The Coquette

I’d call it “Fifty Thousand Volts of Irony.”

No phone. No internet. No tan lines. I spent the last five days in a foreign country cutting rails with a centurion card and seeing all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

The problem with totally clearing my head is that unfortunately, now it’s empty. Today is for moving slowly and grinning like an idiot.

The mail will have to wait.

The other day I received a copy of Garden & Gun magazine in the mail. It was, rather curiously, sent to my home address with the proper spelling of my name.

Well, I just got off the phone with my mother, and sure enough, she confessed to signing me up for an annual subscription. Damn, that woman cracks me up.

For those of you not familiar with Garden & Gun — and I’m sure that’s every last one of you — the magazine is a delightful exercise in neo-southern elitism.

This month’s issue includes recipes for the perfect fried green tomato, a look at niche farmers who raise heritage-breed livestock, and an article about how much republicans love their bulldogs. The magazine (much like my mother) is unintentionally hilarious and at times reads like a parody of itself. I love it.

Of course, my mom will never miss an opportunity to remind me how I’ve lost touch with my Southern roots. It’s been a running joke for years. These days I don’t mind so much, because I can always ruffle her feathers by just reminding her who is president.

In fact, now that mailing lists are open season, I’m about to make a hundred dollar donation in her name to the Organizing for America campaign.

I can’t wait for her to start getting mail from Obama.