And I fear it's very, very serious, because I posted a recipe on here this morning. A recipe, for God's sake! Is there a doctor in the house?

Book Review! A Place Like This: A Memoir, by Mark S. King

I tend to avoid memoirs, especially Hollywood memoirs, because they can be so pretentious and tedious. Some people, though, have stories worth telling. HIV/AIDS activist and writer Mark S. King is one of them.

King has managed to survive numerous lifetimes of adventure and misfortune in his relatively few years on the planet. He weathered several of those lifetimes in the 1980s, the decade that is the subject of his book, A Place Like This: A Memoir.

A Place Like This covers a lot of territory: Mark King himself; his family and friends; a deadly disease; a movement; and an era. The narrative begins in 1981 with 20-year-old King moving to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting; it ends a little over a decade later when he moves to Atlanta to head the AIDS Survival Project. In between, the universe is utterly transmogrified, and King follows suit with relative grace, all things considered.

I note here that King has been public about his battle with substance abuse. While drugs are a part of this story, King wisely focuses instead on the transformative nature of the AIDS epidemic.

King’s portrayal is honest and unvarnished. That, of course, can be said of any good memoir. A Place Like This, though, goes much further: King not only lets us observe his seamy youth, but also lets us see who he is today because of it. And then, as a bonus, he shines the light outward, inviting the reader to recognize himself as well. Thus, unlike most memoirs, which only feign intimacy, this book truly is intimate. It’s the distinction between a good memoir and a great one.

Consider this passage, where King, in describing his successful foray into the gay phone-sex industry, talks about one of his female customers:

It would be easy to reduce her actions to something comical but I can’t, I won’t. It was a meaningful and well deserved Calgon moment for her, and when her calls suddenly stopped soon after she mentioned a possible suitor in her life, I was truly glad that her life might become less lonely and I missed hearing from her. I hope she’s happy.

Through most of the book, King skillfully balances pathos, sly wit, and bawdy humor. This balance changes once he begins to address the AIDS epidemic. Then, there is just enough humor and hope to keep the reader afloat, but no more; otherwise, the pain is unrelenting, just as it is in real life and just as it should be in the narrative. It is almost too much; but King resists indulging in maudlin self pity, thus shielding the reader from the final precipice. (For an excellent supplement to this book, I recommend HIV in the U.S. Epidemic's Darkest Hour: An Interview With Mark S. King; this interview provides a strong historical and cultural backdrop to the story.)

King is the best kind of writer of all: the kind you don’t notice. His style is conversational and seamless, allowing the story, instead of the writing, to take center stage. This is quite a feat considering his liberal use of flashbacks and flash-forwards. In less capable hands, the story would have been nearly incomprehensible. But King, remarkably, switches between time periods so gently that with very few exceptions, I didn’t even notice. I just knew.

I can only find two faults with A Place Like This, and I had to look hard for both of them. First, photographs would have been awfully nice. King has presented a family portrait full of interesting people about whom I came to care. As wonderful as it was to hear “Uncle Mark” tell all the family stories, I wanted to see the picture album, too. What’s more, King’s persona as an actor is a separate character in this book, and it needs a face. The cover graphics hint at it, but only just. And unless you’ve actually seen how impossibly good-looking King was (and, in fact, is), it’s hard to understand how the hell he got away with as much as he did.

The other minor fault is an occasional and slightly distracting change of voice. Once in a great while, a sentence popped out at me that sounded a lot like writing. Don’t get me wrong: they were perfectly good sentences. But they removed me, just for a second, from the action. Fortunately, within a sentence or two King always recovered and put me back in the passenger seat so I could continue to ride with him, instead of just watching him fly by. In any event, I don’t believe I’ve ever read a book that didn’t skip a beat here and there.

Mark King is the rare person who has a lot to say, says it exceedingly well, and then both gives and gains strength through his words. Perfection is merely theoretical; it does not exist in reality. But A Place Like This comes about as close as it gets.

(Updated to link King's book and to change the first sentence, which was driving me nuts)

No Turning Back Now.

Well, I postponed it as long as I could. As I write, my child is taking the test to get a learner's permit. Along with a small army of other tiny children.

When did 16 get to be so freaking young? Shouldn't they have to be on solid food first?

Seriously. These little rugrats will be operating thousand-pound projectile weapons systems in less than an hour. It boggles the mind.

Oh, she's done! Gotta go see if she passed. Can you say "ambivalence"?

THE ORIGINAL Scary 'Mary Poppins' Recut Trailer

Just a couple hours too late for Halloween, but still fun...

My name should be ... WTF??

Here's a fun, fast thing to do when you've had enough of, well, whatever you've had enough of. It's the Betty Brown Name Generator. See, if you've got a name that's ... you know, foreign ... and no one can pronounce it, this will give you a real American name.

And you know, now that I've done it, I do feel just like a real American. Quick! Get me my Kate Smith CD! Oh, gosh, I think I just might cry.

My Betty Brown Approved Name is LaVerne "Cracker Barrel" Brown.
Take Betty Brown Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Hat tip to Ramona Creel, who has a truly amazing website.

And by the way, I really do have a Kate Smith CD. You wanna make something of it?