To Be Alone

The porch with a foggy night-time air. 11:51pm. My cricket friend sending out his loudest mating call, the same as last night but from a slightly different location. How can his hairy little cricket legs be so loud. It is nearly deafening but I like it. Scooters, walkers, babies wide awake in their strollers with mom swearing into a cell-phone. The night. A cigarette, a thought I don't want to think, a thought I can't stop thinking. A book about sex, a story about love, a poem I write in my head. Do you ever. Could you. I did once. I could again. The questions don't stop and the answers like being coy. To be alone with myself and a one cricket chirping.

The Sweetness of an Unsyruped Pancake

A spicy orange
A burning bottle of pinot noir
The copper I smell in your blood
like a penny

The Restorative Powers of Mountain Dew

I am going to kill whoever told me it was a really great idea to get mostly drunk on a Thursday night for no good reason. Working at a church means Friday morning is pretty busy, what with all of the bulletins and powerpoint slides and newsletters and things that no one cares about. So hungover is not a pretty thing to be right now. It's just good that the pastor never comes in on Friday, so I can walk in with a 32oz. Mountain Dew, a chocolate cake donut, and three Excedrin without having to worry that I still smell like wine/vodka/cigarettes. Being hungover also makes you a really horrible mom. Well maybe it doesn't make YOU one, but that's how it works for me. Driving to school this morning, E. was like, Mommy, mommy, mommy. B was saying ah-my instead of airplane! Hahahah Mommy! Ah-my! She was saying AH-MY! I said I just really...don't care.

OMG. I need an Arby's roast beef sandwich, pronto.

Tuesday night, at the Bible study.

It's easy to want to change, and hard to actually do it. I periodically get the feeling that I am a horrible person and I need to become not so horrible. I'm not sure if I'm right, but I haven't yet evolved. My house is still really dirty, I don't exercise or eat very healthily, I am a night-smoker, I don't do arts and crafts with my kids.

Once, when I still thought praying was a valid option, I prayed that God would just make me different. That all of the things I hated doing (see above list) would suddenly become like second nature to me. Or even first nature. Nature nature. Some people seem to want to clean their homes, some people are just skinny without trying, some people can spend countless hours just doing whatever their children want to do. It didn't work. Nothing ever happened.

It's just me. Maybe God didn't evolve me because he knew there would come a time when I would question his existence until there wasn't really a question anymore. It's kind of hard to think that if I want to change things about myself, there isn't anyone who is going to help me. But I don't really want to change, unless you want me to. Then I will think about it.

A Poem by Mark Strand

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.