THE CAN CAN

That sweatshirt my son had

when he was a year old

that said,

“Future President of the United States of America,”

that tee-shirt my daughter has now

that says, “Future President (of the USA)”

they were always funny

because

the chests so slogan-

emblazoned

were so

insignificant

over hearts so

insensible

of the race

beyond

themselves,

beyond me.

Blatant slant,

sartorial snark

about them being

small.

Children.

Not about them

being the children of an immigrant

the child of a single mother

about being a female child

and now it never will

because: they can.

they can can.

Can

Can

Can.

-

Surprise Birthday (list)

Since he’s growing up (see birthday ref. above) and getting too cool for Spidey toys and stuff his family assiduously picks out of specially ordered catalogues, Li’l A gave me a handwritten list of stuff he wanted for his birthday. It gave me a case of the “awww-s” because it was so simple and innocent: Can we walk along the abandoned railroad and picnic there? Can I download some songs I heard on guitar hero? Can we order Terminator on Netflix? And then this:

Can I have my own laptop? Mac, please.

The precision of his punctuation still kills me :).

_

In Defense of Sex and the Twitty

Friday:
Saw a movie about four splendid women, shared their sense of sisterhood, their adventures, their struggles with adulthood. Peeked into their shopping, their acquisition of property, mates, and a place in the world. It wasn’t called Sex and the City, it was called Little Women.

***

This morning:
Me (mock embarrassed): OK, you can’t tell anyone this. Promise you won’t! I’m going to go see the The Sex and the City movie. If you tell anyone I’ll… I’ll

Big A (mock exasperated): Relax, Pups. I won’t tell any one. You think I want anyone to know that you went to see it?

***

About the movie:
What happened to the original writers? What happened to the two-puns-a-minute rule? How did those women get so old so fast? Remember all the trite but really useful terminolgy that SATC used to churn out? ## The only thing close to that nifty shorthand in the movie was “emotional cutter.”

After the movie:
It reminded me of that that lonely first year in the US when I watched a couple of episodes alone, of those homesick years in Oxford when I had to book the common-room at college to watch the show with J and S and W on Channel Four.

It reminded me that pre-SATC I’d never really had girlfriends. My sister was my best gal pal and the rest of my friends were guys. SATC made being girlfriends seem fun and important. (Not girlfriend—that part I seemed to have a natural prolific knack for—the part about having female friends.)

And it was a nod to my time in New York City. A city in which I had the Chrysler Building dissected for me by SP, in which I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and back in the snow on my first real date with Big A, in which a self-assured sisterhood gives you a secret-handshake smile when you pull off a witty outfit. A city that comes close to being like India without being in India.

What I resent:
All the unnecessary noise about SATC’s product placements, its materialistic triteness, its lack of an intellectual component, its caricatured commodified milieu, and its narrative deficiencies. It’s not like you're pointing out anything new. Anything we don't already know. Yes, its excess mocks our imminent recession—and perhaps that’s exactly what is so fun about it. It is a female world—an empty, unlikely, twitty, unrealistic world, yes—but if women want to watch it, let ‘em. It’s their minds, their wallets, their time. It’s not as if the summer’s cache of multi-million-dollar dick flicks are intellectually intense, eschew product placement, or yield narrative gold. So stop preaching and prescribing propah female behavior and cultural taste. A world where cosmopolitans are contemptible but “a martini; shaken not stirred” is an epicurean touchstone just doesn’t make sense. Equal opportunity mind-farting twittiness, yo! Seriously, come on now.

________________________

## Eg. Modelizers: men who only date models

_

SIGN

Sunlight.

arrogance

sees, sleeps

Now i understand:

every thing

you say.

In the dark.

heartbeat

deepens, deafens

Now I see:

even things

you do not say.

Flicked.

only eye contact

--no smiles yet—

Songs.

you and i—hum

hush fire

_

Tagged for a six

Zen-Denizen tagged me to blog about six unspectacular quirks. Here’s what I think they are:

1. This may quite possibly turn out to be a medical condition: I laugh, goosebump, headlight, climax, and sometimes cry, too easily.

*** Although—while I tear up oh-so-easy (at the news, movies, songs, conversations), I’m not doing enough. In fact, my life, right now, is too much about being a bourgie dilettante. I comfort myself with the thought that when my kids are independent, I’ll go to an ashram or refugee camp or anywhere where they could use me.***

2. Most old people love me; kids frequently crush. My peers—I can never tell how they feel. Still, some of the people who love me (best friends, my sister, my husband, and an erstwhile fiancé) arrived at their pet-name for me independently. They all call me “puppy.”

*** So—I tell them female puppies grow up to be bitches.***

3. I’ve mostly been (washing and) wearing the same two bras for the last 14 months. They’re the pregnancy/nursing variety. I got them when I sprouted pregnant boobage and i’ve since been nursing (just the baby mind, not the sick and the dying) and they’re super convenient.

*** Also—re. those bras: there’s a special Pilates machine in hell reserved for me because I think they look sort of bondage-y.***

4. I love my babies. They’re perfect for snuggling, surprise me, make me giggle, break my heart, do me proud, and take my breath away. Every single day.

*** Still—the time I most look forward to is when they’re asleep and I can snuggle uninterrupted with their dad. Even better, I look forward to the day they’ll be off at college and I can snuggle up with their dad all day.***

5. I’m a freak. I grew taller after all my peers had hit their adult height. That was probably because I was severely anorexic between the ages of 16 and 19 and my body didn’t have the fuel to grow. Now when I’m turned down for a job because I’m not tall enough, I mentally beat myself up.

*** And then—I think how much more my boobs would have grown and stop beating myself up.***

6. I’m a total procrastinator and can procrastinate for months on projects that have a defined deadline.

*** Wait—you already knew that :).***

I’m going to (alphabetically) tag Anna, Blue, Kit&Kumari, Mary Anne Mohanraj, SupaRupa, and Tamasha.

The rules are as follows:

-Link the person who tagged you.
-Mention the rules in your blog.
-Tell us about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
-Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
-Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

THE NIGHT I TUCK THE CHILDREN IN

I fix bars across the windows

so Elizabeth Smart and Stephanie Covey

Jessica Lunsford and Christopher Barrios

Would fear the dark less

I showed the children who fetched water

every day from miles away

water rushing out the bathroom taps

The look of wonder in their eyes meant

that not one child left the taps running

as they brushed their teeth that night

Sean Bell’s babies leave happily

when their mother returns from court

Most other children soothed with news

that their parents would come for them tomorrow

To Jon Benet and Nix Marie

i said nothing

like the orphans, they seemed

happy to play and prepare

different families once more

Clay who’d escaped with a safety pin

showed them magic safety tricks

Erica raced to bed quicker than everyone else

Amber read the younger kids three stories

the children who worked two jobs

were showing off their facts

of factories, bosses, money--

I let them be

I was afraid that the children who’d owned guns

And the children who’d been made to turn tricks

would disturb, distort the rest

But their eyes were so wise with the happiness

of being counted amongst the children

that i felt that this one night at least

things would be alright

My own boy always begging for sleepovers

actually smiles

as I turn out the light

As I pull the door close

I notice Warren Jeff’s lost boys

talking to Shawn who was found

Laci’s baby has fine hair—mine

feels it with her fingers, rolls towards him

_

Wrap Up: Poetry prompts

Ok—please stop asking me how the poem-a-day is going. I should have never said anything. Because you know, my writing is often doodling—which is why there is so much of it as marginalia in my textbooks. I’m not particular about what I put up here, because I don’t know most of you :) (Although I’m sure you’re lovely folks I’d obviously love to know etc., etc.).

The people important to me tell me

(a) that I’m the next greatest thing to Shakespeare (sadly, they typically haven’t read “literature” since college and love to compare me to old Will only because he is the go-to litterateur they remember);

(b) that my stuff is “interesting” which is code for they haven’t read it/HATE it/can’t commit to liking it;

(c) that if I’m interested in seeing it published, they’ll help me rework and revise. (Ok this last was just Big A and I hop from love to sorrow and back about this. Help me pick a stance or a fight or something.) (And Sara, if you’re reading this, he’d like you to know that he’s embarrassed.)

Anyway, I wrote most days, but that isn’t unusual for me. The quality was quite execrable (which in my head ^excreta, therefore shitty). But I mean to start posting daily so I may resort to posting them on days I feel silent. Guess you’re in for a treat :P

PRANK

Short Hills

high heels

Small sheep

tall ship

Soft sheets

counterfeit

You

a-

muse

_