I Sometimes Forget I Am Designed To Survive

There is something about this mood that leaves me very vulnerable to physical beauty. Certain colors shock, delight. Especially outside, where the sky is so flat, and then a rust colored thorn bush interrupts. Or the verdure of an ice plant beneath the black stream of night, ("like green, clean brains"), shivs me, makes me sad and glad. Hands and hair, usually nice anyhow, are almost too pretty not to touch.

I am at many moments throughout the days on the verge of shedding a few grateful tears for a peripheral loveliness that means everything to me, but doesn't notice me at all. This all sounds silly I guess, but I am just very glad for this relief-reflex my brain offers me.

When I wander around with Dylan, I want to capture every beautiful moment, but that kid is a goddamn hummingbird. I can never catch her!






When I do catch her, miracle as it is, it is either a beautiful photo of her in a childish, pensive trance, a mid-laugh, but more than often, a face. Not just any face, but a face. The ones her father makes when you tell him to smile or even "look" at the camera. Oh, why am I trying to explain it when I can just show you?





It's funny how certain traits are so easily transferred to offspring. Traits that aren't usually proven to be genetically passed on. Dylan is just like her father. Every silly, goofy and geeky habit has been transmitted into this little girl and is being put to great use.

Oh, I did finally get a still shot of her. Albeit, not a very good one:

I Want To Be Good At Life

I'm having that dream again. The one where my father breaks my heart. I have no emotion in the dream but when I wake up I feel the weight of the ache. My eyelids are thick like mattresses.

It isn't that late but the house is quiet like 3am and the windows are black from the night hitting them.

My heart has a periodic murmur, a moth in my throat, and when I hold my breath, its off-beat racks my body. My lips are chapped and I am molting. My skin is peeling. My muscles feel limp; there's no anger therefore no fight, just dread and defeat.
I know that I have to be tough now, I am just not sure where it will come from this time. Crumbling reinforcements.

Sometimes I think of myself as Amelia Bedelia, which is slight solace, but I shouldn't go around like I'm living in a children's book.

I have Dylan to do that for me. She is asleep behind me, inhaling and exhaling the faintest snores and every now and then I'll hear a mumble and a whimper. Sometimes I compare it to a sleeping dog, having dreams of chasing rabbits. It really can lift the worst weight off my shoulders.



I would be so helpless without her.

We Could Be Each Other's Evidence

Did I ever tell you about wising up in the span of one winter, not recognizing myself in mirrors again, shifting again, burrowing again. I have imagined every scene of this life. I wanted every minute of this life once, when the alternative was living alone in my head.

Think of a wayward rocket, all sleek and speedy and impressive, propelled by a bright flame, but random in direction, ever changing course and missing every target. Getting nowhere fast. Too distant for recall and nearly out of fuel.

That's me. I don't know if this perpetual outcome is a positive impact on me, but I feel great. I am content with how things are. The bad things make the good things so seemingly incredible. Baking cupcakes and watching syndicated episodes of Roseanne are a relaxing night for me - well worth the exhaustion of a work week.