She's gonna fight like a girl

Love like a girl. Scream like a girl. Kick ass like a girl. Cry like a girl. Compete like a girl. Eat like a girl. Be tough like a girl. Play like a girl. Survive like a girl.

24 weeks and counting.



Your Baby: Your bundle of joy is looking more angelic every day, gaining weight (she's over 16 ounces or .45 kg), growing longer (over 8 inches or 20 cm) and filling out! Your baby is also starting to produce white blood cells, which will help fight infection after she leaves your body and enters the world. You may be surprised to notice that your baby responds to the sound of your voice or even the touch of your hand on your tummy by quieting down or occasionally increasing activity as a way of communicating with you!

She's also kicking up a storm in wombland, and I can't wait for her to start walking so she can start kickboxing. She likes the Junebug Waltz the most so far of the lullabies I sing to her and seems to be stronger and more rooted than I ever much imagined.

at last, something hopeful

fertilized the second garden box with super less than organic miracle grow, as i can't afford to fix the truck and haul in a truckload of soil. maybe pumpkins, melons, eggplants, peppers, and cucumbers will grow, maybe not. but i like getting dirty. it was almost five years ago that they were built in the heat of the day with smoke and beer in the air, my father drunk and cursing. one of the last times i saw him before he died. it's good to interrupt the barren soil and remind myself the power of growth. that little seeds can steal some life in soil overused and the box frames rotting and broken, broken and rotting uncared for. all the ambition wrapped in the mission of a little seed. he was happy in that sad way he would often carry himself. half-drunk to bury his shame of all the things he failed to do, but dreaming of how things could have been, if he had chosen to be someone else. he beamed with that absent pride, trying to fulfill a legacy he neglected. and we got our hands dirty, breaking into the soil that was treaded without dreams of growing anything else besides invasive crab grass. i was hungover from smoking weed for the first time, serotonin flooding my virgin synapses with plain joy pouring out of my awkward body. that hot sweating summer day we built something, strangers with tangled genetics. and today i stand trying to build something, positive memories of phantom fathers haunting my conscience. i resurrect these broken boxes, full of seeds and less than chance conditions, hoping for growth. resurrecting the days we never knew we'd value so firmly. trying to envision that elusive unknown role, fatherhood... what does it encompass?

and i give these seeds to the soil wondering if it's safe to feel hopeful.

double life

sometimes there only things you can do in your dreams. like tell your dead father he's going to be a grandfather. i wonder if there are bars in heaven that he can brag to all the other mortorcycle gangs to over beers and hard liquor.

i was at one of those old rusty shanty houses filthy with dust and age. the common addresses he'd occupy in between living on the road, or from farm property seasonally. antiques litter the walls right along side pictures of nekkid women. there's skulls they've picked up from the outside dessert waste, and everyone's gathered around, the family. imagine "the family" being said with a thick italian accent, that only a rough and devious grandma can really capture.

my estranged father beams with all the unaccounted for pride that he can muster. asserting his interest as well as shame and insecurities in his simple demeanor. he would like to implicate he is responsible in some unacknowledged way for this being perfectly imperfect, and he is very pleased with the arrangement.

i am relieved. he doesn't try to kill anyone. the men of the family drink, the women oblige their habits and gather to gossip. somewhere in the backdrop my cousins are hiding smoking weed comparing who has the best quality this time, whose dick is infinitely bigger.

he doesn't look sick at all. not like the whithered malnourished death soaked body i recall from spending weekends in the hospital, where he couldn't form sentences only streams of free flowing conscious and curse words. he was planning his escape and i feel guilty for not assisting him. for whatever reason this dream never turned lucid so i could rightfully say goodbye and i'm sorry i wasn't the one that busted you out and let you die in dignity, with some bourbon and a marbolo at a nekkid bar.

my cousin from my mama's side is strangely placed in the mix. i am worried because she is on methadone and 7 months pregnant though she's not showing at all, she says she is well and she can feel the baby move. i can't stop feeling worried about it and i want to talk to her for longer about everything as much differences as we have there is this bond now. i hope her and baby will be well.

my sister and i go off the adventure the streets. but now the scenery resembles the old town of mendocino. we go to a fancy dessert shop and buy cookies shaped like butterflies in a rainbow of colors, she critiques it like a true food snob and i miss her terribly. wonder what she'll be like when she moves back from the big city of the eastcoast to the big city of the westcoast. she'll be a grown up i'm afraid, and still as lovely and magical as ever.

i'm supposed to eat liver. i've always had an aversion to eating the organs of animals, particularly the liver. i'll have to have my brother expert chef teach me how to prepare it, buy it organic and add lots of onions... vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron, and i want to believe onions have it, because at least they have enough flavor to distract me from the texture of organs. i will think of liver's processing all the toxins of the body, these sacred organs that break down poisons to components our bodies can work with. i'll think of my dad's failed liver. i'll think this is a gift for baby to grow strong.

today....

might be the most imperfect day of my whole entire life and i've never been happier.

there's so much to achieve, and sometimes time isn't on our side.

but today belongs to me, the world, and all the possibilities too!!!