there is a light and it never goes out

In the mines there is no light. In the mines there is not sound, but the air remembers sound, so that you constantly stop and say What- was that? And cannot hear it well enough to say. In the mines your heart is carried in a wagon red painted and black tarred, along a road that is not a road going somewhere you cannot see and have never heard of. In the mines you believe you felt an earthquake but it was only the roar of your breathing and the furious pistil of your heart. In the mines there is no room for anyone else, or you. In the mines there is not air but something like air, much heavier and more like sludge, moving into your lungs slowly, moving out slowly, with heavy intention and hot fingers. In the mines you call out for someone but no one is there. No one answers. In the mines your body is your prison and your mind your jailer and you realize you are not thinking, but instead that the mind thinks and you listen to what it says. I am alone and the world is black, the mind thinks, and you hear this and believe you have thought it from you. But it is not from you. It is from the machine of your mind, the tape that is pressed play, which you listen to and believe no matter what. I am going to die miserable, the mind tells you, and you think it is your own original thought. When it is a tape, pressed play, in an empty room on a table with only you listening. I am miserable, the mind says again. I am alone, the mind repeats. You respond like this: yes. I've always suspected it was so. In the mines, you can see the empty room. You are seated there, in the mines. You look around at the blackness and you can almost hear- almost audible- the click of the machine of your brain as it begins to attack. You push away from the machine with surprise, both hands forward into the darkness, like a baby against the breast. Wait a minute, you think. That is not me. I am listening to that thought. If I am listening, then who is thinking that? And if I'm not thinking that- then who am I? And for the first time in your life you feel the boundries of your mind and you turn quickly because there it is- what you have wept for all along- the crack that lets the light in.

I ♥ My Pediatrician

find a doctor

See above? clickity click it This is the new and wonderful place where I work ( in addition to my job, not instead of ) as a page administrator. It's a Facebook page connected to Vitals that helps parents in a number of ways:

connecting you to the best pediatrician possible for your child and your city

connecting you to threads of advice on child centered health issues- mental, physical and otherwise

connecting you to the different apps that vitals.com offers, such as finding a specialist for your child's particular health need

So do me (and yourself!) a solid? And 'like' I Heart My Pediatrician

the last thing on my mind

I was about fifteen years old, or just turning sixteen, and at that age, all my peers were deciding what they were going to do about college and what they were going to take. And in my neighborhood, they were all going to become doctors or lawyers, or professional men. This was a big thing. And I had no interest in any of that at all. I had infantile interests, I mean you’d be remarkably surprised. I wanted to be a cowboy, I wanted to be a private detective. -Woody Allen
I'd bring a copy of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, I think, and a copy of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, maybe The Collected Poetry of William Butler Yeats and something by William Carlos Williams -- Asphodel, that Greeny Flower -- but then there's Emily Dickinson and William Blake, Toni Morrison, Michael Ondaatje -- my go bag would be too heavy -- and anyway, where would I go? -Elizabeth
The last 24 hours… I just don’t know what to think. I would have sworn on my life that that thing about cats trying to suck milk from a newborn’s breath and smothering them in the crib was an old wives’ tale. But that belief went out the window around three this morning didn’t it? -Jim Stallard in McSweeneys
The trick is to let it all matter without drowning in it. Every single needle on every single pine, trembling like whiskers in the wind. Otherwise, none of it matters, and that can't be right, now can it? -Stacey
I know that I am blessed beyond all measure.

I know also that I am doomed.

*

It sounds better if you switch those two statements.

*

I know that I am doomed.

I know also that I am blessed beyond all measure.

*

Same facts, but one is more comforting to face. - Dishwasher's Tears

i am just trying to remember who i am, now. -Swonderland
This is what my dad wrote: “Love is right up there with god and war as one of the all-time great subjects of the human imagination.” -right now, foreverI think I'd be good at standing around and talking and talking and talking. About any old thing. Audience choice. I think I'd be okay with whatever was thrown at me, I have lots of crap in my head. -fever
It just kills me how generously they reward minimal care. -Persephone
You confound me, do you really exist
Out of your pictures, words, trials...
You gleefully photograph. - Yolanda

to all ye who visit here

everyone who comes here to read is welcome. everyone except my father. and he probably reads, anyhow. now in the past months i have been made aware that people all around me are reading: my friends, my workmates, my mom has stopped by, my son's friend who texted him to say first, that my writing was amazing, and then later, did he know that I had written about having sex with Mr. Curry on the bathroom floor?
so this is the thing I have to say to move far away from it because it makes my heart sticks to my ribs like an overcooked chicken: this blog is R rated, my writing is R rated and sometimes pornographic and sometimes gross and sometimes full of grief or tears or raucous laughter and sometimes saturated with love and sometimes small and still and sometimes all things or nothing or a dream i remembered from last year in spring. my writing is Philip Roth marrying Sylvia Plath and adopting Anne Lamott. it is adult life, told hnt religious experience, my companion through life. writing is also the way i'm going to take my family and lift them up and out of this life we live that is a constant, constant struggle to get by and make it, because we don't make enough money to make it.onestly, and that- regardless of the type of adult life, even monks do things that are strange and unsettling ( or especially monks )- is what makes me me, and if you don't like it, if it offends you or unsettles you or you think it's ridiculous or if you are my son's friends and think it's oh my god like, whatever, then please don't tell me about it. for the love of god. i can't write with real life, real time feedback. i don't want it. i don't like it. so don't read if you don't like it, or read it and keep it to yourself. please.
it's such a small thing i'm asking you, and it means EVERYTHING to me. writing is my therapy, my yoga, my transcende
. my writing is, and even as a kid was, authentic, I am so proud to say, when I feel so insecure and failing at everything right now- my writing is what I know what I have an intrinsic, instinctive love and gift for, it has gotten me through times in my life where I felt real despair, it has literally helped me to reshape the person I am into someone more like who I want to be. i need it.
thank you.

Published: Femamom

FEMAMOM

The essay I wrote that was totally embarrassing and revealed my gynormous flaws? It's now published in Femamom, a little online magazine that just begun, for 'edgy ' stories of parenthood, which really suits me- to read and to write. :)

Summer in the Suburbs

Summertime true and hot has begun. I think it is the Southerner in me that doesn't feel the Summer until it is fang deep in my bones, where the world tilt a whirls, creeps into your pores and sweats out on the white cotton pillow of morning. The girls are in dresses and bloomers and sticky tank tops, Mr. Curry is shirtless watering the plants and dirtgrasses, the dogs are panting and resting their underbellies on the cool kitchen floor. A deep cellular headache blooms from the swampy heat that gives way to a clean, pan hissing hot. The front yard is littered with buckets of dirt and flowers, fairy soups and small hard figurines of horses, hula hoops and a half collapsed swim pool for babies. Ever nurses naked against me after her bath at 7pm, clean but already a slight sweat on the top of her head, completely blissful on the queen sized soft bed with the fan humming. I hear Mr. Curry in the next room, back and forth from the barbeque and the kitchen, Lola and a friend giggling. Ian is at camp, Dakota in Hawaii with his Dad and Grandparents. Mr. Curry and I find each other at every opportunity, exhausted and stinky and half threshed from the heat, but never tired of each other's bodies.

Summer is here.

Flux Capacitor's First Giveaway!!

Congratulations Shana!!! Contact me at beezus74@hotmail.com and we will get you started :)

I am really happy to be able to give something wonderful away to my blogging community. I've been offered many trades and giveaways before but I refused, simply because the products weren't anything I was interested in using or owning. When I was offered an exchange with EasyCanvasPrints.com I was thrilled, because anyone who reads here knows I take a lot of pictures! The idea of a wonderful photo made into an art quality canvas to hang made me happy. :) I have a nice little collection of selected photos that are all very special to me, and it was hard to pick just one to use, but I knew that I couldn't pick one of just Ever ( ...big sissy might not feel great about that ) and I also knew the boys....could give a rats arse. So I chose this:


And am in love with it. This is a photo from ee's sixth month shoot, and I hung it in our hallway by the front door, where it looks wonderful.

The process of picking an image and a canvas style was so much fun, like paper dolls for photos! You upload an image, and then through easycanvasprints.com you pick the details- the size, the thickness of the canvas, the style of the sides ( I picked a color border- blue- to match the blue in the girl's clothes and eyes, but you can also pick mirror image, wrap, etc ) and then see a mock hanging of your canvas before you commit. The software is excellent and the site is incredibly easy to navigate.

They also have an Idea Gallery to help you narrow your choices and decide on the best photo for your canvas.

I am giving away one free 8x10 canvas to the winner of this giveaway:)

The contest is simple: Leave a comment about what picture you think you might use. ( No commitment, use whatever you like if you win, it's just fun! ) Then 'like' their Facebook page. I'll pick a random commenter with the random picker thingy online. ( ??? what?? ) No family! No more than one comment!
Giveaway closed on Monday Night at 8pm!!!

Good luck!

Lola & Grandma Go To The Getty

Hi it's Lola. Last week I went to the Getty with my Grandma Mary. The Getty Museum is a museum in Los Angeles that has many paintings and artifacts from a long time ago.
This is the Getty Museum above. I like it because it's made out of marble. Marble is very interesting to look at and it feels smooth like when you put paint on your hands and rub it.
I really like riding the tram, but I thought it was going to be a little roller coaster with a bunch of drops, but it's just a tram.
I was sitting on the smooth tile floor because I was tired. Grandma and I spent five hours walking around the museums.
Grandma took many pictures and she wanted me to walk forward and get a picture of my back.
This is a painting. I think it's a very gorgeous picture. I like the way the man is standing and the way he looks so serious. When I look at paintings I feel happy because I want to be an artist when I grow up. I feel happy and excited to look at all the colors- interesting is the best word to describe it; I feel interested.
I don't get to learn a lot of history in school, it's not a main subject, and The Getty has a lot of history. It's very nice for me to get a look at all of it, because each painting tells a story.
This is Mary and baby Jesus. I think this makes people feel happy and like if you are going through a hard time it makes you feel better because you know baby Jesus might be looking down on you, when you look at the painting. You feel blessed.
This is me purposefully making a funny face just to make Grandma mad. Grandma is amazing, she loves me so much and she is very nice to take me all the way to the Getty. Grandma and I have a lot in common so we don't get bored talking. At the Getty we talked about the paintings and how good the food was we ate, and how I shouldn't touch the paintings or the security guard would get mad at me. I love the Getty and it's fun and I hope I go again.

101 Ways To Smile: Move From Ordinary to Strange

Instead of moving into an apartment, move into a gypsy caravan
Make love on the grass and get ants and flowers stuck to your sweaty back
Drink river water
See the silver flash of a fish by the moonlight
Smell the moss and leaf rich air
Hear the birds, grasshoppers, frogs and owls
Feel the hand of God in the vast infinity of nighttime sky
Watch your children scream in laughter and tears on wooden steps and in wooden tree arms
Wash your babies shirt in a stream
Dry it lain flat and staked with heavy rocks
Swim naked and cold and dry in the hot goosebumps of sun
Dance to violins by firelight
Read poetry to the woods
Sleep in tangles of blankets on small beds pressed against your family
Return to intimacy

Be afraid of the dark again

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