the end

i'm losing the two men in my life
one to cancer
one to Arizona

they both talk to me
lovingly

they both call me
sweetheart
honey
baby
love...

one is losing his mind
the other is finding himself

where does that leave
me?

yes we can!

regain our faith and trust in the government
and in the world...
hope again...
tell our children that anything is possible...
and mean it...
believe that people can be trusted to do
what's right...
say that we are color-blind-
that black or white, red or blue
doesn't matter...
and, for the first time in ages
we can be proud to be americans...

obama-kah

Shana tova, everyone!

Love and Birds

There once was a man
who loved a little bird.
So much, in fact,
that he clipped its wings
so it couldn't fly away.

But to his chagrin,
he found
it was no longer
the same bird
he had loved so much.
And from that he learned
that love is not about wanting
or having.

It's about loving.

There are two things
I am afraid of.

Birds,
and love.

there is no greener grass, only different shades

one day at age 14

i stood behind the kitchen counter

and declared to my mother

"if i ever get married,

i hope i don't get divorced!"

to which she replied:

"i hope so, too, honey!"

well, here i am

half a life later

separated

with a child

who cries at night

because at 20 months

she is incapable of understanding the words

"daddy doesn't live here anymore."

i felt sorry for myself

for 5 minutes

because we all have something

in our lives

maybe i am one of the lucky ones

i look at other people

and wonder how they managed

to have it all together

how they picked the "right" person

the "right" career

the "right" path in life

and i keep choosing cul-de-sacs

life is a series of one-way streets

we come to a fork in the road

go left or right

can never go back and choose the other

but there are detours

we just have to find them

a couple i know

dear, dear friends of mine

are truly in love

they waited to have a child

and she is gorgeous

perfect, but for a chromosome

she has no muscle tone

they will lose her, most likely,

before her first birthday

but they delight in her smiles

they have never been happier

they say

this fellow is amazing

lost his wife to a blood clot

she was on the way to hold

their newborn daughter, for the

first time

only she didn't make it

he lost his soul mate

but he has the little girl

to treasure

if given a chance

would either change their path?

i can't say

but i know that if i were in their place

i would not

people are always saying the grass is greener....

but i don't think that it is

i think there are many different shades of green

we must be content with the hue of our garden.

summer

i've always loved the summer
walking barefoot in the warm grass
or on hot asphalt
warm rain
thunderstorms
the smell of barbeques on
neighbors'patios
sun, warmth, light, life

the way time seems to stand still
and each day seems to run into the
next
with interludes of moonlight
and chirping crickets
which give way to sunrises
sunlight
and peace

perspective

logic tells me
it's a drinking
fountain

but percetion tells me
it's a urinal
tiny, ceramic, yellowed
it clings to the wall
in the library lobby.

i want to drink
but i am afraid
of what i might catch

what if someone sees me?
i scan my surroundings
there's no one.
that's a relief.

i bend myself forward
pull the lever
and prepare my lips
to drink
and lap up
the stale, tepid water.

heaven

It must be noon.
Here comes the emptiness.
I was walking down the street
when it hit me.

I spent the morning shopping
for books
novels, essays, poems
So I could lose myself
in someone else's pain

instead of basking in my own.

I wasn't looking for anything
in particular
when I entered the bookstore
greeted by the sweet dusty smell
of old books,
and the androgynous shopkeeper.

I was drawn to Rand. Pound. Baudelaire.
Random, I know.

I paid cash.
Counted out the exact change.
How else do you pay for treasures like this?

Outside, a group of middle-school boys
stopped me.
They were conducting a survey
on religion, of all things.

"What is your concept of heaven?"

And I had to reply
that it's a massive library
filled with old, dusty treasures
with brittle, yellowed pages.
Organized neatly on shelves
that extend upwards
as far as one can see.

on your 29th birthday

I woke up feeling sad
for you
spending your birthday alone
in your new-found freedom
and feeling guilty
for granting it to you
against your wishes

you never cared for celebrations
but I always celebrated you

but this year
I commemorated
my freedom.

Celebrating a demise
on the day of a birth.

I've got a bone to pick

...with MSN.com!

They suggest hot topics to search, like, oh, say...
"thong injury" or "Obama sock monkey"

but then when I search
for Obama
sock monkey
the search comes up empty.

Grr.

I pulled the plug...

On my marriage, which had been on life support for quite some time.

I don't know what I should be feeling right now.

I suppose grieving is healthy,
but in this case it seems absurd

to grieve for what I, myself, killed
with my own two hands.

still, death can be very liberating

s d r a w k c a b

locked

is

door

my

but

opens

another

closes

door

one

when

that

say

they

This is me on no sleep, a newly-failed marriage and a toddler with a rash:

hump day haiku: first edition

this is my first hump

day haiku hump day haiku

many more to come

my darling joe

THIS is what I like to hear!

I am a coffee junkie. I am rarely seen without a cup in my hands. And consequently, my hands are usually a little bit shaky.
Coffee has done for me what no one man has ever done: it warms me when I am cold, soothes me when I'm down, and excites me with its aroma.
And, also quite unlike any man I have ever known, it may just be good for my heart. At least that's what researchers in Spain have concluded after a recent study.

And then I read this, praising coffee for it's calming effect and I just knew. This may be the perfect love affair I have been craving all along.

witching hour

Every day around this time

12:00 noon

I start to feel a little empty

I feel the emptiness swelling up inside me
Until eventually, it fills me.

lover

The husband repeatedly interrogates me, hoping I'll break down and confess to having taken a lover. I haven't! (Honestly, things are hopeless but not THAT bad!)

I have the habit of asking him what time he'll be home.
You know, so I can plan my day.
Makes sense, right?

He thinks it's so I can plan my trysts.
If only my life were that exciting.

And while it does bother me
just a little bit, but it bothers me
nonetheless
that what he's doing
this grilling and constant suspicion
technically constitutes an accusation of
adultery

Really, I can't get too upset
because I do have a lover
just not in the carnal sense

I am having a love affair with
tobacco

I smoke

And I know I shouldn't
Given my past and all
And, more importantly, my present
and future

But, I have been in love
since my first puff

I managed to stay smoke-free
for several years
after the birth of my daughter
but in a particularly
dark time
I went back

So now I plan my trysts
With the Marlboro Man
Would hate for the husband to come home
And catch me
Mid-puff

Need time to wash my hair
And rinse my mouth
Before I greet him
Cause otherwise
He would know
From the scent of my lover
That I have gone astray.

dream thrum

Yep, it's the song by James. It's been a good long time since I've listened to James.

but to me, dream thrum is that drugged feeling you have when you wake up after a troubled sleep on a stuffy summer's night, when your head aches so subtly you can't really call it a headache but it is an ache and your eyelids feel so heavy you could fall asleep at any moment and your head feels too heavy to hold up on its own so it cocks to the side and your mind feels slow and gelatinous and comes down with a case of wanderlust and you just can't keep it on track 'cause it likes to wander and you know this will not be a day of great achievement...

Yep, you always wondered what it was called. There's a name for that. It's dream thrum.

About

I don't need to tell you who I am. I know who I am. Do you know who you are?

I have dedicated a great deal of time to trying to get to know myself and so far, I've been able to come up with this list, in no particular order:

teacher, student, mother,
philosopher, artist, writer, reader of many, many books
adventurer, explorer
great cook, pretty good gardener
daughter, sister, friend
woman
person
random person on the street
coffee addict, chocolate conoisseur
pretty good speller
aspiring screen-play writer
actress
comedian
lost soul
pain in the ass
smart mouth jewish hypochondriac basket-case
multi-lingual lit student
Masters candidate
next-door neighbor
geeky brunette with thick glasses
grey-eyed girl
freak of nature
insomniac neurotic nail-biter
Seinfeld fan
liberal
aspiring writer of screen plays

blogger??????????

torn

Do you know what it's like when the one you love(d???)
The one who loves you
Looks you in the eyes and tells you
I love you
And somewhere
In the eyes, or behind them
You can see something
But you feel....
n o t h i n g
And you know you should be feeling something
And you try desperately
to feel anything
But nothing is all that's there
And inside yourself you feel your
feeling organs
writhing and turning and tying themselves in knots
Trying in vain
to squeeze out the last
d
r
o
p
of feeling
But you know it's an act
a formality

And you feel torn in two
The half that wants to stay
The half that wants to flee
So instead you stay put
And turn on the tv?

c h o k i n g

Why is it that thinking about getting rid of this

w e i g h t

around my neck only causes the w e i g h t to get

heavier?????

cogito ergo non dormo

Happenstance

It is a little comforting to think that right this very minute, all the world may be conspiring in my favor.

Look!

So you think you can blog...

My many past attempts to blog have all failed. But this time will be different.