It’s the Monday Mission 2.19
1. Have you ever given someone a present you just KNEW would be “da bomb” and when they opened it you could tell they just hated it? What’s the story there?
I don’t think I’ve ever had someone just hate a gift I got, but I’ve had gifts I thought were going to be real smash hits that sank without a ripple into the memory of the giftee.
On the other hand, there’s the Really Cool and Offbeat Mothers Day Gift I got Margie back three months ago … which vanished without a ripple into the aether, along with spare socks and Judge Crater. I’ll be damned if I can find it. Obviously I put it away somewhere nice and secure (“Keep it secret! Keep it safe!”) where I’ll find it when I least expect it.
2. What do you do that you would prefer that Mother never finds out about?
Well, now would be the time to say it, since my folks’ Internet connectivity is down so my Mom’s not reading my blog.
That being said, I can’t really think of much of anything, certainly nothing of any great significance. I mean, not of the “I’d be ashamed if she found it out” sort of thing. There are plenty of “I’d be kind of embarrassed because it’s, like, personal” sort of things. But most of them are things I’d be embarrassed to blog about because they’re, like, personal.
3. Ever get in any arguments with your mother? What was one of the worst?
Of course. Among the worse were some rather harsh words at a time when my first wife was having some severe emotional problems and, being in the middle of them, I decided that’s where my first loyalty had to lie.
4. When was the last time someone special hurt your feelings? Did you tell them or keep it to yourself?
I can recall an occasion when there was something I’d done that I was extraordinarily proud of and Margie was kind of in, “Uh-huh, that’s nice, dear” mode on it, which is rare for her and which made me quite cranky. As I recall, I did in fact tell her that, eventually, after stewing in my own juices for a while, and she was quite apologetic.
It is probably meaningful that I cannot recall for the life of me what the accomplishment in question actually was.
5. Has your mother ever laid any guilt trips on you or made you feel like you can’t do something good enough?
My Mom’s never tried to manipulate me with guilt trips (well, there’s the whole thing about the beard, but I don’t think she’s serious about it). That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, just by her being a good Italian mom, but I really don’t think she meant to. And, frankly, guilt trips have to be taken — they can’t really be imposed.
6. Looking back on your life, was there ever a point you see as the “crossroads” where you made a decisions that changed the course of your life? A path you did not take? What was that path, and do you ever daydream about what your life would have been like on the “road not taken?” Tell me about that.
Oh, crikey, any number of them. The earliest — because it was the earliest big decision I got to make for myself — was choosing my college. Then choosing to change majors. Then choosing to take the internship at the campus computer center. Then choosing to go off and teach. Then choosing to go back to my previous employer and get back into the computer biz. Then choosing not to specialize in telecommunications. Then choosing to accept the transfer offer to Denver.
Looking at the list, I see those are all “career-path” sorts of things. The personal decisions — romances, marriages, friendships — somehow seem more inevitable, as if they flowed from these others, more concrete actions. Not that they seemed inevitable at the time, or that the courses were clear at the time, or that they weren’t fraught with pain and wonder and joy and angst, or that I didn’t have choices in those matters at the time, or that I take them for granted … but it the big parallel universe “milestones” all seem to be on the first list, while the second list seems much more organic, less contingent.
Odd.
7. That was an awesome picnic basket you put together, let’s stroll out by the lake as the sun sets. A cool breeze blows off the lake as the orange and red reflects off the ripples in the water. I can tell something is on your mind and I ask you. You think about how to reply but finally you say …
“Cool sunset. Love the colors.”
BONUS: What do you think will come of that?
I dunno. We’ll have to wait and find out.