When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
Well, I’m not one for holidays, let alone Hallmark card holidays, but I did quite enjoy mother’s day this year. It started with a text from my fifteen year old filled with many colorful emoticons and ended with burning a tic off my dog and folding three loads of laundry with all socks present and accounted for. Somewhere in between, I stretched out in the backyard with a book I’ve been dying to read: Are You My Mother by Alison Bechdel, author of one of my favorite books Fun Home. Alison, sadly, is not my client. She warmly thanks her agent in the acknowledgments and it’s not me. Which proves how much I really love this writer/illustrator. Anyway, if you’ve ever experienced any mama drama (or in my case if that’s all you’ve experienced), you will love this brilliantly mordant articulation of mother-daughter angst.
Fill in the blank: Are you my ___________________?
Filed under: Uncategorized |
Betsy Lerner 
Are you my bitch?
Are you my therapist?
Are you mine?
“Alison Bechdel is the author of the bestselling memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, People, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, and San Francisco Chronicle, among others.”
Among others.
Are you the nail in my fucking coffin? Because I can’t take any more humane genius that’s page-turningly heartbreaking and psychologically complex and ambitious. Everyone’s a fucking genius. Everyone’s a survivor, everyone’s raw and honest and layered. Everyone’s fielding calls from passionate agents and attaching brand-name directors and selling French and Brazilian rights and I’m working over my second rate crap until it’s third rate and moving into a new house where I’ll be working in a closet and I haven’t sold a book for more than $15,000 in eight years. I wish all the best to Bechdel, plus necrotizing fasciitis.
August, I have missed you so. Nobody cuts the crap with your razor-sharp flair.
Are you my August?!
Are you my pimp-daddy? I’m working the corner just like you told me. . .
Are you my doppelganger?
Are you really August? Where you been?
Last week someone said they used to think you were really Betsy, commenting when commenting isn’t what she want’s to do. (I’m talking behind her back.)
I’m off to Home Depot. My list: nails and pine for large box, wanna join, I can build it for two?
Thanks man, I needed that. Best of luck working in that closet; windows are overrated anyway.
“Snort.”
Ahhh, truly refreshing!
Are you my nervous tic burner?
I had to burn a tick off my son once. The various uses of the cigarette. I’m sure it hurt him more than it did me. Good thing the tick was on his shoulder and not in his hair.
“if you’ve ever experienced any mama drama”–???–Ever? Are we not all humans from earth?
I simply pluck and squash ticks. I know you’re not supposed to, but my instinctive revulsion for those critters brings out the latent chimp in me and I reach out and grab ’em before I even realize I’ve done it. I stop short of popping them in my mouth though; I just stomp the hell out of them.
Actually, the last tick I killed was on the day I discovered Betsy’s blog. I was deep into a post when my husband presented his posterior to me, asking for a tick check. I’m sure that only the prospect of finding and destroying one of those filthy bloodsuckers could have drug me away from such a find.
Walked into a roadside store once while hitchhiking through southern Illinois. It was a hot day and I asked if they had any cold beer. The man behind the counter replied, “No. This is a dry county.” At the same moment he was responding to my question, I felt something crawling on my belly. Just as he was done speaking, I lifted my shirt, grabbed the tick on my stomach, threw it to the ground, stomped it and walked out of the store. Thinking about it afterwards, I was sure it was the strangest response, some sort of weird hippie ritual, the old man behind the counter had ever seen when he told a potential customer he had no beer.
He really ticked you off.
I was really looking forward to that cold sauce.
Was it a nervous tick because those are the worse kind?
nemesis/savior
Are you my dramedy queen?
Are you my parole officer?
Are you my agent?
Sorry, that was over-clever of me. I haven’t even submitted a ms yet! What am I, on some kind of high horse or something?
It was my first fill-in-the-blank answer yoo. I have submitted and sadly Betsy is not. Woe is me, standing on my way-to-small platform, not yet big enough to jump from.
Are you my cleaning lady? I’d be such a better mother if you were.
Ha! Me too. I’ve heard if you whistle while you work, it helps.
Oh, yes!
Are you my North, my South, my East and West?
My working week and my Sunday rest?
Are you my friend?
Are you my protagonist in drag? His lame love interest could never burn a tick off the dog.
Are you my evasive wanderer, glimpsed in dreams but never really seen?
are you my aluminum crutch?
are you my rubber crutch?
Are you my friggin’ plot? Damn. And not necessarily in a good way.
Are you my next shallow friend, faulty appliance, lost opportunity, unkind clerk or unpaid bill? I hope not – for those catagories are filled beyond capacity.
Are you my one and only, no wait.
Are you my only one, no that’s not right either.
Are you the one, the only, ah shit lets try again.
Are you the only one of mine, ah forget it.
Are you my hero for linking to indiebound? Yes, you are. YES. Yes. You are. ~Love, an indie bookseller.
Are you my SUPPORT? commissioner? Are you my support?
I want to get my first book published. Help if you can or want.