Dear Universe,

Please take care of Elaine. She is a neat lady. She loves uncle Don. Uncle Don loves her. They have a bunch of kids. They also have a cool new house with a big yard. They have a dog and a kitty. Please make sure Elaine gets better really soon. We all want to make sure she is feeling good and healthy because we all love her. She is neat and awesome.

Love,
Jess

Baby Jessica Down That Well

He doesn't get a bio. I wont tell you how hard of hearing his father was, or how obese his sister is. Or how estranged his adopted siblings are from him. Or how long he was married to my fake mom, or my real mom. Or the last time I saw him. Or how he sleeps in a bra. Or how good his spaghetti is.

I don't have anything to say.

There is a white rod iron bed frame sleeping in a crawl space above a garage, in a suburb, with sprinklers, and kitchen smells. It is very small; the bed, it is a child's bed.

But, I don't have anything to say.

Every once in a while I'll get a whiff of baseball, or be really early for an appointment and kill time at a coffee shop. And I'll kind of ache. For a moment. A thin layer of brown paper around a frozen sausage, peeling, shedding like an under wire bra after ten hours of working retail.

There are a few memories that don't make me curl with nausea, and those, by default, are nice.

But, I don't have a thing to say.

Where I come from you don't ever need a father, for the same reason you don't need a pedicure. Or a Shetland pony.

I didn't have a male teacher until the 10th grade, the same year I kissed the black poet boy on the church steps.

I have always listened to girl powered folk rock. I own two dresses, and zero pairs of shorts. I am not a pretty girl.

I can remember the thrill of escaping him. I can put myself back in that long weekend away, those two nights we allotted him to get the hell out. I can remember coming home to his hurried empty closet, and the ring of grease where his set of knives used to be. I can feel my parent's fate drooping down my shoulders like an ill fitting poncho.

























It really doesn't bother me these days.

























I love my husband more than I could possibly ever begin to measure. With the breath and width and depth of me.


And he loves all of damaged lil' me, every quilted daddy issue.

And he's so good with our pets.

And he has a silver haired quick witted coach for a pops I adore, law or no law.





Partners till the birds hit their heads.

But, of course I don't need a soul.

My mother raised me better.

Except for those sometimes I do really need you, here, like every morning, and every night.

And when I say need, I mean thank you, and when I say thank you I mean yes, always, of course.




Full circle on the men thing,
In love, and love, and love,
Skin & Toast

Willow

So, my old friend has a baby, my old 85 pound friend, my friend from high school who went with me to college, the first college, before we both found other colleges, before we never saw each other again, before I ran into her at the Gap, the Water Tower Gap of all places. She was working. I was trying to find something to wear to a wedding. Before she found me on Facebook. Before we wrote a couple heart felt messages, and now spend every lonely day together. She had a baby a couple of hours ago, and I think that is very nice. I think that is very happy and nice.

I'm also reminded of all the very complicated creams that can ice those early twenty relationships.

I'm reminded of the nights in the back seat of her boyfriends car, on the floor of her boyfriends dining room, spooning contact highs, and making love to empty sleeping bags. I'm reminded of how much I loved her parents, and how much they did for me, and of how I obviously loved them more than I loved her, in the end anyway.

I'm reminded of the trips to Ikea, I'm reminded of how we set up our play house, and then cocooned into our separate bedrooms and drifted.

I'm reminded of the hurtful things she said, I'm reminded of all the things I didn't say.

I'm happy for her. I am.

I don't know her any more. I haven't met her husband. I'm happy. I wish I could meet her now for the first time.

I carried my laundry this afternoon to the M & M coin Lavanderia. I carried my laundry in her laundry bag. For some reason I did all of her laundry the two years we lived together, every single sock and shirt, when we moved on, her laundry bag just got mixed up into my truck. So, I'm folding my tank tops this afternoon on an orange counter in Ravenswood, and I jog my memory down to the bottom of that bag.

She's probably having her baby right about now.

I say to my self, my cyber space networking self.

I say click click yes indeed, still gooey with vagina juice. Beautiful.

I'm agreeing here, I'm confirming with you that Facebook is weird. That friends are lazy, and the older you get the less energy you have to be nasty. And the older you get the older you are. And you're at that age where everyone is pregnant. And you've never wanted a black homosexual teenager more, but neither of you have real jobs, and you have a strong affinity for drinking till 6am, and sometimes you cross the street to the nice green park while you're waiting for your clothes to dry, and you sit on a bench, and you watch the sunset, and the dogs, and in these 40 minutes to yourself, you think; this is the life.

~Skin & Toast

The table cloth is burning

And there's cat litter in the bed
And and a hole in the floor
Not to mention that yellow film that coats the back door
The food in paper bags
The bugs in the wheat
Diploma tacked up between the cork and the coupons
Looking through a rice paper screen
My posessions on my lap
And my love up on the roof

Adjust the crown and sing with heart

~Skin & Toast

You & Me.

So,
As you know,
Life raft has a work space/side project called Dead Squirrel.
Life raft also has a hefty prime project called Analog.


~An exploration of fate, decay, and process, narrated by the motley crew of lost boys from William Golding's classic young adult fiction adventure; Lord of the Flies.


I'm paraphrasing/licensing.

My point is, we created a tumblr in effort to compile mass quantities of images/inspirations.

For your viewing pleasure,
Skin & Toast

http://annechiang.tumblr.com/

I Pulled Into Nazareth

Linda: Born somewhere South of Ohio, North of Nigeria, not sure where. Maternal grandparents; pastors and pedophiles. Father; not sure, something where you have to move around a lot, like the military, but not the military, sketch artist, huge baseball fan. Younger brother, Bill, now lives in Indiana with a woman, has a daughter, grandchildren, very nice, casual, wore blue jeans to his mother's funeral. Their mother, Mary Eloise, worked in the home from what I can gather. Died recently, about five years ago, had about a million strokes, coughed, and died. She was a simple sweet woman who put mayonnaise on her potato salads. The speaker of this story has about six memories of her. One of her crying. One of her writing my name in a bible. The rest mostly silent. White sugar over corn cereals, nicknames, pleated skirts over crossed knees. Backyards falling into warm summer lakes, faint noises. Bags of peppermints on the floor. The speaker of this story never met her grandfather, her mother's father, the first husband of Mary Eloise. He died suddenly of a heart attack while the speaker of this story was in utero, and Linda was on bed rest, supposedly, could not make it to the funeral. Linda. Married her high school sweet heart, her best friend's brother, Earl, or Spark as he is affectionately nick named, I think for his love of trains. Linda and Earl had three daughters. Linda tried to kill herself. Linda got "help." Linda got a part time "job" at a hospital, met a very young speaker of this story's eventual father, had an affair, left her family, moved to New York, had a still born son, had a daughter; Jessica. Another affair. Divorced. Another marriage. Divorced. Found an apartment and a man named Tom. Lived high and strong till the depression demons won. Used up all eight of her lives, dipped down to 70 pounds. Left. Has had her body sliced open more times than the speaker of this story can count. Now lives alone with her medication in the Back Bay of Boston, eats meals on wheels, watches TV, lives in close proximity to her oldest daughter, grand daughter, and two great grand daughters. The speaker of this story has called Linda three times in the past year, after a glass or two of wine, in a public restroom, leaning against the outside of her wedding venue, and leaning against the outside of a busy restaurant on Clark & Berwyn. Linda has a cat named Morgan, active in the church. Relatively good standing with her Boston relatives, although, they prefer to refer to her as Linda, grandmother is a title earned in my family. It is safe to say that Linda is, and always was, sick. It is safe to say it's not her fault. It it safe to say she sucks at mothering. It is safe to say I miss her every day.
Moms:
Gwenda
Lynn
Gamma
Debby
MaryBeth
Janet
Jamie
Cheryl
Sue
The musicality of Ani Difranco
And the iconography of Katharine Hepburn

Happy mothers day to who ever it was that said "sure" to your "can I sleep here tonight?"

"I'm scared."

Put The Load Right On Me,
Skin & Toast

Back.

Nothing like a beach house full of relatives to put the islands in your wrist watch.
Kurt's sister graduated college with flying honors, so everyone came out, I'm talking like 30 highly educated, white linen pressing red wine connoisseurs draped over the rails of a second floor balcony. It was awesome. I met some characters and got some hugs.

The best part of a graduation ceremony is right after the pomp and circumstance recession, after they've finally called all the names, and saluted all the flags, and rocked all the votes, and the graduates march away-somewhere-you can't quite see where-cause you can't see anything-and then you're left alone with your aunts and your hung over cousins-alone and dehydrated-wondering where your little graduate could possibly be-so you do what you've always done-you find her-you comb the lawn for her-you keep and you herd her.

That's what I'm talking about. That part where everyone is sweaty, and quietly controlling their chaos in heels and pastel neck ties. The exodus of family after family sinking into that Kentucky air lifted turf, nursing the utter confusion. And then the gentle bursts of relief and embrace when they find each other, when they kiss, and pose for the camera, and unzip their nylon, eel black, highly flammable robes.

It's this sparkly combination of saying goodbye forever to one family, while simultaneously coordinating the early dinner at Outback with the other family, the family you've known all your life, forever, the people who find you on the lawn.

Like a wedding, or a christening, or a funeral, huge groups of people congregating with purpose, in common support, a pattern of people never to be formed again. A dorsal fin of shiny faces.

Congratulations!
Love,
Your favorite cat lady Jesus freak sister in law!