scary mommy draft

I remember the day nonbinary firstborn, K, came into my room after dinner to say, "Mom, there's this chick named Julie on facebook  who says she's my godmother.  Do you know her?"

Julie Loundy Harris cohabited with my second husband's son for years.  We met at a harried Thanksgiving where she commented on my  "I'm a collector of  feminist buttons" button. Julie and I bonded over books.  Ramona Quimby, the Melendy family, My Darling My Hamburger.  We started a weekly Trivial Pursuit ritual.  I'd drive to her Simi Valley home after classes on Thursday, play a game of Trivial Pursuit then hang put with Julie's daughters, Mandalae and Lanai {islands} while Julie cooked meat and two veg for dinner.   Aaron would come home from his mechanic's job, we'd have dinner then Aaron and I would have a few hits in the garage.  We did this for years, through the time Julie broke her neck driving and only let me and high school bestie Renee see her in the halo brace, through the time she was used by heroin snorting friend and left with the bills, and the night first-born was delivered by Julie's pediatrician who failed to notice K's hip click pathognomic of the hip dysarthria that required three procedures and months in hip spica casts and sucked thousands of dollars of production from my nascent medical transcription service,.

We liked some Updike but cringed at A&P



You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar?)