5/31/08 Two Seemingly Unrelated Items

The only thing I clearly remember wanting
to be when I grew up was Pat Benetar
in the Love is a Battlefield video.
Do you remember that video?
She left home and had to be very brave.


I see Cookie wrestling with a deep sadness
that I remember having as a child, too.
Like a sense of fleetingness or loss,
like a thinness of time, or a hyper-awareness
of mortality. The only thing I can say to him is
I'm sorry, sweetie. I used to feel that way.
Truth is, I still feel that way sometimes.

5/30/08 Dinosaur Park

there is an interesting recipe in me
and when you mix just the right amount
of family vacation and Michael Jackson
with summer storms and a deck of cards
you get dinosaur park
with a side of melancholy

5/29/08 Waiting for Thunder

There's not much animal instinct left in human beings.
You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?
That's cause you're a sucker.

But when you can smell thunder rolling miles away
through your open window at night,
or in the middle of a sunny afternoon
or suddenly feel the wind change and think
I better get home before it starts raining,
then I will laugh at you lovingly and say,

"See? Your animal soul can still feel the earth heaving
and the sky rolling and the universe breathing
all around you. Congratulations!"

5/28/08 Bandaid

a brand new light fixture
is like a fancy antibiotic band-aid
over a wounded bleeding marriage

at least in this case

not helping

5/27/08 Money

earn it
lose it
hate it
need it
resent it
want it
spend it
gamble it
save it
fight it
manage it
hide it
beg it for mercy

5/26/08 Great Day

soccer in the parking lot
and ticks in the trees
throwing rocks in the river

dad built a big fire
and mom drank two beers

Spencer and Tara shared a pinney
Ama's shoes kept coming off
and Cookie never slowed down

perfection unlimited

5/25/08 pacha mama

rub your big black clay belly
summer is here now

dust you off and touch your hands
and turn the wheel again

I love you mama
flowers for my pacha mama
today

5/24/08 Speed Racer

The movie Speed Racer
has been marketed
so thoroughly

it's everywhere

it is every where

it's sick

Cookie thinks he loved it
and we didn't even
let him see it.

5/23/08 Jump a Train

I would jump a train
without even knowing where it went
and sleep in a red boxcar
and rumble along all night.

But instead what I do
is sit on the patio at Fiesta Villa
drinking a margarita
faster than I should.

5/22/08 Planting Potatoes

There is a small bowl full of potatoes
on my kitchen counter.
The potatoes are simultaneously growing
and blackening with mold
as they wait to be planted.
I am intrigued.

5/21/08 Getting Behind

falling further and further behind

can't catch up

please send help

5/20/08 Highlights

The highlight of yesterday was either
watching Cook try to sit still under the heater
for 10 minutes while his blond highlights cooked,
or the look on his face when he saw himself
with his new awesome hairdo.

The highlight of today was Cook running
as fast as he could into the school building
so he could show his friends.

5/19/08 Apple Blossoms

The apple trees are doing their thing
just bursting and dripping with flowers
more blossoms than you would ever think
could even fit on a tree.

I was walking and watching the birds
diving out of the air and disappearing
into the depths of the fluffy flower trees
and it was so luscious.

I wished I was very small so that I could
lose myself inside the trees like a bird,
like laying under a christmas tree and looking up
through the branches and lights.

5/18/08 Exclamation

Thank you!!!!!

I can't put enough exclamation marks
on the end of that thank you.

So here are some more!!!!!.

Let me know if you'd like more than that,
cause I've got a bunch of em right here.

5/17/08 Buffalo Day

The better part of today was spent in Jamestown
so it's no surprise that it ended up being buffalo day.
I don't think I really need to elaborate
and anyway I don't feel like it.

5/16/08 Jungle Boy

When you are a parent
you spend a lot of time wondering
how badly you are screwing up.

What about when you have a son
and when he's seven you realize
that you raised Mowgli.

The kid from the Jungle Book
who was raised by wolves.

Does that mean that you
parent like a wolf?

5/15/08 Thrill the World

I think I used to want to be a dancer
and I still do when I see people dance
but all I can do is Thrill the World
with my kids in my living room.

Someday I'm gonna take my bootie bounce
out into the street and shake it,
but only when I am very certain
that I can get my zombie on.

5/14/08 New Item on the To Do List

Can you guess which thing took me by surprise
when I wrote it on my to do list for today?

• pick up bread
• thank you to grandma
• send Danni's package
• buy a tabloid
  

5/13/08 One Million Suns

I was watching TV again.

Now NASA researchers believe
that a supernova near the sun exploded,
knocking hundreds of thousands
of meteorites out of their orbits.
This created all the craters on the moon.

But all the explanations seem to involve
the light of one million suns,
billions of light years,
4 and a half gazillion years,
the force of a hundred jillion atomic bombs.

What does that mean?
Ridiculous unfathomable numbers, meaningless
to me really, and then the scientist said,
"For now, we are lucky to be alive."

Oh, okay.
I get it.

5/12/08 What I Love About Life

On my mental health walk I discovered
that my ipod was dead and then
I heard frogs down by the water
and I listened to them instead.

I told Cookie what happened and he said,
That's what I love about life, mom.
When you want music but you don't have any,
nature makes music for you.

5/11/08 Lazy Meat Eater

I'm a lazy meat eater.
I don't want to eat it
but it's so much harder not to.
Everything's all set up
to just eat it.
So I just eat it.

I prefer to eat the stuff
that doesn't look like meat
that's not the shape or texture
of the animal of origin.
Of any animal.
It makes me gag.

I prefer it to resemble tofu
or tvp or cloth or plastic
or anything
so that I can forget.
So I don't have to think about it.
So I can just eat it.

5/10/08 Email to Danni

Sometimes I feel like I'm doing way too much,
and then other times I feel like I'm not doing nearly enough.
I'm thirty, after all.
And also a white,
affluent,
educated
American.

God damn.
Got a lot going for me.
If anybody should I should
be doing a lot more in this world.
Says my inner chatter.

5/9/08 Ama's Birthday

Happy Birthday Ama!
she answers: Happy Birthday Mom!

How old are you Ama?
she answers: No.

How old is Ama today?
she answers: Ama.

Is Ama two today? Is Ama two?
she fails to answer.

5/8/08 Pocky

Today I got the biggest box of Pocky I've ever seen
in the mail.
Not that I've ever seen in the mail.
I mean I got it in the mail.
Got the misplaced part of speech there
that I can't remember the name of.
This is not going well.

It's the biggest box of Pocky I've ever seen.
And I got it in the mail.
Pocky I've ever seen.

5/7/08 That One Girl

Today I saw that one girl.
The one who used to date
that one guy.
I used to work with her
at that one place.
Remember, you met her
that one time.

Oh it feels so good
to reminisce.

5/6/08 You Tube

Don't act all innocent
you tube.
You freaking tube.

Why you gotta be such a tube.

5/5/08 Mirror

If I had been writing all this
into a mirror,
it would explain why
everything is backwards.

5/4/08 HD Theater

Last night I spent two hours
in a vegetative (albeit educable) state
watching the HD Theater channel.

First I watched a show about river dolphins
and life on the Mekong in Cambodia.
There is a monk there who uses his karma
to protect the giant bats in his village
from the hungry villagers.

Then I watched a thing about bison
and prairie dogs' symbiotic relationship
on the great plains. Both have been
historically regarded as pests by white people.
I couldn't help but scan the wildlife shots
for fences and power lines.

Anyway, if I tell you I never have any
down time just tell me that I'm a liar
and direct me to 5/4/08 HD Theater.
You'll be right. As usual.

5/3/08 Feeling and Failing

There are different theories
about the causes for human suffering.

I don't know a lot about humans,
not nearly as much as I let on anyway,
but I know a little bit about hurting
and I cry quite a bit, so

if I were to put forth my own theory on human suffering
based on my personal experience (which resembles human-ness)
it would be mostly about feeling too much or not enough, and then
failing a lot or a little, and then it would conclude with more feeling
in response to the failing.

5/2/08 Bed All Day

If I could lay in bed all day
I could seriously lay in bed
all day

and though that may seem tiresome
to someone like you
someone like me knows how tiresome it can be
to not lay in bed all day

5/1/08 Honey Bee

you're so sweet
my little honey bee
and you're so kissable
I can't stop kissing you
I can't stop kissing you
I can't stop kissing you