Dear Reader...

I am moving.


I am not leaving you, but I currently have too many abodes, and so I am folding my old life into my new. I am shacking up at my flashy new pad, and bring all my old baggage with me (of course).


Please follow me? Please bookmark the NEW SITE? I promise to continue embarassing myself. Hopefully more frequently than I of late.


If you don't, I'll miss you...


xoL

"Fine"...

Yesterday, we went to Chattanooga, for a birthday party, and to wander. And it was so nice. Lunch at the deli. Mose rode an elephant at the carousel. We cruised North Chatt, the South Side, St. Elmo. Drove up the mountain, to Point Park, and looked out over the city, and the states beyond.


It was... it was... it was...


BEAUTIFUL!


And I realized something. That I don't HATE Atlanta at ALL. I like Atlanta a lot. Atlanta is "fine".


But I don't love it the way I love Chattanooga, Iowa City, Baltimore, New York.


I love a lot of places, and I bet I could love a lot more.


But I wonder if I can ever really love Atlanta?


I know I love a lot of the things about my life here. I know I love my friends, the neighborhood. Chris' job.


But driving around Chattanooga was different. Like coming home. Like Sunday afternoon. Like breathing fresh air.


It was just, so nice... and now I feel so good. Maybe I'll just go visit once a month...


Now I feel funny. Like I'm sleeping with a guy I don't really want, and thinking about my ex boyfriend.

Done!!!

I turned in my book!


Now we just have to edit it, and edit it, and edit it... and do all the rewriting associated with those edits.


In other news, the house is clean-ish, and spring has SPRUNG!

Obama Grafitti in Atlanta today...

New Rules...

Not too long ago I decided that... I am NOT A HOUSEWIFE!


I am a stay-at-home-mom, which is NOT the same thing.


In case you are an absolute moron and don't know the difference...


Moms: Educate, cuddle, feed, clothe, talk to, entertain, enjoy, sing with, bathe, and reprimand (among other things), their KIDS. Moms are busy building human beings. Which is a full time job.


Housewives: Well, you figure it out. House+wife=woman defined by a building and a man.


Screw THAT!


Light dusting, ironing?


SCREW THAT!


If a woman (or man) spends too many hours worrying the dishes and mopping and whatnot, they do not have time for important things like reading with their kids, playing with playdough, smearing glitter glue around.


And if I happen to be the person around the house during the day, maybe it makes sense that I do some cooking, a little laundry, maybe the shopping. But I am not a MAID! It is not my JOB to make sure the house is neat. If the house is neat, I'm doing a favor to the other people in the house, and they should say, (as I would say to them if they cleaned) THANK YOU! If the house is not neat it is everyone's fault.


And since I embraced this realization I have been a happier Laurel. Much. One day I didn't make dinner but DID bake cookies. Another day I refused to make the beds. I've been singing more, playing more, tickling more.


And the mess?


It turns out I was the only one who cared anyway.


Figures...

Know thyself...

If, on a regular basis, you're rubbing your kid down with hand sanitizer, you are:


a. too lazy to wash
b. a neurotic freakshow
c. both


In any case, you're driving me kinda nuts.

There is glue...

And there is glitter...

Let's not forget...

... that "haha" is always a part of brouhaha...

Super Tuesday in Atlanta...

So...


I went to vote yesterday, in Georgia, in my largely African-American precinct. In GEORGIA! Super Tuesday.


Usually the folks working the polls are little old (I mean OLD) church ladies in big hats. And things feel sad, empty, bleak. I do not live in an area with a lot of political activism or energy.


But yesterday they were all kinds of folks-- middle aged dad types and young college students, sitting beside the hat-ladies.


And turnout was INSANE and wonderful. No place to park. The whole world turned out. Neighbors I didn't know I had.


And when I got inside, there was this amazing energy. It was palpable. There was, I swear to god, hope everywhere.


I will admit now that I was still on the fence when I arrived. I was still not sure who I wanted to vote for... I thought I knew, but...


But then I arrived, and looked around, and realized that I HAD to vote for Barack. How could I not?


I live in a neighborhood in Atlanta, in Georgia, where many of my neighbors marched and sat-in and were arrested in the Civil Rights Movement. I live in an area bounded by streets called MLK and Abernathy.


I live in an area where sometimes you can't tell...


But here in East Atlanta, yesterday, history was being made. In the land of lunchcounter sit-ins, and lynchings... where the Battle of Atlanta was fought during the Civil War. Here, there was a groundswell. Everyone was smiling.


I had a chance to join a movement for a minute. To support my neighbors in what must have felt like a miracle. In what felt to me like a miracle.


I cannot imagine what the hat-ladies were feeling. I cannot presume to imagine...


But I cannot imagine having voted against them.


I cried a little in the parking lot, and then last night I took Mose to Manuel's Tavern to watch the returns come in. Because it was a moment. Something not to be missed. Screaming and shouting and lights and tv cameras and music and beer.


Mose just stared.


And I didn't even need to watch. Because I knew-- we all knew-- what had happened in Georgia. We could feel it. People were running in the streets.


Whatever happens in November, we won yesterday.


GEORGIA NOMINATED A BLACK MAN! Georgia voted, in overwhleming numbers, against the worst part of its own identity. Georgia overcame, in some small way, a few dark chapters of its history.


And it felt like magic, a tide turning. I felt really young. See... this was the first election since my childhood that felt like democracy to me. That felt like the people were making something happen, and that the energy was feeding itself. Not even because we were winning, but because we were caring, trying...


Laugh if you want at my innocence, but it felt really alive.

Until March 3...

I'm not likely to be blogging much at all. I have a BIG deadline looming, and then a smaller deadline looming, and then... oh, yeah... I have two kids.


Speaking of which, Lew is crawling and pulling up and starting to cruise. So life has gotten hectic (but cute as hell). The other day I turned around and he'd gone to the bathroom, pulled up on the edge of the tub, and was splashing in the running water I had going for Mose's bath.


Meanwhile, Mose is gbetting into cooking. He can crack an egg without getting shells into the mix, and he can pick up a full measuring cup and pour it into the bowl without spilling. Pretty awesome. While I've not been cooking much lately, I will say that we often have prefab Betty Crocker muffins around as a result. So come on over. Blueberry or coffeecake flavor? I got it all!


In other news, I'm sad I didn't go to AWP, but it was the right thing to do. I couldn't afford the $$$ and while I was NOT there I had a pretty awesome breakthrough on my book, so I hacked away 90 pages of deadweight and got to work. I think that I did this because deep down I needed something good to come of the choice... so that I wouldn't sit around thinking about all the fun I was NOT having.


Was it fun?

My Mundane...

Sarah, who often makes me want to move back to Iowa City, asks, "What's your mundane?"


And her mundane makes me feel I should make coffee before I kick hubby out the door, that I am a bad wifey.


But here it is anyway, my mundane:


Alarm goes off and we ignore it, usually until about 7. There is almost always a munchkin in the bed. Hubby rouses hisself and when he is into the shower, I rouse myself.


I put munchkin #2 back into his crib. I cuddle with munchkin #1. Munchkin #1 gets cute and then demands a banana. Always. I delay.


When I can hear that hubby is done with his shower and is shaving/brushing teeth, I lower munchkin from bed so he can pad in and "do teeth". I nurse munchkin #2.


When hubby comes in with #1, I get out of bed and pull on clothes. I "make bed". I go into munchkinland and "make other bed". I get clothes out for munchkins and head back into my room where several diapers are changed.


By this time hubby is ready to head downstairs and off to work. I carry one munchkin and he the other. Often I carry clothes.


Downstairs, hubby kisses #1 and then asks, "Now what?" #1 responds, "Now mommy" and then "Now baby." #2 and I gather our kisses and hubby is gone.


After that, #1 sits on couch, eats banana, and screams for "Peeewweee!" I turn on the TV as requested. I dump #2 in excersaucer. I make breakfast (veggie sausage, eggs, toast) for his lordship the bananaeating peeewweeee watching munchkin king.


He says, "Tankun, mama, tankun," and everything seems worth it.


Then, while #2 crawls at my feet and his lordship watches "Super Why" or something else PBSfull, I brush teeth, make coffee, wash face, check email.


After that I pack #1 a lunch (half a pb sand, string cheese, fruit, aminal crackers) and dress #2, whom I strap into carseat (where he promptly falls asleep as he must). Then I go into the living room, wrestle #1 into his clothes, and we both say, "Bye bye, peeeweeee!"


We wave goodbye to the magic babysitting box and he slips his arms into his overlarge coatsleeves and I grab my purse and he his "bunchboch" and then I hoist #2 and we are gone, gone. To school.


And then the day begins...

Paul "Crazy good" Guest...

Last year I did a panel at AWP about poets who begin to write nonfiction, and it was a HOT topic. Because there's something weird (one panelist used the word "shame" and pretty much started a housefire) about working in prose.


You can argue if you want, but it's there... in a lot of us. Some sense that we've sold out. For money, a readership...


But there are many wonderful reasons to work in prose. Real and good reasons. Sometimes subject dictates form. Sometimes you need to speak to people who cannot speak "poem". Sometimes you need people to hear you...


Thankfully PAUL GUEST will never have to wrestle these demons, because when you get a major pre-empt from ECCO for your memoir and collection, after winning a motherf*cking (this moment demands such a word) WHITING...


...nobody can say boo.


Integrity? Yeah, I'd say Paul's got plenty. Not to mention talent and cheekbones.


YAY!

I'm a bad bad girl...

I'm a PLAGIARIST! No kidding... And my cover is blown.


Crap!

Ooooh!!!

If Jon Scieszka is the ambassador to children's literature, am I a developing nation? A foundling city state? A low level official getting the brush off?

Who cares! I met Jon "rhymes with Fresca" Scieszka. Little 'ol me.

And he was nice. And funny. And he held the galleys for Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains while I pestered a stranger into taking our picture. And then he graciously accepted a copy of the galleys. Which he will perhaps not have time to read, being a busy fellow. But still...

Cool, right?

The Last Book...

I am going to submit to this very cool thing. I hope you will too!


Open call for collaborations (second call)



The Last Book is a project to compile written as well as visual statements in which the authors may leave a legacy for future generations. The premise of the project is that book-based culture is coming to an end. On one hand, new technologies have introduced cultural mutations by transferring information to television and the Internet. On the other, there has been an increasing deterioration in the educational systems (as much in the First World as on the periphery) and a proliferation of religious and anti-intellectual fundamentalisms. The Last Book will serve as a time-capsule and leave a document and testament of our time, as well as a stimulus for a possible reactivation of culture in case of disappearance by negligence, catastrophe or conflagration.



Contributions to this project will be limited to one page and may be e-mailed to lastbook.madrid@gmail.com or mailed to Luis Camnitzer, 124 Susquehanna Ave., Great Neck NY 11021, USA. In case of submission of originals, these will not be returned. The book will be exhibited as an installation at the entrance of the Museum of the National Library of Spain in Madrid at some point of 2008. Pages will be added during the duration of the project, with the intention of an eventual publication of an abridged version selected by Luis Camnitzer, curator of the project. The tentative deadline is March 31, 2008.



This call is open and we hope that it will be resent to as many potential contributors as possible.


In other news, yesterday was my birthday. I am no longer divisible by 11 and so life is back to normal.