People In Your Mutherfuckin Neighborhood

take a seat and read, bitches

This gangster version of Google ( Gizoogle ) is one of the best things on the internet, ever. Here's an example- THE example of why this TOTALLY RULES: 

A poem I wrote that was published in Diagram. 
The Gizoogle version of the same poem in Diagram.

SO AWESOME. I can now turn away from the internet forever and be happy. (Lies, lies, lies.)


America's best unknown writer: William Gaddis in TNYROB  - I had never heard of him. If I had gone to further college I probably would have. So much to read, so little time.

This made me laugh out loud: The Facebook Version of Marriage Going Great 

I loved this simple but beautiful little essay on giving away something the author didn't want to give away. I live like this and it's made my life a million times richer and less lonely. I feel connected to people I don't know because I believe we ARE connected.

Do you read Sweet/Salty? I have off and on for years, and Kate Inglis' recent essay about grief was a reason why.

Remember how I was saying I have a gynormous crush on Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights?
Here he is in real life action.

This photo essay is personal and deeply moving. For years Nick has taken pictures of his twin brother who has cerebral palsy.

Another reason why I drink green tea: protects against the flu.

Zach Galifianakas interviews Justin Bieber. HAHAHAH

i was there

Objects

will you encounter me?
meet me by the eucalyptus tree
Californian fall, the hush hush of leaves

i am standing in this space.
where the lip of night mouths
the manna of my heart

i want you and you are gone.
when i was younger
i broke a window with my arm

there was a deep red gash, remember?
you came home and comforted me
that's what you always used to do

that's what i always used to do.
the air is sweet with cold,
it pinches my nipples and lips

i wake to a nightfall of loneliness.
just behind the pale blinking face
of this computer

there are secrets we used to share.
i put my hand through the window
there is no glass

only time.
only cold dark air, as wild as my heart
as empty as this place

where even rage was an object to adore.

Songbird- poetry reading

this is the way i felt like reading. so i did. 



i had only the language you gave me.
seven months old the words malformed
in my mouth, like a lumpy Down Syndrome tongue.
this is University Education: the meaning
hidden inside the puzzle, the puzzle hidden
inside the vault of Government Bank,
where only old white men can see inside.

the white shake of a stained diaper,
the opium bloom of an infant cry:
these dailies are not for Philosophy majors.
i sidled next to your fat pipe,
speaking in gutteral German, songbird's throaty discourse.
your words streamed over us like bile, a fouled water source,
gritty bathtub mom's hands circled and circled with bleach.

your words were Damnit, Shit, What the Hell,
i never heard an adult say I Don't Understand
so often. there was everything you did not understand,
an entire world of languages for Communications majors;
i hung upside down from mom's breast, trying to learn.
the trickle song that left my mouth was a warble, a sickle

celled singing, a corrosive tune to the family structure.
You Will Not Sing At the Dinner Table, i was instructed.
the galaxy eye of my sister was turned toward infinity-
i must breach the silence or die trying.
the pen in my hand, like a prosthetic song, a stand-in
a voice-over, a kind translator, the speech therapist
that smoothed my tongue and distilled the sing song
to the fine point, where words poured

in black ink on white paper, and i could flush triumphantly
without ever revealing i had a voice, after all.

People In Your Neighborhood

take a seat and read!!

As a 38 year old intern, I loved this Confessions of a 40 Year Old Intern  I am currently interning for the rapidly expanding Velocity House publishing company. They work primarily with Ebooks on Amazon and have made all best sellers!

KindWorld is the kind of place I like to be- " Weekly audio stories and regular posts that celebrate the effect random acts of kindness can have on another."

Healing inflammation caused by food allergies through probiotics I take probiotics most months of the year, and my kids take them half the year. I gave them to Ever after her hospitalization and saw the effects quickly on her immune system and digestion.

This made me laugh= 10 Things Writers Are Tired of Hearing

I've been researching the flattening emotional effect of SSRI's on people because I take a low dose of Zoloft. Sex, Love and SSRI's in Psychology Today

This blog post by Rabbi Andy Bachman is worth the longer than usual read. On life, death, faith and despair: A Day and a Year

Amazing visuals: vintage crime scene photos in NYC superimposed onto the same, modern day spaces.

When I was 19 I was pregnant and just quit my job. This 19 year old figured out a plan to clean up all our oceans in 5 years.

I am obsessed with Kyle Chandler's character, Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights. Never watched the show before, I'm now making my way through the show on Netflix, and in love with Coach Taylor- not to mention Connie Britton as his wife with freaking amazing hair! Anyway, this interview proves that he's at least close to as awesome as Coach Taylor. Sigh....

God Pi

a functional depressive makes room for the children's breakfast, teeth brushing and gets everyone out of the door on time. her own teeth are witchy. when i write here i think about how much has changed. so many people i know read this little space in the big universe of online and it has changed my audacity. i fear reprisal in the form of loss of income, for instance. do you want a woman struggling with depression to watch your children? i do a good, even excellent job. the children are parked and swung and slid and taken to story time and the toy aisle at Target and dressed adorably, hair brushed and eyes raccoon bright, they eat healthy, whole food meals and only watch TV ( other mom approved ) once a day, they do worksheets, music and story time and art time. they laugh and argue and play in sun and rain. they swim and strip and potty. i move through the motions like an injured ballet dancer. perhaps you can see where i used to be beautiful? where the lines ran like music through my arms and legs, life was such a joy? i reach for the beautiful moments and they filter through my hand like a rainbow. nothing can penetrate the wedding ring sized hole in my body. nothing can fill it, or end it when i choose. it must be accepted and endured, and the relief comes from knowing, with my whole self, that i am not special, that i am not singular or destined or cursed or unlucky- i am simply alive, and life comes with pain. life comes with holes in the fabric of the universe, just as it comes with concentric patterns of relief. pi is my favorite math. the circular eye is pi, as is the flower, the snowflake-- to me, pi is a signal from the great universe. hello, i am here. is this not a description of God? :

Pi has had various names through the ages, and all of them are either words or abstract symbols, since pi is a number that can't be shown completely and exactly in any finite form of representation. Pi is a transcendental number. A transcendental number is a number but can't be expressed in any finite series of either arithmetical or algebraic operations. Pi slips away from all rational methods to locate it. It is indescribable and can't be found.

Beautiful Pi

People In Your Neighborhood: 9/11

" september 11 was a beautiful, beautiful day. as everyone will always remember I know. "

" families often have a map in their minds of where their loved ones are in the world...you know if somebody in your family is working in a place that has become a center of a calamity that is now unfolding,  in your mind, you are trying to place your loved one. where are they in relationship to this terrible series of events that's unfolding. "






Leaving this space for the horror, the grief, the suffering, the heroism, the devotion, the connectivity, the humanity, the love, the long road ahead. I remember 9/11. 

Boatlift: An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience  " I tell my children, never go through life saying you should have. If you want to do something, you do it. "

Phone Calls of 9/11 ( all quotes are from this video ) " It's important to let people know what families of 9/11 have been experiencing, what we are going through, what we have gone through. We still have those memories that we don't want anybody to ever forget " Jill Gartenberg, lost husband Jim, 35 years old in the North Tower.



Sometimes I think what it would feel like to know that one of my children was in a tower, and to look at the TV, and to watch a plane fly into the building that my child was in. I am flooded with abject terror, sense of unreality, horror, helplessness. My respect and awe and compassion for those affected by 9/11 feels as boundless as love.


" Stephen was with us for 33 years. And we have a choice. We can either say, we are so mad that he is not here. Or we can say, we had him, for 33 years. And we have a feast to return to. The feast of memories "- Anne Mulderry, mother of Stephen, killed in 9/11. 

" I just want to say how much I love you. And ah,  I will call you when I'm safe. OK Mom? Bye. " Stephen


" I feel so bad that we can't do more. You don't know. " 911 operator


" We're young men- We're not ready to die! " Kevin Cosgrove, who died in the collapse of tower one, as he was speaking to the 911 operator. His call was used in the trial of one of the 9-11 terrorists to illustrate human suffering.  


"He left a story behind. My kids have it, their kids will have it. And I just feel that it's to honor his memory and the person that he was. "-wife of Orio Palmer, fire captain who made it to the point of impact before dying in the tower collapse


Anne Mulderry, on hearing that her son Stephen was dead " And a sound came out of me that I'd never heard in my life..it was just an animal sound. And when I heard that sound for the first time in my life- that howl- I knew it was universal, and that, you know, my family and I had joined, you know, all the losses of all the ages. "

if i told you i loved you, would you believe me?

Late Tonight I walked underneath the sky and with our dogs tugging ahead on the leash, let myself cry and walk and look at the purple black sky and the cold air on my skin and goosebumps, the rushing of trucks aside me so I turned my head just a minute to look and look back, and I had wanted to be alone in this way, wind on my skin, sky above, earth beneath me, just so that I could say thank you, thank you, thank you, just so i could say it properly, without interruption, and look at the sky, where all messages from humans are really sent, out to great unknown. 

thank you for this amazing life.

Book Review: I Promise Not To Suffer

Book reviews are my favorite kind of sponsored posts to do, and I was happy to learn that the subject matter of I Promise Not To Suffer was a middle aged couple who hike the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails. I immediately thought of Cheryl Strayed's Wild which I also read this year; that now famous ( as famous as literature can be these days ) memoir recounted Cheryl's solo hike as a young woman through the same trail. I wasn't too surprised when I read the book and found a quote from  Strayed on the book cover.

Gail and Porter are in their fifties when Porter decides he wants to take leave from his work as a doctor and hike the trail. Gail ends up reluctantly deciding to go along although, as the first chapter is titled, she hates nature. As the planning nears the actual hike, Gail flies to tell her mother, frail and nearing 80, that she and Porter will be gone for six months on this hike, when Gail's mom announces news of her own: her breast cancer has returned. It is with this heavy news that the hike begins, immediately derailing into a series of unfortunate events: squirrels steal food directly out of Gail's mouth, Porter sets himself on fire and then sustains an unnamed foot injury that causes him pain with every step.

As the hike intensifies, Gail and Porter both fall into the pattern of exhaustion and contemplation that seems par for the course with long hikes. They both privately work through painful issues and Gail thinks back to the beginning of their 17 year marriage.  As the challenges of the trail push them, they both come together and move apart. At one point, Porter makes a wrong turn and they are lost for part of a day. 

“As Daniel Boone remarked,” Porter said when he tumbled in, “‘I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.’ ”

There are beautiful moments of observation in this memoir. At one point, Gail runs directly into the path of a mountain lion. They are alone together, and stand looking at one another. It is exactly the kind of moment that is stirring to read about but would be much harder to actually enact!

The appendixes at the end are interesting to read-  lists of the supplies they used: gear, then food, then emergency list. Gail's writing is truly lovely in some places and increases in flow at the book moves on. In the end, I was rooting for Gail and Porter to get everything they needed off the trail. 


I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.