Distractions

I love them... distractions. They are really so good for me. I have a midterm tomorrow. My son comes home next week.

So in the meantime I will be babysitting a lovely girl for the weekend, and for tonight I give you a poem. It's not mine really... a friend of mine on the old Livejournal.com linked to this person, and that's where the poem format came from.

Here's mine:

I am from microwave dinners, kraft and welfare.

I am from the the beach...wet, angry, sand between your toes.

I am from the waves, the orchids.

I am from alcoholism and those who can't reach, from richards and anns and nichols.

I am from the neurotic and forgiving. From "you're not good enough" and "follow your dreams."

I am from the Catholic, fallen, forgotten. From sinners and a lack of faith.

I'm from nowhere particular, fish and cocaine.

From uncle Jason logging in Alaska, aunt Donna throwing out my "slutty" clothes, and aunt Jackie covering for trips to the abortion clinic.

I am from the bottom of a black chest full of old shoes and an army flag, from old shoe boxes in the backs of closets from Michigan to Portland, and hidden away in drawers full of SOS tapes and newspaper clippings that no one wants to remember, but no one can forget.



So where are you from...?

Exciting Friday Nights...

I am babysitting a couple of Cal babies tonight so their mama can finally have a night out. It was lovely... they are sleeping now and I'm watching this weird film on IFC & it has a super adorable, very young Jake Gyllenhaal. Lovely & Amazing, it's called. It has very little, next to nothing, to do with Jake's character. It's about being a woman and how fucked up it is. It's complicated and I'm digging it.

Earlier we all ate pizza and soy beans and played video games and watched a movie and ate popcorn.

It made me miss Dasan even more... but he'll be home in 10 days. I can survive for 10 more days by borrowing other people's children.

I have a midterm and a presentation next week. Something like 4 more weeks of summer classes? Then a week off. I think that I only need 4 more classes to graduate. That means that I will be graduating on time. No matter what I do. That means that next May I'll be done here.

Watch Lovely & Amazing. It just keeps getting better.

So much!

If all goes well... I will be starting my last year at Berkeley in just a couple months. Is this a joke? Is this for real? What the hell is happening???

I'm currently in summer school. I'm without my son. I'm alone in my apartment, which finally feels like home, and for the first time in over a decade home means just me and my things. My homework. My reading assignments. My friends, that qualify as my new family. My open space. My space that is empty in ways that I could not have defined prior to my coming here.

I owe so many of you so much. I don't even know how to express what I feel when I think of what it took to get me here, to this point, so close to the finish line, so close to being able to never look back.

And still... there are these remnants of me. The me that dropped out of high school. The me that got caught up in a life that I will never forget. The me that will always know what it's like to come down, to be high, to feel as though all hope is lost. That me. The one that clawed her way out. The me that thinks "theory" of things like loss and love and hate and classism and racism and sexism and all of the other "isms" is just a pile of shit. How can I sit in these classes that try to theorize shit I've lived through?

I try to just find the balance. I'm sure I'm not alone. Clearly I'm not alone. I just feel like we all need to take a deep breath and a long nap.

I mean really, do you have a better suggestion...?