Gateway Drugs

For whatever reason AD and the RM have both been exceptional pains in my ass these past couple of weeks. Maybe it's spring fever, the heady rush of having a big girl bed, or maybe the Klonopin I sprinkle on their Crispix is out of date - I just don't know. I do know that they are wearing my sorry self out. AD, that sweet, well-mannered thing, has for some reason been Surly Shirley lately - moody and mouthy as hell, correcting everything I say and using a tone of voice just dripping with an implied "fuck you" no matter the topic. I told her to clean her room the other day and her response was to flip the clothes hamper and throw laundry all over the floor, like she's the freaking Wendy O. Williams of second grade. She also asked me if I was going to have another baby, and when I said no, why, she very pointedly stared at my stomach and said "oh, no reason...but...are you sure?"

The Red Menace has been her usual self, just more so. She alternates between evil and angelic, but is always weirder and more embarrassing than you think should be possible. Recently we were in Publix strolling through the aisle with the, ahem, feminine products, and she points at the Tampax display and yells "Mom. Mom! ELISE PIPER. Look! It's those STICKS you put in your BOTTOM!" Really loving that use-my-whole-name-phase thing, especially at times like those. I could hear people laughing all the way over in Produce, and the guy stocking the toilet paper was falling apart to the point that he had to lean against the shelf. We had another precious moment a few days ago; I was sitting on the couch when she snuggled up to me, put her little hands on my face and said in the sweetest voice you've ever heard "I never ever want you to be happy again." I said "well, that's not very nice at all!" She just maniacally giggled, so I threw some holy water on her and she backwards crab-walked up the wall and out the window.

 

The RM's most recent class picture. She's a keeper!

 

It's times like these when I just cannot figure out how in the hell I got to this place. I'm still kind of amazed that, should the mood strike, I could walk around nude and eat nothing but pudding cups and vodka tonics - THAT'S my idea of being an adult, not pulling Mastermind pegs out of a child's nasal/oral/anal canal. I should be cleaning my own vomit out of my hair, not someone else's. And it doesn't help that JHP travels so much for work; not only am I often dealing with this hydra on my own, but some days the closest thing I get to having an adult conversation is talking legos with the nine-year-old in our carpool. He's a great kid, but a woman needs more than the new thousand-piece Death Star set.

 

When JHP is home he can become equally overwhelmed and befuddled over how things have unfolded. Every now and then when someone's foot is stuck in the ice machine or someone else is cramming her Tinkerbell wings in the toilet, he'll just look at me and mutter "I just wanted to touch your boobs. That was all I wanted, just to touch them. I do not understand." I explained to him that there are probably quite a few people for whom boobs are a gateway drug to a variety of life-long commitments. And as for my personal boobs...well. That's another story altogether. When AD was around 2 years old, she was hanging out with me while I was changing clothes; I took my shirt off and she pointed to my formidable cleavage and said "Mommy's bottom!" When I took my bra off, she clapped and said "Mommy's arms!" After I told JHP that sad tale he got a faraway look in his eyes and whispered "I miss Mommy's fists..." Once the RM came along and was General U.S. Grant to my body's Vicksburg, I got that shit tightened up, people. At the first meeting with my plastic surgeon he asked me to take off my shirt and show him what was doing under there. I told him "you should know that there was a time when this would have been considered a great privilege for you"; I am not sure he believed me.

 

 

this is not me. But you can see these from my house, and Russia.

 

Don't get me wrong, I adore my children, I truly do, even when they take a Sharpie to the shower curtain or hide leftover spaghetti in the sock drawer. It's just that sometimes I'd like to call my mom and have her come pick me up and take me home so I can finish my English homework and watch "Moonlighting". Since that's not feasible, looks like it's pudding and vodka for dinner. Come on by!



 





Coal Miner's Niece

Last night I got sucked into one of my favorite movies of all time, the incomparable "Coal Miner's Daughter". For any of the three people in the US who haven't seen it, "CMD" tells the life story of Loretta Lynn, at least a good bit of it. It was released in 1980 before some of the more tragic things befell her, like the time her favorite son Jack Benny Lynn drowned, but not before other bad stuff happened, like the time she named her favorite son Jack Benny Lynn. Loretta's played by Sissy Spacek and her parents are Levon Helm and that woman from the Dorothea Lange photograph; Tommy Lee Jones (this was before he was universally acknowledged as a grouchy assface so you're not taken totally out of the movie) is her feckless husband Doolittle, aka Mooney. There are cameos by Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and the pride of Harpeth Hall, Miss Minnie Pearl, and strong supporting roles by a variety of fantastically tall hairdos and the kind of frothy dresses I'd begged my horrified mother to buy for me for years. And of course the music is fantastic - lots of the country classics when the genre was less bewildering Brad Paisley crap and more "you stupid drunk sonofabitch what are you doing with that trashy thang in the back of my Daddy's barn I'm gonna whale the tar outta you". In short, this movie is pretty much perfection from beginning to end.

Were I to nitpick I can only think of two things about it that I'd change. The first is the decision to cast Beverly D'Angelo as Patsy Cline. Her acting was fine but she put way too much vibrato into the singing; "Sweet Dreams" doesn't need to sound like opera. I was so put off by her performance that I didn't warm up to her again until the soul-stirring "they're all wet...Oh God...the dog wet on the picnic basket!" soliloquy in "Vacation" years later. The second is an offense both more personal and egregious, and that is the total failure of the filmmakers to include me in the movie. Lest you think I'm being my usual self and am just trying to horn my way into everything, you should know that featuring me in "CMD" would have been completely appropriate because I actually used to live with Loretta Lynn. To be more specific, she lived in my house. Or maybe my family's house. Fine, my aunt and uncle sold her their house - the homestead formerly known to our family as Hurricane Mills but whose drag name is now the Double L Ranch.

 

what a dump

 

So maybe they actually sold it a few years before I was born and I might not have ever been inside, per se, but shut your stupid talky face-part already, can't you totally see me having an Evita moment on that upstairs balcony? Don't cry for me middle Tennesseeeeeeee, the truth is the Log Cabin restaurant at the Waverly exit off of I-40 has really damn good chicken fried steak and okraaaaa....

 

Despite the fact that the younger generation didn't ever reside there, we have some pretty legendary stories about the place. My grandfather broke his ankle skateboarding across the downstairs porch, for example, which wouldn't be that remarkable except for the fact that he was 53 and high. Another family favorite is the time my mom and cousin Jeannie took a bunch of Polaroids of each other which they doctored by pulling away the photo backing and scraping off parts of the emulsion. Mom, thinking nothing of it, left them upstairs in a desk in the old mill. When Mooney found them years later he made all kinds of a to-do all about the Double L "ghost photos"; in a matter of months Mom and Jeannie were both sort of featured in both a National Enquirer article and hour-long tv special about "Loretta's Haunted Mansion!" If I'm remembering correctly, at air time those ghosts were, respectively, hollering at me for lying about my math homework and making meatloaf.

 

Another reason I love "CMD" is because it was one of the main things that brought my old roommate/best friend John Stamos and me together. Neither of us knew a soul when we arrived at Davidson freshman year, so the first couple of days were spent on nervous small talk with our new dormmates. When John Stamos mentioned that she liked "CMD", I knew I liked her. I told John Stamos our family connection to the movie and told her she should ask my parents about it, but John Stamos was understandably skeptical of their veracity given their behavior on drop-off day. Mom had hilariously introduced herself to everyone as "Elise's surrogate mother...her real parents are at a clogging convention in Nashville", while Dad wandered the campus with his video camera loudly narrating a bunch of bullshit about the place "...that there is the steam facility, and the building to the left is something what with science..." He was vigorous with his misidentification. Anyway, I was pretty excited the first time John Stamos came to Memphis with me; I was going to stop at Hurricane Mills on the drive home and show John Stamos around and prove once and for all that yes, Loretta Lynn was indeed walking where my people had once tread. I figured we'd get a mention in the museum or a write-up in the history of the place or something. Sure enough, there was a plaque right in front of the main house giving the lineage of the property...that completely misidentifed my family. John Stamos to this day remains unimpressed.

 

I've mostly gotten over all of it as the years have passed, but I'm still pretty sure some sort of restitution is in order. If they make a "CMD 2: Electric Boogaloo" it would probably be appropriate if not mandatory to include me somehow. Cslos, my smartass sister, suggested I be played by Shirley Hemphill but she's an idiot because Shirley's dead and also it should totally be Richard Simmons. John Stamos, of course, will be portrayed by John Stamos. In the meantime, re-watch "Coal Miner's Daughter", and say a prayer of thanks for everything I've done for Loretta's career. I'm the wind beneath her wings.

 





Kid Fears

The RM was in Memphis with my parents all last week while JHP and I tore up his high school reunion on in Houston. Because the Higdons are a selfish, cold people they actually expected me to take her back so I (very) reluctantly picked her up yesterday. We met for the prisoner exchange at the halfway point between Atlanta and Memphis, which is unofficially the snazzy new Love's truck stop in Jasper, Alabama. It has a fancy food court, TWO different claw machine games and a wide selection of what I am assured is the only smart choice when it comes to customized fuel tank covers for my big rig. It also has what is the greatest personal affront to the RM on the planet, something that turns her tiny little heart icy with terror and has her crying out in her sleep - that doomsday machine of Cthulu, the Dyson Airblade hand dryer. She hates that thing with a passion I haven't felt since Hitler's whore Kay Bailey Hutchison called me "girl" and kicked me out of the public Senate subway car.

it really should apologize for all that trouble it's been responsible for in the Middle East. Not to mention Dick Fuld, and cancer

 

The fear is strong enough that every time we even drive past the Love's on the interstate she feels the need to reassure everyone "WE ARE NOT GOING TO STOP THERE NO WE DON'T NEED TO VISIT THAT DYSON WE CAN GO TO ANOTHER PLACE OKAY SURE". I've even used it as a tool of discipline - if she's acting up in public for example I've found that the best thing to do is tell her that if she doesn't zip it I'm going to show her the Love's dryer I conveniently have right here in my pocket; that almost always shuts that shit down right away, not to mention convinces me that she's a real dumbass when it comes to spatial issues.

 

We can't really figure out why she's so afraid of the Dyson brand in particular; it's no noisier than any other hand dryer or lawn mower or countless other loud things that don't bother her at all. Perhaps she just fears progressive British industrial design. In any case it got me thinking about stuff that really freaked me out as a kid, and I have concluded that I was way smarter than the RM because I wasn't afraid of anything that was nearly that silly. What kept me up at night were threats that were totally obvious on the global level, like the Hamburglar and quicksand. Quicksand, as anyone around my age knows, was the hazardous darling of the 70's - I could barely turn on a "Bionic Woman" or "Gilligan's Island" without being reminded of its lethality. And it could turn up anywhere! You just never knew! You could be all la-di-dah playing fort in the yard but one wrong step later, your sister gets your room.

 

 

I think this was the back of the playground at school

 



As for the Hamburglar - what a dick. I never understood why he kept stealing when Ronald was sincerely happy to just give him as many burgers as he wanted. Pure misanthropy (I guess it's no coincidence he was a product of the Nixon era). And what does "robble robble" even mean? All that furtive muttering and darting around! Now my palms are sweaty. See? WAY worse than a Dyson dryer.

 

I'm glad my kids have such a rational mother to help them navigate the terrors of childhood. Or at least add to them.

 

Where I Came From

My high school reunion was this past weekend so the family Piper hopped in the car and drove up to Memphis. Since AD was in the throes of yet another stomach bug (no, we do not feed her raw sewage. We're better parents than that! She was probably just really hungover) this was no piece of cake, but I must say we streamlined it thanks to our spring break experience. Instead of pulling over in Toejam, MS every time she felt icky, I pumped her full of Pepto, gave her a giant plastic cup for the vomitus and told JHP that God willing and the creek don't rise we were stopping for no man. Aside from some not inconsequential barf that collected on the side of the car after dumping out the puke cup at 80 MPH, we made it there relatively unscathed. Victory! Just in time for me to hit the Friday night party, and for more of this baloney:

it's never too early to figure out your personal favorite method of taking heroin

 

Your eyes do not deceive - that's AD getting another IV. Dad wanted to get ahead of the dehydration issue so he brought some stuff home from the hospital and basically set up a MASH unit in the family room. Fortunately Scooby Doo and the Goblin King drowned out the North Korean shelling.

 

I fled the scene so I could get my swerve on with the Hutchison girls. Before you judge, let me tell you that if you knew these people you'd totally make the same choice even if it meant leaving behind a sick kid. You'd even do it if it meant missing a global exclusive on the photographic rights to Tom Cruise taking it in the Sir Poopster from John Travolta (not that you'd necessarily want to see that, but you know what I mean); we are talking about excellent women here. Most of them, anyway, but that's different post altogether. Oy. Long story short: it was fabulous. Great to reconnect with old friends, reflect on our formative experiences and how we became the people we are. Good emotional shit, with wine, sausage wheels and lots of bad photographs.

 

While I was home I came across a certain Peter Mayle book that also made me think a lot about how I became who I am. I wish I could tell you that the work to which I refer is Toujours Provence or Chasing Cezanne and that it had inspired me to run off and carve out a little slice of heaven with some artisan cheese and a hot piece of Vincent Cassel ass, but no. It was the soul-scarring masterpiece of horror known as "Where Did I Come From?"  For those of you who didn't grow up in the 70's and/or have completely misguided parents, this was a book that explained reproduction in a way that was somehow both twee and explicit, complete with graphic cartoon illustrations. My mom gave it to me when I was eight, and it scared the living shit out of me.

 

 

I suppose I appreciate her intentions (and the desire to pawn off the sex talk to a book) but all it did was really gross me out. Parents just stand around totally nekkid? That would be cold. What's he doing ON her like that? Why don't they buy a bigger bed? And even at that tender age I knew something needed to be done about all that nasty 70's no-maintenance bush - it was the wild west down there. All in all the whole thing made me extremely uncomfortable.

this is so alleged

I did the only thing I could think of that could set my world back on its axis; I took the book to school and charged people a dime to look at it. It was time for some truth, second grade! Plus, I wasn't about to shoulder this misery on my own, and it was an easy way to make some walkin' around money.

What that little episode says about my character is probably not anything to be proud of, but there it is. I'd like to think that I've advanced significantly since then, that my go-to when faced with an uncomfortable situation is no longer to drag others down with me as well, but I'm not sure that's always true. I do try - I didn't even post the more disturbing pictures from the book (the bathtub scene! SWEET LORD THE BATHTUB SCENE!) which practically makes me a martyr, yes? You should send me money. Anyway, I do know two things that are true: that tiny bed still gives me space issues, and Hotel Pastis would be a much different book with afro-bush cartoons.

 

 

 

The Book Of Daniel (Silverman)

A few years ago I got a voice mail from one very agitated Mrs. Crow. She was sorry to have to call, Mrs. Silverman, but I needed to know that Daniel had been sent to the principal's office because he'd called her "retarded" during language arts class, and such behavior was not to be borne, no, not at all. Since I know no one named Daniel Silverman I used my brain-part and figured out that his school had gotten his mother's phone number wrong. In a rare moment of good judgment, I did not call them back to correct them and the ensuing years have been quite entertaining. Daniel is not a good boy.

Some months after the Crow Incident, I got another call about my son; seems he got in all up in a swivet in the cafeteria, stuck his hands in the pickle container at the salad bar and started throwing them everywhere while yelling "DOO DOO!". That was a fun message to listen to - the guy who called was clearly trying his best not to laugh. The next one was more troubling as it was to report that Daniel had tried to force-feed crayons to the class hamster. I watch plenty of tv so you don't have to tell ME that animal abuse puts you on the glide path to digging into your neighbor lady's skull like it was a soft-boiled egg. Concerning! His father and I discussed counseling, but in the end we decided to wait in case this was an isolated incident.

you get the cold shoulder, Mr. Gacy

 

Silence for a while. Then, oh! Daniel had the highest grade in his math circle on today's test! We took him out for ice cream to celebrate and breathed a sigh of relief. Sadly, our happiness was short lived - just days later he tried to flush Connor's shoes down the toilet. They wouldn't have called except one of the shoes might be ruined and Connor's dad was FURIOUS. I don't mind admitting we were too; if I've told that child once I've told him a thousand times that you do not mess around with plumbing. Plus I was a little chapped that Connor's dad was being a bit of a prick about the whole thing. That guy is such a blowhard.

I guess his dad and I put a good scare into him, because I didn't get any upsetting calls from school for quite a while. He left his jacket in the nurse's office one time, but who hasn't done that, especially a boy who may or may not be somewhere between the ages of 7-13? He'd lose his head if it wasn't attached to his neck!

Sadly, though, things took a turn this fall. We've been pretty upset. The first call of the school year came the day the Sally Foster fundraising items were delivered; it seems that Daniel took a roll of the wrapping paper, held it up to his crotch and announced he had a giant wiener. Thus a theme was established; the following month he had to go to the principal's office again because he asked another child if she wanted to see his testicles (she didn't), and shortly after that he told Sam "I hate your penis face". March brought word that he called Mr. Larry a stupid scrotum, as if all scrotums are not stupid. Oh Daniel. We are really getting to the end of our collective rope.

What's a parent to do? I know what this parent is going to do - not alert the school, ever. That Daniel is shaping up to be a serious asshole, and if I ever meet him or his (probably very confused) real parents I'm going to be ready. I think I'll give him a quick punch right in his giant wiener.

Bad Bunny

You probably assume by now that I can be fairly horrible to my children. You are correct. In a constant effort to get them to behave, I have discovered that when it comes to making up ridiculous threats I am seriously gifted; it's my true medium. AD was a model child - the type of toddler who, if she drew on the wall, would come and show me what she'd done, solemnly apologize and surrender her crayons without a single prompt. And then never do it again. It wasn't until she was three years old that she actually started acting like a real kid and getting in trouble. Time outs were introduced, and if that didn't work then a favorite toy would be confiscated and put on the "No-No Shelf" where it joined my personal list of things that are off-limits (Keanu Reeves movies, shredded coconut, anal) for as long as it took.

Once we hit 5/6, the No-No somehow lost its teeth. Promises to send anything to exile there were met with a shrug and a snotty "fine...don't like it anyway...". Since we're not a spanking family, I turned to the much less harmful punishment of mental torment. It started with the standard "I'm going to call Santa!", but that left me unfulfilled and frankly a little embarrassed. I'm so much better than that, thought I. "Alright, if you don't knock it off right this second, I'm going to take every single book and piece of clothing out of your room, throw it in the front yard and have Jesus and Mr. Kennedy (the school principal) come over and light it all on fire in front of the entire neighborhood. And then haul you off to prison where you'll get all your teeth knocked out and probably lose an eye and have to play boyfriend to Big Sal." Kidding about that last part! Ha ha! Because that would be MEAN! Anyway, that worked for maybe a week.

Because I never actually followed through with any of this (duh. I'm not a Shriner.), I have had basically zero credibility when it comes to being an effective disciplinarian. This changed when an off-hand comment I made to AD birthed what has become the greatest law enforcement tool in the history of Birchwood Drive...it was right around this time last year that I said something about how "well, I would be awfully sad for you if the Easter Bunny canceled and you got the Bad Bunny instead." Evidently AD has more than a little love for the Easter Bunny because she perked right up and said "what. What are you talking about. TELL ME." After much fake back-peddling on my part I reluctantly told her how if you don't behave then the Bad Bunny will come to your house, take all your toys and food and chew your foot off to make a lucky key chain. Winner winner chicken dinner! Somehow the child who is already better at math than I am (not that that's so tough) somehow not only bought it but has added her own list of awful things the BB is responsible for.

 

My friend Ben has, for some reason, an unshakable disdain for Greg Gumbel that borders on irrational hatred; he claims that every time something good happens in his world, here comes that asshole Greg Gumbel to snatch it out from under him. It should be noted that Ben doesn't actually know Greg Gumbel, but that matters to him not at all. The BB has become AD's Greg Gumbel. You better believe that he's behind the snow 2 weeks ago, and the fact that tennis got canceled. Mud on the playground. The broken jump rope. Her lost "KidsBop" CD (that one was actually me). Her sister (also me. And her dad). I've even found myself blaming him for stuff; it must be he who snuck into my house and had all of my pants taken in. And surely it's not my fault that I'm not married to Morten from "A-Ha", living on a houseboat and being spoon-fed Ro-Tel.

 

Since I'm not (pinky swear) a complete monster, I haven't yet introduced the RM to the concept of the Bad Bunny. But if today's No-No Shelf harvest is any indication it won't be long.

 

And so it begins.

Pond Would Be Good For You

We spent Easter break at the beach which was roughly 89% awesome. Really nice weather, great food, all that. The only downsides were the two small buzzkills who came with us, and the fact that we found out that the alarm on the car we'd left at home had somehow gone off for the better part of an hour. At 4:00am on Easter morning. Either our car is a complete piece of shit or a devoted fan of the Sunday sunrise service; since it's a Japanese car and therefore likely some type of Buddhist, I'm betting on the former. Cares more about the neighbors being risen, evidently. Either way, no one on our block is currently clamoring to run for president of the Piper Fan Club. Yikes.

Another thing that gave me pause at the beach was, in short, the people. Specifically, how they dress and behave and live and breathe etc. etc. Granted we were in the Florida panhandle, where I've been going since I was  < 0,  so it certainly wasn't as if we were expecting Cannes fashion or Sardinian yacht parties but is it too much to expect that you could perhaps be amongst people who understood the impropriety of say, staking a giant Confederate flag in the sand or hanging out at the pool in curlers and pajamas? With a bong? And a baby? It's like the minute these people declare it to be their time of leisure it's all, fuck you guys, it's going to happen MY way and what do you think you're looking at. There were more than a few instances that it was very difficult for me to not pull someone aside and discretely tell them "I'm sorry to tell you this but you are actually in public at the moment. Also I can see your vagina".

It's not just rude behavior that bothered me, there was also a surplus of weirdness. Like the one guy in jeans who solemnly carried one of those large, clear plastic under-the-bed storage boxes down to the beach containing a single book, or the other guy who inexplicably dragged his entire rolling suitcase out on the sand, struggling with it like crazy to the point that I finally yelled "just pick it UP" (or maybe just whispered it kinda loud. I'm confrontational like that). They both made the fellow with the deluxe metal detector/headphones rig look completely reasonable.

I'd be tempted to chalk this up to the fact that hey, we're at the beach, people come from all over and may even be German so perhaps they just have different standards of behavior, except I've seen my fair share of this shit here in Atlanta. For example, there's one family who go to the same pool we do and who swim completely clothed. As in, regular pants, long-sleeved t-shirts, giant urban sombreros, street shoes. The whole nine yards. I've even seen the dad wear one of those khaki fishing vests in there. They seem to be completely unfamiliar with the concept of a pool; as if they've just that moment wandered in from the hills of Belarus and are intrigued by this large, water-filled hole. And lest you think I'm picking on some innocent family who simply doesn't know any better, let me tell you that the mother is a well-known polarizing television personality whose name I will decline to reveal out of discretion but whose initials are Nancy Grace.

I suppose I should have seen this coming. Back when I worked in the US Capitol building I was constantly surprised by how the tourists would dress and behave. "Let's see...we're visiting the hallowed halls of our nation's capital and I choose to represent myself by wearing skintight sweatpants with "LUCKY" printed across the ass. Honey, you should definitely show your respect by wearing that too small powder blue t-shirt that says 'Who Farted?' and has a hole in the armpit. This is exactly how we should make our mark." Most people would have paid more attention to their physical selves preparing to speak to their meter reader.

The decline in public behavior is depressing as hell; the next thing you know people are going to have their car alarms going off in the middle of the night. That is some shameful shit.