It’s freezing in this bedroom. I’m under six blankets and have two shirts on and socks. I just came up here after spending some time with my mom in the living room/computer room. She found a online bingo site and has been on tilt (on tilt: a gambling term for losing your ass and going crazy to make up for it) most of the day. I think she ended up down $100.

She was telling me about a online writing site she joined called spoiledink.com. After I pried her off the bingo train, she showed me her profile. I helped her make and upload a user picture. She thought I was a genius.

She’s wanted to be a writer for a long time now, but she really hasn’t had the discipline to sit down and write consistently. She’s shown me a few of her stories. They had some potential, but went off on some crazy tangents and needed some polishing. She showed me this, and I think it’s the best thing she’s written so far.

If you don’t feel like following the link, it’s a touching paragraph about my step dad. I asked if she was going to show it to him, and she rolled her eyes at me like I was crazy. I told her that I thought he would really like it. After she felt confident that I wasn’t mocking her for showing me her soft underbelly, we printed it out. She also printed out a picture of our silly grocery store sushi Thanksgiving dinner for Bob to put in his notebook so he could remember it. She marveled at the print out and kept commenting on the vivid colors. She even said that she was going to bring it to the library where she volunteers and show it to the other “library ladies”.

My mom….she’s loud, bossy and difficult. She has bullet proof defenses and can be unbelievably insensitive. But you know what? That lady is a pretty good egg.