at the car wash

this morning i hid in the garden so i could talk on the phone with my dad and not be interrupted by little crazy people. he had just put his boat in the water for the first time, in lewes thousands of miles away. my sister is living at home now with her toddler who is getting lots of grandparent time. i miss my dad more than i can write here. miles found me and talked to his poppop a little about fishing.

sometimes it seems very wrong that i am so far from my father.

around 11 we hiked the hill with some brownies for the starr king carwash and bake sale. woo hoo. the kids ended up washing and detailing, rich vacuumed many many cars and i hung out and fed kids and tried to help make sure no one got run over. it was a sunny perfect day. sf recycling donated a huge grill and two griller guys, and double rainbow donated a big ice cream truck with cups of ice cream for all. kids playing in the streams of dr bronner smelling soapy water, shooting hoops, chasing each other, actually staying still and lounging in the sun. an excellent dj, watermelon, scooters, meeting new neighborhood folks. it was nice. the starr king friends were there but what made things seem a little more whole in this disjointed people all over the place life of ours was that a bunch of our rock and roll friends came. baby suzette and john and danielle, and eric and his girlfriend from the warehouse, shannon from philly and her buddy. they were psyched to come to this school event near their houses. then they got to go and drink mimosas and we got to take the kids down the hill.

on the way back down i heard my name called and it was a content specialist from work sitting in a camp chair outside sf general, on a vigil with a good friend whose good friend was very sick inside. i finally get to see your real life! cried this co-worker with some real pleasure in her irish accent, a goofy basball cap shading her eyes. for some reason miles laid down on the sidewalk and then maya laid down with her head on his tummy and said he was her pillow. it made everyone laugh for a minute.

i'm tired now and rich is down the hall in music land again.

love you

mummy shots

sunday night i took off at 4:30, hopped a quick 48 bus to valencia street and walked through the dazing yet soft heat to amnesia to hear the mummy shots. four of my lovely lady friends were all in ghostly white with red eyeliner. they are the back up singers, xylophone and tambourine players. the band played a show with a deathly theme, with a little funny sex stuff thrown in. accordion, guitar, a wierd stylus instrument david bowie used in the 80s, piano, drums, sounding almost a little like daniel johnston at times. i had a few pint glasses of sangria on ice under the shimmering pink fabric hanging from the ceiling. my band played here a few times in a different lifetime when the bar was the chameleon. the basement thren was full of kind of dirty looking happy punk rockers and cigarette smoke and furry dogs. that was almost a decade ago. afterwards there was more drinking and talking and a little cool breeze coming in a window off the street.

looking at all the death-referenced song titles on the free cd yet feeling so light and happy i remembered out loud that most people who think a lot about death are very in love with life. then i had one last slurp of my vodka and grapefruit juice.

not a profound thought but it pleased me at the time. it is still very very hot here. time for a wet washcloth and some short stories in front of the fan to wind down. i should be doing work, oops.

so, my husband went out and played with his rock band last night, and will do so again tomorrow, yet i can't go because we don't have a babysitter. no babysitter. is this a function of living in a city, or of the somewhat unusual situation of having a 41 year old husband who still plays shows until 2 in the morning? i would like to go out, but will have to be content with going to bed at 10 instead.

today was beautiful, right now the sky is light pink and purple, and thank god the kids conked out early. maya and i hung out in the starr king open space after dropping miles off at school. sitting up high looking at the hills and valleys covered with lines of buildings, different colors and rooftops, wisps of fog around the sutro tower, green peaks around us. right where we sat we found pineapple weed, a wierd sticky velcro plant, california poppies, tiny pink fairy flowers, purple thumbelina flowers, rocks that maya stuffed in a small hole, a pale spider, lots of wavy hay-like grass, shiny black obsidian, and a rectangular piece of glass. somehow the places where buildings, roads, and nature converge make me feel slightly hopeful about the future.

a blog telegram

cassie came and went, in a 3 day blur of being sick, laughing really hard like i do with no one else, getting teary about old friends, and finding myself toughened up a little and not bawling when we took her back to the airport. cassie, wish you were still here. we could go see browntown west at the eagle together thursday and think about tedd and laugh hysterically at my husband's band.

ajax the guinea pig was very ill, almost dying from seizures on easter sunday but the vet saved him. he is nibbling on a carrot right now. maybe it took a near death to make me love the little guy.

now the blog telegram, or maybe a bad poem...

big wheel race down vermont st last night, streams of 2o somethings racing down the hill on plastic tricycles, barbie cars outfitted with cheetah print pillows, the same small asian lady ninja turtle we saw last year, they reach the final stretch and jump up and out of the way so the big wheels following don't hit them. miles on my lap, checking out the outfits, the helmets, the sexy easter bunnies, the man slurping vodka from one of those hikers water tubes, the bikes. these riders are whooping with exhilaration, the ride down is so good. my sciatica hurts just from walking up the hill.

in sonoma my mom drove us around, bought us expensive pre-cooked food, played pick-up sticks with miles. we went to a trout farm and i threaded hooks through fat squirming worms and pulled in 2 10 inch and 1 11 inch trout. miles cried and yelled in the car going back to the city when he realized we left his fish skeleton in the refrigerator. he wanted it for science.

easter sunday ajax is in the animal hospital with rich and i am in gg park with my kids and brother and friends and miles is so hyped up about the upcoming sugar that he gets wacky and just smacks a big open bag of bagels right out of his uncle's hand onto the ground and barely notices. i am becoming a bad mother at times, and yank him up by his arm and tell him to go sit across the field for a minute and calm down. he does. i need to be aware that i am big and strong and i shouldn't yank anyone no matter how annoying they are being.

maya is being a baby, again and again. me want up she says. she falls apart crying, down on hands and knees in angst, several times a day. she screams and folds her arms in fury. she is going through a phase. she wants to be little again. littler. even when having an angst-filled tantrum she is adorable. miles says "i like the age i am, i don't want to get any older." miles asks "after i die will it still be monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday?" miles says "love isn't always a good thing because if you love someone and they have an accident or something then you can't love them anymore and that's when love is bad." a friend emails after his 40th bday and says he is getting old. we all want time to stop. i remember crying about growing up, around age 15.

i have a moment of pure pleasure holding my friend's tiny wide-eyed smiling baby boy.

and after school today i took the kids to check out warm water cove. people trying hard to make natural a place devastated by people. a patch of wildness with cement paths through it and lots of broken glass. butterflies and birds singing sweet songs on that scary curly sharp barbed wire. we eat bananas and tortilla chips on a table looking out over the bay. two large cement stones turn out to be parts of baby head statues our artist friend dave from the warehouse on third discarded years and years ago. they are still here. miles and maya stop to sketch on a bench and when i look down they are sitting on top of some graphic cartoon porn someone has sharpied on there. a beautiful young man and woman walk by and it turns out they are going to be trying to build a beach here. as an art project for california college or arts. they get my email and we talk about community building. there is glass everywhere and maya has another tantrum when her brother draws ariel's hair scribbly black.

i tied together some cool hard dried seaweed in a circle and hung more curvy pieces on it. black and white, odd shapes, this wierd mobile is hanging from our beautiful old light fixture. i like it.

maya told me this was a bee-YOU-tiful day.

this is not a telegram at all. i don't know what it is. we flee the city and return and do it again. i'll be more organized next time. how many times have i said that in my life?
love you, jamie