becomebersome.

the woman i've become tends to use recipes as suggestions rather than rules.  i always add more lemon and garlic.  i never shy away from including chocolate chips, and i taste-test everything over and over again, so my germs are all over the food that i serve to you.

also, there is always cat hair.

the woman i've become sees the boy they've arrested and thinks about her own son, and a life lost, as well as the damage done and the hurt he has caused.  i can't help but mourn for all of us.  i can't help but feel sorry for what went wrong.  i can't feel vengeance.

the woman i've become contemplates cutting her own hair in a last-ditch attempt to finally look like audrey tautou in "amelie" but also has the sense to wait out that feeling a bit more.  i've also become a woman who constantly questions my hair choices, and remembers fondly to the months of buzz cut me, the one who didn't care at all.

still doesn't mean i won't cut it all off, though; i can't give into the fear and self-loathing that accompanies a short haircut anymore.  i refute all of that bullshit.

the woman i've become manages to find fulfillment, longing, desire and pride, all in one little pop song.

the woman i've become is painfully aware of what her life would be like without her friends.  i have no words to accurately describe the fear of losing them, nor the good and light they bring to me.

the woman i've become creates secret handshakes with her children.

the woman i've become is more and less patient all the time.

the woman i've become seems to gravitate towards posts that look like lists; probably because they seem less intensive than digging in deep to a story.

you might not recognize the woman i've become; then again, you may have seen glimpses of me all along.

please.

"please don't hit your dog."

this i said to the man on the sidewalk in front of my house, swatting his tiny dog for running over and greeting mine.

"what did you say?"

"please don't hit your dog."

"why don't you mind your own business!"

me inside, reliving the moment, stomach clenched, tears rolling down, thinking, "please don't hit your dog, please don't bomb my town, please don't hate so much, please, please, please, good people of earth."

release, breathe, plead, pray. tears that cleanse, stain my face, remind me.

please, please, please.

how? or in other words, love.

i am in awe of all of you.

you, people, humans. all of you. i just don't know how you do it. how you manage it all. how you can speak happiness and contentment and grace, projecting it all out there, into the universe and the water and the air and beyond. you all amaze me.

how can you be apart from the one you love, so far away from you, and still manage your life and your kids and your heart so fully, ably, astoundingly so?

how can you wake up in the morning with him gone forever?

how can you be grateful, always? how can you have that feeling inside of you consistently?
seriously, how can you? can you teach me?

how can the wisdom of your words effortlessly piss me off so much that i judge myself, when in actuality all you are talking about is love?

how can you be so wonderful still, years after i last spent time with you? how has the magic stayed with you so deeply and darkly ingrained under your skin?

how can you work so fucking hard, be so good at your job, be the most brilliant woman i've ever known, and be brave enough to change your address to another continent? be brave enough to find love that pulls you over there?

how can you be strong enough to ignore the madness that is this new way of talking to each other?

how can you be my brother and not know anything about me?

how can your cat have the smushiest, lushest cat face i've ever seen?

how can you know how much it hurts to see you sad?

how can i articulate anything anymore?

how can there live such unaccountable beauty in the faces of your daughters? how can a photograph translate that so much of that beauty is revealed because of how they walk in this world?

how can this be anything but judgment?

how can i think that this life is anything but a plentitude of booty, in all its shapes and forms?

how can i get the courage to just write the goddamn kids' book that i want to write? and how can i stop telling myself that everyone has a goddamn kids' book that they want to write, so that means i shouldn't even try?

how can i make a headboard for my bed out of reclaimed materials?

how can i live with less?

how can my daughter find new ways to explore every single day? how can i steal this from her?

how can i express how grateful i am to all of you, for reminding me of all of this?

if nothing else, if nothing else, if nothing else, we all have each other.

random, multiple thoughts that may or may not matter in the grand scheme of things.

i bruise easily, inside and out.

every time i get dirt under my fingernails, i think of my great-grandmother, and how she scraped her nails on a bar of ivory soap before she dug around in her garden.

this morning i dreamed i threw up an enormous black ball of gunk. goodbye, issues.

bugs love me. and i love bugs. i've rescued countless cockroaches around my neighborhood, and i'm not ashamed to say that.

i don't seem to be able to cry that much anymore. are the meds that powerful, i wonder?

every time i listen to a podcast of someone i admire, i always question my own choices, and wonder what i could've done with my life to be more like her. or him.

i adore my friends. they are my family.

i love my family, but they aren't so much my friends.

watching my children grow up is a blessed relief. i'm glad they can almost take care of themselves. almost. if only they would stop demanding that i get them a glass of water.

my work is my house of worship.

i am not my mother. but i love to drink out of large mason jars, just like her.

while picking a live louse out of one of my student's hair today, i . . . well, . . . i should just leave it at that.

digging through.

tonight i helped my friend amber start to pack up for her move, and while we were going through her books she found this photograph:

it is of her, holding her goddaughter without a name, sitting on our old porch with alex about six hours after the aforementioned kid was born. i am not in the picture. i don't know where i was--maybe watching the original "batman" movie with three and a half year old milo for the twenty-seventh time.

wherever i was, i was glowing. it was a good day. it was good, hard work, and it was a really, really good day.

and there has never been a more beautiful baby girl, matched only by the loveliness of her godmother.

dream deniro, duh.

i'm just curious if i could post for seven days straight. would that make me feel fulfilled? would i consider myself a writer again? or will my inevitable angst over the content of said posts deflate the entire purpose of the assignment?

nevertheless, here i go.

this morning i had a wretchedly horrible and funny dream. my family and i were driving to robert deniro's house, where i was to be interviewed by a woman about my writing. i was excited. the long driveway was bordered by lots of farm animals, including baby pigs, who i couldn't wait to cuddle.

as the driveway ended it came upon an enormous house that overlooked the ocean. we walked out to the back and saw robert and his wife, and there were various kids there, at which point my children disappeared in the dream.

robert put his hand on my shoulder and told me that they had a wonderful recommendation from jacqueline onassis about me. i was pleased to hear it.

then the woman who was to interview me came to find me. she was blond. that's all i remember. she began, "can you tell me how your writing relates to life in 15th century japan?"

i paused, and said, "i'm sorry, i don't know how to answer that."

she then said, "how would you describe the anomalies in your writing in the context of the 20th century british economic state?"

i paused, blushed, and said, painfully, "i really don't know what to say."

she asked me one other question, and when i failed to answer again she disappeared. i started to wander the house to look for her, found alex, told him that we had to leave, because the woman was crazy; at which point he said okay and laid back down on the couch where he was taking a nap. i kept going around the maze of the fortress, and finally i saw the woman coming down the stairs.

"where were you?" i asked her.

"i went upstairs to cry." she said.

"i thought you were supposed to be smarter than this," she added.

pause. pause. let crazy dream moment sink deeper in subconscious. fucking hell.

the next thing that happened was that i was trying to stuff my thick, cozy-socked feet into tremendously high heels. then i woke up, so tired and exhausted. when i looked in the mirror i had frown lines on my forehead that had been etched in during my sleeping hours.

it was a rough morning.

issues? do you think i have issues? do i have to be so fucking obvious in my DREAMS?

and where was robert deniro to stick up for me? better yet, where was jackie o?

i dream, and dream, and dream. . .

this week.

dog tied to porch means new roommate for a few days, while boy tries hard not to fall in love with her too much.

new haircuts give fresh perspective, including a 6am wake-up call of despair that it didn't look right.

math conference leaves me bewildered and longing for a different brain, or maybe to go back to find the teacher that told me i wasn't good at it so long ago.

almost got in a throwdown with someone; didn't feel like myself but i couldn't seem to stop it. definitely stemming from insecurity. later, when said person acted like an idiot, justification seeped into my bloodstream like the best kind of bad drug.

taking great measures to not severely hurt my relationship with my children while i find them so annoying.

house full of dust, dirt and money stress, all while i decide to not have sugar during the week. inherent problem with this.

mashed potatoes with loads of earth balance make for serenity in my soul.

wild parrots hanging 'round our neighborhood greet us hello in the mornings, and stall our commute with our gazing.

heavy bag therapy means deep muscle soreness and bright eyes, coupled with the quick breath and rosy cheeks of a great workout or sex.

knowing the screens in the house are taking all of our time, and insisting next week we will live without them.

this week trying to remember that the hairstyle doesn't mean anything except that it's the hair on my head at this point in time, and certainly doesn't establish that i am a mother.

haggard becoming my go-to word to describe my state of mind and body.

reading other blogs, so happy to read other blogs, so grateful for this way to hear others' voices and stories.

throwing a cereal bowl on the school pottery wheel; inevitable talk of "ghost" and singing of "unchained melody" leads to discussion of how sad it is that patrick swayze died.

and now, with thursday coming to a close, the sounds of my children playing with the dogs in the black of the backyard while planes fly into burbank and my husband finishes his dinner in silence, reading the baseball stats on his computer. meanwhile, i sit on my bed, cross-legged, pillow as desk, other dog next to me, curled up in her circle-way that makes me want to rest my weary head on her stomach and close my eyes for sleep.