I have never lived with my mom full time. The closest I came to that was the summer of 94, when I stayed at her place for most of the summer because the McDonald�s by her apartment would hire me before I turned 15. She worked nights and I tended to have a day or evening shift. My most common shift being 2-10pm. We basically didn�t see each other at all. I�d work late, get home around 11 or so, take a shower, watch Conan and go to sleep. It was a routine. If I hadn�t gotten along so well with the people I worked with, this summer would have been hell. But it was actually pretty great, and I bought my sweet 86 cavalier because of it.

Her husband didn�t work at all, but he would go to her job and hang out there all night. That seemed really weird since she was working the night shift at a halfway house for mentally disabled people. But I guess he had nothing better to do. I could also note here that Lorenzo (her husband) isn�t very smart and has a very limited vocabulary, which I always attributed to Spanish being his first language. Then I asked him for help with my Spanish homework once and learned that he knew nothing about Spanish either, just slang of both languages somehow mish-mashed together.

He and my mom have always had a very clingy relationship. I mean, he�d hang out all night at her job just for something to do. I found (and continue to find) it terrifying.

Anyway, due to her never really being around, or being around so infrequently, I have never in my life spent much time with her. And we don�t really like each other, but it�s kind of incidental since we spend maybe 8 hours together a year. And that�s being generous. There have been many years where I have not seen her at all.

My mom is a little bit crazy. Her husband used to be very abusive. He�s dying now so she claims that he�s seen the error of his ways. He also cheated on her. She claims that since I would not forgive these kinds of things that I am �coldhearted� and will �die alone.� She has been married three times, all kind of like this in some way, and yet she keeps doing it. She also told me recently that she�s only been married three times, and that I can�t expect it to be perfect. I tried explaining to her that three marriages is kind of a lot. She does not agree.

Really she is mostly just sad and depressed. She spends all of her time working jobs that pay maybe 8 bucks an hour, then sitting in her apartment with her dying husband. She�s never been on a vacation and probably never will. And although she seems to just want to talk to me on the phone to push my buttons and make me feel bad, I feel pretty badly for her.

So, last month I asked her if she wanted to come to NYC for a weekend and told her that I�d send her a ticket. She was excited at first. But then she said no. She can�t leave Lorenzo because he might die and has no one else. Then she told some other people that Lorenzo told her that she couldn�t come. Either way, it�s too bad.

When I asked her- she said �I don�t know when the last time was that you and me spent time together by ourselves� and I said �I think that�s because it�s never happened.� It�s happened for a few hours here and there, but never for a whole day, or something crazy like an entire weekend. And I am pretty sure that it�s never going to happen. Oh well. I tried.