Over the weekend, I took my little brother Jonathon to my stylist Stacy to get a cool Jimmy Fallon haircut and eradicate the horrid Costcutters ‘Gee, Wally, maybe we should tell Mom about Whitey knocking over that liquor store’ bowl cut. He’s all stoked, especially when he walked in and Stacy looked at him and said ‘Wow, is that an Independent shirt?’ Because she knew the skateboard brand, you see. When I did not and had to rely upon subtle clues while in Pac Sun and also the price tags (it’s very expensive to be counterculture, apparently). Stacy is so much cooler than I can ever hope to be. And also, she has her tongue pierced, which impressed the hell out of Jonathon.
And standing there in the salon, that’s when I noticed that my little brother, the little boy whose diapers I changed and who gave me a complex when I was eighteen and he was four months old that people would think that I was a teenage mother and he was my baby or something, yeah, that little brother is now a scant inch taller than me.
Have I mentioned that I am not a short person? No. Not in the least. However, Jonathon has always had that appearance of certain puppies, with limbs and extremities of random proportions, hinting at a great size yet to come. You look at his shoes, which go from spacious to ugly stepsister small in about four weeks time, and it’s like a rush of wind in your ears as the genes all get their ducks in a row to have yet another growth spurt. I suspect that it happened while he was actually sitting in the chair itself. Either that or the weight of my bosoms has finally begun to compress my spine.
Which reminds me: his glasses don’t fit. Esteban noticed this when we went school shopping a few weeks ago and has been reminding me to get the kid some glasses that fit on his head. Apparently, Esteban, who has needed glasses his entire life, is very sensitive to this fact, while I am all blithely ‘People wear glasses for real? Like, not as a prop of some sort?’ Even still, so hard to fathom.
So my sister Mo was going to take him and was in some kind of talks with my drunken mama about his insurance for an eye exam or something. And then when pressed for details, Mo said something about waiting on Mom and then the entire thing was left in Mom’s lap. Which, beloved reader, we all know is a road to disaster.
Today, I called Mom and asked about the exam, which is indeed covered by his insurance. She waffled a bit because it would mean that she’d have to take him (organ chord of scary music) Across Town, then acted flighty, and changed to subject to complain about how she doesn’t have a DVD player because she gave one to Jon for Christmas, assuming that he’d keep it in the living room and when he chose to keep it in his bedroom, she’s holding it against him (Even though I swore on a panel at Journalcon I was going to try to reduce the amount of editorializing on this woman, I simply cannot stop myself from a single whispered ‘typical’ and now back to our previously scheduled paragraph, already in progress) so I said ‘Well, it’s his and that’s his right. Jeez, just go and buy a cheap one’ they’re like $45 or something.’ This is when she hit the homerun hit of the season thus far.
‘Well, I don’t know, Weetabix, it’s just that I’ve been concentrating on getting Jon ready to start school that I don’t have a lot of money to spend on myself.’
Um, excuse me? You mean like, perchance, buying all of his school supplies? No, couldn’t be, because I did that. You mean, buying his deodorant and shampoo and new toothbrush and toothpaste and pomade to make his new haircut look cool? Hmmm, seems I did that too. Shoes? Nope, me again. Must be referring to several hundred dollars in new school clothes, because everything the kid owns was either ripped, stained, or too small? Whoops, seems that was me too. So what exactly could she be referring to then, I wonder. What indeed.
Ok, maybe she’s talking getting him ready for college in four years. Perhaps we’ll just give her the benefit of the doubt, shall we?
His new haircut looks way cool, though. He wouldn’t let me touch his hair after we left the salon. How damned cute is THAT?
And because I apparently can only be negative, here are some pictures from the weekend. Hold your mouse over the photos for the captions, like usual.
