Drama Queen

I wish we didn't have to lock up our virgin mothers.

I was thinking dark thoughts this week and it occurred to me that at least once in every decade of my life my heart has been irreparably broken - when I was a sad little girl, an angry teenager, a young mother, a grown-ass woman who should have known better, an exhausted almost-crone. I thought to myself, "Oh woe is me to suffer such regular, unrelieved sorrow. I really should write about it."

Then I smacked my coffee cup smartly into my front teeth, jolting my feeble mind back to reality. Heart-rending grief at least once a decade? You LUCKY bitch!

I wore my sequin dress and new glasses for a while. That's all I've got.

Oh For Fuck Sake!

Photo Via the Times

Like many people across the world, yesterday I took note of Senator Wendy Davis as she fillibustered Texas SB5. I checked several times. Yes, it is 2013 America. And, our brothers and sisters in Texas get to fight a battle from another century, from the deep, dark past, yet again. Oy vay. I grow weary of the patriarchy. All over the globe the rage against our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, and the sick, fucking notion that they are chattle, flows on and on and on. 

Mrs. G offers her take on attempts to legislate the vagina here. I left the following comment and wanted to record it here, because not speaking out against sexism and attempts to legislate women's bodies is a grave mistake:

"Love you Mrs. G. As I watched Senator Davis yesterday, all I could think was how desperately I wished our beloved Molly Ivins was here to offer her hilarious and lucid commentary on the Texas lege. Texas is home to so many great feminists. In the land where the swinging micro-dicks shout down anyone without a big checkbook, women like Ann Richards, Senator Davis, Barbara Jordan, Spinster Aunt Twisty Faster, and Molly are too often the only rational voices of humanity in a screaming mantastrophe of rage against women. Thank you for raising your voice in defense of all the rights of all the pussies. I've reclaimed all the words - quim, cooch, nunny, cunt, beaver, fanny, muff. Freud had it wrong. The essential issue seems to me to be VAGINA-envy."

I know my Mama won't be happy about the swearing. She is an elegant, gentle woman. She is also my greatest role model, my touchstone, and an ardent, life-long feminist. She raised me to speak my mind. So, for fuck's sake, I am exasperated by impotent old men and their frightened bed-fellows trying to drag humanity back centuries. These people fear women and  they are afraid to be held accountable for their own bullshit misogyny. I'm over it. And, of course, I'm not over it. Because, like that sneaky pile of dog shit your kid trailed into the house, the  stench of sexism and the fear of the almighty vagina continues to stink and must be scrubbed clean and washed out-even if you have to do it over and over and over again. 

I love you Molly and Mama and all you all.

And She Answers

 

How lucky I am!

When I Rest In Peace

I just turned 50 in December. It is so very fine to be 50, especially when the alternative is to not be anything except, if you are lucky, a memory.

I write the following with no sense of morbidity. The first time my father almost died, I joked with him about what our obituaries or tombstones would say as he was recovering (some people might think that is a bit insensitive or odd, but it worked for us).

My mother and I have also talked a few times about what makes a great obituary. I have read a few that I loved. Mrs. G posted a wonderful obituary to her blog and this reminded me that I had been determined to make a start on my own.

It is a tremendously difficult task to create a portrait in words contained in just a few paragraphs. I do think it is a task worth undertaking when I think it may be the only "knowing" of us that a  descendant may have.

Here is my first shot at it:

Kelly is eternally grateful for the great sex, delicious food, music, books, and most ardently for her family especially her wise and beautiful children.

Her life goals included:

becoming half as good a woman as her mama

sharing the bleak Irish humor she inherited from her grandfather John Kelly with those she loved at the most importunate times

eating all the cake

being an O.K. - enough human being to merit the love of her many fine canine companions

keeping her teeth and hair

practicing patience and kindness and ecstatic mental yoga

being loud

Depending upon which of her friends or family you speak to, she was either a great success or an abject failure at achieving her goals. All will agree that she was trying.

I'm Slow Cookin' Darling!

Pulled Pork Sandwich photo credit goes to the Food Network 

Mrs. G let me mess up the kitchen over at Derfwad Manor- home to a grand group of soul sisters and Gary. Care for a pulled pork sandwich with some savory sides of mancake, moi, and poetry? Of course you do!

Long Time Sun

may the long time sun shine upon you
all love surround you
and the pure light within you
guide your way on

2012 You Were Batshit or Was It Just Me?

Kisses lovers. This is what 50 looks like the day before it hits.

I squandered  49 in procrastination and sadness. How incredibly stupid.

I am  grateful everyday for my family. I have to keep my attention on fine details because the big picture right now makes it hard for me to breathe. I am trying to let go of fear. That is such a hard thing to do. I am sporadically creative and feel in my bones that therein lies my salvation. Where is the courage required to leap?

There have been years from which I ungraciously took my leave claiming I would not miss them. Hello 2009! But I will. Right now, feeling properly old (thanks Mama for the AARP membership including bright red retro fanny pack!), I see them for what they were. Opportunities squandered. And fuck that.

So, barring Mayan prophecy, 2013 will be wooed. No more waiting for perfect conditions. I'm leaping. And I know I'll land where I should. Like always, I'll land on my feet. Remind me to tell you about how I used to jump off my horse Marmalade at a run and stick a perfect landing every time just for fun. That's how I roll. I truly do love you.