Jeremy's got the new-moan-ie

That's how Mama Ann says/said it--not pneumonia, but new-moan-ie. "Chrystal (Chrustal) you'd better not go out with a wet head, or you'll catch the newmoanie."

Only a couple of you know of whom I speak. I'm talking about my ex-stepmother, "Mama Ann." She insisted that everyone call her that as if she were mother to all the motherless. She is/was the most crude (not in an good or entertaining way) woman I've ever encountered. Pure, unadulterated filth. She was a proud, disabled woman with a lot to say about absolutely nothing. (Disabled like get a check disabled. She fell on some ice and broke her leg when she was twenty-three. Rheumatoid arthritis set in. There is no way I can give you the phonetic spelling of how she said "rheumatoid arthritis.")

Ann met my dad at a bar, Oak Hill, on his birthday. As I recall, she was the one that picked him up. She pulled her shirt out, and told him to "blow out the candles." The reason I recall this story is that it was shared with me....at ELEVEN. I know. I was telling Jer today about how Mama Ann, when she was about seventeen, told some thirty-something guy at a bar, "Hey, I'll sit on that dick for you." This is what I grew up with for a few years. These types of stories and a lot of action that backed them up kept me in my room doing crunches and listening to The Wallflowers, Boys II Men, and other for obvious reasons non-torturous, non-NIN music.

When I had to come out of my room to do my chores, I was often embarrassed and appalled and disgusted and many other things. Also, when I was out, I was forced to eat things like "Ann's famous chili" or fried chicken. "Colonel Sanders ain't got nothin' on me. Does he, Dad? Does he," she would ask. My dad, that's who she called "dad." Okay by me; I wasn't really territorial with the title given to him by accidental sperm donation. She could call him dad if she wanted, because as soon as I ate my one drumstick or one scoop of chili that I'm convinced had pubes in it like the Radiohead episode of Southpark (This took place years before that episode: further proof that there are people stealing my thoughts for their make profit.), I would go back to my room and do some more Jack LaLanne style exercises from memory. At cheer camp, they were shocked to discover that I had very visible abdominal muscles in the form of a four pack. I wasn't surprised. Every crunch, up to a thousand a day sometimes, was representative of some uncouth thing in my life.

This has taken on a direction I really didn't foresee. I was going to talk about Jer's illness. But, this is therapeutic, and I think I'll continue it in some Mama Ann blogs. I feel like I just did an exorcism.