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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

lala ousha = la gata outside

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

How Come Will Farrel Doesn't Get Visited By CPS?

Thanks Honky-Tonk Dragon!

verbose little varmints, stupid stupid fighting parents, printing presses and woodstoves

gosh. when a wave comes to shore, sure enough your pretty sand castle gets washed straight away but all these little bits of new dreams rise to the surface to be molded into the next castle with your fresh hands.

both lyli and scarleht have been wandering around the house muttering "here ya go" while handing things to each other, me, stephanie, the cat, the wall, the oven, the woodstove,whatever. today Lyli said "there ya go", "left foot" and "i like pants" (although she did not enunciate very well). Scarleht said "no poop!", "hhh-ome", "Ka" (which means rock), "roh-ti papa" which translates roughly to "flower for papa" and the one that blew me away because I could almost hear each syllable when she said it: "When's mama comin' home?"

Add these to their already formidable arsenal of boogadies, moes (more), nos, uh-ohs, la-las...

shit, gotta add more wood to the fire, hold on

grammas, gran-papas, hah-los, hi-los, sooshta or shooshoo(not sure how to spell this one and the sound of it changes all the time anyway but it means sister or chicken)

i enjoy these times spent with lyli and scarleht, watching and listening to them formulate their worlds. even if i do waste too much of it on chores or books or a movie every now and then I try too to get as much play time in as well and spread it out over the whole day while they follow me around the house and yard and help with chores (read make small messes while i deal with big messes). Right now for instance they are each perched in their own papa-san chair, lyli's rolling around on the floor, scarleht's on its base. they are reading outloud to themselves and communicating telepathically with one another (I can tell by their little harmonized chirping).

Today I will eat some eggs before using the chainsaw for a half hour or so, then split some wood, go to the post office and hardware store, start digging a new spot for some veggies, clean out the room in the barn and begin setting up a small print shop, take out the garbage, clean the girl's room, put books online, care for my girls from 3 to 8 or so while Steph goes to work, maybe eat some lunch and take a quick nap in there considering I got up at 5 today and then hopefully relax with a beer and finish reading What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, one of the greatest short story writers to ever live and one of my persoanl heroes (although in my current emotional state I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing, sorry Ray).

Steph and my's turmoil continues, again boiling over. our tempers flare and mix and neither one of us likes the results. first we decide to have separate rooms, then that we will look at houses in olympia, then that maybe we shouldn't live together after all... then we say some really good things and I don't know what of it all to believe. I don't want to leave this place but my love does.

How does one ask love to stay? Or does one love love enough to wish her wings to fly away?

just got three more old printing presses yesterday, little ones. maybe the words i find inside will be able to console my lonely heart whilst we figure out what to do about any old thing at all.

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Anarcha-Feminism and Supporting Mothers and Children

Please check out my friend China's pamphlet [in .pdf] from her recent workshop:

Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Anarcha-Feminism and Supporting Mothers and Children

China started one of the first mamazines back in the day, The Future Generation, go google her or keyword search this blog for past postings.

too much to list this past week in Walla Walla where I go eternally searching for my lost youth.

lyli and scarleht now say:

"here ya go!"
"pillow, pellow, pI-llow" - for this one lyli's tongue nearly touches her nose
"gramma" "gran-papa" (although Gramma tends to mean either depending on context)

my mother has been signing up a storm with them as well as sent me packing with three American Sign Language videos to pore over in all my spare time (read 3a.m.).

my father plays with them in the mornings, reading books and laughing, the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes sketching out my future. he is so tired when he gets home at night from the store. I worry about both my parents.

My parents have been watching them together and alone for a bit here and there while I go work at my pop's bookstore and run errands and get out to try to breathe or write or search some soul or have a cold beer and look for faces I used to know around the foreign bars, alienated within my own eggshell. Willow, the old gray cat of my childhood is withering; she has now lost control of her bowels and stays outside most of the time. Her meow is quite loud and grating as she can no longer hear what it sounds like in order to fine tune a few things. Rascal, my old Australian shepherd is dead and her enormous offspring Brando is too clumsy and lick-crazy around the girls to be any fun for them. They just stare at him and then cry if he comes near. Oh well, maybe next time.

I do the dance, wine tasting, girls downtown, stares, stopping every other person to allow gawking at such magnificent beauty (the girls too I'm sure). Surely the goddess Diana came down and kissed the eyelids of these two 'cause I've never been that beautiful in my life and Stephanie is beautiful but in a different way. Anyway... the Walla Walla social dance I dip my toe into and shudder at. I enjoy ending sentences with prepositions. Ha! I got a C on one grammar test and Ds and Fs on all the others and I'm a writer.

But seriously, how broke back mountain is it to cliche yourself to death in a small town when you could be working to foster an egalitarian sustainable organic biodiesel biodiesel biodiesel community? I digress.

I guess.

I am enchanted by wheat. John and I drive through the fields, twins asleep in the rear, snoring. We continue a wide-ranging philosophical conversation that has swelled over a couple days and will continue for a few more. We touch on romantic love, sense of place, literary criticism, current events, old yarns, highschool sexcapades, those worthless carcasses of testosterone and booze we used to drag around the haybales milking the system for all we could and giving back insolence and sometimes art. Now we know our folly and call it blind vanity but move on selfishly anyway despite this knowledge. We eat a torta and a Mexican fish I think is called Tilapa(?) Time achieves this brilliant haze it always has for me with him, an incandescence blurs the edges of my vision and consciousness, thoughts becoming tangible, concretions merging into vague conceptions, doors opening, dream-petals unfolding. The wonder of a friendship without possibility of failure, the endless kind that authors sometimes try to capture in 7oo page novels that have to be translated into English for our monolingual dumbtongues. I revel in the bliss of intelligent banter. Too often it seems my tongue is tied to trivial, menial matters and details which do not deserve my attention. I believe that the little shit works itself out as long as you know how to pull the strings.

Stephanie misses the girls terribly. They talk about her 6 to 12 times a day. It is sad and amazing to experience such things.

Today we went to visit Phyllis and Bob Pulfer, John's grandparents. Phyllis used to be the head of the Democratic Party for the state of Washington, she's been on the Human Rights Commission, she's spearheaded hundreds of projects locally and nationally and is now in her late seventies or early eighties (?) and has been blind for many years. She is also the mother of twins, John's mother being one of them. She and Bob had four kids and then had twins (that's right, and you think one or two are hard). We talked about parenting and kids and trains and magnets and I tried to explain to Phyllis some of the ASL signs the girls know. I was trying to tell her how to sign take turns: you make an L with the index finger and thumb of your right hand and then flip it over from palm up to palm down, your thumb indicating two options and your index finger pointing straight forward. But Phyllis, it was obvious to me, couldn't remember what the letter L looked like! So I re-explained it as a kid imitating a toy gun with her hand and she locked on target just fine. Then she placed her hands over mine and felt while I signed and I guided her hands into the proper shapes. It was quite amazing. I can't stop thinking about Helen Keller and language acquisition and synapses and shit. Whew.

God, what else? Just sealed a deal to get three table-top printing presses. My friend Jade is our intern at the bookstore this quarter to get our old Chandler and Price press up and running. The site is just beginning but tune in to Ampersand Printing soon to get a glimpse of this clandestine undertaking / artistic endeavor / fledgling business. Should be fun times ahead.

Troubleshooting my father's new laptop, picked out a nice digital camera for him while we were here. I'm jealous, now he's got a nicer camera and a nicer computer than we do. We're gonna have to upgrade again.

Tomorrow afternoon we will rent a big ass car, hopefully not that fucking Yukon again. Horrible gas mileage and I end up driving 85 miles per hour 'cause it feels like 35. God people are morons. Perhaps we will dine in Yakima or at that little trout place on White Pass... time will tell. Definitely gonna hit the taco bus on the way out of town. Maybe get some onions. mmmmmm. onions. Thanks for tuning in. Sorry I didn't post anything for a bit. Leave more comments and I will!

Rad Dad #3 is out!

My cyber buddy and fellow pirate papa Tomas down in Berkeley just got the 3rd installment of Rad Dad printed! Shoot him off an e-mail and he'll tell you how to order some copies to distribute in your community. Ideally getting more physical papa zines such as this one out there in circulation will eventually influence more and more fathers to talk about their lives openly and begin to help heal the disconnect we're all feeling.

tom_moniz(at)riseup.net