Chefs in the Raw

One recent morning I was checking my Yahoo e-mail. It was the unholy hour of 5am and I was waiting for my coffee to cool enough to sip. I opened a message from my mother and started reading what appeared to be an invitation to a Pampered Chef party. I scrolled down, already forming my excuse as to why I would be absent.

Then, in the invite a naked man is shown perched on a kitchen counter. He's holding a mixing bowl in front of his package smiling coquetishly in an " Oh no you didn't" fashion as he stirs some white goo in his bowl. He is tan,blond, and muscular in a Richard Simmons video sort of way. Not in a chopping wood or building stuff kind of way. He's prettier than I am. The invite is a "joke" and the "punchline" is that sexy men are to be purchased, I guess, at the party.

I'm repulsed as my first thoughts are of how pissed I would be if I walked into my kitchen to find some strange man's germy and naked little ass fouling up my countertop. The countertop where my babies make their peanut-butter sandwiches. The countertop that cost an arm and a leg and that my husband painstakingly installed. I imagine myself tossing him a towel (the ones I use on the dogs-not the good towels) and shooing him out so I can scrub the countertop with Clorox wipes.

Then as my eyes drop to his little mixing bowl, I think of pubes. Pubes in the cookie-dough. Ugh! He would have to take his little bowl along when I banished him because I wouldn't trust even the dishwasher to scorch out whatever microbes his naked crotch might have left on there! I scroll down and see more of the same; pretty men wearing nothing but aprons putting things in the oven, pretty men doing other cooking activities and wearing nothing at all. It just seems very unsanitary to me. Even Luby's makes people at least wear a hairnet in the kitchen

I wonder if I'm lacking some sort of hormone or chemical that causes me to be the opposite of interested in such sights. I see these sorts of men in MySpace comments and greeting cards all the time and I don't get the appeal. My husband is a bear. A protector. Not a girly man in a frilly apron and with a Hannah Montana smile.

I know my mom forwarded me the pictures of chefs who had peeled down to their birthday suits because it was suppossed to be funny. However, knowing my mom, I'm also sure she thought they were smoking hot. I think most of us would rather view our mothers as nonsexual beings. That said, I think Emily Post would agree with me that moms should share their lite gay porn with friends only-not their daughters.

Gender Identity Disorder,Cheerleading,and Devil Worship

My seven year-old daughter has claimed to be a boy since she was old enough to stake such claims. Since I'm Nazi-like in my policy of letting my children be whoever they are, I just go with it, much to the dismay of some of the people in my daughter's realm,who would rather me force her into pink dresses and a sugar-and- spice mentality. They can give it up,though, it will be a cold day in Fairytopia when I turn my tomboy into a reluctant princess.

Part of my staunch unwillingness to comply comes from my own mother's horror over my very unMalibu Barbie-like persona. I was brooding, anti-social, and wanted to wear all black. In my small Bible-Belt town, this was frightening to my mother,especially since all of those things fell under the broad category of things that she claimed made me seem like a "Devil Worshiper". Being a Devil Worshiper was at the top of my mom's list of things that were socially unacceptable. It just wasn't "done".

Aside from her fear that I would start collecting black cats to sacrifice of a Saturday night, she also wanted to live through me. Her own teen years were interrupted by my rude and untimely choosing of her womb to develop in when she was only 16. Not only did she resent me for such a SNAFU, she wanted to be me, I think. Since she was a baton twirler and pep squad member (don't ask me how she achieved those two activities simultaneously, my only guess is that that's how they rolled in the seventies), she expected me to continue the cheerleading legacy that she and my grandmothers and aunts before her had left. Especially since my parasitic-like newborn neediness didn't allow for such frivolity, she had unfinished pep-squad business, besides it was the least I could do since I had the audacity to be born at such a bad time.

It was pointlessly futile on my mother's part to try to force such an extracurricular activity upon me. Not only did I not have the social standing that effervecently jumping around half-naked and hollering in public required, I was also cripplingly shy. There was no way that I could, stone-cold sober, dry hump and writhe to the tunes of C+C Music Factory, in front of our town's football watching crowd. It would've taken at least a bottle and a half of Boone's Farm, and then I would've been sloppy and likely would've exaggerated all my moves and chants in the name of sarcasm. My mother should realize that my looking like a feared Devil Worshipper was far less embarassing to her than the realization of her cheerleading dreams for me would have been.

My daughter has her grandmother to thank for her freedom to be butch,though. If it weren't for my mom's constant pecking at me to be someone I wasn't, maybe I wouldn't be so laid-back about the situation at hand. And anyway, contrary to what I may have said decades ago, there are worse things than being a man. My daughter is such a sweet,smart, and entertaining little guy,too. You can't not love her gender confusion,and all.

I Will Redeem Myself, Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum!

As much fun as it is for me to be a sarcastic pain-in-the-ass, I do want to be a positive force in the universe. I feel kind of bad about all the negativity in my last blog. Therefore, I will dig way down into my heart,which feels three sizes too small, and begrudgingly list some things I like about Christmas.

1. I like red. Christmas stuff is red. It makes me happy.

2. Its fun to look at people's yards when they get really obnoxious and tacky with the decorations. Especially when they go nuts with the giant inflatables and the wind knocks them over. It looks like Santa's passed-out with Frosty after having too much eggnog.

3. I love those stiff claymation (isn't that what its called?) cartoons from the past. Like Rudolph.

4. Making the horrid,unsanitary, frosting-smeared-with-a-licked-spoon cookies for Santa is super fun.

5. Its fun to still have one child who believes in Santa.

6. The Black Friday tradition I have with my sisters is great. For some reason the lines and crowd are not annoying when its Black Friday.

7. On the rare occasion that I can find a gift that I know an adult on my list would actually want ,that's very good.

8. Having the kids home for Christmas vacation. No getting up at 5am. No fighting with the homework.

9. Holiday-flavored coffees. Peppermint-Mocha is divine!

10. My dining-room Christmas-tree with all black and silver ornaments is stunning!

And just so you know I'm still in here and haven't gone completely sugarplum fairy, allow me to say I despise that Drummer Boy song! It is an unhappy day indeed when the stores start piping it through the speakers.

The Most Blasphemous Time of the Year...

I can't stand Christmas. As it starts to loom large right after Halloween, I start to feel the stress and anxiety. I usually try to keep my sentiments to myself because the vapid chirping of those who try to convince me to be merry make me want to choke and maim the jolliness right out of them,even though I do admire those who can see something deeper in Christmas than I have been able to find.

The anxiety comes from having to create some semblance of holiday magic for my children. Its a difficult task to try to create holy magic out of resentment and scoffing. The commercialism of the whole season is nauseating, but what's a mom to do? I don't want to send my kids back to school having had stockings stuffed with apples and oranges while all the other kids got a holiday full of technology and reverent Hannah Montana worship. So,like a sheep, I follow the social norm and waste money on a bunch of crap, most of which will be buried and forgotten at the bottom of a toy box by Valentine's Day. The other stressor is trying to assume a demeanor that makes the relatives think I give a rip about any of it.

What's worse than the Santa hat-wearing, Rudolph-singing souls afflicted with the "Christmas Spirit" are those humorless types who want to admonish me for my lack of enthusiasm and call it a sacrelige. I mean no impiety. I decorate my pagan Christmas tree and hang my pagan mistletoe just like they do. I also understand that the "Reason for the Season" is the birth of Jesus (which possibly actually happened in the Spring), a man so radical for his time that if he came down now,with such extreme views and behavior for our era , these same people would probably ahem, crucify him. I just don't see that the obligation to buy for every single person you come into contact with everyday or the even worse obligation to spend time with people just because you happen to be related has anything to do with Jesus's birth. In any case, I doubt if even the pale-skinned,blue-eyed version of Jesus that the locals who are offended by my Grinchness worship would be pleased with the ridiculouness that's been manufactured of his "birthday".

I get the whole peace and goodwill bit,too but its kind of hard to swallow when people trample their fellow man to death in order to snag a bargain priced Wal-Mart Christmas gift. The only way I can stomach the holiday is to just accept it for what it really is, a superficial strain on the wallet created to demonstrate our love and reverence for Disney, Fisher Price,and Mattel. And though I admittedly enjoy watching my children's anticipation to receive their gifts on Christmas morning, gifts I fought crowds and waited in endless lines to acquire, I also know that all the sweet, baby awe and gratitude will go to Santa. If I try to make something more meaningful than a plastic,AA baterry-littered ploy to make money for "The Man" out of Christmas,then it just sets me up to try and meet impossible, Very Brady Christmas expectations. Therefore, I bake the cookies,buy the gadgets,and thank Jesus when its all finally over.