tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9726475779190000542024-03-14T03:29:05.440-07:00Flux CapacitorMaggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.comBlogger1590125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-89477637879209349512019-08-20T22:54:00.000-07:002019-08-20T22:54:36.581-07:00Desire <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I worry about the possibility of desexualization by nature. On a run the feel of my own breasts inside my shirt excites me. I do not desire to be without this ridiculous level of desire. Even my earliest memories include a hazy layer of sensuality as I encountered the ocean, fields of grass, canyon smells, the sky in every mood. I interpret life though a series of moral codes, historical knowledge, learned paths, and desire.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-29747594778734864442019-08-17T23:11:00.000-07:002019-08-17T23:11:33.373-07:00When I Decided To Divorce It Happened In One Sentence <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Every day I am further from the place of hot truth and everything I believe most fervently to be essential for full life for personhood for self-esteem for sanity for emotional health for any possibility of joy or experience of joy I have allowed it to be crushed and replaced in the last three years and I'm not allowing myself to choose this anymore no matter that I must drag my heart and pussy and body through the grounds like a flailing child, no matter, I will do it because yes I love you I will always love you, but at night when I am alone (always) I am closer to dead than ever before.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-7166964046155200532018-09-19T12:51:00.002-07:002018-09-19T12:51:36.055-07:00the body never lies<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">i think you wanted to know</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">his moonshine eye, his cliff-noted past</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">i caught you looking through his pockets</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">planting seeds, stabbing your skin on </span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">hangnails- he was ripshorn and scarcely</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">alive; you loved him for the weak pulse,</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">the saline drip of his nose, degeneration</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">of his eye, where rolling stones fumbled</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">slowly, wet and dark and hollow.</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">i think you wanted to know</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">what you were up against: a war</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">you would not win clamoring against</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">your rib cage, a hurricane state </span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">in the immune system of your heart</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">where invaders would never be silenced</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">or your father ever be wrong;</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">he called you a slut faced bitch</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">i slapped him twice and took you home.</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">your favorite poet was Sexton,</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">reading her suicidal confessions, her calm</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">representation of madness, premeditated</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">murder during the childbearing years</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">i know you hated her for failing as a mother,</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">now i'm talking about you again</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">although you tell us how you can't blame</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">them forever, how you have to grow up </span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">and take responsibility, to forgive</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">to forgive the cancer that mouths it's</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">gumless seams against your wounds,</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">to forgive the blood rot that licks</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">sugar off your ribs-</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">or to forgive your parents.</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">why would you do that?</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">deny your body it's truths.</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">the body never forgets</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">how your sex foils itself again and again</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">your arms ache and your stomach broils,</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">hot plantings sewn into the curve of foot</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">cold buds wakening in the slip of your mouth,</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">headaches, dreary Sunday monsoon</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">flashes it's wet tears against your dry eye.</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">i think you wanted to know</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">what it was like to be un-loved</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">in a million different ways</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">this mission was your alone</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">torture yourself for as long as you shall live</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">in his arms, where he would never know</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">*never give a shit, want to be inconvenienced, love you*</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">and you would never remember</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">and everyone would be so pleased you forgave</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">it is so much easier that way;</span><br style="color: #212121; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 15px;">don't you think.</span></span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-40760190451124712232018-09-14T23:22:00.002-07:002018-09-14T23:22:53.526-07:00where are we<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">at night i write a story</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">erase the middle and tape together the beginning and end</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here we are remembering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here we are living in remembering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here we are still in rememberance</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here we are, still.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">it is quiet in this house</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">there is no youthful screaming and clawing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">an entire poem of missing items:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sunday morning breakfast,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">sex every day, late night tv, late night fucking,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">late night love making,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">laughing until crying, crying until laughing,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">tumbleweeds of family, rolling over living room floor,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">your hands enormous over my rib cage,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">your heart enormous, a dialect between two,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">hands together, after work together, always together.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">an entire lifetime of missing items:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">you disappear and i disappear with you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">where are we?</span><br />
<br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-37527132432362828012018-05-08T23:45:00.000-07:002018-05-08T23:49:38.705-07:00maniac heartbreak<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the rain deconstructs on its own</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the limbs of trees, wings of bees</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">birds that have flown</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">why fail here</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">when i am offering it all</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">hairy leg, shaking fingers, limp hair</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">buried in the ground there is</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a reminder</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">not like bone, nothing as new as flesh</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but a glass bottle perhaps,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a broken glass</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">something broken</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i dig it up easily</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">soil now mud</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and hold the thing hard,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i will deconstruct myself,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i will bleed at my own request</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">my own power.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and the blood makes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">such pretty little rivelets</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">down my wet wrist</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">curling and thinning to pink</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">around my arm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">like the bracelet i wanted for Christmas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">although you do not love me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you will feel something hard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and now it begins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-54714115876254866692017-11-26T19:26:00.001-08:002017-11-26T19:26:09.298-08:00dead dog sunday<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">it is the deadening of my nerves that has surprised me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">more than anything</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the last few years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i continued barreling through my thirties with the sex drive</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and moods of my twenties</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">so i didn't expect withdrawal</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the Cheever fossilizing against suburbia</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">finally making itself known;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">if anything I would have expected more exuberance</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">due to the children all being partly or all grown,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">no more babies hanging from my breast,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">in between my husband and i in bed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">at times i feel the ridiculous nature of life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">is so extreme that to coast is best.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">other times i feel terrified that i am secretly dying,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and will be buried in my suburban garden,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">with it's pleasant cluster of low moisture needing plants</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and non-toxic bug killers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">with my old dogs buried near me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">my old fears too,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">my pretty little pussy buried underneath the roses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">so by any name, they may smell as sweet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">am i old so soon?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">why am i deliberate in the face of our world</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">hurricanes and droughts and churches away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">from being a total failure,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">why do i bathe my children and hold them and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">weave decorations through our lampshades,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">stroke the dog's belly and feed my neighbor,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">when the clock tower is nearing midnight?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">it's amazing how tired you can become</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">long before it is time to sleep.</span><br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-77047638213709423162017-11-12T18:45:00.002-08:002017-11-12T18:45:35.154-08:00People In Your Neighborhood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQx7i_5gD_9QpCGV1h9dR_snKaSf1pk5j3JxQyNST8iFTVBfrsJgtsL1W_6js0fLNYx4Tz8Bmhqmq2y_YRshlmpTu2Xmud1IPxoOcg-pv7NA5Rf2ChTVsFkMeAcn2PqfEC10vVxJdqE4Q/s1600/969dcb330b284c5f3955dee1e09d304d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="564" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQx7i_5gD_9QpCGV1h9dR_snKaSf1pk5j3JxQyNST8iFTVBfrsJgtsL1W_6js0fLNYx4Tz8Bmhqmq2y_YRshlmpTu2Xmud1IPxoOcg-pv7NA5Rf2ChTVsFkMeAcn2PqfEC10vVxJdqE4Q/s640/969dcb330b284c5f3955dee1e09d304d.jpg" width="454" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">take a seat and read</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm obsessed with this video series from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7hx-eIyq0">The Paris Review: The First Time</a> where authors tell the story of writing their first play, novel, etc</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One of my Vitamin Shoppe pieces: <a href="https://whatsgood.vitaminshoppe.com/2017/11/01/decade-guide-women-supplements/">A Decade by Decade Guide for Women's Supplements</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I frequently have '<a href="https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/9k3eb7/high-functioning-depression-is-the-easiest-to-miss">high functioning depression'</a> as in this VICE article</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I like to escape into this <a href="https://thegardenershouse.com/">gorgeous place</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39070183">Fasting </a>fascinates me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Did you ever read <a href="http://velamag.com/mother-writer-monster-maid/">Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid </a>by Rupi Thorpe?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Andrea Volpe on <a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/complicated-grief-bereavement-death-loss-CBT">complicated grief</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.byrdie.com/indian-middle-eastern-beauty-tips/slide7">Beauty</a> from around the world</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Do you know <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/?ref=nav#.SU39wghyN">The Marshall Project?</a> They do amazing work.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-85282720066169268622017-11-11T00:25:00.001-08:002017-11-11T00:25:14.525-08:00i hate people<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">in my mind are two images </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">one is a child sitting next to their </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">lower, left leg</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">which was just then blown off</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">by a bomb</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and the child is reaching out her arms</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">to her father, screaming,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">because her lower, left leg</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">was just then blown off</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">by a bomb.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the other is a spider quivering</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">as she is sprayed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">with an insecticide, and releasing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a dozen or so babies in her instinct</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">to save them,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">so they might run, as they do, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">perhaps just one will </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">make it without being sprayed </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">with an insecticide.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i hate people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i don't want to be in this merry go round</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">of terror anymore</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i am moving to the mountains</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and if i die</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">it will be because some bear tears me in half</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">not because he poisons my food,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">sprays me with chemicals, skins me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">develops a weapon to gut me, shoot me, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">or obliterate me-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">in fact it is the lack of malice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and creativity</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that i used to see as terrifying</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">which i now see as practically a fucking paradise</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">compared to what us ugly humans do</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">with our big, fancy brains</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and our empty, diseased hearts.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-84510108500900530192017-11-02T13:11:00.001-07:002017-11-02T13:11:51.770-07:00Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold -A Review-<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Netflix documentary <i>Joan Didion, The Center Will Not Hold</i>, directed by Didion's nephew, Griffin Dunne, begins with the classic snippets of 60's culture: Go Ask Alice blares next to images of half-naked teenagers writhing in open spaces or in the littered streets of cities, oversized sunglasses and long hair framing faces without makeup or pretense, but instead often the glazed and slightly unhinged expression of the unstoppably high. It might fool you into thinking that this documentary will be about Didion's life as reflected in and through the culture.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet halfway through the documentary we are picked up and summarily plunked in front of another screen, another view into Joan Didion's life; we see now not the culture that surrounded her, the culture that she helped shape with her astute and observant intelligent writing, but instead a plunge into the personal: many photos of Joan, her husband John, their daughter Quintana Roo, and the internal experience of Joan and John's marriage, their adoption of Quintana, a long, dark period of Joan and John's marriage, their various works apart and together, their social life, and then a long drawn-out ending that mirrors the dread and intensity of the long, drawn-out ending of the lives of her most beloved; John died of a heart attack in 2003, followed two years later by the death of Quintana.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"People are afraid of dying because they don't want to leave their loved ones behind," Didion tells the camera. After a long pause, she continues, "I have no one to leave behind."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was surely the target demography for this documentary. I've been reading Didion since my teenage years, starting with <i>Play It As It Lays</i> and most recently with <i>The Year of Magical Thinking</i> (on her husband, John Dunne's unexpected death) and then <i>Blue Nights</i> (on her daughter Quintana's slightly more expected, tragic death after years of serious illness.) Someone, in other words, who already knew quite a bit about Joan Didion, but was hankering to have this first-time interior view of her life and thoughts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Many of my friends who have seen the film expressed disappointment–it doesn't give any secrets, it doesn't focus enough on her writing, it doesn't delve into Didion's own reflections on what her work has meant to the country and our culture, it does not delve into how prescient many of Didion's points of views, her obsessions in her work were. While some of all of these subjects are touched on (Joan Didion's zoomed in focus on Dick Cheney's importance as a 'truly evil' government player) they were not, for whatever reason that we aren't privy to, what this documentary was to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">To me, this makes perfect sense; that a movie about Joan Didion, made by her family member with her full cooperation, would cut out all other discourse once the dying of those who matter most to her begins. This is the same writer who said of Los Angeles that everyone there was struggling with the understanding of complete meaningless, that nothing they were doing or saying had any importance. The same writer who went through a long stretch of inability to write because she was struck with the certainty that writing was meaningless. The same writer who wrote that in the wake of her husband's death, she experienced a series of repeated confrontations with the meaningless of life itself. What clearly was meaningful to Joan Didion was her relationships with her husband and her daughter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There were subjects touched on that I wasn't aware of; John Dunne's furious temper is mentioned a few times, with growing gravity. Didion calls him a "hothead" and offers that he would get set off by "anything, anything." How exactly this terrible temper showed itself in their life, how that played into their period of separation, and how it may have affected Quintana Roo (who later had an alcohol addiction that appeared to have played into her untimely death)–not a word.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A telling moment is when Didion's nephew asks her how she felt when, as a reporter, she encountered a five-year-old high on acid. "Well, I mean," Didion pauses for a long moment, waving her fingers delicately, and finally says, "It was gold." Honest, and sad. Later in the documentary Didion is recounting a huge party she and John threw, and finding, when she checked on her little daughter upstairs asleep, drug paraphenelia on the floor. "Who would do that?" she asks, still upset with the memory. The jarring disconnect between her emotions toward her 'subjects' and her daughter struck me as important to understanding Didion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">An in-depth analysis of her family dynamics or of her work were not meant to be the focus of Joan <i>Didion: The Center Will Not Hold</i>. Instead, this is in a sense an extension of her two previous books about her husband and her daughter. In an interview, she is asked why she didn't want to finish writing <i>The Year of Magical Thinking </i>and she replied that when she wrote, she was in touch with John Dunne. And when the book was done? Didion responded with her mouth in a line and a wave of her hand into the air: Gone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Didion produced the magnificent work of <i>The Year of Magical Thinking</i>, which the documentary notes is the first book about grieving written by a non-believer. The book was not concerned with anything but love and grief. In the documentary, we are able to see how both intensely fragile–weighing at one point 75 pounds, shaking with what, I wondered, might be Parkinson's, speaking about dissociation and descent into madness during grief–and intensely strong–funneling the deepest pain into bright, piercing words, sentences, books, creating a play and becoming part of the theatre community as healing–Didion is. She is finding again, she tells us, that it ends up being about coming back to who she is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Without realizing it, over the last decade Didion has revealed exactly who she is: a woman who claimed not to know what falling in love means, but who loved like an involuble molecule, so deeply bound with the lives of those she most adored that since their deaths, all meaning and all living has to pass through the narrow corridor of Didion's memories of their lives and their loss. Writing is an extension of Didion, clearly, but so were her family. Without them here, Didion wants us to remember her loved ones with her. It makes me wonder what she would have said if she had been asked about writing and meaning now, that her work is centered around John and Quintana.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She is sharing them with us; her experience of them in life and death is what she is willing to give. I for one am glad to take it.</span><br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-61809081217246172352017-10-24T20:18:00.002-07:002017-10-24T20:18:27.386-07:00Witches, Switches and Son of a Bitches<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Halloween night </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i'll be drunk and un-mothered,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">all the children monsters on the outside,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">all the mothers gone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i will have stayed behind,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">preying on the suburban men</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the ones who have sex with their wives</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">at precisely eleven thirty almost every evening-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that's my neighbor;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">he moans loudly when he comes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">one by one i will blow them,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">fuck them, leave a trail of semen and bad costumes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">on the floor behind me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and when i arrive back home</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">by identity as a slut and homewrecker will follow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and destroy my house like a bomb made of snickers and tarts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i will be completely guilty and wrong</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and pass out on the bed without brushing the dogs or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">cleaning the floor or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">locking the doors or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">checking that the children brushed their teeth or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">enjoying a whore bath in the hallway sink.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i will be completely wrong and guilty </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and leave my husband to deal with the children's tears</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the neighbor wives' fury</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the neighbor men's sudden righteous anger </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">at being tricked while in a vulnerable position,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">all alone on Halloween night,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">when a woman they had previously known to be fairly distant</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">took their hands and placed one on the curve of her hip,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the other on her right (the better, slightly firmer) breast</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and whispered to them that it wasn't their fault,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">she was having it all,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that's what she was told to do,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and she would take it by hook </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">or crook, nut to slut,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and sleep the dreamless sleep of the damned.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-71324525441714986502017-10-22T00:04:00.002-07:002017-10-22T00:11:53.375-07:00Melatonin <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">THE LAST few months I've had no problem falling asleep at night which is really (Jim Carrey reahealhealhealy) not like me</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Which I am grateful for.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">However not grateful for the constant fatigue of the last month. I have always, even as a teen, had problems with fatigue-fatigue dominated my twenties-but it has been manageable the last year for the most part, until recently.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So tonight I'm taking melatonin at midnight because I have watched a movie, it is saturday night, and my when I asked E. if he wanted to watch a movie with me he simply said 'no' and Everkins came right up to me and put her arms around me and said Mama I'll watch a movie with you and I felt sad that at her age, almost seven, it is so obvious to her now what is going on, and how the various people in her life feel about it- how she might feel about it. She talks about it almost every day right now. I bought her a workbook When Your Parent Has Mental Illness and she loves it, the way only small children can love these kinds of things. On her own she opened it and did four pages, which I didn't discover until the next day. I was a little startled because I don't think that's a great idea, for her to do it alone, but then I was a little in awe of the singleness of children, of how just when you start falling into the unconscious lull and bull of living as if they are known completely to you, they go and do or say something to remind you of their singularity. Ever Elizabeth is absolutely singular. That child has the spirit of a pioneer. She is upright morally and physically and yet without the prissy bossiness her mother had as a child. She's a damn good egg. We walk the path together. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyhow I turned to her with a smile and said of course, I'd love to watch a movie with my girl, and we snuggled up and she fell immediately asleep and I lay thinking about some of the hardest, most elusive questions of my life, and reminding myself once again to put Montaigne's writing/essays in my amazon bucket-</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">so in fact, I will go do that now. I can feel the melatonin kicking in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">edited-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i put Montaigne in. anyone want to read him alongside me? we could talk about it. back and forth on blogs even, like the old days, god i hate that expression. xo</span></div>
<div>
<br />
<br />
edited-<br />
realized i actually put in a bio of Montaigne, which looks so good and is so cheap i'll start with that anyhow. it's 'How To Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer'<br />
I MEAN could any book be more necessary for me right now?<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-35718016121675229002017-10-21T18:10:00.001-07:002017-10-21T18:10:05.725-07:00good gracious ass is bodacious<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzm22mQGIb1aMN8LU-dahBmPj5pDq9QRs5cZZ0uRO4loH2xNsnzgqYh9ICZUl0WP7z9UC35043If-9ustnazu2BX-NDHcUozQU0jgwlFJTubJj1wrrIVpcWYBgSXvVvVooceRcliHd3J6y/s1600/bootyforEd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="716" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzm22mQGIb1aMN8LU-dahBmPj5pDq9QRs5cZZ0uRO4loH2xNsnzgqYh9ICZUl0WP7z9UC35043If-9ustnazu2BX-NDHcUozQU0jgwlFJTubJj1wrrIVpcWYBgSXvVvVooceRcliHd3J6y/s320/bootyforEd.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
things i did not do today<br />
<br />
write the great american novel<br />
write any novel<br />
write<br />
<br />
things i did today<br />
<br />
post pic of my ass on internetMaggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-63459947492897723982017-10-19T18:44:00.003-07:002017-10-19T18:46:32.935-07:00the exhausted me i've come to know<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_a9Tkb0xyYIjHo4uVSWoFW3X1_20lXjG94aaT2ziFvpiU5cqP6UdQOsp3yn9w1COlFoVKWXWzFK2y1FjTg63QhfMr9YdVZnmBH-WOmCyS7rbpsyYP_m8esD0ZKO4yGtSIwAHME8Y1zEAj/s1600/Me%252Cbath%252CEver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_a9Tkb0xyYIjHo4uVSWoFW3X1_20lXjG94aaT2ziFvpiU5cqP6UdQOsp3yn9w1COlFoVKWXWzFK2y1FjTg63QhfMr9YdVZnmBH-WOmCyS7rbpsyYP_m8esD0ZKO4yGtSIwAHME8Y1zEAj/s400/Me%252Cbath%252CEver.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">isn't this a great photo? It reminds me of the old days of blogging before I discovered photoshop, before my photos were even lit well. It also makes me happy because there are hardly any photos at all of me just being with my kids like this. Almost all the photos where I am included are very, 'here we are with our arms around each other' which is nice, but not as emotional as this, which is a story. it's the story of me having a bad autoimmune flare and taking a hot bath with magnesium salts to try to quell the horrible pain and swelling in my abdomen, and Ever not wanting to be away from me, and me saying 'Well OK then, sit on the edge of the bath and play toys while I read this magazine,' and me reading the magazine but also fussing at her about splashing and noises and then looking up at her and just thinking, If I loved you anymore, I'd be a supernova, and not a human being.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's a very unflattering photo of me, not the way I like to present myself to the world, which somehow makes me like it even more. My arms look fleshy because they are pressed into my boobs so you can't see the nipple, and my stomach rolls are a'rollin, and I have massive eye bags. But I recognize myself. I look like the exhausted me that I have come to know in my late thirties and early forties.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm stepping back from Facebook as much as possible and I hope to be blogging more because there is something about writing here that is very good for my brain and emotions that nothing else has duplicated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hello, hello blog readers, I know you are there, though you are silent. I see your little clicks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have submitted my novel to three agents. Two of them requested it on exclusive after my query, and one of those two was my dream agent. All rejected it and all for the same reasons: plot issues. The feedback other than that was amazing. It made me feel like a true novelist, though I haven't had a novel published y.e.t. The dream agent said, hey, if you can't sell this to an agent, and write or have another novel, send that to me- which is unusual and encouraging. My plot isn't steadily propulsive. So people say 'that's silly, don't stop after three rejections.' However the issue isn't my precious feelings, it's that I know the reasons it was rejected are RIGHT, I can feel it when I read it, but I can't see it. I can't figure out how to fix it. I need a developmental editor, I absolutely 100% do. Reader feedback didn't do it for this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's where I'm at with that.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-20574284844471815592017-08-02T01:02:00.002-07:002017-08-02T01:02:25.433-07:00computer<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">glowing, faceless</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the light shines on my bare, swinging breasts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i write nude</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i fuck nude, i bathe nude, i vacuum nude.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">wet, dark</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the waves of eternity swing me in pendulum.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i am falling</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">asleep, i am falling?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">i am asleep?</span><br />
<br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-9966652632876243902017-07-29T01:45:00.003-07:002017-07-29T01:47:33.015-07:00one and only life<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I see a spider crawling near me and I feel reflexive fear, and next automatic protection: protection of the spider from my fear, and my ability to kill it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other, worse days, I see a spider crawling near me and fill with a quick and mean rage, and on those worse days, I might kill the spider. I regret every spider I have killed that was not crawling on me in bed or poisonous and near my children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I do not want to take the life of any single living creature. But I kill the fleas on my dogs and poisonous spiders near my children and sometimes, ants. When I watch the fleas going down the drain I think the entire time about their deaths. I wonder about being a flea. Kafka could imagine the bugs. I like to slip inside the life of everything I encounter for some period of time, small or large, and feel from inside out the true body of that life. The perspective of something tiny. The perspective of something enormous. How, to the enormous life, I am the tiny speck of flea, the thousands of ants, easily dismissed, krill soaring in the millions through the gaping baleen mouth of the blue whale.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Life in any form is miraculous. It is the true miracle, the parting of waters we wait to see has already parted, and the head of new life slid from inside the wet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I tell my children from the time they are gently the exact same thing when contemplating the hard, blisteringly black back of a beetle, or the tiny working arms of a fly: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">this is it's one and only life. it is not up to us to decide when it ends.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and they accept this of course so easily, because I am Their Mother. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To spend your life highly aware of the miracle and singularity and astonishment of that life and of every life around you can be highly uncomfortable and sometimes slide into miserable, but it is also the way a godless speck like myself can without effort find meaning in this insane world, inside the miracle of an ant turning it's bulbous head to look my way, the round eye of the robin at our birdfeeder, the one-eyed baby possum looking at me with his one eye left (the other side a gaping hole from the claw of an owl) and I can see, as clearly as I can see my own hand, that this baby possum is thinking,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">are you going to end my one and only life?</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, no, no, I sang to him as he circulated his tiny round ear, I am not. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want everyone and everything to turn an eye to something more powerful than them and to see in that large unknown thing that it only means good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wouldn't that be something?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The baby possum went to the Wildlife Preserve with Lola, and the woman picked him up and turned him left and then right before smiling at Lola. 'He'll be just fine,' she said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next night at dinner outdoors, we were visited by another baby possum, this one with both eyes in place, and a rat and a mouse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ever threw them food and curled up with the flashlight until all the tiny legs stopped moving in the bushes.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-53461679461323481822017-07-23T00:53:00.003-07:002017-07-23T00:53:53.896-07:00a list <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">watch Egyptian documentary</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">sleep</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">wake late</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">be with babies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">drink iced espresso</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">eat</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">work, a little</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">clean</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">do this, and that, also swimming</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">husband</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">gym</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">family</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">food</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">books</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">writing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">social media</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">eating</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">cleaning</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">family</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">pets</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">other</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">settling with darkness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">documentary,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">show,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">book,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">bed,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">lavender oil at the chest,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">over the heart,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">fear, fear, fear</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">images of suffering,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">comfort,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">solitude,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">fear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">determination,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">acknowledgements,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">tremblings,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">vulnerability,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">darkness, darkness, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">small lights,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">self-talk,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">thoughts of....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">sleep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">children, husband, family, love, only.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_P9E5srGwcbOWCASqp4catiClv9h-UjIStmZHjMGb4vkOvdVnZGXcL_2dvXbKaIzMju0OUwx9x0YdUvjE-eSEiY8ciLoqz4FFtNPBF1WVQQmPeWxIXC76G9Etd7Lv9wVFhZZXXEJ7zxzF/s1600/Lola%252Cme%252Clovemygirl.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_P9E5srGwcbOWCASqp4catiClv9h-UjIStmZHjMGb4vkOvdVnZGXcL_2dvXbKaIzMju0OUwx9x0YdUvjE-eSEiY8ciLoqz4FFtNPBF1WVQQmPeWxIXC76G9Etd7Lv9wVFhZZXXEJ7zxzF/s640/Lola%252Cme%252Clovemygirl.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicTshMs_eSiXshXDAaWLwL8ZNX0pJ-dsAjENnMp2XgflLVigMqKATu65Ww59sjEdYhNGJDPHnHtzkenO3jznKU1Xr_LawtmzbTsZJErA5tIj-9_pSI8_QrTTiqGqHQs8SczANd1YFKzrRQ/s1600/Ever%252Csix%252Csummer2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicTshMs_eSiXshXDAaWLwL8ZNX0pJ-dsAjENnMp2XgflLVigMqKATu65Ww59sjEdYhNGJDPHnHtzkenO3jznKU1Xr_LawtmzbTsZJErA5tIj-9_pSI8_QrTTiqGqHQs8SczANd1YFKzrRQ/s640/Ever%252Csix%252Csummer2017.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-40810463681525994652017-06-30T22:50:00.002-07:002017-06-30T22:51:06.724-07:00Latest Publication in VICE TONIC: An Illustrated Guide to Opioid Overdose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwwn6gMdV_yVE_HdhehCzyMzSfJaw7LSel_riZgNvgssJPguAnBXvTxf4FYtseBOE6vJBSBEDIV4424zrVhbEW84f-_zp6XDFyrGHLCC7HskcipZDsjOLEZrARENaKJbqrveKVwvu-hZK2/s1600/opioid%252Cvice%252Crenamedow%252Cillustration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="1050" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwwn6gMdV_yVE_HdhehCzyMzSfJaw7LSel_riZgNvgssJPguAnBXvTxf4FYtseBOE6vJBSBEDIV4424zrVhbEW84f-_zp6XDFyrGHLCC7HskcipZDsjOLEZrARENaKJbqrveKVwvu-hZK2/s640/opioid%252Cvice%252Crenamedow%252Cillustration.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My latest work: <a href="https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/a3dzyb/this-is-exactly-what-happens-when-you-overdose">An Illustrated Guide to the Process of Opioid Overdose</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was happy to be able to refer Rena Medow to VICE TONIC for the illustrations and to see her amazing work here is gratifying. I love supporting women esp. up and comers </span><3 p=""><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
</3>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-54652187007998219972017-06-10T23:40:00.004-07:002017-06-10T23:40:51.191-07:00Llenar el vacío<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">she thought of a story when she saw the butterfly, which landed on the back of her daughter's hand and launched immediately. immediately she knew she would never write the story, because because, porque, because, all of that. so there was already the beginning and ending, now just to fill the middle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">tiny thing, suburban wing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">suffocate, suffocating.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the moth cannot fly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">when held, her wings</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">lost dust, clouds move,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">now you will be silent,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">now you must be silent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">tiny thing, suburban being</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">your heart is slowing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here, eat this dirt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">remember your childhood.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here, slap my face.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">remember your rage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here, suck my swollen mouth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">recall your desire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here, sleep in the grasses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">reclaim your bones and breath.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-83395456013390600222017-05-30T23:37:00.000-07:002017-05-30T23:37:05.580-07:00fundamentals<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">all the suffering in the world. i love you. if i can help you, i will. i can't always. but if i can, i will. and i won't make you feel like shit for asking. unless you are an asshole.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and like Jen Pastiloff says, don't be an asshole. simple life rule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">you know, i fell in love with Mr. Curry partly because he loves people like i do. from afar for the most part HA</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but also,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">he would give his life for someone. he would.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the fundamental things apply,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">as life goes by.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-48868218573803685362017-05-25T01:26:00.000-07:002017-05-25T01:27:51.861-07:00love, first draft<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i remember everything about you </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the jeans you wore when we were eighteen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a chevy nova that smelled like sex and cigarettes and oil</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">god i loved that car</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">your teenage room where </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">we first had sex how</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i stripped naked in the lamplight and stood as proud as could be,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Athena, commanding you to sex </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and you were just going to be a great time with a safety net,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but when you pressed your mouth onto my mouth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i closed my eyes and tried not to cry</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">because love was spilling out from our bodies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">out through my eyes and through the crack underneath your dark door</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">into the hall, where your parents, trying to watch tv</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">looked backward and then at each other and smiled.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">what took you two so long,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">your dad asked me weeks later when it was obvious </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">we were a thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i couldn't tell him the truth, any of it,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but i couldn't hide it either.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i did everything i could do not to fall in love with you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">my car broke down at the community college </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i called you, feeling scared,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the parking lot was enormous and dark and i was alone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and i didn't want to be raped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">come help me, please, i said,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but there was no question</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">i never questioned if you would come help me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">of course you would and of course you did,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to Alaska or down the street at 7-11.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">sitting on the curb and trying to be reasonable</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">about fear,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the light turned purpling blue, my favorite evening-tide.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">into that tide you rode,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">inside your big truck, i saw you coming and i stood</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you pulled into a random parking spot and slid out of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">your truck and then sat on top of the hood.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">you lit a cigarette and took a drag,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and smiled at me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">waiting for me as i walked through that dark parking lot</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">now blue-black and lit with scattered street lamps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and i walked toward you in that goddamn beautiful light</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">your hazel eyes glinting at me,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and i knew that i had never and probably never would</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">have a more perfect moment of romantic love.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-80248541894601481762017-05-01T00:46:00.003-07:002017-05-01T00:46:29.536-07:00Tuscon, Arizona<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2T2_9dHw_GJmr2CxqQOwUgD7XfPplo7FsW-RM7u0dblTF6-dvWqrBg7uhIovvPi7GIswOJwJdzcVxJseDEaKgM4Bnbi9sSX7Mc9yEjakEbXkKXstapwC3F7DDNAhpMg6IN9uG5OQIsWS/s1600/cacti%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY2T2_9dHw_GJmr2CxqQOwUgD7XfPplo7FsW-RM7u0dblTF6-dvWqrBg7uhIovvPi7GIswOJwJdzcVxJseDEaKgM4Bnbi9sSX7Mc9yEjakEbXkKXstapwC3F7DDNAhpMg6IN9uG5OQIsWS/s640/cacti%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We took a family trip, Friday to Sunday, to my good friend Taymar's home. Taymar and Max, her husband, and their two boys, Caspian and Benny. Their home is gorgeous and used to be a ranch house and connected houses. Now two of those connected homes (all of which circle round a stone paved courtyard with glorious trees with circular stones around them in the center) are rented out as AirBnB. We stayed in one of those homes. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-x20q_s1GBsKemVIUzo8Mp0hoPdmkPFnYN29YY3GD-4S26tSxLKRppM56XV9Cbm5gG946VRsYf_6WWWNn95iwf24Ab6uvmQxOz51DoL_pKil5IHnWfe5nbHWpwSb-PB_Ta_rrBgWMDBS/s1600/courtyard%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip-x20q_s1GBsKemVIUzo8Mp0hoPdmkPFnYN29YY3GD-4S26tSxLKRppM56XV9Cbm5gG946VRsYf_6WWWNn95iwf24Ab6uvmQxOz51DoL_pKil5IHnWfe5nbHWpwSb-PB_Ta_rrBgWMDBS/s640/courtyard%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir0rKa9sWCKRsaI-eeWKzVYxtICrPHxb0mAoSN-Ndq5OwYNqbGhQI1jqKhkKA44DXeEx25IFI9WSRcU72_T9rd5jmQ5hL5LIR2y8O0vYnKMwlG51ftFfAZhIBFl1FxVwBCB0vDPwrTc1NU/s1600/Loves%252CTuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir0rKa9sWCKRsaI-eeWKzVYxtICrPHxb0mAoSN-Ndq5OwYNqbGhQI1jqKhkKA44DXeEx25IFI9WSRcU72_T9rd5jmQ5hL5LIR2y8O0vYnKMwlG51ftFfAZhIBFl1FxVwBCB0vDPwrTc1NU/s640/Loves%252CTuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfxVrTkP4GZupxFpx-TnJK3Pscmu9bbpj7P1kFfh4KXhZveabSaodVsVAy2WbrpZqFgO_DfYbhl3p2YqHih5c5lRIGpqiTVtUTnKc4eeqnIxx0tsJj3sV4RoauxdxVcs_3A4I2f5C2-h9Z/s1600/fourkids%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfxVrTkP4GZupxFpx-TnJK3Pscmu9bbpj7P1kFfh4KXhZveabSaodVsVAy2WbrpZqFgO_DfYbhl3p2YqHih5c5lRIGpqiTVtUTnKc4eeqnIxx0tsJj3sV4RoauxdxVcs_3A4I2f5C2-h9Z/s640/fourkids%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi10nAX3Y0EO22DKX78IZN0xqPT8J5kGo_Tsj33uxL89L1iKSc0aMyusOBiHS05m_CU1TitEuezqTjL8p9XEF9lLmD3huQ846ruzGphr8oLyt_-kC8JLpakprEBYQbfEJ9ecMvmgy8uFFtZ/s1600/allofus%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi10nAX3Y0EO22DKX78IZN0xqPT8J5kGo_Tsj33uxL89L1iKSc0aMyusOBiHS05m_CU1TitEuezqTjL8p9XEF9lLmD3huQ846ruzGphr8oLyt_-kC8JLpakprEBYQbfEJ9ecMvmgy8uFFtZ/s640/allofus%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgrXBCq6s3sWfqTILtYHJHsRHoRex4lgwI1iVS6uvfSXhmJNf-7mAeN1277Z2ZOd7GHvs-TXCDZLX8yNQ374hmv7l8umFdxQ1OemTDRh2rMztDoHpwB6C6HVfBMyl-Ld7qAVAEIWqwOzU/s1600/taymar%252Clola%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDgrXBCq6s3sWfqTILtYHJHsRHoRex4lgwI1iVS6uvfSXhmJNf-7mAeN1277Z2ZOd7GHvs-TXCDZLX8yNQ374hmv7l8umFdxQ1OemTDRh2rMztDoHpwB6C6HVfBMyl-Ld7qAVAEIWqwOzU/s640/taymar%252Clola%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4WXTW96suTjjsIQO4FqIInUDJRi0TQrsQlRtAZNhY13LNnQkx3Hm2EqOezXQwGpqa5KBzKmdst5-u9Kf-ghbrgVfOJSQaEc9IKaxr8Fe5LO56c0IVNx-9WX3Bi_iunijTjHQ1NdxzvnUj/s1600/me%252Ctaymar%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4WXTW96suTjjsIQO4FqIInUDJRi0TQrsQlRtAZNhY13LNnQkx3Hm2EqOezXQwGpqa5KBzKmdst5-u9Kf-ghbrgVfOJSQaEc9IKaxr8Fe5LO56c0IVNx-9WX3Bi_iunijTjHQ1NdxzvnUj/s640/me%252Ctaymar%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixZmNKeiRNsD-ufv-cWXeKIO1kbeWvrstG1ttW4oA1glnxQZxVyXc3yVecXHeIlvAY1oxHsgHf4waXKmPg8jRtE2uOVl83lHSoS0al11Muzz5fkapkPZgTPtc8FmKxDGrJ6clHQUg4qgK/s1600/ed%252Cever%252Cpool%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixZmNKeiRNsD-ufv-cWXeKIO1kbeWvrstG1ttW4oA1glnxQZxVyXc3yVecXHeIlvAY1oxHsgHf4waXKmPg8jRtE2uOVl83lHSoS0al11Muzz5fkapkPZgTPtc8FmKxDGrJ6clHQUg4qgK/s640/ed%252Cever%252Cpool%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCBaH7QCaQf0nWb5t4dV_hVlHJ1hMoG2v7ZX-ob2DZt5Pea7fBp5DHD5LnDMsF0eL0WuzTa3TNUtqAsczqLtqk-wVgGe67Fe_A1tHdnA45h8_QqdRRKGTiy2JV2RhZ1TTDUxZJVllhQTKn/s1600/ever%252Cbenny%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCBaH7QCaQf0nWb5t4dV_hVlHJ1hMoG2v7ZX-ob2DZt5Pea7fBp5DHD5LnDMsF0eL0WuzTa3TNUtqAsczqLtqk-wVgGe67Fe_A1tHdnA45h8_QqdRRKGTiy2JV2RhZ1TTDUxZJVllhQTKn/s640/ever%252Cbenny%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijhls43oTNdZZi5W8OfHjtt625kDDqSzBQtfWCbwy7yskbFfznX9Z7itNhlbVmTBtXnyf6vIeZK_67lujiALY-13Mr6Q98rCu0HpEKo4T747ZoC2o9wgXIoCCxJ_BTHt9l6O1ZkdKJMHhy/s1600/fourofus%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijhls43oTNdZZi5W8OfHjtt625kDDqSzBQtfWCbwy7yskbFfznX9Z7itNhlbVmTBtXnyf6vIeZK_67lujiALY-13Mr6Q98rCu0HpEKo4T747ZoC2o9wgXIoCCxJ_BTHt9l6O1ZkdKJMHhy/s640/fourofus%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixJQdzLn9AzCHPaG6AToKVVU6yQ_d6lUEEKMNVSO5BdszPjJ2VjK_7Q8_fO3nBurpagEZPv_XM42uZuFudpm4RA0nbnVWZgYd-Y-ysSKmEcnivJe3DrgH18I84kVWIoi_U89jg9lwFkuT7/s1600/freida%252Ctuscon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixJQdzLn9AzCHPaG6AToKVVU6yQ_d6lUEEKMNVSO5BdszPjJ2VjK_7Q8_fO3nBurpagEZPv_XM42uZuFudpm4RA0nbnVWZgYd-Y-ysSKmEcnivJe3DrgH18I84kVWIoi_U89jg9lwFkuT7/s640/freida%252Ctuscon.jpg" width="526" /></a></div>
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-66166272455716615932017-04-29T01:13:00.001-07:002017-04-29T01:13:12.473-07:00Rest In Peace, Megs<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Someone I <u style="text-decoration: line-through;">d</u><strike>idn't know </strike></span><div>
<strike><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">hardly knew</span></strike></div>
<div>
<strike><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></strike></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">died. She died, and her name was Meghan, or Megs. She was thirty-six. I have never heard her voice or seen her face in living person. I have seen her photos, in which she is a beaming, beautiful, brown-haired, brown-eyed young woman with glossy hair and the kind of face that you would trust your child or your dog with. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She had reached out to me through FB messenger about a month ago, I responded, and we'd been back and forth since.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">She died in a car crash. Her husband was driving. He's in intensive care. They don't know what caused the crash.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Megs was always writing me about someone else, not herself. She was always asking about how to help others. She was, I know from only my microcosm of interaction with her, a person with an exceptional capacity to love. And she is gone. And it's a fucking travesty. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am so sorry for her. It's so wrong and so bizarre that she was just sitting there, like I am right now, clicking away at the keyboard and asking me a question, yet everytime I go to look at her message to me and mine back, there is never a green light that she is on Facebook or a click to show she read my message, because she is dead. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I cried today and felt foolish because it's nothing to do with me, but I feel like writing this because I knew her in a small way and was impacted by her existence, her life, and because it's a loss for all of us that she is gone from this world. She had so much left to do.</span></div>
Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-61619821351125699952017-04-18T23:46:00.003-07:002017-04-18T23:46:47.245-07:00Published Essay: Brief and Bizarre History of Dog Shit<div class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="aafc" name="aafc" style="--baseline-multiplier: 0.179; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); font-family: medium-content-serif-font, Georgia, Cambria, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58; margin-top: 29px;">
The knock on the door came at 9:30pm. I was half naked, my kids asleep. Pulling on sweats, I answered the door with a bad feeling. What else but bad news knocks on your door at 9:30pm? It was my neighbor in his own sweats, trembling, his already popping eyes bulging even more out of his head, curly grey hair moping along the forehead. He began talking before I could even open my mouth. <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">I’m sick of it! Look at this!</em> He held up a black bag. <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">Piles of it, I’m sick of it.</em> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;">It’s not MY dog! Pick up after your dog!</em> He threw the bag at my feet, on my doorstep, and stalked away.</div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="546a" name="546a" style="--baseline-multiplier: 0.179; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); font-family: medium-content-serif-font, Georgia, Cambria, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58; margin-top: 29px;">
I stood at my doorway, pursing my lips. What to do? I squinted at the bag of shit.<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;"> Hm. There is a bag of shit on my doorstep,</em> I considered.<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;"> This is worthy of some action.</em></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="546a" name="546a" style="--baseline-multiplier: 0.179; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); font-family: medium-content-serif-font, Georgia, Cambria, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58; margin-top: 29px;">
<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;"><br /></em></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf-after--p" id="546a" name="546a" style="--baseline-multiplier: 0.179; --x-height-multiplier: 0.35; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8); font-family: medium-content-serif-font, Georgia, Cambria, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 21px; letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58; margin-top: 29px;">
<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'salt' 1;"><a href="https://medium.com/@MaggieMay/a-brief-and-bizarre-history-of-dog-shit-e1467c5f8c49">Read the rest here!</a></em></div>
Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-42737275442810127312017-04-15T01:14:00.002-07:002017-04-15T01:14:39.907-07:00Translation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ever and I had a blast last night</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that girl is fun</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">we are in that best friend stage. with Lola i got so, so blessed and she stayed that way until just this year, at fifteen. Lola is still my best friend, but i'm not hers. she'll come back to me. but meanwhile, she is growing up and a certain kind of separation has to happen at some point, to find out who you are without your parent as your person. they begin taking steps toward this that get bigger and bigger and bigger until they leave. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">it hurts and it is beautiful. it makes me cry with tears of joy and pride and tears of sorrow and grief. grief for the inevitable passage of time and the small deaths that also make up life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiONdRwVIVzwKovb90szJfs6P4RYVySw_r7lLEYcCALE8rZwudWWVN9zut3DzAEWxC_n_mde3bBRzPxD5huTbopKwgUnSif6wihwGx6Tn4bJRXM-juPrBs6k-EF5YvCGKR0I0LnyQtpxZ0K/s1600/Photo+on+4-8-17+at+9.38+PM+%25232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiONdRwVIVzwKovb90szJfs6P4RYVySw_r7lLEYcCALE8rZwudWWVN9zut3DzAEWxC_n_mde3bBRzPxD5huTbopKwgUnSif6wihwGx6Tn4bJRXM-juPrBs6k-EF5YvCGKR0I0LnyQtpxZ0K/s640/Photo+on+4-8-17+at+9.38+PM+%25232.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">here is Lola with her bestie, Lucy, on vacation over Spring Break, with Lola's bio dad Keith, who takes these girls on awesome trips. can you even believe how large and how tiny life can be? who can hold that reality in their bodies? that's why reality isn't made to be held on to. just translated as it comes to us. i couldn't love my children, all four, any more. i can't contain the love i have for them, so it flies out from me in tears and laughter and whispers and words and banging on the keyboard and cooking and praying and kissing and hugging and saying 'i love you' over and over, so many times every single day since Dakota, the first, was born, that far from being meaningless, those words are the mantra of the heart of life, i love you, i love you, i love you.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOVPQVuGKiBthE2QDlXlG8m534D_nYUlAXkLbcr-3Jnk3Ko1aBtw_Ju66X6L39my9jwTVCp5Tl82s7RgGFSJvr_Bcn-Fko_C55BFV9DbxQq8nl_MHLwMsTz_8uK8gXWU1eufj63M7apw_/s1600/Portland%252CLola%252CLucy%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOVPQVuGKiBthE2QDlXlG8m534D_nYUlAXkLbcr-3Jnk3Ko1aBtw_Ju66X6L39my9jwTVCp5Tl82s7RgGFSJvr_Bcn-Fko_C55BFV9DbxQq8nl_MHLwMsTz_8uK8gXWU1eufj63M7apw_/s640/Portland%252CLola%252CLucy%2521.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-972647577919000054.post-16205309398333844732017-04-11T23:41:00.001-07:002017-04-11T23:42:34.662-07:00Spring Awakens <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The things I've been doing the last two weeks are working. I am feeling again. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The two things that have made the most difference are joining a gym, so weightlifting and cardio, and focusing on being in the moment with Ever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's a touchstone for me. Whenever I get lost, I move toward meditating on the unconditional and what gets me the most- trusting- love that my kids have for me. They TRUST me to be OK. They trust me and they desperately need me, more than they need anything...until, you know, they get older and suddenly that changes. But Ever is still there. She is six, and I am her world. Her face, her beautiful, like I can't stand how cute she is, how precious, how beautiful, face, looks at me with pure unadulturated trust. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Somehow that expectation, that trust in me, allows me to trust in myself, and in life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This Spring Break, Lola has been gone, and it's Ever and I. Long hours of gardening and playdates with friends and walks with the dogs and dates at Starbucks. Tonight we lay in bed for two hours giggling and climbing under the sheets and playing 'let's attack Ever because I love her so much and she's so cute' and this game we play all the time the last few months, which is I say Ever I love you,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and she says Mommy I love you more,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and I pretend to be horrified that she would say more, and we take it from there. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You should just see her face when she looks at me. How could I not feel that? I could not feel it, if I didn't concentrate on it, if I didn't stay with it. If I didn't allow myself to trust that right now is all I can control or contain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's the trick to so much, so much of life. Just stay with it. Just be there. Right now. I'm all in. I'm in my body, typing this. I can feel these keys underneath my fingers and these tears rolling slowly down my cheeks and my feet, slightly cold, and my hair, a little too tightly wound on my head, and I can see the darkness encroaching around the lit computer, and I can feel the way that a little girl needs her mother, and how hard that mother fights to just be there, for something so beautiful, and so precious, really the only something that matters, or will matter, which is of course, love.</span>Maggie Mayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14699674732274478502noreply@blogger.com0