The Graduate

my five year old graduated from preschool tonight. a few minutes ago i crept into his room to stare at him, all tall and beautiful and full of questions, dreaming. i take comfort in the fact that he still sleeps like he did at a week old: flat on his back, arms over his head, like Superman flying upside down….

 

Death Takes a Holiday

Shutter Speed

Another List

okay, fine, i want to do a Most Influential in 2012 List, too. i’m making it up right now but i’m sure it will still be fairly accurate.

TOP TEN, in no particular order:

1. Tom Hardy

2. Tom Waits

3. Justin Townes Earle

4. Kevin Corrigan

5. Sheri Moon Zombie

6. Eric Gowin

7. Craig Wallwork

8. Vincent Louis Carrella

9. Lady Gaga

10. my awesome zen demon cat Billie Idol.

music, pictures, ideas, conversation, companionship. YES!

 

 

 

The Woman in Black

All In the Family: 9 Family Values in House of 1,000 Corpses (in ManArchy Magazine)

I’ve been waiting YEARS for an excuse to have this conversation outside my own head, so click on over!!

http://manarchymag.com/core/2012/10/fireflys/author-amandagowin

 

 

Six Years

Six years ago tonight, it was the night before my wedding and I was very close to passing out. A few days earlier I’d broken out in hives and taken allergy medicine for it, which had exacerbated the hives and resulted in three solid days AWAKE. So the night before my wedding I got a shot in my ass to counteract the allergy medicine, and unlike every other bride in the history of the world I slept a solid twelve hours the night before my wedding day….

Less than two years later a beautiful monster appeared in our lives and made everything even better…

We’re all monsters. We’re wild things. We’re pirates.

Six years after my Night of Big Sleep, on the eve of my Wedding Anniversary, I’m sitting on the couch in my little house in the country with my husband and son, two horses and a baby mule outside, two big dogs, an evil cat, while the newest addition (a guinea pig named Pete) cautiously watches the goings on in this monkeyhouse. My son is gluing chopped up pieces of construction paper together to make an Autumn tree.

 

Life is good. Insanity is good. Happy is good.

Love is good.

 

 

Happy Anniversary, Eric.

And There’s Also Life….

Branch of the Storytelling Tree…

Birthday Month (plus photos)

there have been almost 70 posts on the kid’s Birthday Wall, including videos and photos, and he is now pretty sure he’s the most beloved person on the face of the planet.

February is pretty much his month. We went to the aquarium on the actual day of his birthday, and though he’s been on the verge of succumbing to a full-on winter cold (we’ve all been teetering for weeks, it seems) there was still fun and starfish-petting and even a little bike-riding. More pictures of his subsequent grandparent parties later. For now: Aquarium!!

And thank you to everyone who has posted on the Birthday Wall. Especially to Boden (we’ve watched Octopadi FOUR HUNDRED TIMES), Sean (the cry “Bacon! Bacon! Bacon!” was a novel idea to this chld and he repeated it streaking like a demon through the house many, many times) and eddy (came through with the Gaga!).

This cold, COLD sunday morning we have snow, four pairs of cardinals just outside the window, the most horrible movie in the world (the Care Bears Movie), a sleeping devil cat and a floor full of matchbox cars….

 

Birthday Wishes NEW PLAN!!

all right, surprise surpirise, i gave up on the Gaga thing as it takes TIME to be ont twitter and you can’t will something to go viral.

NEW PLAN: i created a FB page Public Event for the kiddo’s birthday, the PAGE being the event, where anyone and everyone can hit ‘attend’ and then wish him happy birthday or post a cute or funny photo – he’ll be incredibly thrilled by this! the plan is to start showing him the page tomorrow, and let him click Like on each and every birthday wish from today through the 20th. he’s an awesome kid and thinks that computers are magic (as they are) and will get a HUGE kick out of this, i promise. so click on over to this link if you are so inclined:

https://www.facebook.com/events/262859440452388/#!/events/262859440452388/

can you say no this face???

 

Adam Loves Gaga and It’s Almost His Birthday

i know this is going to sound stupid and I DON’T CARE. my kid has asked for lady gaga to come to his birthday party the last two years, convinced that somehow MAYBE she’ll get some free time and intuit his very real love for her and come. there’s no reason for me to NOT get all over twitter and post links of him and photos of him expressing Gaga love and trend #adamlovesgaga in an attempt to get her to somehow see any of these tweets and send him a birthday message.

so, for the happiness of a kid that is AT THIS MOMENT listening to Gaga (his girlfriend that lives on the moon, he calls her), for his birthday, if any of you can find it in your very large hearts to retweet these links and this message and help me trend this and tag it to @ladygaga also, i would very much appreciate it. my twitter is “@mandajoon”

this was a very weird/difficult post to make. “help me get lady gaga to tell my son happy 4th birthday.” it’s a strange request. so have mercy on me and HELP. his 4th birthday is February 6th, so we have 3 weeks!!!

<3 amanda

Eve

no matter how much of a bitch i become during the holidays, or how much i feel like imploding or running in circles, by dark at New Year’s Eve i feel like this:

i wish for you to become positively infected with hope – so that it itches under your skin like hatching spider eggs, forcing you to run into the sunlight and do so much wonderful shit that you can’t help but love the baby hope spiders and blow them on their gauzy threads to the four corners of the world to burrow into the skins of the ones you love….

The Tree (photos)

andrea, and snow…

i’ve been dreaming andrea into a lot of dreams….

there’s a sort of disconnection from the real world going on right now, that feeling of all the kitestrings being pulled waaay too tight – and i’m hiding box cutters behnd my back and sighing and wondering what to do, because there aren’t that many strings left and who knows if it’s the eggshell dome sky or  holiday loneliness or typical winter melancholy clouding my judgement as to whether i should slash the strings or wait…. ugh too much purple prose.

for three, i do not hold the blade. andrea, not for you. a—-, i love you, come back when you’re ready and send pictures of your cats in the meantime if you get the chance.  m—, you may or may not hold scissor of your own, but i’m happy to let you drift in and out as you please.

in the dreams, i can see the scenes i want to write, and sometimes andrea is wearing the corset with the red yarn laces that run up the side, over top the places where the scars would be – and other times i pass her while i run down the street, she’s at an iron table reading a newspaper, posture flawless, and i think  ”hey, that’s…”  but whatever i’m chasing takes precedence and i run on, barefoot.

h— is troubling. i believe she is attacking the string with a chainsaw, trying to make sense of her world by eliminating disagreeable people. and i keep plucking at the string, seeing what will happen. sending mixed vibrations down the line to louisiana, thinking “maybe if i were MORE offensive, she’d pick up the phone…”

i’ve found some new strings, and i’m half-heartedly tugging, trying to keep emotional investment out of it at this juncture. k—, with the use of candles, pulling you slowly into my orbit if possible… and m—, we just dropped the string for many years. i’m jiggling rather than pulling.

all of you shall be written in. each in your own shop, in a town that doesn’t exist, each with a list of words or phrases that will emerge if prompted by the yank of a string or the twist of a key.

boring melancholy!! but no emotion fits wet december as snugly. like a latex glove. on an embalmer. in a mint green room in the basement.

I NEED SNOW.

so andrea, what’s up? how is life? do you OWN a corset, and will you be in town for the holidays?  i have a new book for you, and wonder if there’s a knot in the string somewhere, or a snag….