#100daysofhope

Oh hi, are you still here? Me too. Remember when I made that big declaration about fighting back with #100daysofhope? Yeah. About that. I don’t know about you but I’m finding it increasingly hard to walk the line between staying informed/active/hopeful and feeling like the end is nigh. Like, real fuckin nigh. Nigh as a kite. So instead of doing what I said I was going to do, I did what any sensible grown-ass woman with a full plate of responsibilities (children, bills, epic Instagram feed, etc.) would do. I buried my head in the world of Harry Potter. Because really who wouldn’t rather listen to Jim Dale read JK Rowling than listen to anyone currently in the White House try to read anything? I mean (unintelligible)... 

(Warning: Going deep geek here. Feel free to exit the train now. If you know which train I’m referring to, please stay aboard.)

As a long time hard core HP nerd (yep, Ravenclaw) every time I venture back to Hogwarts I’m amazed all over again at what an incredible long-game Ms. Rowling had when writing these books. The characters, details, and threads that appear innocently in the early books only to become hugely significant much later on when shit gets dark - how do she do it? Not to mention the slow, steady build of progressive complications. I mean who thought when Harry first walked into Ollivanders that one day all of our hopes and dreams would hinge on the magical laws of wand ownership in that final epic battle?

So here’s what I’m thinking. Clearly, he-who-must-not-be-named is he-who-must-not-be-named, right? I think we can all agree on this. (Last year when HWMNBN first mentioned the Muslim registry, which is obvs exactly the same as the muggle-born registry, I evangelized about this at a birthday party with other school parents but I’m not sure how well my point was taken. No one else at the table seemed quite as frantic about it as me. In fact, I’m not sure anyone had the slightest idea what I was talking about.) 

And now I’m realizing that as we approach the first 100 days of this “administration,” we are only in book one. 

W.T.F. 

Metaphorically speaking, he doesn’t even have a body yet. In the story arc of our own very real, incredibly unnatural disaster, what’s going to happen to us by the time we reach book seven? Nuclear war? End days? Winter is here? We put on the ring? 

And who is our Harry Potter - who the fuck’s going to save us? Bernie Sanders? Elizabeth Warren? Or is there some young democrat working out of a cupboard under the stairs that we just haven’t met yet?

Merlin’s beard. We are so screwed.

I am facing the mountains dressed in dark clouds

this cold morning. Crows circle above

 calling out the way things are

with chilling self-assurance.

  I am the same as I always have been.

I am nothing like I used to be.

 I am a toe-headed little bear licking salty fingers

I am dressed in black, dancing in the dark

I am swimming sunburnt in a still lake

each ripple hiding a secret, telling a story

I am frightened and bleeding on the side of a road

I am wondering what happened to my shoes last night

I am throwing my hands up to shield my face

I am packing my bags—the ocean is calling

I am thinking I can’t get out of bed today

I am watching tiny heartbreaks unfold, my heart broken

I am turning grey

I am learning to handstand

I am ready to go

I am bracing for impact

I am still young

I am so old

I am kind and I am cruel

I know love and fear, courage and cold

I am calm

I am quiet

I am frantic

I am behind schedule

I am ahead of the pack

I am still in the clouds

I am wondering where to go from here.

Dear Mac geniuses,

I think I can safely speak for all of us who are drinking your Kool-Aid when I say the only reason we ever update the iOS is to get the new emojis. 

Please take note. 

Thank you.

Making up for a lazy weekend (days 3-5 here, if you’re still with me). It’s a rainy Monday in LA and all over the country we’re feeling the collective effects of Superbowl Sunday. Even if, like me, you have zero interest in sports, I’m betting that yesterday you still made a serious dent in some seven-layer-dip/hot wings/queso fundito/pretzel “salad,” etc. 

It’s like Thanksgiving for junk food. “Okay  guys, we’ve got free reign to eat and drink ourselves sick for one day in the name of sports and advertising - let’s do this!” I wonder how many raccoons, rats, and skunks were almightily surprised by their midnight trash can raids last night:  “Five pounds of sauerkraut and sausage? Don’t mind if I do...”

A truly heroic national effort, well done everyone. 

Glutton-hangovers aside, here are five reasons to be happy today:

1. Big hair.

2. Beautiful food. 

3. Random hearts reflected on your face when you accidentally take a photo of yourself while staring into the sun.

4. Rainy mornings.

5. Friends who are family.

After years of withering, unquenched thirst

nothing nicer than waking up 

in a dark room

in a warm bed

to the sound of rain, trotting across the roof

tapping on the windows

sliding down the peeks

pooling in the valleys. 

It’s raining in California.

Hope, falling.

With all the insanity happening right now, it’s hard to think about anything else. Every time I pick up my phone, turn on the radio, or open a new browser window on my computer, my eyeballs are assaulted by apocalyptic politics and I find myself joining the chorus of, “What in the actual fuck is happening?” 

In between shaking my head, signing petitions, calling my senators, and prepping for the next protest, I’ve decided to try something else. In my own mini effort to counter the ugliness the current administration is trying to impose upon us all, I’m going to start posting as much as I can. Let’s counter the first 100 days of horror by creating 100 days of hope. (Bit behind, I know, but better late than never.) 

These may not be long posts (because you know, life) but I promise they will be happy. Little reminders that there is still a lot of good in this world, despite all the terrible things happening of late. Follow along here (or at Medium) if you need a little light in your life. Or better yet, turn off Twitter, get off Facebook (you’re never going to change that crazy uncle’s mind) and start your own 100 days of hope however, wherever, and whenever you can. And if at the end of 100 days the people in charge are still grabbing our rights by the pussy and handcuffing five year olds, we’ll do it again. And again. And again. Because we know we are on the right side of history, not them.

We can’t let the bastards grind us down.  

So here goes, day one.

For the last three nights (count’em!) my girls have been going to sleep by themselves, together. Usually the Mila sleeps on the bottom bunk and the Billie sleeps on a mattress on the floor, and the Sash or the me lay down with them until they fall asleep. While I do love our bedtime snuggles, which I know won’t last forever, it does make it hard to get anything at all done in the evening. Most nights I wake up bleary-eyed and drooling an hour or so later and shuffle straight to bed. 

So this is a big deal. 

Mila (bless her) came up with the idea of hanging blankets around the bottom bunk to make it like a little fortress, and sold Billie on it herself. (Major brownie points there, kid.) These two are incredibly close - I love listening to them giggle together after I shut the door and spontaneously tell each other I love you. Gets me every time. However, they’re having some space issues. The first night they came out of the again and again, giggling and complaining that they’d bumped various body parts on various hard surfaces. Heads, elbows, walls, bed posts, etc. By the third or fourth appearance I grew impatient and told Billie I’d get her an ice pack and not to come out again. 

In the freezer I found no ice packs. But I did find, randomly, a single sausage (both cooked and frozen) in a sandwich bag. So I gave it to her (more giggles) and sent her off to bed, frozen sausage on head. My plan was to remove the sausage when I checked on them before I went to bed. But alas, I fell asleep and forgot. 

When their alarm went off in the morning, I opened the door and walked right the fuck into a sausage factory. Or at least, that’s what it smelled like. My own personal version of napalm in the morning.  

Really winning and losing the parenting game at the same time. 

And so, there is hope.