Swingin' on a Star

The North Hills school district school board sucks

2010-09-10T09:43:00.003-04:00

If you have school-age children and are considering moving anywhere that puts your kid going to school here, don't.

Several years ago, the school board, in it's reelection-driven wisdom, decided it was to expensive to operate all the neighborhoods school that are a selling factor for the homeowners. And decided to shut half them down and renovate the remaining elementaries into megaschools. The "plans" surrounding that involved a complete lack of any logical thought or actual planning, the result of which is that my children, instead of attending the megaschool one mile from their house, are attending the megaschool five miles from their house. But hey, as long as they don't raise our taxes, right?

At the end of last school year, an email went around from a concerned parent that the district did not plan on having nurses in any elementary school full-time. So at the kindie orientation I made sure to ask the nurse what was going on with that, as my older child is asthmatic. Where I was reassured that only during lunch periods is the nurse's office unattended, but that the school secretary has a key. We told the kid he's not to have any asthma attacks during lunch. But hey, as long as they don't raise our taxes, right?

Fast forward to Tuesday, the first day of school. We have a new bus route with a new bus driver, and a crossing guard. Kids get off to school fine. All the moms and some of the grandparents show up to meet the kids at the bus stop after school. And we stood and waited in the 90 degree sunshine. And waited. And then our former bus driver drove by, and hollered out her window that the buses just got a late start and were on their way. Ok. Fifteens minutes go by. I call the school. The secretary assures me that the buses are just running late, and that they haven't heard anything else. Our former bus driver circles back at the end of her route, sees us all standing there, and radios the transportation company. (See, that nice crossing guard doesn't have a walkie talkie, cell phone, any sort of device where he could communicate with any authority.) And she then hollers out her window that our children's bus has broken down, but she doesn't know where.

And as this is the first day of a new bus route, none of us have any idea where our children may be, on a hot, broken-down bus, now a full hour after school was dismissed. Our children finally arrived at their stop ten minutes to five. A full forty five minutes after they are supposed to be there. Eventually, all the homes receive calls from the school notifying us that the steering on the bus had broken, but the children were all home safely.

And then one of the older students on the bus informs us all that the bus driver had made a wrong turn upon leaving the school, and had taken the kids on a nice little scenic tour of Ross township business districts before the bus breaking down. So the next morning one of the other mothers decided to follow the bus to school, and watched the bus driver run a red light. But hey, as long as they don't raise our taxes, right?

And finally, apparently there is not an adequate staff of cafeteria workers, at least for the kindergarten lunch period. The older kids are fine, I'm sure. They're used to how it works. They can open their own milk cartons. Something went on during lunch on Tuesday, when my little one bought lunch. He's not willing to do that again. And when he packed yesterday, he drank the juice box and after the rice krispie treat. The yogurt and baby carrots and fruit roll up came home. I sent a note in to his teacher asking if she had any info, but she knows nothing and he won't talk to her about it either. But hey, as long as they don't raise our taxes, right?

Somehow in here, I'm supposed to be instilling a love of learning in a child who, this morning, insisted he likes absolutely nothing about school and just wants to stay home with me. A child who, on the first day, went to school without crying, and said he liked the playing, just not the learning.

And hey, you know what, they raised our taxes.

There's a penny on the floor and it stays...

2010-08-12T18:13:00.002-04:00

Unless you are a five-year-old boy living at my house.

In that case, if there is a penny on the floor you will pick it up and put it in your mouth. And choke.

And then your mother, once establishing that you can breathe and speak, will rush you into the car and to the nearest, albeit good-for-nothing-more-than-stitches-and-broken-bones, hospital. On the theory that if it is in his trachea and it moves, she needs to 1.not get lost, and 2. be able to tell 911 where you are. Local hospital personnel moved very very slowly when confronted with a woman rushing in asking her kid, "Can you still breathe? Can you still feel it in your throat?"

But they were able to take an x-ray. I so wish I had the x-ray to post. Picture the typical neck/chest x-ray film, with a big fat round coin in the esophagus across the collarbone. The ER doc shows us the lovely film, and shows us that it's definitely not in his trachea and that he's getting air, which calms mother's near panic. For just a moment. Until he says, "We don't have an ear, nose, and throat, or GI doc. I'm going to call Children's and see if they want you to go home or take him in in the morning, or what."

Go home? Go home? In what world is it an option to take a kid home with a coin plugging his esophagus?

Luckily, the Children's doc wanted to see him and get another film. Dad takes him off to Children's; I take the bigger boy home. They get x-rays at eleven and again early the next morning. That sucker wasn't moving.

So, they must sedate the child and go in and remove the penny.

This is the view from the eighth floor of the new Children's. What a lovely hospital. Such a lovely hospital that for the first half hour, all I could think was wow, this is so nice, wow, this is going to cost a freakin' fortune. So then the pediatrician comes in on rounds.

"Why do you think it's a penny?"

"Because he said it was a penny?"

"Oh, because usually anything smaller than a quarter they can swallow and pass."

She also said that they find once a kid does this, they are more likely to do it again. Happy happy. Joy joy.

Yep. It's a penny.

Why We Need Healthcare Reform

2009-10-22T19:26:00.002-04:00

Or

Why Asthma Sucks, Part 78

The boy has asthma; the baby does not. This does put them both in the catgory recommended to receive the flu vaccine every year.

The boy also has food allergies, including an allergy to eggs. The boy had his first flu shot in December of 2002, before his allergy was diagnosed. He had no reaction to the shot.

The following spring his allergies were diagnosed. His records don’t list him being vaccinated when he was one or two. One of those years I was expecting the baby, and would have received one also, but there was a shortage that year. I was not hauling my hugely pregnant self and a toddler into town to wait in the county health department line with a bunch of elderly people for hours.

Bellevue pediatrics gave him his flu vaccines again in October of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. He never once had a reaction to any of these vaccines.

The child has had severe asthma flares since he entered kindergarten. Every cold that came along his first year in school landed him in the ER.

And now it’s fall 2009, the year of the swine flu. A highly contagious, new strain of the flu for which there is no herd immunity. Which is hospitalizing children and young adults at rates much higher than the elderly and ill, opposite the seasonal flu.

We schedule the flu shots. The nurse practitioner refuses to administer the vaccine. Wants his allergist to sign off on the flu shot. We contact the allergist’s office. It’s been eight months since he’s seen that doctor. Eight months ago that doctor wanted to challenge his egg allergy, which we chose not to do at that time as we had just challenged his milk allergy and were introducing dairy to his diet.

The allergist’s office wants us either to challenge the egg allergy, or get enough of the flu vaccine from Bellevue pediatrics to use as an egg challenge. Here comes the epic logic fail: how in the hell were the flu vaccines he received in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 not challenges to his egg allergy but an extra dose of the vaccine this year will be?

In summary, we now have two medical practices more concerned about being sued over a possible allergic reaction than the possibility of a school-aged child with compromised lung function catching swine flu.

And guess what, while the two medical practices are busy trying to push their responsibilities off on each other, the child catches swine flu. Well, technically we don’t know that as the pediatrician discouraged us from having his strain typed, but she did say the swine flu IS the only flu they are seeing.

Child also has an ear infection, so we leave the doc’s office with prescriptions for amoxicillin and Tamiflu. But not the child-friendly, liquid dose of Tamiflu. The pharmacies are all out of that. His weight puts him between the two dosages of capsules Tamiflu is available in. This means he takes two pills twice a day for five days, twenty pills in all.

Except UPMC Healthcare considers ten pills to be a prescription of the 30 mg dosage of Tamiflu. Therefore, the pharmacy that does have Tamiflu (and we called them all) has to give us two and a half days worth for our forty dollar copay. And then two days later I get to take a highly contagious child out to a store to pay another forty dollars for the other half of his medicine. So screw you, UPMC.

And while I’m at it, screw you for uglying up our skyline.

And we are fortunate to have health insurance. We’re fortunate that we can come up with the two copays. Because that Tamiflu is the only thing that has kept our kid out of the ER. We’re fortunate we have jobs where we can manage to get some time off and juggle our schedules.

The baby was vaccinated for both seasonal and swine flu. Which we didn't get to quickly enough, as he woke up today with the same flu symptoms his brother has. Their dad works in a small office. Worst case scenario for him should he get sick is he stays out of the office longer and works from home more.

I work retail. We’re going into the holiday season, our most crucial time of the year, in a recession year. My company gives us PTO (paid time off) days. We can use these as sick days, vacation days, kid emergencies, whatever, but we cannot schedule them after November tenth. We can only carry one over into January of next year. So, the actuality becomes all of us full time employees use or lose our paid sick time by the first week of November. I’m out of sick days. If I catch the swine flu, I will be taking massive doses of ibuprofen and DayQuil and heading to work.

First Day of School

2009-08-31T09:30:00.003-04:00

So I cried.

I did not cry last year for first grade.

I was hysterical the first day of kindergarten.

But the neighbor mom, whose kids are a year ahead of mine, had to pur her little girl on the bus. (And let me just say, that the Britney-fied outfit from Justice should not be made in that tiny little size.)And so the big brother held her hand and helped her up on to the bus, and I started tearing up. And when the mom turned around visibly crying, I lost it. And then she said, "now what am I going to do?"

And that's the point really. Five turns into eighteen. And then what are you going to do?

The Garage Bug

2009-05-29T09:33:00.002-04:00

I? Am not a nature girl.

Forget the wrinkles or risk of skin cancer, the sun burns me. Within seconds.

Mosquitoes feast on me.

So, I leave nature alone as much as possible with the understanding it leave me alone.

I have boys. Two curious, energetic, outdoorsy boys. They like bugs. They really like to scare their mother with bugs. The older boy is in first grade. In the days of No Child Left Behind. Know what that means? That means these kids get math and reading books, and most everything else is hands on. Which has it's pros and cons. First graders learn about bugs by raising mealworms. Which become some sort of beetle. Which come home on the bus. To their father's house, thank dog....

At my house, we have some daddy long legs living in the stairwell. Occasionally a stink bug makes it's way across the living room floor. But there is this thing that has taken up residence in the garage.

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It's on a web. I have no idea if it's predator or prey, but it's been there a while. It's up high, next to where I get into my car. We've made our peace, the creepy bug and I. As long as it doesn't ever move while I am in the garage, I'll leave it alone.

The baby was playing in the garage the other day and happened to see the creepy garage bug. He comes barreling upstairs, insisting I come! Come! Mommy! Right come! and see this bug.

So, figuring this is what he's referring to, I come down to see the bug. Told him I'd seen it before, it wasn't bothering anyone.

“When did you see it, mommy? Did it make you freak in your pants?”

Ah, boys.

I got nothing

2009-05-17T09:53:00.002-04:00

No inspiration whatsoever. I could bitch about work. Or the weather. But instead, here's a poem lifted from Wicked Alice.

Insomnia

Chella Courington

You know me well strolling streets to be with people without

being with people. You ask for one dollar. One dollar.

What if I only have a twenty? Can I owe you for tonight?

Your eyes bloodshot like mine bags holding them up.

Johnson roamed London midnight to sunrise. Couldn’t bear

the garret stacked in leaves of words worked reworked

amanuenses oblivious to stale air to his rambling Fleet.

My rambling State slipping in my skin bleak above cement.

Days disintegrate unseen except by you grave lady reaching for me

singing a hymn my mother sang When nothing else would help

love lifted me. I’m not him: I can’t take you home. But I’ll leave you

this bill & all the change in my pocket.

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T08:41:00.000-04:00

I’m working today. So, we had dinner and a movie night last night, during which BabyStar insisted on unwrapping, ahem, giving me my presents. He has finally reached the age where he doesn’t blurt out what the gift is as it’s being opened, but thinks anything taped up in paper is exciting.

The children’s father chose Marley and Me for the movie, as they had already watched all the other children’s movies on the OnDemand or Pay-per-View or whatever overpriced cable thing he has at his house.

And I am not even going to bitch about the end of that movie. I’ve read the reviews. I knew what was coming. And I knew that if the kids didn’t get upset on their own, they have a crier for a mother and would have gotten upset seeing her get upset.

I was just unprepared for what got me upset.

(I would imagine I’m the last person on the planet to see the movie, but just in case I’m not here’s your huge spoiler alert.)

There’s this scene early on where the happy pretty couple is expecting their first baby, and go in to have a sonogram. There’s the tense ultrasound tech, and the nondescript, soothing doctor speaking hollow platitudes in a hushed tone.

They left out a lot. They left out the cramps. They left out the blood, the copious, unbelievable amounts of blood. They left out how a body can open up and let go. They left out the catheter, the internal ultrasound, the Rhogam shot. The left out how kind, how willing to share their personal lives all the strangers who work at emergency rooms can be.

They left out the scene where you put your clothes back on and walk out into the cruelly bright April sunshine, into everything green and growing and blooming, and go forward carrying emptiness, carrying failure.

Living Rooms do not Need Couches

2009-05-03T09:44:00.001-04:00

So says Sandra Beasley.

http://sbeasley.blogspot.com/

(really I am going to come down off the poetry high and write about something else some day)

"I Hate Workshop Prompts"

2009-05-02T10:09:00.002-04:00

or

Why I am the Biggest Sandra Beasley Fangirl Ever

or

How to Spend a Friday Night in Pittsburgh

I woke Friday morning from one of those horrible dreams in which you’ve regained something you lost, and the dream is so real, and you wake to a disorienting, disappointing reality. And the emotional aftermath of that hung over me all through work.

Meanwhile the boy was staying home from school because of am asthma flare. I stopped to see the kids after work, then headed here.

I managed to get myself somewhere unfamiliar in the city without getting lost!

The building is this lovely, artsy, exposed brick studio. All sorts of paintings along the walls, sculpture and textiles, paper cranes hanging from the ceiling. There’s a big bathtub in the middle of the room they fill with ice and drinks.

Sandra Beasley is small, slight. And she’s funny! Really, really funny. And when she starts to read, she, hmm, expands. She drove up from DC and kindly complimented my city.

She read:

Cherry Tomatoes (that came from a workshop prompt)
One from the Allergy Girl series
You (the hairs all stood up on the back of my neck)
Fireproof
The Fish
Theories of Nonviolence
Theories of Falling

And then she read three poems from her new book. Which may be even better poems. I would have never believed that possible.

After half an hour, they took an ice cream break, then Ron McLean read one of his short stories, a really haunting one about a father and teenage daughter. During which I got a text that my kid was sick enough that he needed to go to the ER.

So, as soon as the reading was over, I rushed right up to her and asked her to sign my book, explaining I had to rush home to get a kid to the ER.

I chatted with Sandra Beasley about food allergies! Squee! She was so lovely and gracious and funny. I have such a huge huge girlcrush.

And then I rushed to the car, cranked Kings of Leon and sped down the Boulevard of the Allies in the rain, and got back to the house to stay with the little boy while the big one got pumped full of meds.

And on my way back home at three am I came this close to hitting a deer. I’ve had enough excitement for one weekend.

I was half right

2009-04-29T09:55:00.001-04:00

One kid is perfectly fine.

One kid is sick and cranky and scratchy.

And one more terrible April is almost over.

Drowning

2009-04-22T09:19:00.002-04:00

I've been having this recurring nightmare.

It always starts in the middle. I'm flying one of those old airplanes, the kinds with the big propellers and double wings. (I have no idea what anything on an airplane is actually called.)

So I'm flying this airplane over a river, at twilight, there are no people, no houses, no civilization, nothing around, just hills and trees, but there's a bridge over the river.

And I lose control of the airplane and fall out, at which point everything happens in slow motion. I can almost fly, sometimes I make it temporarily back in the plane, sometimes I skim over the bridge, sometimes under it. But I always end up in the water, suffocating. At this point I always wake up, struggling to breathe.

(So what do you make of that one, dear om?)

And un unfinished draft of my own

2009-04-18T12:18:00.001-04:00

“the anguish of a naked body is more terrible
to bear than God.”
---- James Wright

Beneath the empty dream
you open to desire. Not knowing
you still could, and not wanting
ever to again. But still it blooms
in your belly. You turn to the wall
as you undress, feel his hand reach
for you, feel the hesitation.
Feel him looking at your back, the ribs,
the vertebrae like a staircase his fingers climb
to your neck, grabbing your hair to turn
you around. Cry as he kisses down your throat,
kisses the hollows between the ribs, kisses
the concavity of your abdomen.
Close your eyes and remember it full
and round with your baby. Close your eyes
as he holds your hips, moves between your knees.
Close your eyes and picture another face.

The Birches

2009-04-17T13:52:00.001-04:00

Sandra Beasley

These woods teem with runaway brides,
birches shedding their white veils.

It must be a dream -- you are here,
taller than me, walking far ahead,

arms swinging with momentum.
Ferns curl into fists at my touch.

Moss weeps glycerin. You lean your palm
to a bulging tree trunk and even from here,

I feel the throb of fungus under bark.
Black flies buzz my ear. In a downed oak

a sack of bagworms pulses, gestating,
blind to how their home has fallen.

I walk faster. I run. This isn’t my dream.
Now these woods rise with their dead,

birches tearing off their white shrouds --
hunting down those dumb lovers

who didn’t check their breaths before burial,
who mourned, who moved on.

The birches shake dirt from the dark roots
of their curls. They sob from spongy trunks,

How dare you leave me? You’re nowhere
to be seen, Tom. They speak for you.

Flamenco

2009-04-09T15:53:00.001-04:00

Dean Young

Consider our mad loves:
J’s for B that he only knew after
she ripped out the hook. Smell rain
and whose name do you say? G and R
seem ok but A’s ripping the cover off
T’s book, the cashier asking if
he’d like a damage discount and who
doesn’t deserve a damage discount?
The heart itself apparently
can be eaten, singed on a bed
of baby greens. Half step, half step,
clap, throw the hive upon the lap.
A silver head floats in the corn.
At least M has his daughter.
A silver head floats at the portal.
Like a dried gourd, the rattle K makes.
The dream bread falls through the dream
hands. Two seconds it took you to do
what you did to me. Here’s a breast,
an eye. Here’s a necessity.
Flinchclatter dovespun sundrove
heartsprung and sometimes the wreckage
assumes recognizable shapes.
Sure it does. Touch this. Maybe
your father was right to hate me.
I was running as fast as I could.
Maybe faster.
Forever and forever and forever.

The Stars are Blazing Like Rebel Diamonds Cut out of the Sun…

2009-03-22T09:12:00.002-04:00

My stars are now blazing on my lower back. One for each boy.

One of these days I'll get a clear picture and I'll insert that here.

So, it’s probably too small to say they really blaze, but seriously, tattoos hurt. Big ones hurt more. Those people who say “it isn’t that bad” and “it goes numb after a while” are liars. Big, sadistic, ink-loving liars. Pain, however, is a relative matter, and so does pushing out ten pound babies with linebacker shoulders hurt.

So, on a particularly windy-cold March afternoon, my bff Monique, (names will not be changed, no one here is innocent) watched the children, as minors are not allowed in the tattoo shop. Which really is a brilliant marketing strategy, nothing being as attractive as the forbidden…. (I realize there are probably state laws involved, but that’s not nearly as exciting an explanation.) And I would be such a bad homeschool mom, because I really think it would be a great place for a first grade field trip.

And since Monique was with the kids, Amber, my twenty-two year old, heavily tattooed herself, coworker, sat next to me and distracted me. Amber is one of those “it doesn’t hurt that much” people. Amber has her children’s names tattooed across her wrists. I have no idea what she plans to do if she gets knocked up again.

Shane the tattoo guy was running late for our appointments, so while we were waiting we started reading the price list for piercings. Two things: 1. Piercings are expensive. 2. I haven’t heard of half the body parts on the piercing list. But I bet they’d hurt to pierce.

From here on out, it’s just like an episode of Miami Ink, only it cost less. We chatted. Shane drew. Then I straddled a chair, he put the stencil to my back and had me check the placement, and started in with the needle. Ouch. Word to the unblemished, should you ever decide to do this, bring an Amber. She sat in front of me and distracted me. And reminded me to breath. And just when it got really bad, she leaned over my shoulder to see how far along we were, and said, “Wow. You’re really fast!” Yay Amber! Yay fast Shane! The outline was finished, which was the more painful part. Start to finish, the actual needle part lasted forty-five minutes, tops. And now I have another brand of motherhood, as permanent as the stretch marks, but, you know, wanted.

Call Me Methuselah

2008-10-13T17:25:00.003-04:00

One day last week, after a particularly lovely day at work, my children decided it was not quite time for mommy to relax. While we were in the car, they felt the need to discuss aging and gender roles. Out of the blue...

Babystar: Mommy, you're really old old old old old old old old old old. (That's not a direct quote. There may have been more olds.)

Me: No! I'm not that old.

Boystar: Yeah, mom, you really are. You're, like, twenty-six.

Bank voles eat their young, as do house finches and wolf spiders. And speaking of wolf spiders. Once we got home, Baby decided it had been too l ong since we played "torment mommy with the picture of the wolf spider" in this, my vintage copy of The Bug Book. Vintage. Not old.

Blue Sheets

2008-09-19T18:23:00.001-04:00

Gerald Stern

Look at his moustache now, look at his tragic
face, if he had stayed outside Toulouse
and not come back, if he had stuck with Villon,
his secret holy master, he never should have
been obedient, he would have let the Testaments
keep him alive, and added his own testament
by staying there, he could have rectified his
life through words though he insisted, didn't he,
that life came first; he should have been more stubborn,
he never should have cried, he never should have
written letters onto those thin blue sheets
and licked them shut, nor should he have allowed
his mind to argue with itself that way
nor should he have gone back after only skimming
the surface, as he did, what was he going back to,
a lover he hardly knew? A rigid mother
and father? A school that never missed him? It could have
been Burns, it could have been Hart Crane who had
more than a little of the same obedience,
driven by his lake. I was by rivers.

Hello St. Louis

2008-08-09T09:18:00.003-04:00

And whoever found this blog by googling "swinging boobs." It's been a long time since I've had porn search, and I'd forgotten how amusing they are. Sorry you didn't get what you were looking for here. ;)

Curse Word Warning!

2008-08-05T19:05:00.002-04:00

I'm asterisking the bad language below, but you were warned. And you started it. :)

For my dear, friend, it's still a draft and I have no idea where it's going, but here's the poem I promised, a bit late.

Love is a M*****F*****

---for James

Love walks among the not so innocent,
his true nature disguised, hiding the
prison tattoos, the track marks, scabs, open
wounds oozing pus, the steel toe boots, the safety
pins through his eyebrows.

Love rolls in flower petals to mask the
scent of burnt flesh, burned down houses, kerosene
fires and children asleep in their beds. Love
throws the hand grenade, injects the poison, pulls
the trigger. Love turns on itself, spews the
anniversary dinner, love causing the pain,
killing the pain with sweet comfort, sweet
worm at the bottom of the bottle, sweet
stranger's flesh, sweet for an hour...

So, there. Good thing you didn't ask for a happy poem. :)

Food is Love

2008-05-28T09:20:00.002-04:00

My children lost one of their great grandmothers over the weekend. The funeral is today. And while I'm not certain how much of anything Baby grasps, the Boy is having trouble. While we were having dinner last night, I let him know I'd be picking him up early from school, where we'd be going, what would be happening.

And the poor little thing was trying so hard to be brave. He was asking questions, and as I answered, he just kept saying "ok" and taking these big gulps of air in as his little chin quivered. And finally I said, "baby, it's ok to cry. It's ok to feel sad or scared." And he burst out crying and climbed up on my lap, in a way he hasn't done in quite a while.

And once he stopped crying, my first thought was to take them out for dessert. Once they had finished a reasonable amount of dinner, we piled in the car and headed to Eat n Park for a bear claw. I didn't stop to think what I was doing until we had ordered.

So how much of feeding our emotions is nature and how much is nurture? Almost all of my memories of my father's mother involve her cooking. Most of the family traditions I've tried to pass on to the boys center around eating. Would I be more cautious of loving them with food if they were girls? If we had weight issues?

I don't know. I know we are going to a funeral and after there will be food. Lots of fattening food.

And Again

2008-05-22T09:17:00.001-04:00

Husbandry
by Jennifer Borges Foster

For you she builds a house of spices and sleigh beds,
of anise and armrests, of typewriters happily clacking
their teeth at the blowsy dawn. She builds boxes and ladders,
kneelers and coffins, stocks hardtack and swatches of cloth.
There is a history of horses and husbandry here,
a history of holiness and excess, of morning and mourning,
of days that never wake. For you she builds a body, a list
from hip to waist, a weight in breasts best set to anchor
the architecture of your mouth. On leaving she
lives in a biscuit, peeking through the gnawed-out window
sat the robins who dumbly clutter her roof.
She is vaulted and volleyed by the long-armed god
of her father; holed up and hoping you’ll come rob
the stockpile she’s been hoarding for years. Her letters to
you are written in steam, apparent only on nights
when the windows drift open. For you she builds a house
of hallways, one easy to wander when she is gone.

And another poem

2008-05-20T09:42:00.002-04:00

Chance
by Molly Peacock

may favor obscure brainy aptitudes in you
and a love of the past so blind you would
venture, always securing permission,
into the back library stacks, without food
or water because you have a mission:
to find yourself, in the regulated light,
holding a volume in your hands as you
yourself might like to be held. Mostly your life
will be voices and images. Information. You
may go a long way alone, and travel much
to open a book to renew your touch.

And yeah, Sunday. 6-0 Pens! How wrong would it be to try to get my shifts scheduled around the finals?

Score!

2008-05-15T09:30:00.002-04:00

Pens won! In Philly! Game 4, I think it is, tonight. Woohoo! Go Pens!

So, that was the highlight of Tuesday night. Good hockey game. Celebrated a friend's graduation from college and acceptance to grad school. Finally found out that a "chocolate cake" is comprised of vodka and frangelico. No wonder I like them so much. No wonder I can only have one.

The low point of the evening: having to go to the police station and pick up one of my new girlfriends. DUI is bad. DUI is very very bad. She's damn lucky all she got is stopped by the police and didn't hurt anyone. It was an utterly stupid thing to do. But somehow it didn't seem like the time to be giving her that lecture. My lesson for Tuesday night is that sometimes the last thing a person deserves is the thing they need most, and in this case it was compassion.

Old dog. New tricks.

2008-05-13T19:06:00.002-04:00

Well, apparently my career as a lush has ended. Or maybe Monday is just sobriety night. Anyhow, I set both a drink limit and a curfew for myself and followed them both. Some days it is no fun being a grown up and having to worry about rent and jobs and bills and more bills.

Sigh.

Anyhow. Enough sighing. Hockey playoffs. Meeting a bunch of girls from work at the bar to watch the game. We've had a long enough hockey drought around here. I seriously wish I could find a picture of Braydon Coburn's face. I love hockey. And some day, I bet BabyStar repays me for that in full.

Lessons Learned on a Friday Night

2008-05-12T09:14:00.002-04:00

Or Saturday morning. Very early Saturday morning.

1. It is not a good idea to go out with your wild girlfriend to "her" bar if you have to work the next morning.

2. Even when you know this ahead of time you will still do it.

3. Reminding yourself you aren't twenty anymore really doesn't help.

4. If the song playing as you walk into the bar is Cake's version of I Will Survive, you will have too much to drink.

5. If the first guy who hits on you has the same first name as an ex, you will have too much to drink.

6. When you drink too much, your internal filter shuts down completely. You will say things you should not say out loud.

7. Those things you should not say out loud will make you very popular with your wild friend's bar friends.

8. The reminder of how much fun it is to go out and dance is worth everything else.

9. McDonald's double cheeseburgers are really good at three forty five am, even if you don't have the munchies.

10. The phone number written on a napkin sitting on your dresser blinks like a neon sign all night, not helping anything at all.

And completely off topic, for Mother's Day BabyStar used the potty! Yay!

And another

2008-05-08T10:06:00.002-04:00

I seem to be on a poem kick.

Room with a Bed in the Middle
Curtis Bauer

While I sleep my wife writes words
on my back.
She wants me to feel what she thinks,
what's inside her chest.
When I wake the letter Q boils between
my shoulder blades
as if it were branded or etched.
I think she traced C
but there's longing in her and she hates
the word covet.
Her delicate hands can’t hold desire.
She is sitting on top of me
naked, though her hair clothes her.
The bed isn't large
enough for this love tracing from her
fingers. The room
diminishes when she opens her eyes.

How we do it Around Here

2008-05-07T18:02:00.002-04:00

Poetry, that is.

Going Deep For Jesus
Jan Beatty

Run to the street light, make a right
at the blue car, and go deep
--Sharan Watson

1981, I'm on the back of a cherry
red Kawasaki with my boyfriend Stush,
my biker jacket bought with a tax return
from a year of waiting tables, stuffed
in my pocket the bad check I wrote
to see Stevie Ray play the Decade.
Down Beck's Run we hit Carson, my cheek
resting on Stush's firm shoulder till
the ground rises up with the hulk of J&L
across the river, steel house that burns it all,
an up-against-the-wall-fuck, thick &
ripping, everything is smokestacks
& yellow blaze. We ride the river roads,
looking for deserted two-lanes,
newspapers stuffed under our leather
for warmth. I want to forget my name--
everything but the sharp lean into
the next turn, the cheap slap of the wind.
Stush brags about his water-cooled,
two-stroke engine, but I just want
the contact high of leather, metal,
and the slow burn of a few joints.
Past the bridges & bridges, we ride
away from our fast-food jobs and
run-down apartment, toward the smell
of the Ohio, its perpetual mire, the rotting
docks and lean-to's, to what we knew.
I knew the muscles in his back & his
low voice would make me come
back to my self. We stop near the bog
of the river's edge to have hard sex
on the ground, our jeans still on,
trying to shotgun a moment, to split open
our lives in the brilliant light until
we were the mills, we were the fire.
It was then I decided god and orgasm
were the same thing, that if jesus
had an address, it would be a dark two-lane,
if god were here, she'd shove down
like a two-stroke in a rainstorm,
she'd let it fly.

The Door Knob is Gone

2008-05-05T09:16:00.002-04:00

So, after the last fiasco, part of the doorknob, that part that latches into the frame, was still there.

As I was getting out of the shower on Saturday, the baby came in, ran back out, then slammed the door shut behind him. Latching me in. No door knob. No tools in the bathroom. Thought about shimmying out the window. Which is three storeys above a gravel drive. Have a lovely purple bruise along my hip from trying to force the door open. Right. My hip was going to break the door frame. So, I told the boy to get my cell phone, and started reciting numbers until we got hold of their father, who came and got me out. There is now no door knob hardware whatsoever on the bathroom door until I decide if I'm going to wait out his obsession with locks or get a door knob that doesn't lock at all. And my humiliation is complete.

So, Saturday sucked. The way some days just suck. Long and hard. The way some days are just complete and utter pain, and you do whatever you have to to get through. The days when a song gets stuck in your head and won't let go. Saturday's was Glycerine.

So, eventually I just decided to feed the earworm, and dug out the cd. And danced. And moved because I had to. The baby is now ready for a mosh pit. :) The boy, not so much. Machinehead came on, and he said, "Mom, why are you jumping. Jumping isn't dancing." He still needs some work. :)

May Day

2008-05-01T09:06:00.003-04:00

So, while National Poetry Month is technically over, my love affair with the villanelle is not.

So.

Mad Girl's Love Song
Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

So. That Sylvia. I've lived longer now that she did. And yeah, she was some freak brilliant child prodigy genius. But still, she had a troubled marriage and two young children. And still she wrote. Still she was capable of Ariel. (Maybe because of the two young children and troubled marriage she was capable of Ariel.) The excuses I have for not writing are starting to sound weak, even to me.

Door knobs

2008-04-29T09:25:00.002-04:00

So, it is much easier to dismantle the door knob on the bathroom door than it is to put it back together. I'm sure the baby could do it, but I'm sort of annoyed with him, and he's on restriction from the screwdriver.

I have a feeling three is going to be a long year.

Announcement

2008-04-24T18:01:00.002-04:00

I have lured a new victim, ahem, friend over to the blog roll. Go over and say hi if you have time.

For National Poetry Month

2008-04-23T09:17:00.003-04:00

You Don’t Know What Love Is

but you know how to raise it in me
like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to
wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.
How to start clean. This love even sits up
and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.
Any day now she’ll try to eat solid food. She’ll want
to get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and drive
to some cinderblock shithole in the desertwhere she can drink and get sick and then dance in nothing but her underwear. You know
where she’s headed, you know she’ll wake up
with an ache she can’t locate and no moneyand a terrible thirst. So to hell
with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt
and your tongue down my throat
like an oxygen tube. Cover me
in black plastic. Let the mourners through.

Kim Addonizio

At Least the Ads will Stop

2008-04-22T19:22:00.004-04:00

Hello from Pennsylvania on primary day.

I have never been so conflicted about which name to touch (god, remember when we got to pull levers?) in all my thirteen years of voting.

And since it was an in service day here, I brought the kidlets along for a civics field trip. You think I would have learned by now.

As I'm staring at the ballot, Boy Star pipes up with "Gosh, mom, what's taking you so long" and BabyStar decides it would be appropriate to speed mommy up by attempting to hockey attack the machine. Apparently, a hockey attack is BabyStar's go to move when they play Pokemon.

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

So, I finally did, and as we're leaving, walking across a parking lot filled with yummy volunteer firemen, BoyStar blurts out, loudly, "So who'd you vote for to be the president?"

Um, yes, that was a lovely trip home explaining the necessities of secret ballots. And what the firemen thought was so funny.

Happy Day!

2008-03-29T13:30:00.002-04:00

I took the boys to the used book store today, as we were in desperate need of a copy of Cat in the Hat. Boystar grabbed one off the shelf and READ THE TITLE. Sounded out "The Foot Book."

I was damn near crying, until he said to me, "What are you so excited about mom. I just read. Pokemon are exciting."

The Joys of Retail

2008-01-09T14:22:00.000-05:00

As I may have mentioned before, I work in a women's clothing store. And the holiday season can be hell for those of us who work in retail. But every now and again, a little ray of sunshine stops into the store to brighten our overworked, overstressed lives.

As I was on my lunch break one day, a coworker decided to relate one of these customer incidents to me.

Other Manager: So, did you hear how we made our gift card goal the other day?

Me: No. [Insert name of big boss] didn't want to talk about it.

OM: Oh, let me tell you then. (breaking into big Cheshire cat smile) So, I had this woman come up to the register with thirty gift cards, five each of the different styles.

Me: (warily) Um-hmm...

OM: And then she tells me she wants one cent on each of them.

Me: ( choking) A penny?

OM: Yes, a penny. And then asks if I have to swipe them to activate. And when I say yes, she hands me a piece of gift card sized cardboard to put in front of it. So I just asked, why? And then she says, I'm a gift card collector. I have over five thousand gift cards in my collection, and yours are just lovely.

Me: You're making this up.

OM: No I'm not and it gets better. I said to her, Oh really? Collect gift cards, and she says, yes, you have no idea. I had multiple orgasms when I walked in here and saw your gift card display.

At this point I was laughing so hard I cried. The other manager had been relaying this story to her mom, who also works at a store in another local mall, and apparently crazy gift card lady traveled all over the region collecting gift cards from various merchants.

And please, if you ever find yourself becoming really really excited about something you find in a store, there is no need to share that with the store employees.

Hot Cocoa

2007-10-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

Boy Star is enjoying kindergarten. I adore his teacher. The best kindergarten teacher ever. Young and soft spoken and energetic, and really great at keeping us informed on how he's doing.

And Baby Star, well I may have created a monster there. In that first week when he was missing his brother, I took him to Starbucks for hot cocoa. So now, as soon as we get the big one on the bus, he turns to me and says, "Mumma, go, Bucks, hot cocoa!" And heaven forbid we aren't actually going somewhere.

So they're both thriving.

Except.

Boy Star was referred to the Speech Pathologist. And I'm not deaf. I know he had speech issues. But God, the terms these people use. Developmental delays. Pathologists. An entire alphabet of Acronym-named assessments. IEP. The huge packet of info the school sent home with the form we had to signs permitting his evaluation. It is hard not to be overwhelmed.

I spent four years in college studying words. Language. They ways people communicate. And I can't help but feel I have failed my child. And am failing the second in the exact same ways.

Seasons Change, People Change...

2007-08-07T12:59:00.000-04:00

So, I just completely dated myself referencing an Expose song in my title, didn't I?

I'll take a moment while you make old lady jokes. I did turn thirty while I was on blogging hiatus.

A lot of things changed while I was on blogging hiatus; some good, some bad, some I can't begin to talk about. But I've missed this. One of those things that changed was my return to work, part time for now, which may seriously limit the time I have here, but I have really missed this.

And the most overwhelming change of the summer: enrolling Boy Star in kindergarten. My baby is going to school. Full day kindergarten. He is not very excited. I am not very excited. My false, forced enthusiasm is doing nothing for him. But it's practice, right? It's training for when the day comes and you have to let go completely. All those little steps are supposed to prepare us for that. So why then do so few of us manage to do it with grace?

When they're right...

2006-12-12T15:26:00.000-05:00

Arty Kid

Whether you were a drama freak or an emo poet, you definitely were expressive and unique.

You're probably a little less weird these days - but even more talented!

Who Were You In High School?

I wish I had a river...

2006-12-08T14:05:00.000-05:00

I used to love the holidays. Love them. The lights, the garland, the trees, the cookies, the carols, the gift-giving, the hot chocolate, the shopping even.

This year? Meh.

That's all I can manage. Just meh.

Still making cookies. Some gifts are bought, and we're getting the tree tomorrow. But it's all for the kids' sake this year.

Just call me Scrooge.

Never Say Never

2006-11-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

I keep re-learning that lesson, years too late.

This time it's the "I will never work retail again EVER" utterance I find myself having to take back.

And wouldn't it figure, I'm liking my job at the mall. (I reserve the right to rescind that statement the morning after Black Friday.)

And I've been trying for days now to write this post in my head, to explain all the reasons why, without belittling stay-at-home motherhood, but I don't have the skill or the clarity to manage that right now. It just suffices to say that it's amazing how we can turn out to be so different from the person we once thought we were.

You don't say?

2006-10-28T19:47:00.000-04:00

You are The Tower

Ambition, fighting, war, courage. Destruction, danger, fall, ruin.

The Tower represents war, destruction, but also spiritual renewal. Plans are disrupted. Your views and ideas will change as a result.

The Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower stands for "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." You have been shaken up; blinded by a shocking revelation. It sometimes takes that to see a truth that one refuses to see. Or to bring down beliefs that are so well constructed. What's most important to remember is that the tearing down of this structure, however painful, makes room for something new to be built.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Quiz swiped from dear OmegaMom.

Asthma sucks, part 317

2006-10-20T15:41:00.000-04:00

The boys and I have caught colds, and BoyStar ended up in the Er Wednesday when his asthma flared. Asthma sucks. And I am too exhausted to write anything, but not too exhausted to play with fun blog quizzes.

You Are Apple Cider

Smooth and comforting. But downright nasty when cold.

What Part of Fall Are You?

Your French Name is:

Isabelle Billard

What's Your French Name?

You Are Best Described By...

(Stamped) Lips
by Andy Warhol

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

You Are a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Traditional and conservative, most people find you comforting.
You're friendly and easy to get to know. This makes you very popular - without even trying!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

You Are Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream

You just don't know when you've had enough (or too much)!

What Flavor Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Are You?

The days are very long

2006-10-13T10:10:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was one of those days.

One of those days when I wish I were one of those cool moms. You know, the moms who take it all in stride, who pick up the camera and laugh when their kids behave in a way that warrants being listed for sale on eBay. When the baby decides it's fun to sample everything in the fridge and pull knives out of the dishwasher if it's unlocked, and turn it on if it is locked, and the preschoooler is experimenting with irony and hyperbole and directing it all at mom, and then the baby decides to climb up on the diningroom table, take all the flowers out of the vase, dump out half the dirt in the housplants, and then play with the prisms on the chandelier --because how dare mommy attempt to do housework.

I'm not that mom.

I'm the mom who puts the kids to bed early and hides in the bathtub with a drink.

Earworms

2006-10-06T14:26:00.000-04:00

So, my life these days: working on the house, herding the kids, new boots, and earworms. Seriously though, was there anything on earth quite as spine-tingling as Jeff Buckley's voice?

Looking out the door
I see the rain fall upon the funeral mourners
Parading in a wake of sad relations
As their shoes fill up with water

Maybe I'm too young
To keep good love from going wrong
But tonight, you're on my mind so
You never know

Broken down and hungry for your love
With no way to feed it
Where are you tonight?
Child, you know how much I need it.
Too young to hold on
And too old to just break free and run

Sometimes a man gets carried away,
When he feels like he should be having his fun
Much too blind to see the damage he's done
Sometimes a man must awake to find that, really,
He has no-one...

So I'll wait for you... And I'll burn
Will I ever see your sweet return?
Oh, will I ever learn?
Oh, Lover, you should've come over
Cause it's not too late.

Lonely is the room the bed is made
The open window lets the rain in
Burning in the corner is the only one
Who dreams he had you with him
My body turns and yearns for a sleep
That won't ever come
It's never over,
My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It's never over,
all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her...
It's never over,
All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter...
It's never over,
She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever...

But maybe I'm just too young to keep good love
From going wrong
Oh... lover you should've come over...

Yes, and I feel too young to hold on
I'm much too old to break free and run
Too deaf, dumb, and blind
To see the damage I've done
Sweet lover, you should've come over
Oh, love, well I'll wait for you
Lover, you should've come over
'Cause it's not too late.

Bad Influences

2006-09-26T12:20:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, while DaddyStar had the boys out for the day at his parents', Grammie Imelda invited me to the mall with her. It has been years since the two of us went to shopping without the kids. There's a reason for that.

She hadn't been to Sephora yet. When we walked in she said, "Show me everything. We're not leaving until I buy something."

And then she encouraged me to try on as many pairs of pants until I found some that I liked in New York and Co. But I really did need pants. Really.

And then there's this:

Boots. It's an illness.

Skinny Pants

2006-09-19T13:28:00.000-04:00

I love the GAP. Really, I do. And Audrey Hepburn? There are no adjectives to describe my love for that woman.

But skinny pants? No. Skinny pants are just wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Clothes shopping is not going to be fun this fall. Maybe I'll just spend all my money on boots.

Verisimilitude

2006-09-15T09:11:00.000-04:00

Bali Hai Calls Mama

As I was putting away the groceries
I'd spent the morning buying
for the week's meals I'd planned
around things the baby could eat,
things my husband would eat,
and things I should eat
because they aren't too fattening,
late on a Saturday afternoon
after flinging my coat on a chair
and wiping the baby's nose
while asking my husband
what he'd fed it for lunch
and whether
the medicine I'd brought for him
had made his cough improve,
wiping the baby's nose again,
checking its diaper,
stepping over the baby
who was reeling to and from
the bottom kitchen drawer
with pots, pans, and plastic cups,
occasionally clutching the hem of my skirt
and whining to be held,
I was half listening for the phone
which never rings for me
to ring for me
and someone's voice to say that
I could forget about handing back
my students' exams which I'd had for a week,
that I was right about The Waste Land,
that I'd been given a raise,
all the time wondering
how my sister was doing,
whatever happened to my old lover(s),
and why my husband wanted
a certain brand of toilet paper;
and wished I hadn't, but I'd bought
another fashion magazine that promised to make me beautiful by Christmas,
and there wasn't room for the creamed corn
and every time I opened the refrigerator door
the baby rushed to grab whatever was on the bottom shelf
which meant I constantly had to wrestle
jars of its mushy food out of its sticky hands
and I stepped on the baby's hand and the baby was screaming
and I dropped the bag of cake flour I'd bought to make cookies with
and my husband rushed in to find out what was wrong because the baby
was drowning out the sound of the touchdown although I had scooped
it up and was holding it in my arms so its crying was inside
my head like an echo in a barrel and I was running cold water
on its hand while somewhere in the back of my mind wondering what
to say about The Waste Land and whether I could get away with putting
broccoli in a meatloaf when

suddenly through the window
came the wild cry of geese.

---Marilyn Nelson

Five Years

2006-09-11T14:10:00.000-04:00

Five years ago today I was pregnant with BoyStar. The day before my sonogram. It was sunny and gorgeous. I didn't hear about the World Trade Center until a coworker came in and asked if anyone had heard a news report, because Howard Stern was saying a plane had crashed into the tower and who can ever take Howard Stern seriously.

But others talk about that day for more eloquently and with more immediate experience than I can. I'm going to write about what came next.

The next day I saw an ultrasound image of a big, healthy baby boy. That child was born weighing over ten pounds. And he thrived. Five years later he recognizes the alphabet and numbers and shapes. He counts and does puzzles and plays computer and video games. He manipulates his grandparents and fights with his baby brother. Because life goes on. Because babies will keep being born. Because people can survive the worst losses: betrayals and divorces and deaths, and yet life goes on. And while that life may be a different life, it can still be a good life. It's what we choose to make it.

And I think we owe it to the victims of that day to make the best life we can.

The pampered chef

2006-09-08T12:29:00.000-04:00

My stove came yesterday. My new fancy, shiny, expensive stove. With a simmer burner and a power burner. Woohoo!

So what to make first? Brownies? Pie? Double chocolate bread pudding? Crab quiche? Souffle? Fettucine alfredo?

If you need me this weekend, I'll be in the kitchen. :D

A Reminder

2006-09-07T08:55:00.000-04:00

The story goes that it took Elizabeth Bishop fifteen years to write One Art. Fifteen years. She tacked it up on her wall and rearranged lines. For fifteen years.

So this is what patience and determination can do:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Things that are Lost

2006-08-31T20:48:00.000-04:00

I love my children. Before they were born, I loved them. I am a better person for having them.

And the big movie-plot sacrifices? Those are easy. I’ve functioned for years not sleeping more than any two hours consecutively. I happily nursed them for years. I have no doubt that I could kill for them, and that I would willingly die for them. Without a second thought.

But some days. Some days when you’ve fished one too many toy out of the toilet, when you’ve grabbed the baby off of the windowsill for the tenth time, when the preschooler left candy in his carseat again, when you’re the mother all the old ladies in the grocery store tsk, when you’ve said repeatedly “if I told you once, I told you a thousand times, don’t lick your brother” – those days it can be so hard to remind yourself all the rest of the sacrifices are worth it.

The story plots and lines of poetry that you swear you’ll get to once the kids are in bed. The places you were going to visit before you turned thirty. The relationship that could change the core of who you are. Those losses have to be worth it.

So when they finally fall asleep, their trusting faces peaceful on their pillows, and I creep into their rooms to watch them breathe, may something bigger than myself help me believe it’s worth it.

We're In

2006-08-31T14:42:00.000-04:00

Moving. Sucks. Rocks.

Granted, I should have played dutiful housewife and not taken a trip to Minnesota two weeks before the big move. Yes, I bring these things on myself. Yes, I should know better by now.

It’s no fun moving into a house with no air conditioning in August. Generous relatives with large vehicles are valuable beyond measure. One can live without a stove for two weeks.

I am now cured of every pack rat tendency I ever displayed. The new house is twice the size of the old one, but I have run out of room for sentiment. Boxes are leaving here for Goodwill just as quickly as they came in. I’ve been carrying too much of the past with me for far too long anyhow.

And just to prove I’m not totally heartless, I cried more last week than I have in months? Years? The last night in the old house, as I was turning the light out in Boy Star’s empty room for the last time, I was hit with a flood of memories just the clichéd way it happens in the movies. The first time I changed his diaper. The time he scarred his perfect little face falling on the vacuum. The afternoons he’d climb into his crib and throw all the stuffed animals out. Rocking him and reading to him and singing him lullabies. The days and nights that made me into a mother.

I learned how to give myself away in the old house. I hope I can get myself back.

The Random Quotations Meme

2006-08-23T10:25:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the lovely Stefanie for helping me procrastinate today.

So, the ten quotes from the random quote generator with which I most identify:

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go... And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."
---Gloria Naylor

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."
---John Adams, Journal, 1772

"In the end, you'll know which people really love you. They're the ones who see you for who you are and, no matter what, always find a way to be at your side."
---Randy K. Milholland, Something Positive Comic, 08-23-05

"Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart."
---Confucius

"Wear the old coat and buy the new book."
---Austin Phelps

"You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering."
---Henri-Frédéric Amiel

"What children take from us, they give…We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply."
---Sonia Taitz

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."
---Mark Twain

"Blaze with the fire that is never extinguished."
---Luisa Sigea

"Give all to love; obey thy heart."
---Ralph Waldo Emerson

Moving Day

2006-08-22T13:57:00.000-04:00

So Friday is the big day. On Thursday my dear computer will be packed up and moved to a new house, and who knows when I'll be back online.

I have no words to describe the depths of terror this strikes in my heart. I don't cope well with change. Change and isolation from my dearest and farthest away friends is not cool.

And yes we have a telephone. When I try to use it, the boys assume this is a sign from above that havoc should ensue, usually at the expense of something belonging to their father. Which causes said father to question my parenting. And we all know how that ends.

Woe is me. :D

Ohio: The State that Never Ends

2006-08-19T14:08:00.000-04:00

I really love my friend. Indeed I do. Because an eight day vacation, four of which are spent in the car, is insane.

In all honesty, it wasn't that bad until the very last day. Which is henceforth known as The Day BabyStar was Possessed by Howler Monkeys.

Minnesota is lovely. Chicago, not the place you want to take a wrong turn and drive through construction during rush hour traffic on a Friday.

But you know, if you get lost often enough, you find your way.

Ohio is way too long.

There is nothing like the view out of the Fort Pitt tunnel. It's worth taking the long way home.

Does that make me crazy?

2006-08-08T12:37:00.000-04:00

Gnarls Barkley earworms rule!

So, our big summer adventure. Me, the twinkles, and my friend's son, are driving from here to Minnesota. Two days, three boys, one me.

Crazy? Definitely. But missing my friend more.

Quiet

2006-08-04T13:00:00.000-04:00

There's been a lot going on here, but I've got nothing to say about any of it.

We have a wedding to attend tomorrow. I'll post pics when I've got them.

Sarah's home

2006-07-28T10:15:00.000-04:00

I have no details, but she was home last night. Thanks again for all the good thoughts and prayers.

You all are the best.

Hope

2006-07-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

There's been an update from my friend. Her daughter left a message saying she wants to come home. She's about thirty miles from home, and the police there have been notified.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Lost

2006-07-25T10:09:00.000-04:00

It's hard to explain what becoming a mother does to a person; the way it expands and connects one to other mothers, other children. There're certain signs of motherhood women recognize in each other. The moms sway in grocery store lines long after their children are no longer babies in their arms. All the moms in a public place will turn to the source of a child's cry. Other mothers will offer their seats to pregnant women, their place in the dreaded public bathroom line.

And sometimes all we can do for each other and each other's children is send love and hope and faith.

Sarah, the thirteen-year-old daughter of a mom I know on-line, has been missing since Friday.

Please keep her in your thoughts.

Home

2006-07-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

So, we signed the sale agreement for our house yesterday.

I have such mixed emotions about this. I like our little house. We brought our babies home to this house. I love the view from the kitchen windows. It's a wonderful neighborhood. We're only moving because the house is too small, and it's impractical to try to put on an addition.

sigh...

I guess we should find a new place to live.

OMG!

2006-07-18T09:35:00.000-04:00

"Pregnant swingin."

Pregnant swingin?

I am thisclose to getting rid of Sitemeter.

To Whom it May Concern

2006-07-12T10:29:00.000-04:00

Howdy stranger.

Yes, I mean you, who found this blog by searching for "hot mumma."

Nothing to see here. If you want a hot mumma, head here.

It's a sucky day in the Neighborhood

2006-07-05T12:15:00.000-04:00

Our phone has not been working. We can call out, but are having problems receiving calls. Which, given the numbers we've been getting from the re-elect Santorum committe, I'm not sure is such a bad thing.

However...

40 minutes on hold to talk to a person? With an intermittent "access your account online" message, when the bloody website won't let me create an account?

Only to have the first person put me on hold to transfer me to someone else, for another ten minutes?

Oy. Vey.

Bittersweet

2006-06-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

My summer project, other than the move from hell about which I am in total denial, is to gently wean BabyStar. I'm ready for this and I'm not. That little voice in the back of my head keeps whispering he may be the last...

And so last night after he nursed before bed, he let go and looked up and said "yum yum yum yum," which he usually reserves for popsicles and chocolate chip cookies.

I think that's the best compliment I've ever received.

Pie

2006-06-23T09:34:00.000-04:00

You know how late in the spring/early summer, you get the urge to bake all sorts of cobblers and pies?

Okay maybe that's just me.

Yeah, next time I'll stick with peaches, or apples, or maybe even cherries, but not blueberries.

The boy wonders and blueberry pie just make a big mess.

A tasty mess, but a very big mess.

Lyrics

2006-06-17T12:14:00.000-04:00

Just because.

Wounded
Third Eye Blind

The guy who put his hands on you
Has got nothing to do with me
And the bruises that you feel will heal
And I hope you'll come around
'Cause we're missing you
And you used to speak so easy
Now you're afraid to talk to me
It's like walking with the wounded
Carrying that weight way too far
The concrete pulled you down so hard
Out there with the wounded
Missing you
Well I never claimed to understand what happens after dark
But my fingers catch sparks at the thought of touching you

When you're wounded
Let me break it down 'till I force the issue
We miss your face and you know I wish you
Would come back down the the Dalva Bar
You tell 'em, that's just my battle scar
I want to kiss you
And knock 'em down like we used to
You're the marigold
Till you're walking down shaking that ass again
And then you walk on, baby walk on, you walk on, on and on
You're an angel in the pit with her hands in the air
And we're missing you
Now it's fall, and your shoulders get tighter
Nervous flicks on the lighter, boots
Your pissed off poets, your women's groups
And the friends with you, we should have known this fool
Well I guess we missed the mark
Still my fingers catch the sparks at the thought of them touching you
Now you're wounded
Let me break it down 'till I force the issue
You never come around, and you know we miss you
Well nobody took your pride away
I said, that's something people say
Back down the bully to the back of the bus
'Cause it's time for them to be scared of us
'Till you're yelling, how we living cause you got the ball
Then you rock on baby, rock on, you rock on, on and on
You're a summer time hottie with her socks in the air
You're screaming I don't care baby I don't care
You say you don't know
You say you can't grow
All I know is we're missing you
You say you don't know
You say you can't grow
All I know is we're missing you
Show up, show up wounded
Show up, show up wounded

In the name of love

2006-06-16T09:52:00.000-04:00

Lovely picture isn't it? It's here via the lovely Lemony for two reasons. First, I'd do anything for that woman.

Second, I think it sucks hard that any minority group in this country in 2006 needs a pride month. I don't know about everyone else, but my mother managed to teach me, by the time I was oh I don't know maybe nine or ten, that what other people do with themselves is none of my damn business.

I wish more people had had a mom like mine.

Trouble

2006-06-13T16:40:00.000-04:00

I'm in trouble.

See here, halfway down that boring business article?

ULTA will open its newest location at the North Hills Village Mall, 4801 McKnight Road, Ross, next Friday. To celebrate, the new ULTA store is offering free makeovers and hair consultations, and giving away gift certificates to the first 100 customers in the store during opening weekend. It combines a selection of name brand cosmetics, fragrances and skin and hair care products with a full-service in-store salon.

And here, from the lovely Sephora site.

"Pittsburgh, PA Sephora is opening in July 2006 in Ross Park Mall."

Yeah. I'm going to need a job.

A word to the Wise

2006-06-08T15:57:00.000-04:00

Since it seems I do not qualify for that category...

So, say you're a rapidly-approaching-30-years-old mother of two. And say chasing those two around all day just isn't getting you back in shape. So for a few months you exercise religiously, to the point that you get bored with all the new workout DVDs you've bought for yourself.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT go digging up your copy of the NYC Ballet workout if it has been almost five years since you dragged your happy ass to a dance class. And if you should happen to do so, for the love of all that is holy, take it easy.

Wanna know what will happen? Your waist will become some bizarre anatomical equator. Your southern half will be just fine when you roll out of bed the next morning. But when you go to pick up your baby, every muscle between your navel and neck will curse at you in several languages.

I tell you this because I love you. Not so that you can laugh at my pain.

More meme time

2006-06-08T09:27:00.000-04:00

From the ever-adorable Gringirl. And before I forget, Crazy Cat Lady, Zadi, and OmegaMom go for it.

One body part you’d like to change? Hmm. I've never cared for the bump in my nose. I'd straighten that.

Describe your ideal Saturday. I'd wake up late and everyone would be out of the house. I'd have bagels and lox for breakfast, exercise for a long time, take a bubblebath, waste all morning at the bookstore, come home and write all afternoon, order dinner in, have a glass of Reisling, then chat on the phone with a friend until bedtime.

What have you got for leftovers in your fridge? Not much. It's grocery day and I just cleaned out the fridge. Pasta and veggies from last night.

You get to travel back in time for one day. I go back to high school and kiss the one guy I regret not kissing.

If you had one hour with the President, what would you say to him? The answer to this doesn't even matter, as he doesn't comprehend my vocabulary.

One body part you’d never change? My eyes.

Your most favorite thing about motherhood? The way it lifts you out of yourself.

Ultra-violet rays or tan-in-a-bottle? Neither baby. I'm working the tuberculosis patient look.

You have an unlimited expense account; what three things do you purchase first? A bigger house. The cute sandals I was drooling over the other day. Lipstick.

Your least favorite thing about motherhood? All the things you can't control.

YeIt’s 10:00 p.m., do you know where your children are? They're in bed, asleep. And if they aren't asleep, they better be quiet. ;)

I? Have to get out more

2006-06-06T10:33:00.000-04:00

After weeks of craziness with house projects and death of relatives and heathen children, I finally got to go out Sunday morning.

All by myself.

To Kohl's where I had to return the cutest hot pink silk cami that made me look like a stuffed sausage. Wah.

But then there were cute sandals to look at, so that was okay.

And since I love books more than oxygen, and there is no coffee at Kohl's, off to the bookstore.

I have a happy little bookstore routine. First, I have to get the yummy hazelnut latte. The big one. Yum.

Then, I meander through the periodical aisles, up and down, until I get to the final aisle and grab the latest Poets & Writers.

Sounds good, no?

I had to pass behind some man on my way along the magazine rack. I was polite. I stayed out of his space. He stared at my legs, up and down, no less than three times in under a minute.

I wasn't wearing heels. I do not have a tan. I have cellulite and spider veins. If he wasn't so creepily obvious, I would have felt sorry for him.

But no, he killed my bookstore mojo.

Didn't stop me from buying books, of course. ;)

All this to say, I need to get out more.

Rain

2006-06-03T11:35:00.000-04:00

Soooo ... I should know by now to watch what I bitch about.

I had forgotten about this.

Yes, the festival itself does rock. And oh the yummy horrible deep-fried festival food. Mmmmm... fried veggies smothered in cheese sauce...

wiping up drool

Anyhow. The tradition is, it rains every weekend of the arts festival. It always has. It always will. Forever and ever, amen.

So, it's safe if anyone wants to come visit. Until July, anyway.

Hot

2006-05-31T09:44:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-25T13:14:00.000-04:00

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?

2006-05-19T20:27:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-17T20:02:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-14T14:38:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-12T10:24:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-05T12:03:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-04T12:54:00.000-04:00

$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

2006-05-01T16:46:00.000-04:00

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.

One more

2006-04-30T13:57:00.000-04:00

Since it's the end of poetry month, I thought this was fitting.

Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
-- Mark Strand

Another poem

2006-04-28T10:05:00.000-04:00

The Clasp
Sharon Olds

She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,
we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,
I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his
face, again, and when I had her wrist
in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for a couple
of seconds, to make an impression on her,
to hurt her, our beloved firstborn, I even almost
savored the stinging sensation of the squeezing,
the expression, into her, of my anger,
"Never, never, again," the righteous
chant accompanying the clasp. It happened very
fast-grab, crush, crush,
crush, release-and at the first extra
force, she swung her head, as if checking
who this was, and looked at me,
and saw me-yes, this was her mom,
her mom was doing this. Her dark,
deeply open eyes took me
in, she knew me, in the shock of the moment
she learned me. This was her mother, one of the
two whom she most loved, the two
who loved her most, near the source of love
was this.

"near the source of love was this"
Mmm-hmmm.

Mama said

2006-04-27T20:34:00.000-04:00

Ever have one of those days when you want to just chuck it all and remember what is was to live unencumbered, irresponsible, a potentiality?

Yeah.

Baby Star is teething. Again. He bit me roughly fifteen times today, and pinched me another twenty-seven.

Boy Star. Hoo boy. He accidentally kicked me in the head at the grocery story. He sassed me every ten minutes, when he wasn't hanging on me. He pressed buttons I had no idea I had. And it seems he can do a wicked impersonation of a wall, at least when I speak.

So I've had a bubblebath, and now I'm drinking bourbon to ease the fire in my head.

Poor Grammar

2006-04-26T10:18:00.000-04:00

Kaliroz always has the best quizzes posted on her blog.

Aside from the grammar in the title, I actually liked the results I got on this one.

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions.You're the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl... or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

What European City Do You Belong In?

So who's up for a pub crawl?

Earworm

2006-04-24T14:41:00.000-04:00

I have a Melissa Etheridge earworm today. Maybe if I give it to one of you, it will go away.

Angels Would Fall

The rope that’s wrapped around me
Is cutting through my skin
And the doubts that have surrounded me
Are finding their way in
I keep it close to me
Like a holy man prays
In my desperate hour
It’s better that way

So I’ll come by and see you again
I’ll be such a very good friend
Have mercy on my soul
I will never let you know
Where my mind has been

Angels never came down
There’s no one here they want to hang around
But if they knew
If they knew you at all
Then one by one the angels
Angels would fall

I’ve crept into your temple
I have slept upon your pew
I’ve dreamed of the divinity
Inside and out of you
I want it more than truth
I can taste it on my breath
I would give my life just for a little death

So I’ll come by and see you again
I’ll be just a very good friend
I will not look upon your face
I will not touch upon your grace
Your ecclesiastic skin

I’ll come by and see you again
I’ll have to be a very good friend
If I whisper they will know
I’ll just turn around and go
You will never know my sin

Enjoy!

Girls are not smart

2006-04-21T10:21:00.000-04:00

That lovely momma-blood-pressure-raising statement came out of the four year old yesterday.

Girls are not smart. Just boys are.

He meant that he and daddy are smart because they play video games well. He's lucky they play video games at all after that.

Someone please tell me he's not doomed to a lifetime of lonely misogyny.

Please.

More more more

2006-04-18T21:43:00.000-04:00

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
Margaret Atwood

The world is full of women
who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I've a choice
of how, and I'll take the money.

I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it's all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything's for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can't. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape's been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it's the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can't hear them.
And I can't, because I'm after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don't let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I'll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That's what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.

Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They'd like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look--my feet don't hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.

And more poetry

2006-04-18T20:52:00.000-04:00

Dream Song 4
John Berryman

Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her

or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni.--Sir Bones: is stuffed,
de world, wif feeding girls.

--Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes
downcast . . . The slob beside her feasts . . . What wonders is
she sitting on, over there?
The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars.
Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry.
--Mr. Bones: there is.

Power

2006-04-18T12:23:00.000-04:00

So ever since I read The Handmaid's Tale before bed the other night, I keep having all these creepy, surreal dreams. You know, the kind where you remember the feeling more than the details.

And then this morning, the local radio show had an interview with the author of Female Chauvinist Pigs.

It's all very troubling.

When exactly did feminism become twisted into sexuality-as-a-commodity free for all? And if we as women are going to use our bodies that way, why in the hell are we not doing more for true equality for all women?

Hummers

2006-04-15T16:56:00.000-04:00

So, some women friends were recently having a conversation about -- how shall I phrase this as not to get weird search results -- adult oral activity.

I'm a bit sleep deprived lately and cannot quite grasp what exactly it is about this particular activity some women find so ... not nice.

Texture issues?

Anyhow, this is what I wonder about when I read The Handmaid's Tale before going to sleep.

Power imbalances. I think that's where I was headed with this. More on that later.

Today

2006-04-11T20:44:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day.

The sun kissed the babies in the yard.

Wee one napped by himself, twice.

I talked to my best friend, and heard her new baby squealing in the background.

I had time to read.

I have work that is unfinished.

More poetry

2006-04-08T20:38:00.000-04:00

We only get a month. I'm not sure that's long enough, but anyhow...

I've been hunting new poems lately. One of my favorites.

"What Do Women Want"
Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

So much for resolve

2006-04-07T21:52:00.000-04:00

I wasn't going to do any more of these things.

Your 2005 Song Is

by the Pussycat Dolls

"Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me"

What happens in 2005, stays in 2005!

What Hit Song of 2005 Are You?

I feel so dirty.

Lock up your daughters

2006-04-05T20:53:00.000-04:00

Boy Star: Mommy, how do I get a wife?

Momma Star: Why do you want a wife?

Boy Star: So I can grow up and have babies. Where do I get a wife?

Momma Star: You find a girl you like and want to kiss and ask her to marry you. Then you get married and she's your wife.

Boy Star: I need to go on the computer. I think I can find one on the internet.

I am so dreading puberty.

April is the cruelest month

2006-04-01T21:27:00.000-05:00

It's National Poetry Month. Yes, I'm a nerd for knowing that.

Anyhow, since I can't write for anything these days, how about an excerpt of The Wasteland?

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Yeah, that.

Go read the rest.

Rant political

2006-03-31T13:15:00.000-05:00

Earlier in the week, the Moron-in-Chief felt the need to tell the American public once again how wonderful it is that we are killing people in Iraq.

That's a lot of tripe to try and stomach, so here's the highlight:

The temptation in today's society is to say, it's not worth it. Or, certain people can't self-govern. It's really part of the debate in Iraq, isn't it, when you think about it -- is, can these people self-govern? And I can understand why some in America say they can't, because all they see is unbelievable violence. And we're a country of deep compassion. We care. One of the great things about America, one of the beauties of our country, is that when we see a young, innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry. We don't care what the child's religion may be, or where that child may live, we cry. It upsets us. The enemy knows that, and they're willing to -- they're willing to kill to shake our confidence. That's what they're trying to do.

First, Iraq is self-governing? Who knew? Us sending our military over there to oust their government (as awful as their government may have been), training their military and police forces, and awarding reconstruction contracts to American companies is self-governing? Mmmmkay.

One of the great things about America, one of the beauties of our country, is that when we see a young, innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry. We don't care what the child's religion may be, or where that child may live, we cry.

Oh where do I start? Who the hell is this "we" that man thinks he speaks for? Because it sure as hell ain't me. It ain't millions of American mothers who mourn every child, the children who died during Katrina, the children who starve every day in this country, the children who are blown up around the world by American weapons.

He sure as hell isn't talking about Reverend Phelps and his followers, the Americans who support cutting funding to Head Start, the kind of Americans who voted for the Emperor without Clothes.

I'm beginning to see a pattern

2006-03-28T15:46:00.000-05:00

You Are a Rainbow

Breathtaking and rare
You are totally enchanting and intriguing
But you usually don't stick around long!

You are best known for: your beauty

Your dominant state: seducing

What Type of Weather Are You?

It's official. My mind is permanently in the gutter. Lightning is so much cooler than rainbows.

A rose by any other name

2006-03-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

Cecilia Fire Thunder.

That that is a kick-ass name for a kick-ass woman.

Bill Napoli. That's what you name a man who says:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life

And if anyone out there knows Senator Napoli, perhaps you'd care to get him to define "simple rape" and why should simple rape victims not be permitted abortions.