Does Anyone Know Where I Can Find Some...

...swine flu? I need the rest.

Trying To Think Peaceful Thoughts...

...like these clouds I shot over Tontitown, driving in Sunshine's car on our way to buy explosives. Okay, so maybe that's not so peaceful, but the afternoon was incredible. It had rained the morning of the Fourth of July, while we sat inside and had a leisurely brunch complete with smuggled bloody mary fixin's. After that a long nap was in order. Then an afternoon excursion to buy fireworks and then to a cookout/party at Ben and Hannah's. They go all out for their parties and this was no exception. Just take a look at the food spreads. Yummmm to the nth degree. A beautiful night even though I was a tiny bit sad that D. and Stella were in Eureka. I was sort of on-call because 15 Rwandans were arriving that evening, but also sort of off work. The month of July I feel like a doctor; I'm never off work, even when I'm off work. But I'm trying to find those pockets of tranquility and treasure them.

Holy Cats...

Who decided to make today Batshit Crazy Day? I'd like a word with him or her.

The craziness of my summer programs is normal, super fast-paced insanity where we have to figure out where 100something people are going to be at once with various employees, transportation, plans, plan Bs, etc. etc. My office is ground zero for all this. Today all hell broke loose and I didn't have time to catch my breath.

And it won't let up until sometime in mid-August. Running a marathon here, folks....only in the first few miles.

SOS!

Last night I came home from work, ate some chips and salsa, opened a beer and then ate a piece of cold pizza. I fell asleep in my clothes with the laptop on top of me.

I think the fatigue and breakneck speed of my summer work schedule is turning me into a dude.

Free Association

Get ready for lots of sentence fragments.

Crazy busy here; no time to craft a well-written elegy for Michael Jackson. He was my first love, though. I was infatuated, deeply in love with him when I was eight or nine years old. I was convinced that if I wrote him enough fan letters that he would meet me and insist on marrying me right away and Janet and LaToya would be the coolest sisters-in-law in the world. All my girlfriends love him as much as I did. There was a shop in downtown Eureka Springs that sold all manner of Michael Jackson paraphernalia. We were all over things like lavender pleather slouchy purses with his photo screenprinted on the front, huge posters (the yellow sweater vest poster and the Beat It jacket ones being the most popular).


Even after all these years, his music is what you want to play when you want every last person on the dancefloor.

Rest In Peace, Michael. I mean that. Your life seemed anything but peaceful and I believe you carried around a great deal of emotional pain. Please know that your music brought happiness to the entire world and that is incredibly special.

Not All Doom and Gloom

Far from it, actually. Here are some highlights from the past few weeks:

Okay, so everyone in Fayetteville will know what I'm talking about here. This was the night of the crazy sky. I've seen much better photos of it, but had to at least take a stab at capturing it.

Two weeks ago, we took students to Silver Dollar City. Stella came with us. We hadn't been in like six years. It's silly, overpriced, and tacky and we wouldn't have it any other way!
At the end of a long day of crappy food, roller coasters, and water rides.
We drove through Beavertown. I am forever in love with this bridge.

Last weekend we spent the Summer Solstice driving out to my favorite spot probably in all of Arkansas: the Kings River. Something changes inside me, deep into my tissues and cells, when I start driving down Rockhouse Road. I can feel my body relaxing, my brain slowing down, my thoughts untangling....

Stella took most of these photos:
Here's Stella's friend Chloe. I love her. And not just because we share a birthday. But that helps.





We sat in the sun and swam for hours. Stella and Chloe kayaked downriver and then paddled back upriver. We made sushi for Jessica's birthday.


I am hungry all over again looking at this. It was SO GOOD. You can't even believe how delicious these rolls were.
I also let Stella practice driving on the dirt roads. It's the best way to learn - no traffic, you have to drive slowly...

See? There's a lot of good out there.

The Father Of All Posts

Father's Day on the longest day of the year? Awesome.

All that extra time to reflect on the notion of Fathers. My biological father disappeared from my life when I was around seven, giving me barely enough time to love him, miss him, but never know him. It took me years to accept my step-father. Of course now that I'm adult and realize what a difficult and thankless role step-parenting is, I am flooded with gratitude that not only do I have a step-father who is loving, supportive, and kind but he was always there. Know how they say just showing up is half the work? Ain't that the sad truth with parenting, at its most basic level? Kids will forgive all sorts of transgressions as long as they are secure in knowing that their parents will always be there for them. Take that away at a young age and you get an adult with all sorts of trust and intimacy issues (oh, hi). I could be pretty awful when I was little, "You're not my REAL dad!," as a tame example. Now, I can say with certainty, "...and thank goodness, because he couldn't handle the job...and you could."

So, Papa (Richard) - thank you. I love you.

Don't you love family legacies of self-inflicted pain, secrets, and history repeating itself? I know I don't. But here I am with a daughter who does not know her father (by his choice). And here I am, for the first time, dealing with parenting with a partner who is not my daughter's father. Stella is much older than I was when I was put in this situation. She's had a long time (uhh, her whole life) to come to terms with the fact that she does not have a father who tries to be in her life. She doesn't have that little-girl craving for a father's affection and support. She has a teenager's tendency to not trust adults, to be cynical, and to dislike abrupt change. However, I must say, we have a peaceful and harmonious household...usually.

I have massive appreciation and admiration for men who raise children they didn't conceive. It takes an open heart, dedication, and plain ol' decency. You are the men who should have your own holiday.

Oh well...no matter how badly all this troubles, angers, and haunts me (don't mind me; I might be going through early menopause, or craving another baby, or just displaying early symptoms of an undiagnosed mental illness), I can rest easy knowing that I'll never reach the depths of Sylvia Plath. Any other English Majors remember this gem?

Daddy

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.


Hey! Still with me? Can't you just feel a snake of anger and hatred coiling out from that poem and suffocating you with its icy strength? I can only read that poem every five years or so.

Good times.

But I don't want to spread my darkness to other people, especially since it's often fleeting. It's important to note that there is an abundance of good in my life. I have so much to be thankful for. And I never, ever want to take a bit of it for granted. Love is all around us, if we choose to see it.