little babies.

the days of toothless grins are almost over. milo should have a tooth any day.

i thought the consolation prize for being pregnant the second time was that you got to have another little baby. that like stayed little. and wouldn't grow up.

lame.

i don't know if i want to do it again. but sort of i do. i got time to decide. . . right?

An ever fixed mark. . .

Love: Beginnings

They're at that stage where so much desire streams between them,
so much frank need and want,
so much absorption in the other and the self
and the self-admiring entity and unity they make --
her mouth so full, breast so lifted, head thrown back
so far in her laughter at his laughter
he so solid, planted, oaky, firm, so resonantly factual
in the headiness of being craved so,
she almost wreathed upon him as they intertwine again,
touch again, cheek, lip, shoulder, brow,
every glance moving toward the sexual, every glance away
soaring back in flame into the sexual --
that just to watch them is to feel again that hitching in the groin,
that filling of the heart,
the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart,
snorting again, stamping in its stall.

-- C.K. Williams


I have a friend who just got married this weekend.

I've been to TWO golden anniversary parties in the last month.

I'm four years in. . .and to quote Billy Joel "And so far she hasn't run, but, I swear, she's had her moments."

I guess you don't get to watch your story progress around you. How do you get from that room full of people celebrating the beginning to the room full of people celebrating a job well done?

I've been thinking a lot about these two points. I've thought about the moment I reconciled all my feelings about my husband in one conversation. How I knew I'd could love him since now, finally, I'd found someone who would simply take me as I was with no further demands. I thought about the moment I knew I couldn't live without him. Jimmy Eat World said it best:

"Stay with me.
You're the one I need.
You make the hardest things
seem
easy."


I think back on being all doe eyed and engaged. How my whole life was planned. How I knew everyday and the day after. How the phases of the moon moved in my favor and for me alone. He'd be the next Jimmy Page and I'd be the next Sharon Olds. He'd win a Grammy and I'd surely have a Pulitzer. I mean, we're both just so brilliant.

I think on people telling me it would be hard and thinking I'd already seen hard; One night he wanted Chinese and I wanted Pizza. But we got through it. I didn't believe them, but who does?

I've moved past doubting he's the right one. Moved past thinking I made a terrible mistake. Now I love him more than I thought I could. The "what ifs" sneak up on me. But I can't even picture anything without him.

I wish I could go back to the days of sonnets and jewels (even though it was more like Pink Floyd and KD). But doesn't everyone? I'd say the sex is better now than it was then. .. maybe faster because my kids just have that kind of timing, but better. I'd say I like being someone's sweetheart. I'd say he was my biggest lesson in following my own instincts.

But the second point. . .

I've also decided I'm writing a book about this.

Like Tequila on a warm summer night.

I was once standing outside the Liquid Lounge, hot summer night, open mic type event. We went to quite a few of these that summer. This guy named D. Anson Brody had this great sound, he composed like, entire pieces of music on just the bass guitar, the way a guitarist would on a six string. It was hot. Not, he was hot (at least not to me), it was hot. He wrote these satirical lyrics and got really into his performances. I was impressed because he was so different from anyone on the scene at that time.

Being a poet, I try not to approach someone about lyrics unless I really, really HAVE to know the story. This almost never happens because I'm of the opinion that if you have something to share by all means share it, but I'll take away from it what I will. You're job is just to give it to me, my job is to chew on it. Well, he had written this song that was just beautiful. Really sensual really amazing lyrics. The song, if I remember correctly was called, Infatuation, at least it was about infatuation. He talked about thinking about this woman all the time, he wondered what she believed in. Now, having been infatuated with someone myself while living across the country I found myself really caught up in that because that is the sort of thing you think about, what someone believes in; what philosophy they might be subscribing to; what they think they'll be when they grow up; what they think could save the world. Well, after he'd performed that night I walked up to him, picture this guys, eight months pregnant with my first son in a Bob Marley t-shirt and silver jewelry, and tell him I have to know about this song.

The conversation, unfortunately, was a bit anti-climactic considering his showmanship. He tells me about how he'd written it about this woman he'd met while he'd been married to someone else. And that hearing him play this tune in his set list over and over again led to problems. Understandably. He and the wife eventually split. I ask if the woman the song he'd written about was at least still around. He said she was not. He then went into this philosophical sort of musing, that only lead singers and songwriters do and explained that the problem is that girls are attracted to the dark, tortured, poetic or conflicted side from a man they see onstage. That passion is easily harnessed for a moment, especially in the bedroom, but to come up with such eloquence and passion onstage one cannot always function on 'brilliant.' So when the broody, crappy, muse-less musician rolls out of bed a few months later poor little lady doesn't know what to do, wonders where her rock star has gotten to and heads for the door.

I guess the thing that got me is he's telling me this, with my husband, a BRILLIANT, musician standing next to me. Myself a poet. Wedding ring on finger. Like I don't know this. Like I would be surprised when (as if this hadn't already happened many times) my husband didn't have a muse or a gig. Like I didn't have a muse or a gig. Like we didn't know that going into it. I was pretty unimpressed. But I still was moved to tears every time I heard him play that song.

It's never been on his website or I'd give you the link.

What I'm getting at is I'm tired of not being set on 'Brilliant.' It's not like I don't think we're meant for more. I'm just tired of looking for more.

I wonder what I believe in.