Monikers
A friend recently asked me if “rich brother” knows I call him that on my blog. The answer? No. I think somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows I have a blog. Maybe all of my family does. But my Mormon mother-of-four sister who has a great Mormon husband is the only one who knows about it. And she reads it. She also follows me on Twitter.
“Rich brother” would roll his eyes and grin if he found out about his moniker. “Swimming pool” brother would get it immediately, because he is the only one in the family with a swimming pool (not counting our townhouse pool that hasn’t opened this summer….stupid asshole former HOA president). “Homophobe” brother would cringe because I used the word “homo” in a connection with his being.
Sister and parents are just that in my blog. Nothing to worry about. But now I must make up a moniker for my retarded aunt who lives with my parents. Because of all the uproar over the use of the word “retarded” in the movie “Tropic Thunder” I guess it would be politically incorrect to call her retarded anymore. Mentally challenged sounds like “stupid” so that doesn’t work for me. Besides, I am “mentally challenged” many times, from OCD, from stress, from plain stupidity from time to time. So I’ll have to work on a moniker for her.
The funny part of all of this? My friends in person who do know about my blog completely know who I am talking about when I use my brothers’ real names and their blog moniker names interchangeably. Kinda funny. Kinda weird. The blending of online and reality. So Borg-like.
I want to reclaim retarded as an acceptable word to describe people who are retarded. It’s not a bad word, and I wish people would get over it.
I call Mr. Sovknight.com Sov on the web, but I use his real name in real life, and sometimes I wonder what would happen if I called him Sov in real life. Would we enter the matrix? Maybe I’ll try it.
‘retard’ in french means ‘late’, as in ‘je suis en retard’.. i am late.
so it’s always a weird word for me, but not for PC reasons.
when i was a kid, back in biblical days, my mom and family used to describe some people’s kids as ’special’. i always wanted to be special until i worked out that it was their ‘word’ for the kids who needed a bit of extra help either in school or in getting ready for school.
i even remember when ’simple’ was an acceptable word for a kid who was ’slow’ (that used to be acceptable too!)
these days, christ, you just don’t know what to say about any thing to any person about any one for fear of being scowled at or sued!
btw if i had a ‘milf du jour’ on my blog, i would so match you with alison moyet!
(captcha: mcClare & ging)