A Couple Days Ago in Georgia, My Home State

This happened.

What is there to say about that in 2018, the heart of darkness that is America? It's not sufficient -- and even grotesque -- to note that there were counter-protestors that far outnumbered those raising their hands in a Nazi salute and burning swastikas. A white guy who blew away four black people in a Waffle House is caught alive and sits in a jail cell, and it isn't enough to note that an unarmed young black man wrestled the gun away from him, and the Man in Charge, who runs at the mouth otherwise, said nothing.  It isn't enough to lie in bed every morning and wonder whether the Man in Charge is still alive, hoping that he isn't, aware that this is happening, this seethe and boil, everywhere, even in my heart. This is happening. It's difficult to remember that beyond all duality and consciousness is Love.

My friend Rosemarie wrote it --wrest it -- best:

Meanwhile in America











#BlackLivesMatter
#Resist

I couldn't call it a day without replacing those raptor-headed women on the previous post with these lovely children

Home from camp for less than 24 hours, Oliver was already outside in our yard, watering the lemons and vegetables. We have a serious drought going on, if you hadn't heard, and we're obeying water restrictions. That's why our lawn looks so awful. I wish I could enlist someone to do a complete overhaul of our front and back yards -- make them drought resistant. Maybe we'll do it ourselves in a grand, homeschool-style effort this fall.

Henry and I went to see the movie Boyhood the other evening and then took a bunch of photos on the top of the Arclight Cinemas parking garage. The glorious sunset helped to mitigate the obliteration I felt watching the film. It was incredibly beautiful and interesting, and I haven't gotten around to writing a three-line movie review, but I will. Here's what the sky looked like:

And here's Henry's hand in the sky:

I'm going to miss those boys. They're leaving tomorrow for a trip to my parents' house in Atlanta and then onward to Hilton Head Island. We've been joking all night on when they might catch sight of a person carrying a gun -- legally -- in either state. Good Lord. I will join them for a few days next week, but this house is going to be quiiiiiiiiieeeeettttt, for sure.

Anthropocrow

American Crow by John James Audubon

Some days call for crows, their diabolical hop across the street, their strident harping at one another. The other day I could swear two of them, hanging at the end of the neighbor's driveway, were arguing. I thought I heard a derisory remark about the new Georgia gun law from the smart one, the one who sits up in the tree all day long, translating to the others. The others are always bewildered, screaming about this house or that, about the cat who looks more like a dog at the corner. The others are paranoid, feel threatened, exercise their liberties by stealing nuts from the old man in the gray house's tree, dash them onto the pavement, stoop down and pick at the pieces, like bits of brain. The smart one had enough at one point, it seemed to me. He flew down more like a bat out of hell, driving the others apart with his scream.

We the people

That's the last bit of sangria that I drank just up the street and around the corner from my house this evening. I sat at a large booth by myself and drank it, along with some mussels, french fries and a grilled artichoke whose leaves I smeared in aioli.

I wish you'd been there.

I've gone all day without sitting here. I've been looking at the jacaranda trees whose purple flowers hang in grape-like clusters. People love to complain about them -- their rotten smell, the mess they make, the sticky layer of them on the sidewalks -- but I think they're fine. I could drink that purple, roll in it naked and glorious. And no, that's not the sangria talking. It's just me, making purple prose.

Oliver and I are exploring the American Revolution, the Constitution of these United States, the amendments to the constitution, all that we the people. To tell you the truth, reviewing it all makes me a little sad. Such glorious ideals, such purple prose, such disconnection from what we have and know today. Money and influence, the triumph of oligarchy -- it seems, in many ways, that the whole democratic "experiment" has gone to shit. I don't even know how to explain these things to Oliver other than to convey that there's much for his generation to do. I have to bite my tongue not to say what I feel, which is more often than not, we're f**ked. 

I hesitated to do so (because it's so de rigeur to be tired of people's postings on social media), but I posted a link on Facebook to an article from the Washington Post that I read  -- an article where Mr. Martinez, the father of one of the victims of Sunday's murder spree in Santa Barbara, angrily denounced politicians and the NRA for their collusion in refusing to pass more stringent gun laws. Martinez was glorious in his grief and righteousness, and I hope that given his military service and criminal justice background, he might knock some sense into these craven people. I feel compelled to join him, to curse and rail at anyone, anyone, who claims owning guns like the ones used by this young man is part of the liberty we are entitled to as citizens of the United States. The misogyny, the mental health debate, the disaffection of our youth --yeah, these are all part of it, but this gun bullshit has got to stop. As Henry said when he heard that my home state of Georgia had passed laws allowing guns into most public places, Sometimes I hate this country, mom. We the people are stupid.

What are ya'll thinking about? Drinking? Posting? Fire them at me -- just not with guns.

Homeland Security Resolution, The Mad Hatter, Medical Marijuana, Guns, Vanity, Gay Teletubbies and Some Appropriate Cursing

So, it turns out that one of my wonderful readers and commenters works for Homeland Security, and she confessed to scrolling through my blog yesterday on her time off -- hence, the mystery is solved.

Dang nabbit. I was feeling all self-important.

Today, though, I am going to be photographed with Sophie for a newspaper article about medical marijuana in California. Late last night I confessed to another extreme parent who was on the East Coast (up with her child way, way past midnight) that I was terrified to be photographed lest I look bad or horrors upon horrors -- heavy. I hate that word, by the way, and have forced myself to say it. My friend S, despite the grueling nature of her day, her night, her life, actually, sent me the following photo of what I should wear:

That's called The Mad Hatter Costume. I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair. My friend also typed that she wished she had the wherewithal to be more publicly outrageous than she is, and that made me laugh hard as well. Given the circumstances, I wish that I were, too. The truth is that while I'm happy to be interviewed, happy to tell our story, fired up to advocate and help others who need this information, there's a certain part of me that's as pissed off as one can imagine -- or maybe not just pissed off but freaked out, overcome by absurdity. I'm angry that it took nineteen years to stop Sophie's seizures despite this plant being available -- with evidence that it might very well help. Let's call off the Jesus stuff and the miracles and the feeling all joyous and happy now that Sophie's seizures are reduced dramatically. I'm angry about the clusterfuckery that is the American healthcare system -- angry that people opposed reforming it, angry that it's still entirely inequitable, angry at the buffoons in my home state of Georgia who think it's oh so American to carry a concealed weapon around wherever you please but good golly miss molly not the evil weed! I'm angry that my friend from Wisconsin had to work her fanny off to get the almighty lawmakers to pass a bill -- last night! -- making it easier to get CBD for children like her daughter who has had seizures for a decade, part of her brain removed and countless meds poured down her throat yet my friends here in Los Angeles can suck on pot lollipops at hipster restaurants. And yes, I thinnk marijuana should be legal for even recreational use.  I'm angry that I'm nervous we might not have a steady supply of Charlotte's Web, that I'll have to grovel for it. I'm angry with Big Pharma, with The Man, with capitalism, with the Tea Bag Party and the damn libertarian ship it floated in on, with The Way Things Work. I'm angry with my anger. And I'm angry that seizures are so vicious, that they've damaged not only my daughter's brain and her quality of life but our family -- my sons, my husband, me.

Hell, I'm angry that I'm not still thin, too.






Well, damn this whole shebang. And my own vanity.

I'm wearing this:

This is what I told my children

when they glanced at the front of the paper this morning and asked, what happened here? And I told them that that man was executed in Georgia, the state in which I grew up, the state where their grandparents live and that many people, including the man himself, believed he was innocent and had been tried unjustly.

I told them that the Supreme Court decided that he should be killed, despite these claims of his innocence.

I told them that the state of Georgia killed him with lethal injection, a poison that is put in his veins, late at night. I told them that a person killed him, actually put the poison in the needle that went into his veins and killed him. I told them that was the job of that person, to kill him. I told them that while many people were upset over this, many people were glad.

I told them that the death penalty is something that our country, America, should be ashamed of having and that killing a person, no matter what they have done is wrong.

I told them that most countries in the world have thought long and hard about this issue because it's difficult to know what to do about people who break the law and do terrible things, but most countries have decided that it's wrong to kill in return and have gotten rid of the death penalty. I told that there are still millions of people in our country that believe the death penalty is justice, that torture is right and necessary, and I told them that killing and torturing our enemies is absolutely, unequivocally wrong.

I told them that I do not respect those people who believe otherwise about these particular things.

I told them that despite being ashamed that our country institutionalizes killing, I believe that eventually we will abolish the death penalty because it is the right thing and the right thing happens, eventually.

And then I sent them off to school.