I'm Okay 'Cause You're Okay

Today, I looked at pictures of you from before we loved each other. Your face was younger then, but your eyes are softer now. I’d like to think I did that.

CHANGE IS USUALLY SCARY BUT SOMETIMES IT CAN BE BEAUTIFUL

Tonight I visited my best friend at her parents' house, because she and her husband are home for the holidays. We lay in her bed where we used to spend nights eating raw potatoes and Kraft singles under blankets in the dark, whispering made-up stories and little girl wishes to each other. But tonight there was her chubby bubbling four-month-old boy between us; instead of eating we were holding tiny fingers and toes, and instead of telling stories we were whispering beauty and love into small deserving ears.

NEW.

BOO-YAH

http://chicklitz.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/my-name-is-abby-and-i-have-holes-in-my-brain/

Chick Litz

There are some good things happening, and I'm so excited to be a part of it all. Some friends and I are starting a blog stemming from a chapbook we're all doing together. Our name: Chick Litz. Check out our blog and get excited. Each of us have a day of the week, so there will be new content every night for you to read and love. My day is Friday.

I'm so happy to be involved in all of this and surrounded by all the talent these girls possess. I know this will be a bonding experience for all of us that will help us grow as people and as writers. Most of all, it will be awesome for you as a reader, because man oh man can these girls write. They tame words like wild horses, while still understanding that their beauty lies in freedom. Also, they make hilarious jokes that will make you laugh so hard you spit out your coke. This is going to be good.

http://chicklitz.wordpress.com/

Update?

I haven't posted on here in far too long. So much has happened this summer/ semester, but I'll leave that for another post. For now, here's one of my most recent non-fiction essays.

Grace

This was supposed to be about my sister’s pink chubby toes on the day she was born. It was supposed to be about how her hair grew in, but she looked like she was balding—everything on the sides, nothing on top. It was supposed to be about how those wisps of downy hair turned into Shirley Temple curls that bounced with her Buddha belly when she laughed. She laughed—more than me or my mother or father. She shared her sippy cups with our dog. (I sip; you lick; I sip.) She kissed my face when I cried, and stroked my hair with her baby hands. Those hands, with doll-like dimples where her fingers connected to her palms. This was supposed to be about the child of my mother’s “old age.” Let’s name her Mary Jo. No. Grace.
“She’s here by the grace of God,” my mother said.

Or maybe it was supposed to be about how she packed food into her little backpack because she was constantly afraid she wouldn’t get enough to eat. Maybe it should have been about how we caught her behind the couch with a stick of butter— twice. Or perhaps the day she sat in my closet and chewed an entire box of bubblegum. Maybe this was about her curiosity, her hunger for the world—to taste everything, hold food in her mouth and explore its flavor and texture. She was not heavy, only healthy— not skinny, but perfect.

Or maybe it was about something different entirely: she was the surviving twin; doting, loving, never stop loving; she was happy, she made me happy. This is not about (was never about) the morning Grace cried in the tub-— three years old, tears mixing with bathwater—because she wanted to be as skinny as her sisters.