Parental Prejudices (and puppies!)

I haven’t told my parents that I’ve started stripping but I have hinted. Heavily. So I figure they’ll figure it out when their brains let them piece it together.  This is what our conversations sound like now:

Mom: So what are you up to this weekend?
Me: I'm doing my first intermediate pole class Friday, Saturday I go on a date with a lovely lady and Sunday I’m getting my bikini line lasered.
Mom: Oh, how did you two meet?
Me: At a strip club.
Mom: Oh Ladyface.
Me: Mom there’s nothing wrong with dancing.
Mom: But it’s so gross, all those dirty old men.
Me: When was the last time you went to a strip club?
Mom: Never!
Me: Well I’ve been to about 20 and there are some I’d never go back to but there are several in town that are actually pretty great. Safe, fun, sex positive.
Mom: Eww. Just promise me you’ll never take your clothes off.
Me: [silence]
Mom: Ladyface! You’d never do that. Right?!
Me: I’m still gonna shower.
Mom: [laughing] Oh my god, you scared me.

Maybe she never has to know. But she’s already pestering me about finding a job in SF. And she’s concerned that I can’t afford to move. Really, I could move today if I wanted to but I’m committed to my day job through May. Ironically the club I work at is a hell of a lot safer than the dive bar I bartended at and she was thrilled when I started there.

So…I dunno. Is coming out necessary? Who does it serve? Is it selfish to come out if the alternative is just enduring a bit more well-meaning nagging than usual? My mum is a CPA and does my taxes so I suppose she’ll find out next year when I’ll have tax documents from the club I’m working at and clips4sale.  Unless I can come up with a good excuse to take care of that stuff myself.

On a lighter note, we talked about the Favorite Child: 

Mom: The Doodle doesn’t like other dogs very much. He’s more of a people person.
Me: Mom, your dog isn’t a person.
Mom: Oh, yes. Well, you know what I mean. 

Later in the same call:

Me: Dad, I’m hungry, what should I eat?
Dad: Peanut butter! Doodle and I really like peanut butter.
Me: I was thinking more like a meal.
Dad: ...peanut butter and jelly?

Oh parents. I love how much you love that pretty pup.  =3 

And if there were a backwards three on the keyboard that would look more like a dog bone.

*image from labradoodleoftheday.com

The Running of The Doodle

           Merry Christmas!  (if that's what you're into)  My family does Christmas on the 24^th so today is reserved for naps and leftover ham sandwiches.  But I found out today that The Doodle hadn’t ever been running.  I suppose this makes sense since dad had a hip replacement, baby brother just had nose surgery and mum doesn’t believe in exercise.

So I broke from our family tradition of Christmas day laziness and borrowed mum’s brand-new-though-two-year-old running shoes.  They are really old lady walking shoes and are three sizes too big for my little feet.  But dammit, a doodle needs a well-rounded childhood.  I would take him running.

I put on two pairs of socks and the shoes, stretched, hydrated and grabbed the leash.  I run 5 miles of steep, narrow mountain trails with my ridgeback mix every weekend, so I felt pretty confident heading out on this adventure.

But running with a Doodle pup is like trying to run with a miniature Snuffleupagus.  He would run, giddy and floppy and flailing in a kinda straightish line, which would have been sloppy but sustainable.  But every ten feet or so he’d get distracted by a squirrel, a lemon tree, or a particularly delicious smelling rock and dart in front of me or wrap around me, tripping me or tangling me in the leash.  Between the shoe issue and the unwieldy pup the whole half mile or so was made up of a repeating sequence of flop, flop, flop, stumble, gasp, flop, flop, flop, stumble, etc.

And I learned a physics lesson: shoes that are too big actually undermine rather than bolster your equilibrium.  They are not skis.  And my equilibrium isn’t great to begin with.  But that may also have something to do with Femme Mountain Goat Theory*.

In conclusion, I think my baby brother and I will stick to walking, wrestling and fighting over squeaky toys.

*Femme Mountain Goat Theory (noun): the idea that femmes, like mountain goats are so accustomed to standing and walking on steep inclines (in the form of high heels and mountains) that if you take the incline away both groups are actually more rather than less clumsy.