the "talk"

when i was ten years old, my mother sat me down for a little discussion about "the birds and the bees". i remember she gave me this little book to read. it was obviously purchased at the pharmacy on the corner to be used to facilitate ushering their young daughters into womanhood. after handing it to me with a stern, reprimand NOT to show it to my younger brother -- only one child can hit puberty at a time in our house - she told me to come to her if i had any questions.

needless to say, thank goddess for girlfriends and planned parenthood.

now, as a married adult woman, it's my time to have a little talk with my mother.

"i talked with mom the other day," i said to my brother on the phone, "she didn't seem too excited that i was coming off the coumadin when i told her."

"yeah," he replied, "i talked to her before she spoke to you. she thought you were going to tell her you were pregnant. she said you had left her a message that you had good news from the doctor. she was disappointed."

oh great. i thought she had gotten the hints i have given her for the last, say, 15 years of my life that she probably should not look to me to reproduce grandkids. i am not exactly "kid-friendly". my uterus is a no-fly zone for sperm. for crissakes, i never really played with dolls and truth be told, i only wanted a barbie doll so that i could have an excuse to get the barbie townhouse to decorate and give them wicked haircuts.

sometimes, i think there must be some sort of genetic switch not turned to the on-position on my double XX chromosome. the very thing that turns adult women into smiling faces and all "cootchy-coo-coo" makes me feel icky and grossed out. frankly, the cute baby thing is lost on me, too.

now, my nephew is starting to be a cutie. at 18-months old, the little towheaded bruiser is developing his personality and you can see a person in him now. sorry, to say, my 6-month old niece is still in the guppy-phase to me. sure, she's all chubby-cheeked and starting to get a dimple, but she doesn't seem like she's a person yet. babies, in my opinion, are a bit like blank rounds of clay. there's plenty of potential for beauty in there, it just hasn't revealed itself yet.

my niece still has a penchant for oozing awful smelling substances from her mouth unexpectedly, and in great volumes. this causes me some alarm. no creature should be able to propel so much fluid out of their bodies without first:

a) being exposed to a parasitic stomach virus in a third-world country; or
b) having a spent the prior evening downing multiple bottles of wine with adelle.

either way, it's not going to be a pretty sight.

which leads me back to my current frustration with my mother these days. she knows how i feel. as you can imagine, i am not shy in voicing my opinion on the topic that abortion is still legal in this country and dammit, more people should be using it. but i digress because the point should be clear -- a breeder, i am not.

when we had first gotten married, the swarm started buzzing. "when will they start a family?" "they'd have such a beautiful baby." "oh, you guys will change your mind, you'll want kids some day." granted, the swarm consisted of mostly people who missed out on my hairy, feminazi days and really didn't get a true taste of the bitch-on-wheels that had joined the family. it grew old and i grew bitchy trying to find ways to tell them to politely stay the fcuk out of my bedroom.

my family could plead no such ignorance; they were all too aware that my first car proudly displayed a u.s. out of my uterus bumpersticker. they lived with me when i protested my catholic college's refusal to let me do my *required* community service program at planned parenthood. (i forced them to relent and got credit for my service. hah, take that, crappy college!) my family knew of my failed attempts at domesticity and the babysitting jobs i detested. no, ignorance would not play in their favor.

my mom, though, is getting of a certain age. all her friends' kids are doing it. peer pressure is causing my mother -- who i had always looked up to for her ability to perservere in the face of being a single-parent -- to turn into this whiny, sniveling mess because she's not allowed to "play grandma" like the rest of her friends and coworkers her age.

"well, why can't i be a grandma?" she whined pitifully, seated in the booth next to me in a buca di peppo's restaurant where everything is oversized, making her seem that much smaller in comparison. i look pleadingly across the table at my husband and brother to give me strength to not kill her in the restaurant full of witnesses and to possibly provide a quick change to the topic of conversation that's brewing. "chuckie (you know i call my mother chuckie), we've been through this before. you're just not going to get a grandkid out of me. you're best hope is that michael knocks someone up and you get occassional visitation rights out of it."

but she continued to sit there, childlike herself with arms folded against her chest, legs swinging back and forth in the booth because her stubby little legs were too short to reach the floor, pouting. i knew i needed heavy artillery at that point.

"would you jump off a bridge because your friends were doing it? you have two beautiful grandpuppies that won't ooze weird substances from their orifaces, need college funds or require diaper changes or round-the-clock feedings." (sidenote: i'm pretty sure that my dogs would eat round-the-clock if i let them or if they could figure out how to open the fridge. my argument only holds true on that point until that day arrives.)

my dogs, my girls, my furbabies -- them, i understand. running my fingers through their fur, breathing deeply into their necks, feeling the warmth from their big body curled against mine as i sit at the computer. that's love, man. that's what warms my cold, cold heart.

will someone help me explain this to my mother now?