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Blogs like Daily Apocalypse and Retro '90s MADNESS remind me of my mother's best friend. My godmother. She'd discuss publically and voluably the present condition of her reproductive organs, bowel movements, the metric weight of snot she'd wrung from her hankerchief (result of dander allergies, number of cats in her household exceeding that allowable in Emily County building code) erotically-inclined mailman fantasies, envies and other sins venial or otherwise. She'd hit as many as five of the Big Seven during the brief ride from my elementary school to her house. Husband either in jail or otherwise engaged. If I had to live with choral mewing and a broadband connection into my supposed better half's Inner Monologue I'd also find re-shingling houses more interesting than home. Hardly connubial bliss. Even a little bit, no. He was vaguely Mexican and had erectile difficulty after X amount of cervezas. She'd always have 2 less than X in the fridge at any given time. Tetchily admitting she couldn't control his cerveza guzzling anywhere but her (very ominous smelling) fridge, a point she often shook her feathered hair and scowled to punctuate. I am reading a Goosebumps for Book-it and overhearing a basic equation for boning. Tell me this wouldn't damage you. Danielle Steel as far as the eye can see on the bookshelves but not one volume of Dr. Spock, or even any doctor. I was turning twelve in December. You really can't appreciate the indignities inflicted upon you in childhood until you pass the buck to the next generation. She was gainfully employed in technology or wore a headset or both. Eighty-five lbs of Meow Mix a week is a financial strain on a household, as is Negra Modelo, when you can't get a bulk discount because you can only buy enough at once to keep but not exceed (hacks, empatically stabs at record button with finger) ... but yeah Meow Mix is expensive, as are frequent OB-GYN consultations that even to this day keep me at an junior high understanding of women's sexuality for fear that learning more could birth a Biblicly punishing repressed memory. One so bad it would get an article in a journal or become a popular Wikipedia destination. These and frankly inappropriate updates on the advance of her father's cancer drove me into the living room for Fox 9's syndication of The Simpsons at 4 and 4:30 almost daily. I was sick at her house one afternoon because my mom had work, and I was watching Total Request Live. She walked in and made a noise indeterminate to an 11- or 12-year old's ears. She said, "Attractive people being mediocre. I could do that. How am I different from them?"

So that is sort of how I feel about blogs like Underwear Mattress and Last Night's Drug Abuse and White Privilege Irony.

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-pgs. 2 and 7, "WATCH ME: CONVERSATIONS WITH MARTIN SNAPPLE," Martin Snapple, Gumshoe Press 2014