Improv 301

I got a typewriter handed down to me this past weekend. It's really neat.
My mom constantly surprises me, pulling out items that are actually pretty fucking cool, out of her garage storage. Not that mi madre is super-square-bear tidy-pants... she's definitely got eclectic taste, but I don't usually describe any of her belongings as cool. I used to think she just collected useless artifacts, really weird things things that held sentimental value to her and her only. And they really weird me out sometimes.

For example, in her dresser drawer, she has a bag of hair scrunchies, clips, barrettes, and a few old old, I mean STINKING OLD (literally)  tubes of lipstick. Sounds like your typical quirky mom right? Well, here's the thing. These are my former possessions, that I meant to throw away, which I threw away, in a trash can... and she fished them out and kept them for herself.
And not even to use them, really. See, these are things that I threw out when I was moving out of my parent's house for the first time. So when I wasn't looking, she dug them out of my trash bags in order to keep a memory of her baby around the house. I will mention, she has the guest bedroom redesigned to look like my old bedroom growing up. But I will leave that creepy notion for another blog post.

My mom is not a creep. Anymore. But she is definitely quirky.
I am quirky. You may say I used to be a creep but now that I'm not single anymore, I'm mainly quirky.

So I guess it should be no surprise that madre and I may have some things in common.  So when she mentioned to me that she had an old typewriter she could give me, the teenager still living inside me wanted to be all like, "ughh, it's probably SO old and SO lame UGHHHhhhhgghh."
But when she mentioned it was one of those mini ones that come in a suitcase, all teenage snobbery went out the window. Ehh.. what? Mom has a hipster typewriter?

I have slowly grown an attraction to vintage, which really surprises me. I used to hate the color brown. I hated it combined with orange even more. I used to hate faux wood walls or pretty much any wallpaper that tried really hard to be something it's not. Floral print anything... fuck that. Just thinking of the 70s made me turn my nose up in the air and fan away imaginary dust and mold. Hearing the crackly sounds of Creedence Clearwater spinning on our record player made me cringe and instantly run to my room to grab my anti-skip Discman with state-of-the-art earbuds. My mom would drag me to thrift stores, because I was the baby and she couldn't force that upon my older independent siblings. So off I'd go, rolling my eyes and broadcasting sighs as loud as fog horns. I already knew that this trip to a thrift store would mean roughly 3-4 hours of my life sacrificed to the Dust Temple known as Goodwill. The 'Segunda' as my mom would call it, would really try it's best... trying to drown the season of my discontent with songs like Wooley Bully or I Wanna Hold Your Hand blasting through it's donated speakers. I even hated the Beatles at that time. Hated them!

So that was then, this is now.

As an adult, I've bonded with my mom over my love of Goodwill. Over stories of deals scored on coffee tables, jackets, purses and knick-knacks. And I'm actually bragging about it, all while my "Abbey Road" record is crackling on my turntable. Because the Beatles are now one of my favorite bands. When I started dating John, I knew that his Goodwill shopping tendencies would impress my mom, so I told her all about our Goodwill dates. She exclaims at how sensible he is, so smart and kind, and that he would make a good husband. She hadn't even met him yet.

So... what am I getting at? What's this blog post all about?
When I logged on to Blogger, I had fresh thoughts and words swirling about on the topic of my Improv 301 class. I went to Harold Night at the UCB last night. THAT'S what I was going to write about. But in true improv spirit, I just started typing what was on my mind, in sheer honesty.
And, it turned into an existential post about my mother and I's relationship.

Ugh, I'm STILL CREEPY.

Love and crickets,
Jeannette