Moving

I've been trying to find a half-ass decent place for us within the permutations of what we've got going: a dog, a kid, the need to stay in Berkeley for said kid's education, a budget. It's a giant pain in the ass. The only places around here, it seems, are 500-square-foot two-bedroom apartments that are tiny and cramped. Man, am I sick of this shit.

Today's revised paragraph

We proceed as a family, three now, a triangle rather than a square. Death is a shape-shifter. They don’t tell you that, whoever they are. Our square felt cozy, homey, even as it was fragmented and jagged. Our triangle feels more tentative and broken. It’s the new normal. You’ll get used to it. Take it day by day.

Today's writing

What we don’t know is that something lies in wait. Something bigger than all of us combined. Something chemical and reactionary. Heat and light, ignition and flame. Nothing we can flee to extinguish. Something trained to teach surrender. 

MacDuff's Pub, Tahoe, 2011

 

I miss you, Mr. Baba

 

Pieces of a morning

• Awesome white-girl meditation
• Coffee in my Cafe Du Monte mug
• A candle called Chai.

From CONFLAGRATION

We climb out of the car, gather our bearings. It’s been a long drive. Ross takes the bags. I grab Sid’s leash. He gets up, stretches slowly. He has grown older, old. It wasn’t that I didn’t notice. I have. It’s that I didn’t want to see. I veiled my vision; I kept my attention at half-mast. I was too busy with my phone, my computer, pounding out stupid real-estate copy that never, ever changed. Meanwhile my dog was aging. And my son –

My son –

Easier to close your eyes. Easier to keep trying to pull higher themes out of a laundry list of qualities handed to you by a client, a bloodless task. You’ve climbed the ladder. The view is your reward. Rich shit like that. Sometimes my own writing makes me want to hurl all over myself. That’s not the worst feeling, though. The worst is when you just don’t give a holy good goddamn. When you’re so disconnected. When your life feels like something framed on a wall in front of you.