Dysfunctional Resilience

 Last night I was reading in bed and I heard a crackling sound and then again a rustle and I thought it might be Sophie but I didn't feel like getting out of bed so I kept reading (Homeland Elegies) but that was it, the guilt was creeping in and then I heard coughing a tiny cough a choke, really, so I lay the book down and got out of bed and walked down the hall the short hall and into the darkness of the room where the lady lay the princess lay gurgling. I don't know how to write anymore and remember writing these tales before when I used commas and semi-colons and short muscular verbs. Now it's all run-ons and no punctuation and stream of thought because after nine months of being at home and teaching on Zoom and doing all the usual things with Sophie like marveling at her hair and feeling her grace and changing her diapers and managing her medication and arguing with her insurance company and paying Nice Neurologist to write me scrips and listen to my suggestions for what we should do next, well, there's no other way to get it all down. I flipped on the light and Sophie's lips were dark were they blue? was she breathing? had she had a seizure? where's the pulse-ox? Let's make a long story short (the requisite shall we?). Sophie is ok so no worries all is well thank god (where is god?) and I sat up with her all night, you see, because I knew in that moment that had I not gone into her room at that exact moment she might have died. It feels good to type that out here in the public space that is this old blog for you dear Reader some of you well over a decade. I just knew in my bones that this is how it will happen but that it did not happen not happen last night. I sat up all night and then I fell asleep and woke with a start at ten til nine and Sophie was still sleeping Sleeping Beauty right next to me her lips red red rosed. I had to teach at 9:30 on the Zoom and one of the Marias was coming at 9:00 so I got up from the bower where we lay and made coffee and opened the door to one of the Marias who would be taking over for me. Where was I? My friend Noa from days gone by calls this all of this dysfunctional resilience and I call it a tale, a happily ever after, thickets of thorns and brambles and words and thankfulness to be alive, even now with no punctuation.

We Can Do Hard Things, Sunday 3/29/20

Staying sane while quarantining

Thoughts in real time:

4:00 am
Should I call Sophie's neurologist tomorrow and ask him whether I might get a nebulizer and/or steroid inhaler, in case Sophie gets The Virus? I worry that Sophie will (1) not be treated in a hospital should things get bad or (2) she will be treated but I won't be able to be with her. Number 2 is as hideous as number 1 so many minutes of anxiety ensue, but I eventually go back to sleep.

9:00 am
I think I'll make a Dutch Baby and use apples in it. I make a Dutch Baby.

11:00 am
I think I'll send the recipe to Henry up in Spokane as he's feeling bored and lonely and probably terrified down deep, behind his near-Darwinian comments. I send the recipe and he texts back, Sweet.

11:15 am
The Virus doesn't care about our moods, about our cycling through anger, grief, terror, contentment, resignation, resolve, dark humor. The Virus just IS.

11:28 am
I forgot to tell Dear Readers to watch the documentary Crip Camp, pronto. Dear Readers, watch Crip Camp, pronto. It's fantastic. It's on Netflix. It's testament to people doing hard things -- hard, hard things for decades.

11:30 am
I suppose if I were into Twitter, I could do this there, but I prefer the blogging platform. I'll end here, and I'll see you later.

I won

Neglect

I've neglected what few readers I have left on the old blog and haven't visited my beloved blog friends, either. I don't know what's happening to me -- I just feel a bit dried up and depressed, I guess. Right now, though, I'm typing these words from my friend Sarah's apartment in...

LONDON!

I'm here visiting her family for a few days before traveling to ITALY to spend a few more with Henry. I haven't been to Europe in many, many years and just couldn't pass up a free airline ticket (based on about five million years of using a charge card), plus the chance to see a bit of England (I've never been!) and join my son in Rome and Florence, two of my favorite cities in the world. Speaking of sons, I just got back from visiting Oliver in Tucson, where he is thriving in his first year at the university. I was so happy to see him.

It's This Kid's 21st Birthday

A lot of you have been around, reading the old blog for over a decade, so this may come as a surprise that my Henry is 21 years old today! He tells me that he went out to lunch with his gorgeous Annika and had his first legal drink. He also brought home a bottle of gin so that we could make Negronis before we go out to dinner tonight to celebrate. Lest you think alcohol is all we're doing today, he also announced that he'll be heading to the nearest cannabis dispensary.

Just kidding.

WHO DO YOU THINK I AM?

`

I've said it each year, and I'll say it again: Henry has been the light of my life since the moment the doctor pulled all ten pounds of him out of me. He is sweet and smart and beautiful, inside and out, and I love him.

Happy Birthday, Henry!

Missing Teeth

Chocolate Flecked Yellow Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting

Out here in the gig economy, we're scrolling through online job sites, taking cake orders and editing jobs, and buying lottery tickets because you just never know. I do know there are Russian bots out there and enormous intrusions into my privacy and yours, so I probably deserve every bizarrely targeted ad I get, but I'm mostly intrigued and sometimes thrilled by the random shit that finds its way to me. I can't help thinking that something good and lucrative will surely land on my lap and all my troubles will be over. Nearly every day, I get a slew of requests in my email box to interview promising writers of upcoming books with titles like Finding Your Wow or The New Discipline: Building A Tiny Home for Time-Outs. Money is never mentioned, though, and I honestly can't bring myself to tell them that my audience, while faithful, is more devoted to learning about the intersection of politics, disability, parenting, poetry and mermaids than how to explore inflatable zones. I removed the link from inflatable-zone.com to ensure that you aren't projected into some kind of alternative universe, although there's a fair argument to be made that we're already living in one:

Hello Dear,

I am Ellen from inflatable-zone.com

We just found your articles on your blog were attractive. I think your style of writing is quite good and fit to introduce my company's products. We are looking forward to establishing a cooperative business partnership with you on the basis of equality, mutual benefit.

We would like to sincerely invite you to cooperate with us.

Back when many of us thought Bush was the worst President in all of history and couldn't understand why our fellow countrymen would vote for the guy they "most wanted to have a beer with" yet still felt somewhat connected to them as human beings (unlike today's clusterfuck of living amongst seeming aliens who voted for and still defend that POS running the kakistocracy), I got this request:

Dear Elizabeth,

Can I write an article for the a moon, worn as if it had been a shell? It would be regarding Danney Williams, the man who says he is the son of Bill Clinton. 

Let me know if you want to chat about this. 

Sincerely,

Reader, if there's one thing I know, it's that laughter is good for the soul, that having a strong and dogged sense of humor and absurdity will save you from all manner of insanity and despair.

Dear Poet / Writer,

Greetings! Hope this letter finds you in a cheerful mood !

As well known to the intellectual world The Home of Letters (India) or
HOLI is engaged in literary, publishing and socio-cultural activities for
the cultural uplift of man. It acts like a platform to exchange sublime
ideas between the poets, writers, scholars and the intellectuals of the
world through its various publications, books, anthologies etc. It is a
House which organises small seminars from time to time (depending upon
finance) where poets, writers, scholars and the intellectuals discuss
various educational, literary and socio-cultural topics. It also awards
individuals for their high level achievement in personal or professional
life / for outstanding accomplishments in the literary, intellectual or
academic realm / for outstanding contribution to the fields of art, culture,
education and society / for their commendable contribution in promoting
world peace and universal brotherhood with humanitarian ideologies. Since
1997 HOLI has been playing a very significant role in the above fields.

You will be pleased to know that we
would like to confer upon you “MATTHEW ARNOLD AWARD" for sweetness and
light in creative writing.

The multi-colour certificate (20 X 14 inches in size) is beautifully
laminated on
WOOD and photo-framed (for
hanging on wall / for
placing on table or shelf), which will be sent to you by Regd. Airmail.
Your
name will be published in one of our publications in future.

If you are interested to receive this WOOD-LAMINATED citation you may
send USD 150 (as
administrative, processing, packing, postal charges etc.).

*Mode of* Payment : Bank Wire
Transfer (please ask for our SWIFT bank details)

The universe is abundant, no?*


Are you still with me? Do you need to order a cake, maybe? I'm obviously not doing anything constructive today.

What about the title of this blog post? You know, Missing Teeth? Here's today's email, a request for me to interview a dentist acutely aware of the missing teeth problem in America:


Dr. Shamblott is available to discuss why there is a significant high percentage of American with missing teeth even when there are a variety of options to prevent tooth decay and to replace missing teeth.  If you’d like to schedule an interview with him, or having him write exclusive materials for your publication, please let me know, I’d be happy to coordinate all the details.

Reader, is it condescending to email this public relations firm back that my services as an editor might be a better idea, starting with the subject line?

Expert Discuss Missing Teeth in America

*No, I'm not really going to accept my Matthew Arnold award for sweetness and light by wiring $150 US dollars to The Home of Letters. Don't worry.

Happy 420 Day and Tales from the Vet

I've been talking about marijuana/cannabis for well over five years now, right here on the old a moon, worn as if it had been a shell. If you go over to the Looking for Something? search bar on the right-hand side of the blog and put in the words medical marijuana, cannabis, you'll pull up posts from 2008, even, when I first started reading about marijuana and pondered smoking it myself and blowing it in Sophie's face. There are posts documenting my walks up and down Melrose Avenue, looking for a pot doc to give me a medical marijuana card, posts documenting my resignation at being on a waiting list for Charlotte's Web, posts about my jubilation coming off the waiting list (one of the first 20 or so in California back in 2013), posts about our great gratitude for its success in giving Sophie the first real seizure relief in her life and, of course, numerous posts where I wrote -- or rather ranted -- against and about The Powers That Be in all the shapes they took, whether it was a doctor, a head of a non-profit foundation, a pharmaceutical company, a legislator -- even a relative or two -- who basically threw obstacles in our (and many other families') path.

Take a moment, if you have one, and put those words in the search bar just for me.

If you don't have a moment or are tired of me, please at least read the two links below, one a blog post from four years ago and the other an article that appeared in an investor paper this week.

Fight the Power.

GW Pharma Spikes on Likelihood FDA Will OK Cannabis-Based Med

I'm only saying this because it seems like not a single moment goes by in the day that I don't run across something cannabis/marijuana related, and it's all about the tide turning, the evolution of seemingly intractable folks in power, the swaying of public opinion and on and on and it just makes me feel all -- I don't know -- sad? Angry? Bitter?

Yesterday, I watched a bit of a live Facebook thing with old Bernie Sanders and young Cory Booker, touting some bill that is being introduced to Congress, and while I deeply admire Senator Booker for his progressive views, his eloquence and general decency,  I'm cognizant of his formidable obeisance to Big Pharma and it just makes me -- well -- sad. Angry. Bitter. I don't have anything to say about Senator Sanders, other than he appears to be still working doggedly for the people which is a good thing, but I'm tired of the dogged white man thing, and I'm not sorry about that, especially given the racial component of the whole marijuana legalization thing but that's a whole other story.

In the end, it's all about the money, isn't it?

What do I know? Not shit, apparently.

Scratch that whole post up there.

Read this article, now.

Let me tell you about what happened at the vet the other day when I brought our 14 year old poodle Valentine in for a general check-up. Valentine is still remarkably perky despite her many years, but she clearly suffers from arthritis and has lately also been needing to go outside about a million times a night and seems -- overall -- confused, as well as deaf as what do they say -- a post.

I am decidedly and unashamedly not a dog-lover, although I do have a great fondness for Valentine, and so after putting off the whole take her to a vet and spend about a gazillion dollars, I did bring her in. The vet said that she should probably go on an anti-inflammatory for her joints and that this might cause some side effects like diarrhea and vomiting and would cost about a million dollars, in addition to the $450 blood work and urinalysis that she'd already done and I felt like I might cry there in the smelly room with cat hair floating around and the kind vet assistant smiling benignly -- cry there not for the poor dog but for my old caregiver self who really just can't handle any more side effects of drugs so I said, brightly, What about CBD oil? It's a potent anti-inflammatory! And she said, Well, you know, it's a Schedule One narcotic, so I can't say anything about it, and we need more studies done, so I ran out of the room, pushing the benign assistant aside, dragging Valentine behind me on her purple leash out into the sparkling yellow Los Angeles light and just ahead of a dark cloud that opened up raining diarrhea and vomit all over the vet office.

Re-Cap

I sort of panicked when I logged in to the old blog and saw that I hadn't written a post in over a week. I don't know what's happening to me, but I'm finding it difficult to get the words down and out. I feel a sort of pressure to write well here -- to write something meaningful, to exercise the muscle for the offline writing, but that takes so much out of me. I used to come here and just gab on some days, and I kind of miss that. Do you? I feel that we have a whole lot of gab to deal with nearly every single moment in the clusterfuck that is our country right now. Why should I add to it?

Here's some gab: Henry was home for nearly a month and is already gone and back to college. It was wonderful to have him home and weird, to tell you the truth. It was like he never left. The fighting with his brother, the piles of clothes on his floor, the empty cereal bowls and crusty spoons left out, the boxers on the floor of the bathroom -- shall I go on? But left he did indeed -- back in August and now again, last week. I actually remember what that experience was like -- to leave for college and then to come home. To have your parents still -- your parents. I cringe at how I probably was insufferable then. Not that Henry was insufferable -- to the contrary. There's a certain amount of angst, though, that comes with the age. We live in weird times and seem so much closer to our children than we were with our own parents. At least I think.

In other news, I did a reading on Sunday with a couple of dear writer friends. We were part of Diane McDaniel's Backyard Literary Salon and read from works-in-progress. I had done a podcast with Diane a few months ago, and she invited the incomparable Chris Rice and Tanya Ward Goodman (who also did podcasts with Diane) to read, too, along with her own writing. We had a really great turn-out of about sixty people, got over our jitters and stood up there and rocked it. I think the others would agree that it was glorious. There's something awesome about expressing yourself in amazing company -- I felt galvanized to keep at it -- to finish up MGDB*.

I so rarely like to post photos of myself all alone, but the inimitable Carl Jackson, Bird Photographer Extraordinaire and love of my life (!) took these and I actually like them. I'm trying to shed some vanity in 2018 and get over my snaggle tooth, my chins and roundnesses. I'm trying to consume less and create more.

Hold me to it.

*My Goddamn Book

During my absence here on the old blog,

my parents were present for four days. We had a lovely time, catching up, visiting LACMA, the beach and just hanging out.  I had probably one of my top five star sightings at LACMA where we visited the Robert Mapplethorpe and Reigning Men exhibits. Look who was walking out of the Mapplethorpe:

I locked eyes with her and then proceeded to get all fluttery and goofy. She walked away, and I begged Oliver to give chase and take a photo. He came back with the proof. I then had to sit on a bench and explain to my parents who she was, what she did, why I was acting so goofy. It's Patti Smith, ya'll, looking exactly like Patti Smith.

I don't know where to start as far as catching up. At risk of too much shameless self-promotion, here's an interview I did with Amy Silverman on her wonderful blog Girl in a Party Hat. Amy is the writer who I am meeting with (or with whom I am meeting) to "engage in conversation" this Friday night at our local independent bookstore. She's written a wonderful memoir titled My Heart Can't Even Believe It. She's so generous to have promoted me on her blog by asking me some questions about blogging and my own writing.

Speaking of. My own writing. Lordy lord. I have got to get going doing it. I'm in a distracted slump. I've got short story ideas piling up and the manuscript that I worked on over the summer on my Hedgebrook residency is languishing, to say the least. The thing is I am distracted. Some of the distraction is heavenly and some is just plain laziness. My job at Marijuana.com has come to a grinding halt, too, so I really, really need to drum up some bizness. If you can think of anything, let me know.

Here are some photos that I took over the weekend. I'll be back with more words soon.

Unlace Yourself

to C

Who else out there lives in a house where just as the teakettle lets out its maniacal scream, the mistress is backing her car out of the driveway so one of the princes can depart for adventure, and the princess stirs in her sleep, perhaps seizing and prompting the other prince to wake and shout, "What is going on?"

What is going on?

Think renaissance. Think elegy. Think nineteen and ministers who write poetry.

Today is April 18, 2016 and I am off to my eighteenth and final annual Individualized Educational Plan meeting. I am contemplating a mimosa or Bloody Mary in a flask but will probably only bring donuts and a bit of extra resin so as to impress the crowd below with my dogged prowess. Teakettle, seizures, a drab table, a box of donuts, an array of pawns. Eighteen times.

Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glistering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

from John Donne's Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed

Take a Shower and Let Me Share Two Things

Whew. That was intense, no?

Last night, Oliver and I drove up the 101 in my new car to watch Henry play lacrosse. Did I mention that I have a new car? I traded in my Sexy White Mazda for a smaller, sportier Smokin' Hot Blue Mazda. It has a particularly good sound system that Oliver quite ably hooked our iPhones up to, and while we whiled (can I say that) in the tremendous traffic of the shitty, I demanded some Rolling Stones. Specifically Sweet Virginia, perhaps one of my favorite Stones hits. Did I mention that I love to sing anywhere on this little old blog? If not, I love to sing, and I really, really love to sing Sweet Virginia, right after that incredible plaintive harmonica turns into drums and then -- oh, Mick. Little did I know last night the storm that would be unleashed by Tina the Pharma Rep in the morning, but I think it might have been prescient that I belted out the lines with the profanity with especial vigor. I'm not talking about tryin' to stop the waves behind your eyeballs, either. After all, Oliver is nearly fifteen and needs to know that it's quite all right to scrape that shit right off your shoes.






Anywho.


Henry won the game and even scored a goal (he plays long stick defense and rarely gets the chance)! I acted like a woman possessed and even stomped my feet on the metal bleachers and screamed his name! I am so proud of him and the man he's becoming. Honestly, how lucky am I?

Here are the two things I wanted to share:

1. My second interview is up on marijuana.com. It's with my dear friend and cohort, Allison Ray Benavides. If I weren't differently inclined, I'd be the Alice to her Gertrude. Please check out the interview and leave a comment. Poke around and read some other  articles -- all written by a terrific bunch of people. Give that site some traffic so I can continue to earn my keep.
2. I am going to see Bruce Springsteen tonight. Yeah. How about that?

Hustling Suffragette

I watched the soon-to-be-released film Suffragette this morning with maybe three other women in a cozy screening room in Beverly Hills. Those seats were cream-colored leather, wide and leaned back. The movie was moving and beautiful and informative, even for someone like myself who knows quite a bit about the English suffragette movement. It made me cry, and it made me angry in the same way that a war movie does -- the stupidity of it all, the energy wasted on oppressing human beings.  It never ceases to amaze me -- the mediocrity of oppression -- how men went to such lengths to keep women subservient, stripping them of their property, their dignity and even their children. The actors Carey Mulligan, Brendan Gleeson, Helena Bonham Carter and Ann-Marie Duff were all wonderful, and Meryl Streep had an excellent cameo. At the end of the film, a very effective list of the dates of universal suffrage for different countries in the world scrolled across the screen. I won't give it away, but it's pretty damn shocking.

After the screening we drove over to the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. I pulled into the driveway, right behind a shiny black Bentley with a license plate that read HUSTLR. I wondered if Larry Flynt was still alive, and later -- much later, like 5 minutes ago -- I googled "Larry Flynt's car" and sure enough, that was it. I looked for a man in a wheelchair when I walked through, but no Larry.

The three other women and I took an elevator up to a suite of rooms filled with twenty-somethings, none of whom spoke to us or even batted an eye or looked up, to tell you the truth, from their phones and laptops. They were arrayed all over the suite of rooms at tables and desks, on small sofas and standing in windows. I guess it was all the publicity and marketing people for the movie -- the business apparatus. I passed a small bathroom with some high stools in front of mirrors and make-up spread out on a table. Again, no one really spoke with us, and everyone seemed to know what they were doing, although it didn't look like they were doing much. I'm sure they were organizing, and making calls and arranging press junkets -- perhaps even hustling? No pun intended.

Again, the business of movie-making -- something to mull over -- suites in the Four Seasons to entertain the press and to high tea some bloggers. It's hard for me to not feel there's something gross about it all.

Eventually, we were led to another and larger room with two long tables laden with high tea -- or at least high tea, Four Seasons Beverly Hills-style. I saw some cucumber tea sandwiches, but I also noticed some lobster salad on blinis that placed me square in Beverly Hills in the Four Seasons in 2015.  Back in the last century, I was High Tea Girl at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. I  was a real hustler, then, no pun intended, making literally tens of thousands of sandwiches, and scones and Devonshire cream and tiny little tarts and chocolates (yes, real chocolates where you temper the chocolate and pour it into thick, frosted French molds that I later tapped on the edge of the marble pastry station and they'd fall out, shiny and perfect). But I digress. I took a scone and some cream and some lemon curd, filled a glass with French bottled water and placed a lime wedge inside of it, using silver tongs. Then I sat down at a round table with four other women and waited for the director, the producer and the screenplay writer to come in for the "roundtable discussion."

They were all lovely, and our conversation was spirited and interesting and mostly about how little people really do know about the suffragette movement, how much young women, in particular, take for granted their relative freedoms and how harrowing the path to suffrage. The filmmakers were then hustled, no pun intended, out of the room for their next meeting, so I ambled back downstairs, through the lobby and gave my ticket to the valet who brought up my sexy White Mazda, into which I jumped and drove off back to my normal life -- which I vastly prefer.

I do recommend that you hustle to see Suffragette -- take every boy and girl and woman and man you know -- and then say a little prayer of thanksgiving for those women that went before you. Oh, and exercise your right to suffrage, when the time comes. Hustle. Vote.









(I was not paid to write this post, but I did get a free screening of the movie, as well as delightful treats!)

The Yellow Tree at Gratefulness

My monthly post at Gratefulness.org is up.

You can read it here.

Gratefulness.org

The first two of my three beloveds

I'm so excited to announce that I'll be contributing monthly to the wonderful organization and website, Gratefulness.org, and my first post is up live today. If you don't know this website, I hope you'll visit, look around and support them. Here's what they're all about:

Welcome to an online sanctuary where you can experience and share the transformative power of gratitude. Join a growing global community of people committed to making a difference with the gifts and opportunities of life. Open to the “great fullness” and potential of this moment – allow grateful living to bring gratitude to life…

I have been a subscriber to their Word of the Day and monthly newsletter for many years, never expecting that I might one day have the opportunity to give back in gratitude. The story of how I got involved with the organization is the subject of my first post, so click here to read it.  That's the main link and gives you an idea of what they do. If you scroll down, you'll see yours truly and my first post. 

How often does an opportunity to give back happen when you've needed yet also received so much? Thank you, Michael B. and Karen and Kristi and all the beautiful folks at Gratitude.org for giving me such a chance.

On On Being

I woke up yesterday morning to a long, kind email from a stranger who claimed to have read my writing on Krista Tippett's On Being website. I didn't know what she was talking about. Then I got a notice that someone had tweeted something I said, or should I say I got a tweet? I have a twitter account (is that how you say it?), but I have used it maybe four times. I have no idea what I'm doing reading or writing tweets. Or twittering. And then someone liked -- or is it favorited? -- that tweet. Or is it twitter? Oh, twat! In any case, I eventually made my way to the On Being site and saw that a post I wrote years ago was their featured blog post for the day and that they'd also posted many photos from my blog and the Extreme Parenting Video Project. My name was right on there, as was my picture and a little bio. A link to the ebook was there, too.

I'll make a long story short. I had no idea why all of this was published. I never received any word from the site that they were publishing my work, and here's the clincher: I have no memory of submitting anything to them. I wrote the editor and explained that while I was thrilled and honored to be featured, it felt weird to have not been contacted beforehand.

The internets are strange and wild, indeed.

The editor got back to me with an apology for their oversight in not contacting me. Evidently, I had submitted the piece, but I'm not sure when. Have I gone mad? Again, I have no recollection of doing so, and the piece was written in 2012, well before we embarked on the cannabis odyssey.

 The On Being website and recorded interviews are some of my favorite things generated online, and I have often felt that Krista Tippet might have the best job in the universe. So, wow. I'm honored and grateful to be included on the site.

You can read it here.

Feel free to tweet and twat and twank about it, too.

Correspondence

Good morning. I know you're all out there celebrating the birth of our Presidents, but I just wanted to tell you that I changed the formatting of my comment section to Embedding which means that I can reply to each of your comments, particularly when you have a question. This might mean that it's more difficult to comment, so please let me know if you're having trouble. I might have to switch back to the old way.

Oh, and please let me off the hook if I don't reply right away or at all. It'll never be personal (except if you're a troll or someone rude and Anonymous, as opposed to someone thoughtful and Anonymous) and only because I'm lame at it. I do think the comment thing should be a conversation, though, and that I should hold up my side of it. Wish me luck.

Don't you just love that Victorian photo above that I found on the internets? I sure do miss typewriters. I believe that blogging is a sort of conversation, and I look on it that way each day when I sit down to write. It's not a far stretch to imagine myself a Victorian woman of some privilege doing her correspondence each day. Thank you for your community and extra thanks for those of you who leave such thoughtful and interesting remarks. Honestly, I am just so darn grateful for all of you -- readers and commenters alike --

Peace, Anonymous

The positive thing about getting Anonymous comments that are -- let's say -- critical, is that they inspire some thought for me beyond caregiving and dildos and the weird Swiftian farce that is unfolding at Sony. Yesterday, a reader left a comment on my Oceanside Hustle post, suggesting in that ever so gentle tone of the righteously passive-aggressive that I should stop complaining about lacrosse and, rather, begin reveling in the blessing of having a son who can participate in sports.

Sigh.


Reader, I felt the ping of insult and the pang of hurt. I might have felt the teensiest bit righteous, myself. I left a quick and flippant lighten up reply, but I also recognized that queasy you are way too exposed kind of feeling, and then I did a little navel-gazing and figured the reason why I felt these pings and pangs is because there is always a modicum of truth to every bit of criticism that hurts us. I do complain a lot on a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, and I'm hard-pressed to feel grateful for anything on some days. I think a lot of bloggers would agree that complaining is easy to do and can be almost enjoyable, particularly if it's couched in humor or sarcasm. At risk of sounding defensive, my complaints about the trivial stuff in my life (the constant sports watching being the main one) are surely balanced by the obnoxious number of posts where I stand in awe of the two wildly accomplished, beautiful sons that grace my life and the profound and graceful presence of my amazing daughter, all three of whom are such individuals that I can't take any credit for their being other than the literal bones, tissue and flesh with which they're knit from my own and their father's bodies.

But maybe I can do better.

My gratitude for this good fortune overflows.  I'm also alive and dancing on this tired earth as fast and as best as I can.

Peace Anonymous. Now go get yourself a stiff drink and lighten up.

The Perks of Blogging and Living in Hollywood ***

So, if you blog regularly you might get some pretty weird marketing emails in your inbox. Evidently, many people live off of their blogs or at least collect tidy sums from them. In the early days, I responded to a few and got some pretty beautiful Le Creuset pots and pans in the most amazing turquoise. That was worth reviewing weird products like sweat wipes for your adolescent and inserting links to barstool companies. I used to put ads on my blog, too, through the nightmarish mom's blog metropolis, but let's face it -- they're obnoxious and made me feel ashamed to participate in the grosser elements of our culture. Let's not even talk about the phrase mommy blogger. My blog is named after a line in a Yeats' poem, for goodness sake, and I slapped that name on it over six years ago because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. It couldn't be any more ponderous or even, arguably, pretentious, but c'est la vie for a moon, worn as if it had been a shell. I removed all ads from my blog a long time ago, and I just like it so much better. All me, all the time -- like Faye up there, after her big win. I sure didn't think that I'd attract some of the things I happen to attract now. Today, I received -- for the second time -- an appeal that I think you might enjoy.


My name is XXXXXX, and I am a producer for a major network here in Los Angeles.  I saw that you ran the popular Elizabeth Aquino blog and I wanted to see if you or any of your friends would like to be a part of our new TV series. Please see the verbiage below:

NOW CASTING:

Are you and your family terrified of going to the doctor?

Are you afraid of what you’ll uncover?

Are you hiding symptoms from each other… and even yourself?

A MAJOR BROADCAST NETWORK and TWOFOUR AMERICA are now casting families for a radical experiment! This new and exciting show will help change your life and uncover all the things that might be lurking under the surface … ultimately improving your health, happiness, and your life forever - not just for yourself, but for the whole family.

We are looking for families in the greater Los Angeles area who are ready to undergo this transformative experience and face their doctor fears once and for all.

Families of all shapes and sizes are welcome, but families must include children and/or teens.

Good lord, ya'll. Should I respond? Maybe I'll do so in another post.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth, of the popular Elizabeth Aquino blog

*** In case you don't understand this post or are visiting for the first time, think of the word irony.

Merwin Like Merlin

Hours after I contemplated stopping this -- yes, this (writing) -- I read this:


I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't

you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write

which is part of this W.S. Merwin poem  and if I'm going to believe that there are no accidents, magical thinking, not Merwin but Merlin, I'm going to have to say that I don't need to be sure. Honestly, I don't need to be sure, so I'm going to continue to write, this. I took that photo of Sophie in the carwash today where I'd taken her to silence her, to take up time, to absolve the guilt of not doing enough, to diffuse the frustration I felt as she repetitively let her ankle collapse, her right ankle. It's a freaky move that she's done on and off for years and now it seems to always be on, and it makes her very unstable which makes me think I have to put the gd orthotics on her again. I put her in the car and we went to the carwash.

he suggested I pray to the Muse
get down on my knees and pray
right there in the corner and he
said he meant it literally

it was in the days before the beard
and the drink but he was deep
in tides of his own through which he sailed
chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop 

I took that picture -- my silly blue phone -- and then I puzzled over it as forced wind rushed over my car, drying the droplets, skittering them down the windshield, perfect tears that disappeared. I can't quite figure out the perspective in that random shot or what there is to focus on with rear-view mirrors and glass to look through, the street ahead, the brushes behind and Sophie looking down, chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop and my eye, blinded. That's it. I felt blinded today. Blinded and bored by story. My story. Sophie's seizures. Sophie's foot. I contemplated stopping it -- that story -- and doing nothing at all.

don't lose your arrogance yet he said
you can do that when you're older
lose it too soon and you may
merely replace it with vanity

I've mixed up the verses of the poem, the order, his order, Merwin's order (or Berryman's), and I'm not young, but I guess I'm going to have to get out of my own way, not stop.

Drought

In case you hadn't heard, California is in a very big drought. We're letting our grass go brown and dead because it's really almost sinful to continue to water it. Even with water restrictions in place, the sight of glossy green lawns makes my stomach turn, and I'm trying not to be moralistic about it. I think about it all day long, to tell you the truth, the drought and the brown lawn and maybe what I'll plant there or do to that space when my ship comes in -- or runs aground, I should say. Despite the drought, I took a shower today that was on the long side and very hot. I was hoping that it might help my cough. I know people don't believe in global warming, still, but maybe they will wake up when all the fruits and vegetables and nuts and grains that California provides to the world wither and dry up, too.

And speaking of heads up nether regions, there's a drought going on here in blog world, too, at least at this blog. I just don't have much to say. I dragged myself to a movie last night with Oliver, my friend and her son, but it was a very stupid football movie. I actually love a good football movie, even though I hate football, but this one was just dumb and sad all around. I can't even remember the name of it -- something about standing tall and proud? Football and the military -- two things that I just don't have the love gene for, I think.

Or maybe I'm just depressed, and if I pulled my own head out of the proverbial nether regions, I'd have felt moved by the story of how football orders some kids' lives who would otherwise have nothing.  Like Eeyore, though, my thoughts run more to the doleful, thinking that those kids are just pawns in a massive and gross money/education/bullshit machine that makes me despair.

A drought of the spirit.

Jeez. This is an unbalanced post, isn't it? How about a poem?


Take Love for Granted

Assume it's in the kitchen,
under the couch, high
in the pine tree out back,
behind the paint cans
in the garage. Don't try
proving your love
is bigger than the Grand
Canyon, the Milky Way,
the urban sprawl of L.A.
Take it for granted. Take it
out with the garbage. Bring
it in with the takeout. Take
it for a walk with the dog.
Wake it every day, say,
"Good morning." Then
make the coffee. Warm
the cups. Don't expect much
of the day. Be glad when
you make it back to bed.
Be glad he threw out that
box of old hats. Be glad
she leaves her shoes
in the hall. Snow will
come. Spring will show up.
Summer will be humid.
The leaves will fall
in the fall. That's more
than you need. We can
love anybody, even
everybody. But you
can love the silence,
sighing and saying to
yourself, "That' s her."
"That's him." Then to
each other, "I know!
Let's go out for breakfast!"

Jack Ridl
via The Writer's Almanac

Beach Glory

It was, indeed, another day in Paradise. Henry had a four-hour lacrosse camp, so Oliver, his friend Mac, Sophie and I packed up my sexy Mazda (not the red one below that I covet) and headed to the beach, just down the road from the high school where the lacrosse camp was held.

Reader, can you imagine growing up here? Sometimes I just can't believe that my children can say that they have, that they're actually from this beautiful place.

Sophie was in fine form all day, quite different from how she's been over the last couple of months. We were able to get a higher ratio Charlotte's Web, and while I don't want to jinx it, I think it's doing the trick. She did break out into raucous laughter a few times today which I suspect were a type seizure called gelastic, but she seemed very present, and her face didn't have that rictus grin of the gelastic seizure, so perhaps she actually found something very funny.

Who the heck knows?

Looking north toward Malibu:

The waves were easily six feet tall at points, and the riptides were evidently dangerous as those dreamy
red-shorted southern California beach guards were on alert the whole time. Oliver and Mac literally played for hours in the water while Sophie and I wandered up and down at the edge.

I hope your weekend was as glorious as mine. School will be in full swing starting tomorrow, and I have lots of work to do -- both paid and the usual hausfrau stuff. I want to finish the Anthony Doerr novel that I've been reading and finish up listening to the Elizabeth Gilbert one. I've also got several New Yorkers to catch up on and a host of blogs. All of it makes me happy.

A good friend sent me the following link about trolls and angry internet comments. I found it perfectly relevant to the kerfuffle here at a moon, worn as if it had been a shell. It's an interesting discussion about how communication is evolving with technology and is worthy of even more discussion.

Furious trolls are everywhere -- Even Internet Moms are angry and they hate you