“This week, Salary.com announced that a stay-at-home mom’s work is worth $134,121 a year. But the check is not in the mail.”

— Ellen Goodman, writer

No advice column this week, no nuthin’! I’m taking the weekend off. Am baffled by motherhood and the confusing thing we call marriage. Am tired of being unpaid and underappreciated. The Caribbean? Yes, I’m already packed. Two swimsuits. Cashed in what was left of my 401(k) from my former career. I jest! I’m heading out to mow the weedy lawn right now. Laundry is started, dishwasher is running, and I just worked on two chapters to my novel.

My Novel. Will it ever sell? How novel, that idea. Wacky Children are with their father.

Also, got a horrifying Mother’s Day card from two friends (???) that was a talking monkey, personalized to TALK AT ME. She had a beehive hairdo and glasses, the monkey. She scared me. I will not link to the site they got it from because I don’t like these monkey people. When she talked she said, “Wacky Mommy, stop hiding behind being a perfect mother. Your writing misses you. Love, your friends.”

First off all, when the FUCK did I ever claim to be a perfect mother? I am the most unperfect mother I know. Well, I’m a step ahead of the Meth Mommy I saw on the street yesterday, herky-jerkin’ down the street with her sweet, non-drug-addled four-year-old blonde little daughter tagging along.

I wanted to tell her, “Honey, don’t worry you’ll look like mommy when you grow up! You won’t!” Then I could have shouted, like Frances McDormand in Almost Famous, “Don’t take drugs!” Her mom looked like a fucking scary skeleton person, as meth addicts tend to look. All concave cheekbones, scabs, and the herky-jerkyness. Are they so out of it that they don’t realize, even a little, how they look? Scarier than the monkey card.

And their jaws? The meth, like, eats their skeletal features, their bones, and that’s why they get all jutty looking and skeletal. Happy Mother’s Day, freak show. Please get into treatment. Please. Judgmental? I don’t give a fuck. I’ve lost too many friends and lovers to the shit and it makes me twitchy, looking at them twitch.

Yeah, I’m fuckin’ perfect, Mother of the Year candidate, compared to that. Compared to everyone else? Well, let’s not compare. It’s not a competition. Cuz I’d come in 87th place or something. As for my writing missing me? Fuck you, writing. Is nothing ever enough for you?

Maybe I’ll get a book published someday. Or not. I’ll still write, either way.

Will blog Monday, after my CAT scan. CAT scan? What? Yeah, turns out my sinuses are a mess, and that’s why I just got over my second round (in three months) of bronchial pneumonia/bronchitis, whatever it was. “Your nose bone’s connected to your/lung bone…” or something. Sigh. I keep forgetting to take the antibiotics because sweet Jesus, have you ever tried to take antibiotics twice a day for three weeks? I can’t even remember to drink enough water, most days, much less take medicine for the bronchitis, calcium for the PMS, antihistamines (I supposedly get bronchitis every spring cuz my pollen allergies are triggering it), multi-vit for more energy…

Coffee? Now I can remember to drink coffee.

See you soon.

And again, Happy Mom’s Day to you all! And to the boys in the house — whatever you got for your wife, double it. She’s worth it.

Kisses,

WM