sweetheart redux

 Originally Published July 5, 2016 I was raised middle class but I always knew I would be poor. In the broadest possible terms, my mom was from a poor dad and a poor mom so she was 100% poor, while my dad was 50/50, so that has me at 3/4 poor, not in precise math I guess but definitely in fractions as done through an emotional filter. So, maybe that has something to do with it.  In any event, when I went grocery shopping with my middle class dad and stepmom, it was usually to the Gelsen's in Marina del Rey, and in case you've never been there, let me describe the experience. For starters, the store resides withing spitting distance of a marina full of docked yachts and the top-shelf only bars where carefree, asshole-ish yacht-owners drink and dine (maybe not in precise geography but definitely in the Marina del Rey of my mind). Being in Gelsen's and knowing that all goods on display could be bought by this half of my family was a palpable relief. At this Gelsen's, if yo...

When he asked for a divorce my husband was strangely lucid. The past month though, he'd gotten obsessive about his fitness, mostly his abs. Protein powder and picking fights with customers at the working class grocery store he worked at and trying to insert himself into the social media orbit of his customers at the hipster upper middle class restaurant he was a server at. There was a black mother and daughter having a pleasant evening out and he was their server. I hear they were both attractive.  He looked up their non-profit's website and in the "contact us" function, he left some thoughts about a white boy's sensitivities, like what it’s like to be a chill white guy who wants to be accepted by black people.  At this point I thought,  “I am  in hell right now.”  He wouldn't talk to me at home. At the bar we spent almost every night at, but in shifts, toward the end, our mutual male friends would ask me questions that showed they knew things were worse than ...

I watched TV Through birth, death and taxes When I was the addendum Or when it was my own mother Or my own uterus An organ saddled with far-reaching expectations And sickness I watched TV. People came and people went and still I watched TV. In the hospital, a woman named Holly and I watched Hours of this thing called Special Victims Unit Every day Even though a Vietnam Vet with delusions of grandeur Begged us to change the station. I watched TV every day of Summer Vacation for pretty much My entire childhood but I vowed that the next day I Would stop, That I would take a walk or something, But I hardly ever did. Special Victims Unit Hello there! I'm writing every day lately, but none of it is of a quality where I'd want others to read it! Still, I want to keep the momentum going, so here I am reposting something originally posted back in 2017. Why not? xox