Hot

Hothothot.

This is the third straight day of temps reaching 90.

It's still May.

Not even real summer.

I am a winter kinda girl.

I? Am not going to make it to August at this rate.

Dust

I'm up to my ears in dust. Well, not ears, knees maybe. Drywall dust.

In the neverending effort to get the house ready to list for sale, poor Daddy Star had to replace the exhuast fan and drywall in the shower. In the one bathroom in the house. So every night since Sunday, he had to sand and mud the ceiling. Oh fun.

Dust everywhere. All over our one bathroom. Every day.

And of course, we couldn't shower because that would get the stuff wet again. Ever bathe in a gritty tub? Not pleasant.

Next house? Two bathrooms.

Pre-pregnant?

Is anyone else starting to feel like a walking womb yet?

Okay now:

Women should also make sure all vaccinations are up-to-date and avoid contact with lead-based paints and cat feces, Biermann said.

The report recommends that women stop smoking and discuss with their doctor the danger alcohol poses to a developing fetus.

Research shows that "during the first few weeks (before 52 days' gestation) of pregnancy" -- during which a woman may not yet realize she's pregnant -- "exposure to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; lack of essential vitamins (e.g., folic acid); and workplace hazards can adversely affect fetal development and result in pregnancy complications and poor outcomes for both the mother and the infant," the report states.

So, from the time we start menstruating until menopause, we should be acting as if we are pregnant all the time.

I do believe it's time to start worshipping at the Church of Margaret Atwood.

True Confessions

It's not my fault.

Grammie Imelda innocently asked if we'd burn a copy of a new cd for her, as she's lucky she can answer email. Sure. No problem.


She comes to visit on Sunday, Mom's Day and all, with this.




Yes. Nick Lachey.

And you know what?

I like it.

Truly. It's like being 14 and angsty and brokenhearted again.

Now if I could just find the time to write some melodramatic morbid love poetry.

Three wishes

The lovely and delicious Lemony tagged me.

Now I must try and be all clever-like. And now that I'm tagged, am I being tracked, too?

“Three Things meme. The three things are supposed to be things that you would like to see occur in your lifetime--serious or silly or sentimental…(leaving out, as Kent did, Peace In Our Lifetime, Cure for Cancer, all the standard stuff)”

Okay, I'm bending the rule a bit on this first one. I want every country on the plant to be simultaneously ruled by women. Before I am called a man-hating feminazi, let me just say I adore men. Most of them, anyhow, but I don't think they really have much of a track record to be proud of as far as ruling the world goes. And maybe we wouldn't either, but I think it's about time we gave it a shot.

I'd like to see an end to the Mommy Olympics.

And I leave you with three words for my final wish: George Clooney naked. ;)

And I'm tagging everyone.

Blah

It's cold. And rainy. I have no energy -- thank you teething Baby Star.

Well, that's not accurate. The energy I have swirling around is that murky kind that comes before bursts of creativity. So for now, read this:


Spelling
Margaret Atwood


My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.
*
I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.
*
A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
There is no either / or.
However.
*
I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.
Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.
A word after a word
after a word is power.
*
At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.
This is a metaphor.
*
How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

400,000

400,000 is how many people have died in Darfur since 2003. 3.5 million don't have enough to eat.

So what gives? There's no oil there? The people are the wrong color?

Save Darfur encourages us to contact our elected officials. But you know, I don't even believe they were all elected, and they sure as hell don't seem to be serving the interests of any constituents in my neighborhood.

And to the Christians who did vote for that man, read your Bibles. Read Matthew.

Then look at this picture:


(photo by Alexis Masciarelli, BBC website)

Someone explain to me how we look at that child and not see our own. How we allow men to keep doing this to our sisters and their children and do nothing but sit in our big houses with our full refrigerators and bitch about gas prices and gay people getting married.


Jesus wept.

A Mother's Worth

$131,471.

I have such mixed feelings when I see studies like this.

I understand the intentions behind them. Truly. I have been belittled and demeaned by men and women alike for my choices. And God knows entire political parties value only that which they can assign a dollar amount.

But I'm not sure what this accomplishes. Mothering is so much more than the sum of our chores, for women who work outside the home as well.

Center

Center is the word of the day today at Oneword.

I am obsessed with this lately. Here's mine:

I wish I could remember my center. Not remenber, I remember it well enough. Reclaim. Unify. The core. The sum of my parts. The person I was. Before.