Out of Ohio

On our way to New York, I'm telling Big A about how the first time I heard John Boehner--just a few months ago--on NPR when he made a speech about his American dream and how I'd interpreted the quaver of tears in his voice as sincerity.

Since then of course I've become more familiar with Boehner's lachrymose tendencies, and increasingly embarrassed because there's no telling when I'll get emotional about a range of stuff from the perfect deep-fried veggie burger to an ad in a magazine I paid five dollars for asking for a two-dollar donation to The Hunger Project.

Me: I'm afraid I'm going to seem as fake as Boehner.

Big A: Nah, Puppy. Your tan is the real thing.

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Gray Day

Ohio sun rises only for the sky

but sharp, sure stars swagger

about borders on oblate plains

Like people you have set free

who then disappear, unstable

as salt left out in the rains

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With Plenty of Crybaby Juice

Your pain clears the windows.

Blind, your gaze can skip skies.

Tell me, was it you who visited,

slipped on these words, cried?

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Big A's first real day off in 15 days, and both Baby A and I made mad crybaby juice in little-little batches all day. Connection? Coincidence? Hmm.

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Mornings with Children

The troubled light of December, seven o’ clock

the clucking annoyance of the second hand

These are the stains that describe your breakfast

your mouths are hovering-harmonium-talk

Now that the light is so bitter and literal

we lose one battle; we win other wars

You are made of just ghee and molasses--

and pools of unhurried, inundant memoirs.

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And after all that, Li'l A made off with a medal in the spelling bee today. Perhaps slow and steady does win the race :).

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So, HA!

Baby A turned three (in Oct), attends early Pre K now. (So not so much a baby, I know.) We'd like to blame Pre K for the following:

- playing with the stock photos of some fake/generic family that came with new photo frames.

- claiming to be "in love with this family."

- adding, "But they don't care about you; they only care about me. So, HA!"

- making Li'l A and me sitting with her at the kitchen table nearly die from laughing.

However, it would be nice if we had something to do with this next thing. With sweet J her 6-year-old-playmate, whose dad had taken all the kids to go see Miyazaki's Ponyo when it opened last summer:

Baby A: Ok. Let's play the Ponyo game. I'll be Soskye. You be Ponyo.

Sweet J: Ok. But no. YOU be Ponyo, I'll be Soskye. Ponyo is a girl.

Baby A: No. Ponyo is a little fishie from the sea. So, HA!

Is it horrible of me to be happy that my daughter is a bit of a brat too? Actually, I don't care. So, HA!

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Growing

Today, Mama.

From yesterday

today is tomorrow.

Her smile opens.

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And just when I thought I was over FB, my high school (Sacred Heart, Church Park, Chennai) friends started an FB group and it's been amazing to see. Even all the once-skinny-15-year-old girls have boobs now! 

Once More

armored flowers

the moon at its turret

the pollen is rusty

but an easier size

and more 

like my own.

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I've missed writing just for myself and any strangers Google sent my way. So the goals for the new year are:

* to write

* to keep in touch with family and friends like family on the phone or through visits 

(I guess, condensed, both those bullets signal my growing ennui with FB.)

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