My Mom Loves Gay Techno

Which is either a fantastic title for a book, or a great reason for group therapy.

Ever since I bought my Mom an Ipod for her birthday, we've been swapping music on a weekly basis. For the most part we like the same stuff. Scary, I know. Did I mention that my Mom owned an Eminem CD before I did? Don't worry, we're beyond that now. Lately our lists have been peppered with artists and groups like Spoon, Yoav, Hellogoodbye, and Lily Allen. But every once in awhile, in the middle of a perfectly normal playlist, my Mom will throw in something completely different...

Gay techno.

I'm not using that term figuratively either. I mean no offense. I used to live with a bunch of gay clubbers. One of the guys used to borrow my clothes and the sad part was, he looked better in them than I did! Every night it was the same music, the same bubblegum beats. I have a vision permanently burned into my memory of the chubby one dancing around the house singing "Simon saysssss, 'Take off your clothes!'" And now here those songs are again, embedded in my perfectly boring mix of alternative and pop.

It's like biting into a black licorice jelly bean when you thought it was blueberry. "Tell me you're joking. You're joking, right?" I asked Mom the first time it came up. She laughed, admitting her strange obsession and said, "Aren't they great?" No, they're not. They're weird. The other day I was happily listening to Beck and all of a sudden a song titled, "What heterosexual males fear the most" popped up. I wish I was making that up. The group is Delphinium Blue. Check it out and tell me if I'm wrong. I'm working on an intervention.

Speaking of interventions, a male coworker pulled me aside yesterday to confess something... He doesn't like my shoes. Apparently, my super-comfy Easy Spirit sandals are "old ladyish" and only fit for "garden work". But it took ten minutes of buildup to figure out what he was even confessing to in the first place. He started out with the whole spiel of "Don't be offended. I'm only saying this to you because I consider you a friend. Friends don't let friends look stupid, right?" I was starting to get scared that maybe I had some kind of gross stain on my pants.

Like that time [name removed] sharted and told us he'd sat in chili. But no, my only offense was wearing unhip and ugly shoes. I am never going to hear the end of this from my two favorite fashion-savvy homebloys. Yeah, you know who you are. Please, no citations! After I got over the shock, and then the relief, I hit him with my best WTF?! face. How dare he! I don't talk to him about his outdated, stripe-down-the-side 90's dress shirts! Can you feel my outrage? I'm mentally punching him in the face with every "!" mark. Take that! And that! And that!

But you all didn't come here to hear about my Mom's weird fetish for Gay Techno, or my ridiculous shoe intervention, or even the fact that my pants are wearing out in the ass pockets. Surely a sign that I have too much junk in the trunk. You came here to hear about the rest of my vacation. Well it all seems rather anticlimactic now. I'll give you the inebriated abbreviated version. The day after we bought the car, Hoop and I heard the death cries of our starving bank account and decided not to spend any more money for the rest of our vacation.

We opted to check out some local parks instead. The first stop we made was to a little known forest that was mainly used for horseback riding. About halfway in, we realized the map we'd snagged from the park stand was five years old and completely outdated. In short, we were lost. After about an hour of hiking in the Florida sun, with no other hikers in sight, Hoop decided to air out his "boys". This followed him stripping off his shirt. Not to be outdone, I decided to strip my shirt and bra as well. We walked like this for at least forty-five minutes, grinning like fools and carrying our clothes.

Then something blue flashed ahead. I dropped to the ground, scrambling to untangle my bundle of clothes. "What is it?" Hoop asked, not even perturbed. It was two horseback riders. They were on a different trail, but still in plain sight of us. Fortunately, neither of us were seen (I hope) and we eventually found the end to the trail. All that stripping of clothes though led to some interesting tan marks in varying degrees. I think next time we'll bring sunblock... and perhaps a better map... and maybe some lube.