Hysterical...

This is really really funny. If you are not someone who takes yourself too seriously (as I fear I am a centipede, perhaps a penny gumball.


In other news, still in Baltimore. Still good. Burlesque was awesome. But I have no childcare and am getting little done besides snuggling and eating. Mose has decided he no longer sleeps in a crib and that has ended any ability I had to stay up past 10 (hard to explain in brief). Today he walked into the shower with me, fully dressed. Yesterday he pooped in the tub. Something is up, now that he is two.


But life is, as they say, a hoot. I'm damn lucky.

Baltimore...

It's nice to be here, home, hanging around with the boys...


Thanksgiving was great, and Mose's birthday party was a good time too!


But best of all so far has been just wandering around with Mose and Lew. Took a walk down the trolley trail yesterday, to the playground. Nice. Now we're bumbling around, eating leftovers, drinking coffee, playing. Nice.


Tonight I'm off to DC, on the train. I'm totally excited to read (8 pm at the Bar Rouge, in Adams Morgan) and chat and drink and enjoy, but I'm even more excited to ride the train . The TRAIN! For those of us living outside the northeast, the concept of a short 6 dollar train ride that deposits one in another city is amazing. I'm going to bring a book to read quietly, and I'm going to stare out the window and think, quietly.


No getting around it. I'm homesick. I'll always be homesick. Sometimes I think back to the moments I could have moved home but didn't. In 1997, when I moved to Baltimore for the summer but didn't stay. In 2001 when I moved to NY but didn't stay.


Why didn't I stay?


Of course, if I had, I wouldn't have married Chris, had Mose and Lew, made the life I've made (and love). So maybe it was fate. Maybe I was moved by the thing that moves... to leave again, and find the life I was supposed to have.


In any case, it's nice to ahve a reason to be here. Nice to be home.

One week from today...

Yeah, yeah, we all know it's Thanksgiving this week. But far more exciting is the fact that it's my BURLESQUE reading, in DC!


So far as I know, this is the only reading series in the world where poets strip for their supper. And if you know me, you know I'm just nuts enough to do it RIGHT!


And if THAT isn't enough to get you out, you should also know that this will be my first adventure without Lewis-- because he took a bottle last night for the very first time, so I can leave him without fearing he'll starve. And on top of THAT, I'm riding the train in from Baltimore, so won't need to be sober enough to drive myself home.


SO...in summation: I will be DRUNK, ALONE, and TAKING OFF MY CLOTHES in our nation's capital!


If that isn't a recipe for poetic genius, I don't know what is.


Be there.

Being a mom...

Driving along today, I found myself thinking that if I could just grip the steering wheel tightly enough, I could keep everyone, everyone, everyone safe. No matter what. If I just stared at the road fiercely enough, without blinking... I'd see everything in time.


In other news... we leave on Wednesday for Baltimore. I'll be gone almost two weeks. Doing readings (I'll post next week) and wandering around with the boys. Also, we will eat lots of cake.


Mose turns 2 on the 26th!!!

Life lately...

... has been nutso. And I *would* tell you all about my TWO car crashes...


BUT... there is other, better, more super-extra-exciting news...


This is the cover (painted by Greg Call) of my BOOK (excuse the flash-dazzle, but I'm a writer, not a photographer)! Due out from Random House Books for Young Readers next August. YEE HAW! I finally have permission to show you.


Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains!!! It's REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some news...

This week I'll be all over the dang place...


Tomorrow I'll be featured on the "Daily Palette" at the University of Iowa website!


Then on Friday I'm on a panel about "Careers in Writing" with a bunch of cool folks. Over at Agnes Scott College.


Saturday will find me on another panel about "Viral Marketing" (whatever that means...) at the New School.


I'm excited to get out of town. Most of all, I'm excited to be in New York, where I won't have to drive any cars. Not any! Not even a little one.


Oh... yeah...umm... did I mention I crashed TWO CARS THIS WEEK????!!!

Word on the street...

... next month's issue of MIPOesias is going to be awesome!


Mark my words...

RANT!!!

I'm up at Jewcy today--


My rant about how our generation does not actually GIVE to charity. (We just dress like we do)


Link me?

The Faith Between THEM (con't)...

The authors of The Faith Between Us continue to generously answer my reductive (but fun) questions...


Question two: Would you search for god if it wasn't connected to the idea of the afterlife?


bebergal: One thing I love about Judaism is the de-emphasis on the afterlife. The purpose of our lives is to make more life, to create a world so that the next generation can do the same. Plus, what would I do all day in the afterlife? I love the things of this world so much, that to be without them for an eternity, and to be aware of that, well that just doesn't seem like much fun. I sometimes reflect on the idea that after we die we will have perfect knowledge of everything, and then dissolve into the aether. If there is an afterlife, I just want to be able to see what happens to the world, and I would like to be around in the millions of years when the sun burns out and in the billions of year when the galaxy expands towards infinity and whatever is left of being human seeds the cosmos so maybe we can start all over again.


korb: It's not that we're searching for God so much as searching for the meaning of God, or the meaning of meaning itself. In his foreword to Faith, Stephen J. Dubner (Freakonomics) writes: "That is what this book is really about, for both Peter and Scott: the meaning of meaning. Religion is merely a tool—granted, the main one, but still just a tool—that they are using to build a life of meaning. Most religious memoirs inevitably circle back to the same irresistible, ineffable question: How real is God? But that is not the question that Scott and Peter wrestle with. Instead, they address something that is, to my mind at least, far more interesting: How real is faith?"


And so, any actual afterlife, like any real God, isn't really the point. I write about the afterlives my father and stepfather have through me, and whatever afterlife I have will be through whatever I leave behind – loved ones, friends, this book, say. But an actual place called heaven or even an actual time that never ends doesn't concern me. Again, according to one of my heros in this book, Karen Armstrong, the afterlife is about preserving your ego "eternally in optimum conditions." It's that sort of egotism that God would have us let go of, and which builds walls between people. Armstrong is right: "A lot of people see God as a sacred seal of approval on some of their worst fantasies about other people." And if faith obliges us to do the will of God, we can do nothing but lovingly strive to belong here and take care of each other.


This is all truly fascinating... but I still have to buy a car today. Anyone looking to sell a cheap Honda?

The faith Between Them...

So, as promised, I emailed the authors of The Faith Between Us. I sent a few Laurelish questions, and they responded!!!


I'm going to post the answers one at a time, as they're worth chewing on for a bit.


Bear in mind, Korb is Catholic and Bebergal is Jewish.


Today's Question: Does believing in god mean believing in heaven?


Bebergal: This is one of the fundamental questions that brought me and Scott together. We both believe that a focus on the otherworldly is a dangerous proposition for our lives in this world. But specifically, I find believing in God makes heaven seem like very unlikely. On the one hand, my conception of God is very influenced by mysticism, and so there is really no room for a separate "place" apart from the godhead. On the other hand, I believe that all the punishment (not really the word I would use) and redemption are part of our spiritual lives here and now. But most importantly, it is very hard to conceive of a heaven that does not contain some kind of literal meaning. My six-year-old son Sam asks about God and heaven a lot, and he wants to know if there are bathrooms there and if you get to take all your toys, or only what you can carry with you.


The only relationship I can have with God is the one while I am alive. The promise of a heaven holds nothing for me. If my life, the things I do and the things I am trying to become, if these things are to measure of the hope of heaven, then all my mitzvot, all my good deeds have been done in vain. But words like heaven are still important, because they provide us with a rich metaphorical language with which to talk about our religious lives.


Korb: As far as I'm concerned, believing in God doesn't even have to mean believing in God, if you catch my drift. (Which, I understand, you probably don't.) But, in terms of how I talk about God – which, depending on the context, is sometimes very straightforward (say, when I'm in church) and other times very convoluted (say, when I'm not in church) – I do like to use words like heaven, hell, sin, transcendence, and so on. I'm working on a book now, in fact, where hell is the perfect metaphor for some of the lives I have to describe. In other words, like Peter, I have a religious imagination. I tap into mythical language. But myths, the richest source for religious teaching we have, are important only for what they reveal about our obligations to one another, how to be friends, parents, and also, how to be lovers. "We need myths," writes Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun turned religion scholar, "that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness." As religious adults, in the world, we experience spiritual attitudes, not spirits; we seek transcendent value, not transcendence. And selfishness, not sex, and not Satan—although we may call it that—is the enemy.