The other day

This floated through my brain: I'm so glad it's over. Well, now.

Yesterday Adam said: "You tried to take my kid, tried to take my wife, what next, you want my fucking dogs?"

"Don't worry, babe," I said. "No one wants the dogs."

Between the debate and ...

Watching 9 1/2 Weeks for work (I'm serious), I felt like crap last night. 9 1/2 Weeks is such a mindfuck tale that it is unbelievable, and it hits far too close to home. The debate was insane. Together they kept me awake until I took a sleeping pill at 1:30 to try to sleep and be sane. It worked, but only sort of. 

Debates do this to you

Specifically, this.

Shoring up boundaries

It's a new leaf: I'm not the therapist. I used to listen to people bitch about the same thing over and over, giving them tons of insight and advice ... and for what? People are going to do what they're going to do. They don't listen to you. And even if they do, so what? Shoring up the boundaries around that leaves room for me and those closest to me. That's huge. 

I re-read this paragraph and it sounds -- cold? Callous? Maybe, unless you know that I've spent most of my life acting as the therapist to people left and right. It's a codependency thing: if you need me, you can't leave me. Uh, life doesn't work that way. 

Tears when I wrote this

Yom Kippur. They’re doing the Amidah, swaying silently in their little Zoom boxes. You glance at him, close to asleep in his chair with only one arm. He let you have the single good chair in the room. You try to find gratitude. He is fully out now. You want to hit him, knock him out of the bad chair.

It’s been a morning. Sugar spilled atop a kitchen cabinet. Grousing at the beginning of services. His job: pointing out the missteps. Yours: getting sullen, defensive. Who gives a fuck about sugar? So you bitch a little. They want to do breakout rooms to talk about their relationship to God, like that has anything to do with the High Holidays?

“Don’t criticize me,” you say to his slumbering form, “motherfucker.”

Marriage. Operating outside oneself, working together, a team. You couldn’t even handle group projects in high school. You marry, convinced things won’t change. Dream day in a bee-buzzed courtyard, photographer leaping for the shot, cheesecake taquitos and you were going to be the survivors. Your first real fights drama about nothing: masturbation, macaroni and cheese. Your lovemaking a loving and jagged thing, spiked with surprise, studded by spontaneity. Pictures of your hands intertwined, interlocked. Joined at the hip your friends say, not without its rancor.

He doesn’t so much fall from the pedestal as tumble softly a half step at a time.

 

The people who take your heart

They aren't many. Spread throughout the years. Disparate and similar in the same breath. You told them too much but not what mattered, never what mattered.

More writing

You look over at him – the guy – and you realize that you’re no more drawn to his body than you are his self-perceived brawn. It’s the wounds bleeding into wounds, all those nutrients and oxygen, all that plasma. The hooks you throw into one another, the lines that come up wriggling. Each new discovery a vanguard, an edge, a ridge from which you tumble together, wayward limbs tangling, raising bruises.

It’s that upper half of your chest, the edge near the throat. That’s what catches. That’s what chokes.

He angles onto a ramp: Golden Gate Bridge.

Two minutes later your phone rings.

This morning's writing

A row of hotel-motels, pizza places billing themselves as the city’s best, boarded-up storefronts, fly-by-nights really, the way San Francisco does it to itself, eats itself alive. Social Distortion on the radio. You prefer just about anything to punk. The wind through the window ruffling your hair, lifting it off your shoulders for just an instant. The way your son eats an apple, tiny teeth making a jagged circle around it, a mini-path. The way we learn to do the things we do, the strange staggering steps we take into the world of becoming.

David Roderick, "Call it a Day"

Wow.

Detach with love

A former therapist once told me about this -- the idea of detaching with love, of letting go with kindness and without rancor. I think I'm getting what she's saying. 

Emma Cline, "What You Can Do With a General"

When the kids were little, dinner was hot dogs or spaghetti, the kids with their glasses of milk, Linda drinking white wine with ice cubes, John with his wine, too, tuning in and out. The kids fought. Chloe kicked Sam. Sasha thought Sam was breathing on her -- Mom, tell Sam to stop breathing on me. Tell. Sam. To. Stop. Breathing. On. Me. How easily a veil dropped between him and this group of people who were his family. They fuzzed out, pleasantly, became vague enough that he could love them.

The loosening

Your chest just a little more giving. The breath a little easier. These years, these hard years. Finally a tunnel and some light.

Beautiful fucker

 

Today's writing

Meanwhile the cat’s cradle that is your home continues to ensnare you in its own web. Two dogs, one kid. A husband who recoils from your anger, your fury. Why, he wants to know. Why, when you have so much? Why, when there’s so much love to fill these two bedrooms, the kitchen, the living room, spilling out into the large front yard with its dead and dying grass? You go out there with a cigarette, hating yourself for taking in the poison. Breathe in, let out. Death meditation.

You train yourself to let go. You listen to dharma talks on the subject. The ways in which we suffer because we hold on, we cling, we resist. You start by loosening the grip on the cigarette. It falls, tumbles to the wood base of the fence. Smolders. Set it afire. Let it go. Run away. You stamp it out instead.

Pacifica

A post from Deborah

On Facebook:

Hey, who's the good looking babe on the red couch?
Seven years past...everyone but Facebook forgot this exact moment, long ago.
Thank you, 

Allison

, for the 20 some-odd years of friendship

— with 

Allison Landa

.

First kiss

Adam and I shared our first kiss 18 years ago today. Holy shit that's a long time.

Back to bariatric basics

I've put on pandemic poundage. I look like a linebacker. Time to knock off the Trader Joe's cookies and start eating smart. 

Craft insight

What is this character's story of themselves versus what they're actually going through? - Emma Cline on how she frames characters

Some days

You just want to reach out. You want to send that email or that text. You want to say what is up with you, dude? You remember how fun hanging out is, how you would close down bars and cafes, talk talk talk talk until you would either go home or break boundary after boundary.

You remember all these things, but you don't do it. You don't do it.

The sepia selfie

 

Yesterday

It was beautiful. Truly beautiful. I needed it, Baz needed it, Deborah needed it. It was so great to see her. We had a blast. 

She knows the guy -- over email, but still. We talked about how he would take Baz as his own. "Adam would be within his rights to punch him," she said. "Full force."

Taking the day off

We're going to Santa Cruz.

A month now into struggling with virtual schooling, we need a break. Bazzy's teachers are wonderful. I feel for everything they have to put into this. But the stars aligned today -- I have nothing on my plate, Adam has to be in the office for a while, and Baz's school schedule is relatively light. I'm going to get my baby a donut this morning, then tell him we're going on an adventure.

Then he'll get to get in the vehicle he calls Bazzy's Racecar, and we're hitting the road. Meeting Deborah down there, too.

We're going to Boise. And Portland. That's happening at the end of the month. In fact, a week from now we're going to be leaving. We're seeing no one in Boise so far as I know; we're just going because I've never been there, so why the hell not? And then we're seeing Loralee in Portland. We'll probably be gone a week or more. God, we both need this so badly. And I think Adam could use the time to himself, though he would probably say otherwise. The dogs, they'll be just fine too.

Let's hear it for the road.

Gil Fronsdal on letting go

One way or the other, the path of Buddhism is to bring something to an end -- and that something is our suffering, the ways in which we suffer because we hold on, we cling, we resist. That there's some kind of inner compulsive behavior, a driven behavior, holding and clinging, that might have a lot of authority, might be there sometimes for good reasons, but with practice we see it limits us, it diminishes us, it constricts us, and it doesn't really allow for the full flowering and thriving of our hearts, of our minds, of our life. 

And so part of mindfulness practice is not just being present for things and seeing and being mindful and calmer and a little less reactive, but it's really as a platform, as a means by which to have the deepest fullest letting go that is possible for a human being. And the path there is to learn something about all the different shades, or forms of letting go, that a person can have. Now, letting go is an ordinary activity. There is a tremendous amount of letting go that people do throughout the day, and it probably doesn't take much reflection to realize how much you're letting go of. Maybe sometimes it's so automatic and so easy that you don't even think of as letting go. ...

Or you're expecting to go for a walk with a friend outdoors, and here in California you wake up and nowadays sometimes the air is clean and sometimes it's not because of the smoke ... and maybe the letting go is not that easy because the desire is so strong ... the anticipation of a wonderful time with your friend and the ongoing continuity of the limitation of life because of the smoke and COVID-19 and all kinds of things, you don't let go of the desire. ... All because that desire was being held kind of strongly and it wasn't simply letting go of morning breakfast ... if you want to be free of all the secondary reactivity, maybe requires a deeper kind of, a more difficult kind of release of desire, maybe put in the context of finding our freedom even with that.

As posted on FB

Doing a MacDowell workshare this afternoon. Throwback to New Jersey Studio and incredible bacon ... and time. Long, delicious stretches. Lunch brought in a picnic basket by sweet Blake. A fireplace I never could quite light. Gunshots in the woods. Side trips to Maine and Vermont. The company of brilliance and the support of an incredible organization. Yes, I am looking forward to this.

More of today's writing

North Beach rotates: 45 degrees, then 90, steeper. Reach for something to steady you, find nothing. Underside of your lip chapped, tongue a withered thing. Making love in Portland, a hot Memorial Day Weekend, hurrying before your host returns. Memory reddens your cheeks, anger a flush.

“What do you want?” you say, except not really.

"I’m sorry,” you say for real.

Him upstairs, waiting. Checking his phone, glancing over his shoulder at – what? Anything? He calls your husband The Warden. “That thing on your phone,” he says. “That – tracker.”

You have trackers on each other. Somehow that fact always escapes him.

“Four hours now,” your husband says. “Saturday night. I’m the babysitter. You’re on your date.”

You protest. You squirm. You push back, eyes on City Lights Bookstore across the way. How is this a date?

“Then come home,” he says, “and prove it’s not.”

Today's writing

Eight weeks. Eight weeks since you last heard his voice, fielded his texts. This is caramel time, gooey, stringy, malleable. Pandemic, fires, social unrest. The day the skies scream orange you take your son to the city because the air quality is good today and will not be tomorrow. You can just count on it.

 

Why did he choose this time of devastation to duck out? He must already have known you feel bereft. Did he pile atop that ashy misery just because he could?

 

Because he can’t have what he wants?

 

*

 

You pick your way down the steps, descending from the second level of the bar to the first. You haven’t looked at your phone. There is no need.

 

This happens every time.

 

You walk past the wood bar and the stained glass, past the people enjoying their Saturday night. You pause a moment by the door, light from outside falling upon your face. So cliché a moment, but clichés happen in life too.

 

So easy to blow off the call, walk back upstairs, hold out a hand. Shrug the years from the shoulders, spin time sufficiently backward. A name dropped from the tongue, the memory. A history ground underfoot, then washed into the sewer.

 

I still believe this

From Facebook:

Allison Landa

tcfSaSceptfoetmsbeSrS mpe20og,nse sfo2reo0d19od  · 

Shared with Your friends

Every step you take away from the wrong thing leads you to something better. I fiercely believe that

Masked

 

Seems appropriate

Every finger in the room is pointing at me
I want to spit in their faces then I get afraid what that could bring
I got a bowling ball in my stomach, I got a desert in my mouth
Figures that my courage would choose to sell out now

I've been looking for a saviour in these dirty streets
Looking for a saviour beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands, drive another nail in
Just what god needs, one more victim

Why do we crucify ourselves every day?
I crucify myself and nothing I do is good enough for you
I crucify myself every day
I crucify myself and my heart is sick of being
I said my heart is sick of being in chains
Chains

Got a kick for a dog begging for love
I got to have my suffering so that I can have my cross
I know a cat named Easter, he says, will you ever learn
You're just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird

I've been looking for a saviour in these dirty streets
Looking for a saviour beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands, drive another nail in
Got enough guilt to start my own religion

Why do we crucify ourselves every day?
I crucify myself and nothing I do is good enough for you
I crucify myself every day
I crucify myself and my heart is sick of being
I said my heart is sick of being in chains
Chains

Please be
Save me
I cry

Looking for a saviour in these dirty streets
Looking for a saviour beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands, drive another nail in
Where are those angels when you need them

Why do we crucify ourselves every day
I crucify myself and nothing I do is good enough for you
I crucify myself every day
I crucify myself and my heart is sick of being
I said my heart is sick of being in chains
Chains

Why do we in chains
Why do we crucify ourselves
Crucify ourselves every day
Why do we crucify ourselves
Why do we crucify ourselves
Chains
Why do we crucify ourselves
Chains
Why do we crucify ourselves
I'm never going back again to crucify myself again you know
Why do we crucify ourselves
I'm never going back again to crucify myself again every day

- Tori Amos, "Crucify"

OMG, RBG

Jesus Christ, what now?

From a friend

I truly and honestly and fully believe that your relationship with (the guy) is toxic, a word I don't throw around lightly. This is why I've fought against it so hard for so many years.

Just written

You hear him before you see him. His is the voice that rises above the din, greeting, reverberating. Your mouth crooks into a twisted half-moon, a sliver of something. Your eyes draw toward the heavens; your eyebrows tent.

 

He sounds like what you imagine he is: a gladhandler, a corporate man. Jack of his own trade but master of none. An indiscreet laugher, a mockery of true humor. Then you turn around.

 

He is also very, very cute. Clean-cut, conservative, a close-cropped goatee matching his short dark hair. A short-sleeve button-down shirt tucked over a slight belly. Black pants. Dress shoes. Glasses.

 

He is talking to the girl across from your cubicle. You refuse to call it a cube; you simply cannot. You do not want to get so intimate, so informal, so familiar. His laugh is familiar, chummy, uncanned. It contradicts what you already believe you know of him. You don’t like that. You like writing people off – quick, clean. Black and white are your favorite shades. Gray can go screw.

"I'll fuck your mother"

And other things heard in North Beach ...

As seen on Facebook

 

Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams

I'm planning for civil and and I'm planning for not-civil war. I'm readying myself for civil war in the face of the elections that are upon us, and I'm also readying myself for not-civil war. When I say that what I mean is not as some people have asked, well, how do you do both? And the fact is that I don't do both, that I'm only ever doing one thing, and that is meeting what is front of me. 

Last week's apocalypse

 

More Croce, "Tomorrow's Gonna Be a Brighter Day"

Well, I'm sorry for the things that I told you
But words only go so far
And if I had my way
I would reach into heaven
And I'd pull down a star for a present
And I'd make you a chain out of diamonds
And pearls from a summer sea
But all I can give you is a kiss in the morning
And a sweet apology

Well, I know that it hasn't been easy
And I haven't always been around
To say the right words
Or to hold you in the mornin'
Or to help you when you're down
I know I never showed you much of a good time
But baby things are gonna change
I'm gonna make up for all of the hurt I brought
I'm gonna love away all your pain

And tomorrow's gonna be a brighter day
There's gonna be some changes
Tomorrow's gonna be a brighter day
This time you can believe me
No more cryin' in your lonely room
And no more empty nights
'Cause tomorrow mornin' everything will turn out right

Well, there's something that I've got to tell you
Yes I've got something on my mind
But words come hard
When your lying in my arms
And when I'm looking deep into your eyes
But there's truth and consolation
And what I'm trying to say
Is that nobody ever had a rainbow baby
Until he had the rain

It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna be a brighter day
It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna be a brighter day
It's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna be a brighter day
It's gonna be, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a brighter day
It's gonna be, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a brighter day
Come on tomorrow
Come on tomorrow
It's gonna be a brighter day

Jim Croce, "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)"

Operator, well could you help me place this call?
See, the number on the matchbook is old and faded
She's living in L.A. with my best old ex-friend Ray
A guy she said she knew well and sometimes hated

Isn't that the way they say it goes? Well, let's forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell 'em I'm fine and to show
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn't real, but that's not the way it feels

Operator, well could you help me place this call?
Well, I can't read the number that you just gave me
There's something in my eyes, you know it happens every time
I think about a love that I thought would save me

Isn't that the way they say it goes? Well, let's forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell 'em I'm fine and to show
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn't real, but that's not the way it feels
No, no, no, no - that's not the way it feels

Operator, well let's forget about this call
There's no one there I really wanted to talk to
Thank you for your time, ah, you've been so much more than kind
And you can keep the dime

Isn't that the way they say it goes? Well, let's forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell 'em I'm fine and to show
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn't real, but that's not the way it feels

10 years ago

 

Things I say ad nauseam

I should shower soon.

I'll shower in five minutes.

I'll jump in the shower in a minute.

Okay, guys, I'll feed you.

Okay, you goddamned mutts, give me a minute.

Baz, chill.

Baz, chill.

Babe, I love you. I'm sorry.

When you wake up

You check AirNow. You wonder if the sun will fucking rise. You read the latest Trump atrocity. You smoke a cigarette cause why the fuck not. You think, being a parent is killer right now. You think, living is killer right now. You think, maybe I can make it through the day.

Brunch

"Get in touch," Joseph said. "See what's going on."

"Fuck that. I'm done."

"Dude. You have no idea what's going on with him."

"That's the problem,"  I said. "That's the problem."

Distractions

BAZ: Mommy, I want passenger trains.

ME: Daddy's watching football.

BAZ: Passenger trains.

ME: Writing under these conditions is tantamount to having needles shoved into your eyes. You know that?

BAZ: Passenger. Trains.

Also just written

The answer is Vesuvio. Vesuvio, both problem and solution, fighter and arbiter. The shadows tick when you enter, the stained glass seeming to wink. The tightness below growing more urgent. You cut a look at his arms: tattooed, not as well cut as your husband’s. You look away. You wear the same dress as the night you went into labor: a black turtleneck brushing the lower knee.

 

The night you and your husband drive into San Francisco to take advantage of a Mission District made bereft by Burning Man. “No more hipsters,” he says, shifting, “for now.” Two bars. For you, two Diet Cokes. You, already in pain but not willing to accede to it. The plan is to go to Santa Cruz in the morning. When your water breaks at 1:30 a.m., your first thought is Jesus Christ I don’t feel like getting admitted today. Four contractions before you even get through the sliding glass doors. Two more on the way to the third floor. Twelve hours later, a child.

 

Stand in front of the bored bartender. Squint at the menu. Kerouac chilled here. He is a Kerouac devotee. Red flag right there.

 

Just written

At first you don’t like him. This is in 2002. The terrorist attacks continue to dominate the television when you go to the gym in the middle of the night; the Middle East shudders; a sniper stalks D.C. You get off a plane wondering what the fuck you’re going to do with yourself, how you’re going to make it in this world.

I get it

I totally get it.

I wanted excitement. 

I wanted drama.

I wanted different.

Well, there ya go.

Never mind who took it

Or that I'm wasted after two Death in the Afternoons. I'm at Vesuvio and wearing a cute little dress. That's all that matters.

The greeting

When I come home, Baz goes nuts. MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY you're HOME! You came BACK!

I fucking LOVE that kid.

The wall

I never cried.

I got up way too early, brewed coffee at stupid hours, went outside and smoked Adam's cigarettes, which had become my cigarettes because I was smoking them often enough to claim ownership. I consulted the wall and the wall ignored me.

When I called Kaiser last week, I knew the only way out was through. I also knew that was cliche. I didn't care.

I needed help.

The bitchy post

Every woman wore a short skirt and tons of makeup. They all wanted the same thing: to fuck you. Every time I read that, I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

I bet you either didn't know that or wouldn't believe it.

Pat Benatar, "We Belong"

 Many times I tried to tell you

Many times I cried alone

Always I'm surprised how well you cut my feelings to the bone
Don't want to leave you really
I've invested too much time to give you up that easy
To the doubts that complicate your mind

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better
We belong, we belong, we belong together

Maybe it's a sign of weakness when I don't know what to say
Maybe I just wouldn't know what to do with my strength anyway
Have we become a habit? Do we distort the facts?
Now there's no looking forward
Now there's no turning back
When you say

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better
We belong, we belong, we belong together

Close your eyes and try to sleep now
Close your eyes and try to dream
Clear your mind and do your best to try and wash the palette clean
We can't begin to know it, how much we really care
I hear your voice inside me, I see your face everywhere
Still you say

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better
We belong, we belong, we belong together

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better
We belong, we belong, we belong together
We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder

All aboard

 

Sugar Pine Mountain Train for Baz's 5th birthday!

Why I'm trying to go veg

 

Frank Ostaseski on impatience

I don't know about you, but I notice that my expectations have this certain righteousness about them. It's like I mix together in a bowl equal parts of attachment and arrogance, and it's a perfect recipe for a total breakdown in communications.

----

Upaya Dharma talk here. 

Dialogue

ME: Man, my wedding ring is itching my finger.

HIM: Chuck it. Throw it in the Berkeley Marina.

Why did I not tell him to go fuck himself? Because I liked the attention. That's why.

Two years ago, the mean streets of Isla Vista

 

MacDowell memories from 11 years ago

 

Just written

Earlier you scream at your baby. Scream. You wish you don’t remember why, but you do: he spills milk all over himself. Deliberately. Smiling at you as he does it. You physically restrain yourself from attacking him, from tearing his beautiful ivory skin with your fingernails. The tears light his eyes like happiness. He won’t remember this. He’ll be fine. Your name won’t be all over his therapy bills. He won’t hate-speak you in high school, college, stoned with some girlfriend or boyfriend a sympathetic shadow at his elbow. Not at all.

Oasis, "Don't Look Back in Anger"

Slip inside the eye of your mind

Don't you know you might find

A better place to play
You said that you'd never been
But all the things that you've seen
Slowly fade away

So I start a revolution from my bed
'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside, summertime's in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

And so Sally can wait
She knows it's too late
As we're walking on by
Her soul slides away
But don't look back in anger
I heard you say

Take me to the place where you go
Where nobody knows
If it's night or day
But please don't put your life in the hands
Of a rock and roll band
Who'll throw it all away

I'm gonna start a revolution from my bed
'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside 'cause summertime's in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
'Cause you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

And so Sally can wait
She knows it's too late
As she's walking on by
My soul slides away
But don't look back in anger
I heard you say

So Sally can wait
She knows it's too late
As we're walking on by
Her soul slides away
But don't look back in anger
I heard you say

So Sally can wait
She knows it's too late
As she's walking on by
My soul slides away
But don't look back in anger
Don't look back in anger
I heard you say
At least not today