Pickles and Penis Lollipops

The other day Tina was talking about pickling and how her mom makes the "best pickles" ever!

Maybe because it was early and my caffeine had not yet hit me...

Maybe because I am a die hard New Yorker with ZERO filters at times...

Maybe because I was raised partially by my mother...

I blurted out, "At least your mom makes pickles. My mom made penis lollipops."

What? It was funny. Seriously.

There was silence for a second and then Anna's mom (who works with me) snorted and started cracking up. Tina followed.

I felt bad for a minute because I make a lot of jokes about the mom my mom used to be, even though she is now as close to normal as I had ever wished for as a little kid.

Thankfully, she knows that I poke fun at some of the more outlandish nonsense she pulled back in the day. She really was like a little kid who I constantly had to encourage to act her age. I think I finally have her acting a cross between 26 and 80. It's a coin toss most days.

That being said, my mom (ever the entrepreneur) used to make and sell adult chocolate in our kitchen. It was the year I was 8.

At any given time I would walk in the door from school and the smell of melting chocolate would hit me like a brick in the face.

I would open the refrigerator and be met with pink chocolate boobs with red chocolate nipples, penis lollipops of all shades, and the most disturbing of all...

A chocolate Easter bunny with a giant penis!

(I am fairly certain that this might be why that big eared rodent has always freaked me right the fuck out.)

For some reason, my mom thought it would be an excellent idea to not only keep her chocolate creations in the family refrigerator instead of a separate one, but she also thought my (very Republican) Grandpa would absolutely LOVE a chocolate bunny with a penis.

*scratches head*

Once I made the statement to Tina, I was reminded of a few days prior when I walked into Hershey in Chicago and had that same nauseated feeling I did as a child...I just didn't make the connection.

It dawned on me as I sat there.

I have never really liked milk chocolate.

I have never liked the visual of penises.

I do not even want to discuss that fucking bunny!

As an adult I started to ponder why MY mother, of all mothers, would decide to make sexual chocolate. My mother hates sex, uses it as a weapon, and I am fairly certain she has never had an orgasm and at this point likely never will.

*sigh*

Did she realize that she was going to screw up 3 very important things for me?

I have dated men who have wanted to use chocolate syrup to make body sundaes and I can tell you, 'that dog don't hunt'!

I sat there sad for a minute.

It had been a funny statement, but the depth of it is entirely fucked up.

Now that I have let the image seep back into my consciousness, I can't get it back under the rug.

Unbeknownst to my mom at the time, I saw my first penis when I was 7. It freaked me out. So much so that the smell of it is still crystal clear in my head. The fact that she had these penises in the refrigerator damn near brought me to tears all the time.

Now that my mom and I are close, we joke about the lollipops and I don't think I could ever tell her how much she fucked me up. Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, the lollipops were nothing!

More than for me, I started to feel sorry for my mom.

At least I know what's wrong.

She tried so many things for so long and will likely die a prisoner of her own fear and failure. She just wanted to be good at ONE thing. Now she doesn't care. And in not caring, she somehow became a better person and a more "normal" mom.

I called her to ask her if the Penis Bunnies really existed or had I dreamed them...

She started cracking up and went into great detail about the many molds and how much fun the candy was to make. She sounded like a little kid.

An hour later I received a call from her. She had gone online and found some molds. She hasn't found the Penis Bunny mold yet, but when she does, she will send me one.

I choked on my sip of wine, shooting some out my nose and piercing my sinuses...

"Gee, Mom. Thanks! I can't wait!"

I shivered as I hung up the phone and then shook my head with a small smile.

Some days are just like that.

The Rebel Princess Coalition Sans Two

This weekend is now a blur.

In 3 days I relived fears I had thought I was long ago over, some of my darkest high school bully nightmares, awkward adolescence moments long abandoned, black eyeliner/too much make-up/too much jewelry, teen aged angst and insecurity, emotional torture inflicted by parental units, sorrow, pain, happiness, excitement, anger, frustration, and my ability to always find time to squeeze in some needless shopping.

Two friends with whom I attended high school came to town for a much needed get-together.

We were at least two fabulous females shy of a perfect get-together, having not planned ahead far enough, leaving the other two with practically zero notice.

The 80s party that was planned for Friday night proved to Weirdo and me that we could still have fun and be completely inappropriate in a paper sack. Not the party itself, but the shopping at the Goodwill and other little shops while we searched for vintage treasures to adorn our less-than-80s-bodies.

Weirdo and I had never shopped together in high school. That was a treat shared by Goofball and myself. Instead, in high school Weirdo and I exchanged talk about nails. Mostly, I would give myself French manicures with Liquid Paper on the drive to school and she would bite her nails while I bribed her not to.

Goofball and I were shopping goddesses. We knew the ins and outs and could teach a class on the topic. The current irony being that she now loathes shopping and is married to someone who has a career firmly rooted in women's fashion. She hit the goddammed husband lottery, other than diamond broker, when it comes to fru-fru shit. I won't even mention that he is also a more than decent human who actually loves her. If I didn't love her and like him, I would trip them both. I married a rocket scientist. I'll let you know the next time I need an effing fighter jet.

Saturday was spent from sunrise to almost sunrise again with the three of us (plus 2 male offspring) giggling, snorting, comparing, constructing, climbing, posing, cackling, crawling, and crying our way through The Lou.

It was a blast!

It was absolute glory to be surrounded by two fab chicks who knew and loved me when I was an awkward, insecure, damaged little brat with Flock of Seagulls hair and a shitty attitude...regardless of my imaginary fantastic fashion sense.

It was fantastic to be surrounded by these girls who still do not give a crap what I have accomplished and/or what I have not accomplished either personally or professionally and only care what I have accomplished with regard to our friendships.

We sat there, the three of us, reveling in how we were and are so different and so alike and how none of the latter was abundantly obvious until we were deeply ensconced in discussions about the bowels of our personal hells.

We are all pretty introverted in personality. Oddly, that picture is very different for each of us. Weirdo being the most verbal in her thoughts was both astonishing and exhausting. And although my frustration at the lack of silence I have incorporated into my little world was at times palpable, I knew in a very short time her excited and animated voice would be gone.

Over the weekend I had found myself wishing that we were the women we are today back then and how much we could have supported each other or even simply been the silent comfort in the corner of each others' conscious.

As it was, none of us knew of the others' private hells and we became who we are. Mothers, teachers, healers, comedians, leaders and advocates.

As I arrived home early in the morning after dropping Weirdo off at the airport, I stepped into a room thick with sorrow at the loss of her presence. The silence I had thought that I had wanted exposed itself for the truth it was like a mule kick to the face. They were gone.

I was alone again in the scary world that wanted me to be things that I am not.

I was again without the friends who knew that I was more the punk than the cheerleader. More the shy little girl than the outgoing social butterfly. More Liquid Paper than eraser. More Suzanne Vega than Madonna. More alive than dead.

There is no way to sugar coat or minimize it. I miss them.