Monday, April 04, 2005
can you get an ulcer from being pissed off?
If so, I am well on my way.
I have had a hell of a stomachache all day. Not the kind where I've eaten something bad, but the kind where my stomach seems to be trying to digest itself. It didn't help that my mother decided that tonight would be a good night to subject me to a vegetable-eating contest. I'm not even kidding. She actually sat me down at the table and said things like "I bet you can't finish that asparagus on your plate," and "I bet that salad isn't going to get eaten." And because she was so damn cocky about it, I had to prove her wrong and eat it all, and then I felt even worse.
I have spent the last week or so researching the international adoption of Chinese infants. This is the topic of my latest essay. It's a really interesting subject, but frankly, I'm at the end of my rope. Genocide was sad, but for some reason the thought of babies languishing in depressing orphanages waiting desperately to be adopted is even more sad. Murder is sudden, permanent, brutal, and final. But a childhood of institutional care, the kind where babies' heads are shaved to prevent lice, they are crammed 2 or 3 to a crib without toys or personal possessions, and their only parent is an efficient but distant nurse is somehow much more sad to me. I found myself looking through a lot of pictures of little Chinese girls and wishing I could somehow rescue them. The Boy is doubtlessly having an aneurysm thinking that I now want to go get a kid from China. It seems the desire to adopt is one not so easily curbed by birth control.
ANEURYSM! Sorry.
How nice it would be to be devoid of all maternal instincts. My life would be a golden paradise of exciting career prospects, daring romance, and lots and lots of cats. I'd never have to stop travelling to crazy places or getting wickedly drunk and stoned and having sex in the back of a car. And then I could become one of those cool old aunts who have lots of money to burn and a couple of lucky nieces and nephews to spend it on.
Course, then my brother would have to look up from his guitar for a second or two and pay attention to an actual woman. Can't see that happening anytime soon. I may be my family's best chance for some grandchildren. Gross.
I was watching a documentary on TV today about Nirvana. I was thinking about how completely fucking weird it is that two drug-addled, irresponsible, self-destructive nutjobs (brilliant, but nutjobs nonetheless) decided to actually have a baby, call her Frances Bean because of the shape she looked like in her ultrasound, and then proceed to mess her up so thoroughly that she could never be anything but just as screwed up as her parents. Her father successfully commits suicide (or was murdered, depending on who you talk to), her mother never gets her shit together and loses custody of her daughter, and she has to grow up in the shadow of her tragically brilliant but still horrible parents.
What a nice bedtime story: "Mommy and Daddy got married and Daddy wore his pyjama pants and both of us were high on drugs, and then he put your ultrasound image on the cover of his cd with body parts on it and sang about raping a little girl and then he shot himself in the head and then Mommy started wearing designer clothes and people started suing her and then she went to jail and couldn't take care of you anymore." If I was Frances Bean, I would go on MTV and announce my regret at ever having been born into such a screwed-up family. If she is very, very lucky she will have received her father's genius and somehow avoided his predilection for insanity. It just goes to show that just because you can procreate doesn't mean you should.
And now me and my ulcer will go to bed and do it all over again tomorrow.
I have written one page of my 12-page essay due Tuesday. Awesome.
Gold. Pure, solid gold.
-N
p.s. I would love to launch myself into a swimming pool in the middle of the night. Any takers?
