Laissez les Bons Temps...

Yesterday I fell in love with a man on the bus. I imagine his name was Robert.

I sat next to Robert because he had his legs crossed and I like a man who crosses his legs like a girl. Of course he was not a girl but a man, older, maybe sixties? I don’t know. I never really looked at his face simply because you don’t look people in the face on the bus; you look at their shoes (sensible), their newspaper (Wall Street Journal), their fingernails (clean).

Barely visible beneath the cuff of his shirt I spotted a bracelet on his wrist, the kind woven with embroidery thread? This is what got me, that bracelet. Purple, gold, green, because I could imagine this man maybe named Robert (or James) cutting a rug at Mardi Gras. Possibly in New Orleans but probably in his living room, I felt certain that when he kicks off his oxfords he smiles as if he’s got nothing left to hide.

Mynamar Protests Turn Deadly. I watched him read, turn the page, snap his newspaper crisp and creaseless. Private Sector Sheds Jobs. I thought I had gotten so good at this, cutting my eyes to the side like a man sneaking a glance at the gap of a woman’s button-down. Just my eyes, no turn of the head, EU Probes Aid for Irish Bank. His wrist was thin like mine, but then he shifted, sighed, rattled his newspaper annoyed, and I knew that he did not love me back.

Still, I slept with him. What can I say? I’m a slut on the bus. Something about the hum, the sway, I did not mean to but the next thing I knew we had driven over the metal plate on the northbound span of the Golden Gate Bridge and I woke up, slack mouth open and dry.

Oh, Robert. Just promise me you’ll keep dancing.

Welcome Back (Monday)

Once upon a time I thought I was Gabe Kotter. Either him or that teacher on "Head of the Class," Dr. Samuels was it? Which is to say that I taught English composition to college freshmen and fancied myself a laid-back middle-aged liberal man with too much hair when really I was a twenty-something girl who wore poly-blend sundresses over t-shirts too small, desperately hoping that nobody would call my bluff.

As part of my role of Cool Teacher That The Kids Relate To (probably because I was only a few years older than they were), I used to play music in class and tell the students to free-write: George Winston (the girls wrote contemplative pieces about "there" boyfriends back home), Bob Marley (one boy took the opportunity to write me an invitation to a party that Friday), Fishbone (who knew 18 year olds could be so angry?). And then came the day I brought in my Serge Gainsbourg tape and played them this little ditty featuring Jane Birkin replete in Euro why-can't-I-be-that-effortlessly-mignon-ness. So that night? As I watched "Party of Five" while marking complete on their free-writes? That night, I read 29 papers of soft-core porn about sex, sighs and oh my god the sinking of flesh into flesh made my red pen blush beet and no. No, I did not go to any parties and stopped right there with moi non plus, the following week choosing instead to focus on the difference between its and it's because for the love of Milton there has never been and never will be an its'.

I am not a teacher anymore, but I do still adore this song. And Serge Gainsbourg. The phrase jolie-laide, but even more the french idiom il y a du monde au balcon which literally translates to "there is a crowd on the balcony" but is used to refer to a large-breasted woman. There you go: I would like you to work that phrase into conversation today. So I guess, in a way, I am still a teacher even if I never did look good in a corduroy sportscoat with patches on each elbow.

Je t'aime,
S

Extra Credit: Translate the following phrase both literally and idiomatically: Je m'en bats les couilles. Happy Monday!

Mmm, Fluffernutters

Last night I mainlined pure marshmallow fluff, that’s the only way to explain anything, anyway. (Not even between the toes to hide the sweetness but straight into my arm, the left, closest to my heart.)

Gack. My jaw tingles still.

This morning as I walked to work I passed a woman talking loudly into her Bluetooth which was hidden by her hair. A few feet away from her stood a homeless man talking loudly into all of us, and I smiled because save for a shower and clean clothes they looked the exact same, both of them conducting some sort of business that each thought was important. This is when I am happy: seeing the commonality between us, how we all struggle and plod on, multiply, laugh and then die. Dude, I KNOW, but honestly? Not one of us is ever truly alone.

Jet-puffed and easily spreadable.

Last night I got the sweetest email. From a reader telling me how much he appreciates my writing. I have gotten these before, the kindness of strangers who are more familiar than who. And I did what I always do: wrote him back to say thank you as effusively as possible even though punctuation is never enough. THANK YOU. In puffy paint and glitter, scratch & sniff scented like privet, clean sheets still warm from the dryer. Thank you to all of you, those that have emailed me and those that have not, commenters and lurkers the same. I admit that sometimes I have nothing to say. Sometimes I just want to watch The Soup or sew the loose buttons back onto my coat. More often than not I want to paint my toenails a dark, dark red. Sometimes I have thought about quitting this blog, but then I remember how much it has given me: a voice, a room, an echo even, though it is numerous reflections of sound, I believe, the time delay the distance divided by the speed of sound and multiplied by you.

And you and you and you. Thank you.

Happy Friday and fluffernutters,
S

Sprung

I have been sagging with heaviosity as of late, my words leaden, sentences seriously embedded like a motherfuckin’ splinter in the fleshy pad of my hand. Sorry ‘bout that. Winky emoticon here if it didn’t make me feel like such an a-hole (two swear words in one paragraph is a bit much on a Wednesday, no?).

So guess what? It’s spring! I have never really agreed with Webster, Roget, et al on the lowercase-ness of the seasons. I mean fall maybe—yes, fall does not deserve any capital letters at all. But spring? Spring should be all caps, upper case, outside voice happy. SPRING! So in honor of me lightening my load may I present to you a few images that make me want to swallow buttercups whole:
There I go, starting off with the limbs of small children, but what can I say? You can take the girl out of winter but you can’t take the cold snap out of the girl. I love me some disembodied baby toes and I would rully like this coat rack. Of course Bryan thinks it’s uber-creep, and Zoey would grow up refusing to wear layers, but there’s something about this baby on board that speaks to me (in a menacing, phlegm voice, but still, I hear it. You?).

Speaking of which, I saw this origami maternity dress on A Cup of Jo last week and loved the concept. Not to get all Tim Gunn up in this mo-fo, but I would take the hemline up to just above the knee, shape the skirt a bit and widen the shoulders. Et voila! How friggen’ cute is this peapod bursting?
And then this. I told Bryan last night that if we can ever afford to build our own house I want him to design me some built-in bookcases, a steam shower and a heart-shaped fireplace. So far he has only agreed to the bookcases, but I am saving up my moolah along with high hopes.
And to butter him up I found this image featuring all of Bryan’s very favorite things: surfing, boobs, motorcycles and good waves. Should I ever be able to actually recreate this image I am fairly certain I could ask for a heart-shaped house and he would build it for me using wooden pegs he handcarved himself instead of nails.

But the thing that is making me happiest of all on this, the fourth day of SPRING? The fact that people all over the world are still pooping in their pants and while the day is young and I am knocking on wood, so far this has not happened to me today. But really, who wears white pants anymore anyway?

TGISPRING, my friends.

Xo,
S

Antechamber

Whoever said "truth is stranger than fiction" must have known that my grandmother was named Mouse, that I have a scar on my stomach shaped like the continent of Africa, that one day my mom will die, leaving my brother and me to feed her parrot with the very sharp beak that talks on the phone just like she does. Mmhm. Yeah. Yup. Okay, buhbye. The slow suck on a Marlboro Red, the exact sound of my mother inhaled through the syrinx of a bird.

In high school my friends and I used to mine for crystals. After class, maybe once or twice during. We'd get stoned, although not so much me because the pinched end of a joint all soggy makes me want to wear pearls. We'd hike out to some hot, dusty hill supposedly littered with gems, armed with one garden trowel and a curfew, where we’d hack away at the dirt while talking about boys. There was a rumor in high school that I only liked guys with long hair, which still kinda’ pisses me off even though it is no longer 1990. I like guys with short hair or long, bald even, so long as their eyes are intense, their smile fast.

Back then my mom knew this woman named Lis who drove around in a Volvo full of crystals. If you liked something and she thought it “belonged to you” (in quotes for a reason), she would give it to you to be paid for later. Or never. Whatever. Apparently a very large milky white singing bowl “belonged to” my mother, but the minute she brought it home and ran the wand around the rim it began to zing loudly before it exploded into a thousand tiny pieces, the wall-to-wall carpet scattered with shards of frosted quartz, karma, dharma and dogma.

I have one cat, one child; I married my high school sweetheart and am seriously considering watching Dancing with the Stars. In many ways I am yawningly normal here with my brown hair and size 8 shoe. I like Jack Johnson. But my mother tops off her jello with mayonnaise, and sometimes? Sometimes my pupils dilate differently, the left eye infinitesimally smaller than the right. And so I stare at myself in the mirror, fibers of iris flecked gold, something that is not supposed to be possible. But I have to look hard. All of us strangers stranger than fiction, the truth far below, caverns of water and pressure, stories and bone.

But There It Is

This is not my tragedy. He was not my friend. I mean, he was not not my friend, but he was not my friend friend. It's funny how you have to qualify stuff, but there it is. A friend of a friend, somebody I went to some parties with when I was younger. He died. I know that in a way I have no right to say any of this. It does not belong to me: the story, the pain, the why. But there it is. And so I see it in the newspaper and read the same 3 paragraphs over and over. The way his name looks strange in print, the photo. They call him a 37 year old man which I suppose is the truth, but I am looking for something else. Friends of friends I friended on Facebook--what's on your mind? He is.

He is on my mind, too.

Bryan had an MRI and found out he needs to get shoulder surgery for a deep tear in his labrum. In the meantime he must stop all activity--no surfing, no sailing, no smiling--complete with a 6 month recovery. Zoey is fascinated with this news of surgery, and every day there are new questions. How do doctors cut into skin? Will they take out Daddy's skeleton? What color thread do they use? And like any mother not quite sure of the answers I went to the toy store and bought her the game of Operation.

It takes a very steady hand! Slowly I pull the bread basket out of the stomach, the wrench from the ankle. Cavity Sam's nose does not light up and I do not buzz, but only because Zoey has switched off the sound since it scares her. I love this game. Oh, how I wanted it as a child. The neighbors had it and for some reason it seemed exotic, so cool. Like a banana seat bike and those barettes with the braided ribbon that hung down fluttering far. Why did I not just ask for any of this? Games with fictional ailments made of white plastic, a cracked heart on the right side of the chest, 100 points.

(They've changed the game, you know. Instead of a pencil in the arm to indicate writer's cramp Cavity Sam now sports a cell phone in his finger, and the closest thing to his chest is a green rubbery thing the directions call burp bubbles. Where there once was a heart is now gas.)

None of this is related, of course, but there it is. I have been feeling fragile as of late, a little bit hollow; not so much in the sense that there is nothing inside but that there is too much.

I am not a dog person and at one point in this video Edie shits on the floor and then sits on the man's lap, but still, I cried. And there it is.
Hugs,
S

Luche Libre

I had a headache. The kind that starts or ends in your neck like a root twisted part of something bigger; I admit that all I had eaten that day was chocolate. DoraDiegoDoraDiego, come on vamanos! Everybody let's go! Stupid fucking tiny high heels all over the carpet pink like plastic thorns. Why do they even give Barbie shoes to wear if she can't keep them on for more than a minute anyway? The same question over and over and over again, I can't remember what it was. Can I wear my bathing suit maybe, or I want to color on my face, more of a statement but the answer the same: no. Did you hear what I said? What did I say? No, no, nonono, a word which even on paper looks a little bit unfinished.Later I apologized. After I had a glass of water and felt like a total asshole. I love you, I said, do you hear me? The difference this time that I took her face in my hands and spoke softly. I want you to know that I love you even when I am mad. I love you when you are laughing, when you are snoring, I love you when you look beautiful in a princess dress and when you look like a maniac Mexican wrestler in your mask with the dried up glue where once there was glitter. I love you even when you are not so sure that you love me. And she smiled and held up three fingers to ask if she could have two pink bunny Peeps. I said no.

Later still she followed me into the bathroom and hugged my knees as I sat down. Mama, she said looking up at me, I love you even when you poop.

I know, I said, exactly, and kissed the top of her head.

It's StaticKy (That's How PricKly I Feel Today)

This is what I feel like today, only rather than a balloon clinging to my crumb I have a zit on my chin. (I swear that when I walk I have to step over it just like this cat.)

Also disturbing? That stupid little piano ditty is stuck in my head. I am pretty sure I am sporting the exact same look of peeved confusion as Nosey...

Happy Monday.
xo,
S

Things That Are Currently Tripping Me the Eff Out

by Susannah Clay Lastnamehere, age 37 and one half: 1. How in the movies it is apparently not necessary to say goodbye to someone before hanging up the phone. Somewhat related: how all beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her, or why women always seem to have sex while still wearing their bra.

2. The news that it actually rained fish in one Australian town. According to newscasters, the fish were possibly sucked up in a large thunderstorm and later deposited over land. Stranger still, it is the third time in less than 30 years that the town has been bombarded by falling fish, with previous reports of the phenomenon occuring in 1974 and 2004.

3. The thought when I am in a plane, that we are not supposed to actually see the world this way.
Plus the possibility that there are other ways in which we have not yet seen much of anything.

4. These pictures of a church in Venezuela:
The church—pictured in 2008 (left) and on February 21, 2010--had been inundated when a hydroelectric dam was built in 1985. Twenty years later the dam is now working at 7% capacity and the steeple has slowly risen, exposed, an ominous symbol of the country's power shortages. Or an act of God.

5. This: The fact that once upon a time when I wore bandanas as belts I thought Prince was one sexy beast. How I practiced in the mirror making the correct hand motions to I Would Die for You, and later, how I would lay in bed at night listening to Darling Nikki feeling woosh.

This world. This crazy, silly serious world where one day it will be 2024 and Zoey will leave for college. Right now there are some things going on that are tripping me the eff out but I cannot really talk about them. I hate when bloggers are all coy and shit just like that, writing about the unsaid. Guess what? No--don't. Read me! Honestly, I don't even know. So in lieu of what is making me specifically discombobulated I give you the above list. And this: that earthquake in Chile a few weeks ago? Well apparently it was so strong that it may have changed the Earth's rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet.

But Sunday is Daylight Savings!

xoxo,
S

At Least I'm a Funny Joke

If you have a spare 9 minutes and 25 seconds you should watch this video because I said so. Plus, America's Next Top Model was on last night so I have nothing to say seeing as how my head has been glued into a smize with the viscous yolk of too many Cadbury Cream Eggs.

(Personally I would have black-balled that wet fetal boy/man Ethan Hawke, and where the hell is Johnny Depp when you need him?)

Like I said, nothing to say today. Except maybe I had your back punkass bitch. Why not?

Tomorrow: I shoot for quality (no promises on my aim).
Happy Thursday,
S

And Also? A Girl and a Soldier Went By in the Street. The Street Light Shone on the Brass Number on His Collar. The Girl Wore No Head Covering...

I don't know, you guys--here it is March 10th and I cannot for the life of me stop to think. First there was this and then that & next thing you know: the other. What have I been up to? Nothing, really, which is everything, of course, nothing to write home about and yet so much has not happened. 60 words on nada ye pues nada, 299 characters (with spaces).

I am not much of a talker, afraid, as I am, of telling stories with no point. My grandfather on my mother's side was famous for this, long car rides in his hermetically sealed Cadillac as he pointed out new strip malls and housing developments, how thick the kudzu had grown along the freeway. But my favorite story of all is how one time he asked me if I was hungry? Did I want a salad? So I said yes and he served me ambrosia.

See? No real point there. (But it had marshmallows! And mandarin orange slices! Nothing green at all!)

Fuck.

This weekend we went to the beach. Where Zoey met some friends (aka "strangers"). Using a rock and saltwater sand, they practiced their face painting on a little boy until his cheeks flamed angry and red. The boy cried. Zoey had the best time pretty much ever.
There were elephant seals on the beach looking very much like driftwood. I almost peed on one as I backed up against a cliff to, well, to pee. Many of the young seals were molting and spent the day basking in the sun to conserve their energy. This is where I would talk about the kudzu if we had such a thing, but we don't, so here's a seal.
I am pretty sure that if my grandfather had had digital cameras we would have been subjected to photos, too. See that there? The new Belk's shopping center? Yeah.

Actually, I did want to show you this pic: the Pixie Peacock dress , pretty please? Also needed: the thin, lithe body pictured. (While I could possibly be described as not fat, maybe thin(ish), I have never been nor never will be referred to as lithe. Then again, I would also never wear a feather headband, so there's that, too.)

The thing with not having a point is that you really don't need direction, either. Because after the beach we stopped at the Toyota dealership just to look. 4 hours later we emerged with 2 free cups of water, one oatmeal raisin granola bar and this (not so very free) car:

Stock photo of my new car looking a smidgen cooler than it really is due to the foreign plates. Bryan says that RAV4 stands for Radically Awesome Vehicle, and I am doing everything in my very Virgo Super Powers *not to look it up right now because I love him. And my Toyota. Words cannot express how nice it is to have a car with windows that roll right to the top.

Woah--where did that come from? Who knows, but I like it, so it stays. Because one time? When I was really little? My grandfather wrote a long, twisty terrible book about a spy named Jenks Edwards. In reality my dad's name is Edgar Jenkins and once interviewed with the CIA, though I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that. I think my dad was something of an enigma to his in-laws; suffice it to say the book never went anywhere. My grandfather was an ob-gyn with a boat named The Sea Section. Before he died he wrote another book called Mullen Leaves and Brown Sugar about his family history, and my favorite part (the only part I remember) was something about his cousin named Jack. Only that was not his real name. His real name was James Arthur Columbus Kearns, but he was called Jack on account of that's what his initials spelled out.

Yeah.
No point at all. But I like it.

Deliver us from nada, pues nada. I'm afraid it's genetic. Like really afraid. Moreso than the multiple myeloma he died from, or the fact that apparently he had to know where the restroom was wherever he went. Do you want to hear a story? About kudzu and cars, peacock dresses, saltwater and elephant seals? My grandfather was one of those men who could do a mean magic trick, quarters behind your ears, turning spades into diamonds. The kind of deft of hand that has since been lost in our generation. The past few days I have let the laundry go, sprinkled confetti soap into Zoey's bathwater. Bryan and I watched Season 5 of Weeds. Did you see that? The way I palmed the card so you could not see it? Or did you know all along that the quarter was up my sleeve, worth nothing?

*Recreational Active Vehicle. Dammit, I am powerless over my need to know slash need to think I know it all.

This Post Is TOTALLY About Me. (Currently Working on a Song to Go With It, Though Apparently It Will Have Nothing To Do With David Geffen.)

You know what makes you feel like a total asshole? Taking close up pictures of your own eyes. It also helps to push a 3 year old off the bathroom stool because she is in your light. But wait! Here is my eye! MOVE!
I call this one "January 5th, 2010, with mascara." And below, "2 Minutes Later, Without." Riveting stuff, n'est ce pas? (Coming soon: I attempt to fashion farm animals from my belly button lint. Do stay tuned!)
So here's the thing: eyelashes are the new teeth. Because way back when in 1994 our teeth were ecru, ivory, corn silk stained with tea, our shirts sized too small for 6 year olds. Oh, it was a time. And then one day someone decided to get her teeth whitened and then laughed at a joke, making a woman passing by in the hallway feel as if her own teeth wore sweaters sold as "oleo" in the latest Tweeds catalog. So that girl then whitened her teeth, and so on and so forth until sometime in 2000 the 100th monkey used Crest Whitestrips and now we all smile like newscasters and drink our soda through straws.

My eyelashes were stubby. I mean, not really. No, they were fine... for 2008. But dude, this is 2010; nowadays people get eyelash extensions and mascara is made with boosters, packaged with primers, collagen fibers, stimulators, eye 'roids, wigs & merkins for mascara. If you don't have to comb your eyelashes you might as well not have eyes at all. Which is not true, but I caved nonetheless after a girl at work told me she knew a girl who had a friend who actually had to cut her lashes with kitchen scissors, and so I thought to myself: I want to cut my lashes with scissors! Wax my pubic hair and pluck my brows! Dye my hair, straighten it each morning, rub some $40 Moroccan hair oil through the ends and pull it back with a $28 chiffon flower headband from Anthropologie! I want looong motherfuckin' eyelashes, I do!
I call this one "March 4th, 2010 with mascara."

I opted to go with Lilash because it is cheaper than the others and I am too lazy slash scared of legal medical disclaimers to get a prescription, plus I have just never warmed up to a post-pubescent Brooke Shields, feeling, as I do, that her face is too square.

You tell me (if you can get past the 5 o'clock shadow of my Berts groomed Ernie), am I a natural beauty now without makeup, my eyes fringed as they are with parabens, colloidal silver and 15S-trihydroxy-17-Phenyl 18?
Although it would have been downright rad and somewhat scientific to apply the Lilash to only one eye for 8 weeks, I firmly believe that lab coats don't do a thing for my waist. Above is a pic of my other eye without any makeup.

Not yet convinced that I am a total asshole? Here's the clincher: self-portrait snapped in the reflection of the mirror of my lash growth stimulated eyes taken with iphone, and my fingers are positively twitching to make some sort of pun on the I-ness of it all.
*Side effects may include slight discoloration of the lid, possible patches of hair growth under the eyes, and the inability to walk past reflective surfaces without checking to see if your lashes cast shadows of Snuffleupagusian proportions. Not surprisingly, I have always been partial to Snuffleupagus and adore the little-known fact that his first name is Aloysius. If you have learned nothing else here, today, and you probably haven't, now you know Snuffy's first name and that his favorite food is cabbage. Which is probably why he lives in a cave far away from the more densely populated Street.

Here's lookin' at you,
S

Walking Big (And Carrying a Soft Stick)

Apparently I am a few weeks late with this, but what can I say? My local J Crew has yet to get these bad boys in stock and Anthro is plum sold out.The penis pant. Trouser, actually, seeing as how the designer is Spanish. When this look hit the runways last month it set the fashion world into quite the en fuego frenzy. Why men would never wear those! Too avant garde! But the penis needs to be larger! Longer! MORE GIRTH, PLEASE! BALLS!

Of course, I have a slightly different take on these trousers in that I think they should be made for women. I mean, wouldn't you buy a pair just to see what all the fuss is about? To be, for lack of a better phrase, the cock of the walk?

My fave is watching The Penis Pants in motion:

They make me happy, the jaunty to and fro. And if it were made for women? Well, here's a freebie idea: may I suggest... The Penis Bikini! (After all, summer is just around the corner.)

xo,
S

Schick Bick Bo Bick, Banana Fana Fo Fick, Fee Fi Fo Fick, Schi-ick!

Um, so, yeeaaah. I don't want to point a gun at you two days in a row, so here's this:
I dunno. It makes me happy? Even if she did die of anal cancer? She had super pretty hair and I kind of want that Speed Styler even though I never ever use a blow dryer myself?

But really I just want to look at something else right now. And this here is something else.

Yours in T-Minus 12 days 'til Daylight Savings,
S

ZoJack'ed

Dear Person Who Found My Blog At 11:29 On Saturday Night By Searching For Images of "Children's Panties" on Bing:
Back the fuck away. Seriously. This is no joke. I have your IP address which means I tracked down your name. I know where you live Mr. Livingston, New Jersey, and I have no problem giving your information to the FBI Child Predator Unit. Think I wouldn't? Try me.

Dear Everyone Else Who Might Read Me All the Time Or Maybe You Simply Stumbled Here After Googling Zebra Carcasses, Commuting or Both: My apologies for starting your work week off staring down the barrel of a gun. I could be wrong, but I don't think this is indicative of the rest of your week.

People suck. Sick fucks, this is not news, yet still I am surprised. Disgusted. Panicked, angry, saddened and everything in between. (You'd be surprised how many emotions live between hatred and despair.) I have deleted any photos of my daughter that might raise an eyebrow, or other. Going forward, I will write into the shadows as much as from a clean well-lighted place called Starbucks.

Maybe I am overreacting, sure. It wouldn't be the first time. When Nacho was a kitten we had him micro-chipped, a small something under the nape of his neck with our information. He is ours. He lives here. Please return him. If I could I would do the same in a second to Zoey. Better yet a lojack system that would tell me where she is at all times. Beepbeeep! Oh, I can hear it now, the right to privacy all Constitutional and civil libertarian. But she is only 3, and let's be honest here--I have not gone to the bathroom by myself for years now, Zoey at my knees asking what stinks. I think we laid bare any invasion of privacy the minute I got a plus sign on the pregnancy test, the veins on my breasts suddenly bright blue like a map. She lives here, she is mine, do not even touch her.

I don't want you to think that I think the world is ugly. More importantly, I don't want Zoey to think that I think the world is fucked. Outside the air smells like spring, calla lilies line our driveway. The other morning I saw a young man give a homeless guy a hot bagel all wrapped up which is not so terribly wonderful in and of itself except that they then shook hands and did that little half-man hug that guys do and I wanted to cry. The world is heartbreakingly beautiful and perfect but broken; what I trust more than anything battery-powered is that the only way to ensure my child's safety is some good old fashioned low-tech parental vigilance. I am not afraid.

Happy Monday, you guys. It may not seem it--most cities cannot even pay for street sweepers anymore--but it is, and we are. Clean, happy and strong.
xo,
S