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Rereading my first entry about the possibility of reading profanity on this thing has made me consider the possibility of NOT using profanity. With the handy invention of the delete key, it is in fact possible to not swear, even if it’s something I would normally do out loud.
I’ve always been big into swearing. And motherhood has not changed that, although it has made me more aware that someday I will hear a tiny little boy voice say the F-word from the backseat of the car after I’ve used it on an offending fellow motorist. I can curb the mouth on the computer. I can curb the mouth when my grandparents are around. I CANNOT curb the mouth when I’m driving. I just can’t.
For me, it’s always been a matter of “I’ll do what I want, when I want, how I want.” And growing up with a dad who said it made me sound like a “whore”, doing whatever I want is just my personal way of sticking to the man. He ain’t the boss of me.
Now, although motherhood has not changed my predilection for pottymouth, for some reason the looming specter of turning 30 has. Thirty has been bothering me. Well, not bothering me, really, but definitely giving me pause for thought. For the first time, I’m actually feeling older. Like somehow I really need to start deserving the gravitas that comes with being able to say, “I’m in my 30s.” I think about taking better care of my skin so I dont get old lady turkey neck someday. I’ve inventoried every remotely valuable possession in our house for insurance purposes. I’ve also listed all the expenses I would have to cover if Adam died, so I know how much life insurance to take out. I have to buy LIFE INSURANCE for chrissakes. I think about watching my cholesterol intake so in 10 years I dont have to hear the words, “triglycerides” at a doctors appointment. I usually think of this while I’m enjoying a nice big bowl of Hooters Three-Mile-Island wings drowning in bleu cheese dressing and a icy cold bottle of Budweiser. Talk about a buzzkill.
But it’s these grown-up issues that make me stop and think if perhaps, just perhaps, I should make an effort to not sound like a junior-high-schooler who just learned these shocking, SHOCKING never-before-uttered words. I’m not exactly blazing trails here.
In my defense, you have to admit I’m not the person I was five, four, three, two years ago. Back then I could lay claim to smokin’, drinkin’, rockin’ to loud music, workin’ crap jobs far beneath my intelligence and education, a shame list of jackass dates, boyfriends and ex-husbands. And here I am. Evolving as we speak. I have a happy marriage. I am a parent. I am a homeowner. I havent smoked in nearly two years and I havent been drunk in two years (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true. I have not been good and drunk since early January 2004.). The loudest CD in my car right now is The Definitive Stevie Wonder. So cussin’ like a tomboy, well, let’s just say I’ll work on it. I’m making strides in my personal vices. One thing at a time and all that.
Now, if I can just stop biting my fingernails …
(stay tuned I will most likely edit this)
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Fear and Loathing In The Diaper Pail 
dang, i still bite my fingernails, too..
Comment by guile January 25, 2006 @ 9:43 amHere is the single greatest thing about giving up swearing:
The look on the face of a certain former boss of ours when you inform her that you have stopped swearing.
Forget the satisfaction of exercising control over your most cherished and longstanding vice. Forget the pleasure of feeling like a grownup. Forget the hilarious surrealism of getting on an old swearing buddy’s blog and giving her an AA-worthy pep talk about how proud you are of her for finally admitting she has a problem, and how it’s been exactly seven weeks since you last dropped an f-bomb, and how much better you feel now that you are clean and sober. (No, wait — that’s not surreal. I’m mixing up my art terms. It’s Dadaist-fur-lined-teacup ridiculous.) Forget the fact that in order to successfully quit swearing, you have to dump your stress and fill your mind with pretty pink-and-blue thoughts that make you happy … or at least replace all your favorite four-letter words with a Boca Burger diet of British slang and Yiddish obscenities, which are so funny in and of themselves that you will be laughing too hard to swear anyway. (I imagine the effect would only be magnified by the presence of a toddler — I can just hear a sweet little voice in the back seat grumbling about those bloody traffic jams and wondering where that schmuck in the other lane got his driver’s license.)
Yeah, all that stuff is great, but the real treat — the thing that makes it all worthwhile — is watching Candy’s reaction when you tell her you can’t remember the last time you used one of Carlin’s Seven Words.
That, my friend, is high comedy. Words cannot even begin to do it justice.
Comment by redforkhippie January 25, 2006 @ 11:51 pm