RAYNIEDAY: Or he could just be an a-hole. Like Dad.

SUNSHINEBABY: Ohhhh!!!

RAYNIEDAY:?

SUNSHINEBABY: I totally forgot to tell you!!!!!

RAYNIEDAY:...

SUNSHINEBABY: Dad's coming!

RAYNIEDAY: What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?

SUNSHINEBABY: For our birthday! Dad's coming for our birthday!

RAYNIEDAY: Yeah, right.

SUNSHINEBABY: No. I'm serious. I e-mailed him last week and asked him if he'd come to our birthday party. And he wrote back yesterday afternoon. Then the whole Blood Bar Jareth thing went down and I totally forgot until just now.

Okay, time out on the IM transcript to give you a little 411 on the 'rents and the Dad situation. You see, our mom spent her formative teen years in New York City, during the 1970s. Which means she should have been all into disco, Studio 54, and glittery nightwear, right? Partying it up, doing lots of speed, having s.e.x with strangers. Whatever those disco divas used to do. But no. Not my mom. My mom decided to leave the city to head out to this commune upstate. A place where they wore woven clothing and milked cows and sheared sheep. I'm still thinking there were heavy drugs involved to make her want to get up close and personal to smelly, hairy barnyard animals, but probably more the hallucinatory hippie dippy drugs rather than c.o.ke or something.

Anyway, at the commune she met my dad. He was trying to "find himself" even then. And he thought a beautiful, blond and barefoot hippie like my mom would be just the ticket to his happiness. He wooed her off the farm, bought her a house in the Ma.s.sachusetts suburbs, and knocked her up with twins. My mom totally worshiped the ground he walked on, even though mostly he spent his time walking all over her.

About four years ago, he told Mom he felt "trapped" and he needed time to "find himself." At first, I kind of understood.

After all, our town is pretty dull. But I became a little doubtful of this pilgrimage to self-realization when I learned the method of travel was a brand-new red Corvette; his Mecca was evidently the holy city of Las Vegas; and his secretary, Candi, was along for the ride.

We haven't seen him since. Not that I've wanted to. In fact, up until now I've always said I'd sooner join the cheer-leading squad and go out with quarterback Mike Stevens than bond with dear old Dad. And that's saying something.

RAYNIEDAY: So let me get this straight. You e-mailed Dad?

SUNSHINEBABY: J RAYNIEDAY: And you asked him to our birthday party?

SUNSHINEBABY: Yup, yup.

RAYNIEDAY: And he said ... YES?!?!?

SUNSHINEBABY: Isn't that awesome? I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. RAYNIEDAY: I can't believe he said yes. He never comes to these kinds of things. We haven't seen him in years. Are you SURE he said yes?

SUNSHINEBABY: I'll forward you the e-mail. Hold on

To: [email protected] From:

Hiya kiddo,

Great to hear from you. Sounds like you're doing well in school. Congrats on your role in the senior cla.s.s play.

Maybe you'll be the next Lindsay Lohan.

I can't believe you two are turning seventeen. I remember when you were tiny screaming babies running around in diapers. How time flies.

Anyway, I just checked my Day-Timer and it doesn't look like anything's going on the weekend of your party.

And I was able to find a cheap flight on JetBlue. So count me in!

I'll even bring the birthday cake. There's a bakery down the street from me that's to die for.

Thanks again for thinking of me.

Love, Dad

RAYNIEDAY: Wow. I can't believe it. I don't know what to say.

SUNSHINEBABY: I know. Me neither. I just sent the e-mail figuring that it'd guilt him a bit into remembering he had daughters that he never communicated with. I never in a billion years thought he would actually say yes and come.

RAYNIEDAY: He could still blow us off.,..

SUNSHINEBABY: No way. He bought a plane ticket and e-mailed me the itinerary. And he rented a hotel room downtown. He's definitely coming.

RAYNIEDAY: Wow. I can't believe it.

Anyway, the chatting goes on, but that's the important bit. Sunny ends up signing off to go to bed and I go back to writing this new blog entry. It's a bit hard to type, even now, what with my hands all trembly from the news.

Dad. Coming here. For our birthday. A combination of dream come true and scary nightmare. I wonder what he'll be like. If he'll have gotten fat or bald. If he still has that ticklish spot behind his right ear. If his favorite food is still mac and cheese. If it'll be like he never left or if it'll be weird and awkward. Will he remember all our inside jokes? The stories he used to tell us?

The storytelling is the best part about Dad. Sunny and I would curl up in my parents' big king-size bed, each resting our heads on one of his shoulders. He'd spin fantastical tales. Fantasy, horror, comedy, adventure. Every night he'd have a different story, but the heroines were always the same. Two princesses, Sunshine and Rayne, who went about saving the world. Even when I got too old for those kinds of stories, I'd always beg for more.

Back then Dad was my superhero. My idol. The person I wanted to be like when I grew up. He was so cool. And he understood me in a way that Mom and Sunny never could. Him and I used to sit out on the back porch on warm summer nights and have deep discussions about life, the universe, and everything.

And then one day he left. Breaking my heart in the process.

The shrinks tell Mom that's why I am like I am today. Keeping myself at arm's length from people, not trusting anyone to get close. Dressing rebelliously. Having seedy flings with boys I don't care about and then walking out on them before they know what happened.

The question is this: Could Dad be to blame for all of it or was I always destined to be a freak? Guess I'll never know for sure.

Wow. I can't believe he's actually coming next week.

That he's flying on a plane. Staying at a hotel.

That he's bringing birthday cake.

Okay, I am officially freaking out.

POSTED BY RAYNE MCDONALD @ 11 P.M.

ONE COMMENT: Ashleigh says...

That's so kewl ur dad is coming 2 visit. I haven't seen my dad in like 10 years, so I totally know the feeling.

Anonymous says...

Ooh, little Raynie has Daddy issues. No wonder you've turned out ouch a LOSER.

COMMENT DELETED BY BLOG ADMINISTRATOR

9

MONDAY, JUNE 4, 8 p.m.

Black Is the New Black

So want to hear the good news or the bad news? Oh, forget it. I hate when people ask that stupid question, anyway. It's not like they really want you to choose. They've already got a preferred news-telling order in their heads. They're just trying to prepare you for the shock/horror of the bad news which is ALWAYS in these cases worse than the good news. Examples:

GOOD NEWS: You got an "A" on your history paper.

BAD NEWS: You have to read it aloud in cla.s.s.

GOOD NEWS: The Arctic Monkeys are coming to town.

BAD NEWS: It's a twenty-one and up show and last week some bar confiscated your fake ID.

GOOD NEWS: There's a sale at Hot Topic.

BAD NEWS: It's only on candy-colored big pants rave gear, not that amazingly cool red velvet corset you've been eyeing.

ANYWAY, my good news is that I did it. I went and dyed my hair black. This beautiful ebony color that's so dark and rich it looks almost blue. Now no one will ever mistake me for Sunny in three billion years.

Cheer!

Bad news? Uh, Mom totally flipped when she saw it.

"What did you do to yourself?" she cries when I walk out of the bathroom. (Yes, it was a "do-it-yourself" project-I'm not spending $100 at the hairdresser when they sell the stuff in the drugstore for $8.99.) "I dyed my hair black," I reply, though I'm pretty sure it was a rhetorical question on her part.

She grabs a chunk of hair, her expression as distraught as when I told her I had pierced my tongue last year. "But you had beautiful blond hair. Why would you do this?"

"Mom, I'm sick of looking exactly like Sunny," I say.

"Everyone keeps mistaking me for her and it's getting annoying."

"How can people mistake you two? You dress completely differently," she says, gesturing to my current ensemble of black on black on black.

"I don't know." I shrug. "I agree my superior taste in clothing should tip them off, but evidently not so much. I'm an individual, Mom. I'm my own person. I need to express myself."

"No, you need to obey me. That's what you need to do," Mom returns. Her hazel eyes flash fire. Wow. I haven't seen her this mad since Sunny went vamp and started missing curfew on a regular basis. (Which is SUCH a bigger deal than a little Clairol #70, IMO.) "And you know very well I don't want you dyeing your hair."

"But, Mom-"

"Do you know what kinds of chemicals they put in those dyes?" she demands, hands on hips. "Stuff that can cause cancer in lab rats. And if it can cause cancer in lab rats, what do you think it can do to you?"

I groan. I should have guessed that she didn't really care about the look. After all, she's a pretty unconventional dresser herself. No, my mom doesn't worry about what the PTA will say. She's too wrapped up in her government conspiracy theories in which Men in Black are developing evil hair dye to sedate the human race while the Illuminati take over the world.

Sometimes I wish I just had a normal mom. One who didn't think hairdressers were really the Antichrist, at the very least.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I guess I wasn't thinking."

"Come to me next time if you want to change your look. I've got a great all-natural henna coloring we could have used. Stuff that's made of plant products and is perfectly safe."

"Sure, Mom. I will." Yeah, right. I'm so not getting my hair dyed with henna. Maybe I'd consider a henna tattoo, but that's where I draw the line. After all, let's face it. Safe and effective or not, henna is for hippies.

She reaches over and gives me a hug. "I'm sorry, Rayne," she says. "I don't mean to yell. I just worry about my girls. I want them to be safe."

"I know, Mom. And I'm glad you do," I say, squeezing her back.