At Her Grave
We’re skimming rocks across
The water’s top…we’re making
Moats of stones
We want to befuddle and defeat
The crabgrass
And keep every word in sight

At times what I despise
What feels at the time to be the most –
That they turn out the lights
Lock the gates and shoo us out
With bullhorns, only because
It is now seven p.m.

At times I am convinced
Or nearly so that all I want
Is to spend all night
In proximity to your bones, to
Guard a candle through that night,
To still be there when all apparitions

Have blended like sky
Into morning, given wing
To the robins and songs to
The chimes,
And I have learned beyond any doubt
That I need not be a slave to mere time.

We’re sloshing in high tide
Luscious wet toes and glitters
As numerous as grains.
Tar and jellyfish cannot
Even annoy us – At this time
Your bones could almost carry me,

You are so certainly alive.
Spirit
Love
Hope
Wonder
And I may hide behind a tree

Next time, park the car
On a nearby street,
Who knows what the evening
Of bereavement may lead to?
You stay on my mind
You always stay.



- posted by barbara @ 5/30/2004 01:41:00 PM  0 comments

 
Governor, lawmakers handing off budget pain?
this article from start to finish is inflammatory to me - i mean, i want to cry when i buy gasoline. rory's best friend's mother and i, plus a few other mothers she's enlisting in the discussion, are trying to think of a fun, educational, and yet affordable plan for filling up the children's summer hours...no day care this year; it costs too much.

this article begins,

As Californians brace for rising college tuition, higher park fees and slashed services, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have only nibbled at their own budgets.

Schwarzenegger, whose budget mantra has been share-the-pain, has sent lawmakers a revised spending plan that doesn't squeeze his office account,

and concludes,

The Department of Motor Vehicles maintains a small branch steps from the Capitol for the exclusive use of legislators and their staff. The office costs taxpayers $100,000 a year.

well aren't they special motherfuckers after all.
- posted by barbara @ 5/30/2004 07:31:00 AM  0 comments

 
The Bob Blog
“Faith isn't an illusion. It's a choice. Just like it's a choice you make every day to mock our faith in God as Christians.”

“I don't mock it every day, just most days.”

“A life without God is empty. You probably know this already. God Bless you.”

“I read Sartre when I want to get in touch with my nothingness.”

“Buh-bye.”

one thing. i totally agree with the jeezus freak's take on faith. a choice, not an illusion.

it is all it can be.Anti-Dogma from the Bekah Church of Wonder, or Sort of a Poem about Eternity

- posted by barbara @ 5/29/2004 07:56:00 PM  0 comments

 
Grand jury indicts 8 inmates for roles in Lompoc prison riot
The charged inmates are:

• Juan Perez Garcia, 43, who is serving a 210-month sentence for racketeering and narcotics conspiracy.

• Allen Lee Bryson, 29, who is serving a 46-month sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

• Ontoniel Carrillo-Lara, 37, who was serving a two-year sentence for illegally entering the country.

• Jared Michael Cunningham, 24, who is serving a 70-month sentence for bank robbery.

• Raul Melendez, 23, who is serving a 46-month sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

• Juan Manuel Muro-Inclan, 40, who is serving a 77-month sentence for re-entering the country after being deported.

• Dean John Perri, 34, who is serving a 63-month sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

• Roberto Rosilio-Jauregui, 31, who is serving a 57-month sentence for re-entering the country after being deported.

the woman who murdered my daughter, lynn woolever, popularly known as rambo, was released from prison on may 2. she served about two years and two and one-half months for the life of a 21-year-old innocent. it appears that the above list documents sentences in excess of rambo's four years for crimes that did not involve the loss of human life.

there's a lot i don't know. but i do know for sure that bekah was not is not chopped liver. what the court did in the case of her killer could conceivably lead a person to think that the loss of bekah's life was not a big thing. not as big, for instance as re-entering the country after being deported. wrong.

i haven't been writing. til today. i have a job lined up for tuesday and probably a promising interview for a permanent part time position tomorrow. money came through when the situation was close to unbearably desperate. so i was feeling good, reciting affirmations at myself, making myself smile, trying to be the bright spot in the dark mud of life for others as well as myself.

then the bright lights in the rearview, the fear [eek i have an fta floating around - somewhere around inglewood - tags, insurance, from the days of not attending, which still return from time to time, albeit for shorter periods of time] - the ticket! which will cost. and tyler was with me and there was no looking at the bright side in my fear.

for a number of years - mmm, i guess about 1990 to 1997 - it seemed i was living under a dark star. if it was bad, and it was possible, it happened. my life exploded, but that was 'cause of the big things. but to give an example of what i mean, i had three flat tires in one week. was forced to replace the engine in my car twice in one year. and various other assorted sundry disasters, many, many of them.

so knowing there was an order existing for my arrest and then the policeman taking what felt like forever to figure out what he was going to do with me, i actually told tyler that i might be taken to jail. if i could turn back time and bite my dumb ass tongue yes i would. i should have just smiled and said everything's gonna be fine sweetie...but no.

i have apparently lost my optimism. my children range in age from 12 to 28 and the grandbabies are 5 and 7. i used to reassure the kids! i promised them nothing was going to happen, not to me for ages and ages, and not to them for forever from my perspective. i felt confident reassuring them; i believed myself. then this rash of disaster, a teetering recovery, then:

the unthinkable the unbearable. and godammit it was true. how could it ever again be "all good?" there's gotta be a way. bekah's been dead for almost three years and i cannot find words to express the truth that i cannot believe that. because "i cannot believe that" is something i say fairly often, seems like i hear it from others regularly, but in this case it is just so profoundly so.

okay so back to good news: he gave me a ticket, fix it on the insurance, a fine on tyler not being in a car seat [which i'm going to have to sound his father for that; i was truthfully under the impression that he was legal to sit in the seat], and cut us loose. sigh........................:)

i'm sorry tyler. it's all good. everything's gonna be hunky-dory. this you grandma telling you so you know. all good
- posted by barbara @ 5/29/2004 10:59:00 AM  0 comments

 
barbtries a blog:
looking for work. if you are a job i would love that won't take too much time and will pay a decent wage please come knocking on my door. that is how jobs are got right? they come knocking on your door?

i wrote this morning. this afternoon in my email:

Barbara,

Thanks for you interest. Are you still available to do this? If so, when are you available to meet?

Thanks

so, hopefully, tomorrow, interview, job, etc. maybe it's true. i just had to write it down. just put my will into the ether, the universal energy that is mostly chaos but contains some pocket of sense and order, register my desire, claim it. maybe.

at any rate i am truly thankful to be out of the trough. and i'll be crying more later on, it's true. rambo's out of prison and that sucks. but more on that later.

the reason it must wait is that the reason i have a reason at all - the children, you know - they are here, and they need me. :)
- posted by barbara @ 5/25/2004 04:02:00 PM  0 comments

 
Crack.ass
i have a son, his name is andy, and andy writes so well...

as for meezers. mmm. been...shut down, i guess. what matters? how does it all turn out?

why?

but i'm kicking in, i'm taking my pills [bp meds and various darwin joe remedy type thingies, like gin seng etc]. i have about half of the book printed up for editing. i tried to be economical and print it on two sides, fucked that up, and ran out of black ink. it's a fairly substantial book.

hope it flies.

looking for work. if you are a job i would love that won't take too much time and will pay a decent wage please come knocking on my door. that is how jobs are got right? they come knocking on your door?
- posted by barbara @ 5/25/2004 06:28:00 AM  0 comments

 
Crack.ass
fatandy exhorts:
Just remember though, you can do your part every day. All you have to do is bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Make every day seem like an eternity in the deepest pits of hell, and then relate your complaints to those younger than you, and you will have done your part. And please, by God, won't somebody please think of the children?

i obliged thusly:
it's hot as hell here. i owe my 20-year-old son something like 500 thousand dollars and it's doubtful i'll ever see that much money in this lifetime, which is waning fast i tell you, fast! in less than two years i'll be half a century old. the 20th century to be truthful still feels like the century of the moment. i'm fat, and it's hot as hell here. smoggy, too, and when we went to the beach yesterday the tide was so friggin high there were no skipping stones or keeper shells for miles. i have to walk to lomita for an interview today, and if it goes well i have to go to work! work! for like 89 hours a week or so, for a pittance, probably won't even net me enough to pay said son back.

how was that? never let it be said that your generation can outbitch mine! i love you
- posted by barbara @ 5/03/2004 09:06:00 AM  0 comments