Blood Sisters

As an outsider I relate to the City of Detroit. To its underdog spirit. We each have been misunderstood, unloved, disliked, discounted, gritty, historic, bitter, lonely, funny, dramatic, dark, fearful, isolated, abandoned. Depth and backbone and intensity with architecture and stories and music and food so sensual you realize why people are devoted.

Detroit can be like having your own secret attic at your fingertips. Steam billowing up from the street, my husband says hell is beneath downtown Detroit like something off a movie set. The city looks its best at 5 o’clock in misty gray.

I never feel out of place. People don’t always look like me. The setting may not be what I have thought to be comfortable, yet in a deeper way I know this is me and I am accepted with my cracks, dents, dusty baggage and frizz.

It’s bumpy and confusing and loud and unfair and scary and broken, but it’s not lost. There is faith and warmth and a willingness to share with an outsider. Nothing can make you feel more at home. Even the deep potholes and grit are laced with glimmers of hope. This is where my soul has found comfort.

It’s like your favorite foods, favorite places to be kissed and cuddled, music, pajamas, who you fall in love with, and if you’re honest, these things aren’t the prettiest, but they feel right deep down in the center of your belly just like home.

It's Worth the Helmet Hair

I believe in helmets. Helmets are the ultimate tool in the protection of our greatest resource. I’ve seriously considered wearing a helmet in day-to-day situations.

I’ve experienced intense verbally abusive situations giving me the urge to take cover in a doorway, place my head between my knees, and shout, “damn, why don’t I have my helmet?”

Having a helmet from birth would have given me the extra protection I needed. Like using sunscreen from an early age can help in your later years against harmful, damaging rays.

My husband knows a philosophy professor who drives around Ypsilanti wearing a crash helmet. People laugh at him. I envy his courage and insight. He is acting out my safety fantasy.

When I begin wearing my helmet, I will carry extra helmets around town to hand out to strangers having a rough patch. Detroiters often ask me for money. Instead I give them food. I could add a helmet to the granola bar or muffin.

One woman simply refused my offer of peanut butter crackers when she asked for money, “Honey, I’d much rather have a beer.” Maybe what she really needed was the protection of that helmet.

Embrace the rounDD’s

Over the weekend I bought my first bras that were not minimizing. Just regular bras. No restrictions no holding back. No censorship. Of course this is not a braless 60’s type situation, just letting what is to be be.

I had been told I would look thinner if my boobs were not so big and therefore to wear these minimizer bras. I fooled no one…the world knows I have big tits and I ain’t skinny.

So for the past few days I have been living with my double D’s front and center. They have moved proudly to the front of the bus like they had been hiding in an attic all this time.

Restriction is tiresome and unatural. It rains and my hair flairs out in loud-mouthed curls. My laugh can and has filled a movie theatre.

I am a full and round person in every sense of the word and it is how I best experience the world. Holding myself in in one place, makes something else pop out extra loudly somewhere else. And who wants to get it in the eye with a crazy double D that just got out of hiding?

Really Bad Day

Mr. Greenspan said that he had found “a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."


http://http//www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?hp

I don’t know what is worse, thinking that you really knew how the world works, or believing that you know this, tell the world, and then find you messed up. Exactly what do you tell yourself at the end of that bad day to make yourself feel better? I just don’t think a regular bubble bath, glass of wine, chat on the phone, long walk, good cry, will do it.

Who Could Mommy Be?

I have a holiday gift idea for the dysfunctional child in your life. Who Could Mommy Be? Paper Dolls. This is how I picture mine:
Outfit #1 Ina Garten. I would "sit" in her sunny South Hampton kitchen (she wouldn’t be sitting because she is a paper doll) and she would be cooking me luscious meals and speaking calmly to me about how the best quality ingredients make the for the best tasting dishes.
Outfit #2 Or she could be a Detroit City council woman. Dressing in colorful African wraps….hair piled up confidently on her head….she speaks with passion…and exudes the warmth of a favorite sweater.
Outfit #3 Or just the women you see at the grocery in non descript clothes….soft and clean…no makeup…no hair color…no nail polish…no jewelry. Her breasts and stomach have met making a comfortable shelf for hugging.
For Christmas 2009, Who Could Daddy Be? Paper Dolls.

Baby Balls

Let me be very clear...I love my new baby. Love spending time with him, watching him to the point it could be considered stalking, making him feel happy and loved. Just because you love something does not make it easy to clean. For example I love our shower, but mildew is a bitch.

Cleaning poop off a baby scrotum is no easy task. Obviously the scrotum is unlike ceramic tile or hardwood. I cannot use harsh-bristled-brushes or bleach on a scrotum. Poop embeds itself in the tiny wrinkles and I am left with a wimpy baby wipe to ever-so-gently clean up the goods.

Tiny can be taxing

I had a baby July 22. The physical act of having the baby is challenging and exhausting. The act of living with and parenting a baby seems somehow more difficult than those seemingly endless contractions. I believe it is a torture tactic to have sleep interrupted over and over again. One day turns into several days and then weeks have gone by and I am still wearing my pajamas and am unclear the last time I have showered or eaten.

I am currently looking into a drug habit of any kind of uppers. This is the only way I see getting through this.

The saving grace is that my husband and I have a stunning and healthy baby. He already seems far more intelligent than we are. I am hoping that he will act as both a tax write-off and our accountant by next April.