The Queen of Hyperbole

In the Arms of

2012-02-05T06:06:00.000-05:00

You wake up again, heart-racing and panic-stricken, at 4:00 in the morning. The house, it's too hot, and the cats are all over you, and the husband, clearly unaware of your suffering, is snoring, as your father would say, to beat the band. Winter, even when it's not cold, even when there's no snow to shovel or ice to break your ankles, is hard. Your son, waking up every few nights with the urge to vomit, has been scaring you, even though the doctor, when you mentioned all of this during last week's check-up, didn't seem overly concerned. Let's face it, though -- lots of things scare you, and the mourning dove, cooing ridiculously and morosely from the pine tree, is obviously only out there to fuck with you. Because worry and stomach ache and insomnia and terror, all of these hurt most at 4 am. Every sound, at this hour, is the sound of something sinister, the ominous knocking at the door. Which is why, incidentally, people who don't drink coffee shouldn't drink coffee, and most especially not after 9 pm. Jesus, your thoughts, even without the added caffeine, are often too jagged, too thistle, too rough side of the sponge, and the last thing anyone needs from you is an extra burst of hysteria.

Anyway, the sun, moving silently and steadily toward the horizon, will be arriving now in under an hour, and your laptop's battery -- because of course it is -- is on the verge of dying. There are other things to say, you realize, but those things, for now, will have to wait. People, soon enough, will come calling for you, and you'll need to be attentive, focused, gentle, and warm. Real, honest-to-God morning is coming, so say good night to your thoughts, to the mourning dove, to the pine tree, and try, dear, to get some sleep.

Armor

2012-01-10T23:56:00.000-05:00

On New Year's Day, before you'd even had a chance to make a proper resolution, you took a walk with your family in the woods. Your mood, in the final days of the previous year, had been so sullen, so sad, that it was good to get outside with the people you love, even though you'd gotten outside with the people you love plenty of other times in recent days, and none of those outings, you were ashamed to admit to yourself, had brightened your outlook in the slightest. But this . . . this was a new year, full of new promise and new obligations, and as naive as you felt about buying into all of that out with the old, in with the new mumbo-jumbo, there you were, shimmying down a rocky hill toward the streambed, glowing with freshness and optimism.

There was on old house, most definitely haunted, looming at the top of the hill. Your daughter, terrified and resenting herself for her terror, grabbed at your hand. "Mom," she said breathlessly, pulling you with great speed away from the house and its vine-wrapped, crumbling, graffitied foundation, "what do you think happened to the people who lived there?" And the answer you gave her, which, of course, was pure and utter bullshit, was no doubt so much less scary than the truth.

Reflecting Pool

2011-12-30T09:30:00.000-05:00

At school, out of a pinecone, some Crisco, and a whole mess of seeds, he makes a little treat for the birds. He hangs it by the front door, where the birds, it turns out, are too spooked to get close enough to taste it, so I move it to the maple tree behind the house.

When, a few hours later, he asks about the pinecone, I direct him to its new spot in the maple tree. Only, to our surprise, it's no longer in the tree, but rather in the jaws of a fat, lucky squirrel.

"That squirrel! It's eating my pinecone!" he hollers. "And it's supposed to be for the birds!"

"Well, yeah," I say, trying to conceal my delight as the squirrel picks the pinecone up like a corncob, "but at least somebody's enjoying it."

"But it's not supposed to be for just anyone," he insists. "It's supposed to be for the birds."

Half-joking, and against my better judgment, I suggest that he chase after the squirrel. Which he does, with clumsy, righteous enthusiasm, without so much as putting on shoes.

"Wait!" I shout. "It's snowing out there!" But there's no stopping him, just as there's no stopping the squirrel.

Clearly frightened but undeterred, the squirrel -- hanging on like a champ to that pinecone -- makes a break for the pachysandra, and then for the way-back woods beyond.

He, still running, his face pink and angry, turns and trudges back to the house.

"That wasn't what was supposed to happen!" he growls, slumping against the kitchen door.

"I know," I say, "but look at it this way -- you made that treat to be enjoyed by the critters, and now a critter's enjoying it."

"But it's wrong," he hisses. "And the critters are bitches."

He holds his breath, waiting for my reaction, for consolation, as the snow, which has been falling for hours, fails to whiten the grass.

Silver and Gold

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas came, way before I was ready, and rushed out, in a storm of tissue paper and broken ornaments and cookie crumbs, every bit as boldly as it stomped in. And now the house, initially on the verge of wheeling away on roller skates and skateboards and electric scooters, is again just a regular, ordinary house, awaiting regular, ordinary afternoons, as the heat thumps on, as the cats sleep on sofas, as I sit, watching the children play and not fretting, because nothing desperately needs to get done. How strange, after weeks of unreasonable doubt and worry, after ages of insomnia and lists and confusion, it is to be waiting on this side of the window, to be thinking again of tomorrow and poetry. These winter nights, it's true, have been long and dark and taunting, but the mornings, now that I have the energy to greet them, are bright and crisp as apples.

Naturally, there can be no highs without lows. It's good to remember that, no matter how pink and lovely the sunrise, no matter how brittle and distant the moon.

Birthday Girl

2011-12-22T00:30:00.000-05:00

I decided, based on a half-baked dream I was having when I woke up in the middle of the night, that this time I would bring you seeds, because seeds, I figured, would draw birds and squirrels and other friendly critters, and then you, like some sort of tragic Snow White, could always have life upon your shoulders and would never, no matter how cold or rainy or windy or snowy, be lonely or sad or left-behind. Other years, as you may recall, I've brought sprigs of bamboo and Hershey Kisses, love notes and flowers and mementos and tears, but this year, I don't know, seeds just seemed right, and so I planned all day to stop somewhere to buy them, but then other stuff came up, and I didn't. And worse, as I hope you didn't notice, I didn't even go to your grave. Instead, I wrapped presents and baked cookies and stayed warm and dry, while you . . . Oh, God, this next part is unbearable . . . waited for me to come.

Here's the thing: I don't really believe that you're in that ground, and so thinking about you, which I did all day, should be enough to ease my guilt about not going. And I do feel all right, except when I picture -- I trust that you remember that my imagination's quite vivid -- you in your white quilted robe, your arms extended, and then I want to lie down on your grave for a month, and I want to pull you out, all the while praying and bargaining and reasoning and sobbing, so you can come to my house and dance with my children. Which -- I know; I can hear you laughing at the image -- wouldn't be, like, scary for them at all.

Your death, you should know, does not get easier. And I don't say that to make you feel sorry, but rather to let you know how much I miss you, how much I wish you were still here, how painful, each and every day, it is to watch life going on without you. To illustrate this point, I've held on to every toy you ever gave them, even the ones with missing pieces, because that's all there is, and there won't be any more, and I need for them to be able to hold onto something.

But, Jesus Christ, enough of my melancholy. Today is your birthday, and this should be -- seeds or no seeds -- a time of joy and celebration. You had a good life, as you told me that awful night in your basement, and you did everything you wanted to do. You loved fiercely and were fiercely loved; you were beautiful and bright and funny as hell. Every one of us, at that last mercury moment of death, should be as lucky as you were, lucky enough to say, despite everything, that life was fair and good.

Incidentally, no one knows better than you about my vices, about my tendencies toward melodrama, reverie, procrastination. I will be okay, as you know. And I promise to come, bearing seeds, to see you.

The North Pole

2011-12-18T08:11:00.003-05:00

It was a week of misunderstandings, of muddy boots, of insomnia and broken cabinets and lost envelopes and self-loathing. You, tender and anxious and socially awkward, always on the verge of saying something stupid, kept waiting for the desperately bad news, for the epiphany, but nothing ever came. You drove to school, the children arguing in the backseat; you cooked the half-hearted dinners, checked the homework, washed things. Each day brought clouds, stomachaches, red lights that refused to change, until you woke up, after a particularly terrible sleep, and felt happy. You saw your daughter, brushing her hair in front of the mirror by the stairs; you saw your son, dangling by his feet from the back of the sofa. And when your husband, reaching across his dinner for you, said, "This is why I married you," you knew what he meant. You reached back. And, though it was almost too warm and totally unexpected, it snowed.

Life Lesson

2011-11-03T23:57:00.004-04:00

When the hamster bit her, and not for the first time, she was disappointed. Not disappointed enough, naturally, to deprive it of food or to crush its little head between pained, bloodied fingers, but just bad enough, while reaching for a tissue, to keep the cage open a second longer than she should have and to feel the heat and sting of revenge. The hamster, for its part, returned to its carrot, returned to its mound of faded blue bedding and chew-blocks. And in the cool darkness of the room, wide-awake and unapologetic, it buried its seeds, it spun its wheel, it ate and shit and climbed and clawed, all teeth, all fur, all function.

Scripture

2011-10-28T07:14:00.007-04:00

"I'm glad I was born," he tells me, "because if I hadn't been born, I wouldn't have known you or mini-golf or dinosaurs, and I wouldn't have been able to hug you like this." And then he hugs me -- his heart, from running around the basement, like a hummingbird, like a hurricane. His huge feet against my feet; his baby teeth; his hair, in need of a trim, in his eyes.

"I don't want to die," he whispers, "because when I die, I won't be able to play any more video games." He looks, in spite of the sunshine, in spite of what he knows will be my answer, longingly at his DS. And then he resumes running around the living room.

He tells me, pulling up the blankets, that he wishes I were made of of gummy. "Because I want to eat you," he gushes, "and then you can come back to life, as a baby, and I can love you all over, from the very beginning." He pulls me to him, tighter and tighter.

On his wrist, fading, is a dinosaur tattoo. The yellow leaves outside his window are suggestive of sunshine, but the wind that's carrying them is so, so cold.

Chronometry

2011-10-19T23:09:00.008-04:00

I never set an alarm, not once, so someone always woke me up. Mostly it was my father, with a damp washcloth, with a hopeful come on, as the minutes ached by, as the morning grew brighter, as I lay in my coolness and comfort and comforter, not giving a fuck about anything other than the boy who was unwittingly killing me.

God, how brilliantly I mastered 16, with bong hits and Mono and poems about diners and the Garden of Eden and stars. I was better at 16 than I've ever been at anything, so good at sullenness and sassiness and brooding that, had I just had the power to stay 16 forever, who the hell knows what I could have done. Out all night, walking without a coat through the frozen alley, I was embers, I was endless, I was waging, with chapped hands and a broken Walkman, a bitter campaign against dawn and childhood. Fighting adulthood, given the cold, given how much I loved the killing-boy in his black henley, in his room above the health food store, seemed pointless. Who didn't want to grow up? Who didn't want, forever and ever, to kiss and to be kissed? I raged against my father, against the vice principal and mornings and lipgloss and white sneakers, until one morning I woke up and didn't feel angry, and I walked, with my clothes and pillows and pictures in boxes, out the front door of the only house I'd ever really known.

And then, though I was still a child, though I wasn't yet old enough to know better, there was you. You and your orange car and black jeans and cracked fingers, you and your promise of a brighter, better world. That first summer in your Hamilton apartment, drinking gin and listening to 45s, I couldn't tell how much you liked me, couldn't bring myself, at first, to admit how much I liked you. But, oh, how I liked you, and how I reveled in your golden California stories, in your dreams of mountains and Joshua trees. Yours was a world of promise and adventure, even in your old, hand-me-down Volvo, even in, God help us, Hamilton. When you said you'd take me places, I believed you. I believed you, and you did.

How vividly I remember sagebrush and coyotes, the Eiffel Tower, the Spanish-speaking kids at the base of the stairs. No matter how remote, on foggy, difficult mornings like these, that world of promise and adventure may seem, it's still out there, and anyway, even if it isn't, we're still here. We're still here, in spite of trials and chest pains and difficult mornings, in spite of time and all the odds stacked against us. We're still here, growing older and more entangled with every morning, with every battle, as the sun relentlessly rises and sets.

The Piano

2011-09-30T16:40:00.000-04:00

The first time she calls me, I am making dinner, and I say, with guilt, "I am waiting for the rice," and she continues playing without me.

We eat the dinner -- a lethargic concoction of rice, beans and tortillas -- and talk about the girls in her class. Some of the girls are wearing make-up, and some of the girls are playing soccer, and a lot of the girls, at any given moment, aren't talking to each other anymore.

I know she won't eat the rice. She never does. But she eats the other stuff, more or less without complaint, and drops her plate, with almost no protest, beside the colander in the sink.

When she calls me again, I am loading dishes, but I'm a reasonably good mother, so I go. I wipe my hands on my skirt, swoop the Polly Pockets out of the way as I cross through the living room, and settle in on the chair beside the piano.

She says, "It's kind of dark over here." And, without asking for help from me, she unplugs and moves the lamp to a closer table.

At first, she plays softly. Almost silently. Like fog. Like dawn. Like a spider. But, sensing my forward-lean, sensing my anticipation, she gathers speed and volume. She fumbles over several notes. Pauses. Starts over.

Her father, up from mucking around on the computer, appears at the door. Her brother, smelling of handsoap from washing his shark in the bathroom sink, lies down, still wet, with his shark on the floor.

The ants, seizing their chance, move in upon the abandoned dishes. The rain, sneaking in through cracks and windows, muddies the carpets and swells the doors. The insurance letter, regarding all the tests he had at the hospital, sits, unopened, on the dining room table.

Ants and rain and scary letters, be damned. Be damned, and let me listen to her, to this song, to this moment, with all its themes and variations, that never will be again.

Because Tomorrow's September

2011-08-31T06:57:00.003-04:00

Summer, I will miss you. I will miss you, but I'll be too busy to mourn, what with the lunches to pack and the subtraction to check and the toilets to clean when there's so much less time. I will listen each night as you fade away, as the crickets, growing tired, sing ever-more softly, as the neighborhood kids, now inside, doing homework, stop skating and singing from the street. The children, in an hour, will march off in new shoes to their first day of school, and the leaves, telling secrets, will begin to gather and spoon beneath the walnut tree. I can see it all happening, can see you receding, your hands in your pockets, but there isn't anything I can do. Soon you'll be gone, leaving your dust of frost and woodsmoke, but for now, for this minute, you're still here. Listen to the doves, to the whisper of the children still sleeping. Stay with me on the porch until we both have to go.

Barometer

2011-07-26T07:31:00.000-04:00

I heard about your death at the sunglass stand, that one right over the Delaware line, as I was searching for shades to replace the ones my daughter scratched up at the neighborhood pool. Every single pair was hideous beyond hideous -- so awful that I thought, seriously, I'd be better off just blocking the sun with my hands -- but I ended up buying an ugly pair anyway, because, as stupid as it might sound, I lost my sense of reason when I heard you were dead, and I walked up to the counter, glistening with shock and sunscreen, and paid for the glasses without even thinking. My children, they were cooing at Hermit crabs, while my husband was trying on Panama hats. Outside, the weather was turning -- though at that point, with the sky an even mix of clouds and sunshine, we couldn't tell just which way it would go -- and the air was hot and slathered with silver. By then, I guess, you'd been dead a few hours, your skin the cool white of the bathroom sink. Your life, after years of vomit and jeers and heartache and bruises, was over, and everyone, from your dingy side of the Atlantic to mine, had theories about just how much booze and smack it had taken to knock your big hair and your big voice down. But you, poor thing, you have no idea what happened, do you? You can still picture the yellow daisy wallpaper of your childhood kitchen, can still feel the tang of your first kiss. Now, you are nothing but glow and static, but once, when you woke up, you were something. You were. And when I look at my daughter now, singing to a song that she won't let me hear, I ache for her and for you and for me. Because it's all so hard, isn't it, no matter how many or how few people you let in.

After the sunglass stand, on the way to the ocean, I sat with my daughter in the backseat. I wore my new shades, my head against her shoulder. And it rained.

Stocks and Bonds

2011-07-08T12:05:00.005-04:00

Some mothers, of course, would spank you for this -- for the whining, for the bullshit, for the stomping and dragging and not getting dressed, and who could blame them, really, because your legs aren't broken, and you need to put on pants, whether or not you want to, and it's not okay to smash the Milky Ways at the check-out, no matter how awesome -- and I'll grant that it probably feels pretty awesome -- it may feel to crumple all that chocolate and nougat and wrapper in your hands. The thing is, I just don't believe in spanking, which is why I've never laid so much as a finger on your behind. But I'm sure you know where this is going -- how the other day, when you, out of anger, unbuckled your seatbelt, when you refused to sit down while the car was moving, I said, without fury, without remorse,"If you don't sit down, I'm going to spank you, because I just don't know what else to do." Naturally, you sat down, and naturally, I didn't do it, but I have to wonder now, if you hadn't sat down, if I'd have had the nerve to follow through. My guess is that I wouldn't have done it, that I would have screamed and cried, like I've done before, and that everyone, including your sister, who was hoping, I'm sure a little, that you would get spanked, would have gone home hot and disappointed. But, whatever, you finally sat down, and we came home and snuggled on the sofa. We had lemonade and chocolate chip cookies, and the rain held off until you were in bed.

Wonderland

2011-07-05T09:30:00.001-04:00

"We call this our wonderland," she gushes, leading you through the brambles and broken swingsets and bamboo of the way-back forest, guiding you slowly, because she recognizes that you're old and in flip-flops and are probably afraid. You don't want to tell her that you don't want to do this, that you just want to go back to the house and finish folding the laundry, because, my God, she's just told you that this is her wonderland, her paradise, and you'd have to be a pretty shitty mother to abandon this journey in favor of a basket full of underwear and T-shirts and beach towels. But, ow, there are thorns and jagged rocks and ticks and sticky mud, and you can't, despite her efforts to steer you through the most navigable parts of these woods, seem to keep up or even find your way back to the house. She sees your face, and she grabs your hand and whispers, "Mom, I'm sorry I dragged you back here." And when you grab her hand back, tighter, so much tighter, you feel guilty, yes, but mostly what you feel is wonder and anticipation for all of the brambles and bamboo and sticky mud she'll guide you through for the rest of your life.

The Bike Messenger

2011-06-28T09:00:00.000-04:00

Jeremy, the one you’ve been flirting with since Christmas, the one with the scar and the black licorice and the interest in your writing, asks you to come to his apartment. His wife, he tells you, is visiting her mother in Oklahoma, so come on over, he whispers, and let’s have a good time. You think of your husband, of his ironed work pants and bagged lunches, of the chip on his tooth and his cooking magazines, and feel withered and guilty and hunchbacked and lame. But, oh, those eyes like caves and tornadoes and fireflies and satellites. How, even at the risk of getting caught, even at the risk of unbuttoning too quickly or saying something awful, can you not go to him, with a bottle of wine and a change of panties in a duffle bag, to kiss him, to explore him, in the middle of the night? You’re considering all of this as the bus slows down, as the briefcases and crossed legs and umbrellas unfurl, as Wednesday creeps up, smooth as a button, and it’s time for you to cross the street and go to work.

At work, there are the letters and the orders; there is the ding of the elevator and the beep of the microwave. Geri, when she sees you, makes a snide remark about your being late, and then slithers to the back to her letters and her orders, to her beefed-up, better-paid version of the exact same boring shit you do. You arrange your day’s many important supplies – your stapler, your letter opener, and, of course, your headset – and wait for the phone to ring. But it doesn’t ring. Not for an hour, so you send about a million emails to Lisa, the girl who, before she told Geri to fuck herself, worked in accounts receivable. Every email, naturally, is about Geri – about her nasal voice and her stupid leather backpack and her asshole Nordic husband. Plus, you start to type, have you ever noticed how much she looks like Tattoo from Fantasy Island, but then you have to stop and frantically backspace, because, Jesus Christ, she’s suddenly standing right there. Her nasal voice, her stupid leather backpack. The initials of her asshole Nordic husband on a gold chain above her breasts.

For lunch, you treat yourself to a turkey and avocado at The House of the $2.50 Sandwich. You sit by the window and watch the rain beat against the mailboxes and the taxis and the men in loafers. You pick at your sandwich, your umbrella tucked firmly between your feet, and think about that time – oh, my God – that Rachel talked you into exploring the sewers. How you didn’t want to do it but she made it so easy, with her Mentos and her flashlight and the grate right behind the woodpile in the back of her yard. How she took you down there only to turn off the flashlight, to laugh at you when the thunder made you scream. How, as you scrambled, skinning your knees, back up the embankment, all you could picture was your mother in her nightgown, how all you could do was run, bleeding, pleading, toward the light.

***

When you get home, he is already on the sofa, watching a rerun of Gomer Pyle. “You know,” he begins, as if you’ve been home for hours, “this has got to be about the most fucked-up show ever on TV.” He’s trying, unsuccessfully, to open a jar of peanuts. You open the crock-pot and check on the roast.

***

On Saturday, as you’re drinking a vodka and tonic, you try to write a story about a girl who’s a bird. You’re drunk and it’s raining and you should feel inspired. But the story, goddammit, just will not come.

***

“Look a little less thrilled,” he hisses, unrolling the condom, so you do your best to look genuinely thrilled. You start by imagining the eyes, the scar, the smell of licorice. You finish by sucking him off.

***

Lisa calls, making the phone ring for the first time in hours. “But you haven’t emailed in weeks,” she protests. You tell her that Geri’s coming, that you have to go.

***

You know he’s there before the door even opens, before you even hear the ding. And yet when he steps out, expectant and dutiful in his messenger bag and poncho, you are still startled, still speechless, still stupid and awkward with rain-flattened hair. “Hey, pumpkin,” he says, unzipping the bag from beneath his poncho, “I have a little something for my girl, Geri.” And out comes the envelope, the important document from the engineer on Sansome Street, the invoice, the scar. Like always, he asks you about your writing, and like always, you tell him, inanely, that it’s coming along. Neither of you mentions the night before – how you saw him at Chino Burrito and he didn’t recognize you, how you painfully asked him if he had any black licorice, how he started to introduce you to his wife but couldn’t remember your name. Instead, you talk about the shitty weather, and about the fucking engineers on Sansome Street, as you dream about the back of his neck and Gomer Pyle and birds and a thousand other stories that you’ll never write.

Nursery

2011-06-23T07:48:00.005-04:00

Early in the morning, long before even your children are up, you drive to the house where you were raised to water your father's garden. You do this, in spite of the significant chance of rain, because you promised him, before he left for vacation, that you would, and because you like the idea, in the midst of this confusing time in your life, of listening to the robins, of smelling the wet soil, in the yard where you used to play as a child.

Before he left, he showed you how to connect the convoluted, tangled system of hoses, pointed to where he keeps the jugs and pots and watering cans. He promised that, if you brought the children, there'd be watermelon and snack cakes and access to the TV, but you didn't bring the children, and for that, ridiculously, you're feeling guilty. How much, based on the promise of snack cakes alone, they were looking forward to coming over, and still you left them, sleeping at home with their sleeping father, because you wanted to do this before they awoke. And now you are here, and the sky is the color of St. Joseph aspirin, and the water, leaking from your loose connection of the hoses, is dripping all over your feet. It is six in the morning, and, for the first time in as long as you can remember, you are standing completely alone. It feels good. It feels, you think, as you consider your childhood of mustard and tennis skirts and ribbons and marigolds, pretty much like being a kid, like waking up to a morning of wet grass and sunshine and endless possibilities.

After you're finished, after you've turned off the hoses and refilled the jugs and returned the water cans to their proper places, you unlock the door and head inside. You read your father's many notes, all of which are love messages to you and the children, none of which are reminders of something you may have forgotten to do. You bring in the mail, sit for a second in the kitchen. And then you grab a handful of snack cakes, lock the door, and head home.

Solstice

2011-06-21T07:06:00.005-04:00

She, sipping from an orange plastic cup of iced tea, spends most of the afternoon reading books by the window, while he, hiding among his stuffed snakes and blankets, waits for the chance to jump out on me. He seizes his chance as I tidy his closet, as I sort through sandals and an arm sling and a roll of tape and train tracks, and he scares me so much that I have to steady myself on his dresser, catching my breath, as we both laugh. After my scare, and after my recovery, he shows me the best features of his yellow RC car. He shows me its squealing wheels, its tiny red brake lights, and then he drives it, wheels squealing, down the flight of stairs.

For lunch, there are turkey sandwiches and watermelon and bright orange cheez balls. She doesn't want to come because she is so busy reading. He doesn't want to come because he has to wash his hands.

The storms, in their leather jackets, cruising and cussing, hang around the edge of town for hours. They spit and sputter, they glare and threaten, but they never follow through.

Late in the day, after the cat slips out to scale the tree, after we make plans to visit with friends and to drive to the beach and to pick up yet another book from the library, we walk to the piano lesson. She skips ahead, her flip-flops sliding through mowed grass and gravel, while he leans against me, holding my hand. The stream flickers. The sun labors. Through the screen door of the piano teacher's house, the first notes of the song that she, kicking off her flip-flops, will soon learn to play.

Lilies of the Valley

2011-06-16T16:58:00.010-04:00

This year, she said she didn't really want to go to your grave. She wasn't petulant about it -- she even added, "I mean, you know I loved her and all" -- but she made a reasonable point about the whole experience being boring, and I guess, even from my paneled basement of grief, I could kind of see her point. No eight-year-old girl, after all, is particularly adept at reflection or reverence, and this eight-year-old girl, who, at this moment, is wearing high-heels and whispering secrets to her yearbook, is as eight-year-old girl as eight-year-old girls come. She is lovely and vicious and long-legged and protective. She is fury; she is compliance; she is pierced ears and kittens and books on the floor. She is the girl that you loved, the girl you would still love, if you hadn't, five years ago today, disappeared into the June of my imagination, into an era that's hallowed and stomach ache and green. But you died, and we lived, and we are still living. We've gone to school and swatted off bees and eaten peaches. We've bought a house and driven to Maine and spilled yellow paint on the couch. We have lived, triumphantly catching colds and bravely shopping for groceries, while you've remained, summer after summer, irrefutably dead. Five years in, and, shit, I've abandoned all of my magical thinking. I've accepted that you're not coming back. There are no ghosts, and there is no hereafter. There will be no visions of you on my bedroom wall.

But this girl, out of love for me, says she loves you. There is everlasting beauty. There is hope.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

2011-04-04T07:04:00.004-04:00

The reason you stopped doing this, the reason you disappeared, was that you felt, painfully, as if you had nothing important to say and that everything you typed, no matter how little it had to do with you personally, was boring and self-indulgent beyond measure. Also, of course, there were the other reasons -- the struggle to stay awake past 10:00, the mild depression, the children, the inability, all of a sudden, to write in the first-person -- that prevented you from even trying. But now, all these months later, you're here again, and though you're still gripped with the fear of saying something stupid and shameful, you are trying because, goddammit, you have to. This book you've been wanting to work on for ages, these letters to loved ones, they're not going to write themselves. And you have to start somewhere, namely by getting off your ass and by noting the beauty of the cherry tree, by thinking in verse, by coming back to life. Spring is here, and now's as good a time as any. So wake up, put your nose to the grindstone and your toes in the grass, and see if you can keep your promise.

Forecast

2011-01-03T09:00:00.001-05:00

On New Year's Day, we take a walk. I wear my new coat, even though I don't need it, as we climb the hill between the houses and the office park, as we trace the light rail tracks back to the woods. It feels like a new year, sort of, because the weather is different and I've made a commitment, but the silver maple, still dying, remains in the yard, as the cat mews by the door at the crow and the cardinal. How I welcomed this new year -- playing a video game, with you sleeping on the couch beside me -- shouldn't matter and probably doesn't. Time passes, even when no one is paying attention, and the only moment of any significance is this moment now. So we walk, tracing the trails and trials of the suburbs, making resolutions that we likely won't keep. It is January. It is New Year's. Whatever you need to tell me, don't wait another day.

Gigantosaurus

2010-08-30T09:00:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow, I will send my boy off to kindergarten. I will walk him to his classroom, meet a few of his classmates, and sit, for a little while, in a tiny plastic chair. And I will not cry or reminisce about his birth or think about all the years of snuggling on the sofa. I will be strong. I will be stoic. I will accept that this -- his going off to kindergarten, his growing up faster than I can grasp -- is just part of nature, just part of what every mother must endure, just another of many changes. I will hold his hand. I will sit in a tiny chair. And I will smile as he finds another boy, as he makes silly faces to get the boy's attention, and as he sits, now in his own tiny chair, to talk to the boy about dinosaurs.

Fourteen

2010-07-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

You drew your best picture -- an imitation Monet, with boats -- while you waited for Jenny to finish hers. In your white skirt, the one that you hated, the one that you both worried and hoped you'd stain with blood, you were the odd girl, the pretty girl, the hunched girl, the good girl. No one would have suspected, or maybe even cared, that you pretended, after your parents were sleeping, to let Keith Murano in through your window each night. Nobody knew about the ribbons, about the river song that you wrote on that houseboat, about your fears of vomit and boys and fire and falling on ice. You spent the winter spiking fevers, calling Weather, avoiding stares and resenting and clinging to Jenny and your mom. And when summer came, and everyone left, and all you had was your dog and plums in the kitchen, you grew long and lonely as a rake. You looked in on your neighbors, on their pissing and cooking and closing curtains, as the summer droned, as the-girls-you sort-of-knew bought tampons and made collages, as you surrendered to long showers and pizza subs and the hum of the downstairs air conditioner. And then, because he said so, you were his girlfriend, because he'd seen you on your way to a family reunion, because he admired your sullenness and your pale green dress. And though you didn't want to, you went with him to the movies, where you spilled an extra-large soda in your purse. You remained his girlfriend, through mispronunciations and aborted outings, through strained exchanges and avoided kisses, for the better part of a week. Until, with a quick apology and a stammer, you told him -- over the phone -- that you wanted to break up. He, given your stiffness, your cool detachment, couldn't have been especially surprised. But the-girls-you-sort-of-knew, Christ, were a different story. They'd seen him on his skateboard, just as you had, and they couldn't comprehend, in light of his near-expert ollies, what the hell had come over you. They grilled you, blotting their glossy lips and batting their lashes, snapping their gum and adjusting their bra straps. They grilled you until they got bored with your lack of explanations, until -- let's be honest -- they got bored of you. And then, once again, it was you and the plums and the dog in the kitchen. The long showers, the pizza subs, the hum of the air conditioner. A spark, on the hottest day, on the backyard wires. The rippled moonlight on your neighbors' pool.

A Letter to You, On the Fourth Anniversary of Your Death

2010-06-16T02:34:00.004-04:00

Though I wasn't with you when it happened, it's true, I was there in the hours just before. I was there, in the wing chair right next to your bed, in the living room, in the room where you died. While Dad paced, not speaking, making sandwiches, while T.G. sat under the magnolia and smoked, I was there. I watched the blue-smocked hospice woman, her hands strong and kind and cool, as she sponge-bathed you; I watched the TV, the white walls, the morning light. The worst part, the part I tamped down, the part I squirmed away from and tried to erase, was that there were tears in your eyes. Strange tears, tears devoid of definition, tears that made me feel as if I'd lost you already.

I couldn't go, didn't want to leave you, but left you anyway. Left you to run back, in anguish, to my children, to feed them lunch and to lie with them on the sofa, to hold them, to ignore them, to spend two or three hours in the light and away.

And then Dad called, and I was in the street, at the door, in the hallway, and you were gone. Newly gone, with Dad and T.G. gasping, with Aretha Franklin playing, with the nurse on the phone and the house still and dim. I went to you, to what was left of you, and just couldn't believe it. You were dead, really dead, after such a short but horrible deterioration, with your hair gone and your eyes surprised and your fingers already losing their warmth. Whatever I said to you then, it is forgotten. Maybe you remember, and maybe you don't. Maybe you could see me, weeping at the realization that my children would forget you, and maybe you couldn't. Who's to say?

Anyway, in the hour after, everyone began arriving, and we all sat together, crying and laughing, as you lay dead in the middle of the room. No one took you away or hid you or even covered you, and so you were just there, this dead and remarkable and welcome presence, until, about 90 minutes later, the old couple showed up with the mini-van. And when they entered -- she in a sensible black skirt and heels; he in a brown suit, doing all the talking -- they got right to business, first shooing us, with a "this might be upsetting," from the room; then moving you, improbably, given their stature, from your bed; and then carrying you out, on a stretcher, to the van. And the van, I swear to God, was a Dodge Caravan. When I get to this part of the memory, to this last glimpse of you as a corporal being, I almost think that I made the Dodge Caravan up. But there it was, rusty-red and not even late-model, parked right in front of the house where you'd spent the last 29-and-a-half years.

The scene that unfolded next -- the kindly old couple, the opening and closing of the van, the van starting, the van accelerating, the van rolling up the street where I was raised -- made me want to lurch out into the universe, to wrap my arms around the planets, to stop something, to start something, to make something move. I wanted to follow you, to find you, to bring you back and keep you from being cremated, to keep you from being dead. But naturally, I didn't do any of that. What I did do, once I could move my legs again, was turn around and go back inside.

Graduation Day

2010-06-14T14:43:00.003-04:00

In the late afternoon, before I was sure he was coming, I smoked cigarettes on the couch with my mother. Salem Menthols, the kind that made my lungs sting, in the narrow June light of the living room. Already, of course, she knew he was cheating, knew, whether he showed up or not, that the end was only a matter of time. And she said so, as I defended him, as I longed for him, as I dug my angry toes into the sofa and willed him with all of my strength to come. And when he came, tall and sharp and crooked as a pine tree, I accepted everything he said. I accepted it because I was 18, because I loved him, and because I believed, just as I believed in the significance of graduation, that he, with his soft neck kisses and onion smells, with his lies and long fingers and red hair and angst, was what would root me to the rest of my life. And so, when the ceremony was over, after I'd hugged my mother and whispered I told you so, I left with him in his Volare. It was a perfect night, and it was still early. There were so many parties, it was hard to choose.

Deep Water

2010-06-07T10:48:00.005-04:00

When he tells you, just to push your buttons, that he won't go to swim lessons, that he won't, not because he's afraid, not even, exactly, because he doesn't want to, but only because he wants to piss you off, you tell yourself that you won't lose it, that you won't yell, that you won't even, because it's not worth it, goad him if he refuses to go. But your tone, it changes, and you drive to lessons anyway, knowing, as you pull into the parking lot, as you unload your purse and the towel and his swimsuit, that you're gearing up for a major scene. And the scene? Yes, it comes, but not in the way that either of you is expecting. When he still says no, kicking and slithering, you surprise you both by bursting into tears. By bursting into tears, in full view of this boy and Kids First Swim School and your rearview reflection and all the world. You lay your head on the steering wheel, the tears rolling down from behind your sunglasses, aware, in spite of how awful you feel at this sudden revelation, that your crying might just bring him around. And how do you answer when he whispers, slipping on his flip-flops, "Mom, why are you making that huh-ing sound?" How do you answer?

So much, and yet so little, matters. You get out of the car, the late spring sun on your shoulders, and walk hand-in-hand to the swim lesson.

Mystery Story

2010-06-02T00:51:00.006-04:00

It is dusk, the ice cream social is over, and she just wants to ride with the other girls. With the other girls, through the gravel and puddle, through the muck, through the last 10 minutes of the lipglossy twilight. At first, with relish, with laughter and clicking gears and glistening fenders, they welcome her into the street. Ride with us, they say. Come with us, they say. But then, without explanation, they reject her, and she bows toward me, her helmet in her hands. It's a long minute, an age of ache and mist and plotting, but they come back. Of course, they come back. And when they do, all smiles and bronzed legs and reconciliation, she goes with them, speeding up the street, racing into the cul-de-sac, not turning back and not noticing the geese that, in a messy but perfect V, are flying to wherever they go for the night.

Thirty-Eight

2010-05-12T11:47:00.002-04:00

We drank sangria, a pitcher full of sangria, that we made in the kitchen of the yellow house. The children, meanwhile, climbed the fence and bashed the soccer ball, trampling sunflowers, gobbling hot dogs, and growing, with each yelp from the backyard, another year older as I, unwrapping presents and blowing out candles, stayed, my eyes focused, exactly the same.

Thirty-eight, as convention goes, isn't a particularly significant birthday. I turned thirty in a swimming pool in Florida, with my daughter and a slice of key lime pie in my belly, a thousand stars and a 12 hour drive back home. Everything was lovely and deep and uncertain, from the palm trees to the ripple and tide of my belly, from the lizards to the lighthouse to the names that we chose. But now, at thirty-eight, I cling to the familiar; I'm more aware of debt and loss and my bones. My children, climbing and bashing and yelping in the backyard, are moving, steadily and certainly, away. My mother is gone, my eyesight is blurring, and this house, with its cracks and leaks and fissures, is, with every year, with every storm, wearing down.

This isn't regret. This isn't fear of getting older. What this is, more or less, is what it's always been.

I don't want to be lonely. I don't want you to leave me. Come inside now and hold my hand.

Breaking the Ice

2010-05-12T11:45:00.000-04:00

Whoa. It's been a while. This will do for now.

The Good Fight

2010-03-15T17:13:00.003-04:00

You were sad. You were angry. You were sick and sore and petrified. You'd spent the whole day trying to be brave, trying to be uplifting, but you'd failed, you'd failed so miserably, that when you found a pile of crayons on the living room floor, you stomped on them, God only knows why, until some of the badness -- not to mention some of the crayons -- went away. The children, not knowing that you were sad or angry or sick or scared, because you'd hidden it from them, were relentless. They wanted things -- cookies and attention and toys to be fixed -- and you provided these things, though not necessarily well, because you had to. You snapped, but not excessively, and then you ate a handful of mini graham crackers, because they were there, because you sort of wanted them, because you barely ate at the hospital while you were waiting for the news about your dad. Your dad. Oh, God, your dad. When the nurse came out and called your name, when she told you that he'd asked for his lovely daughter, the one in the green coat, you kept it together, you smiled and made your way to his side. And how good it was to see him, how glad you were to be reunited with his inappropriate jokes; his long hands, so much like yours; his eyes, that in spite of it all, still shined. You pat his stocking feet and said it would be okay. And then you came home, to the kids and to the crayons and to the graham crackers, to your anger and sickness and fear, until you heard your daughter, just an hour or so later, playing her first real song on the piano, and it was that melody, that perfect, innocent melody, that made you finally lean against the door frame and cry.

Hymn

2010-03-12T15:42:00.006-05:00

Who is this boy, this wild, torn-pants boy, who comes home from school, who begs me to chase him, who climbs into bed at 3:30 in the afternoon, beckoning me to him, whispering into my sweater, until he, his head on my head, falls asleep? Who is this boy, this shaggy-haired boy, who can spend an entire morning putting his pants on; who can walk up to strangers -- total strangers -- and, with me watching, make them his friends; who can contemplate plumbing, the plates of the stegosaurus and then, with pale eyes, with sadness, my death? Who is this boy, and how did I, in my laziness, in my shyness, in my sarcasm and terror and disbelief, make him, raise him, realize him?

His breath, when I lie beside him, is small, steady, warm. The rain falls. The snow melts. I get up to close the door that I, in my haste to greet him, to hug him, neglected to close before.

Denial

2010-02-22T11:54:00.003-05:00

The first time, when I was still stupid enough to half-believe that you were going to be okay, you left me a message on my answering machine. I'd spent the morning at the library, chasing the baby around the stacks, around the miniature sliding board, and when I got home, exhausted, after carrying the baby in from the car, I listened to your message, to your monotone, to your declaration of tumors and radiology and probable surgery. I listened, and then, once I'd stopped shaking, I began to pick up the blocks from the living room floor. They were everywhere -- broken buildings and smashed bridges, flattened dams and castles and cottages and gates; all over, these vestiges of early morning play, of the baby's clumsy entrances and exits. The blocks, which I'd bought the day before -- an impromptu gift, to take my mind off the fact that I was waiting for news -- were new and shiny, without the crayon, bite and drag marks that they'd take on later. They came in a little, wooden wagon, with a string, and as I put them back, I found that I couldn't make them all fit, that some of them, bizarrely, didn't seem to belong, but I kept trying, I kept pushing, I kept arranging and rearranging because I had to, because I had to make them fit.

Summer Valentine

2010-02-15T12:53:00.003-05:00

We spent much of that summer between the lilies in our backyard, in an inflatable pool that shimmered with moonlight and coolness. In the basement, the old, blue basement, where the walls crumbled when you slammed the back door, we made music. Stupid, wonderful, rambling music that made the baby kick when I stood to sing. You took pictures, so many pictures, of the lilies and my belly and the sunset and the cats. This one, of us in the thick of July, before we bought the air conditioner or the crib or the new, rip-free sofa, you programmed the camera to shoot. And look at us -- barely dressed, expectant, in a house and on a couch that we don't own anymore. Five years married. Hot. Uncertain. With a cat and a can of soda and years of joy and agony before us.

Anticipation

2010-01-25T10:02:00.003-05:00

I was awake, I was anxious, I was elated, I was distracted. The leaves, they whipped up in a C behind the house, and the river, white with fury, brown with pine cones and mud and fern and dog shit, climbed up, breathing heavily, onto the bank. An hour earlier, I had sent the kids off to school. The Girl, giddy and flushed from the weather, ran in circles around the street. The Boy, his coat unbuttoned, holding his lunchbox, sat in the blue car, his face blurred behind the window. This is the morning, I told myself when they were gone, that I'm finally going to do it. The rain gurgled. The wind stilled. I couldn't remember what it was.

Sububria

2009-10-28T09:08:00.004-04:00

She gets up late, but still before the children are up, and takes a long, long, hot shower. She rolls on her lipstick, dries her feet on the bathmat, and adds her towel to the heap on the floor. When the children get up, she burns their waffles and packs their lunches of organic carrots, Styrofoam and lard. She turns on the TV, at the children's request, and lets them watch whatever they want. This morning, it is Judge Judy -- Judge Judy, a Guatemalan woman and a pitbull. A pitbull that looks just like their Iggy, their Iggy that, in her lateness, she's forgotten to feed. Pulling up the shade, she looks out at Iggy, at Iggy lying against the chain link fence in the rain. "Iggy!" she calls, tapping her watch for emphasis, "Iggy, don't you know what time it is?" "Yes, dear," he calls back, lamely wagging his tail. Slowly, he gets up and starts the car.

The Dinner Party

2009-10-27T16:00:00.000-04:00

It was her idea, to invite them for dinner. Partly, yes, because she liked them, because she felt that they shared her ideals and worldview and because her daughter liked their children, but mostly because she wanted a little cacophony in the house, something to break up the static of typing and of napping and of the dog scratching at the backdoor for his dinner. Because they were late -- they were always late -- she started drinking early. Too early, she realized, when she found herself, at 5:30, steadying herself on the loveseat and wondering why he hadn't come downstairs. And why hadn't he? Was he still in the shower? Was he playing with their daughter, who, she now realized, was also nowhere to be found? Was he picking out the perfect dinner CD? Combing his hair? Sleeping? She had to let this go, to let everything go, because the room, holy shit, was spinning, and there they were, there they were at the door.

Letter from the Edge of September

2009-09-28T09:25:00.000-04:00

I've neglected you, every one of you, and I feel just awful about it. And not only because I've kept you out of the loop, because I've kept you from my minutia and my secrets, but because I haven't returned your calls or your emails, because I've forgotten your birthday, because I've opened box after box and letter after letter without ever sending a box or a letter to you. Know that I love you. Know that I miss you. Know that I'm going to try to be a better correspondent, lover, parent and friend. You've been hurting, joyous, scared and angry, and I--washing my hair, filling out forms, writing best-of lists of playgrounds and pizza parlors--have been a million miles away. What happened, anyway, to the summer? What happened to the year? What happened to the marble set and the bathroom wallpaper and the kindergartner and the walnut tree? I wake up, scared, early, early in the morning, visions of cancer and wet shingles and bank statements in my head. I listen to the crickets, to the train and to the trash truck, and worry about the myriad ways that I've failed you, about the myriad ways that I've failed myself.

And yet, in the midst of all of this doubt and worry, there is euphoria, there is elation, there are children who love me. The Girl, on her birthday, gets her ears pierced. The Boy, pedaling in a crooked streak out of the driveway, learns to ride his bike on two wheels. Life, with melodrama, with mediocrity, goes on. Which is why I've stayed away. Which is why I've returned.

The Third Day of School

2009-09-03T01:32:00.003-04:00

The girl, waiting at the busstop, shields her eyes with one hand. She's overdressed, thanks, in part, to her mother's fussing, and wants to shed her jacket, but leaves it on for fear that removing it will make her miss the bus. The other children, some overdressed, some shivering in tank tops and last autumn's too-short dresses, are singing loudly at each passing car. Ordinarily, she would join them, but something this morning, maybe the crowd, maybe the brightness, catches her, and she calls to her mother, "Mom. Mom." And her mother comes.

Walking Tour

2009-08-31T18:00:00.000-04:00

Yet they fared better than some of the others. Some of the others, so depleted by sun and grits and Spanish moss and iron porches, collapsed before they were even home.

Atlantic

2009-08-31T15:00:00.000-04:00

"Sometimes," she confesses to the breakers, "they all just drive me so goddamn crazy."

Eulogy

2009-08-31T11:00:00.002-04:00

She never learned how to ride a bike. Which was why, maybe, when they came to this resting point, he said, "she would have gotten a kick out of this."

Apocalypse

2009-08-31T07:00:00.001-04:00

She panicked and lifted her feet off the pedals. The others, riding ahead, didn't notice. Mud on her leg and the rising tide. Pelicans. Mosquitoes. Fiddler crabs.

Banana Spider

2009-08-30T18:00:00.001-04:00

Once he spotted it, about ten or so minutes into the meal, there was no getting him to sit down. He jumped around, his mouth ringed with mac-n-cheese and maraschino cherries, tugging at me, tugging at the waitress, imploring everyone, even his terrified sister, to come see this, come see this, come on, come on.

Bull

2009-08-30T15:00:00.000-04:00

"Be careful," she said, "it might be hot."

Border Crossing

2009-08-30T11:00:00.005-04:00

Exterior/
Interior

Diner

2009-08-30T04:37:00.004-04:00

Out there, where the air, at 8 in the morning, was already hot, it smelled of gasoline. In there, it smelled of syrup and dry, yellow eggs, of pink soap and cheap, frozen orange juice. They were glad, every one of them, to be out of the car, to be away from the demands of documents and tumors and cat litter and packed lunches and lawnmowers. There were long hours ahead but also palm trees. There was the matter of the bill, and other bills to follow, but none of that, then, made any difference.

Some Like It Hot . . .

2009-08-12T10:52:00.002-04:00

Though probably not this hot.

The Ache of Childhood

2009-07-13T07:00:00.004-04:00

The man in his purple car and the woman in her blue car drive along the detour road. The main road, the one they usually take home from the parade route, is closed because of the broken bridge, and the man in his purple car, uneasy about this unexpected change in routine, slows so that the woman in her blue car is forced to slow, too. The girl, recognizing that the man in his purple car and the woman in her blue car are neighbors, waves. She leans against the swing set, her hand opening and closing, trying, though not hard, to get their attention. The man in his purple car and the woman in her blue car pass her without noticing. As they pass, she can see the streamers on their bumpers, the mardi gras beads around their necks. She breaks away from the swing set, attacks the jungle gym. Today has been a difficult day.

Us with Echinacea

2009-07-10T00:40:00.002-04:00

Summer, you are killing me. You are too cool, too swift, too wrapped up, already, in cicada and crape myrtle; before I know it, you will be gone.

This Is Where You Tell Me in the Comments, "What Are You Talking About? You Look Great!"

2009-07-08T08:23:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, while waiting for The Boy to finish up in the pool bathroom, I made a chance and unpleasant discovery: I have motherfucking varicose veins.

Not a ton of them--I mean, my legs aren't like a map of the Mississippi Delta region or anything--but enough that I was a little startled, a little appalled, and more than just a little reminded of the fact that I'm not a sprightly teen anymore. (A sprightly teen? Jesus, from what planet am I writing this? First off all, is ANY teen sprightly; do sprightly teens even fucking exist? And if they do, duh, don't I have any memory of my teen years? The years that I spent writing none-too-subtle fuck poetry while polishing off the Chex Mix at 4 in the morning? Sprightly? Oh, my GOD, that is fucking hilarious!) And once I got over being startled, appalled and reminded of the fact that I'm creeping toward antiquity, I wondered, now examining every part of my legs like a goddamn psychopath (and seriously, how long does it take for that kid to finish up in the bathroom?), how the hell I could have missed these little purple signs of my advancing decrepitude. And sure, the veins are on the backs of my legs, which admittedly is not an area I poke at that often, but still . . . it seems as if something this monumental and indicative of my status as an historical landmark should not have completely escaped my notice. And then there's this: I'm guessing that it didn't escape your notice, as you've been back there, right behind me since God knows when, checking out my freaky old lady legs. Haven't you? And all this time, the idiot I am, I thought you were eying up my ass. As if! You were just thinking, Jesus, doesn't she realize that they make some decent-looking swimsuits with skirts? Weren't you? Either that, or I'm just being really fucking vain (I know! Aren't homophones the fucking awesomest?), and you either never saw the offending little buggers or saw them and didn't give a shit. Whatever the deal, you're going to notice them now, though, aren't you, and I'm going to have to wear nothing but long, long pants.

Fucking varicose veins. Jesus. As if the diverticulosis weren't enough.

Aging, I have a feeling that you and I aren't going to be the best of friends. Although, given the alternative, I think I'll find a way to kiss your ass.

Dirty Grief

2009-07-06T17:09:00.003-04:00

I've been missing my mother.

This should come as no surprise, especially to anyone who knows how close we were, but I guess I was delusional enough to think that time and circumstance and acceptance of her passing would somehow, over time, lessen the pain. But things haven't really worked out that way. And if anything, actually, I think I've longed for her more over the past few weeks than I have since the first days of her absence. June 16 was the third anniversary of her death, and the children and I drove out to where her grave is. We didn't take anything, in part because I was too sad and disorganized to remember to pick flowers or to get the kids to make drawings, but we stood there, talking about her, imagining what she might be doing if she were still around. The Boy, of course, doesn't remember her at all--he was only 18 months old when she died--and The Girl's memories, made so early in her life, are, bit by bit, fading away. But we talked about her, anyway, and I told them how she used to make me laugh. How she sat on the end of my bed, whenever I was sad or sick or lonely; how she always knew how to make me feel better. The kids ran around and around in the grass, eyeing up the Hershey Kiss that my father, in his great sadness, had left on my mother's grave earlier that morning, and I felt it--the tight, irritated, impatient feeling, the feeling that makes me want to yell, "Cut it the fuck out," the feeling that makes me wonder, constantly, if I'll ever be the mother that mine was.

Rockets

2009-06-29T00:29:00.003-04:00

The fireworks, they make me cry. And not only because they remind me of you, of your cool summer smell of bangles and hairspray, of the fact that it's now been three long years since you've gone, but because all of this--the house, just across the tracks, that you never saw; the children, long-legged and sweaty and heavy and exhausted; the apostrophe moon--is so beautiful, so temporal, that I want to pull it up against me, pull it closer, as the sky blanches and blushes and swells, as the crowd howls, as the ashes, caught on the lisp of the breeze, fall in my hair and on you and on everything.

The Post Just After the One That Was Just Before

2009-06-26T07:10:00.006-04:00

So yesterday's post wasn't so great, was it? And today's doesn't promise to be much better, what with its grab-baggy nature and all. But will imminent shittiness prevent me from hitting publish? You bet it won't!

And this post--which was most assuredly going to be shitty already--just got shittier, if you can believe it, because fucking Blogger won't let me fucking upload the fucking pictures I was going to fucking upload. What the fuck, Blogger? Everybody keeps asking about the kids, about how big they're growing and whatever, and I can't provide any proof of their bigness, because fucking Blogger won't let me fucking upload the fucking pictures I was going to fucking upload. Like, ever. Like, I haven't been able to upload pictures for weeks. But you know what? I'm not going to let some stupid technical problem turn into a throbbing ache in my ass. Oh, no. If I can't share my photos, goddammit, then I'll just describe them. Because surely, that'll be just as good!

Ready?

Image 1: The Girl. In her green monkey nightgown. Reading, with her bangs in her eyes, last month's issue of Sparkle World. Her fingers in her mouth. A pile of books on the couch beside her. One painted fingernail. The late morning sun.

Image 2: The Boy. Golden, sleepy, in the sand.

Image 3: The groundhog, approaching. The pink soccer ball.

Almost as good as seeing 'em, huh?

And now, since I promised a grab-bag or something, is a random list of crap I've been thinking about:

1. Michael Jackson's death

2. Marriage

3. God

4. How visiting the east side of town (and yes, I know this sounds classist) never fails to make me feel like a better parent

5. Twinkie containers

6. 99 cent blueberries

7. Groundhogs

8. The fact that routinely waking up before six in the morning has actually resulted in my feeling less tired

9. Mortality

10. Hanging baskets

11. Why I wish I were a better, more consistent friend

12. Poop

13. Fried chicken

14. Fireworks

Pretty excellent reading, huh? And thanks to Blogger's inability to let me fucking upload the fucking pictures I want to fucking upload, you can count on plenty more of these kinds of posts to come.

Yay! I know you'll be back soon! And in the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

The Post Just Before the One That Is Just After

2009-06-24T07:51:00.007-04:00

This kind of post--the kind in which you're forced to explain . . . ammm . . . where you've been for the last two-or-so weeks--is always the hardest, most awful to write. Especially when . . . amm . . . you haven't been anywhere for the last two weeks; you've just been avoiding, if we're being honest, writing any post at all. And why have you been avoiding writing any post at all? Well, it's sort of complicated, but what it mostly boils down to is that you've been feeling tired and boring, and that you half-think that nobody--and most of all you--could possibly have any interest in reading about the minutia of your life. Which, in a way, is an odd revelation, given how much you enjoy reading other people's blogs. But then, the blogs that you most enjoy reading do seem, after all, to contain more than minutia. More than mundane accounts of why their writers haven't been writing. More than blah-dee-blah-dee-blah-dee-dee-blah. Anyway . . . I'm back!!! And aren't you glad?

Oh, the other thing? It's summer, you know, and I've really been enjoying hanging out with the kids. Every day, whether we've been lazing 'round the house in our pajamas or riding the MARC train down to D.C., has been fun and deliciously summery. Today we're heading to a local beach with some friends, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Because summer, unlike this post, FUCKING RULES.

You know what else is gonna FUCKING RULE? Tomorrow's post. I don't mean to be self-aggrandizing, but seriously, if tomorrow's post doesn't knock your fucking socks off, then there's something horribly the matter with you.

(And no, I haven't written tomorrow's post yet. But I just know that it's gonna FUCKING RULE.)

You know, Blog, I've kind of missed you. Maybe we belong together, after all.

Weepily Wonderful

2009-06-12T07:50:00.004-04:00

Today, then, is The Girl's last day of school. And to say that I've gotten weirdly emotional about this would be more than just a little understatement. I don't know what it is--perhaps the fact that she's growing up so fast; perhaps the fact that I have my period--but I've been a bit of a weepy mess ever since her graduation on Wednesday. And the graduation . . . I've never been a huge fan of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," mainly because of its ubiquity, but you get a stageful of kindergartners, all of 'em singing and doing the words in sign language, and oooooh boy, the song takes on a different meaning. Because--sob--it is a wonderful world . . . one that I hope remains just as blessed and blue-skyed for every one of her days.

* Pictures, for whatever reason, refuse to load right now. I'll be back with photos later.

At the Fireworks Stand in Western Missouri

2009-06-04T15:41:00.004-04:00

When you go back to the truck, to roll up the windows, the guy at the table pokes a Roman candle at his son. "Look at this," he says, "Can you believe it? It's bigger 'n a nigger's cock." "Dad," the boy hisses, looking right at me. The storm, all rusty and far-away and broken. The boy's face, red with acne and indignation and sun.

Mommy's Little Badass

2009-05-26T16:47:00.004-04:00

This, it turns out, is what a broken arm looks like. Or, to be more specific, this is what a broken arm looks like on the world's most ridiculous child. Tomorrow, after what will no doubt prove to be a titillating trip to the orthopaedist, he will have his cast. In the meantime, he will have his splint and his silly, smiley outlook.

Only this child, with his Hey, Misters and his grape lolly, could make going for an interminable X-ray fun. Only this child, with his shaggy hair and his I would take a sticker, but I kinda hate Mickey Mouse, could make sitting in three waiting rooms anything less than awful.

My kooky boy. My kooky boy. I just wish you'd be a little more careful.

The Children

2009-05-25T00:24:00.000-04:00

The children, when they want my attention, call me Hey and Yo and Miss Lady. And when they don't give a shit, which is most of the time, they toss pistachio shells on the ledge of my chalkboard and write FUCK all over their binders.

"It's not that we don't like you," she whispers. Her watermelon gum. Her assignment on the floor. "It's just that you don't yell or nothing, so we know that we can do whatever we want."

Two boys. Around and around and around the desks. "Knock it off!" I yell. "I mean it!" I yell. The others, laughing and heckling.

At lunchtime, I walk over to Eddie's and pick up a California Roll and a Snapple. I eat in the classroom--the hot, green classroom--and wait for 12:30, the dreaded slam of lockers.

Mr. Jenkins, the one they all love, the one who, years ago, robbed the 7-11, stands, his arms crossed, outside the classroom. When they see him, they sit down, they get quiet, and we all look, as if it means anything to anyone, at the list of vocabulary words I've written on the chalkboard.

At the evaluation, she doesn't sit. She leans against a file cabinet. "I mean, I'm sorry," she says, "but I don't understand it. You're the adult. You're the teacher. You're the one who is in charge." I nod and say I don't understand it, either. I sign on the line where she tells me to sign.

Out in the parking lot, the Taurus won't start, and the snow is falling harder and harder. I dig through the trunk for the scraper, for the jumper cables, before I see them coming across the field.

Some are running and some are throwing snowballs. Some are making angels in the frozen grass.

The Insomniac Heart

2009-05-19T00:48:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, naturally, I worry that I'm failing you. I worry that my reluctance to clean the bathtub, my hesitation to schedule that playdate, will ruin you irreparably, and that you'll wake up tomorrow, the blankets 'round your ankles, and wonder why I didn't cover you in the middle of the night.

Before you, before both of you, I never thought too much about getting anything right. I took half-ass jobs in half-ass places, cut my own bangs, rolled my eyes. But then you came, and everything grew wings, and there were potted plants and kitchen lights and cats in every window. Possibility was everywhere. And everywhere, too, loomed the potential for failure.

There have been times, if you want to know the truth, when I haven't wanted to get out of bed. When thoughts of pushing trains or playing school or cooking dinner have made me want to curl up and cry. When thoughts of you--of precious, wonderful you--have left me confused and sad and anxious. When, quite frankly, I haven't known what to do.

But every bit of that badness, every ounce, every shred, has stemmed from my wanting to get it right. From my not wanting to fuck it all up. From my wanting to give you all the beauty and joy you deserve.

Anyway, loves, I don't even know why I'm telling you this. It's not as if we've been fighting, or as if I've been feeling depressed about anything, other than the weather; why I'm writing you this letter, at nearly two in the morning, is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

Your sleepy sighs, when I tuck you in, will make me achingly happy. I'll go cover you now, so that when you wake up tomorrow, the blankets will be where they belong.

The Birthday

2009-05-10T01:59:00.004-04:00

The Boy, fascinated by my toplessness. The song of the robin, the song of the wood thrush. Then you, then The Girl, by the side of the bed. The card and the presents. A fox, explained, a bird, explained. The chaos of the living room.

I nag her and I don't know why. Those shoes are two sizes too small, I say. You shouldn't bring that to the restaurant, I say. Her eyes, when I say this, are misty with defeat. With longing. Come here, I say. I'm sorry, I say.

The man at the counter, he gives me a buzzer. First, you'll get a test buzz, he explains, and then you'll get a real buzz when your table's ready. I nod. I take the buzzer. The test buzz, it comes exactly as predicted. But the real buzz, when it comes, is adrenalin and terror and head-rush and mystery.

Sweet potato fries and two mimosas. The crunchy legs of a soft shell crab.

Woods. Minor coastline. The curative properties of bare feet in water.

The groom, drinking a bottled Fanta. His bride, her long train skimming the sand, struggling toward the water.

The children, elbow-deep in the sand, dig a trench that soon fills with water. The Girl, her long skirt tucked into her undies. The Boy, chucking pebbles in all directions.

The needle thinness of the distant bridge. The tanker, moving noiselessly toward the other side.

In the Spot-a-Pot, the heat, the moisture. Her long dress, miraculously, kept out of the business. The hand sanitizer, with a PLUNK, right into the hole.

The joy of being barefoot. Even, and perhaps more so, up the rocky path.

Wonderful, wonderful bottled iced tea.

The highway, the wind, the sad companion. The Boy asleep, his head sweaty and slumped.

Clouds and a salutation of poppies. The children, wild with mulch, wild with springtime, screaming in the friends' backyard.

Peanut sauce. The quiet perfection of peanut sauce.

Strawberry-Rhubarb cobbler and warbly "Happy Birthday." Sunset and candles and little hands and promise. All of this beauty and all of it mine.

A Tale of 10 Awakenings

2009-03-20T11:49:00.004-04:00

1. Her hand on my arm, on my head. "I don't want to go in there," she whispers, "it's too cold." "But if you don't go in there, you'll pee yourself," I whisper back. Her crying on the toilet, her crying at the sink.

2. Back again. This time, in the bed. "I'm hot," she whispers, "and my room's too dark." "Get under," I whisper back, brushing back the covers.

3. "You're too soft on her," he mumbles, his face against his hand, against his pillow. "If you let her stay, you'll be all tired and cranky tomorrow, and then you'll fall asleep again at 9:00." Silence, then the gathering of books, of blankets. His robe. His slippers. His feet on the stairs.

4. Small, cool toes on the back of my leg. Moist, labored breathing. The hour passing, the hour aching.

5. I pick her up. I take her back to her bed. "But I can't sleep," she protests. I give her a book.

6. The creak of the door. The sound of peeing. The creak of the door again.

7. The creak of the door. The sound of peeing. The creak of the door again.

8. The cat. The cat? Her claws on the blanket, and then on my face.

9. This time, more softly, a different hand. "Mom?" he whispers. "I can't sleep." I walk him back to his room. I kiss him good-night.

10. Back again, claiming fear, claiming tummyache. Claiming the night, claiming my spirit, claiming the farthest, most remote galaxies of sleep.

Phonics

2009-03-16T01:14:00.004-04:00

This word, an island. Uncharted, viney, but big enough to stand on. And seductive, its siren's song of diphthongs and mangroves. A change in the current, and her ship, built of hard C's, of long E's, bumps and bounces and lurches toward the coast. There's a moment of panic, of salt and reflection, and then she crashes, beautifully, upon the shore.

Beryl

2009-03-03T23:22:00.002-05:00

Nobody wants to drive out to the Dinkers', to their house of blue carpet and untuned piano, to their frozen-over pond and drawers of old lipgloss, to their root beer, to their log pile, to their Billy Joel and bathroom fan and muffins and brass. But we will go because we have to, because we are expected, because this, every Christmas, is what we do.

In a turban, with a stuffed Schnauzer named Mallard on her lap, my grandmother smokes in her apartment on Biddle Street, waiting for us to pick her up. She sits by the window, looking out at steeples, at winter, and thinks, without commitment, about Arnie and God. It's hard when it's this cold, when everything's as dreary as newsprint, as porcelain, not to think of Arnie and his nude, drunken death-walk, of how he wandered out and never came in. Arnie was only a stop-gap, only a half-baked, short-term solution, but still. Still, it's strange to think of him in that missing-button Oxford, of him laughing, afterwards, in the bedroom, and then to think of him naked and dead. My grandmother, she doesn't think much about mortality, but this--the fact that she's lain with someone who's no longer living--this is why she keeps the stove light on every night. With effort, she pushes open the window, tosses out the cigarette, and watches as it sinks into the snow just below. This city is so cold, so flat and so dirty that again she wonders why she stays. And then, the silver car in the alley. The beautiful woman digging through her purse in the front seat, the little girl in need of a stuffed Schnauzer in the back.

What, No Matter Your Age, You never Say to Your Mom and Dad

2009-02-19T17:02:00.003-05:00

Mom (to The Girl): Please don't put that alien in your mouth.

Dad: Yeah. That's gross.

The Girl: It's just fun to suck on. It's chewy.

Mom: Maybe so, but it's still gross.

The Girl: You know what? Tomorrow, instead of going to school, I'm gonna stay home and suck this guy all day.

Mom and Dad: GASP

Wear and Tear

2009-02-18T07:38:00.004-05:00

The black loafers, the ones with the red piping, that you bought, from your bed, just days before. It was the middle of the toe--not the tip, as you'd expect--that broke through. I still wear them, but the rain seeps in, and my toe, like a puppet, pops in and out.

The Tiffany bracelet that still smelled of you. The silver beads, sprung by a rambunctious toddler, rolling across the bedroom floor. Her face, when it happened, was grief and panic. I held her in my bed, promised her waffles, and cried.

The bug-eyed sunglasses. Snapped, I presume, while I dug for my keys. Broken in the pocket of my down-filled coat.

The little plaid dress with the strawberry tassel and the little white shirt with the puppy on the front. Both outgrown a long, long time ago.

The lime-green sweater. Moth-eaten and stained.

Me. Pale and cold and not sleeping. Up and wanting to dial your number, to ask you what you think of Amy Winehouse, to see your face.

Snippets

2009-02-09T16:37:00.003-05:00

What the dentist says: Your son's face, it's like the face of a doll, like a face you'd see in print ads. I wonder if they make boy versions of those American Girl dolls. I wonder. Because if they do, really, this kid could be the model.

What The Boy whispers on a Saturday morning: I love you. I love you so much. I love you more than trains, and I want to smell your shirt. I love you best of all. Let me tickle your tummy.

What The Girl moans just after her shower: Mom? Hello? Ever hear of using a dry towel?

What the Hamilton Tavern manager says as we're enjoying our beers, after we've just dropped, like, $140: I don't mean to rush you, but we've got a lot of people waiting for this table, so . . . .

What the friend's baby says in our kitchen: Meow.

What I say: Come on. Come on.

Phoenix

2009-02-03T15:39:00.005-05:00

First came the snow. The dreary snow, the snow that you'd hoped would make you happy. You put so much stupid stock in that snow, in the whisper and flicker of it in the porchlight, that when it didn't pan out, when you still were unhappy, there was nothing to do but what you would've done anyway, so you sat on the sofa and watched it fall. And it fell, and you stopped sleeping, and your hands, after careless days without mittens, cracked and bled one night on your pillow. You lay on that pillow, neither sleeping nor dreaming, thinking only of old age and death and recession, until the lights on Joppa Road grew paler, grew blander, until the sunrise leaked in through the pines, through the grey. And then the children bounced in, with their lunches and buses, as the woman next door swept the snow from her car. It wasn't much snow, and it cleared away quickly. It was bitterly cold, but of course you got up.

The Day of Many Happy Tears

2009-01-20T16:35:00.003-05:00

The Girl brought this home from school today. And naturally, I cried. Again.

Blog? What Blog?

2009-01-20T00:59:00.003-05:00

So things have been a little busy, you know, what with the . . . ammm . . . stuff and all, so I'm, like, really sorry that I haven't been by in a while. As you can imagine, you've totally missed some exciting shit, like my allowing a diet soda to explode in our freezer, which makes my absence, I realize, all the more painful. Some other recent highlights: I renewed, after over a month of lapse, our home warranty; I froze my ass off; I ate a bunch of brownies; I went to a party. Actually, going to the party was a real highlight, and not just a bullshit one, because it was great to see a bunch of friends I hadn't seen for a long time. Unfortunately, Thom might have been at least partially responsible for my friend's sustaining an injury to her ankle, but other than that, the party was enjoyable. Oh, and it snowed this afternoon, which was really, really lovely. We weren't able to get out in it much, as The Boy--once again--was stricken with a virus, but it was nice to watch it from the window. And to be fair, The Girl and I did bust out for a couple of hours, while Thom and The Boy watched The Land Before Time. And now, at--Good God--1:12 a.m., I am preparing for bed and eagerly awaiting the inauguration. Also, I am thinking of the night that Bush was first elected, when I tossed and turned, sick with some stomach ailment, unable to believe that a Bush presidency was even possible. And now, eight years later, I am equally incredulous. But in a good way. And I'm tired.

Mothers and Sons

2009-01-13T16:46:00.003-05:00

Scene: The downstairs bathroom. Sometime between 8:00 and 8:10 a.m. Mom, having recently exited the shower, is drying off with a nubby towel. The Boy, unable to "hold it" any longer, bursts in to relieve himself.

The Boy: Hey, Mom?

Mom: Mmmm?

The Boy: Wouldn't it be weird it I had zero penises?

Mom: Yes. That would be weird.

The Boy: And what if I also had zero butts?

Mom: Yup. That would be weird, too.

The Boy: Then maybe the pee and poop would get stuck in my tummy?

Mom: Well . . . . Yeah, maybe. (Pause.) Oh, crap.

The Boy: What's wrong?

Mom: Well. I want to get dressed, but I left my bra upstairs.

The Boy: Oh. Can I get it for you?

Mom: Yeah, sure. That would be great.

The Boy: Okay. I'll go now. If you want, you can put on your pants, but don't put on your shirt, because you need your bra first.

Mom: No problem.

The Boy: Don't worry! I'll hurry! I'm running right now!

Mom: Take your time. I'm still working on my belt.

THE END

Procrastination

2009-01-11T01:56:00.004-05:00

We got together, almost against my will, on the hood of his truck in the parking lot of Tall Roaches. I told him no, but didn't totally mean it, and then we lay together in the moonlight, in the headlights, as the rats and short-short girls and broken bottles watched us. I didn't want him, not even just a little, but I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to want me because Devin didn't love me, because I had poison ivy, because I was drunk on Mickey's Big Mouths and couldn't go home. High school was over, it was nearly the end of summer, and the next morning, just like every other morning, I'd have to tag shirts at my dry cleaning job. My fingers would smell like cardboard and Pre Spot, and then I'd come home, eat Bremner Wafers, and sleep. But here he was now, his mouth warm and malty, so yeah, then, all right. It didn't matter about his bucked teeth or his girlfriend. It didn't matter about the mosquitoes or the short-short girls or the nightwatchman or the rain. In a little while, he would drive me home, and everything would be okay. But first, the smell of onion rings and sandalwood on his T-Shirt. The muffled tink-tink of his engine beneath our backs.

Made You Look

2009-01-06T15:28:00.002-05:00

In his bear undies and a pair of sport socks, he sits on the table and waits for the doctor.

"But why do I have to take my pants off?" he asks, eyeing up the blood pressure cuff, the syringes.

"Because this is a check-up," I say nonchalantly, "and the doctor needs to look at all the parts of your body."

"Even my penis?" he whispers, giggling.

"Yes," I answer, "even your penis."

He jumps off the table, grabs a Nemo book, wonders what could be taking the doctor so long. I read him four pages of the Nemo book, just to the point where Nemo gets captured, before there comes a soft tap-tap-tap on the door.

"Hi, there," the doctor says softly, benevolently, as The Boy, tugging open his bear undies, hollers, "So, you ready to look at my penis?"

Dear 2009

2009-01-04T16:06:00.003-05:00

No offense, 2009, but so far, you're kind of sucking a little. You've been cold and dreary, not to mention tainted with stomach virus, and though I'm trying--sort of--I'm still finding you boring. Maybe it's your stillness, your bareness, your lack of snow. Maybe it's your newness, your deadness, your emptiness, your stretch. Whatever it is, 2009, I hope you appreciate my candor, because I don't see the point in putting on airs. Aaaaah . . . air. What I wouldn't give for a little air. Spring-scented air, if you don't mind my saying so; air that doesn't smell like crushed candy canes and barf.

Winter is always tough for me, O'Niney (you don't mind my calling you O'Niney, do you?), so I wouldn't take any of this too personally. I mean, as pissed as I am about the darkness and the tedium, I don't doubt that I'm the root of the problem here. The thing is, I always want to believe, each and every New Year's, that midnight will somehow make me over, and every year I'm disappointed to discover that nothing, from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day, ever changes that much. And why should it? It's ridiculous, after all, to expect a simple date change to transform me, naive to put any stock in the flip of the calendar. People Magazine, I fear, has made me stupid and hopeful, and it's not your fault, O'N, that everything's not glowing, that I'm not gainfully employed, that the kitchen floor is still disgusting. It's not your fault that it's winter, or that the other morning I woke up sweaty and nauseous, or that there's not a fucking thing right now that I want to do. And really, it's not exactly my fault, either, because it's not as if I have any control over these feelings, as if I want to feel this listless and dull.

And yet, we'll have to find a way to be friends somehow, won't we, because for the next 361 days, it is you and I. You and I and lots of others, including my children, who are also bored and begging for Candy Land. We'll get it together, you and I, because we'll have to. Because we need to. Because honestly, what choice do we have?

And look at that--oh, man--you're blushing. Sunset. The promise of night and another day.

Trains, PBJ, Blowing Pine Trees

2008-12-31T14:34:00.004-05:00

The year, to your surprise, ends on a satisfying note, in spite of the mess, in spite of the poverty. You are not depressed. You are not cold, bored or hungry, and the day, though nearly over, still seems bright and full of promise. The children are absorbed in deep, quiet industry, and the husband, out of his work clothes and already into the wine a little, is cozily nestled in one of the beds. Sure, there is laundry; sure, there is wind. But life, when you get down to it, isn't so complicated, at least not when everyone is healthy and glad.

May your new year be cheerful and prosperous. I'm going to take a walk with my family.

Boxing Day

2008-12-26T16:35:00.002-05:00

You know what rules about Boxing Day? When no one gets out of PJs until approximately sunset (right now, at 4:40, the kids still remain steadfastly in theirs), and when the day's menu consists primarily of chocolate and various forms of buttered bread. Our house is a-busting with new trains and craft sets, car tracks and Webkinz, Colorforms and storybooks, and all anybody wants to do is play. I relish in the mess, the laziness and the grazing, because the last few days, as much as we've all enjoyed them, have just been so, so, so exhausting. Now that The Girl has her own guitar, I'm going to get her to make up a Boxing Day carol, because a day this awesome makes me feel like singing. But naturally, once the carol is written, we won't go 'round the 'hood sharing it with the neighbors, as we'll all be too settled in at home.

Well, it's nearly dark and Jo-Jo's heading over. Happiest holidays to you and yours.

Eleven Regrets

2008-12-22T01:18:00.003-05:00

1. Implying one time that she looked like a sausage. Hanging up. Failing algebra. Making her cry.

2. I hated the camera, so I broke it. He put down his train, watched me smash it on the floor.

3. It was Paris, falafel, the echo of trumpet. Jetlag and 98 degrees. How could I risk it, with or without the black nightie, the waxed legs, though you lay on the bed, the quilt kicked off, in a towel?

4. Your razor, this morning in the shower. The blade snapped off, slid down the drain.

5. How I waited too long until too long became always.

6. What I did with that rock and Karen Carver's yo-yo. The giddiness as she held the string and cried.

7. Following him back to that shithole by the water. Walking around barefoot. Borrowing his dimes and pens and shampoo.

8. Not going to New York that autumn. If only to wear cool boots and to cut my hair.

9. The paint, the smell of charcoal on his searching fingers. Watching, the faces of beautiful girls.

10. Keeping them up late because I can't bring myself to bathe them. Pretending that I'm being magnanimous by giving them extra time to play.

11. What I didn't say and what I don't say. Letting chance after chance after chance slip away.

Solstice, 1947

2008-12-21T01:02:00.004-05:00

Sixty-one years ago, in the middle of the night, he waited. He sat outside, his hands sweaty and inanimate, thinking about where he might get his next meal. He didn't pace; he didn't even get up to look out the window. He just sat in the waiting room, picking at a hole in the cuff of his pants.

Neither knew what to do with a baby, or what to do upon waking, really, and already there was so much to take care of, so many breakfasts to scorch, so many jobs to abandon. His mother, maybe, would help with the money, but what about the rest of it, whatever the hell the rest of it was? He had no idea. He tried to picture her as she was last summer, her lips the color of cotton candy, but all he could see was what he'd seen at bedtime--the butter-sponge feet; the rubber-ball middle; the dirty, shineless hair. Who were they now, he and she, and who were they becoming? And now that she was in there and he was out here, would they ever be the same? The doctors, they hadn't explained much, which was fine. He didn't need to know. All he needed now was this chair and to stop thinking. And maybe, because he'd earned it, a nap.

When the doctor came, he jumped up, involuntarily, and muttered, to his own surprise, that he was "so happy." And maybe he was, or at least sort of. There were worse things, he figured, and anyway, this was something--finally something--that he, with her help, had made for himself. It was something. She was something.

Outside, on the window ledge, the crows called madly. And the days, at last, began to get brighter.

Uplifting, as Always

2008-12-18T02:12:00.002-05:00

I want to write to you. I really do. But all that I can manage at the moment, I'm afraid, is a few sentences about how busy and distracted I am. It's 2:15 in the morning, I've spent the last two hours working on a mindnumbingly boring spreadsheet, and I'm waiting for an Amazon package to arrive. Not that I expect it to arrive right now, of course; I mean, it's after two in the morning, and I'm not insane. But I'm eager for it to get here, already, as I have to inspect and wrap and hide the contents. Christmas, as you might have heard, is coming, and I'm kind-sorta losing my fucking mind. My half-assed job search has left me all edgy, and Christmas, as sad and Scroogey as it sounds, is sort of just like another thing to deal with right now. Blah. Not to say that I'm not delighting in the kids' flurried and flushed anticipation. It's just that I'm totally exhausted. And staying up 'til after two in the morning? Yeah. That's probably not going to help me, is it?

Anyway. May you enjoy these last few weeks of the year. I'll be back as soon as I'm able.

Because You Know You're a Winner

2008-12-13T08:43:00.005-05:00

Looking for a great gift for someone special (or maybe yourself)? Then why not check out my buddy-sites, The Savvy Source and We Covet, both of which are giving away mountains of great stuff. As I write for both sites, I'm not allowed to win anything, but not winning, frankly, is pretty much the story of my life. But that's not the point here. The point is that you can win whatever either site is offering, so have at it. But hurry up, because there are deadlines and so forth. So get going!

My Son, The Ass

2008-12-12T03:49:00.003-05:00

In the Christmas pageant, he is a donkey. This is funny, of course, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is, until I'm standing here watching, I had no idea he even had a part. He sits, looking fidgety, among the other children, sometimes smiling awkwardly, sometimes picking his nose. His best friend, V, also looking fidgety, is mottled with hives and frantically stroking her hair. There is no music and the lights are bright. There's a cradle on the floor, overflowing with hay.

Finally, the teacher gets the play rolling by calling on the kid who plays Gabriel. And the kid who plays Gabriel--resplendent in white, her patent leather shoes clicking--relishes in her role of announcing Mary's knock-upedness by sticking a little felt trumpet to a big felt nativity scene. Then the kid who plays Mary, resigned, quietly, to her task of carrying a little felt virgin to the big felt nativity scene, realizes that the virgin is missing, and everything, for a second, goes a tiny bit crazy. There's a panicked search for the little felt virgin, but the search, to everyone's horror, turns up nothing. But--you know--the show must go on. So then it's the Joseph-kid's turn. Sensing the panic, he calmly conveys his little felt Joseph to the big felt nativity scene, and peace on earth, for a second, is restored. Which brings us to the donkey. The Boy's role, as you might have predicted, is to mosey a little felt donkey to a big felt nativity scene, and as we can see plainly that the donkey's not missing, we get the camera ready, awaiting our baby's big moment in the sun. Except that--what the hell--the donkey's not budging. True to his part, The Boy just sits there, arms crossed, glaring at the teacher, as she tries repeatedly to get him to move his ass. "Come on, Sweetheart," she whispers anxiously, "I'll walk with you if you want." But nope. He doesn't want. In fact, he doesn't want so much that he takes the little felt donkey and throws it on the floor. Which, not surprisingly, gets big laughs from the audience, and it's then that I see the smirk, the smug recognition, that--Oh, my God--he's accidentally become a star.

Beaver

2008-12-08T15:41:00.003-05:00

Things have been a little busy around here, what with The Boy's birthday, the impending holidays and my decidedly half-ass search for work . . . so busy, it seems, that I've been unable to find any time for you. Which is sad, really, because I know how much you've been missing my sullenness, not to mention my weekly updates about the minutia that comprises my life. Anyway, I'm back, and I can almost hear your long sigh of relief. It's as if Santa showed up early, isn't it? And not a moment too soon, given these sad and desperate times.

And since I know how you've been longing for this reunion, let me give you a taste of the good stuff, yes? Because if it's the meat and potatoes you crave, my friends, you've come just in time for dinner. Let me preheat the oven and tie on my apron, and to the kitchen, metaphorically, we will go.

Hope you're hungry!

*************************************************************************************

So I just got home from buying shampoo. The shampoo I bought, which smells sort of minty, was on sale for $4.99 a bottle. Normally, it's $6.99 a bottle, so I was, as you can imagine, pretty excited. The companion conditioner, also regularly priced at $6.99 a bottle, was also on sale for $4.99. At first, I couldn't find a bottle of the companion conditioner, and I considered, momentarily, buying the coconut shampoo (it, too, was on sale for $4.99 a bottle), because I could find a bottle of the companion coconut conditioner, but then I decided that that was stupid, because what I really wanted was the sort of minty stuff. And after some digging--miracle of miracles--I found the sort of minty companion conditioner hiding behind a bottle of the pomegranate shampoo. And the pomegranate shampoo, for the record, didn't smell like pomegranates at all; it actually smelled a lot more like vomit. Like fruity vomit, I will grant them, but like vomit nevertheless. At any rate, finding that sort of minty conditioner left me feeling all fucking euphoric--as if my team had won or I'd found a job or something. It was awesome. And when I got home, despite the fact that I was clean, and despite the fact that it was three in the afternoon, all I wanted to do was to take a shower, just to keep that buzz alive.

Later, I threw away some stale tortilla chips and wiped the cake crumbs off my kitchen counter.

As you can see, it might be a while before you hear from me again. I've got a lot of shit to take care of.

You Know What You Love About This Blog? Dreary Talk About the Economy

2008-11-25T15:59:00.006-05:00

The good news? I've gone from being depressed to just really fucking lazy. The bad news? It's cold outside, and I'm too lazy to bring the kids' bikes in for the winter. The other bad news? The job I've had for the last six years, the one that, in part, has kept us off the streets, has upped and disappeared, thanks to this stupid financial crisis, and now I'm faced with the prospect of having to look for another job. In December. Just before Christmastime. In the midst of this stupid financial crisis. And to say that I'm feeling pissy about having to do this would be, very possibly, the biggest fucking understatement of the year. Because, as we already discussed, I am lazy, and I absolutely abhor having to look for work.

Not to say, strangely, that I abhor working. I don't. I liked my job enough to have stayed for six years; I liked it enough to say that I liked it. And writing? Well, I could do that forever. Though not right now, as I have to pick The Girl up from the busstop. And after I pick The Girl up from the busstop, I think I'm going to bake something sweet and gooey, because, goddammit, I think I deserve it.

But then again, instead of baking, I could just sit on my ass. Or maybe start my hunt for gainful employment.

If I bake something, I'll save you a piece.

Found: One Mildly Depressed Whore

2008-11-18T15:33:00.004-05:00

I'm in the midst of one of my winter funks, which would blow anyway, if it were winter, but doubly blows since it's still fucking fall. It's not a terrible funk--I mean, I'm not planning on sticking my head in the oven or anything--but it's annoying, nevertheless. And honestly, if I didn't have kids, I wouldn't even mind the funk that much, because I truly believe that these funks are part of being human, or at least part of being this human, and I've come to accept them, more or less. But, as with everything else, having kids makes it all a little more complicated; complicated in that I can't, say, just read a magazine for an hour or stay in bed until 11:00. And though the kids--god love 'em--have been pretty good lately, they've still been kind of getting on my nerves, and because they've been kind of getting on my nerves, I've been a tad over-snappy, and this over-snappiness makes me feel guilty, which further contributes to my (pre) winter funk. Blah. And I know that this all must be really fucking boring, because Jesus, I'm boring the shit out of myself. Why not just post a crock pot recipe, already, and be done with the whole goddamn thing?

You know what would make this post a touch more exciting? Do you? How about a link over here, where you can read about five of my favorite funny children's books? And also, because you might have missed it, be sure to read this fascinating piece on the ABCs of Baltimore. What the hell did I do with Q and X? Read on, and marvel at how far I can S T R E T C H that local alphabet!

Eden

2008-11-12T15:16:00.002-05:00

When we were finished, we leaned against the back door, you smoking a cigarette you found on the counter. Your hair, your black and unruly hair, was everywhere--in your eyes, in my mouth, and eventually, in your lighter, so that I had to swat and blow it out. And where were the others, the girls in their stolen black sweaters, in their china flats, the boys in their skater chains and ripped-up high-tops? Where were the others as I leaned against you, as I learned to kiss you, as the marks on my neck turned from red to purple, as already you were plotting how to slip away.

This Land

2008-11-05T10:24:00.003-05:00

Thank you, America. Thank you for blessing my children, for making my mother proud.

Our house came with a flagpole. A flagpole that I mostly ignored but sometimes found embarrassingly funny. But today, for the first time, I can see myself putting that flagpole to use. And not just with a whimsical turkey flag, but with a real, honest-to-goodness American flag.

Patriotism? I could get used to you.

What a day. What a day.

Now with More Blubbering

2008-11-04T10:06:00.003-05:00

No matter what happens today, I know that I'll be doing a lot of crying.

It looks as if he'll win. It really does. And if he does, my tears will be tears of joy. I'll be proud of my country, of all the progress that we've made, and I'll smile at everyone I meet.

But if he loses . . . oh, God, I can't even finish the sentence. But my tears, of course, will be tears of terror, as I contemplate how to get through the next four years.

My children, both born during this wretched administration, deserve better. This clusterfuck is the only America that they've ever know.

They deserve better. We all deserve better. And so I'm elated--and terrified--that this day is finally here.

I know you won't let this chance slip away. Because you can't. You just can't.

Tick-Tick-Tick

2008-11-02T08:04:00.005-05:00

You know what they say about turning back the clocks, that thing about getting an extra hour of sleep? Well, I'm here to say that that's complete and utter bullshit, at least if you have kids. Because kids, not knowing that you've turned back the clocks, will wake you when they always wake you, thus resulting, actually, in an hour less of sleep. Meaning that the kids that woke you at seven on Saturday will be waking you--loudly--at six on Sunday. And when you look at the clock on Sunday morning, you will not say, dreamily, "Oh, boy, an extra hour of sleep!" Rather, when you look at the clock on Sunday morning, you will say, tearfully, particularly if your husband's been sick for days and you know that he won't be up for hours, "Oh, fuck, this day's, like, an hour longer," and you will fold in, messily, upon yourself.

Also, I have a tick bite on my ass, and it really, really hurts.

Though, if I'm being truthful, the tick bite's not really on my ass. It's actually just a bit under my ass, but you know what--if you want 100% honesty all the time, you should probably visit that other blog, the one called The Queen of Unstretched Truth.

And also, I feel like everything's broken. My email server is broken. Part of my dishwasher is broken. One of my kitchen cabinets was broken, but Thom fixed it before he retreated to bed several days ago. My tooth is broken. One of my muscles is broken. The passenger door lock on the car is broken.

And Thom, as I mentioned, is very, very sick.

But the weather is nice, and the kids and I, for now, are still healthy. So I should probably stop bitching and get them some food.

Next time--I promise--there'll be Halloween photos.

Oh, and Happy November.

It Was the Middle of the Night

2008-10-27T01:33:00.002-04:00

It was the middle of the night, and you weren't sleeping. You got up, packed a lunch, wiped the counter and flossed. You cleared off a table, wrote a note to a teacher. In your dream, the last one you had before you woke up, you were arranging paintings of John McCain. You didn't know where you'd gotten these paintings, and naturally, you didn't want them, but you were arranging them just the same. They didn't look good in the living room--they were too pale, and also extremely creepy--but you felt uneasy about throwing them away. You were also dreaming of poverty--of stark, bone-jutting poverty--and that, of course, made you uneasy, too. You awoke on the sofa, thirsty, with that unrelenting ache in your side, looking for your family. And your family? Your husband, having staggered up to bed at some point, was coughing in the bedroom. And the children, one of whom woke up crying for a second, were now quiet and presumably dreaming. And you? You were awake and longing, longing for the poetry that you couldn't write. And as you went through all the reasons why you couldn't write it--exhaustion, time, lack of inspiration--you realized, joyfully, that maybe you could. And maybe you would. So you sat down, in the dark, the ache and the quiet, and you wrote. You wrote until you knew you'd better go to sleep, and then, though depleted, you wrote some more. And the dark stayed dark, and the highway hummed. And the crickets, it hit you suddenly, weren't singing anymore, and you wondered when that happened, and how the hell you could have missed it.

Whore

2008-10-23T01:04:00.004-04:00

Did I mention that I'm now writing here and here? No? Well, guess what--I'm now writing here and here. Wanna know what to do with your kids in Baltimore? Want some recommendations on stuff you can't afford? Then I'm your gal, friends, and now's the time to stop by here and here.

Oh, and speaking of whoring, or at least someone's impression of whoring, check out these school dance guidelines imposed by a Baltimore area school:

These guidelines were developed by students, parents, teachers and staff at a meeting organized by the Centennial High PTSA earlier this month and distributed via an e-mail newsletter.

The following is a list of prohibited inappropriate "dance" moves:
•No wrapping legs around others
•No "making out" (intimate kissing)
•No removal of clothing
•No hands in clothing
•No touching of bikini/private areas
•Avoid any dancing that suggests a sexual act, including but not limited to:
•Humping
•Forceful thrusting
•Bending more than 45-degree angle
•"Freak trains"
Note: Back-to-front dancing and break dancing will be allowed if the above guidelines are followed.

Can you imagine attending that PTSA meeting? Jesus.

Anyway, don't forget to have a gander over here and here. 'Cause if you forget, I may have to forcefully thrust you.

The Dutiful Daughter

2008-10-22T01:18:00.003-04:00

You've known that this was coming, this conversation, this talk that you've both been so carefully avoiding. And yet when it comes, in the car on the way to Old Navy, you're stunned, then crying, then bumping, without tissues, over the railroad tracks, trying not to let him see your tears. You tell him that it's all right, that you're happy, that you're not mad or worried or wounded or jealous. But what is this? What is it? The heavy moon among the golden leaves. Her eyes in everything and everywhere.

Name This Photo

2008-10-16T18:16:00.004-04:00

Please, Mr. Whirlpool, Don't Ever Stumble Upon My Blog

2008-10-14T16:45:00.004-04:00

You want to know the definition of hot? Being alone in the house with the refrigerator repairman, while the kids are at the playground down the street. Hot, and yet, you know, cool, given the real reason why he's here. Right now, he's soaking my gaskets in warm water, and the jangle of his tools is sending shivers down my spine. Shivers, baby, very much like the ones that I get whenever I'm close to my Frigidaire. And the dripping? He's promised to help me with the dripping, but his soft promises and tools and gaskets only seem set on making my appliance drip more. And when he asks me about my bins . . . .

The Flirt

2008-10-13T23:52:00.002-04:00

Though she adamantly denies it, The Girl allegedly kissed a boy on the bus this afternoon. This rumor comes courtesy of B, her longtime boyfriend, who, according to his mother, now refers to the other boy (who happens to be one of his best friends) as The Girl's "new boyfriend." At the very least, The Girl whacked the boy--she admitted to this, enthusiastically adding, "Oh, he likes it when I hit him!"--as her friend, Molly, apparently also hepped on hormones, kissed Ryan, the raging psycho who lives down the street. And what, besides picking up a chastity belt at Target tomorrow, am I supposed to do all about all of this? And don't suggest hyperventilating, because I've been doing that all evening already. And don't chide me for referring to Ryan, the little boy who lives down the street, as a psycho, because dude, you haven't met this kid. Like, if he's not drafting a manifesto and setting shit on fire in his bedroom, I would be seriously amazed. No, really. But anyway. Boys. Boys, boys, boys. I was a lot older before I went all crazy with the kissing, and once I went all crazy with the kissing, there was no turning back. No fucking turning back. My whole life went belly-up.

And yes, I realize she's only six, and that she probably doesn't really need a chastity belt, but--ohmygodohmygodohmygod--you should see her bat those eyelashes.

No. On second thought, you shouldn't. In fact, I think I'm going to tape her eyelids open, so that she can never, ever bat those lashes like that again.

Harvest

2008-10-10T15:02:00.002-04:00

Driving down Falls Road, on the way to buy a birthday present, the sun, enormous, The Boy, coughing and babbling about trains. Thinking about autumn, about soccer and sunshine, when the ambulance, rushing northbound, startles me into thinking of you. Of you and your ache that long April morning, of you in the shower, when everything was wrong. How long we waited, and how we drove, stopping for every red light, not knowing that every second was a second of waste. How stupid I was; how stupid I was. And now your heart, made whole, is stuck far away in that windowless building, enduring second after second after second of waste. Every day is short and precious. Which is why I pull over, the sun almost more than I can stand, wanting to clutch everything I've ever loved.

Public Restroom

2008-10-08T01:37:00.003-04:00

In the next stall, the young, pretty mother says, "Do you know why we're in here?" And when her little boy, fidgeting in his dirty sneakers, says, "No," she continues, "We're in here because you were being disrespectful, and now I am going to spank you." And with a swift whack-whack on his bare bottom, with a sorrowful cry, with a bump against the stall door and the toilet, I look at my own boy, at his sweet, stinky, unspanked bottom, and I want to whisk him, still innocent, still exposed, from the dimness, the dankness, the meanness of this place.

Falling Leaves in the Late Afternoon

2008-10-02T17:05:00.002-04:00

I go to the dentist. The dentist plays Journey. The dentist doesn't tell me, much to my relief, that I need a root canal or anything scary. Instead, she cleans my teeth, spraying water in my face, and advises me to get a bunch of cosmetic fillings.

The Girl at school. At school with new friends. Confident. Newly six. Buying pizza and chocolate milk in the cafeteria.

The Boy at school. Paint on his shirt. Happy but weeping after the longest of days.

The husband at work. Surrounded by new colleagues. Eating a chicken sandwich, spilling lettuce on his desk.

Fall. It comes. It comes in a hurry. The walnut trees are the first to denude. The golden leaves. The shy, lean branches.

For dinner, I will serve chicken again. Chicken because it was half-off on Wednesday; chicken because these are dangerous times. Though what I really want is fish, though what I really, really want is for someone else to cook dinner, I will make chicken because I must. Because I must. Because everybody is getting hungry.

I cough until my muscles ache, until I think I'd better call the doctor. The air, rare and crisp and yellow. A tissue held up to my mouth.

In another three hours, the debate. The debate. I'll microwave some queso dip and popcorn, praying for humanity as I wait for the beep.

Recipe for a Thoroughly Depressing Saturday

2008-09-30T16:55:00.002-04:00

Serves 4.

1 poorly patched roof
1 colossal-ass rainstorm, preferably of the tropical variety
2 cranky adults
2 cranky children
1 lingering headcold
1 debilitating allergy attack
1 predawn dash of thunder
1 completely cooked dinner, still left in pan
1 big fucking hunk of plaster

Bring on colossal-ass rainstorm sometime during night. Add predawn dash of thunder, waking cranky children. Watch as roof disintegrates. Stomp feet. Use expensive Emeril pans to collect deluge in bathroom and kitchen. Resume stomping. Relish in lingering headcold. Add debilitating allergy attack. Cook dinner in remaining Emeril pan. Call family. Return to pan to find 1 big fucking hunk of plaster among vegetables and rice. Consider serving. Reconsider. Cry. Garnish with tears, if desired.

Calories: 0 ; Total Fat: 0 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Total Annoyance: Shitloads

Fillings

2008-09-26T11:50:00.006-04:00

I was already feeling so sexy, what with the black, black roots, the gobs of snot and the ill-fitting sweatshirt that looks like a bathmat, that all I really needed to feel like a goddess was to lose half a tooth on a mouthful of Crispix. And because our new dentist, located at A Touch of Smiles Dental Care (I'm not even joking about the name), doesn't have office hours on Fridays, it looks as if I'm destined for snaggletoothery all weekend. Which, okay, fine. I can live with the snot, I can live with the busted tooth, but must The Boy, also, conspire against me? Must he? Because, in all seriousness, I'm trying here. I've set up, like, half a dozen games, and he has, in a huff, wrecked all of them. Like, thrown cards and little pieces and shit across the room. So, you know, I'm kind of done. And now, now that I just want to sit and write and bitch about everything, he wants to talk about all manner of minutia. And maybe if I were a better mother, I would smile--snaggletoothedly--at his putting on and taking off and putting on and taking off and putting on and taking off and putting on and taking off of a pillow case, but at the moment, honestly, I'm just not in the mood.

Maybe I need to read him a book. Either that, or I need a stiff swig of vodka.

Home Improvement

2008-09-25T18:11:00.002-04:00

This morning, in an effort to prevent rain from seeping through our leaky skylight, Thom fixed the roof with four bricks, two trashbags and a sleeping bag pad. Laugh if you want, but it's better than I could have devised. Which is why--on top of this horrific financial disaster (oooh, topical!!!)--we probably shouldn't have bought a home. Rest assured that a professional roofer did show up eventually, though I have absolutely no idea what he did. Nor, exactly, how much he charged us, because he said that his boss would bill us later. Which I accepted, because, yeah, I am as good with money as I am with home repairs. Actually, to be fair, I am better with money. Yesterday, for example, I used a coupon.

I am tired and suffering from laryngitis. I spent two-and-a-half hours in The Girl's classroom this morning, and the experience, though pleasant, exhausted me.

And oh, speaking of The Girl's education, things are going much better, thanks. She hasn't cried in over two weeks, and she's making new friends (and crushes) every day.

And oh, while we're on the subject of education, The Boy had his first long-ish day at school today. Everything went well until I came to get him, at which point he collapsed into a sobbing heap. After school, he slept from more than two hours, so drained and in need of rest was he. And that, come to think of it, is kind of where I am at the moment. So--I hope you'll excuse this poor excuse for a segue--see you when I wake the hell up.

Letter to an Occupant

2008-09-24T07:47:00.003-04:00

Dear Lady in the Scuffed Black Loafers,

I know how pissed off you are at Melissa, that bitch who started in IT yesterday. I know how she acted all cocky in the lunchroom, bragging about her experience with networks and mainframes, when clearly, given how badly she fucked up your database, she doesn't understand a goddamn thing. I know how she spent 40 minutes on her cell phone, blabbering to her mother about her upcoming wedding; I know how she showed up in jeans this morning--in jeans, for crissakes, on her second day--and about the heavy, whorey perfume she wears. Moreover, I know how desperately your colleague needs to hear about Melissa as she washes her glasses out there in the sink. But Lady? For real, here? I've just brought my son in for a super-quick tinkle, and your story about Melissa--in addition, to be honest, to your grunting and plopping--is kind of freaking the kid out. Like making him bladder-shy, you know? So please, if you don't mind, just focus on your business. And tell your friend, the glasses-washer--I think you said her name was Fran?--not to give me the dirty looks because my kid is whining, because, seriously, the whining sometimes gets on my nerves, too, but I'm glad as hell to have to listen to it now. Oh, and one more thing: go easy on that toilet paper, Lady, because there's no fucking way you're getting any of ours.

Good luck, and happy wiping.

Regards,
The Woman with the Whining Kid in the Stall Next Door

The Morning After I Dreamed of My Mother

2008-09-22T02:20:00.002-04:00

You stand beneath the walnut tree, the yellow leaves falling in the stream, in your hair, as the children play cars in the living room, as your husband sighs at his deer-shredded hosta. It's 11 in the morning, a lemon-tinted Sunday, and you're avoiding the obvious, still in your pajamas. And when your husband, waving toward the stream, toward the tree, says, "here it is; our last glimpse of summer," and you cry, you realize how much you already miss it, how much more you are going to miss it, and when the kids, still in their pajamas, come bounding down the hill, what choice do you have but to scoop them up and wish for immortality.