cohort

I had lunch with a fellow Philly Moms blogger last week.

Lunch with bloggers are like blind dates.

The lady at the next table over was totally eavesdropping on our conversation, and I had a hard time with it all because both my ears were plugged up with the plague and I didn't know if I was whispering or shouting, and I wasn't sure how loudly Grace was talking either but we were trying to get out all the awkwardness in the first five minutes of seeing one another because we are total BFFs online and the lady at table two LOVED it. I think she thought we were lesbian hopefuls.

It was like when we were little kids and we would have underwater teaparties in the pool. Did you guys do that? You sit on the bottom of a pool and pretend to talk and drink tea and whoever could stay underwater longest would win the teaparty because back in the 80s there weren't a lot of sports for girls so we had to make competition with what we were given. Extra points if you could understand what the other person said underwater.

Anyway, the reason why I don't meet up with many bloggers in real life is because I'm so weirded out by what they might think about me.

Grace thought I would be taller.
And louder.

I thought she would be shorter, and quieter. Because I'm terribly stereotypical and I think all Asians are tiny and silent. And she didn't take her shoes off at the front door. And she didn't pour me any tea. Or do my nails. Kidding about everything after the shorter and quieter comment.

I'm only 5'7". Maybe 5'6". I think I'm shrinking, which is actually normal for rheumatics. I am a quiet person when out in public. I'm much more outspoken while writing than I am in conversations unless I'm in the house. Then I go on and on and on about everything and nothing all at once and I'm usually able to pretend to or actually offend someone, but it is all in good fun and my friends know it and I think they sort of love that about me. At least that's what they tell me. I'm not afraid to talk about anything when I'm comfortable and there is a lot that I really love to talk about in real words that I would never talk about here.

Personal and family stuff. And religions. And sex. And drugs. And rock. And roll. And how all that used to fit into what my life was like before I was a mom. And girly stuff like hair and makeup and self tanner. I love self tanner and hair and makeup. OMG LOL

Oh, and guess what else? I don't swear much in real life like I do here. It's because this is a tap into my brain, not a tap into my public manners. Sometimes my brain swears but my mouth smiles. I have a pretty good filter like that.

Grace mentioned to me via email awhile back that I don't seem to fit in much with the other Philly Mom Bloggers. She said my life and my politics and my viewpoints on lots of stuff is just different.

She's right, now that I think about it. I didn't see it at first. I have these blinders on that lead me to believe that all moms are pretty much the same. And we are, at heart. But we aren't, in life.

I have developed some pretty solid internet friendships with a good number of girls over there, but we have different lifestyles. I like that, I like making friends with people who aren't like me. That doesn't happen in the real world so often. Birds of a feather kind of stuff reigns supreme on Earth.

I don't think that there are more than one or two of us Philly Moms that actually live in Philly. The other moms live out in the burbs, some an hour or two away and they never make mention on their blogs that they even come into the city more than once or twice a year.
Living and working and breathing in Philly is a big part of who I am. I've never had to make time to do yardwork in my whole entire life. I don't have a garage that constantly needs cleaning. I don't have a driveway to shovel. I don't even have my own car. I use my bus pass most of the time I need to go somewhere. Or I walk. I don't have to travel more than 300 yards to get everything I need. From prescriptions to imported cheeses to knock off designer purses. That gives me lots of downtime to do other stuff.

There are several stay at home moms on there. I would lose my ever loving mind if I had to stay at home. I don't know how they do it. It requires things that I have no tolerance for. Like STAYING AT HOME with a child ALL DAY LONG and minimal contact with grownups that aren't staying at home with their kids too. It's a lot of kids kids kids mommy mommy mommy house house house car car car all the time, I'd imagine.

They go to church and they don't whine about putting on a sensible outfit or curse God for having church be so damned boring and so damned early in the morning.

A lot of them have more than one brat running around and they are able to manage it and they hang out with other moms instead of single girls and they drink wine at home with dinner rather than whiskey at seedy bars instead of dinner and they have shiny hair that probably smells nice instead of a half-buzzed hairdo that smells like coffee grounds and olive oil and they don't have to figure out ways to hide their sailor tattoos from 9-5.

Their job as a SAHM (that's what we call them for shorties) is so much harder than my job as a... well, whatever it is that they are paying me to do here.
There is no pressure for me to grocery shop or cook dinner (I'm surrounded by cheap, good, even healthy take out and we have butchers and bakers and candlestick makers on every corner). I have tons of family in my neighborhood that will take my kid at the drop of a hat. There is no pressure for me to do laundry, to clean the house, to do something nice for my husband during the week because that's what Saturday mornings are for. I don't have to let out a dog. I don't have to prepare for my husband's colleagues to come over for dinner. I don't have to fill my child's day with wonder. I don't have to pack up the car and drive to find something to do. I can just roll out my front door. It requires very little effort. I don't even have to comb my hair because I could walk outside half naked with green teeth and I wouldn't be the craziest looking person I see. I don't have to keep up with the Joneses like a lot of my momfriends tell me have to do. No one cares about me and my crap and I don't care about them and theirs. It is a definitely perk of innercity living. You can be lazy and still be a good,well-rounded, busy person. I don't think I'd make it if I had the life that most of the Philly Moms have.

I am too weak. I admire their strength.

That makes me feel like a failure as a "lady" or as a "nice girl" or as the kind of person that my mom and my aunts and my grandmothers are/were and probably hoped I'd be but I really like my life.
Hear that world? I REALLY LIKE MY LIFE.

Holy crap. That was liberating.

And I love spying on everyone else's and borrowing little pieces of it from time to time to see if it might work for me. If it does I keep it for my own and if it doesn't I toss it. It all evens out in the end.