Things that come to mind when you're loaning your mom money and guiding her through a break-up.

Make no mistake, my parents were totally fucking horrible parents. However I gotta say now that they are (and I am) all grown up, I wouldn't trade them. They're really quite excellent. Mostly because they never actually got around to all that silly 'parenting' nonsense when they became mature enough to grasp it. They were too busy spending their newfound maturity on getting their shit together, moving off the commune or coming off the road, trying life sober, with a 'real' job. Totally admirable goals in adulthood. It's just that they got around to those things at about the same time that I did. So we're peers you see. Parent/Child in name only. Equals. And that's great. Now.

But sometimes I wish I had regular-type parents. The kind my friends had. The kind who tell you to bring a sweater. The kind who ask see your report card because they know it's the day they were handed out. I'd love to hear, "Your not leaving the house in THAT are you?" I want the dad who flies into a rage, dead-set on beating the fuck out of the boy who broke my heart (but wouldn't really), and a mom who slips me twenties and says it's our little secret. I want a curfew. I want to have two people I can call when my life has hit an abominable low, who will offer assistance and sage advice instead of saying, "Wow. That sounds rough. Hey, did I tell you I got a call from that agent?..."

But I suppose the grass is greener blah, blah. If I had those kind of parents we wouldn't have whole conversations as Rocky and Bullwinkle. I wouldn't get to have as many spirited, deadly-serious debates over who is the greatest rock drummer of all time. I wouldn't get to swear so much at Thanksgiving. I'd have to sneak around to smoke. There'd be no after dinner family disco dancing hour, and no talking with a british accent all day just to see if anyone buys it. I'd probably have to go to church a few times a year or something. And I wouldn't be able to drink mimosa's and talk about my sex life at brunch afterward.