just tryin something out...

Jayden has spent the entire day in tears. Nothing is right in his world today. It's driving me crazy. He asked to watch a movie, so I put in his fire trucks tape. He starts crying about not having a "firefighter's shirt", and it has evolved into a forty minute screaming & crying spell. Because he doesn't have boots, or a hose, like a firefighter. He didn't want to eat his lunch because he wanted "the better bread". The reasoning and the coaxing didn't work, neither has the bribing. He's just not responding to any of it. And losing it and screaming back at him just sends him deeper into despair. I swear I've never seen a kid so unhappy, and lord I'm at wit's end right now.

Two days ago I finished this terrific book, Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand. It was the most exciting and fascinating book I'd read in a while. Today, after Nick Jr went off, I changed the channel and saw the Breeder's Cup race was coming up on NBC. How cool! But just as they're showing the horses coming out of the tunnel to the track, a filly named Exogenous flips over, hits her head, and gets her rear legs tangled in the gate's rails! It was just horrible. I started crying when I heard the words "put her down", but they just sedated her and took her away in an equine ambulance. I hope they let us know how she does.

The first race was hella good, too. Unbridled Elaine came up on the outside and beat Spain, who was looking like the winner. Beautiful blue gray horse, with a blonde tip on her tail.

Oh! They just announced that Exogenous' rear legs are okay, and that she's got head trauma. But she's standing up now. I hope her head gets better, poor baby.

Ten years ago today I was living in a studio apartment on Harrison Street, two blocks from Lake Merritt, just down the hill from the exclusive enclave of Piedmont. That day I slept late, and around noon I left to walk down to the fabric store to get the material for my Halloween costume. I was going to be the Sun Goddess that year. I'd already gotten my mask, at a little shop in Berkeley. I was hoping to find some gold lamé and some sort of sheer fabric in orange and yellow, to represent flame and heat.

When I stepped outside, it was hot. I'd expected the heat - it'd been hot all week. What surprised me was that it was as dark as dusk. My first thought was irrational. "It's a tornado!" But of course we never get those in Oakland, and I soon realized that the clouds in the sky were smoke. Going down my building's stairs I began to see the ashes raining down. As I got to the street, I looked around and saw that the smoke clouds were coming from the north, and I thought the fire was something big burning in Piedmont.

During my walk up to Telegraph I saw dozens of fire engines racing north. They were from Alameda, San Leandro, Hayward, Fremont, and amazingly, San Jose and Milpitas. I discussed the fire with my fellow fabric store shoppers and we all agreed it must be something really big. Walking home I saw more fire engines racing north. The sky was black now and the ash falling down was in big pieces that looked like charcoal. The street I lived on, Harrison, went straight up into Piedmont and past it into the Oakland Hills. Streams of fire engines roared up the hill and I started getting nervous.

I turned on my tiny little black and white TV to find Elaine Corral on channel 2 talking about an inferno in the Oakland Hills. More than sixty homes were reported to be burning and the flames were out of control. I stayed in the house that day, working on my Halloween costume, watching the news and smoking weed.

Two years before that day, on a very hot October day not long after my birthday, a deadly earthquake struck my city and the cities around me. It was horrific and exciting and terrifying. All that hot October week in 1991 people were talking about "it's earthquake weather!" and the high winds had folx worried about fire danger. While I don't think any of us ever imagined a fire of such magnitude, it was almost as if we'd all been waiting for something to happen.

That night, as the inferno spread and firefighters were still unable to get it under control, the first pictures hit the news. People were transfixed, and although I couldn't see the colors on my TV, the images of people trying to outrun the flames were, well, burned into my mind. The footage was being shown all over the country, as I found out when I started getting phone calls from out of town relatives and friends. I packed up my laundry cart with my photo albums and important papers in case I had to be evacuated; they were evacuating people just a mile and a half away from me.

When I went to work the next morning, the fire was still burning. Across the street from my building, at Westlake Junior High, the parking lot had been transformed into a base for the firefighters. I saw trucks there from Sacramento, Redding, Modesto, Monterey, even from Reno. There were two school buses full of penitentiary inmates from the firefighting units in the central valley. The 7-11 on the corner was keeping them amped with free coffee, hot dogs and nachos.

I was working at the Oakland Army Base, near the approach to the Bay Bridge. Ash was falling on the base, six or seven miles from the edge of the fire zone. Pieces of paper, pages from books or what looked like homework, floated down with the ash, half burned. Most of my coworkers had been there during the Loma Prieta earthquake. We talked about disasters all day. We talked about omens and the end of the world, and about Ominous Octobers. We all felt relieved because we didn't live up there. Some people joked about rich people bringing it upon themselves. I probably did it too.

People died, animals died, frightening pictures graced the cover of Time and the Tribune was about nothing else for weeks. The rest of the country probably forgot all about it but there are always reminders in Oakland. The bare lots you could still see driving the 24, those incongruous dotcommer mansions that cropped up over the last decade, replacing the older homes that'd burned. The stands of young trees, the venerable eucalyptus trees that survived the fire storm. I've read a bunch of articles lately discussing the 1991 fire and how prepared we may be ten years later. I've seen the signs, prominent at every turn throughout the hills, reminding us of the fire danger level. I hope we have learned a bitter lesson, and that kind of catastrophe could never happen again. I was terrorized by the fire storm and even had nightmares.

I've always been afraid of fire. When I was ten, my brother and I were home alone when someone put a bottle rocket on our porch and set our house on fire. As a teen I thought I would die when the field behind my house caught on fire. Then I had the misfortune to live right under the worst fire in like ever. Two years ago I lost my very best friend to fire. To top it all off. Reading about the fire storm of 91, reliving it through news report and radio shows, is really weird. It kind of upsets me. So I felt like talking about it, and thanks for listening.

I'm so fuckin pissed off right now I don't know what to do. I was in the bathroom washing our clothes for next week, and Jayden was in the living room, eating cereal and watching his shows when goddam channel 5 broke in with a news briefing on the WAR with pictures of GUNS and BOMBS. This is the only day all week that he gets to watch Dora and Blue's Clues and Bob the Builder and they broke into CHILDRENS PROGAMMING with that shit.

ARRRRRRRGH

I will leave you with this sentiment, stolen from a hipmama's signature:

"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity"

My 34th birthday was quite nice. I don't think I'll ever get used to having a birthday without Samantha around to celebrate it with me, but it's nice to hang out with Jayden and do kid stuff.

We went and got pictures taken in the morning. Five shots of Jayden looking cute all by himself, one of the two of us cheek to cheek. That one is actually the best picture I've taken since I was pregnant with Jayden. It's not anywhere close to being a good picture of me, but it's the best I've done in years.

Afterwards we went to the museum and hung out with some other hipmamas and their hipkids. We let the kids check out the animals in the natural history wing, and then went to the day of the dead exhibit, which was incredible. We had snacks on the lawn and then everyone headed home for naps & other stuff.

Later that afternoon my play sister Angie came over with my nephews Jabari and Angelo, and took us to the bank so I could order some pizza for my birthday dinner. It was a very tame, laid back birthday, and I got no gifts, but I hung out with my boy all day and he even sang "Happy Birthday" to me.

One week until my birthday. If I had a bank account I'd solicit PayPal donations :)

Morfetona: girl, I'm so scared
Morfetona: I knew we were gonna bomb, but I was hoping...
Daniohawkins: so we are bombing afganistan(sp?)
Morfetona: Rumsfeld is giving a brief right now, it's prolly on the news
Morfetona: I'm listening to KQED
Daniohawkins: Great, now the women and children left there can get some damn peace through death I suppose. What a wonderful plan, than ought to do it.
Daniohawkins: It's a damn shame how little vaule the lives of women and children are to the world of men having a "who's dick is bigger" contest
Morfetona: yeah and let's sweeten the deal, you know that'll make people feel better
Morfetona: humanitarian aid, my ass
Morfetona: why the fuck it's gotta take a motherfuckin war
Morfetona: to get some aid to Afghanistan?
Daniohawkins: My dick is bigger than yours, watch as I knock down your two huge phalic symbols. Oh really, well watch me kill of the rest of your tortured women and children, why not you don't give a fuck about them do you.
Morfetona: girl, you know I said the same damn thing!!!!!!
Morfetona: they knocked down NY's symbolic dicks
Daniohawkins: the whole thing makes me sick. My father told it to me like this (military man mind you)--you can't go into the tigers den and pull on his tail. Whether you another Tiger or a fucking squirel, he's gonna come out that den and bite your head, if only to prove a point to the other animals not to come fucking with him.
Morfetona: One of the things I hate:
Morfetona: Preaching love and peace and family values
Morfetona: Speaking out against violence
Morfetona: saving the country by saving its morals
Morfetona: getting religion all cozy with the state
Morfetona: and jumping up and declaring war
Morfetona: and all that other shit means nothing
Daniohawkins: smack of hypocrasy just a bit don't it
Morfetona: oh, a tad
Morfetona: motherfuckin cowboys

My apologies for that damn pop-up camera ad. Anyone know how to get rid of it? Is it a Geocities thing? I think I'm gonna go check my code.

I'd heard of RAWA before, but never saw much in detail about them. I'm glad that our mainstream media is giving them more of a voice these days, even if it is part of a propagandist spin...they need aid, they need support, and however they get it will help.

My birthday is in ten days. I will be 34. I feel very, very old. I haven't had a date since I was in my twenties. It's very odd to look forward to my birthday from this perspective...it'd always been the super deluxe party down 'til you drop day. When I turned 30, I was pregnant, and my brother treated me to Benihana. I had virgin cocktails. And my birthdays have gone downhill from there.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm more wistful than bitter. It's really fun to hang out with Jayden on my birthday. I've always taking pictures on October 14. It started with the Polaroid & umbrella setups in the clubs, and since I had my son I started getting studio shots of him done, always posing with him for one shot.

I don't like the way I look in pictures anymore; gone are the days of coquettish poses, of showing off the jewelry & the freshly dipped hairdo in the gangsta squat; no more legs-up-to-here miniskirt pics. These days, I hide behind my son & flip my hair over my shoulder to cover the double chin.

It's okay though, because now that I'm learning how to take care of my diabetes, I'm picking up healthy habits I've shunned for four or five years. I'm motivated, medicated, and determinated. I'm dealing with a great amount of pain due to the surgery, my obesity, and the fact that I've been abusing myself through neglect & self hate. I'm done with that shit. I'm not saying that now it's all good and everything's going perfectly and I've made a complete turnaround, but I'm damn sure putting the effort into taking care of myself. I'm all Jayden has and I sure as hell can't take care of him if I'm layin up in the ICU or the morgue.

Anyway, I'm out. It's quite painful sitting here in my awkward computer desk setup. I love you all, I really do, and I hope every one of you, tonight, gives your child, your lover, your mom or dad, a hug and kiss or a call to say "love ya". Cause it matters, it so matters...