Since when is the internet public??

Today has been an interesting day. I woke up still feeling sick but a bit better than yesterday. It's the damn body aches that make it so hard to get out of bed. What else would a sick person rather do than wake up early and pack 800 tons of childhood memories into a van and drive them to Queens? Well, I was in luck! That's exactly what I got to do today!

I couldn't find a parking spot in front of my apartment so I had to lug these boxes from a block away and up 2 flights of stairs. Not that I was all that surprised, but the Middle Eastern men who sit at the Balkan restaurant next to my apartment just sat and watched as I made 10 trips back and forth to my car, obviously struggling. Had they offered to help I would have said no.

Driving in NYC was super frustrating but I think getting out and about, (partially) breathing (semi) fresh air made me feel a bit better. I'm definitely relieved to finally (!) be done packing and moving my stuff from my moms. Now I'm free to spend all the quality time with her. Erm, I'm blogging and she's somewhere in the house. I feel her presence though!

I'm feeling emotionally better today as well. Mom seems to be in good spirits which makes me feel more positive. I decided to check facebook while she was making dinner and I always get excited when I get a new friend request. (Another fun person from the past to reconnect with? The guy I met at a bar last week? A friend of a friend who thinks this is a dating website? Bring it!) To my horror (understatement!) I saw my mom's face smiling back at me next to the boxes "Confirm" and "Ignore". Eeeeeeeyikes!!!! I never thought this day would come! Mom can't even handle text messaging! She still types with one finger! She still "stores" phone numbers, addresses, and email address in a tiny little book that she's had since 1987. She's run out of pages in the book but she'll write the info on a small scrap of paper and put it in between the pages. How did she manage to find me on facebook, let alone to "turn on" the internet? Freaking out. I look over at her and tilt my laptop away from her, hoping she wouldn't see the page pulled up. Fuck's sake! I can't deny my own mother! Nor can we be "friends"! Twenty minutes later she says to me, "Oh, I asked to sign up with you on book face? Something book book?" Oh goodness, I had to look away (I always do when I lie -total dead giveaway!) and tried to answer as nonchalantly as possible, "Oh, I haven't checked that in ages!" Lies! I tried to add in a scare tactic, "Do you even know how to use it, Mom? Be careful what you write and click on there." I think it's now time to take my own advice.

As if the night couldn't get stranger, I was downstairs working on some things when I heard a noise I've heard many times before in my life. I can only describe it as a cat that's being stabbed to death but really enjoying it. Also known as my mom SINGING. Only this time it isn't god awful Thai love songs. It was... The Beatles. What. The. Fuck. My mom is playing Rock Band. I would have been crying from the painful noise I was hearing but I was laughing way too hard. God bless my mom. For those who have had the unfortunate opportunity to hear me sing, I can tell you where I got my pipes from.

Perhaps this is how it would be if I spent more time with my mom. Maybe she would keep surprising me. Maybe I would laugh at the things that used to make me walk away and slam the door. Maybe we'd be facebook friends trying to out tag each other in the most unflattering photos. We don't often have much to talk about so "spending time together" usually means sitting in each other's vicinity. I'm doing just that tonight, sitting in her vicinity, comforted by her presence, when she stops what she was doing and turns to me again, "Oh you know what my friend just told me?" I turned to her, only half interested, thinking she's going to tell me about the latest thing her friends heard on the news that I should be worried about. Swine flu? Terrorist plots? Teen pregnancy? She continued, "She said that her son found something that you write online? Like a personal website or something?" I froze. "She said it was interesting. You wrote about our trip to Grandma's in Thailand?"

Um...slowly registering what she's saying...Panic. Attack. I let out a nervous chuckle. Oh. Ha...Ha...Um. "Wow, that's funny that he found it," was all I could reply. Very often these days I try to tell my friends a story and they'll let me finish, looking bored out of their minds, and then tell me, "Yeah, I read your blog," and I'd apologize and ask them why they didn't stop me sooner. I don't realize that they actually read what I write. Then I'd get a random text from a friend who would ask me if I was OK. I would ask why and they would respond, "I read your blog. You do realize that's open the the public right?" I am amazed that I am still caught off guard, taken by surprise when someone tells me they've read something from my blog. Huh. What a concept. Lost in thought over this concept. Mom loses interest.

Today was a better day for me.
A strange day.
I feel better.
Mom is on the internet.

To be con't: Nina. Censored.