Straight No Chaser

Ribbit Ribbit, Said the Frog

mom is freaking out because chad just announced he wants to be an english major. basically, she didn't work her tail off for twenty-five years so both of her children could starve, later. me she can live with, but she always figured the attractive, popular, well-adjusted male one would do her proud in the end.

not so, apparently. which, i guess i've got mixed feelings too, because chad is bright, and maybe even brilliant in his own way, but hates to read, and while his writing has a lot of character, his conventions are inconsistent. meaning he never bothered to learn all the rules, which he would have automatically, if he ever read for pleasure. so i don't think he'd be happy doing what i'm doing, reading page after page of antiquated drivel and plugging out papers every night.

but i want him to do what makes him happy, and i am totally prepared for the likely possibility that he will major in english, and do it better than me. just like everything else. i have the skills, he has the charm; he usually wins. he entered high school as a mediocre student, mischievous and emotionally oblivious, and now that he's about to graduate, the world loves him. that's okay. we have the same last name, for now.

poor mom. she's the kind of person who, without really meaning to, turns everything into a guilt trip. she's been making six figures since before i was born, supposedly so we could have every opportunity as adults, but with the unspoken caveat that we should surpass her someday. if i soar through law school and develop myself as a successful attorney, she'll feel guilty for applying that pressure, for encouraging me to choose the financially lucrative route over the one that felt better (like she did). if i succeed at getting published and become the next toni morrison, she'll feel guilty for scoffing at this whole english thing, and particularly for failing to read anything i ever wrote for the first twenty years of my life. if i end up doing something rote and undemanding, a professional stamp-licker type person, she'll feel guilty for being gone too much, roll her eyes to the heavens and proclaim that "this is what happens when you leave your precious children with strangers on weekdays."

i got the verizon job because it paid a lot, and because i figured, she works for verizon, she can't really whine about that. by my third day she was already complaining about how being "corporate" was making me "irritable," and how she didn't want me letting those a-holes give me gray hairs like they did her. (she has a head full of beautiful black hair, no dye, and she's forty-nine. maybe five visible grays in the whole thing.) when i went back for a second summer, which made sense because of the money and because they invited me, she was even less supportive.

so for this coming summer, i want the money again, i've got the rapport with the metrics team, i did a phenomenal job before and they even changed locations--my new building would be a five minute drive from home (compared to last year's forty-five minute highway crawl). but i know it's time to start concentrating on more appropriate opportunities, so i was thinking i'd take two jobs, that one plus an internship at this firm in the district. and, yes, be a little bit burnt out for three months, but return to school dripping in riches and rose gold, and with applicable experience in my "chosen" field. i can only imagine what hole she will find to punch in that plan.

i mean, it's not like i have to run it by her. i could always just do it, pay all my own major expenses, fight with her occasionally and then invite her to watch "the joy luck club" with me. and things would be just as cohesive, or not, as always.

there you have it, ernie, my first ever single-themed entry. now for a title.