i know i'm not alone......

because serendipity tells me so.

It all started about two weeks ago, when I heard an old Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy song on our local public radio station. I loved them, back in the day. Their one and only album still gets some play on my now old-fashioned CD player. Jamming out to "Television" on KRCC made me wonder what they were up to now.

Then a few days later, I read a post on the Newspeak blog about hip hop, and decided to ask about the Heroes I once loved. A kind blogger told me that Michael Franti (half of the Heroes) had gone on to form a band called Spearhead. Being fairly modern-musically illiterate, I had never heard of this band. The name stuck in my mind however. (No pun intended. Really)

Fast forward to yesterday. While driving home from a conference where I learned nothing new about teaching, but remembered a bunch of stuff I had forgotten, I turned on the radio and there it was..... an indescribable music that caused me to have a near religious experience right there in my car. Turns out it was, you guessed it, Spearhead. They were playing live on E-town. I waited through all the annoying chit-chat of the host with Michael Franti, to get to the next song. It was this one. By the time it was over, I was soaring with the people in the crowd.



Later that night, I'm googling and youtubing and itunesing Michael Franti and Spearhead, and John says, "Oh yeah, JJ was telling me all about them when I picked the boys up on Friday. He said something about them playing here pretty soon."

I looked it up immediately. Mancos. Fucking Mancos, Colorado! Small town middle of shale Mancos! A six-hour drive from here! And on a Wednesday night!

But it's outdoors. All ages. Free for kids under 12. I wanna pack up the kids and road trip it out to nowhere to see a band I've only just learned about. I just might do it. Anyone wanna go with? Believe it or not, I actually KNOW people in Mancos who I'm sure would put us up for the night.

I've been listening to a lot of music over the past few years that isn't exactly what you would call pick me up and dance me around music. It's more like punch me in the heart and make me melancholy music . I love that stuff, I really do. But sometimes........ it's nice to remember that it's ok to want to be happy.

It seems I have a new Hero. Or at least a resurrected one.

one more reason to vote democrat

...... as if we needed one

in case you missed it......

here's the RNC in 108 seconds. I dare you to try not to laugh.

After you're done laughing, however, go out and register some new Democrats and talk your asses off to your undecided friends and neighbors.



An interesting aside.... when I was coming out of anesthesia from my surgery last Friday, I vaguely, as if in a dream, heard the anesthesiologist and some nurses talking politics. I mustered all the energy I could, and, as if speaking with a mouth full of cotton balls, declared, "Palin's a psychopath."

I'm pretty sure that ended the conversation!

bridge to somewhere

Bennett built this today. Then he took some photos of it:





Frank Rich gets it right. Again.

i fought this guy......

I keep waiting for my dreams to give me answers. Answers to questions I always hoped I'd never have to ask. If not answers, at least some guidance as to the decisions I am facing. They are, without hyperbole, matters of life and death. If not answers or guidance, at least a little inspiration then please!

But when morning comes, I usually find I've had a dreamless sleep and I'm still more confused than ever. The one exception to my dreamlessness was this memorable one I had several nights ago.


I was in a house. A dimly lit house with wood paneling, old carpet, and many corridors. A few other people were milling about, as if it were a small party. The kitchen was filled with the low murmur of people conversing, and I was with them, yet not completely a part of them.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a muscular man in wrestler's panties began moving slowly towards me. I knew he wanted to kill me. Without even breaking a sweat, he quickly got the others out of the way by punching them or pushing them against the walls. I knew my husband was down, lying to my right on the floor of a hallway. There were other bodies as well, strewn along the path in which he had come. In no time at all, there was no one left but me.

The only thing I had to defend myself with was a small pocketknife, which I took out of somewhere, flipped open, and waved in front of my face. With my tiny metal implement, I slashed at his neck, his arms, his face, whatever I could find. With each cut, he would stumble back a few steps, sometimes he even fell. When he was down, I would slice his thighs, his calves, his toes even! But he always came for me again. We moved through the labyrinthine house, with me moving slowly backwards but still fighting.

Interestingly enough, I never tried to run away. He was slow, and injured... I could have easily turned tail and escaped. In scary dreams, I always run. Always have. I still remember distinctly a dream I had while I was reading The Red Badge of Courage in which I hid behind a tree and then deserted the line of battle. I'm not a fighter. Never have been.

But this time I stood my ground, armed only with a Swiss Army knife, and kept slashing and stabbing at a man twice my size. I was violently angry. Yelling. I just kept hacking and stabbing and slashing and he kept bleeding and faltering and recovering again and again. At one point, when he was lying slumped against the wall and I thought he was down for good, I went for his chest wall. I can still hear the noise and the crunch of the little knife as it pierced his tough flesh. But I didn't just poke him gently as if he were a potato headed for the oven. Nope. I put the knife in, then yanked it down, or to the right, or to the left, watching the blood and guts come spurting and slurping out. It reminded me of the time I cut open Stretch Armstrong when I was a girl so that I could see what was inside of him. Over and over I relentlessly thrust my little knife in, hoping that the next hit would finally be the one that would make him stop for good.

When I finally awoke in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, I lay there trying to remember the last moment of the dream. He was dying, unable to get back up, that's for sure. But I'm not quite sure he was 100% dead. I was exhausted. From a dream! But alive. Really, really alive.

Cancer moves. It has taken out many who have come before us. We cut and burn and poison, and yet it still moves. I will be fighting, now, for the rest of my life. And I shall need to use every tool at my disposal to do so, because a knife, clearly, is not enough. Yes, I do have "an army of friends" (thanks for that phrase, Sarah!), as well as a loving, supportive husband, but in the end, the only one who can make the decisions about my life and do the fighting that is necessary......... is me. And that's not something I can't handle.

I like this dream. I like this dream a lot.

thank you for..........

a red rose from your garden, sitting in the waiting room with me, spinach lasagne, using the word fuck, a limerick, cards sent via us postal service, coffee on my bedside table, homemade veggie burritos, letting us drop off the boys at 6:30 am when your own weren't even up yet and you were making pancakes, coffee and tears at cucuru, your anger, emails, listening, facts and figures (81%!), the dnc diversion, text messages while driving to surgery in the early morning, picking the boys up from school, the chance to slay some goblins while on percocet, slow-talking self-hypnosis man, cheesecake, brownies, pizza, the red jewel of a heart, your tears, prayers, raising arizona, reefer madness, and other cult classics, dr. susan love's breast book, your porch swing, cosmos to drink, camels to smoke, spreading the word, 40 bucks to go see a movie, enchiladas, flowers, taking the boys for 7 hours on a saturday, doing the laundry, the dishes, and the tucking in, helping me get dressed, a phone call from brooklyn to awaken, chicken quiche, the best damn purple potatoes i've ever tasted, fresh greens, peach pie, stopping by, surviving to tell your story, text poetry, tabouli, sitting on my bed, calling the boss when I was too drunk to, chocolate, love, positive and negative thoughts, "an army of friends", a morning walk, doing your chores without being asked (ok, let's be real... after only being asked once), hugs, supporting john too, retsina wine at jake-n-telly's, forwarded funny emails, wisdom, zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, offering to fly out to be here, washing my hair, telling your own children, giving me a ride to work, giving me a ride home, friendship, holding my hand, telling me it's gonna be alright, invitations to go out, commenting on the blog, making the scar match the outline of my areola, flowers, taking care of your son while he is taking care of me, 100% agave tequila in a wicked cool bottle, homemade peach frozen yogurt, phone calls, taking all the recycling on the front porch to recycle america, understanding

wish i were here.....

sort of. The Democratic National Convention is taking place a mere hour's drive away, in Denver. Just in case you didn't know. Some people don't. A LOT of people don't. Which surprises me.

Anyway, some people I know WERE there over the weekend. Here are some pics.





More pics here

And video:

it can't be helped

Whatif
by Shel Silverstein

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow taller?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems swell, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

Fifteen years ago, when I was a young, energetic, inspiring teacher of sixth graders, I thought I could change their lives with poetry. We made poetry books with marbled paper covers and "self-published" them. We had an open mike at the middle school for their friends and family. We wrote the usual haiku and rhyming couplet, as well as plenty of free verse and exquisite corpse stuff (I didn't call it that, though) But one of my favorite activities was to take poems that the students already loved, and then they would modify them to become their own. My eleven and twelve year olds had bucketloads of fun with "Whatif" by Shel Silverstein, I think because it is simultaneously silly and serious. It speaks to that place where ego meets self-doubt, and middle school meets the world.

I had my students all start with the first four lines, then add their own in the middle, and finish with Shel's signature last two lines. I remember being amazed at their willingness to share their real fears, as long as they were embedded in humor.

For the past few days, as I've been fishing out my insurance card for every smocked receptionist, and lying on tables waiting for needles to poke me, and listening to the strangely calming whir and hum of the MRI machine, and, of course, lying in bed at night, I have been finding myself in the dark murky realm of the Whatifs. Nasty little creatures, they are. Possibly even worse than zombies. But they have a place. A serious and silly place. Where fear meets love, and middle age meets cancer.

Anyway, here's my poem, a la the style of my 6th graders all those years ago. It's more like a ramble. It doesn't rhyme. Ask me if I care.

Last night while I lay thinking here
Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
And pranced and partied all night long
And sang their same old Whatif song
Whatif the pathologist's boyfriend just left her for her best friend
and she's so heart-broken that she can't think straight or see straight?
Whatif my surgeon can't cut straight?
Whatif the electricity went off and my boob was stuck in the mammogram machine?
Whatif the sentinel lymph node is positive?
Whatif I've got the gene?
Whatif I have chemo and can't muster the energy to cook dinner for my kids AND it puts me into menopause?
Whatif I get 'em both cut off and get to pick perfect ones out of a catalog?
Whatif I can't feel 'em?
Whatif the anesthesiologist starts drinking at 7 AM?
Whatif I can't go to Seattle next week?
Whatif I have to miss tons of school and I don't have enough sick days?
Whatif all the techs and nurses are wearing fake ID badges?
Whatif we had caught it sooner?
Whatif breast cancer does the same thing to me that it did to my mother?
Whatif I throw my wine glass off the porch at Jake-n-Telly's?
Whatif all the love in the world were visible?
Whatif the radiologist forgot her glasses that day?
Everything seems swell and then
The nighttime Whatifs strike again!

thanks, sister sarah!

It's about 30 seconds long. Totally worth it.

What old people do for fun

for patrick

I wrote this when I was 27. It seems like an eternity ago. Or yesterday. I've finally compiled and edited (Thanks, Brian!) most all of my poems from yesteryear to tomorrow, but I'm not sure what to do with them now. Except post them every once in awhile for strangers and friends. It's fun for now.


NO!
We are not lucky
There is no poem only
Jealous pride and anger
And not even an
Exclamation!
In the whole story-
Yours so different than mine
where it got all confused
and misinterpreted
as poetry
expecting too much
from metaphors

And why did you
Conjugate the verbs of my mind
and not the curves of my body?
At least the other way around
Would have been an
Exclamation! And
Not
An interrogative.

All I have is a fragment
Not even enough for a poem
Or a sentence

I hear echoes
Your words
I remember my dreams
You in them
The last one
You riding away from me
In some great big tractor-like machine
And you waving goodbye and me
left to harvest
the fragments

help me
to create a period now,
that I may begin a new sentence
with a Capitol letter

OUCH! Points hurt, but
are as necessary as
apologies

another bennettism

We told the boys today. The first words out of Bennett's mouth were, "Are you going to die?" Believe it or not, I did NOT break down in tears at that point, but answered him honestly and calmly, much to my surprise.

Later that night, while we were eating dinner at Il Vicino, we were talking about the lump and the boys were asking how big it was compared to Daddy's kidney stone. When I used the word "tumor", Bennett immediately asked, "Are there dead people living in it?"

Huh?!

All of the sudden, I had this vision of a bunch of miniature zombies wandering around inside the 2 cm marble in my right boob! Which then made me think that maybe cancer cells really are the "undead" of the corporeal self.

Anyway, I tried not to laugh, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings or make him feel bad (especially after we had just made a very strong point earlier about wanting them to feel free to ask us any questions they might have).

Despite our attempts to suppress it, John and I both started chuckling, and I think one of us finally asked him what he meant. He said, "Well, dead people live in tombs, and you have a tumor ......"

When we, as adults, enter the symbolic world of the written word, sometimes we lose the music. For me, because "tomb" and "tumor" are spelled so differently, they have absolutely no connection whatsoever. For a child, language is all sound and rhyme and rhythm and feeling.

I am pretty sure, however, that he really didn't believe what he was asking (the part about dead people living in my tumor)
No, I think he actually knew that he was making a pun.
Not only that, but he was doing it to make me laugh.

I'm working on my turn undead spell. Failing that, I'll just blow the fuckers to bits. (see pic below)

about right

Thanks, Mark!

makes sense to me

"Will you combobulate my covers?"

-Bennett, at bedtime, while wrestling with his duvet as if it were a sea monster.

pink schmink

Today I carried some mammogram and ultrasound pictures in a big pink carrier to an office with pink walls. I put on a pink gown and watched the nurse fill in my temperature and blood pressure in a pink file folder. The surgeon gave me a pink card that said, "Hang in There" in pink letters. On the way home, I saw a sign on the corner that read, "We buy houses. Call 577-PINK". If I believed that the universe took a personal interest in my life, I would say that it was having a good laugh at my expense today. Remember how I told you I hated the color pink?

I still do. Only now more than ever.

Two rosy consolations:
1. Mike's pink Cosmos with pink sugared rims and Bettina's pink Camels on the night I found out. (I had a free pass, you know.....)
2. Paris Hilton's plans for the White (Pink!) House (Watch it now)

RSVP

time
can’t keep marshmallows from sticking
in your hair
or the spruce's new blue from glowing
around the edges
or a summer rain from drizzling
out of the sun

it’s time to say yes

to the come here’s
and the follow me’s
of children

because Tuesday feels like next year
and every day is an eternity

time, at least,
keeps everything
from happening at once

second time around

I've never understood the need to watch a film more than once. People who own movies confound me. There's only so much time we are given in life, shouldn't we use it to learn/experience something new? I've also felt the same way about books. Or at least I used to. In fact, before this summer, I think the only book I had ever read twice was Anna Karenina.

I've had a hard time starting and finishing books over the past year or so. My mind wanders. Or I'm not interested in the characters and their mundane problems. Or there's not enough sex. Or there's too much plot. Or I'm half way through and can already see the end, and it's either happily ever after or a train wreck so there's no sense in going on.

This summer, in order to stave off the fear that I will never finish another book, I decided to abandon any possibility of a new novel, and revisit some of my favorites. Ones I know I actually finished once upon a time, and enjoyed. Ones I know fundamentally changed the way I saw the world and/or my place in it. I wanted to read the books I read when I was 11 or 23.

The first book I picked up was The Hobbit. It was fun. And funny. I had forgotten, in all of the Lord of the Rings-movie-big-battle-hype, how funny and sweet Tolkien was in that first little adventure. I fell in love with Bilbo Baggins all over again.

The next book I picked up (and just finished this morning) was Jitterbug Perfume. If you are a Tom Robbins fan, you'll know why. What I remember, from being in my early 20's, was that Jitterbug Perfume fundamentally awakened in me something I already knew. It was like Tom Robbins took what was already in my heart and soul, and put it on paper. Jitterbug Perfume values mythology over reality, the magical over the mundane, and manages to bring together history, metaphor, religion, politics, philosophy, sex, immortality, and, yes, dancing and perfume into one big gigantic soup of individual liberty and otherworldly/othertimely possibilities. Anyone who doesn't like this book is really not eligible to be my friend.

Next up on the list: The Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper. I read them when I was in 6th grade. I can't wait to read them again and find out why I loved them so much.

What books did you love when you were 11?
What books did you love when you were 23?

Tell me this, and I will know who you are.

it's fun being a zombie

This was the second time the Newspeak Zombies on Bikes rode down Tejon as part of the annual Colorado Springs PrideFest Parade. The first time, I interviewed the zombies.

Why zombies, you ask?
Because it's better to be undead than unequal.

colorado river trip 2008

Out of the 365 days in the calendar year (this year 366), these are my favorite three. Every July for the past four years now, we have rafted the Colorado River through Ruby and Horsethief Canyons. No cell phones. No computers. No laundry. Nothing to do but float, eat, drink, hike, and play. It's always good to remember that the Milky Way still exists. For those of us who live in a light-polluted city, we often forget that we are just an infinitesimally small planet in the arm of an equally small galaxy.

It's only my third attempt at an imovie creation, so don't judge it too harshly. I just wanted a way to put all the photos in one place.

Re: The Mooning....... on this particular stretch of the Colorado River, there are no roads, but there are train tracks just across the river. Freight trains rumble through at all hours, including about three times a night. Nothing like being awakened from pleasant dreams by what sounds like a tornado. Every once in a while, however, Amtrak comes around the corner. When it does, shouts of "Amtrak! Amtrak!" echo through the canyon, and everyone runs to the water's edge to moon the passengers. Ah.... tradition!

P.S. I don't know why, but when I play it on my blog, I don't get the music. If you don't either, just click in the middle of the movie, and that will take you straight to youtube. If I play it there, then I get the music. If anyone knows why this is happening, please let me know.... thx

i like doing laundry again

It's amazing that a little Shaker-made structure constructed for "women's work" could make me so happy. But the repetitive bending down, standing up, shaking out, hanging up motion while the Colorado sun is beating down on my bare back does just that. My brother's partner had one of these in Ithaca when we went to visit them in June. I was in awe of its simplicity and compactness, so upon returning, I searched online and bought myself one. A friend told me the novelty will wear off, and perhaps it will, but for now, I am enjoying my conversations with the birds and the flowers as I bare my underpants to the neighbors.

There are numerous neighborhoods in Colorado Springs governed by strange rules about what you can and cannot do with your own home . In many of these so-called covenants, you are not allowed to hang your laundry outside. I don't understand the people who live there.

nyc in summer

I often get overwhelmed when there is too much to say. I think that's why I like poems so much, because they are microcosms of moments. I spent five days with my family in New York City- that's enough to overwhelm anybody I suppose! How about a list? A list would be good. Here are some of my observations and experiences, and some pics to go with.

dark-skinned women with light-skinned infants and toddlers all throughout Central Park. I did not, of course, take any photos of them. But I did spend a lot of time wondering about the women who were at work for the day (both dark and light) while we were wandering through Central Park on vacation.


G and B and U trying to be cool and NOT hold onto the handrail on the subway


finding a chrysomelid beetle (if you know my husband, you know this is not really unusual) while walking around the top of the Empire State Building. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I did get one of a pigeon.


a young woman who stopped mid-jog over the Brooklyn Bridge to ask us if we would like her to take a picture of all four of us (it's the only one we have from the whole trip)


the unexpected friendliness of people on the street

the hostel we stayed at where 20-somethings partied until all hours and neither John nor I had the heart to tell them to be quiet because we remembered our own hostel traveling days. Thank god for the air conditioner whose white noise and coolth a. kept us from dying in the heat and b. kept us from committing murder

B always trailing a pace or two behind, but never once complaining

texting Marina in secret in the Natural History Museum, awaiting the moment when Ursen showed up and surprised the boys. We were looking at these cool creatures. I always like the microscopic ones best


Melissa (another one from this group) and her 12-hour workday reality. I hadn't seen her in, like, 15 years!


realizing that immigrants still come to New York, looking for something, hoping that what they find will be better, somehow, than what they left behind. It often is, but is not always apparent. At least not right away.


Remember Marina's kitchen?



And hey, anything's pretty much better than what we've got: