About Mama Millionizer, she made me want to scream this morning.

I’ll preface this by saying we talk like 30 times a week. No shit, 30 separate phone calls in one week is entirely possible. Sometimes it blows my mind because she’ll complain we’re not in contact enough and I’m like, Woman! are you kidding me? Most of our conversations are me listening to her go on about her meal options, weekend plans, my extended family’s goings on, what she ate for dinner yesterday, what she’ll pick up from the store and blah blah blah. I mean sure, some of the things she mentions are relevant but only the first time. When I’ve heard something for the fourth time in two days it’s pretty difficult for me to feign enthusiasm, sorry, that’s just the way it is. When this happens she usually ends the conversation in some super blamey way, her favorites are, OK well you sound busy, I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you’re doing, and Well you sound tired, I’ll let you get some rest. The fact that she says things like that instead of realizing she can’t possibly expect someone to care, makes me want to lose it. I know what you’re thinking, why not just tell her how I’m feeling. That’s a great idea, except I’ve done it several times and each time it has only led to an argument that is basically her telling me she thinks a) we don’t communicate enough b) she feels like she can’t talk to me freely because I criticize what she says and how she says it c) other random things she wants me to feel guilty about.

As far as us not communicating enough, I think she actually means I don’t live with her enough. She never fails to mention that our conversations are of a lesser quality than she desires. I have two things to say to this, 1) I try to talk to her and tell her all those little things that pop up in life. Very often she’s so busy going on about her end of the conversation she doesn’t even hear me, or she has to go, or she offers a disinterested, Oh that’s nice. What does she want from me? 2) With the sheer number of daily conversations we have, of course the quality is lacking! We talk three or more times per day, I don’t have that much quality going on in my life to warrant that many conversations, and frankly, neither does she.

Which leads us to the fact that she thinks she can’t speak freely to me because I tell her she’s mentioned something fourteen times. She doesn’t realize she’s being a hypocrite when she gets angry at me for telling her I don’t want to hear about what a bitch my grandma is. Believe me, I know that woman is out of control and I am well versed in this current episode of her bitchiness, I just don’t need to do the whole song and dance again. I can’t speak freely with her so I don’t. I just listen to her and grunt where appropriate, laugh on cue and do my best. Not all of our conversations are like this, but a lot are. And it is incredibly irritating.

So this morning I called her on the way to class, like I always do. It went like this.

ME: Hi, Mom!

MM: Oh, I haven’t heard from you in a while.

What the hell? Today is only Tuesday and we talked on Saturday. Saturday! And during that conversation I reminded her I was going to be in Tahoe for a couple nights. And if I had called her on her ridiculousness, like I wanted to, it would have ruined both of our days. There is no winning this battle.

Before I start anything I have to say for the record that I think our new cat is plain retarded. She is constantly licking the air and being floppy. It’s silly.

TBU started his new job today and we are all very proud of him aren’t we? Yes we are. It’s a big deal, really. He’s a Flash developer for large marketing agency. See those ads I have over to the right? Yeah, he makes things like that, except whole interactive websites that aren’t annoyingly Flashy.

Last night he asked me where our ironing board is. The answer is that we don’t have one because up until last night I had never once, in my entire life, ironed a single piece of cloth. Which tells you how we’ve both felt about our jobs up until this point. My mom bought me an iron when I moved to college. Isn’t that cute? My mom thought I was going to be ironing my pajamas, jeans, and t-shirts. I have to give her a break though she is the kind of Mexican mom who wants needs clothing to be super crisp and spiffy. That might stem from the fact that she was a housekeeper and did laundry for a significant amount of time. She gets irritated at my frayed jeans and t-shirts. I’m always hearing, “You should dress nicer.” When I ask why, her answer is in the vein of, “Because it’s nice.” Now that I am getting older I see where she is coming from.

Last night wasn’t the first time the ironed has been used though. When Mama was here a month ago TBU went on the interview for this job and she ironed his outfit. I sat on the couch as she repeated, “You need to watch me so you can learn.” My answer was, “Don’t you think TBU needs to watch you so HE can learn?” She did not like that kind of fuckery. Mama: so progressive yet so old school.

As I ironed his outfit I envision myself as a 50′s housewife who gets off on making her man look good. It was a role I could only play for like half a second but I still found it amusing. I imagine X would have loved it. She should iron Snakes sea faring outfits. Except she probably already does.

Um point? I’m stoked for TBU and can’t wait to hear about his first day at school work.

I decided to put ads here after some long and serious thought . It was kinda on a whim. I saw Token had some ads and she was all, “I just want to buy a new laptop,” and I was like, “Omigosh! I want a new laptop.” So that’s where it started. I went over to the Blogher ad network  and read the deal over. Apparently, in order to generate more revenue for both parties Blogher takes it upon themselves to promote the blog. I gave them my email address and they promised to get back to me when they were ready to accept more applications. Which was, apparently 2 hours later.

Their reply email um, replied with, ” We’re not ready to open the ad network to general applications, but we saw your wonderful blog on our waiting list, and didn’t want to keep you waiting!” At first I was flattered. But immediately after I was flummoxed.* Was I really that special? So special as to warrant a rush to the head of the line? I wondered if they made everyone sign up and wait for an invitation only to give them a “special” invite 2 hours later.

*I’ve been studying for the GRE and flummoxed just flowed out on to the screen. I had to stop a second and ask myself, “Wait, was I flummoxed?” I looked at my flashcard and confirmed, I was indeed flummoxed.

Regardless, I finished the application, which included my address and social security number. So some very unknown people have pretty much all my information. Right after I sent it, I realized I should have put my mom’s PO box as my address, but oh well. Do I trust the Blogher ad network? I guess I trust them enough.

I have a fear of losing my anonymity though. My mom won’t say a word if my video camera is in the room, on or off. I can’t imagine how she’d react if she found out I mentioned sex on the internet. I’ve read a few old posts and they’re not too bad, but they’re not too great either, from a mom perspective. I know they will generate conversations I don’t want to have, that’s my biggest concern. And there might be a few confidentiality issues with work. But whatever, I make double minimum wage, they can fuck themselves. However, they do pay for my health insurance. I can make some strategic edits, I guess. I did read some things that made me cringe with embarrassment, and not even the overtly ridiculous posts. It was more randoms exclamations and terribly worded sentences.

I pretty much brushed these fears aside and told myself that none of it mattered because Blogher can promote all they want, it doesn’t mean anyone is going to actually like and continue reading this thing. Other than the fact that I publish this blog, there is nothing special here. This self deprecation managed to calm me down. It usually does. Existentialism is magical.

Of course I have to deal with the question, “Am I selling out?” Which is dumb because there is nothing to “sell out.” I think on a typical day maybe 30 people read this blog. A nice round, fathomable number. I like 30. It’s not like I’m sitting on a thousand acres of rainforest and selling to a factory farm that wants to import cheap beef to the US. I am fine with my decision. It is kind of weird though, somehow themillionizer.com becomes less of all mine. Knowing I can always opt out and go back to the way things are right now is comforting though.

If the ads could even pay for hosting it would be awesome. That’s totally plausible because it is cheap and inferior. Oh! It would totally blow my mind if it paid for my hosting AND my internet bill. And if it allowed me to quit my job and touch myself all day. Well, you know I would.

Here’s to hoping it doesn’t get out of control.