Wrap your head with this material...

I was just in the bathroom thinking my gratitude thoughts like a good little bobblehead. I found boots that fit my skinny ankles AND are waterproof and not hideous at the thrift store and bought brand new leggings that are so soft I feel like I'm in jammies and then I looked down and wouldn't you know? A hole in my crotch. No smartass, not that one. My neck's not that long. A hole in the crotch of my leggings. Grrr. Which got me thinking how I complain too much and why do I do that? Sometimes it's because I'm a grouchy pants. Sometimes I'm afraid I'm devolving into a family trait of being negative and complaining all the time and I definitely don't want that. In writing it's more deliberate though. In writing I do it because I hate that fluffy crap that doesn't have the grit and substance of real life with holes in brand new clothes and all the pot holes that get us stuck. The time I don't feel all that gritty? Teaching. Especially te...

One's cheek, so plump, like globular warm Midwest rain drops falling, plop, delicious The other's taut and unforgiving, it wedges itself against my lips, my teeth get conked, demanding. Mama, mama, love! And there are all these kinds of love, folding over and on top of one another, like folded used book art. Magnus love, Gavin love, love of being the mama, husband love, loving husband as father-different-from-husband-love, passion love, all these kinds of love and they fall on me in the night, like stars from the sky, peeeshooo, a meteor shower and I can't sleep. I have to teach in the morning. There's the new love of my students. Each semester I fall in love, like just meeting my grandmother but for the first time as an adult "abuelita" I call her even though I never did. Didn't even call her "mormor" pa svenska it's mother's mother. The love is like meeting my auntie, a new cousin. Brimming with ideas, they leave. But arriving, they...