Lookin' At Me With THOSE Eyes....

Saturday night I stayed up waaaay too late to watch that IFC Punk Night thing (Sergei, fortunately, was in another room, 'cause I squealed like a kindergartener holding a spider throughout the evening). I even took notes which, uh, I left at home and thus can't give a play-by-play of my quivering delights, and would you really want to hear 4 pages of notes anyway? Suffice it to say, there was David Johansen and Jello Biafra and Mick Jones and Chrissie Hynde and Henry Rollins and Thurston Moore and...oh...just everybody. There was much jumping about and thrashing and I remembered songs forgotten and who-was-in-which-band stuff. Happy happy girl, me.

So on Sunday, I pulled out some cds to listen to, get my old pre-marriage, pre-kids metal-punk groove on. The kids were all doing their thing, so I sat at the dining room table, with occasional trips to the basement for laundry, ROCKING THE FUCK OUT! There was Sex Pistols. There was Ministry (man, that was LOUD!). There was Lard (I let girl-child listen to 3 seconds of "Drug Raid at 4 a.m.", and her eyes got all big and she grinned all goofy, 'cause she loves the thrash, and then left the room to play with Barbies).

In pulling stuff, I reached for Primus, not exactly punk, but I lovelovelove Les Claypool and all that slap-base stuff. (Slap-bass? Nothing looks right here. I mean that style of guitar-playing...base?bass? Ohgodhelpme, I can't spell anymore.) I decided to let boy-child in on my fun, and interrupted his game-boy fix for a full-on stereo play of "Tommy the Cat" from "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" (which features Tom Waits on vocals). I cranked that puppy up and was singing along and sort of dancing (albeit like Napoleon Dynamite, so sue me), and looking at boy-child expectantly to see if he could get into it. I'm grinning like I'd been lobotomized. After about 45 seconds, boy-child got this...this look...in his eyes...like he finally realized his mother was a crazy person. C-R-A-Z-Y. I'd had the same look the previous day, when that old woman in the grocery store asked to hug my children because she was a 'grandma with no grandchildren'...uh, okay, then back the hell AWAY, lady. I could tell by boy-child's expression that he was planning and plotting exactly how old he had to be before he could get me committed to an institution for crazy moms. I said, "You don't like this?" He said, "Uh...NO. Can I play game-boy now?" Me: "Sure."

It's definite. My children are not impressed with my musical taste. At least, not the music I used to listen to. I guess 'cause that's not who I am anymore? At least not that I show to them? No more the all-black-wearing, hair-thrashing, party girl Mona. Nope. Not anymore.

The kids were more impressed when I started singing loudly, "Why are there so many...songs about rainbows...and what's on the other siiiiiiide", after they'd seen The Muppet Movie at camp. Yeah. I guess I just need their musical taste to catch up to mine. I can't wait for the teen-rebellion years, 'cause I got a trunk full of angry youth cds to throw at 'em.

(Reaching for Primus cd, cranking up speakers..."She whispered in my ear! She whispered in my ear, she said...you wanna get LUCKY little boy?...")