The Frige

I have always had a stuffed-front frige, since I struck out on my own, single mom with son in tow, desiring to remind myself of what it was all for: I might be cooking an egg (scrambled, with green onion) and look up, spatula in hand, overcome by despair. ( I am the kind of person that this regularly happens to.) ' What IS it all for? ' I'd think. And there, right in front of me, were the many answers.

It's for my grandparents Elizabeth and MD Gardner, both dead now (Writing those words is surreal- it can't be, can it? It doesn't feel possible. Why is it reality feels impossible while daydreams appear completely realistic? ) and sitting in their picture at Dakota's preschool graducation, his floppy blue hat on head, my Grandma's wrinkled and blue veined hand clenched in his, Grandpa MD standing proudly, finally happy, after a lifetime of severe mental illness and the long ago death of their beloved son David; David died the same age my Dakota is now, at 14, and this reality is again, impossible for me. I have many times imagined the policemen coming to knock in the sweltering Mississippi heat at my Grandma's door, her answering, apron on, hair beautifully brushed and lipstick in place, for them to tell her that David had fallen out of the forbidden abandoned rowboat in the lake, messing round with his buddies, hit his head and drowned. His friends tried to save him. Grandma took to her bed for weeks, until the family doctor came and gave her B shots. After that she was able to care for her six other children and mentally ill husband while working full time as a schoolteacher.

It's for my husband: my best friend since I was 19 years old who was so immediately in love with me the first time we met he literally did not talk for three straight hours.

It's for my children, Ian Oliver of the incredibly round and adorable baby head, Dakota Wolf my nurtsie boy, and Lola Moon, my closest companion.

It's for my mother, Mary, and her great love for her grandchildren.

It's for my cousins Simon and David, and all they are to me that they do not know.

It's for my cousin Amalia, like a sister to me, her new son Elton and his big Gardner eyes.

It's for the great and amazing possibility of change that Barack Obama brings, for the joy he brings.

It's for poetry, and dance, and music, and laughter, and long walks in cool evenings, and all creatures great and small, as Herroit says,

this wonderful world! remind me, remind me of why we do what we do.

Thao With The Get Down Stay Down

Swimming Pools

Naked

veryone,

I am restless. My heart pumps my veins with blood that run its hot platelets over and over again through the arteries, eager to be used and used up, with nowhere to go in a day of baby changing and ruminating and evenings of reading and talking, only the sudden shots of workouts or hikes to work the blood to a boil, to charge the heart with electricity, to shock and ignite. I am static electricity and running water pushing against a dam. I am the scratching of pen and ink on paper. I am the restless tail of my cat, twitching. I am the slurring of clouds over the sky.

I need to be naked in the ocean. I've skinny dipped in the Pacific, jellyfish phosphorescent at my feet, slipping through the seaweed, hard salt waves chopping my back, stringing my hair, my nipples hard as shells, the great grunting belly of Earth slapping against my skin. I swam over large stingrays, their bleak slanted faces and whippet tails working side to side. The moon overhead, the winds cold and wet against my face, the dark sky alive with stars. I floated on the brine, alone, the echoes of my friends on the shore, further in the water. I thought of Jaws and fear turned itself in my stomach, legs kicking. The ocean at night is terrifyingly beautiful, like the Catholic version of God: omnipresent, silent and speaking, removed and closer to the soul than you can bear. I pictured my own naked body grabbed by the jaws of a Great White, the slip quiet splash of my disappearing skin, white as the shark, into the sea. I held my breath and forced my body under the ocean, felt my hair slip out in a great fan. I was shaking with cold, the length of my skin covered in chills and inoluntary twitches, small shudders. Seaweed slick and coarse against the white lick of my feet, I curled in a ball and floated, making a small tunnel of warmth between my belly and thighs. The darkness was thick, pin pricked with muted light, and I could hear, as if my ears were pressed against a seashell, the far off roaring of the waves over my head, tumbling over and over as if I had never been there at all. This is what the world would be like if I were dead, I thought. The waves would keep pulling and the moon would keep shining on the water and my friends, somewhere far away, would be laughing and playing, and I would be silent and unobserved, far below the movement and even the stillness.
I waited for a great shark to bite me, I waited for pain, and when none came- I surfaced.

I've been naked in the California desert, too. I spent an entire weekend with three young men, no clothes on but my Doc Martens, laces flapping in the dust. I burned my ass laying flat on my belly and breasts watching an anthill for an hour. I was thrilled with the power my body had over boys, over men, and happy to experiment with that power in the safe setting of these boys, my long time friends who loved me and who, I was sure, were safe. They were. My freckles bloomed and my ass burnt and my legs grew tan and strong, and I saw one lizard in three days. This desert was rough, ugly faced- scratchy with bushes and cacti, silent and straight faced as any landscape I've ever seen. No curves, no animal life aside from ants visible to the human eye, not even the hawks I'd hoped to see circling prey- just the hand over hand layout of sand and dirt and bush. God doesn't raise an eyebrow in that desert.

I ate dirt constantly as a child, even an older child, and grass, and drank every muddy Mississippi river I encountered. I leapt over a fence during a high school field trip- jumped on a horse, and rode bareback. By the time my teacher returned from the other side of the mostly abandoned farm, I was off the horse and very pleased with myself. ( I've always loved, loved horses. ) I miss this part of my self occasionaly; I get attacks like old people get attacks of gout where my body expands, and I can feel it longing. The canyons that were such a part of my growing up beckon me- with their cigarrette smelling weeds and boggy pockets and mud and snakes and lanky lean trees. The last muddy romp I went on with my family made me happy. I need the trees, the mud, the birds, the fear of dark covens of trees; the mystery of the natural world is my siren song.

I always have told Mr. Curry that when I die, I simply want to be taken to a beautiful place and left underneath a tree, to decompose, stir with the dirt, run down the sluices of river and end up curled and suspended, deep in the ocean.

My MTV Video Debut: Me in NSync's ' Dirty Pop '

Here I am in my pre-Lola days, making $170 for almost 24 hours of work, dancing with the charming Mr. Justin Timberlake. Look around 1 minute 45 seconds and after, I'm the blink of an eye with a cowboy hat and platinum braids dancing to the right of Mr JT. You can see me dancing round here and there through the video.
This was such a fun experience! The set was awesome, really Hollywood, in Culver City, and seriously Justin Timberlake was really sweet to all the extras. He was very sweet to me ;) He was going out with Britney at the time but still had quite the roving eye.

Animal Farm

The watering hole MEOW

Are You Ready To Rumble!!!!???

A boy and his dog. Nuff said.

Hims is a happy boy hims is

I'll carry you to Paris, Harry Potter..

Seriously? Cuz, you realize I'm SLEEPING, right?

Baby, you can take all the pictures you want. I'm not going anywhere.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Can't Go To Work Today

' i cannot go to school today
said little peggy anne mckay
i have the measles and the mumps
a gash a rash and purple bumps!'
- Shel Silverstein

1 my eye bags are particularly offensive this morning.

2 i have coffee breath and dropped my toothbrush in the toilet.

3 my cat peed in my purse, de-activating my car lock, and i can't get in my car.

4 my children are becoming enslaved to the establishment and i need to free them
from the puritanical expectations of organized education, and i don't want to go to work.

5 i'm going to be late anyway.

6 how will i ever chisel my body into a sparkling statue of Greek Goddess perfection
if i can't find time for 5 Minute Abs?

7 i have a hangnail. ouch.

8 if i call my husband right now, i bet he'll come home to get some.

9 the phone is ringing.

10 my real life doesn't involve group urination.


xo
ps
i don't want to go to work today
said little maggie may

sigh.
GROW UP GIRL.
TURD BURGLAR!!!!!

House Books

Books on the Coffee Table

Books stacked randomly
White shelves in the dining area
Lined up where we eat
Books on my Grandma's inherited secretary
Books in the boys room

On Lola's shelves
and her dresser
Books in the hall
books stacked in the living room
Living room shelves

Bibliophile: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

WARNING, SPOILERS
I read this book without ever having heard of or read the author, (now dead) Richard Yates. The tone of the book, the speaker's perspective, was clearly past- even without the details that set the time period ( 1950's ) I recognized this voice: manly, a bit clipped in comparison to modern voices, restrained yet dramatic in even the smallest conversations and musings, slightly sexist, a streak of hopelessness. It's terrifically sad. I have not been able to draw forth another book that weighed in this heavily in despair and emptiness: there was nothing to redeem, no hope, no side character or plot with any spark of life or real character. Even the children are depressing: mopey, strange and always in the background of the adult life, never a real consideration, never wanted. A pregnancy that ends in death is the ultimate metaphor for how children are viewed to these characters: burdens of responsibility, even their love and respect just another expectation to be met.
The adults are all completely self centered, psuedo-intelligent and emotionally stunted. Affairs are had without real desire or stakes, friendships are made without any real respect or love, marriages are entered into with a modicum of desire and some self aggrandizing expectations. I found myself highly frustrated with the repetitive nature of the main characters: they are deeply flawed, but somehow still come across as hopelessly shallow, never accruing at least the depth that suffering can imbue on a person.
The writing keeps circling round the character's perspectives on America: empty, shallow, repetitive, hopeless, war mongering, to the point where it is hard to tell if the author is actually making a point about America, or if the point is the character's unwillingness to take personal responsibility for their lives and simply shift the blame to a vague concept of 'America' and what it has done to them. The characters are to removed from society- their only interaction involves a community theatre group with a play that metaphorically ends in disaster- to take their musings seriously: they barely read (but talk about reading) have anything to do with anyone, (he fancies himself above his job, his fellow workers and the company itself) she doesn't work, they don't like anyone (especially themselves) and aren't involved with anything, so their opinions seemed to be based on their college ideas and discussions, endlessly regurgitated.
The writing is amazing for it's ability to hold this intensly tight and sad string from beginning to end: every setting and situation hold the same undercurrents of futility and despair. The only character with any real spark is a mad man- perhaps life is only bearable if you are insane? The main characters are absorbed with the madman's craziness like easily impressed children, desperate for anything exciting, anything to move them, as their own love, children and lives have failed to do.
I love a good drama, I adore Tolstoy's works, Joyce Carol Oates, Sylvia Plath- so no one can accuse me of not appreciating a finely written dark story, but this book was too relentlessly empty for me to ever read again. I can admire the author's skills but I cannot love this book.

Nouveau America

Nouveau vs Neuf

"nouveau is used to mean that something has changed, while neuf indicates that something is newly-made."




"Baptism, from Greek βαπτίζω (baptízô), is a religious act of purification by water usually associated with admission to a Christian church. Although the primary meaning of the Greek word for baptism is dip or plunge, the term was used also historically to mean perform ablutions.

The Christian ceremony of baptism evolved from the Jewish tradition of purification by immersion in a ritual bath. John the Baptist performed baptisms "for the remission of sin" and Jesus and his disciples seem to have inherited this tradition from John. After Jesus' death, however, Christians began using the ceremony of baptism as an initiation rite into the Christian faith, symbolizing dying to one's old self and being "reborn" in Christ. Since then, baptism has come to play a key role in the sacramental tradition of Christianity, and various Christian traditions of baptism have evolved among different denominations.

In a broader sense, the word "baptism" can also be used for any ceremony, trial, or experience by which one is initiated or purified."



purify
Verb
[-fies, -fying, -fied]
1. to free (something) of harmful or inferior matter
2. to free (a person) from sin or guilt
3. to make clean, for example in a religious ceremony



to free from sin or guilt



to free from sin or guilt

"By doing so you have emphasized that Matthew was a human being with all the rights and responsibilities and protections of any citizen of Wyoming." -Denis Sheppard, Father of Matthew Sheppard, as he addressed Wyoming government. Matthew Wayne Shepard was a gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was tortured and subsequently murdered near Laramie in 1998.


free from sin or guilt.


a purified soul, a baptized soul, will not hungrily hold boundries, will not fearfully draw lines, will not find the differences between human beings as terrifying as the cold pushing of ocean water eating our shores, will not be afraid of assimilation: a purified soul will know the individual spirit of each human being is the glorious gift of our life here on Earth, but the connective tissues that produce our very humanity are our ability to relate to one another, to care for one another, to pull briars from our children's hair because we know what pain is ourselves; we must grant freedom and rights to our fellow human beings black, gay, woman, man in order to free ourselves: we are born sinless, guiltless, and those of us who impose authority on other human beings out of intellectual stagnation, fear and emotional smallness are making our own short lives smaller, further away from anything Christlike, Buddha like or humanist: what we grant to others we brand on ourselves.

i pray in 2009 we move closer toward each other.

xo maggie