Tuesday, May 25, 2004

My sister has just called it quits with the father of her child. She is 19 years old, and said father (well call him Jeff) has violated probation one two many times. The last time was when he ran off to Arizona to follow the Grateful Dead. Upon arriving, he found he had no money, so he called up his probation officer, who had no choice but to give him a bus ticket back to town where things quickly degenerated with my sister.

Now she is with Gary, the son of a New Jersey family who made it rich off of a coin-operated laundry machine rental business. Jersey Dad has just bought Gary and his brother Aaron a Suburban Dream House in central Jersey somewhere. This house is exactly like all the others on the block. It was built in 1976, the year she was born. Every decoration is original from the Bicentennial year, from the "rustic" wrought iron chandelier built around a faux-wagon wheel in the kitchen to the the harvest gold liberty bell-themed wallpaper in the den.

Jersey Dad also buys Gary and Aaron each brand-new SUV's of the not cheap variety, which they decorate with Grateful Dead decals and stickers that profess their love of Rastafarianism. Gary is a vegetarian, though he hates most vegetables. He subsists on mainly pizza and spaghetti. Aaron decides to one-up him and become a vegan. A KOSHER vegan, at that. Allie is expected to cook for them, since she only has to work part time (taking care of an 18-month-old doesn't count as work in their eyes).

I go to visit with Moth one weekend, and as we sit there, eating dinner under the swinging wagon wheel with its thudding black iron chains, Aaron asks my mom "what does it mean to be a woman?" Hardly ever dumbfounded, my mother doesn't quite know what to say, and her silence gives Aaron the opportunity to chime in what his idea of womanhood is all about. He goes off on some trite tangent about how sacred it is to be able give life and how women are the keepers of the moon cycles and men are the keepers of the sun. I have to chime in, "yeah, it's sacred that we bleed every month and you guys wake every morning with woodies." My opinion on gender roles was not much appreciated.

posted by Scooter B. @ 5/25/2004 09:43:00 PM 0 comments