Where I Am

from the movie Brazil

(on the phone with Medi-Cal trying to link Sophie's account with the New Insurance Plan)

Wrapping it up

There was this:

Then there was this:

And then this happened:

And this:

Oh, and this:

And still, this:

 Today there was this:

Riding with boys

Seal Beach, 2014

I barrelled down the 405 yesterday, heading south to Seal Beach for a day of lacrosse watching. The sky was so blue and so clear you could see the snow on the tops of distant mountains to the east, and the edge of the Pacific dropping off the globe to the west. I had three boys in my car on a Saturday morning -- Henry and two other players -- but no one was talking. I heard a grunt every now and then, though, and turned up the radio. When the phone rang, we all startled, and when Oliver's clear, still-high voice came over the Bluetooth, we winced at its brightness.

Mom?

Yes?

Where's the lemon costume?

Um. In the costume drawer?

No, it's not there.

In your closet?

No! It's not there! Where is it?

Well, I have no idea where it is, I said. You'll have to do your lemonade stand without it.

Great, he replied, and hung up.

Bruce Springsteen came on the radio for about two seconds before the phone rang again. This time it was The Husband.

Where's the lemon costume?

I have no idea, I said.

The Husband and The Big O are frightfully similar in temperament, and I imagined a flurry of feathers, chest-beating, sticks being thrown, the sky perhaps falling.

What the he ---

The phone went quiet and Bruce came back on. I thought about glue for a bit, how I am The Glue, and then I thought about Bruce Springsteen, his arms, and how he plays his guitar, that thing he does, and then I thought about surfers, how watching them makes me warm.




The night before I barrelled down the 405 and took a walk from the field to the ocean, climbed over a rise of sand into blue and then walked back and watched three hours of lacrosse, I had come home from a delightful dinner with three dear friends, my head buzzing just the tiniest bit from one very dirty martini and a bowl full of pasta, to a boy fight. Is there anything more aggravating or tedious than brothers bickering? Men fighting? I don't want this to be a lament against the male species, so let's make everyone an animal and do some anthropomorphizing. The small and stout chicken is incredibly industrious but also likes to peck. He pecks and he pecks and he pecks. He pecks on the ape and he pecks on the cheetah. The ape can't stand the pecking, would rather sit and chew on a blade of grass for the duration. He reaches his big, meaty paw out and swipes the chicken, and the chicken squawks far louder than is warranted and begins to peck and peck on the cheetah who is indolent for the most part and good-natured but at a certain number of pecks, he reaches his huge, lazy paw up and makes the chicken fly. There's a burst of feathers and chicken tears because the cheetah is so terribly advantaged and just so damn gorgeous but a mystery, a deep, primitive mystery. There's a wild animal keeper who happens to walk in, she radiates light, the animals are afraid of her, and they love her, too, neither animal nor human, perhaps a goddess, or maybe just glue, and she plucks a feather from her hair where it has landed after flying off the chicken who pecked on the ape and then on the cheetah. She twirls that feather in her hand and catches the cheetah's eye before he takes off with a lacrosse stick held high, and the ape? The ape with his heart of darkness chews his grass, unfathomable.

More Birthday Pics

(I think the last one looks like she's sick of the papparazzi -- )

Happy 19th Birthday, Sophie!

Our wishes came true.

Vesuvius in YOUR Home

I've told ya'll about the new e-book publisher, SheBooks, right? They'll be publishing a bit of my writing in the next few months, but right now, right this instant, they've published my dear friend and writer extraordinaire Brittany Tuttle's (of Vesuvius at Home fame) novella. It's called Stone and Spring, and I have already downloaded it on my Kindle and read about half of it last night before finally having to go to sleep Like everything Brittany writes, it's gorgeous, tight -- lyrical and intense. And like nothing she's ever written (that I've read) or that's been written, maybe, by anyone, it's at once deeply feminine, childlike and just this shy of brutal. I felt, reading the first half or so, like I was unwinding a spool of film -- black and white -- the images transparent and haunting, an undercurrent of violence. But, hey, I'm not even finished with the book. I can't wait for tonight when I'll climb into bed and finish it, come up for air.

Go over to Shebooks.net and order yourself a copy.








P.S. That film analogy was a careful one -- I can imagine some unwitting person reading it lightly and then realizing that they're holding the next great independent film.

I woke up this morning an adolescent, and it feels weird. I conjured groups of staring, pointing girls, a devastating joke from a boy or two, Augustinian self-recrimination, the vestige of Catholic guilt. You're a pirate's dream, he said. A sunken chest! The sheet made a hood over my red fingertips, my nose twitched. I put on the garb of The Cheerful Mother, coaxed my son out of bed, poured coffee and thought about Sophie's birthday tomorrow, the ENT visit today, the dinner later with two dear friends, the thirty-eight years that have passed since eighth grade, how deep the gully, the last nineteen, onward.

363 days and approximately 6 or so hours toward being nineteen years old

The Taming of the Shrew

This happened, yesterday:

And then this,

And finally, this:

They disappeared, which was excellent as I had driven them out of the house and off their electronics with shrewish shrieks. Stop fighting! Go outside! You mean to tell me that you can't figure out anything to do but play with that crap?

You fish-wives know the drill:

To the boys' credit, they picked up a ramp lying in an alley near our house, brought it home and rigged a go-kart on a skateboard. Henry amiably pushed Oliver who actually wore a helmet, and then -- lo and behold -- they put their two heads (knuckle generally comes to mind) and plotted out a real Go-Kart plan, one that will use their own money. Wheels are involved as is paint and wood and numerous trips to the newly opened OSH around the corner.

I feel triumphant. Less like the fishwife shrew and more like I've been tamed -- albeit Liz Taylor-style.

What I look like when I'm on hold with Anthem Blue Cross, part 45,234,965

Ya'll, the tentacles of the great and almighty Anthem Blue Cross are still wrapped around me. As some of you know, our relationship is rocky at best, a desolate wasteland, at worst. I have been trying to extricate Sophie from the grasp of the beast for nearly two months -- via telephone, regular mail and then certified mail. I resorted to calling that other beast -- The Bank -- to cancel automatic payments to Anthem. Still, the bills came and today's even had $50 of interest tacked on to the warning that coverage would be terminated after interest and premiums were paid.

What the hey?

The Anthem Computer Man led me through the labyrinthine halls and into a windowless room where I was told that my wait time would be twenty minutes and the sweet, sweet strains of Bach played. I started typing. An Anthem Human Man came on, lo and behold, after twelve minutes and spoke gently. I don't see any letter stating cancellation, he said. Of course you don't, I said good-humoredly. The Anthem Human Man made some gentle entreaty about HIPPO laws (and yes, I know they're not really hippo laws) and I explained that my daughter, the said Sophie, the MEMBER, was my severely disabled daughter and that I spoke for her as she couldn't speak. At all? the Anthem Man asked. That's right, I answered. You'll notice that all communication regarding her account has my name on it as well, I added.  He went to check the hippo pond, gentle strains of Bach came through the speaker, I tapped my red fingers, wondered how deep the mud was in the Anthem hippo pond and contemplated the universe.

The Anthem Computer Man is taking care of things right this very moment, as I type. Bach is still playing.

Thank you for your patience, he whispered in his reed-thin voice, and I slithered out from under his arm, the last sucker -- pop.

Skinny as a pencil

I need to get back to reading more intensely because it's only through reading that writing flies.

An article in a magazine on the plane about memoir and sex led to an afternoon in a hot apartment in Nashville, being pushed back onto the closet floor, the hems of my dresses brushing his head, my face. A bed is a boat, and we drifted. Another bed, white, in a bungalow on a Caribbean island, and when I opened my eyes, butterflies were a reproach to when I had closed them, angry. Asian whores on your day off. A drive-in movie theater in upstate New York showing a porn film, moans blasting out of speakers twisted. Mosquitoes ate us alive, laughing until we finally rolled up the window. We rolled up the windows, slapped the sluggish, blood splat on my thigh, your shin, screams (the ecstasy) muffled. At one point there were only windows to remember, the one at the end of a black leather couch where I knelt, naked: branches stripped bare under a lead sky tracing the panes. Oh, I forgot. Much earlier, a hotel room, and you, skinny as a pencil -- every part -- quick!  planes taking off, a piano, a telephone out of reach, a pulsating flag, stoned.

Enough, for now.

Birds fly high

Toss me one

This, too

George Mason University in Fairfax VA has a unique program called the Mason LIFE Program. The Mason LIFE Program is an innovative post-secondary program for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who desire a university experience in a supportive academic environment. Watch the video and share it!