Thoughts

1. To the neighbor who left your dog's poop in my yard, and let's just say it's not that of a chihuahua, shame on you. That is straight-up rude.

2. What have I been missing by not watching C-SPAN live? I was riveted today by the couple hours (and I NEVER watch TV) of the Comey hearing I caught. The Trump admin is as dirty as they come. They have their filthy tentacles in everything. We, most ALL of us, have let this happen, and it's up to us to #resist. Have you called your reps today? I have. Please do.

3. This is a really powerful essay. Published a week ago on Ms. magazine's blog, Body Politic makes my short-list of must-reads this week. As does this essay on the meaning of The Handmaid's Tale in the time of Trump by Margaret Atwood in yesterday's (Sunday) New York Times Book Review. 
Also, I highly recommend you read In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi (brilliant discussion of identity, many forms of) as well as Evicted (tremendous study and discussion of poverty and exploitation of the poor) by Matthew Desmond.
Lastly, it seems the Oxford comma debate may finally be settled. Grammar nerds, this one's for you.

4. Tom started his new job today. It has, in many ways, been wonderful having him home for the past three weeks, but it is also nice to reorient ourselves into a more normal-for-our-age life.

5. On Friday, I am taking the boys to Louisiana for spring break. Having not left DC since before the election, I am exceedingly keen on getting out of town. I cannot wait for a break, cannot wait to sit in a white wooden rocking chair on a generous porch as a warm breeze blows across my bare legs. Cannot wait to watch the bayou glide by and the Spanish moss wave from oak boughs. Cannot wait to watch my boys run and get dirty and leave the tub ringed with scum each night. Cannot wait to sit with my parents and just be.

6. I have, lately, felt myself somewhat stifled by shoulds and perceived expectations. No more. I am who I am, folks, and I'll write and be what and who I want. Shoulds are a bully, as are living for other's needs, expectations, or hopes. Compromise is grand. Muzzling yourself and others is not. 

7. Two photos that make me happy:

What takes the cake

Sometimes, in the blurry dervishing darkness of too much noise and too many demands, I think about cake and how much I’d like a slice. One generous slice of moist devil’s food with a perfect crumb and just enough frosting –do you call it icing?- to make the confection sleek rather than shrugging.

A cake like this withstands the gentle pressure of a fork’s slender tines only just before succumbing. For a moment the shape rendered by cake and indent made by the utensil’s push resembles one of those simple down-and-up lines young children draw to resemble birds in flight. Then the bird is gone and I’m left with a bite of cake to savor and the time to do so.

Truth be told, this cake is most sublime when I can sit in silence with it, a cold glass of milk just beyond the upper right rim of my plate. In this setting, nothing vies for attention: the cake gets it all. More accurately, my enjoyment of it does. I needn’t rush my bites or my chewing. I won’t worry about choking when someone asks a question and wants the answer now. No greedy eyes will covet my cake, no one will ask me to share. I can close my eyes and experience the cake in my mouth, from first touch on my tongue to bittersweet farewell as my swallow whisks it south.

And then I can do the same thing again and again until my plate is but a crumb-dotted palate of what was.

*a freewrite from today's class

Stream-of-consciousness and pink and legacy

I am sitting in my pale gray womb chair, feet propped on its matching ottoman, everything from the waist down blanketed by a corally-pink and white throw. It's a muted pink, not saccharine or sickly, but rather a nod to my love of the color, to the need I feel to sometimes throw a bit of not blue-gray-brown into my masculine'ish love child of a modern + mid-century home.

I've had a love affair with pink for as long as I can remember, and I am A-OK with that. There is really quite a diverse spectrum housed under the umbrella term "pink." Really, it runs the gamut from the blindingly neon to the loud but infused-with-purple magenta to the horrid, too flatly opaque Pepto shade through the perfect English roses and ethereal peonies to the pale-but-not-anemic lighter shades.

Hot pink, piglet pink, baby girl pink, Carnation pink (that disappointing Crayola hue that never seems to assert itself)...The list goes on, but suffice it to say that I am, mostly, a fan. 

Which is why I bought this throw that, in all honesty, matches almost nothing in my home but goes well enough with this chair (which is mine; I got it for my 40th birthday) and makes me happy.

The point of this early-onset tangent is a slight one. It's simply to place you just a touch, because tonight I am pooped and have retired to my chair and the quietude of my room early tonight.

Tom has been home since March 1 (he is enjoying a much-deserved vacation between jobs before starting his new role as CFO at a company here in DC on March 20) which has been both rare treat and alone-time zapper, the kids have had irregular school schedules due to various holidays, conferences, and the pending snowstorm which two hours ago meant a preemptive canceling of school tomorrow, and that behemoth mulch pile that both took many more days than expected to deal with AND is still not fully dealt with. Tonight found me mulching neighbor's yards, random neighborhood trees, and offering with exceedingly enthused madness "all the mulch you want" to anyone who passed by.

Life is so much about finding our rhythms, isn't it? For those of us who thrive on routinized days, from the highly structured to the more relaxed here's-what-I-might-do-around-mealtimes approach, for those who find structure imposed on them via children or career or other duties, the removal of that overlay can be both exciting and stressful.

What I have noticed is that in times of flux, the non-necessities and "luxuries" easily, too easily, fall by the wayside. Sure, the mulch juggernaut loomed, but what really beckoned was an empty page, empty pages ignored for weeks now. 

This evening, a friend mused about thinking now about the answer to 'what do I want the story of my life to be later, when I'm reaching the end and looking back?' And really, that's a great North Star to keep in mind. 

To another friend struggling with a shitty week I wrote, "Literally right now writing about the times in which 'normal' routine falls by the wayside and what gets left in its wake. I am seeing, literally now b/c I'm hellbent on writing even if its crap, that what is flotsam and jetsam in the wake are the things, like writing, that keep me sane. So clearly those things are wrongly labeled f & j and I need to more unapologetically value them."

Funny how sometimes all the roads lead you to a pale gray chair and a corally-pink throw and a glass of wine and the loving response to your kids and husband that "No, I'm off duty now. I'm on my own clock now. I'll see you tomorrow."