Step One

Admit I was powerless over E-v-e-r-y-F-u-c-k-i-n-g-T-h-i-n-g.


Check.

Healing the Sicilian Within

It's really hard being half Sicilian. Especially when it's your dominant half.

{badabing}

It's just hard. It's just so hair-trigger. You've got the motherly sauce-n-hugs part, of course you do, but you have the hired gun part too. You can't help that. It's a good with the bad thing, and it's nothing to be guilty or ashamed of.

The problem is, your instinct is so sharp and pin-prick ready for a single venomous strike that it takes conscious deliberate effort, and lots of acceptance of that side of yourself, to tame, understand, and eventually heal the Sicilian Within.

I have learned that the best way to quiet her down is to pat her hand for a while and let her sit with reassurance. Shhhh. It's okay little killer self. Shhhh. Mama loves you. Be a good little hit-chick and rest your head on this pillow for a while... nuh uh, now sweet knuckles, no moving around, just relax. shhhhh. settle and rest... shhhh.

It's about loving that part of you that can dream up thousands of ways to express your Sicilian talent, and yet also has the wisdom not to.

Today, I will love my Sicilian Within.

Today, I will help another fellow man rather than ponder what kind of design tire treads would make on his back.

Today, I will offer my hand to a fellow woman rather than wondering if her wrist is thin enough to snap with a single well-placed swipe.

I am growing day by day, don't you think?

we could make a pact or something

so, when fall comes, you know, anyone who's a blogger just lets the leaves pile up in their yards, and then by October or something, except in Florida and some other hot states, well, okay, so this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.

What I was thinking was that if we all left our leaves in our yards this fall, and appartment/townhouse dwellers, bear with me now, you could have some leaves from multi-treed bloggers like myself, really, but anyway, no, I was thinking we could all just let our fall foliage pile up in our yards and then any house you ride by, see, you'd know a blogger lives there.

Either that or a lazy person.

So, I think it could work.

you know?

music not words loud not soft

Hello.*

*not work safe

fellow white people: do not be nervous.

President George Clinton, His Royal Magicstry of Funkadelia, is saying "Funkin," not "Fuckin."

He does, however, say "Shit" a lot.

--dedicated to shelley who's a helluva friend.

getting off

I can't be here right now. In my blog. I have to and I can't. Too much to look at. I'm running away here. Or from here. I'm not sure, but I'm going to go for a time. Out of my own head. One day at a time.

you can't help it

You can't help it when you're pushing the race-car cart through Publix with Jenna in the front seat driving and bopping her head and you can't help it when it starts because you can't help that you can't stop your ears from hearing and you can't numb your heart to the music because you have never been able to; you can't help that they decide to play Stevie Wonder and you can't help that it isn't the musak version but instead it's the original version; you can't help but wonder who decided to play the original, and you can't help that you're under the speaker and you make a sharp turn down the bread isle because maybe you won't hear it there, but it's too late and you heard it and you thought you'd make it through the grocery store, I mean people can usually get through the grocery store, but not today.

Just as time knew to move on since the beginning
And the seasons know exactly when to change
Just as kindness knows no shame
Know through all your joy and pain
That I'll be loving you always.

-from "As" - Stevie Wonder

sorry, but that tree was majorly depressing.

changed the photo at the left. i couldn't take those naked branches and grey skies any longer.

that little mermaid!

Jenna "graudated" from her swimming class today.


--click photo to watch jenna dive and swim!--

Two weeks ago she didn't know how to swim. Look at her go now!



Swim, baby, swim!

For my part, my hair has never been so light, my skin has never been so brown, and my heart has never been so bruised.



Being in and of the water and watching Jenna soak up good health and fresh air and friends is my solace. No asthma since swimming started. It has done wonders for her lung capacity. She can hold her breath for what seems like forever!

Two days ago she swam down to 7 feet and touched the bottom. "WOW!" she came up saying. "This is just like the ocean!"

This is what life is right now. Thinking, growing, understanding, loving, momming, sunning.... and waiting.

Victim People--Fearless, Tough, Eager, and Bendable!

We could make it mandatory, maybe. Everyone must own at least one victim person on whom (which?) to take out their anger, aggression, and general ill mental health.



What's great about this idea is that realworld (meatspace for those who can stand the term) people could then leave Non Victim People (like you and me) safe and unharmed. And at the same time, when that nasty boss holds back the promotion you were deserving, you can take out your aggression in a truly healthy and spiritual way, as indicated in the Victim People's functionality listing:

-Shoot me
-Drive Over Me
-Hit Me with a Shovel
-Stab me with a knife
-Drop me from a plane
-Bend every toe and finger

"You dream it up and our fearless victim people are eager and ready to perform. "

Drop me from a plane. Hmmm. I hadn't thought of that. Excuse me, I must go now and have my first cup of coffee while I ponder the possibilities.

oh yes.

I can't get enough of this site tonight.

mmmm. tastey!

And you mean for just $60, I can look like this?



Hot damn! Wherez my credit card?!

Note, the price was reduced from $60 to $65 recently. Math is not important to him. I think some of his brains leaked out.

Pool of Life

That's the thing. Voices happening all around us, too many to parse, so I consciously shut down sometimes. Today, no. Been wide open all ears. Something sharp, glazed edges of cotton clouds. It was just after a storm, today, a nasty Tennessee drop-down storm that bent the trees horizontal left, then horizontal right. In these parts, that means hit the cellar. Some limbs down, enough leaves to sing autumn songs in July.

After, I took Jenna and her friend to the pool. Why not. Storm passes, you move, huh? We were alone there for an hour. Me saying, "Hey, pretend this is our mansion! This pool is all ours--you two are movie stars!" And they strut around in their racing-back Speedos, the kind Jenna says means "I'm a professional now."

A young man and his son come, something I wouldn't have noticed, but this 20-something-year-old was so loud, so animated with his boy that I had to notice. Still, I'm not one to say more than "Hey" to folks generally--asking the open ended questions too easily results in me being stung by the human condition.

So I watch the father jubilant with the boy, throwing him around the pool, running, breaking just about every rule written on the "What's Expected" rule sheet I received when I joined. He lets the little boy jump into the deep end while he's under water and the boy just about hits the wall when he jumps in. But he doesn't hit the wall. He's okay. My heart slows down. And they come up laughing and splashing and just sucking life right into their lungs.

By now I'm in the pool. Here we are, two parents, 20 years age difference, three kids playing some version of swim tag, looking like United Nations child embassadors, Jenna and her very-peach, light-haired friend, and their new Hispanic three-year-old friend, whose name, the Dad tells us, is Ramon. Like his. Two Ramon's.

Then I don't close down. I open instead, say, "He's a cutie. I remember him. He comes here sometimes?"

I remember I'd seen the boy at the pool the previous week with another family, and I remember the woman who brought him saying she was watching the boy because his mother was sick.

Ramon tells me how his wife was pregnant and had a siezure at 30 weeks, how the doctors had to deliver his little girl very prematurely, how his baby girl weighed just 3 pounds 10 ounces, how they brought her home from the hospital yesterday, how proud he is, how well the baby is doing, now 4 pounds 11 ounces. Today he brought little Ramon to the pool so he could give him some attention. It's been so hectic at their house.

You see, when his 24-year-old wife had the siezure that led to the premature delivery of their baby, the doctors did an MRI and found that the siezure had been caused by a brain tumor. At 24 she went from unconsciousness to a c-section to brain surgery.

"They got 90 percent of the tumor, they said, so we're really hoping, we're really gonna beat this thing, you know?"

"Man. Man. You've got the energy, the attitude. I can tell."

And I wasn't just saying that.

We talked for a while. Long enough for him to tell me that the reason he and his boy had shaved their heads was because they wanted to be a team with mommy who was losing her hair to chemo. Long enough for him to tell me he had stopped drinking when this happened--that he hadn't been drinking a lot, but that he knew with stress of these events the temptation to drink hard would have been impossible to resist. So he had to quit, and did a month ago.

"I bought a punching bag and hung it in the basement. That's my place to go."

"Wow. wow. hey. Wshew. That is smart, way smart. I hear you."

I tell him that if he and his wife need little Ramon looked after, I'll watch the boy at the pool some weekdays. With the lifeguard and I both there, I'm sure he'll be safe, I say. He thanks me and tells me how kind people have been, and he holds the boy tighter.

"I appreciate it. I'll think about it. I've been so worried about him since all of this started up. I worry about every little thing that happens to him."

"I know, I would too, but you are doing so great, you two have such fun--I noticed that right away."

He smiles and throws Ramon about six feet in the air, and Ramon hangs for an instant in the sky and then splashes down hard. Soon the girls are there, "Throw me! Throw me!"

And suddenly kids are flying through the sky, one after the other, and as I lean my head back to watch them soar, I notice the edges of the clouds again.

I need a get rich quick scheme...

Anyone got a good one? Really--let me know. The furnace/AC man is coming tomorrow to begin the replacement--well the finance part of it--of the whole kit-and-kaboodle (which I thought until I was 34 was "kitten kaboodle." Apparently I wasn't alone).

What I need is a scheme, or a meme, or something.

Pork bellies? Magnets? Soybeans? Make-Up? What? Something's out there. It has to be.

I like my new headlines.

they really make a statement.

Skinning a blog is fucking weird.

I've always had my blog set as my IE homepage, so when I open explorer, I go to my own blog. Used to be, when I jumped around more, and still is sometimes, that I'd hop from my blog to my favorite blogs off my own blogroll. But for the last long while my blog got so complex-looking that it began to resemble my mind, and, well, that's not a good thing. All jumbled and columnified. I couldn't keep track of what was going on anywhere but in the middle.

This is my first time with a two-column blog I think. Or at least in a long time. It's strange. When I open it, the words I see don't look like my words at all. Different font, different point-size. Different background. We really are branding ourselves--if only to ourselves--out here.

So, rebranded and newly landed, allied 2.0 begins.

It's funny

well, not funny ha-ha, but funny odd. I took some pics of the sundrenched me today--the first time I've taken pics in a while. You know, haven't kept a secret of the fact that I've been trying to get healthier, fitter, more relaxed despite some large looming life stress. So all of that isn't the funny part. The funny part, actually (again, not funny ha-ha) is as the new me blossoms, as these burdens I've been carrying--literally--a good part of my life transform into something different (not better or worse, but different), I actually am feeling better, doing better, and I don't really recognize my new face.

The face I see looks, well, a lot like my mother's, my mother whom I haven't talked to except accidentally for a year now, have seen just a couple of times. Not just like my mother's--my father is there oh for sure, and my Aunt Penny, yes, Hi Auntie--I see you in my face too! But, wshew, how do I say this, well: I don't recognize myself. My goodness. Let me introduce myself: Jeneane, meet Jeneane.

I wrote some time ago about not having permission to be beautiful growing up. That's the thing. I don't know if she meant it, and no, not consciously she didn't, I don't think--bear with me... I'm thinking this through as I go--but when I see me now without the influence of so much that has burdened me, I say, no wonder:

It was the her in me she had to cover up. It wasn't that I looked like him.

It was the her in me.

If she could know that she is lovable, or if she could have known that, I wonder how it would have been, well, different. Again, not better or worse, but different.

My mother, she used to always say, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Yesterday I came up with a new version of that old saying. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but thank goodness it can roll a ways."

You are. You know? You are lovable. You are worthy of love and health and happiness. You are beautiful. No matter what.

We all are.

So much learning, so much to learn. Fear not. I'm on the case.

blog skinning in progress

shedding my skin. new look coming soon.

pulled another post

it wasn't anything really -- a send off for myself for a time, of sorts. But since I pulled my first post the other day (see below), I decided to pull this last one too. Actually, it's rather liberating pulling posts. Once you start, you just can't stop. Like Pringles. Or Ruffles. Or Truffles.

I wonder if I could pull all of them? No. Okay. Not now. But maybe.

If anyone needs a post pulled, I'll be happy to do it for you. I really enjoyed the rush of power of the grand undo. I wish it were that easy to undo everything.

best be off for a time.

lost boys

I was doing okay. with not being here. okay. keeping it barely together. lots to do. thought I was okay, you know, when I stepped outside my front door, and there he was at the bottom of the porch. dirty clothes, snotty nose, the saddest eyes, and yet trusting.

A big dog was following him.

"Um, hi there little guy--where's your mommy?" I look in both directions.

"mommy not heow."

"Okay." I look up and down the street. No one. Walk down the steps to talk to him.

His shoes are untied, the tongues all stuck in and crumpled around his tan feet.

"Where do you live?"

"Geawgia."

"Oh wow."

He hands me a pinecone, points to the dog and says, "for bigfoot.. lalallalal bigfoot."

I sit on the step.

"How old are you sweetie?"

Two fingers come up.

Car goes up the road, down the road. He walked here all alone, on his way to someone who'd care.

"I'm sure someone's worried about you--can you show me where you came from?"

He points up the street.

"Okay, well, we'd better go back."

He takes my hand and asks about his mama. I say, "We'll find her."

Half way down the driveway, I pick him up and hold him. "I'll carry you sweetie."

But we don't find his mother. When he points to the door where he came from, three houses up, I know immediately that the same 18-year-old girl who had no mom of her own to speak of, who's puppy I've been taking care of for two nights, is in charge of Hanzel this day.

That's what he tells me his name is, and the irony and tragedy of it bowl me over.

hanzel and gretel. him and me.

I call for her and she comes out, eventually. Someone else leaves as she opens the door. She says its her uncle.

I say, "He was at my house. He's thirsty."

Mothers know this.

"I don't know why he doesn't stay in the yard--he likes to wander around."

That's what we learn to do at two years of age when no one is there for us.

To wander. Keep looking. Fly free in chains.

To keep looking for what was never there in the first place.

Standing in one place and seeing how hurt and alone we are is facing our own annihilation. You can't do it at two. But sometime, maybe, we all do it.

I say, "Well, get him some water."

And before I hand him over, I tell him if he ever gets lost again, he can come and get me.

"Ok," he says.

She says, "Well, if anything else of mine wanders down your way--jeesh the dog and now the kid--let me know."

I say, "Get him some water. He's thirsty."

And I walk home in barefeet with the pavement burning my soles.

And I weep.

first time i ever pulled a post

it was supposed to be a funny post urging halley to get comments. but on second thought, it's not my place to talk about another blogger's space and what it should be or not be, and on third thought, i really don't feel funny anymore, and on fourth thought, i have been bit by the not-wanting-to-blog bug. so, time for some brain work of my own.

With all the talk about Girlism, I decided to go for a new look

The Angry Motherfucker Look...

like i really thought...

that puppy would go away and stay away. she's back. sitting outside the front door. scratching to come in. called the owner, who's nowhere to be found. wet. scared from the thunder. a sad sack. I could put her back out in it. But she's happily chewing on Jenna's old slipper now in the hallway. what else to do? just wait. my mantra.



Awe but she's cute.

storm

tonight when
the rumbling came
I stood in the open,
eyes to the sky
and dared
the lightning
down.

I did that. Tonight. At Walmart. How romantic an image. Me, under the neon blue, reflecting off wet pavement. Jenna was safe in the car when the shaking started. That is what the low end does here, the thunder--it shakes everything. People, houses, china. Rumbles in for what feels like an hour.

I finished loading packages into the van, one eye on the light show above and off to the west, coming. Coming fast, strikes five miles up 92.

I closed the hatchback and stepped into the open. Stood there. For longer than you do. A lot longer. Wanting it to hit, discharge my rage, make my heart molten, take away the pain in my right side. Been hurting so long now. I don't know. A rib, something. Phantom pain. Only fire can turn coal to dust like that.

It happens, from time to time, the burning, the wanting to shock and be shocked.

It's new and I have learned to difuse it with the sunshine of the day.

But not at night, when I would spit fire to the sky and line midnight blue with veins of white.

When Gary Met Annie

This is why blogging is different than any other online forum.

Taking the relationships to the streets from a place of already knowing-you-knowing-me, from the UK to Seattle, on micro wheels, over a vulnerable body, a body about to face the most vulnerable place anyone can know, but not yet knowing that, not then, but rather afterward, and yet still surrendering: I see you, I know you, I trust you not to hurt me.

Next: I don't trust me not to hurt you, but you do, don't you, and so let's laugh and play instead. Blogger joy, blogger tears. Hold my hand across the Web.

Great Car for Sale

2001 Ford Escape hardly driven. The benefit of buying a car from a telecommuter. Still under original warranty. Sweeet.

Figure, since I got the puppy back to its home, might be a good day to mention we have a car that also needs a home. Never can tell.

when i get too into myself, I'm reminded every time

Such was this evening, when I spent a half hour trying to chase this puppy out of the yard--shooo! go home. I tried to get the van out of the garage. She'd run in. I'd get out of the van and chase her out of the garage. Try to close it. She'd run in.

oh gosh you're sweet. Now go away. Can't have this. Too much going on already. So go. GO HOME!

But she wouldn't. Hasn't yet.

I went to a bunch of neighbors with her. "Oh yah, she's been around here for a couple of weeks. Friendly enough. No one knows where she came from. Might have been those people that moved out."

A walker from the next street over. Same story. "Yep, we've seen her. Doesn't seem to belong to anyone. Showed up at the Peterson's last week."

Oh great.

And Jenna.

Mommy please please she loves me!

No Jenna--there's a rule. You can't have three dogs and a cat. It's against the rules.

Surely there must be rules.

Atlanta bloggers, need a puppy? She looks to be about 12 weeks. Baby teeth. Black and brown. Smart. Skinny but seems okay. Pictures coming soon. Would sure make some kid a nice dog. Not this kid. Or this kid's kid. Can barely keep it together over here.

oye. she's in the kitchen now. staring at Hunter. Smart girl. Hasn't tried a thing except laying down and rolling over to get his attention. And Hunter, dare I say it, likes her.

Haven't tested Bando or Diva. Maybe put her out back with Bando. Give old Diva a break. Until someone can come get her and give her a good home.

Or until I lose it.

Whichever comes first.

Nice People

The meeting went great. CEO/fellow writer--what could be wrong with that? Stuff in the works. I enjoy the people there. Down to earth. No sense of entitlement. Usually the case when a writer's making the decisions.

Previous to building this boutique agency, the CEO was a New Orleans musician. Seasoned. Older. Smart. Nice to talk with someone from my field, but also with a sense of the arts, in the business of business. There aren't too many who can walk that talk.

Shared tales from the biz, including my keen understanding of how to treat confidential client information, like the time I had the Cingular naming information--before Cingular had its name--and my job to write the justiciation for the name. My boss told me if I slipped up and said the word, or if anyone saw that piece of paper and leaked it, we'd be on the street. Pronto. Would be one of those career-ruining mistakes, which I've managed--barely--to avoid thus far.

It made me more nervous than usual, knowing the name-to-be of this wireless superpower, about to enter the game with a canon ball splash. Especially since Jenna's Asthma medicine at the time had the same name, spelled differently: Singulair.

Every night I'd take out her chewable pill and vow not to say the name out loud: henceforth Singulair has been known as her "asthma vitamin."

At the height of my paranioa, I took the piece of paper from my notebook, folded it in quarters, and stuffed it in my underwear drawer where it remains to this day.

I kept the secret, did fine work for them, and I still call Singulair an "asthma vitamin."

Back to today's meeting. As I said, before starting the company, after a run in the publishing business, the CEO was a professional musician (piano/keys) -- in New Orleans.

By the end of our talk I think I had him convinced that I could take over his responsibilities and that he should take the opportunity to travel with George to the Canary Islands in the fall to play some New Orleans Jazz.

His eyes lit up. "HEY! There's an idea."

I think we were only half kidding.

Had a better afternoon than morning. I'm still a crabapple though.

Bad bad moood.

Have a job interview today. Well, kind of. Meeting with the CEO. Already did some work for them, impressed em. That's good. They wanna talk about options. Thing is, I've been in a bad mood. Baaaad mood a risin'. I've got to turn my head around before 2:00. Gotta get on my interview suitt and channel Halley's energy--that's my only hope for not letting my badness shine through.

I got these vitamins last week. They make me evil. Figured out yesterday that they might be part of my lil problem these days. I'm saving them. From time to time I need to be evil. But on a daily basis, it kind of wears on you. I think I won't take them today. I'll take three of Jenna's gummy bear vitamins instead. yum.

It's hot and sunny--perfect pool day--and I resent having to drive downtown. I ask myself, what is wrong with you? Where's your enthusaism? Wherefore did your "what a great opportunity" thinking go?

Instead, I feel like playing hookey for the rest of my natural life. Or, maybe "from" the rest of my natural life.

Gonna run away, chase the daylight around the world. Catch me if you can.

What matters.

Please send some love Ann's way.

I love you, Ann.

thunder-n-bugs

It's 2 a.m., regardless of what my permalink timestamp says. Gotta fix that. Should be sleeping, but been cleaning instead.

I didn't expect to see him, walking through the front door like he owned the place. Then what? Fast and fat, the size of an egg, I'm telling you! I have never seen a damn bug this big. I've lived here for nearly 10 years (has it been that long?) and this is the biggest insect I've ever ever seen, period. He's walking across MY threshold, padding across the wood floor to the kitchen, completely oblivious to me or any rules of the house, one of which is, NO STINKING ROACHES!

They call them palmetto bugs here because the idea that a roach can grow this big, well, it's the thing nightmares are made of. They can easily carry a small child away.

You probably know by now that I hate bugs. They give me the deep-down willies. Bugs ate my father's dead body, or so I assume since I never actually checked, and one day they will eat me, and I'd rather not give them a head start.

So I stay away from them. If I see one inside, I shiver, and then kill it. Zen not spoken here--bugs be gone. Things that chew on decomposing flesh and leaves and year-old pieces of food shouldn't really be afraid to die anyway.

Jenna's asleep. I have no choice. I have to kill the thing. He's moving fast now. I have to hurry. I swin open the closet door and grab one of Jenna's shoes. I chase after him. He heads down the basement stairs and I swear I saw him hold the railing on his way down.

Don't miss a step motherfucker--I've got my eye on your hairy wings.

I get half way down the basment steps, quick on his trail, and he comes to a complete stop. I wait for his backup lights to start flashing. Nothing. Now's my chance. But I'm on the step above him. A miscalculation could send me tumbling head over ass, or I could miss Mr. Thang altogether, in which case he eats me on the spot.

HELP!

No one.

I shove my toes and the ball of my foot into Jenna's shoe and raise my leg, bring the shoe down hard on his spiney back.

Now, all roaches crunch. But THIS guy, OH MAN! He didn't crunch, he rumbled--no lie--it was like surround sound. Caaaarrrruuuunnnncccchhhh-kkkkiiiirrrcccchhhh--sssslllllrrrrrccccchhhh.

I felt it in my shins.

There I am, standing one footed in the middle of the basement stairway, bearing down as hard as I can. There he is, squished under the sole of my too-small shoe.

I gotta complete.

I lift my foot up and look. I am immediately impressed by his wing-span, emphasized by his newly-gained one-dimensional status. I think about calling a farmer with a backhoe to come burry this horse-bug.

Then I figure, I've gone this far on my own; I can finish the job.

I grab a paper towel, carefully climbing down to the step below him so I can scoop up his remains. My muscles are relaxing, the worst is over. I'm considering which part of him to grab first when he MOVES! HE MOVES! I tell you, he's FLAT, and it doesn't matter, because he starts edging his gutless remains toward the edge of the step, toward ME.

AAAAHHHHH!!!

I leap down two stairs to the landing and look up.

So this is how it's all going to end. Jenna, I'm sorry. The giant bug ate me next to your drum set. Know that mommy loves you. Tell Daddy to bring some Raid home with him.

Too bewildered to think about the shoe, which is still on my foot, I grab an old amazon box heavy with packing material and I-don't-know-what-else, raise it high, and slam it down on him.

Silence.

Lift.

Ugh. Gross.

No more huntin' for that dawg.

Paper towel still in hand, bitter bile rising from my stomach, I mop him up and go to toss him in the garbage, forgetting that the kitchen garbage can is NOT under the sink because I've been using it to toss away old toys in the living room, and so he lands on the floor with a crinkle-thud, and I have to pick him up again--just what I wanted to do.

I dispose of him in all of his (I hope) deadness, take off Jenna's shoe and put it under something so I don't have to look at it, think about what the bottom must look like.

If this thunder and lightshow would ever stop, I think I'm ready to go to sleep and dream about fluffy happy clouds and bugless blue skies.

It can't be that hard.

It has to be within reach now. I know it, because today I listened to some kid's waterproof pool radio, complete with a waterproof speaker that hangs down under the water and lets you hear the music better Under than Above water. Cost=$8.00.

So whare are the waterproof laptops? I told a couple of the other parents there, if they can make one of these radios that floats on top of the water--complete with the cool hot-yellow casing so familiar in waterproof devices--then why not a waterproof laptop, complete with foam floatation around the edges, even a coffee holder, and of course a wicked anti-glare screen. Heck, I'd take a whole floatable desk while I'm at it. Or a swim up and type station. Either/or. I'm not fussy.

Right now when I bring my laptop to the pool (no connection--I'm still a tethered girl) I have to plug into an extension cord in the bathroom and sit in a shady spot so as not to melt neither me nor my laptop into a squishy heap while I work mostly in MS Word. But boy, the work I could do if I could plop my little floaty laptop in the water with me. If I had one, I could spend all day in the pool. Every waking minute. And I would.

I'm not saying we should ruin the aesthetics of pool leisure. I don't want to turn the pool into an office, another place to dissociate from what's going on around us and focus on things of the mind, rather than the body and spirit. I don't think I'm really suggesting we go that far.

But, but, but, but... come deadline time, I sure would like to have me one.

The only ones I could find on google were military-grade laptops, which I'm assuming are a fortune. They're meant more for covert operations than for sun and fun.

Anyone know of anything on the market? If anyone will, it's bloggers.

JennaAudio 2 - listen at your own risk.

i don't suggest you listen to this at full volume. This is evening with Jenna who has discovered the joys of audio blogging. There is a chilling shriek that could blow your speakers when the cat knocks down the gate in the dining room. If you can get past the thrill of it all, and if you haven't had four cups of coffee today, it's all kinda cute. Daddy should listen. I am happy to report it's 11 p.m. and she is asleep. That is progress. Especially after a nightmare of giant sea turtles grabbing at her toes.

audblog audio post

AudioJenna 1 - Debut

audblog audio post

Real pre-blog bloggers

Fuck Emerson.

If we are to make exceptions for the technology not yet being in place when tracing blogging's origins, which I don't entirely agree we should do, then lets look for voices that live a road or two off the beaten path, huh?

Why don't I entirely agree that anyone before blogging can be classified as a blogger? Because blogging is new. Story telling is old. Linkage and networks matter and make blogging different. New. That's why I think you can't plug old round pegs into new square holes.

Voice, however, is another matter. Voice, perhaps, is older than we are. What was there before us? Sound. And if you believe in God, then Voice. So if you look into the origins of blogging through voice, then I'm with you. But through American literature? I say zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

So, if we allow for early journaling as voice to fit into the genesis of blogging, then I say Griff was more our blog grandpa than Emerson and the likes of his abrasively-introspective man-heroes of American literature.

Blogging is bottom up. Blogging is the sound of the quieter voices wired with mega amps of power.

Blogging is a Navy combat artist painting and writing from a World War II destroyer ship in 1941.



Griff along with his work of art and journaling have been brought to the net by grandson Gordon Coale at Grey Matter. An artist and I think a gifted story teller born in 1890, Griff's chronicle of the war in pictures and words are moving, compelling, and something I've just begun to explore. I'm so jazzed by what I hear and see:

October 23rd, 1941

A black night. The dim shapes of the officers with their binoculars peering through the small round ports of the wheel house. Men with head-phones. The dark loom of the watch on the bridge wings. All hands at their stations, competent, alert. "She is up and down, Sir." The slight throb of the powerful engines, and we lean gray wolves steal stealthily out in single file to the secret meeting with the oncoming almost helpless flock. The black loom of the hills of Newfoundland diminish into the obscurity of the night. "Secure anchors for sea." And with the first roll of the northern ocean, we feel that sensitive, live movement known only to men who have been in "Tin Cans", the Navy's nickname for destroyers.

That, my friends, is a voice I'd put on my blogroll any day of the week.

That is a blogger armed with simply a paint brush and a pen. And voice.

And a grandson who gets it.

when all else fails, go get your war on.

I hadn't seen june's edition.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Syria.
Syria who?
Seriously, would someone please tackle Donald Rumsfeld and lock his ass up until our Countries-Destroyed-to-Countries-Rebuilt ratio is closer to '1'?

You have to love this thing called the Internet, dontcha?

audblog audio post

I hadn't seen this...

Feeling lucky? So do what Mac says here. I haven't run into this one before. Made my morning. Oh wait, it's afternoon now.

work n sun n wind n taste

Up late last night finishing work on a client web site (among other things). Up early to take Jenna to summer camp. Up and Up, seems to be the way of July.

Jenna was all jazzed about trying the new McGriddle at McDonalds--jazzed enough that we got out of the house before 10. Peppy and happy, she's wanted to taste this thing since it came out. I've been avoiding it, but decided today was as good a day as any, especially since she did so well at her swim lessons yesterday.

It's a wierd little idea, that McGriddle. She liked it. I tasted it and wondered what all that sweet pancake taste was doing mixed in with salty bacon and eggs--it's the kind of mixture I'd rather experience in my stomach than on my tongue. But the logo looks just super on the top of that pancake bread. And from the back seat, I heard, "Mmmmmmmmm!"

Home now with a killer headache from not enough sleep, guzzling coffee, and waiting for the sun to come out so I can go welcome it.

Yesterday for the first time I laid out in the sun topless on our deck. George, did you just fall off your chair? I made sure I was invisible to the peripheral world, I'll have you know. I put towels on the rails of the deck, tucked the lounge chair behind the patio set, laid down face to the sun, and undressed for the sky.

I didn't let myself worry about being "seen." One neighbor back in rehab, the other at work, the backyard neighbors painstakingly blocked from view by the towels, the deck became my own private beach. Instead of thinking about reasons why I shouldn't be nearly naked on my own deck, I thought about the sun and the way it feels to unfamiliar skin.

Healing. The smack of heat against tender, white skin. And the breeze. I didn't think about the breeze...

Sometimes when I was 17 and living at home, I'd swim topless in our pool. Only when no one was home. Only when there was no chance of my parents rolling into the driveway. I would have been woefully shamed or celebrated (no telling which) to an unbearable degree of discomfort had my little escapades been discovered.

What I remember about swimming that way at 17 is the wind, the water, and the intensity of touch so strong that it melds with taste. Skin feelings so strong you can taste them. Like that. Cool boyant water lifting and celebrating my flesh, feeling just like wild cherry popsicles taste. Slurp.

Yesterday, I laid in the sun that way for a half-hour. I was careful not to get too much sun too fast, just enough to soften the line between a deep brown tan and bleach white skin. For a minute or two, I was 17 again, swimming next to naked in our family pool.

I'm not sure I'll make a habit out of my backyard deck tanning, but it was, well, really............. nice.

Holy Halley!

Some caring and sharing going on at the Super Nova Conference, where Liz got to ride with Halley in an ambulance after Halley gracefully leaped a tall building (or short fence) in a single bound right onto the spiked heel of her upside-down shoe. OUCH!! Seems like everyone's okay. Holy Halley--never a dull moment.

Blogger question for Thursday

How many bloggers have you talked to by phone, how many more than once, indicate the number of bloggers you regularly speak to if you have regular blogger friends? How many bloggers do you talk to more than you do real-world friends?

How many bloggers have you met--people you knew first from blogging?


My answers....

By Phone:

Have spoken to 10 bloggers by phone. An additional 3 on IM. I speak to 5 regularly. I speak to 3 more frequently than I do real-world friends.

In Person:

Haven't met a darn one of you yet.

my head is exploding, thanks to g. lawley

I told him I'd post his email for public consumption, so here it is. It's too strange, actually, for me to reply to tonight, since I have to go be a good parent now, but maybe later... For the record, this is written by someone who doesn't blog, which I agreed to post if he emailed it to me, and I think his, well, revulsion with weblogging is maybe part of the misunderstanding.

Maybe it's not possible to understand what it's like to lay it out day after day, sometimes in seconds, sometimes in lifetimes, post after post, and how that makes us---yes---care about one another in a way that does NOT exist exactly the same way in any other online forum. That's just the facts, Jack.

What Gerald reads into one post he reads that way because he's not here like bloggers are here, has not been on this journey. And it's not the same as the New Age chat room or forum--trust me on that.

So, I guess I request that those who come here either read me like a reader (I love readers), or read me like a blogger (I love bloggers), but don't read me like a reader who is trying to be a blogger but doesn't want to be because he doesn't like blogging. That's just fucked up.

There are some unwritten rules of households here, one of which is: Don't come here and shit on me unless you have someplace I can go do likewise. And yes, Gerald, you did shit on me with your rudeness.

Maybe I should take some rude liberties with what's going on in his life, as he did with mine, but I'll refrain. Mostly because I like his wife, who is a blogger. But the from the comment and the advice--I was trying to be funny, by the way--I do think Gerald has the ability to be a judgmental prick. Oh crap, let's just call it what it is: passive aggressive. But that's as far as I'll go.

So here goes, for those who are interested in hearing where G. Lawley was coming from in his comment to my "summertime" post... I thank him for taking the time to set the record straight.

Anyone want to take the time to answer--especially the "trite" comment thing--have at it. Just for the record, mostly we debate these things across blogs---that is one of those unwritten rules. No pain, no gain. That's another.

I'll try to add links in the appropriate places later... duty calls.

P.S. I'm NOT a single mom; I just play one on TV.

-------------------

I wrote my reply originally in a comment box on your blog. When I went to post it it told me there was a 2500 character limit and that my reply was somewhere in the 9000s (I can't remember the exact number. It was written for public consumption, but not having a blog (or wanting one) and not having access to anything else but email to get the word out, I did what I could.

I have no problem with you posting it in your journal space - it is just that your comments section would not take it. Was that unclear from my post?

Anyway, here follows the post. Blog the hell out of it if you care to. Please post the above comments as well as they answer your intimation that I was trying to be secret with my answer. BTW, can you increase the number of characters that your comments section will accept or do you truly only want short, trite replies to your posts?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ignoring for the time being all the personal attacks, I wonder if there is room here for a discussion that might help this single mom better cope with her current situation. I have read her posts, as well as George's, and I get it that there are literally hundreds of reasons that this is a difficult situation. I will be presumptuous and assume that these are not
being offered as excuses for not being able to deal with the issues mentioned in the original post. Therefore I will move forward.

I made the statement, "All the problems you have expressed in your post have their solutions in your actions, not the child's." I also gave a suggestion for helping the child get to sleep earlier. George informed me that this had been tried. I had no way of knowing that. Most certainly the suggestion I gave was not meant to be taken as "this is the only thing that will work". I have others, but I will not cut that cookie again.

The tenor of the replies to my comment seem to indicate that I don't have a clue as far as child raising. It was even assumed that I had never had children and that I was a school teacher (and that this was a bad thing because of previous bad experiences with teachers especially those who were mothers). So, for the sake of discussion let's say that all that is absolutely true and that my statements were absolutely false.

So now I have to modify, "All the problems you have expressed in your post have their solutions in your actions, not the child's" to read, "All the problems you have expressed in your post have their solutions in your child's actions, not your own." Does anyone really believe this?

A lot of a child's behavioral patterns are created unconsciously and in very tiny steps. The increments can be so tiny as to escape our attention until a threshold has been reached and we are appalled at what the child "has become". You provided a case in point with the telephone call/picnic basket incident.

When you made the deal with her before the call, you let her know this was very important to you. You expressed exactly what behavior you expected from her during this time. That is good. Yet when she violated that deal, what happened? She was rewarded with a picnic basket. Did she know in advance that this would be the outcome? Most likely, but if not, she certainly knows it now.

I am relatively sure (because I do not believe you to be a malevolent parent) she was disciplined after the fact and that she now understands that such behavior is unacceptable. So now she has conflicting messages and she processes these in a way she best understands at her age - I can perform the behavior and get rewarded with what I really want, but I will have to be talked to about it afterward. What, exactly, is the deterrent to re performing the behavior? I certainly don't have the answer for you in your case, because if I did it would be "cookie cutter". But I present it as my own personal viewpoint, based on my own experience, as a jumping off point for thought and discussion of the problems of child rearing.

You have a lot of sympathetic friends in this forum (I realize I am not one of them). No doubt many of them have confronted the same issues in the past and will have some suggestions that may help you. So far, none of them have
taken the time from beating up on me to make even one suggestion. Perhaps you don't want any. Perhaps you feel you can do this by yourself and it is nobody else's business (but that can't be true, can it? You did you publically journal it). From the description of your life I get from you and George it would seem to me (but only to me) that a bit of help would be welcomed. Is there some reason no one else had suggestions for getting a child to go to bed earlier?

I realize that my tone was what put everyone off. To all of you it probably crossed the border into rudeness, and upon rereading it I even think it did. But given the responses to it, rudeness seems to be the order of the day among this group. Still, I apologize for the tone.

But I think the content of what I suggested is true. And now that you and George have given me a deeper look into your troubled lives I have a hunch that what I wrote about needing to let the child know you are the parent and that if they cannot, of their own accord, exhibit decent behavior, then you will decide what is proper and implement it in an age appropriate way.

It is unfair to your business/ livelihood to have to have a misbehaving child running around while you are trying to work. That is why when you walk into a PR firm in downtown Atlanta you do not find a day care center in the center of the room. It is also unfair to your daughter to not have your attention when you are home with her. I am not pointing a finger here, I am stating the obvious, something you already know all too well. And I realize there might be multitudinous reasons why you think it has to be that way even though you hate it to death. But there are things you can do. I know some (but can't write them here as they would be "cookie cutter") your friends and relatives know some and there are scads of books with scads of suggestions - not answers - suggestions.

Even if you come back at me and say "I have tried all those, I have read all the books and nothing works. This is a special case and nothing is geared toward my situation", I refuse to believe that you have the only child on earth who cannot respond to anything that will solve your problem. That child is a genius (I believe they all have super intelligence) and
creative and highly-spirited and freedom-loving and all the rest of it. But there is a way to solve your problems. And I fully realize you are working on it every minute of every day.

If I lived near you I would offer a play date three days a week, at my house, with my two boys, ages 6 and 9 (to whom I have been a stay-at-home dad since the day the nine year old was born). That would give you some breathing room to get some work done without the distractions. That, in turn, might free you of some of the tensions that seemed to have built up in you, that your daughter perceives ever so clearly, and is learning (as she must) how to use all that to her advantage. That in turn might make the time you spend with her more fulfilling to her (at an unconscious level)
and thus she might be less given to behavior that seeks your attention in a negative way.

That is what I would do given what I am hearing you say, because I KNOW the feelings that are overwhelming you - and then some. I have tried to do part-time database programming and consulting for non-profit and for profit organizations as well as adjunct faculty teaching and teaching gifted kids in our BOCES organization while the boys are running around picking fights with each other and demanding my attention as long as I have it elsewhere.

Then add to that the trials and tribulations of being 52 years old and dealing with those energy levels and the added uncertainty of being someone who always worked to support a family and has now moved into the extremely unknown territory of full-time care giver, not knowing if I will go under or not (this is my second family - I have 26 and 24 year old daughters from a first marriage in which I had to work two 40 hour a week jobs one of which was the ever stressful firefighter/paramedic - come to think of it now, that was a 48 hour a week job. And I could certainly give you just as
many adverse aspects of my situation then as you have given me about yours, but for the sake of brevity, I will refrain) .

George, you said, "I need to vent on someone who represents the things that I dispise (sic) like prejudgement. Nothing personal..."

Vent on me all you want - it ain't me you are angry with. If you truly despise people who prejudge, then I can understand some of your anger at yourself. As you said, without knowing me, you still made this judgement: "that you have never had children or you don't understand variables in personalities, you cookie cutter". (As Rod Stewart sang in ' Every Picture Tells A Story ' - "Look how wrong you can be").

And then this, "I do feel guilty about not being at home." And, "...but according to an American court of law (and my ex-wife) the children don't need a father EXCEPT for financial purposes".

If the anger I am sensing here isn't really there, then I don't want you to vent on me anymore. But if it is the source of much of your anger, then bring it on - if it helps you (as you say it is " ...my daily therapy of shaming someone") and in turn helps your daughter, then I am here for you.

And Shelly, you wrote, "What I can't figure out about you, -g, is why you're hanging around the webloggers when, from this and other comments you've made, you obviously don't care much for any of us? "

That is presumptuous on your part. I don't know any of you enough to not care for you. I only know what you put out in PUBLIC. Weblogs are public space. I have been hanging around in virtual public spaces for a long time. I enjoy it. I have met many friends (whom I value greatly) over the years and even met my wife that way. I never realized you had to "care much" for someone to comment on what they write in public and even ASK for comments on. If you only want comments you agree with, say so up front - not on the backend. I understand you can turn off comments in some of the software.

Observer, you wrote, "Liz needs to give g a little poke... "

Liz has been at Supernova since Monday and won't return until Thursday at which time I would like to give her one as well. It has to be a little one, that's all I got.

Oh, I get it. Summer is chaos.

I'm assuming, being a first-time mom of a five year old, that I have learned something important the last few weeks, something that will serve me well the next decade: that summer is meant to be chaos.

Schedules out the window--I fought so hard to get her on one, you know. No real plan. Is it sunny? Okay, let me finish my work and we'll spend six hours at the pool (when I should be home finding more work). Is it rainy? Okay, how about summer camp today. Is it partly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms? Let's ride the scooter or bike for a while, or drive over to Big Lots and find a treat. Is it breezy? Let's take you and your friend to the playground.

Is it midnight? Well then it must be time for you to go to SLEEP, Jenna!

SLEEP so that I can do that WORK I was talking to you about. You know, the work that makes it possible for us to go to Big Lots. No work, no Big Lots.

Today was the worst mom-daughter day so far this summer. She was on half a night's sleep after refusing to give into sleep last night until nearly 1 a.m. Then up at 9. That's not enough sleep for a five year old. That means guaranteed crankiness, guaranteed clinginess. And no work for the weary.

I had a 2:00 client call, and she was here, so naturally we went head to head battling for an hour before the call about how she needed to be quiet, just for 15 minutes, just for 15 seconds, just for a nanosecond. She made it through that call, barely, after two time outs and a hushed okay by me to take the picnic basket of food (meant for the pool) up to her room to keep her quiet so I could take notes.

Then, an unscheduled client call after my 2:00 threw her for a loop. This was not in our deal. No way. This meant that she was off the good behavior wagon and could crank up her toy electric guitar and follow me around with it as I tried to escape with the cordless phone and a tiny bit of my professionalism in tact.

"That's my daughter--sorry... summertime and all."

Shooting glaring looks at a kid who's off on summer break doesn't work. They smile back at you. In cohoots with summer itself. HA HA mom--I don't have to do anything I don't want to do because it's summer and you can't make me.

Shit, I'm ready for Fall.

This is the first night Jenna has been to sleep before 10 in a month. It's the first time I've had any chunk of time to think at night. So naturally, I spend it blogging about what it's like to NOT have that time.

And all the while, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about my one and only little sweet baby starting official school in just five weeks and it blows my mind. How could this be? I still don't believe I can't just squeeze her back inside of me. Surely there must be some mistake. I'm living a dream that moves in time without me.

Maybe next year I'll be looking forward to summer chaos, time to ramble around and just generally not care about anything.

Maybe next summer. If I make it through this one.

oh mexico

Tom's latest post, a reflection on the largeness of our culture and the absurtity it heaps upon us in our havings and wantings, is a great read.

And who could resist? Not me:

Way down here you need a reason to move
Feel a fool running your stateside games
Lose your load, leave your mind behind, Baby James

Oh, Mexico
It sounds so simple I just got to go
The sun's so hot I forgot to go home
Guess I'll have to go now

"Americano" got the sleepy eye
But his body's still shaking like a live wire
Sleepy "Senorita" with the eyes on fire

Oh, Mexico
It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low
Moon's so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right

Baby's hungry and the money's all gone
The folks back home don't want to talk on the phone
She gets a long letter, sends back a postcard; times are hard

Oh, down in Mexico
I never really been so I don't really know
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go

Oh, Mexico
I never really been but I'd sure like to go
Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go now

Talkin' down in Mexico

-Mexico, James Taylor

mailing the dead

I was thinking just now, and I don't know why, except that I was paying bills online, and maybe that had something to do with it, me and my legacy of account numbers, I was thinking about how much mail came for my father, and for how long, after he died.

I was eleven and the mail would still come. A piece here, a piece there, falling through the cracks and into our mailbox. Me hoping for a package from the American Quarter Horse Association, and instead finding an envelope addressed to Alphonse Dimino, 217 Somershire Drive, our new address, our home without him, after leaving the farm he made for us and relocating to a small house in the suburbs.

Sifting through envelopes, looking for my name, must be something for me, about horses, stickers should be coming, or even the hot air balloon pattern I ordered from the back of one of my teen magazines. And then: Alphonse Dimino. Huh? Why. Why did they have to remind me, surprise me, his death surprising me a thousand times or more, years without end.

Surprise! Your dad is still dead!

Thank you. You shouldn't have. Really.

One day, a rare day of me mentioning "him," I said, Mom, why does he still get mail?

She said, Sometimes you get on a list--they don't know; they just send it.

The surprise of the unexpected, the I-should-know-better, like a lightning bolt to my heart.

And still, it's like that, every time you let me down.

Deconstructing the Male in relation to Other Males (and females)

Jonathon Mays reveals the thought pattern of men who are homophobic. In doing so, he sort of sums up malehood in all its glory--alphamalehood even. hee hee.

HOLY COW--We nearly/kindof missed Marek's Birthday...

Looking back on my archives, I see last year about this time we were celebrating a certain notorious Pole's birthday. Marek, buddddyyyy, happy birthday. Come home to RGE soon...

where'd all the funnies go?

Remember how we used to break eachother's balls? Vintage RB for them asses. I mean the masses. It's a tribute, actually. Don't ya feel like a tributary?



shhh. osmosis in progress.

bye, barry

tanning by the numbers

Sun and water, water and sun. I don't know what it is--I'm addicted this summer. Can't drink enough into my pours--not enough. I sleep it, dream it, float it, drink it, eat it, sleep it, pee it. Maybe it has something to do with starting to understand I have a body attached to my head. I don't know. I think I've tried to avoid this thing that walks my brain around for quite some time. Let it go to pot. Ignored it. Who needs a body to think and strategize and write?

Then it catches up with you. You say, shit--I used to feel a lot better when I knew this thing that my head sits on. Have I ever known it? Maybe once, a long time ago, a different body than I have now. An old friend. I want her back.

In the sun, you know your flesh. In the water, you feel it, swirling, sinking, diving, floating. Your head is the last thing you think about, you can leave your brain under the umbrella, or roll it up in a beach towel. All you need in the sun and the water is skin.

My skin is turning brown and browner. Jenna says, "Mama, you're catching up to me, but I'm getting tanner, so you'll never catch up to me; or maybe I'll turn peach and you'll turn brown. The boy at my school, Jordan, he calls it 'white.' Isn't that silly? He calls peach white."

Skin, pours, veins, flesh, sink in to cool water, submit to scalding rays.

Find yourself there.

freak.

why am i still up?

went to sleep at 10 two days ago. i thtink it was. i was going to sleep after the last post, but i'm still up. i don't know why. too wired to sleep. can't get on the down escalator to sleep--too tired to put my foot out and step on, too scared to step between steps, and then they open up, you know how they do that on an escalator, and my foot's all half on and half off the step, I'm trying to keep my balance, not fall and tumble all the way down, down.

if someone could just pull the red level for a minute while I step on, I'd really appreciate it.

hmmm.

no one here. no one. not even a comment lately. good americanz are out celebrating the holiday early maybe. so where are the bloggers? down down on the escalator. jenna calls them alligators, and I like it so much I don't correct her.

i do that a lot with her.

so many voices out here--are we paying attention to anyone anymore? i don't know. to ourselves. if that's all then that's something. maybe the biggest thing of all.

i knew if I decided to post, to write with my eyes closed, I would find sleep. And it's coming. I feel it. My eyes are closed and there go my fingers tumbling around the keyboard, glorious. what's behind my eyelids this evening? let me see....

shhhh.

there is a couple, she's in a green blouse and he's in a grey polo shirt, I only see his back, an dhe's shouting at her, an dthen I'm in the uniform store where I just bought jenna's uniforms for school next month, yah, we start early down here.

oil barrels, ponies, glue sticks, shopping cart, let them come, the images behind your eyes, nail polish, carrot sticks, cutting board, mailbox, she had blue eyes. Restorration. reverence, thinkking about that one tonight, that one makes sense, but no tthe carrots.... what else? tube socks on ankles, hairy, a boy's, sixteen or seventeen maybe, flashes a smile leans a forearm against a wrought iron fence. A polka-dot dress on a little freckled-face redhead, maybe she's three, four, digging her pinkie into her dimple and smiling.

You can't beat your own movies.

Okay. I'm going down down...
more later.

sleeeep

I had four client deadlines in the last two-and-a-half days. This entailed one all nighter, pulled last night, after which I now feel like milky toast. Pull an all-nighter. I always loved that phrase--used to do it all the time in college. Pull one. Wonder what's to pull about it. Really you push your way through it. Unless you take No-Doze like I used to, write my way through the night on fire thinking I was motherfucking Hemmingway, who I don't even like, but still, he can pull the crap out of a sentence, can't he?

The difference to me, now that I have what is resembling my own business versus pretending to care about the morbid corporate culture of my past couple of years, is that I have to pull more all nighters. Because of the money. Because I can't say, really, gee, no, no thanks, I'm kinda tired and I have three other clients who need stuff done, so sorry--catch you next time! Because you just can't--well, not yet I can't. I am good enough that they would be back. But how soon, that's what I can't play around with right now. I need them as much as they need me. Ain't that a kickinthehead.

It's fun, the work I'm doing these days. Much of it is enjoyable. My clients are all nice people. Otherwise, I would say no. That much I know is true.

Which reminds me, I got that novel by Wally Lamb--I Know This Much Is True--and can he knit a yarn this guy. Holy. It's like 900 pages, and I'm only on about page 50, but he really pulls you, this guy does. He can pull a novel this guy like I can pull an all-nighter.

Too tired to link tonight. Just take it for what it's worth, these pixels. Pixel litter. I made that up a couple of weeks ago. I think I was talking about Meckler's blog, which isn't worth the finger muscles it would take to link to it. Did I make up Pixel Litter? I think I like it.

I can pull a metaphor, can't I?

I couldn't pull a baby bird away from the neighbor's cats tonight though. Shit. I went out for a smoke, yah, I still haven't beat the habit, and I see Chas the tabby from next door batting this poor baby robin around my driveway. The baby robin was, like, hey, I'm not sure what's going on here, but I don't think I like being batted around, tweet tweet! And I'm yelling, Chas, cut it out! go away! and then I see the mama robin.

I felt bad for the baby, and you know the cats who haven't been fed regularly except by me since my neighbor is away in some form of rehab again, but I didn't stop it. I called my brother in law--he works with animals--as the two other cats converged to torture the speckle-chested, no-flying tiny baby robin (hop hop. tweeet! hop hop tweet!). I say, "Unnie--what do I do?"--we call him Unnie cause he's jenna's uncle--there's this baby robin and the cats have him. He's not dead. He's hopping around and tweeting and his poor mother robin is trying to buzz these cats to get them to leave the baby alone. Unnie tells me leave it alone. Go do somethting else. It's nature. It's how it works. It took me a long time to accept it, but that's how it is. And I decide Unnie's sounding wise these days, so I close the door, but not before I take time to watch the mother robin.

fearless as a motherfucker.

she's zooming in cawing like a crow that she isn't--or screeching is maybe a better word--and she's getting so close to the cats' heads, she's using everything she has to save her baby, dodging and diving and ditchcing just in time. and you know what? the cats didn't even look at her--didn't even give her the respect of looking at her, no nod of recognition--no thanks for the baby ma'm--thanks for dinner--no fear from them, like HEY! Watch out for the mother robin! She's after our butts! No. None of that. They didn't even see her. All of her might, all of her instinct compeletely and utterly ignored.

what's worse than that?

And then I left them. To do it.

And now I leave you, because I'm almost there, almost asleep, and so goodnight.

The artist's side of RIAA and file sharing

George has a post I really dig that outlines the thought pattern of the professional musician, or at least this one, about file sharing and the all-seeing-all-knowing RIAA.

I hate to spoil the ending for you, but I have to. It's beautific:

"I am going to analyze in depth how pop music and its machinery have worked...awww forget it. I don't have time for this crusade! I just want to make some music and make enough of a living to keep the lights on. When you guys figure it out, let ME know. I'm going to go practice...."

It's a good thing I'm married to him, because if I were reading him for the first time, I think I would have just fallen in love.

Creation in a Flash

Richard at Peaceful Waters found the perfect project for his first try at flash animation. He used flash to create animation about creation.

Say that ten times fast.

Richard had posted some thoughts about creation, a poem really, a few days back, although the linear nature of a textual post didn't do it justice. So he gave it melding-meaning-swishing-dancing life with flash. I was hoping he would. Nice.

Here it is.

Admit you're a fake--I like it!

Anthurian who remains among the living where we once bumped cubicles, has an interesting approach to steering PR clients who want to get in on the blogging thing in the right direction.

Since Anthurian knoooowwwsss that not all clients (read: probably none) are ready to strip naked of logos and messaging and streak through Blogaria in the buff, he's advised them to offer a service that bloggers can get some use out of, and to ADMIT that their blogs are, well, not for real.

SO, the stragegy if I read it right is to offer some help by giving bloggers a service or application they can use in their blogging, but, Mr. Big Corp., as for your own "corporate" blog, don't try to make it into something it's not, something that we'll all see through in a fly's sneeze. (Do flies sneeze? I was trying to be southern.)

No one likes the kid at the party who acts like Mr. Cool bringing the Cool beer and then he walks in with a six-pack of Bud in cans. Generally, that's the kid you give oregano-wrapped-in-rolling-paper joint to so everyone can laugh at him when he starts acting stoned.

Not that I would know. YES, so don't be the fake cool kid. Instead, admit who you are, brand the shit out of your corporate blog, and then hussle us off to some ACTUAL cool places that we'll actually care about. And we might ACTUALLY think kindly of you.

Good, Anthurian. I can live with that. Thank goodness for all of us that you still have a say and a voice in the big-wide-world-of-marketing. Because I know what we could all be in for if, well, some were left to their own devices.

And you don't know HOW BADLY I WANT TO DO SOME SPOOF BLOGS OF MAJOR HOME IMPROVEMENT AND LEADING IT SOFTWARE AND CONSULTING COMPANIES RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALREADY CREATED THESE SPOOF BLOGS IN MY MIND, AND SO IF I DO SO UNDER AN ASSUMED NAME PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT IT ISN'T ME! (See, I'm kind. I left off the industry of the client you're really talking about.)

But I can say whatever I want, because it's National Libel Day!

WSHEW!

So, thanks to my take on Anthurian's post, we have step-one advice for corporations interested in this hip-new-blogging thing: ask your employees if anyone blogs and let HIM OR HER run the project and the strategy, or at least don't breathe without HIS OR HER (i.e. Anthurain's) say-so.

skip

His name, the one who handed me back my will to live through the next two hours, the one who shocked my nervous system into submission with two different IV pain medications, the one who took away my pain, his name was Skip.

Three times a muffled "help" from me, and no one came, heads moving somehow relating to the voices of one another, that was what I saw, dizzying motion. "This is the busiest Saturday night we've had in recovery." "I think so." voices. everyone's but mine. Moaning from others like me. Why did theirs worked when mine didn't?

I saw him turn, see me, what was it, what my face must have looked like, afraid to move even my lips, afraid it could get worse, not imagining how it could, how anything could be.

He was the first one to come, to tell me to hang on, soon it would get better. Whatever he read in my eyes, since nothing else moved, was something. Tears. Yes. And me eyeing the baby bootie pinned to my gown, maybe.

I was in recovery two hours. After an hour, I could whisper loud enough to communicate. Skip the recovery room nurse (is that what they're called?) told me his name, that my blood pressure was still climbing some, they had to monitor it, and talking to his recovery room colleagues I heard him say, "It's probably the pain," and me, rigid, still wondering if I wanted to bother surviving. Still thinking maybe not.

But once my whisper came back, stronger, and once the first two layers of pain peeled away with the drugs, I choked to Skip over and over, "Thank you." "Thank you. "It's better than it was." "Thank you."

Skip told me jokes, none of which I remember. He also told me he would come see me while I was in the hospital. And he did. I didn't remember his face when he stopped by the room. But I remembered his voice. The voice that took my pain away, that brought me back from my six-hour near-death nap.

Skip, from Recovery at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, if you're out there somewhere, and if Google is kind enough, you may see this one day, and if you do, you can hear me say one more time: "Thank you."

There's a little black spot on the sun today
That's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
That's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
That's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
That's my soul up there

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running 'round my brain
I guess I always thought that you could end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

-From King of Pain, The Police

I've said this before, but when it's a rainy night in georgia...

it really does feel like it's rainin' all over the world.

help.

When I read this story on Rachel Lucas' blog, I shuddered, visibly.

Because for me, this kind of pain is not a memory, really, because it never leaves me, the remembering. It may be past, but it is past present. Not a memory at all--this is what I live, churning.

To tell of unanesthetized surgical pain is to tell about longing for death to save you. It is to tell of a grand paradox: save me/kill me. Anything but this. I will barter with my life if you will please make it stop. I will give you all I have--me--to stop this moment, this second, this instant. How can I undo myself. Undo this, undo me.

Understanding this kind of pain requires that you let go of all constructs of time--this kind of pain lenghtens the ticks between seconds. This kind of pain has no voice.

No lights, cold cold cold, blankets like lead weights, where does the table end and where do I begin?

Where do I begin.

With an operation that took more than six hours. With emergency surgery, surgical staff and panic swirling like whirlpools, bringing me down, down to the OR. With wondering, will I ever see my 9-week-old baby again, or will she see me? The pain in George's eyes, mine reflected back.

And none of that even compares to the pain waiting for me when I woke up, still in the operating room, without a stitch of pain medicine in my veins. Them finishing, pulling up the rails, getting ready to wheel me to recovery, a ride I take in my mind again and again.

I can't go any further down into it, not now.

Fire, red orange, yellow hot burning cascading waves.

I can't tell you that the tears in this woman's eyes, the inability to speak, to have no voice left with which to cry out, to whisper only one word, too shallow, no breath, throat raw from tubes: "help." Too softly for anyone to hear, but me. Me recognizing my own screaming silence.

I can't tell you about ears that can't receive the human voice, can't hear "Hang on--we're going to get some pain meds in you," instead ears that speak, because the mouth cannot, don't do that, please kill me. I can't tell you what that's like.

To wait.

In my case, there was no one to blame. I had run out of blood, out of fibroid tumors, and nearly out of time, hung in that delicate dance of anesthesia, between death and waking, too long. It was for my own good that I woke up too soon, you see. "That happens sometimes," the doctor said. "They have to keep it light toward the end. Six hours is a long time."

Six nanoseconds of live remembering of every slice is longer.

And the living memory of that pain doesn't go away, or at least the memory of having no voice to cry out won't go.

In a flash, I am there, me seeing her seeing me, looking up...so bright, oh please, please no:

"help."

It's National Blogger Libel Day!

Say something really nasty today. No, it's okay!

Doin' the happy dance over here. We can say ANYONE and ANYTHING sucks! Do I have this right? Can I start writing about ex-employers and nasty-meaning family members now?

Let's see, where do I begin:

Lou Gerstner picks his nose in public.

Lou Gerstner likes to wear dirty underwear.

I heard Big Blue is going out of business now that Lou's gone.

One time, I saw Lou Gerstner kill a baby chick with his bare hands. He drank its blood.

Yah, so, I don't know if any of this is true, but it's fun to say. Just for one day--this day, which I have dubbed "National Blogger Libel Day."

I think this is great, as long as no one says anything untrue or nasty about me. Of course.

More about this later.

Libel on with your bad selves.