Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms, non-mothers and mother_______’s out there. Mom or not, you are all important to someone.

XOXO

Adam Yauch died today. MCA.

The Beastie Boys are my favorite of all time. Ever. They were the first CD I ever bought, the one I still have, in a scrapbook somewhere along with concert tickets wherever I could see them. I remember those Camelot Music Stores in the mall and hoping I wouldn’t have to go get my Granny out of Dillard’s to buy me their music or t-shirts because the clerk didn’t believe my ID.

They taught me to Fight For My Right, and that Brass Monkey is a Funky Monkey. And so many other things that I didn’t know were really important things when I was riding around, basing it out and pretending to be cool. I won my first and only car stereo competition with my Grand National booming out to “Shake Your Rump” as my friends cheered and rooted me and the stereo system we had built on, all the while listening to their first album”Licensed To Ill” while we worked , putting in those Punch amps and Rockford Fosgate 12′s.  They inspired us to go harder, go louder. Nerds even then. Nerds who loved music. And who are now half deaf. But in a good way, via good music. Music that defined our generation.

This is how I want to remember him. Remember them. Remember us. Kids. Not a care in the world. Not afraid that the world was out to get us. Smiling. Happy.

Rest in Peace MCA.

I hope you’re bustin’ routines and rhymes all night.

Tomorrow I will take my last final of spring semester. I can hardly believe it’s already over, and that I didn’t fail anything or give up and drop out. That’s a big deal for someone who spent 6 years bouncing around colleges in my late teens and early 20′s, partying it up. Daddy said he’d support me as long as I was in school, and I took him up on it. He didn’t seem to mind.

And even though I’m paying for it nowadays with constant studying and schedule juggling, I don’t regret those years of skipping class and goofing off. Sunny days at the beach, nights in New Orleans and a road trip to wherever whenever we felt like it? I wouldn’t change any of that for the world. Do I wish I’d finished my bachelor degree instead of dropping out pretty much every semester? Yes. I also wish so many of the classes I took for my associates in criminal justice had counted towards my degree now, but alas they don’t, so, bygones. It’s hard to say I have no regrets, because the life I lived brought me to where I am today and except for that whole stupid practice husband/divorce and then my real husband up and dying on me, things have been pretty swell. I think my only real regret is not moving to NYC and going to the police academy when I had the chance. If I had done it and made it, I’d be 22 years on the job with NYPD by now. Of course, I didn’t go because of a MAN. Derp.

But, wasting time wishing for what could have been is like farting into a fan, it only hurts yourself. Yesterday I found myself whining about all I’m missing this week because of finals, and then I remembered that I’m the one who got myself into this, and that I made a plan and a commitment to myself to do it right and I shut myself right the heck up.

Wow, I’m a grownup.

So now I sit buried in chapters about cells and eukaryotic organisms and all that goes along with marine biology, and I catch myself daydreaming. Dreaming about living and working back along the Gulf Coast that I love, or maybe even California. I’m just an old hippie after all, to quote Jimmy, yes I am a pirate, 200 years too late. It’s a daydream that with a lot of commitment and some hard work will hopefully be my reality one day, several semesters away…walking out to where the boat leaves from and calling it my office.

I so very much hope it comes true.