Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Thursday, August 7, 2003


Dear Rob,

I keep getting email from people saying I should blog. Should I blog? I don’t think I’m cool enough to blog. I mean, doesn’t a blogger have to live in the artsy district of a large city, have many interchangeable boyfriends, and hang out at trendy nightspots drinking cosmopolitans? Don’t bloggers generally know what constitutes a dirty martini? Do you know anything about blogging? Me neither. I may have to investigate. I’ve never actually read a blog, although I have heard of them somehow. I had a hazy idea that they were all lonely 57 year old men pretending to be cute 16 year old girls with crushes on their 57 year old teachers. Or something like that. Hmmm. Tomorrow I will research this blogging thing and find out if I’m qualified. I wonder if you need a blogging license? Maybe I’ll just blog my letters to Iraq. Kill two birds with one stone, and get these pesky emailers off my back.


I just put your mosquito-bitten little brother into the tub. He was babbling something about how, if he had three wishes the first would be to eliminate mosquitoes. I said, “Whoa! What about world peace, an end to injustice, children starving in Somalia?” He said, apropos of whatever goes through his odd mind, “Yeah, kind of like the 26 days of Christmas…(then he sings)… On the 26th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…pants?” He then laughed like crazy. I had no idea what he was saying, as usual, so I laughed too. I didn’t get it, but I wanted to be part of the bathroom “in-crowd.”

I often feel Dylan is too cool for me; that I am just not hip to his vibe, or flava, or… whatever. He wears an ankle bracelet that I did not purchase for him while school shopping at Sears last spring. I think he made it in art class. His sandals look expensive on him, although I distinctly remember paying $12.99 for them at Shoe Carnival. He knows how to hold a tennis racquet, and that intimidates me a little bit. He has things in his room arranged in ways I don’t really understand. I rearrange them and he puts them back without saying anything about it. Like quirky rocks and odd product wrappers and Gameboy accessories. I am worried he will become the millie generation version of one of those goth weirdos.

Actually, I used to think Dylan was kind of dorky. But lately I’ve noticed that neighborhood kids come to our door seeking Dylan, and he is sometimes too lazy to go out frolicking with them, which makes them think he is difficult to attain and, therefore, cool. For example, Charles lives across the street. He is the smartest kid in Dylan’s grade, has a black belt in Karate, and can speak Korean. (His parents emigrated from there.) Last year I wanted desperately to get Charles to hang out with Dylan. As class room-mother, I noticed right off that Charles was the cream of the fourth grade crop. I flirted with Charles incessantly, but he ignored me.

Now he is suddenly at our house ALL THE TIME. I mean that literally. He has eaten supper here the past 3 nights in a row. I often have to kick him out at 10 PM, and I always wonder why his mother lets him stay over here so late. I call her and say “Li, did you know Charles is here?” She says “Ahhh! I not know he there, but OKAY!” (You can fill in the Korean accent for yourself.) Charles is at our door four or five times a day. Sometimes Dylan is so busy watching babyish Japanese cartoons I can’t muster the enthusiasm needed to get him to play with Charles. This seems to make Charles desire Dylan all the more. Nick from next door does the same thing. He actually tries to call Dylan on his walkie-talkie all the time. He says things like “CQ, CQ. Over!” I say, “Dyl, Nick is on the walkie-talkie.” Dylan says, “I know” and doesn’t even bother to look up from Pokemon Yellow Version on the Gameboy Advance.

Some kid I have never seen before in my life stopped by yesterday and asked me if we have ever called Baghdad, Iraq. “Because, um, like, um, it costs like, um, about one hundred and fifty dollars a minute to call BaghdadIraq!” (He said it as all one word- bag-dad-I-rack.) I said,
“Really? Wow, that’s a lot!” Then the kid got bored with me because of my obvious lack of Bag-Dad-I-Rack calling experience and asked if Dylan was home. He was, but he was “resting.” I had to actually tell this kid that Dylan was “resting.” Now that kid undoubtedly (and wrongly) thinks Dylan is awesomely cool. (and that I am a non-bagdadirack calling idiot. I tried to save it by telling him you called us from bagdadirack several times, but it didn’t impress him at all.) So I’m not cool, but I guess Dylan still is.

I mean, think about it. You’re eleven years old, and you watch Blues Clues without any embarrassment whatsoever. You say things like “That would be acceptable” and “additionally…,” not because you are particularly intelligent, but because your ancient hag of a mother has been speaking to you in those terms since your birth. Your exotic 22 year old brother is a soldier in the “Elite” 101st Airborne during an actual war. You wear his dog tags AND you have a cool ankle bracelet just above your expensive-looking sandals. You are aloof and hard to get, and your mom gives out free loaded baked potatoes. (I was out of Popsicle’s and had all these potatoes waiting to rot on me, so what else could I do?) And you really don’t give a shit what anybody thinks of you because, after all, Yu Gi Oh! will be on at 3:30 regardless of whether you have any friends or not. You are physically attractive, have a good tan and stunning blue eyes, and you are nice to everyone equally. This is apparently a recipe for instant, undeserved coolness.

Your dorky little brother has become a hot commodity in this neighborhood, mostly because he is anti-social and a potential hermit.
Also, he has what I call a “food disability.” He won’t eat anything, and he really means it. Maybe he should blog. Oh, I forgot, the kid can’t write for shit, so that would never work. Maybe I should pretend to be him and blog. Nah, that won’t work either. I have no idea what it feels like to be cool; I could never pull it off. I’m just one of those faceless groupies who hang around the bathroom laughing at his meaningless jokes. God, I am pathetic. My eleven year old kid is more cool than me. I never should have started listening to talk radio.

Much Love,

--Mom