i don't think i had the worst mother in the world but certainly she was among the categories of worseness. our lady of perpetual selfishness. our lady of persistent greed. our lady of a masochism that longed to blossom into sadism but never dared. but i can't say she was altogether useless. because apparently, according to the latest spiritual cognoscenti, i created her to act iin my life in such a way as would take me or challenge me to take the path that best suits my spiritual unfoldment. whew. that's a mouthful. she was a woman who smelled bad and so because known for her outrageously expensive perfumes. you were lucky to never have to smell what she really smelled like. she liked to involve me in her sexual foreplays. it was casual and cruel, her perfidies but the way they felt to me as a young person was like that scene in bertolucci's 1900 where the black shirt mussolini groupie lovers take the young boy by the feet and swing him around in circles bashing his head in as they go and laughing. the first time i saw that scene, i thought bertolucci had read my life somehow.