call

sirens bleed the night runs cold
a telephone rings next door. 
my mouth dark plum fisted hold
kiss me there, you might
find everything you are looking for.
what about before?
what about before?

in two mouths, open like baby birds
worms go down.
i love you here
speak, the tips of trees 
pierce the sky 
THIS IS WHY
this is why darkness.
THIS IS WHY

i will scream if i like!
to scream.
i will scratch if i like
to scratch,
to bitch the blood.
this ferocity used to be
a glue. now you are afraid
of what hardened you.

i remember the way 
i can give it to you again.
come home
to me.
enter, again.

falling

do you think about me, the way i used to be
when i was still me.
before the bankrupt business, the 
broken pelvis 
fat of scars and blood, the baby in the
hospital, the 
internal fracturing of self worth
with all that is lost.
brain on fire, calls on Sunday
overdue bill
before nine to five became day to night.
do you think of me. the way i used to be.
when we were still we.
the corners of night that were ours alone
the way your face changed for me
the meaning of home.
your face unmasked in love
more like a child and more like a man
than ever before, finally
that thing we run for
a wholeness. love so tender
we shook sliding into bed.
our eyes together and we ticked off
the things we were no longer afraid of:
death, disease, disaster.
the night before we married
you said ' just keep your eyes on me,
like its always been. '
of course you were right, 
i did not tremble beneath the veil
but stared into the sun bold and yellow.
remember that day, 
the ocean crashed like hands clapping.
we stood in the wind, being photographed
i thought i might feel like a wild thing
in a trap
but i have never felt so free.
i knew i was heading straight into the arms of love.
my sweetheart, my love
sometimes in the dark nursing heart of night,
i think of how we used to be
your hands on my rib cage like a wedding ring
your eyes alight with the matter of the beyond sky
and the waves are making sounds like crying
behind the veil that blows on our wedding day.

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read, baby

Jenny Chiu writes Don't Make The Thin Girl Ugly and I was like, amen.

In this site of stories of faith from Muslim women, a powerful memory of a woman's dying baby, and her strong mother by Sabina Kahn-Ibarra. 

You all KNOW I've sung this song, right here on Flux. The Nasty, Backstabbing and Miserable World of the Suburban Mom

L'Ren Scott's suicide and the tragic side of city's glitzy scene. A powerful testament to what hiding in plain sight does to a person.

I am absolutely head over heels in love with Vivian Maier's photographs and story of anonymous life and art and death. Her photos make me want to cry and love and see and write. Her photos make me feel a dark and timeless pang over the human condition, over mortality, the way time marches on so relentlessly. Please take the time to look through the portfolios on the site. You won't regret it.

Just one more reason to love Lena Dunham. Not that I needed one.

Well this is interesting. Bullet, an analog note-taking system for the digital age. YES.

In The Millions, an essay to fall into. A Physics of the Heart: On Grief, M-Theory, and Skippy Dies by Kalpana Narayanan

Did you know that John Lee Hooker is one of my favorite all time musicians? And that this song is one of my favorite songs? And that the blues have a huge place in the room of my heart?

New Article: Sexus Interruptus

Hello Jello

Come read my new article at Purple Clover on sex after (many) children, and hopefully laugh: 

Sexus Interruptus

Spring

My new job starts tomorrow, and while I am going to be extremely circumspect about it here on Flux (just because the rules on social media sharing in workplace are still so new and changing and I don't know what is expected…) but I will say I am so. excited. The deets are that this is a remote position 32 hours a week with a 3 month contract. It's a new position for the company and I have to convince the company that my position is worth extending into a secured career. I am going into this with everything I've got. If the contract isn't extended, it will not be because I dallied, retreated, waffled, shrugged, excused, lazed or gave. 

Ever will be with an in home nanny, so she'll be downstairs, essentially, or off at the local park. This way I can eat lunch with her, keep an ear out. My baby. Three years I have been her full time provider and 120% adorer. After each child, I sacrificed- our whole family did- an enormous amount monetarily so that I could be the caretaker during the first few years. Every single child it has been worth it a million times over. Every mother and every couple has to decide for their family what works best, and for us, this was it. The bond that I have with each of my children, the level of physical and emotional connection, it is absolute. And it lasts and permeates our entire relationship from toddlerhood on, through elementary and middle school and high school. If Dakota and I had not been what we were in the first five years, our relationship would have flown apart in the teen years when life blew up. It becomes a permanent glue that is comprised of ordinary moment after ordinary moment after ordinary moment on and on for months and years… Ever is only 3 and already I feel like I've had a lifetime of love with her. For 3 years she has fallen asleep curled up underneath my breast like the mammals we are. For 3 years she has leaned away from me like an extra arm, reaching and feeling and exploring but always attached. And 3 is the year that attachment changes, it is the year with each of my children that they find their borders and understand their singular personhood and with biological practicality, cleave. 

A new and terribly exciting part of my life has begun. I am done being pregnant and having babies. I now am the mother of four children none of which use baby powder on their butts. It is time for me to embrace the wholeness of myself as a person. For years, I have revolved my life entirely around my children and my husband. It was absolutely fabulous. I never felt reduced, degraded or less of a feminist, because it was entirely my choice, and it fed a part of me that had been starving all my life. I have been given and created a richness of relationships and connections with each of my children that, if nothing else is ever given to me, were more than enough for a lifetime. I truly mean that. My biggest dream has come true, and that dream was to love and be loved this deeply and totally. We are a pack, and with that in my heart, everything else is extra.

Now it is time to claim other power. I have an Ebook coming out with Shebooks, am writing furiously into the corners of the night, am in love with my novel and starting a new job, a job that I can see myself expanding and growing in. I can feel myself opening up and catch my reflection in the mirror, and for the first time in years, think with surprise That is me. I keep thinking of those famous lines ' I'm nobody / who are you? / are you nobody too ' I am actually seeing myself, thinking about myself and what I want to do in the world, and it feels amazing, like waking up after the longest and most beautiful sleep. I am restored. Now I want to go kick some ass.

Meanwhile, Back at The Farm

That girl has great teeth.

And happiness.

And look at her boobs! - Ever Elizabeth

the only way to watch t.v.

I'm going to kiss your face off your face! - what I say and do

I'm going to kiss your face off your face! - what the girls say 

and do back

Someone got into Mommy's lipstick.

What I find on the computer that makes me smile

a million miles wide

Serious goofballs.

Serious love.

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

My friend Jane Devin has written an Ebook:Hunger Like Love I started reading it yesterday and was immediately impressed with her confidence and the unique and fluid- and interesting- way she puts the story together of a young boy shuttered through foster care. Support independent, hard working writers who work so hard to bring art to this world and receive very little in return. Jane did this all herself and you can get a great read for under $6.00

This essay in Mothering on the sibling left behind after her sister dies of cancer is so incredibly touching. 

NYT essay on sex during older age is hilarious: Was It Fatal For You, Darling?

My latest Budget Fashionista: How To Colorblock your clothes!

I love this theory on what really happened on the last episode of my favorite TV show ever, The Sopranos

Mick Jagger's heartbreaking short words on the suicide of L'Wren.

I have a fascination and love for wolves, beginning with my reading in elementary school of novels featuring wolves ( I love White Fang ) or their kin, and continuing when I named my first born Dakota Wolf. When Dakota was in middle school, he was a member of the Wolf Society in Julian, CA, and we went to visit the amazing wolf preserve. This piece on the wolf as American hero resonates.

Some of the  most amazing oil paintings, by Silvia Pelissero

There are three faces of missing people on this page: Take a quick look.  Social media has found many missing people, including a recent kidnapped boy, found by the hotel manager who had seen his face on a Facebook photo that was shared. 

There are many immigrants, illegal and legal, here in San Diego where I live. When I was in high school, I did a social studies paper on the illegal immigrants living in the canyon behind my house, and took pictures. We are still talking about them: The Lost Boys of California

fragment

At home she bent to tie her shoe and cried, still and captured, hands on the laces. The last of the lies had fallen in the walk from her car to the front door, and the weightlessness was tender and terrifying. An innocence she had given up ever knowing had filled her cells, a vulnerability she had relinquished for control, a joyous chaos of embrace she had turned away in place of static independence. Now she could feel her connection to her family, her husband, the willow trees against her childhood home, the mountaintops in the far eastern view, the cats and fleas and barnacles and grass and salt waters, now she could feel the connectivity of being utterly the same as everything else, alive and utterly helpless before fate, shockingly vulnerable and hungry and filled with strange and morphing desires and emotions, lit up like the night sky with neurons firing, terribly beautiful or filled with negative space, an enigma, an equation, a dream, a newborn's cry, a dying breath, a million tides and touches, outer space and the smallest molecule, a vibrating frequency, a warm kiss on the mouth, a hand letting go. She had walked away from it all because she had wanted to be a tangible definition with game board rules. And now, she had let those old desires be cleaved; a definition unchanging and immobile is already dead and replaced with the new defined thing, and she was tired of being replaced. 

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

Girl's Jemima Kirk, a life in pictures in Vulture. I loved this. I also love, love love the name Memphis- but for a girl. If I had another baby girl, Memphis would be at the top of the list. ( I'm not having any more babies! )

If you don't like reading about Quentin Terantino or toe sucking, don't read this. But if you like a juicy, insider story that is super low brow and yet you can't help feeling sorry for everyone involved for being so lame, do read this. ( ps. they are the same story )

This blogger, Jes, wrote a kick ass blog post about being publicly shamed for her weight, and about men being publicly shamed for being attracted to curvy girls. 

I want to read this: The Rise of Superman

50 Insanely Clever Organizing Ideas

The story of Air Flight 447, which crashed into the ocean killing all aboard in 2009, is absolutely riveting. I could not stop reading, even though the recounting of their fate gave me a stomach ache and left me crying, I could not stop reading. I can't remember the last time I was so upset and fascinated by a story.

On Brainpickings, Alan Watts on an antidote to anxiety.

Did you know a WSJ reporter who had been reporting on OPEC went missing? Awful for his family and upsetting to ponder what these enormous organizations might be willing to do. Perhaps there is no connection, but it must be worrying his family.

dragon

so long as her arms tattooed and bulky
swung clear of her small drum breasts
the beat of her heart stayed soaring unruly
through the thin cotton print of her dress

why else, they asked, would she do what she 
does, why else would she be the way she is
her laughter boiled to the top of the water
left in radicalized, feminized bliss.

there was no he next to the sex of her
no woman either and no mentor to raise
just the mirror that told her what was left of her
in the blue fractal kill of her gaze

i am what i am, she whispered in red lips
i am what i was, she swung with her hips
i am what i will be, she screamed like a freak
i am what i choose, she said every week

every week she chose and every week 
the dragon eggs in her hand grew hot
her babies were born on Christmas morn
between her legs into a black burnished pot

no one understands me, she cooed to her blood
that's why i am what i am, she whispered to them
that's why i am what i was, she kissed their heads
that's why i am what i choose, she knotted her dreads

they called her crazy and hermaphrodite and sexless
they left her dead in the maze of her brain
but she changed the name and the prize 
left with babies between her thighs,

and never looked back again.

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!

A few weeks ago, I watched the documentary Ram Dass: Fierce Grace on Netflix. I am a huge documentary fan, and this in particular was a favorite, because I am really seeking spiritually right now. This YouTube I'm linking you to is parents reading a letter out loud, written by Ram Dass, to them after the horrific murder of their 11 year old daughter, Rachel. Warning, this will make you cry. But it might also change your life. The Letter To Rachel's Parents " Your rational mind can never understand what has happened. But your hearts, if you can keep them open to God, will find their own intuitive way. " That there is, to me, one of the greatest truths of human life, relating to suffering.

In Elle, an essay by Lisa Chase on living with a bipolar father.

Wayne Gladstone writes in McSweeneys: Confessions of an Upworthy Editor -hahha!!

I just loved reading Claire McCarthy's article, My House Is Messy And I Don't Care  I go through times where our house seems to get away from me- I can't keep up. And this attitude- experiences and family before order- always makes me happiest in the long run.

I really can't get enough of this: writer's rooms.

My essay Setting Free The Bears on Manifest-Station

This information on K-Cups is important if you use them, but also important to keep in mind when you use plastic of any kind.

This older article in Esquire broke my heart a little. After I read his book standing in Target while Ever played, I really wanted to believe this gentleman's story: Dr Eben Alexander Proof Of Heaven Investigation

Allison Carmen is an exceptionally beautiful soul who has a way of transmitting simple truths that are really, really missing from many of our lives. Letting Go of The Thoughts That Make Us Worry

Dakota and LAW Play Skunk Anniversary 25 Year Anniversary Show

Dakota has a band, I've mentioned it before, and they are called LAW. ( click on name to link to their FB page )

Dakota is the rapper/bass player, Nick is the drummer and Jake is lead guitar/vocalist. They have some original material that is really good- there are two songs that stand out for me, one Dakota wrote called Enormous that might be my favorite? ( It's at 7:49 of the video I link below.)

They just played their biggest show yet- the 25 anniversary of Skunk Records. They opened for Slightly Stoopid and then Perro Bravo and more played. Mr. Curry and I wanted to go so badly but it was on a Thursday night and far away, so we couldn't be there. We do have the next best thing, though- the whole thing on You-Tube. Check part One out here.  

I am so proud of Dakota Wolf that it reduces me to cliches. That kid… he is nineteen. He goes to college full time, ( probably majoring in Music Business ) works and practices with the band, writes music and plays shows. When he moved to Long Beach with Jake, Dakota was still a little wobbly on bass. Now he plays great bass, learned guitar, mixes, writes rap lyrics and now raps WHILE playing the bass- as he does here in the Skunk concert. Playing bass while rapping is pretty unusual and I don't know of anyone else who does it. He puts so much time and effort into the band, and his professionalism is not going unnoticed in the Long Beach  music community. 

I mean… this is my first born child. And I love him and like him and am deeply proud of the person he is. He's a beautiful, loyal, kind and brave person. He is open minded and embraces the wide world. He is curious about people and likes people- He makes everyone around him feel heard and seen. He is respectful and confident without being arrogant or cruel. He stands up for people when necessary, and he is willing to do the harder right thing. Because of these things, he is deeply loved by his friends and liked by most everyone who meets him. He is always learning and incredibly open to change, even for a person his age. He is eager to learn about almost anything that comes his way. He is beloved by all of us in this family and we are so lucky that he moved away but not so far we go months without seeing him. In fact, we usually get to see him at least one weekend a month, sometimes more if we go to a show.

It makes me so happy I could cry.