-I’m a bad son. For the seventh year in a row, I didn’t see my mom on Mother’s Day. Granted, she lives 3,000 miles away in New York, but good sons really only have three responsibilities to their moms: 1) Don’t curse in front of her (she’s seen my stand-up act, so that’s out), 2) Provide reasonable hope that grandchildren are forthcoming (um, no), and 3) Show up on Mother’s Day. But while I haven’t exactly been a model son in those respects, I hope I’ve at least been an entertaining one – when I call too late and wake her up, it could be for any number of reasons: I have exciting career news, I’m really drunk, or I just forgot about the time difference. But no matter where life has taken me, I’m fortunate to have had an incredible relationship with my mom: I keep her on her toes and she keeps my feet on the ground. In fact, she’d be the first to reject the notion that I’m a bad son. She’d say that I’m a good son – with enormous potential for improvement.

-Over the years, I have given my mom ample fodder to brag about me to her friends, and for that I know she’s grateful. What I don’t think she gets is that I don’t care about what her friends’ kids are doing. She calls me up like, “So-and-so’s daughter got into Cornell. So-and-so’s son got a promotion.” Mom, I don’t give a shit about so-and-so and her offspring. Bragging is a one-way street. I do something awesome, you tell your friends, and that’s it. Any incoming brags are automatically filtered to my internal junk mail.

-My mom used to be a teacher, and her loyalties never waned. When I was growing up and got into trouble in school, Mom would always side with my teacher. That pissed me off to no end. I was an incorrigible brat, and Mom suspected that defending me would only encourage my incorrigibleness. Or is it incorrigibility? I wouldn’t know because I was probably in detention instead of English that day. Thanks, Mom.

-What I admire most about my mom is her even keel. My dad, my sister, and I are all varying degrees of curmudgeonly – prone to bitch and moan when things aren’t exactly as we want them. My mom, on the other hand, oozes with patience. In heated moments she lies in wait, calmly assesses the situation, and then takes care of business without expecting any recognition in return. She’s like the fucking SEAL Team 6 of parents.

-Lately I’ve been talking to my mom about her plans for when she eventually retires. I would love to travel to Europe with her, but she doesn’t think it’ll work because she likes to see museums and historical trees and shit, whereas I (in her words) “just want to drink.” I don’t think that assessment is fair. I’m more than happy to sightsee as long as I know what I’m getting into ahead of time. And it’s not like I’ll go out partying in Paris and leave her at the hotel. I’m gonna need a wingman if she wants some half-French grandchildren.

-One of the oldest tropes in the book is that men marry their mothers. I can see how that could be accurate – guys’ first and most prominent female influence is their mom, and so it’s only natural they marry a woman just like her. I mean, if my future wife doesn’t have an even keel like my mom, we’ll be divorced by our honeymoon. My mom is tender, sophisticated, witty, well read, and gregarious. Which, come to think of it, are all things I look for in a woman. I guess if I do marry my mother (so to speak), it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Though I’m telling you the first time my kid gets into trouble at school, I’m definitely taking his side – as long as he swears never to tell his grandmother what happened.