Salve Regina

God save the Queen, or at least the principessa...

At times like these I retract all of my snotty commentary about health insurance for poor people and thank myself profusely for having gotten insurance for her before her sixth birthday. Mostly she is in good health, in fact her check-up the other day was the second doctor's visit since we have lived in S.B., the last one being her five-year check-up, but the difference this year, of course, is that because I am "low income" (as if we weren't last year) instead of a $20 co-pay, I only paid $5... And man, what a temptation to go back, in fact, whatever back assward economists that crunch the numbers on the health care industry can crunch this, because back we went, a week later, hungry for more doctor's visits, yes indeed. Of course, all this could have been avoided had the doctor more seriously considered the fluid in her ear then, instead of waiting until she was howling in pain, just at the precise moment that I was in complete crisis and unable to go get her (ok, I was, uncharacteristically, at the hairdresser).

When we went to the doctor's office again, we pay another five dollars and I am tempted to set up two more appointments, just so I can spend the full twenty, and she complains of severe leg pain, and he is telling me that it is probably viral, while I am suggesting he might want to check for strep throat, and sure enough her throat looks funny, but he does a double take when he looks inside her ears. Poor baby has never had an ear infection before in her life (there are advantages to breastfeeding.)
"Whoa!" he cries, "we don't need to do a culture, we'll just give her an antibiotic that'll knock everything out!" I feel slightly smug, but only until I look over at my sweet little person clinging to me, in a post-feverish twitter. It is at these times that I wish I could offer up my own body for the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood, and take away the pain of my most beloved creature. Why couldn't it be me instead?

So my productivity is shot, in the week that I was so hoping to be productive, and I only manage to finish my classwork a day early, and read a story by Lugones and finish the Cela novel about a violently impulsive protagonist for whom I feel very little sympathy. And there was some undisclosed tragedy/ "disruption" during a math exam this morning, and I wonder if it isn't more of the insidious violence that seems to be spreading like atomized spores, and I am on my way to getting her when her teacher calls me to see if she will be in school tomorrow, to which I reply, yes, I think so, and explain that the doctor had asked me to keep her home another day before the $5 antibiotic (my insurance saved me $84) which is thick pink liquid that needs to be refrigerated and smells an awful lot like the cat antibiotic that we are always having to force feed the kitties, and I think of poor Jenny and her multiple thousand dollar cat bills, but I know she will laugh with me about this too, over our late night dissertation disections, kicks in... Whew.

My therapist comments that I am "high energy" which I take to be a euphemism for "exceedingly high-strung" which is so highly amusing because I am so good at appearing cool, calm and collected... But this wasn't about me, but rather the small person who has fallen asleep next to me, patiently waiting for me to read, because I promised, but I let her sleep instead, after our celebratory excursion to a different restaurant than the usual one for Indian food, (she made me, I wanted something different) because she is being named student of the month tomorrow and I don't, don't, don't want to let her think for one moment that her acheivments are unnoticed or unappreciated or taken for granted by me, so I beam with enthusiasm, and I congratulate her over and over, and I promise to leave the work that I will undoubtedly be in the middle of to go to the school cafeteria and watch her walk across stage, smiling inwardly because she has been a better listener, and she is good at math (she and I have been discussing the concept of negative numbers, because one of her homework sheets was poorly designed and it looked like they were asking for that, which seemed a bit advanced for kindergarten, but heck, these kids are being pushed farther with this whole idiotic "no child left behind" crap that the moron-in-chief instituted before he actually started mass killing of children across the world, but don't mind me today, I am just on a bit of a roll.)

Even when everything else is rotten, I swear, she is the one thing that brings me well being. I am told that I have amazing patience, but the thing is, it doesn't feel like patience when she climbs under the table and wriggles her way up into my lap because she needs huggies, it just feels right.

Blue chariot for the red head

Dancing, dancing... girl. Too many nights staying up well past my bedtime, Saturday, Sunday, Monday... gyration, interlocution and lingual exchange: primordial for the sense of self. Too much work in the days, and a new me. Starting... Yesterday.

Brand new car, ok, not brand spanking new, but new enough, and now for the new look. I finally got up the gumption to add the red that I feel is necessary. A few more days til we hit the road, Jack, with (you promised) Tori to accompany us in the awaiting chariot.

Back to work, slave driver, huzzah!




(Yay low emissions vehicles!!!)



(Staring at the sun)

Procrastinatio

So, I have a paper due tomorrow by five. What do I do instead? I take an unwilling participant for Japanese food (I needed it, there was no use denying myself) and come home exhausted, emotionally and physically drained from test taking and mad end-of-quarter grading and from watching Amarelo Manga which was a gorgeous Brazilian film, extremely theatrical. I say gorgeous, because of the incredible use of color saturation, but what I really mean is terrible in the sense that the French give "formidable" that strange mix of awe, and fear, grotesque as we find ourselves in an abbatoir, or as an aging, voluminous asthmatic woman gorges herself and her vagina on oxygen.

I have no energy to write about the films I must, and I drift off to sleep at 8 pm instead, only to be aroused at 1 by the gods of sleeplessness. This insomnia can't go on. I will conquer my need for all things I can't have. I will find some way to relieve all the pain and stress in my life. I will join a monastery... No, not that. Funny though how many problems could be avoided if one didn't have all those pesky feelings that one accumulates like a layer of dead skin that needs to slough off but doesn't. And if they were all linear, it would be alright, but there are always these conflicting emotions. I am constantly amazed by how we as humans are capable of twisting ourselves up in knots, and pitting one set of legitimate emotions against another set of competing, and sometimes equally legitimate ones, but that somehow have a subordinate position because of social constructs, rules and decorum.

I really hate myself for feeling what I know I shouldn't, for not being able to control every last impulse for comfort. I hate the fact that I can't be self-sufficient. Or that even when I can there is still something missing. At dinner I. was playing games, she asked, "raise your hand if you don't love me!" and promptly raised her hand, and I looked at her over her miso and said, "oh, baby, that's no good... You have to love yourself!" and she put her hand down and smiled her toothy grin at me, "why?" "well," I started, "because, sometimes you are the only one that will do it for you!" and she laughed at my very serious explanation, and said, "Oh, like if you are at school and you don't have any friends and your mommy isn't there to love you?" Precisely. Ah yes, if only our mommies could make everything better forever. But I hope she understands how important it is to love yourself, to not second-guess everything, or doubt your worth. I establish, through performativity what I want to believe for myself.

So I wake up and I still can't make myself write, so I decide to do the translation that I need to have for tomorrow morning and I am looking at the ultra-cheap pop-song lyrics and their description of love and desire and I think about how truly pathetic the sentiments are and then I come across this lyric by Gloria Estefan, which is, at once self-anhilating, and at the same time absolutely true in its sentiment, at least it seems to me a slightly more sophisticated look at how vile and pusilanimous we truly are in that moment where we stoop and ask to be loved by someone else, and yet, how beautiful and clear we can be too. And I realize that this particular song is rather difficult to translate precisely because of the false cognate "pretender" which is only partly used to mean "to pretend" but has the semantic load of "aspire, hope, expect, attempt and even, but not in this case, woo."

Ah yes, how to blame one(self), when that sentiment persists?:

No pretendo ser la gota
que derrama tu silencio
Ni pretendo ser la nota que
se escapa en tu lamento

No pretendo ser la huella
que se deja en tu camino
Ni pretendo ser aquella
que se cruza en tu destino

Solo quiero descubrirme
tras la luz de tu sonrisa
Ser el balsamo que alivia
tus tristezas en la vida

Solo quiero ser la calma
que se escurre en tu desvelo
Ser el sueño en que descansa
la razón de tus anhelos

Simplemente es el amor
cuando ha roto sus cadenas
Para darte el corazón
no pretendo ser tu dueña

No pretendo ser la llama
donde enciendes tus pasiones
Ni pretendo ser la espada
que atraviese tus errores

No pretendo ser el aire
que respiras en la noche
Ni pretendo ser la carne
que destila tus derroches

Solo quiero ser la mano
que se tiende en el quebranto
Ser un poco ese remanso
donde muere el desengaño

Solo quiero ser la estrella
que se engarza en tu mirada
La caricia que se entrega
sin razon y sin palabras

Simplemente es el amor
que ha encontrado su camino
Para darte una ilusión
no pretendo hacerte mio

Simplemente es el amor
cuando ha roto sus cadenas
Para darte el corazón
no pretendo ser tu dueña

Solo quiero ser la mano
que se tiende en el quebranto
Ser un poco ese remanso
donde muere el desengaño

Solo quiero ser la estrella
que se engarza en tu mirada
La caricia que se entrega
sin razón y sin palabras

Simplemente es el amor
que ha encontrado su camino
Para darte mi ilusion
no pretendo hacerte mio

Simplemente es el amor
cuando ha roto sus cadenas
Para darte el corazón
no pretendo ser tu dueña

Simplemente es el amor

And my humble and (probably faulty) translation for the Spanish-challenged

I don’t hope to be the straw
That breaks your silence
Nor do I hope to be the note that
Slips out in your lamentation

I don’t hope to be the mark
That is left in you path
Nor do I hope to be the one
That crosses your destiny

I just want to find myself
Behind the light of your smile
Be the balm that relieves
The sadness in your life

I just want to be the calm
That slips through your sleeplessness
Be the dream in which the
Reason for your longings rests

It is simply love
When it has broken its chains
To give you my heart
I don’t hope to be your owner

I don’t hope to be the flame
Where you ignite your passions
Nor do I hope to be the sword
That pierces your mistakes

I don’t hope to be the air
That you breath in the night
Nor do I hope to be the flesh
That distills your excesses

I just want to be the hand
That holds itself out in brokenness
To be, just a little, that backwater
In which disappointment dies

I just want to be the star
That is set (like a pearl) in your gaze
The caress that gives itself over
Without reason or words

It is simply love
That has found its path
To give you happiness
I don’t hope to make you mine

It is simply love
When it has broken its chains
To give you my heart
I don’t hope to be your owner

It is simply love.

All is quiet on the western front

If our hearts were a battlefield
where could we mark the limits
of the carnage between there and here?

How could we lead the embattled stallions
quietly back to their stables
If they have bolted from beneath our vigil?

Has the pleasure of the word returned,
impulsive, perhaps too late,
or indeed too soon to know its own fate?

Cosas nimias

There are things we do, little things, to make ourselves feel human again, after being dragged through the muck of disillusionment. When we realize that we are worth more than what we have been offering ourselves, or than what we have been accepting from what has been offered us. Insignificant, really, but important nonetheless.

Today I got myself ready, pulled my hair back into a beautiful silver clip that Kirsten had given me, and I realized that I like wearing my hair this way, I like not hiding behind my mask of curls, letting show the tiny dangling pendant earings that I bought myself or were bought for me, I can't remember, in Taxco. Silver and turquoise, little teardrops. I slip on a black velvet scoop neck top, and smile because I like the way it falls along my collarbones, and the contrast between the soft black and the smooth pink. I have had this shirt since my sophomore year of high school, I bought it with Meaghan, before we had our awful car accident and before the Dead Milkmen concert at the Trocadero, I smiled because it still fits, although I am quite certain that it hangs differently. Back then I would wear it with a long, ankle-length black velvet bell skirt and black Doc Marten's (the closest I ever got to being a goth... and I wonder what happened to that transparent black lace dress that had been my grandmother's, and how in God's name my mother ever let me out of the house in it, with nothing but combat boots, a black satin bra and panties underneath). I slip on a pair of sueded black pants from my Sophomore year of college that Pamela and I bought on an uncommon trip to the mall. I slipped on the high-heeled leather ankle boots, pin a turquoise and amethyst pin in the center of my blouse and wrap an extravagant maroon shawl around my shoulders. I even dig a simple, smooth black purse out of its hibernation, slip my wallet, keys and phone inside and ponder what to do about the somewhat scuffed appearance of my boots. I find saddle soap in the closet. I set it on the banister and return to the bathroom, where I proceed to paint my lips once with color (long-lasting) and then with a top coat of gloss, for the look of just wetted plumpness that we are led to believe is requisite in fashion mags and television adverts... I find the practically unused tube of mascara and decide to paint my eyelashes so as to look slightly less like a teenager. I spend an excessive amount of time in the mirror telling myself that I look cute, even if I don't fully believe it, my eyes always look greener when I have cried a lot, and lately, it takes very little to set me off. Goodbyes are always so hard, it is like someone has died once you can no longer think of them in the same way. Once the desire to hear their voice has dissipated into the nebulous place of used to be.

I decide to ignore grading for a little while longer and instead visit with my neighbor who is unofficially babysitting, we drink coffee, share gossip, and she comes through with black shoe-polish. We talk while I bend in half shining my shoes, their supple leather smooth under the cloth. I look at myself again in the full length mirror. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Hell, I am what I am, and there's nothing I can do about that, at least not today. I decide inwardly that it has to be good enough, and if someone prefers to turn their back on me, I will not let it hurt my feelings. Not today. I shuffle us off to the car and drive downtown.

Spiritland Bistro is a cute little organic restaurant that meets the needs of every quirky dietary restriction imaginable, but Debra, Jesse and I have none, so we share a nice Syrah and discuss the university's policy on sexual harrassment, the meaning of such lesgislature for us (D. and me) as females in academia, and other sundries like how certain professors abuse their graduate students. J. jokingly suggests that someone do a sociological study about the power dynamic between advisors and their graduate students - not bloody likely. I am horrified by stories of professors that force their grad students to dog sit, or do laundry (and I inwardly applaud myself for being assertive in my recent "no"). Things feel good, I feel good, or at least comfortably numb, and the wine makes me laugh a little more easily, with a flush in my cheeks and a heady, throaty rumble in my chest. We go to hear the choral society. The concert begins with a Requiem and we are five minutes late, we sit and I close my eyes, letting the sound movements flow over me, somewhere after the Kyrie I realize that I will need to pee, soon! I wait for another movement and then slip out. The usher, a man of fifty perhaps, thick grey hair, not unattractive, sweeps along beside me to the door, and points me across the courtyard to the ladies room. I shiver, more from the effects of the wine than the cold, as I come back in and try to delicately close the glass doors behind me, he receives me at the door, tells me it is ok, and says in a voice of warm admiration that I haven't heard in years, "You have such beautiful hair, and complextion. You are just gorgeous!" and I bow my head in a mixture of gratitude and shame, and amusement all at once. I guess there is no accounting for taste. And I realize the ultimate inappropriateness, or how odd it is in this country for a man, any man, and much less a not so young, not so old man, to directly approach you and comment on your physical attractiveness. And despite our conversation about sexual harrassment just a few minutes before, I find myself smiling inwardly, instead of repudiating him, because it was such a genuine and kind sort of utterance, with absolutely no personal interest involved. A random act of kindness or a senseless act of beauty. And the music rolls over me like waves, or river water in rapid swells, and I close my eyes and let my head spin, just a little, and think that maybe it does make a difference, how we care for ourselves, instead of waiting for others to care for us, and to forgive ourselves even when others can't.

Service for one

Service for one
Originally uploaded by lunita.

So I am told that priority number one should be meeting my basic needs and living my life.

Priority two, stop feeling guilty for things beyond my control. Like the rain for example. Not my fault. Though it did convince me of the wisdom of staying in on a Friday night. I was trying to convince myself to go out dancing, but I have too much work to do, and tickets to a choral concert tomorrow, and so...

Zany senior member of my department and I hijacked our work and took it on the road, planned on having sushi but were ultimately convinced by the gods of self indulgence to eat bacon instead. Yes. Not Pancetta, nothing fancy, just pure, good old fashioned bacon. (On a cheeseburger, of course.) I mitigated the guilt about things within my control by taking a two hour walk and making doctor's and dentist's appointments, getting my eyes checked after I.'s parent/teacher conference.

I remember still what parent/teacher conferences were like when Sheila would have me come in with Mom and Dad and they would talk about me and ask me to draw a straight line between two points. That was back when work was under contractual agreement (which may indeed explain my need for quid pro quo setups) I did three years worth of math in one year because I loved it. I don't know what possessed me to be a woman of letters. I suppose I still have time to bail. One of my many secret wishes, the ones that hide in the back of the closet when I sift through for something presentable yet comfortable to wear, was to have been a physicist. I think it may be too late for me now. Another was, of course, to be a singer, not a diva, not really, just a quirky ol' folksinger would have done me just fine... But my fingers are too torpes to play the guitar, and there is not much market, let's face it, for a solo artist with no art. But thinking on this whole solo flying mission (the ophtalmologist said my eyes are almost perfect, but teased that if I want to become a night pilot, I might want to wear my glasses) I decided to actually treat myself to a nice dinner cooked by my very own loving hands. So, seeing as how the salmon I purchased the other night was beckoning, and who better to eat it than me (as no one else could be enticed)? I figured, hell, I'll be creative, for once.

So I salted it, just right, sprinkled a dusting of curry over the top and baked with an apricot preserve glaze. Meanwhile I peeled the skins from previously boiled potatoes, in a lazy and altogether inefficient manner, thinking about how if anyone else were there watching me, they would be irked by my absolute unprofessionalism and I smiled to myself, thank god I'm alone. Once I diced the potatoes into reasonably bite size cubes, I diced a boiled egg and dusted the two with salt, for the dressing I made a scallion, curry mayonaise, with a dash of salt, lemon and sugar. Magnificent. And, for the ultimate balance that is never missing from my mother's table, the appropriate proportion of green leafy vegetables (an herb mix), with halved cherry tomatoes for a splash of color, and of course a balsamic vinaigrette. There are still days that I think I might prefer to be a chef, than an academic, or a writer (ha!). So I take pictures to commemorate my evening, and to add to my archive of food pornography, and I write just a little, to process my day, before going back to my work, the neverending procession of papers and tests and...
Maybe I'll just go take a hot shower instead.

Prêt-à-Porter

That's right, ready to wear, ready to walk away with, we're talkin' about the all new, revamped and (well, vamped out might be pushing the envelope, n'est pas my love? but nonetheless) rewritten: www.malecontraceptives.org. (Get them while they're still hot, the contraceptives, I mean, of course, not the men ;) And please, please, spread the word.

Shameless promotion of the (code-conquering, fact-checking) alter ego shouldn't be prohibited, now should it? Kudos to K. who not only erased the bad seed from this seedling, she is getting some really important information out there into the cyber-world, and with any luck, to the people who most need it. (And no, I am not referring to the multitudes of drooling, masturbating cyber-geeks, for them contraception is mostly already an established fact).

Note to Sole: Maybe you can talk about this on the sex show? Do you think the machos in tiquicia would be ready?
Note to all: Idealist Savant is in need of some lude and lascivious commentary, and no, I don't mean that we were trying to compile a list of as many possible terms for the unmentionable acts and parts for the noble purpose of AIDS education curriuculum for (mostly Mexican and Central American) migrant workers. Perhaps in another venue if we are feeling shy???

You can teach an old dog new tricks

Or at least a few new words...

Today I learned several.

(very rough translations, mind you

baseado = porro = spliff (I like this word in English much better than its synonyms)
algema = esposas = handcuffs (nice to see these not related to matrimony, or at least not in a bad way;)
boca de fumo = antro de mala muerte = heavy scene (nothing to do with mouths)
bicho pegou = cayó la tira, mala leche = bad shit went down ((nothing to do with bugs, at least not anymore)

But most of all, I was reminded of the quintessentially human condition of a catch 22, expressed eloquently in proverbial format.

"se ficar o bicho come; se correr o bicho pega"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't: God damn certain, more certain a concept may never be uttered.

On imposed "democracies", holy wars and other such anomalies

Strange how history repeats itself, and how certain concepts can be applied to imperial usurpers who hide behind the shield of vacuous claims of religiosity and progress (who might I be thinking of? hmmm? - here perhaps religion could also be read as "democracy" aka torture of individuals, and large scale economic ass-rape - looting and pillaging, Halliburton style) time and again.

A particularly apropos snippet from José Joaquín Olmedo's 1825 "La victoria de Junín: Canto a Bolivar" (see, I am getting work done)

¡Guerra al usurpador! - ¿Qué le debemos?
¿luces, costumbres, religión o leyes?
¡Si ellos fueron estúpidos, viciosos,
feroces y por fin supersticiosos!
¿Qué religión? ¿la de Jesús?... ¡Blasfemios!
Sangre, plomo veloz, cadenas fueron
los sacramentos santos que trajeron.
¡Oh religión! ¡oh fuente pura y santa
de amor y de consuelo para el hombre!
¡cuántos males se hicieron en tu nombre!

Words of wisdom

Are often repetitive.

Here's a little Stones, a la next generation. Good to remember that certain things are not worth giving up on.

Snatches

The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The clouds seemed to disperse like the swirls of sugar floss that spun into nothing, as the motor whirled round and round, and the children’s laughter, her laughter, echoed so far away. The tilt-a-whirl, the shrieks of fright, the rush of blood the emotion that spilled out over the edge, painted with carnival colors and smelled of kettle corn. She hadn’t been to a carnival in years. Only vaguely could she recall the sour bite of the lemon candies, long tubes of acidy sugar, stuck in the heart of a lemon, sucking the citric bite into puckered lips, and mommy. She was there holding her hand, there were no temper tantrums, no pulled hair, no horrible barrettes scraping her scalp, as she was chided for the rat's nest she carried on her head. The rain stopped then, and they all ran back out across the fields, swinging on the jungle gym, the geodesic hemi-dome glistened in the spring sun, a tenuous sun that whispered its rays more than shouted, like the rain glistened on her silver Civic.

She smiled painfully, lips cracking, licking the blood hungrily from them, savored the salt snatch of color, light, years past, the taste of blood in her mouth, like a lioness fresh from the kill, she licked at her wrists, cleaned the gash from the palm of her hand. She bent down, to restore the pink of her skin with saliva, robbed by the white of the scraping asphalt, fallen from her bike. It lay in a pile of sullen grass, not quite ready for winter to be over. There were no honeysuckles yet, none hanging their little belled heads, beckoning to her, begging to be ripped from the scratchy bush, their stamen pulled gently, the little green nub, a perfect handle, inched out slowly, with a perfect drop of golden sunshine, sweet dew, to an awaiting tongue. And then, she would take the flower between her lips and suck again, until all that was left was the taste of air blowing in and out, and she would trumpet the sound, for no one but herself, pleased by her own foolishness, dissecting the yellow flesh between her fingers, rolling it back and forth until its cellulose was broken down and it bled rivulets of water.

The sleek silver glistened as she rounded the corner. There were no helmeted children conquering the suburban sprawl. They were all still in school, she thought, and smiled again, letting the weight of the smile rest on her brow, sinking in, until the smile wasn’t a smile but a contorted memory of itself reflected in the mirage of heat that settled in through the windshield. She reached up instinctively, hit the button that opened the gate, rounded the corner, flexed her foot on the brakes, listening for the comforting wet roar of rubber on freshly rained upon cement. It was flat now, perfect for riding their bikes back and forth, Eileen had always had the perfect driveway, she had always had the perfect mother, home after school to meet them with milk and cookies. They had the perfect dog, the perfect driveway, the perfect life. It didn’t matter, the driveway had been redone last year. There were no children to ride their bikes back and forth on it. She glanced over her shoulder at all the houses, tan images of her own, replicated like a virus as far as the eye could see. She hit the neighboring button and watched as the garage door slowly made its ascent, grumbling against the weight of its own swollen wood. She pulled in next to the algae colored Forester, she had always hated that car, it was dry, not a single drop of rain. He was not home, she knew, she had left him at the airport that very morning, and was only now coming home. Daddy always used to be there, always used to come home from the trips with his arms thrown wide and his laughter, his scratchy beard against her soft skin, “what did you bring me? What did you bring me?” and he would smile and pull a silver packet of peanuts from his lapel, and she would feel like the world had just been handed to her in a jar, and there was nothing she wanted more than to roll each salty nut around her tongue, one by one, and only after she had sucked all the salt from it would she push it to the side of her mouth and bite down, with gentle pressure and split it open, she would feel the smooth halves, with deep grooves run back over her tongue before crushing the entire perfect woody morsel between her grateful teeth. She would smile then, with bits of nut between them, and they would laugh.

George Washington Carver was going to save the world with the peanut, he came up with hundreds of ways to use it, it was going to liberate the oppressed people, descendants of slaves. Only, what was left for her to do, if there was nothing left to liberate, but the souls of all these poor, empty houses, lined up in a row, with nothing inside, and nothing outside to tell them apart, but the flower beds, neatly tended, or the deck that the neighbor’s husband made when he wasn’t off chasing rabbits with the dog. She heard the garage door close behind her with a dull crunch, the room was dark and her eyes adjusted to the blackness, she turned up the radio, it was playing Mozart’s Requiem mass and the waves rose in around her, gently, closing her eyes, letting the sound inundate her dreams of nothing, of carnivals and lemonade and springtime and blades of grass between her teeth, and she felt the surge of the motor under her hand as it rested gently on the gearshift, she listened as the sound swelled around her and carried her away to far off places where sunshine warmed instead of chilled, where every bone in her body did not ache, where every drop of rain did not dig deeper into the hole that had been carved out of her center and she slowly drifted off to sleep.

E.A. Poe, watch out!

Little I. has been fascinated by ghost stories, and she has spent the last several nights pumping her grandmother for every sort of ghost story possible, suggesting, of course, that they pore over the internet in search of more stories to feed her imagination, but frankly, I am not sure it needs any extra nourishment. I love her storytelling style, and I wonder it they haven't read Poe's raven, because it seemed to want to pop out.