everyday i think about my mom, but i don't talk about her all that much. the prevailing thought is that she now knows how dirty my house is, and all about my tattoos and that i never study my gre books anymore. really though, i think if she had the choice she wouldn't hang around to witness daily human life. except maybe to see reid and grace grow up. i think it would bore her. although the gossip in her would want to know what's going on, and the mother in her would be telling me to apply to grad school and buy higher quality chocolate. for the health benefits.*
she would love grace's earnest little face, and to hear her using so many words at 16 months.** she would say she looks like jeff, when really she looks just like me.***
i find myself thinking and saying more things exactly the way she would every day. and it's freaking me out. case in point: last night at the store we were discussing a traffic accident where a tractor trailer lost its' brakes and ran off into the shoulder up into some trees. i couldn't help thinking "aww, the driver was trying to protect all those other cars". anyone who knew my mother will understand that i was directly channeling her at this moment. my mother who always left the closest parking spaces open for "young mothers because they'll need it". i park far away to exercise my fat ass, but parking lots always make me think of her.


*bonafide actual occurrence.
**the woman started her college fund at three months completely convinced that she was saying "hi" at that age and surely she would be a prodigy.
***just shorter and with a better vocabulary.