"Then we began to ride. My soul smoothed itself out,
a long-cramped scroll freshening and fluttering in the wind....
Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride."
Robert Browning

Craigslist is My Whore

First of all, it's been really hard to spend time writing on my blog because of the many hours I spend on craigslist looking for the perfect horse I can't afford. I don't think I actually WANT the horse, I mean yeah I want the horse, but mostly I want the Vegas action of the horse. I like talking to the people. I like seeing the pictures. I like trying to see if I can get the horse for free. I like feeling the drama of a horse coming in. Then it all falls apart, because ultimately I have no money and yes I love the heartbreak. It's keeping me alive. It's the saddest form of addiction I can muster.d.

The Everyday

Why have I stopped writing so much? Everything that happens is funny, if it wasn't happening to me. Like Lilly cleaning a bowl for me in the sink today, actually scrubbing it sparkling clean, and when she held it up I said wait, let me get the camera (because I never take pictures of her because I'm so tired) and so I got the camera and when she held it up, clean bowl and dirty chocolate face, funny - she dropped the bowl before I can get the picture, and it shatters in a million pieces in the sink.

I don't want to clean that up so much that it's silent, I can't even express my bummerness, but it's not her fault. I go to put the camera away, dejected. Lilly says, "sorry mom." Like she's 45 years old.

I have got to start carrying the camera around. She's so beautiful, really, and I'm sucking it all in but not preserving the moment for anyone else, namely her.

In her fairy dress on Halloween. Emma is the genie, freezing while trick or treating because she's basically wrapped in plastic wrap and it's like 14 degrees. Nathan winning the most original costume at the little park costume contest. He has never won anything. He was so proud, the aviator.

Everything is so small, the small things just overwhelm you, our little boat and these three big lives full of small huge every day events.

There's a horse in Idaho that I want. Why is there always a horse, and why am I always wanting it? I tried to tell Barry about it while we ate Japanese food at a strip mall in the hazing rain with the kids. Lilly would not eat anything. She hates Japan. I have to say the noodles were like snot covered worms. It's true.

I just need another focus, I need a project, I need something that brings me peace, that broadens me. I can't go to school, I mean I can, but what am I going for? What do I want? At least with a horse, I can still stay home, I can resell the horse, I can make money on the horse. It might be fun. Want the kids to learn to ride. Want safe. Want sweet, want a new dimension. Want time travel. Want prarie skirts. Want to write but don't want to do any of the actual WRITING. Want someone else to do it.

Then I looked at Nathan cause I had a few minutes of time not doing something else like worrying about how dirty the house is or something, and I thought about his rash that he's worried about and I thought as a MOM I could just disappear into these 3 kids. They have tremendous needs, they have huge lives, they need huge guidance, they need tumble, they need love, they need brains, they need heart, they need food, they need focus. They are a huge project.

And there's this horse.

Anyway. Love is a beautiful thing. It makes you so big, it's impossible, it's laughable. And you can't stop yourself from wanting more. More everything.

What I've Been Doing

Furry Language

I'm training this 2 year old filly at my horse job in Sylmar that I do twice a week. This is because I have totally given up writing at the moment. Writing is dumb. Horses are furry.

Anyway, this has been an insane little horse. No one had handled her much, so she was alot like our dog Owen. Scared of everything, hiding under a couch.

So this lady I ride for (I ride her stallion) she said, go ahead, work with the filly. The filly is palomino, had a matted mane, just looked ratty and wild. I've worked with lots of kinds of horses, in lots of disciplines, but not young horses at all. I looked up how to work with young horses and watched some videos on YouTube. Then I set to work.

I won't go into all the boring details (and also I won't reveal my magic secrets). Plus, I'll pretend that when I drive to work I go over green hills, and out into a wide open pasture, dressed like Jane Austen, with horses nickering at me. In my mind, it is so. In reality, it's a dirt lot. But there is a frosty Diet Coke in the garage fridge, waiting for me at the end of every session.

I worked first with the filly just getting used to me approaching her. This is a strange thing to do, have to alter your normal human behavior in accordance to the body language of the horse, but it's amazing and makes you a better rider. More in tune with the horse, even on the ground. The key is not rushing up to the horse, but training the horse to stand still while you approach her. You want the front end of the horse facing you at all times. You don't want the butt end with the kicking hooves aimed at you ever.

So I would approach the filly and only go as far as I could while she stood her ground. If she started to move off, I would move her off faster by waving my arms around, making scary motions. She'd run around and circle me a few times, and I'd step backwards, giving her more room. When you step backwards, the horse feels less threatened and slows down. When she slows down to a stop, you step backwards, and slightly behind her so she has to turn her head backwards to see what you're doing. Eventually, the horse will move their whole body around to see what you're doing. You have succeeded in making the horse keep her safe face-end of her body toward you. It's a real lesson in when you FEEL like rushing forward is when you don't. You stop, and even step backwards. Then everything, somehow, pulls toward YOU.

Once she was facing me and still, slowly I would take steps forward until I finally got up to her nose. I would just stand there, make no movements. I would walk away. Then approach again. Once she got used to me walking up and back, up and back, with no movement of my arms, she relaxed. She learned, oh. This person is just walking up to me. Then I could pet her on her head.

Then you do the whole thing with a rope in your hand. Then you pet her with a rope in your hand. Then she runs off again and you start all over.

This horse was always nervous, though. Took forever. Pulling away, head up, scared of what I was going to do.

Then, last week. The miracle.

We're out in the big arena, and instead of running away from me, she has lots of room to run, she starts running in circles around me. I couldn't figure out what she was doing. She never stays near me. Then I saw - she's got her ear turned in, listening for me to talk to her. So I talk to her. She stays nearby me. She finally stops, and lets me approach her. She lets me hook her rope on. She lets me brush and pet her. She is scared, but she is 10% scared. She lets me stick my finger in her mouth where a bit will eventually go. She lowers her head so I can scratch her ears. I brush her neck. I untangle her mane, slowly, carefully.

Then she does it. She leans her whole giant dinosaur head on my stomach. She just leans there.

She trusts me.

She wants love. Having me dote on her - she decided. It felt good.

It's this amazing thing. I didn't even do anything. All I did was recognize her way of speaking and moving, and tailor my approach to what she needed and understood, as a horse. I spoke her language, and then she spoke mine. She surrendered to me.

I came home and thought, wow, that was a fluke. I'm sure it was just a really good day. It will probably start all over again when I get back the next time, she'll be nuts, I'll be nuts for trying to be a horse trainer with as much education as I've had and so many good teeth.

But I went back the next time, and there she was. I stood in her paddock, climbed through the fence and then leaned back against it and just waited, far away, to see what she would do. I decided it wasn't up to me. It took her about 5 whole minutes. She stood with her back to me. I called to her and said come on over, girl. She stood there, looking sideways, then glancing at me, but not coming. I waited. Then she shifted her feet. Then she smelled a giant pile of poo like this was waaaay more interesting than me. I still waited. Talked to her. Then I could see it in her, she was curious. She HAD to know why I was standing ALL the way over there. That's that person that is nice, she thinks. So she came over. Right over to me.

I've been back about three times since then, and this horse wants to learn. She wants to be affectionate. She wants to see what we're going to do next. She doesn't always understand what I'm trying to show her, but she isn't trying to get away or kill me. She wants to be in my club.

Love, patience, trust. These have got to be universal truths, because there they are, silent and spoken in other languages. Furry languages.

So maybe I am still writing after all. Manipulating language, in a whole other, tactile sphere.

Hitting the Trail

So at dusk we went riding with our boarder Karen. Karen has been on a horse maybe a dozen times, and now she owns Charlie, the huge Thoroughbred ex racehorse. Charlie needs a forklift just to get on his back. Charlie is what they call Death on Spindley Legs.

I didn't used to be this safety conscious. Until a dumpy pony dumped me off and broke my hand last year. Now... the tall Charlies of the world hold no interest to me. Love horses. Obsess about horses. But I don't want to ride nutty horses anymore.

So I packed all the kids on bikes. Lilly had her fake camera, a chicken sandwich and a granola bar. Emma had her new short haircut and Nathan had just recovered from 103 temperature. Ron, the tall asian dude that Karen hangs with, joined us on another bike. And Karen climbed aboard the massive Charlie.

So riding down the street with huge Charlie, I am now Worried Instructor. My kids are riding bikes in the street, but all I'm thinking is Don't Kill the Boarder. We need the income. Plus she's nice and I don't like emergency rooms.

I kept hammering it into her head to be firm. Be Woman of Steel. You must LEAD Charlie. Charlie has ADD. He must be constantly told to pay attention. He wants to try everything. If we passed a water slide, he would want to get on. If he could fit in a gopher hole, he would gopher it. heh.

We did ride up the trail without incident, and the kids and I ditched our bikes to walk up the dirt path to the new house they're building up there. Big Armenian arches. The kids ran through the house, picking their rooms, finding their closets. Lilly wanted to be in Emma's room, and even though it was just make believe, Lilly kept looking up at Emma in her "closet," saying "You share with me, Emma? I be here too?" That kind of heartbreaking loyalty, that little blonde face. Ay, killer.

Then it isn't all about the killer horse, where no one died, but instead about the killer mom, who gets to go on adventures, and gets to be there with these explorers, who find joy in everything.

I keep thinking the horse, the horse will keep me sane, just watching him, the way he moves, the silence of the horse...because my life is so loud and so not mine, and it's hard to grab onto, everyone growing up up and away... I don't want any of it to go, so if I just look the other way...find a distraction...

There is so much peace right underfoot. It's obnoxious, huh.

Car Trip Babble

Brain is fried from car trip with the family. The little people I can handle and understand, for the most part. When you're gone you realize how much food you eat and passes through your life. We ate, like, all the time. And none of it was really satisfying and yet I continued to eat and then sit in hot tubs.

Also passed lots of farm land which made me nostalgic for farmland except my mind is this vast green field and I am the shephard and I'm really bad at managing the dogs and the wolves have eaten almost all my sheep. I have no idea what is next, or where I'm going, and then there's my mom and she has no idea where she is is where she's going, and everything feels very unsteady. I do think it is all slowly spiraling downward and this coupled with all the pie I have eaten lately is unsettling.

And then we're back from vacation and the house looks bigger and the kids ate KFC and I thought relief, we're back, and then sad, oh, we're back. There's the same view. I'm stuck, how do you get unstuck? Life speeding by at 80 mph makes you want life to speed by at 80 mph, and a nice clean hotel room at the end of the journey. Life here in my real life is hard.

Family is wonderful, though. Loud, lovely and wonderful. Got to see my brother, and had all my parents together and this was good. A guy whittling sticks in the park gave me some religion, he had sticks and feathers on his hat, sitting in this rainy, bright green field by a stream and he told me to look at stuff. Love the stuff you're looking at. He whittled a magic wand, gave us wild blackberries just picked and even Nathan knew that this guy was the best part of our trip.

I guess I feel like whem you're yelling at your mom to get up and stop having a breakdown because you're scared she's going to die, and you just want her to get up and start acting like your mother again, and then you see her through all these other relatives eyes and the reflection is scary, you see how she looks, she looks terrible, selfish, mean, angry, annoying, self-serving, uninteresting - but then to me she is all those things, but underneath it all she brought me soup when I was sick. She held my hair when I threw up. She stayed with me.

When I was having an argument with her because she didn't want to sleep on a fold out couch at the hotel because when we opened it up there was an old tissue inside it, and then Barry was flipping out because we drove for hours and now my mom wants to sleep in the car... I just thought, wow, we're fighting so much. Wow, I have to break up with my mother.

She's saying she's leaving, moving really far away to the house where she wants to live, where she'll have her own washer/dryer (way better than having a daughter), my best friend says "hang on, my friend, you're about to be liberated" and I see that. But I also see from this long drive, staring at the back of my mom's neck, that she's old and that kills me, that she's been sick and it messed her up, and I've had to watch it all. I don't get to just glide along with these unresolved things from some woman who raised me long ago and I never see anymore - she's right here, and I watch it all, we are always evolving. Or devolving in most cases. No wonder I had a yeast infection and couldn't stop eating sugar and kept wanting to buy horses. It's this need to cover the wound with something that used to feel good.

More than that, it's having deep feelings, feeling it all, seeing all these people and being rich in people, and feeling like I had a family. I just don't get life, on the most basic level. I don't get how to be successful, or fruitful.

I know how to love people. I ate a really good tomato out of my garden, that I grew from watering and watching it, slowly, slowly turn red. It took FOREVER.

I know how to do that. Watch, love, wait. I guess I should be honest. This is all I know how to do.

Earth Mother

Gotta figure out a way to unite moms around the planet. A small goal. Also, I'd like to go Amish. Not full blown religious, just the farming and the pies. Momish.

Pee Serious

We were at the store and Nathan saw a jug of stuff that takes the smell of dog pee out fo the rug. I told him you pour it on the rug and it takes the dog pee smell out. He looked at the bottle, then he said, "What takes the smell of this stuff out?"

Count Your Bessings

Lilly turned 3 today. I remember when Emma turned 3. We were in Tahoe. I remember when Nathan turned 3. He loved fire trucks. Now Lilly Bess's turn.

I should have videotaped her walk home from school this morning after we dropped the kids off. She slid down dirt piles. She peeked into holes in fences. She squatted down and told the ants in the anthill we pass "Ants, did you know it's my birthday?" When we got closer to home, she took a bow. I thought this was a nice life. An entire life lived to the fullest from school to home. All you really need is a baby in your life to see that everything is going to be allright. It already is allright. It's bursting, in fact, just on a regular dirt road, hanging out with someone who can't read or drive. She just follows along, and everywhere - adventure.

We played with her little friend Luke. They played fishing while I tried not to fall asleep in the chair at their house. Ate a really good salad. Went home and she wouldn't take a nap (I missed the nap window, hate that). So I made her feel bad until she came out looking for me saying "I sad. I want Mommy."

We played with kitties, went swimming. Then we went to get a microwave for 8 dollars from a guy name Slav from Bulgaria. He was moving to DC. Moose played with Lilly in the backseat, so she didn't mind sitting in there for an hour on her birthday. "Where we goin, Mom?" she asks.

When we came in from the microwave adventure, Moose and I pushed her high on the swing. We don't usually stop to do the swing, because we're rushing here or there. But today is her birthday. Right after we got off the swing, the sprinklers went off. Can you believe that?? She took off all her clothes and ran around in them. The sun going down, the air hot, the sprinklers misting a rainbow. Emma came home from baseball practice and ran around with her in her baseball hat. When sprinklers go on, you pretty much have to run in them.

Lilly Bess, the littlest shipmate on our wayward vessel. She loves bandaids, and mermaids. Swordfighting. Peter Pan. Baseball. I Peen (ice cream). She loves to wrap kittens in rope. She loves Emma and Nathan, like the sun rising right in front of her, each day. She knows she is a wonder.

I came into the bathroom tonight and Emma had forgotten to put the tub drain up to keep the water in. Lilly was laying in the empty bathtub and said "Mommy! The bathtub melted!"

Count your (Lilly) Bessings.

Like Chicken, Like Chris

I know people like to get Oscars, but once you've had a chicken named after you, your life has been truly recognized.

My friend Chris who lives across the country is now embodied by a black and white chick at our house. The chick was born on her birthday, so of course, it's Chris. This chick used to be tiny and nervous, and now it's more ballsy and nervous, which is sort of how Chris is herself. She's almost 2 months old, and a 2 month old chick is like a man-chick, with a little peeping voice, also like Chris.

The chick at this age really doesn't know what it is - too small for a fryer, too big for the baby Lilly to carry around in one hand. All I know is, the chicks love the horse. Chris Chick and her friend Gigi Chick (named after a dead beloved chicken eaten by racoons) follow the horse around. The giant, dinosaur horse with huge fat hooves who could stomp them. They think it's their mother. Peep peep. Run after him. Gather at his feet. Peep. Take a dust bath. Peep peep. Whoa, there's some corn. Run over to it. The other huge chickens peck them away. They circle away, bummer. No corn when you're the little guy. Wait, there's a piece.

Chris runs and gets it.

Against all odds.

Animal House

We figured out yesterday that we have 33 animals at our house. Even to me, that sounds like some of these animals need to be made into meals. Here's the breakdown.

1 horse
5 goats
3 sheep
3 bunnies
1 cat
7 kittens
4 dogs
4 fish
6 chickens

Wait, that's 34. I think. Technically, the horse/sheep/goats are paying customers. 7 kittens will be gone in two more months. 1 dog belongs to my mom. 1 bunny is a foster bunny, looking for a home. (Are you available?) So that takes us down to: 16

That's still too many.

Carpe Diem

Lilly fell on her head off the coffee table. I was right there, too, I saw her tipping and in the second it took her to fall I had a million thoughts, like I can get her, she's right there, she can't be falling, she never falls, wait, why aren't my arms working fast enough, why am I still sitting here like I don't care, it's happening.

Then there she is, scooped up in my arms, crying, that thump her head made sounding fake, echoing in my mind. Then there's the big purple lump, like a hunk of meat, rising off her forehead. Ice, Tylenol, she's healing, but how come I can't be The Flash, how come I can't make things Not Happen?

Ever since I fell off the horse, or watched the marble egg get dropped into the pool line, I have realized that things are going along SO well when nothing bad is happening. You don't realize how well things are going, right at this minute. You aren't on fire? You aren't chasing someone who stole your wallet? You aren't en route to the emergency room? Things are fucking great, man. This is your day.

Disclaimer

I perhaps shouldn't blog about people I'm working with. This is how I got fired from "Pensacola: Rings of Mold," the last tv job I had. Even though everyone in the office loved the manuscript that preceeded my prompt firing (okay not EVERYONE, it was slightly brutal to some), it seems when you have possibly ongoing relationships with new people, you perhaps shouldn't insult them in blog form. Assuming they may read this.

So I apologize in advance, and will take out a secret blog where I may write freely, and later make it into a television show. Or maybe I'll just keep writing here since I think I know the only two people who read me regularly. What Would Ricky Gervais Do? I look forward to your suggestions.

Work Horses

The new PTA is so badly organized, it's like a beautiful yet tragic ballet. I go to help out with the book fair and the lady who's supposed to be running it just never shows up. So it's me and the brain-fried PTA president (the fireman), who actually is alot of help. We do all the work, and the lady finally shows up later, and has one of those personalities like she's really efficient while in effect getting no actual work done whatsoever. Like, she looks clean and clear and yet her hands are not moving to set anything up. And she has no remorse. Like, wow, maybe I should've been here to help. It's more like we're an interesting movie going on that has nothing to do with her. In fact, she's going to leave now.

So anyway, me and Firestarter set everything up yesterday. Spent the whole morning in there while the baby wandered around taking down books and opening packages and destroying what we were doing. The In Charge Chick stopped by and wavered by the door, although seemed to take no interest in coming in and helping out with the project she was CHAIRING. Then just left. We stood staring. Then we laughed. Since the baby was tuckered out, I decided I wouldn't come back for the afternoon, but would instead leave a list of things they could do, like put up posters and make price labels and stuff.

I go this morning and we have Donuts for Dads morning where kids come in with their dad and have a donut and buy books. We sold 500 dollars worth of stuff in an hour. Me and the other PTA chief, the ex-cop. These guys are the most unlikely guys. They both look like they might have been recently run over by cars. These guys are actually wonderful. They should have their own stuffed animal likeness. Ex-cop is shaped sort of like my older brother, short, squat, comes in smelling of stale cigarettes and apologizing for being late, looking showered and asleep. He's like the way your gramma's house feels. Used, smoked, bright and dim at the same time,nothing challenging is going to happen here. He's an early in the week newspaper crossword.

So turns out Coppy can't read up close, so he keeps holding the books out at arms length to read them, so we take over the cash register, me reading the book prices, he punching the numbers into the register. Taking money. We work together like we've been touring the country for years.

After the Fair closes for the morning, I manage to see the In Charge Chick again and tell her the books I'm going to re-order. I also notice that no one put any of the posters up. Again, she seems interested, but takes no action. I see the pile of posters and say I'll do it. (The piece of me that is my dad, just nicely shove everyone out of the way and do it yourself. Make a joke while you're doing it, too. Then cross it off your list and have a donut.) Also there was supposed to be a poster for the 4th and 5th graders to sign up to volunteer at the Fair. Where is that, I ask In Charge Chick. Big Boobed girl-mom says "Oh, I made the poster." "Great!" I say. Then she says: "But it looked bad so I threw it away."

Hmmm. "Wow," I say. It's like I'm running a company with a handful of assistants that don't actually do ANYTHING. And they don't see the irony.

So I reach a new level of humor. Nothing, in effect, will get done.

Fireman and Coppy and I go outside to hang up posters. They trail me as I go from place to place, holding up the tape, playing with the baby, joking about stuff, and I realize this is the greatest experience of my morning. I belong here to these limping, haphazard fellows. These guys, these are the President and the Vice-President, dude. And they are mellow, slow, and they actually DO stuff. Best of all, they show up, with a sense of irony. Diluted, of course, by the sucking hole where education should be. Peppered with redneck, but still, they freaking show up and enjoy the work. Work horses. Like the carriage horses at my other job - huge, friendly, lethargic, but they're not quitters. They'll stay with you all day, and crack a beer with you when the work is done.

There's something to that.

Carnival Boobs I mean Booths

I ran back to the school because I had left something behind at the PTA meeting. The only people left inside the empty auditorium were the two dudes running the PTA (a firefighter with skin intact but most of his brain burned away) and an ex-cop who kept calling me "Cathy," and a new-ish mom with giant boobs sitting across the long table from them.

I picked up my water jug I had left and then couldn't resist going over to check out this newly formed threesome. One side of the table I knew was into firearms and women, and the other side of the table, more than ample woman. It was an adult movie set up.

The ex-cop asked me how my broken hand was healing after being dumped off of a mean pony a few months back. Then he launched into his story about breaking his foot by falling into a hole. The cast had hurt so much he sawed it off when he got home, stuck his deformed foot into the door and wrenched his foot back into place himself. Home medic - cost of surgery? Priceless.

I talked to large boobed mom, who looked about 14. She was a single mom who had three kids under seven, and none of them were in sight. Under the boobs maybe? I saw why she was sitting at the table with the two gentlemen in the long, empty wake after the PTA meeting. Better than going home to needy kids. And man, that shirt did not cover much. Her boobs looked like a giant boob swimming pool.

"Anyway, just here to get my water," I said, backing out as the conversation turned from broken bones to stun guns.

Can't wait to start those carnival planning meetings. I hope to man the stun gun booth.

Facebook Has Stolen My Friend

My friend from far away came to visit. He stayed three weeks. He's the ideal houseguest, quietly he rolls along, gentle to the kids, great at Legos, very smart, using interesting language, amazing artist, likes to study people. He can usually pinpoint the most interesting thing going on, and talk about it. Or sometimes we just watch "Extreme Loggers."

But something has changed in the 4 years since I saw him last. He's grown up maybe. We don't have the luxury of the daily or weekly friendship, where you hang out, grow up with the person. We have the accelerated version, so we have to injest our friendship in loaves. Starve until we meet again.

I guess the last time we knew each other he was more mine. Like, secretly. We were closer, we threw ourselves on each other. This time, 3 kids climbing on me. He has Russian girlfriend. We were more Jane Austen polite. So I missed that stir-fried love, take-out style that we once had. Although I'll take somewhat stiff parlor-room. I'll take anything, he's that worth it.

Since he's been gone (Nathan cried when he left), I've heard two sentences from him on Facebook. Facebook has become the dropped handkerchief that one catches and returns to the lady. Hoping for a connection.

I guess I'm old fashioned. Miss the gloves, the glint in the eye, the hope.

The Root of the Problem

I put off having a root canal for 2 years. Then, just like a miracle, yesterday was my lucky day. I could put it off no longer.

I put myself into the hands of some able Russians in Studio City. The dude gave me the first shot in the side of my face with, I'm pretty sure, a machete. Then he decided I needed a second shot, right in the roof of my mouth. You know, the spot where there's no skin. It's mostly bone. Needles LOVE to go into this area without pain. He pulled out a shot the size of his leg. You get the picture.

Okay so now he's numbed an area the size of Madagascar. All the natives are sleeping. Except for me, the one in my head. My mind is zinging, and he's assembling a whole mini-trampoline in my mouth. Some rings here, a stretched tarpolin there, it's all very complicated and that half a Vicodin I took from my recent hand surgery doesn't appear to be easing my nerves.

Then I have to keep my mouth open for one and a half hours. It's not so bad for the first hour, but then I unclench my feet and hands and start waiting for him to tell me I'm a good girl, it's almost done, but I get nothing. And the little sucker thing keeps sucking my breath away, I'm battling that thing to keep myself alive. My mom told me to picture my best vacation ever, to try and block out the whole experience of drills and noise and tooth packing material, and I can't think of one vacation I've ever had. Then I remember three things. Nathan born. Emma born. Lilly born. Those were some great vacations. Staying in my pajamas. People bringing me food. Little tiny babies that were mine. I see those moments, and I would smile, if things weren't hanging from my lips.

When my jaw has reached pain level 1000, they tag team and the other dentist comes in to finish the job. They sit me up. She tells me to tap tap tap my teeth. Easy for her to say. My jaw has the flexibility of a haunted house, boarded up for 30 years. I manage to look like I'm still coherent but life has a swirly look, with the white walls and the metal poles and alien lights hanging down. Then I slowly realize I AM done. It's done.

I stand up to go to the bathroom. "Thank you," I say kind of warbled to the tall Russian man-child who did my tooth. "My pleasure," he says with a kind of bow. I stare at him crazily then head to the bathroom. "My PLEASURE???" I mutter under my breath. "You have got some serious issues."

I then pay for what would have been a nice trip to Hawaii, and head out into the sunshine with my sunshiney 2 year old and Barry, who had spent a lovely two hours in the park with a dozen nannies and their charges.

I can eat and drink without cringing. It is a kind of miracle.

Tweak it, Baby

Do something different. This is what I learned from my friend Victor. Each day try to do something a little bit different. So you don't get rusty.

Don't Poke the One Eyed Pony

Don’t Poke the One Eyed Pony on the Side that She Can’t See

The day is blooming
The pony is moving
Grass is on our path
Fur is thick, riding a blanket
It’s okay that she can’t see

Who needs to see everything
One side fits all
I can see for us both
I can’t see ahead
Where she leaves me for dead
My finger bent wrong from the fall

All I wanted was to go faster
A little bit faster
She’s only the size of a dwarf
Retarded kids ride her
Kids with no leg muscles ride her
She’s safe, she’s a thousand years old

I kick the pony and she doesn’t go
Then she goes
Then I make a mistake
I poke her back there
Through the fat and the hair
And she doesn’t like poking
I think

The pony goes up
My brain starts to swirl
What’s happening
Why is this carnival Under me today
Time slows down
I can see there’s no way out
I’m up up and then down down down

The ground is hard
Not like in the movies
My air is scattered all on the ground
I can’t reach it , I can’t breathe
I’m dead but still breathing no breath
My lungs are pounded, stalled from the shock


The pony ambles nearby
Without me on top
Naked of me
I have to get up
Naked of me too
No more ponies I think as I walk

I look down at my hand
My fingers stuck together
That looks like it’s gonna hurt later
I get the pony back
Her eye still sealed shut
Something has sealed me apart
from myself

I lay in my bed my hand swelling
I made a mistake not just laying here
With my sleeping baby
Getting a pony, the safest pony
And now a fresh order of hand surgery

I go get an xray, I go to a doctor,
I spend bent handfuls and handfuls of cash
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be
I know how everything works out
I make sure everything works out
I’m the mom, can’t you see?

I’m on a gurney, the kids are up til 11
Coloring at the abandoned clinic
Cars rush by, the black doctor sticks pins in my hand
For 5000 dollars, I’m cured, he says

Heavy cast on my arm
For thanksgiving turkey and Christmas
I heave it around
I’m lucky I’m here
I’m lucky I’m HERE
I think as my hand starts to heal

Cast off amongst poor people
I go to County
The doctors are better, they’re 12
My hand is stuck in it’s cast curl
It can’t stop remembering
How to hurt and not to heal

I can’t make a fist, I can’t grab a tissue
I can’t clap or scratch or carry
I bend my hand, I have to bend where it hurts
I have to bend and stretch where I least want to

Don’t poke the one-eyed pony on the side that she can’t see
She has reasons she’s blind
A pirate battle, on a ship
Defending her honor, got a sword in the eye
Or in her corral she ran into a stick

I’m imperfect
I’m broken
I’m healing
I’m not
I’m bent
And I’m angry
I’m broke
Wait I’m loved

I hate you
I love you
You hurt me
I failed
I get up
I’m angry
You broke me
I’m here

I didn’t leave
I didn’t lose
I cracked just by accident
Can anyone see
That I’m fragile
More broken than whole

The picture
Is perfect
I’m standing up tall
I walk talk and laugh
The layers all mesh
My brain works
My heart works
Pretend you don’t see the mess