"Genes aren't designed to make us happy.
They design us to make more copies of themselves."
-- Joe Quirk,
It's Not You, It's Biology:
The Science of Love, Sex, and Relationships
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| Mom 9-28-14 |
"The laws of genetics apply
even if you refuse to learn them."
-- Allison Plowden
"Got a pistol for a mouth, my old mama gave me that."
-- Gin Wigmore, "Black Sheep"
My mom visited this weekend to watch Leo's football game.
The older I get, the more I see my mother in me. It's like a little sneak peek into what's rolling down the genetic hill in my direction.
There's lots of good stuff. Some potentially bad stuff. And a lot of stuff in the middle.
The similarities we share are startling, sometimes.
There is physical stuff, for sure.
But it's the stuff that happens below the surface that really gets me -- our behaviors, our tendencies, even our demons are very much the same.
There are some of my mother's traits that I'm glad she passed on -- because of her skinny genes, I can wear skinny jeans.
Others not so much. We both wrestle on and off and on again with addiction. We are both maternally-challenged. We both hate making phone calls. We can both cuss a blue streak (she taught me all the good swear words at a very tender age.)
I guess it's safe to say that this apple didn't fall from from the tree.
It's a good thing it's a goddamn great motherfucking tree.
