Life in the Big City

Wednesday

2011-12-24T10:29:00.000-06:00

Pontotoc, Texas

Once I passed the turnoff to 281, just south of Marble Falls, I had officially gone as far west from Austin as I had ever gone, in the 10 years I've lived in Texas. Things were feeling unchartered. Well, they were plenty chartered, thanks to Google Maps and road signs, but the sense of adventure kicked in anyway. It was good to be alone, good to be on the road, good to be heading away from the familiar. The hills melted away into plains. Highway 71 stretched ever on.

I gassed up in Llano and checked my tire, which had been leaking air for months but seemed to be holding steady. Bought some bottled water and Pringles. I only ever eat Pringles on road trips. That morning I'd printed out sections of the trip from Austin to Santa Fe - 5 pages, 5 legs. It was 9 hours or so to Roswell, and I was worried that I would get tired before then, or bored, or restless, but none of those things happened. The more I drove the happier I felt.

In Pontotoc the earth was sandy and soft. I stopped at the Historic marker and took a picture of the abandoned school, and a stretch of the town. The whole town looked deserted and sad. There were signs posted saying "Stop the Mine" on a couple of ranch fences. I tried listening to my own music but my speakers were no match for the pavement, so I gave up and turned to the radio. Country Western and Golden Oldies would carry me through to New Mexico.

Eden marked the end of my first leg, and soon after I was driving past San Angelo -- a much bigger town than I expected, although I saw very little of it since I stayed on the loop. It was after that I first saw the wind farms. I wanted to stop and take a picture, but I don't think I could have captured it adequately on film anyway. The more I drove, the more these giant white towers seemed to appear on hillsides and ridges. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Silent and huge, blindingly white, and turning so methodically. I wondered what the locals thought of this disruption to their landscape. I wondered if they at least profited from it. They were everywhere. Whenever I thought maybe I'd left them behind, more would appear in the distance.

Gassed up again in Big Spring, at the intersection of US 20, which cuts across the state from Odessa to Shreveport. This is Bush territory. Ranches and oil drills, everywhere you look. The sun was slowly going down. Cattle slowly gave way to crops. It took me a while to figure out what "gin" meant, and what the puffs of white by the side of the road represented. Was this leftover snow on the ground? No, cotton. Flocks of birds swooped, descended, and rose again from the cotton fields. Geese in v-formations flew overhead. I was headed towards Brownfield, so named, presumably, for the brown fields of cotton surrounding it. This must have been cotton country for a long time.

I watched the sun with anxiety, because I thought I'd left my glasses at home (turns out I had them the whole time). I can drive at night without them, in a pinch, but I prefer not to, especially in unfamiliar territory.

Goodbye, sun

I pushed on in the dark. Someone had told me that the stars would be amazing when I got to the Texas/New Mexico border. There wasn't a moon and I kept looking for starlight, but it wasn't as spectacular as I had hoped. I had 100 miles to go in the dark, before stopping in Roswell.

It's true what they say about Texas being a very very big state. I gave a silent cheer when I crossed over the border. It was one lane from here all the way to town, and despite occasionally passing, and being passed, I had the road nearly to myself. About 10 miles outside of town I called Charles and had him book me a room at the La Quinta.

Roswell was bigger than I expected as well. It's home to the New Mexico Military Institute, which may partly account for its size. I don't know. Maybe it's the aliens. The McDonalds is shaped like a UFO, the Wendy's sign says "Aliens Welcome!" But I imagine all this alien crap gets a little old for the people who actually have to live here. I got out of the car after 500 miles and 9 hours of driving feeling a little wobbly but mostly alright. Foursquare and Yelp directed me to Big D's Downtown Dive, where I ate an enormous green chile cheeseburger. I headed back to the hotel, flipped aimlessly through the channels for an hour or so, and fell happily asleep, eager to see what New Mexico looked like in the morning.

My enemy is my teacher

2011-09-18T17:58:00.000-05:00

The thing that gets me lately, the top of the list of things, is that as a Christian I am tasked with not just loving my neighbor, but loving my enemy. This is the teaching of Christ, the greatest teaching, the most demanding one. And I signed up for it as an adult (I was baptized and confirmed at the age of 31), so it's not like I didn't know the drill already. I can't play dumb and pretend to not have read the fine print on this one. But I'm happy to gloss over that section of the contract every Sunday, because it's HARD FREAKING WORK. Hell, it's hard enough loving my miserable, alcoholic neighbors, but I give it a shot. My enemy? No thanks.

So, it's fair to say that I've been doing a pretty shitty job of the whole "love your enemy" thing, despite 18 years of devoted religious practice, prayer, meditation, and whatnot. I've prayed for my enemy. I've examined my resentments toward my enemy. I've searched for ways in which I played a part in creating the enmity between us. I've sought forgiveness and redemption there. But I would still mostly like my enemy to be run over by a truck, thankyouverymuch, and I feel awful about that truth.

Anyway. Imagine my surprise when I got it right today, for at least an hour, maybe more. I did this little mental trick, when I felt the usual "oh God not him again" thought trying to worm its way into my brain, and I quickly did a mental gymnastic trick and gifted my brain with a different thought entirely. That thought was, "oh good, my teacher is here."

I don't even know where that came from*, but it made me smile. My teacher? Of course. And what does he teach me? Patience, with myself, with him, with God, for allowing things to unfold in His time and not in mine. Forgiveness for my own mistakes, for his. Love for everyone, including my teacher, all of us children of God. And selflessness -- stepping outside of myself and my own self-centered view of the world, and seeing everyone, all of us, as equal, and equally loved. My teacher is a gift, my teacher is grace itself.

“When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.”
-Desmond Tutu

A therapist once told me that the time would come when I would be grateful not just for the experience, but grateful to him. I think -- maybe -- I'm getting closer to that time.

*(God, duh)

Empty Sky

2011-09-08T23:15:00.000-05:00

I stood in my mother's Woods Hole kitchen, watching the reports trickling in on the morning news show. I remember all that initial confusion, before the pieces fell together. What kind of plane? Was it an accident? On purpose? And then that sickening moment, that second-plane-shot.

I don't really know how to deal with this 10th Anniversary. It all feels far away and yet very very fresh. Extremely personal but writ large. Self indulgent to relive it, to write about it, but important, too. My memories are the same as your memories, but different, and it's all tied in with where I was then and where I am now and all that happened during, and just before, and in between then and now.

Remember that moment before you knew it was possible for that great big tower to collapse? And then remember that moment when it came down? And then the realization that the other one would, inevitably, too? And how you couldn't help but think of all the people trapped inside? Of course you do. On the Cape it was glorious early autumn, the air was crisp, birds were singing, and on the television -- Hell on earth.

I remember those eerie, empty skies above Cape Cod over the days that followed. And reflexively watching for con trails, for signs of danger. It was blue, beautiful, rainless, and cool, and I felt hollowed out and spent.

I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning
To an empty sky

People I knew died that day going into the towers. No one near and dear to me, but people I knew by name, who knew me by name. Brothers of friends. Other people I knew decided to take a later flight out of Logan and were miraculously, mysteriously spared. I was already in mourning for my stepmother who had died suddenly and young, just four months before. A friend from college died two years later from complications from AIDS -- specifically, a respiratory illness. He lived near the World Trade Center. I blamed Bin Laden.

My three-year-old pointed at our crushed oyster shell driveway just a few days after and said "Look, mama! Debris!" He had seen a lot of television by then. I cried a lot. He patted me on the head. My husband had already left for Texas to start his new job and our new life, to buy our new house. We talked on the phone maybe that day, maybe a day later. My panic and sense of urgency were met by his coolness and political analysis.

That life was already cracking for me, but September 11th didn't help. The gap between my experience and his was jarring and unresolvable. A few weeks later I flew with the boys to Austin, a stranger in a strange land, surrounded on the highway by pickup trucks with that same Jingoistic bumper sticker on them, purchased at Wal-Mart. I don't even remember what it said now. "These Colors Don't Run," maybe, or "Never Forget."

As if.

this could be the place

2011-09-07T17:42:00.000-05:00

Hello, original blogging platform. I wish to reclaim you.

Whole Foods - still too expensive for me, but hardly boycott-worthy

2009-08-18T09:43:00.005-05:00

I find this call for a boycott to be utter bullshit. I don't like Mackey's piece one bit, but I hardly think it warrants this kind of outcry from the Left.

I don't disagree 100% with the Whole Foods CEO, for that matter. He actually makes some interesting points, the Thatcher quote (gag me) and calls for tort reform notwithstanding. Whole Foods has always had a reputation of taking good care of its "team members," and it does that, in part, by following some of Mackey's principles.

I still can't afford to shop at Whole Foods, but this opinion piece won't stop me from picking up something from their deli now and then. HEB and its Central Market brand will still get the bulk of my shopping dollars, based on price and convenience more than anything else.

I boycott Nestle (yes, still) because that company does REALLY BAD THINGS to people, not because the CEO has REALLY BAD OPINIONS. If we started scrutinizing all the corporations around us in terms of where their donations are going, and what their opinion pieces support, we'd all have to hide in our houses.

Flickr photo by Robert Banh.

4

2009-07-22T21:16:00.010-05:00

songs that make me weepy:

Bermuda Highway - My Morning Jacket
Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens
Landed - Ben Folds
Two - Ryan Adams

poems that sustain me:

Free Flight - June Jordan
Pied Beauty - Gerald Manley Hopkins
Logos - Mary Oliver
This be the Verse - Philip Larkin

works of art that teach me to see better:

Henri Matisse - Music Lesson
Henri Cartier Bresson - Seville, Spain
Gustav Klimt - Judith
Georgia O'Keefe - Summer Days

books that help me live:

Operating Instructions - Anne Lamott
The Gift - Lewis Hyde
Elements of Style - Strunk and White
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

Summer

2009-07-21T20:47:00.003-05:00

I think it's safe to say that this is my happy little family's last summer without at least some sort of camp. This is the thing, you see, with working from home. In theory you can do it with kids around. In practice, not so much.

Oh, I can do some things, but any task which requires concentration, research, slinging words together, or otherwise using a hefty portion of my brain: no.

And while my kids, I think, would be quite content to spend the entire summer watching episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants, or commanding armies on Halo, something tells me this is not the healthiest set-up for any of us.

So, yes, next summer, camp.

Meanwhile, I'll be looking around for a babysitter to take them at least part time for a couple of weeks in August so I can get something done. The cost of the sitter may or may not be covered by the billable hours, which is the catch of course. But at least I'll feel productive, and they'll go to the pool, and we all won't be quite so sick of each other.

Thank God I never ended up having to homeschool them.

family reunion vid.

2009-07-20T00:47:00.001-05:00

vacationizing

2009-07-09T22:35:00.002-05:00

What I'm learning this trip, so far (or how to vacation with little ones and not completely lose your shit):

1. Plan only one thing every day.
2. Be willing to throw that plan out the window at a moment's notice.
3. Pay attention to what your kids are having fun doing. Do more of that.
4. It's okay to eat gelato before dinner, stay up late, and go swimming in the hotel pool at 9 o' clock at night.
5. Actually, it's practically mandatory.
6. Little kids don't want to hear about the history of Harvard Yard. They want to play hide-and-go-seek in Harvard Yard. Let them.
7. It's more fun if you play too.
8. The azalea bush by the Widener Library steps is a great hiding place.
9. Let them carry their own load. Give them backpacks with toys, disposable cameras, coloring books, and magic markers in them.
10. Slow down.

My kids have more fun riding the T than riding the sightseeing trolley. They prefer a $3 carousel ride in the park to a $25 Harbor Cruise. They're perfectly content to just sit by the edge of a fountain in Copley Square and splash with their feet for an hour.

The point is, of course, they're getting some time away from the ordinary, and they're getting precious long stretches of time with me.

This vacation is killing me, but it's worth it.

Doctor, not Mister

2009-07-08T23:23:00.002-05:00

Back in the day, the Boston Children's Museum was located in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, in a big old house if I recall. There was a giant replica of a rotary telephone outside that you could climb on. Somewhere there must exist a Kodak of me doing just that. My parents were friends with Michael Spock, then the director of the place. Mike's dad was the famous Dr. Spock, your go-to guy for parenting in the 1960s. His daughter and I grew up in the same town, went to the same school, and were good friends for many years. She had very long dark hair and a fondness for all varieties of monkeys. She also had a kick-ass dress-up collection, a house decorated in orange and purple, and a pair of exceptionally obnoxious songbirds who lived in the kitchen.

(Just pause to imagine for a moment being the granddaughter of the most famous pediatrician in the world, and the daughter of the director of the best known children's museum. That's pretty heavy duty.

But I digress.)

Since then the museum has moved to (and played a part in revitalizing) the Fort Point Channel neighborhood of South Boston. It's in a lovely three-story brick building overlooking the harbor. The famous, larger-than-life Hood milk bottle stands outside the entrance.It's also about 10 blocks from our hotel, so we headed over there this afternoon for some fun.

Funny how time slips away, right? Today it was my turn to be the parent, and my kids' to be the kids. I loved watching them climb, explore, play, and negotiate all over the place. It's still a great museum, although man is the politically correct force ever strong with those people. I don't think there's an exhibit that doesn't in some way or other reflect gender equality, ecological soundness, or respect for other cultures, if not all three at once. That and especially the commercialism (Arthur and D.W. are major players over at BCM) left something of a bad taste in my mouth. But still, good times had by all.

Incidentally, I love the museum's tips for parenting in public.

walk of life

2009-07-07T22:00:00.003-05:00

It's 10:32 pm, Boston time. I'm on the 15th floor of a waterfront hotel, listening to my three youngest kids squirm and giggle and generally avoid sleeping. I'm a little bit irritated, and pretending to be stern and grumpy, but I'll cut them some slack. It's been a long day. As we got off the plane at Logan the flight attendant said to me, "they win the award for best-behaved kids." And it was true: they were quiet, stayed in their seats, ate their snacks, drank their Sprites, didn't fuss. Of course it was JetBlue so all they had to do was plug into their headphone jacks and watch CartoonNetwork for three hours (holy crap do I ever love that airline). Easy. But my kids get this comment a lot.

Once we checked in, I dragged them on a hike to the Union Oyster House. We took the long way, almost two miles, meandering through Downtown Crossing and down Tremont Street. They bitched a tiny bit on the way there, but mostly they were good spirited about it. After dinner we walked directly back, about a mile, and they were cheerful. Playful, even.

Here's the thing: these kids are five, and five, and six. They're little. That's a lot of travel and a lot of walking. But I knew they could handle it. And furthermore, maybe I'm some kind of weird, old fashioned mother, but I think walking a little bit farther than you want to, being asked to do a little bit more than you were expecting to do, I think these things are character building.

I don't push my kids so hard that they break, but I push them hard enough so they feel the bend, and stretch a little. I let them be uncomfortable. It's what my parents did for me when they sent me away to summer camp when I was eight. I learned to walk a long, long trail with a heavy weight on my back. I learned that blisters hurt, but they healed. I learned how to carry myself, and my own weight.

Plus, it was a nice evening. Why take a cab?

Friday Books: Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut

2009-07-03T15:16:00.005-05:00

I think I was about 12 or 13 years old when I discovered Kurt Vonnegut. I read every book of his in rapid succession, like so many chocolate truffles. Last month my book group, which I hardly ever attend, chose Slaughterhouse Five to read. They've been working through some classic twentieth century American novels, I believe this month it's Updike. Anyway, I wasn't able to make it to the meeting (which is typical), but I did pick up the book from the local library.

Hang on, let me just interject here that I've fallen back in love with public libraries. One of the many great things about my fabulous new house is that I'm just a few blocks away from a branch of the Austin Public Library. The whole internet-meets-public library combination is so spectacular, you know? I love ordering up a book, telling it to come and meet me at my local branch, and then snatching it off the shelf a day or two late. And then I can take it home and read it for free. LOVE THAT. I'm a card-carrying member now. I even have a little mini keychain card.

So, back to Vonnegut. I read it (again) in about three sittings, which reminded me of why I loved Vonnegut so much as a kid - readable! I love how the story is his story, but not his story. How you know (because he tells you) that much of the fiction is shot through with threads of fact from his own experiences. I love how you still can't be quite sure which is which; where fiction ends and fact begins. I love that it's an anti-war novel, but also a time-travel novel, and also an American novel. I love how it's written in plain English, because I hate it when writers feel the need to clutter up complex ideas with complex prose. I love how, ultimately, it's a song about impermanence. Yours, mine, ours, Dresden's. The earth's.

My favorite part is when the hero, Billy Pilgrim, is watching a documentary about the war, only in reverse. The American planes fly backwards over Dresden, scooping up bombs into their holds, returning them eventually to American soil, where they are disassembled by women and their parts are carefully separated out and the minerals are buried in the earth where they cannot harm anyone. That passage made me cry.

What are you reading?

cave girl

2009-07-02T12:16:00.003-05:00

Some people show stress by eating less and staying up all night worrying about stuff. I'm one of the lucky ones who eats a lot and takes plenty of naps. But a couple of months ago when my children started playing with my arm fat, "Cool! look at it wiggle!" and my daughter told me it looked like I had a new baby growing in my tummy (we call it "Six"), I freaked out. This led to signing up on impulse for CrossFit bootcamp, which meets three mornings a week at the crack of dawn and totally kicks my butt.

The CrossFit folks, as it turns out, have a lot to say about what you eat. I've started something called the zone/paleo diet, which makes me want to wear loin cloths and carry a big club everywhere. I am soooo paleolithic. Seriously, paleo is based on some idea of what the hunter/gatherers ate, which just sort of cracks me up. Because, you know, those people were so healthy and had such great life spans and everything. And the Zone is all about portions (turns out, no big surprise here, that I was eating a. too little food and b. all the wrong stuff). It reminds me a little of that fad diet based on your blood type, which I just know is total bunk. People swear by it, but let's be honest, people will swear by anything. People are idiots. I'm an idiot.

Which brings me to this: Joining scares me. And also this: Being left out scares me. The mental gymnastics I put myself through over this conundrum are truly entertaining:

"Wow, my coach is incredibly fit and happy and healthy, and she swears by zone/paleo as being pretty much essential to the whole deal, there must be something to it, I mean just look at her. I want to be like that."

"This whole thing feels like a cult. She's so enthusiastic about it! Enthusiasm freaks me out. I'll never give up pasta, anyway."

Okay, the truth is I think zone/paleo is probably just what I need to break the hold that spaghetti has on my life, not to mention to get back into the clothes I was wearing a year ago (I miss you, jeans!). And sure, CrossFit is a little cult-y. For what it's worth, though, salmon and spinach are okay by me, and I haven't met a single CrossFit participant or coach who wasn't perfectly delightful.

Can I make a lifetime commitment to eating my food in blocks and banishing sugar? Maybe not so much. But for now, anyway, pass the (diet) Kool-Aid.

hearing voices

2009-07-01T00:30:00.000-05:00

As a kid I had a few quirky habits. There was the OCD-ish counting of steps, especially going up and down stairs. There was my tendency to read. All the time. Even through recess. And there was the voiceover narration that permeated my consciousness. At seven years old, I knew it was pretty weird for me to be narrating my own life in the third person, but I did it anyway, compulsively, and during some long, ordinary stretches of life. Not much of note happens when you're walking home from school in a sleepy Boston suburb. But I can assure you I wrote it all down in my mind like I was freaking Tolstoy.

When I was eight someone gave me a diary, and the voice found the page, oh happy marriage! This continued into high school, college, and beyond, although my writing began to dwindle before I discovered blogging in the late 90s.

After my first child was born the voice got quieter and smaller, as if making room for this new creature. Then, around five years ago, the voice went suddenly, shockingly mute. Perhaps the birth of my daughters, which upped the number of small children in my care to five, finally drowned out the increasingly rare quiet spaces my head usually filled with this contemplative overview. Or maybe the writer in me just gave up trying, since I was less and less frequently committing any of these words to paper or website. In any case, it was over. My head was quiet. Writing for the blog, usually a natural flow, became an arduous task. Writing anything else, especially work-related writing, was damn near impossible. The creek bed was all dried up. The voice was gone.

I'm not sure exactly when I noticed the voice was back, but a couple of weeks ago in New York it was practically shouting in my head, concocting essays and memoir pieces that I couldn't even begin to keep up with. It narrated my subway rides, taxi adventures, walks down the street. It talked, and talked, and talked, like that annoying guy at the party you just want to squeeze by to grab another beer from the fridge. It grabbed hold of my arm and got right in my face with its stinky olive breath and talked and TALKED. But I wasn't annoyed at all. An old friend was back. I was whole. I was a writer again. Things were happening all around me, and I had something to say about it.

It's been a phenomenally difficult decade for me, most especially these last two years. I've played a starring role in wrecking two marriages (my own), I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly at the deathbeds of both my stepmother and my mother. I've moved a million times, stood at the bleeding edge of financial devastation, had a really nasty free-fall into chronic depression. I've lost very dear friends to suicide and cancer. I've been separated from my children for long stretches. There was weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

In response, I have worked hard at being a better person, being true to myself, forgiving myself and others, finding a real, solid place to stand. I worked harder at all of those things than I honestly knew I had the strength for. I've learned to (I know it sounds horribly corny, but really) love myself. Really.

I think the voice came back because it finally had a safe place to land, and because I really do have a story to tell. I think the voice came back because it knows (I know) that it's worthy, that it's allowed to speak, that I'm done shushing myself.

I'm ready to write.

Three Weeks in May (2001)

2008-05-11T10:42:00.001-05:00

I meet them in the city for dinner – my father and stepmother. Big night, fancy restaurant. Running late I park the car, hurry to the hotel restaurant. They’re in the lobby, looking grim. I tug at my wraparound sweater – it gaps, exposes me. I ask is something wrong? No, she says, I’m fine. I’ve been rebuffed. Disapproves of the sweater? Mad that I’m late? She picks at her salmon, doesn’t speak. My dad makes awkward conversation with only me. She’ll be dead in a matter of weeks. None of us knows this.

A week later at my sister’s graduation from acupuncture school. Scan the auditorium for my dad, my stepmother, nowhere to be seen. After the ceremony we find them in the back. The day is sweltering and she is cocooned in head-to-toe wool. Grim smile, pinched face, cold kiss. I say, you must be hot in this. No answer. Dinner to celebrate, Airin, the doctor. She can’t order, can’t find the words for the food on the menu. The waiter holds his breath. We stare. Airin tries to coax her, tries to cover up. She lashes out, angry, frustrated. Orders the duck. Then holds her head, turns pale, doesn’t speak all through the meal. Tomorrow she’ll fall to the floor, vomit, pass out, go to the emergency room. None of us knows this.

The next day is Mother’s Day and for the first time in 21 years I do not call. Afraid she will not speak on the phone, or worse she’ll make no sense. I let the day go by, a paralyzed dream. Monday morning my father rings to tell me she’s in the hospital, there are two growths on her brain. Sitting on the back deck, holding the phone, I can feel first my chest and then my whole body sinking, the weight of the words pushing me down, so heavy a feeling I think I might crash straight through the wooden planks and into the cold, earthwormy dirt below.

Instead I pack a bag, gather the kids, point my car north to Boston. This hospital has been good to me – my baby was born here, my mother’s heart was saved here, good things here. We go up to the room and she brightens up at the very sight of the kids. Says “hello.” It’s all she can say. My brother entertains the boys while I sit with her. She grows tired and we leave.

Tuesday is surgery – we gather with the other families and wait. Smooth and handsome Dr. Park, brain surgeon, meets us in a tiny room. We squeeze together to hear the news – it’s malignant. I watch as he describes the tumor as being like a starfish, a spider, extending its tendrils deep into her brain tissue, impossible to cleanly remove without removing precious brain. He splays his hand to demonstrate. It feels unkind, this gesture. I see in a flash how every new tumor is for him a chance to improve his skills, a chance to be a better doctor, a good thing. He talks about radiation, chemo, oncologists. Three to five years tops. This is what he tells us. We cry and eat our sandwiches and wander around the hospital, lost stars. Then she is in recovery and we come to see her, watch her fingers wander up to her scalp, touching the bare patches, feeling the bandages. It’s really only two more weeks to go. None of us knows this.

They send her home. She plays with the dogs, watches the trees, doesn’t speak. Days later and the news is worse – biopsy results show a level IV glioblastoma, or GBM, the worst kind of tumor. Oligodendroglioma, glioblastoma, astrocytoma, become part of my vocabulary, familiar as cat and dog. Six to 18 months, average. I spend my days and nights researching, grasping at straws, at trials. There’s Duke University and Staten Island Hospital and some sort of miracle powder from a guy in California. There are some who live, survive for years. I think maybe, maybe. Go up on Sunday for my caregiver shift, but she’s had another spell of vomiting, complains of a headache, and is on her way to the hospital. I arrive as she walks to the car, measuring every step. I make a bad joke and she smiles for me, a gift. Car crunching away on the gravel driveway and she turns to wave, craning her neck (so painful for her!), holding that hand up like the Pope delivering a blessing, fixing her gaze on me for the last time. I don’t know this.

But she does. My dad asks in the car are you hopeful? She shakes her head no. Seizes in the hospital, slips into a coma. She loses oxygen to her brain so they intubate her. The CAT scan shows that the tumor has grown dramatically in just two weeks. Dr. Park, such beautiful skin, comes again to say let’s try to get her breathing on her own, stabilize her, take it from there. Maybe then we can start radiation. It takes 24 hours for the rest of us to catch up to what my sister (the doctor!) understands immediately: the tube must come out. It’s what she would want us to do. I’m living in a made-for-cable movie, I think, dashing for the hospital, talking to her all the while, please Polly, don’t die yet, please wait for me, don’t die without me there. It’s Lifetime, television for women. I’m there before they even extract the tube. Neuro ICU is deathly quiet; so many comas. The nurses shoo us out, whisking the green curtain shut. They pull it, clean her up, arrange for a room. Dr. Park is there and warns us: it could be hours, it could be days. It will be three days, three nights, before she dies. No one knows this.

I move into the hospital. We are all living in the room, eating, sleeping. Joking. Crying. Waiting. She lies there, hearing it all, hearing none of it. Is this a movie? My stepmother, 57 years old, landscape architect, painter, gardener, singer, dancer, mother, bird spirit, is in the hospital with a brain tumor and has slipped into a coma? Could this be real life? Hours pass, nurses come and go. Turn her. We up the morphine. Wait. My cousin brings us food…every day, a different cuisine. We eat pot stickers, tabouleh, manicotti, and hold her hot hands. Waiting. We argue over how much morphine, how elevated the bed. After two days we start to wonder if she’ll ever die. Our hospital life becomes a comfortable routine and I think I could do this forever, sit here in this room, watch the day go by. Not so much like TV anymore. We take turns curling up at the bottom of her bed, at her feet. Her children, her lapdogs, her faithful friends.

The third day drags itself into the afternoon and we start to forget why we’re there, but then it begins. The breathing slows and thickens. We gather closer, each claiming a section. My hand holding her left foot, her left shin. My father leans in, tells her it’s OK, you can go. We wait. Silently I tell her you can go, please. Please go. I can’t bear another night. Please die now. All of us holding on for dear life and saying go away, go away now, you can go now. Please go. Hours pass. Westward facing window, the sun begins to sink and the sky is full of screaming pink and orange. We watch her, watch the sky, watch the sun. She times it perfectly. Sun disappears and the breathing stops. I grab her wrist, pushing skin for a pulse that isn’t there.

My sisters keen, falling upon the bed. When they sit up there are four perfect mascara crescents on the white hospital blanket. We sit in the darkening room with her for maybe an hour, unable to do the next thing.

2008-03-23T20:46:00.001-06:00

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Mussels from PEI

2008-03-23T20:08:00.001-06:00

At Vespaio with JPostman.

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Persian new year

2008-03-21T17:30:00.001-06:00

1001 Nights Orchestra at Central Market in Austin

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My 10 year old's homework

2008-03-19T15:14:00.002-06:00

I'm out of material. So I'm going with my kid's homework, complete with typos and misspellings:

Book report/presentation on Lance Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong has won 7 Tour de France cyclist races.
Athletic - Lance Armstrong was very athletic.
Nike - Lance Armstrong was sponcered by Nike
Close to his mom
Established LANCE ARMSTRONG FOUNDATION

Armsrong was not originaly his last name
Restirement - Lance retired in 2005
Moved to Austin
Survived cancer - Lance Armstrong survived cancer.
Triathlete - Lance Armstrong was a triathlete.
Rides bycicles
Outstanding athlete - Lane is a very famous cyclist and triathlete
Never quit
Gifted - Lance Armstrong was a gifted athlete

2008-03-18T10:10:00.001-06:00

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not in kansas

2008-03-18T08:25:00.002-06:00

Sometimes reality comes in the form of a fax:

Wish I could talk to her today. Even though she'd probably end up pissing me off.

stranded

2008-03-17T22:17:00.002-06:00

Please take a moment out of your busy day to witness my friend Christian Payne's beautiful and moving documentary about Iraqi Refugees in Jordan. Composed entirely of still photographs, and edited with exquisite grace by Bill Cammack, this short film brings you into the lives of Iraqi families trying desperately to eke out an existence in a foreign land, with little or no support. They need help, and attention. Watch it, tell your friends, blog about it, spread it around.

Life in the Shadows

Thank you.

learning to fly

2008-03-16T10:19:00.002-06:00

Things are popping right now, in a good way. I have a job interview tomorrow (on the phone, ack), three creative projects in the pipeline, and a much sunnier outlook on my future. It's good to be reminded that we're all in this thing together, and that's what happened for me last week. Accidental meetings turned into impromptu road trips. I made new friends, reconnected with old ones, had loads of conversations about stuff which really interests me, and just felt so plugged in. The energy of the conference and the people around me reminded me that there is a whole world out there of people, ideas, activities, and projects for me to be a part of, I just need to reach out for it.

Of course the problem is also this: single parenthood. The trick is to find a balance between private life, work life, parenting life, social life, home life, travel life...and it's never easy. Mind you I am NOT complaining. Part of learning to fly is also learning to land, learning to make a good nest, learning to feed the little chicks.

Watching people talk today on Twitter about the dearth of women (well maybe dearth is harsh, but the relatively low presence) in social media leadership roles, and I want to scream: that's because we're MOTHERS! Sure, not all of us. But don't you guys forget for a minute that while you're off at the conference, someone's home with the kids. And she's too busy doing laundry and cooking up macaroni and cheese to take on a leadership role. Maybe later, when they've gone off to college...

In other news, it's Sunday, the windows are open, the dog puke has been cleaned off the carpet, and I need lunch.

SXSWi List

2008-03-15T18:06:00.002-06:00

Things discussed (at parties mainly, since I was badgeless) at SXSWi that I'd like to talk about some more:

1. Racism, sexism, homophobia and social media. Encouraging more discourse on these topics and effecting real change. (i.e. the backlash at Sarah Lacy during her interview with Mark Zuckerberg, some of it certainly sexist. Also the recent flare-up on Twitter when Dave Winer asked if all Twitter users were white. Plenty of other small and big discussions flying around this week. It seems to be in the air.)

2. Transparency, back-channels, openness, cross-pollination, live streaming. More, please. (Had a great chat about this with Roo Reynolds this morning at breakfast, although both of us a little too tired to be completely coherent.)

3. New media/old media intersection. Bringing arts, music, journalism, performance art into the technology-driven world of social media. (Watching the art made by Honoria Starbuck and others during panel discussions; thinking about the overlap of interactive/film/music, encouraging more interplay between those three.)

4. What can we all do to reach out to the community at large, both locally and globally? How can social media better address issues of poverty, hunger, women's rights, infrastructure-building, education? Other than bringing revenue to town, what can people on the ground at SXSWi do to reach out to the very real and immediate population of homeless and hungry in downtown Austin? (A major topic during our ride in the tech cab with Irina Slutsky.)

5. How can I get a badge next year? (please?)

Hey Robert - You OK?

2008-03-14T22:17:00.001-06:00

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Munch

2008-03-13T10:24:00.001-06:00

Here's a detail from "Girls on the Pier" by Edvard Munch at the Kimbell.

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2008-03-13T09:47:00.001-06:00

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My crater of lemony goodness

2008-03-12T11:08:00.001-06:00

Aka the "Dutch baby" at the Original Pancake House. Next stop Fry's to

get our geek on.

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@documentally

2008-03-11T19:02:00.001-06:00

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Sxsw degenerates

2008-03-11T11:59:00.001-06:00

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This utterz brought to you...

2008-03-10T14:37:00.001-06:00

By Kyle the cat.

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R.I.P. Gary

2008-03-09T12:04:00.001-06:00

At my local coffee shop

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This Post Brought to You by Cilantro

2008-03-08T00:02:00.006-06:00

I am NOT GOING TO MISS THE POST TODAY NO MATTER FUCKING WHAT.

It's 2 minutes to Midnight. do you know where your SXSWi party is? Apparently everyone who is anyone is at Six.

Me? home, bed, laptop, cuppa. tired. it's been a long day and I would rate it in the top 5 of worst days ever. EVAH. Can't talk about it, maybe later. Let's just say my life caught up with me, and it's all most definitely for the best but right now it is hard and scary, and I want a blanky and my teddy.

However, on a brighter note, before it all got scary I did get to go to brunch at Las Manitas this morning, meet up with a bunch of twittery people, and have a taco al pastor which was messy and delicious and stained my fingernails reddish brown, possibly forever. And, I got to sit with the cool kids. It's a cliche and all? But the nerds in high school are the cool kids of today, and I LOVE that.

Plus, who among us doesn't enjoy eating in a restaurant where you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the back dining room, dodging waiters and hot oil on your way? Who?

Social Networking Butterfly

2008-03-06T22:54:00.003-06:00

I had a conversation today with a guy I don't really know. It started because he decided to follow me on Twitter. Why? I'm not even sure. Likely, he saw someone else reference me in a tweet, then checked out my Twitter profile page, and decided I was worth the add. When someone follows me I almost always follow them back, unless they seem to be clearly just using the application to promote a blog or a product. (If this is utter gibberish to you, please check out this fabulous post.) From there we ended up as friends on Facebook, and there a conversation ensued on our walls:

me: and thanks for your follow on Twitter. I think I've passed the tipping point; suddenly getting followers w/o even trying. Social Networking 2.0 RAWKS.

David: It's sorta like when I started a business many years ago. I still remember the day that "the phone started ringing." Same is true about SN saturation points - its amazing when you start making new connections without effort, and even better when those connections want to do business and / or provide value to what you're doing. Looking forward to knowing you better.

me: Very true, David. I love that I'm making friends in far off places, participating in fascinating conversations, and developing relationships that could lead to further opportunities -- but truly, I put that at the end of the list for a reason. It all works better if we focus on friendships/relationships/conversations first, before personal gain.

Two days ago I was stuck at around 90 followers. I sent out a request for people to send me some followers and by the end of the day I had broken 100. That was the tipping point I referred to above. Today, without trying I'm up above 120. That's 20 followers in 2 days which, to many of you reading this post, is probably just par for the course, but for me it's a veritable flood of new readers. With new readers on Twitter come new readers on Utterz, new people looking at my photos on Flickr, new people watching my updates on Seesmic...and I return the favor, if so inclined, and on and on it goes.

SXSWi kicks off tomorrow. I'm too poor (and cheap, and busy) to get a badge, but there's plenty of ways to participate in the conversation without attending a single panel. Today I got to have lunch with someone I know from Twitter, and two more Twitterers she flew into town with, one of whom happened to represent Utterz, the other being Clarence of Do You Know Clarence (I didn't, but now I do). A good time was had by all, the Cuban sandwiches were superb, and I now have two more people to connect with and follow, and vice versa.

Now listen, it's no secret that I'm looking for work, and that networking isn't just for shits and giggles. Truth is we all have motivations that extend beyond friendship and community building when we network in this manner. But the point is I really wasn't blowing smoke up David's ass when I said that my desire for work (and by work I mean money, and by money I mean the RENT PAYMENT) still is overshadowed by the sheer enjoyment of connecting with people, learning new things, supporting each other in good times and bad, and sometimes even sitting down at a real life table and chowing down on tostones rellenos (plantains stuffed with ground beef and peppers). It's going to be a fun weekend.

p.s. I am EXHAUSTED, EXHAUSTED from all the linking. I hope someone clicks through at least.

The Power of Bread

2008-03-05T23:05:00.002-06:00

Places I wouldn't want to live:

1. Columbus, Ohio
2. Newark, New Jersey
3. Russia
4. New Caprica
5. Orlando, Florida

This post brought to you by Y! Live.

Is this cheating?

2008-03-05T02:14:00.002-06:00

I don't know, maybe this will count me out of the whole post-a-day thing. BUT. BUT. I spent 6 hours at the caucus and didn't get home til after midnight. 6 hours! And I'm a delegate! Holy shit! Not what I was planning on doing AT ALL.

So, for me anyway, it's still the 4th of March, even though technically I'm 2 hours late. AND I sent in Utterz and Tweets while at the caucus, so that's blogging, right? Even though I realize they didn't come to this blog...they COULD have.

Si, Se Puede!
Obamanos!

Okay, sorry, I'm tired and punchy and must go to bed. Tomorrow I'll write more about the whole caucus experience, including some of the TRULY ABSURD AND HORRIBLY WRITTEN resolutions that we thankfully did not pass as the evening wore on...and on...and on...

Scrabble FTW!

2008-03-03T23:24:00.002-06:00

Oh, hey! It's 11:23 again. This is becoming a pattern, huh? So, the theme of the month is lists, and I'm going to give you two:

Words Mrs. Kennedy has used so far in our recent Scrabulous game:

GLUG
GIDDY
MOWN
ENNUI
ZOO
ENTAIL
JEER
ANT
ROPED

Words I have used:

QUASH
WIG
SOONER
BLUFF
WRYER
HENCE
PEAK
JEEP
ZOO

Now, take those words and make a short story! Go!

Under the Wire

2008-03-02T23:26:00.002-06:00

It's 11:23 pm of day 2 of NaBloMoPoGroMoMarCro. Here's a list:

On my bedside table:

kleenex box in least obnoxious floral pattern I could find. I wish they came in solid black.

opaque white lamp from Ikea, soft fuzzy glow.

Gatsby coaster, in Ivory, from Z Gallerie.

small orange teacup with water, for swallowing antidepressant (in drawer, I'm not telling you what's in the drawer).

nail clippers and nail file.

small white plastic tray/dish with black and red floral pattern on it, rather mod, from Target.

pretty blue and gold box that a candle from Z Gallerie came in.

"Good Poems" edited by Garrison Keillor.

"Why I Wake Early" by Mary Oliver.

Netflix: "The Science of Sleep." Seen, ready to be returned.

Netflix: "A Scanner Darkly." Not yet seen.

red, gold, and black cloth from Japan, with fringe (what is the name for cloth you put on dressers? it has a name, yes?). A gift from Etsuko Funo when I left the country in '91.

Aannnnd it's 11:32 pm! Made it!

Blow You, MarBlo

2008-03-01T20:05:00.004-06:00

Because I love Eden, and I want her to love me back (she plays scrabble with me now! for real! on the internets!), I've decided to take the NaNoBlogMo* or whatever it is challenge, only now it's not just November, it's EVERY FREAKING MONTH, which anyway is good for me as I need to get back into it. So, I'm opening up the hood, checking the oil, filling the little windshield wiper fluid tank with more fluid (because honestly, that's the only thing I really know how to do on a car), kicking the tires, and startin' her up. Hello March! How's it hangin'?

Also, in other news, I would really like to move this thing over to Wordpress, and I think I'll be doing that soon. Wordpress sucks so much less than Blogger, yes?

Tomorrow: a list. The theme of the month is lists.

*NaBloPoMo, I looked it up. I am never typing that again.

Penny-Wishes

2007-11-20T08:49:00.001-06:00

I took a penny
from his palm
and wished my simple wish into the fountain.

What becomes of penny-wishes?
Every penny, every
birthday cake a pony

to ride through the woods,
high on his withers, my fingers
twining in that coarse, chocolate mane, my

nose in his neck.
His cantering rhythm carries me
into the dappled day.

I close my eyes and breathe him in.
Safer
than a baby in a cradle.

Anointed

2007-11-05T22:27:00.001-06:00

You lie in your bed and we hover
on our feet around you,
your daughters, your angels.

It’s September. I bring you
a dry, red Maple leaf
from the bricked-up sidewalks of Cambridge.

I bring you
lavender oil in a tiny jar,
a sample. It’s enough.

Three days later you’ll be dead,
but today
you see the Maple leaf

and smile. I smooth the oil
to your forehead, your soft hands,
your swollen feet.

All Souls Day

2007-11-01T07:35:00.000-06:00

Today, of course, I remember my mother, in all her crazy glory. My mother was larger than life, extravagant, exciting, maddening, funny, smart, kind, and unbearably self-centered. Her desire to help others came from a deep need to be loved and accepted, and the more she pushed her help on people, the more we pushed away, furthering her own loneliness and isolation. It was a lifelong tug of war for her, and a painful one.

The one time we really had fun together, as adults, was when she traveled with me in Japan. Then, she was at my mercy, finding herself in a place so foreign, with a language she couldn't begin to grasp, she had to rely completely on me to get us around the country, order food, arrange for places to sleep. She was able to just relax and let me take over, and for the first (and only) time in our lives together we were equals. We could relax and enjoy each other's company, enjoy the country, just BE. If only we could have kept it that way, the next 15 years together would have been delightful instead of an intense struggle.

The world religions teach us that this life on earth is just a blink of an eye -- there is so, so much more to come. I choose to believe that Mom has found some peace at last and that her soul is at rest. I can see her now for who she was, can see how her harsh and unforgiving childhood shaped her, can see her deep need, always unmet. On the day she died I placed lavender oil on her forehead, feet, and hands, anointing her, easing her passage. Today I can give thanks for the mother she was, with all her faults and shortcomings. She shaped me, and I am grateful.

Yellow

2007-10-29T21:35:00.000-06:00

self portrait, oil pastels on paper

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

2007-10-26T09:10:00.000-05:00

It's suddenly cold in Austin, like sweater weather. Took my by surprise, along with a lot of other things this month. I like seeing my breath in the morning, burying my hands in my pockets. I need a hat, though.

It's been a month of surprises, not a month of Sundays. I've stepped off the yellow brick road and onto my own little dirt path. I like it here in the woods, with the trees and the dirt and the stones. It's ever so much more peaceful than the penthouse I was locked up in. Think I'll leave the horny back toad alone, for now, he's damn good company. Funny the shit that can happen to you AFTER you get sober.

I'm reading a lot of poetry; this is what heals me when I'm wounded. Mary Oliver, Marge Piercy, Mark Strand, Anne Sexton, Billy Collins. They are my companion books, travel in my bag. Nice thing about poetry volumes, they're slim, and they enjoy taking trips.

I thank God for my friends, for the poets, for the trees in the woods. And I wait to see what the day brings me.

Dream

2007-09-25T09:53:00.000-05:00

I see you're looking for an update. (Yes, I see.)

Last night I dreamed I was in my childhood home. Everyone had gone somewhere for the day, some sort of outing. There was a fence, with dogs behind it, and I thought I was safe, but through the fence tore one of those dogs, big and brown, monstrous, coming right for me. I thought for sure she would kill me.

Instead she spent the day threatening me, toying with me, stalking me. I called 911, begged for the police to come, and sent my family away to safety, one by one, my sisters, my cousins, as they returned from their day. I couldn't understand why the police did not arrive -- it's not a big town, not a lot of crime, surely they would rescue a girl trapped in a house with a vicious attack dog? But it became clearer to me as the dream went on, as the day went on, that the police believed I could handle it on my own. That there was no rescue.

Meanwhile there was me alone in my dark house with this dog, sniffing around my ankles, showing her teeth, tugging at the hem of my jeans. The dog is talking to me. I'm serving her juice and cookies. It's just me and the dog in the house, my house. Just me and my mother, the dog, the killer.

I wake up.

I know people who have had visits from the dead in their dreams. Nice visits. Sort of, hi, everything's fine over here in the afterlife, I love you, be well visits. Maybe some day I'll have that sort of visit with my mother -- dreaming or awake. It was a week ago today that we took her off the respirator, said goodbye, watched her breathing get shallower, the capillaries in her cheeks bright and pink. I said goodbye and left before it was all over, I couldn't be by her side like I was for Polly. It was too much to ask of me to be with her while she crossed over that threshhold, after everything that's happened.

My mother, the dog, the killer, is dead now, and I'm still stuck in that house with her, like it was yesterday. There's your update.

Night Howl

2007-09-04T00:57:00.000-05:00

I'm just -- here. Not making any promises. But I miss this place, and this outlet. Reading back through the archives (nothing like having someone say "I've been reading your blog" to make you go back to see what the hell your blog is all about anyway) makes me realize this is a pretty good, if strange, record of events, and worth refering to. I should keep it up.

Life is, as always, more complicated, wonderful, stressful, interesting, frustrating, exhilarating, than I want it to be. In other words, it's just right. I'm starting graduate school, which feels like a perfect fit but also a folly of sorts, given our current financial situation, not to mention my tenuous mental health and lack of time to complete basic daily tasks, like laundry.

The children continue to aggravate and delight us. And baffle us. There are times I am convinced that my parenting is right on target, my kids are doing great, and all is well...and then there are evenings like this when I want to return them to the kid store. Is it too late?

We are all mourning the passing of chickendog (first dog on the left, in picture above), and welcome the new doggies in our lives: Trudy (below), and Bokeh (picture pending). It's a full house.

Twitter

2007-06-22T16:58:00.001-05:00

I think the answer is not to photoblog. It's enough, just keeping up with the writing. I'll post pictures here as well, when I can. Just added the Twitter box to the sidebar. I noticed it on Tim's blog a while back, and then it was mentioned on MyRagan in a blog. That's me, the early adopter. I've been spending my days checking out marketing and communications websites and blogs, doing whatever networking I can do, reading job listings, and tinkering with Photoshop. It's good to be done with the temp job and have some time to play.

What are you up to?

to photoblog, or not to photoblog

2007-06-12T18:32:00.001-05:00

I'm trying something new, but it might not make much sense. I've started a second blog, just for photos -- big city photoblog. Is it overkill? Should I just post photos here? Dunno...stay tuned...

I Am A Camera

2007-06-08T17:54:00.001-05:00

I am in love.

With my camera.

Also, my husband.

And also my camera.

Contemplation Station

2007-05-21T14:31:00.000-05:00

Reading Richard Rohr's book "Everything Belongs." It calms me down. I'm especially un-calm lately, a product of having just gotten married, lost my business, broken up with my mother. It's a time of shifts, and shifts make me nervous and tired. So I'm sitting in this particular place, where decisions need to be made about life and work -- decisions that will affect the next few years -- and I'm trying to be less freaked out and more contemplative. Rohr writes:

This "I" fixation, the I that I think is me, is the one that will die when I die. This passing self of images and who I think I am is ephemeral and impermanent. It is revealed to be a creation of my mind, a mist or illusion. My novice master called it a cobweb. He would hold out his hand and blow a puff of air. He said, 'That's Richard.' Tomorrow it may be gone. (Everything Belongs [The Crossroad Publishing Company], p. 85)

It's going to take some more work to get comfortable with the notion that "I" am a puff of air. But that is the path to peace, I think.

Check

2007-05-14T18:29:00.000-05:00

Married: check
Unemployed: check
Still okay: check, check

Hey, wow. that was fun.

Oh, and?

New camera: check, checkity, check check check.

My husband is the greatest man in the universe.

Check out my interview, also, on Matthew's blog.

Chips and Dip

2007-04-19T14:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday my car ran out of gas. Javi was with me, home sick from day care, and as I struggled with the gas can (what is it about gas cans? they mystify me) that I had lugged back from the Shell station he said, "Mama, you're doing the very best job you can do."

I'm nine months sober today. Nine months ago I stumbled out of bed, still sick from the night before, got down on my knees, and begged forgiveness for having gone so far off course, for having squandered so much precious time, for having risked so much for so little. And then God said "shut the hell up and go to a meeting." And so I did.

It's been a tough week -- I lost my job, I've got pre-wedding anxiety, I am really trying to get a house fixed up to move into, and I find myself paralyzed by exhaustion and lack of funds and anxiety about what's coming next. Ten months ago, all this would have sent me to the nearest Tex-Mex restaurant for 2 or 3 (or 7) margaritas on a nightly basis, just to GET THROUGH it all. Not to mention a few lunch-hour benders. I'd be steeping in anger and resentment, and berating anyone and everyone with the story of How I Was Done Wrong. I'd be going to bed sick and waking up nauseated. I'd be short with my kids and mean to my partner. I'd be a train wreck.

So maybe my last post was wrong, maybe I have made some progress. Yes? I'm not getting drunk, I'm not wallowing in self-pity, and I'm not trying to lasso everyone else into my circle of misery and commiseration. I'm scared shitless, to be sure, and have had a few choice words to say about my former client. But still. I'm here, I'm standing up. I'm trying to do the next right thing. Tonight I'll go pick up a 9-month chip. Life is sweet, really. Life keeps going.

our own radishes and walnuts

2007-04-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

When looking to feel better about myself and my circumstances, it's perhaps best not to read through my blog archives. My problems are my problems are my problems, ever present. Myself is myself. Always with the exhaustion and the kids and the lack of proper finances. Always with the scrambling and the pain of the crazy mother and the loss of -- whatever. Now, just minus the alcoholic haze. Makes me want a drink.

So I'm thinking, then, maybe it's time for a poem, as that always seems to help.

In The Month of May

In the month of May when all leaves open,
I see when I walk how well all things
lean on each other, how the bees work,
the fish make their living the first day.
Monarchs fly high; then I understand
I love you with what in me is unfinished.

I love you with what in me is still
changing, what has no head or arms
or legs, what has not found its body.
And why shouldn't this miraculous,
caught on this earth, visit
the old man alone in his hut?

And why shouldn't Gabriel, who loves honey,
be fed with our own radishes and walnuts?
And lovers, tough ones, how many there are
whose holy bodies are not yet born.
Along the road, I see so many places
I would like us to spend the night.

-- Robert Bly

Flaky

2007-01-16T13:25:00.000-06:00

I've entered an alternate universe...there's a snowflake on my little weather desktop thingy. A snowflake!

This being Texas, we're having a major ice storm freak-out down here, and the whole city is pretty much shut down -- has been since yesterday afternoon, and looks to stay that way through at least tomorrow morning. Allison brought me an icicle in bed this morning, then complained that it was too cold and asked me to warm it up. I took her outside when the actual snow came falling down, but she just cried and wanted to be brought back in. It probably didn't help that I almost wiped out and dropped her when I slipped on the icy porch step. Still, it's lovely. I love to see actual snowflakes coming out of the actual sky, even if the only real accumulation seems to be on my car and house rooftops. I'll take it.

to summarize

2007-01-12T15:58:00.000-06:00

June -- Drinking again, because not drinking was boring. What else happened in June? I have no idea. I think I went East and visited my relatives and pined over the Atlantic ocean.

July -- And still with the drinking, culminating in a trip to a Brasilian restaurant for "dinner" which consisted of 7 mojitos and a plate with some food on it, oh, and generously picking up the tab for some random other couple. Cost of sarah's last drunk: over $300.

July 19, 2006:
Sarah: Hi, my name is Sarah, and I'm an alcoholic (again).
AA: Welcome back.

August, September -- AA posterchild. Oh, and I join the choir at church.

October --
Brian: Will you marry me?
Sarah: Duh.

November -- Carrie gets a fever that will not go away. Finally bring her to the doctor, who sends us to the hospital, which checks her in with strep pneumonia. 5 days later she's in surgery, having pus and fluid removed from the outside of her left lung. OnThanksgiving day (2 full weeks after admission) we're released, all of us a little worse for wear, most especially our little Carrie Anne, who's lost a considerable amount of her lung tissue. Good news is the littler you are, the more you will regenerate, and being very, very little, she should be okay.

December -- Welcome to the world of at home health care. Brian becomes an expert in delivering antibiotics via catheter, dealing with doctors, home health agencies, and the most dreaded institutions of all -- health insurance companies. My hero. I drown in work and winter/holiday anxiety. Just before Christmas I fly to Arizona to be with my father's sister while she dies. Cancer sucks. Back home in time for Christmas, which somehow comes together.

January -- The usual New Year's Eve party, and we're off to a new year. Wedding plans continue, date is set (5th of may). I'm still sober, 6 months as of the 19th. We're all still alive. Texas is still Texas. The world still spins around in its strange and funny orbit.

Giving Up

2006-05-31T17:39:00.000-05:00

So, you know, I'm exercising and meditating and not drinking and I'm afraid of being boring. Or bored. Or both.

I want an avocado margarita from Curra's.

Need

2006-05-30T18:18:00.000-05:00

What I learned today:

When you spend your life telling the people in your life that you don't need them, you can handle it, you'll be fine, it's no problem, you're OKAY, they start to believe you. Then when you asked for help they say, "really, are you sure?" Instead of "of course, immediately!"

Or at least that's what happened just now.

Change is hard.

I'm thinking of starting a videoblog/podcast/thingy. I'm just a little tired of words.

I'm also thinking of working out, like, regularly. And that quitting drinking was a huge mistake and I should just go right back to that. And that I'd rather not work any more. And that having 5 kids was the best fucking idea I ever had. I am so in love with my kids right now I can hardly stand it.

The Menu

2005-11-23T10:20:00.000-06:00

Cheese, crackers, spinach/artichoke dip to start

Copious amounts of red wine

Alton Brown's Turkey

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Katherine's Granny's cornbread stuffing

4 korn kits—prepare day ahead
4 biscuits—prepare day ahead
4 eggs
2-3 cans chicken broth/stock
1 bunch celery
2-3 large onions
2 sticks butter
½ container dried sage (I’m not kidding—mad sagey)
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Sautee onions and celery in 1 stick of butter. Add salt and pepper. In a large casserole/roasting pan with a tight fitting lid, break-up cornbread and biscuits and add sautéed veg. Combine and add sage, salt, and pepper. Add broth—it should be fairly loose, but not too soupy—you still have to add the eggs. At this point, taste and adjust seasonings then add whisked eggs and combine. Pat down into dish. Cut the remaining stick of butter into cubes and top the dressing with joy and abandon. Cover—this cooks like a soufflé and sort-of puffs up—and cook for about 1 hour. You can remove the lid close to the end to check for superdelicious browning—if necessary, remove for last few minutes, but I don’t think anyone ever remembers to do this.

Additions:
Spoon full of bacon drippings—delish
Stray cigarette ash…

Glazed Carrots

Green Bean Casserole (Dana and Jennifer are bringing)

Brandied mushrooms

Rolls

Thanksgiving Pie

Pumpkin Pie

All Souls Day

2005-11-02T11:31:00.000-06:00

Uncle Herman. My great uncle Herman was deaf, as was his brother Julius. He lived in Cleveland and I saw a lot of him as a child when we would go there to visit my grandmother. He used to play billiards with me and he taught me to sign the alphabet. He and my grandmother had their own special language, including hand gestures and sounds, that no one else quite understood. It wasn’t ASL, it wasn’t quite lip-reading, and it sounded strange and a little scary. Herman could wiggle his ears, and could raise his eyebrows independently of each other and to several different levels. He had a big heart. I seem to recall being told of his death while on an airplane. There was never any funeral, or formal remembrance of him. He was just gone. I don’t think I was more than 8 or 9 years old.

Ricky. I rode a pony in high school named Ricky who went suddenly blind at the beginning of my sophomore year, and a decision was made for him to be put down (I’m still not sure why this had to happen). I took him out for a walk on his last day to the apple orchard, fed him an apple and let him graze freely. Then I brought him back to the barn and went down to my house, where I sat with my dormhead’s dogs and cried while the vet put him to sleep and they buried him under the manure pile. I wrote a maudlin poem about the whole experience which appeared in the high school literary magazine.

B.D. My father’s father died at Christmas-time when I was 16 years old. The funeral was in New York. I never was very close to my grandfather. We would talk on Sundays when I was home and he would ask me how school was going. He was remarried to a flamboyant French Jew, Sonia, who used to take me to Neimann Marcus when we went to visit them in Miami Beach. I flew down to New York and spent the day comforting my step-grandmother, who was quite tearful especially at the gravesite. My grandfather’s children weren’t overly fond of her, so the comforting fell to me. This was my first funeral as a quasi-grownup. It was a full-on Jewish funeral, too, with a rabbi. There was no sitting shiva, however. The whole thing was bizarre, considering how very secular that side of my family is. I got to see the family plot in Queens, including the grave of my grandfather’s sister, for whom I was named. It’s a little spooky, seeing your own name on a gravestone. Coming back I had a strange conversation with a Boston cab driver which I turned into a short story and which – surprise! – turned up in the high school literary magazine.

Mona. Mona (pronounced Mah-nah, yes I know that’s stupid) was my first pet. She was a fantastic Siamese cat who took no crap from anyone and had pretty much all of us at her beck and call. A real princess. She had been a stray who showed up at our back door one night and never left. She was my most precious companion through the separation and divorce of my parents, through all the moving, through all my mother’s boyfriends, through all the rockiness of pre-adolescence, always on my bed, always letting me cry into her fur. When she died I was devastated.

Gaga. Gaga was not my mother’s birth father, but he was the only grandfather I ever knew on that side. He was funny, kind, gentle, smart, tolerant, and wise. He kept my traditionalist grandmother and my rebellious mother together through the rockiness of the 60s and 70s, and all the years that followed. He always had a smile and a bear hug for me. When he was diagnosed with cancer everything moved very quickly. I went down to Florida to stay with them for a couple of weeks, shepherding him to doctor’s appointments. He was in a lot of pain, and I heard him swear for the first time at one of these visits, letting out a very weak “oh, shit” when a catheter was installed. My grandmother fell apart before my eyes during this visit, suddenly forgetting to turn off the oven, gazing out the window, crying, and asking me “is he going to die?” Gaga was furious at himself for getting sick, furious at her for not coping well, furious at the unfairness of it all. Jack is named for him, and I think he inherited his stubbornness, as well as his humor and good nature.

Grandma Lil. My father’s mother. We knew each other well, as I spent a year living with her when I was 18 years old, in Cleveland. Amazingly enough, she lived through that particular experience. Eventually, though, her heart gave out. She died as she lived, in a completely controlled fashion, under her own terms, at home. She had gone out to dinner with friends, come home, gotten ready for bed, and then had a heart attack and died very quickly in her own bedroom. I miss her still. She was smart and strong and fiercely independent, a fantastic role model for me.

Uncle Julius. The circumstances under which I was not allowed to know Uncle Julius until I reached my late teens are stupid and petty and mystifying. Thankfully, eventually, he came back into the family and we all were able to enjoy his company before he finally died. He loved me and spoiled me, always taking me aside to give me extra money, or special things that had belonged to his wife, whom I never met. He was mischievous and funny, and very sweet. Not as bear-like as his brother, but just as deaf. My sign language was a little better by the time I got to know him, so we were able to communicate fairly well. He put me through college, an act of tremendous generosity considering the way he had been excommunicated from his family for so long.

Emma. My sweet kitty, who turned into a raving monster during the last few years of her life. You couldn’t pet her without a wild look coming into her eye and the teeth coming down on your hand, but I don’t think she meant it, really. She was all grey, a very pretty cat. I picked her up in college and kept her with me through all that moving. She came down with diabetes and kidney disease, and managed to sneak out of the house just before we moved away, presumably to go off and die somewhere quietly. I was overwhelmed with a 2-year-old and a newborn, not to mention unbearable financial stress and what amounted to an eviction from our apartment, so I never quite processed this departure.

Bampi. My mother’s mother was the quintessential cookie-baking grandmother. We never quite connected, but I knew she loved me and I loved her back. She lived for years in a nursing home and I felt tremendous guilt about not spending more time with her. The day she was dying, the nursing home called my mother, but she could not or would not go to her side. My cousin Janie and I met in her room – I had baby Eli with me in his little car seat. We sat in the room and told stories and just waited while Bampi, already heavily dosed with morphine and unaware of her surroundings, slowly melted away. She was 98 years old.

Harpo. Harpo was our angel cat who only lived three years before being hit by a car in Salem, Massachusetts, outside my sister’s house where we were house-sitting for the summer. The best cat EVER, was Harpo. Smart and funny and much too young to die. We took him up to my dad’s house to bury him in the garden, and a local Episcopal priest actually agreed to come out and perform a funeral with us. We sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and I buried him in my favorite sweatshirt. He was a love.

Polly. My stepmother died on May 30, 2001, just a few weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. I’m not sure I can write any more about this today. No single loss has been so hard as this one.

Lee. I found out about Lee in the middle of labor. Whatever it was that prompted me to answer my cell phone while trying to cope with a 9 pound 4 ounce baby making its way through my vaginal canal found me standing naked in the hallway clutching that same phone and crying hysterically while my friend David delivered the news. He died too fast, and too meaninglessly, shutting himself off from his friends, refusing to reach out to any of us, and refusing the treatment available to him which would have allowed him a much longer and healthier life for years if not decades. Instead my idiotic, wonderful, sweet college friend died very, very swiftly of AIDS. I got in the shower, cried some more, shook it off, grabbed a towel, and went back into my bedroom to push out a baby, after first propping up a picture of Lee on the nightstand. I think maybe there’s a little bit of Lee in Javier.

Dee. Brian’s grandmother fought valiantly against heart disease, coping all the while with shingles and plenty of other aches and pains. This went on for all the years I knew her, and she held up like the Texas broad she was – always gracious, always perfectly coiffed and manicured, even in her hospital bed. I loved Dee, she was a straight-shooter, with a wicked sense of humor and a sharp tongue, although she was very kind and welcoming to me. She died at home in her chair last January, and we buried her ashes on the ranch, next to her son and her first husband.

Diorama, Cha Cha Cha

2005-10-10T09:34:00.000-05:00

Somehow I survived the Great Diorama Event of 2005. There will be more dioramas to come, but this was the first diorama, and as such caused a great wave of anxiety to come crashing over my head which lasted from the moment it was casually mentioned (in August, at the open house), until last Thursday night when all the dioramas were revealed to the parents at PTA Night, and I could heave a great sigh of relief that Jack’s diorama was neither a) so obviously and completely created by an adult that all the other people in the room were snickering in disapproval nor b) so totally and utterly crappy that everyone passed it by sadly, shaking their heads, hoping the poor kid didn’t feel too bad about his lousy diorama which his parents obviously didn’t help him with at all. Whew! We were plumb in the middle, which was what I was going for. Plumb in the middle, mind you, involved a $40 shopping trip to the craft store and a five-hour session last weekend of gluing, taping, and other fine motor skills which do not come so easily to yours truly. It also involved a lot of tongue-biting in the face of Jack’s hasty and poorly thought out coloring job. Between the two of us we did a downright mediocre job, and I’m mighty proud.

Memelicious

2005-10-06T10:32:00.000-05:00

I hate these and yet am strangely compelled by them. Sorry.

I found it on Melly's other blog. I can't give you the url. So there.

1. FIRST NAME?

Sarah.

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

There were Sarahs on both sides. Mostly I was named for my grandfather’s favorite sister, Sarah.

3. DO YOU WISH ON STARS?

Yes.

4. WHICH FINGER IS YOUR FAVORITE?

The one I’m picking my nose with.

5. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?

Last night. Whatever, it’s that time of the month.

6. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?

I don’t dislike it.

7. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?

Sushi.

8. ANY BAD HABITS?

Picking my nose with this finger.

9. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CD ON THE SHELF?

CD? Shelf?

10. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?

Yes. Then at least I’d have a friend.

11.HAVE YOU EVER TOLD SOMEONE A SECRET YOU SWORE NOT TO TELL?

Never.

12. DO LOOKS MATTER?

Totally.

13. HOW DO YOU RELEASE ANGER?

I kill bunnies.

14. WHERE IS YOUR SECOND HOME?

New York City. Skyscrapers, and everything.

15. DO YOU TRUST OTHERS EASILY?

Much too much.

16. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD?

I didn’t really have a favorite toy. I liked playing outside.

17. WHAT CLASS IN SCHOOL DO YOU THINK IS TOTALLY USELESS?

I don’t think any classes are useless. Some teachers, however…

18. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?

No.

19. DO YOU USE SARCASM?

Yeah, right.

20. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A MOSH PIT?

I’m not that kind of girl.

21. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A GUY/GIRL?

The ability to mix a drink, change a diaper, give a good foot rub, and rock me ALL NIGHT LONG.

22. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES?

When I was little people called me “Sarah Boo.” I hated it.

23. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?

Maybe for money. But I wouldn’t pay to do it.

24. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?

Untie? You mean like laces? I don’t have shoes with laces. I live in Texas.

25. DO YOU THINK THAT YOU HAVE STRONG POINTS?

I have strong, pointy teeth.

26. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?

Whatever you have in that bowl, there.

27. WHAT IS YOUR SHOE SIZE?

8 ½

28. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE COLORS?

Greens and blues.

29. HOW MANY WISDOM TEETH DO YOU HAVE?

Wait, where did my pointy teeth go?

30. WHO DO YOU MISS MOST RIGHT NOW?

All the dead people. Why did you have to bring that up? Now I’m crying again.

31. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?

And Pierre said, “I don’t care.”

32. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?

A truck backing up outside. The AC. A dog barking. My brain slowly draining out of my skull.

33. LAST THING YOU ATE?

A Nutter Butter cookie. That was breakfast. Your ice cream looks good.

34. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?

One of the fathers of some of my children.

35. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE IN THE OPPOSITE SEX?

Drink-mixing ability.

36. DO YOU LOVE THE PERSON WHO POSTED THIS?

With all my heart.

37. HOW ARE YOU TODAY?

I was fine until you reminded me of all the dead people who I miss and how little I’ve had to eat. Now I’m sad and hungry.

38. FAVORITE NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINK?

They make drinks without alcohol?

39. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?

Margarita.

40. FAVORITE SPORT?

Football.

41. HAIR COLOR?

Brown.

42. EYE COLOR?

Hazel.

43. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?

No.

44. SIBLINGS?

2 half, 3 step.

45. FAVORITE MONTH?

October.

46. FAVORITE FOOD?

Anything Italian, anything Japanese, pretty much anything, actually. Like your ice cream, for example.

47. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?

The Life Aquatic.

48. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR?

Thanksgiving. It’s all about the food.

49. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT?

Nope.

50. SUMMER OR WINTER?

Fall.

51. HUGS OR KISSES?

Air kisses.

52. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE NIGHT STANDS?

Relationships.

53. WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?

54. WHO IS THE LEAST LIKELY TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?

55. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?

I gave up books right around kid #3. I read the New Yorker as I’m falling asleep…

56. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?

It’s clear plastic.

57. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?

Balloon Lagoon.

58. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?

I couldn’t get the fucking thing to work. Technology pisses me off sometimes. Remember when you used to plug a thing into the wall and press “On” and it would work??? Jesus.

59. FAVORITE SMELLS?

Food cooking.

60. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP?

Allison always wakes me up. Sometimes I think of muzzling her. Then I go kill a bunny.

Same Old Same Old

2005-09-26T21:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, what can I tell you.

It feels like everything and nothing is happening all at once. The hurricane didn't touch us, or maybe it whispered in our ears, maybe the trees swayed a little more forcefully than they normally do, but not a drop of rain fell, not a single power line came down, there was no need for the five 12-packs of bottled water that now languish in the living room. Austin is full of people, though, seeking shelter from both storms. Friday night we went out to dinner with friends to a Chinese restaurant on the north side of town (fantastic, by the way -- I've finally eaten a good Chinese meal in Austin) which was packed to the gills with Houston folks. One guy told me he had driven for 16 hours, which meant he left home at 3 in the morning or so, and had just pulled in for dinner. It's usually a 2 1/2 - 3 hour drive.

In the middle of all of this my father was outfitted with a shiny new pacemaker. Seems to be a growing trend in my family. Both my parents now sport one, which I guess means I'm a likely candidate down the road, unless they come up with something even better by the time I'm eligible. He's fine, it's no big deal, but somehow it is a big deal, too. Parents, mortality...you know what I'm talking about. All that jazz.

And somewhere in D.C. my sister is maybe in jail tonight, having gone there with the intent of doing civil disobedience and getting arrested. There was no plan for a phone-call chain, so I have no idea what's happening. Hopefully it all went well and she got herself arrested, as planned.

People call and say "how are you? what's new?" and again I have this feeling: Everything. Nothing.

We're having record-breaking heat. I'm working. My printer is on the fritz again. We had pasta for dinner. All hell is breaking loose in the world.

What's new with you?

Here She Comes

2005-09-22T09:56:00.000-05:00

Lovely Rita's on her way. I went to the supermarket last night to stock up, along with 75 million other people. The stockers were coming into the store with forklifts of water, and watching bemused while throngs of people descended upon them, unloading the packs of bottles before they could get them onto the shelves. There wasn't a single D battery to be found in the store, and I didn't have the propane tanks to refill, so we may be completely out of propane. Hopefully the gas will stay on, even if we lose the electricity. It's a little exhausting, contemplating the arrival of another hurricane, but at least we're not down in Galveston or Corpus. My friend Sharon and family packed up and left League City and headed for a hotel in Waco yesterday. I hope they get to return to a dry house. Brian's grandmother is safe in San Antonio. Our friend Kathleen was supposed to have a gallery showing this weekend in Galveston. Her paintings are still there, in the gallery. Watercolors. Who knows what will become of them. It's weird having this much warning, this much waiting. Strange to look out the window at a perfectly calm, blue-sky day, and think about that monster storm churning in the Gulf, heading straight for us.

Hold on to your hats, everyone!

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

2005-09-13T17:04:00.000-05:00

The second season of Nip/Tuck is now out on DVD, and we've been happily putting the babies to bed, grabbing our pints of ice cream*, and settling down on the couch for long stints of TV goodness. I know of no other show on television that has such a sublime combination of the profound and the schlocky, the comedy, the drama, the soap opera. It's sex and death, every single episode. Sex and death. Plus Famke Janssen!

Tonight, the famous Uchi, finally. I've been waiting to go to this restaurant for months now, and tonight's the night! A farewell party for Jason, who is going off to the wilds of California and leaving us here, crying in our sake.

*This pint of Cherry Garcia was shamefully short on cherries; I may need to send a disgruntled letter. Is it a short-changing trend, or just a bad pint? Shame on you, Ben and Jerry.

Overcome

2005-09-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

It's hard not to point fingers and lay blame right now. It's impossible to hear the stories of trauma, violence, victimization, neglect, and death, and not get angry. I finally was forwarded the email (you can read it here on the daily Kos) which is making the rounds, essentially accusing the mayor and governor of dropping the ball, and claiming the president and the dept. of Homeland Security to be faultless, a sort of chain-of-command argument which, under the circumstances of Katrina, frankly doesn't hold water, if you'll forgive the expression.

The sermon last Sunday was a bit disjointed, as was to be expected from our Louisiana-native priest. He talked about grief, and we are surely all grieving, and he talked about blame, and we are surely all blaming. It's in our nature to do so. I think what makes this whole thing so difficult, in part, is that this is not the story we want to tell ourselves about ourselves, and about our country. We want the story of people pulling together, not turning on each other, and while it's true that a tremendous amount of people pulled together, saved each other, got out, and survived, it is also true that we failed each other in so many ways, on so many levels. The thought of a hospital evacuation having to halt due to sniper fire still leaves me feeling cold and numb.

People across the country are pointing fingers at the Feds, the mayor, the governor, even the victims themselves. Here in Austin, people (at least on one email list I subscribe to) are getting seriously riled up about the Red Cross's handling of the volunteer effort, the lack of efficiency, the people wanting to help but being turned away, the inability to find places to take donations. My own email suggesting patience while the Red Cross tries to respond to the overwhelming number of would-be volunteers and donors was met with hostility. I backed quietly away from that argument; this is not the time. People are angry, frustrated, grieving, blaming, even blaming the relief organization, so determined are they to find fault and point fingers.

The second reading on Sunday was from Romans 12:9-21, and included the famous "Vengeance is mine..." quotation, but ended with an even more powerful statement, one that has stayed with me all week.

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

I'm doing what I can. There is much to be done here in Austin for our 5,000 or so new residents. Some of them will be staying permanently, some moving on. The school-age kids have orientation today and will start full-time in the Austin public schools on Monday. I'm heading back over to the Red Cross tomorrow to sign up for another shift at the Convention Center. I want to find Dotty, and Curtis, and David, and baby Gerald. I want to see how the family of 24 is doing. This time I'll fill my pockets with trinkets for the kids, and I'll bring in some magazines for the adults to read.

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers."

Flooded

2005-09-05T11:12:00.000-05:00

“When can I go to school?” was the first thing 12-year-old Curtis said to me, after he’d stepped off the bus and I had taken his bag. Not “where are the cots?” or “do you have any water?” The second question was “do they have basketball teams here?”

It was a long night, I carried a lot of bags and babies, and heard a lot of horror stories. Took a lot of people to triage, people with swollen feet they could barely walk on, people in insulin shock, people severely dehydrated. Women came in who had been gang raped in the Superdome. Dotty and Ron told me of their two nights spent on the floor in the shopping mall, which became overrun by looters and where they feared for their safety and their lives. She saw a woman who had been beaten to death with her own wheelchair, babies dying, bodies in dumpsters.

I listened.

People got off the bus tired, drunk, dazed, angry, scared. Some were happy to be there. Many were grateful, saying that we were the first people who had treated them with any kindness in days. There were groups of 24 who had stayed together all the way, groups of 12, groups of 13. They had suitcases and garbage bags full of clothes and shoes, their only remaining possessions. Some were barefoot.

Baby Gerald, five months old, was there with his mother, brother David, and sisters Kiere and Lisa, all of them tired and dirty, stinking of urine and wanting beds. David got a new asthma inhaler and a prescription for antibiotics for his brewing ear infection while I held sleeping Gerald, a perfect, fat little cherub, totally oblivious to the chaos around him. The family ate their burgers and fries and the mom gave out their medical history. When I had finally gotten that family to registration, I needed a new shirt. They would soon have showers and clean clothes, but who knows how long it would be before they had beds, walls, privacy, normalcy.

Between midnight and 8 a.m. Sunday we unloaded probably 60 Metro busses with 30 people on each one. As I was leaving, we heard of three more planes coming in with 575 more. More came throughout the day. And today there are signs up still on the highways, directing refugees to the Convention Center. When all is said and done, we’ll have 7,000 refugees in Austin needing help, jobs, schools, money, homes, cars, child care, and comfort. There’s so much work still to do. Happy Labor Day.

Music Meme

2005-09-01T10:15:00.000-05:00

It's Meme Week in the Big City! Somebody STOP ME!

Here's how this one works: go to Music Outfitters, type the year of your high school graduation into the search function, select the top 100 most popular songs, cut and paste it into your blog and then bold the ones you like, strike out the ones you hate, and leave alone the ones you don't care about or don't know. Tim sent me this, having come across it on drublood.

Guess the year:

1. Careless Whisper, Wham!
2. Like A Virgin, Madonna I don't know, I can take her or leave her, but this song is so funny, "touched" is so obviously substituted for "fucked," that I'll bold it for sentimental reasons.
~~3. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wham!~~ I've lightened up on George M. & co. since back then. I hated Wham! with a passion in high school, but now I tolerate it for the most part...except for this song, which just gets right under my skin.
~~4. I Want To Know What Love Is, Foreigner~~
5. I Feel For You, Chaka Khan Uh huh. Best song of the top 100 I'd say.
6. Out Of Touch, Daryl Hall and John Oates
~~7. Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Tears For Fears~~ I never want to hear this again, for as long as I live.
8. Money For Nothing, Dire Straits
9. Crazy For You, Madonna
~~10. Take On Me, A-Ha~~ Take me on. Take on me. Was it a grammatical exercise, or what?
~~11. Everytime You Go Away, Paul Young~~ Utter dreck. Made funnier since the book of Mondigreens came out, Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, with the line "...You take a piece of meat with you."
~~12. Easy Lover, Phil Collins and Philip Bailey~~
13. Can't Fight This Feeling, REO Speedwagon
~~14. We Built This City, Starship~~ On rock and roll? Seriously? Wow.
~~15. The Power Of Love, Huey Lewis and The News~~
16. Don't You (Forget About Me), Simple Minds
17. Cherish, Kool and The Gang
18. St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion), John Parr
~~19. The Heat Is On, Glenn Frey~~ Bad, bad, bad.
~~20. We Are The World, U.S.A. For Africa~~ This song plagued anyone unfortunate to be alive with working ear drums this year, and the year after -- I think it was released at Christmas-time, but I could be wrong. It followed us everywhere. It was piped into our houses, our supermarkets, our playgrounds, our coffins.
21. Shout, Tears For Fears
~~22. Part-Time Lover, Stevie Wonder~~ What the hell happened to Stevie?
~~23. Saving All My Love For You, Whitney Houston~~
24. Heaven, Bryan Adams
25. Everything She Wants, Wham!
26. Cool It Now, New Edition
27. Miami Vice Theme, Jan Hammer
28. Lover Boy, Billy Ocean
29. Lover Girl, Teena Marie (weird, huh? I don't remember either of them.)
~~30. You Belong To The City, Glenn Frey~~ You belong in the trash.
31. Oh Sheila, Ready For The World
32. Rhythm Of The Night, Debarge
33. One More Night, Phil Collins
34. Sea Of Love, Honeydrippers
35. A View To A Kill, Duran Duran
36. The Wild Boys, Duran Duran
~~37. You're The Inspiration, Chicago~~ Chicago, Foreigner, this was the year of the truly sucky supergroups that would not fucking go away.
38. Neutron Dance, Pointer Sisters
39. We Belong, Pat Benatar Come on, you know you love it.
40. Nightshift, Commodores
41. Things Can Only Get Better, Howard Jones whoa oh ohohoh whoa oh oh oh oh oh oh...great lyrics.
~~42. All I Need, Jack Wagner~~ ...are some earplugs.
~~43. Freeway Of Love, Aretha Franklin~~ Maybe Stevie and Aretha were playing an elaborate practical joke on us all.
44. Never Surrender, Corey Hart
~~45. Sussudio, Phil Collins~~ What did it mean? Who gives a shit?
46. Strut, Sheena Easton
47. You Give Good Love, Whitney Houston
48. The Search Is Over, Survivor
49. Missing You, Diana Ross
50. Separate Lives, Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin
51. Raspberry Beret, Prince and The Revolution
52. Suddenly, Billy Ocean
53. The Boys Of Summer, Don Henley
54. One Night In Bangkok, Murray Head This song is so...odd. But sort of endearing.
55. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Sting
56. Obsession, Animotion
57. We Don't Need Another Hero, Tina Turner
58. Material Girl, Madonna
59. Better Be Good To Me, Tina Turner
60. Head Over Heels, Tears For Fears
61. Axel F, Harold Faltermeyer
62. Smooth Operator, Sade
63. In My House, Mary Jane Girls
64. Don't Lose My Number, Phil Collins
65. All Through The Night, Cyndi Lauper
66. Run To You, Bryan Adams
67. Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen
68. Voices Carry, 'Til Tuesday
69. Misled, Kool and The Gang
70. Would I Lie To You?, Eurythmics
71. Be Near Me, ABC
72. No More Lonely Nights, Paul McCartney
73. I Can't Hold Back, Survivor
74. Summer Of '69, Bryan Adams
75. Walking On Sunshine, Katrina and The Waves
76. Freedom, Wham!
77. Too Late For Goodbyes, Julian Lennon
78. Valotte, Julian Lennon
79. Some Like It Hot, Power Station
80. Solid, Ashford and Simpson
81. Angel, Madonna
82. I'm On Fire, Bruce Springsteen Bruce at his smokiest, achiest best.
83. Method Of Modern Love, Daryl Hall and John Oates
84. Lay Your Hands On Me, Thompson Twins
85. Who's Holding Donna Now, Debarge
86. Lonely Ol' Night, John Cougar Mellencamp I loved him back in the Cougar days.
87. What About Love, Heart
88. California Girls, David Lee Roth
89. Fresh, Kool and The Gang
90. Do What You Do, Jermaine Jackson
91. Jungle Of Love, The Time
92. Born In The USA, Bruce Springsteen
93. Private Dancer, Tina Turner
~~94. Who's Zoomin' Who, Aretha Franklin~~ Oh, Aretha. Why?
95. Fortress Around Your Heart, Sting
96. Penny Lover, Lionel Richie
97. All She Wants To Do Is Dance, Don Henley
98. Dress You Up, Madonna
99. Sentimental Street, Night Ranger
100. Sugar Walls, Sheena Easton

1985, a very, very bad year indeed. I think it's best if we just forget the 80s, and move on already. I could have added even more strikethroughs, but enough already. I wasn't listening to the radio that year, anyway, so I only had to contend with most of this crap when I went out in public. I remember being mostly obsessed with the Talking Heads (not ONE song on this list???), my boyfriend's band and some other local Boston bands long since forgotten, The Clash, The Police, The B-52s, and Elvis Costello.

I want my Meme!

2005-08-31T13:47:00.000-05:00

Jodi, my prom queen, your meme tag is my command:

7 things I plan to do before I die:
1) Learn to speak Spanish, at least passably well.
2) Take a vacation that lasts more than 5 days and does not include any work. Preferably, do this every year.
3) See the Grand Canyon.
4) Buy some horses and ride them a lot.
5) Oh god, the cliché: finish my screenplay(s) and television pilot(s). Jesus. Now you know.
6) Take a nap.
7) Forgive.

7 things I can do:
1) Cook.
2) Run a business, take care of five kids, fry it up in a pan, and never, never, never let him forget he’s a man.
3) Sing almost 3 octaves. Maybe all 3 on a good day, it’s been a while.
4) Navigate. I’m good with maps.
5) Get pregnant. Yes, indeedy!.
6) Stay calm.
7) Change a tire. Well, I did it ONCE! I think that was 20 years ago. I'm sure I could do it again if I had to...

7 things I cannot do:
1) Snap.
2) Bake cookies, except for Toll House cookies. I really suck at the cookie thing.
3) Kill a bug. Especially a big bug, or a flying bug, or the dreaded big flying bug combo.
4) Keep my mouth shut.
5) Snorkel.
6) Drive a stick shift.
7) Touch my nose with my tongue.

7 things that attract me to other people:
1) Pretty eyes.
2) Strong but not overly muscular build.
3) Wit.
4) Big smile, easy laugh.
5) Kindness.
6) Creativity – whether it’s music, writing, painting, photography, or something else.
7) Big feet.

7 things that I say most often:
1) I don’t know.
2) I didn’t do it.
3) God DAMN it.
4) What?
5) Where are/is my keys/sunglasses/babies/debit card?
6) Dinner’s ready!
7) I brought you into this world, and I can TAKE YOU OUT.

7 celebrity crushes:
1) John Cusack
2) Robert Mitchum
3) Charlize Theron
4) Johnny Depp
5) Tinky Winky
6) Gary Sinise
7) Russell Crowe. I’m sorry, I can’t help it.

7 people I want to do this (anyone not on the list who'd like to play is invited, and no one I've tagged should feel obligated):
1) Jody
2) Mrs Otto
3) Tim
4) Yvonne
5) C. Monks
6) Shelley
7) Lauren

Spoiled Rotten

2005-08-28T19:05:00.000-05:00

I was there at the beginning of Six Feet Under, hooked like a fish from the very first episode, but somewhere along the way HBO (cable, actually) became a luxury we could not afford, and so a few seasons have come and gone without my viewing. Not to worry, I told myself, it will all come out on DVD, and then I can watch the episodes in a feverish, glazed-over state, taking breaks only for the bathroom and to heat up a frozen chicken pot pie. I love to watch TV that way -- we watched the entire first season of Nip/Tuck in a matter of 2 days, sitting in a stupor on the couch, forcing the kids to make their own meals and drive themselves to and from school. Besides, it was a great way to avoid actually conversing with my mother, who was here for a visit at that time.

So, yes. There are three or four mostly unwatched seasons out there for me to digest at my leisure, and I was scrupulously careful to avoid any mention of the grand finale last week. Which is why I was horrified when last night, while innocently reading the New Yorker in bed (go on, make fun of me, but that's what I do for entertainment), suddenly a spoiler appeared, right there in the middle of the article, what do I learn but that Nathan is dead. Which, actually, was not too much of a shock, even if it was information I'd rather not have had thrown in my face. But then AGAIN, today, while reading the fantabulous Heather Havrilesky, another more shocking spoiler rears its ugly head. Heather, she's usually so careful with the warnings. But not today.

Please, for the love of everything HBOly, don't tell me anything else!

Oh. Ow.

2005-08-26T10:34:00.000-05:00

So, I've got this stiff neck thing happening. It's that horrible feeling where you can't turn your neck to look over your shoulder when you're driving the car which makes changing lanes extremely hazardous to your health. Furthermore, I have an odd pain just under my ribcage, mostly on the right, but now sort of gravitating over to the left, that causes me to say "oh!" and "ow!" at odd intervals and to no one in particular. I'm feeling a little crazy this morning, what with all the aches and pain. There's also the early warning signs of carpal tunnel syndrome, which I'm trying to ignore, because if it explodes into full-blown carpal tunnel syndrome, I'm pretty much screwed as far as my business goes. I think that about sums up my health complaints.

But enough about me, let's talk about my KIDS! Jack and Eli have started school in my neighborhood, and a fine, fine school it is. Eli is now officially a kindergardener, Jack is in 2nd grade, each of them already has a best friend, all is right with the universe. Eli, as usual, is a big hit with the ladies, although with any attention from them he looks very much like he would like to be swallowed up by the floor -- especially if I'm anywhere nearby to witness it.

Javi or Javy or Javier (maybe I should conduct a poll?) is doing great at his new day care, and the girls love it there as well, and will be starting full-time next week, praise Jesus. Their new obsession is Teletubbies ("tebbytubby! tebbytubby!"), favorite food is PB&J, favorite pastime is climbing like monkeys all over everything. Brian caught them on the piano just a few days ago, playing the keys with their feet.

It's hot here, I'm swamped with work, my body hurts, and although I yearn to be doing just a spec of something creative and personal, I find it next to impossible to carve out time for this little experiment. Still, I think things will get better now that the kids are occupied more of the time, so I'll try to check in more often. It's good for me, although has little or no effect on this weird ribcage pain. Ow.

The Computer, She Has Crashed

2005-08-01T19:12:00.000-05:00

Honestly, people. I am TRYING here. I was posting every day, even. But technology has turned against me. Thank god for this old workhorse desktop computer -- computer which I shunned and scorned and spurned! Which I pratically gave away to my children! But now I've come crawling back, and at least I've got something to work on while the other machine is in the shop, because that thing is DEAD, as dead as any speck of affection and good will I ever felt towards Tom Cruise. As dead as the rat Brian killed with his bare hands in our back yard. As dead as the same rat still was when it ended up getting tossed by the trash guys NOT into the garbage truck, but back onto the street, where I nearly stepped on it when I got out of my car.

Actually, I've got something even better than that old thing, which is a fabulous, glitzy, beautiful, fancy-schmancy laptop, even more shiny and exciting than my one in the shop. This new puppy, you could set it up in your living room and watch DVDs on it, you could. It's practically the size of a plasma TV. I'll be working on it soon enough, and then I have a feeling I'm going to be very, very spoiled, and not want to part with it. Meanwhile, I've been eyeing it furtively from across the room as it displays its glorious screensaver and plays its pretty music. Is this some dastardly trick that the computer store is playing on me? Trying to get me to fall in love with the loaner?

My Son, the Mafioso

2005-07-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

Jack: Mom, when I grow up, I want to be President.

Me: Well, that's quite a goal! But if you put your mind to it, I'm sure you can become president...

Jack: ...President of an Italian organization!

Me: Oh.

It's The I-Can't-Stop-Hyphenating-Shit Post!

2005-07-26T16:05:00.000-05:00

Well, hey there! Have I mentioned my crazy mother? It’s on my mind these days after yet another visit-followed-by-a-serious-letter special combo platter. Is your mother more interfering, advice-giving, meddling, worrying, nagging, needling, and bullying than mine? Really? Prove it!

Have I mentioned that she is a psychotherapist and therefore Knows More Than God? Uh huh. Yep, we’re a mess down here in Texas, and there’s only one cowgirl smart enough, strong enough, and in possession of enough free time (conveniently during the winter months) to save us! Wow, Mom! Thanks for the offer! But seriously, leave me the fuck alone! My mom, in all of her crippling anxiety (and where did that come from? She wasn’t like that when I was a child, I don’t think) seriously thinks that we are doomed. And I mean doomed, like, there’s no hope for us if we don’t get her specialized round-the-clock, hey-I’m-a-relative, but-I-can-practice-psychotherapy-on-you-anyway, boundary-issues-don’t-scare-me treatment.

Sigh.

I love her, really, but sometimes I forget why.

P.S. Please send your phone to Frankie.

FrankiePants News Flash

2005-07-25T11:03:00.000-05:00

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled boring reports of drunken parenting to request help for Frankie, a former coworker's nephew who was recently diagnosed with mucopolysaccharide III Type A or Sanfilippo Syndrome, which is a genetic disorder.

Frankie is lacking a key enzyme. Without treatment, Frankie would lose the ability to walk and talk. Life expectancy for a child suffering from Sanfilippo is 10-15 years of age.

Frankie is living at Duke Medical Center for about six months with his parents while undergoing an umbilical stem cell transplant, chemotherapy, and recovery.

The family is working w/ COTA (Children's Organ Transplant Association) to assist them with fundraising. COTA has given Frankie's family a goal to reach of $85,000 to assist with all of his transplant and treatment needs. www.cota.com

This is where YOU come in, my readership of 7! Frankie's aunt Lauren will be collecting cell phones, even/especially NON-WORKING ones, from now until NOVEMBER 1, 2005. For each cell phone she turns in, $3.00 gets contributed to Frankie's fund. If you have a cell phone to donate, please contact me via email, and I will send you the mailing address.

If you don't have a cell phone to donate, but you still want to help out, you can make a donation directly to COTA on behalf of Frankie. Please note that ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Donations can be made to Frankie's fund through his link on the COTA web site (Frankie's Fund) or mailed directly to COTA at

COTA
2501 COTA Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403.

When mailing in a donation to COTA, please make sure to write "Frankie D" in the memo field of your check.

Thanks for all your help!

Okay, So it Came out in 2000, So Sue Me

2005-07-24T15:53:00.000-05:00

Finally watched State and Main last night, and I was pleasantly surprised. I had been bracing myself for some heavy-duty Mamet-style dialogue, which reminds me of the horrors of acting classes in the 1990s, among other atrocities. But truthfully it was hysterically funny and not terribly choppy, with lots of great throaway lines ("Did you see the gross for Ghandi II?"). Great script, great cast. The only weak link seems to be Sarah Jessica Parker, who just cries and vamps, and seems out of her league. I highly recommend it (for those of you who are even lamer and slower to get to movies than I am).

So Ronery and Sadry Arone

2005-07-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

This week is, without a doubt, the hardest I have ever worked at any job, but I'm just trying to keep the customer satisfied, and keep my ass from getting fired (again).

Things were already slipping further and further behind, and then came the trip to New York. Did I mention the trip to New York? I didn't? Possibly that's because I haven't been mentioning much of anything at all -- just haven't had the blog fever of late.

We spent two days in the Catskills for a family reunion of my very Jewish family in a very Italian-American resort. It was certainly entertaining to walk down by the pool for a good dose of tattoos and gold chains and very, very, very big hair. I would say there were a lot more Anthonys than Jacobs running around, but we did our best to keep the place diversified. I have a great family, and they took it all in stride.

We then drove down to the city for 24 hours before flying back to Texas. My sister the bellydancer (no, really!) took us out for Cuban food that night, then in the morning we headed for downtown Brooklyn and breakfast at Junior's (eggs benedict). We then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge...this was my first time ever doing this. How it took me so long before setting foot on that bridge is beyond me, considering all the years I lived in New York. It was the highlight of the trip. We walked across lower Manhattan to the Village, where we dined with the famous, fabulous Jodi at the Village Natural. Then did a little poking around inside ABC Carpet, before catching a cab back to my sister's place in Brooklyn, retrieving my rental car with the $45.00 (!!!) parking ticket, and heading back to La Guardia. It was wonderful and heart-wrenching all at once to be back in New York -- the best city on earth, and the place I would be if the planets would only align properly and make me a millionaire. For now, I'll have to settle for annual family reunions.

Anyway, came back home to an even greater work crisis, and I've been strapped down to my computer chair ever since, although the pace is finally letting up. For several days in a row I was working until 12:30 or 1 a.m., going to bed, getting up at 6:30, getting to work at 7:30 or 8, working until 6 p.m., breaking until 8:30 p.m., working until 12:30 or 1 a.m......yowza.

Took the night off last night for the first time and we watched Team America: World Police, which was so funny it made me cry. Trey Parker is my hero.

Sea Change, My Ass

2005-06-12T23:12:00.000-05:00

What was that crap all about? Why didn't somebody SLAP ME.

I've been sick as a dog for going on four days now*, my mother arrived a complete, limping wreck and had to plied with narcotics and muscle relaxants for two days in order to recover, just in time to return home. After depleting my carefully hoarded supply of prescription drugs, she took two of my precious offspring away on a plane without me and off into the wilds of Boston traffic and onto Swan boats and beaches and rotaries and God knows where else and really I'm FINE with that. Just fine.

I had to miss the Keren Ann concert due to a combination of me being sick and my mother being totally stoned. We were out at a farewell party for my neighbors (see list of shitty things below) when it finally dawned on me, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, that my romantic night out was not happening. I actually went table to table, pitching my poor little Keren Ann tickets to happy looking couples, who all regarded me with a weird combination of horror and pity, until I finally slunk away to the front desk of Central Market and asked the guy to try to give them away for me. I hope someone picked them up and had a good time. Hey! You did? It was on me. No really, don't thank me. I'm just glad someone was able to go. The whole failed attempt at giving stuff away was so humiliating that I went back to the playground through the parking lot so I would not have to see those people, with their pitying faces, ever again.

In other shitty news, my favorite people in the neighborhood are leaving not just the neighborhood but the country. I can't even come up with anything more to say about that except: totally shitty.

So let's recap:

1) Unspeakably sick.
2) Unpleasant visit with frail, aging mother who then left with two of my kids in tow.
3) No fabulous night out date after all.
4) Best friends leaving forever.

Everything is SO GREAT!

*I'd tell you the gorey details, in fact I feel strangely compelled to, but I once read a post by Jodi admonishing all who choose to reveal certain intimate details about their illnesses, and since Jodi is my Prom Queen, I do whatever she says. (Sort of. If you click the above link, take careful note of the picture on the right. Looks just like my gorey details!)

UPDATE: A guy just came to my door offering a good deal on steaks. Hey, my luck might be changing! Would you buy a steak that just fell off a truck?

SECOND UPDATE: The magnanimous Jodi took busy time out from grooming her cat and her DOG, searched through her archives for me, and came up with this post. I hope she'll forgive me for breaking her rules, and not force me to eat ten pounds of spicy eggplant when we dine together in July.

Day Care

2005-06-08T09:40:00.000-05:00

I should be used to it by now, the crying. On Jack's first day ever, way back when, I left him at that day care center bawling his eyes out, drove straight to work, marched into my boss's office, shut the door, and burst into tears. It was heart wrenching, which was exactly what Jack wanted it to be, for me. But he quickly got used to the place and eventually stopped the show of tears every morning. The truth was, he loved it there, and he and I both knew it. Javy, who is the Most Unflappable Baby on the Planet, never shed a single tear. It's only now that he has turned two and feels the need to demonstrate some degree of willfulness that he will occasionally lie down on the floor and sob in protest when I leave him. Even Eli adjusted pretty quickly to the whole day care thing and hardly ever cried when I dropped him off.

And I guess I'm a little less susceptible to it now. I'm certainly not crying as I write this, just like I'm pretty sure the babies aren't crying any more. And also, don't get me wrong here, I love day care. I love dropping my kids off somewhere where there are other kids and grown ups and things to do that are different from the things to do at home. I love being able to stop by my house and take a shower or do the dishes or have a cup of coffee and not be instantly tackled and needed and distracted into child care instead of whatever the hell it was I went home for. I love letting someone else change their diapers and play with them and otherwise entertain them so I can just be myself for a change, so I can be ALONE for a change.

It's been a week, now. They're going for two half-days and two full-days each week until the end of August, when it will be full-time. I know they're having a good time there, I like the teachers, the classrooms, the outside play spaces, it's all good. But Lordy, I hate leaving my babies in tears.

Sea Change

2005-06-05T12:05:00.000-05:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks, full of illness and bad neighbors and a negative cash flow. Friday I was running an errand, babies in the car with me, rather far from home, when my car started to pulsate and my check engine light began to flash. My heart sank. I drove it to the dealer, afraid every second that it would die on me or blow up before I made it there, pulled under the service canopy, and got out.

Jesse was nice, took my information, asked if I had an extended warranty, told me it would cost me $85 just to do a diagnostic on a check engine light, but they would take that out of the total bill. I told him I had no warranty. He sat for a long time in the driver's seat, listening to the motor. He said they were too busy to look at it until Monday, and he got me a ride home in the Courtesy Van, driven by the world's slowest driver who spoke no English.

That was my morning. I was a wreck. Went to work in the afternoon, came home to make dinner for the babies. At 5:30 the phone rang: Jesse. Do you want the good news, or the bad news? I said give me the bad news first. He said, just kidding, there is no bad news. You had some fuel injectors go out, we replaced them, and everything was covered under your extended warranty. My what? You have an extended warranty, it's in the system, and you're good to go. No $85 charge? I asked, incredulous at my good luck. Nope. When do you close? We're here til 7. So, off to the dealer, picked up my happy car, went out for a celebratory dinner, home to bed, and woke up to the sound of B. puking his guts out at 4 in the morning. So, I guess it wasn't a sea change for everyone. But still, I'm taking it as a sign.

B. spent the day in bed yesterday, so it was a long day for me, what with all the feeding and cleaning and nursing and walks to the park and diaper changes and baths and more feeding and preparing of food and breaking up of fist fights. I fell into bed at the end of the day, exhausted, and put on the radio to help me to sleep.

Keren Ann (warning: audio link) came on the radio, and the DJ offered tickets to the 6th and 7th callers to see her next Saturday night. I picked up the phone.

Mom will be here next weekend which means the babysitting issue is all taken care of. Brian's better today, and I'm going to try to get some work done.

I'm calling this a sea change, a change in the weather, a seismic shift.

Things I Don't Love About the Weaning Process, #296

2005-06-02T16:14:00.000-05:00

Having the neighbors comment on my expanding...tracts of land. Really? They're bigger? No kidding. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

It's day two of day care, very exciting stuff, but not the most comfortable experience for me or my acreage. I'm just eliminating the lunchtime feeding, so it really shouldn't be quite so PRONOUNCED.

Just please, whatever you do, DO NOT HUG ME.

Thanks.

Camarones En Chipotle

2005-05-28T22:01:00.000-05:00

If, dear reader, you have not figured out yet that for me it's ALL ABOUT FOOD, then you haven't been reading very carefully.

So listen: it's ALL ABOUT FOOD.

And tonight I had a kick-ass dinner at this place:

Guava Margarita
Camarones en Chipotle
Mexican Salad with Jicama
Tres Leches with mango sauce

I mean, come on. Who can be sad in the face of such wonderful food? Can I tell you? The shrimp? Perfect. Best shrimp I've had since coming to Texas, in fact.

On a side note, the girls have developed the very annoying habit of climbing out of their restaurant high chairs almost the instant they are placed (and yes, strapped) into them. They aren't able to perform this neat little trick at home, where they are restrained by both belt and tray, but restaurant high chairs are a breeze for my little Houdinis to climb out of. They would so much rather be hopping up onto the table so they can stick their paws into the hot sauce, or knock over your drink, than to sit still in their chairs and, God forbid, be fed something delicious like a tortilla spread with beans and rice and nicely rolled into a little taco. The boys NEVER, and I mean NEVER wiggled out of their restaurant high chair restraints. Not once, not one of them, never.

I blame their father.

Here...But with Reservations

2005-05-27T16:06:00.000-05:00

It's been a not-so-beautiful week in the neighborhood, and I've had to rethink my whole way of dealing (or not dealing) with the world. Not to mention the fact that B. and I have different philosophies on what to keep private, what to keep public, what to disclose, what to withhold. Recent events have startled me into realizing that I might have a tendency to be a bit too trusting, a bit too open. But I also don't want to change what I feel is a fundamentally good way to approach the world and the people around me -- with love and trust. I feel like if you put it out there, it comes back to you. Is that so naive?

It's a struggle.

And having a blog is a struggle, too. B. wants me to make it a private thing, but for me one of the fundamental pleasures of keeping an online journal is its accessability to strangers. I like reading other people's blogs, and I like them to read mine. It's part of the fun of it all, building up a readership. I don't write this thing just for me. I write it for the person who stumbles by, and likes it so much she adds a bookmark so she can come back tomorrow. If I didn't feel that was happening, or could happen, it just wouldn't be worth it to me.

But I have kids, and B., and "anything you say can and will be used against you..."

I just don't know.

For Evah and Evah and Evah

2005-05-25T22:52:00.000-05:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% Yankee

25% General American English

15% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I Think I'm Maybe Back

2005-05-25T22:33:00.000-05:00

...just getting my feet wet.

ooh! cold!

2005-05-25T22:31:00.000-05:00

Lycopene is good for you!

Proof That we are Still Alive

2004-12-17T13:21:00.000-06:00

Hello friends. I'll be back really, really soon, just as soon as I can set myself up a better workspace. If you could see me now in this obstacle course of an office...surrounded by piles of clutter...well, you'd understand my lack of posting recently.

Cheerio for now -- hope all is well with all of you.

P.S. Eli is working on his glazed-over runway model stare. What do you think?

This is not my Beautiful House

2004-10-31T07:07:00.000-06:00

Still moving stuff around, packing, unpacking, sorting, organizing.

Things are not fun right now.

Closing is final, though. House is sold. This is a good thing.

Also, hey! The Sox won the World Series.

Happy Halloween. My boys are going as soldiers. Should play really well in this Liberal Academia Enclave.

One Down, Three to Go

2004-10-24T07:49:00.000-05:00

I STILL believe.

Didn't turn the TV on until the middle of the 4th -- we were at Brian's and I was undergoing a Moving Stress Episode (MSE). (Yeah, that happy pseudo-Buddhist be-here-now all-is-well feeling that I wrote about here seems to have been washed down the storm drain during the recent torrential rains. I'm hoping it will drag its bedraggled wet ass back to me soon, because I could use some serenity right about now.) When I realized what time it was and how much I had missed, I cried. We drove down to my house with the AM radio coming in and out and in again until finally I got fed up with trying to hear the ESPN announcers through all the static and we shut it off.

Got settled back in front of the TV in time to see both the best of times (Papi! Papi! Papi!) and the worst of times (Papi!!!! What the FUCK????). Gutted it out through the 7th, 8th, and those last three beautiful outs of the top of the 9th.

More moving today, more moving tomorrow, hoping to be all done by Tuesday morning, because that's presumably the day I'm selling the house (we won't get into my Closing-Related Anxiety (CRA) in this post). We may be sleeping at Brian's house tonight if we can clear a big enough space to lie down in. Or maybe we'll sleep out on the lawn. Who knows. It's all in the hands of the universe and I will just breathe in and out and trust in the power of the Red Sox to both win the World Series and get me through this move. They're that good. Ohm.

I BELIEVE!

2004-10-21T11:01:00.000-05:00

This is THE YEAR.

Red Sox/Kerry correlation? Maybe.

Not for the squeamish:

On Monday, Morgan and three assistants, working in a sterile back room at Fenway Park, applied a local anesthetic to Schilling's ankle....

Youch!

I admit, I've been a bad fan lately. Not really paying attention during the regular season, not fully familiar with all the new players on the roster, but I'm no "fair weather fan." I've stuck with this team through thick and thin. I had to experience 1986 while living IN NEW YORK. I've done my time in the bleachers, at the bars*, on the beach with the radio, on the long car trips, searching the AM dial, trying to pick up the game from wherever I was. I just haven't been able to follow along much lately the past couple of years, what with all the, dare I say, MORE IMPORTANT things going on in my life.

Until now. It's a good thing I have time to pack up my house and move before the Series starts up.

*That's right, I have sacrificied PRECIOUS HOURS of my life sitting in bars nursing beers and yelling at the television set. It's what good fans do.

The Power of Prayer

2004-10-20T20:21:00.000-05:00

Because the world revolves around me, I'm not watching the game on Fox tonight, due to an irrational superstition that by watching, I make the Sox lose.

But I am watching on line.

And Brian is watching from his house:

Sarah (8:07:51 PM): bases loaded bases loaded. oh please oh please hit a home run
Brian (8:09:04 PM): wow!
Sarah (8:09:15 PM): hah! they yanked him!
Sarah (8:09:18 PM): i can't believe it
Sarah (8:09:29 PM): brown must be BULLSHIT
Sarah (8:09:41 PM): i don't know this javier vazquez guy
Brian (8:09:57 PM): off season acquisition from the expos
Sarah (8:10:14 PM): what's his average?
Sarah (8:10:26 PM): 8.31
Brian (8:10:46 PM): home run!
Sarah (8:10:53 PM): oh my god! really?
Brian (8:10:59 PM): grand slam!
Sarah (8:11:02 PM): really?
Sarah (8:11:06 PM): you're not fucking iwth me?
Brian (8:11:08 PM): to the wall!
Sarah (8:11:11 PM): oh my GOD!!!!!!
Brian (8:11:13 PM): go Damon!
Sarah (8:11:15 PM): oh my GOD

Brian doesn't even really care about baseball (I know, I know). But he's promised to go back and start watching again if they start losing. Meanwhile I'm glued to my computer screen.

GO SOX!

This Must be the Place

2004-10-19T19:35:00.000-05:00

It seems like people are writing just for me lately, as in:

But right now I am just profoundly grateful for the way I feel, that I am returning to rightness, that everything has been laid out before me in this way that makes the utmost sense.

and:

But what if this is it? What is this is my life - not the prologue, not the introduction, but the real thing?

and then again:

Late this afternoon, as we headed back, with the sun pouring in and the trees changing colors and The Band playing on the radio, I thought, “Man, is there any place else in the world I’d rather be right now?” and that answer was no. And then tonight, as we hit the Triborough Bridge with me behind the wheel and my friends laughing and singing and the whole skyline unfurled on our right, I thought it again, and the answer was still the same.

Things are flux-y. I can’t put things in my calendar, can’t figure out what’s happening from one day to the next, don’t know where I’ll be sleeping on, say, Monday night next week. There are hassles involved with selling a home: the homeowner's association fees to be brought up to date, the property taxes to account for. There is all the emotional work of letting this house go -- the first piece of real estate I ever bought, and quite possibly the last I ever will buy. This remnant of my failed marriage. This standing metaphor for loss -- financial and otherwise. My kids will spend their last night here on Friday (I think), in the room with the clouds I painted on the ceiling. And yes, I gripe about the suburbs, but I love my office with the lofted ceilings, and I love my garden tub, and I love that there are 2 ½ bathrooms, and I love all my storage space. There's the physical work of sorting and tossing and packing and hauling and lifting and moving and driving, all while juggling twins and the remnants of my business and the three older boys. I do hate the suburbs, and it will be great to be living with Brian, and I love love love love can't put enough loves down for how much I love that we will be living in TOWN. I’m tired of these people and their little Logans and Graysons, their candle parties, their golf carts.

But just when I was on the brink of having enough money to pay my bills and actually have a little left over (oh the possibilities I was weighing! Netflix? Gym membership? Pants? Health insurance?), I have lost my major client and my income has been slashed by two thirds. Now, even with the mortgage payments being taken off my plate, I'm back to where I started, right back here. This must be the place, because I seem to be here a lot. So I’m trying to take a look around and just BE here. Forget about the gym membership, forget about the dream house we’re going to build, forget about what’s coming up next. Because this right here must be the place. This half-packed-up house, this strange and beautiful love, this life of children and hardships, this scraping the bottom of the money barrel, this October, this night sky, this shame, this joy. This. This must be the place.

Hi yo I got plenty of time
Hi yo you got light in your eyes
And you're standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money
Always for love
Cover up + say goodnight . . . say goodnight

Soon...

2004-10-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

Two straight days of being a single parent of five children and I feel, well, pretty much as you'd expect.

Holy crap, I love my kids, but I cannot imagine for the life of me keeping them home all day. No offense to all you homeschoolers out there, but I'd rather stick poison needles in my eyes than spend day in and day out with my children. I love them, and I love to take them to school.

Actually, the older kids are easy, it's having 3 kids under the age of 2 that really wears me down. Javi follows me around from room to room, my little shadow. I can't even check my email without him pulling on my leg or messing with the keyboard. Also he's in that exasperating early verbal stage where he wants VERY much to ask me for something and I have NO idea what he is trying to say. We have conversations like this:

Javi: "oma oma oma nailclippa oma oma"

Me: "nail clippers?"

Javi: "NO! Oma Oma oma."

Me: "Oma oma?"

Javi: "OMA! OMA!!!"

Me: "Javi, I'm sorry, but I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

Javi: "Oma oma oma oma nailclippa oma oma"

Me: "Nail clippers? Do you want me to cut your nails?"

Javi: "NO!!!!! Go WAY!!!!!"

Me: "Okay, THAT I uderstand."

And the girls are rarely both content and occupied with something other than me for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. One of them is crying, or nursing, or needing to be held, pretty much all day long it seems. They're cute, though! It's why the're still alive.

We ran errands today, and driving the car was something of a break. There was napping, and mostly quietness. We dropped some stuff off at Goodwill and brought Brian a hamburger and a shake. He's working hard making his house into a functional home for 7 people. No easy feat, that, so we wanted to make sure he was fortified. It seems impossible that we will be closing in five days. I keep waiting for the army of helpful little elves* to show up and do it all for me as I sleep.

Every time I make the commute now, I think, not many more of these stupid trips. Soon we'll be in town, soon I'll be buying less gas, soon a trip to the grocery store will not be an ordeal, soon we can be out of this freak show of a neighborhood, soon Brian and I can load up the stroller on a nice cool evening and head up the street to La Dolce Vita for some creme brulee and espresso. Soon.

*Not necessarily emaciated, sexless, and naked except for the red caps. But definitely with the pointy ears.

Sandwiches, Cake, and Coffee

2004-10-13T07:42:00.000-05:00

The post in which I don't bother to link anything, in spite of the numerous topical references.

Recently seen on a piece of paper taped to a car's rear window:

"Two Words: S*ck Me"

Sock Me? Sack Me? Sick Me? Ohhhh, SUCK Me. Way to be succinct, moron. Why the asterisk? Trying to be polite? Trying to get past the bumpersticker censors? Wha?? It's a head-shaker.

We saw Donnie Darko for my birthday, only we waited until the night after, because the night OF we were both just way too tired. But anyway, yes, finally saw it. Amazing what Jake Gyllenhall (I hope it's spelled right because I'm not looking any shit up tonight) can do by just lowering his chin and rolling his eyes up a little and smiling. So. Very. Creepy. But yeah, I liked the movie. And you know for two hours I was so absorbed in this thing, having so much fun, that I STOPPED THINKING ABOUT THE SHIT IN MY LIFE. And you know the minute those credits started rolling, that very instant they came on, it all came back into my head, my brain just filled right back up with all the noise, the endless chatter, the shit stream of stuff I worry over.

When did I turn into an anxiety-riddled nervous fucking wreck? Because I didn't used to be like this, I swear.

Reading Delmore Scwhartz's collection of stories, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." Birthday present from my dad. This is from "America! America!":

And the Baumanns also knew, although they were too wise to express the belief, that it was very important to have something to eat amid the talk, for people do not continue very long without the desire to eat; and in addition, the conversations, the jokes and the comments are improved, heightened, or excited by food and drink, by sandwiches, cake, and coffee; and the food one gets in another's household seems exceptionally appetizing.

Indeed.

I want to read the new Philip Roth. Has anyone read that yet?

Today Javi gave me such kisses, I'm telling you, they were hot, wet, sexy kisses. From my not-yet 2-year-old. I mean, he tilted his head, he put his hand on the back of my neck, this kid has it DOWN. And he kept wanting more. "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" Totally scary.

Fringe Benefits

2004-10-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

I had this friend from New Zealand named Carmel (pronounced CARmel, rather than carMEL), and one of the things I liked about her was she said "fringe" instead of bangs.

I got myself some fringe on Friday after years of hair stylists talking me out of it. What do they know?

Ten days till closing. I'm packing, cleaning, working, moving, thinking, worrying.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

2004-10-08T09:32:00.000-05:00

It's my birthday.

This morning I taught Javi to say "Mama's pushing forty." I told this to my dad, which reminded him of his friends who taught their 2-year-old girl to say "up against the wall, motherfucker." I'm telling you, I come from very classy people.

So for my birthday, I would like some comments, please. Anything birthday-related. Perhaps the memory of a birthday party fiasco from years gone by? Or the best birthday present you ever got? Something along those lines. I hope you all have a great day.

I'm planning to eat lunch here, and then get my hair cut here, then come home and laze around the house eating bon bons, and then go out to dinner with my boyfriend here, and then come home and watch a movie in my house, which is my house for only the next two weeks or so, cross your fingers, before it sells to the lovely family from Colorado, (COME ON DOWN! YOU'RE THE NEXT CONTESTANT ON "TRY TO PAY THE MORTGAGE"!) at which point I sling my belongings over my shoulder and head on down the road a piece.

Please note additions to the blogroll at the right -- now no longer 100% female!

Have a piece of cake for me.

Put on a Happy Face

2004-10-06T15:40:00.000-05:00

It's been a cosmically BAD DAY.

I lost two thirds of my income today. (silver lining: more time to pack!)

Oh, and my kid may have to be pulled out of his school and placed somewhere else because the bureaucrats are on to us. (silver lining: that school sucked anyway, and I was going to pull him out at the end of the year.)

I need to move in two weeks, and I have nowhere to go. (silver lining: no more mortgage payments.)

See! See how I keep my chin up!

Learning to Fly

2004-10-04T09:10:00.000-05:00

Jack is finally learning how to ride a bike (this is the problem with having 5 kids, the basics sometimes get lost in the shuffle. I was swimming and riding bikes by the time I was his age, but he can do neither).

He doesn't quite have it down yet, but it won't be long. Do you remember your first bike? Who taught you to ride?

Penny For Your Thoughts

2004-10-02T16:55:00.000-05:00

Today is Penny’s birthday.

I always think of Penny on her birthday, and wonder if she thinks of me on mine. We were born 359 days apart, but Penny skipped 1st grade or something, because she was a genius, so we ended up in the same freshman class in high school. That is when I met her. We had English together, and we were friends then, although not yet best friends. We had fun ridiculing our teacher, who had this maddening habit of clasping and unclasping the clasps on his briefcase, which he would slide toward him and away from him, back and forth, toward and away, on the table, during the entire length of the class. Clasp, unclasp, slide, slide, clasp, unclasp, slide, slide. You get the picture. Add to that the fact that he was kind of pompous and silly, and having a love affair with an even sillier teacher, a DANCE teacher, in the same school, and we really could not take him seriously.

I had a best friend that year, Ana. She was half Brazilian and absolutely radiant, smart, funny, and wise. I’m not even sure she was human, she seemed more like a sprite. She was irresistible. Ana drifted away from me after she fell in love with an Italian boy and began having sex on a regular basis. She outgrew me. I was only just barely getting my period, which arrived halfway through my freshman year only to slither away for several more months, leaving me with a box of tampons and not much else. I didn’t have a boyfriend, although I wanted one desperately. I still had the body of a 12-year-old. I had one brief, odd kiss at the very end of that year, with a man on a bus on our way back from a march in New York to protest nuclear proliferation. He kinda sorta stuck his tongue in my mouth, and then he lightly stroked my face for the rest of the bus ride (he was sensitive that way), and then the ride was over and he disappeared. It was that kind of year.

It wasn’t until our junior year that Penny and I really began to spend time together, and once we did we quickly became inseparable. Penny was like my long lost twin. We had the same sense of humor, the same love for language, the same taste in music (that year it was lots of Talking Heads). We even looked a little alike – we had similar hair types, similar bodies, similar tastes in clothes. We were both still waiting to fall in love, and even more, to be fallen in love with. While we waited, we had each other, and Penny’s Saab, a major enhancement. There were other friends, too; hers, mine, and ours. Together we studied for placement tests, applied for colleges, got drunk, wrote papers, fretted over boys, listened to music, wrote endless stream-of-consciousness notes to each other, drove around the countryside, and talked, and talked and talked. We were capital B, capital F, Best Friends.

Penny wasn’t my first Best Friend, she was actually my fifth (after Elizabeth, Brenda, Laura, and Ana). But she was the best Best Friend I ever had, and she was the last. We saw each other quite a bit during the summer after graduation, even though she was up in Vermont and I was living down in Massachusetts. In the fall, she started college at Brown and I went to spend a year in Cleveland, working in the theater. Penny wrote me lots of letters and even flew out to visit me which, in my isolation and confusion out there (my year in Cleveland alone deserves its own blog) was a huge gesture. The following year I went to school in New York. I would visit Penny on the weekends, stay with her and her roommates, go out to shows, but it wasn’t the same. We kept in touch, mostly writing letters (this was before email, kiddos). Slowly, painfully, we drifted apart, until our visits felt more cordial than anything else. She moved around (Connecticut, Texas, Alaska), I moved around (Japan, Boston, Madison). We were still in close enough touch that she came to my wedding in Wisconsin. In fact, I think that may have been the last time I saw Penny. There have been a few letters (wedding announcement, birth announcement, from her), and two or three phone calls (initiated by me), but essentially the friendship is over.

I’ve had lots of friends over the years since I graduated from high school, but never a best friend, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever have one again. Moving all over the country hasn’t helped much, and having small children helps even less. Working from home is maybe the greatest factor in my isolation. Living in the suburbs just puts the nail in the coffin. That much, at least, will be changing soon. I suppose as the babies get older they will be less tethered to me and I will have more opportunities to meet people. Still, I don’t expect ever again to have a best friend, and that makes me sad. I hear so many people say “my (husband/wife/significant other) is my best friend,” and I think that’s very sweet, but I don’t really buy it. Brian is my heart, I love him madly, he makes my life worth living, he, oh God, insert song lyric here. He’s that. But he’s not my best friend.

What is this post about? I’m not even really sure. Maybe you all could tell me how it’s working for you, the friendship thing. Do you have a “best” friend? Do you have a lot of friends? A few? None? Does your partner fill in the friendship gap for you? Is that a good thing?

We just got back from grocery shopping where I picked up a new, copper-y color for my toenails, courtesy of O.P.I. The name of the color? “Down to my last penny.” Happy Birthday, Penny A., wherever you are.

Kushberry

2004-09-30T20:32:00.000-05:00

I managed to listen for 20 minutes. I hate them both.

Reason #237 Why I Love Brian

2004-09-28T21:34:00.000-05:00

He just brought me a drink involving ice cream, club soda, crushed ice, and Hennessy.

I am blessed.

Oh, by the way, I got an offer on the house. We may be moving in less than a month.

Free boozy ice cream sodas to anyone who wants to come and pack boxes with me. Anyone?