By way of introduction
I’m no longer a bored housewife. But I was one once. I have lots of entries over at my livejournal blog, but it occurs to me that if we’re just meeting for the first time, you won’t have any idea who the people are. That’s because I’m very clever and I gave everyone a pseudonym.
Saskatchewan, Queen of the Harpies – I use both of these. Queen of the Harpies is also my BB secret identity.
Ulysses is my boyfriend. He lives with me and commutes to grad school once or twice a week. My daughter wonders why he has so many P.A. days. (It’s because he’s in grade 20.) “Ulysses” is my boyfriend’s BB secret identity. (I also remember that his super power was “flesh-melting epiphanies”.)
The Boy is my nine-year-old son. I needed to tell some story about him right away and was unable to come up with a clever name. Now he’s stuck with it. I’m sure he’ll hate me for this later.
Mia is my six-year-old daughter. ‘Mia’ is short for ‘Mia Farrow’ which was what Ulysses and I started calling her after she’d given herself a pixie cut soon after she turned three. She really liked the name and called herself ‘Mia Farrow Angel’ for a long time. I’m going to mention that in the future when she brings over teenage love interests.
Evil Corp is the gigantic corporation where I spend most of my days. Evil Corp also used to employ Xman, but he got the axe.
Xman is this guy that I used to be married to. He’s also Mia and The Boy’s father. He’s also the reason I know so very much about divorce laws in Ontario. (Seriously – quiz me!)
The Black Berets, BBs is the name of the writer’s group that both Ulysses and I belong to. We meet at my house every two weeks. More loosely, it’s the term we use for the entire friend group. (To further complicate things, there are also out-of-town BBs, in-town BBs, original BBs, core-member BBs, etc. There is even – I shit you not – a rival group calling themselves the Red Berets. I can only assume they’ve discovered what we’ve known for a long time – giving yourselves a silly name seems to lend you legitimacy.) At one time the BB members were all card-carrying. Not only did we have photos, but secret identities, likes, dislikes, and literary super powers. But the group got too big.
That’s about it! If you have questions – the more probing and personal, the better – I would be happy to answer them. I’m not promising to tell the truth, but I’ll come up with something.
Saskatchewan, Queen of the Harpies – I use both of these. Queen of the Harpies is also my BB secret identity.
Ulysses is my boyfriend. He lives with me and commutes to grad school once or twice a week. My daughter wonders why he has so many P.A. days. (It’s because he’s in grade 20.) “Ulysses” is my boyfriend’s BB secret identity. (I also remember that his super power was “flesh-melting epiphanies”.)
The Boy is my nine-year-old son. I needed to tell some story about him right away and was unable to come up with a clever name. Now he’s stuck with it. I’m sure he’ll hate me for this later.
Mia is my six-year-old daughter. ‘Mia’ is short for ‘Mia Farrow’ which was what Ulysses and I started calling her after she’d given herself a pixie cut soon after she turned three. She really liked the name and called herself ‘Mia Farrow Angel’ for a long time. I’m going to mention that in the future when she brings over teenage love interests.
Evil Corp is the gigantic corporation where I spend most of my days. Evil Corp also used to employ Xman, but he got the axe.
Xman is this guy that I used to be married to. He’s also Mia and The Boy’s father. He’s also the reason I know so very much about divorce laws in Ontario. (Seriously – quiz me!)
The Black Berets, BBs is the name of the writer’s group that both Ulysses and I belong to. We meet at my house every two weeks. More loosely, it’s the term we use for the entire friend group. (To further complicate things, there are also out-of-town BBs, in-town BBs, original BBs, core-member BBs, etc. There is even – I shit you not – a rival group calling themselves the Red Berets. I can only assume they’ve discovered what we’ve known for a long time – giving yourselves a silly name seems to lend you legitimacy.) At one time the BB members were all card-carrying. Not only did we have photos, but secret identities, likes, dislikes, and literary super powers. But the group got too big.
That’s about it! If you have questions – the more probing and personal, the better – I would be happy to answer them. I’m not promising to tell the truth, but I’ll come up with something.
posted by queen of the harpies @ 11:19 AM
3 Comments:
At 12:05 PM,
landismom said…
Thanks for the clarifications--it's always helpful to know the kid ages, especially.
At 10:47 PM,
Cataclysm said…
Yea Saskatchewan!!
My lil' sister now has a house in a little town called Etonia (or is it Estonia, which one is the country???) that my Dad bought for her on Ebay. Yep, a real house thats apparently 2.5 hours west of Saskatoon for the grand total of $12k including legal fees, complete with furniture (the family moving out thought it was too expensive to ship the furniture back). Pedro and I like to call her home the 'love shack' as she's living with a close male friend.
And so now property in Saskatchewan is a measure of currency for us. Like, it'll cost us 3 houses in Etonia to buy a new minivan (just dreaming, we're not quite there yet) or should we take out more life insurance, say, 30 houses in Etonia.
What do writer's groups do? I am just raeading a tattered 2nd hand copy of the "Joy Luck Club" and Amy thanks her writing club for comments. I've been wondering about it ever since....
At 11:01 PM,
Tammy said…
Heh. I love the explanation of your code words, saskatchewan. But now I'm trying to think of a probing, personal question to ask, and I'm drawing a blank. Curse my polite Canadian upbringing!
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