Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Brand New Del Mar WHOLE FOODS Store!

source
Disclaimer:  This is a sponsored post for Whole Foods Market Del Mar. All opinions are authentic!

I grew up shopping with my mom at health food stores, and once I settled into raising our family I continued that tradition with Whole Foods. One of my favorite things about visiting Whole Foods is that taking the kids there feels more like an outing and less like a chore.  This is purposeful and Whole Foods goes out of their way to create a relaxing, communal vibe, from the bar where you can order a tap beer or glass of wine, to the coffee bar, soup bar, organic salad bar, juice bar and in store bakery. I can personally vouch that the flatbread pizza is amazing. I had three slices!



Lola and I were lucky enough to attend a gathering to celebrate and promote today's opening of the new Whole Foods in Del Mar. Lola loves the place, and says ' I can taste the passion in their food. ' = that is a direct, unscripted quote! She sampled the meat selection, hand carved and locally sourced 100% grass fed beef, chicken and turkey, as did I, and DELISH, as Ever would say. I really love the emphasis put on supporting local suppliers, and this is store wide. Almost all of the items at the sandwich bar are locally sourced; many of the local suppliers are listed by name in signs around the store.

The variety of prepared food offered is staggering and down the line delicious- Lola and I sampled sushi, pulled pork and coleslaw, olive bread, crescent roll, spinach dip, chips and strawberry water. There are Korean, Japanese and Chinese foods offered.

The Trifecta Tavern is the bar and is the perfect place to scoot in after work and have one glass of organic, sulfite-free wine before shopping and making your way home. I had a cup of coffee from the bar and didn't even use creamer- it was smooth and the perfect finishing touch to the food I had eaten.

Whole Foods has sections of foods specifically for dietary restrictions such as vegetarians, gluten free or dairy free. Their website gives a comprehensive list of those sections as well as ideas for meal planning. Any product you buy from Whole Foods meets their own standards for environmental, animal and human health- they've even created the Whole Foods Eco-Scale, which is a rating system for cleaning products since there is no federal guideline mandating ingredient listing on packaging. In addition, they have a 5 Step Animal Welfare Standard listing that states the specific conditions that must be upheld for animals. 

They have a satisfyingly diverse array of beauty and body products that are paraben and chemical free, such as deodorants, shampoo conditioners, lotions, makeup, wrinkle creams and more- perfect for me because I go out of my way to buy products that are paraben and chemical free.

The decor inside the store is lovely- it's the best looking grocery I've ever been inside, incorporating elements from the beach community around, and with a candy aisle that looks straight out of a candy store, storage floor to ceiling in beautifully organized and tempting candies and cookies.

For the opening, Del Mar Whole Foods will be donating 5% of the day's net to the Del Mar Schools Education Foundation, focusing on a curriculum program that supports arts, science, technology and music in schools.





Tuesday, February 26, 2013

all apologies

baby is obnoxious when she
drinks the gassy prut.
apologize if you thought
this would rhyme with slut.
shame. on. you.
for thinking with your
thuts.
git er dun the redneck said-
full stop-
apologize for necks of red.
and in memory of those
pink, or rosy hued.
apologize for implies
apologize for imbued.
apologize for perverted winks
& sips of tongue
slips of thought
apologize for having what
u'v got.
or not.
apologize for losing
also winning!'
apologize for madness,
decay, irredeemable bas-tard
apologize for tard
for shameless display of rass
where one would prefer so 
much ass.
apologize through tweet, facebook
blog, social me-di-a
apologize BIG
apologize small
apologize through underground mazes
in Paris
where resistance! was kept.
apologize for dry. for moist. for wet.
apologize for seersuckers suits
molester mustaches, duck beard
brandy swilling migrant geese
apologize for oogling his niece.
once, twice, three! times each.
apologize for you did not know
and never asked
and never imagined
and never had foresight
or skin--
apologize 'gain.
apologize for skinny because i used
to puke my food
apologize for fat because my thighs
are in a mood.
apologize in a dress, a car, a condom,
a panic, a disco, a salad emporium
a vast empire of respressino 
apologize you just made up that word
turd
for Matthew's tragic untimely death,
for Sybil's too
for motherless children
for me, for you.
apologize drunkenly, sober as a a judge.
sober as a bomb. as a drone.
as a silent night.
at my window, radio raised, alone.
goodnight, sinner,
goodnight mistake, 
goodnight bitches.
shit! . sigh. remake.
good night apology
underneath the moon
in your little golden bubble
in your little silent room.





Monday, February 25, 2013

messing around in a happy way

This weekend was pretty great. We had Ian all weekend- usually he goes home Saturday night after staying Friday and Saturday day- and Mr. Curry had gift cards to BJ's from the MS walk he moved. He does the moving for this walk every year, and every year they give him gift cards as a way of saying 'thank's- a tip, basically. Every now and again his job gives good tip. So Saturday night we took Ian, Lola and Ever to dinner and it was good. Dessert was better. The people watching was interesting for me because I hardly ever get out, where other adults gather for reasons other than entertaining small people. While we waited ( and waited!) for a table, Mr. Curry took the kids to the video game store and I stayed to secure our spot. Some guys came out, swaggering and smoking and talking, and the alpha male, a dopey guy in a group of dopes, but more arrogant, immediately and loudly started in dissecting the body parts of the girls they were with. " I can't take my eyes off her tits, at least " he said. The one he was with had a crap load of makeup, long hair up in a ponytail/scrunchie, a miniskirt with high pointy heels that she wobbled in on, a tight shirt with pooches of fat coming out the sides, and sad droopy cheeks and sad droopy eyes. I've nothing against dressing sexy, dressing tight and low, but sometimes you see a girl dressed like that and you can immediately read the disrespect toward her body and herself that she put into her outfit. ' Fuck you body, I don't care what you want, this is what he wants...or what I think he wants. '  I could see so much about her, right away. Her body language deferred to these idiots who were appraising her like horse meat. She was begging 'please want to have sex with me, please like me' and the guy was saying ' she'll do for a Friday night ' and I wanted to pull her over and tell her, you are so much more than this.
Of course I did not.
Afterward, when Mr. Curry came back and walked up to meet us in the dark front, with the other adults mingling and murmuring, I thought he looked magnificent. When we used to go dancing all the time, in our 20's, I always compared him to other men. And he always won. He never failed to protect me, never failed to be gentlemanly but still retaining an off color sense of adventure and humor, never failed to somehow, magically make me feel like he wanted to fuck me sideways while at the same time wanting to respect me for life, wanting to have discussions and arguments and debates and always wanting to hear what I think. He opened doors for other women and old people and anyone who needed it, never stared at other women while I was looking ( so smooth ) wasn't impressed with what I considered the wrong things- money, fame, great looks. He kept his emotions close to the vest while still allowing the ( correct ) impression of a deeply loyal and loving man to those closest to him. He is polite to others but not terribly interested unless given a reason to be so. At at time in my life when all the attention I was given was based on looks, he wanted to- and did- have long conversations with me about everything. And here we are, still talking, still....well, you get the idea :)
We came home late and Ever went right to sleep, leaving Mr. Curry and the two other kiddos and I to watch Flight, with Denzel Washington. So good. Really good. Yes, we let 11 year old Lola watch this movie. We have a weird way of deciding what is OK and what isn't, and some nudity and even some sex ( depends, it just does ) is OK, as is some cursing and drug use. We talk about what we see.
Then at past 1am we all startled to the end and realized holy crap, it's late, and slept.
Friday Lola had a girlfriend spend the night who left at midnight with a 'stomachache' read: anxiety, and I felt badly for her. I could relate, kiddo.
Sunday we all went on a long hike. The first part was beautiful. THen Mr. Curry said 'I'll stay with Everkins, you guys go ahead', and somehow Ian managed to cajole me and the girls (Lola and her friend) up, up and up, until before we knew it, we were hiking a mile way up a mountain. Oh my aching ass!
Then Lola wondered why they don't have slide chutes in the large boulders so if you get tired, you just open the door and slide back down. Brilliant.
The view was amazing.
We brought the dogs too. They were in heaven.
It's a beautiful life.




Friday, February 22, 2013

People In Your Neighborhood

Take a seat and read!

My local newsanchor, someone Mr. Curry and myself have watched on T.V. as long as we can remember, has been diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer. His story, recounted here, includes a mention of his blog. In one of the most moving blog posts I've ever read, entitled Midnight Poetry, he describes his immediate and overwhelming realization that connection, caring, reaching out to those suffering is it.

A Beautiful Bruise is the name of this blog post that resonated so deeply with me right now, as Dakota prepares to move out. ( more on that later )

Shane Koyczan  made this beautiful, electric, upsetting poem to animation about being bullied as he grew up, and WOW. Find him on Facebook. Recognize.

Students on bouncy balls in class? Genius.

I have a overwhelming pull toward this story and toward the 18 year old daughter and sister, Olivia, now the only surviving member of her family. The day the story came out I was immediately drawn to read about it, and instead of putting it aside afterward like usual, I kept googling it every day after, to see updates. Something about the combination of the amazing life and spirit of this close knit family, the fact that the young boy was nicknamed- as everyone called him- Geddie, the fact that they were on a blustery cold wind swept beach, the fact of the the dog, the fact of Olivia being left the lone survivor on shore, as one by one her family was literally grabbed by riptides and yanked into the water... haunting. Absolutely haunting me. Dakota was born the same year as Olivia. I imagine him in her position. What will happen to her? This obituary for the entire family gives a glimpse into their interesting, love filled lives.

This is one of my favorite posts, ever. Her absolute joy in breastfeeding her baby and toddler, her deep, emotional connection with her son as she does so, her grief over letting it go all completely mirror my own experience as a breastfeeding mother. I love the many gorgeous, touching images of her nursing her beautiful little guy. Love, love.

Many of you know that I have Endometriosis. At the time of my last surgery it was Stage 4, which means I had multiple adhesions and lesions all over my abdominal cavity as well as a large endometrioma on my left ovary. Padma Lakshmi gives a great interview here on her own pain and long struggle with endometriosis, as well as her delight in getting pregnant after being told it wouldn't happen. Unfortunately her many years suffering with horrible pain and no diagnosis is a common story. If you have unexplained pain, bleeding, pms and or serious problems with your period, consider looking into endometriosis. It's four times more common than breast cancer. (Those aren't the only symptoms, but they are the most common. )

These color photos of Paris from 1900 mesh perfectly with my obsession of the time between 1800-1940 and Paris. Beautiful.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

What the F@!k Is A Blog, Anyway?

Blog might be the weirdest word that I've ever been associated with. In high school I was kind of a goth, for heavily eyelined minute ( although my love of The Cure never waned ) and during childbirth I had an episiotomy-- those are odd words, too, that sound like they could be the flagship for an alien culture, or the name of some bacteria on the bottom of your foot. Blog, which verbs, is a word that sounds like it should come from the mouth of a culturally mainstreaming teenager, but is instead said round the world by women in their 20s and up every day. 

When I started blogging in 2008 it was after leaping ship MySpace, which was becoming trashier and trashier by the second, until I felt like the amount of time I was fending off sexual advances from 'poets' was not worth the amount of time I was talking to people I actually wanted to speak with. I had heard the word blog enough times to have an idea what the strange noun-verb meant but hadn't ever taken a look around. I realized immediately this is where I wanted to be. It was a storyteller/voyeur dream, blog after blog of real life tales- tales of triumph over disease, of marriage, divorce, death, children, pregnancy, abortion, abuse, family history, and then in the Blog world version of the Big Bang Theory: suddenly there was an entire world of amazing decorating, designing, art and craft blogs, where for free you could browse endless inspirational images of rooms with beautiful furniture and rugs, baby clothes, baby toys, garden landscapes, adorable crafts for children, and most wonderfully, glimpses inside of people's houses: the knick knacks, paintings, photos, paint colors, comforters and kitchen utensils of other people. The crush of the two together was insanely satisfying, and best of all- the comments.

Comments were the currency of blogging. Comments were like morphine hits, instant relief and addiction for writers or really for anyone who wanted to be able to reach out, tell a story, and get jokes, support, stories told back, or just a 'hells yeah' in return. The comment sections of many of the blogs I visited were as entertaining- sometimes more- than the original posts themselves, full of witty back and forth bantering or sober sharing of hard times. You'd comment on a blog a few times and suddenly that blogger and yourself were kind of sort of friends, they'd come to your place, hang out, comment, and some of their commenters would find and like you too, until the circles we all paced in the online community began to fold over one another, and a blogger you knew could know ten, fifteen other bloggers you also knew. It was hilarious, engaging, fascinating, illuminating, supportive, simple and for many people, the entire point of blogging. 

As money entered the scene in a visible way, the inevitable shift began. The concern most often voiced was that blogs would become ' one big ad ' but the real problem was not the ads themselves but the way the ads, and the money attached, changed what people felt comfortable saying. If your blog featured- alongside your cute kids and hilarious stories of parenting and marriage- occasional stories about your abusive ex-husband and the toll his abuse took on you before he killed himself, then how is your advertiser of baby blocks going to feel about that? If your blog was almost half heavy and intense stories of hard times and how to work through them, how can you keep the money flowing when there are five hundred other blogs who don't curse and who talk about flower planting and baby yogurt and date night? The counting began: how many visitors, pageviews, unique visitors? When the focus is on attracting the most views posssible, there is a shift from engaging your community to attracting new community. 

Many bloggers began to aggressively push their blog to make money, and throngs of original bloggers dropped out. People who could afford to, or understood how to, or had connections to began to upgrade their blogs. Most successful blogs began to have one or more of these attributes:

- beautiful home and/or wardrobe
- nice camera and photo editing program
- beautifully designed blog with various pages instead of one blog page
- a focus on crafting and/or interior design
- connections to the nuts and bolts of the online world- being a writer or editor or knowing writers and editors for online magazines
- a spouse who made good money

One by one my blogger feed filled with announcements of ' goodbye ', as the people who were blogging just to tell stories and connect dropped out, crushed by the weight of the bigger bloggers who were attracting not only the visitors but the comments. As the comments began to wane, so did these blogger's desire to continue. Medium and big bloggers still had active and involved comment sections but the number of blogs simply telling stories had been dramatically reduced. 

This was the still point. For a moment in time, the blogworld was whole. There were still many story blogs, enough to satisfy an avid reader like myself, and just as many beautiful, glossy magazine type blogs with gorgeous Photoshopped images. The ads were there but on the edges and at that point, were earning many bloggers a nice side income. At this time Flux Capacitor, as simple as it gets- a 'tell stories' blog- was still thriving in the comment sections and I couldn't wait, every day, to come read what you all had to say. 

The tipping point began when blogging and social media and the advertising world mind melded, and blogs became so commercialized that the content was often, startlingly, reduced to ads disguised as blog posts, fluff in place of life, and 'interests'  focused on that could fit with the point of view of interested companies who would pay to have a blogger incorporate their product into that bloggers platform.  I can't remember the last time I found a blog brand new to me that was chock full of post after post with interesting, meaty stories. 

Let's dissect some of the language of professional blogging:

sponsored posts = Take something you are actually interested in and find a way to make money off of it on your blog. 

engagement = 'Talk' to your blog audience so that they keep coming back. 

unique visitors = Viewers of your blog who had not been before, as far as the bean counters can tell.

cross post = Find a way to post about something that you can then link up and/or post on other sites, for more traffic.

utilize social media = Tweet, hashtag, Facebook, promote others who promote you.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. So what went wrong with blogging?

What blogging was was a community of shared lives and support. What blogging now is ( a generalization, because it is generally- not always- true )  is a community of small business all trying to promote themselves and each other to make money. So if you are a craft blog, this is fantastic- this is right up your authentic ass, ( not a professional blogging term, in case you wonder ) and you can tweak, change, upgrade and tweet the hell out of your blog without losing any of the charm that it initially held. Same for photographers, painters, visual media of any kind really, as well as interior designers and makers- those who make children's toys, furniture, products. 

But for writers, for storytellers, for poets and those who blogged to ' only, connect ' this was the death knell. Blogs who were all about the story of life simply could not keep what was most valuable about them while utilizing the skills and techniques above. If you are worrying about how many unique visitors you have, you are naturally going to be looking at what blog posts or keywords brought them to you, and attempt to replicate that. If your story on the time your cat got stuck in the toilet is the big hit of your blog, where do you go with that? And that is it- that's the thing there, in the toilet- what the general public looks for and finds and wants to see on your blog is not usually what you are interested in writing. This is exactly why, historically and somewhat famously, writers have not been business people- why they have agents, publishers, etc. Because for writers, to engage heavily, daily, in the act of trying to sell what you have created changes the act of creation. Writers work from subconscious and conscious memories, stories heard, events witnessed, fantasies, work read. When the conscious  mind is engaged in regular awareness of what a 'hot keyword' is and how your last sponsored post on Barringer's Men Deodorant might feel about the story you want to tell about your husband's natural deodorant, you change the machine that produces the product. 

We can promote our work- but to create it with the sell in mind- in the famous words of  Sweet Brown:   Ain't nobody got time for that! 

And now blogging evolves again- those blogs that were making regular revenue off ads can no longer do so. Companies want more than just clicks, they want return visitors, they want engagement, they want to make money- and ads on blogs aren't cutting it anymore. You'll notice more and more blogs will be reducing if not completely doing away with ads as they try to find a successful way to monetize.  As blogging boomed, the field became crowded even as the quality diminished, and supply and demand shifted. Companies that would pay $500 for a sponsored post now want to pay $300, and the slide is not looking to let up. 

Many bloggers who went all the way to the right, tipping over in order to make money, are now panicking and finding that they don't want to be simply a vessel for sponsors. They want to have a voice, a point of view- why should the reader be engaged, they are asking- what about me

My answer is the same as it's always been: quality. My blog list has shrunk considerably over the last two years as many places I used to visit and read are now boring posts of sponsored shtick and links to other places. If you follow the money, you end up broke. If you follow your passions, you'll either end up with money or self-satisfaction, or- the end of the rainbow- both. 

What is a blog? For me, it's a place online I go that either tells a great story or sells something. Maybe one day, I'll have a novel out, and I can do both.











Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Where In The World Is Ever Elizabeth?

Oh THERE she is!

She's been here, here, here 

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Black History Month & Fashion

Willi Posey


I'm proud of my newest piece up at The Budget Fashionista: The Influence of 10 Black Women In Fashion It was so interesting to research and put together, and I hope I chose to highlight many of the lesser known black designers and businesswomen who were at the forefront of the fashion industry and broke barriers.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

People In Your Neighborhood




source
take a seat and read


Mr. Curry watched this last night in bliss. His dream as a kid was to be a jet fighter pilot, and this video gives a first hand glimpse. Very cool video of liftoff and the ocean and world turning and dropping away.

Great list of tips to help kids with sensory integration disorder and/or anxiety.

My friend Stephanie linked this on Facebook and I laughed out loud through the whole thing. The Leona Lewis part busted me up! . ' 5 Meteor Videos That Prove Russians Don't Give A Fuck '

Stacey writes a beautiful and true essay on love over time.

“I cry a lot because I miss people. They die, and I can’t stop them. They leave me, and I love them more.”

I love how Julia thinks about her control struggle with one of her children over homework.

Jane Devin is a passionate, intelligent novelist, and this post on her blog about finishing a novel is gorgeous.

This piece on the life and death of a handsome, intelligent and deeply loved young college student is not only absorbing to read but important to think about. ADD/ADHD medications are not harmless.

“I want to be cryogenically preserved when I die from brain cancer but can’t afford it,” Kim wrote on the social news site Reddit.

I love Zadie Smith's writing- her novel  On Beauty  is one of my favorites, and this piece, On Joy, is no exception.



Friday, February 15, 2013

work

you were working they call us the working poor
in surveys or institutional conversations about
people like- 
you were working they call us blue collar
in governmental board meetings and Springsteen
songs

what are we working for? 

for Lola and Dakota and Ian and Ever

for Friday nights all in the bed and the smallest one falls asleep
like a kit in a fox den. 
never knowing anything but love, never felt anything
but a kind hand on her small fat butt, her butter
scooped cheeks.

for Saturday in the shower when the room puts a finger
across the door in a locked gentle click
hush and we are alone for ten minutes

for weekend trips up to the mountains
we spot a family of deer
the baby cries out in a hiccup of joy
daughter watches large blue eyes sleepy and kind
her spirit animals turn their heads like woven cotton

for evenings of sticky painted feet 
tears in the bathtub and the salty rocking of plastic ship
the ritual of drying off
brush hair, clean teeth

for son who will graduate with military grades
lined up beautifully peaks to the sky
AAAAAA
for his hard work, ours

for a swaying movement toward the shore
of each day's crest and evening's tide
and again, together, again, together
again

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

the day off

Mr. Curry had no work today ( boo for the $ ) so it was, after dropping Lola off at school and Dakota left for work, just the three of us. We headed to Starbucks, then one of many local parks, and Ever played and played and whew, played. Home and her nap and work and clean and then a long stroller ride to the local grocery for some milk and bread. My mom picked up Lola to go sell Girl Scout cookies and before we left on our walk, I headed out front and hoola hooped with Kins. I only got two turns in though. She loved it. " Gain! Gain Momma! " Rest of the later afternoon and now I spent struggling against fatigue. So. Tired. I've been eating bread and too much sugar and so...puffy, pain, and tired. It's a slow climb back when I get knocked down by my own hand. Lots of green and peppermint tea, water and lemon, gluten free waffles, corn tortillas and that kind of thing in replace of breads, and ate the junky cheap sugary stuff so now all that is left is the dark chocolate in the freezer, which I just eat a square or two of a day. Hopefully I'll feel better in the next few days. 




Monday, February 11, 2013

Up The Iron Mountain

Mr. Curry and I were each not quite right Sunday. Vague and nameless unease brought about by workplace problems, money stress, last minute changes to things out of our control, worries about family members... the overcast sky sat glumly above our house. We were supposed to take the kids to the train, but the train didn't run at last minute. Mr. Curry didn't want to do what I wanted to do, although he was quite polite about it, I almost fell into a sulk. Pulling myself together, I decided to do the thing that sounded not misery making to him, and take us all on our traditional mud-hike, where we go hiking either in the rain or directly after a good one. And it had rained, hard, all weekend. So we went, and in the end, I was glad to be wrong. It was the best thing we could have done.

Look how tall our Ian is now. He drove the truck to the mountain.

Lola brought Abby, her oldest and dearest dolly, which Ever has, of course, chosen to be HER most dear dolly. Years ago we used to refer to this doll as 'homeless doll' and by the small glimpse of her head in this image, you can get some idea why.


I love this photo. Kinny looks like a perfect fat baby Buddha, all wise and at peace.


And this will remain a beloved photo because it captures a very Ever-smile- joyful and enormously smug and toying, all at once. You can see the beginning of it forming at the corner of her mouth. 


Ian is a regular hiker and runner. He chugged uphill with Everkins just fine.






When we got to the very, very steep and very, very high part, Ever looked over and down and decided, quite sensibly, to be afraid. She reached for me and I reached back. Snap.

Lola found fairy land and fairy mushrooms and was enchanted.


Ever is in heaven, her natural element. She spent this entire resting time hiding in bushes- like really scraggly, hard to get into bushes- and saying ' don't worry, i be riiiight back, just a minute! '

Here I am looking deservedly puffy faced and holding Abby. I've been on a sugar binge this weekend and it needs. to. stop. It makes me sick, it's bad for me, it makes me gain weight, it puts my future health at risk, it's a bad example for the kids, drains my energy... ugh.

We let Everkins romp in the rainpuddle and she stepped out and her shoe decided not to come with her. Somehow I missed that shot of the poor ole boot in the water, and got this one instead of Daddy fixing it. Ever said ' Ewww poopy on me. GROSS. ' and we laughed and explained no, it's mud, silly.

Somehow when I downloaded, the pictures at the end got out of order. This one of Ever falling in the mud was supposed to be before the one of her shoe, and the below of her asleep in the car was supposed to be the last image.


But instead, I leave you with this, maybe more fitting. A little girl, a much beloved and beaten up dolly, rainboots and a mudpuddle. What could be better than that?

Friday, February 8, 2013

People In Your Neighborhood

lie down and read


Over and Over: It's not all in your head  A completely engrossing short list of death in one person's life by Robert Wilder

I became friends with Caroline Levitt through my beloved Facebook. She is a wonderful person to know via words, as you will see by her words here in NYT column Modern Love

I love MindBodyGreen and I hope to write for them on day. Meanwhile, I read them. This piece on 10 signs you are gluten intolerant is a succinct and possibly life changing concoction of information. I am gluten intolerant and paying for it right now, after bread, chocolate cake and ah..more bread. Curse you Soup Plantation!

This important award winning film is free to watch until Feb 10th.  Genetic Roulette- the gamble of our lives

I'm still processing what I think about many of the viewpoints in this piece in the NYT, but it's a great piece, chock full of information, ideas and questions on anxiety in children and why some thrive and some fail under pressure.

It's important to be real about what happens when we try to make people be someone other than who they are and important to be real about gay people: they can't be 'turned straight' nor should they be. It's a bunch of crap.

This piece on 'the share economy' in Forbes is fascinating. I've read it twice and I'm a gonna read it again.

Oh I loved reading this. It made my brain feel all orgasmy. Lorrie Moore writes about Homeland. Love. That. Show.






Lola Moon Turns Eleven










Lola's Birthing Story here

Thursday, February 7, 2013

10 Reasons It's You And No One Else { Scenes From A Marriage }



1. When you come home from work, text me or call me you say ' Hey beautiful... '

2. Your working man hands. Cigar like fingers, callused palms, hands that can take of things, of people.

3. Your sudden and usually unexpected moments of pure insight into the human condition. 

4. Your routine with Ever after the bath. Plopped in towel on the bed, starting at her feet, patting each part dry until you get all done, except... ' What are we forgetting? ' you ask in a confused voice. Ever giggles. Holds up her arm and says in her teensy voice ' Armpit? ' and then you attack it and she cracks up. You ask ' What ELSE are we forgetting? ' and she holds up the other arm and says ' This one armpit? ' Then you do the car wash, head to toe. 

5. Your arms. Your shoulders. Your back. Your tattoos. Never, ever gets old.

6. The way you kiss me. Like you mean it.

7. You can still change your mind about people. The older we get, the more I see people getting petrified in their view on individuals and groups. You have strong opinions on people. but the minute you see something that makes you realize you were wrong, you change your mind. 

8. Sometimes you smile at me, like when I am running out of the grocery store to where you and the kids are waiting in the big white truck,  the sun just setting and the headlights of cars flashing around me, and you look like you did at 19 crazy in love with me, and I feel like I'm going to love you like this forever. That is one moment, and most moments don't feel like that. This feeling goes with us, however tucked away, everywhere we go.

9. We have a secret together. A secret, adult life that is you and I. A secret I take with me and carry and whisper to myself while I wipe crap off baby butts, clean the kids bathrooms, drive to Girl Scouts, make dinner, brush my hair, feed the dogs....

10. You work harder than any man I know.

Past Top Ten Reasons It's You...

Here     Here     & Here


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

10 Things A Toddler Loves

She looks so innocent!


1. Any toddler worth his or her saggy diaper will love it when you fake-hurt yourself. The worse, the better. Drop a book on your foot and jump up and down holding foot while howling? Really funny. Pretend to trip and fall down while making loud OOMPH? Hysterical! Walk into a wall that makes the BOINGG sound while you spin in circles? Killing it!!!

2. Being naked is the top of the hill for toddlers. Everything is better naked!! is pretty much their theme.  Water play is obviously better naked. Running in circles rules while naked. And dancing? You pretty much HAVE to be naked to bust the best moves. Ever can barely contain her booty shakin, leg kicking and arm pumping when her clothes are coming off. 

3. Other family members crying, especially brothers and sisters. This gives toddlers a chance to play sad, like when Ever hit Lola directly in the face in the bathtub and then asked immediately after, while Lola cried, ' Lola, WHAT'S WRONG?!! ' Oh you're good, young one, realllly good.

4. Taking things that are in things and putting those things in as many square miles as possible while throwing the things that things came in also as many square miles as possible. 

5. Putting things in the toilet, then looking completely clueless when Mom and Dad run around frantically looking for a. their wallet b. the cell c. the remote, remaining smug and calm until the moment when someone realizes they've just pooped on 200 dollars.

6. Smelling a body part, ie feet, armpits, etc, and saying EWWWW in the loudest, most grossed out voice possible. Could anything ever be funnier? 

7. Drawing on everything that isn't paper. This includes the walls, furniture including all fabrics, metals and woods, the toilet, their body, all flooring, doors, shoes, clothing and the inner ear of the dog.

8. Cheese sticks, noodles and milk. If she ever poops again, you get to change her.

9. Toy stores. Training day for parents. The place where gruesome battle of wills, toy 'organizing', spills, 'that's not stealing, is it?', feeble apologies to silent and judgmental employees, 'oh my god where IS SHE' and the one hour five minute warning to leave.

10. Zerberts ie fart noises. Bazinga!
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