Tag Archives: family

How Janet Jackson made me cry

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My mom and I look alike. Though I have a moonier face, we’re basically twins born 35 years apart. We have nibbly knobs for chins, flapping lobes for ears, and huge gums for teeth.

Save for a dog-food-induced popped lung or two, we have identical health records, too. We both suffer from cold sores, occasional bouts of granuloma annulare, and an inability to be ashamed of our poop. As a self-diagnosed hypochondriac, it’s helpful to have my mom as a personal blueprint for my own health. Always looking for what disease I’ll inherit next, I have made a practice of surveying my trick mother. In 2009, whilst surveying my trick mother, I found a suspicious red welt on her forehead.

My dad had had a similar growth on his shoulder a few years prior, and it had turned out to be basal cell carcinoma — a benign type of skin cancer. Benign or benot, cancers is scary. As soon as I noticed the welt on my mom, I asked her to go to the skin doctor to get it checked out. After three years of my nagging, she finally did this past May.

It was basal cell carcinoma. Lady had to go and get her head all chopped up.

Battered mother

Battered chicken

As upsetting as it was to learn my mom had skin cancer, it wasn’t the most upset I’ve ever been by her health. When I was 12 and my sister Beanie was 14, my mom’s health upsat us so badly it changed our lives.

Me: Mom, you’re my favorite mommy. Want to do fun mother-daughter bull, like read gossip magazines?

Beanie: Me too! Me too!

Mom: Of course, sweet children. I love reading celebrity tabloids. Pass me one!

Me: Here! I know how much you love the VH1 movie about her family. You even named our cats after her brothers. Take this one!

Mom: Huh? Wha? Hibbidy jibbidy, who dat be?

(My sister and I break out into immediate, violent sobs. Our mom doesn’t recognize Janet Jackson.)

Me: Ooohhhh laaaaaaaaawwwwddd.

Beanie: What… does… this… mean?

Me: QUICK! GRAB THE OTHER MAGAZINE. MOM, WHO IS THIS?

Mom: C’mon! Everyone knows who that is. It’s that… guy. Who’s dating the… umm… the girl. Ya’ll know.

(Beanie and I cry even harder. She doesn’t know who Justin Timberlake is and can’t remember Britney Spears.)

About 30 minutes later, while my sister and I were still mourning the abrupt loss of our mother’s sanity, my mammy got knocked out by a massive migraine. Apparently her vision/mind had been funked up from the impending headache. That’s why, in addition to begging my mom to visit the dermatologist, Beanie and I quiz her on Janet’s face at least once a month.

…The health I have to look forward to!

Name that Jackson

30 second update

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The past month or so has been crazy for me.

1. I turned 23.

2. I celebrated turning 23.

The classiest part of this picture is the lemon wedge that I sucked the fruit off and then returned to the glass rim.

3. I rediscovered shrimp.

4. I spent time with the cutest, sweetest, smartest girl and boy in the world.

Do you see the resemblance?

“Gurl please”

4. I befriended a coworker.

5. I learned that all the wood said coworker and I have been collecting and cutting in half with her cordless saw for the raft we’re building in the woods behind our office floated away with the rain and now all that’s left are the spears we sharpened with pocket knives and practice stabbing the water with.

Anyway, I should have more time for blogging this month.

The Day of Thirty and Five Fifteens

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Growing up, Thanksgiving was always a pretty normal holiday at my fambly’s household. Pies would bake, dinner rolls would burn, my dad would spill boiling turkey juice on his bare feet, and I, despite having never gone to a single church service in my life, would force my family to bow their heads in silence as I led a weirdo prayer about God and arrowheads. Nothing too notetwerthy.

In fact, my most memorable Thanksgiving didn’t even happen on Thanksgiving. It happened a few days later, on what I call “The Day of Thirty and Five Fifteens.”

The Day of Thirty and Five Fifteens

In 2008, my cousins Ira and Holly hosted Thanksgiving, and they did a right fine jarb. There were all the makings of a good Thanksgiving: family, babies, turkey, and sturdy crackers. We talked and played and laughed and did all the things you’re supposed to do on a national holiday. It was fun! Everything was great!

And the greatness continued the next day. My cousin Petey and I woke up early Friday morning for our first ski trip of the season. We left the house around 6 a.m. and drove the two hours to Sunday River. We suited up in our suits, chairlifted up the mountain, and skied down one trail. Then we smiled and high-fived each other and clapped. Then we packed up and drove the two hours back home.

Thang was, I wasn’t feeling so hot.

Actually, I felt the opposite of so hot; I felt craptastic. Craptastic enough that on the drive home, we had to pull over at a gas station so I could run in and break my 10-year puke-free streak. You know what’s unfun? Throwing up in a public bathroom. You know that’s especially unfun? Destroying the one thing you’re proud of, like a 10-year no-vomit record.

Shaking his fist at me n mah stank smells

When we finally got back to my house, after a ride of rolled down windows (by that I mean I farted a whole lot), I learned my mom and sister were sick, too. Apparently, we’d all caught the same bug our baby cousins had had a few days earlier. It sucked, but after a day of rest, a few bowls of chicken noodle soup, and some soda on the side, I was fine. Fine, at least, until the Day of Thirty and Five Fifteens, which happened after I’d returned to college.

Since the day I threw up in a gas station bathroom, I’d been perfectly healthy. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday all passed without incident. So, as I’m sure you’d understand, I didn’t expect Wednesday to be any different. And so, as I’m sure you’d also understand, when I burped a burp smelling of sulphur, rotten eggs, and human poop, I blamed it on the Golden Grahams I’d eaten for breakfast and headed to Writing for Mass Media class.

About four burps into class, my friend Owen whispered sweetly in my ear.

Owen: Daaaayummm. Smell dat? Someone keeps farting in this bitch.

Me: I… I think it’s me. Me burps. I think it’s me burps!

Owen: No, fool! Can’t you smell it? It’s a fart. The smelliest fart smell I’ve ever smelled. It smells so bad it’s scary.

Me: Um… I really think it might be me. I feel a burp coming. Here, let me do it straight in your face so you can tell for sure.

(I burp in his face.)

Owen: Oh my God. It is you. Do it again, it’s incredible. P.S. YA SICK.

And Owen was right — I was sick. Really sick. By 5 p.m., my belly had doubled in size with gas and angry stanks. My appetite was fine, though, so for dinner I ate a cheeseburger, fries, chocolate cake, and a Coke. As a result, my belly quadrupled in size by 6 p.m. and I was stankier and more uncomfortable than ever.

Which is unfortunate, because 6 p.m. was also the time of the college radio meeting — my first meeting as promotions director. Know what promotions directors have to do at college radio meetings? Speak. In front of tens of people!

What I did at that meeting doesn’t even count as public speaking. I could tell you about how I was completely hunched over, or how all I did was grunt, or how I couldn’t help but leak a few fartburps. All you really need to know, though, is that my pants were unzipped and unbuttoned. The whole time.

Then, when it was over, I went back to my dorm and pooped 30 times and let out five 15-second farts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ve gone dumb

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I’ve spent most of the summer hanging out with dogs and babies. In particular, my pup dawg Chico and my niece Heidi.

They both super bomb. Chico is cute and funny and sweet; Heidi is crazy adorable and crazy happy and crazy fun and my favorite new human. You know what neither of them are, though? Smart.

Actually, as far as dogs and babies go, they’re geniuses. Chico can manipulate my mom to do anything — he fakes anorexia to get spoon fed and he fakes a limp to get carried on long walks. He’s a sicko bastard, but he’s clever. Still, since he’s a dog, I can’t do anything with him except make weird noises and throw squeaky toys and beg him to poop.

I can also get crunked with him

Likewise, Heidi is wicked smart for a baby. She babbles with the best of them and knows the facial expression for every word in the English dictionary. I’m sure she’ll be a bookworming math wizard in a few years, but for now, all I do when we chill is make gooftastic faces and blow raspberries and beg her to poop (I also smile a lot).

"This blanket is tasty and my face is the effing best"

The lack of normal social interaction is starting to have an effect on me. I’m going dumb real quickly like.

For example:

1. I went surfing the other day and chatted with a middle-aged, Australian, sleeveless-wetsuit-wearing man. After talking for a minute or two about weather n whatnot, he paddled out far, I posted up on da inside, and the chittychat ended.

Ten minutes later, Mr. Australian Man caught a wave. As he rode the wave in, he passed right by me. He was kind of crouching down and had his left hand sticking straight up and his right hand sticking out to the side. It looked to me like he wanted a high five.

When I stuck my hand out and he ignored it, however, it no longer looked like he wanted a high five.

(P.S. He later told me about his 12-month-old son. Thinking he said 12-year-old, I asked if his son surfed much. You should have seen the look he gave me!)

2. While taking Chico for a walk, I made homies with an old man. He asked me a few questions about myself, and then asked me what da mutt’s name was.

Old man: What da mutt’s name is?

Me: Chico. It means “boy” in Spanish. Funny, huh?

Old man: Oh helllooo there Chico!

Chico responded by lifting his leg on a telephone pole and dripping a pizz. The old man laughed and said to him, “And helllooooo to you too!”

For some reason, even though we’d already said hello and chatted for a few minutes, I looked old man right in his old face and said back, “Hello.”

I really don’t know how I mixed that one up.

3. The back tire on my bike blew this morning when I was about 4 miles away from home. On the walk back I found some grapes on the side of the road, noted they looked delicious, and ate a few. Then my lips got tingly and I thought I was having an allergic reaction. Then I remembered my chapstick had tingle-inducing ingredients in it.

Then I decided I should probably stick to dogs and babies.

Baba n me

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My sisters and I have never had a close relationship with our maternal grandmother, Baba. On the rare occasions we visited Baba and her boo-boo (our grandpeezy Mott), she’d welcome us, chat for five minutes, apologize for having another engagement, and scoot us out. Birthdays and Christmases passed with generic cards and $25 JCPenney gift certificates, graduations and weddings went unattended.

But now, as our visits become more frequent with her advancing age, I’m starting to notice how alike Baba and I are. First, there’s the resemblance. My pointy chin was molded from her sharp little nub; my premature crow’s feet were traced from her deeply carved face folds.

It’s more than just our looks, though. We share interests, too. I like babies, black men, poop, and art. So does Baba.

One day, I want to have children. Not only did Baba already have children, but she hangs out with babies on a regular basis. When she was living in a nursing home, she became friends was a 4-year-old. A pregnant 4-year-old, nonetheless! Apparently the little girl had come in to warn 89-year-old Baba and the other senior ladies about the realities of pregnancy. She and Baba hit it off.

I have jungle fever. As does Baba. She swears that sometime last year, a black man entered her room in the middle of the night, flipped her on her stomach, and “did something to her butt.” I haven’t heard her complain about it.

I don’t necessarily like poop, but it is one of my favorite dinner table talking points (just ask my dad). It’s also Baba’s favorite subject. She records her bowel movements in a journal. The former clean freak-a-leek will also shamelessly tell anyone who questions the black goo under her fingernails that “IT IS POOP!”

Finally, I doodle and sometimes take pictures. Baba can draw, paint, and take great portraits, both behind and in front of the camera. Just last summer she took out the McCormick family album and showed my family and me a beautiful picture of herself when she was younger. She then remembered she had a picture of my aunt, Bidee, dancing. Knowing the only thing Bidee hates more than dancing is having her picture taken, we asked Baba to show us the photo. After a few moments of searching through the album, she finally found it. It looked something like this:

My dancing aunt

Oh, and this was the picture of infant Baba:

Told you she's artistic!

Here’s me.

See the resemblance?

The family album consisted entirely of animal photographs. Clearly, Baba is a little nutso. It’s kind of sad, but she and her pet paper towel roll seem to be having a great time.

P.S. She really is a talented artist, so let’s call her “eccentric” instead of “cray cray.”

Fat genes: No skin off my back, only my sister’s toes

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Because my mom:

1) has been the general manager of a Weight Watchers franchise since 1995

2) is my mom,

I like to believe:

1) her, on most weight-related subjects

2) that she doesn’t say mean things to me just to be mean.

"I got yo' back, gurl"

Usually, having a mom that knows about nutrition/weight management and doesn’t tease you for fun is a good thing.

It’s not so good, however, when she tells you that in all likelihood, you have obesity genes.

"I got yo' fat back, gurl"

Apparently, scientists have found that certain genes can cause obesity, and according to my mammy, I gots me some.

Now, normally being told you’re destined to be obese isn’t the greatest of news. For me, it’s helped clear up a few things. Such as:

My birth weight.

At 9 pounds, 8 ounces, I was the heaviest baby of the bunch. I was also the only baby who required formula in addition to breast milk — I was one hungry ass mothersucker.

My abnormal rib.

My left rib is big and weird.

Not a nipple-less boob, I promise

It’s meant for protecting a belly full of food.

My appetite inability to not eat everything in sight.

No amount of “one time I ate this much” bragging will ever do a better job of illustrating my deep-rooted gluttony than the following story.

My parents, sister, brother-in-law, and I were all hanging out at the family trailer one day last summer. We were doing what we always do — watching TV and accusing each other of farting — when I experienced one of my run-of-the-mill hunger pains.

Though I’d eaten lunch an hour earlier, I jumped up from the couch, walked the foot to the kitchen, and started rifling through the cabinets for something to eat. I considered potato chips and rice cakes but, after finding a box of delicious Triscuit crackers stashed in the back, opted for thems. A few cracked pepper and olive oil crackers later, I returned to my post on the couch.

It was then that I noticed a tiny potato chip crumb sitting on the armrest. For some reason, I forgot that I’d only eaten crackers, not potato chips, and mistook the crumb for my own. This when ish went down.

Since I was still pretty hungry and I hate to see leftover crumbs go to waste, I picked it off the couch to eat. Half a second before popping it into my mouth, I realized that it couldn’t have been mine — I hadn’t eaten chips. Still, even though I had plenty of time to put it down, I figured a chip crumb is a chip crumb. No matter where it came from, it’d be aiight.

A piece of human skin, on the other hand, is not a chip crumb. And no matter who it came from, it’ll never be aiight.

You know how, when you eat a delicate potato flake, it dissolves in your mouth almost immediately? Well… that didn’t happen with this particular potato chip. In fact, with each passing second, it became chewier and chewier until it reached a state of such chewiness that I had to take it out of my mouth for peeping.

As I peeped what I’d thought was a chip crumb, it became clear that it definitely twasn’t. It was rubbery. And semi see-through. It also had fingerprint tracks on it.

It was human flesh.

I later found out that it was my sister Beanie’s human skin. She’d peeled it off her foot earlier in the day, and thought it was such an impressive specimen that she decided to save it on the couch.

P.S. My mom later amended her “obesity gene” diagnosis to “obesity and cannibal gene.”

P.P.S. This link will take you to a video of my cousin who, despite not actually sharing any blood relationship with me, seems to have inherited the same cannibal genes. Make sure you watch through to the end!

I Googled a Lupe Fiasco song for this title

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I come from a family of drivers.

Back in the day when I was young (I’m not a kid anymore) my parents used to drive my three sisters and me down to RI and back every summer weekend. When my sister Meg lived in Florida, she drove over 24 hours non-stop to Maine more than once. Since last October, my mom’s put nearly 30,000 miles on a rental car, in addition to the miles she’s put on her own.

We get our drive on.

That’s why driving 6 hours to Pennsylvania, like I did the other day, ain’t no thang. I just put the AC on blast, get my my seat lean on, bump the radio, and cruise the crap out of my Pontiac Vibe.

But, just because I’m used to cruising the crap out of cars, doesn’t mean I particularly like it. It only takes a few miles into a trip before the air conditioning malfunctions, my back hunches, and Chris Brown’s “yellow model chicks” have me wishing my speakers would blow. Luckily, as I’m known to do, I’ve found a fun way to pass the time while driving: daydreaming.

Over the past 22 years I’ve perfected the art of daydreaming. It’s helped me through countless boring classes, boring jobs, boring workouts, and other boring occasions. If you’re looking for a way to get through something boring, let me suggest the daydreams I always find myself back at:

1. I save up for years to buy a $600 video camera. Hours after buying it, I let my sister Beanie borrow it to do some filming at the beach. She, the spazoid she is, drops it into the water moments after I hand it to her. She looks at me with horror (and, at the same time, remorse). But not to fear! I’m not going to beat her up (though she knows I could), ’twas only an accident. I won’t even make her buy me a new one! I’m that nice!

2. I’m a really good dirt biker and can travel really quickly by jumping from roof to roof.

3. I’m a really good skateboarder and can travel really quickly by latching onto the backs of 18-wheelers.

4. As I jalk (jog/walk) down a remote dirt road, I see a bear emerge from the woods. Though I’m initially scared, I sense a kindness in his eyes. And it’s a good thing I do! Turns out he’s not only kind, but also fluent in English. We become fast friends. By the end of the day he introduces me to his newborn cubs.

Picture I took while babysitting

5. All the cars in the northbound lane are fleeing from a giant in a hammock somewhere in Rhode Island. Apparently they don’t know that giants in hammocks are never violent.

Hope this helped — if you need more suggestions, let me know!

P.S. I’m not trying to pretend that 90% of my daydreams 90% of my day isn’t spent daydreaming about serendipitously running into Patrick Stump/other studs, falling in love, and getting proposed to prematurely. I just didn’t think anyone needed advice on how to daydream about that.