DOAEN 16: Driving Your Monte Carlo

I drove you to the airport to make your red eye flight without knowing that you wouldn't leave that morning because everything was overbooked and you were rerouted via San Jose to Houston while I spent my weekend driving around in your Monte Carlo listening to the Eagles on your killer sound system, woofers in the trunk. I didn't care where I went, up and down the street to the supermarket, to the mall acting like I was looking for parking without pulling into a spot. You left me the keys and a full tank of gas. I thought about burning a stick of incense or spraying cologne on the dashboard but decided not to extrude my personal statement into your silver NASCAR look-alike. It's just that you weren't around to distract me from the smoke-smell and it got inside the underside of my gums and tooth cavity that was stitched up the week before with black thread. Now you're on medication to help you quit the habit, but it's not going according to plan which was a one-shot deal to walk out hypnotized, smoke-free, a new man. We all want somebody to fix us up, but it doesn't always happen that way. The only way I want to fix you is with me, although I must say that when I'd finished driving around I went upstairs and discovered I'd lost my favorite earring, the silver one with the topaz jewel on the end, and I'm hoping to find it inside your car.

DOAEN 15: Winter Break

Last night you read me your Declaration of Independence while I sat on the couch watching the Food Network with the sound turned down. All I could do was to listen, a goldfish whom you'd dumped out of her glass. I'd never heard you speak to me like that before. You told me to bug out of your life and how you were an adult and not some 14-year old girl and how you knew the difference between good and bad people and I was acting crazy and didn't know what I was talking about. That kind of stuff. I think you went on for 10 minutes while I sat there remembering who I was when I was your age and no one could tell me shit. I resented a bunch of grownups dictating what I should do and how I should do it when it was my life and I knew what I needed better than anyone else, and I was right. So my darling, we have reached that point with each other as I step aside to let you to make your own mistakes. I give you my blessing as you give me your own gifts, making me glad that I'm an older woman who's already learned the bittersweet lessons of the heart.

DOAEN 14: Tears Make us Who we Are

Daughter of my body, your eyes clogged with tears, I want to find the right combination of words to make it better. I don't know what to say. This is not the same as when you scraped a knee or lost a favorite sweater. Back in your middle school days, I watched you fit your heart back together with Super Glue after a week of sobbing in your room with the door shut. I stayed up with you when your father died as you emerged changed forever. His death placed you in a setting apart from your young peers forever. Now more loss, the injustice of an indifferent world, your love extracted from your arms to do jail time as you listen to the tide wash his voice through collect phone calls, his face a vision behind sealed glass. These days I watch another layer of sorrow seep into your eyes as you stand on a hillside like his own Red Cross. Daughter of my body, I recognize your loyal heart that scorns common wisdom. But I fear for you, while at the same time, I don't wish to confuse your love with my past loves, with the way I tried to rescue people in my lifeboat from diving into the surrounding grey waters. All I can say from my rusted iron perch is that our hearts heal, and tears soften us to who we must become.

DOAEN 13: Strip Mall

Looking for a large number of bars to appear on my cellphone while I walk inside the strip mall doing research. All hands-on deck to install a new set of assumptions. Santa is scheduled to make an appearance through metal detectors.  Does he remove his belt buckle? Parking lots are full and I'm a Linux know-it-all who runs my open system next to yours. Hear me out. Projectionists say electronics are hot. Illusionists?

He: What do you want to buy today?
She: I don't know. What do you want to buy today?
He: I asked you first.
She: I asked you second.
He: Why so perturbed, my pet?
She: There are so many choices and so little time.
He: Buy now. Save later.
She: You think?

In the parking lot and there's a woman whose head is covered by a kerchief. She places  a 24-roll pack of toilet paper and jumbo jars of spaghetti sauce into the trunk of her car. Her children offer more packages. They speak a language that could be Farsi. Clouds meet at a central checkpoint, portending more rain?

Not so long ago, the sky fell over Baghdad. No one picked up the pieces. Not to worry. This is a level playing field. We all must show a receipt to to get past the surveillance cameras. Don't want to be arrested for shoplifting.

She: I'm sorry.
Woman with head covered: Miss?
She: I had nothing to do with it.
Woman with head covered: I miss you altogether.
She: I'm flattered.
Woman with head covered: Very kind of you.
She: I mean none of it was my fault.
Woman with head covered: I'm at a loss.
She: Here, use them next time. You can clip out coupons. (Holds up shopping flyer and points to the dotted lines.)

Voice over a Very Loud Speaker:  Shoppers, it's a great way to spend the afternoon. What you see before you is the top ten: Wal*Mart butting up against Sports Authority next to See's Candy next to Big O Tires. History lesson. The mall was built in the 1970's, a salt marsh where bugs shot the breeze with birds, Now look at this place. Nothing luxurious. Sure, the white parking dividers need to be repainted. It's not one of those big suburban malls, but it's our mall. Just like a home team that refuses to take steroids.

Enter Santa, parking lot left.

Music: Wyclef Jean, "Carnival, Vol. II"
What's Been Happening: Walk around Lake Merritt and PEN Oakland awards
On a Personal Level: Jefferson in Santa Rita, Mischa at home
Keywords: open hand set alliance
portable
virtualization

DOAEN 12: I Have So Much to Tell You

did I tell you how I feel when you towel me off from the shower like I'm nine years old and about to run downstairs to play? did I tell you how I can be hypnotized by your lips and then I don't listen to whatever it is you're saying? sometimes you smell from cigarettes but sometimes you smell like straw and clover, and did you know I smile to myself on the elevator because I can still feel you inside me? do you know I'd wear anything for you if you asked me to, as long as it wasn't alive, but even if it were, I know you'd make friends with it and feed it dinner? do you know my favorite time of evening is when you call? do you know I've spent more money on underwear since I've known you than I have in the last ten years? do you know how much I enjoy feeling your chest against my nipples and holding your head with my hands? did I tell you when you bought me gloves because my hands were cold I knew everything I needed to know about you in the Quik Stop? Do you know before I met you I believed love only happened to other people in this house near the coast that has brought me here with you with you into you.