Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal. To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2001/09/For now, this little rant will be completely private. I’m glad that LiveJournal lets you do that. If, at some future time, the subjects touched by this rant become a little less sensitive to the person(s) involved, I will change this to be public.
So, I have this friend, N. N is a female in her mid-to-early twenties, with a 2.5 year old kid. She has declared herself “punk rock” and all that. I guess “punk rock” means fucking strangers in the backs of cars in Hollywood. I guess it also is a synonym for “alcoholic.” It wasn’t always like that, though (at least, as far as I can see from external appearances).
In the past few months, N has gotten involved in an online group called “Hip Mamas.” I am only using the word “group” to be polite. “Cult” would be more appropriate. While I do not see them forming their own town/compound and drinking Kool-Aid any time soon, I still see the beginnings of long-term damage.
This cult has just about taken over her life. She has even been ignoring her kid to “hang out online” with the other Hip Mamas. It seems to me, that the term “Hip” and the term “Mama” are becoming more and more mutually exclusive in her interpretation or membership in the cult. Example. She sits in the garage (the “adult” room where children are not allowed because of smoking and dangerous chemicals and such) on the computer in the evenings, with a large quantity of alcohol. Half a dozen people are there, talking, drinking, and smoking. Kid comes in. Kid maybe wants attention or something? He storms around, hits and kicks things, tries to talk to mommy, etc. She spins around in her computer chair and screams at him. He screams back. They’re both screaming. She picks him up by his arm (like a rag doll), and moves him away (often times, just away–not inside the house, where he should be). More bugging. More screaming. “OKAY! TIME FOR BED!” Sad kid goes to bed, with Pavlov in the shadows mumbling something about future sleep disorders. This isn’t a single incident. This has become a regular occurrence. Every night. I try to hang out elsewhere (at my house, in the back yard, or in someone else’s room) until the fireworks are over. And she keeps drinking and typing on the computer, talking to her fellow Hip Mamas.
In the past few weeks, she had a gathering of Hip Mamas at her house. From the real-life interaction of these people, I would think that “Hip Mamas” is a euphemism for “sex-starved, sex-craved, lesbian chicks with kids.” They are sitting there, talking about all kinds of adult subjects, with 2-7 year olds around. Again–in the adult, smoking room where kids should not be allowed. Later in the evening, the younger kids to to bed. Somehow (I wasn’t around when it started), the Hip Mamas started spanking one another in a very sexual fashion. Hey, I don’t care what people do behind closed doors. I’m actually all for that kind of stuff. What was inappropriate was that they were doing this, half in the living room, half in the back patio, with the older (7-ish) kids in the garage, playing Pokemon. Two of my friends were in the garage, as well. They later told me they were trying to ignore the noise the Mamas were making in the other room. The adults knew what was up. What were the children thinking? Something sexual? Something punishing? After all, that is usually punishment for kids. Mommy’s been bad.
I guess they did this on a larger scale a month ago in Portland. The Hip Mamas had a convention of some sort. I keep hearing snippets of stories of various forms of debauchery going on. I can see this kind of stuff going on at a sex-industry convention. I HAVE seen this sort of stuff going on in Vegas during a HaXoR convention. I really do not think it is appropriate for a mommy+child convention. Honestly, I do not know how isolated these events were–maybe there were no kids about–but if the previous weekend was any indication, I would expect them to be doing this stuff right in front of the kids.
Bad life decisions. Wild mood swings brought on by large amounts of alcohol. Bad stuff. Some friends trucked over (from 40 miles away) a new washer and dryer for the house in which she lives. They carried it up the stairs. They did not have the right natural gas hose adaptor to set it up. This was all FREE, mind you–the washer, dryer, and work to move and install it. She BLEW UP! She absolutely EXPLODED! She was so ingrateful of the work and so selfish that she got all huffy, climbed in the car with a load of laundry (this is after quite a lot of drinking), and drove to the laundry mat. I just wish she would have gotten a DUI that night. It might have shocked some sense into her.
To top it all off, I accidentally broke the internet connection shared hub at that house. After someone at the house spent quite a lot of time trying, unsuccessfully, to get it to work again (after a VERY long day at work), she exploded again. “I have to do this work from home this evening. I’ll get fired if I don’t get it done. Blah, blah, blah.” This person stayed up even later, got N’s computer to connect directly to the internet without the hub, then went to bed. Others in the house that evening noticed that N worked on some graphics for her job for about 5 minutes, didn’t do anything internet-related with them (email, FTP, etc), the jumped onto Hip Mama chat. Yeah, I guess that internet connection was pretty damn important.
Anyway, I think I’m sensing an imminent explosion. Maybe I will make this journal entry public sooner than I think. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll just set it to “friends only” so that only certain people can see it. I really do hope this explodes soon. I really dislike the stress and tension it is causing. She needs to drink quite a lot less, start seriously taking care of her kid, and maybe not be quite so influenced by the Hip Mama Cult.
