Tuesday, August 23, 2011

For Stella

I'm not really religious. At all. But my friends just had a baby, born with a heart defect and in critical condition. And there's nothing I can do, but I feel like I need to do something, so I pray. I don't know if I'm praying to God, or rather, begging the universe to just this once not let the worst happen.

Please let Stella be OK.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Books


Mom retired from teaching this year and is putting her house on the market so there's been a major purge of books from her house: kid books and grown up books. Lucky us. Everything from Plato to Alice Hoffman. It's like a bookstore barfed on my stairs.

I've got a hot date with some bookshelves this weekend.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Where I'm From

I am from homemade bread, from Campbell's Soup Kids cups and goats' milk.
I am from an overgrown log cabin with cattle skulls nailed above the door - drafty and crooked, and clay grit in the carpet.
I am from sticky jack pine sap and peeling birch tees, the island in the river, and mini bikes tearing through the hills. From the fire tower and the woodpile and the attic of the barn.
I am from reading together on the floor, dinner in front of the TV and dogs in my bed.
I am from Tolkien and Millay and The Beatles.
I am from sarcasm and silliness and tickling until you cry.
From sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never harm you. (But they will.)
I am from bitter, lapsed catholicism and the hole that it left.
I'm from names with too many consonants that cannot be pronounced, sauerkraut and sausage for Thanksgiving and oyster stew on Christmas Eve.
From the Tet Offensive and a Bronze Star, from freezing toes in too small shoes and learning to knit in Mexico, from the cold, snow-bound winter with no water when we all had the flu.
I am from a folded flag, battered records and books that have been moved a hundred times, ancient and fragile glassware, and a creaky family album that still smells like home.
I am from all the stories that I have yet to hear.


(from here, via Elly)

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Plot

You know that storyline in TV, or is it movies? Both I guess, but mostly movies. Anyway there's this hapless schmuck who just wants to do right by his family, but he's just beaten down by the man, humiliated, and he can't catch a break no matter how much he tries and then finally he snaps and turns to a life of crime?

That.

(except the he's a she me.)