For my mama

It's Mother's Day, so I'm devoting a little blog space to the wonderful Mrs. Hylton.
I can't fathom how such a sweet and wonderful woman managed to spawn a little bastard like me, but she loves me nonetheless.
I understand that just about everyone thinks they have the best mom's in the world, but mine really is pretty great.

She works nonstop despite having a brittle body, she adopts all my friends and does things for other people before she takes care of herself, and she's a gourmet-quality cook.
Oh, and she does pretty much everything for me.
When it comes to domestic and general life skills, I'm absolutely worthless as a human being.
If not for my mom, I imagine that I'd be an ill-kept vagabond living in an alley somewhere, scrapping together money for booze by panhandling and offering roadside massages (no happy endings, mind you, my mother raised me right).
I still look pretty ill-kept, but at least my mom keeps my shit together enough so that my clothes match and I wear the same socks.
I actually sent my laundry home from Reno to Wells for the first two years of college and my mom would wash it and iron my shirts, and she'd still do it if I hadn't figured out how to do it myself after being embarrassed that I was 21 and unable to operate a washing machine.
I also have zero cooking skills. I'm literally constrained to foods that can be either grilled or put on two pieces of bread.
So my mom still sends homemade bread to me about once a month and she usually cooks turkey and steaks.
She also makes cookies and snacks for the people at the Sagebrush even though I don't eat them anymore. I still hold that most of my friends actually like her more than me, and I can't blame them.
Finally, my mom endures my bullshit. She lived through having her son write a published column called Boozehounds for two years and she cleaned the puke out of my car when my epic 21st birthday went terribly awry.
She does a bunch of other things, too, like pay my bills, remind me about my appointments, and take care of all the clerical work I don't like doing.
On top of that, she and my dad have always been super supportive. They always get excited about the things I do, they encourage me to go after whatever they want, and they always listen when I decide it's more productive to bitch than get something done.
My mom sends "I love you" notes with my bags whenever I visit home. Sometimes these notes end up in the hands of my friends and subsequently on overhead projectors in front of large groups of people, but I don't care.
They say there's a great woman behind every great man.
I'm still just at the mediocre level, but I do have a great mom making sure I do my best.
So, I love you Mom. I couldn't ask for a better one.


From the iPod: