Autumn Rain

I had a writing professor in college who asked us to write a poem and she forced us to use the title, "Autumn Rain" to see what we would do with a) a title everyone else was using, and b) a title that was so cliche that it sounded like something that would be in the diary of a 15-year-old stricken by the heartache of their first breakup.

I wish I could find mine. I remember thinking it was the shit, that I had somehow evaded the stupidity of the title. But who cares? Autumn Rain, Jesus. So the point I'd like to make is about labels (how cliche!)

No matter what labels people force upon your work, your creative enterprise, yourself as a person, as an individual, you can make their Autumn Rain your own by writing the poem yourself.

Yeah, they got to pen the title, but you get to pen the poem. And it might be the shit, or it might be shit, it's up to you.

So here's the challenge: write a poem entitled "Autumn Rain" and post it here or on your own blog and send me the link. I wanna see what all y'all come up with out of such a miserably cliche title. But above all, think about the title muthafuckaz have put on you and make it your own. Whatchu got to lose? 

NUTHIN'

Here's your [stupid!] inspiration:

Autumn Rain

meltdown central | it's all okay

omg, omg, omg. instead of oooommm, omg has been my mantra for the past several days. i work at home and have important clients -- hell, all my clients are important to me whether they're paying $400 a month or $2000 a month, you can't leave one behind because as with any other job, even if it's the one guy in Nowheresville, USA who just needs me to make sure his tweets are politically correct, if he has a bad experience with me it can reverberate across the universe.

so how do you reconcile the differences between what the priorities of your life are? i look into my daughter's eyes when she wants my attention, while i'm typing my ass off for a press release or a blog and think, hey there, little cookie, mama's doin' this for you! but lil' cookies don't understand the madness of making ends meet, and if it were up to me, they'd never have to.

but there it is, the truth. them bills gotsa be paid and no baby can do her homeworkz in the dark! she's too young to know now, and i'm thankful for that. jose has been working so hard it puts the dudes who put together the pyramids to shame. here we are though, and as Gloria Estefan would say, we're "coming out of the dark!" (i think i have to download that now so i can have a good cry -- a healthy cry.)

but i think i'll stick with Lil' Wayne and Bronson and T.I. on this one. Neither of the Duurty South stars know Bronson, but I know them all. Bottom line: it's all okay, it will all be okay, tell your story until it feels okay, help other people feel okay, surrender to not being okay when you don't feel okay, love life even when cockroaches are swarming across the floor.

and bottom-bottom line: it's all gonna be okay, even when it's completely not (easy for you to say... easy for you to say to say too... say it til you believe it, for the love of yourself muthafuckaz!)

Bronson says love your mom! (he really does say that)

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

nothing. don't like 'em. but what would i do for what i want? anything (well, just about.)

struggle. i believe more people have been struggling lately than normal. and the struggles have been harder. BUT... most of who i know who are experiencing such struggles are for the first time in their lives taking a look at why they're struggling. it's not been so easy for me, though i have done my damndest to make strides. and i have.

my daughter was stung by a bee. no reaction. 48 hours later her foot was the size of a potato. ER. drugs. pediatrician. then the health insurance said we weren't covered anymore... and then i wanted to snuff myself. after picking up three different drugs we were on our way to recovery. but now we have to have epi-pens everywhere in case it happens again. if you're not a person with severe, fatal allergies, you probably don't know that an epi-pen costs upwards of $100. fantastic!

so what's the point of all this? i don't know! just another struggle. life has done a couple of numbers on me -- on us all. but what is struggle for? you'd have to ask my sister Amber Diaz. she's the spiritual guru -- i'm just the street-fighting writer. that said, i see struggle as an opportunity... when i'm not feeling the struggle of the struggle, if that makes any sense.

my child is everything. if she gets stung by a bee again i'll call 911, pray, hope. to quote myself:

"She's potty trained, wearing underpants, and quite proud of herself. She'll be a solid person because that's how I'll raise her -- whether I'm working at Taco Bell or pulling in six figures freelancing. (...) She's why I do anything. She's why I do everything."

Epi-pens are my Klondike bars now.

what would i do for an epi-pen? You name it.

As for struggle, be it emotional, financial, spiritual, physical, or all of the above, i'm game. it's made me better.

My Valet Family and Chamillionaire: How I got Through 2006

Imagine, if you will, a 26-year-old newly divorced woman who has moved to Norton and Olympic in Los Angeles, just one block from Crenshaw.

Before befriending a lot of kickass valet guys from Honduras, she discovers Chamillionaire. She rides the streets in her 2001 Pontiac Grand Am blasting the shit because it's fuckin' ill.

Thus began my love of durty south, my love of all things that don't fit where nothing belongs.

I was newly single, alone and loving the company of newly discovered comrades. They'd watch me from their valet stand, seeing a white girl. When I opened my mouth to say, "Que paso con ustedes? Que van hacer con el resto de su noche?" there was initially an overall air of flabbergastedness. And then, "Pues, vamos al pool" (we're going to play pool.)

"Pues, si quieres enviar me, bueno. A mi, jajaja, pool es un juego que no puedo ganar, pero necesito conectarme con algien en este pinche barrio!"

So we played pool. Me. Miguel, Salvador, Juanito, and Manolete. It was awesome. We played pool every Saturday for weeks.

No one cared for me like these dudes. Yeah, go ahead and make your assumptions. Sure, a couple of them thought I was a cute white girl who spoke Spanish. The majority, however, (Miguel god bless his soul I'll never stop loving that man) wanted to make sure that a) no one hurt me when I walked  home alone down Norton Ave., and b) wanted to make sure I had someone to talk to.

When the lights went out at the Korean restaurant where they parked cars, they'd bring out rice and kimchee for me to take home. They knew I was poor, and they knew I was alone. They knew I had two dogs, so they'd save pork bones for them.

I hope one day I can do for someone what those Honduran valet guys did for me. They saved my life, made me laugh, reminded me that I was beautiful after a divorce, and above all, they made sure I got home safely -- every single night, drunk or sober, happy or sad, no matter what.

The next time you have your car valeted, give the guy a hug... for me.

Friday Night at Frontier Ranch

By the time this posts it will no longer technically be Friday night, which is exactly what makes it the perfect immediate reflection on a Friday night on Frontier Ranch.

It's not the exact topic i wanted to write about, so there may be some bleeding here and there and you will have to forgive the digressions. first, let me tell you that i just had tequila Jose had been saving. i thought it would be a good idea to mix it with soda water just as i would with vodka (the skinny bitch as Katie would call it). Ommmm, this was maybe the worst idea i've ever had except for when i was 18 and thought it might be "radical" to vote for Bob Dole (but i didn't, take it easy.)

Jose redid the shelves in our closet today on a total whim and for clearly no reason except that he is waiting to hear back from the 1000+ resumes we have sent out for him now that he is an official plumber. so he's cruising the house all day, finding shit to fix, fixing it with other shit that's lying around, and making me watch the baby on my knee while i blog or repair reputations. he's very MacGyver, perhaps MacGyveriguez.

so it's Friday night. i just realized several hours ago that it had been Friday the 13th. not too bad for a superstitious holiday. i actually resolved to stop screaming today, unless screaming is 100% called for, which currently in my life it is not. generally i scream at just about everything in this house, and only maybe 10 to 15% of it deserves real yelling. that said, probably a good 50 to 70% of it deserves some stern talking and a kickass internal attitude.

so that's what i'm learning about. the inner attitude. you think you know what i'm talking about but i bet only a few of you really do. there's the voice in your head that guides you. sometimes it tells you to stick up, sometimes to sit down, sometimes to do nothing at all. this voice will tell you to eat chocolate cake when you weigh 400 pounds. it will also tell you not to drive after drinking. this is not the voice i am talking about.

i'm talking more about a seat where your soul can choose to sit within your mind. imagine there are a row of various chairs in your mind. a lawn chair, an easy chair, an executive leather desk chair, a stool, a wooden box, a wheelchair, and finally, the crown seat, the throne where your soul sits when it rules. it rules over your senses and emotions, your tensions and the dispositions of others. the soul should not always sit in the throne, there are times when the stool and the lawn chair should be enjoyed, times even when the easy chair that faces a blank wall is the best choice.

but today i sat in my mind's throne. i made a choice. this was a choice i thought would be difficult until i surrendered to my own strength. sounds funny, doesn't it? surrendering to your own strength; think about it for a second. basically, it means (for me) that instead of letting the outside judgments, advice, criticisms, or internal whirlwinds of self-doubt, self-hatred and inability to believe in myself get in the way of true achievement. it's a kind of clarity that words don't do justice to, not unlike childbirth or drawing the blueprints to a structure that is revered for generations.

the point is, it's Friday night on Frontier Ranch and there's nothing different about the people i love and there's nothing different about me -- it's all been right there, but my soul has been switching between my mind's leather executive chair and the wooden box situated by the dumpster where all my "worthless" thoughts go to die. all i did was pick my ass up and walk it to a different seat.

new perspective, new kind of Friday night.