Disclosures and Non-Disclosures

Dreamed that I was back in graduate school again, and Max was a baby, and though he seemed like a happy, cooing little guy, I knew I was a horrible mother because when I went to change his diaper, it was dripping wet! Not just wet in the usual place; the whole diaper was sopping.

“How could you let his diaper get so soaked?” asked somebody. Was it Bill? I forget.

And I said, “I don’t know,” and I was filled with remorse, but when you’re a horrible mother, there are things you do that can never be undone.

And I had done them.

The dream was very odd considering that the day before, I had gotten this:

Dear Mom,

I can’t remember exactly what happened on Mother’s Day this year. I’m pretty sure I called you, but I’m also pretty sure I did not send you a card. So here is a belated card for Mother’s Day, though it could just as easily be a card I felt compelled to send you after a day of compulsively itemizing the things I like about you, and why I’m glad that your [sic] my mom. In fact, let’s pretend that’s what it is, only that list would likely be more complete.
1. You are very generous, both to your family and to the community
2. I have learned a lot from you, both from the things you have told me, and from watching you grow in your own life.
3. You are extremely creative and independent, and I think I have become much more myself and much less self-conscious because of that.
4. I think we can talk about almost anything, and we can approach topics from many different angles.
5. I respect you so much, especially at this point in my life (in the thick of the age span where people think and talk a lot about having and raising children) for caring so much about making life better for your children than your parents made for you.
Because I am your child, and because of #5, I love you and feel very grateful for my life.
Love. Love. Love you.

Sincerely,

Max

I sure have him duped, don’t I?

(That “Sincerely” gave me a little chuckle.)

###

The Former Democratic Candidate for Congress died a year ago yesterday.

I find myself thinking about her often, which is odd: We were occasional movie-going pals but never what I would have called close friends. Though I liked her a lot. She was really feisty. She pissed a lot of people off.

She had two daughters who lived far away.

“Are you close to them?” I asked her once.

She laughed and said, “Well, I always smile at their framed photographs whenever I pass them in the hall.”

She was thoroughly trounced when she ran in the 20th District in 2004. The Democratic Party only gave her $20,000 to run on.

Two years later, now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ran for the same seat and won – but only because her opponent, John Sweeney, was involved in a huge wife-beating scandal.

I hope you’re going to a lot of good movies, FDCC, in that afterlife you never believed in.

###

And in other exciting news, I spent an hour and a half on a sophisticated VOD-mit-video app with Boy Wonder yesterday. Remember him? I may be doing some business with him, and that business may be extremely lucrative.

Lotta conditionals and a non-disclosure agreement to sign!

He is really brilliant.

And also, unbelievably gorgeous though I suspect he registers somewhere on the spectrum, so his looks don’t matter to him in the slightest.