A Town Called Malice

While walking through the dreaded Giant Eagle grocery store, and listening to Gus relay yet another entire episode of Family Guy, word for word, I heard much to my chagrin, the following line; "Stop dreaming of the quiet life cause it's one you'll never know" How did Paul Weller know my fate? A Town Called Malice by the Jam, one of the best most friendly songs ever and I was hearing it in the most incongruous environ. Here is this enormous and fully stocked though not with much stuff that I normally buy because needless to say I buy organic and mostly unprocessed foodstuffs, nightmare of a huge building that they made into a store, and in it I'm hearing the Jam who I listened to and loved and felt their message about fighting the town called malice and yet, here I was in the main venue of commerce in that o'l town and it sucked yet I got to sing a song I love and then deal with the one cashier that was open for three thousand customers . These are the moments that make it all possible and worthwhile, they are indeed like little reminders that their is an interior life beyond the borders of everyday bullshit and food shopping or trying to follow what Brian the dog did to the newscaster guy when he called him Benji on the episode that Gus was yammering on about, not that yammering is a bad thing but we like the word so it's part of our repitour around here, in this town called falice which is why I'm a teengagemom.

Sudden Death

Nikki Sudden from the Swell Maps died at 49 a few days ago. His Brother Epic Soundtracks died in 1997 and that was from "unknown causes". So far they have not disclosed the cause of death for Sudden. This gets me thinking about the likes of Mark E. Smith, the leader of The Fall and others of their ilk, talented, relentless, users of substances and obsessive to the degree that they still perform though their renown or fame is probably an extremely heavy burden when faced with the challenge of aging. Music is young unless you're the Rolling Stones, and then it's a freak show. These artists that come from the era when I finally found music that mattered, some of them are still around the music scene, or pop up from time to time on a tribute or at a funeral, they really stuck to it. What I've realized through this 20+ years of musical mining, is that none of us have a choice. Commercial radio can be fun and poppy and entertaining, but it is so obviously a businessman's special that it's like eating marshmallow cream, or perhaps Peeps yum.

Schrodinger's Blog

I'm sure it's not just me who realizes that when you start to chronicle your life in a public forum you are really not living the life you did before that chronicle got to be public. Are you feeling me on this one?
I generally talk about the events that happen in a day in the life and I use my hands a lot to do that, so I guess I'll have to find other forms of emphasis.
So, as I have mentioned I have three sons, in addition to that, there are three dogs, up until February 2005 there were four but our beloved Lucy or Lucy-in-a-can as she's referred to now, died after a fantastic ten years of recovery from former owner's abuses. She had a 22 caliber bullet in her shoulder when the Bouvier rescue league got the call about her somewhere around Toledo Ohio. Apparently she had been a bait dog for fighting dogs as in- a dog to rile them up a bit. Bouviers have a very thick two coat system and they are really good for not dying when being used as bait. So anyway one of the fascinating characteristics of Lucy's abuse was that she relived her shooting everytime there was a thunder storm. She would inadvertently escape the house and go out into the storm so she could really get down to the nitty gritty of her fear.
Jack was three weeks old when we went to look at her, because you really need to add an extremely neurotic abused dog to a household with three kids under 5 years old.
So, we went to this fantastic house and there were five or six massive Bouviers running around and then came Lucy malnourished, somewhat hairless and not a very pretty bouvier rep. I sat down on the floor and that was it for the rescue league. Something like 25 people had come to see her or put in an application to have her be their own bundle of neurosis. But, because I "the crazy lady with three little boys" got on the floor (three weeks after giving birth at home to a ten pounder) to see what she would do to an individual smaller than her, got the prize. Lucy was a prize, she had a deep soulful personality when you got past the I'm going to make you chase me in lightning issue.
So, We are down to three, two Daschunds ( one a mini the other a tweenie) And another Bouvier named Stella from the rescue league again. Griffin, the tweenie was a rescue as well, he likes to bite people he doesn't know just to let them know he was abused, neglected and left with a broken rib to heal wrong. This works because no one comes to our house and if they do we say " cage" and he gives us the look of yeah, I'm a biter I'll go watch from behind the bars.
Oh, and then there's the cat that we were contractually obligated to accept when we bought our last house and tried to play that off on the buyers when we sold it two years later, but they never moved in. She lives in the garage with a little door my husband had made. She has to live in the garage because I'm allergic to cats and so she has a nice incubator light and a fleece throw to luxuriate on while she's not tormenting the dogs by going out of her way to walk by the back door real slow-like.
So that's my family Lucys on the mantle in a colorful canister that doubles as a stocking holder.

Teenage assholitis

It's a horrible affliction and I have two teenagers but luckily only one of them has it right now.

Let me start at the beginning. I'm Abby O'Neill I have three sons 16,13,11 the two older boys are Jake and Gus, Jake's on his way to full blown assholitis, in fact I think it will extend into his adult years by the looks of it.
My blog is about me being a 43 year old mom who is on many levels a 13 or 14 year old, hence the name Imateenagemom. Now, I don't mean emotionally I do have that quadrant of maturity down and have since I was a toddler, it's my sensibility I'm talking about. I'm walking around living within the parameters of a restrictive adult paradigm. I listen to college radio as I was a DJ at WCSB radio station. That in itself in these I love the 80s if I'm over 40 world make it a stretch. I work in a library and have access to all the media that exists in space and time. I do not try and be hip or young, that is just a sad and scary thing to behold. I'm just really trying to reconcile an aging body and a mind that is still young and fun yet has to be a mother and pretend not to be horrified walking into any school function at which I immediately pick out the bullies, cliques nasty teachers and dogmatic administrators. Perhaps I'm fighting a loosing battle, but for now I'm fighting the man, and the urge to yell in a crowded room "this is all bullshit" ala
Fiona Apple at the Grammys (tm) ten years ago.
So, as I was saying I have three sons. Jack is 11, he's an old jewish comedian and has been since he started doing Vaudevillian song and dance numbers at the ripe old age of 4. Gus is for some odd twist of fate aptly named, he's a Gus he's smart and direct and right on the money most of the time and can help me, as my brain atrophies, to name a character or actor or recite a movie line or entire dialog if need be. Jake is the hound from hell or spawn of the devil if that didn't make me or my husband Eamon culpable. He is the child we all cluck our tongues at or murmur under our breath about when we're listening to the tales that are shared by a haggard pale and listless parent. Yes, he is my son. So, I'll share stories and eventually pictures because Gus will take them for me, upload them and we'll be able to spread our joy out to the three people who will read this periodically because I've mentioned it to them and they feel some odd sort of obligation to check it out.