Surface Normal

The last girl I dated before I met my wife was not a fan of my family. She came from a thoroughly dysfunctional family, outwardly so. People knew it. Her father had died too soon, and her mother was callous, embittered, rageful and quite insane. Her brother was a budding homosexual. She was an emotionally confused, drama obsessed young woman who viewed any type of stability as a disease not worth having.

I remember vividly bringing her home to have dinner with my family. There we all were-- my parents, married for upteen million years, my two sisters and me, all seated at our assigned-by-tradition seats around the dining room table, where we ate together as a cohesive family unit. Every night. We chatted amicably and, when dinner was through, we had our coffee and out tea. Amicably. Sure, my father probably made some inappropriate comments in broken English about the latest Catholic boy-touching scandal or what-have-you but, assuredly, on the surface, it was as normal a family gathering as one could expect.

When she broke up with me two weeks later, my then-girlfriend stated that one of the reasons for the demise of our tumultuous and brief stint was that she felt "suffocated by the normalcy of my family." I found this statement to be both confusing and amusing. My family-- normal? It didn't seem to make much sense at the time, but I realized later that she hadn't stuck around long enough for the cracks to show. Some peoples' families are crazy at the first glance-- like the Kennedys, but some you need to squint and poke and prod so that you can truly appreciate the bumps, lumps and irregularities that make almost every family nuts.

We are most certainly what I would call S.N. This stands for "Surface Normal." (I'm trying to use acronyms in honor of Heidi Murkoff, pregnancy guru and author of "What to Expect Before You're Expecting." How am I doing?) We're S.N. in as much as if you attend a gathering hosted by my family, we'll be on our best behavior until we get comfortable with you. Then, my eldest sister will start belching at the table like a construction worker, my other sister will lob a "Fuck you, scumbag!" across the dinner table in my direction, my father will retire to the living room to commence doing situps on the floor, and my mother will disappear to do laundry, wash the dishes, make her bed, clean the roof, milk the goats, or any other number of diverse activities that will enable her to avoid the rest of us for twenty minutes.

Surface Normal.

Last night, there was a gathering of the three children, at my eldest sister's condominium that was definitely S.N. I'm rather excited to tell my parents about it tonight when my wife and I go over to their house for dinner, because I know they'll be happy that all three of their children were having a get together at which nobody screamed obscenities, threw something of value, or received an Indian Burn.

Not only were the three children in attendance at this S.N. event, but my wife was there, and the middle sister was there, too, with her boyfriend, her boyfriend's son from a one-night stand, and the unborn fetus that her boyfriend sired in January.

Mmmm... not so normal anymore, are we, ex-girlfriend bitch?

Or maybe this is the new normal. I don't know. All I know is that it all seems very white-trashy to me. This wasn't supposed to happen to our family. But, then again, my mom did get knocked up at age 17, so maybe we're not so lily-white after all.

Anyway, we all congregated on my eldest sister's balcony to watch the fireworks. She lives on the eleventh floor of an eleven-story building in a pristine condo that she obsessively cleans every single weekend. This was the first time a four-year-old had ever entered her domicile, and she was seriously shitting herself with worry that this kid would single-handedly break everything she owned, right down to the stemware. Fortunately, he only knocked over one lamp, whilst jumping up and down on her guest bed.

As fireworks from several different towns exploded (mostly below the tree-line) all around us in the panoramic sky, I heard my sister's beau seeth the words, "This sucks" into her hair. I turned and glared at him in the pitch darkness.

"No," I thought, "you suck, fucktard." I was actually enjoying myself, on the balcony, way up high, with my family. The people who are my family. I didn't get to choose any of them, except for my wife. I certainly didn't get to choose my sisters-- and I sure as hell didn't choose the 6'3 guy with tattoos all over his arms, basketball shorts and a four year old kid who likes to yammer on incessantly about chicken toots. I didn't choose the entity inside my sister's belly, the result of super-sperm that, somehow, only manages to fertilize the eggs of unmarried women.

But that little bastard's going to be my family, too. And I couldn't care less if we can see the fireworks or not-- as long as my family's there.

There was a very unsettling time in the months before my wife and I got married where my middle sister and I didn't speak to each other. Her invitation to the wedding was late getting out because I didn't know her address, and I couldn't get ahold of her on the phone to ask her for it, and my parents didn't know it, so pretty much everybody ended up getting their invitations before her. Even people in Australia. I was lazy about getting the address, and negligent, but it didn't occur to me that it mattered much. What was I going to do-- not invite her? Please. But she wigged and didn't speak to me for a couple months, except to blow up at me a couple times when she felt like losing some steam.

My parents had a talk with me during this unpleasantness, this disruption of the S.N. we had prided ourselves on for so long.

"You know, after we die," my father said, "all you will have is each other."

"Well," I replied, "that's a pleasant thought."

"No, it's not, you asshole," my mother chimed in, "my brothers and I didn't speak to each other until my father died-- is that what you want? We're only now just beginning to repair our relationship. I'm almost 60, for Christ's sake. You all have to grow up."

But is it possible? Is it possible to grow up? I wondered about that last night, as I sat on the balcony in the cool Independence Night air. My sister, her boyfriend, the little kid, and the fetus had departed-- before the very visible and very cool fireworks finale of one of the towns off in the distance. My wife, my eldest sister and I were busy clucking with disgust about my other sister's, um, predicament. We laughed and tsked and gossiped and vented. We did what we needed to do to stay sane. To stay S.N. Because, really, on its surface, it was a perfectly normal evening. We did okay, even if we let loose after they left. I mean, hey-- you know they knocked the rest of us in the jeep on their way home, as the kid was asleep in the back dreaming of chicken toots.

And that's okay, I guess. Because tonight I'll tell my parents that we were all at my sister's on the balcony, watching the fireworks as a family. And that we all had a great time.

Get Your Goop On: It's Ultrasound Tuesday!

So, my sister and I both had ultrasounds today, for very different reasons.

You might have noticed that I really don't talk about my family much on here (except for my father) and the reason for that is very simple: if they ever found out that the blogosphere was privy to their intimate details, I would promptly and forevermore be missing teeth, testicles, and family dinners.

Privacy is their thing, not so much mine, and so I normally try to respect that. Today, though, I'm not. Fortunately, I don't really think I have to worry so much: my mother only uses a computer at work, my father still uses dial-up, my 31-year-old sister just got an email address six months ago, and my 41-year-old sister strictly uses her computer to research product safety reports, bizarre diets and gossip about washed up celebrities from her youth (e.g., this Saturday I got a very long text message from her about Davey Jones' most recent appearance on an episode of "Spongebob Squarepants.")

My ultrasound was a component of my stress echocardiogram so, obviously, it was an ultrasound of my heart. I was lying down on the exam table naked from the waist up, with one arm propping my head up. It might have looked seductive if I weren't in a doctor's office, if I didn't weigh 136 pounds, and if I didn't have 12 EKG leads and wires stuck all over me.

The ultrasound technician gooped up her doohickey a substance that I can only describe as blue jello cut with seminal fluid-- sorry. She then proceeded to jam and move the goop-slathered device all across my chest. Now, as I mentioned, I'm kind of svelte, and this thin-lipped bitch was shoving her device straight into my sternum and ribs-- not pleasant. So, obviously, as a natural reaction, I was tensing up.

"Can you just relax, please?" she said sharply, "It's really difficult for me to see your heart when you're not relaxed."

Oh, I'm sorry, I wanted to say-- perhaps I would be more relaxed if you shoved a rusty corkscrew and a mango-splitter up my asshole while you're doing that. That's really the only thing missing to put me right at ease.

Crotch.

(Sidebar: I think it's pretty funny that there are still people out there who believe that only caring, empathic people become nurses. The healthcare industry attracts its fair amount of sadists, too. Don't believe me? Become an EMT.)

I don't know how many of you have ever had the opportunity to obtain a cardiac ultrasound, but watching your heart do its thing on that flatscreen GE monitor is really..... um..... disfuckingusting.

Seriously.

My first instinct was to go, "Oh, man-- that's cool" but, after about four seconds of watching it, I was immediately sickened. There's tunnels and caverns and there's shit floating around and goop and blackness and it looks like underwater vegetation or something. I don't know-- maybe you'd be into it. I wasn't.

After the ultrasound, they make you run on the treadmill at varying speeds and incline levels until you're ready to pass out. One of the inclines was so steep I could barely hold onto the fucking grab handles. The fact that they're taking your blood pressure every four minutes doesn't help either. I got heaps of praise and congratulations from the two nurses running the treadmill exercise, for my endurance and for my cardiac performance. Of course, like anyone who's ever been praised after any performance event (yes, even sex) you always wonder if they say that to everyone.

When I left the testing site, I turned my phone back on and there was a voicemail from my 31-year-old sister informing me that the object inside her was officially determined today to be a boy. She was getting gooped on and deviceified at the same time I was, at another facility-- and I'm sure the ultrasound bitch wasn't pressing as hard on her belly as mine was on my sternum.

I called her back immediately and congratulated her.

"Yeah, apparently, from the ultrasound picture we got, he's a pretty well-endowed boy."

Her boyfriend looked at the picture quizically and asked,

"Is that his foot?"

"No, you ass-- that's his dick!" she said.

And it was. There was even an arrow pointing to it that said "Boy."

Apparently, when my sister called my mom to give her the news, my mother reported that there is a family legend concerning the *ahem* proportions of males on her side of the family.

"Wow." I said. "Mommy's a real pig sometimes."

"Yeah," my sister replied. "My kid's definitely gonna be in pornos if it keeps growing at this rate."

"Either that or he'll be doing cock-pushups on exercise videos," I said.

I guess we're all pigs. Healthy pigs, but pigs just the same.

Dinner at Home

I love going to my mother and father's house for dinner.

Not necessarily because it's all warm and cozy, (it isn't-- I don't think they've ever turned the thermostat above 59 degrees), or because the cookin' is "just the way I like it," (it isn't-- there were both mushrooms and olives in the pasta, and I hate both with a vocal passion) or because everybody gets along so well, (yeah), but because it's usually a genuinely funny experience. At least, it is when the frigid air isn't fraught with tension because of some topic that is not allowed to be spoken about (a pregnancy, an illness, a new purchase, a death, a misfortune, a faux pas, a coincidence, a situation, a blood test, a new Nabisco product.)

Tonight was pretty enjoyable by typical standards. Mrs. Apron was having a much-needed night out with two of her friends from her grad school program, and so I, not especially wanting to be home in our new house alone with the dog, invited myself over to my parents house. My sister did the same, at my suggestion.

SIS: "Well, do you think they'd want me there?"

(She's there for dinner at least six weekends a month.)

ME: "The fuck do you care? Just come over."

SIS: "Do you think Daddy will make shrimpies?"

Shrimpies. Did I mention that this woman is forty-one?

So, there we were, around the dinner table, just like old times. My other sister was not present, which was also just like old times. Daddy did indeed make "shrimpies" (with mushrooms and olives) and we all consumed our meal contentedly.

ME: "That was great, thank you."

DAD: "Sure, sure."

SIS: "My noodles were very dry." {MOM, DAD & I all turn to look at her.} Well they were.

MOM{motioning to the tub of Keller's}: "Well, there's the butter."

ME: "Maybe you should run them under the faucet."

DAD: "Hey, don' blame me. That's how you asked for them. Of course they're dry, you don' have shit on it."

My father is Israeli, which explains him well enough. My sister, on the other hand, has some kind of esophogeal disorder. I don't know what the fuck it is. Mrs. Apron could explain it to you, she's the Speech Language Pathologist. My sister belches constantly, and ferociously-- like a lion. Because of my sister's gastrointestinal issues, she has to have food prepared in a very specific way, and she doles out meal preparation instructions to our aging parents with Nazi-like efficiency. She's also hypoglycemic and requires feedings at regular and exact intervals.

If you were here and had even a faint pulse, she would also tell you in detail about her abraided cornea, which requires eye drops every half-hour, but she must have applied them ten times between 5:30 and 7:30. She is more regimented than an Annapolis cadet and more full of ridiculous ailments than a Moliere play.

I mentioned that I was having breakfast tomorrow with my other sister.

DAD: "Where?"

ME: "Milkboy's."

DAD: "Do you know about thees other place? Vat it's called? Sexboys?"

{MOM whips her head around and glares at him.}

MOM: "What?!"

DAD: "Say-- Sex-boy?"

ME: "Saxby's."

SIS: BBBRRRRRRRRRAOOOARRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!

DAD: "What?!"

ME: "It's called fucking "SAXBY'S" not "Sexboys!" Jesus fucking Christ!"

DAD: "Well, yeah, but, to some foreign-- to someone who just fell off the boat, it's look like "Sex-boys."

MOM: "The only person who just fell off the boat is you."

DAD: "What kind of a name it's is anyways? Sahx-bohs?"

SIS: GRRRRRROOOOUUUUUGGGGGGGGFFHHHH!

This is the truncated version of this particular conversation. In real-time, it probably went on for around six minutes-- at least long enough to require another application of eye-drops.

The discussion then mercifully turned to the fact that Mrs. Apron's mother is coming to visit us next weekend.

DAD: "Listen, I'm meaning to ask you: what are your thoughts? Is it-- should we be taking her out to dinner when she comes here?"

SIS: EERRRRRRROGGGGGH!

ME: "What the hell are you asking me for? Do whatever you want to do-- you're adults, aren't you?"

DAD: "Yeah, but I'm talking about what's the manners? What is the manners?"

ME: "What?"

DAD: "What is the right manners?"

ME: "How the fuck should I know? Why don't you write a letter to Miss Manners and ask her?"

DAD: "What? Don't you have any fucking manners?"

SIS: BRRRRRRRUUUUUOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARGFFH!

ME: "Obviously not."

My sister then excused herself, I assumed, to vomit. My father brought out the coffee and a container of small chocolate cookies.

MOM: "Those are stale, you know."

DAD: "Come on, no they not. See?"

He put one in his mouth and it sounded like he was cracking a walnut.

MOM: "That's disgusting."

DAD: "No it's not! See? I can eat it."

ME: "That's because all your teeth are fake, you could eat a shoe if you wanted."

Upon re-entering the dining room, my sister announced that, while in the bathroom for under three minutes, she hurt her other eye with the cord from her hoodie. My father and I exchanged a regrettable glance and we both started to laugh.

SIS: "Hey-- it's not funny, you assholes." This, of course, made it even funnier and prompted only more laughter.

She stormed out of the room with her Bausch & Lomb bottle which was, by the way, the size of a thimble.

The experts tell us that we regress when we go home-- it's like a time warp or something. And, at least in our case, those experts are right on the money: even Dr. Phil. In our house, nothing changes. The linoleum on the dining room floor is the same as it always was, just like our behavior patterns. My parents age with subtlety-- well, my mother does-- my father doesn't seem to age and, when he does, he won't do it subtlely. Subtlety isn't his his style.

Our final conversation of the night turned to my uncle, who has recently decided to put his house up for sale instead of paying his mortgage payment. The house is located across the street from a Catholic seminary.

MOM: "I'm just not sure he's going to get a million dollars for that house-- I mean, he needs to. Maybe in May, when all the flowers are in bloom and he can open up the pool..."

SIS: "OOOOORRRRRFFFFUUUGGGH!"

DAD: "Maybe that church or whatever will buy it-- as a place to fundle, you know-- with the window curtains down."

ME: "Yeah. They could call it 'Sexboys'."