Thursday, March 26, 2015

Black Gold

There are things in life that capture us. I don't know how my vice found me, and I don't know if I'm grateful for it. I just know what I need, and I know to what cost I must find it. Do you know that feeling, friend? The ache. The longing. 


It feels like eternity since I've laid eyes on my treasure. I miss how my brain shivers at the taste. It won't be long now...


Yet here as I can smell its breath the minutes turn to eternities. The cruelty! Have I not endured? Have I not wrangled beasts and withstood floods? My memory flashes. Metal cages, shrieking beings, the musty smell of crushed foliage, the watching specters. The calamity storms from ear to ear as I feel the beads of moisture appear on my hairline. It won't be long now...my treasure is nearly claimed.


One final test. With a victory in sight my adrenaline surges one last time. The rush permits my arms to multiply! They cannot stop me! I pay my dues, and even as my body experiences a mild convulsion at the cost my emotions are quickly soothed because I know my prize awaits at the end of the road.


"What can I make you?"


"How much for an extra strong iced latte?"


"That would be..$3.25 with tax."
 "HOLY CRAP. I don't need it that bad. Let's load up the groceries kids we're getting chicken nuggets on the way home.........because Mommy is too tired to cook now."


Monday, March 9, 2015

Showstopper

I can barely hear myself through all their screaming! Their chanting is making the stage hum under my killer heels. I point to the top row and the screaming somehow intensifies. In front they are clawing at the stage ready to devour me. My head is spinning from their combined energy battering my senses. All the critics and training. All those hours in the studio leading up to this moment! This is my life. They are here, here for me.

I am a Diva. I am the Diva.
People jam to my songs at the stoplights.
There are like 50 parodies on You Tube right now.
I am going to be a guest on the Today Show.
Oprah will probably tweet about how epic my beats are.
Beyonce is gonna text me like, girl you do the damn thing!
Lifetime will make a movie of my life.
I've made it to the show.
It's my time!

I put my mic up and pose, ready for the MC to drop the beat...the audience inhales and holds their breath. Those seconds feel like hours. The stadium fills with sound, it's time to give them what they came for. Don't think just let the bass find your pulse...

'I know you know me
You heard my Mama swag
I'm Lady Voyager
So run and tell that.

I got this double stroller
You know I got that chrome
My pants feel hella tight
The nicest ones I own

Your girl ain't just a baby Mama
Your girl will bust a move
I got the play group hatin'
Cuz they know how I do

They say I don't enrich
They say my stuff ain't packed
They say kids need more organic
Not those beluga snacks

So all my sista Mamas
Throw your hands up high
Shake those bearing hips girl
No gaps up in these thighs!

My kids done got my swag
They got this sugar spice
My kids know Mom is Queen
Of this gangsta's paradise!'



"Mommy I couldn't find you but I have to go potty. Why are you talking to a hair brush?"















Thursday, March 5, 2015

Creatures

There are Creatures out there you know. This is what I tell myself to calm my own fears, to provoke my own wonder. Are they glittering cherubs? Are they foul breathed demons? I can hear their clicking. They wrestle along the floor. They scurry through the foliage. Small voices in my ear whisper, "come and see". 

I am a young Lady Voyager, but I have seen things. Beautiful things, frightening things, puzzling things. Yet it seems no matter what the outcome, I long for the journey to it. I do not wish to see what happens next, rather, I aim to experience it. There may be no end to my adventure, although there was most certainly a beginning. Given the choice I would not want it to end anyway. To live a life without curiosity? How very boring. As the sun rises my body longs for the moon to return, yet the voices are relentless in their calling. They call me to rise, and they will not be silenced. They call me to open doors, to solve riddles, to slay dragons, to save butterflies. Today the voices are calling me yet again, "come and see" they say. There are Creatures out there you know.

At long last I resolve myself to follow the sound of their whispers. I venture along corridors, looking this way and that. I can hear them, where are they hiding? Creatures. As I take step after step I can feel the initial excitement beginning to give way to anxiety. My mind flashes through cobwebbed memories. Decorated tribal walls. Disemboweled provisions. Beings masked with warriors paint. Will I be prepared for this discovery? Should I pause to pray for courage? Couldn't hurt.

The Creatures, they must sense my coming, their receptors must be humming. The whispers crescendo into busy chatter. I round the last bend on the path, and now the picture becomes clearer. Now I can see them! The Eyes! They are every where. They see everything, there is no where I can hide. I want to turn away, I want to pretend I don't see them, I want to run. Now my feet are sticking! I can't run away, I cant avoid the eyes. The Creatures cackle and dance in a frenzied hive. Frantic I scour the ground. There is purple sludge clinging to the boughs, there is milky ooze puddling on the floor. On a rainbow bed the eyes roll back and forth taunting me in their numbers. What is this Beast? What hope do I have to restrain it? I have trained with seasoned voyagers, and I have read the ancient scrolls but now I face a thing I do not recognize. Grasping for my courage I give a warriors cry!

"What is going on here??"

"Hi Mommy. We made a project."





Greetings

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!


This blog is dedicated to all the Mamas out there, the ones taming foul beasts and saving the village people. Our positions require great bravery, loyalty, commitment, cunning, and most definitely sword fighting skills. It's just our villagers are diaper wearing, cheerio flinging, dirt clod eating, perfectly imperfect people gnomes and our round table is just kinda...sticky.



As this is my first post, why not give some deets? I am a looney mom of three young children, and one dog, and also there's a husband (Love him too). Sounds kind of boring when you say it flat like that. It certainly doesn't describe what we do or who we are. I would like to imagine myself as a heroic she-gladiator of justice with a smokin' hot bod. And why not? Why do us mothers feel so much pressure to be these majestic zen creatures of poise and propriety? I miss the ridiculous. I miss shenanigans, and not for the sake of enrichment activities for my kids or as a means to somehow improve their brain activity, but just for the fun of it! Motherhood is deep. ALL THE TIME. Every waking moment is spent thinking, researching, worrying, imagining, organizing, enriching, regretting. We collapse into bed at night and stare at the ceiling reliving every second of our day. 

"Oh no, I promised my baby that I would give her a fruit snack after I finished unloading clothes into a basket (not folding, let's be real here). Did I read the nutrition facts on those? Oh great I can't remember. Definitely not organic. They are probably made from the thyroid glands of poor poached baby beluga whales. God, I'm a monster! Maybe I should write a letter to the manufacturer. Or I could film my own documentary and sell it to Animal Planet. Wait, all I have are those faded jeans and that button up top from college. My boobs wont fit in that thing anymore. I can't film a scathing yet eye opening documentary in that! Plus, I'm having a bad hair year. Sorry baby belugas, I recycle. Fruit snacks. I forgot to give it to her. I broke a promise. I am a liar. She will never trust me again! Now when she's sixteen and I say 'no don't go to homecoming with that boy he's bad news and you deserve better I promise', she will remember this day and ignore my advice! Then she'll go to homecoming with that weird dark kid with eye liner, after which she'll dye her hair blue and pierce her eye brow. Bam! Just like that I'll end up as a woman who is clearly too young and sexy to be a grandmother. That's it! I'm just going to wake her up and give her the bludgeoned beluga fruit snacks so she knows Mommy isn't a liar and I won't be a cougar gram gram in a few years."

You see what I mean? Yeah, you do. My goal is to provide a break from that lunacy. Yes, parenting is serious and difficult at times, and blah blah blah. It is also hilarious. You can't tell me watching your infant scare themselves with a fart isn't some of the funniest crap (pun intended) you've ever seen! But that's the easy part, let's laugh at the rest too. Hell, let's make the mundane parts a little, dare I say, swashbuckling! 


Ok I admit, the whole Knights of the Round Table analogy is a little corny, but hey, pretending is fun. I'm like a hot unpaid Walt Disney understudy with ketchup smeared on my leg and a booger in my hair. I won't say whose. 

To Battle!