a million moths.

hello. i’m back. to write. to shoot. and then repeat. 

 precisely for this reason.

is to keep on going.

from the worst haircut since the mullet fiasco of 1990 when my mom was too distracted getting a perm and i was too distracted stuffing my face with the hairstylist’s turkish delights to feel the cold sheers grazing my ears. never had i heard my mom scream so loud. it didn’t matter that half the things she said came out in spanish. or that her curlers were still attached. or that i stood by shaking, in a puddle of tears. she yelled. she stomped and pointed at my maimed head and grabbed me by the arm and marched out of supercuts never to return again. that’s exactly how i feel now: maimed. only this time i didn’t have my mom to fight back for me. i just smiled, quietly paid morena, our family stylist, then slipped out, never to return again. 

 
if i could make you, my favorite month of the year, last year-round, i would.

i was quite the man eater in second grade. i cleaned out my old closet at my parent’s house yesterday and stumbled into this little jewel.

for color’s sake.

1. i read 150 love letters

2. watched teenagers create music to combat hate

3. savored a two-hour nap

4. stepped on the scale and gasped

5. rescued a baby just as his dad was about to run him over with a stroller

6. memorized the lyrics to bebe’s “te hecho de menos”

7. contemplated things, wild things, that were it not for fear or doubt, i would dive into this very minute

8. heard one of my favorite writers speak and discovered a new one

9. dreamed of a vacation to oaxaca and cuba

10. read three chapters in three dalai lama books

11. bought $10 worth of chinese party poppers for emely bear

12. longed for my long hair 

13. wished my craziest tia a happy 43rd birthday

14. hosted ofelia, my first out-of-town guest

15. rooted for the salvadoran remaining on american idol

16. promised to take better care of my body

lys, tracie, marie, elena and i went to see your radio show tonight in alhambra and i thought you should know that four out of five of us girls have decided we love you and we want to have your babies. (really, three out of five, since elena says she’ll settle for a night on the town with you.) but lys, tracie and i. we’re talking babies: nerdy little ira glass babies with beautiful journalistic minds and big thick glasses.

to my mojo. because it was lost, but it is back and i feel 10 feet tall. to celebrate, a few mojolicous lyrics:

if there was a better way to go then it would find me

i can’t help it, the road just rolls out behind me

be kind to me, or treat me mean

i’ll make the most of it, i’m an extraordinary machine

- fiona apple

disclaimer: someone just kindly pointed out that wikipedia, interestingly enough, defines mojo as sexual potency. i think we can all be assured this is not that kind of a mojo come-back.