I promise to begin writing again. It's been too long and there is now much to share.

Worth It

I think I want to you to know
Everything is fine just so
and your transgressions of long ago
Are no longer bound to me.

Like you I've turned my back
on the grief and personal attack
My sanity kept fully intact
My present here and my future ahead.

I will not take without return
From my mistakes I will learn
Waste not love, time never to burn
I will savor it all and squandor nothing.

I'll let you leave with shame
I'll rid myself of your name
As a father you were so LAME!
I will never be like you!

But yet in the quiet of night
When everything feels "right"
The disappointments I still fight
And I struggle with unaswered questions.

Was it an easy decision to make
To stand up with nothing to take
From the family you failed to break
And walk away?

Did you need for something more
An appealing offer in store
If you had the courage to ignore
And walk away?

Were we not good enough?
Was she not good enough?
Was anything ever good enough
For you to walk away?

Your words were hard
Luckily bruises never scarred
But yes, a bit of happiness was marred
After all.

But I am grown, I have sown,
I am never alone
And the child you decided to leave
Is full of faith and ready to believe.
For she is strong, though sometimes wrong,
Her list of loves is immeasurably long
And she has chosen to forget
Your trail of lies and discarded regret.
The son she will raise
Will only know better days
And he will never suffer or see
All the things you did to me.
He will only know love, he will only know peace
Everything in the world I'd give, at least.
If there's nothing left to give,
There is still this life I live.
If only to spare his from pain,
This choice would not be in vain.

So you see what you did teach?
For him, nothing is far from reach.
The promises to me you did breach...

But it was worth it.

I was watching the news yesterday evening and saw a report of a man that was arrested on charges of sharing and possessing child pornography. He was a teacher. Surrounded by children every day, for the past 14 years. At his residence, police confiscated his computer, child pornography magazines, and...photographs of hundreds of neighborhood children...My stomach churned. My heart sank. The vein on the side of my head pulsated with immeasurable rage and contempt for this one single vile person.

My choice cause in the world became apparent to me nearly seven years ago when my niece was born. Not yet a mother, I felt the surgence of a plethora of feelings. They formed a single compact body of emotions. Singly, they held no significant power over me. But together, their strength was unmistakable. Fear, panic, hope, worry, expectation, adoration, paranoia. All different emotions, all aroused by different moments in life, to the most mundane to the most complex. But at one point in my life, all so suddenly brought together as components to a single unit, bound together by the glue that is love.

As a child and into my early adulthood, I never understood my mother's reasons for holding me and my sisters so tightly to her side, practically hostage. Why couldn't we spend the night at our friends' houses, why did we have to go straight home after school, why was she always so overprotective?! It had felt so stifling at times growing up. Wanting to participate in extra-curricular activities, wanting freedom to go out with friends, wanting to have boyfriends! Couldn't she trust us that we'd make good decisions for ourselves? Didn't we deserve a bit of freedom or some sort of reward fo rbeing good kids? But now I know. It wasn't us that she didn't trust. (Maybe sometimes it was.) It was everyone else in the world that was untrustworthy.

I've always said that I wanted a gigantic family. At least four kids, if my uterus could handle it. A big noisy family with big noisy family parties, kids running around everywhere. No one ever feeling lonely because there would always be enough love to go around. But now I'm not so sure. I don't want my son to be an only child. But I realize that an increase in family size is directly proportional to my increase of fear and anxiety. Another child to raise is another child to worry about. And I don't mean as in worrying about how to feed to a large family. The financial worries fade out somewhere in a dark and musty corner when compared to the anxiety I feel about bringing a child out into a world where his teacher may be a child pornography enthusiast! UGH! The dread!

And yet, I know...we must not live in fear but by faith...(sigh)

But every night, almost every night, I walk quietly into my son's room as he's sleeping. Finally asleep, suger-induced hyperactivity put on hold. Thank God. I gently lie next to him and just watch him for a little bit. Indulging in the quiet serenity of watching him sleep, I study his face. The tiny details of his face - his eyebrows, his long lashes, his round nose, and small poutiness of his mouth. I bury my face into his cheek and kiss him. I tell myself to remember him exactly as I see him at this moment. When he's older and no longer fits so snugly in my arms, at least I'll have this memory of his once and fleeting smallness. Without speaking aloud, I tell him "I love you so much!" And I pray over him. Please God, watch over my son. Protect him from anyone or anything that would threaten his security, his health, his happiness. And I think to myself How can I possibly protect him from everything in the world? How will I know if a child predator like the one in the news crosses paths with my son? How can I always be around to watch over him when I can't always be around at every second of the day? Will it ever be possible to conduct or attain a criminal background check and thorough psychoanalysis study report of every single teacher, coach, friends' parent, babysitter, and/or any adult he may ever meet or be under the supervision of from now until he's at least 45 or an age in which he is perfectly capable of squeezing the life out of someone with his self-capable, iron-pumping hands should the instinctive response to defend himself from any of the said people should ever occur?!

Motherhood is so hard. To put onesself willingly through such agony of anxiety and fear. And yet be so overcome with explicit joy and love. Two extremes always struggling to find balance. I'm not there yet but I know I'll find that balance one day. Or will I? Myself now a mother, and as was previously established multiple times, nearly 30 (nearly), my own mother still worries about my happiness and safety. Sometimes on my way out she says a silent prayer over me as she marks a tiny cross on my head with her finger. Does she think about us at night too when she's in bed? Does her faith quell her fear? There's more of us now to pray for, all of her grandchildren. How can it possibly get any easier?!

But I try to always remember what a friend from work always says: "This is life!" And so true she is. Yes, evil lurks in the world. It must be here to distinguish goodness. It provides that proverbial balance to life. It sucks that we need it in order to filter out good people. To stir compassion and motivate action. Otherwise, would we take each other for granted? Would my son's innocence still be so sacred? Would it still be something worth dying to protect? My answer is an emphatic "YES!". Yes, this is life, this is the way the world is but...Hurt my child and all the wrath of GOD will smite you down back to the firey depths of Hell from whence you came!!!

Yes, I believe that pretty much sums it up.

I think I approached this whole aging thing the wrong way. I mean, yes, 30 is just around the corner. I know that. But it's OK. It isn't a huge deal. When you put things into perspective, there are literally millions of people on earth who are millions of years older than me. And I know that it's just all the young people around me along with society in general that attach that stigma to the number 30, and well, to the whole process of aging altogether. It isn't right, I tell you! What's wrong with getting older?! I'm sooo glad I'm not a stupid teenager anymore. (I hate teenagers, by the way. I didn't even like them when I was one of them!)
So anyhow, Mr./Ms. "dj", no, I'm not 30 yet. But yes, I'm quite near. And honestly, that's quite fine. How is it, by the way, to be on the other side of 30, since we're on the subject? You miss your 20's much? Do things still have as much elasticity as they used to? Things kinda making their way down south these days? Are you struggling with gravity much??? I could use the insight from someone more experienced. Y'know, so I know what to expect later. MUCH later on... =)

Ugh...No more turkey, please...

Can I just point out that I am not yet 30? I may be traveling the highway, but I haven't exited yet. So let's not unpack my bags so soon, folks!

Age Ain't Nothin' But A Number

So the meaningless, just-to-pass-the-day, sharpen-your-quick-thinking-skills, slack-off-at work-with-your-boss (yours truly) topics of the work day were as follows: name groups, bands, and musicians that have numbers in their names; name groups, bands, and musicians that have single letters or initials in their names; name groups, bands, and musicians that violated the film industry; and finally name musicians from groups or bands that thought they were good enough to take a stab at a solo career and were actually successful. (Did I miss any?) The questions laid out and the rattle and hum of the minds ensue. Think quickly and shout it out before anyone else...

I had my share, digging deep into my pocket of useless knowledge. Find an answer and drop it like it's hot. But I have to say, and I'll confess (I've never been the competitive sort), I think I lost this round. Defeat is hard to swallow but that's OK. (Hands up, palms facing out for convincing effect.) No really, it's OK. Let me explain why. Because unlike our usual fair - how much would you have to be paid to run around your work building naked? how much around a football stadium...during the superbowl? sleep with your crush for one blissful night and contract a urinary tract infection? choice super power? rather have one leg or one arm? get attacked by pack of rabid pit bulls or one hungry lion? climb mount everest or travel the equivalent depth under the sea floor? As mind-boggling and thought-provoking as these questions are, I'm still amazingly able to walk away from them and go home unaffected. No, really.

Shockingly enough, Friday's Brain Bowl left me in a stuper. As much as I pride myself in musical knowledge (I listen to music, don't I?), I didn't know much of my opponents' answers. Lucky for them. (Oh God, it's an Avril moment! - Inside joke to all you on the outside. - Suckas!) They must have had a completely separate sub-categorized pocket for obscure music and one-hit wonders. They named people and groups that maybe if I heard their music or their songs, I would have been familiar, but otherwise I didn't know them at all! I mean, how many people know that Busta Ryhmes used to be in a group? Who knows these things?! And what is the shelf life of such knowledge?!

I walked away from this round feeling slightly aged, as my opponents are slightly newer than me (than I am, to all you grammar freaks!...See ya at the next annual convention, by the way!). I mean, I don't usually feel so old as I do when I'm at work (wait, I'm at work every day!). And on that note, a side note for you, I also don't usually feel as young as I do when I'm at my Jazzercise class - yes, Jazzercise class! Shut the hell up!...So I thought to myself, Does one's contemporary musical knowledge decrease as one ages? Is it inversely proportional? Is there an exponential factor? Can this be mapped out mathematically? Could I win the Nobel Prize for authoring the mathematical equation?!

The thoughts running through my mind as I drive home listening to K101 on the radio, Bay Area classics on their scheduled rotation. And oh God, how do I reverse this so-called aging process? Do I really need to? Is it just society tell me that I need to freak out as I careen towards 30? Does this mean I need to start driving UNDER the speed limit? My cabinet is already getting hijacked by a fleet of various creams, some with sunblock, some without, some with rice flower (rice have flowers? and is one rice grain called a rouse?), with white tea, line reducing strength, line prevention strength, firming cream, exfoliators with ground apricot seeds - apricot seeds! you know, because the seeds of the apricot have special powers that magically make those tiny, frayed f-ing laugh (life is laughing at you!) lines disappear!, gel masks, gel peels, varied doses of AHA's (alpha hydroxy acids that don't really do s--t!), etc...(There's got to be some maniacal laughter somewhere in the distance...probably in my medicine cabinet.)

But I've resolved (posture stiffening, chin up) to not let it fret me. 30 is after all, just a number. And even though I may not know all those groups that have numbers in them and some meaningless combination of letters, I am still wiser than I was 10, 20 years ago. And for that I'm truly thankful. Thank you God, for the frayed laugh lines - they give my face character. Thank you for the baby pouch that no measure of crunches and Special K meal replacements can shrink - it keeps me warm in the winter. Thank you for the nerves, the qualms, the paranoias - I'm all the more careful. Thank you for my volumes of musical knowledge that ended publication in 1995 - my head has more air to breathe. (Huh?) And finally, thank you for my al-Qadea of face creams hijacked medicine cabinet - my husband is forced to use the one downstairs and this one is mine!!

Anyway You Want It!

Ok, so sorry that I have absotively, posolutely no time! What was I thinking attempting to create and maintain an online journal?! It's been like (here I go with the "likes", pinch me if i say "like" one more time), over ten years since I actually had a real, 3 dimensional journal. Back in the days when I was all Anne of Green Gables. 'Cept, if we "keep it real", it would've been Anne of Hunters Point. Not a pretty picture as you might imagine. No, HP cannot, in no way shape or form, be confused with the green rolling hills and meadows, blooming buds, poetry-inspiring cliffs of Novia Scotia. (Does anyone know what I'm talking about, mang?)

So, back to business. (Don't we all love introductions like what I did up there just now? The kind that lead you into nothing and are followed by something completely unrelated? Just the way they taught you in school, huh?) So what was I saying? Oh yeah, business. I have Journey playing in the background. I know, who doesn't? I'm at work and Journey fits nicely into the work music category. They are by definition, "Bay Area classic", after all. But the annoying thing is not, as you might assume, Steve Perry's constant woh woh's, or how your mind gets set on repeat after the song is finished (kind of like a bad, lingering aftertaste of something that just didn't taste right anyway), but it's the mind picture you get while listening to Journey. Which by the way, lingers much the same way as that funky taste in your mouth. It's that blinding camera flash that you still see when you close your eyes. And the more pictures you're in, the more blinding white flashes you see afterward. Have I leapt too far from the line of analogies? Anyway, the picture I'm alluding to is that oh-so-typical-of-the-time-and-genre and yet the oh-so-henceforth-ridiculed vision of a man...in tight jeans or some sort of spandex/lycra combination...in a silky shirt unbuttoned just low enough to reveal a soft tuft of sweaty grassland chestal manfur...with an odornment of rings on a fashionista fist just enough to hint to some sort of questionable sexuality...and oh yes, with the well-coifed head of Aquanetted feathered hair. Who can resist such a man? you might ask yourself. Oh believe me, I'm quite resistant. I mean don't get me wrong, the CD playing is after all, mine anyway. Have I lost ya yet with this huge paradox? I think I've lost myself...in some chestal manfur, no doubt.