TwoKindsOfPopsicles

Dearest Friends

2009-05-17T23:14:00.000-07:00

The days seem to stretch increasingly longer when I am not writing. Almost like I'm not sure if I'm here, unless constantly working towards unveiling myself. I suppose that shows a true crack in my character. But I never truly believed my character was unmarred, no matter how strongly I might have asserted it (hell, I fought with my last breath to shove down someone's throat, even). I spent part of the morning, in an effort to finally conquer the longstanding chaos which is my desk, going through, amongst other things, written evaluations from high school and college. I have always been utilitarian when it comes to schooling, flakey and argumentative, never really getting much done except filling journals and the odd collage. Yet, I look back on these same periods of my life as the times when I became myself, when I found a drive to be part of something, part of a cohesive set of people. Yet it seems that has not accomplished much in the eyes of those looking out from a desk, or from behind the little check marked boxes that follow you. So I get to wondering, if I was not succeeding then, when have I succeeded? I don't mean to say that we are not worth a thing if the people on the outside of our head think it's so, but there's not much creative to show for my time here, either. I've been involved in many adventures and projects that sound really impressive. Yes, they sound big.

I have muddled through a new sort of professional life, I have not written a word, beyond some manic midnight three sentence postings on the internet. Even those experiences which I have idealized in my head as monumental or formative, the kind that drive you to be a more expressive person, or to feel you have some power in yourself, have been seen by the outside world as merely being argumentative, and I quote, "not being willing to entertain the notion of poetics in a constructive environment". I always think of myself as being willing to at least entertain an idea, to enjoy a good argument. Maybe I pissed someone off. But no, that's a cop-out. I probably just *didn't* entertain their notion of poetics in a constructive environment and that's that. The point here is that all little doubts lead me to many other questions. I never claimed to care enough about being educated.

But where does that leave me? My career is not important. I lack in many ways in my parental and familial obligations, as a wife and as a partner. I don't make much money and have very little financial independence. Where did I used to get my sense of self-sufficiency? Of self-worth? Of purpose? Even when I gave readings I never considered myself a writer's writer. A jotter, I can't stand work-shopping. I despise the stupid attitudes of poets in a flock. I barely edit. I hardly want anyone else's opinions. I love narrative, yet can only write my own story.

But I can really let loose on a good day and show myself. I can let a person walk away with the feeling that they saw inside someone and know them in some way. For many people, they don't want to know what's inside, and they can all stop reading now (if they even made it this far). What am I going to do then? If I don't do what makes me who I am, deep inside the cavernous parts of me, then how am I living? Note: I say how and not why. I know why I am here, just not how I've managed so long without letting the important part of my self come out, except in some out of bounds fighting between spouses? I know I have made a choice that I never did before: to find some happiness.

I want to be happy. Sounds like cotton candy trite, but it's a basic I never really knew the answer to until now. I now know I deserve to be happy. And I think I have been before, only with a lot less intention. I vaguely remember some humor, some ribaldry, some creative diversions, strong friends and romantic exploits. I remember singing and writing and reading compulsively, and dancing on a warm night. I remember being excited about being together with people, talking and arguing, but never straying so far that anyone hurt or cried. I think I remember men and their newness. I remember falling in love with girls I barely knew, and thinking maybe? I remember the smell of someone's skin who smelled warm and dewy and a little like fresh baked bread and just breathing it in and knowing, this is why I am here. This is how I am here. The very existence of another person who was at that moment looking to me to see what would happen. I remember losing myself and feeling like that would free me. I don't know if that's more idealization with romantic wistfulness or not. But it sounds right. I wouldn't undo this life I have in me now but I feel that something is on the brink, like the moment you've dropped the glass and it's slow like syrup falling and you haven't yet heard or felt the glass yet, but your hand flinches because you know it's coming. Then the satisfying tinkling sound. Something here is going to give and it's not gonna be me.

Long Time No See

2007-12-01T12:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a long hiatus and I'm feeling like the time might be right to start over. I just refreshed my memory on what I'd written six months ago. Lots has happened since then. I wrote about my friend who was battling a mystery illness. Her name was Amy and she died maybe two weeks after I posted about her. I think she was 39.
We always mythologize people we love who die but she really was pretty cool in a stealth quiet kind way of shining. She was someone who really knew about pacing herself. And pie plates. She had things like 5 extra pie plates, one from her grandma's house across the street, one from the flea market, maybe a few left over from a party. She was that kind of person. She didn't just have the one "perfect" thing, b/c she wasn't worrying what people thought of her. She just had what she had and was just in herself so calmly. That may seem to be about material goods but it shows her spirit. She didn't have a dining room table. She cooked food on this vintage stove, home cooked food mind you and fed her children lovingly. Then she sit on some kid chair and feed herself. You see what I'm saying here. She was living but in that zen calm that just is. Maybe that seems silly and for sure she would not have put it that way but that's how I remember her. She didn't seem to care if dirty dishes were piled up when you came over, she was too busy being with you. Or gardening. I guess I see that in a golden light b/c I so need even just a little of that in my day.
Amy left behind two fairly amazing children and there's nothing golden I can possibly make of that. (Pause to weep a little)

That of course brings up M7(!). He's doing fine. In his own way. He can fold himself into a yoga pretzel and for that I am so grateful. I can't think of any more hopeful sign. He's still falling and everything, he's got some weird physical stuff going on but mostly the kid is fucking alive and that's all I care about.
Not that I can honestly say we are living life in some new way. I think we are still losers who yell at kids. We struggle to get them places on time, have a hard line as far as rules. Screw it. When does the fun start? When do all these "memories" we're supposed to be be making (cue disney music and starry background) goddamn start?
I'll let you know.

So many important things to write about but this is all I can say

2007-06-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Rainbows and a happy tree
are fine for some but not for me.
I will draw three legged cats
and caterpillars with ugly hats!"

'A Birthday for Frances'

Torture

2007-05-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

Today I'm feeling intensely bleak. My whole life feels really pointless. I don't mean living is pointless but that there's not any happiness in what I'm doing. I'm hating every single minute of my job, I can't even think about my kids without starting to feel this sinking pit in my stomach, and my home life is dwindling down to sheer torture. I'm not really sure about what to do with all this. I think finally it's hitting me about the MD. I've been a little too damn chipper, keeping up a good "survivor's front". Maybe my whole life is hitting me. I spent part of the weekend with a friend who has to make the most horrible decision that might affect whether she's here with her kids in a year's time or not, whether or not to have a bone marrow transplant & chemo that she may not survive. I can't seem to get myself to let all this crap sink in. I'm going numb.I think I need to stop blogging and start therapy. Or a vacation. It's all a little too much right now.

An Update on Fucked Up Friends

2007-05-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

I have this strange situation.
I long ago lost my dearest friendship when a friend suddenly went off the deep end with an equally psycotic boyfriend. It is a bizarre story of the boyfriend tearing up my mother's house while housesitting, including breaking her tv screen, throwing things out the window and riffling through her retirement papers and old family heirloom pictures, essentially destroying the sanctity of her house and walking off with all her personal info(which involved packing a box up of her stuff and taking it on a plane from Hawaii to CA). Like the feeling of a housebreak-in a hundred times over.
Okay bizarre story enough right? Can you imagine someone you don't really know having all yr financial and personal info, someone now obviously off his rocker? And the police in two states saying they can't do anything unless he makes a move on her?And my so-called loved one, the woman who was going to be at the birth of my first child(I was five months pregnant at the time), someone I considered my "chosen family" stood by him through all of this, even defended him. Now this is the toughest woman I've ever known but she acted like she was brain-washed. She just gave our long and intense friendship up b/c she couldn't face his psychosis (I think). Who knows, because I never got a straight answer out of her. I still to this day feel like I was hit by a bus, not just by the disappointment in her but also by the sheer surprise of the thing, it just came out of the blue. Did I totally miss danger signs that were obvious? I was left doubting my judgement and my trust in other people was demolished.
So seven years go by, I think I got over it as best I could and moved on. But occasionally, I am reminded of her and how I miss being with her and the great sense of comraderie, smartassedness, zest and laughing we had together. She was as instrumental to my life and outlook as my family has been. I really liked myself with her at the base of it all. And I had no choice about the whole thing which just killed me at the time. No say whatsoever.
Part of the boyfriend's psychosis (I think) was his feeling of jealousy of our friendship and worry it was romantic. Part of it was the fact that he was in hawaii and he was cut off from his marijuana self-medication that kept his mental health glued tight. Part of it was he may have thought there was pot in my mother's house and went searching and lost his mind. Or maybe it was all random. Paranoia is so abstract. Who knows? I never saw him again. I probably would be in jail now if I had.
Enough said. So many years has passed. I didn't know where she was or have any gossip about her life. I may have googled her once or twice in a secretive indulgence. I'm not proud of wanting to know anything about her. But two days ago I ran into a design website that's hers, contact info and everything. So I called and sure enough her voice is on the message. So I've been dangerously toying with the idea of writing her a letter(e-mail). Not the kind of conciliatory note of a groveling "I'll take any beating you dish out" sort of wet dog note. More, here's what you missed. I don't hate her. I don't. I want to vent. I also want to know what happened to her mind. Is she ok? I shouldn't care but caring for her is not something I ever wanted to give up. I want to make the choice for myself, not continue to have it imposed on me.
I still haven't made up my mind if I will or I won't.

No need for a title

2007-05-20T14:10:00.001-07:00

Give sorrow words.
The grief that does not speak
knits up the overwrought heart
and bids it break.

Shakespeare

On Death and Trees

2007-05-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

Today, I was rereading a memorial website for a friend who died three years ago.
This is an entry I forgot I wrote:
Tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos and I sit trying to figure out how to remember the people that are gone-just gone. I don't know how to burn them into my brain. I know that's what needs to be done, sear them into some part of my flesh to carry them on, bring them with me. I 've lost someone every year since I became a mother, so much so that now I see a pantheon: whenever I think of one, the rest piggyback in like a greek chorus, squeezing all together in one small brittle heart. I can only hope that Matthew is finding a kindred spirit with my Gramps, that my Grandma Millie is not driving him nuts, that he welcomes my friend Leah's mother, who died a painful and sudden death last week, and helps her through whatever horror that is. I see Tim Krafft, looking all the 50's poetry beatnik, fully recovered from his overdose, talking to Matthew about noises and how to make them. Becky might dance as Matthew plays tho it's not to her taste. This is my comforting delusion. Maybe it's all a crutch and they really are just feeding trees but I hear them talking to each other, making new family as they need to, finding comfort and watching us, sharing friendly gossip about the ones they left behind. And that's not far from a wisp of wind, not too different from providing the very nutrients for the earth to renew and grow. In fact, it could be exactly the same thing.

(Posted by: Queenie at October 31, 2004 06:46 PM)

I can only plead the universe that's true for M6.5's sake and mine.

My Strange Life

2007-05-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

In an hour and a half, I meet my mother-in-law for the very first time. Granted, I've been married for what? 9 years? we've been together for 10. It's just the nature of my life. The obvious connections that are a given in other people's lives just aren't in mine. It's strange really. My dad, my grandparents, my half-brothers, my in-laws. All are strange circumstances that require long-winded stories I don't always feel like explaining. More on this later.
M6.5.
I have realized in the last two days that yes, his MD is progressing but he's also so OK. I've been diving off the deep end on a regular basis. We went to his 1st orthopedist appt and I really loved this guy. He made a real point of saying 'let him be a kid for chrissakes' well not in those words but you get it. He didn't say 'careful about those steps' or 'don't let him get worn out' or anything. Then we saw the pulmo doc who spent 3/4 of the appt extolling the virtues of Disneyland for my son and how our family should be focused on FUN and VACATIONS and INDULGING and all that. (Those of you who know me, can you see me at Disneyland?) I felt like such a unnecessary worrier. Not pooh-poohed but like I needed to stop mourning and start getting his life fun now before the hard part starts. B/c this ain't it.

How It's Going

2007-05-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

People keep telling me how well I'm handling M6.5's MD.
Below find the contents of e-mail to HusBAND that explains exactly how fine the line is being walked today. I'm sick, I'm PMSing and I'm doing TOO much.

"Oh my god!!!!!!
Ok, I was having a shitty day but the world keeps trying to right itself.
1. I go to work, dragging my tail behind me. I mean, I should NOT have been there. I was OVERdoing it. I was on the brink.
When I go to dive into data entry, I find my co-worker has wrapped it all up for me. I had no work left to do. Thank god for Bill. I leave for the day, feeling like the world protects me when I can no longer handle a single thing.
2. On the way home, I stop to get some groceries. I see my old friend Leah, who asks about M6.5. I practically collapse in a puddle of tears with her in the fruit aisle. I'm losing it again. Almost totally out of control.
BUT I come home to a beautiful freshly painted hallway all I can say is Oh my god!!!! Thank you for what we heebs call a mitzvah. I'm much better now.
love,
me"

wish me luck.

Oh One More Thing

2007-05-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

Really I wanted to yell at those guys ' don't you know my kid's sick!'. Which is not really true or is it? And of course I'd be telling a bunch of guys who have probably had shitty lives too. It's my fantasy that they would stop and say 'you don't deserve to be treated so rudely, we're really sorry'. Ahhhhh, where is civil society when you need it? I don't believe in rules, I believe in thoughtfulness and social contracts. I'd make a really confused Anarchist.

One Thing To Be Proud Of

2007-05-04T20:49:00.000-07:00

Today, walking down the street I had an encounter that I've had far too often.
I passed a homeless shelter (that's not the familiar part) in front of which a couple of guys obviously down on their luck for more years than they can shake a stick at, were hanging out. Now, I'm not particularly shy about being a white woman passing a group of scraggly brown-skinned men. I was raised that you greet people on the street (yes, this was Berkeley in the 70's), especially people of color, especially older people, especially people with disabilities, etc. I have always been the sole white girl in the cholo neighborhood or the Black Panther neighborhood. I have spent more nights in West Oakland or in the Mission or in West Berkeley when the low riders still ruled, than most people I know of any color. I have worked in East Oakland, I have walked the streets of Richmond or the Acorn housing projects in West Oakland registering people to vote who didn't have their electricity turned on, getting cat calls the entire time. I have been that sole teenage girl riding the bus into Oakland every Saturday night at 3 AM. Ok, so that's the background, back to being proud.
Walking the gauntlet is what I call it. You pass by a bunch of guys who you're not sure if they'll hassle you or not. There have been phases of my life when my reactions have ranged from cursing someone up and down (endangering myself), ignoring them and looking away (leaves me feeling so ashamed), trying to give some pathetic excuse for a steely glare (well, that's pathetic). None of these leave me feeling GOOD which is how I have a right to feel. I mean, I was just walking down the street, minding my own business, thinking about cats or honey mustard being good in egg salad or how maybe I should learn to change my car's oil myself, you know the kind of meaningless reverie that is a luxury for me (no life-altering disease stress, no kids yelling).
So today, I walk the gauntlet. I pass delicately through a small opening in their sidewalk monopoly. I avert my eyes and fiddle with keys, feeling obvious in a pretty skirt. I get just two feet passed and one of them mutters, 'she's gone all Amazon and sh**'. They laugh at me together. Feel the blood boiling.
As an aside, any of you who know me will logically and correctly assume I have heard this particular comment more than once in my life. I'm six feet tall and even when I starved myself when I was fourteen I would have still had the moniker 'big-boned'. Add two kids and much eating and I'm a Big Woman. So, you can see, this is actually the form my sexual harassment has always taken. Occasionally it's the 'hey baby' sort but usually it's this particularly annoying variant. Back to the story.
I stop, turn right back around and directly but politely say 'I think that's pretty rude' to Rudeman. Another one of them says 'you don't even know he was talkin' to you, he coulda been talkin' on a cell phone' which is funny now b/c I was standing right in front of Rudeman and he so obviously didn't have one (points for creativity?). So I sez (granted holding back tears b/c I get so emotional when I'm mad) 'I like to treat people with some respect' and I turn to a third guy and say 'I'm Queenie (insert real name)' and reach out to shake his hand. Then I went around the whole crowd of 4 men until I got back to offending Rudeman and without saying my name reached out and shook his hand. Then I walked away. I felt pretty damn proud of myself.

But later I still walked all the way around the block to avoid them. There's proud and then there's stupid.

Too Depressing to Read

2007-04-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

M6.5 is having a hard time. His stair climbing is slow and struggling. He falls more this week than last and it's harder and harder for him to get up. His class field trip to Microscopic Farm included a long hike and plus I had to physically carry him onto the schoolbus (why are those steps so high?!).
He and I have a routine where we fake out those other kids by pretending to have a hug and he grabs me around the neck and I lift him by his tuchis. No one knows the difference. Otherwise, lifting him from under his arms is sort of an uncomfortable and fruitless endeavor for both of us. I see both of our futures clearly when we do this fake-out. It's an experiential excercise whereby I am transported to visions of Primero, older but the same maybe M12 now, being held in my arms to be rolled, maneuvered, put in a lift to be hoisted to the bathroom or moved from bed to chair without rolling over his working dog asleep at the foot of his bed. I see steroid injections, tests, horrible therapies, strangers in our house, Individualized Education Plans, Americans with Disabilities Act, many endless drs appts, prepping for surgery, breathing tubes, pointed toes in plastic braces, fighting to get into medical trials. I see staving off, always staving off, please keep everything we've got now, I see him trying, trying but not being able to walk and falling always falling.
I shouldn't post things like this. People who are pregnant read this. People with babies read this. People who know him read this. HusBAND reads this. But there's only so long that it can possibly be ok to COPE and finally the only thing left is to be overwhelmed and let it wash over you. All I can do today is cry.

Some stuff

2007-04-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have sent out desperate word that I must have readers or someone will have to pay. I mean a girl can't write in a forest alone. It's amazing to me that I'm so itchy for fame that it would come to this but some things never change. I am so late to the whole link-up blogger social scene. One old feeling woman can only be so savvy.
On other notes: M6.5(yes a name upgrade) starts physical and occupational therapy today and from what I can tell compared to all the other yahoos on the DMD yahoogroups (all those who don't know what I'm talking about can go straight to the DMD links herein for a depressing overview), we're getting our free state services in record time (altho I did have to call a zillion times to get it to happen). Strangely he seems excited to go, like he's special getting all that attention stretching.
Back to DMD yahoogroups; there some serious jesus happening in America.
Now granted, these are people who have an intensely shitty life caring 24/7 for ailing and dying kids (maybe I'll accept Him as my Personal Saviour by then too, who knows) but still. There's a lot of blessing each other and prayer, finding solace in the church community etc. Someone of like mind chewed someone else out over the EXTREME quoting of scripture in between recommending the best lift to have installed in your van and how to find a good pulmonologist. I was greatly relieved that we hadn't just stepped into the broad expanse of Amerika but could stay firmly planted on one coast or another. I will not give M6.5 over. The Drs can't have him and neither can the Amerikans. We want a life.

The New Job

2007-03-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

So I started my New Odd (as in strange) Job. I drive around the State (yes the whole state) of California, faking out bartenders and seeing how much liquor really is in that rum and coke they just poured. In a certain sense there is something really gratifying and totally un-mommy-esque about slumming around in the diveyist bars possible (usually we're the only women in the place). I used to hate bars, except when my friends were in them or if there was dancing or jukeboxes. One thing I really love (and this is stupid, bear with me) is the great bar games that only some sticky smokey(yes so much for the long arm of the law!) working class joint in some podunk Central Valley city (yeah I'm talkin' about you West Sacramento and Woodland) have. Because really those people need fun games if anyone does, yessiree Bob. Not that I dislike the people, quite the opposite, I love Americans as an anthropological study in contrast to the coasts. It's like I need a passsport and phrasebook, little leftie city-dwelling Jewgirl that I am.
Anyhow, back to games: pool is a given but that's far too prosaic for me, I like hand shuffle board complete with saw dust! electronic darts! the occasional out-dated video games like frogger! strange pseudo-gambling with lots of flashing lights and bad animation! Ahhhhh. I want to sneak them all home in my purse. And do you think the jukebox will fit?
More on my New Odd Job later. I go again tonight and promise to practice my social science training as best I'm able while pretending (or not) to take sips of liquor and furiously scheming how to pour it off into a measuring beaker without getting spotted. Beats interviewing addicts anyday!

Devolve

2007-02-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

My entries get shorter and shorter the more stressed my life gets (I just can't catch a break these days: sick kid, crazy job flux, marriage mayhem, lack of sleep . . woe is me you say). All that to say I'm biting off more I can chew in piecemeal PT work. Have wrangled two, now going for #3. Hoping to get this job as an office assistant for a children's book author. Right up the old alley. Every little change is making me pool all my pitifully small internal resources to adjust, adjust, adjust, damn it!
I just need to sleep about two weeks. The frog in boiling water.
I just stopped in to see a friend of mine has been diagnosed with some yucky lack-of-protein-making disease that is pretending to be congestive heart failure. She's going to a muckety muck specialist at Stanford today. Another friend is getting separated from her husband.
Is something going on in the world? Are we in some kind of global bad ju-ju?
I just can't quite figure it all out and I can't stop to think about it too long and hard or I start to trip over my own tear soaked feet.

Things repeat

2007-02-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

Inconsequential note: Has anyone else noticed that the lead singer of Arcade Fire is really Ian Mccullough from Echo and the Bunnymen? Okay, he doesn't look the same but he's had some kind of body transplant, I'm sure. Close yr eyes and listen. Indistinguishable.
God I'm old.

Old

2007-02-09T09:21:00.000-08:00

HusBAND has a birthday coming (damn him) and so I am throwing party (I'm throwing it as far as I can but I throw like a "girl"- damn again). I don't even know how old he is but then again I haven't remembered my age for the last three years. It's like after a certain point I just didn't care. So am I 36/7/8/9 next b-day, who knows? It would require some higher form of math I don't care to participate in. I willfully abstain.
I really don't care that I'm getting old, I just hate that I have lost all sense of style and that I'm getting "curvier" as the days go by. At a certain point all the fat euphemisms stop serving their purpose. I hate that I'm bored. But old seems silly.
Lately I have been thinking alot about getting some of my life started again. I feel this intense squeeze btwn M6 and the Momster. Their timing is impeccable. I figure by the time I've achieved Personhood (that is my kids are old enough to give me space) M6 will need more and more care on my part with getting around and the medicalization of his life, and at the point we lose him(world forgive me for saying it), I'll shift to being the sole caregiver of an elderly parent. That all sounds so morbid and intensely selfish. But I've been with my kids most of the time for the last six years. I really thought the private part for me:work, school, art, friends, school (did I say school twice-that's gotta mean something!) would be starting any minute. In fact I was counting on it for my sanity (I'm sounding light here but actually I mean it in that most desperate way with hair pulling and tear streaked face). It feels like I have only this teeny tiny window to have MY life. Anything I want to do EVER has to happen soon. Actually NOW.
Oh the melodarma (ok the Freudianisms are getting old- I meant melodrama).

In The Spirit of Fairness

2007-02-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

So the mayhem is dying down and we are adjusting to our new life with a different perspective and endgame. M6 is doing relatively ok and he didn't mind "playing games" with the physical therapist. Whew, fooled him again. So far so good but my worst fear is that he'll find out about the Muscular Dystrophy from someone else. So many people know and it seems horrible that he doesn't (tho there's no way he'd understand now and no way I'm tellin' him now . . . ). Just seems like one of those UNFAIR adult things that kids are subjected to on a regular basis. Like not getting to drink coffee(that's an inside joke w/J2.75 - yes, if you noticed, he's had a name upgrade!).
Anyhoo, it's strange how quickly I've adjusted (but exactly what choice did I have - again that concept of "No Fair!"). There doesn't seem to be anything else I can do.

Original thought

2007-01-16T20:07:00.001-08:00

I’m wondering if I’ll ever have another original thought again. I repeat the same three stories to every single person I talk to (I guess it’s all my original thought it’s just not much to choose from).

Qs and As

2007-01-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Q: HusBAND, do you think anyone really wants to read this?
A: If people want to hear a podcast of a couple of Appalachians talking about their new litter of puppies, then sure.

M6 asks: can I have my hair in the Meerkat style?
me: what?

Fantasy 40 Bday

2007-01-16T20:04:00.000-08:00

Several weeks in Barcelona by myself, exploring the city, all the wacky art and architecture, eating dinner at 11PM, tapas in some strange bar, then heading out to flamenco and meeting up with some new friends. Getting up late to have coffee and bread then meandering down tiny hidden streets to find little ancient looking Spanish women sweeping their walks or watching the people go by with their stylish shoes. Eavesdropping, trying to make sense of their funny Castilian lispy accents (Mexican Spanish has such a nice solid sound to it, don’t you think?). Several weeks to just fill a notebook or two and to not be the GD bad guy to someone’s developmental stage du jour.

2007-01-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

So the honest to god truth is that M6’s muscles are decaying. He can expect to lose his independence at just the time he should be breaking away from his family and making it up as he goes along without the safety net. I have always had a healthy respect for the teenage imperative to cancel all the parents’ checks, to push so far as to have to start over. To f*** s*** up. (Maybe because I was such a classic teenage misfit, not fulfilling any expectations.) That’s how you come out the other side as truly your own person (well the western version anyway). I can only hope that he still gets the chance to have his own world, be a teenager, without his parents getting in his way adjusting his respirator. That sounds so crass but really I mean it in the best possible way. I remember so exactly how it felt to be mortified by my mom’s very existence as a 14 yr old.

How I just had to carve my own space out and the sharper the knife the better.

Individuation (no I didn’t make that word up, husBAND). I became the me I am by being that horrible girl. The things I loved then, I love now, even if it’s a mellower more responsible version. I just don’t want him to lose the chance to find out exactly who he wants to be because he’s got us on top of him.
Strangely, all this makes me think of my friend Banana. She was my closest friend in high school and after much time in limbo, we’re in sync again. If it wasn’t for her I’m not sure where I’d be. Her friendship really saw me through some serious mayhem and flux. I can still feel exactly how it felt to sing in full voice down the streets (the aforementioned) Echo and the Bunnymen in the middle of the night( okay maybe we were drunk). I was free and powerful. I knew someone believed in me. Somehow I became more myself by being around her. She always seemed to be figuring out herself so well that it was natural for some of that to rub off on me. And she always drew the best trees.

But of course you(I) romanticize things so much of the time.

Now funny all that romanticizing teenagehood, b/c I’m just as scared of teenagers when I see them on the street as any other adult. They are just so volatile, you never know what might happen. And adults, we just can’t handle it. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Mutual fear.

OH: thanks G for making me do this.

2007-01-16T19:57:00.000-08:00

Speaking of genetics, today my formerly long lost brother (one of three but who’s counting) is coming for a visit. He and I share the aforementioned Crazy Father, neither of us raised by him thank god. Anyhow, the genes. We grew up completely separate yet are so obviously siblings. Aside from looks, we share a sardonic sensibility, taste in music, and political bent. Neither of the other two have anything in common with me. Yet C is so the big brother I always wanted(I really look up to him) and when I think of siblings he’s the one I think of, not my step-sister, not the other two I don’t really have a relationship with. I feel like he gets me. And genes do have something to do with it.
Odd.

Actually, what I wrote isn’t exactly true. I have another brother, supposedly. My dad got a girlfriend pregnant when I was about 10 or 11. He’d met in her in Bakersfield and brought her here when she was six months preg. He got too rough in a fight with her and she showed up at my mom’s doorstep in the middle of the night to hide. My mom was the only person she’d met here. She chose well b/c my dad showed up howling outside our door in the dark and my mom stood her ground and talked him up and down until he gave up and left. Well, Girlfriend bolted back to Albuquerque or some place southwesty and my dad told me a couple years later that she’d had a boy but denied it was his baby, jerk that he is. So somewhere is another brother waiting to be found. I don’t even know his name. Schizophrenia has wrecked my chance of having any semblance of normal family life.

I’m getting a bit too melodramatic even for my own taste, so here’s a lighter dilemma:
HusBAND has been invited to a Rock Star Party which of course I’ve invited myself along to. The problem: can mommy be a rockstar and who should she be? It’s not like I have any rockstaresque garb left (ahh the days of cool clothes!) and I’m so uninspired. To think I used to wear two-tone skirts and bakelite jewelry.
Chewny can always go as Elvis Costello or something(which means he essentially wears a cool hat and his normal clothes), altho we talked about scribbling THIS MACHINE KILLS FACISTS on his underused guitar and him being Woody Guthrie but can you really count Woody as a rockstar? Apparently Siouxsie Sioux will be there, as will some 70’s crocks like Christopher Cross(who thinks of this junk?). I’m thinking Gary Glitter, Sid Vicious, David Bowie but those are so not right. I know my choices are so connected to my highschoolhood. If I could make someone recognize me as the lead guy from Echo and the Bunnymen, there’d be no contest. You want something you’re proud of and something recognizable. Other thoughts: Motley Crue dudes just b/c they’re clothes are identifiable but I’d be so ashamed. Also who in their right mind has those outfits hiding in the back of their closet? I’m too hip-bound to be Patti Smith. I don’t even have overalls anymore to be a Bananarama chick. How about Joan Jett? God I am so old. Can’t even think of someone from the last decade, unless you count the Flaming Lips guy with the amazing gray hair (he looks so much more stylee now that he’s old). Nor are the recent rockstar women simpatico. Alright maybe the sister from the White Stripes, she’s alright. I might have a striped shirt somewhere. That is just sad.

So the question remains
Exactly how much of a life can I have as a mommy?
I guess I’m feeling like I was just about to step away from all this kid-focused life, like I’d just gotten them to the point of independence that I could back off and start the part where it’s my life again and then we got M6’s diagnosis. Like all the time for me is going to slip away from me as we move towards taking more n more care of him.
(That’s the selfish part. I guess it’s still too close and this forum is too public to bring all the other stuff out. The selfish part I care less about and don’t mind spreading around.)
I‘m talking about rockstar parties so I don’t have to think about wheelchairs and surgeries. I really thought maybe I could still have some fun in my life (the selfish part). Maybe I could go back to reading, writing, music, fun new people, art, cool shoes, talking about sex and politics and everything, maybe finally doing the galavanting around the world I always meant to do. Maybe that’s why I started this blog to prove to myself I can still be myself even tho I am someone else’s mama.
And maybe M6 will live to be 100 and 3.
But see I don’t really believe that.
I’m a positive realist. I don’t want to hang my hopes on a fantasy and then be struck down. I want to give him every minute of right now instead of pinning everything on the slim (or nil) chance he lives to 30. He’s really so OK right now and you make yourself crazy mourning someone right in front of you.
Love ending on such a positive note.
Good night sweetheart

J2.5: Snore
M6: silence

2007-01-16T19:51:00.001-08:00

J2.5: “and the froggie eats bugs”
M6: silence

I had a really amazing experience going out for my first karaoke at a tranny bar on Polk St with my friend Bamber, freshly back from living in Berlin and some unknown friends of hers. At the end of the night of debauchery, after singing many a horrible 70’s rock ballad from my seat, getting on stage to sing Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man (because of course my luck they didn’t have Just a Cup of Coffee) and Flaming Lips’ Jelly (also no Spoonful Weighs A Ton or Yoshimi Battles The Giant Pink Robots - SAD), after enjoying the performance of many a tranny sweetheart cooing some unknown quiet 80’s love song, after drinking one too many rum and cokes, after dancing in the aisle of a narrow corridor of a smoky mirrored little funky throwback bar, I bid my new companions good-night using my kids as an excuse to scurry home into the dark night, at which time I got the double-take: “you have kids?”
Icing on the proverbial cupcake.

I write this all secretive in the dark of my room while M6 goes to sleep on my bed, hiding away from his dad, who he’s currently mad at. I have a hard time denying M6 anything now that we know his body is in a downward spiral. He’s going to end up the most spoiled boy who can’t walk in all the land. More on that another time.

J2.5 will end up spoiled too but for entirely other reasons. He’s the kind of person people want to do things WITH and FOR, the life of the party (with all the ensuing personality issues - what happens when no one pays you any mind? Do you kick and scream or sing the Captain Underpants song at the top of your lungs? Can you sit still and stop chattering? In this way we are identical, ATTENTION IS KEY – genetics, go figure). Underpants, Underpants, I like Captain Underpants!
His dad, the husBAND, let’s call him Chewny, is afraid he’ll get googled and begged me not to mention him by name. Kind of entertaining, this new Fear Of Being Goooogled. Not in any psychiatric journal yet, but it’s inevitable. (I shouldn’t joke about states of psychiatric distress. I think we may all be crazy when it comes down to it.) That from the daughter of the psychologically challenged.

Not another mommyblog

2007-01-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

THIS IS NOT ANOTHER MOMMYBLOG
(I SWEAR TO NOT DEGENERATE INTO THE DAILY LOG
OF MY KIDS’ DIAPER AND LUNCHBOX /POOP IN POOP OUT)
So the whole reason to start this blog is to get myself writing again after an obscenely long hiatus. It’s like phantom-limb syndrome, that part of me is something I’ve been simulating but isn’t really alive anymore. Just ‘cause I gave birth doesn’t mean any of the other parts cease to exist. But you know it’s all kind of an excuse to not have to try. To give up (ahh excuses, so handy) I think I’ve started to believe all the negative things that go along with pushing out little personalities: you lose yourself to motherhood, your brain goes soft or you have too much to do to let yourself out truly. I’m not dead, I have to remind myself that I still have controversy in me. I still want to argue (what’s wrong with that?), I want to dance and talk trash.

2007-01-12T09:27:00.001-08:00

Move along people, Nothing to see here