“I love you, Maj.”
“No need to get all sarcastic, Mother.”
“What? That was not sarcasm. I actually love you.”
“I think I know sarcasm when I hear it, Mother.”
“Whatever. You are a pain in the ass, but I love you.”
Maj snorts, “See? There. Sarcasm.”
“Whatever.”
She points at me, “You can’t even talk without sarcasm!”
“I think the problem may be that you can’t even hear without sarcasm.”
“Whatever.”
“Alright, I will be 100% sincere about my love for you. Are you ready, Maj?” I settle in on the couch across the living room from her, “Let me just get comfy before the love starts to flow.”
“Mother, that was more sarcasm.”
“Was it? It felt like sincerity.”
“Not from over here – no, it did not.”
“How about this?” I clear my throat, “Maj, I love you with the heat of a thousand cookies burned in an oven accidentally set to 550 degrees instead of 350 degrees.”
Maj sighs, “OK, first? Sarcasm. And second? I set the oven to 350 degrees. It is not my fault the oven went rogue magma.”
“Whatever, Maj.”
“Whatever.”
We sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, and Maj picks up her book and starts to read. She is a very fast reader, just like me, and she gets lost in books, just like me. I watch as she flips the pages, and I speak quietly, “I really do love you, you know.”
She does not respond.
Still speaking quietly, I say, “I love you more than I once thought it possible to love anyone in this world, and every time I look at you — every time I stop to really see you — my heart aches with the enormity of what I feel for you.”
A tiny hint of a smile plays along the corners of her mouth, but she does not look up from her book.
I pick up my own book, “So I will just sit here and pulse with my love for you.”
She pulls her book up close to hide her face.
I tap a finger against the cover of my book, looking for words, “Yes, I will be like an emotional wave machine. Every beat of my heart will send a small pulsing wave of love and joy and pride and acceptance across the room to crash against your hostile shores. Can you feel that, Maj? Can you feel the waves of my love breaking against you?”
She does not respond, and so I whisper, “Pulse . . . pulse . . . pulse . . .”
There is the muffled sound of what might be giggling, but then she turns to me with a stern face and shakes her head, “Be quiet, Mother. I am trying to read.”
“Maybe I need to make a bigger wave. Let me just focus my energy a bit. Pulse. Can you feel it, Maj? Pulse. Can you feel the love? Pulse.”
She glares at me, but her eyes are sparkling, “Nope.”
“Maybe I need more of a swell . . . pulsepulsepulse . . . how about now?”
She shakes her head, “Nothing. I feel nothing at all.”
“Hmm. Maybe you need the water of my love to close over your head for a moment.”
“I feel nothing, Mother. I will swim to the surface and break free of your needy grasp and I will feel nothing.”
“Annoying. Appreciate the love I have for you, damn it.”
She giggles again, “Nope.”
“Fine. Maybe you are the sort who is unable to feel the love until you are smothered by the love. Maybe I will tsunami-crash down upon your body and suffocate you beneath the ferocious power of my love for you.”
“So basically, Mother . . . your plan is to kill me with your love?”
“If I have to . . . yes.”
She stares at me for a moment, “And so as this wave crashes over me and sucks me to the bottom of the ocean and steals my breath and my life . . . you imagine what, exactly?”
I lean to look into her eyes, “I imagine that in that last moment of consciousness, you will be thinking . . . Goodness, my mother loved me incredibly much.”
Maj lets loose a huge laugh, “Yes!”
We sit in renewed silence for a few minutes, reading our books, and then Maj says, “I do love you, Mother.”
I flip a page and glance up at her, “No need to get all sarcastic, Maj.”
She giggles, “Mother, you drive me insane.”
“I know, right? I am awesome.”
She laughs again and nods her head, “Yes.”
I return to my book, “Love you, babe.”
“Stop it, Mother.”
“Fine.”
“I mean it, Mother. Stop pulsing.”
“I am totally not pulsing.”
“I CAN FEEL YOU PULSING.”
“Well, you are a crazy person . . . there is no pulsing.”
“Promise?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
She stares at me suspiciously and then returns to her book, “Fine.”
Pulse.
Maj looks up, “Speaking of natural disasters . . .”
“Were we?”
“Hush, Mother. Speaking of natural disasters, we had an earthquake drill at school yesterday, and it seems our school’s only plan for student-safety in the event of a massive earthquake involves hiding under our desks. Possibly no one has looked at the 8th grade recently, because I am one of only two 8th graders who can completely fit beneath a desk. The school’s policy is heavily weighted in favor of small-child survival. Some of my larger classmates can only get their heads under their desks, and as I have heard nothing about a post-apocalyptic plan for the survival of severed heads, I’m thinking their future looks dim indeed.”
“So let’s hope there’s no earthquake, I guess.”
Maj shrugs her shoulders and returns to her book, “Either way.”
Pulse.
People?
Pulse.
Just saying.
OMG how I love this! It reminds me so much of my relationship with my mother (although we were not nearly as amusing as you and Maj!) and how much I love laughing with her.
And my heart is pulsing with love that I could tell you this in a comment!
Maj and I have our share of difficult moments, and so I love when a moment like this arrives. I love that girl fiercely, but she and I don’t always get to laugh together. Laughing with Maj is one of my favorite things in this world.
And thank you, Sandi.
Nice to see you here!
This is probably one of my favorite posts. I love that you can say such amazing, eloquent things spontaneously out loud as you can when you’re writing and have time to think about what you want to say. You have a real gift with words.
P.S. I also love your sneaky cock-blocking of all of the “first comment!” comments. Fabulous.
Awww . . . thank you so very much.
I do not always have a gift with words. Sometimes, I am foolish and stuttering and incoherent. Those moments are less amusing to share here on Pretty All True, and so I keep those moments to myself.
Ahem.
As for being the first commenter?
I do like a bit of cock-blocking, but the truth is that I want to be sure that people notice that comments are open again. I had them closed for such a long time, people no longer think to look. But yes . . . it amuses me to be first commenter on my own words.
Hee hee.
The end. Oh how I love the end of this one. Maj…gotta love that girl. Heh.
Right?
Maj has a way with a story.
Pretty sure she gets that from me.
Or maybe she came with her own brand of genius.
Either way.
Hee hee.
If they favor small children for survival, one of mine is safe for sure. I’ll have to work on the other’s headless horseman impression.
Hee hee!
Maj is tiny, and the only people who would be safe under a desk when the world comes crashing down will have to be tiny.
Everybody else . . . Headless Horsemen!
So funny.
Pulse.
Love that.
We had those little desk chairs when I was in 8th grade. Tiny or not we all would have been screwed in an earthquake.
Snort.
Stasha?
Remember those desks that had the chairs attached to them? Those tiny little desks? I remember hiding under one of those in 3rd grade during a tornado warning at school. I remember thinking . . . I sure hope my survival doesn’t rely on this desk.
Those tiny desks from 3rd grade — that’s what I imagine the 8th graders squeezed beneath (even though I know that’s not the reality).
It makes me giggle.
The feeling I have reading this reminds me of the one I experienced in the Fuckin’ Perfect post.
Sweet.
Awww . . . I remember that post and the moment of which you speak.
Yes.
That.
At first I loved how you were dealing with the sarcasm accusation and the “pulsing” then I read this “about a post-apocalyptic plan for the survival of severed heads” and I was reminded again of how much your children are very sneakily sarcastic just like you. I love that!
No one deals with that topic, I think it’s sadly under-planned. Maybe Maj should be looking into that…
M
Mishelle -
I believe I mentioned in these comments once before (a long time ago) the time Mark sent me a link to an article claiming that parental use of sarcasm is bad for children.
And then we laughed until we cried.
Ahem.
I hear tv is bad as well… music as “filler” too…
Oh my ribs are going to hurt after this!
SNORT!
M
Funny thing? Maj does not enjoy TV, and she resists our efforts to brainwash her.
So we just double-up on the sarcasm, assuming it will all work out in the end.
What?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Think it’s working out fine!
M
Hee hee.
I have missed your raucous laughter.
Love that.
I am so glad to see you accepting comments again! I started reading just before you stopped and while it was ok, it is way more fun to be able to say something, especially since facebook became pissy with updates.
As for the desks, I thought about the ones we had in HS chemistry. They were almost big enough to put a piece of paper on, not sure what good they would have done in an earthquake. Honestly, our chemistry teacher told us since we were right next to the chemical closest, and he couldn’t identify some of the really old stuff in there, to just leave the room and camp out in the hallway.
Hey, Megs!
Do people really call you Megs? That sounds like a plural – I rather like that.
As for Facebook? I need to put up a post in the near future reminding people to sign up for the RSS feed or the email alerts for my posts. FACEBOOK IS USELESS. I understand they want to make money, but they are holding access to the fans of my page hostage. Sigh. It’s bothersome.
The image of your Chemistry teacher directing you into the hallway because he’s unsure what possible toxic and/or explosive materials are in the classroom closet?
Oh my god.
I LOVE THAT.
That’s awesome.
Oh my god I love Maj!
I hope my daughter and I have as fun a bond as you two.
Maj and I have our moments.
I do like those moments, when they arrive.
Happy sighs.
REALLY? Open Comments. I may faint from the sheer joy. I will be sharing the hell out of this one. I see my future with my daughter when I read about you and yours. I’m pretty sure my AJ will be a odd mix of the two. You should hear some of the stuff she says. 4 years old and she tells me it “Upsets” her when I bumped her costume wings. Oy vey.
Awww . . . hello, Brandi!
How I love a woman with plans to “share the hell out of” my words.
You are lovely.
I LOVE to hear the tales of other wordy sassy children, as I get occasional crap from parents of dullards who claim no child talks as mine talk.
Poor dullard-making people.
They do not even know what they are missing.
Hee hee.
*sigh* Pulse
Hey, you.
You went to moderation, but I found you.
Hello.