This weather is killing us.  It’s been in the 20’s and 30’s this week.  In Portland we generally have wind storms.  They blow through every winter and they’re ferocious.  We can feel the upstairs bedrooms sway back and forth.  The roof rattles.  The floor shakes.

Every now and then we get a spectacular ice storm.  Houses look like they’ve been encased in glass.  Glistening power lines criss-cross and sag over the streets.  Stairs are off-limits.  Ice skating on sidewalks is possible.  We haven’t had one for a little while, but the next time it happens I’ll post some pics of it.

Portland also gets what other cities would call dustings of snow.  We call it Arctic Blast.  But I think most of us who’ve lived here a while would agree that our climate is changing.  The summers are hotter, the winters are colder and my rickety old house can hardly keep up.  It wasn’t built for this kind of weather.  The furnace is running round the clock.  We have space heaters in two rooms.  Judging by the reaction of my children I’m afraid Boston is going to be a wee bit challenging for them.

Yesterday  TC was craving what he called the commercial side of Christmas (“Remember how exciting it was when you were a kid!  Santa was at the mall!  Music was playing!”). We hadn’t been near a mall during the holiday season in many years (since Santa brought D hermit crabs when she was two).  I was very pleased with this achievement, but since I’m a good and faithful wife (wink, nudge) I went cheerily along.  “This is part of the magic, Kids!  We drive around and around until we find that lucky parking spot.  It’s exciting because you never know how long it’ll take!”  After scratching their heads, they decided they might as well join in.  Soon they were pointing and cheering, “We did it!  We did it!  We parked!”  We suited up in our hats, scarves, mittens, diaper bag and double stroller to make the hundred yard journey inside, but within seconds Z, a sun Goddess by nature, was losing it over the cold.  Except for the insane shrieking, her tantrum resembled a football player doing tire drills.  Meanwhile, the boys followed by shouting, “Cold, cold!  Owie, hands cold, owie hands cold! No like it!”  D who was built for snow made an announcement: “In Boston this is warm, People!”  After sprinting through the parking lot we arrived inside Washington Square Mall.  It looks like every other modern mall of America, but I must admit it’s been so long since I’d been to one of these places it felt a little like Disney World.  All four children were astonished.  TC exclaimed, “This is going to be fun, Everyone!  Just look at this place!”  None of the children had ever really experienced a big mall let alone one at Christmas time… throngs of shoppers, piped-in carols overhead, salespeople calling out, “Hi, can I ask you a question… do you like to save money?… wait, hello?  Hi!  Can I ask you a question…”  And when the children asked, “Daddy, daddy, can we look at the twirling wind chimes?”  Daddy answered, “Of course we can!”

We consulted the directory and charted our course: due north to Legoland just west of Build a Bear.  People have been hitting this Legoland for ages, but it was our first time and it was pretty cool.  My absolute favorite part of all was the twenty-something boy who so passionately explained the lego-artist’s vision of a Japanese garden and koi pond.  As long as I kept asking questions he (blue eyes, wide shoulders) kept talking.  I looked around at all the moms and dads, especially dads.  We were all so ragged looking, but there was an unmistakable twinkle in their eyes that said, this is what they do with legos now a days – awesome! More parents were jamming their cups with legos than kids.

We did it all.  The kiddie tumbling area.  The fleet of stationary cars that rock back and forth for quarters.  The Sleep Number store.  We even investigated the J.C. Penny family photo center (they were booked, of course).  Then we hit the food court for mounds of Panda Express (“Please! Please! It’s the best!” begged the girls).  On the way out we took some Cheesecake Factory slices to go.  We hadn’t had it since L.A.  I never learn my lesson.  If the menu says carmel sauce, peanut butter mouse, butterfingers, Reese’s peanut butter cups and a chocolate graham cracker crust, I lose all self-control.  It’s like holding a bag and a needle out to a junkie.  Later, after almost vomiting, I begged TC to intervene if I ever try that again.  Plain cheesecake.  It’s the only way.

In the car TC said, “Was that fun or what!?” as he searched for Jingle Bells on the radio.  “Yeah!” the children cried.  The whole way home I couldn’t stop thinking of the Griswolds and how I never dreamed I’d end up married to Clark.  It was a great day at the mall.  In another six years maybe we’ll do it again.            

A deep and primal hunger rises in me when I’m unfettered by obligation.  Images come to mind… my sundress blowing in the Santa Ana winds, Spanish moss in the cypress trees overhead, standing in the shadows of a redwood forest, the crush of Times Square, San Francisco Bay especially with a tiny notebook and mechanical pencil in hand, my finger touching the doorbell of the flat where Tennessee Williams wrote Streetcar.  My twenties were an exercise in personal happiness.  A life governed entirely by inspiration.  It was accompanied by some unpleasantness – working for a director who was verbally abusive, trying to get a Hollywood apartment with no job and no credit, experiencing the pecking order of Nobodies versus Celebrities.  But conquering those challenges were empowering.  I had enough energy to work a full-time job, audition during lunch hours, hit the gym five nights a week, study acting two days a week and party till sunrise.  I’m so grateful for that time.  It’s exactly what I wanted out of my twenties.  By the end of the decade I began to figure out what really mattered to me.

My thirties were about marriage and mountains… proving ourselves again and again to create our family and then facing all the same mountains that come with parenting.  Artistic fulfillment, eclipsed by the miracle of our first baby, then second and third and fourth, was pushed aside and became nothing more than a faint, frustrated cry (a cry I never could ignore).  But given the choice of playing with my kids or carving out time to write, playing usually won out.  I know how fast time goes;  My oldest is in third grade with pierced ears already and it can’t be so, because just yesterday I held my arms out wide and cheered as she stumbled toward me for the first time.  Two full hours of my Burning Man road trip were spent crying over how much I already missed my children.  This is the push-pull of parenthood, the achingly beautiful dichotomy of it.  One part of me flourishes while another withers.

Here I stand at the threshold of forty.  I give you yet another one of my famous early exchanges with TC…

TC:   I guess some day I’d like to get married.  What about you?

Me:  Married?  Ahhh, like NO.

TC:  Never?

Me:  Well… maybe when I’m like forty and there’s like nothing left.

I am so lucky to have a whole trunk full of youthful wisdom to draw on!  Here I stand almost forty with endless possibilities before me.  Where I go is largely up to me.  There will be fevered nights, vomit, potty-training, tears, nap-strikes, and detours that happen along the way, but this is it: This is my life.  I’m alive.  We’re healthy.  I know at least three very special people who aren’t here to say that.  But I’m fortunate enough to be arriving at an age that seemed ridiculously old when I was younger.  A whole new decade.  Maybe my forties will be about trying new things.  Feeding that hunger in me.  Or figuring out what that hunger is anyway.  More reading.  Definitely more sex.  And Less.  Less chocolate.  Less frowning (I can’t afford the wrinkles).  Less repeating myself (this entire post is one big repeat, but I can’t help it).  A milestone is upon me.  On that day I’ll be flying back to Boston with the fam.  Less fantasies about plane crashes.  More fantasies about safe landings.

I’m in a good place.  They say Forty is the new Thirty.  And I’m pretty sure Fifty is the new Forty and so on.  It’s all good.  I’m just glad to be here.

Foodies have restaurants.  Readers have book clubs.  Cinema fans have movie nights.  Cyclists have… well, our entire city.  Even Labradoodle enthusiasts have regular meetups.  But where does one go and what does one do when the interest is sex?  Until very recently the procreation of our species depended on sex; It’s no accident that it feels good.  Really good.  I don’t know the stats on who’s doing it, in what manner and how often, but strangely enough it’s still a very hush-hush subject and therefore sex adventurists must go underground to find their people.  I teeter on the edge of curiosity, so when I heard that syndicated sex columnist, Dan Savage (of Savage Love), was bringing his Seattle-based Amateur Porn Film Festival, Hump! 5, to Portland for the first time I was thrilled.  To the average Josephine this might seem like nothing more than a glut of smut, but I’ll have you know that Dan Savage is not only a hilarious and knowledgeable sex adviser, he’s also a devoted father, gay rights activist, open adoption advocate, This American Life contributor, and best-selling author.  I proudly support his professional endeavors.  Sex happens to be his line of work.  I happen to be interested in sex.  Thanks to a friend who scored me a ticket, last night I went to Cinema 21 to see Portland’s first Amateur Porn Film Festival.

Before the show Savage said a few words.  He was adamant about no heckling and talked about how brave it is to yell in a dark movie theatre at people on-screen for doing something much braver than any of us will ever do (something like that).  When it came to cell phone use he was downright threatening (“If it is in your hand we will take it away and you will never see it again... because these people want to be porn stars for a weekend not a lifetime”).  This actually made for a supportive and safe environment.  Except for content it was much like any other indie film festival.  Only better.

Hump! 5 was a well-balanced smorgasbord of amateur pornos mostly shot in the Northwest.  Each film was one to five minutes in length and fell into my three general categories: Comedy, Erotica, Disturbia.  The call for submissions included extra credit for films that captured local landmarks such as the Made In Oregon sign, Voodoo Doughnut, and that crazy sculpture across from Powell’s which Savage referred to as “The Devil’s Testicle.”  Filmmakers were encouraged, but not required to use extra credit props such as a pink slip, Mormon clothes, and a food product I’d never seen or heard of before called Aplets and Cotlets. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed, gaped or gasped so hard.  One must be super-duper sugar snooper comfy with sex and all its slimy carnage.  I found it uproariously funny, often disgusting and sometimes too painful to watch.  I realized in retelling it to my husband that I’m not clever enough to make the work seem anything but 100% raunchy, but I can confidently say that the majority of films were highly creative, original and definitely worth the price of admission.  A complete list of entries can be found here under …The Smut That Made The Cut. If this kind of thing floats your boat or even if you’re only mildly curious like me, I recommend keeping an eye out for next year’s Hump! 6.  Be sure to get your tickets early.  It’ll sell out faster next time.

“Don’t go to Burning Man if you ever want to run for Senate!  A senator doesn’t wanna get caught anywhere near Burning Man!  And you should watch out too if you really wanna to join that (Site) Council you’ve been talking about…” said a relative upon seeing my photos.  I didn’t expect to hear a choir, but that’s what happened.  Angels parted the clouds in song and I was at once able to articulate why I never fit in where I grew up.

Second grade.  This was when McDonald’s was new and exciting, a real treat, and some families when they had finished eating would toss their trash right out the car window.  Cups, straws, wrappings and little styrofoam boxes would scatter from the white crumpled bag while somewhere above us there lurked a Native American man on horseback, crying.  My grandfather was a raging nonconformist.  He ranted incessantly about our country’s racist past and Native American injustices in particular set him aflame.  Having been exposed to his thinking (and infinite hours of television) I joined the fight against pollution.  Sometimes I’d try to clean random trash off the sidewalks causing random adults to hiss, “Leave it be!” My grandfather often talked about how wrong it was to judge a person by the color of his skin.  His words didn’t seem all that important to me.  But it was around this time I began to notice that I was the only second-grader who played with the solitary black girl in our class.  At first I thought she was avoided due to her giraffe-like height, but I heard the whispers and began questioning relatives, “Do you like black people?  I do.  Do you have black friends?  I do.”  It was explained to me that while it was acceptable, honorable even, to befriend black people, blacks and whites should never marry;  It was unfair to the children.  Perhaps it was my grandfather’s influence and my mother’s re-enforcement of his beliefs that molded my thoughts, or the knowledge that my father’s mother protected her black neighbors during the Boston Busing riots, but at six years old this business of whites not mixing with blacks sounded like crazy-talk to me.  “But what if they love each other?” I asked.  My poster said All You Need Is Love.  “Doesn’t matter, ” they replied.  “Children pay the price.  It might not be right, but that’s life.”  It was implied that we should just let it be.  This thought came back to me again and again.  Slavery: what if we just let it be?  Only men have the right to vote or own property: let it be?  Prohibiting consenting adults from getting married: let it be?  It obviously made no sense.  When certain company would leave our home my mother would huff around complaining about how narrow-minded so n’so was, how derogatory his language.  A phrase I heard from certain individuals in high school was, “I know you’re friends with them, but you gotta admit, there are black people and then there are niggers.”  I’d sooner drop the friendship than speak such hateful words.  A close relative once told me that blond girls are nothing but trophies to black boys.  The boy in question was one of the sweetest, most gentle kids I knew, but that didn’t matter.  His skin was brown and he lived on the other side of the tracks, that’s all they saw.  The measure of a girl or boy was based first and foremost on one’s appearance.  But that’s what high school is all about, isn’t it?  No.  Because it wasn’t just high school.  It was life and it was everywhere.  Be presentable.  Speak appropriately.  Don’t get too personal.  Stick to the right friends.  Long-haired kids draw negative attention to themselves.  It didn’t matter how hard I’d argue that these kids, cross-over friends of mine, were decent, respectable people.  It became like Ground Hog Day, years of arguing for the minority, any minority.  Black, Jew, Gay, Atheist, Vegetarian, Vegan, Buddhist, Deadhead, Goth, Punk, Lesbian, Thespian.  It all came down to what it still comes down to today: We fear that which we don’t understand.  Different = Scary = Avoid.  It’s not in my nature to avoid nor is it my nature to judge a person without knowing a person.  I grew sick of swimming upstream.  Los Angeles was my homecoming.  It was like floating in an ocean of strange except that strange was the norm.  Live and let live.  If the people back East thought I was a freak, they hadn’t seen the half of it in Hollywood.  Drag queens walked down the street in peace.  Trans-gender folk hardly got a glance.  Horrible racial divides plagued Southern California and many other West Coast cities then and now, but in my freakish little community we were one big happy family regardless of skin color, sexual preference or how we chose to present ourselves.

At my daughter’s elementary school I sit next to a man whose ink winds down his neck, across his back, wraps around his arms and over his hands, and a woman whose blond hair sits atop a turban of dreadlocks.  A skateboarding dad dressed in rock n’roll black rides his daughter to school.  A goth mom includes the entire class of each of her three kids when invitations to their annual Halloween party go out.  I’ve seen a man in a suit check his blackberry while a teacher with flourescent pink hair greets her first grade students.  My Eastcoast nay-sayers might be surprised to learn we are engineers, graphic designers, lawyers, waitresses, doctors, artists and accountants alike, all of us parents who love our children and support our community.  Racial barriers exist even here and I’ll always fight against them, but I’m thankful to call this little corner of Portland, Oregon my home.  This is where I belong.

At 9:30 this morning I thought the worst part of the day was going to be that evil neighborhood cats had been using our garden as a litter box and ruined the cucumbers and lettuce we worked hard to grow all summer. But then without warning Tthrew up all over me, himself, the table and the floor, and while I was hosing him down little D took off his diaper and pooped on the rug, and while I was cleaning that, T threw up again, and while I was gathering strands of chunky vomit off the floor trying not to throw up myself, T decided he’d like to remove his diaper and poop on the floor too, and while I was cleaning that, big D came over to me and said, “Hey, I thought you were going to help me make a purse,” and for the second time in her life she heard me swear (except that this time it was directed toward her) when I answered, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Sometimes I stand here and cry.

“Come by, we’ll have some dinner,” said my friend, casually.  Dinner?  Me?  Alone?  Spontaneously?  Sparks of misfired neurons: does not compute, does not compute.  I raced to his house to see if this was yet another product of my imagination.  No.  There it was: pasta, tofu, green beans and a quiet patch of porch.  His little boy whirled ’round until he was affectionately hanging from my neck.  It was so innocent and pretty, the opposite of what I’m accustomed to…  Z’s water usually spills into my plate at some point, someone is always bursting into tears, at least one person falls out of a chair, the toddler-boys routinely throw food and cups at me.  It looks like an uprising at the monkey house.  Monkeys swinging from the rafters, screeching, howling, throwing fruits and vegetables at their keepers.  But I was with one civil child and two adults, and we were conversing.  It was sublime.  And it makes me realize how conditioned I’ve become to utter madness.

I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity… It involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills, and making ends meet in a thousand ways.  It involves not only the butcher, the baker and the candlestickmaker but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern “simplifications” (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, gas-stove, oil-burner, dish-washer, radios, car, and numerous other labor-saving devices functioning properly)… doctors, dentists, appointments, school, school conferences, car-pools… What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives.  It puts the trapeze artist to shame.  Look at us.  We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head.  Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control.  Steady now!  This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that wise men warn us of.  It leads not to unification but to fragmentation.  It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul. - Ann Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, 1955

This book was directed at women of the 50’s, but speaks to those of us who regularly burn the candle at both ends, especially the stay-at-home parents of today.  It’s a meditation on the basic human need for solitude and how important it is for us to retreat and recharge ourselves for weeks or days ideally, but hours or even minutes will do if that’s all we can manage.  This summer I’ve had Monday mornings and Fridays to write.  My time has a desperate quality to it.  I rarely take a deep breath or even eat during this allotment.  Instead I rush to Stumptown, set up camp, grab a latte, two glasses of water and write, write, write, fast and fevered, before time expires and it’s back to dodging tomatoes in the monkey house.  September is closing in.  Back and back to school, to teaching, to the rituals of blustery autumn and sleepy winter, glistening rain and less time than ever.  The river pulls me along.  I break the waves and hold on for dear life.  We’re in this vessel together for such a short time.  My babies, all four, are growing up too quickly.  It’s hard to not attach every fiber of my being to them, but there’s always a cry for freedom from within.  I suffocate without a room of my own and yet so rarely do I have one.  I’m the kind of woman who goes to Burning Man not because I’ve always dreamed of going (which I have), but because now with so much to lose, going actually scares me.  It will be the mark of solitude for a new age.  After nearly three years of a word here, a line there, and then three short months of regularly writing ten hours a week, the first draft of my play is done.  Between last night and today I feel transported to a strange new planet.  I think I’ll stay.

When more than one friend takes me by the shoulders, stares wildly into my eyes and begs me to do something while shaking me I usually listen.  So I saw Storm Large’s one-woman show Crazy Enough at Portland Center Stage (PCS) last night.  I nearly missed it.  I got my ticket during JAW and by then the show had been extended and regularly selling out.

Box Office:  “All we have are matinee seats at this point.”

Me:  “What about  Friday night?”

B.O.:  “All we have are matinee seats.”

Me:  “Anything for Saturday night?”

B.O.:  “Just matinee.”

Me:  “How ’bout Sunday night?”

I don’t know what was wrong with me.  Five whole minutes later I finally settled on a seat for he last matinee which happened to me coincide with the Hawthorne Street Fair and Sunday Parkways.  My whole neighborhood was shut down for cyclists (a totally awesome Portland thing).  But TC and the kids were caught up in the current and I found myself locked out of the house and my car, and unable to reach them.  Twenty minutes before curtain I finally gave up and cried on the front stairs.  The Universe did not want me to see Storm Large.  I called the box office to release my seat (someone was obviously meant to go in my place).  The very people I tortured told me to hold on and came back saying I could come to the 7:30 show!  Oh, thank you, Universe!  Thank you, thank you!

If it’s true that we become our names this one is a force of nature like Rain Big… or Shine Huge… Storm Large.  To see this woman in this show in this city on closing night is something that’ll stay with me forever.  There was a feeling that something important was happening.  We were part of something bigger than us.  She harnessed a cyclone of love, pain, and despair and converted it into electricity before our eyes.  She threw it at us.  We threw it back.  The vast majority of us were first-timers.  (People were turned away – it seems this show could have had an eternal run).  We stood, sang, cheered, cried.  It was as if a great, precious ship were setting sail and we, the lucky audiences of Portland, were there to see it off.  Her most popular song, 8 Miles Wide, is a catchy, upbeat anthem for being your big bad self and/or letting your freak flag fly.  It closes the First Act, so what you have are hundreds of sparkling people singing vagina lyrics in the lobby.  Fantastic.  It’s actually a grrrreat song.  I can’t wait to play it on guitar.  I almost have to teach it to my daughters (minus the bit about “even the hard core dykes love cock-shaped sex toys” only because 1. being eight and almost five they might miss the metaphor and 2. my oldest might link it to the funny vibrating “flashlight” in my nightstand and then I’d have to put it out of reach; I’m not ready for the inconvenience).

The back page of the Crazy Enough program is a photo of Storm Large and director (and PCS Artistic Director) Chris Coleman in a beautiful embrace.  Paul Beaton, Crazy Enough co-writer (and member of Storm’s band, The Balls), is aglow in the background.  The photo is the embodiment of collaboration – support, magic, artistic break-through.  One cannot help but fall in love with this woman.  She’s brilliant, brazen, ballsy and yet achingly vulnerable.  Something makes us root for her.  I don’t know where Crazy Enough is headed next.  Broadway I presume.  It’s a dark and flawless production teeming with kick-ass vocals that run the gamut from folk to rock, excellent acting, an awesome band and much more than eight miles of laughs.  Props to Chris Coleman.  I’ve seen many shows at PCS and they’re always well-done, but Crazy Enough blew me out of the water.  If it weren’t for his encouragement and guidance this work wouldn’t exist.  Wherever you are in the country, I’m shaking you by the shoulders and telling you, when it comes to your city you must figure out a way to see this show!

Storm Large = Goddess of Crazy-Ass Talent

Relatives from our very blended family took us outside the box last night for what they called “some good old redneck fun” at the Willamette Speedway.  Redneck often evokes images of men who drive pick-up trucks, work with their hands, love the outdoors and speak with similar country accents regardless of their places of origin.  In this case it also means man-boys with big wheelie toys.  The raceway is way the hell out in Lebanon.  As we drove past sheep, feed plants, and dairy farms we entertained the usual questions, “Who lives out here?  What do they do for a living?  Where’s the espresso?” and we agreed, as we always do, that while one could get a yard big enough for several horses out here it would be at the expense of good coffee.

We bounced along, the crackle and pop of gravel beneath our wheels.  The raceway is a dusty expanse with designated areas for spectator parking, heavy machinery, racers and racers’ families.  Out of nowhere PB buzzed up to us on a dirt bike.  Wide-eyed and sweaty, he looked at least ten years younger than his age.  Similarly, so did the large man laughing his way across the road on a puffed up ATV.  The wonder of it all.  This is how these folks spend their time and money.  It’s more than a hobby, it’s a life.  We followed PB to the back lot where racers and their families had set up camp in their trailers, RVs and tents.  It was a pretty sweet deal.  PB’s trailer is air-conditioned and big.  If I stood in the middle it would not be a problem for me to spread out my arms and spin.  In fact, there’s room for two to three adults to spin.  It has a full mini-kitchen (gas stove, oven, fridge), a nice table, sofa, flat screen t.v., separate master bedroom and bathroom.  What’s not to love?

I quckly learned that one does not dabble in racing.  Not only is there the initial investment of the car, but there are constant racing fees, maintenance, gas, gear, trailer upkeep, etc., etc.  A hefty truck is necessary to haul a race-car around.  Getting us in set PB back $70!  The stands were made of once solid now flexible, faded, frayed wooded planks.  As we made our way to the top I heard Ann Curry’s voice, “Tonight on Dateline… tragedy at an Oregon speedway…”  It would be a story about the reckless subculture of racing and how their aren’t enough inspectors to prevent the collapse of grandstand seating.  During the investigation they’d uncover hundreds of deaths that could have been prevented with a little structural engineering.  The children were outfitted with earplugs to drown out the roar of engines and the deafening sound of cars whose mufflers had fallen out by accident.  At one point the announcer said, “Looks like it’s a drive shaft out there, folks.”  Behind us sat a brother and sister in their 30’s.  They’d been coming to the races since they were babies and pointed to the spot in the stands where they used to sleep.  The scene was remarkably similar the Pixar feature, Cars, except the cars weren’t so shiny.  They flew by at about 100mph and side-winded curves as if the force and momentum of gravity would have to send them reeling off track, but somehow they stayed in.  Rounding the bend toward us it seemed entirely possible that they might take flight and come crashing into the stands.  All we’d see was a slow motion, sound-distorted scattering of screaming spectators, the ripping of chain-link and the underbellies of cars in thin air hurtling toward us just before a crushing darkness.  Ann Curry would say, “We’d like to warn you the images we’re about to show you are quite graphic…”  They said it couldn’t happen.  But it could.  We cheered when PB took to the track.  We were riveted as he raced by at 75-80mph.  The children cheered and hooted.  He took the lead.  We cheered and hooted.  He won!  What a great inauguration into the world of amateur racing!  We felt attached to a great indestructible star.  Later we found out PB sobbed the entire race, which he’d dedicated to the beloved dog they recently put down.  Before long the boys made a break for the track.  They tried to climb the fence, eat cigarette butts, knock over people’s sodas.  We had to split.  But the girls were transfixed.  They had no intention of leaving.  Ever.  They’d packed their bags and were very excited to spend the night with family at the Willamette Speedway.  (“Coming up next, a world known to few… the secret ring of raceway kidnappings… stay with us.”)  For the girls it would be one of those childhood memories that takes on a life of its own.  D is still thrilled over going to the rodeo years ago with PB.  She’s been dying to introduce us to the magical world of cattle-roping, bull-riding and boot-tossing ever since.  We’re just not ready.  I’m so happy we finally got to experience the races.  We’ll definitely go back.  But the rodeo?  Calves falling down, bulls thrashing about, people flinging their shoes into a poopy arena?  This sounds like one of those things best left to a man-boy grandfather who owns a pick up truck.

Today I went to a Collaboration in Theatre discussion at Center Stage lead by Joy Meads of Steppenwolf and to the J.A.W. West kick-off reading of a new play by major local talent Marc Acito. Marc by far has the softest skin I’ve felt on any human ever.  Ever.  I know this because I’m one of those people who in a congratulatory gesture might unconsciously pat the back, slug the shoulder or stroke the naked arm of a stranger and suddenly think, Mmm, Sssoft.  Lucky are the boys who’ve rubbed up against this Marc Actio.  His skin is so silky smooth one can’t help but wonder if he bathes in milk and honey each day or if it’s simply a matter of genes.  His new play, Birds of A Feather, interweaves two famous NY stories: the male penguins who raised a chick together at the Central Park Zoo (also a wonderful children’s book, And Tango Makes Three) and the captivating red-tailed hawks that made their home on the ledge of a luxurious 5th Avenue residential building.  His work zips along with plenty of puns and hilarious one-liners, but at its core is the heartbreaking story about love in the face of adversity and the pressures couples/people who are different must endure to survive in this day and age.  I can’t wait to see the final version.  The play makes one of my favorite points – nearly all species engage in homosexuality thus invalidating the argument that homosexuality goes against nature.  I believe homosexuality to be in fact completely natural.  Whats more is that animals have been known to foster intimate inter-species relationships (the giant tortoise and the hippo, the cow and the deer, the elephant and the dog), which is not part of the play but merely part of my own personal soapbox.  One of the characters mentions a point I loathe to hear, one that comes up more frequently now that I’m a parent – that being gay is sure to bring pain and suffering and therefore is not something we wish for our children.  I can speak with authority now (as opposed to the blind ideology of youth) and say that the thought of one of my daughters or sons walking down the aisle with a member of the same sex (hopefully a non issue by then) is not even remotely upsetting or disappointing to me.  My true wish is that they’ll grow up knowing how completely and utterly magnificent each one of them is and that they’ll always be brave enough to be themselves (because Lord knows how hard life can be when we don’t fit into the little boxes intended to contain us).  If my children grow up not knowing how amazing they are I will have failed as a parent.  Maybe I’ll succeed in other areas, but this is a big one for me.

I’ve never fully understood why some people feel the need to qualify or categorize who we are as a whole.  Black, White, Straight, Gay, etc., etc.  Sympathizers tell me this is how we relate to one another, it’s how we organize ourselves.  But even this I cannot fully understand.  Usually the people explaining it are people who’ve been given shallow labels themselves.  Labels that don’t begin to scratch the surface of who they truly are.  I find it disturbing.  Some people see me as an adoptive mom with adoptive children.  They make a distinction between the children I’ve birthed and the children I did not birth.  The difference between the two simply does not exist for me.  I’d no more say adoptive than I would say gay.  Unless of course we’re talking about the specifics of adoption or homosexuality.  For example, my cousin and I have this longstanding argument about which has the potential to smell more foul vagina or ass.  My cousin, in a way that I’ve really only seen in gay men, has an almost full-body convulsion when he talks about vagina yet he blossoms when speaking about ass.  I say one was made for birthing humans, the other for expelling excrement.  Ass by sheer design smells worse.  Bobby insists that a properly groomed anus smells lovely and can be quite appealing.  And I say the exact same thing about the vagina.  Alas, we agree to disagree.

If Marc Acito and I were friends the little box I’d put him in would be Marc-with-the-soft-skin.  Is that so wrong?

There were two Marks.  Mark-with-the-brown-hair and Mark-with-the-black-hair.  This story is about a particular afternoon in spring when Mark-with-the-black-hair had a direct impact on the course of my life and how he probably hasn’t given a second thought to me since that day when I was very young and very, very insecure.

There was something scary about him, a deviousness in his eyes.  But there was something scary about everyone that year.  I kept my distance.  He was an upperclassman and I was a freshman.  I masked my fears and insecurities the way many young girls do, by perfecting my hair, wearing make-up and clothes that made me look older, and by faking confidence.  What I lacked in confidence I made up for by being funny.  I was the Sidekick – pretty enough to tag along with popular girls who boys were genuinely interested in and always good for a laugh.  So when Mark actually spoke to me in the hall that day I was shocked.  Before then, he’d only ever stared in a way that made me wonder what I ever did to make him hate me so much.  I was late (as usual) for Phys Ed.  He was hanging around wasting time, cutting class maybe.  I never asked.  He needed only extend his hand with a few crumbs of his attention.

When I reached for my books he dangled them high above my head.  I laughed.  He laughed.  I asked for them back.  He refused and playfully walked away.  I followed.  Willingly.  Eagerly even.  Which is why I never told a soul.  Past the girls locker room.  Past the boys locker room.  Away from class rooms.  Around the corner.  Up the stairs.  To an isolated landing with a locked door presumably to the pool.  He teased, “You want them, come get ‘em.”  Dizzy from the attention, I sat next to him.  My head spun girlie-thoughts, does he really like me, does he want to kiss me, does he want to go out with me, is this why he makes me so uncomfortable when I pass? My new pinstriped jean miniskirt was working.  I’d been saving it for a special day – a day when I felt pretty.  Indeed flirtations lead to a kiss.  But the kiss wasn’t what I’d expected.  It was rough, wet, purposeful.  I backed off.  He leaned forward.  My head pushed against the vertical posts of the handrail.  At once his hands were everywhere and more, over my shirt, under my shirt, quickly working their way into my skirt with my hands in desperate pursuit.  He pushed, I pulled.  It was all too fast.  I said things like, “Wait, hold on, just a second, wait…”  What I didn’t say was Stop.  Which is why I never told a soul.  I fell back under the weight of his body and suddenly found myself lying flat on the landing with him on top of me.  My mind froze.  I could feel his erection through our clothes, but I couldn’t think what to do.  He broke into fevered thrusts and pants, saying things like, “Please just pull your underwear down, please, just for a second, please, please, come on, just do it.”  He fished inside his pants.  I was too afraid to look.  I blocked him with my hands, my legs, anyway I could and these words I know I did say, “No, no, don’t, please don’t, please no.”  When he didn’t respond I finally reached deep enough into myself to utter something definitive: “Stop or I’m going to scream.”  In a flash his hand gripped my throat and his eyes bore into me.  His jaw pulsed with tension.  “If you scream I swear to God I’ll punch you in the fucking face.  I swear to God.  Go ahead, ” he dared.  He was filled with rage and hatred.  I held tight to my clothes.

Seconds later his grinding came to an abrupt halt.  He stood up, tucked himself in, wiped the sweat from his horrible red face and headed down the stairs.  Humiliated, I lowered my head and stared at the sticky substance on my skirt.  Panic stole my breath and reason.  “But wait,” I cried.  “What do I do?”  He ignored me.  “Please don’t go,” I said.  “Look at my skirt.  I don’t know what to do.”  He stopped and turned around.  From the bottom of the stairs he said, “If you ever tell anyone about this I swear to God I’ll kill you.”  I believed him.  Which is why I never told a soul.

I sat there for a long time crying.  I was afraid to touch it.  I wanted to throw up.  I didn’t have any tissues for my nose, eyes or my skirt.  In the end I ripped a page out of a text book, a class I’d later fail because I couldn’t bare the association.  I slipped into Phys Ed, the entire front of my skirt soaked and scrubbed.  “What did you get your period?” Marianne laughed.  It was the last time I went to Phys Ed that year.  I failed and made it up in night school.  A few months later I got stinking drunk at a cousin’s graduation party and blathered on incoherently about needing someone to beat-up Mark-with-the-black-hair.  I puked all over my parents’ bathroom.  My father wasn’t home to see it.  Each time I saw Mark-with-the-black-hair at school my heart stopped and I broke out in hives.  My boyfriend sophomore year noticed and asked about it, but I couldn’t answer no matter how hard I tried.  Mark continued to glare at me, but we never spoke again.  He forever damaged a piece of me that was at the time innocent and pure.  He frightened me with his threats and hateful eyes, but worst of all, he told lies about me – at least I assume they were lies since I can’t imagine he’d brag about what actually took place.  I only know that years later that same Marianne asked if what Mark said about him and me by the pool stairs was true.  I couldn’t bare to ask what the hell he could have possibly said.  All I could do was shout, “No!” and walk away.

Typical of sex crime victims, I slowly found power where power was once taken from me, through sex.  I was never the type to sleep around, but I became sexually open, expressive, fearless with my partners until my sexuality was just as much as part of me as the limbs I was born with.  I became acutely aware of my surroundings.  I avoided walking alone and (save one crazy, death-wishing time) I avoided getting caught in dark, isolated places with strangers.  For years I blamed myself (also typical victim behavior).  The first time I ever admitted what happened was in a letter to a big-time playwright.  Some friends and I were hoping to perform one of his plays in Los Angeles, but we first needed his written permission.  He called me and not only granted his permission but urged me to play the lead and insisted I was an important writer who should start writing plays immediately.  He stayed on as my mentor long enough to fan the fire in me.  My first play got into a short-play festival in Hollywood, my second play was a finalist in the Nantucket One-Act Festival, I wrote a couple of shorts that were performed at Playhouse West, etc., etc.  The second time I admitted what happened to me was on stage at Studio One during a fantasy exercise.  I held an imaginary gun to the head of Mark-with-the-black-hair and demanded an apology.  I imagined he looked as helpless as I’d felt, how he was a big fat nobody after all this time, how far I’d come from the girl he’d once terrorized.  I imagined his apology and readied the trigger, but before I could fully draw back I paused, my finger lifted and I set the gun down.  Fourteen years had passed, but I cried with the same force and sickness as I did that day on the stairs.  Our director stopped the exercise, turned to the class and asked, “What’s good about this, People?”

Not only is this a perfect example of a Boston accent, but it’s straight out of a city I lived in for 13 years.  Check it out.

When I tell people how beautiful the weather is here, they just don’t get it. I know this because they often respond, “Oh, I know, it’s been beautiful here too.” And by beautiful they mean 70’s with 80% humidity and a chance of afternoon thunder showers. One summer we were sitting in the backyard of TC’s childhood home when one of his relatives exclaimed, “You guys really brought the nice weather with you!” TC and I looked at each other, dripping with stinky sweat and far too exhausted to move except to inch the picnic table across the yard all day as we followed the shade. It was anything but nice. What I’m talking about here is gorgeous blue sky, dry air, a slight breeze and warm sunshine – too perfect. Kind of like our strawberries (with a sweetness beyond compare). It’s like eating strawberry-shaped sugar drops. Oregon strawberries hit the tongue and dissolve like magic. And they’re only around for about three weekends a year which makes them impossible to sell in stores and all the more alluring. They go from vine to hand to mouth, each one better than the last.

The beauty that surrounds us here never ceases to amaze me. We’re a short ride away from rivers, and mountains, and meadows, and lava caves, the coast, sand dunes, fossil beds, wildlife. I’ve seen sights here that have boggled my mind as if I’ve stepped back in time and I’m the first human to lay eyes on this land. In eight years we’ve still not seen everything there is to see. How could we ever live anywhere else?

I hate to harp on the dad thing, but  today at 2pm the supermarket parking lot looked like the Million Man Flower March. They were heading in all directions, many with a look of bitter loathing.  Either that or they’d just been to an Unsweetened Lemonade Convention. One dad was rushing through the neighborhood with a Dosha gift bag dangling wildly from his fist.  The five-year-old boy behind him struggled to keep up, because the bouquet he was charged with holding was more than half his size.

Earlier this week I heard an ad on Howard that talked about all the bad gifts men buy for their wives and moms.  It began with, “Hey guys, we all hate Mother’s Day!”  The nerve.  But it was an honest ad.  This year I was so focused on how it was going to be yet another holiday hastily thrown together with TC desperately trying to pass-off an old household item as new, that I totally forgot my own mother!  My dear old mum, who when I was a mouthy thirteen year old, hurled a jar of nails at my head from across the garage.  It shattered on the wall behind me.  When I gasped in horror she shouted, “Just look what you’ve driven me to do!!!”  After all these years I finally know how she must have felt. The rewards are great, but it’s a maddening and thankless job.

Similar to Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day is firmly rooted in consumerism and boy, did they ever fall short. One day to honor our mothers and loved ones?  That’s what our work is reduced to?  Shouldn’t it be a daily occurrence?  I motion to call it, Mother’s Hour and it should include a nanny, one gourmet truffle, quick massage, nap and optional cocktail. Seriously. Even if we took one week’s vacation all by ourselves (which we never do) that would still work out to be…  what… like… seven minus three hundred, sixty-five… days… and… well, the math definitely doesn’t fall in our favor, that much I know.

Mother’s Hour!  Every Day!

(My singular little holiday was great, actually.  They girls gave me amazing gifts they made in school.  TC helped them do a garden stone with all their handprints in it, which I love.  He also got us tix to a small outdoor concert and I was still happy about it even though what I really wanted was to see these guys instead.  Then I left TC and all my sick children to go to a wonderful brunch at Sanborn’s with close friends, and later I got my toes done.  It was pretty fab.  Happy Mother’s Day, y’all.)

I wasn’t feeling enough pressure today so I took Z, T & D to OMSI. I guess I wanted to see if I could actually do it. The sand box held their interest for a stunning thirty minutes, all three kids. Then they began to rally. While I tried to get shoes on one, the others made a break for it in separate directions, of course. I couldn’t force T into the stroller fast enough to keep track of Little D.  Z, sensing my vulnerability, quietly slipped away.  I looked like I was on some crazy game show – running, stooping, dragging, quickly dumping one near the stroller then running, scooping, dumping, holding an ankle, grabbing an arm, wrapping my leg around someone, socks in my teeth, calling out to Z.  It makes it even worse that I have horrible hair, bad skin, circles under my eyes and pitiful mom clothes.  And for all my daily antics, though I sweat and sweat, I never lose a single pound.  It’s just not fair. Anyway. OMSI was wilder than usual. Children were dumping sand on each other, throwing water, racing around, fist-fighting. I watched two little boys heave a chair out of the craft room where there ensued a passionate game of tug of war. One wanted to drag it into the sand, the other insisted on relocating it to the woodland cave across the way. These chairs are specifically designed for the craft/flubber room. Finally one of two dad-buddies who were watching stepped in and helped solve the problem by assisting the boys in a game of rock, paper, scissors.  Whoever wins gets the chair he explained.  Much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t stick around to watch the outcome, but we all heard the shrieking as I walked away and the match ended. I saw another boy dive over the wall of the Reading Center, leap two toddlers and pole vault across a bench.  A different dad-buddy giggled to another and said out of the corner of his mouth, “I don’t know who’s kid that is.” A moment later, after the boy had leaped everything in the room and knocked a few kids down, he galloped back to the dad and demanded a snack.  The dad took an old, crumbled cookie from his coat, handed it to the kid and the boy charged off as if he were in the middle of a fox hunt.  There were other incidents involving other children.  Then I looked around. By my count the dads outnumbered the moms 2:1. It must have been Father/Son Day at OMSI.

Stay away. Stay far away.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away my mother told me she’d heard that T and T’s cousin had breastfed each others infants when they babysat for each other.  My mother said it was perfectly natural – I was horrified and threw up in my mouth. Flash-forward fifteen years to me walking up the steps of my daughter’s preschool.  I bump into a parent carrying her neighbor’s newborn daughter. The neighbor had denied the pregnancy until the onset of labor and shortly after being discharged from the hospital left town on business (?).  The newborn before me is less than two weeks old.   The dad, desperate to keep his job and his baby, is stringing together whatever care-givers he can find.  And here is my preschool friend/his neighbor-lady, carrying this newborn into school, a look of shock, horror and disbelief on her stunned face.  Before I could even think, words jumped out of my mouth.  I offered to nurse her, a gut reaction, nothing I could have predicted.  I was sincere and would have done it had she said yes.  But she only smiled as if I were vaguely crazy.  It was a good thing, because in those very rare cases, infections are usually passed from baby to mother and I certainly didn’t want to put the health of my boys at risk.  Who knows what this poor sweet baby had been exposed to in her short life?  I’ve thought of this baby every day since.

One week later came a girls night where I learned of the media frenzy over Salma Hayek nursing someone else’s baby-in-need. Nobody in my group seemed to think there was anything wrong with it.  It didn’t matter that she didn’t know the baby.  When D was born a close friend had been banking breast-milk for us.  We were set to use it when our pediatrician cautioned us that bodily fluids should always been screened for safety reasons.  The screening process was expensive and time-consuming, and in the end, we chickened out.  If I had it to do over again I’d take the breast milk.

Now the subject comes up again.  This must mean that breast feeding families are starting to make a dent in the mainstream.  People are talking.  I was shocked to learn that less than 60 percent of women who give birth nurse their babies.  Those who do stop by six months.  Very few make it to one year and hardly anyone goes beyond that, although doctors agree the longer the better.  Judging by what I see in my classes this here is Ground Zero for Extended Breastfeeding.  I regularly see two and three year-olds nursing.  I’ve heard of at least three cases of four and five year olds who still nurse.  Regardless of how I feel about it, this whole scene is yet another reason I’m in love with Portland.