I had never seen Frigate birds and I had never seen whales. La famille Emma packed up and went to Mexico, for the sun and the tequila of course. And a few minor familial squabbles and a lot of doubles, frere Emma and I were roundly trounced by our nearly geriatric progentors and I only had one snit fit because pere Emma was baiting me from the service line.

Reposado, reposado, reposado, in tequila and on the beach, curled in deck chairs and swaddled in fiction, drizzled in sunlight and luxuriating in the sweet, sweet sorta washed vacation sweat. Pelicans and Swallows come south for the winter, christmas morning in the high, bright sunlight, I said my mass to the rip tide and it didn't suck me under and out to sea. I met Jesus, actually I met several.

And a nice boy on the flight home, where I thought we might never ever land, just keep on that eternal descent through the white of the fog, through the buffetting winds, and sitting there in my new silver necklace and lovely tan, I would perish without ever taking his hand or showing my friends what the sun did to my highlights, fanfuckingtastico ladies and gentlemen. I'll give you a really subversive war on Christmas, lets all go to Mexico. Because I was watching people cross themselves as they crossed before the cathedral, and all the trees are plastic, and the streets are lined with pointsettias which are far from local, and hey! there is a walmart and a hooters, and there are a lot of drunk americans in desperate need of saving. Coulda maybe have even saved me.

Then again, I have a particular fondness for testing the boundaries of the prudishly lewd, splayed suggestively with my book, legs crossed, spine straight, pages unsullied, and according to my smartypants twelve year old cousin I need a princess cruise ship's full of hail marys to rescue my hang dog soul, whatever, fucking uppity virgins. well ha ha ha my boobs are bigger and I don't need floaties in the pool. See, see what tequila does, suddenly you're in a pissing contest with a stone sober nearly adolescent girl. Now picture that and magnify by it twelve and you'll get an idea of the famille Emma ad hoc chicken man super christmas tequila extravaganza, replete with real sparklers, the super long ones that actually emit sparks, like when I was little. But these were the mexican double wide version, providing minutes of hilarity for me and my drunk ass granny. Good times.

And then there was frere Emma (hey brother!) scoping the thirteen year old honey colored bikini clad honies and their watchful daddies. Just like when pere Emma exclaimed mid ad hoc chicken man super christmas tequila extravaganza that he wished he had some dope - two words - Mexican Jail!

I am a law breaker, and do not fear Mexican Jail as I brought back Cuban cigars in the deep smuggling side pocket of my purse, and has happened every time I have had any sort of vaguely and very vaguely illicit contraband on my person (or in my purse) I kind of knowingly and very politely bat my eyelashes and sail on through, even in GW's post 911 world a little bit of deferential charm goes a long, long way. Not that (hi NSA!) I ever tried anything more adventurous than a few cubans and a bottle of havana club 7yr - yum, yum, yum. And that time when when I was 21 and brought a barret of hash from the netherlands in my bra, and got all nervous and sweaty decending into LAX... and could smell it on my skin, and they had dogs at customs... and pere Emma was waiting for his only daughter on the other side of the imposing sliding doors. And I was sweating bullets and sweating hash, and the nice lady at customs welcomed me home, just like the time that I smuggled my kitten home... but that's another tail that has nothing to do with dumb acts committed under the pervasive influence of tequila, mexico, drugs, or single engineers with lethal smiles on airplanes.

persimmon is the sky

On Friday I followed smoke, down the block and around the corner. My nose caught it before it registered, the smoke, that peculiar sweet astringent choke of artifice on fire. And I looked up, because I have a habit of tracking the moon, and there I saw great billows of smoke heading westward to the sea, to the sea, tinged orange on the underbelly against a cold and purple dusk.

So I followed the sirens and I tracked the smoke.

Down the block and round the corner, DVD in purse, cabernet at my side, a Friday night with the windows barred against the season, and the heat turned to the tropics and a the promise of cracking my spine against the enamel of my claw foot tub, burning candles and a flagging pointsettia, and stillness, save the lapping of shifting limbs and the incandescent guttering of the the flame. All of that, all of that is for later, I am walking towards the fire inspite of myself. Because Liar, Liar your pants are on fire, and ladybug, ladybug fly a home, because the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire and we don't need no water let the motherfucker burn.

I turn the corner, people are running, the police have not yet assumed the welfare of the passersby, I turn the corner into a shower of spark and ash. It is unspeakably beautiful, because this is someone's travesty and this is someone's wardrobe flying about me in ash and spark, and someone's memories for good and ill raining down on me like the fourth of July in December, because secretly I am delighted. It's snowing soft fire and the neighborhood has taken to the streets and there is a sort of subdued camaraderie, and people have brought out their dinners and their half full wine glasses, and are glad it is not their roof on fire, and yet, and yet.

Prior to this, of course, prior to me standing agape on the sidewalk, the sirens have come screaming from the four corners of the city, and the young firemen have monkeyed up the ladders and are spraying great gouts of compacted water and punching out windows, wielding axes and what not, had I had good reason to swoon, I just might have.

The fire is putting on a show, licking at rooftops, all for the gawkers, myself included, waiting with bated breath for the tragedy. Dunno, a roof cave in, a lady wailing after her baby. And so we stand shoulder to shoulder shoehorned willingly by the police, subconciously formulating our anecdotes as bonified spectator to a tragedy, it's a wonder traffic moves at all, blessed are our short attention spans.

I left after the firemen punched out the windows, steam was obscuring the flames, also I got an immediate headache from whatever was burning, walking and coughing down Page the cops had shuttered the streets and looked bored. I went home to my movie and my wine and my bath, but dreams are pernicious, is it any wonder I dreamt of fire.

so things they move, like this is a river, like that was a river, all that media hype and the lava floes of disdain, I am thankful not being anybodies flack.

I am nobodies flack, if that set the ghosts dancing in your house than you are luckier than I. I just get these quiet breaths in the bath, I get nods of ascencion that barely make the candles jiggle.

Which is why I give credence only to draughts, so why you wanna fly blackbird.

oh god, oh god, back up, good to be good and drunk, sure enough, we dine on memories like flies, but what of these old memories that come back like koolaid, they are relentless, they will steel upon my night time just as surely as I ....


as what.


as before I drift to that pecularliar land before wakefulness and sleep, I might mutter an unanswered prayer, shut up heathens, you have no idea.