It would be one thing if I were to say there’s no time. But that’s not the truth. I seem to find lots of stupid and inane things to do with my free time. But none of them involve writing. Which is, in truth, a terrible shame. Not because I’m such a great gift to the world and I’m depriving them of my genius. I have no delusions. But because it’s a good thing for me. Myself. My soul. It’s cathartic and comforting to write. It’s like being able to talk to a friend and that friend will only listen. They won’t judge. They won’t try to help. They won’t try to relate. This friend will simply listen and then you can vomit up great piles of emotional baggage and leave it there. Walk away. There is no guilt. It’s the way it’s supposed to be and that makes it okay.

I will also admit it hasn’t been fun around here, lately. Like most of the world I’m circling a drain of fear and dread. I’m afraid for my country and the world in general. I’m afraid of and for people who have reached their limit and that translates into horrible acts of violence and destruction. I’m afraid because it seems it’s happening more and more these days. People are reaching their limit.  There are so few signs of human kindness these days. It makes a body weary.

I’m so, so tired. I’m so tired of hearing about missing babies and mothers and daughters and sons. I’m sick of hearing about all the political screeching. I swear to God in his lofty heaven, they sound like a bunch of preschoolers in desperate need of a nap. I’m not kidding you. I know. I taught preschool. It’s the same thing. They’re all pissed off and pissed on and not getting their way and being greedy and petty and egocentric and it appears we’ve become complacent with it. Instead of saying enough of this bullshit, get your crap together and work it out or you’re going down for a long-assed nap, we’re the teacher who has reached her limit. She’s sneaked off to the coat closet for a nip of her flask and a brief moment of sanity in the dark silence — necessary evils to survive this mess. I can’t blame us. Kids will wear you down. It’s why I stopped teaching. The rewards feel highly inadequate when compared to the suffering. The difference is that it’s acceptable with kids. We expect them to be that way. It’s a part of the natural course of life. But politicians aren’t kids. They are supposed to be adults and we are supposed to be able to put our trust in them. Instead, Sarah Fucking Palin is a news item and she has a fucking reality show. A. REALITY. SHOW. This is where we are now? This is seriously how far we’ve come? We’ve evolved through the countless eons of time to become THAT? Seriously? Sarah “Punchline” Palin?? Words cannot honestly express how disappointing that is to me.

Closer to home, the boys have had health problems. I consider myself lucky that things weren’t worse. I have to keep telling myself it’s on the way up and we’ve seen the worst of it. For that, I am grateful. It still doesn’t completely erase the fear, but it certainly eases up a bit. Living with that constant fear and dread is draining. Moms aren’t tired because they spend their days working and cleaning and cooking and wearing a million different hats. Women are wired to push themselves toward those ends. Most of us thrive there. What exhausts us is the perpetual and debilitating weight we harness to our shoulders and drag behind us, kicking and screaming. Coming to terms with the impending adulthood and therefore, independence, of our children is no easy task. It’s the way life is meant to be and it’s well that it is. But the practice is nonetheless daunting and painful and fraught with peril. There is no guide book. No plan strong enough. They are forces of nature and they will blow a path of destruction in their wake. You will become persona non grate. You, the one who held them close in your lap, stroking their cheek, soothing them,  hair dripping with the vomit they just spewed over your shoulder. You, who tucked them in night after night, with a bedtime story and a song. You, who brought them safely from the womb to fifteen. You will be a stranger in your own child’s life. Or so one would believe. The reality is that they are growing up. Their world is getting bigger.  They love me just the same. Our relationship has just changed. It has taken me some time to accept that, but there it is. They no longer rely on me for their every need. They no longer need someone to hold their hand to cross their street. Metaphorically speaking. But still, the fear remains. It will always be there, I suspect. An unwelcome visitor in the house of my mind. But if they are to be happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults, we have to wade through all of this, first. In other words, they gotta learn. I gotta let them fall on their faces, if that’s the choice they make. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. It’s time.

I lost a dear friend this week. He had been on my mind for months and I was dreading the arrival of the news. I tried to steel myself against it. I reached out to him, forced myself to talk to him instead of indulging the secret, scared part of me who wanted to avoid him at all costs. I told him how much I loved him. I repeated it almost to a degree of embarrassment. I just kept thinking he could be gone at any time. This might be it. This might be the last time, Kim! Tell him how much you love him! And then I started to worry that I was coming across as a loon-nut, so I stopped.

Then, he died.

I was pissed at first. Oh, Sweet Caroline, I was so pissed when I read the email from his wife. I was in the living room on my laptop when I read it. I tossed the laptop off my lap, across the couch, as though it had just morphed into a snake. I jumped up and walked into the kitchen. I stood at the island with my hands on my hips and I raged. I raged for 20 minutes straight. I walked circles around the island, an unholy ritual of rage and seething. I don’t even know who I was mad at. And I think that made me all the more mad, not knowing who to inflict that anger on, not knowing who to blame.

And then I stopped.

And then I cried.

I cried for him for the 200th time and felt so cheated and sad. I was sad for his wife. I was sad for his kids and his grand kids who he loved so damn much. I was sad for his friends who loved him dearly and I was sad for me. I felt selfish and small because my pain is not even equal to a drop in the bucket of sorrow his family must be swimming in. But mostly, I just felt sad.

That’s all there is. There’s no happy ending. There’s no big reveal in which I tell you it’s all okay, because, like, the lesson was there, man, and I totally learned it. There is no lesson. “People die” isn’t news. It’s not even interesting. It’s simply a fact and facts can’t be argued. And that makes it sadder still.

I will miss my friend. He was a gift to all who knew him and his absence will be felt to the core of us. I am just so happy to have known him, to have been able to share in some of his joy. I am so happy he chose me as a friend and I’m happy he is no longer suffering. I am happy that he was surrounded by people who loved him and made him happiest when he went. I am happy he once existed in the world. It was made a better place for it.

It’s hard to remember sometimes that there is so much beauty in the world. There are other people like my friend. They are out there. They make people happy just by being.  There are unspoiled wonders and breath taking moments of clarity.  There are real and good and true things. There are things that exist for no other reason than to entertain me. There is fresh air to breathe and a roof over my head. I am not hungry. I am not cold.  I am well. I love and I am loved.

It’s difficult to maintain perspective sometimes, so I hope it is to be forgiven, this self-indulgent whining. Most of the time, I get it right. All I can say is, I’m trying. I’ll get there. Be patient with me.

Some Stuff I Know

So-called “Life Coaches” should not be trusted. With anything. Ever. Life isn’t a sport and even if it was it would be a sport in which all the rules constantly changed and no one followed them anyway. So we don’t need no steekin’ coaches. Mind your own, Mordecai.

Kids grow up and don’t need you to cut their meat or tie their shoes or read them bedtime stories anymore. Ugh. I die. But they will still love you and if you can bear the prospect of it, you are indeed a better person than I.

When someone says, “I don’t want to be mean, BUT….” they’re lying. They DO want to be mean.They just don’t want you to think less of them for it.

Relationships change. People grow. Sometimes apart, sometimes closer together. Doesn’t matter, they grow and change and if you aren’t willing to grow and change with them…you might end up losing someone really special and it will be your own un-growing, un-changing fault.

Your mom misses you. I guarantee it. No matter where she is or what she’s doing, you are never far from her mind. You should give her a call. You ain’t that busy.

Friends — true friends — are worth their weight in gold and then some. You are never more blessed than you are when a friend loves you.

You’re doing it wrong. But that’s okay. That’s how you learn.

It’ll all be okay in the end. I promise.

That’s it. That’s a quick rundown of all I know. I’ll add to it over time and pretty soon you’ll be saying, “Wow. I wish *I* knew as many things as Kim does!” But you probably won’t say it out loud. Or probably shouldn’t anyway. That’s the unofficial last thing I know:

People look at you funny when you talk to inanimate objects. So don’t.

(sometimes I feel also like just putting words on photos. it’s a thing.)

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy it, but in the event that you don’t, well, I do.

Things You Didn’t Put On Your Resumé

How often you got up in the middle of the night
when one of your children had a bad dream,

and sometimes you woke because you thought
you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,

so you stood in the moonlight just listening
to their breathing, and you didn’t mention

that you were an expert at putting toothpaste
on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle

the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while
you sang the words to songs from Annie, and

who would suspect that you know the fingerings
to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki

Violin Method and that you can do the voices
of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though

your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is
Bedtime for Frances and that you picked

up your way of reading it from Glynnis Johns,
and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive

that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy
(and others too many to mention here) to them

before they went to bed and on way out to
Yellowstone, which is another thing you don’t put

on the resumé: how you took them to the ocean
and the mountains and brought them safely home.

Joyce Sutphen

This is clever and proper and I give it my full endorsement. For whatever that’s worth.

Then we have this. And, I don’t know internet, you tell me. Mel Gibson, who is looking, thankfully, “more subdued”, is now responsible for his own rehabilitation. Rehabilitation for what, I’m not exactly sure. Is it rehabilitation for an alcohol problem? That would be okay. I’m for that. But if it’s rehabilitation of the racist, anti-semitic rantings of a too-rich, delusional actor slash director, then give me a freakin’ break.

Money wrecks people. It insulates them from the real world and they can’t see or feel anything real unless it’s extreme and so over the top as to not be believed. Being very rich and very famous destroys you. You are surrounded by yes-men and excess. No one tells you how stupid you look with clown makeup bronzer and that pink tutu you just had to wear to the Oscars. No one tells you that getting shit-faced drunk and spouting volatile epithets at any particular race, gender or religion is a bad idea. You just don’t get it.

But guess what? It’s not our job to teach the very rich. They are not our children we’ve taken to raise. We are not responsible.

We love our idols. We live vicariously through our celebrities. We make them who they are. But as much as we love them and love to build them up, we love to watch them fall. We love that all the more. We delight in it. A lot of people will get drunk and say and do stupid things. If we were all required to go to rehabilitation every time we said something horribly offensive, the world would be nothing but rehab clinics and support groups. Is this where we’re headed?

Then there was this, which flies directly into the face of anything even remotely resembling common sense. I’m sorry, but teens have been having sex for ages. Like patrolling heavily on that one day is going to change anything? It’s just removing one of many excuses. Instead of, “it’s Valentines day, don’t you love me?” it’ll be, “it’s Wednesday, don’t you love me?”

I like the show Futurama. The boys have been lifelong fans of the Simpsons since birth so I naturally became addicted as well. This spawned interest in the rest of Groening’s stuff. He’s funny and smart and gives good show. Anyway, the thing about Futurama is, it scares me a little bit. It’s set 3000 years in the future and there’s all these things going on that worry me. Mostly because I can totally see us going that way. I can imagine that in the distant future, Santa will be a villain. We will fear him and what he represents. Christmas will be a day of horror and trepidation. We will destroy it. We will do it in. We will violate it with all our PC, regulatory, thought police bullshit. We’ll choke the life out of it with our zealous desire to feel secure. Even if it’s false security. Especially because it’s false.

What will the police do if they come upon a young couple dining at a restaurant or walking hand in hand in the mall? Will they approach them and demand to know their agenda for afterwards? What kid wouldn’t say he’s going to have sex on Valentine’s day? What kind of stupid poll is that anyway? Was it called the poll of the completely obvious and fallible? Do they really think every one of those kids is going to say, “No, no. I think I’ll just sit in front of the internet and play with myself because I don’t have a date and no girl would ever let me touch her”? Is that really what they think will happen? They will say, “Oh yeah. You know how I roll. I’m going to bag me a whole nation‘s worth of hos that night.” Because they are all liars and also insecure.

Some might even be telling the truth.

But come on. What kind of sense does it make to pull valuable resources away from where they are seriously needed to a place that can’t possibly be policed — nor should it be.

Doing something like that would make about as much sense as being afraid of Santy Claus.

But that’s just me.

I hate that I neglect the place for so long. I fill scores of notebooks with inane drivel. It’s quality, inane drivel. Stuff I’m sure the rest of the world is desperate to hear about. I keep telling myself I should open the notebook and jot some stuff out, but when I open the notebook I am reminded of a million things I need to get done for work. I start out bargaining with myself. I’ll do twenty minutes of work and then write for a full hour. It never works. By the time my head pops up and I wipe the drool from my mouth, I realize too late that I’ve been working on forms and policies and applications for four hours straight. Writing isn’t an option then. Writing isn’t even possible then. The last thing I want to do is spend more time at the laptop.

I cling to this place in a way that means I am serious about it. I don’t want to let it go. I think about closing the door and I become dedicated to its survival. I’m like a little kid swearing, with renewed vigor, that I will take care of my puppy and feed it and bathe it and take it for walks every day from now on. I go about it with such feverish defense that one would never know how it scares me. It’s a good puppy and it’s smart and cute, but it’s such a big responsibility. Such a reminder of my failed pursuit of enlightenment.

What happened to my ambition was, I kept getting sidetracked and then forgot that I was going for something. I lost the thread somewhere along the way and it slipped away from me.

I’ve thought of reviving it. Administering creative CPR. What I thought I would do was, I would come up with a hook. I decided I would turn a gimmick in the form of serial content. I would make myself be disciplined about posting regularly. This never happens. Instead, what happens is that I get the big ideas and then pat myself on the back for a well-conceived plan and then file it away in the never to be done bin.

Still, I don’t want to abandon it. I don’t want to walk through the day like the living dead, hungry for a syllable or a well-turned phrase. I have a distinct distaste for pouring my heart out in public and no desire to change. It’s not about therapy. I leave a lot out when I tell the stories. I embellish and edit the boring stuff out. It’s not about the truth. I don’t think it’s hurting anyone. It’s just an outlet. An occasional, once in a while kind of outlet. I guess I’m okay with that.

Okay, we’re done here.

To be clear, I don’t agree with dogfighting. I love my pooches and if someone was to hurt them they would quickly find a stiletto to the crotch as their reward. But OBVIOUSLY, not everyone feels that way. Michael Vick, for instance? Okay, look. He came out and said, “Dog fighting is a terrible thing.”

What? Bullshit! I call bullshit. You were doing it. You hosted it. Don’t insult my intelligence and tell me you think it’s a terrible thing. You clearly don’t see anything wrong with it, you damn fool.

Don Imus, okay? It’s rude to call someone, anyone, a nappy-headed ho, Don. You should know better. But guess what? You’re a freaking SHOCK JOCK as well as a giant tool. That’s your thing. It’s your gig. You meant it to be amusing and funny, albeit darkly funny and inappropriate. Why the bloody hell are you doing the apology circuit now, kissing the ass of that degenerate bottom feeder better known as Sharpton?

FFS, this is what I would like to see:

Press: Dogfighting? Really, Michael Vick?
Vick: Yeah. So what? I don’t think it’s wrong. I don’t agree with the law. I did it. I got caught. So fine me, imprison me, whatever. But I did what I did and I’m not sorry.

Press: Racist, misogynistic humor, Don? Why, oh why?
Imus: Oh STFU. Have you never listened to my show? Grow a sense of humor you P.C.-loving troglodyte.

Just once. No back peddling. No lip service. Just honesty and unflagging, unapologetic admittance. Will it get you in trouble? Probably. Will you most likely lose your job and a lot of money? Most definitely. But at the end of the day you’ll have your self respect and dignity and you’ll maybe win a few new fans who appreciate the lack of bullshit being slung their way. It wrecks me.

Ha ha and oh well, not in my lifetime. This culture of fear we’ve created is just too appealing. And nobody wins. Nobody.

Did you know? Sheep can detect other sheep faces like humans do. They can remember up to 50 sheep faces.

If in my car during an assault, in the rain with the radio blaring, then my thoughts turn to those of fancy and things get decidedly more interesting.

Funny how when you’re 22 and premenstrual, feeling the ebb and flow of a million different emotions tugging a thousand different directions you find yourself huddled around a campfire, surrounded by your closest friends. The radio cranking out mellow tunes to set the mood. Maybe the woods about you are thick and heavy, dripping with rain and the unfamiliar sounds of nature. Maybe you’re drinking or high – such things don’t seem so consequential to you then. You light up a cigarette and follow the conversation into the lofty heights of Coltrane versus Monk, Nietzsche and Kant, Superman versus Batman. Such is the uninhibited, carefree essence of a twenty-something on the cusp of reality.

Among the Buganda people of Uganda, the widows of a deceased king have the honour of drinking beer in which the dead king’s entrails have been cleaned. True story.

At the time, of course, I was too stupid to enjoy it. I was plenty intelligent, but I was young and naive and lacked the confidence to fully realize what I had. I had the smarts, but not the confidence to know what to do with the smarts. I was full of useless knowledge. A veritable font of wisdom and no where to put it.

Then, suddenly, I’m a thirty something with the confidence but without the smarts. All that knowledge I had has just been swallowed up by the noise of a million different things that have to be done, none of which include a fire pit in the middle of the woods, a joint or discussions of Nietzsche and Thelonious Monk. Superman and Batman, perhaps. But Kant? Definitely not.

This is the way the world works. We get to the place in our lives where we look back, take inventory and realize “Oops! I may have left some things behind back there. In my haste to evolve and grow up and have children and get a job and make a living and get the casserole on the table — I didn’t take care.”

On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day. Every day.

You don’t know what you’re missing, not being a woman. You just don’t know. We awake one morning, a caricature of our former selves, in a fog of regret and longing. We ache for a quiet place and a pencil that doesn’t feel heavy when we sit down to write. Words that flow. What we long for, we give away. We sacrifice and pray the voices aren’t silent forever, the ones that whisper romantic notions from time to time — lending small comfort.

But suffering is overrated and we are not interested in being martyrs. We are content with our lot. It’s just that we always thought it was a life to come when in actuality it is a life that has already passed us by. Now, more than ever, we have the whole world at our fingertips. More opportunities. More knowledge. More everything. Except time. All the anti-aging serums and microderm abrasion mini peel whatchamahoozits the market pumps out day after day to fool us into thinking we’re actually combating those wrinkles and lines that mark the passage of time? It’s a sham. Still it goes on. Tramples right over the top of us. You can’t stop aging. You can’t stop time. Better to sit back and enjoy the ride. Let it come.

I’m of a mind to let those romantic notions sweep right over me. Let them wash me away in a sea of blissful ignorance. Or agony. Or joy. Or whatever those notions may bring. Why should I fight them? I’ve only got so much time to enjoy them and no good reason not to.

Fact: If you put a drop of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

Did you know? What a romantic idea!

A thing about getting old is: it doesn’t get any better.

I find myself waking earlier and earlier every morning. Doesn’t matter what time I went to bed. Last night I made a bad choice. Wrapped up in a blanket on a love seat in my room, I surfed the web, drank iced tea and watched Matt flip channels on the television. We talked about politics and laughed about the asinine and got into a weird deep, philosophical discussion about how, if you could send your body back to another time — but not actually GO back in time, just, you know, your body would revert to another time in your life when you were in better shape would you do it and would it matter because what if you just made all the same mistakes over again that got you to this point in your body where you have this scarred and messed up body but wait — what if you could take with you the memory of what got you to that body so you didn’t repeat those mistakes and — anyway, you get the picture. It was a weird existential discussion that went on way longer than it should.

Next thing I know, it’s nearly 4 a.m.

I know! What was I thinking? Now, normally, that wouldn’t be a problem because it was Saturday night and I had nowhere to be this morning. But since I’m old and give out, I can’t sleep in like I used to. In the olden days I could have slept in until 4 p.m. today and all would well. Yeah, no. This morning I pop awake at my usual time and wonder who died in my head and why my soul feels crushed.

I only tell you all this because I think you should know. I only tell you all this because, if you can at all help it, don’t get old. All kinds of things suck about it.