People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

Ever's doppleganger. Whoa.

Orca Attacks Shark! Just watch it. It's awesome.

The Supreme Court just ruled that mandatory life imprisonment for juvenile defenders is cruel and unusual punishment. While this article focuses on the victims and their families, and the greatest and unfair suffering is theirs, I totally agree with the Supreme Court position, reasoning and ruling. In fact, what happens to teenagers who hurt, rob or kill ( most of who have had horrific, traumatic lives ) is a new deep concern of mine. The more I learn about the teenage brain and why they make the choices they do in response to what happens to them, the more convinced I am that putting a teen in jail for life is most often only adding a horrible suffering and sadness to what already is. 

This piece by Jennifer Blyer on how to stop pedophilia in action is so important. So important. This- the  prevention of molest or incest- is and will be a life long passion for me. Having such a personal response to the issue of pedophilia, what Ms. Blyer writes is correct. In order for those who recognize that their brains are sending them messages that are not healthy to get help, they have to be able to tell someone. We have to brace ourselves as a society and slowly steer ourselves toward information, awareness and prevention.

Considering my constant right side pain and lack of access to medical care, I've been doing whatever I can do until I know what is wrong. In researching, I found this wonderful website about the liver and gallbladder and Dr Sandra Cabot- the 'liver doctor' So much good information on the liver and gallbladder- I really had no idea how close they were internally, or how the one affected the other. Great information and recipes and ideas.

My bohemian heart wants this so much!

For Stacey

13 Weeks

partial miscarriage
this doctor, like the other white seals
blubber skin safe and thick against -
i take her face and squeeze until it weeps
or i imagine i do these things.

dilated cervix, fetal tissue
my thighs erupt in hives? no.
large wet wounds, i have been
burnt? no. the white cervical light
brutally, impossibly revealing. my husband
weeping, i turn to his mouth and suture with some comfort.
or, i imagine i do these things.

anemic
shoddy stream of blood- loose
from my vagina like whale spout
suddenly i remember spitting fountains
of bath water on my sister's face
my husband tells me don't look, don't see
i am brave and i do not scream
or. i imagine i do these things

significant blood loss, transfusion
eyes of the Asian doctor too kind
possibly to destroy fearless Kamakazi
i wrap my knuckles like a boxer
curdling contractions, blood clotting
their whispers keep my baby dead
i demand to know: the truth
or: i imagine i do these things

hypotonic, significant anemia
the room unfolds with the soft suck of my thighs
a kind blonde nurse is wiping the last -
i think of how my son used to say 
' i blooding mommy, i blooding '
i am a very good Mother
or? i imagine i do these things

patient stabilized 
sky in the window a dark gum glue
the center-night births me rotten
i moan and cry like a child
my husband the only safety
i am a good wife, i love him well
or, i imagine i do these things

late miscarriage. thirteen weeksthe bathroom light, light
my eyes swollen like bee hives
i have fourteen blood boils along my arms
against odds i carried this baby in my belly
my body let my baby die. bled him out of me.
i lose like everyone loses.
or i imagine i do these things.

maggie may ethridge
june 23 2009

Uninsured

The pain in my stomach began again and before I lost my insurance I went and had an ultrasound. The tired, makeup heavy nurse began her stroll across my abdomen and asked why I was so worried. I lay in silence as she rolled and pressed the sticky wand, trying to choose an answer of the many available. I left out my past history with endometriosis, the years of not knowing what was wrong, why I was in constant pain, I left out three surgeries and endless consults, the MRI tick tocking over my body, the late night ER trips, the Advil, the hot baths, the praying on my knees in the bathroom, the blood, the confused doctor faces, the diagnosis, the money, the lost days at work, the lost days with my children, the hours at the bookstore with coffee, researching, the hours online reading, the blood work, the specialists, the fear of worse. I simply told her ' I have a friend who has advanced ovarian cancer, so I want to know that isn't what this is. '

Kaiser found a fibroid, 2cm. My periods continued to be harder, denser, thicker with pain and blood.

A month ago, pain on my right side, intense. After a week, it left. After two weeks, it came back, and now for two weeks I've been in more or less constant right side pain. Pain is a strange, living thing, like fire, flames, it moves and flickers, it changes intensity on a whim, it ebbs and flows and leaves only to burst forth from behind the door even brighter and hotter than before. This pain starts in my upper right side, under the rib cage, and then moves across my stomach, or to my lower right back, or my lower right side, flickering across my stomach in stabby shots. It could be my gallbladder, it could be my liver, it could be my liver and gallbladder, it could be endometriosis growing. It could be the motherfucker C.

I don't know. I don't have insurance. Statistically the likeliest culprit is endometriosis. That is what I have a history with. After my last endo surgery, the doctor told me he found extensive endo lesions and adhesions on my right side. Before that very surgery ( maybe six years ago) I had this same strange lumpy feeling and pain underneath my right rib cage, and I asked him to look carefully there during the surgery. I had this specific discomfort off and on for a long time. He found nothing there. Nothing, he said, lower lip pulled with certainty, nothing. That he found nothing seems to point to gallbladder. The location, and when gallbladders begin to act up- to 'grumble' it is called in the papers, they hurt and swell for a period, then relent. 

Fear. A small caged rodent inside of my chest. It smells old and diseased and sickened like lizards cut in half. I keep it in my chest and let it out in the bathroom, the shower, late at night when I alone. It skulks around my perimeter, tongue out, ugly and completely unforgiving. I hear its nails scraping my ribs during the day while I am ferrying Lola to school, making lunch for Ever, I hear it over the vacuum, whining. 

This week I will attempt to get poor people's insurance. Because of Obama I might be able to. 

I will then get an ultrasound and find out what this caged rodent is.

If not. I can't end this with a question mark, so.

The Hours

Making messes and not givin.

Messy. Life.

Yes this is meant for dolls. My butt fits in it, that's all I care about.

Just Ever Elizabeth.

She's worn this amber teething necklace since she was four months old. 

Yes, I will give you a big juicy smackeroo.

Like Pink, Ever nurses in public.

Walkin home with Daddy and the dogs.

Loving This: Pink, 'Try'

Eighties influence is all over music right now and I'm LOVING it. Found this new Pink song on Girls Gone Child and also, loving it. xo

Starbucks RockStars

In the morning we get ready like rock stars who've trashed the joint last night and woke up naked and starving. Or at least Ever does. *

Lola has been sicker for longer than she's ever been, with this viral bronchitis. She is just now looking some like her old self, with color in her cheeks and a smile. Poor girl. She's an amazing sick person- not a complainer. She does get full of piss and vinegar but mostly keeps quiet. 

Ever models her 80's 'Richard' headband and Blondie onsie, with the glow in the dark necklace from the dollar bin at Target. She picked out blue for Lola, because lately everything Ever does, sissy has to do too.

Lola picked out this awesome shirt on a back to school shopping trip with her Grandma Duell- and matching headband. So cute.

Love. Love.

Ever walkin George Jefferson style while Lola kicks one of our balls back on to our porch.

The greatest and only luxury I allow myself to spend money on- my morning Starbucks, is now a ritual for us. Every morning all summer we went, and on the weekends we go. I order a Starbucks Doubleshot half caf with soy. It is pure heaven. Sometimes we get a turkey bacon and egg sandwich, and Ever loooves this. ' Me too? ' she asks. 

I have to open the sandwhich and lay it out to cool off- ' Hawwwt, ' Ever points out every time. Then I give Ever a piece of turkey bacon and cut up the egg into smaller sections. This is her Halloween cup on the right- so cute, for a few bucks will make me smile until Halloween. Lola didn't bring hers.

I am hearing Rhianna's song
' Oh baby I'm a rock star '
Love!
Maggie May and girls

i'm trying to come up with a title, and all i can think of is that damn song, Call Me Maybe

I was gone and I'm back I am back and I am a little off a little off

These Amazing and Peculiar Things Happened To or Around Me

I was gifted an IMac. A brand new beautiful IMac. Every now and again something truly unexpectedly wonderful happens. Some of those wonderful things are 'bad' in things in disguise, like an adorable round cheeked toddler dressed as a blood sucking vamp, and you have to look through it, to see what it really is. This is not one of those things. This is plain awesome, with no ketchup. My old computer was OLD, first off, in human form it would have been on dialysis and lost a leg, couldn't see and cramped fingers no longer able to knit. 
I'm not sure if you know this, but I am a writer. And having a computer that shuts down every ten minutes from overheating- even with your white trash fan blowing furiously away at Mock Ten on the hard drive- is misery. I didn't have a capital z, either. We couldn't watch anything that moved, like video of any kind, because yes, shut down. I couldn't use Pinterest anymore or really anything that involved moving the screens back and forth because yes, shut down. 
One night it took me a half hour to highlight and change the font on one paragraph.
So here I am, the same broke me, only typing on this new age beautiful gleaming 21 inch IMac.

Thank you, Universe. 

We are not always given back what we give but we give just the same. I give every chance I have- we stop and give money to homeless with signs, we feed the immigrants, help friends, put money for fundraising for MS, cancer, I make a point to try to make a small, warm smile to everyone I look at, because you never know if they have any love in their lives or anything gentle and true. And every now and then, when I'm just about to lose my mind, something happens to ease the burden.

This is one of those things, times ten.

Now I can blog again when I want to, finish my assignments with flair, explore the inspiration of the internet, research baby warts. 

This weekend is the best I've had in a long time. Mr. Curry and I had a rocket ship marathon in the bedroom Friday night because the Blessed Virgin Mary took pity on me and made it so that all of our children were occupied and would leave us alone ( oh leave us alone! ) for longer than fifteen minutes. I think I literally tore his clothes off. Enthusiasm doesn't begin to cover it.

Dakota got his first job, at STARBUCKS. Now if that isn't a sign of Universal harmony, I don't know what is. Starbucks is the one thing, the one thing I spend money on. I'm an angel of budgeting- we don't do dinners out anymore, I don't buy clothes for myself, or things for the house, I buy at thrift stores often, I don't get manicures, pedicures of my hair did- but I do get a Starbucks Doubleshot each morning. 
We are all so proud of Dakota. He's kicking ass lately. I am SO PROUD of him.

Ian is totally bombarded with schoolwork again, in honors and AP for some classes, and enrolled in the new Engineering class in the new Engineering building, the program which gives you a special cinch into the good U, if you do well, which he will. He's also super tall all the sudden and broad shouldered and good looking. He also tormented Lola and drove me nuts today. 

Lola has been sick with viral bronchitis and missed the most school she has ever missed- almost two weeks. She's on the mend and taking anti-viral supps from Grandma. 

Tomorrow my mom is watching Lola and Ever and Mr. Curry, as an early anniversary gift, is taking me to see The Master. This is the second movie I've seen in over two years!!! I'm so excited.

That'll do pig, that'll do.

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

I've been reading a lot about David Foster Wallace lately. Have you read Infinite Jest? I haven't. I did read and still own A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

 and completely loved it, although reading non-fiction and fiction are two completely different experiences. This piece of writing on his life, in the New Yorker, engrossed me on Friday night.

The first biography has been written and published on DFW,   and Bret Easton Ellis went on Twitter saying that DFW's reputation was ridiculously magnified, that his writing wasn't all that and a bag of chips. ( OK So that is NOT what he said, but it's super close!*) So then on Salon, I read this interesting piece with the totally overblown title  by an editor on the history of BEE and DFW.

I LOVED this article on Frugal Momma, about her decision, as a fairly 'big' blogger, to give up the capital B side of business blogging. I love it because although I'm not a big ( or even fairly so ) blogger, I had hoped to make money off of my blog, and her journey highlights much of my own experience, on a smaller scale. I also found that the amount of time I put into working it was growing at an alarming rate, with little return. Also blogging for money is a job/career without a definitive endpoint, for many, you are simply reaching for an unnamed goal and hoping to make money, while unsure about exactly how this is going to happen. Also for me, I realized that my writing was really starting to suffer. I decided to let go of all the other networking aspects and just sell ads on my blog and take writing jobs- two specific, doable goals that don't time suck so much I can't write. ( and read!)

Have you ever heard the Three Men and A Baby movie rumor? I hadn't. I thought this was interesting and cute :) I love, love this movie. Oh eighties. Sigh.








*no, it is not.

Homelife

The summer is really, truly over. I feel it, now. The long pause between summer ending and summer really ending has itself ended. Still I have three children at home. Lola is abysmally sick with bronchitis. Dakota brought it home, and coughed for weeks, and went to the doctor who told him that pot smoking makes some people have asthma. I LOVE THAT DOCTOR. No, Dakota isn't smoking pot, but hell yes to hearing that. You know. Dakota is all young man health, beautiful faced in the way of only youth- wide eyed, blue eyed sparkle light, gorgeous healthy skin, a smile that cracks with sunlight and spirit.  His girlfriend ( you aren't reading this are you, because OMG if you read this blog..sigh...) is gorgeous, flat out exotic Arabic gorgeousness, and smart as hell- straight A's- and a doll. He interviewed with Starbucks the other day and nailed. it. He's back into boxing and I've been dropping him off a few times a week. This because the car he saved for blew up on the side of the freeway and Mr. Curry went to pick him up, called and paid for a tow truck to haul it to the mechanic to be told ' Uhhhmmm...you're fucked, kid.'  So that car was toast. He's saving for another. We- Dakota and I- had a long talk about rap music today, and the best thing about that is that we do that a lot. Talk. About anything and everything, hard things, funny things, life things. 

We were talking about Kanye West, by the way, and Dakota was telling me how as a ten year old, he recognized the 'holy shitness' of Kanye's debut album that I was playing relentlessly. I said a while back that Kanye's music changed rap and Dakota agrees. We both think that Kanye lost himself when his mother died, and we both thought about how Dakota and I were just a team of two for all those years, and what it would be like if the moment  he achieved all his dreams, I died- and died of something that he paid for. Psychologically... hard. Really hard. 'Jesus Walks' is one of the most mind blowing, amazing, chill producing and beautiful songs I've ever heard, in rap or any other genre. Just for that song alone, I feel like Thank You. Thank you for that one song.

Lo nla is coughing and then sighing like a little deer, all tucked into her layers of clean blankets. When my kids are sick, I wash their bedding and clothing like a maniac; I think lowering the viral or bacterial load in the things that touch them so often helps them get better. Just a theory. I've been dutifully bringing her everything she asks for from the store- Powerade, chicken soup, Saltines- making her green and peppermint tea, giving her books and art projects, letting her watch an unholy amount of T.V. ( which really gives me mad anxiety.. I can't relax about that even during times like this when I really should ) but I can't get over how freaking ANNOYING constant coughing is. I remember when I had that bronchitis when I was pregnant with Ever- when I pulled a rib muscle, oh the fun times!- I kept apologizing to my family for coughing, and they kept looking at me like I was crazy. Because if it were ME, listening to all that coughing- like I have to now- I would have been irritated. I suck at listening to coughing. It makes me want to hit something. It makes a nasty edge appear in my voice that I have to constantly modulate. I apologized to Lola the other day for barking at her after she half-puked up some cough medicine that I was desperate for her to take so she would maybe. stop. coughing. I've given her spoonfulls of honey but you know, when you are this sick nothing works too well. 

Ever was the sweetest little chubbette today. Dakota watched her for an hour or so in the morning so I could do some 'social networking' and check my new pieces that went up ( I have two new pieces up at The Budget Fashionista, one on DIY Blogs ( a list of great ones! ) and one on my teenage search for the perfect jean jacket. )  She played happily through our morning trip to Starbucks where she asks for 'ice poppy' in her cup, because she's blended the words 'ice cubes' (which she's OBSESSED with) and 'popsicle' into 'ice poppy' which just means GIVE ME SOME FROzEN CUBES OF WATER, NOW! Later, I cleaned house for like three hours, played Garden State  soundtrack (one of the best soundtracks ever) and she had a ball just roaming around playing with the dogs, ( ' On Wolfie? ' she asked me as she held up a scarf. Wolfgang looked adorable, in case you are wondering. ) her cars, and a neighbor girl out front as I cleaned the porch. It was such, such, SUCH a nice relief because she had been cutting new teeth for a week or more and not a happy camper. 

Meanwhile, I tried not to stab myself in the eyeball with a ice poppy while Lola coughed, and coughed, and coughed. Poor kid. Stuck with me!

Mr. Curry had been working as much as Lola has been coughing. He's literally slaving away, with one day off in almost three weeks. I make his lunches every night and draw dirty pictures on his sandwiches. It's the least I can do.

Ian started school and is in the top notch, brand new, for the smartest of smarties only engineering program, loves his teacher and so far is loving the program. He's such a teenage boy, like SUCH. Adorable. They are like overgrown puppies, all full of sarcasm, wit, vitality, physicality, piss and vinegar but still really insecure like teenagers are. I just love my teenage boys, and I think after raising these two I will have a soft spot in my heart for them all my life. 

Meanwhile, my mother has helped me come to the conclusion that my gallbladder is going all kinds of wrong. It runs in the women in my family- my Aunt H. had hers out, etc. I had pains a month ago that went away after a few days, and then resurfaced about a week ago and have been on and off, sometimes pretty bad, sometimes barely noticeable. ( Lola is coughing again as I write this, in. her. sleep. Arghhh!!!! ) I was sick to my stomach after Mr. Curry and I had a BBQ picnic in the park with the kids one night, where we ate burgers, chips and smores. Gallbladder and fat are enemies. So I'm going to do some research and see. My mom says if I dramatically reduce fat in my diet for a few weeks, the gallbladder can  heal. Food is medicine, I do believe that.

.Guys, we are still doing the water.org fundraiser, and the donations have slowed as expected after days of this kind of thing, but we really would love to help as many people as possible and meet our goal, so if you can donate or share our donation page on your FB, Twitter or blog, you can change a life/! Not just words, but truth. $25 is clean water for life for someone.

Smootchie Bootchies xo

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

I'm really happy to have a poem published in The Nervous Breakdown, one of a small handful of my favorite literary joints online. 

Xlc is an old friend of mine, a woman who raises her two boys in such a way that makes me feel a little less alone- less weird, less 'other'- in this world. She has heart and soul for days, and she can tell a freaking awesome story: Here she is talking about how marriage is SO unsexy at times,  and how often you realize this little fact...in Target.

Since age 14 I have been a devoted reader of all things by and about Sylvia Plath. I devoured 

Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath and now highly recommend it. Fascinating.

I am shopping and dreaming and drooling this week to make these Three Cheese Enchiladas. I have a thing for enchiladas this year. I think I'm going to make them with corn tortillas though, because I like the taste better with corn, and because I've switched to a very low gluten diet in the last two weeks to support my health.

Who is your Hemingway?

And last but NOT least! Our water.org fundraiser for the people of Haiti has raised over $1000 so far! I am really proud to be a part of this lifesaving venture, and proud of my blogger girls for all they are doing. Please help by donating or spreading the word through linking on FB or your blog or Twitter. x

xo

A Drop In The Bucket: Help Provide Clean Water For Human Beings

Clean, clear, cold, fresh water.

The most basic human need, from the first day we walked on this planet, to present day,

where some people pay $25 dollars a week on bottled water:

That same amount can provide clean water for a lifetime to a human being in Haiti.

I am a member of The Mission List, an organization of women bloggers who work for social good

through campaigns. This campaign is unpaid and uncompensated. Myself and every blogger involved are participating simply because we cannot stand the idea of other human beings without access to clean water, and we know that we can do something about it.

Every twenty seconds one child dies from a water-related illness. Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death among children under five in the world. Around 1.5 million deaths each year - nearly one in five – are caused by diarrhea. It kills more children than malaria, AIDS, and measles combined.

I found that I had to read the above sentence a few times for it to begin to truly sink in. Children are dying in staggering numbers around the world because they can't have a drink of water.

Mommy can I have a drink of wawa?

Mommy I'm thirsty!

Mom where's the bottled water?

I can't imagine.

It's unbearable.

We don't have to bear it.

We can do something about it.

Here is What You Can Do:

1. Donate 

2. Spread the link to the donation page through your blog, FB, Twitter or other social media platforms

3. Talk about the campaign to people you know

ethridge and plath

I love this picture because of my lipstick, the light, and the girls in the background. That is Emily and Lola, giggling over a movie they made on Lola's school IPAD. You heard me. SCHOOL IPAD. This world is weird. I forced myself to take a Melatonin tonite so hopefully will be asleep soon. It's midnight and lately I've been up sooo late every night, trying to write and getting my assignments done and networking, and I'm too tired. I am reading Bitter Fame, the Sylvia Plath biography, and loving it. She is my poetry goddess, my one above all others.

xo

Maggie

Here is the Sylvia Plath poem I named my novel after:  Agitate My Heart

Elm

For Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says.

I know it with my great tap root: It is what you fear.

I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,

Its dissatisfactions?

Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.

How you lie and cry after it

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,

Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?

This is rain now, this big hush.

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.

Scorched to the root

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs

A wind of such violence

Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me

Cruelly, being barren.

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.

How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.

Nightly it flaps out

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.

What is this, this face

So murderous in its strangle of branches? -

Its snaky acids hiss. It petrifies the will.

These are the isolate, slow faults

That kill, that kill, that kill

ground control to major tom

The computer shuts down about every fifteen minutes, except when I hold the screen still in one frame, like here in Blogger Post. Otherwise the whir of its engine whines insect like until it reaches a pitch where the switch is turned off and the screen goes black. I sit then with the sound of the fan working on the hard drive and wait as long as I can stand to touch a button and start the show again.

It is almost ten pm. I sit with Ever on my lap, nursing back and forth on my breasts like an Olympic sport, awake when she was asleep just fifteen minutes ago. WHY IS SHE AWAKE. Lola says 'Mom?' and I want to throw my wine glass at the wall. GO TO SLEEP GO TO SLEEP GOOOO TOOOO SLEEEEEP!!!!!

Fuck.

Mr. Curry has worked two weeks in a row, not one day off. This means my time to myself has shrunk to a barely visible planet in the telescope, so far away and so minute that the human consciousness can barely grasp it. Lola is back to school. This means that I don't have my saving grace of one hour most mornings, where Ever was downstairs with Lola, and I could write. When I do get a chance to respond to emails, network, blog or write, the computer takes small, perfectly aimed breaks from doing its one job in this world: being a fucking computer!

I haven't chewed my own foot off yet. 

Ever just toddled up to me in this semi-darkness, lit by the glow of computer screen, naked minus a diaper, her hands full of three- no four- books from my bookshelf, her hair crazy, and she said to me in the sweetest imaginable voice 'tootsie-eye mouth? books?' Her mouth looked so puckery sweet I had to give it a big kissy. Which I did.

Ever and Daddy

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

Do you blog? You  might want to sign up for this water.org blogger movement which partnered with The Mission List that simply asks you to post at least once about their program, and then talk about it somewhere online for nine days after. They are raising money for people in Haiti to have clean water. I joined! Remember how I was saying that having small kids limits the reach of your help? This is an easy way we as bloggers can give back, without even leaving our seats.

From Good Day, Regular People ( a blog I've been reading for years ) an essay that is equal parts tender and vulnerable and humorous... on the insecurity of motherhood and the perspective of kids.

Monica is one of my favorite voices online, and this highly entertaining post highlights why. 

Joanne B. asks on HuffPo; Why isn't Paul Ryan getting the Sarah Palin treatment?  

I keep thinking about onsies that I want to design; I have so many logo ideas! Like this one  Princess Bride, anyone?

If you are interested in SEO, this is a great article on changes in the air. 

This post, The Audacity of Despair, is about the life and death of one young black man. It's so powerful and so moving, I can't recommend it enough.