The Contingency Plan

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there!

And in particular my own. I have a stunning, unpredictable, wonderfully eccentric mother. Many people don't know how to respond to her - hell, I don't think I knew how to until I grew out of my teens!

When I was younger, family friends would often say that dad had mastered the art of kung fu but that mum had mastered the finer art tongue-fu. And it's true, I know of no one else whose words can possess as much fire as hers. She's taught me so much *grin*.

Yet it's not just her expressions that make her unique. When I was in high school, she used to make stories up of overseas relatives dying to get me out of class and into the mall. Despite my protests, she made me wear knee-high suede boots when I was 11... to church... and taught me how to exercise my pelvic floor muscles when I was 13. I didn't know until I was much older what they REALLY came in handy for. As pathetic as it sounds, my only way to rebel was to try and be as 'normal' as possible.

Many of my friends had their first proper, informative sex talk with her and after their intial blushes and shyness, would return many times later, shamelessly with a notepad and/or stories of subsequence success.

She smokes, she swears, both her belly button and are tongue pierced and she has an amazing figure with cheekbones so prominent they look fake. Women are often wary of her, men (including most of my friends) want to be with her, and gay men absolutely adore her. And as crazy as she is, she's so open about life and all its shit, and so accepting of others that I feel comfortable discussing or being anything around her - and that truly is releasing.