So I prayed to God for lesbian feelings and ended up pregnant instead. Something clearly got lost in translation.
I was recently flipping through the channels looking for an awesome show about arsonists or serial killers or something and my remote control battery gave out just as the clicker landed on one of those sappy birth story shows. Which, btw, are like crack for eyes, because you just can't stop watching after seeing only a little. And by the end you're crying with your cat about tiny miracles and crap. And the whole time you can just feel this eye crack eating away at your brain and making you, too, want to have nineteen plus people start life by crawling out of your private parts. I think this extra happens if you've ever grown a person in your body before because then you get all nostalgic about the awesome drugs you got to legally take before during and after the process and then at the end you're given this little replicant that you can put cute doll clothes on who is mandated by law to listen to you for the next eighteen or so years. Motherhood rocks.
My grandmother affectionately referred to this era in my life as the time I dressed more than a little like Satan. Perhaps my prayer wasn't lost in translation but rather answered with a 'gotcha' from God.
So my son walks in the room just as I'm using Papi Chulo's back as my new personal handkerchief.
Son: Um, what are you doing to the cat?
Me: I'm comforting him. He got all emotional watching this stupid birth story show remembering how awesome it was when you were born.
Son: I'm ten years older than the cat.
Me: Confession time. Papi Chulo was actually comforting me. I wish I had eighteen more of you running around. It shouldn't be just people who give birth to whole litters either in one shot or piecemeal, that get to share their stories with the world. I think I'm going to share OUR story with the world. I'm going to write a post about it. Tomorrow.
Son: <sigh>
Now at eighteen he's heard this story like a zillion times, with more deets provided with every passing year. (Nothing too graphic though only because I was full blown anesthetized when he was surgically removed from my abdominal cavity. It's probably better for all of us this isn't going to be THAT kind of a post.) This is more the back story of how, like Mick Jagger said, you can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.
So anyhow, it all started at the beginning of college. Or the end of high school. It was like 1987 and all of a sudden everyone was gay. Or at least bisexual. Now my whole life up to this point I had been pretty much the odd man out and now, swimming in a sea of weirdos and outcasts, I was still the effing cheese. Even though I had never gotten much farther than second base (with boys only), I was pretty sure I didn't have a bi bone in my body. I actually ended up developing one badass crush by the end of freshman year. On a gay man. Which in my mind was almost being bisexual. For one of us at least.
So I did what any partially Irish, partially catholic girl would do. I prayed. Dear God, it would really rock if you would like make this gay man develop a girl crush or at least let me like girls. Even a little bit. Your truly, Jennifer. And then I waited patiently for my prayer to be answered.
Then one night I was at a club in Providence Rhode Island and I needed some air so I went outside. And then this chick who looked just like Madonna circa 1986 sat down beside me. And when she leaned over and swung her arm around me in a you-are-not-my-girl-friend-you-are-my-GIRLFRIEND kind of way I felt like we were two giant magnets, but both from the same poll. I definitely felt, er, repelled. And then I knew for super sure that I was like super man and that girls were half past kryptonite for me. Epic fail on the gayness factor. I left disappointed but pretty clear in which direction my compass pointed.
So I gave up the dream and then all of a sudden it was spring again and spring is like crack for twenty year old people the way birth story shows are crack for just about anyone with at least one x chromosome who is over the age of twelve. The next thing I knew I had an actual boyfriend who didn't have a boyfriend of his own and was pretty much horrified when I asked him as much. And then it was fall and I developed a cold.that.just.would.not.go.away and so I went to health services where I was given a form with instructions to list any and all medications I was currently taking before they would prescribe any more. I checked the 'none' box which pretty much changed the course of history for at least a few of the people balancing on this blue and green ball. Birth control pills are apparently medication. Who knew? And, btw certain antibiotics render these bad boys pretty much useless (this is NOT urban legend as I have double blind walking talking empirical proof of this. His name is Nigel.)
So then spring came again. And again and again and again to the second power and I had pretty much forgotten and/or repressed all of this ancient history. Until my son started high school. You see, I sent him to catholic school because I didn't want him to get murdered in the hallway (which happens from time to time in the public schools) and I really didn't want to spend more on four years of high school than I did on my first house (which is pretty much what the über elite local private schools would have run me). Plus, being partially catholic and all it mostly made sense. So during one of the nightly 'How was your day?' back and forth rituals about three quarters of the way through the ninth grade it swam to the surface and practically dove out of the water and landed smack dab in the middle of the dinner table:
Me: So how's school going?
Son: It's okay. We have to pray way too much. Like, before each and every class. I run out of things to pray about halfway through third period. My teachers complain because I'm 'too fidgety' during prayer time. Which is like 18% of my day. I don't know how much longer I can take this.
Me: There's so much crap in the world to pray about I'm sure you can think of something and if you can't, just close your eyes and pretend to pray. Or say the alphabet backwards. Besides, you don't have to be a 90 year old religious zealot on death's doorstep to ask god for things. Kids can totally pray. In fact, I used to pray when I was your age.
Son: You? Pray? For what? Never mind, don't tell me. I don't think I want to hear your teenage prayers said in an outloud voice.
And then it all came crashing back to me. Prayers. Gay boy friends. Gay girl friends. Bisexuals. The whole nine yards. What a trip and a half down memory lane. And at the same time I was like Awww...isn't that sweet? My boy can read my mind.
That's what you get when you grow another person inside of your body. Someone who knows you so well they can practically mind meld with you because they pretty much spent the first nine months of their own life poking your uterine wall with their little finger and somehow tapping into your central nervous system and hijacking your brain waves. Now I'm getting all weepy just remembering the awesomeness. It almost makes me want to have eighteen more of those bad boys. Almost.
Posted by Jennifer at 4/8/2010 2:27 PM 
Categories: Stupid shit that only happens to me and a lot of other people too
Tags: the longest blog post ever things that make you feel like sigourney weaver in the first alien movie
Categories: Stupid shit that only happens to me and a lot of other people too
Tags: the longest blog post ever things that make you feel like sigourney weaver in the first alien movie
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