Coffee Smoke Write

Best ways to make money

2011-10-05T09:27:00.001-07:00

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If you're goal is to make money online, one of the easiest ways to get started is by simply emulating someone who has already experienced the same kind of success you want, and then copy them. This model can be applied to any business. There is no reason to try and re-invent the wheel from scratch when you can follow someone else's proven path to success.

In the beginning most people are in the "Information Mode" where they are learning how to get going in the right direction in the correct niche with profit pulling products.

However, if you do not use this information to take action, you will never find your path to successful online income. In most cases, you will first experience "Information Overload" causing you to give up and this is the exact reason why most people fail to make any money online. Therefore, to quickly get past this initial hurdle, you will need a step-by-step system that maps out a realistic idea of exactly what has to be done.

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Another great way to get started is by working with a mentor or a personal success coach. This can be the quickest and easiest path to reaching your personal income goals.

A personal coach will easily identify when you are failing before you can. They have been down that exact same road time and time again before you, and they know how to avoid the bumps and hurdles that lie ahead. This is very important if you want to learn how to effectively make money online fast. Basically, why should you struggle when someone else can make your life much easier?

At this point, you want to get your business in profit as soon as possible and you will quickly realize that following a coach or mentor will get you there more quickly. Now, all you need to do is select a good mentor or coach that has achieved the same kind of success you are looking for.

They will provide you with the required steps and your primary job is to simply follow those steps. One difficult hurdle you will encounter is to follow the steps without distraction. You will find many people and/or programs that promise you the easiest and fastest way, but if you jump around from coach to coach, you're only going to slow down your progress.

Check out the following link in this article to learn from an experienced coach that has been down this exact road and overcome all the obstacles in CPA affiliate marketing. This complete system will dramatically shorten the painful learning curve that comes with learning how to make money online using CPA affiliate marketing.

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How to Build Your Boats

2011-10-05T09:19:00.001-07:00

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Have you been thinking about building your own boat, but think it may be too much hassle? Don't give up on your dream just yet! It is true that boat plans can be pretty complicated. No matter how passionate or enthusiastic you may be about having a boat made by your own hands, it won't make up for being stuck with a boat plan you simply cannot follow. Luckily for you, there's MyBoatPlans.com. Master Boat Builder Martin Reid shares his 17 years of boat building experience with you on this site.

Having developed a passion for boats and "all things marine" as a child, his father bought him his first boat plan on his twelfth birthday. Years later, upon the rediscovery of that first boat after his father's death, he decided to try his hand at building the "real thing" and bought his first set of boat plans for a very basic dinghy. His excitement soon turned to disappointment as he realized the plans simply weren't easy to understand. After a lot of hard work, countless hours and guessing, he ended up with a half-finished boat he could do nothing with. He ended up buying more plans and trying again. After yet more wasted money and materials, he ended up with another half-finished boat. Naturally, he nearly gave up on his boat-building dreams.

Luckily for him, he ended up meeting a local, master boat builder who was kind enough to take him under his wing and help him follow the plans he had purchased. Thanks to this, his skills eventually improved and he built his first boat. That was just the beginning. Now, he has over 200 original boat plans, written in a simple, step-by-step format, available to you. He wants to share them so that you don't have to go through all of the same boat-building frustration that he did. Following these illustrated, high-quality guides and plans will guide you every step of the way in building a boat of your own.

Each boat plan is so detailed and simple to understand that even someone with no experience can begin building a boat today! The detailed specifications, diagrams and many photos are totally fool proof to keep you from wasting time or money on wasted materials. All of this delivered right to your email inbox; no need to wait for the mailman to bring them.

For what you could spend on one set of boat plans, you can get an entire library of high-quality plans from MyBoatPlans.com! And what a library! Whether you're interested in cabin cruisers, sail boats, hydros or yachts, you can find a plan for it, along with so many others, you'll never need to buy a boat plan again! The hardest work has been done for you; all you have to do is point and click to begin your boat-building journey!

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repair credit report score

2011-10-05T09:15:00.001-07:00

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There are so many people around the world today that have become a slave to their credit. It is too easy for just about anyone to get instant credit almost every department store they go and getting a major credit card is easier now than it has ever been. We also use our credit to get things like automobiles and houses. All of these things can become overwhelming to some and eventually they end up with bad credit. There are ways to help repair credit when this happens.

There are several ways to begin to help repair credit when it has been damaged. Bad credit occurs when a person or company cannot pay back the money that they borrowed from a creditor. When you are late paying these bills, that can also reflect badly on your credit and it will leave a bad score as well. All of these things can hurt you when you need to use your credit for things that you really need and can't afford to get on your own.

If you need help to repair your credit, you can find several different places to look. First, the Internet is full of websites that can teach you about things like keeping track of your money. Setting limits and making a budget are some of the best ways to start off on the right track. There are several places on the web that can show you how to do this and still live a comfortable life like you were before and pay back all of the money that you have borrowed from creditors.

There are several tools that are also on the Internet that can help you when you are budgeting and paying bills. If you have credit cards then it is a good idea to use a calcul credit application that will show you some valuable information. This information tells you things like how long you will have to pay on that credit card if you only make the minimum payments and how much interest you will be paying as well. Knowing these things can really help you sort things out.

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fixing your credit

2011-10-05T09:13:00.001-07:00

Sometimes things in life happen that are beyond your control. This could be the loss of a job, divorce, reduced income or maybe even a personal tragedy. These events can be life altering and usually have an effect on your credit rating. If your credit score declines you need to look for ways to help repair credit. You may not even realize that your score has been reduced until you apply for a credit card or a loan and get rejected. After the initial shock you have to take action to fix that score.

One of the first things you need to do is order a copy of your credit report. There are three main credit reporting bureaus, so you need to see copies from each of them. Looking at your credit report is the best way to know what you need to work on and if there are any incorrect facts. After you review your reports then you need to take action to get your numbers as high as possible. To do this make sure you pay all your bills on time. Past due means low scores. 35% of your score is related to how timely you pay your bills. In addition to timely payments, try to start paying down your loan and credit card balances. The lower your balance, the higher your score.

Credit repair agencies help repair credit for hundreds of people every day. A reputable agency will never pressure you to into hiring them and will begin their relationship with you by offering counseling on your consumer rights and responsibilities. They are experts at credit repair and know exactly what has to be done and how to do it. This means a much faster and more efficient process for you than if you chose to attempt to do it yourself. Your credit score dictates how interest rates are calculated for loans and credit cards as well as things such as insurance rates. The agency's goal is to raise your score as quickly as possible.

It is possible to attempt to help repair credit on your own. After you translate your credit report you can duplicate many of the same processes that credit repair agencies use. You'll need to get examples of credit repair letters and use them to create your own individualized forms and begin sending them to the credit bureaus. Do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed and totally give up. Your persistence will be the key to success and the avoidance of filing bankruptcy.

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Art of 3D Animation - Are You Up To It

2011-10-05T09:07:00.001-07:00

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Over the ages there has always been a confrontation between two ideologies: art for art's sake and art for human upliftment. 3D animation is also an art form predominant in this information age marked by numerous inventions. Technological advancement is a major catalyst for the ideology of art for upliftment. 3D animation is the perfect amalgamation of both.

3D animation encapsulates the essence of art its dynamic and ever evolving nature makes it a potent combination of paintings, drawing and sculptures. This form of art challenges the creative and the intellectual streak in the artist. The artist now does not only use the traditional means but also has to show technological intelligence.

This study involves an intricate software understanding and computer animation. The form of art is so immaculate that one needs to draw, paint and model the design within the realm of 3D animation. Lighting, cinematography, colour scheme, textures, sound synchronisation, shading, contrasts and animation are some of the other requirements to be a professional 3D animator. 3D animation has transcended the boundaries of entertainment and has been incorporated into the realm of education, industries and corporate organisations.

The first step to be a 3D animator is that aspirants need to understand to make an animation on needs to literally sculpt a model with the technological strokes and bring the inanimate matter to life. Taking or withdrawing elements from the model one has to judge the creative work from different vantage points. 3D animation usually starts with 2D photographs which presents the model from different angels.

To create a sequence of animations one has to create a detailed view of the model in the format of sketches, scripts and transitions. Tools play a major role in this creative process but it does not abrogate creativity from the work of art, for a 3D animation aspirant, determination is the only tool and nothing even technological requirement of any sort can take away quality from the creation.

The process of acquiring 3D animation techniques is the creation of a backdrop, the set designing, the character modelling, the animation, cameras, recording, music compositions and special effects. The module in the study of the 3D animation includes 3D modelling, 3D prototypes, Character animation, Special effects, architectural improvisations and engineering technicalities. 3D Animation also requires workflow, timelines, research, detailing and structuring.

This creative field demands its aspirants to be immaculate in the tricks of animation which include JPEG, GIF, TIFF, TGA and PNG file format. Holistically, 3D animation requires the creator to have an aesthetic taste from the placement of the model. 3D animation brings to life all static images and is the foundation of the brand image of an institution lest one looses the public interest. 3D animation if excessive can be tedious for the viewer and professional 3D animators need to understand and define the viewer's line of equilibrium. 3D animation has the agency to simplify the most complex concepts, ideas and visualisations which would require creative and technological genius.

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Woodworking free plans

2011-10-05T08:58:00.001-07:00

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It's absolutely great to see how woodworking free plans help people make their house more furnished and pleasing to stay at. From the thinnest type of plywood to the very detailed carvings, these plans will give you tons of suggestions and information on how to create wood working stuff.

If we're going to talk about ambience, I can always suggest that putting furniture's made out of wood especially in living room or dining area will create a much tranquil atmosphere where you can relax nicely. There are a lot of things you can do with wood working stuff, like some of the basics such as tables, chairs, cabinet, or even some cool and funny stuff like a wooden rocking horse, a doll house for your kids, a pool table and some other things for recreational activities.

There is one time when I went to mall to shop for an outdoor table for our backyard and I was bit shocked with the price. Although I am capable of buying it, I'm still having second thoughts if I were to buy that table. But then I realize when I look at it, gee I can make this thing by myself so why wouldn't I try. This is the first time I search over the net about how to make such wooden table and luckily I came over to various sites that tackle woodworking free plans.

I was so amazed to find this guidelines trough net for absolutely free of charges. It's always easy to make a job if you have a stable and reliable plan at first and that is what they are giving you. You will no longer experience confusions on what kind of materials to buy because they're going to give you the exact things you needed to materialize your plan. And they will also provide you information on what sizes and measurements of each wood you will use. These step by step guidelines will truly makes your work more challenging and yet enjoyable.

Woodworking free plans over the net are truly advisable to be read for those people who are just getting started on the craft and of course if you would like to enjoy making stuff by yourself rather than spending too much money on handicrafts being sold in malls. As for me, I see my work I do as a project and whenever I finished one, I always treat that as an accomplishment that you will really enjoy especially when you actually see the finish product.

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انه لشيء رائع للغاية لنرى كيف خطط مجانا النجارة مساعدة الناس على اتخاذ مزيد من منزلهم مفروشة وارضاء للبقاء في. أنحف من نوع من الخشب الرقائقي في المنحوتات مفصلة للغاية ، وسوف تعطيك هذه الخطط طن من الاقتراحات والمعلومات حول كيفية إنشاء الاشياء الخشبية العاملة.

إذا نحن ذاهبون الى الحديث عن اجواء ، ويمكنني أن أقترح دائما أن يصنع وضع الأثاث من الخشب خصوصا في غرفة المعيشة أو غرفة الطعام سيخلق أجواء هادئة كثيرا حيث يمكنك الاسترخاء لطيف. هناك الكثير من الأشياء التي يمكنك القيام به مع الاشياء الخشبية العمل ، مثل بعض الأساسيات مثل الطاولات والكراسي ، ومجلس الوزراء ، أو حتى بعض الاشياء باردة ومضحكة مثل حصان خشبي هزاز ، بيت الدمية لأطفالك ، طاولة بليارد وبعض الأشياء الأخرى للأنشطة الترفيهية.

هناك مرة واحدة عندما ذهبت الى مركز تجاري للتسوق للحصول على الجدول في الهواء الطلق لأرضنا وصدمت أنا بت مع السعر. على الرغم من أنني قادر على شرائها ، وأنا لا تزال لديها أفكار ثانية لو كنت لشراء هذا الجدول. ولكن بعد ذلك وأنا أدرك أنني عندما ننظر في الأمر ، جي أستطيع أن أجعل هذا الشيء بنفسي فلماذا لا أحاول. هذه هي المرة الأولى التي بحث على الشبكة حول كيفية جعل هذه منضدة خشبية ، ومن حسن الحظ جئت الى المواقع المختلفة التي تتناول خطط مجانا النجارة .

لذلك أنا مندهش للعثور على هذه المبادئ التوجيهية لأدنى مستوى صافي خالية تماما من التهم الموجهة إليه. انها دائما سهلة لجعل وظيفة إذا كان لديك خطة مستقرة وموثوق بها في البداية ، وهذا هو ما تعطي لك. لن تتمكن من التباسات التجربة على أي نوع من المواد اللازمة لشراء لأنهم ذاهبون لتعطيك الأشياء بالضبط كنت بحاجة لتجسيد الخطة الخاصة بك. وأنها سوف توفر لك معلومات حول ما الأحجام والقياسات في كل الخشب الذي ستستخدمه. وهذه الخطوة من قبل الإرشادات خطوة حقا يجعل عملك أكثر تحديا وممتعة حتى الان.

خطط النجارة مجانا على الشبكة هي حقا من المستحسن أن تقرأ لهؤلاء الناس الذين هم مجرد البدء في هذه الحرفة ، وبالطبع إذا كنت ترغب في التمتع صنع الاشياء بنفسك بدلا من إنفاق الكثير من المال على الحرف اليدوية التي كانت تباع في المراكز التجارية. بالنسبة لي ، أرى عملي أفعل كمشروع وكلما انتهيت من واحد ، أعالج دائما بأنه إنجازا أن تستمتع حقا وخصوصا عندما كنت انظر في الواقع نتاج النهاية.

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Real Flying With Pro Flight Simulator

2011-10-05T08:52:00.001-07:00

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Google Groups Invitation: bloggerpost

2011-10-05T02:49:00.001-07:00

News dreamofher2000@gmail.com has invited you to join the bloggerpost group
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join us to receive high quality articles to your blog daily

Here is the group's description:

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You can accept this invitation by clicking the following URL:

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Reminder about your invitation from Laura Bennett Johnson

2011-08-01T00:17:00.001-07:00

Dear CoffeeSmokeWrite My,

This is a reminder that on July 21, Laura Bennett Johnson sent you an invitation to become part of his or her professional network at LinkedIn.

Follow this link to accept Laura Bennett Johnson's invitation.

https://www.linkedin.com/e/igwd4d-gqt3w3qi-43/doi/3606682396/i2s6KIJW/gir_863204276_1/EML-inv_18_rem/

Signing up is free and takes less than a minute.

On July 21, Laura Bennett Johnson wrote:

> To: CoffeeSmokeWrite My Blog [ta2lady1.coffeesmokewrite@blogger.com]
> From: Laura Bennett Johnson [ta2lady@mac.com]
> Subject: Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

> I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
>
> - Laura

The only way to get access to Laura Bennett Johnson's professional network on LinkedIn is through the following link:

https://www.linkedin.com/e/igwd4d-gqt3w3qi-43/doi/3606682396/i2s6KIJW/gir_863204276_1/EML-inv_18_rem/

You can remove yourself from Laura Bennett Johnson's network at any time.

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

Reminder about your invitation from Laura Bennett Johnson

2011-07-25T02:11:00.001-07:00

Dear CoffeeSmokeWrite My,

This is a reminder that on July 21, Laura Bennett Johnson sent you an invitation to become part of his or her professional network at LinkedIn.

Follow this link to accept Laura Bennett Johnson's invitation.

https://www.linkedin.com/e/igwd4d-gqj7vuyu-35/doi/3606682396/i2s6KIJW/gir_863204276_0/EML-inv_18_rem/

Signing up is free and takes less than a minute.

The only way to get access to Laura Bennett Johnson's professional network on LinkedIn is through the following link:

https://www.linkedin.com/e/igwd4d-gqj7vuyu-35/doi/3606682396/i2s6KIJW/gir_863204276_0/EML-inv_18_rem/

You can remove yourself from Laura Bennett Johnson's network at any time.

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

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

2011-07-20T21:08:00.001-07:00

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- Laura

Laura Bennett Johnson
Owner/Tattoo Artist/Queen at Flying Colors Tattoo
San Francisco Bay Area

Confirm that you know Laura

Sorting a pile of my life

2010-06-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

As we were finishing the move from one bedroom to another I found myself sitting on the floor going through the last of the things, the ones that never really have a place to go if you want to call them "Put Away." Bits and pieces, ten thousand notebooks with many or only a few pages written, photographs that are from such vastly different times in my life that it's as though the time-machine went haywire.

Our closet was daunting, that's where we've been storing items way-up-high for four years now. I used to look at it and think about organizing it just because it needed to be done, and then I would quickly move on to something that seemed possible. What surprised me was the collection under the huge piece of furniture that our television has been sitting on.

I bought the piece when Mervyn's was going out of business. You might have seen it with sweaters stacked on its four shelves, maybe a promotional sign or mannequin torso on the glass-on-aluminum framed top. It's five feet long, and maybe three feet deep, this is a display for a large retail store, not an entertainment center. Michael had to go through heroic maneuvers to get it around a corner and through a regular sized bedroom door.

When I brought it home, I immediately claimed all of the shelf space, along with that on top of my dresser, because I have more stuff than Michael does. I not only filled the shelves with books, boxes, little dishes shaped like leaves or made to hold a candle and bits of other things, I stuffed the space under it as well.

I have a thing for boxes, both large and small. My Big Daddy has known this forever, many of them are handmade by him, and two of them have secret compartments (the only thing that can make a box even better than it was originally.) Some are cool wooden cigar boxes, some are little tiny boxes made of metal or wood. I have never been able to resist an empty box or a blank book of new paper.

I have lived in the same house for fourteen years, and I think this move completes the third circuit of bedrooms I have lived in. I have moved many, many times without ever changing addresses.

After the large things were moved, all the things that make our room the place where we live there were a lot of things that must be kept. I had no place for them. That's how I ended up on the floor sorting a pile of my life.

Sometimes I wonder, when I die will my loved ones will go through every single page and scrap, look at every photo, or just bag it all up and take it to the dump? Many things are dated, many are not. There is a gathering of this same kind of paper history in the garage that equals what I have in the house. It would take unaccustomed eyes days to absorb it all. There is everything I have compulsively written over a century or so, and many pieces that were contributed by someone else. I will keep an angry unsigned note from someone, but discard all the store-bought cards I've been given over the years. When I'm gone I know there will seem to be no rhyme or reason to what I kept, but each thing is somehow part of the puzzle of who I am.

The collection I have been dealing with over the last few days has mesmerized me the way these things always do. They make me sit down and look at each piece and place it on the timeline in my head. There is a cassette tape of me talking at twenty-two months old, answering questions about who the president is ("President Johnson lives in the white house.") and talking about a rat ("Look at his tiny little hands, he's kissing me!") and Dottie's voice prompting me to parrot all the cute things she's taught me to say. I can hear that clearly in my head this minute, and yet it has probably been twenty years since I've actually played it out loud. I can hold the object in my hand and listen to it without a player.

There is the photo album from the day I married the boys' dad. I'm impossibly young and my Big Daddy is slim and dark, tall and handsome. I look at those young people promising to be married forever and know from this vantage point that they are far too young to know what "the rest of your life" means. When I look at my own baby face in those pictures I feel sad that I thought I had already reached adulthood and knew who I was.

Pictures of me, hugely pregnant with Paul, motherhood still a theory and an ideal. Apparently they hadn't invented the blow-dryer yet. (This is a lie, I killed my hair all through high school trying to look like Farrah.) My unruly mop is either air-dryed to it's almost-curly best or braided, by the time Andrew comes along the braid reaches my waist. Notebooks of my own writing with pages of lyrics or short-stories that their dad wrote layered in between. They are typed on some ancient computer; printed on yellowing, continuous-feed paper with perforation bumps at the top and bottom.

In the same pile is the leather folio with the wedding ceremony from this, my adult marriage. There are actual vows, promises to stay together no matter what. In that first ceremony we didn't really promise anything but to tell the truth, and to "Do what works and stop doing what doesn't." and I see now that you really do get served whatever you order from the Universe's menu.

There's a photo of Grito with a can of Natty Ice and the black wise man from my Grandmother's Jesus barn that comes out at christmas. There's a picture of me sitting on a new Harley that Molly's dad gave me in lieu of a real engagement ring. There's a photo album where I am between nine and ten years old, full of Dottie and the contrived poses she favors in any photographic situation. There are two almost perfectly round rocks. There're several school projects from all three kids, and an exact list of what was on my desk one day. (I was drinking back then, actually it's a pretty funny list, down to the number of bottle caps and pot seeds there were.) Also there are many bits of broken jewelry, tiny little medicine bags that haven't been opened in three decades, the medal Andrew was awarded in the Army and gave to me, some flakes of dried flower petals, a feather or two. There's the book of poetry my Grandfather wrote while he was courting my Grandmother. I've consolidated the paper, and my attic steps are completely blocked with items and boxes of things that "Will be good to use in an art project some day."

The way I get trapped by this same collection, no matter how many times I gather it from the places it has been wedged since the last time I did this, is that I feel as though I should go through it and discard some of it. Maybe I should consolidate it, or put it in chronological order. Maybe I should put this whole stack in one of my many boxes, but wait, all the boxes are full and now I must look at each item in every box. I can't remember the last time I have thrown away a single page.

It's a shame I'm not a very important person. If anyone had a collection like this from Abraham Lincoln or some other fascinating character from history they would be overjoyed. Just think of it- all of old Abe's angst-ridden teenage poetry, all of his lists, the notes his friends passed him in school. Ok, I realize that most of the stuff I have in my pile didn't even exist when Mr. Lincoln was young, but I trust you get my point. I'm not important historically, and therefore the collection of things I never let go of is just a pile of stuff; unless you're in one of the pictures, you could take that and put it on your refrigerator with a magnet.

Somehow it's all put away again, waiting for the next time.

Egg Man

2010-06-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

When I asked my new doctor for some other kind of non-narcotic headication for my aggressive brain samurai I was prescribed two new things. I told her the old miracle meds just weren't doing it any more. These two new things are doing less than the one that I thought wasn't working, but I'm not willing to experiment in my own lab to find out what happens if you mix the old with the new.

My cerebral blender is still spinning on high, but it's jammed with sticks and the motor is smoking. One thing the new medication does do for me is steal the urge to wake up in the morning, and cap the fingertips my written thoughts normally flow right through.

used to sit here on my rock of a keyboard and catch the little thought-birds in my net; try and see if I could get them all singing the same song. I never knew where the flock would fly, but catch only one and the rest would usually follow. Now I feel as if I no longer have opposable thumbs, I have as much success as a walrus attempting to catch fireflies.

I miss conducting my morning symphony, it's a part of me that I love best. I'll get it figured out eventually, if my cranium does not implode.

I miss all of you too.

Family Dynamics

2010-06-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

Spring and Autumn are sisters who have had shared custody since their parents Summer and

Winter split up so many years ago. It's no wonder that it didn't work out for those two, their temperaments are just too different to make a tranquil and loving home. You can tell Spring, the younger sister, is Mother Summer's favorite.

They go shopping together for new things, and share such a family resemblance that sometimes it's easier to think that they are the sisters, instead of mother and daughter. They listen to the same music, although Summer likes it louder and will turn up the volume the first chance she gets. They like their water warm and their plants young. They can cruise for greenery together, they both like younger and more active sprouts.

Spring has a deep love for her dad though, who seems so austere and cold; He is a time when it would seem that nothing new will ever happen on this block. When it's her turn to go live with mom she will vacillate, and say she left a lot of stuff at his house and she needs to go back and get it.

He's the one who teaches her the deep secrets, and she learns much from him. They work on fantastic new creations and projects in the basement together, and on those weekends when both sisters visit Autumn can become very jealous of the attention their father lavishes on the baby.

All Autumn ever really gets to do is throw a brief fashion show using her mother's over-bloomed and well-used remnants to dazzle the eye and make wistful the heart. Autumn throws herself without reluctance into her father's chilly arms, only to watch her best gifts be swept away.

Summer is a charismatic, pink-cheeked woman in a party dress, drinking too much, staying up too late, flirting with all the possibilities that pass by. By the time the party really gets rolling she's entirely forgotten that she has any daughters at all, it's just HER in her golden tiara, holding court amongst her many admirers. Collecting love letters like lush fruit, she blooms unashamedly, showing even her most secret flowers to any and all who might wish to see. She doesn't come to a dignified conclusion, she just parties until she passes out.

It is always the older sister, Autumn, who will come along and clean up her mother's messes, and tell her "Yes, you were once beautiful." Mom usually raises her head and staggers blearily out one last time or two to slur "Where's the party?" As the eldest sister, she always finds a safe place for mom to lay her head, her petals long gone, her pumpkins fat and her stems withered and brown, to sleep off this year's fleshy excesses.

Summer resents her oldest for resembling Dad's side of the family so much. Autumn already knows all the lessons that her father will teach. She is charitable though, and it's her privilege to pass out the goodies that will sustain the little people while Dad and Spring are sequestered together contriving new things to introduce. Summer spends this time sleeping off her hangover.

Autumn fills me with a restless urge, to go, to see, to get the hell out of this town before it's too late. I love Autumn the best.

Dad's job is to go out and wreak havoc, freeze some stuff, throw some lightning bolts around. It's not a very pretty job, but someone's got to do it. Always a buzz-kill, he insists that everyone slow down and have a long hard look at themselves. Spring and her mother don't appreciate that he provides most of that water they love to play with in their garden.

Spring and Autumn don't hang out much. Like a lot of sisters they argue about who is prettier. Autumn, the older sibling has a more realistic view of life, and finds her little sister frivolous and fickle.

This morning when I took the dogs out I caught Spring, trying on her big sister's breezes, pretending that those were her clouds. The smell in the air was not the innocent fragrance of a young girl though, she had snuck into her older sister's perfume and applied too much. At this time of year, she'll get away with it, but for one tiny moment, that truly Autumn instant stirred me and made me want to pack my bags.

Gravity

2010-06-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

I want a facelift.

Not a super dramatic looks-like-you're-traveling-at-ninety-miles-an-hour kind of facelift, just a little vertical tug here and there. I would love it if that area under my chin were smooth again, and I did use chin in the singular form. I don't want giant lips or chin and cheek implants. I want to be able to move my eyebrows and stop smiling sometimes.

My eyes could use some work. I've always had sort of asian shaped eyes, where you can't even see that I have an upper and lower lid, it's like there are two little sausages perched over my slanting blues. When I was first allowed to wear eye shadow in sixth grade (Bright blue cream frost, oh yeah!) I would walk around with my eyes at half-mast so you could see it. If I opened them all the way the electric blue of 1971 would just roll back into my head and you would never know that I was now mature enough to start accentuating with paint. My eyes are on the wish list too.

I have Dottie's nose. It's a curse, this nose, obviously very strong genetically. It's very round, and tempts people to want to give it a little honk to see if it makes a noise. I have always hated my nose, so I'd get a new one of those too. This is where the rule "Don't touch my nose, ever!" comes from.

Every time I say to Michael "I really want a facelift!" he counters with "I will support any boob job you want to get." WTF? After saying this a few times I attacked him with the full force of unreasonable middle-aged rage. "What the hell is wrong with my boobs?" "Nothing honey" he backpedals, "I just want to be supportive." I have an over-the-glasses glare I save for times like these.

I don't have issues with my boobs. They're not as perky as they were before I gave birth to and nursed three kids, but they're still pretty fantastic for someone my age. If you saw me on my back in the bathtub, or hanging upside down like a bat I think you would agree. If they're properly wedged, strapped and squished they make a cleavage I can use as a second purse. The girls are one of the only parts of my body I'm still happy with.

It's my face that bothers me. It seems that I focus on this especially when I'm getting my hair done, probably because I'm forced to sit there and stare at myself in a giant mirror for two hours. I take my fingers and place them right above my outer cheek bones and lift, only a little bit, and there, isn't that so much better?

I try never to look at myself in the mirror as a rule, except this tiny one I have that only shows one feature at a time. I use it to apply lipstick or if I'm deciding that maybe I'll feel prettier if I wear makeup today. You know, slap on a little eyeshadow that will roll back in my head so no one sees it anyway.

Mascara ends up hitting the lenses of my glasses, so I don't get to be too dramatic with that. I would have to really do it up to get my lashes out from under those awnings that are my upper eyelids anyway. I've always wished I could wear some pink feather and glitter false eyelashes, but my glasses prevent that.

Many women talk about aging gracefully. My plan is to be dragged kicking and screaming every inch of the way. The older I get the more I look like Dottie, which is like gazing into a mirror and seeing a cross between the icon on a poison bottle and Hitler. It's harder and harder to cheer myself with "Well hey, at least you don't have the little mustache."

The sad thing is that although I have never been pretty, I can look at pictures of myself from years ago and think "Hey, that girl is kind of cute." My beauty is entirely retroactive. Maybe if I hoisted up this face that has been battling gravity for nearly a hundred years now I would look more like that girl instead of this old lady. I wouldn't start wearing high heels with little socks and mini-skirts or anything, I just want to tune up my face a little.

I have pictures of Dottie when she's in her thirties, so I can compare myself to them and decide how much I actually look like her and if I look better at that age than she did. Yes, it is a competition. I found one picture of her on Google (at age 66 I think) and she looks decrepit,ancient, miserable. Give it a few more years and I think I'll win that one. Still, I would just love to be happy behind this face right now.

I wish I had a picture of her at the age I really am, I bet I would look way better. That's because I'm not psychotically sociopathic with only selfish motivations coursing through my veins. If I'm currently winning though, I would really like to know it.

Come on Super Lotto! I want a house and a facelift, is that too much to wish for?

Love letter to not just any soap.

2010-06-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

It's a rare day when I blog twice. Blogging is a morning thing for me, and goes along with coffee and those first crucial cigarettes of the day.

Sometimes, if I've had a particularly rough day, either emotionally or physically I like to immerse my body in extra hot water in my ultra-narrow cast-iron tub. This bathtub was "modern" when the claw-foot tub went out of fashion. I sit in the water, knowing that I am made mostly of water and try to imagine the solid parts of me as separate from the whole. Bones, teeth, skin, it's undiluted body.

Today my bar of beJessie.com Go Man, Go soap arrived, and I think it was the combination of the day and the allure of the scent that brought me to some hot water meditation time.

When you open the little muslin bag there's always something written about Jessie's soap, it's always got a clever name, and smells like nothing you can purchase in a store. Here's what it said about this one:

"Coconut milk and sweet mango? Yes please! You know here at Monkeypoo we don't play when it comes to delicious ingredients, and goMango is not exception.

Made with natural sweet creamy coconut milk for moisture, fresh food-grade cocoa butter for its skin loving properties and fresh pureed carrots (for beta carotene, vitamin A and its restorative properties.) A yummy homemade base of olive oil, coconut oil, soybean oil and sustainable palm oil. Get your skin a jump start on summer! The scent is sweet and citrusy and the perfect start (or finish) to your day.

Extremely moisturizing and skin loving and jam packed with vitamins, nutrients and natural glycerin. No crappy filler ingredients. Cold processed and made in small batches."

A lovely description, thoughtfully written. Unfortunately the essence and experience of this delicious bar of body loving goodness just doesn't come all the way through, even with that as the label.

It's nothing special to look at, it's beige. Why? because there are never any artificial colors in Jess' soap. It's just a plain little rectangle until you touch it. The bar (even before being immersed in water) has the feel of a "lotion bar" or some other moisturizing product that you would apply directly to your skin with no water. Dip it into a hot bath and it comes alive in your hand and that part of your palate that lives in your nose. I could pick up the scent of carrot (not the big old knobby ones from the supermarket, but the thin little babies that have orange light that shines from within. I covered myself with the smooth feel of it, then sat with the bar pressed to my nose, trying to pinpoint the actual scent, the memory trigger it was to me.

Its closest likeness was to the little hard candies my Grandmother used to keep in her purse sometimes, always a wonderful bribe to keep us quiet in church. the little ovals, wrapped in white cellophane with a picture of a fruit, and only spanish words on the label. Hard candies, but if you weren't patient and crunched them there was a sweet and soft center that made you wish you'd waited a little longer. That is the picture the fragrance painted for me.

I could feel my skin drink this liquid sunshine the bar was creating, and soak it up like a sponge. Now, dried off, I do not smell like a fruit salad, but I do still catch a whiff of summer breeze and golden light.

This is my love letter to something as simple as a bar of soap. Each different kind is a whole new affair I have in my shower, but this evening belonged to goMango. I treat myself to soaps that are only crafted by these two hands, these Jessica hands that I love. Sometimes the simplest treats are the most decadent.

Treat yourself to something delicious- beJessie on Etsy.com

Big

2010-06-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

I had the idea yesterday while talking to my Big Daddy that I could work on this blog for days and make it really good, and then drop it on Father's Day. He and Heart-Mom will be in some place far across the country seeing the world's largest ball of string, or a glass frog factory or something by then. Maybe they'll be driving that stretch of highway that crosses the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains (or the Appalachian Trail, I can't remember.) When they're on the road there's nowhere to mail a gift, he gets a phone call and a blog.

My problem is that last year I started writing blogs and everyone already got their Epic Tribute Blog, either on their birthday or some other appropriate holiday. No matter how much you love someone, it's hard to write more than one Epic Tribute Blog unless you wait a few years between essays for them to do some more fantastic or sentimentally mentionable things. The truth is, this has just been one more year of me learning to live my life and my Big being a steadily unfailing source of support and encouragement the whole time.

Don't get me wrong, that's the meat and potatoes of my emotional well-being, but there's not a lot that's new to say about it. This year, I wanted something really profound, one of those blogs I know he forwards to his friends as yet another way of bragging about me, which he does all the time. I figured I'd start early; work on it for hours and fill it with delightfully well-crafted sentences and evocative analogies. Then I realized that it was this blog and I was writing it already. I will once again fail to hit the target dead-center on that date called "Father's Day."

In younger and more selfish years, I have missed it altogether, claimed that something was in the mail, been late and claimed that I was actually three days short of being a whole day early. Young, selfish, completely absorbed in my own life; my only evidence of caring at all was the level of guilt I was able to produce and wallow in when I didn't get it spot-on. I have also done this with his birthday and that dreaded commercial nightmare (with its horrible sound-track) Christmas.

My Big has never missed once. The closest he ever came was to ask me in different years if my birthday was the 6th or the 8th. Being his only child (that we know of, I fantasize that there is a sibling somewhere that I can find and reunite with. He says "I don't know honey, if you do they'd be in Korea.") I always find it funny that he asks me to clarify my birthday. One year I said "Jeeze dad, you only have one kid! You get it confused because your wedding anniversary with Dottie is May 6, and my birthday is February 8." These are two dates I've had memorized my whole life, everyone knows when their parents' wedding anniversary is, don't they?

He comes back with "I didn't get married in May, I got married in August. We had a big fight over the canopy over the cake because it was the dead heat of summer and her mother said the cake would melt. No canopy, no wedding." I whipped out my handy set of ten fingers and began counting off the months between August and February, and he said "I've always wondered when you would do the math on that." Dottie just changed the day she claimed as her anniversary, Big waited for me to do the math. This is a fundamental difference between the two of them, she'll lie, or make up a new reality and tell you her truth (which then becomes THE truth, not the same as lying at all) and He'll just wait for me to ask for more information and allow me to come to my own conclusions.

For a couple of years I wondered if he was my bio dad, or if she just picked the very best man around to pin me on since she was apparently "in trouble" and marriage was the only acceptable way to remedy that situation back then. I thought that would make him even more amazing, if he were not my actual father, but a super-hero that took on Dottie as a wife and parented me so tenaciously and devotedly. Then I looked at pictures of his mother very close, pictures of us together and his whole side of the family and abandoned that notion.

The topic he brought up during our phone call yesterday was "Why do you suppose that your mother still has such a negative effect on your current life, when you had input from two different parents and she didn't really have that much time to actually damage you?" That's a paraphrase, I just like to show that I know when to use quotation marks properly, but I may not be quoting directly, just to be honest. It was a question very much like that though.

It never dawned on me that it might be hurtful to him that I go around being so wounded and bleeding, unable to let go of her influence on me, when he worked so hard to create a 6:1 ratio of positive to negative effect. He didn't say that it does hurt him, but yesterday was the first time I formed that thought and wrapped it up in "I wonder" paper. He and my Grandmother had far more access to the moldable, developing and becoming me, it would only make sense that I would have taken more away from those interactions than some sociopathic abuse dealt by my psychotic mother here and there. Wouldn't it?

I think the key is that your mother is your mother, and will leave marks that are somehow wider and deeper because they get you first. I brought up his mother. I think a lot of who he is, the very brick and mortar of his way of seeing the world and walking through it; his ability to find the red dot on the map that says "You are here." was given to him by her.

"Work hard. Don't feel sorry for yourself. I have the confidence in you that I will let you attempt anything that comes into your mind. Learn to count on yourself, that way if someone dies you can still make a damn good life afterward. Do good things quietly, don't draw attention to yourself for your acts of compassion. Never listen to someone who tells you you are incapable of doing what it is you want to do. Sit up straight and take a sweater, you'll catch your death of cold."

This is but a brief list of the kind of personality-forming messages I think my Big would have received from his mother. Instead of scars she left him with practical, tempered-steel inlayed designs that describe who he is as a person. My assertion was that we were both equally affected by our mothers, we just had vastly different people play that role. I also pointed out that in the midst of all my wallowing in my own childhood trauma, both here and in my breathable life I mention him, and his mother far more than I ever do Dottie. I think they had the bigger influence, but if your whole body is fine and you have one broken little toe I think it's the toe that gets the attention.

We also talked about the possibility that as an artist I may need my wounds and my woe, my melancholy and bottomless sadness to be who I am. He asked that I please not cut off my ear.

It was a good talk we had yesterday. He always makes me think, often makes me laugh (especially at myself) and tells me how proud of me he is. When he asks "How did she manage to do so much damage?" I could answer "How could you have saved me from her, from myself, to allow me to become who I am today?

Everything is a contest. You won that one Big Daddy.

So there it is, eleven (legitimate) days early this year, who knows what I may be writing about on June 20? Maybe Mason Jars or wallpaper. Every day is Father's Day if getting to be me is the celebration of the father I have.

I love you Big Daddy.

Smile, you're on Candid Camera

2010-06-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

The strangest thing has been happening lately. I'll be engaged in some daily activity and a very intense, completely detailed snap-shot of somewhere or sometime will flash in my head. The things that choose to appear in such vividness are not important per se, but they are so lifelike and authentic (and like all things that I see with my eyes that are not eyes) they come loaded with smells, and sounds and sometimes even a story to go with them. They're complete multi-media flashes and don't usually disturb me enough to blink or comment or let on that one just happened.

A lot of them are from World of Warcraft. I'll be tattooing and all of a sudden I'll have a little POW! of flying over Nagrand heading toward the Ogre area where you have to kill Chowar the Pillager. Or flying across the gap and into Netherstorm. These don't surprise me so much, I spent two years immersed in that game and have something near 80 twenty-four hour periods of subjecting my brain cells to the world of Azeroth. I haven't played in months though, and it always surprises me when I get a strong flash of a game location.

The stranger ones are when it's some innocuous little snap from childhood. Really, it's not so much having a memory as being shown a fading paper square from a photo album. I'll be walking down the pasta aisle at the store and FLASH! see a picture of me navigating the endless distance of curb in front of the house across the street from where I lived until I was seven. We never knew those people's name, we called them "The Crabs" and Mr. Crab apparently had nothing to do other than water his lawn or sit, hose in hand, on the porch just waiting for some kid to step on his grass. I lived directly across the street. If I wanted to walk to my Grandmother's one street over I was allowed, but only if I never crossed a street. "Not even one foot in the gutter Laura, you stay out of that street!"

That meant walking around the end of the cul de sac we lived on, then the length of my street, around the corner and through the Beard's yard to her house. Most people were cool with kids wandering their yards, but not Mr. Crab. So I have Dottie on one side of the street on our porch, watching to make sure I didn't set foot in the street at all, and Mr. Crab and his hose, ever at the ready.

I still like to play a mental game as an adult where I'll walk effortlessly on something thin and imagine that there is a two thousand foot drop into hot lava if I mis-step and don't stay on it. I can walk back and forth, stand on one foot, do anything I want until I really have the reality of the plummet and the lava firmly fixed in my head, then off the edge I go. This is what the stretch of curb across the front of the Crab's house was like. Long, narrow (maybe four inches, how wide is a curb?) and deadly. Dottie with her yardstick on one side and Mr. Crab and his hose on the other. When you're little. there's very little difference between those threats and hot lava.

It's an endless stretch of shaky concrete, swaying gently in the breeze of fear, and I can not make one false placement of my foot. That was the most arduous part of the journey to my Grandmother's house, and could take hours (or minutes that felt like hours) to make the crossing.

That's one of the pictures that will just flash into my head, me walking a curb as a little kid. BLAM! and then back to what I was doing, but the whole story comes with it.

Then there's a particular corner of my room when I was little. The dresser drawers were painted in three gradients of pink from dark to light, bottom to top. Double windows in that corner, although the curtains have lost their vividness but always sway in a breeze in that shot. That's the room where most of the scary things happened, at night when you could no longer distinguish the shades of pink in the moonlight. My bed would lurch, inch by inch into the center of the room, and there were alligators underneath and potato bugs right in the top crack by my pillows. I would sit, stranded in that bed in the middle of the room surrounded by giant prehistoric reptiles and potato bugs, completely unable to put my feet on the floor to get to the bathroom. The laundry basket at the end of the hall showed its true colors as a hunched and hungry witch in the dimness of a night hall. That place was dangerous!

I could call my Big Daddy for rescue, but only once a night or so, because everything would go back to normal when he got there and he would get irritated, he "had to get up early." Every night before he tucked me in he would throw dimes at my wall to make sure it was solid and that I wouldn't roll into another dimension while I slept. That came from Twilight Zone. To this day I will not let my fingers dangle over the top edge of the mattress, I know where the potato bugs live.

FLASH! Three pink drawers, dark on the bottom, light on the top. That's the picture, but all of that other stuff comes loaded into the image when I see it.

POP! the leafy place that seemed so magical across the street from Lisa Borgen's house, where she found a dead guy on the way to school one day. I wasn't there, I missed it. I was jealous of the fame and attention she got for finding a dead guy. That was the place we were always going to run away to, that leafy place and the nearby bamboo. Close enough to sneak home for food, and we could make anything else we needed by weaving or tying the bamboo together. We wouldn't go to school, and we would live there, together forever, even after we got big. We started our life-plan by trying to make place mats from bamboo leaves. We had to be ready before we made the big move.

I'm sure a Brain Scientist or a Rocket Surgeon could explain rationally why certain little cells of memory pop and I'm flooded with them while doing daily activities. I consumed an enormous amount of LSD in high school, maybe every memory I've ever had is now packed in bubble wrap made from Lysergic acid diethylamide, and its ability to separate and protect each memory from smearing the others is degrading over time. I just know that I'll be doing something normal like driving or tattooing or being romantic with my husband and POOF! there is one of the random images hanging on my screen for me to examine.

I'm free to walk around and through the still-frame, remember other things that go with it, carry it forward or backward until it's a whole story or just see it and let it pass as quickly as it came. If I'm tattooing I'm already in a zone, and often indulge myself in a little tour around the moment since my hands work by themselves once they're going. This is never scary, and it's never the truly horrible things I could remember that come upon me so unexpectedly. Just little snapshots, flung like cards in that game where you try to fly them across the room and into a trash can. It's as if I'm the floor they sometimes land on, off to the side.

These are also nothing like the explosions I experienced for a few years in a row, the ones I was absolutely certain represented exactly what it would be like to be shot in the face with a shotgun, but have the continuing awareness to describe the blast afterward. My explosions are for an entirely different blog, but probably will never be chronicled, they're just too singular in topic. I guess this is where those landed and you'll just have to imagine what that was like, and how inconvenient it could be to experience them often and when least expected.

This is what you get on this haphazard Sunday morning in the middle of eternity. Just a little peek at a few polaroids that will pop into my head in a completely random fashion.

One simply can not be profound every day.

5:13

2010-06-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

Everyone has been tripping about the weather lately, but 17 years ago it was raining today too.

I knew I was going into labor the day before, mildly in the morning, then real contractions as the day wore on. I had only had babies at home up until that point, and wanted nothing to do with a hospital this time either. "You're not having my baby at our house, you're doing it the right way." is what her father contended, and I knew enough of labor and arguing with him that I couldn't do both at the same time. I caved, I agreed to have a baby in a hospital.

All that day of the fourth I did errands, paid the rent, went to the store, went out to dinner at Rio Poco when it was still there. It's not like it is on television, where the wife wakes the husband and says "it's time!" and he runs goofily around in his pajamas looking for that suitcase they already have packed. On TV she's calm, and he's a nervous wreck bumbling around ineffectually. They also show (at least in the olden days of black and white) all the fathers nervously pacing a waiting room while the wives go off and do the magic that produces another human, wrapped in either a pink or a blue blanket.

It wasn't like that, any of the three times when I was the spaceship that delivered an alien to this planet. By late evening I could tell that these contractions meant business, and that at some point soon (but not yet, God, not yet) we were going to have to leave to go to the hospital so that I could do this thing I know so well how to do. Without the ocean's boom to sync with, without all of my women friends in attendance. At the mercy of "personnel" who might take it upon themselves to make choices for my own good; people who might tell me how to have a baby when I already know just how I do it.

Her Father's reaction to "I think it's going to be soon now" was to call his work and talk for about an hour, then say "I better go take a nap, I'm going to need all the energy I can get for this." I spent approximately four hours on the couch, on my hands and knees, in the bathtub deciding if I would even wake him or go ahead and push and catch my baby as I always do. I was too afraid to break the rules, I woke him and we drove to the maternity ward.

It was a full moon, and that dark part of the night that comes right before the subtle lightening of the sky that lets you know that it's going to be another day. I had already called Holly, the boys' birth coach and told her to meet us there, I felt it was important that they be by my side to greet their new sibling. Ward one was full, they opened the over-flow ward for me and actually ran me down the hall to get me to a bed. I kept my ankles crossed, I was not having this baby until the whole family was there. There was a woman screaming her lungs out somewhere that I could hear, and I remember thinking "If you used all that energy to have your baby you'd be done already."

"No, I will not be having an IV, thank you." "No, there won't be any internal monitors or epidurals." "If you give me an episiotomy I will sue the shit out of you, I have never had one and there will be no need for one here. Be patient with me, I know how to push out a baby." My agitation was growing, because I felt like these people were trying to take over my birth experience, and I wasn't having it. "Patient uncooperative" is being written on my chart. He's glowering at me telling me that these people know what they're doing and I need to listen to them. I've reached the final click, click, click of the roller coaster car reaching the top of the first arch and know that I'm going over the edge soon. These people can all fuck off, I am primordial.

Holly and the boys come skidding around the corner and I look at them and say "Hey, can you see?" They're in position and I go to that place where life moves from within me to without me. "Get your hands away from there!" they're trying to tell me and I slap them away. Here is my baby's head in my hands, here are her shoulders, I am catching her as I always do and bringing her up to lay on my heart. There are only two people in the room, she and I. Damn, she is LOUD! "Why is she covered in hand lotion?" is what Andrew wants to know, and "Are they going to unplug that extension cord?"

They take her across the room to do the APGAR tests, when I would prefer that they do it on the end of the bed so I am a part of this. They wheel her, screaming all the way, down the hall and out of my presence to do something to her that makes her scream even louder, then wheel her back. This is the only way I know I have had the same baby returned to me, the audio tether that was never broken. People are talking and doing and other things around me, but I'm looking into the eyes of this divine being and showing her just how grand a breast is. This is what I do. I was made to do this.

After fifteen minutes or so I tell the staff that I'm going to take a shower now. They try to say that I am not allowed to do that, and I ask her dad or someone to hold her while I go do it anyway. I'm ready to get dressed and go home and they tell me I must stay there, in that environment for eight whole hours before I will be allowed to return home, where birth and babies belong in the first place. They provide me with a plastic bucket on wheels to put my treasure in and say that I should "try to get some rest." "I won't be needing that, my baby will be right here with me while I sleep if you're making me stay." They see the fires of hell and the claws of a mother predator and wheel the little box out of the room.

We slept, belly to belly, her in the crook of my arm for some time. It is tiring business to convert an internal organ to a separate person after all. Her father wheels us out to look at the sun, shining its exploratory rays through parting clouds, the rain has stopped. I hold her, and look at her, and know that this is the wish I have been waiting for my whole life.

"It's been eight hours, let's go!" is met with "But we do a complimentary steak and champagne dinner for the new parents, you don't want to miss that, do you?" Yes, in fact I do. The woman is still screaming with as much gusto down the hall as she was when we arrived.

That's what happened at 5:13, June 5, 1993.

We've been each other's best friends for so many of the intervening years, but somehow she's outgrown her need for me now, and moved on. We've been doing a special Mother/Daughter trip away overnight (with presents and surprises) for a few years, but apparently she's outgrown that as well. That place in the crook of my arm where she fit so perfectly aches in its emptiness, and I have to adjust to the idea that I'm only a mother in name now. I asked her if we were going to spend any time together for this birthday, and she said people were making plans for her, she wasn't sure if she could fit me in. The word exsanguination haunts me, but it's the blood in my soul, not the coppery red fluid that flows through my systems and keeps me upright that is leaking out in a steady stream and leaving me white and lifeless. Sticks from my empty nest gouge me and I feel as though I've swallowed broken glass.

Happy Birthday Baby, I miss you so much.

With a capital L

2010-06-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

I was having an IM conversation with my favorite of Michael's newly-reconnected relatives the other night. That's how we chat, we don't talk on the phone much, we just use facebook chat and have the kind of abbreviated conversations that are possible when two people are typing back and forth. I think this goes easier for me because I type about a million words a minute (with corrections and editing) and I can type almost as fast as I would speak in a conversation. Sometimes with other people I get abbreviated sentences or shorthand thoughts, and I have to decode them and realize that a keyboard is not a second home to everyone I interact with.

She's cool, I'm really getting a chance to know who she is in these little snippets of communication, and yet I always find myself editing what I would really say because I know she's the ambassador to that whole side of the family, and it falls to me to represent Michael and our whole family unit over here. I am aware that people from other places have ideas about California and what Californians are about; read whacky, crazy, liberal, weird. I am almost sure there is no one like me in her little area of the world.

Michael has opted out of facebook (thanks hon) and so I am the voice of "us" that get's passed around dinner tables over the green beans and mashed potatoes in Kentucky. I want them to like me. I wish they could understand me, but I would settle for being tolerated as eccentric. I wore a wedding dress that covered every single tattoo I had at the time, in anticipation of the day when these people would see me and possibly judge me. Looking back, I don't really like the dress I picked, and I ask myself why it mattered so much even then. Just for reference, I looked a bit like a Volkswagen under a white lace car cover with big hair on my wedding day.

I'm even being careful writing here, I don't know if any of them read me, I somehow doubt it, but Aunt Rose told me that someone had looked at my pictures on facebook and said one of them was scary. One? Out of the hundreds of images of me living my unusual life, one picture was scary to someone over there? I try to guess which picture it was, and the answer still eludes me.

I'm careful, because my daily friends, my home-base companions will often say "Oh my God Laura, I can't believe you just said that!" because sometimes I forget to filter what I think is true to make it sound pretty. Where Molly hasn't an unspoken thought, I have a three second delay. That's what maturity will do for you. I have learned not to say things like "The whole angel thing is a bunch of crap, in my opinion." I'm growing.

So at the same time I assume they don't really read me, I'm always afraid that someone will, and that I will offend them. The funniest facet of this behavior is that I only worry when I refer directly to them. I'm doing it right now though.

The other night Sis and I are chatting about this and that and the Big Topic comes up. The subject I always dance around and reply to with "So how's the weather out there?" I'm talking about the Big Guy here, the Lord with a capital L.

In my advanced years I have learned that I do not immediately need to go into my whole dissertation about what I actually believe or don't believe on the topic of Great Big Jesus in the Sky, I can smile and nod and ask about the weather.

"I have bible school for two weeks coming up, do you know what that is?" she asks me a direct question that sunshine and temperature won't answer. "Oh, tell me about that!" (Safe, let her talk, just because I think it's true doesn't mean I have to say it out loud.) "It's for kids, we dress up and act out all the bible stories for them so they'll understand them." before I know it my fingers have replied "Yeah, they used to make me do that when I was little too." "No, they really like it, and it helps to explain what really happened and answer their questions about the bible."

"What really happened." Take a deep breath, count to ten, she's a slow typist and won't notice the lag. "So, I guess if you want them to believe all that when they grow up this is a good way to get them started. Good for you!" I add a positive ending to show that I support her in the things she finds important, but I can feel this turning south. "We don't try to make them believe, we just want them to understand and answer any questions they have." "So if they totally understand what you're saying, and then don't believe a word of it they don't get points deducted and fail the school?"

Long pause.

How did I get myself into this, she's going to ask me, directly what it is I think about all of this and consign me to hell. Shit, I should have asked which character she would be playing.

What followed were a set of questions that I made the best of.

"It's about the Lord, you believe in the Lord don't you?" (archaic designation of aristocratic power and compound titles of others in authority. Relevant currently? No.)

Then there was some Jesus, my eyes were glazing over, I was sitting on my expressive fingertips.

"Don't you believe in evil spirits?" No, I don't believe in evil at all.

"What about Satan?" Oh my God, kill me now.

"BRB, I have to go make some coffee." when I returned she had signed off with "Have to go to bed, luv U guys!"

"The bible isn't relevant to any of my spiritual beliefs" slipped out there somewhere, trying to be polite and yet stand true as who I am. I probably shouldn't have typed that. If I had been talking with Louie I could have added "with all due respect" which is code for "We're not going to argue about this, I love you the whole time our belief systems don't match."

Usually I avoid conversations where it's my turn to delineate my exact spiritual beliefs, and not only with christians. Someone was going on about a "binding spell" as though I were well acquainted with that the other night. Maybe it's the giant Pentacle tattooed on my arm? I have a friend who is a Pagan who shares all sorts of stories about rituals and rites, and plenty of people who assign me to the "Wiccan" team by default. The truth is, I am none of those things, I don't belong to any organized religion or philosophy. I make stuff up as I go along, and have a super-charged connection with the Universe, the Creative Force, whatever you want to call it. I'm not an... anything. I've been put through all of catechism and confirmed, but that didn't stick either.

When I arrived at AA there were two things on the lists of steps and traditions that allowed me to return and find my own version of salvation from myself: The term "God, as we understood him." and "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking." That wiggle room that allowed me to understand the Universe in precisely the way I do is what kept me

from fleeing AA like any other religion. I'll use the word God sometimes, it's such a common reference point, but I'm careful with that lest someone think I mean a sentient being up in a heaven somewhere with petty human emotions like anger or jealousy, love or displeasure and a huge red rubber stamp that marks things as:

ABOMINATION, GO STRAIGHT TO HELL, DO NOT COLLECT $200.00.

It's such a labyrinth of social interaction, this God thing, if you're not sitting in a building with a bunch of other people who believe the same things or use the same reference books. My experience of Spirit can be as subtle as the touch of one blade of grass, or as profound as words I hear in my Grandmother's voice. I've come to the conclusion that if you think you can adequately explain it then it's probably not God, and that there is no religion that comes anywhere near comprehending the infinite.

If I am still, it will fill me, or whisper to me, or show me pictures that I see with my eyes that are not eyes. If I act from service or compassion I sometimes have the feeling that there is something using me as a vessel, a tool, a human hand. Beyond that, I have no real explanation for my perception of the Creative Web that encompasses all things. I have a certainty that I'm the type of person who others like to set on fire, tied to a stake.

I took a quiz once, and I've linked the site here. I took it just in case I was aligned with some religion and didn't know it.

I got a 100% match with both Reformed Judaism and Universalist Unitarian (Or something like that.) I know nothing of either religion, but apparently I could talk about God with anyone from these two faiths and our belief systems would not clash.

I would love to see Kentucky's beautiful landscape, and yet I feel terrified to ever make a pilgrimage there; the Sis says she needs to explain it to me in person.

There're plenty of firewood and stakes available if I don't get a good grade in bible school.

Belief-O-Matic- Beliefnet.com

Kings of Summer

2010-06-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

I drove by some fifth-graders yesterday while they scanned traffic to decide when to cross the street. Backpacks and skateboards and shaggy hair, they vibrated in place. This group was on their way to something, and I didn't pick up any homework vibe from them, they were off to DO.

I could tell they were fifth graders because the middle schools have now absorbed the sixth grade, and the biggest fish in the elementary pond are now in the fifth grade. They're the oldest. They've been at this school the longest, and the year's almost over, they're almost out of this stupid place. Next year they will be the little sixth-graders, heads down and scanning the waters for the scent of blood and danger. Right now though, they are Kings with the whole country of summer to rule.

It's funny how we don't really get to see the whole cycle of things till we've traveled much of it's three hundred and sixty degrees and then turn around and look back.

I wish I could talk to my own fifth-grade self, and believe what I would say. Not like talking to someone as old as I am now (Like my Big Daddy was, he talked all the time, but knew absolutely nothing at all) but to listen and to know that it was my own grown-up self who was talking. Of all people I understand exactly the way it is at that age because I am the same person. After I got over the initial horror that I look so very much like the mother who was the root of all evil at that time I like to think I would have gotten a leg-up on the future by knowing what I know now.

Like that time I wrote Eddie Warner a note telling him how much I liked him, but made sure to use paper that didn't match what I had in my school notebook. Even then deniability and a good cover-story came naturally to me. I wrote him a long letter, but changed the way I wrote some of my own script, and left it in front of his door. I really liked Eddie Warner. He was one of the boys I saw on the street yesterday, the ones who know they are at the top of the food-chain. Eddie Warner was completely and totally out of my league.

He cornered me at school after-hours one day, and asked me if I had written that note. Oh, the certainty and forced non-chalance of my denial. He asked to see the paper in my notebook (three-hole) and it did throw him off, because the note had been written on five-hole paper. He was a newspaper boy and happened to have a bag of rubber bands with him. He said "I am going to shoot every one of these rubber bands at you until you admit that it was you who wrote that." He did. He shot them until I cried, all the while denying that someone like me would write a note to someone like him saying how much I liked him. To this day if you stretch a rubber band in my direction I will either freeze with terror or bolt from the room. I finally escaped, ran home to cry, and leave him to pick up every one of those rubber missiles of shame.

Here's what I would tell fifth-grade me: "He liked you too. He liked you or he wouldn't have invested so much effort and so many rubber bands in his attempt to extract the truth from you." I saw it as proof that you should never, ever tell someone you like them, because it will only end in humiliation and tears.

Then there was Jerry Farr, whose desk I sat in when we moved rooms for math. We were not supposed to open the desk of the student who normally sat there, but I know we all had at least a peek at what was inside. Along with his pencils and chewed eraser I saw a note one day. It said "Will you go steady with me?" and was wrapped around the kind of inexpensive little ring that fifth-grade boys have access to. I put it on and wrote back "Yes." I liked him too, he was short but very cute. I didn't have any friends who were girls to ask me, but I saw the questioning looks. They knew I was wearing a boy's ring and that someone had asked me to go steady.

For days, weeks, maybe all the years of fifth grade I could no longer meet his eyes or speak to him at recess. I started hanging out with his sister Stacy (who no one liked, but it did get me into his actual house) and when we would bump into each other there he'd say "Hey." and I would mumble something stupid and make a dash for the bathroom until I was sure he was gone. At some point there was a note in the pencil tray that said "Can I have my ring back? You are no fun to go steady with." I removed it in shame and relief, I knew he had been too good for me the whole time and we'd be better off this way.

Again, if Old Lady Me could talk to Fat and Completely Unattractive Young Me I would say "He liked you too. He would have talked to you at recess and maybe held your hand. It wasn't a trick so he could make everyone laugh at you for thinking that a boy like him would ever like a girl like you."

I wish I could have talked to High School Me, and let me in on the secret that the really hot, long-haired stoner guys who had cars and cut class were already at the top of their game, they would never rise above where they were at that moment. I wish I could have said "Read that book proudly, and look at boys you see reading, they're going to be smarter than those other boys and have better jobs." I wish I could have shaken myself and said "Look at me! Listen very carefully, this is going to matter! Boys who want to have sex with you don't necessarily like you!"

If I could have talked to Young Mother Me I would have had the chance to say "Go ahead and watch them play in the dirt. Mud washes off. Look at their awkward, skinny limbs of perfection and burn that picture indelibly into your brain! They are going to be up and gone so fast you won't even know what happened."

Today Me knows all of these things. Fifth-Grade Me only knew that even if you locked me in a room I could go into the closet and make an entirely separate world of my own choosing. That love equals humiliation and pain. That I would never be really good at anything, and that if anyone really knew who I was inside they would most certainly reject me. That to use the big, luscious gourmet words I found in books would divide me from my peers and add yet more layers to my isolation. I so wish I could speak to that Me now.

I wish I could at least leave one letter, wedged into a secret space where I kept all my very bad poetry and said:

"Don't worry, hold on, no matter what you will never be your mother. Trust me, I know this because I am you, and you are not."

Our house is a very, very, very fine house.

2010-06-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

My strange way of moving amuses even me. I have lived in four different houses on this street, with addresses ranging from 1014 to 1037. This house is across the street and four down from the one I started in during the era I was conceiving Molly. She will be 17 in four days, just for time reference. She was conceived to one of the Guns N Roses songs, although I couldn't tell you which.

I've been in this house the longest, we moved in here when she was freshly three years-old. It's technically a two bedroom house, because for some reason the back bedroom is only up to code for an office. My upstairs studio was only rafters and pink itchy insulation when I moved in, I paid a tweaker named Jan to convert it into a real room. He re-framed it into the existing frame, and double insulated every wall and the ceiling. It's a cool room, I've lived in it twice before it became my art studio.

The odd truth is that I have lived in every bedroom of this house at least twice, more than that in some cases. It's moving, but not really moving. I really like the room we're in now, it has a fairly large closet with a lock on its door, I have a love of locks and pass-codes and combinations. It has a window that overlooks the almost quarter-acre back yard and is large enough to arrange it in two entirely different ways. We have had it both ways a few times.

The front bedroom has the hollow-wooden-drum of the staircase to the attic in its closet. This makes for a very strange and sound-amplifying place to store your clothes, and one of the bars is only suited for very short garments, it is so low to the ground.

The back room, the one with the doorway to the yard and the basement is not very large, but has windows across the whole back wall (Old school windows that actually drop down into the wall, not lift up, all painted shut) and a half-bath that I love when I'm living in there since I can keep my bathroom things in one place on shelves instead of in plastic caddies with handles that I have to take in and out of the shower every day. For some reason it really bothers me to think of someone washing with my bar of soap, and I have a life-long fear that someone will pee on my toothbrush. Those things need to be kept separate for safety's sake.

The door to the back yard shifts with the house every year. There is a dead-bolt that slides easily during one season, but misses by a quarter-inch in either direction during other quadrants of the calendar. Every door in this house either sticks or slams easily at some point during the year.

Every time I live in one of the rooms I think it's my favorite, but we're moving into the one at the back of the house at least for the summer. We're the ones with the dogs that want to come in and out incessantly, and we don't want to share a sink and toilet with anyone, other people can be so gross.

Since Michael moved in here July four years ago many improvements have been made. The bathroom floor got squishy and every shower was an episode of "Will this cast-iron tub fall into the basement today or another time?" I paid a combination of 6,000.00 cash and traded tattoos to have the sub-floor replaced and the tub re-installed. Michael brought us a working dishwasher and over-the-stove microwave that actually worked for more than storage. I replaced the refrigerator. My Big Daddy bought me a new stove when I discovered one Thanksgiving morning that the oven had ceased to function.

"Why don't you call the property management company?" I'm often asked. I'll tell you why: I have been renting this house for fourteen years at a rate that seemed high in 1996 but has only been raised seventy-five dollars since then. I do not want them to remember that I'm even here. You can't rent a studio apartment in Napa for the price I pay for this whole old house where I've raised my children and gone through so many major phases of my life. I want to stay here, it's my home.

I have so many pictures of first days of school taken on this front porch. Stories about how things have moved all by themselves. Memories of how I've felt surrounded by family and alternately completely alone in the world right here under this same roof. This has been my home for a long time, and I like to move around in it.

We're going to move our bedroom to the back again, so our dogs can come in and out at will, and hopefully we'll be able to score a salvaged security screen door that locks to get us through the hot season. This means that we have to completely clean the room Paul just vacated so that LM can move into it, and then we can have a month to move out of our current room and into the back room.

I am already tired from all of this, but I know how rejuvenated I feel when I have a new room even if it's not in a new house.

A property-value assessor is coming today to determine just what this property is worth. There is a newly-hatched idea with pin-feathers that are still wet that we may be able to buy this house, and that the current owner may even carry the paper on the mortgage. I have lived for 14 years on a 30 day time-clock that ticks away, always with the possibility of an eviction explosion when the big hand comes around to the zero.

The owner assures me that this property is not for sale, and if it were I would have first crack at trying to make it mine. I used to have a pile of secret savings toward a down-payment on this or something else, but that was consumed by the petulant, hungry monster that was the failing economy of 2008-2010. There is enough money left to buy a really fantastic hand-gun to play Russian Roulette with if we're asked to leave this property. I'd play with six rounds in the chamber and go first though, if the game was on. Forgive me, I have just spent the last few hours with the most negative person on the planet.

Of course this is not true, but you've found me in a moment of hopeless optimism. I just want this guy in and out of here again, I don't enjoy strangers in my house.

The thought of cleaning my closet is akin to the task of moving a pile of sand from here to there with a pair of tweezers, and that is ahead of me next. Based on results I do not need a day to rest from my normally busy life, because I won't be having one.

This is my story, and I'm sticking with it.

My exoskeleton on Memorial Day

2010-05-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

Last year on this day I wrote about my Grandmother, who was a veteran of World War One. It really touched my Big Daddy and we talked about her later on the phone. I did a really good job with that blog and don't think I have another tribute of equal weight in me this year.

My son gave four years to the Army, as did my Big Daddy and his Dad too if I'm not wrong. We're an Army family I suppose. That surprises me to write, since I grew up in the stone-age of the 1960s watching coffins come back from Viet Nam on the news every night, and protestors with flowers and that famous song, sung from John and Yoko's bed.

I wouldn't let my kids play with guns of any kind when they were little (I thought war was a human habit that could be stemmed if we didn't encourage our little warriors to play games of pretend death.) No squirt guns, no finger guns, no, don't bite your sandwich into a gun and shoot your brother with it. They had to really work me to get the Ghost Busters gun-like thing, because "It sucks ghosts IN mom, it doesn't shoot anything out!"

Andrew had to blackmail me in the worst possible way to get me to sign the papers for him to join the Army at 17 during wartime under the command of a man who doesn't know that nucular isn't a word. I didn't even get them birth certificates after their home-births till later in their lives, and I established a pattern of sleep-walking as early as their pediatric visits to help

lay the groundwork to keep them safe from a draft. I was born a little too late to be a true hippie, a little too early and lacking in self-confidence to be a dancing queen at the disco. I just thought that people should be nice to each other.

Michael and I just watched a very interesting television show about Jerusalem and the crazy

antics that have been going on there for centuries, fighting over a rock. Somehow our Teacher Lady managed to show us only the beauty of the monuments and leave out much of the blood-soaked history that surrounds the objects we studied. Maybe I just didn't want to hear it. Timor and the Mongols were bastards, I remember that part. If you were to ask me today though I would say that I just spent a semester studying beauty and not blood.

I am starting to realize that the urge to war does not originate with little California boys with

squirt guns though. One thing that fascinates me in footage of riotous discord in the middle-east though: You throw that rock today and it's an Israeli rock, but pick it up and throw it back and it's a Palestinian rock. Somewhere in the Akashic record is the number of times each rock has changed its allegiance and intention.

I am torn in the conflict between my abhorrence of war and my admiration for those who will dedicate their lives to the concept of military service. I detest the former, and have great admiration for the latter. I guess I will have to leave that as one of life's conundrums however, I don't even have the energy to come to a concrete conclusion and defend it in debate form.

What I really want to talk about is body piercing. It's ancient. It's National Geographic. It's those primitive indigenous peoples who go around poking, cutting and marking themselves. Watching it in a school movie with the calming yet authoritative male voice-over about how lucky the brown people were to have the white people show up and put a stop to all of that could make me shudder, and avert my eyes into my best friend's shoulder. How could they do that? Circus side-shows collected a million nickels selling a glimpse of the crazy things people will do to their bodies.

In my skewed view of the world it makes perfect sense to decorate my skin (and yours) with indelible marks till there's no flesh-tone left. It's what I do. The first tattoo seems so significant, it has to hold meaning and be a commitment to forever and maybe signify sticking the big toe into the waters of being "other." After a while I'll wedge any old thing that suits me in the moment, in between all the other images, because I don't want to be the color of human skin anyway.

When I was in high school there was a girl named Nikki who had not one but two earrings in her lobes. It was foreign and unheard of and I wanted to be like her. I went home and immediately forced a second pair of earrings into my lobes. No ice cubes or potatoes here folks, I just shoved them through. It hurt.

The phenomenon of modern, western body piercing started (I believe) with punk-rock culture and the application of safety pins and other things you could just put through your flesh to freak out "normal" people. I missed the 80s, I was a vegetarian and breast-feeding. Legitimate body piercing was transformed by Fakir years ago. Oh, and pirates, they did it too.

I've been cruising along for a couple of decades, decorating away and not really jumping on the body piercing boat. Just because it's body modification doesn't mean I'm into it. Branding, scarification, ritual cutting (including circumcision) and the implantation of shapes and horns and other things kind of freak me out.

Somewhere along the line ears became fair game, and it was no big deal to see someone with twenty-five earrings in an ear. I remember being sober for just two weeks and having my tongue pierced so that I would have something foreign and slightly painful on the outside of my body to reflect the unseen changes I was going through on the inside.

One after another during the last six and a half years I have had metal installed in various places, and I've come to love it. I don't understand the appeal, and I'm certainly too old to be "discovering myself" the way teenagers do. I am though, coming to recognize the feeling I get in the morning when I'm going to do it again.

It's a searing pain, that part never changes. I go to a zone that accepts and slides between the sensations and leaves me floating above that thing called "ouch" That's how I ended up with a hole in my lip, a Monroe (those are jewels applied where Marilyn and other lucky women have natural beauty marks) two holes in my nose, (my ________ and my _______). I am not stopping for some reason, and I feel like I should know better. Now I have a gem on my inner wrist, anchored by a titanium foot that my flesh will grow into and surround, and one on my cheek. What the hell is up with that?

I feel like a decorator crab, adding pretty shiny bits to my exoskeleton, and like an invulnerable super-hero because slowly but surely I am becoming made of metal.

Happy Memorial day, enjoy your barbecues and backyard festivities. Remember those who gave everything in conflicts that may have meant nothing at all, but gave it all anyway. Don't drink and drive. Remember that an amazing group of people wrote some documents that others would die to defend, that give us the right to poke as many holes in ourselves as we want and marry who we wish in our "pursuit of happiness." Be kind to those you know, and those you don't.

Don't bite your sandwich into a gun and shoot your brother with it.

The Look

2010-05-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

All this time I have thought that my super-powers reside in my wit, my vocabulary, my eyes that are not eyes. I am guessing recently that it's not those things at all. It's my Mom status, and my ability to look at something that hurts.

"Mom, look at this, do you think it's ok?"

"Mom, this is how I feel, should I go to the emergency room?"

"Honey I bumped my head (shot a staple gun into my hand, have a red itchy bump etc.) will you look at it?

Somehow, just by looking at things I make them better, I guess. This is not entirely true, because "Will you look at this?" is always followed by "What should I do?" I forgot to become a doctor, sometimes I don't know.

When the boys were little there were three treatment options available for everything besides broken bones:

1. Bandaid.

2. Ice cube in a baggie

3. Vitamin E capsule with a tiny pin-hole in it to apply as you wish to your injury.

That made life so easy. Just the time it takes to choose which remedy best suits the emergency can take a hysterical boy down a few notches. Obviously the vitamin E remedy was the most efficacious, it was certainly the one chosen most frequently.

First I had to get the bottle and separate one of the slightly sticky glowing, golden oblongs of healing. Then came the search for the safety pin to poke that tiny hole. "Here you go, I'm sure that will make it better." and they had a whole squeezy, oily, smells-like-better amount of sticky substance to rub or dab on the trauma. Bandaids are very cool, but many times nothing but an ice cube in a baggie will do, depending on your affliction.

With Molly it was different. I had to hold her, agree and expound on just how horrible the injury was, and then do light. "Doing light" means holding my hands slightly above the affected area, and first shining white light and then green when the time was right to heal her from the

inside out. As a child she would lay hands on me too when something hurt and I could feel them become warm and actually affect the pain. All that is stupid now, a doctor prescribed her some Vicodin for something once, and she would prefer to go straight to that, bypassing the light all together.

Looking at the spot is something that has never changed though, as a first-responder. "Will you look at this for me?" comes before an Xray, or stitches or any other legitimate medical treatment. I suppose I have gained this powerful look from being a person who has babies at home or will pull my own tooth with pliers if necessary. Maybe it's just because I am the Mom.

Lately, my super-powers have been failing me though. People have things going on that just a look or a touch (or even a punctured capsule of vitamin E) won't even begin to address.

Andrew's extended inability to breathe correctly is beyond my motherly powers. LM's nail puncture to the foot needed treatment that I couldn't give. (I don't have any tetanus shots lying around.) I don't really have the medical knowledge to help someone detox from heroine and cocaine addiction on my couch. Michael's 48 week Interferon treatment is another. I feel completely over my head.

Interferon is a bitch, pure and simple. It is the Alexis Carrington of all drug treatments. It's

worst late at night, when the same things aren't real to both of us, and only various ice cream delights will serve to settle his agitation. He talks in a half-sleep, frantically, and requires my participation. He becomes angry or petulant, or sorry and it's my job to remain calm and patient and not snap back. I have a mouth-guard I keep clamped between my jaws made from the words "Stop being a dick to me, I'm on your team!"

I get to see a doctor myself on the 7th, and start all over with my own quest for health, and I'm going to need some immediate answers so I can get back to being Super-Mom and looking at other people's ailments to make them better. If my labs come back with a thyroid problem I may slit my own throat, rip it out myself and then they'll have to stitch me up; they've all taken the Hypocratic oath, haven't they?

I've had babies at home and pulled a broken tooth from my mouth once, I'm sure I can remove my own thyroid if necessary.

Got something wrong? Let me take a look at it and find my vitamin E.

A long story with a thin gruel of excuse.

2010-05-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

I used to be afraid to drive. Not always, I learned to drive in the first place down in Orange County, the land of the ten-lane freeway and the 70 mph merge. At some point up here though, I became so terrified of driving that I would sometimes pull over because I thought I would faint or have a seizure just driving the kids to school.

I wasn't driving IN town, much less to any of the towns close to here, my world got very small. I have a loving and dedicated friend that would come from far to see me for years because I just couldn't get in the car and drive even to meet him halfway.

Bridges are and always have been an issue for me. I suffer from the completely irrational knowledge that gravity will suck me right over the edge and into the long-down. I don't imagine that the bridge will collapse, (well, not so much, but that's a secondary fear) I simply have a certainty that I will either be sucked over the edge or some mad impulse will cause me to drive toward the railing and through it as though someone else's hands are on the wheel. From the neck up I know this to be nonsense, yet all the internal organs I so depend on for sustained life (my heart, my lungs, my other squishy internal places) will not believe that it is safe for me to drive over a bridge.

When we first got Libby (The blue Jeep we had right before we got married) something came over me and I decided that I would drive alone to pick up Andrew from the airport. He flew in

from Germany to walk me down the aisle with his brother.

Oakland airport is, in fact, across a bridge from here, but hey, I was the bride and felt imbued with super-powers. I could do this. It became a symbol for all the things I could now do, like not take a drink or stay in a marriage since I had chosen so well. I was an adult, sober and not afraid any more. That was the costume I was trying on that day anyway.

I was talking to my friend Annelise when I drove over the bridge. (It's that little baby bridge right after Vallejo and before Crockett, its name eludes me now.) I told her "I can't feel my feet but they're sweating in my shoes, I'm going blind, I think I'm having a heart-attack and I'm pretty sure I'm starting to have a seizure." By the time we had discussed all of my medical symptoms I was over the bridge and exultant.

I arrived at the airport 45 minutes early, because that's how I roll. Thank you Big Daddy for all the lessons in punctuality and politeness. I couldn't find the British Airways terminal no matter how many times I toured the concourse so I finally asked the information desk where to find it. "Oh, that's easy." They told me. "It's at SFO." San Francisco. Mars. Infinity. A place I could not drive, and I had 45 minutes to get there.

When she spoke her directions to my blank and terrified face I nodded through my tears. That information lady was so nice she drew me a map. That map included the San Mateo bridge and some other terrifying and impossible things I had to do to achieve my objective. I knew I would die in the attempt, but for Andrew I decided to take destiny firmly in my teeth and do it anyway.

The San Mateo bridge is a tricky, lying behemoth of a structure. For the first long stretch I found myself driving along about twelve feet from the water, long and low. Why I can do this after all! My mistake was to look ahead. That Grand Bitch of a water crossing takes a dramatic turn into the sky, and curves while it finishes the crossing.

I had the idea that I should maybe pull over, cry and vomit a little, and then tackle the road into the sky. A voice in my head lets me know that if I stop the vehicle for any reason I will have to be towed off of this bridge.

I straddled the middle line. I was able to drive maybe 50 mph. I cried and said the Serenity Prayer about a million times. The traffic behind me obviously didn't know that this is the only way to make it through something like this, and didn't appreciate it one bit. I now know the pitch of every single kind of horn that can be honked behind me, whether or not I know which vehicles correspond with them.

After narrowly escaping death and making it across that bridge I find that SFO has only tiny little roadways in the sky that lead to parking spaces.

I did finally dock my spaceship and enter the building to find the proper terminal. His flight was late, I had somewhere close to two hours to regulate my body's functions and remember how to breathe before my beloved came through that international gate.

Then I had to drive over the Bay Bridge to get us home. To this day I don't know how I survived that trip, or what I was trying to prove by making it. It did, however, enable me to take slightly farther trips in the future, all carefully calculated to be guaranteed bridge-free.

I remember calling Joseph from the Santa Rosa mall the day I went to wait in line for my first iPhone. I was casual and smug about it. "Yeah, I just drove to Santa Rosa, no big deal." (He of all people knew just what a big deal that actually was.)

I have made that drive a hundred times or more now, and even extend it effortlessly to Guerneville when I want to. I still find San Francisco or even Berkely to be foreign countries, they have bridges in the space between us.

That prologue was to tell you about two things I see every time I drive to Santa Rosa or Guernville, and the strong connection I feel to both of them.

One is a building that has been in ruins for years; tall, stone, holes for windows and shafts of light beaming down through the missing places in the wooden roof. I have always felt called to stop and find a way into that building. There was something in there I wanted to see or connect with. Sometimes stories or energy will linger in a place, especially if it is made of wood or stone. It called me every single time I drove by and I never answered.

Recently I saw that the building had been reduced to a pile of rubble. That space still exists, but is full of dense stone refuse and I don't know how to merge my own cells with it to enter. Whatever those stories were they are lost to me now. I wish I had gone inside and listened with my ears that are not ears, looked with my eyes that are not eyes. I will never know what the story was, and I am deeply saddened at my own fear and the sense of "hurry!" that I buy into along with everyone else.

The other thing that touches my awareness every time I drive by it is a sign, hanging at the end of a grand driveway. I haven't tapped it on my teeth, but I am pretty sure it is wood that is painted bronze, not actual metal. It is an acorn, and I think of it as MY acorn. It has no words on it, just a beautiful faux metal acorn marking one spot on a road that I am now very familiar with. I must see it, and acknowledge it every time I drive that route, or I feel distressed. I want it for my own, an yet am content to let it hang there on the side of the road.

I feel anxiety sometimes, that like my old, ruined stone building it will someday be gone, and I won't know why. If I miss it on the trip out I don't feel well until I make the return trip home and see it. Sometimes I feel that if I were to just stop and tap my teeth on it to know for sure what it's made of it wouldn't be a disaster if it ever disappeared. If I won the lottery and had unlimited funds I would purchase it at any price. I don't know how I would make it through the rest of my life if I miss the chance to be absolutely sure what material it is made of.

There is really no point to this essay, I can't even come up with a good reason for feeling the need to tell you these things this morning.

I will use my stock excuse for occasions like this: I'm an artist. I have a spotted eye. My mind works differently than others' and that's why I can do what I do.

It's a thin excuse, but the best I have to offer at the moment.

Clipboard

2010-05-25T08:54:00.001-07:00

If I had found this app on thursday I could have blogged from my table of coffee and smoking friends while I was at the river.

In years past I would pop awake early and drink a couple of tiny hotel-room pots of coffee and write, and last year was the birth of my blog so I would do that while the resort woke up. This year was different in so many ways...

First, it was freezing for most of the weekend. Usually it's a panic to see if anyone remembered the sun-screen. This yes I was sad that I brought ten tank tops and one long sleeved shirt that I never found in my suitcase till I was leaving.

As I remember last year and the year before there were 1500-2000 women there, I think we had 500-600 on site this year. People seemed very hesitant to spend money, I was definitely NOT off the hook tattooing.

Once Shayla and I decided to cheerfully write the event off as a business loss we stopped stressing about it. She had been sick a few days before and was happy to leave a day early without feeling like she was leaving me overwhelmed with business. Tiffany was the one of us who was extremely busy this year, she did a ton of piercing during the weekend.

I was getting phone reports from Michael that this week's shot was the worst ever and I felt guilty that I wasn't home to take care of him. Just to make things perfect, my headache is back with a vengeance. The miracle medication Michael found on the Mayo Clinic website to try ( which left me headache-free for months) has just stopped working. There have been moments in the last few days where I can't even see straight, and have trouble putting sentences together. Add all that together and the weekend wasn't as super-fantastic as it usually is.

Other elements of the weekend were beautiful and perfect, like reconnecting with many of the women I have come to know and love over these last three years. Or watching a certain friend of mine get to be more of who she really is than she ever could or would when we're back here in our stuffy little town. I watched her bloom, and it was magical.

I missed Molly, and so many other people who have come to love her did too. The combination of her growing up and having a life of her own that isn't just half of my life and the knowledge that her brother moves out a little more every day is making this empty-nest thing hard for me to deal with. I taped her picture to my glove box and pretended that she came with me anyway.

I also had an interesting time with my recovery this weekend. I am totally used to being around seas of alcohol with drunk people bobbing on the surface and even going under. My recovery is strong and I wouldn't trade my life today for a drink or any other drug. I walk fearlessly anywhere I want to, because I carry my new life within me and I know that to turn around and walk the other way would be to lose everything and eventually die.

Someone left a beer and a shot of Jaegermeister on my tattoo station when we went to dinner the first night, and it whispered to me throughout the meal. I don't even LIKE Jaeger, and yet I could hear it from the room the whole time. I told on myself and my girls made sure it was gone by the time I got back to the room. The final morning there was a fat-half of a very aromatic joint on the table in front of our room. I was very surprised at how elaborate my plans to take it, hide it, smoke it later and never tell developed so quickly. I was saved by a hero named Stacy who tried to give me the remains of a large bottle of vodka. I said "no thank you" and I told her she could save my life if she took it with her. She offered to "join me" with it, and I said " No, you should just take it and save my life. Being a hero would be so much more dramatic!" she had no idea what a service she did me.

On my drive home I listened to the iPod playlist I had made just for the weekend and meditated through my agonizing pain-helmet. I was exhausted from all the things I did NOT do rather than the things I did all weekend, and ended up sleeping for an entire day yesterday. Being home with Michael, who IS my home no matter where we are has done much to recharge me. His promotion has provided us with REAL medical insurance, but my first appointment with my very own physician doesn't happen until June 7. I'll get to start all over from where I was a year and a half ago in my quest for answers to the question "What's wrong with me?"

Now that I've cleared my clipboard of everything that lingered from that much-anticipated and anti-climactic weekend I'm sure I'll have something funny or thought-provoking for you soon. Sometimes this blog kicks ass, sometimes it's just a repository for all the squeaks my mental hamster wheel makes. Hey, you get what you get.

Writing on this iPad I don't get to do all the little editing and illustrating tricks I so enjoy, but I'm in love with the idea of not being tied to my glorious Super-Mac for the purposes of blogging.

Tonight is the final for my glorious art history class, and then I'll have to go without until the fall semester. Thank you " tired ole teacher lady" for the best set of Tuesdays in my life!

Ciao y'all!

Blogged from my giant phone that doesn't make calls...

Location:Terrace Dr,Napa,United States

Screaming Cocktail Wieners

2010-05-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

Two Queen-sized beds shoved together, five women. One not feeling well, one sober, three pretty drunk, sleeping in a row like unruly cocktail franks on a plate. Shayla says I snore just like her bulldog John Rambo. Tiffany got stuck sleeping right over the crack between the two beds. I got star shaped nipple shields (held on with the barbell that pierces them) yesterday and my nipples hurt worst than they ever did during the first two days of nursing any of my babies.

Drinking, dranken, drunk. I'm not that drunk, really. I heard that a lot last night. I, in fact, was not drunk at all, but I woke up with the hangover that someone else deserves. Screaming women fighting all night long like mockingbirds, except they were angry and not up in the trees.

It's cold here, can I get a "What the fuck?" from the congregation? Usually I lament the lack of sunscreen, and this year I'm looking for my jacket.

Ok, Angelique is here for coffee, a girl's gotta keep her priorities straight.

Shitty internet connection

here, I hope this posts. Pictures of the mayhem soon.

Soccer Mom Newsletter

2010-05-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. Whatever is packed is what's going with me to the river. If I've forgotten something, chances are that Shayla will have remembered it. I always have fifteen times more stuff than I need anyway. I guess my biggest fear every year is that no one will want anything from us, but then I'll be over my head by tomorrow afternoon and wondering how I can get it all done. I hope Tiffany gets a chance to do many piercings, and that we sell all the Pride jewelry we've been gathering just for this event.

Got to see my folks for two days, that was a great way to kick off a fantastic weekend. I would have liked to spend more time with them but Michael doesn't have much left after a day of work that starts at 4:30.

I need to change spaces and become inspired and enlightened, this reads like a soccer-mom newsletter.

In 1992 I started this thing called Flying Colors Tattoo, and once again I'm taking it out on the road. I am the Tattoo Lady dammit, I'm an unstoppable force. I am going to win this weekend with my Power Girl team.

If I forget the charger for my camera battery after thinking of it all these times I will have to deduct one point from my final score.

Beautiful river, land of love and laughter and my honeymoon, here I come!

River Time-The circus is packing up and leaving town.

2010-05-20T06:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that crazy river time of the year again, and this year seems to have flown by. Shayla and I pack up our shop and go to the Russian River Resort for Women's Weekend and tattoo at the event. This is our third year for this event and it's always a highlight of the year for me! It is relaxing and crazy at the same time.

To travel a tattoo studio is like packing up a circus to move it to a new town, except that the circus knows it won't have to return to its original location in three days and have everything set up just the way it was before. We're not a traveling shop, and even though we've done it a few times it always feels like chaos and the terror that we'll forget something we really need.

Every year the amount of things I've been certain were essential has grown smaller. The first time we did it I had three of the largest Rubbermaid buckets packed full to the brim and never used most of the stuff I brought. Last year I was down to two buckets, but still felt compelled to bring 14 rolls of paper towels when 5 would have sufficed. I over-pack, it's a thing I've always done, because it won't matter if I have 67 things if number 68 is the one I need.

We're taking Tiffany from our beloved Mosh Pit body piercing this year, so we'll be making room for her and all of her equipment in the room. Blair is coming to be our manager, but Molly (my usual right hand) can only come for one day and night. She will get to drive her own car there though, so I don't have to worry about getting her back to Napa for work. Kristen Van Dyke is performing this year, and she'll be staying in our room with us if other accommodations haven't been found. Picture this: One hotel room with two queen sized beds in it. 6-7 women sleeping there, dorm style, and two tattoo stations plus one body piercing area created during the day.

Right now I feel this kind of panic, like I should be down at the shop packing even though it's only seven in the morning. I only booked one giant tattoo today, which was foolish of me, but I missed it on Sunday because I was so sick from working all day in the sun the day before. My parents are in town for one more night, I want to spend time visiting with them. A dear friend is having an open house at her new salon and I promised I would stop by there to support her in her new venture. This is too many things to get done in one day, and yet I will have to just figure it out.

A part of me thinks I like it like this, and that this is what it must be like for a race car driver or the Octomom every day. It's like juggling, or herding sheep. Making lists and working efficiently is very satisfying when I can pull it off. Last year there were about fifteen hundred women attending the event, although I don't think I did more than a dozen tattoos. It's go, go , go all weekend until the sun goes down, then we get to just hang out and have a good time. It's not a super profitable venture, we have to pay for the hotel room and don't really have the ability to accept debit cards so we end up pricing based on how much spare cash women have brought with them. It's great networking though, and I always see at least a couple of clients during the year that I gave a card to during the event.

What it really is, is a chance to be in a whole new location filled with women who are all there to have a good time, and to just be away. Away from this shrieking blue jay, this over-stuffed house, these tomatoes that still need to be moved to their large pots and the mess that is my side of the bedroom. I'll miss Michael, and yet I always realize just how madly in love with him I am while I'm gone and I come home with that part of me re-charged.

Last year I left for the event as one person, and returned as another. The "New Me" was born there; lasting changes that have left me a better person.

This year Jen and Angelique are inviting me to fire-walk with them. This thought fills me with terror, and also excites me because I believe I can travel the coals hand-in-hand with two of my power-women and reach the other side transformed. We'll see, I think I'm uncertain at this point, but at the same time I know I'll do it. I don't know why the month of May has somehow become Overhaul-of-the-Spirit month for me, but if I evolve this year as I did the last who knows who will be coming home on Sunday afternoon? I know the year ahead will be full of challenges, upgrading my Soul could really make a valuable difference in how it goes for me and those I care for.

We're packing up our circus and taking it on the road. I'm driving west into the sunset of the familiar and also the land of "Who knows what might happen?"

I don't think this is an interesting blog per se, but I do blog in the mornings during the weekend while the resort slowly wakes from the chaotic party the night before. Maybe you'll get something great from that location. Actually, this time of year marks the beginning of my blogging in the first place, the most significant of the early pieces was called "A Love Letter of Sorts" ( http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=86605031611 ) yet now that I went back and looked, it wasn't one of the first at all. It was one of the first things that felt important to say anyway.

This has been one very interesting trip around the Sun for me, and here we go again. My next missive will be written from an early-morning table full of coffee and cigarettes at the beautiful alternate-universe of the Russian River. I can't wait to find out what this year has to offer!

Yay! Art is pretty!

2010-05-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

When I first started writing my presentation for Art History- Survey of Islamic Art I was feeling oh so clever.

Let me give you a short background of this class and my enrollment in it: Michael took a class with the same teacher last semester and would come home every evening after class very excited about whatever they had covered that night. He told me the teacher was fascinating, and that just when he would start really getting into an era and want to go in depth about it the class would move on. I understand, they were surveying art from paleolithic times to the middle ages, not really a lot of time to linger over the cave paintings or the Greeks.

I hadn't taken a class in some years, the only reason I even attend college is to learn things I'm interested in. I have sixteen unrelated college credits so far. I decided I would join Michael for a semester with this teacher he enjoyed so much. (If I were to write in a blog that he has a total crush on her he would become defensive and deny it, so you won't see me writing that here.) I'm an artist, of course I would enjoy the class, and it was something we could do together. Along with that, I was pretty sure I could beat him at the class since I already knew what things like reliquaries were without even taking the first semester.

I have a deep vein of competitive lust in me. I am compelled to make anything into a competition, and Michael is an easy mark. I'm not saying he isn't highly intelligent, he is, I'm just saying that his thirst for blood in any challenge is not matched by my own. You may assume that this would mean I was into sports, or even a sport, but you would be incorrect. I hate all sports. I find my competition elsewhere. Art history is a competition, and I entered the match with the intention of winning. I see pumpkin carving, cake baking and story telling in much the same way.

He did score slightly higher on the first quiz than I did. He had already passed a course with the Queen of Art History and told me just how I should study to get a good grade on it. He was either trying to trick me, or she was just quizzing differently this semester because it is the first time this curriculum has been taught by her, or at the college we go to. It was all new ground and I listened to his advice that one and only time. "Do you want to study together?" he offered so sweetly. "NO! I want to beat you in this class!" We did our own thing from that point on.

The trouble with learning things that have specific dates attached to them is that I simply have no hook to hang that hat on in my mind. Add to that the fact that the Arabic language has nothing in common with the Germanic or Latin based languages I am familiar with and I can't use any of my regular little tricks to remember the name of anything. Oh, and everything seems to start with the letter M. So in reality I should have done far worse on the quizzes than I did.

My God though, the art! Going to class every Tuesday night was like sitting in a two hour History Channel special on things that are mind-bogglingly beautiful, and being able to ask the program narrator questions as well.

I remember a time in my tattoo career when I discovered bubbles, and every piece seemed to call for a bubble or two. This Islamic style of pattern and geometry, color and complexity is going to bleed over into my own work in the same way, I can feel it.

Marriage counselors suggest a designated "date night" to keep your relationship lively and interesting. Tuesday night: Art, competition and pancakes. That's been our date night for a whole semester. We go out for pancakes to top off the evening, and it's dedicated time where we just get to be with each other and I have loved it dearly. A chance to eat weekly pancakes and best my husband at some intellectual pursuit? Priceless.

We've occupied the same two tables in the back of the room every week, for two reasons: One is that I am left-handed, and all college desks seem to be designed for a right-handed student. I have to sit sideways to write and never feel like I have enough room to spread out and get ready for some fun. The other reason is that the two tables are together and we can sit like we're married. I always think of those two tables as the "married tables."

When I first introduced myself for my presentation I said "Hi I'm Laura, the older lady who has been sitting behind you all semester. The one with no filter for what is appropriate to say in class, and no volume control." Sometimes I think I am speaking very softly when the truth is I am saying it right out loud in my outdoor voice. One time when I fell asleep just a little bit (but not really) Michael poked me and said "Honey, you're sleeping." because I know he was afraid I would snore. I said "WHY DO YOU KEEP POKING ME?" and got that look from our teacher.

Yep, here I am, the old lady from the back of class, up here to make an extra-credit presentation.

Other students had obviously put a lot of time, effort and study into theirs. As I watched one after another I started feeling sheepish for seeing this as an opportunity to make people laugh. There are art history majors in this class, and it's serious business for them, their grade will affect which universities they get to attend when they finish up at our little junior college. I started to feel like I had brought the wrong thing to show and tell, like a douche bag or some condoms a kid might find in their parents' bathroom. It might seem like the other students would be as fascinated by these strange and foreign items as you did when you first found them, but going last can really highlight the fact that what you chose to show and tell is not really going to fit into the common scheme of things.

I made an Ottoman Empire hat to wear. It looked like a combination of a poorly constructed chef's hat and a cooked package of Jiffy-Pop popcorn. I drew a mustache on my face to complete the mood before starting the presentation. They laughed.

Laughter from a crowd, any crowd, when you are trying to be

funny on purpose is like a drug. I am addicted to this drug, and can never truly get enough. I hadn't written or practiced the talk that went with my Keynote presentation, I knew that to ad-lib it would either sink or sail me. I worked in Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears (at their best and very worst) when talking about harems. I used slides from artwork we had actually studied, but wove them into a nonsense commentary of my own design. I used a very elementary drawing program to make pictures of my teacher, both happy and angry to use in conclusion. To be honest, I was just playing up there.

I have no idea whether or not I will get a good grade in this class. At least one answer on a quiz I took was a frowny-face with an arrow drawn through its head. I do know though, that I have had more fun taking this class than anything I've done in recent history.

I'm almost positive that I have won this class and beaten my dearly beloved husband. Who could ask for more?

Possibilities and Improbabilities-Being ready for Anything

2010-05-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

I remember once, I looked at the boys' dad and he had a perplexed and concerned look on his

face. "What's the matter?" I asked him, and he said "I just realized that we're all on this tiny, spinning ball in space, and none of us know what's going to happen next!" I laughed at the time, but have remembered that moment randomly over the years. He was correct.

Everything is just highly improbable, and therefore sometimes hard for me to believe. This one little blue and green planet with its oxygen and its water. Being the perfect distance from the Sun. The fact that even

though the tiny Moon and the giant Sun are extreme in their differences of size and distance from this planet during an eclipse they appear to be the exact same size. These are only a few of the things that baffle me, and make me feel like anything at all might happen next. Don't even get me started on the Golden Ratio (1:1.618) or I will spin off into a place I find it hard to return from.

I have the intellectual power to grasp the workings of any system if I apply myself to learning it, but there are so many things to understand that my life-span simply won't allow for it.

Yesterday LM said that there are around five hundred miles of books in the Library of Congress if you put them all in a single row. I am a die-hard bibliophile, but that would torture me. I can enter any library with the intention of choosing a book, and feel obligated to look at each and every one before making my choice. Five hundred miles of books. If I don't pick up and consider each and every book I may miss the book I should read, and I only have a limited amount of time left on this tiny, spinning and improbable planet left to me.

If I choose the wrong book, and the one right next to it was much better suited for me and my need for knowledge I may have wasted that time reading the wrong book. Therefore I must give all of them careful consideration. I am not able to choose a book in a library. I find it ironic that if there were a christian hell designed specifically to torture me for eternity it might look much like the Library of Congress. On the other hand, if I had eternity to read all the books it wouldn't matter which sequence I read them in, so that is what the christian heaven might look like as well.

Bookstores do not torment me in the same way, because there is purchasing involved. I like to buy stuff. I am an American, and well-versed in the art of acquiring things I don't really need, all the time. Since I've stopped reading paper books and only read in the immediate-gratification-world-of-E it has become even easier. I can have a free chapter of any book I want to consider, and if it hooks me I can own it without leaving my chair, in an instant, with only the tap of a link. I currently have twenty or so books waiting for me, and they fill me with the same sense of security that stockpiling cans of food and dried-goods did when I went Y2-crazy back in 1999. Don't infer that I am not always on the lookout for yet another book to add to the list. If I ever reach a state of true booklessness the world will stop spinning. I'm not sure if this is really true, but it's too big a risk to take, I'm not willing to go there.

Amazon's list of "Books you may like" is created by the same type of person who deals drugs on a corner. "Hey, if you liked that, you should try this!" The person who compiles that list knows an addict when they see one coming. There are authors I have read in their entirety, and when I have a chance to pre-order their next book I start to sweat a little, and salivate; sleep comes a little harder each night as the release date draws near.

The only thing that is missing from the world of reading in E format is the smell. I had the opportunity to enter a law library the other day, and its heady perfume was entirely intoxicating. Not only were the books old, and leather-bound, but the words were important and therefore have a stronger scent. I almost had to sit down for a moment I was so overwhelmed.

Add the whole idea of quantum physics to this, and everything is entirely out of control. As Michael said, "Anything from Monopoly could happen." This fills me with a deep sense of unease, and a dire need to read as many books as possible. This will in no way ameliorate any of the possibilities or consequences, but I plan to be as well informed as is feasible when something finally happens.

The list

2010-05-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

"If it weren't for you, my life might have been something great."

"If it weren't for you your father would still love me."

" You're just like me, you're never going to be pretty, you're going to have to get by on your personality. You better get to work on that, if people really knew you no one would want you."

"You are the most selfish person on the planet."

"The only person you ever think about is yourself, and you've ruined my life."

"There has never been a person lazier than you are."

It's funny how the things I heard as a child still stay with me, as though they're fact. I've lived my whole life trying to prove these things to be untrue about myself, and at the end of the day when the ocean comes rolling back in to take back my sand-castle I still feel like that description of me.

I try to live my life as a compassionate person. I do my best to always be in service to others, and think of their needs as well as my own. For years the highest accolade I sought was "nice" because I knew I wasn't, and I so wanted people to like me. Forget about being pretty, I'm funny and smart and that won't recede with age, but I would have liked to be pretty too, if only a little bit.

I am a hamster on a wheel, spinning it as fast as it will go, trying to be the opposite of the

person I was told so often that I am. I make it my personal responsibility to be sure that no one is angry or yelling, sad, lonely or hopeless, bereft or bereaved. If I can somehow make sure everyone is fine and that I'm doing enough to make sure everything works out just peachy then maybe none of that was ever true.

Then there's life, and other people and all the things they do; the corners they paint themselves into and I realize that I can't make the whole world ok, even if I'm wiling to sacrifice my own well-being in the process. If that were true I could check off "Lazy" and "Selfish" at the same time and reduce the list I carry within myself; the list of how I ruined everything. If I could make it all smooth sailing for everyone I love I would gladly suffer for it, with only the occasional complaint.

I was not allowed to be angry about anything, ever. When things make me feel angry I feel wrong and will send my own self to my room for punishment. Angry is selfish, and I don't want to be a selfish person. I want to be the opposite of the list so I can deserve my space on the planet. This is insane, and it's how my secret-self feels much of the time.

I have never made a fist and hit another person with it, nor have I ever been punched in the face. That is part of Anger, and to be angry is to be self-centered and selfish. Sometimes though? I feel really angry and I want to punch and shoot, rend and rip and destroy. I put myself in isolation and sit very, very still, and I never ever do these things. It is my life's work to make sure that her list about me is wrong, that I'm not that person.

If everything goes as planned my oldest and final child will move out of our home today. I won't have any of my kids with me any more, and their need for me will be finished. I am terrified that I have missed chances to be a better parent, or that like me one of them will find it in themselves to walk away from their mother and never look back. That's not entirely true, I do look back, but only from around the corner and I make sure I'm never seen doing it, at least by her.

I feel sad today. Sad that this phase of my parenting is over. Sad that this phase of my womanhood, with all of it's blood and fertility is drawing to a close. Sad that although I feel young I am not, and only old age is on the menu for future meals.

I could have done better, I might have been someone great and made huge changes in the world. What I did do was focus on one little list and try to beat it. Sometimes I think I have, and other times I know that she was right the whole time and no amount of pretending on my part will ever change who I was born to be. I am wallowing in self-centered melancholy and would not choose myself for company today.

Scarlett O'Hara and I, we will think about all of this tomorrow.

Roasted or Broasted, I can never remember which is which...

2010-05-16T07:47:00.001-07:00

As a tattooed person, I normally avoid the sun whenever possible. Leave a piece of colored paper on your dashboard for three days and flip it over to see the color difference and you'll know the reason why. When I was young I used to lay out in the sun, we all did. Being tan and checking your tan line to see how far along you had come that day was the activity of the summer. I don't remember the sun making me feel sick or drained, we used to do that all day then go out and party all night. Then again, that was when we were young and immortal.

Yesterday my girls and I were out in the direct sun for several hours working on our project for the La Strada street art festival. It was large in scope and we were out there on the blacktop for hours. I used 50 SPF sunscreen like it was frosting, I didn't even really rub it in, just glopped it on and spread it around. I did this twice over the course of the event. I also wore a big hat, quite fetching may I add, if you're a migrant farm-worker or an older lady who enjoys gardening. We had our team T shirts, bandanas and knee pads, and a vicious need to "win" if such a thing were possible.

I have never worked in chalk before. It's an interesting medium. If you touch it it wipes off. You can blend color, but even a tentative little finger-pat will lighten the color. I am used to

applying color that no amount of wiping will change, and this is ephemeral and fickle. I discovered my ability to work with either hand or both hands at the same time, I'd forgotten that I can do this, although I would never try it with a tattoo machine.

I don't know that blacktop reflects sunlight, I want to think that black plus tar would just soak it up. Sitting on it, even on a folded towel is an experience that made me feel like a piece of meat in that nifty three-way oven from the infomercial though. I got cooked. When I finally stood up after sitting there for so long my legs were noodlish and I spun around and landed right into the panel I had been working on. I believe I was on the verge of sun-stroke, but Scott saved my life with an umbrella. I still have a piece of art on the ass of my pants where I hit.

The art part, and the experience of being in direct sunlight for several hours are two separate experiences though. The first I enjoyed immensely, and the second, not so much. I feel sick from it today. Is that really possible? I only have a couple of patches of truly sunburned skin, it's not as if I have become the lobster that I wear on my shoulder. I can hardly move though, and this will be totally taking me out of my work-day, I'm not even going to try it.

As far as the art went, I had a blast. It was a fundraiser for a local high school, the kind of school I wish had existed when I was sentenced to high school myself. It's called New Technology High School, and all the curriculum is done on computer. It's one of (I think) eleven schools founded and supplied by Bill and Melinda Gates to see if a radically new way of learning in the kind of world that college graduates might actually inhabit would change the success statistics when compared to regular high schools. I didn't research any of that, but I remember hearing about it when it was a new school. My Big Daddy was kind enough to call me and point out a technical error in yesterday's blog, if any of that wasn't correct please feel free to comment this and clear it up for me.

All the pieces were up for auction to raise money for the school. Each had a starting bid of fifty

dollars, with a "buy now" price of two hundred and fifty. Our bid sheet was pulled by the school, along with one other piece and taken out of the bidding process. Apparently these two pieces will hang somewhere public for a while and be auctioned off at a separate event in the future, and for more money I'll guess. This feels very good, this feels like winning the internet.

I don't know where our triptych will hang or for how long, but if I see it out there I'll feel very proud that ours was deemed to be one of the best. Blair designed it, and I never did hear what the piece is named. She, Shayla and I each worked on our own panel, and then we all added a bit to the two other panels, so it was really a group effort. It's hard to spot, but the octopus has a Calico Eye, that should give you a clue which panel was the one I did. Personally, I think Blair's eel and Shayla's Woman Tree are the coolest parts, but as a whole the piece ROCKS.

Now I have to call and re-schedule three different people so I don't have to tattoo today, I just can't do it. I feel like over-boiled chicken, limp and tasteless. Oh well, life happens, even though people feel I should be available for their tattoos (especially if I have made a prior appointment for them) I sometimes simply can't do the work. Yesterday got all I had to give for a while.

One Hundred

2010-05-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Being Laura, Obsequious Grandiosity

Bee Love, Outwardly Giving

Bizarre Lady, Obsessively Gesticulating

I've lain in bed all morning, trying to come up with a fabulous acronym for BLOG. This is blog number one hundred in the Blogger format. I'm not sure how many I did on facebook, and then on Live Journal, but right here on this little page we have my one-hundredth morning of telling you things.

I love numbers! Not for use in equations, but for the colors they are. I have a special fondness for when they add up to big even sums. I remember when I had my one thousandth day clean, Michael snuck quietly into the candle-light meeting I was attending to bring me a dozen roses. Today is day 2,352 but that number is not as cool as it would have been if it were 2,000 or 2,500, although as a single day in a string of "one day at a time"s it's a very fine day.

like to add numbers up and then reduce them to a single digit. That's the root of numerology, I didn't invent that, but I love to do it. I remember teaching Molly how to do that and the boys telling me I would "ruin her for regular math." It goes like this: My shop address is 3373, so 3+3=6+7=13+3=19, and 1+9=10. You drop zeros, so my shop is a one. The number of Aces and new beginnings.

The magic thing about nines is that you can ignore them completely and still come up with the same answer. If you transpose numbers, the difference will be nine or a multiple of nine. My birthdate adds up to nine, which is very spiritual and makes me extremely cool.

I didn't choose the topic of numbers for the Big 100 though, I thought I'd write about me, since that's all I really do anyway. I am my favorite topic, I understand the material better than anyone else and usually find myself quite fascinating. Not really, but at the same time I seem to think that everyone wants to know what I think about everything so I write about it all the time. I was an only child, I grew up in the land of Me ME ME and had a lot of time on my hands to think about myself and how I fit into the world; how to stand out and be different from the rest of it. I think the fact that my Big Daddy finds me more intriguing than anyone else in the world has exacerbated this over time.

It's been a strange year, this May to May trip around the Sun, and I think it was early May last year that I started writing regularly. Maybe mid or late May, but May. That's the month I had my Big Cry, my Spiritual Awakening, the beginning of becoming New Laura. I could say "Ask anyone, I am a totally different person than I was a year ago!" or you could just read a hundred blogs.

I never cease to amaze myself that I consider it important to write them, and always wonder if you've read any of them when we're talking in person. The funny thing is: every now and then someone will surprise me by mentioning one and saying they've read it. This eggs me on and supports my fantasy that everything I choose to write about will be interesting or funny and that you'll really want to know about it if I spend enough time carefully crafting paragraphs and choosing illustrations from the internet. I love being me, I just want to tell you all about it.

Today Shayla, Blair and I are going to go do some art (and I'm pissed at the moment because in the old composition format I could have made the word "art" into a link to a newspaper article about the event) at New Tech High School. It used to be done as sidewalk art, or blacktop art, whatever you would call that. Street art? Now it's done on panels that will be auctioned off to raise money for the school. Ours will be a six-foot by six-foot piece that is actually three separate panels. We're each doing one. Blair developed the original design, and the panels are off-set so that they don't line up perfectly. We are three highly-competitive, hysterically funny women who are going to collaborate on one piece of art. This should be amusing to say the least. I'm pretty sure ours will be one of the best, because it's the Ladies of Flying Colors Tattoo that are creating it. I've never worked in chalk, and I'm old and concerned that sitting on the ground or kneeling all day to do some art will kick my ass.

http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/article_93a1bf92-5cb3-11df-aaeb-001cc4c03286.html

Blair has made "Laura Croft" T shirts for us to wear, we have team bandanas, and matching kneepads that say "Team Awesome" on them. I am not in control of this event or our team, which will make it something completely new for me. Blair is our team leader, yet back at the shop she is the apprentice and Shayla and I are the Official Tattoo Ladies. I am open to some fun and new experience.

So, there you go, a short yet rambling blog about some numbers, some chalk and ME.

Happy 100 everybody!

Big Girl driving, and the life cycle of a barn owl

2010-05-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Molly just dropped by, in her new car with her valid driver's license. It's not a new car, but is new to her, and her very first. She still hasn't allowed me to take her picture in or near it, because she has "looked gross" and there's no way I will be allowed to post a gross-assed picture of her on the internet. She is adamant.

That was a very strange paragraph to type, Molly was a baby just a minute ago, and knew just how to coerce her brothers into getting her a cup of juice. She'll be sixteen for another month, but she's already tested out of high school and is working full-time and taking a class at the college. This means that I am truly much older than I think I am, if she is grown up enough to have accomplished all of that already.

Michael is not out shrieking in the bushes about our nest, but it's becoming empty. Andrew has

been living in a sweet little apartment at Shayla's for a while, Paul gave notice that he's found a place and will be moving there soon, and Molly is living at her dad's and driving around being a grownup. Soon, it will be the first time in 26 years that I haven't had at least one of my kids at home, and it's tripping me out a little. My personal identity is still partially "Single mother of three" although that hasn't been the case for years now. It's a little disconcerting.

I'm really proud of her, I'm super proud of all of them . We just have one more at home who is going to be off joining the adult world very soon, and then it will be just us grownups here.

I do know though, that there is a difference between leaving your parents' home and becoming a grownup. I am an expert on this topic, I didn't complete the process until I was around forty years old. My Big Daddy spoiled me outrageously throughout my entire childhood, then helped me clean up my messes and pay for my mistakes till I was thirty.

Then he cut me off financially.

It was terrible, except that it coincided with him really learning to talk to me and let me know he loved me without pulling out his checkbook. My dad used to be extremely lame and talk about many ridiculous things. I think he must have taken a class or something, because around the time I turned thirty he was suddenly wise and I learned to respect his opinion. He did cut me off financially though, and I thought the world was coming to an end.

It took me ten years to learn that even if I had a wallet full of money right now, there was going to be rent due on the first, and PGE as well. I was financially retarded, because I had never had to figure these things out for myself. It was the kindest and best thing he ever did for me, and I'm sure it was very hard for him to do. It's much easier to keep enabling your kids to live like kids long after they have officially become adults than to tell them they're on their own now and good luck.

As that adult child I became extremely petulant about this, I was used to going to him for things that everyone else had already figured out. I resented the fact that he was no longer willing to parent me, but expected me to be a responsible adult and parent my own children. The nerve, really! If he hadn't done that I would still have no clue about what it takes to be self-sufficient and make my own way in the world.

A cousin of mine is a fifty-something year-old man, who still slams the door of his room and says "God, leave me alone mom!" and plays video games all day. Seriously, he's in his mid-fifties and lives with his parents and only exists in the land of the internet video game. I don't think he has any friends, I don't think he's ever had a love interest of any kind. He has cancer now, and may die soon. I think he's wasted his entire life, all because his parents never told him that he had to go figure it out for himself.

Three down, one to go, and then we'll be done with this phase of parenting. I'm having a cross between total emotional breakdown and planning the celebration of the century. Between dogs and children I have not gone to the bathroom by myself for almost 26 years.

Thank God we still have the dogs, I might get lonely in there.

Napoleon's Proclamation

2010-05-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

Well, that bluejay is at it again. It's not the same one as last year, but unless they migrate about I'm guessing it's connected genetically to the last fourteen years of bluejays that have found the need to circle the perimeter of this house shrieking at the top of their lungs during nesting season.

This year's Jay is taking the duty very seriously, to say the least. I'm not sure whether it's the male or the female that does this yearly duty, but my guess is he's the husband, and shrieking is what he does for a living while his wife builds a nest and starts feeling all eggy. I'll just call the bird him and move on.

He perches on the Camilla tree and hurls his insults. He hangs sideways from the chain of a metal sculpture I did a few years ago and roars his indignant threats. He sits right on the porch railing and vocalizes his rage. His issue with us is that we have cats.

Three of them. They have the predatory nerve to sleep in the sunshine on our front porch, warm fur commas with slits for eyes. Their very existence inflames this bird to heights of passionate shrieking that one might think would be better reserved for the approach of an invading army.

They only get the lecture from him if they stay on the porch, but I've seen him dive at them kamikaze-style if they dare to walk across the lawn. Not only is he on duty in our yard, I hear him move to the adjacent houses and do his vociferous work there as well. I might think, if I were a bird, that a better strategy could be a stealthier approach.

Instead of going door to door screaming "My wife is nesting here! Stay away or

I will peck your eyes out of your fluffy heads!"

I would possibly consider a quieter method of home protection. If he were to hang close to the nest and save his outrage for predators that were hunting instead of napping, most of the over-fed fur-balls in this neighborhood would remain oblivious of the Jays' family planning. If Darwin is correct however, this is how the fittest have survived for endless generations.

If I were a bird I would either do the same thing or my babies would be consumed by a cat apparently.

This is a little bit like Honey Moon's relationship with the squirrel, but

they conduct their business in a much lower decibel range. Moon trots around the yard and one particular squirrel follows her through the leaf-world, high above, and shouts things at her in its native language. I don't speak or understand Squirrel, but I'm thinking Moon knows what it is saying. She is long and low and can hardly jump onto the bed. She is in no way qualified to pursue a squirrel as an effective predator. I think they may be friends, it seems that they seek each other out. The squirrel carries on a monologue while they tour the yard together.

The Jay, though, is a different story. He reminds me of the little drunk guy in a bar who tries to fight everyone. "Hey! Hey cat! My wife is nesting, what are you looking at? You want some of this? Bring it!" If he were to land right next to them, they would, in fact, bring it. He knows this, so he stays high and loud and proclaims to the world that he is the avian Napoleon and he has conquered all of this territory.

Only one of my cats will even bother to hunt, and he is sometimes successful. He likes to consume the tastier bits of his catch and then bring the remains for display on the porch. If I were the Jay, I would be saving all of my clamorous oration for Tower, the orange cat. Right now he's not a threat, he is lounging in the single square of sunlight on the living-room floor.

This is how I know it is truly springtime again here in the land of our house. He's back again, and just as angry as he was when he first started making his rounds at 5:30 or so this morning. It must be a very tiring job.

The Sister's Silence

2010-05-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

This is the second morning in a row I've awakened from a dream about me being in a different tattoo shop. Not as an owner, or even a fully fledged artist, but either as an "aspirant" or an "assistant." Both shops were crazy, Alice-in-Wonderland different from the one I own and go to every day.

It's not odd for me to dream about tattoo in general, I have been doing it for almost two decades after all. I have three recurring tattoo dreams that are fairly common:

1. I drop into the dream and I'm tattooing something extremely lame on myself, usually a lopsided upside-down happy face that takes up my whole empty thigh. I think "Holy shit, what am I doing?" I feel sheepish and stupid in this dream

2. I realize that I am tattooing with no gloves on yet again. While I never do this in real life there is a feeling of frustrated familiarity about it, as though I have a real problem remembering to wear gloves. I always wonder whether or not the client has noticed, and guiltily slip them on. I feel guilty and careless in this dream.

3. Someone from waaay across the room stumbles or falls and bumps me while I'm tattooing. This causes a great ugly line to come off the design I'm working on and I realize that I'm going to have to work for many extra hours to incorporate this mistake and make the final tattoo look good. This dream makes me feel frustrated and angry.

I have any of these three dreams fairly regularly, but only rarely dream about tattooing in other places. There was one once where all the rooms to see clients were on different floors of a very winding and narrow staircase with a lot of people and dogs moving both up and down between floors. I had an appointment and couldn't find which room was assigned to me, and certainly couldn't ask, that was something I was supposed to know already.

Last night's dream was long, full of detail and different, as was the one the night before.

The first night I was doing a sort of audition in a shop owned by a very famous artist, and the stations were packed in so tightly that sometimes I had to climb right up on the table and straddle the client to get the piece done. I do remember that it was a very good tattoo I was doing (lots of blue and yellow, but the colors were working together nicely.) There were cats and kittens everywhere, jumping up on clients, getting underfoot, and several of the kittens kept getting stuck in a big sink-drain full of water with beans or noodles (something slimy anyway) and I had to rescue them.

At the end of the day the famous artist came in and said I had been accepted there and could start any time I wanted. I was thrilled, this was what I wanted, wasn't it? Except I realized that I was in a dark and unfamiliar location in Los Angeles, and the shop was very crowded after all, and how would I be able to call Michael to come and get me if I didn't even know where I was? What about Flying Colors? Did that mean I'd have to give that up and move to LA?

Here's Mario Barth looking at me expectantly, waiting for my answer as the other artists scurry up the hill of the graveyard across the street and disappear amongst the headstones. I have a feeling of urgency, as though I may be on the verge of missing an amazing opportunity, but all of a sudden I am wondering why I am even there. I can feel the offer leaking out of the moment like helium from yesterday's birthday balloon. There's a choice to be made and I'm afraid to make it.

Last night's dream shop was much different. Very well organized and spacious; obviously decorated by someone with good taste and a general plan in creating the mood of the space. When we all arrived there were many plates and dishes of tasty breakfast treats set out, and I realized that they start their day here with a leisurely, catered meeting about what the plan for the day is. Everyone chips in to clean up, but the sink where I have volunteered to rinse the platters is as high as a normal refrigerator. I can barely get my fingertips over the edge and into the water to do this task.

Then I notice a pad on an easel with things listed, simple words and icons like "Name" and "Old school bird and heart" and I know that while people are between clients they are working on random pieces from the suggested themes. There is no down-time in this shop, after the breakfast meeting it's all business for the rest of the day. "Where is the computer?" I ask, getting ready to download some things to look at while I draw them. "Oh, no one uses computers here, we are all able to draw everything right out of our heads." I realize that my skills are inadequate, I can't draw every single thing without reference material, these people are all very far ahead of me and I don't want to be found out as someone who is not up to this job.

A girl tells me that it's our turn to go get some paper before lunch, and the streets we walk through are almost exactly the same dark and scary boulevards of the previous night's dream. People give hard looks, maybe they want to hurt us, but she has done this a million times and just ignores them.

The trick to finding pads of paper in this store is to find one that is either square or rectangular, and has more than a few pages in it. There are many different kinds here; pads shaped like Christian crosses with the word "Hell" stamped at the top of each page, curved pads in the shape of wine-barrel staves, held together with a brass rivet at the top. There were very few of the kind we needed and it was a frustrating exercise.

On the way back to the shop we passed another shop that had a theater marquee over its door announcing "The REAL Laura is tattooing here!" Great, now who am I? The impostor Laura?

When the shop breaks for lunch we all go to the same restaurant for another meeting and meal. There is much talk about "This Tuesday's event" and whether or not I think I'll be ready for it. I have no idea what this event is, but I've already had a hard time finding the right paper, I can't really reach the sink to rinse the dishes, and I need reference material to draw many different things. Maybe the "Real Laura" could do it, but I feel way over my head and I'm trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about so I won't be found out for the pretender I obviously am.

Across the table is The Red Nun with a very white powdery face and bright scarlet lips. She keeps asking me if I know about the...and I can't hear her. I have to ask her to repeat it several times. The man next to me finally leans over and says "The Sister's silence! She wants to know if you know what that means! It means stop talking!" I tell him that I have some friends who are Sisters from a different order, and this gives me some (but not enough) credibility.

I know that I am in no way qualified to be here and wonder yet again what I was thinking, what about my own little shop that I love so much? I fade into morning awareness with that Red Nun and her whispering ruby lips still haunting me.

My Big Daddy would say that I am every part and every player in each dream. Andrew would say that it means nothing at all to dream about the same things two nights in a row, he doesn't remember his dreams. I wake and ask myself what issues I'm dealing with and why I choose the symbolism I do to represent them in the dream-fields.

I have learned the meaning of the Sister's Silence though, and now I will stop talking.

The real Laura

Anthills

2010-05-10T09:22:00.000-07:00

I was waiting in line at the Java Hut the other morning, as I do almost every day. It's my guilty pleasure, not as fine as Peete's, but that's afternoon coffee. The Java Hut line is a good

place to do several things, depending on how many cars are ahead of me. Lipstick and lipgloss are good to do there, it's very difficult to get the line on my top lip right when the car is moving, never mind the safety hazard. Checking email, texts or facebook on either electronic device can be done as well, or I can mess with what I want to listen to on my iPod. For some reason they still haven't come up with a good way to bookmark where you left of in an audio-book, and I happen to be listening to a series of three short stories narrated by the same hot-sounding English guy so

it's hard to tell if I'm starting where I left off last time. I usually have time to decide whether or not I'm going to listen to book or the Gay radio station (and by Gay I mean Gay, it's called Out Q and it's on Serius, lots of fabulous programming and my favorite political talk-show host Michelangelo Signorile.)

The other morning I seemed to have more time than usual though, I had handled all of those tasks and there was still a car in front of me that must have ordered drinks that required the beans to be grown and roasted especially for them. I looked over at the parking lot that used to contain my favorite grocery but is now a whole store devoted to "wine and spirits." This is Napa, I guess we need a whole giant building to contain all the choices available.

My eyes entered an experience mid-scene: A girl was running toward a young man and he picked her up and whirled her around in that way that made her feet fly out behind her a bit, and always freaks me out when someone tries to do it to me because I am certain that I am too fat for it. Then an older man joins them, and the men hug with much back slapping, stopping to pull back and look at each other and then more hugging. This was a scene I could fully understand in an airport or train station, but it baffled me in the parking lot of the Liquor Warehouse.

It was obviously the young man they were there to greet with such joy. Where had he been? Why did they choose that parking lot for their reunion? After the men finished hugging the girl hugged him some more and kissed him as though it had been a very long time since she had seen him. I really wanted to know the story, maybe wanted to steal a bit of it to write about (which, obviously, I have done.) After that little vignette I became fascinated by the number of people I pass every day, singly and in pairs, all driving to places for their own reasons. One thought I had was that there were so many single drivers and they were all headed in the same direction, why weren't they riding together. I had this thought alone in my car because I am them too.

Then I was thinking about how much people seem to be impatient and in a hurry, when I would bet that only a small percentage of them even want to be where they are going. Scowling faces, singing faces, apathetic faces, all in a line heading back to their own particular ant-hills. For an intense moment I wished I knew each of their stories from "Once upon a time,"

until I saw them pass me on the road. Then the enormity of just how many excuses or triumphs, pains or accomplishments I would need to absorb to actually know all of them. And I thought that maybe I don't care so much, and here I am almost to work and I have a big day.

Hundreds of thousands of people passing through and around each other, only occasionally bumping their stories into one another. There are planes filling the skies with hundreds of thousands more, all headed to their separate destinations in the same places. There are moments when I think of just how many people there really are and it gives me emotional vertigo. I would like to think I am the most important of them all, and each one of them probably feels the same way.

I would really like to know that one little story that happened in the parking lot of the Liquor Warehouse though. That one was jam-packed with joy and anticipation finally fed. I could see that love from across the street.

I've had many, many thoughts since then, and they've mostly pushed that thought off the edge of my mental table to make room for yet more things to think about. That particular wondering is still lingering at the edge though.

The irrelevance of your vagina of origin, or Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Ah, the day of Mothers.

This was a nightmare day for me for many years. I have been absolutely wasted more times than I can count, trying to get away from this day. Becoming a mother myself should have cured it, but it only partially put a bandage over the wound called "mother" for me.

I still have a pencil can with thumb-print art that Paul made for me in 1992, the ninja turtle is my favorite. I have pictures of me in my ivy crown and necklace of pull-tabs from cans that granted me any wish from Andrew as long as I was wearing them. I have a refrigerator magnet that Molly made me that she hates to see, but it's at the shop and every time I walk by it I smile. I probably have more things from Molly because she was last in my row of kids, and girls like to make presents more than boys do I think. I have received calls many years from a dearly beloved adult friend who "has no mother, but thinks you're the best mother I know."

Even in the middle of being adored by these three for all these years as mom, I have still carried the suppurating boil that is my own experience with being mothered. It's heavy, it's like a giant goiter; it is a tail that I've had to drag behind me when it's twice the size of the reptile I am. It has made me very, very tired.

This is the reason I have to be so careful when writing on this day, about someone who I call mother now. She most certainly is not the mother from all of those stories. I can't even call her "mom" because that's either me or a dirty word. I call her "Grandma Carol" like the kids do, because there is nothing but positive associations with that. Grandma is not a dirty word. (Unless some kid tries to call me that someday, I won't be having it.) My own Grandmother was the real mother of my childhood, but I always still knew she was my Grandma, and all the while that other one was still running around scattering mayhem and trampling the flowers.

Grandma Carol met my Big Daddy when I was in my early twenties, and married my him when Andrew was a barely walking toddler. I sang at their wedding and then spent the entire reception laying on a bed in the dark with a wet washcloth over my eyes and a spike through my head. Not until recently have I had a headache that so flattened me that I couldn't function. I hadn't had any drugs or alcohol that I remember, it wasn't that. I wonder now if it spoiled the wedding for them in any way. If I did I deeply regret it now. We sang a song that the boys' dad wrote. It's a beautiful song and I think it still hangs in their kitchen. Maybe it was the idea that I had another "mom" when I couldn't deal with the one who was already using me for mulch, I really don't know. I do know that I was very happy to see my Big Daddy finally be in love and the idea that he would have someone, the someone to spend the second half of his life with was a beautiful thing and only a little threatening to me.

I had been it for years, his girl, just him and me rolling down roads of fun. But I was a grownup and married myself, like I said it was only a little threatening. Really, only a little.

Years came and went, one by one, and I noticed that she treated me just like she treated her own children. Then there were years of addiction to this and that, ending finally with alcohol. She never once judged me, or told me what I should be doing, never gave me any disapproval or dire warnings.

Somewhere in all of those years she stopped being my "dad's new wife" and became... well, not my mother because my mother is a terrible person. But she had transformed from one thing into another with no title I'd ever encountered. I find it effortless to introduce them as "my folks" or say "my parents are coming to town." I do though, have to be very careful to make sure that in writing about her no one could ever confuse her with my egg-donor, my vagina of origin. I have started referring to Dottie as my bio-mother, giving you the opportunity to infer that I have another mother, one who is more real in my life than that tainted half of my DNA. The last thing I ever wanted to do though was to confuse a friend or reader, leading them to believe that this woman I love so much, who is such a meaningful and integral part of my life is the evil being I have devoted so many paragraphs to.

I have her listed as my mother on facebook, that seems harmless enough since you can see that she's married to my Big Daddy and I always make it plain that Dottie has been history for years now. I also list Noelle as my sister and Blair as my brother, familial relationships have room for interpretation on facebook.

The truth is, if I had been offered the opportunity to choose my own mother, Grandma Carol would have been at the top of the list. She belongs with my Big Daddy and I'm sure they've been together forever, not just twenty-something years. I have seen love bloom in him that I had no idea as a child that he was even capable of. She has brought this out of him, and he wears it like a cape now. That's not how life works though, people just go falling out of this random uterus or that

and then that's what they get. It's what we do with our associations as we become our own people that matter and make the lasting and final impact on our lives. She's not my mom, but she's become the mother of my heart. When I said "Happy mother's day" on the phone this morning it was to her.

Who needs a title? Having a person designated as your mother who is a black hole of whirling emotional blades of destruction in no way compares with having someone who loves you no matter what; title or not. I love her, and life gave her to me when I most needed her. That's a gift I will never stop being grateful for.

I love you Grandma Carol, my not-mom, my heart-mother. Happy mother's day!

Anything from Monopoly could happen!

2010-05-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

I have rented the house we live in for the past 14 years. I've raised my kids here, and after this much time it feels like my home. I've never been given the opportunity to sign a lease, it's been 14 years of month to month rental, with the idea of eviction for one reason or another looming around the first of every month. I've never feared being evicted for non-payment of rent, I'm always right on time with that. When things need repair or replacement I don't call the property management company, I get it handled because I don't want them to remember that I even exist at a rental rate that seemed high 14 years ago.

I've replaced major appliances (Big Daddy bought me a new stove one year) and converted the attic to a studio. I had the back room re-roofed because it was leaking, I spent around six thousand dollars last year to have the floor in the bathroom replaced because it was getting spongy. I've been a good tenant for almost a decade and a half.

In 2006 my property owner told me that he would be retiring this year, and it was his plan to move back into this house. That started a four year time-clock ticking, the kind you see strapped to cartoon bombs. My best response was to start saving money. I had four years.

I was able to set aside an amount, unimaginable in its scope and size based on my previous years of life experience. I think it was about as much as my Big Daddy and Dottie paid for their first house in the stone age in which I was born. I kept it in a safety deposit box, and visited it regularly, just to run my fingertips over the row of envelopes lined up together. There was a thousand dollars in each envelope, and it was my secret, no one knew I had it, not even Michael.

I used to call it my "Downpayment on our own house" fund as I watched it grow. I loved having it, it represented security, and possibility, and that I had become a real grownup who could plan for the future.

Then the economy went south, big-time.

Michael used to be a commercial painter, until people stopped painting, building or remodeling things and he found himself a painter no more. He spent four to six hours a day looking for a job, any job and found one that has actually turned out to be something good that is worth sticking with long-term. He was recently promoted to manager and we have real health insurance for the first time in a million years. During the down time though, I dipped into my secret cache to cover the expenses of life. Add some adult children who were either unemployed or under-employed living here with us, and one who was just a regular teenager who happens to be female and very, very expensive. It fell to me to cover all of this while my own business suffered those harsh economic times and wasn't really even supporting itself. What started in hope became a tool for survival, and the box is empty now. Thank the Universe I had it, or we would have all been living under a bridge long ago.

It's 2010 now, and the cartoon bomb may be going off soon. I got a letter from the

owner, ambiguous yet friendly, and completely unclear as to what is going to happen. I have a deep and undeniable need to control the entire universe and I am completely out of my comfort zone.

In no way does the letter come across as threatening or dire, but that certainly doesn't keep me from freaking out. Michael and my dear friend Scott talked me down from the ledge and I know that in one way or another everything will be fine. Scott knows the world of finance, and Michael is my endless fount of optimism. "Honey, anything from Monopoly could happen!" is the best thing he's said to me all morning.

So, no conclusions have been reached, and I don't run the whole show. I am simultaneously scrabbling to control everything through the force of my own iron-clad will, and feeling like a little kid pretending to be a grownup.

I want my Big Daddy. I want to be small enough to sit in his lap.

Rudderless

2010-05-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

I hear a lot of words coming out of my mouth lately that I would resist from others. "Ok, so here's the plan:" or "Well I think what needs to happen is:" or "I'm pregnant." (which I only use when I think someone's not really listening to me. I hate it when I have a plan and I know what needs to happen and I think no one's listening.)

My usual specialties are doing everything in my own way, with no team involved. When, in fourth grade, our assignment was to make paper-mache tribal masks mine was a circus clown with orange string hair and a big red ball nose. Bless my teacher, she hung it in that vast palette of brown for open-house and even gave me an A on it. My California mission made from sugar cubes turned out to be a factory with an assembly line and machinery that turned one brand of cereal into another. Same teacher; she gave me an A on that too.

I have an eight to ten minute extra-credit presentation for my Art History class due on the eighteenth, and since I'm not at all concerned with the grade I'm having some fun ideas about that. I just want to score a little higher than Michael, art history is a competition after all. This class is part of my pile of unrelated college credits, collected over the years because I want to know whatever that particular teacher has to offer.

Basically I see it as eight to ten minutes to use Keynote to do a presentation that will make the class, and hopefully the teacher, laugh until they forget that I offered little substance but much entertainment. Plus I'll get to use the little slide-advance clicker with the red laser dot for pointing out details. This thrills me, and I am terrified I will imitate my teacher as well as make my presentation. I have this kind of girl-crush on this teacher that isn't romantic in nature, I just want to be her. I would be well-served to learn how to make a Keynote presentation, pronto.

I am not a leader, and am avidly, militantly not a follower. I just do what I do and hope for your approval. This strategy has worked fairly well for me over the years; let's blame it on never having siblings to force me to learn my place in a hierarchy. I've never belonged to any clubs that didn't eventually tell me I should probably not return to the next meeting. (4H and Bluebirds come to mind.) The worst threat Dottie could come up with was "I'll send you to Catholic school and they'll make you dress like everyone else." The theology was never a threat, I can float right above any organized system if I choose. It was the threat of sameness. I would detail my plans to have not only myself but her completely excommunicated from that church of hers. She either didn't want to call my bluff or didn't want to spend the money. My bet is on the latter of those two options.

Here I am, this Singular, this Unique (I'm using those as nouns, rules just weren't made for me!) flying through the night skies in the best disguise: Artist. I'm a left-handed, only-child artist with a spotted eye, but you don't even have to know these particular details to roll your

eyes and expect what you get. I establish my "Through the Looking Glass" persona in little ways fairly often, and as I said this has been

successful working strategy for some time now. Lewis Carroll was also an Aquarian, this is an unrelated fact, but I include it because I love it. Let's finish off the paragraph with Jules Verne, was also a fellow Water-Bearer. Sorry Andrew.

Here I am, sailing and flailing through the Universe, being harmlessly eccentric and having as much fun as I can manage. I am known for both keeping my word, and not making many firm commitments. In this way I create the illusion that I can be relied upon, without doing much that I can't believe was my idea in the first place.

Having children was a large, never-ending commitment, but to be fair I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I had them. I wanted babies, toddlers, cute fifth-graders in first-amendment T shirts. I had no idea the process might include fully grown adults who still want a sandwich and some juice. My basic parenting philosophy can be summed up in a few simple statements, I'll give you two: "I didn't raise you to be sheep." and "If you're not bleeding, on fire or the police are en-route don't call me at work." I don't think I've been the best parent, but currently no one is bleeding or on fire.

Recently though, reality has been rudely tapping my shoulder and interfering with my comfort zone. I am in charge of a whole lot of grownup things, and it's my job to manage them. How dare that insolent reality? I own and run a business, and people work there. This has been true for seventeen years, why am I just noticing this now? I have very dear loved ones who are not well, and I am in a position to be a care-taker. Never having put much effort into becoming responsible or nurturing I find that all of a sudden

I feel way over my head.

Things I used to do, like grocery shopping or laundry seem like gargantuan tasks. This is because I have become very spoiled in the last few years and lost touch with these normal human skills. I seriously can't remember the last time I cooked dinner. "I have art to make, theories to craft and books to read!" That may be well and good, but there is clean laundry to fold and I haven't done it yet. My personal deficiencies are starting to be seen under that single spotlight usually reserved for monologues or touching final ballads in theater productions. Who let me be in charge of anything? How did this come to pass?

So I hear myself saying "Ok, so here's the plan:" and "Here's what I think needs to happen:" and sometimes "I'm pregnant." Most of the time these plans are for other people, and as

soon as they begin the tasks I assign them I can get back up to the studio and make some more things. It's not actually working out that way. It looks as if I will actually have to do some of these very important things, side by side with the people I would prefer to direct. Epic Fail. Whoever let me be in charge of anything important made a faulty decision, yet here we are with words I abhor from others coming out of my very own mouth.

I just heard the trash collector come by my house, and I had no idea it was garbage day, or whether or not my own cans of refuse are lined up on the street like dirty soldiers.

See what I mean?

It's not really a toy, I NEED IT!

2010-05-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

I have a new toy. I may not be able to write for a couple of days, because my hands are full of it. Back soon, after I've touched every button and tried every setting!

Mom's mid-life crisis OR Mercury is retrograde

2010-04-30T07:02:00.000-07:00

Mercury is retrograde right now. My appointment book has been out of sync, and I'm having trouble arriving at the right places at the proper time.*

This one concept may be used as an explanation of many things, an excuse not to do something or a key to the ignition of a discussion with my son Andrew that could take three hours. Andrew is a scientist, a physicist, a militant atheist and compulsive master of debate. If you would like to have a vigorous, dynamic conversation with him, this would be a good way to start it.

The entire topic of astrology is something that I have studied for over thirty years, and one that he is dedicated to saving me from, using tactics like "the scientific method" and "critical thinking." He is one of the very few people I know who actually has a higher IQ than I do. (The world abounds with people who are more intelligent, but I limit my observation to people I actually know.) To have an effective conversation with Andrew one must bring data to the table, and possibly site one or more studies that have been done by scientists and other brain-people.

I'm an Aquarian, I can deal with this. He's a Leo, and we almost match each other in the drive to score points in any conversation. My Big Daddy taught me the art of debate when I still needed a booster-seat to sit comfortably at the dinner table. I have shared Andrew's drive to present a counter-opinion to any statement since I was a child. We have some good times.

He lives for physics, and is fully immersed in learning to write equations

to explain what he knows already and is currently learning. I am a hands-on Empath, who sees pictures and colors around people sometimes, and I have a greater than average working knowledge of astrology, numerology and Tarot. He thinks in graphs and equations, I live in the realm of image, feeling, analogy and archetype. We are almost polar opposites of each other in the way we arrive at conclusion, and yet we often find common ground. Mostly we have a blast, I love to listen to him in action and he swears I'll never get Alzheimer's if I continue to work my brain and never stop learning new things.

Andrew is taking a "Philosophy of Religion" class right now, and "Anthropology of Linguistics." Both are necessary for the basic degree he needs to go on to university, then grad-school and finally the doctorate he is headed for. I find both of these classes to be very interesting, although I am not taking them myself. We discuss.

As a "Militant Atheist" (a term coined by Richard Dawkins, eagerly adopted for his own) he is having an interesting time in the religion class. The teacher has a master's degreein Women's Spirituality, something he thinks should not even make it into the curriculum of higher education. Being a physicist AND a comedian he can entertain me for hours with his observations on what he describes as the female mid-life crisis.

"Women hit their forties and realize that they will die some day and they're not hot any more and they become experts on Spirit. Everything becomes about energy, auras, and intuition-which is all bullshit." I trust he will forgive me if this is paraphrase rather than a correct quote from him. I think he would be robbing humanity if he did not experiment with some stand-up comedy on this and other topics he's so passionate about. The teacher has written a book that is a mandatory text for the class "And it's not even on Amazon. It's not a real book, it's a scam to make young people think all her crazy shit is real."

He feels it's his responsibility to point out the flaws in her assertions lest any other young person in his class take away a single thing she says as fact. He does this with logic, and I have no idea if she enjoys having him in her class or hates it. I am certain that they both believe their own positions in their entirety. She already has her degrees and he does not, my guess is that she tolerates him and thinks his aura is red and very tight to his body, with bright blue streaming out in random directions. I think I would love this teacher.

I have studied several topics for decades now, that he will not accept as science. I concede, they are not. He does, however, prove me right in my own conclusions constantly, although I don't point that out. Our conversations are like fencing, like log-rolling, like pillow-fighting. He keeps me at the top of my game, and is my very favorite conversational partner. He will never actually rescue my intellect from astrology, Tarot, energy, auras, intuition, vision or dream knowledge. I'm one of those women over forty who has become an expert on Spirit. I do cherish his attempts though. I think I may be getting better insight to what it was like for my Big Daddy to have a child with above-average mental process, and then watch them use it.

Well, now that I've said all that, Mercury is retrograde. I have promised a friend that I would make sure he gets to Santa Rosa by one-thirty, even though he will be in a meeting that is very important until noon or twelve-thirty. On a good day (meaning that it's mid-day and traffic is usually flowing the opposite direction and Mercury is direct) it takes one hour plus a little to travel that far. I have an appointment for a large and very lucrative tattoo at noon, and am awaiting a delivery from FedEx that I must have today or I will die. Seriously, if I don't get this item today and have to wait till Monday it will kill me. People do die from being impatient and over-dramatic, it's a fact.

I need to be two or three places at the same time, an have not yet mastered teleporting or the alteration of time. If I don't pull this off somehow, either by re-booking this client or having a miracle (assistance from someone else) intervene I will know exactly what happened.

Mercury was retrograde. Simple as that.

*"Mercury goes retrograde about three times a year. It is common to hear people speak of this period with trepidation!

What is actually happening in the world of planets and motion is that Mercury appears to move backwards from the perspective of the Earth. In actual fact Mercury is not moving backwards! If this upsets you don't worry. All astrology is based on the appearance of things. The Sun doesn't actually rise, The Earth turns. You knew that.

So the meaning in Mercury retrograde is found in the symbolic interpretation of this apparent backward motion. It can help us to understand and navigate our world with greater ease.

Mercury represents the power of the mind. It is the trickster god because the mind is the slayer of the real! You know how hard it is to keep your mind on one thing. That is Mercury at work. Mercury likes to flip the channels so to speak! When this planet goes retrograde it's as if someone is pulling the plug at random moments; stealing the remote and demanding that you unplug! Of course we don't like to unplug. We like to keep on keeping on and get where we are going.

The general Mercury retrograde story goes like this: When Mercury is retrograde it's easy to miss the details; to misunderstand what was said; to misread what was written; to get the dates wrong or to forget to show up. This is why the common advise is to refrain from signing contracts, making major commitments or undertaking major new endeavors " -Julie Simmons

Simple things, why I am such a bitch

2010-04-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

I am fully aware that I must be very difficult to live with. I'm also aware that I am not the Empress of the universe, and that I don't get to make rules and expect others to follow them. With that said, this is a list of simple things that I consider to be reasonable requests, and will act as if I have a right to demand compliance from anyone within approximately 50 feet of me.

1. Mouth noises

There are two categories of mouth noises that I simply cannot tolerate. Noises made while consuming food or beverage, and random noises.

Food:

Don't slurp, smack, crunch, chomp or take super bites that are too large to process with your mouth closed. Don't consume any food that needs to be inserted into your mouth with several bites, bite and chew each bit separately. (These items include but are not limited to french fries, potato chips and popcorn.)Don't eat crunchy foods that I can hear you chewing even if your mouth is closed. You may like these foods, but eat them somewhere else. Don't put food into your mouth until it is at a temperature you can deal with. All the noises associated with a mouth full of food that is too hot are un

bearable, and "It's too hot!" is not a valid reason for making these noises. Do not slurp any liquid that is too hot to drink silently. I have experimented with

several foods personally, and it is possible to consume any food in silence if this is your goal. Make

it your goal, you're driving me crazy. Please do not EVER remove the food from your fork with your teeth. Under no circumstance can I bear to hear your teeth scrape your fork. If you must chew gum (and it is my belief that unless it's nicotine gum this behavior is entirely ridiculous)do not crack, snap, chomp or blow bubbles with it. Do not take it out of your mouth then reinsert it. This is disgusting.

Random mouth noises:

Whistling, whether it's a tune or just a little meandering whistley sound is just not called for.

whistling should be banned; and while we're at it let's include the kazoo. The kazoo is a party favor, not an instrument and is not appropriate in any situation that is not a children's party. You may knock yourself out at a kid's party, I won't be there, as a rule I can't stand kids. Don't put things in your mouth that are not food, don't chew on paper or fabric or little pieces of God-knows-what. This makes me gag. I understand the need to tap something on your front teeth once or twice to verify what it is (This is a foolproof way to tell if something is glass or plastic, metal or wood) but two taps are all that should be needed for this. Kissing is nice, but the noise it produces is horrible. Sloppy, slurpy kissing should be done in private with someone who can enjoy this with you. Simple common sense should be able to guide you as to what noises should be made with the mouth: none. The one exception is speech.

2. Speech:

I understand that not everyone knows the proper pronunciation of every word, that's what I'm here for. If I inform you of the correct way to pronounce a word, do not repeat your mis-pronunciation. If I, myself, mis-pronounce a word you may point it out to me, because I am reasonable. (Jim got me with parabola just the other day.) I will immediately go to a dictionary

verify that you are correct. As I've already said, I am a reasonable person. Slaughtering the English language is not called for, it is beautiful and complex. "Almost" words are not words, they are nails to my brain. "Supposably," "Irregardless," and "Nucular" are but a small sampling of almost words. Double negatives ("I don't have none of those.") are something we all should have overcome by third grade. Use this beautiful language correctly, it's not some duct-taped old tool you found lying around to just bash things with! I will, on occasion, punctuate things incorrectly. I am more tolerant of other's flaws when I see them in myself.

I will include the written word in this category, yet not include all the rules for writing. There are entire books to dedicated to educating you in how to write properly. This is just my own personal (and highly reasonable may I add) list of things that drive me insane. If you text me, I do not demand punctuation. I understand that a few extra clicks to achieve an apostrophe or a comma can be burdensome and time-consuming. Do not, however, substitute a number 4 a word

or a letter to symbolize an entire word. It's "you" not "U" and the letter Z is not interchangeable with the letter S. It takes as much time to text "was" as it does "wuz" so let's not have any more of that. I understand that no one has the time to edit all of their text messages to be grammatically correct, and that when typing it's fairly easy to let the occasional "teh" slip through when you meant "the." I'm not trying to rule with an iron fist here, but seriously people, this is very important.

3. Movement:

Unnecessary movement, such as but not limited to: Chair spinning, foot swinging, object tapping, ball-point pen clicking or kicking things gently(whether you are seated or not) is intolerable. There is no excuse for doing these things. Stop it immediately please.

4. Breathing:

I should not ever have to hear you breathe. If you need to sniff more than twice it's time to blow your nose. I will be happy to get you a tissue at any time, rather than hear more than two sniffs. If you're running or hiking up a hill I understand that your breathing may be audible. I won't be there to hear it, I don't enjoy physical activity of any kind. All things worth doing can be accomplished while sitting in a chair, but that is simply my opinion.

Exempted from this category is snoring, because apparently I do that myself. I have heard recorded evidence of my own snoring, and it sounds much like a small gasoline-powered device with a two-stroke motorcycle trying to make it to the top of a hill, an angry steer and a hand-saw. My own snoring does not bother me, although yours will. I am not a hypocrite, I will let your snoring go unremarked.

5. Many other things:

Don't put your fingers in your mouth, ever. Wash your hands for as long as it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" after you use the restroom. Don't touch my nose for any reason or tickle me. If you have a habit, it's probably going to bother me. I will tolerate it as long as I possibly can, and then tell you nicely to please discontinue immediately. There is no way to predict which little habits will bother me, that is why I am so willing to tell you when to stop doing something. I'm here to help you become a better person. I do this for my own comfort and out of a deep, yet conditional love of humanity.

Now, who wants to go hang out?

Mom, Motivational Speaker and Drill Sergeant- 72 hours

2010-04-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

There's no way to describe this tickle I get at the back of my mind sometimes. I'd love to say it's a vision, or that seeing the bat-light shining in the sky over Gotham City I know that my super powers (meager and imaginary as they are) are needed. I'd love to say that I have some knowing or certainty that is like the sound of a battle-horn calling me to duty. I'd love to say I have some kind of second sight, but really, a lot of being psychic is knowing the dates of all twelve signs and the birthstones for every month. None of that is true, but sometimes the back of my mind gets a sensation and I just go with it. Sometimes it's big things that set it off, sometimes they're very small and easy to miss.

A couple of nights ago I saw that someone who is a client (but that I like a great deal and really enjoyed chair-time with) had changed relationship status from "In a relationship" to "single." People change relationship status all the time, sometimes it's a long-married friend who all of a sudden has the little red heart and it says "So and so is married." Or one of my friends will go from "In a relationship" to "It's complicated" and I mind my own business. Facebook relationship hearts have become a way to announce that it's moved into real boyfriend/girlfriend status, or that someone's having a fight, or to officially announce a break-up that may last forever or three days. I have over four hundred and fifty friends on facebook, I don't always see everyone's post, but that night I noticed that little heart change in the feed from someone I didn't know that well, but as I said, liked a lot when we were doing tattoo together.

I sent an IM saying "Your posts look sad, if you need to talk I'm always here." I act that way with people who pull my "mother" strings, and some young people really do. The reply was immediately "I could really use someone to talk to, what's your number?" and I gave it. Those three lines of instant messaging changed the next three days of my life.

It was a bad case of broken-heart. It was a person who is far from their home of origin who needed to cry and have someone listen and care. This is my specialty. My Big Daddy has talked me down from the ledge so many times by helping me see the brighter side, or at least that it's not as bad as it seems right in the moment. I know how to do this, I have a great role model. Immediately the person on the other end of the line becomes "Honey" and I go into full-blown MOM mode.

We talked for a while and the conclusion was that we'd meet for coffee before work, and that of course I have a hug for you if you need one.

What came out in the first three minutes of actual conversation was that not only had there been an ugly breakup, but that it also included an arrest and a night in jail. It was really a story of drug addiction, and their using with each other, and a whole laundry list of drugs and insanity.

I don't really get why it's a laundry list instead of a shopping list, it seems like a like a laundry list would have one item on it:
1. Do the laundry.
I think they should call it a shopping list, because you'd be much more likely to put down twelve or fourteen things if you were headed to the store. Of course I digress, when do I ever follow a straight line when telling you a story?

My friend was 24 hours without cocaine, opiates and other prescription cocktails, a mess, but not really sick yet. I called Super-Michael and without even asking why he just said "OK." when I told him we were going to a meeting that night. We brought my friend to a meeting over in his own town, so he could start to connect with people in his own area, people who could be there in two minutes if he really used the phone list they give all newcomers at meetings.

This is a blog, not a novel, I'll fill in this part with "Then a lot of time and tears went by, and stuff happened." rather than telling every excruciating little detail.

It was apparent by Sunday night that we couldn't let him even drive, much less go back to whatever was waiting for him in his house. When we get clean we need people to help us go through everything we own so there's nothing to find in that moment where recovery is a theory from hours ago, and now that it's the middle of the night and we're alone and terribly sick. We will do whatever drugs we have.

This is why we stick together in packs, because alone there isn't a single one of us who can leave it stashed when the sickness hits.

We took him to our house, and put him on our couch, and he became one of our own.

You've seen heroine withdrawal on TV or in movies, I'm sure of it. It looks pretty bad. It looks like a concerned person sitting with you for a day or two and giving you orange juice and wiping your sweaty brow after you throw up yet again. TV depictions of opiate withdrawal are like Hallmark specials about flowers and bunnies compared to what it's really like to be with someone while they kick those drugs.

It's not like that, it's more like watching someone you care about, through sweat-fogged glass, be tortured in a way that no human should be able to survive. You can listen to the descriptions of fire in all of their veins, and how they know they need to pull all their teeth out; watch them claw at their skin which doesn't fit any more and hold them while they cry. You can even remember your own withdrawal if you've ever gone through one, but you can't touch this evil thing smothering your loved one. They are alone behind its iron clawed, fire-tipped barriers. And they suffer. They suffer in a way that the Spanish Inquisition wishes it could have used for torture, and it doesn't end.

They know it will never end, and you know that it will. You know that you understand what this is like, and they know you couldn't possibly understand. It's ICU in your living room, and you realize that you are really under-qualified for this, but all you have is your own experience, strength and hope to offer, and Gatorade.

We're very fortunate, Michael and I. We have a golden list of phone numbers, hot-lines to heroes who will drop everything and be here now in a situation like this. There is one number, the platinum one at the top of the list. We called, he came, and the three of us did what no one person could ever accomplish.

Here we are, the Mother, the Motivational Speaker and the Drill Sergeant. If this boy lets us, we are NOT going to let him die. Three completely different ways of speaking and acting, one united love for an addict who is still suffering. "How bad do you want it?" "How willing are you to do whatever it takes to get to the other side of this?" "I love you honey, you don't have to do this alone." We are a force of nature, driven and bolstered by a Power Greater Than ourselves. We're living out the chemical version of the apocalypse, the fight between light and dark, life and death.

Two of us go to his house with him, to clean it out and help him pack for a safe, medical detox and the opportunity to do a ninety day residential treatment program.

Tearing through all the hiding places, calling out what is found. "This is what I found, I'm flushing now." I pour bottle after bottle of alcohol down the drain, and the smell of it all fills the tiny space. My hands are sticky, I can't wash them enough. I am full of fire and fear, and gratitude that because I stayed in my seat and did what I was told I will never have to go through this myself again if I don't want to. We cleaned house, packed a few things, fed him a meal, brought him to one place we know where the story of The End of active addiction comes true every day.

72 hours have passed, and now we do all that is left for us to do, we turn him over to a new life if he wants it; if he has the willingness to do what it takes. The three of us hold each other, in gratitude and the Knowing that it's only through the Grace of a Power Greater Than ourselves that we're out here, in this part of the journey, and he's in there taking the first of a thousand steps. We turned him over, and trusted that the Miracle can happen for him as well. We look at each other, the Mother, the Motivational Speaker and the Drill Sergeant and we know that we have escaped the jaws of death, and the only way we get to keep it is to give it away.

Then Michael and I went to class, we made it with maybe five minutes to spare.

Today I am drained beyond belief, maybe how it feels right after you use your adrenaline-fueled super-strength to lift a car off a baby. I am filled with gratitude, and empty of energy, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I would love to say that I'm psychic and knew I was needed when I saw that little red heart that says someone's relationship status has changed, but to be truthful I don't think it was me at all.

Dopesick

2010-04-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's a beast, the subtle under-the-bed kind of monster that you really can't see. It gets in your head and whispers to you, makes itself a part of your flesh and fluid. It's what you know, and you think it's your only friend. You can't live with it, it's killing you and you know it. You can't live without it, because it's all there is and like air you need it in a way that no one understands and it's killing you. It's your addiction, and it's ivy wrapping around your tree-all the way to the top.

Kicking dope, dope-sick, craving, sweating, crying and you believe it will never stop, never get better. It screams and rages, it whines and begs, and it lies. If you believe it you will die. If you ignore it you think you will die. It's the first days of recovery if you let it be, and it is a hell the christian bible never even hinted at.

People will tell you there's a different way to live, that you never have to use again, that you're not alone in this. These are true statements, but it's very hard to hear truth in them when you know you are dying.

They call it labor when a woman gives birth, and it's very much the same. This is either your slow agonizing death or the birth of your new life.

How bad do you want it?

Walking the Yard

2010-04-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

I will sheepishly admit that I am one of the many who have made profiles for my dogs on "Dogbook," which is a facebook application that lets you pretend that your dogs are people too. Normally I hate it when someone wants to apply human attributes to something that is not human.

No, your cat does not think it's a person. No, your dog does not think it's a cat, or want to drive your car just because it chooses to sit in the driver's seat while it waits for your return. No, "God" has no petty human emotions like anger, jealously, happiness, desire or a thirst for vengeance. Humans want to make everything human, it's just what we do.

I'm just a charming mass of contradiction, I made a Dogbook for all three of my dogs. My dogs are friends with other dogs. My dogs "write" comments to each other, and change their status. This is ridiculous, and still I do it. I believe everyone is allowed to do things that are silly and totally hypocritical to the speeches they make to anyone who will listen, as long as it's harmless and won't cost you your job. Being a Republican who votes NO on any issue that will further equality for all and/or being a pastor who rails against the evils of homosexuality and then cruises the men's bathroom for quickie blowjobs from strangers does not fit into this category. Dogbook does.

I have had a fence around the front part of my back yard for years, and by fence I mean a collection of rotting boards united by ivy and chicken-wire. My two smallest dogs have spent years exploring the joys of violating this perimeter and taking themselves for walks. We had to be careful not to look at that "fence" too hard, because that may have caused it to deteriorate even further. One gate was dependent on a series of trash cans to keep it closed and make it too tall to jump over.

Yesterday a dear friend built us a new fence. It is absolutely dog-proof, and has thwarted every attempt to use the old methods of exit from the yard. I have just spent some wonderful coffee-in-the-sun time watching a very intelligent poodle (named Jeff, you can find him on dogbook) trying to figure out why his whole world has changed, and looking for chinks in this new yard-armor.

He's very slow and methodical about it. First, nose the gate. It has a little give to it, and the latch makes a promising rattle, there must be a way to use this to his advantage. Then he goes over to the other gate, and finds the same thing, yet both gates resist his advances. What about that place where he used to be able to tightrope-walk the cement and go out through the rebar fencing there? Huh, that's got wood fence all the way to the house now. Go down the basement steps and stand with front paws on the short cement wall. That hole was there just yesterday, and yet now it's solid wood. Hmm. Cruise the perimeter again, slowly, nose to every crack. Stand with paws on fence and gauge the height, can it be jumped? No. There is still world on the other side of this fence, and he wants to go there. Repeat this process several times.

His best friend and mate Honey Moon (also on Dogbook) follows behind, but her only contribution is the occasional high-pitched whine, she lets him do all the heavy thinking. She is very smart as well, but specializes in walking very low to the ground, very slowly, in order to become invisible. This is her super power, he is the brains of this operation. She is also able to turn into smoke and slip through the smallest of cracks, but has never been confronted with cracks this narrow.

I sat in the lovely sun, watching this process and drinking coffee, feeling triumphant that I have finally put an end to the spontaneous trips of these two little escape artists and imagining what they're going to be posting about it on Dogbook.

Mac Johnson (you guessed it, his profile is there as well) ate some sticks and found an old Kong to chew on. He has never developed a taste for Out-Of-The-Yard, but really, really wants to dig in that box called "Get out of my garden!" since it seems so important that he not go in there. He will always settle for chewing up an entire log after being reprimanded a couple of times.

I live on a busy street, and my little dogs face great peril every time they go on walk-about. I am thoroughly enjoying their consternation at the fact that those days are long gone. Feel free to add any of them to your friend list, they will "answer" you if you post to them.

100% Thanks to Christopher Wilkie and JP for building us that fence. Much love and eternal gratitude!

Dirty Hands

2010-04-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

It is my bottle-blonde, insane mother-without-a-clue who has somehow brought me to this place. She has attached herself to a Sudanese man born in Saudi Arabia. She's taken me to his family home with her-to the prying and pinching of women who chatter and gesture and examine me like a hen at market. I am not old enough to become a bride, but this is what it will be like someday when I am. Hummus and sesame oil, and the smell of my fear. The feel of male eyes crawling over me, watching me like a little fruit on a vine, and waiting.

It is the dream I just woke from, it is the class I'm taking, it is the book I'm reading. It was all woven into a nightmare that was a part of my childhood that carved and gouged me; left its design etched forever into who I am. Usually I am sure it has grown over with scar tissue. I just woke from it all in the present tense though, and I can still smell the spices and everything redolent of honey and almonds; thick words I can't understand.

I woke feeling dirty from hands all over me, gauging my shape, the emergence of my little breasts. Women's hands, using a sticky glob of honey and lemon to remove all the hair from my body to show me how a bride is prepared for her marriage bed. A tiny Los Angeles kitchen drenched in dirty sunlight and women who see things very differently, and stay in another part of the house. They are separated from the men, and cast their eyes down even before family members because they are women, who carry platters of food.

Dirty from his probing worm of a tongue in my mouth, thick wet lips pressed to mine. "It's how men kiss women honey, when you grow up you'll get used to it and even like it." It's ok, he's going to be my "Baba" now. Was she going to let them take us to their country? Was I to grow up to become a hairless bride? That never happened, we stayed here, although she gave me to him on my sixteenth birthday to take away for the evening. I was given much alcohol (and I suspect some very strong drugs) and he returned me to her by morning. I have no memory of anything that happened, but she assured me that he said I had a good time. He was an officer in the L.A.P.D. and above the law. He refers to his penis as "the baby" and will say "Shhhhh, you'll wake the baby." You don't want to wake that baby.

It's all dreams and memories merged together this morning, and my spirit feels filthy, saturated in sorrow and abhorrence. To this day the sound of that accent makes my skin crawl.

I'm taking a class: Art History 140-Survey of Islamic art. It has nothing whatever to do with the religion of Islam, it covers a geographic area, a time period, three empires from history. It's fascinating and soothing. The artwork is organized and patterned, held safely within geometric forms that are unable to touch me. Even the soaring arabesques are ordered in a way that are non-threatening. It's all beautiful, intricate, mind-boggling and evokes the chaos of eternity while remaining safely uniform. I am in love with the art. I am in love with the teacher who effortlessly pulls us along like a kites on a string from one area and century to another, letting us look down from a comfortable distance at these almost-impossible monuments to architecture and ornament. Only the recording of the "call to prayer" we listened to on that first night (highly relevant when you're about to spend a semester studying minarets and their ever-present inclusion in an architectural style) that made me shudder; made the membrane between the NOW me and the seven year-old me become so thin.

The class is good, the novel I'm reading again is fascinating, it's only this one dream that has left me a mess.

I grew up to be (in Kelly Cutrone's words) a "Power Girl" who can do anything I want to do. No one yells at me, or touches me, or tells me what to do. It is my world and I'm larger than any other force in it. After being told that I couldn't play the drums in seventh grade band class (nor the trumpet or saxophone) because they were "boys' instruments", after being denied a paper route, after being forced to wear dresses instead of pants until the rules changed in fifth grade, I have learned to disregard my gender and do whatever the hell pleases me. Twenty years ago when I was looking for a tattoo apprenticeship there were very few women in the business. It was a boys' club, and I wasn't invited. I bashed my way into that treehouse and have been a successful, working tattoo artist and shop owner for 19 years now. (subtract a couple of years from the studio-owner number, I was an apprentice first.)

I won! I roar. I dominate and own.

The only residue left now shows itself in an occasional dream, where I'm still little enough to be held by the hands of those who would treat me as a commodity. I awoke this morning, filthy from those hands.