Sunday, October 26, 2008

Casein-free

There is so little time to dig a deep hole. So they are shallow; and, because they are shallow, they are safe and kindly without purpose. I hold tight to old friends, pray they stay unbelievable.

I wonder outside of the dream to fill Tupperware with the same old thing: salami(2), baby carrots(2), sliced apples(2)one cliff bar per back pack(snack), water bottle(2). "Middle class" green. I should have glassware, not plastic. No salami - I wouldn't eat it. Maybe some hand-rolled vegetarian sushi and a wakami salad I made from first soaking the sea veggies in reverse-osmosis water in a porcelain bowl.

I read Dr. Seuss to the kids and then ate two mugs of mint chip ice cream from Safeway. We discussed composting - my attempt at apologizing to the honey bees.
It is definitely a circle - every action causing a ripple which eventually taps you on the shoulder; "Hey you, I'm back." You learn to toe the eco-friendly line.

If i did not love people with such unreasonable urgency, i might crawl into a chair facing a window and just stay there. not get up anymore. not try to connect the dots. only because there is something to just sitting. to just sitting and listening and not doing. not speaking. i could not go on one of those silent retreats; the knowing that i was going to speak again at some time would ruin it for me. i'd have to just stop sometime without having planned it. just mid-sentence shut my mouth. i wouldn't want to try to explain - even to the person to whom i was speaking at the moment i quit. no cheapening allowed. .....lets face it though - the probability of my quietude???!!! blah blah blahing and all until sleep comes again- raw cheer - "cogito, ergo sum".

Monday, October 20, 2008

bedtime

i don't know how they fall. bolts of energy bouncing on the bed, sneaking in and out of the bedroom to spy their election-induced elders, giggling. thinking that to sleep naked is the funniest thing ever. then - poof. fast asleep. upside down on the bed here - sideways and pillowless there. there is so much raw abandon in the sleeping i think there must be a tranquilizer involved - shot from buzz lightyear's button-stuck, battery-dry plastic arm. making him worth his price in gold. finally. but it's just a switch. the awake in them is bored or something - it jumps ship without warning, hails a taxi, flies the physical coop. and then there is just this heap of lovely boy on one bed and pile of vacant potatoes on the other. no one sleeps like they sleep. so thickly.
i read a somewhat racey, very funny, and equally intelligent blog today www.pettiobservations.blogspot.com which made me think how is it that i have arrived at a place in my life where i am more likely to get an invitation to a recipe swap than a jam session? does the "taskiness" of motherhood have to creep into every crevice of every moment of every hour? again, you may find me ungrateful. i am not. i thank the high holy roller every day for the gifts i continue to receive as a parent- for instance, the black eye my four year old gave me this morning with his power ranger toothbrush and the inside out full-skid faced skivies left on the bathroom floor following bath time. thank you god. thank you.
seriously though, is it too much to ask for a little room for some rhythm and blues between the patty cake twinkle stars? i was almost unnaturally excited to bump into the mom of one of my boys' friends, who happened to have made a few very hip necklaces today...YES! i was thinking...art IS indeed happening between spin cycles and chaperoned dumps. we really are so much more than just what we are doing. there is Being here. creativity. light. you may have noticed that i didn't drop any
F-bombs in the blog today - i am trying very hard not to use profanity. i was informed as of late, in response to a previous post that, "yes, god does indeed care" if i swear. rats.
Whoa! bet that just about knocked you outta yer socks!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Church Night

I cannot believe it is only day two of my new blog and i already almost bailed out...tomorow....i was saying to myself...i'll write tomorrow. well, tomorrow is an old beggar, a whore. you want to help but the cup is empty. i once wrote an essay on emily dickinson "the whore" and i used some bs about how she revered love rather than god and that the definition of whore was blah blah blah something about honoring false idols and blah blah blah love was a false idol. how the hell did i even pose that argument (?), which i did and actually went up against someone in a debate. talking my way out of nonsense. that is crazy. what IS god if not love? whatever. don't ask me to talk about jesus - though i'll throw that name around as much as possible. i like to say it in spanish. heysoos! and you? i recently purchased jesus band-aids. they were there next to the bacon strip band-aids and the little black pussy cats. i wanted to cover a scratched knee with one but wondered what that might infer about my little one. an obama hat. a jesus cut. it just doesn't seem right having our kids run around plastered with our political views. but then, i guess they ARE even without us thinking about it...i mean, how many Gap shirts have you bought this year?
let's see...i really don't mean to be smart about any of that stuff and i love the gap by the way. at least, before the items are washed. oops. i was just thinking. without pausing. (my reckless story). abandoning reason. hope.
i was wondering what happened to Fall? It rained like February two weeks ago and that was that. I gave up watering the second the first rain drop fell. and then, there were no more. now all my flowers are dead and i cannot believe i could be that lazy that fast - at the very first chance i had. save me says the withering blossom. hello?

Saturday, October 18, 2008

idealism's nemesis

nobody wants to see me sarcastic. it just isn't right they think - she must be depressed. depressing if nothing else. i start a riot. sarcasm slips in at the quietest of moments. like a drunken lover through an open window - clamoring, raucous, a bull in a china shop, sweet. it is not that i have lost my passion for the positive...it's just that the sweet aftertaste of a sarcastic recounting of ordinary moments (when made without injury to others) is too delicious to disclaim. bringing me to motherhood. what the hell is this all about? are we all now greatly appalled at the thankless efforts of our own moms? genetically predisposed perhaps, to alter history, i find myself filling volunteer positions at multiple schools with a near crazy zeal, cutting happy faces into PB&J sandwiches, and even setting up play dates. this being "engaged" is shadowed always by a looming disdain for those parents (usually the mothers) whom appear to do this naturally. these are the organizers, the delegators, the hosts. perhaps i only envy them. the coiffed hair, the matching sweatsuits, the pretty faces of seeming serenity and control. i am running around mismatched and,more often than not, clueless. maybe...just maybe i have on both shoes if there is a run scheduled...but surely the socks i wear are stained brown from the trails and it did not dawn on me until age 38 when my neighbor, the self-proclaimed "spin-cycle slut" re-introduced me to bleach last week.... that there was another way. my two boys, age4 and 6, are sitting here now - threatening things like " i will punch you in the wiener with a hammer. and a screw-driver...even a cactus and a hundred million things that will hurt you in the wiener" then they step on one another and head-butt like high school rugby bro's without the pain-erasing effects of beer bongs. they are my angels. big brown eyes the size of "my helmet in that picture" he says - pointing to a picture of the little man he is becoming (on a skateboard attempting an Olie off a picnic table at Corte Madera park.) You know where we got god(?) he is asking now. we got god from life. pretend this is god, responds the 4 year old, pointing to the action figure he has hanging off the edge of the seat, ready to plummet to its final and fiercest death. this is all quickly completed upon the discovery of a shoe box next to the coffee table...now they are insane kung-fu fighters....the box has wings....anything is possible. i always thought i would be this super fun and creative mom, inspiring my children to greatness. but i am more a blank slate than they...and surely i have become the one inspired, instead, by they. inspired to overeat and weep at trite commercials. inspired to merely think about losing the muffin top carrying both these glorious beings afforded me. inspired to keep up with something though i am not sure yet, what. the kung-fu fucking panda has just turned into the incredible hulk and the shoe box has become somewhat of a clam. i mean pile of debris. i mean recycling. in the time i typed, it was obsolete. like peace and quiet in a houseful of boys. gone. please do not confuse me for a complaint. i relish the absurdity of it all. that i would be a parent. that i could love like this. that i would have fear where once there was none. fear of worldly things like flying and sharks and mountain lions and creeps. anything that could physically take me away from my two little dashes. anything that could hurt enough to break me. i want to keep this physical body forever now - so i can have the eyes to watch them grow, the ears to listen to their ridiculous genius, the arms to hold the wounded. smart litte f$%ckers, both of them - reminding me of the way my brain worked before i cared about what other people thought. before i was trying to fit in. before i understood there was even anything to fit into. oh sweet oblivion....the magic elixir before the beer came along. which was then replaced with wine, then whiskey, then various other elicit and illegal things, then work, then doingness. doing. doing. doing. they are wrestling now, on the couch they are forbidden to wrestle on :) "you break a tree, you break me" says the 4 yr. old - jumping fearlessly into the fire of his older brothers invisible shield. the tears will come eventually. it's just a toss up which one of us will shed 'em.

Fighting the fighter

Shunning sickness, i lay in bed popping chinese herbs and homeopathic remedies...tylenol pm in the am......soup all day long. i dipped two large chuncks of hersheys dark chocolate into the peanut butter jar and wondered if it were really true that "they" were starting to genetically modify sugar (like they have with corn, hence corn syrup for so long) and how that meant every time i reach for one of my favorite health foods....sugar...if it is not organic...i will most likely be reaching for something that has been grown with the round-up gene in it. that is just wrong as is being in bed on a beautiful day with the mountain out your window calling. only in times like this - on day two of being contained in the casa on a self-sentenced "time-out" would I conjure up both the time and the thought (in synchronicity) to start the blog i have threatened to start for 6 or 7 years. time does not flee - it takes off its fucking shoes and runs like its had the bejesus scared out of it. i knew i would not get away without swearing. i tried. hence, the x-rated bs monitor when you first click on my blog. i can no longer edit the mania within. too hard, day in and day out - being a mom of small ones...trying to keep the compulsion to jump off the roof top in a tutu and fishing waders when picking them up from school contained...and instead... demurely smiling in dazed accompaniment with all of the other couture-laden mamas. i digress. envy and disdain are sisters. love is nicer.
know that my keyboard is shot and letters are left out randomly and with total disregard to meaning. eaing. menaing. see? does the laptop, hot on my lap, really have anything to do with the fact that there has been a 25-50% increase in testicular cancer since the introduction of laptop? Coincidence? hmm? I pick up these stats here and there - could be imperfect. something to consider. like, is anyone out there really mean or are they just trying to be someone they are not? they suck in more ways than one. if i get saved by jesus, will I have to give up my dirty mouth and my passion for pointing out all the little things ...in the minutae...that are kind of fucked up...and in being kind of fucked up....are kind of beautiful? does god care f i swear?