My first real vacation since my girls were born! Five days in bustling city of Seattle. Quite a change from my normal rural setting. I keep pretending all the people are leaves on a tree blowing busily in the wily winds of change and chance. Slightly inebriated at 2:56 in the afternoon, my weekend was enjoyably spent in the company of my dearly beloved orange-haired urban goddess Crystal, attending a concert of our friends' at the Mars Bar and then graduating to The Crescent, an extremely radically colorful gay karaoke bar where we spent the duration of the evening. Slowly/quickly I grow reaccustomed to the idea of bachelorhood (A male animal that does not mate during the breeding season, especially a young male fur seal kept from the breeding territory by older males.)
ha!
I miss my medium sized ladies but this trip is quite liberating/invigorating I must say. Laid back, relaxed, full of thoughts and fresh ambitions, old soils turned over into new light. The word culture literally means the turning of the earth, take it as you will.
Just finished reading Brave New World overlooking Seattle's Sound, in the heart of the concrete jungle, a perfect finish to a perfect book. How timelessly strong our words may seem when held up to the ravages of clocks if we but speak what lies within our hearts and talk in truths about that which we see before us. Who knows what people thirty, eighty, three hundred years from now may derive from our scattered prose, our songs of praise, our tragedies and triumphs.
All I know is that I love life, and love loving life. Some days are dark, others awkward, but my essential human spirit seems virtually indefatigable. I wonder how these processes continue as the body and the mind age, foment and ferment and frolic and fill with endless experience. It will be strange and wondrous to see I am sure. But sometimes here, in the center of constant change, the symphony still sounds silent, static, a body at rest amidst incessant motion, capable only of the most pedestrian observational skills, the basest emotional impulses. I learn from my own poor example what it is I want to be and ceaselessly attempt to better myself in my own eyes.
Life is fluid and I a fish. Would that my pockets were as bottomless as my soul, my essence, my umbra, my very marrow. Then could I share to the extent my dreams sum up. Surely brevity is not only the soul of wit, but the widow of waffling frustration, the decanted spore of a life well lived and shrewdly packaged morals. Like a classical kids book, simply written but ingeniously constructed.
"All my doors are open."
"All my eggs are broken."
"Now my prayers Awaken."
"Drink me when you're ready."
Monday, July 17, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
maps describe themselves
Eight months now Pirate Papa has been up and running. Everyday the dork in me google earth's all my new visitors and tacks them up
on my digital map 'o the world. I'm getting 5-20 hits a day from all over the globe, mostly inside the United States. An odd feeling, to
be sure, having an effect with ones words on an audience totally unknown but for bread crumb comments and scattered feedback. I have made
friends with a solid dozen activist parents across the country, gotten mediocre feedback and support from my local community and spent
many hours writing and surfing the net researching something I never gave two bits about before it happened to me. The disconnect is strange,
almost as if I sacrificed my local support network for a more global model. Now the world of parenting has consumed my waking hours and
changed me on a fundamental level into a creature capable of tackling the new dawn. In the last eight months my relationship with my partner
Stephanie has crumbled and reshaped itself. We are no longer living together but are trying to fashion some sort of cooperative holistic
rearing situation in the face of this land of alimony, child support, absentee fathers, proxy parents, teletubbies, ADD and massive sugar
intake. It is very hard to live this life that the world around you does not cater to, in fact denies and devalues and sweeps under several
rugs and makes next-to-impossible to maintain. It is very hard to try to collect several lives inside one perfect painting and sometimes
the lives you end up with are not the ones you started with... crews change I guess is what I'm trying to say, rules and boundaries
evolve, treasure troves are plundered, hearts are broken, maps describe themselves, planks are walked, even on the most lawful of pirate ships.
on my digital map 'o the world. I'm getting 5-20 hits a day from all over the globe, mostly inside the United States. An odd feeling, to
be sure, having an effect with ones words on an audience totally unknown but for bread crumb comments and scattered feedback. I have made
friends with a solid dozen activist parents across the country, gotten mediocre feedback and support from my local community and spent
many hours writing and surfing the net researching something I never gave two bits about before it happened to me. The disconnect is strange,
almost as if I sacrificed my local support network for a more global model. Now the world of parenting has consumed my waking hours and
changed me on a fundamental level into a creature capable of tackling the new dawn. In the last eight months my relationship with my partner
Stephanie has crumbled and reshaped itself. We are no longer living together but are trying to fashion some sort of cooperative holistic
rearing situation in the face of this land of alimony, child support, absentee fathers, proxy parents, teletubbies, ADD and massive sugar
intake. It is very hard to live this life that the world around you does not cater to, in fact denies and devalues and sweeps under several
rugs and makes next-to-impossible to maintain. It is very hard to try to collect several lives inside one perfect painting and sometimes
the lives you end up with are not the ones you started with... crews change I guess is what I'm trying to say, rules and boundaries
evolve, treasure troves are plundered, hearts are broken, maps describe themselves, planks are walked, even on the most lawful of pirate ships.
Monday, July 10, 2006
misery is company
i miss my daughters and my love who is moving on much better than i
it seems
my hollow heart echoes in my head
resounding within caverns of self-consciousness
i try to take myself apart
hoping there is something left inside
my fingers have fiddled with guitar strings again
my writing creeps back
i try to keep my hands busy so they don't distract my mouth with beer
downtown drains me
carcass at dawn
but oh, the water
i miss my daughters and my love who is moving on much better than i
it seems
my hollow heart echoes in my head
resounding within caverns of self-consciousness
i try to take myself apart
hoping there is something left inside
my fingers have fiddled with guitar strings again
my writing creeps back
i try to keep my hands busy so they don't distract my mouth with beer
downtown drains me
carcass at dawn
but oh, the water
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
it no longer takes a village
just a little something i wrote awhile back, thought it could use an audience.
It no longer takes a village. Now it takes a venture capitalist with a blog and a law firm. Now it takes some hollywood cheese and his million dollar diamond shoes sparkling on corporate network television. Now it takes Visa, Mastercard or American Express! Now it takes Big Business International bulldozing the friggin rainforests of the world to wake up a few liberal hippies to direct action in their own bioregion against the weathered old warrior that is industrialized logging in the Northwest. Now it takes denigrating fashion ads and decades of brainless video hypnotism for us to notice theres something wrong with our children. Hmmm, tTough one. Now it takes our very bodies withering away beneath the wiry fingers of cancer, AIDS (see conspiracy), or Alzheimers for us to realize that maybe we shoudnt have been living next to that power plant; maybe having all these chemical ingredients that we dont know what are isnt a good idea; maybe we should have traced our drinking water to its source; maybe something really is up with the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; maybe its not too late now.
With old enemies like these deadly sins wearing new masks, we need old warriors in masks of their own to do battle with them. From the darkness emerges a fairy tale clad in peasants robes, dirt poor Zapatista Mayan farmers armed with pitchforks and solar laptops combatting the International Monetary Fund and the Mexican Government, and inspiring a new generation of activists. Guerilla gardens begin springing up in metropolitan areas all over the world, on rooftops, in alleyways, on abandoned lots. Radical, free-thinking college professors like Ward Churchill step up to the plate (see badass) and deliver what such exhorbitant tuition costs should be paying for in the first place: quality controversy and informative debate. On a lighter note, massive global anti-capitalist uprisings are occurring more frequently and efficiently and on a greater scale. Green and Sustainable Business shoulder their way into the arena after the initial boom of socially responsible investing, more cool lawyers and business people that will chain themselves to the doors of the WTO preaching about the evils of governments who hop in bed with corporations (see Mussolinis definition of fascism) and then represent everyone in the courtroom later. We need more small, sustainable, local pirates with their radio stations and far-reaching ideas all over the world. Or secret shoplifters who watch the secret shoppers. We need Big Sister to beat the snot out of Big Brother. Where are the writers and artists who will craft for we, the people, a contemporary cultural mythology which transcends borders and ethnicities, genders and classes and unites the people on the common ground of food, water, shelter, clothing and medicine for everyone? Where are the wordsmiths to wrench back our language from the ad designers and corporate whores and corrupt politicians and media moguls and wield it like the magical weapon that it is, the magical weapon to which our country owes its roots? But we dont think of roots much these days do we?
Our communal sense of place and purpose that has held us together sustainably as indigenous peoples for eons has been increasingly eroded over the last ten thousand years by Civilization & Empire, Inc. Its gotten to the point now that barely anyone knows their neighbors, most money spent leaves town immediately on the corporation superhighway and people pacify themselves with mindless forms of entertainment instead of interacting with other living, breathing beings. Were Americans, we dont know who the hell we are or where the hell we are and this ahistorical, geographically ignorant mindset is reflected perfectly in the way we treat the places that we live in and around. It is mirrored in the boring shoebox practicality of our architecture, in our hopelessly linear urban planning, in our destruction of and open indifference to the natural world. As we grow more and more detached from ourselves and each other, the environment and all the teeming life around us that used to hold our utmost attention and respectnow suffers most.
Not just our own survival is at stake here, but the fates of all the species we havent already eradicated are in jeopardy as well. Even if we are just a microcosmic blink in the eye of the universe or some unnamed god and the mushrooms will clean up all the harm we do, shouldnt we have our act a little more together? Were supposed to be custodians of this place to pass on to our children and our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Theres supposed to be something left for them to work with.
But even the little things add up and at times overwhelm. Daily we are driven to subconscious distraction by a million blinking lights, at night we cannot see the stars to wrap our world in perspective and remind us of our miniscule size in the grand scheme of things. This contributes directly to the false inflation of our collective ego, not to mention just jamming our receivers full of junk, and drives us further away from the sustainable, communal model that we once practiced in harmony with our surroundings. This ruggedly reckless nation of individuals who can do everything alone except think for themselves is running the rest of the world into the ground selfishly and effectively.
In recent years a globalized industrial agricultural whirlwind coupled with rampant deforestation and over-consumption of fossil fuels in the stupidest way possible (burning them) has accelerated this cataclysmic process of environmental annihilation to the boiling point. We live in a radioactive chemical neon nightmare of automated ease and capitalist-industrialized (find a better way to say this) freedom built on the backs of screaming trees and bloody natives. But can we, as individuals, be blamed for our neophobic, rut-loving ways? Can we be blamed for not listening to the land? We who are bombarded by a virtually constant buzz of motors, engines, stereos, beeps, whirs, whistles, and clicks? It is no wonder we cannot stop for a few seconds and focus on our surroundings, or the silence inside our own heads, or the plight of a sister or brother. But we need to try.
Urbanites questing towards something better should look closer to home for the answers. Villages exist within our midst, we just have to define them. Seek out the local craftsmen, the local bakers, the local bookstores. We have the answers and solutions to most of our problems right here in front of us (some assembly required). It will enhance our individual quality of life and make our community more whole. It still takes a village, in fact, now its gonna take all the villages weve got to de-standardize the world. We just need to tell all the venture capitalists, hollywood cheeses and Big Business brokers. And we need to tell them loud.
It no longer takes a village. Now it takes a venture capitalist with a blog and a law firm. Now it takes some hollywood cheese and his million dollar diamond shoes sparkling on corporate network television. Now it takes Visa, Mastercard or American Express! Now it takes Big Business International bulldozing the friggin rainforests of the world to wake up a few liberal hippies to direct action in their own bioregion against the weathered old warrior that is industrialized logging in the Northwest. Now it takes denigrating fashion ads and decades of brainless video hypnotism for us to notice theres something wrong with our children. Hmmm, tTough one. Now it takes our very bodies withering away beneath the wiry fingers of cancer, AIDS (see conspiracy), or Alzheimers for us to realize that maybe we shoudnt have been living next to that power plant; maybe having all these chemical ingredients that we dont know what are isnt a good idea; maybe we should have traced our drinking water to its source; maybe something really is up with the Hanford Nuclear Reservation; maybe its not too late now.
With old enemies like these deadly sins wearing new masks, we need old warriors in masks of their own to do battle with them. From the darkness emerges a fairy tale clad in peasants robes, dirt poor Zapatista Mayan farmers armed with pitchforks and solar laptops combatting the International Monetary Fund and the Mexican Government, and inspiring a new generation of activists. Guerilla gardens begin springing up in metropolitan areas all over the world, on rooftops, in alleyways, on abandoned lots. Radical, free-thinking college professors like Ward Churchill step up to the plate (see badass) and deliver what such exhorbitant tuition costs should be paying for in the first place: quality controversy and informative debate. On a lighter note, massive global anti-capitalist uprisings are occurring more frequently and efficiently and on a greater scale. Green and Sustainable Business shoulder their way into the arena after the initial boom of socially responsible investing, more cool lawyers and business people that will chain themselves to the doors of the WTO preaching about the evils of governments who hop in bed with corporations (see Mussolinis definition of fascism) and then represent everyone in the courtroom later. We need more small, sustainable, local pirates with their radio stations and far-reaching ideas all over the world. Or secret shoplifters who watch the secret shoppers. We need Big Sister to beat the snot out of Big Brother. Where are the writers and artists who will craft for we, the people, a contemporary cultural mythology which transcends borders and ethnicities, genders and classes and unites the people on the common ground of food, water, shelter, clothing and medicine for everyone? Where are the wordsmiths to wrench back our language from the ad designers and corporate whores and corrupt politicians and media moguls and wield it like the magical weapon that it is, the magical weapon to which our country owes its roots? But we dont think of roots much these days do we?
Our communal sense of place and purpose that has held us together sustainably as indigenous peoples for eons has been increasingly eroded over the last ten thousand years by Civilization & Empire, Inc. Its gotten to the point now that barely anyone knows their neighbors, most money spent leaves town immediately on the corporation superhighway and people pacify themselves with mindless forms of entertainment instead of interacting with other living, breathing beings. Were Americans, we dont know who the hell we are or where the hell we are and this ahistorical, geographically ignorant mindset is reflected perfectly in the way we treat the places that we live in and around. It is mirrored in the boring shoebox practicality of our architecture, in our hopelessly linear urban planning, in our destruction of and open indifference to the natural world. As we grow more and more detached from ourselves and each other, the environment and all the teeming life around us that used to hold our utmost attention and respectnow suffers most.
Not just our own survival is at stake here, but the fates of all the species we havent already eradicated are in jeopardy as well. Even if we are just a microcosmic blink in the eye of the universe or some unnamed god and the mushrooms will clean up all the harm we do, shouldnt we have our act a little more together? Were supposed to be custodians of this place to pass on to our children and our grandchildren and their grandchildren. Theres supposed to be something left for them to work with.
But even the little things add up and at times overwhelm. Daily we are driven to subconscious distraction by a million blinking lights, at night we cannot see the stars to wrap our world in perspective and remind us of our miniscule size in the grand scheme of things. This contributes directly to the false inflation of our collective ego, not to mention just jamming our receivers full of junk, and drives us further away from the sustainable, communal model that we once practiced in harmony with our surroundings. This ruggedly reckless nation of individuals who can do everything alone except think for themselves is running the rest of the world into the ground selfishly and effectively.
In recent years a globalized industrial agricultural whirlwind coupled with rampant deforestation and over-consumption of fossil fuels in the stupidest way possible (burning them) has accelerated this cataclysmic process of environmental annihilation to the boiling point. We live in a radioactive chemical neon nightmare of automated ease and capitalist-industrialized (find a better way to say this) freedom built on the backs of screaming trees and bloody natives. But can we, as individuals, be blamed for our neophobic, rut-loving ways? Can we be blamed for not listening to the land? We who are bombarded by a virtually constant buzz of motors, engines, stereos, beeps, whirs, whistles, and clicks? It is no wonder we cannot stop for a few seconds and focus on our surroundings, or the silence inside our own heads, or the plight of a sister or brother. But we need to try.
Urbanites questing towards something better should look closer to home for the answers. Villages exist within our midst, we just have to define them. Seek out the local craftsmen, the local bakers, the local bookstores. We have the answers and solutions to most of our problems right here in front of us (some assembly required). It will enhance our individual quality of life and make our community more whole. It still takes a village, in fact, now its gonna take all the villages weve got to de-standardize the world. We just need to tell all the venture capitalists, hollywood cheeses and Big Business brokers. And we need to tell them loud.
Sunday, July 2, 2006
a life of lost love taught me to lose love
lost my rhthym of switching from labor to love to labor this last week with my lonely hunter lost in this forest of no feeling i have built around my soul over the years; buttoned lips, narrow hips, and smart ass quips kept me distant from devotion, for a life of lost love taught me to lose love, purposely misplaced like a pair of socks you're scared of wearing because the colors are too bright or don't match the way you want your eyes to look, an elaborate, idiotic defense mechanism designed to fail and fail and fail by never sharing enough. mistaken for selfishness time and again i don't know how to explain to people that in order to be myself I need time to recharge. in order to be dynamic one must maintain a variety of intensities always in motion, in order to do this one must, at times, remain perfectly still in order to learn by juxtaposition and the graceful lessons of combined opposites that which they were seeking towards the wrong extreme. confusing? well, a parent is the most rewarding and the most lonely of occupations. what better to do with my down time than attempt to dissect the loneliness? maybe it will help someone else even if it never helps me more than this simple act of sharing I am trying to re-learn.
Friday, June 23, 2006
i have been taking advantage of my girls' excellent behavior around me as of late, selfishly neglecting them at times to focus on my own problems.
But is it neglect if they are sitting playing together, totally entertained for several hours and I do other things or merely sit, observing through the window? Regardless I need to back-burner some of my more egocentric ambitions and get back to the comfortable regularity of kids books, of which I have read too few these past troubled weeks.
but the sun is on the field and soon the hawks will build their nest, a new home for a new era, a larger family than mere feathers can afford. remember these days, the quality of light at evening time like cinnamon, the emptiness, the fresh starts in the garden, the rotting bulbs tucked away beneath a bed of earth anyway, watered with tears and hope.
but the sun is on the field and soon the hawks will build their nest, a new home for a new era, a larger family than mere feathers can afford. remember these days, the quality of light at evening time like cinnamon, the emptiness, the fresh starts in the garden, the rotting bulbs tucked away beneath a bed of earth anyway, watered with tears and hope.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Snuggle my girls back to sleep-in an extra stretch from 7 to 8:30 then up to greet Al Jones delivering a picture snapped on the girls' birthday. We talk wood a bit and he destines out my day with the idea of work well done, ducking home up the hill with promises of a tractor and chains in half an hour. Change diapers, load girls into car bound for Bremerton ferry, Seattle, aquarium, adventure land with mama for the day. Quick smoke then out to guide in tractor, wave arms like I know something an 87 year old farmer doesn't about backing up a tractor but it seems to please him. We spend the next half hour fixing chains 'round large logs and winching them out of the tall grass and into the driveway. Chat a bit about war and oil. I like his style. Caught him pissing in his yard once, fuh-getta 'bout it.
Tractor and old hound dog up the hill. I spark the saw and cut off and on for the remainder of the day, filling the odd chunks here and there with sweat and tiny tasks. Plant a dozen and a half bulbs. Weed. Water. Package up books. Nice old 9 volume Melville set going down to some school or institute in Portland. A few of the *ahem* more clandestine titles that pay my bills scattered across the rural midwest. Box of highly specific advanced chemistry books to Australia disguised as old picture books of London. Back outside to split some wood. Enjoy a beer and some smoke, book in the hammock for a short spell before a turkey-spinach sandwich and more chainsawing. Like an ant I work away the summer days, thinking of winter. Then, under winter's spell I sit huddled and dreaming of summer.
Check on Rietta, our injured lonely hen. She was just out and around the yard for the first time in weeks the other day. Feed her some scratch by hand, her nervous clucking filling the small room. Ivy and blackberry creeping through the cracks. Nature reclaiming the unnatural. Cosmic compost. At a loss I start raking leaves in the one part of the yard shaded by our house. After a few predictable minutes Steph and the girls pull into the driveway. We share a few fast words, I shoot off for charcoal and chips, little sugar fix. Then she shoots off for work and a night in Olympia, our fair city. The girls and I say hi, settle in, an easy comfortable routine for us now.
Under this waning pacific silver dome i grill a steak soaked in St. Peter's ale, raspberry mustard, black pepper, apple juice and thyme, throw an onion, and a mushroom on there for variety's spice for my daughters and i to share over a light salad, telling them to chew, chew, chew and make sure to eat some greens. Then a quick swing, scarleht in the chair, lyli cuddling with me, papa, in our hammock beneath the ancient apple tree I have named "Given." Swap spots and cuddle Scarleht for a bit, giggles in the June air. Some talk of mama's house and papa's house, our transition into this new jungle, how to be strong and different and whole despite the distance and troubles. Hopefully once we rip this thing up we can maybe do some of that foundation laying that never got done happened. shit. cheers. sullen and silent and strong. just like always. and damn it if it doesn't work for you.
Tractor and old hound dog up the hill. I spark the saw and cut off and on for the remainder of the day, filling the odd chunks here and there with sweat and tiny tasks. Plant a dozen and a half bulbs. Weed. Water. Package up books. Nice old 9 volume Melville set going down to some school or institute in Portland. A few of the *ahem* more clandestine titles that pay my bills scattered across the rural midwest. Box of highly specific advanced chemistry books to Australia disguised as old picture books of London. Back outside to split some wood. Enjoy a beer and some smoke, book in the hammock for a short spell before a turkey-spinach sandwich and more chainsawing. Like an ant I work away the summer days, thinking of winter. Then, under winter's spell I sit huddled and dreaming of summer.
Check on Rietta, our injured lonely hen. She was just out and around the yard for the first time in weeks the other day. Feed her some scratch by hand, her nervous clucking filling the small room. Ivy and blackberry creeping through the cracks. Nature reclaiming the unnatural. Cosmic compost. At a loss I start raking leaves in the one part of the yard shaded by our house. After a few predictable minutes Steph and the girls pull into the driveway. We share a few fast words, I shoot off for charcoal and chips, little sugar fix. Then she shoots off for work and a night in Olympia, our fair city. The girls and I say hi, settle in, an easy comfortable routine for us now.
Under this waning pacific silver dome i grill a steak soaked in St. Peter's ale, raspberry mustard, black pepper, apple juice and thyme, throw an onion, and a mushroom on there for variety's spice for my daughters and i to share over a light salad, telling them to chew, chew, chew and make sure to eat some greens. Then a quick swing, scarleht in the chair, lyli cuddling with me, papa, in our hammock beneath the ancient apple tree I have named "Given." Swap spots and cuddle Scarleht for a bit, giggles in the June air. Some talk of mama's house and papa's house, our transition into this new jungle, how to be strong and different and whole despite the distance and troubles. Hopefully once we rip this thing up we can maybe do some of that foundation laying that never got done happened. shit. cheers. sullen and silent and strong. just like always. and damn it if it doesn't work for you.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
"Your loneliness, your anger towards the status quo, and your relationship are unremarkable."
Thanks to all the folks who make a compassionate point of contacting me with advice or criticism... well, let's just call them what they are: words. Words have always been the best medicine in/for my book and hell, even the nasty comments and letters stroke my multi-egos. I only hope I can return all these small favors before I lose them or they crowd me out of house and home. Sorry I have been absent for a spell, I have many things to think about before I can share my soul any more.
Sky,
I don't know if you removed the name of that letter's pen, or if it was sent to you as anonymous, or really what you thought of it (other than that it was kind). Is your blog a journal or a forum? (That is, is it single-ego driven, or multi-ego?) I don't know, that's why I wrote you an email.
Your loneliness, your anger towards the status quo, and your relationship with Stephanie (whether or not as lovers, whether or not "successful") are unremarkable. I would go so far as to think of this set as... the human condition (or at least part of it). If you wear them on your sleave and others are turned off by this, well, that is their choice. Feeling what you feel won't harden your heart or cause you despair. I have those feelings; I think of them as 'ripening' over time. To dismiss them simply as negative is stupid. And I could go into a bunch of duality bullshit here, but we don't need that just to savor loneliness.
I can't offer you sage advise, because I'm young like you. But I disagree with the paradigm that age equals wisdom, or that wise advise is better advice (or that a heart filled with joy isn't also filled with sorrow). In my opinion your daughters will grow up to be successful confident women irregardless of you and Stephanie staying "together"; ones most important relationship is that to one's self, that is the foundation for and what ultimately informs our offspring. Consequently, I think you should base your decisions on your feelings.
Perhaps this is just where I'll differ in opinion from the 'sage', perhaps it is a generational separation, or an individual one, but I don't think it's critical for a child's parents to stay together - especially if they don't want to. While it is certainly my feeling that children deserve a relationship with both of their parents (and other adults), the parents themselves don't have to live, sleep or fuck together.
You and I may differ when it comes to spiritual interpretation, but we are talking about a practical and corporeal matter here, and I find any talk of Spirit, spirit or anything worded 'God' a total diversion from 'the real', and an abstraction in any case ( i.e., God is irrelevant to this topic). Anybody can think of this view as nihilistic or narcissistic, or think me a typical victim of postmodernity, but again - that's their choice. For me, all of this is an affirmation.
Unanonymously,
Gavin S.
Sky,
I don't know if you removed the name of that letter's pen, or if it was sent to you as anonymous, or really what you thought of it (other than that it was kind). Is your blog a journal or a forum? (That is, is it single-ego driven, or multi-ego?) I don't know, that's why I wrote you an email.
Your loneliness, your anger towards the status quo, and your relationship with Stephanie (whether or not as lovers, whether or not "successful") are unremarkable. I would go so far as to think of this set as... the human condition (or at least part of it). If you wear them on your sleave and others are turned off by this, well, that is their choice. Feeling what you feel won't harden your heart or cause you despair. I have those feelings; I think of them as 'ripening' over time. To dismiss them simply as negative is stupid. And I could go into a bunch of duality bullshit here, but we don't need that just to savor loneliness.
I can't offer you sage advise, because I'm young like you. But I disagree with the paradigm that age equals wisdom, or that wise advise is better advice (or that a heart filled with joy isn't also filled with sorrow). In my opinion your daughters will grow up to be successful confident women irregardless of you and Stephanie staying "together"; ones most important relationship is that to one's self, that is the foundation for and what ultimately informs our offspring. Consequently, I think you should base your decisions on your feelings.
Perhaps this is just where I'll differ in opinion from the 'sage', perhaps it is a generational separation, or an individual one, but I don't think it's critical for a child's parents to stay together - especially if they don't want to. While it is certainly my feeling that children deserve a relationship with both of their parents (and other adults), the parents themselves don't have to live, sleep or fuck together.
You and I may differ when it comes to spiritual interpretation, but we are talking about a practical and corporeal matter here, and I find any talk of Spirit, spirit or anything worded 'God' a total diversion from 'the real', and an abstraction in any case ( i.e., God is irrelevant to this topic). Anybody can think of this view as nihilistic or narcissistic, or think me a typical victim of postmodernity, but again - that's their choice. For me, all of this is an affirmation.
Unanonymously,
Gavin S.
Sunday, June 4, 2006
a kind letter in rough waters
Dear Sky,
Because you choose to bare your inner life on Pirate Papa, I, who love you more than you know, am writing to tell you…
Your loneliness, your failing relationship, your anger toward the status quo will eventually harden into a heart of bitterness and despair.
Do you want to have a successful relationship with Stephanie? Make a commitment and keep it. You seem to be committed to many aspects of your life… living an independent life style, setting an example of responsibility toward the environment, writing, operating your store, and caring for your daughters. But when you speak of your relationship with the most important person in your life your attitude seems to be fatalistic and out of control.
You will never be able to give you daughters the hope and security they require to become successful confident women if they see the man in their life show so little commitment to the most important relationship they will ever need.
You and Stephanie have gone down a path by deciding to become parents. Get a plan
that will result in a successful effort. The areas in which you are failing are directly related to unwillingness to communicate and basing your bond to each other on feelings.
Your bond must be based on commitment and trust. This bond is developed in the Spirit. The Living Spirit Who will counsel, forgive and comfort. The Living Spirit to whom you and Stephanie can make a vow and become accountable. With commitment and guidance your relationship can be joyful and worth the effort.
Deciding to sleep apart is not going to bring you together. All of the areas to which you are now committed are dust and stuff compared to the relationships you have the opportunity to build for a lifetime. Give your relationships the value they deserve.
I am writing to you from experience. When you were 2 years old, my daughter, XXXXXXX, died in an accident. The divorce rate for couples with dead children is 85%. We were healed of our black despair after three years of horrible suffering and damage to our relationship. We were made new by the Holy Spirit of the Living God.
The Spirit can make you new. Your heart can be open and joyful. Do not think I am writing to you about religion or Religion. Do not think that I am judging the life you have chosen or the commitments you have made. I am writing because I read of your loneliness and want you to know that I care.
We are praying for you, Stephanie, Lyli and Scarleht to find peace and hope.
With Agape Love,
Anonymous
Because you choose to bare your inner life on Pirate Papa, I, who love you more than you know, am writing to tell you…
Your loneliness, your failing relationship, your anger toward the status quo will eventually harden into a heart of bitterness and despair.
Do you want to have a successful relationship with Stephanie? Make a commitment and keep it. You seem to be committed to many aspects of your life… living an independent life style, setting an example of responsibility toward the environment, writing, operating your store, and caring for your daughters. But when you speak of your relationship with the most important person in your life your attitude seems to be fatalistic and out of control.
You will never be able to give you daughters the hope and security they require to become successful confident women if they see the man in their life show so little commitment to the most important relationship they will ever need.
You and Stephanie have gone down a path by deciding to become parents. Get a plan
that will result in a successful effort. The areas in which you are failing are directly related to unwillingness to communicate and basing your bond to each other on feelings.
Your bond must be based on commitment and trust. This bond is developed in the Spirit. The Living Spirit Who will counsel, forgive and comfort. The Living Spirit to whom you and Stephanie can make a vow and become accountable. With commitment and guidance your relationship can be joyful and worth the effort.
Deciding to sleep apart is not going to bring you together. All of the areas to which you are now committed are dust and stuff compared to the relationships you have the opportunity to build for a lifetime. Give your relationships the value they deserve.
I am writing to you from experience. When you were 2 years old, my daughter, XXXXXXX, died in an accident. The divorce rate for couples with dead children is 85%. We were healed of our black despair after three years of horrible suffering and damage to our relationship. We were made new by the Holy Spirit of the Living God.
The Spirit can make you new. Your heart can be open and joyful. Do not think I am writing to you about religion or Religion. Do not think that I am judging the life you have chosen or the commitments you have made. I am writing because I read of your loneliness and want you to know that I care.
We are praying for you, Stephanie, Lyli and Scarleht to find peace and hope.
With Agape Love,
Anonymous
Saturday, June 3, 2006
trying to shelve my resentment and anger and hurt. donning the mask i have to wear today for lyli and scarleht's party, to pretend steph and my's relationship is doing better than it is. but this day is about them, not us. they are two years and two days old today and i cannot believe it is true. 732 days have passed since that strange time in the hospital in Tacoma when you entered this world and we were still fooling ourselves.
i love you both more than words or time can tell. i express it in little doses each day, unseen by any eyes save yours. it's always the real workers that don't get any credit, toiling away under cover of darkness or blindness or ignorance while the world goes on its merry tragic way. blink and two months are gone. just gone. and you have too few memories of it all. and next year's tears will wash away our sins of today and tomorrow we won't even remember the pain or the love or the lessons we tried to teach.
you soak up my lessons, exhausting me at times but always pushing to learn more, absorb more, say more, try ten new things before some noontime hits for nap and snack time. sometime i hope you can look back and be grateful for this breath of fresh air I am trying to start you off with, this break frmo it all before the real world sets in and screws everything up. but for now we have the trees, we feed the birds, we clean the house, read books, talk about the world and what is in it. for now we try to simply be by being simple and hope the world will leave us alone for a spell.
i love you both more than words or time can tell. i express it in little doses each day, unseen by any eyes save yours. it's always the real workers that don't get any credit, toiling away under cover of darkness or blindness or ignorance while the world goes on its merry tragic way. blink and two months are gone. just gone. and you have too few memories of it all. and next year's tears will wash away our sins of today and tomorrow we won't even remember the pain or the love or the lessons we tried to teach.
you soak up my lessons, exhausting me at times but always pushing to learn more, absorb more, say more, try ten new things before some noontime hits for nap and snack time. sometime i hope you can look back and be grateful for this breath of fresh air I am trying to start you off with, this break frmo it all before the real world sets in and screws everything up. but for now we have the trees, we feed the birds, we clean the house, read books, talk about the world and what is in it. for now we try to simply be by being simple and hope the world will leave us alone for a spell.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
all the yesterdays...
for me are not catalogued in a neat linear calendar, but more like a jar of change: each bygone day deposited haphazardly. occasionally stirred and sometimes spent. people tell stories about times or events I was present for and they ellicit memories like books read long ago, details blurred, different eye-witness reports, filtered, dubious truths.
a strong life thread frays the weaker one when the two meet. if by chance the gods crosshatched your life line on that given gifted day perhaps you will walk tall, but at what cost to those close to you?
across the state again today in a rented blue kia rio. from the yakima valley all the way to walla walla we drove through a jungle-gym of rainbows. two triples you could see from tip to tip. one bright shard stretching straight out of the penitentiary. lyli and scarleht caught on immediately, echoing my whispered breaths of "rainbow", prefacing it with "prit-ty".
alone, my mind too scattered to track the novel's lines. i sweat, abdomen aches, arnica and cough syrup. another movie in the background, uncared for.
a strong life thread frays the weaker one when the two meet. if by chance the gods crosshatched your life line on that given gifted day perhaps you will walk tall, but at what cost to those close to you?
across the state again today in a rented blue kia rio. from the yakima valley all the way to walla walla we drove through a jungle-gym of rainbows. two triples you could see from tip to tip. one bright shard stretching straight out of the penitentiary. lyli and scarleht caught on immediately, echoing my whispered breaths of "rainbow", prefacing it with "prit-ty".
alone, my mind too scattered to track the novel's lines. i sweat, abdomen aches, arnica and cough syrup. another movie in the background, uncared for.
tired of having too little time to feel.
i have been reduced to suffering the scattered attentions of only those few friends who can find the time to loan to me. how are they to see that it is indeed a sound investment? how are they to understand the passages time now flows through for those like me? and how am i to make time to explain such matters? i can barely interact with grown humans these days, much less make heads or tails of complex issues. when one is afforded the absolute minimum ammount of time what is one expected to do with it? what makes them happy i could only hope.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
napped in old green hammock. girls awkwardly contorted along my torso snoring lazy circles...
...stretch from knees to chin. watching insects buzz their business around green living yard. cracked soil caked on hands flipping pages of Donleavy's decadent Ginger Man under ancient apple leaves and limbs. water. light. grow.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
observation log #0975
yesterday scarleht spoke her first three word sentence: "mama go car" followed immediately by Lyli... which leads me to believe they already knew it and just decided to clue me in.
another interesting thought today when we ran into two little seventeen month old twin girls on campus and ours frolicked with theirs for a spell, they were wearing matching outfits, matching gold tennis bracelets, the works - anyway, what if, like magnets, likely charged or energized twins will repell each other at an even more extreme curve?
the idea came to me when i watched each of these girls go in the opposite direction on their ma, making her dash about. she with two other kids 18 and 16 so i don't feel too bad, plus she looks rich. named Immelda (sp?). her husband stands 20 yards away and points a video camera at us the entire time. she dashes back and forth yelling at her kids in both english and spanish, trying to corral wild horses that should run free.
i try not to judge but cannot help myself.
slowly getting our garden in piece by piece. steph and i fight and talk, have alternately good and bad times, as bi-polar as our northwest weather. we are giving each other space, which sometimes mean we are too far away when we need each other most but lately our proximity leads to a bucket of crabs, as soon as one can crawl out, the others crawl out over it and ghosts boil out through words. ironically i get the least support from the places that i need it from the most and the most support from the fronts and unders that are already well worked.
slowly slowly i am getting my life back in order. now, two years into their lives when we can finally stand up for air, realizing we can barely breath and dizzy from the stand up. dancers and dreamers can't stay in one place. tomorrow's faces aren't the same as yesterdays. the answers are not always blowing in the wind.
another interesting thought today when we ran into two little seventeen month old twin girls on campus and ours frolicked with theirs for a spell, they were wearing matching outfits, matching gold tennis bracelets, the works - anyway, what if, like magnets, likely charged or energized twins will repell each other at an even more extreme curve?
the idea came to me when i watched each of these girls go in the opposite direction on their ma, making her dash about. she with two other kids 18 and 16 so i don't feel too bad, plus she looks rich. named Immelda (sp?). her husband stands 20 yards away and points a video camera at us the entire time. she dashes back and forth yelling at her kids in both english and spanish, trying to corral wild horses that should run free.
i try not to judge but cannot help myself.
slowly getting our garden in piece by piece. steph and i fight and talk, have alternately good and bad times, as bi-polar as our northwest weather. we are giving each other space, which sometimes mean we are too far away when we need each other most but lately our proximity leads to a bucket of crabs, as soon as one can crawl out, the others crawl out over it and ghosts boil out through words. ironically i get the least support from the places that i need it from the most and the most support from the fronts and unders that are already well worked.
slowly slowly i am getting my life back in order. now, two years into their lives when we can finally stand up for air, realizing we can barely breath and dizzy from the stand up. dancers and dreamers can't stay in one place. tomorrow's faces aren't the same as yesterdays. the answers are not always blowing in the wind.
Saturday, May 6, 2006
decomposing love
to separate into individual components or basic elements
to breakdown into constituent parts
to rot, to cause to rot, to decay, desintegrate or putrefy
to resolve into original elements
to set free from previously existing forms of chemical combination
to bring to dissolution
...............................
#1 A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
#2 A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
#3
1. Sexual passion.
2. Sexual intercourse.
3. A love affair.
#4 An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
#5 A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
#6 An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
#7
1. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
2. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
#8 Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
#9 often Love Christianity. Charity.
But it's also a zero in tennis.
......................................
Too much to write about today so I'll try to write mostly about the good things.
Scarleht and Lyli are now verbally connecting multiple ideas into short two word sentences, something they have been doing with sign for some time now. Scarleht says: "Mo Sho-eo" for more cereal (Lyli's is Mo-Shee-Who), "No Lala" - when they want the cat to stop doing whatever she's doing or when they want to feel powerful, "Mo-Ka" means more cars as they gesture excitedly and scream out the windows as we drive, "Yah Papa". Lyli said "Kee-o" today for Coyote while Scarleht referred to herself by name in reference to wanting her shoes on ("Kah-Lo Shu"). Lyli says "Bothes" for boxes, Scarleht "bao" for box. Speaking of which, please check out my friend Rick's amazing website Talking With Toddlers who I recently discovered is a linguist and speech-language pathologist with loads of experience with infants! His site also features some excellent autism links and tons of valuable information. And he runs Olyblog!
The other morning I awoke to Scarleht and Lyli waving hello at their own hands and/or waving at their own faces. It was one of the most precious things I have ever witnessed. Joined the ranks of amazing things this week along with Lyli running around the downstairs with a shirt on her head and little toy plastic silverware in her hands. Or Scarleht bringing Rob a beer the other day at the bookstore. She could barely carry it. It was her idea, I swear. She saw me having one and said "Rah, Bee!" and grabbed one and ran all the way out to the front with it.
Last weekend was Arts Walk in Olympia so Last Word was packed. Plus we got our old letterpress up and running, although the name is still up in the air. The girls and Steph wandered around at Arts Walk for a bit while I worked my ass off. When I took them for a short walk we stopped to dance for some street musicians and played a rhythm box. The ladies are getting some excellent dance moves down. Stayed in Oly Friday and Saturday, quite a wild time with wily old robert roderick ross. Then on Sunday night the girls and I stayed at Rob's house in Olympia, something we hadn't really done before/in a long time. The beautiful Annie was nice enough to let us use her bed and I put them down and joined the gang to watch Chuck Norris' Invasion USA on a projector screen (Thanks Media Loan!) in the side-yard overlooking Olympia. What a horrible horrible actor and film. Gotta love it though. Thanks Stu for your awesome party-throwing skills, hospitality, strange taste and photography skills (and for making a cool documentary on us setting up the letterpress).
Girls slept great, woke up happy then down into Oly for some breakfast at Otto's before meeting with Jade and her sponsor to talk about the press and Jade's contract. Spent Monday May Day in Oly (long day!) until Steph got off work in Shelton and came to pick us up. Good times. Hadn't spent that long in Oly in one stretch for awhile now. Laid the girls down for a few naps up in the loft at the bookshop that weekend, by necessity, not choice. Not the cleanest, safest of settings but hey, what it lacks in cleanliness it makes up for in character, right? The girls got a kick out of the May Day rally but faded before the march started, shame since we got invited to march at the front with the parents and immigrants and the welfare rights organizing coalition. Ahhh well, we made our handprints on the big banner to deliver walk up to the capitol building and had our pix snapped to send to Guv'nah Gregoire regarding the future of Washington welfare.
Geeez. so much in a week. spent the last few days cleaning house (!) and dancing to the movie credits, laughing at the rolling words, playing the heater and bathroom vent like musical instruments. tomorrow it's back to oly to work the weekend at the bookstore, enjoy a few drinks, maybe write a poem. i am lonely and life is crazy but the dude abides.
to breakdown into constituent parts
to rot, to cause to rot, to decay, desintegrate or putrefy
to resolve into original elements
to set free from previously existing forms of chemical combination
to bring to dissolution
...............................
#1 A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
#2 A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
#3
1. Sexual passion.
2. Sexual intercourse.
3. A love affair.
#4 An intense emotional attachment, as for a pet or treasured object.
#5 A person who is the object of deep or intense affection or attraction; beloved. Often used as a term of endearment.
#6 An expression of one's affection: Send him my love.
#7
1. A strong predilection or enthusiasm: a love of language.
2. The object of such an enthusiasm: The outdoors is her greatest love.
#8 Love Mythology. Eros or Cupid.
#9 often Love Christianity. Charity.
But it's also a zero in tennis.
......................................
Too much to write about today so I'll try to write mostly about the good things.
Scarleht and Lyli are now verbally connecting multiple ideas into short two word sentences, something they have been doing with sign for some time now. Scarleht says: "Mo Sho-eo" for more cereal (Lyli's is Mo-Shee-Who), "No Lala" - when they want the cat to stop doing whatever she's doing or when they want to feel powerful, "Mo-Ka" means more cars as they gesture excitedly and scream out the windows as we drive, "Yah Papa". Lyli said "Kee-o" today for Coyote while Scarleht referred to herself by name in reference to wanting her shoes on ("Kah-Lo Shu"). Lyli says "Bothes" for boxes, Scarleht "bao" for box. Speaking of which, please check out my friend Rick's amazing website Talking With Toddlers who I recently discovered is a linguist and speech-language pathologist with loads of experience with infants! His site also features some excellent autism links and tons of valuable information. And he runs Olyblog!
The other morning I awoke to Scarleht and Lyli waving hello at their own hands and/or waving at their own faces. It was one of the most precious things I have ever witnessed. Joined the ranks of amazing things this week along with Lyli running around the downstairs with a shirt on her head and little toy plastic silverware in her hands. Or Scarleht bringing Rob a beer the other day at the bookstore. She could barely carry it. It was her idea, I swear. She saw me having one and said "Rah, Bee!" and grabbed one and ran all the way out to the front with it.
Last weekend was Arts Walk in Olympia so Last Word was packed. Plus we got our old letterpress up and running, although the name is still up in the air. The girls and Steph wandered around at Arts Walk for a bit while I worked my ass off. When I took them for a short walk we stopped to dance for some street musicians and played a rhythm box. The ladies are getting some excellent dance moves down. Stayed in Oly Friday and Saturday, quite a wild time with wily old robert roderick ross. Then on Sunday night the girls and I stayed at Rob's house in Olympia, something we hadn't really done before/in a long time. The beautiful Annie was nice enough to let us use her bed and I put them down and joined the gang to watch Chuck Norris' Invasion USA on a projector screen (Thanks Media Loan!) in the side-yard overlooking Olympia. What a horrible horrible actor and film. Gotta love it though. Thanks Stu for your awesome party-throwing skills, hospitality, strange taste and photography skills (and for making a cool documentary on us setting up the letterpress).
Girls slept great, woke up happy then down into Oly for some breakfast at Otto's before meeting with Jade and her sponsor to talk about the press and Jade's contract. Spent Monday May Day in Oly (long day!) until Steph got off work in Shelton and came to pick us up. Good times. Hadn't spent that long in Oly in one stretch for awhile now. Laid the girls down for a few naps up in the loft at the bookshop that weekend, by necessity, not choice. Not the cleanest, safest of settings but hey, what it lacks in cleanliness it makes up for in character, right? The girls got a kick out of the May Day rally but faded before the march started, shame since we got invited to march at the front with the parents and immigrants and the welfare rights organizing coalition. Ahhh well, we made our handprints on the big banner to deliver walk up to the capitol building and had our pix snapped to send to Guv'nah Gregoire regarding the future of Washington welfare.
Geeez. so much in a week. spent the last few days cleaning house (!) and dancing to the movie credits, laughing at the rolling words, playing the heater and bathroom vent like musical instruments. tomorrow it's back to oly to work the weekend at the bookstore, enjoy a few drinks, maybe write a poem. i am lonely and life is crazy but the dude abides.
Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Motherhood @ the Brotherhood
Everyone’s favorite scenester booze dungeon in Olympia is throwing a sweet party for Mama’s on Mother’s Day: Motherhood at the Brotherhood, with childcare upstairs in the old labor lodge! I think the festivities go from 4 to 7 but I will make corrections as I find out more. Hope they have a legion of taxi-cabs with car seats for all those tipsy parents.
Monday, May 1, 2006
Kidzines, Mamazines, Rad Dads, Revolution and self-publishing
sweet zines we’ve got in the Olympia ‘Zine Library at Last Word Books:
*Ernie’s Fun Book for Being a Kid! – A strange, rather risque collection of traditionally taboo information for youngsters – most parents will not like a good deal of this ‘zine but it is rather humorous for us parents to peruse and has a lot of right-on advice for kids as well but you might want to filter it a bit. Brought to you by the same folks that published: Daddy Shoots Automatic Firearms; Am I Old Enough to Try Crack Cocaine?; Elmo and Imperialism; Oscar the Grouch Learns About Marxism; Garfield the Bourgeios Slob; and many others. Write to Sesame Street Magazine P.O. Box 55518 Boulder, CO 80322-5518
*Mamazine – lots of back issues, published in Olympia, Washington (ye-ha!). One of the best out there for young mamas, radical mamas, conscious mamas, searching papas and thoughtful parents.
*Rad Dad 2 & 3 - Published by Tomas down in Berkeley (just found his 'zine boxcutter as well, great stuff!. Here's his blog that will hopefully soon take wing and here's an interview with him on mamazine.com. Write Rad Dad at: Tomas Moniz 1636 Fairview Street
Berkley, CA 94703 for copies and more information. He's looking for submissions for issue 4 I believe so start writing!
*East Village Inky No. 5 - http://www.ayunhalliday.com/inky/ - one of the best known mamazines published by Ayun Halliday out of New York, an excellent resource.
*Wemoon’s Army – A nice little ‘zine focusing on radical ideas for mothers, baby making and revolution. Very concise, solid advice. Write to: Skunk Rising PO Box 12119 Eugene, Oregon 97400 -- I don’t know if this one is still around or not.
*Revolution Kid Style Vol. 1 #2 – From December 1999, billed as The Official K.I.D.S. Newsletter – This one is awesome! Just four pages but includes a sexual bill of rights for kids, a short article on kids, free trade and the W.T.O., principles of education, truancy law info, youth liberation, curfews and a whole slew more. Published in Portland of course, write to: K.I.D.S. PO Box 2624 Portland, OR 97208-2624
You should write these folks first if you want copies but if you can't track any down I would be happy to copy any of them for postage and a buck or something cool. Drop me an e-mail if you're interested. Oh yeah, Joe might have some of them up at ZineLibrary.net. The 'Zine Library also has a little blog that I don't get to work on much. Go there and maybe I'll do more.
*Ernie’s Fun Book for Being a Kid! – A strange, rather risque collection of traditionally taboo information for youngsters – most parents will not like a good deal of this ‘zine but it is rather humorous for us parents to peruse and has a lot of right-on advice for kids as well but you might want to filter it a bit. Brought to you by the same folks that published: Daddy Shoots Automatic Firearms; Am I Old Enough to Try Crack Cocaine?; Elmo and Imperialism; Oscar the Grouch Learns About Marxism; Garfield the Bourgeios Slob; and many others. Write to Sesame Street Magazine P.O. Box 55518 Boulder, CO 80322-5518
*Mamazine – lots of back issues, published in Olympia, Washington (ye-ha!). One of the best out there for young mamas, radical mamas, conscious mamas, searching papas and thoughtful parents.
*Rad Dad 2 & 3 - Published by Tomas down in Berkeley (just found his 'zine boxcutter as well, great stuff!. Here's his blog that will hopefully soon take wing and here's an interview with him on mamazine.com. Write Rad Dad at: Tomas Moniz 1636 Fairview Street
Berkley, CA 94703 for copies and more information. He's looking for submissions for issue 4 I believe so start writing!
*East Village Inky No. 5 - http://www.ayunhalliday.com/inky/ - one of the best known mamazines published by Ayun Halliday out of New York, an excellent resource.
*Wemoon’s Army – A nice little ‘zine focusing on radical ideas for mothers, baby making and revolution. Very concise, solid advice. Write to: Skunk Rising PO Box 12119 Eugene, Oregon 97400 -- I don’t know if this one is still around or not.
*Revolution Kid Style Vol. 1 #2 – From December 1999, billed as The Official K.I.D.S. Newsletter – This one is awesome! Just four pages but includes a sexual bill of rights for kids, a short article on kids, free trade and the W.T.O., principles of education, truancy law info, youth liberation, curfews and a whole slew more. Published in Portland of course, write to: K.I.D.S. PO Box 2624 Portland, OR 97208-2624
You should write these folks first if you want copies but if you can't track any down I would be happy to copy any of them for postage and a buck or something cool. Drop me an e-mail if you're interested. Oh yeah, Joe might have some of them up at ZineLibrary.net. The 'Zine Library also has a little blog that I don't get to work on much. Go there and maybe I'll do more.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
determined today that grandpa and grandma do indeed have toes
just like mama who's at work in the car, just like papa who's right here, just like sister and lala (la gata).
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
where gee-mee means monkey
what a contemporary pain... having your digital camera out of commission. it's one of those nearly unbearable distresses that pale in comparison to anything really bad but make americans pull their hair out.
up at 4:30 to work online and watch house of sand and fog, ben kingsley kicks ass. have a wet cough i'm going to treat today, slippery elm, mullein, cherry bark, horehound, hack it all up.
outside the sun ribbons the horizon with its pale knife of light. i sit beneath an old blanket my father gave me years ago, the edges not yet fraying, surrounded by piles of books i will pore over today in-between the crazy. Lucifer, our one remaining rooster, greets the dawn with his shrill coco-rico (were we in France) or Kick-er-riki (for you Germans). Lyli and Scarleht sleep upstairs in their temporary room (we've decided one last clockwise rotation of residents upstairs will be the right fix) and Steph in her room, the one with the blue wall, an east window and a south window, the room that will be theirs sometime soon, the room with innocent light.
today the girls and i will put the garden in, fold clothes, finish the mountain of dishes, & go for a short walk in the woods (papa can't carry both of 'em too far anymore when they're exhausted so we stick close to home). i find happiness these days in keeping busy and trying to lend as many moments a day to thought, or its utter absence, as possible.
up at 4:30 to work online and watch house of sand and fog, ben kingsley kicks ass. have a wet cough i'm going to treat today, slippery elm, mullein, cherry bark, horehound, hack it all up.
outside the sun ribbons the horizon with its pale knife of light. i sit beneath an old blanket my father gave me years ago, the edges not yet fraying, surrounded by piles of books i will pore over today in-between the crazy. Lucifer, our one remaining rooster, greets the dawn with his shrill coco-rico (were we in France) or Kick-er-riki (for you Germans). Lyli and Scarleht sleep upstairs in their temporary room (we've decided one last clockwise rotation of residents upstairs will be the right fix) and Steph in her room, the one with the blue wall, an east window and a south window, the room that will be theirs sometime soon, the room with innocent light.
today the girls and i will put the garden in, fold clothes, finish the mountain of dishes, & go for a short walk in the woods (papa can't carry both of 'em too far anymore when they're exhausted so we stick close to home). i find happiness these days in keeping busy and trying to lend as many moments a day to thought, or its utter absence, as possible.
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