I'm a search light soul they say
But I can't see it in the night
I'm only faking when I get it right
When I get it right...

--"Fell on Black Days", Soundgarden

Did you know I am the instrument of my mother's oppression? It's true. I've seen the galley proofs of her latest book. Women, she says, are never going to be truly equal to men until they stop giving birth. Pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing are all that's keeping women back, forcing them to deal with unfair biological disadvantages and placing them at the mercy of oppressive men. So women shouldn't ever get pregnant or have kids. Brilliant idea, right? End of the human race? Nope. She's got it all planned out. She wants to take test tube babies to the next level: artificial wombs.

I dunno, the fact that my mother thinks that carrying me was demeaning is a little much to deal with. But yeah... my parents...

Never been a sinner I never sinned
I got a friend in Jesus
Do you know that when I die
He's gonna set me up with
The spirit in the sky

Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky
That's where I'm gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best
Go to the place that's the best

--"Spirit in the Sky", Norman Greenbaum

In the 1970s, the idea that Jesus might "set you up with the spirit in the sky" passed for perfectly valid theology. In fact, to a small group of hippie Jesus-freaks, it was a legitimate basis for a church. Founded in 1974 by a group of U of M alumni and located in the wilds of Gaylord, MI, The Peaceful Church of Love in Christ had, at its peak, fifteen members. At the center were the church's nominal spiritual leaders, Eric and Sharon McMullen. Part commune, part cult, the group dwelled together in Christian harmony for several years. In 1976, Eric and Sharon were blessed with a baby girl they named Charity--“And now abides faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity" (1 Corinthians 13:13). (Personally, I still don't think I'm that great.) When I was about one, Mom caught Dad giving one of the new church members something more than a holy kiss, so she took me and left.

I guess things were tough for a long while. I can remember eating a lot of peanut butter in elementary school, and a couple of times we got a food basket around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then when I was in sixth grade, Mom got her first book published, Like Shooting Fish off Bicycles. It sold well enough that we were able to move, and we eventually wound up in Bloomfield Hills. I should explain, Sharon Hoffman is not a name that inspired a whole lot of love in the mid-80s, but I guess Mom was loud enough and radical enough to stir up controversy and sell books. Somewhere in there she got involved with Janet, and they've been together ever since. Janet's her publicist as well as her lover, so I guess it works out well for them. For the record, while it might work out just fine for Heather, I do not have two mommies. Janet's like, I dunno, someone who hangs around the house a lot. She'd be a lot like Mom's single best friend, if it wasn't for all the smooching. (For the record again: Ew. Mothers should not smooch.)

Anyway, most of the kids at school don't associate me with Sharon Hoffman unless I tell them who my mom is--which I don't. And I'm definitely not the only person in my class whose mom or dad has a special "friend" who hangs around.

So, yeah. Enough about Mom, right? School was okay. The greatest thing about having a radical feminist lesbian mom is that you get a lot of leeway with what you can and can't get away with. I mean, if I wanted to join the Young Republicans or something, I imagine we might have had a little family disagreement, but the idea of me dying my hair or piercing an eyebrow didn't even warrant a blink. She was also pretty good about letting me jump around from activity to activity. I worked on the yearbook for a little bit, the school newspaper for about a week, took a couple self-defense courses, marched with Mom in a few Pride marches, pretty much anything I wanted to do was cool. Deciding to go to U of M was pretty much a no-brainer.

It wasn't until after graduation that things started to get weird. I was looking forward to a long lazy summer. Sometime around July 4th though, the dreams started. Everyone has nightmares, right? Not nightmares like this. Bloody, scary dreams about monsters and killing. And every once in a while, I'd dream something that came true; usually stupid shit like bits of conversation with Mom. I'll tell you something else too: I haven't been working out or anything, but I swear to god I've gotten stronger. I dunno. Hormones working overtime or something maybe.

Ah well. School's starting soon. I'm thinking all of this will go away then.