(this is annie)

My mom bought some charity CD that features The Who and The Cure, and somehow she found out about my Paul Weller crush. She just IMed me: "Who is this Peter Weller?" Peter, Paul, it's all apostolic.

I sent her this video, which is a capsule of everything I superficially like about young Paul Weller: the skinny suiting, the beaklike nose, the youthful energy bursting from his body, the mop of hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and the perfect pairing of sharp guitar with a catchy melody.

My mom was confused at first. "He's too young for you," she said. (This has not stopped me before, I should mention.) "And not as good-looking as Pattinson." (Jury is out.) I had to explain that The Jam were touring while I was floating around in a blissful amniotic pool, and that now Paul Weller is a sleazy 50-year-old who gets tanked in public and slips his 23-year-old girlfriend the tongue. Then we had the IM conversation at right. I am glad that my mother agrees that a middle-aged man who bleaches his hair is not so dreamy.

Then my mom went on to talk about how men who date much younger women have major issues. Well yeah, no shit. Except, as I pointed out, my dad is 18 years older than she is. "I was young," she said. True, but it's not as though Dad was Snidley Whiplash, tying the knot against your will, I replied.

Her response: "Yes he was! I didn't know better!" That is ridiculous, because they seem very much in love in all of the faded photos I look at, and because my dad is hardly coercive. Also, now that I think about it, I always hated Dudley Do-Right and wanted poor Snidely Whiplash to triumph once, just once. The helpless damsel always bugged me because she was such a wuss, and Do-Right had that weird chin, and Whiplash seemed more interesting. Maybe that makes me a bad feminist, or a textbook psychology case, but either way, it means I have daddy issues, right?

Labels: betty, Paul Weller