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Madmarriage, the interview…

Posted on October 9, 2007
Filed Under bat-ass crazy, bitching and moaning, kids, marriage, parenting, self interview, sex, snark, suburban joys | 8 Comments

I’m slowly coming off a three day weekend and finding it difficult to get back into the blogging saddle. So I’m incredibly thankful for Amanda of Tumble Dry and The Wink. (Yes, she is a dual blogger just so she can laugh and point fingers at those of us who have trouble posting unique, well-written posts to our one website while she blasts away at two.) Amanda has indulged my love of interviews and agreed to proffer some real, second party questions so that you all will not have to endure another self-interview.

Now that it’s the real deal, I’m wondering what should I wear while answering these questions? Should I blow dry? I’m gonna imagine that I’m sitting across from Amanda on the set of The Daily Show, just to make it all official. I have always wanted to sip from the Daily Show mug, the one from which Jon Stewart’s guests wet their famous lips throughout the interview. What’s in that mug? Jagermeister? Coffee? Orangina?

So here we are, Amanda and I, wearing dark suits and shiny pumps and full coverage make-up.
She says:
You’ve recently shared with us your travails of living in an older home. If tomorrow you were to wake up with the means to walk out of your house and into another of your choosing, tell us what it would be like.

Oh wow, Amanda. (I smooth my skirt to make sure that I’m not giving the camera a shot up the gizzy). That’s a tough one. I mean, the grass is always greener so to speak, especially when the neighbors are all using Tru Green chemical enhancers and I’m out picking weeds with my teeth. But, seriously, it’s not really what house I’d choose to move into once I woke up, cleared the sleep from my eyes and decided that another day in this piece of crap might be the end of me. The more pressing question might be, not only where I would relocate but who, in the house of fools and miscreants I currently live with, would actually come with me? Ha, ha, ha (I crack myself up. Pause to sip Jagermeister from the Daily Show mug and continue). One things for damn sure, I’d leave the cats and the fish for the new owners and possibly whichever child is irritating me most that morning, probably the one that wakes before sunrise and pees all over the toilet seat leaving urine puddles for sleepy Mommy.

So that leaves me, one hyper dog, My Better Half (only if her agrees to stop taking the Resveratrol supplements) and the child of the day, headed off for greener pastures in say, the Tuscan hills or the Green Mountains of Vermont or perhaps California. I’ve never been there, to California I mean, but everyone tells me it’s clear skies and breathtaking views and boob jobs as far as the eye can see. So I will need supplementation to make to the move to California and while a lift would be nice, I’m not too sure about the added baggage. And Tuscany is lovely but far from family and the Green Mountains has, like, one grocery store named for a guy called Murray and Murray hates Massholes that buy property in Vermont and actually improve the place so I’d better just stay here.

But, bottom line. To stay here, I’ll need more money. This Old House we live in already has some pretty great potential. Super town, A plus schools, lovely piece of property 25 miles from Boston, 30 minutes from the coast. But it would really be ideal if someone would just give us say $200,000 to, you know, add a bathroom or two, an exercise suite. Change the exterior color to Pale Oak with Antique Black shutters and Brilliant White trim. It’ll need new windows and we’d love to do a slate roof. The landscaping needs total refurbishment and this will also require an irrigation system. And then there’s the long drive that would be stately and grand if planted with wild flowers and lined with granite blocks and freshly graveled. The back porch should probably be razed and re-built as a family room/entertainment den just off the kitchen. And, you know, once all that was taken care of, I’d be pretty content. Pretty damn content. So, Amanda, we’re staying here. And now that you’re a Daily Show correspondent, maybe you could help us in starting a Madmarriage This Old House Charity Fundraiser Shameless Begging for Renovation Money telethon or marathon or walkathon or whatever.

(Another pause and long sip of Jagermeister while Amanda shuffles through her notes for another question.Clearing of throats all around. Recrossing of legs. Subtle chatter from the studio audience.)

Amanda says:
A recent foray into bedroom blogging over at Madmarriage has me wondering, What is your worst bedroomish pre-marriage memory?

(Studio audience laughs in anticipation of some sort of Girls Gone Wild, Mary Does Mardi Gras type of story.)

Well, I hate to disappoint but the only truly horrifying incidents I can think of from my sordid past involve a sort of pathological over indulgence in drugs and alcohol that pretty much rendered me incoherent for about six years. These stories mostly end in my vomiting or having my stomach pumped or wetting my pants and aren’t really as entertaining as I once thought they were.
As for my sex life, pre-marriage… Well, truth be told, even as a young woman, I had a tendency towards serial monogamy. Before My Better Half, I dated only a few guys and those few were sort of epic relationships that tied up whole years of my life. There’s not a whole lot of shenanigans to report from those pre-marriage marriages, but there is a whole heck of a lot of heartbreak to unearth there. Thus the drugs and the alcohol and a scathing poem entitled ‘Never Date and Actor’ that I’d be happy to share at a later date.

( I smooth my skirt again, clear throat and polish off the Jager, pushing the mug across the desk at Amanda.) Any more of that stuff around here?
(Amanda reaches beneath the Daily Show desk and pours me another mug full of the good stuff and says?)

What is your most treasured possession?

I have some lovely paintings and sketches done by my great grandfather who was a fairly successful artist and famous art historian and who hung out with fabulous people like Isabella Stewart Gardner and John Singer Sargent. I’d be pretty despondent if anything should happen to these works of art because, well, they’re kind of priceless in my mind even though there’s not much of a market for them.
I know, I know, a straight up answer, snark free. How unlike me.
(I turn to the camera and stick out my tongue as if to say, forgive me the gravitas, I’m still quirky and carefree and can poke fun at myself despite the fact that I love art and my great grandfather.)

What book are you currently looking at with a sense of defeat because you bought it months ago but haven’t been able to get to it?

You mean what book shelf am I currently looking at with defeat. There is not a room in this dive that doesn’t house about 12 books that I really should read but would rather not. You see, we are members of the Hundred Greatest Books club and every month we receive a leather bound copy of some worthy tomb and, after it’s unpackaged My Better Half immediately reads it and then shelves it after saying, “Life’s too short for anything but the classics,” while looking contemptuously at whatever modern best seller I am reading at the time. I was an English major. I spent four years of my life reading books that other people wanted me to read. Damn them all. I have no time for Moby Dick or The Talisman or Ivanhoe when there is Dave Eggers still to be read.
(I pound the table for emphasis and spill my mug of Jagermeister all over my lap.) Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh sorry, can I say that on air? Bad guest, bad guest. Next question.

You took a long break from blogging and now you are back, having warned us all that you would take it day by day, how’s it going?
You know, I took a break because I just couldn’t see how anyone was benefiting from my daily blathering about my very ordinary life until I realized that this blogging thing is the only true record of what it is to be a parent, wife, dog owner, 21st century American woman and though it is not profound or earth shattering or even all that different from a thousand other blogs out there, it is mine and with it I capture the essence of the Madmarriage unit right now…the good, the bad and the ugly. Some day my children can print it all out and bring it to their therapist.

It’s also a great writing exercise. While most days are busy enough to prevent my sitting down and writing for hours at a time, I can usually get off a blog post. With this writing thing, it’s sort of use it or lose it. I pretend that blogging is like doing chords or scales or whatever musicians do to warm up. It’s my way of tuning up before working on my novel or a short story.
And, as an aside, I’m having some fun with blogging now that I’ve disabled Google analytics and can’t see just how many tens of people aren’t reading my stuff on a daily basis. Ignorance is bliss.

(I stand, pump Amanda’s outstretched hand enthusiastically and bow to the studio audience of four.)

You guys are the heroes. The people who make it all worthwhile. I love you guys. And if any of you four would like your own time on the opposite side of the Daily Show desk, I’m providing the Jagermeister and the questions and I promise to blow dry and not spill anything.
(Amanda shows me the way back stage and to the green room where I’ve heard they offer guests bong hits and more Jagermeister. Some things don’t change.)

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