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Chapter Fourteen, In Which our Heroine Becometh Like Judas, Betraying Her Love With a Kiss

Okay, I'm just gonna take a deep breath here and try to collect my thoughts.
*sigh*

Okay. Maddie started school. She likes it. Or I should say, she likes everything after the first ten minutes, in which I bundle her up in my arms, kiss her, and then proceed to throw her flailing body to a mob of salivating wolves. Wolves with backpacks and Care Bears folders. She cries every morning, and probably will continue to do so for some time, serving as a reminder to me each and every day that I am a horrible person and mother for throwing my baby out into the harsh cruel world where she will be confronted with guns and sex and violence and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, black trench coats and all.

Guns. I had to talk to her about guns.

"Maddie... Now, you know, you can't bring weapons to school. Do you know what a weapon is?"
"No."
"A weapon is something a person would use to hurt another person. Like a gun, or a knife."
"Oh."
"You're not going to bring anything like that to school, now, are you?"
(rolls her eyes in disbelief) "NOOOOoooo! But what about pretend guns? Toy guns."
Okay, this right here is why they wanted me to have this discussion. Lesson Number One in Post-Columbine Urban America.
"Nope, no toy guns either."
"What if I just use my finger like this."
"Nope."
"Alright."

Ignorance is bliss, truly. It is so incredibly hard and frustrating to be a semi-alternative parent with kids in public school.

"You have to go to school, Maddie."
"Why?"
Good question. I dropped out twice. Instantly, Jello Biafra is barking in my head: "My ambition in life is to look good on paper/All I want is a slot in some big corporation."

Why do you have to go to school? Because if I have to teach you fractions, our walls will soon be pockmarked with holes from the textbooks I will undoubtedly wind up hurling across the room in fits of unbridled frustration. And because you need socialization with kids your own age. And because I said so.

Every day I pick her up and she doesn't want to leave. So obviously, she'll be fine. After the first day of drop-off hysteria, I went home to Greg and cried and worried and vented for two hours.

"This country blows. She's pledging allegiance to the flag, and all I can think of is the fact that we're at war for no reason other than George Bush's 'legacy', and meanwhile people are wading through bodies in New Orleans and he's too busy to interrupt his vacation. Let's move to Ireland."
"Whenever I find myself thinking like that, I think of the Civil War, all the people who died..."

Oh, and Ireland? Hello, Catholic school! Hello, centuries of civil unrest! Hello, waitresses don't get tips in Europe!

Fine. She's gonna be fine. I cried every day when I started kindergarten, and look at me! I'm totally fine! And it only took, gee, all of twenty-six years to figure it out. And I still don't know what's right.

"Who's Jesus?'
"Well... some people believe... and others believe in Buddha.... and Mary Magdalene, your namesake, wasn't a whore like they'll tell you she was. She was more likely a shaman of sorts, a wiseperson, otherwise she would have been killed for anointing Jesus and washing his feet with her hair, which is also an indication that they may have been lovers, if not man and wife."

And sometimes people lie, and they steal, and they cheat, and they budge in line, and the world gets really fucked up and twisted and horrible and it still bothers me every single day, but I choose to continue to live in it. And I only go to work so we can have a roof over our heads, not because I don't love you, and all books, including the Bible, are subject to editing, and Thomas Jefferson fucked his slaves, and there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And that's why GodorwhateveryouwannacallItHimHer created rock 'n roll. Let's play Chutes and Ladders. Your move.

Posted by stephanie at September 10, 2005 11:22 AM