Mom

Standing next to you at a Bruce Springsteen concert. Your fist in the air, a subtle shimmy in your hips.

Listening to "Big Shot" by Billy Joel on one of our many road trips across country. I'm feeling irascible and would rather listen to Madonna. You grab my hand and pump it wildly to the song. This cheers me up considerably.

The purr of your sewing machine.

Video game dance parties with Mary and Leah. With chips, salsa and margaritas.

You make me and my sisters matching dresses for holidays. We wear them with itchy tights and patent leather shoes.

The bittersweet letters and cards you write with clipped out comics and funny ads from Floridian newspapers.

When you say the word "beautiful" and "love" and "disgusting" and "hate" your body moves with these words as though they are part of you. You mean them. Especially when these words are paired with flowers, a clean closet, cat hair and dog slobber.

The roll of your eyes when anything remotely intellectual is discussed.

A smile that hides teeth. A head that nods with empathy. Eyes that cry with ease.

The vegetarian casseroles you cook from Martha Stewart magazines.

You sing "Pony Boy" to Beckett as the summer sun burns through the front window. She says "again!"

The way you say "I love you." It's meek and punctuated with a question mark that also looks like a semicolon. It's as though you are saying "there's more where that came from, just you wait."

Reads

A few new reads - thanks to my memoir writing teacher Jay Ponteri

Forgetting to Pee

I've been so consumed by stuff over the last few weeks I've been forgetting to pee. Perhaps I should get one of these.

Here's the breakdown:

I'm a featured artist for The Recycled Rain Project. My newest project, On | Off will be on display at the Olympic Mills Building in Portland beginning May 9th.

At work, I'm in the concepting/pre-production stages of putting together a massive photoshoot for Holiday 2015.

A few weeks ago I signed myself up for a memoir writing workshop. Having 2500 to 3000 word count goal per week keeps a little fire on my tail, but I'm making it happen.

I'm rearing A 3-YEAR OLD!

The manchowder and I are building a house out back. Consequently our garden has relocated to a farm in Sandy River.

In between the in-betweens of time I have left in a day, I can be seen building a website for one mammal and a book for another.

The knee belonging to my right leg is making a ton of noise so it looks like I'm going to have to have the hardware and crepitus sucked out with fancy medical equipment.

Aside from the dang knee :(, it's stuff that brings a sense of fulfillment to my innards. But this sense of fulfillment can also be slightly addictive if not put in check. I need to remember to pause from the stuff to sniff bark, grass and my own elbow, to caress ferns and the cats, and move slowly, steadily, like a banana slug as it inches its way across a muddy path.