Background Music

I try not hear the conversation in the next room.
I am fitted with my daughters pink Fischer Price earphones. My i-pod repeating itself. My brothers are saints. Their socks loaded with urine. "So that's why you wore shoes?" My brother said, when he stepped in a puddle. I shrugged. I am the last person standing for this job. I feel useless. My sex being the only thing that gets me at the other side of the door.
"dad said..."
"ma should..."
cancelled, redirected, unused trips. Coming back home too soon.
History repeating itself. Or staying still this year.
My brothers, I swear, are saints.
Only kids really.
I wear my adulthood like something I only just thought to put on.
I hear snippets of conversations.
Torn completely to shreds with my i-pod.
"what will the hospital do?"
And I don't answer.
For fear of being made to lead this conversation.

Love, its such a painful thing to grasp
and feel
slip away-
and out of your hands.

Gifted

You taught me to hug hard.
To feel for things softly.
That to let go does not have to mean to leave.

I showed you how to text, but you taught me the art of it.
I smile because you have made me laugh.
In every tradition we now have-
you have taught me to accept that somethings do get repeated.

I learnt that there are drive by windows and drive by hugs.
I have steered us clear of road medians,
and I now know that an ice cap is the start of long night.

I can see our iced coffee's half empty in my cup holder
and tell exactly how our last nights conversation went.
Who spoke and who just chewed at the straw.

You have taught me that it's OK to want to run.
As long as it's in circles.
And maybe to watch you get your hairs pulled.

You have taught me things I thought I knew.
And now I know better.

You have showed me how to cook all night,
keep three jobs,
toast marshmallows on a stove top,
fly a kite,
and fall so fast asleep- you pass out.

The greatest gift you have given me is the way you run to me.
Like, as if, I could possible be worth something.
...to someone.

As Long As She Gets It

Get this girl a calender.
Maybe some tact.
A cup of cold water thrown in her face.
A towel, she should know when to fold-
and how to throw it all in.

Her little lies, her big bows,
her manicured hands,
her hate.
She should learn to bow down,
to back away,
to start to unclench her fistfuls of words-
before they hit my face.

Get her a backbone,
not just a spine.
Get her a taste of revenge,
on her.
Not for her.

Get her the second last laugh,
and the best seat in the house,
for the last one-
before it hits her face.

Get her a semblance of pride.
A backyard door.
A bucket of colored chalk.
A voice that doesn't rise with self inflicted pain.
"I feel sooooooooooooo bad for you" She says.
You do?
How bad?

Get her a way to gauge her feelings,
before she parades them in my face.
Get her a list of all my thoughts
and how I can't stay angry at her.

Give her clues of how little I care.
Better yet,
don't tell her anything and let her act surprised.

A Decade Since

Your re-dating her?
Is that a new trend?
Will she be different now, ten years later?

Will you think so, even if she stayed the same?

I remember her perfectly.
Without the hint of any truths.
I remember thinking she was better then me,
even in my shadows.

She spent ten years somewhere,
but now she is right there-
where we left her.

She sat beside me once in a theater,
and I remember thinking she should not be using my arm rest.
Her gigantic cup of soda dwarfed my water.
And I thought,
she is sitting in my space.

Now I am off and running,
and she has stayed so still.
Not for you, but for you to think it was for you.

I smile.
Because life is anything but circular.
Yes, it all comes back.
beginnings revisited.

But this time,
you wont see my shadows.

I won't cast anything but luck in your face.

I'll Give You This

I look at you.
Not with judgement but with a searching look,
that leaves my eyes vacant.
I am judging myself.
How are we friends?
How did my youth prepare me for your adulthood?
How is sistership like this supposed to sail in uncharted waters.
I sink.

I see you smile and I don't want it explained.
I can be over things.
Feelings, emotions - even weight.
I cant justify my looks,
but I can tell you this:

I would back away from any confrontation and let you shine.
I would look down if you needed me to.
I would walk slowly backwards, stumbling even,
to not meet your eyes.

If you would have looked you would have seen,
the flicker of disappointment set in.
Then light a fire.

If I were your true friend I would forgive you this.
Is that a blanket statement?
Because I'll wear it like a scout at a campfire.

I'll do what I need to do to keep being friends with you.

I'll tell you the things you shouldn't hear.
I'll listen to the things you shouldn't say.

I'll fiercely protect you from anyone who might be misguided.
I will.

I'll be the friend I never imagine being,
and you can keep being the girl I did not think you were.

And we can laugh.
Heartily

Someone's

He is someone's
You know him and then I don't know you.
The way his hair feels,
and then I don't feel for you.
I know you.
I know you like I have known myself.

I have dug my heels back and held still-
felt hairs moving under my nails.
I was that good.

I would tilt my head back and somewhere,
someone would feel it.

I see your eyes and the way they lock.
I know your looks because I have given them.

I want to take your hands and undo them.
From someone else's pain.

I want to show you how my hands have stains.
How I can not just come clean.

How your smile frightens me.
Then reminds me.

Of someone else.

Of Other Things

My punishment comes in the form of my undisciplined heart. It aches and your memory is too easily remembered. I was once thankless and now I'm left in debt. My smile forms then disappears and it's all because I'm not the girl I never appreciated being. And I wonder, I always have. Time passes, pauses, leaves me wishing yesterday was lived in with less risk. I watch other peoples beauty no longer marvelling at my own. I never did, but I had the capacity too. My waste is felt inside my lined stomach. It twists with my ill mixes of fat and starchy crabs and I keep thinking my life was sweeter in Miami eating jello for supper.
My family cares too much and I am thinking of them too little.
This is 1am and I can't believe I'm still lonely and almost thirty. Sitting in my house writing two bit thoughts to myself. I need to get rid of your smile and the way you look at me.
I like watching you love me. Your love is tangible to me. I feel it surround me and it's comfort level is terrifying. So is 1am and this writing ringing in my head.
Your voice is so easy to hate. It's softness stills me, but once calmed I forever hate the place you have taken me to.
Our scenery is not familiar to me.
So here we are, you and me and all our words.
I want to spin you in circles and when you are dizzy, I want to leave you.
I will feel like myself.
And you can give all your energy to a better project.
Tonight.
I left gasping for air.
My mouth a perfect oval, gasping for a breath of someone Else's fresh air.
Not yours.
You would give me yours,
But I would say, "no thank you"
Because in every offer, lies the ability for me to turn around.
and around.
In circles of "no" till I back, so the HELL far back-
no one knows,
I ever came so close.
Waving flags of friendships and back bent with promises of forever.

Make A List. Check It Twice

It's the repetition of a beautiful lie told over and over again.
It's the way your truth leaves me feeling lied to.
It's the way your voices pitches before it breaks and cries.
It's the one thing I never imagined I would give to you.
It's the last thing that's always on my mind.
Its the moment before sleep hits me.
It's the way you move me to places I have never been before.
It's the touch I think you left on me.
It's the look I see in your eyes.
It's you unloving me quickly.
It's you and me and all the things I wish we did.
It's time pulling it's fancy tricks right through me.
It's you with sleep draining across your face.
It's your scent and the way it follows me.
It's the way love touches us both.
It's the explanations you never give.
It's your face not finding mine.
It's the way I watch you watch me.
It's my pain and your compassion.
It's the way I told you and tell you- you are goodness.
It's the in explainable silence.
It's you not asking whats on my mind.
It's our hearts breaking.
It's my hand holding yours still.
It's the looks you never give me.
It's the ones I take from you.
It's the voice I use to tell you the things I need to hear.
It's the love you keep.
It's the parts you give.
It's in all the times I tell you- who you are to me.
It's for you.
It's never for anyone else.
It's my past catching up on me.
It's for the way you see me run.
It's for all the words I haven't strung together.
It's for the silence we are headed for.
It's for the only way I know out.
It's for you.
It's always only and always will be for you.
It's my love wrapped in words.
It's your kindness undisturbed.
It's the pride I have in who you are.
It's the way I feel when I am with you.
It's all you.
It's not anything, but, always...
YOU.

He Breaks My Fall

Its my house and the way I left it.
Coiled toys, uncoiled.
My grandmothers spun.
The way the door opens,
and I catch my kids awake.

Bedtime hits in intervals.
Swings and misses.
The girl with no childhood bed time enforces them,
and I think you know I have been up to no good.

My husband smiles,
I tell him I can read his smiles in my sleep.
His beard starts to grow... on me
I like to see his smile spread to the corners of his face.
Fully bearded he seems safer.
Easier to read.

My house is the way I left it.
He sees that.
Dishes piled.
Floors unswept.
His home unkept.

His little girls awake.
My sleep stolen.
My hands reach for the sink.
The cold water.
The breakfast dishes.

He sleeps.
I read his smile.
And I look down at my hands wrinkling.
He mocks me.

But even his mocking smiles,
turns my world upside down.

What I Dont Blog

I know my text will wake you up.
So I don't text.

I know my cry will wake me up.
So I don't cry.

I sit still and type and try to hear the words I am not saying.

Sing It Like You Mean It

I am so unbelievably sad right now.
But, I am doing everything right.

I'm blogging in the dark.
I have dance music on.

Ella. Ella. Ella.
Get this Damn girl an umbrella.

How is that sexy?
That it's raining?

And if they are gonna shine- they'll shine together.

I'm too angry that I don't get it.
He wants to be under her umbrella?

Baby its raining!

Well over here- its F'ing storming.
And I have no umbrella.
Say that. Umbrella. One word.

If I were to stress a syllable.
It would be Um, Um, Um....
not Ella.

Um. Um. Um.
I don't know how to tell you.
I would sing.
That I just walked outside.
It was sunny. I was happy.
But, then it started to spit on my head.
It was G-d. I know it.
Just spitting on my head.
Then it F'ing poured.
Thundered. I was soaking wet.
So ill prepared.
I started walking faster.
then I just looked down, gave up...
and sat in a puddle.

Um, Um, Um...
can you share your...
um, um, um..
I can't say it. But I need to stand under your..
um, um, um...
Umbrella.

Anything To Let Go

It's all here.
All the proof of no longer being twenty.
I read about a woman who married six times and had two great loves.
neither of whom she married.

I can't get her life out of my head.
Was she ever twenty like me?
The twenty I thought would last forever?

Sure, age would sneak itself onto me and cast frown lines across my face,
but my heart I believed,
would beat wild forever.

Now my heart seems to pause before every beat.
I overwork my heart.
My emotions.
My hormones that make me scream angry woman angst when the showers are so hot-
that even I wonder if I let go of that yell.

I wonder about that woman and if six times was really enough to forget the two men she never married.

Or better yet, was it enough to make the men feel forgotten?

I will always believe that in the light my life shines,
it casts hues on my leftover men.
Their limbs waving wildly at me.
Not to love me, because G-d knows I am unlovable.
But just to hold me.
To make me know friendship.
To make me look up from their tight embrace and catch their eyes loving me.
"your true friend," they would whisper, "Knows you can do anything."

Is "anything" like the feeling I had today when my grandmother who survived world war two asked me to lose some of my excess weight.
To allow myself to shine through my skins.
Is "anything" like holding onto a past so fanciful, so full of footwork,
that even i feel winded by the memory?

And you.
What about you?
Will you always call me into play?
Will I always retreat into my heart?

Is "anything" ever going to feel like the right choice to me?
Is diet coke really the safest drink to be swallowing?
Should I ask for water?

Do I believe if I turned back the heavy handles of time- I would choose freely this time?
Free of what?
What does "anything" really cost?
and how much does it weigh?

Someones On The Phone For You

I hear myself talk.
The story unfolds on my lap.
Blond hair. Trophy couple.
Young Love.
...and I'm just dying to show off my scars.

This Is My Memory

You always call me into play.
Always.
Like a damn near broken record.
Playing.
Playing on.
I am so turned off.
I could sprawl on this bed and catch you watching.

You are too many digits too easily remembered.
You are the reason I use caller id.

My phone can be off, or changed,
or gifted to me.
But you still have the same ring.
I can dress you up,
but you still come to me dressed down.

My memory is brutally sharp.
I left you a thousand times,
and I still feel you next to me.
Remind me why I never felt you let go?

When I retell a story and your in it,
I see you smile.
You knew I would retell them one day.

And so you waited.
You left yourself right where we were,
in hopes I would come back one day.

And here I am retelling tales.
And I have to play the shocked little girl.
Oh, look who we have here?

But you never left did you?
You never left?

The A Is Silent

"Miriam?"

Whats in a name?
I don't know if it's not mine.

I know my name is symbolic.
Its the name my parents gave me instead of finding one from the ashes
of my massacred relatives.

My mother didn't want me or my sisters to carry a heavy name.
She wanted a name that had not been snubbed out too early.
She wanted something she liked.
Also, something she would mispronounce.

Like carnival and ridiculous,
my name took on an accent.
And when I heard my mother call me,
I felt her stop on my O and pull on my A.
She had a way of making vowels ring.

Today I almost answered to "Miriam."
I shrugged and pulled back my shoulders.
I could be "Miriam" If I cared.

But I do not care.
I do not pretend to have cares.
Or concerns.
That a woman who does not know me,
sees me as Miriam.

And all the faces for who I was not named,
seem vacant.
Searching for my namesake,
in all the wrong places.

I told you,
my mother-
she just liked the name.

"I Like You Just The Way You Are"

Happiness comes with heartache.
You take the happiness and shy away from the pain.

Happiness in a cup of frozen ice blended coffee.
Ordered through a drive through window.
With straws and change,
and the fastest window action you have ever seen from foreigners.

You get left with straws, nickles and dimes.
Somewhat shortchanged.

Your music taste has changed.
And so what if you think you can dance like she does?
You can't.

Happiness comes in knowing you can't do it all.
But, maybe you can still have it all.
That you can have a friend who catches your tears,
without them having to fall.

In popcorn and high fat foods eaten with pride.
Because you never felt so comfortable in your skins,
till you typed this right out.

You used to write your blog with the saddest music blaring from your computer.
Then it lost its sound and you couldn't find your voice.
Now you blare Timbaland from your I-Pod
and think thoughts of happiness.

Happiness in similarities and perfectly timed texts.
In sisterhood and the drive out of this neighbor hood.

And how now if you drive endlessly,
you can always change the station...
and listen to something a little less dramatic.

That's happiness.

Fighting For You

I hear your voice and the way it breaks into pieces.
I pick up your slack and all your unsaid words.

How come the things you say,
never match the expression on your face?

Even My Own Mother

I try to drown her out, but over her waters- I see her waving wildly at me.

Unforgetable Blue Ink Days

I see it in the papers I write on.
How limited a space we all have.
How we intrude on each others spaces...
and you feel the pains of being touched.

I took it up again,
the scribbled angry blue ink spots of my teenage years.
I took it back with a passion.
Timely, you could say.

I see it in the way you retell a story to me,
pausing for effect,
when really you lose me in every well thought out gap.
The effect is all in the way you accuse me,
I hear nothing but your accusations.

I knew it then and I don't stop knowing it now.
Not because I can online shop.
Not because I can drive a four wheeled vehicle,
and never because I am forever older then you.

I don't stop.
And you words find a way to catch up to me.
Friendship you think doesn't fit me.
Its to loose a garb to hide under.
And you smile,
"I still see you." You seem to say.

Well seem to say this.
I can find happiness outside a box,
and still be boxed in.

I can talk and still not talk about you.

I can have a friend and still not forget you.

Lost In The Explanation

Don't make me explain myself to you.

Your Secret Is Safe With Me

I want to tell you a little something about secrecy
and how it festers

A little secret in cupped hands,
starts to overflow
before long you have to hold your arms across your chest,
to stop its ebb...

But its white
and pure and you have all the best of intentions.
but, you don't have mine.


You secretive little boy.
I have been on this playground before.
And I will tell you,
monkey bars were never quite my thing.


I was never one for timing.
I always guessed to much and fell to hard,
and in the moment before I hit the sand,
I thought,
I should have held on with two hands,
a bit longer.

You have the timing down to an art.
Two hands closed.
You leave me with nothing but presumption,
and the way I must have felt...
eating pavement at seven years old.

Its all for the glory of the secret keeper.
And you waive it all to have the last look.
But, I told you...
I have been on this playground before.

And although I might not know when to let go.
I know when to not hold on.

Thoughtless

I thought.
Please dont throw up.
I cant get out what I pushed in.
I cant see my self in pieces on the floor,
with a toilet bowl cradling my chin.

I thought.
I could not have danced.
Feet should not have their own say.
They will cross you, then leave you without shoes.
Or soles.

I thought.
I could drink myself away.
To you.
with moves I do not have or hold.
Not with an audiance, never with a stranger,
always with the promise I just might not recognize myself.

I thought.
How unbelievably embaressing.
But it was planned.
Chugging back vodka laced with sugared cranberries.
It was so unbelievably believable.
This time.

I did not think.

Slow Motion

I.
Have.
Been.
Here.
Before.
Slow walks, speed talks- the price of nothing known,
I.
Have.
Been.
Here.
All.
Along.
knowing there will be a price to pay.

Disturbing A Peace

Attentive to your needs. Needing to know your wants.
She learnt your walk quick. In order to outrun you.

12:50

Another night died in her arms.
She stroked the F---er to sleep. Just like that. He was wound up too tightly, too coiled, too had to, have to have me. She put him down for the duration of her fancied life. She placed him so perfectly, so poised on the edge of what she thought was his seat. It all goes on, in circles from here. She tip toes, twirls away. She slips out, in, back, forth with only him. She came, she had it all, she left....she left him right there. "I'll be right the hell back." she said without the hint of truth. She said it all so well, so wrung out, so damn quietly to only herself. At night it all dies. Not even a well thought out scent can last through the darkness before we plunge into day. All mine. The day is all mine.
The nothingness. Another day and you die all over again. Under my brutal probing touch. She strokes you to hurt you. Nothing to do with sleep. Just the unconscious motions of her deliberate mind. Her want to unravel you. To revel in you. To just leave. Just like that. Her. She. Is. Me.
It all dies under her desire. Her wishes come true. She wants to have you, not at all, no one else... she ruins you for other nights spent. Unslept. Unsatisfied. You crave it like you are supposed to. Just not enough. Just like you, but not like the others. Another night, another chance. Another lie spread out on virginal sheets.... she's counting down. away. to you, for you. It's all over. Begun. Unfold. I fold.
Whatever the F--- did you think we had?

Midnight Snack

Macaroni past midnight should always be wrong.
But after a day of grapes- it should be sinful.
Not seductive.
Like when you think you are being teased,
and then taken.

Like too many portions of me.
I think you know it.
All the times I have tried to hold you,
you move my arms and hold me.

I don't even taste food anymore.
It just fills all the places you can never reach.
Coats it all in sugared finery,
but look who is still red with sin?

I move and the house feels my weight,
like a balancing act without any scales,
I tip,
and you totter.
Something is so childish about my stance.

I eat macaroni past midnight?
Whats your excuse?
I try to swallow my pride-
but it's the only thing that tastes like anything anymore.

Shiny, New.

I swear I don't even recognize myself anymore.
I swear it.

And then, just as my religion would have it-
the man gets to void all my oaths.

What am I left with besides my macaroni?

The Going Rate Just Got Going

Money matters and then its spent.
Like a casual affair, you spread yourself out,
only to find it is too thin.
I spend and feel like loose change.

Pennies really.

I try not to think about the mattress you sleep on.
How money does not buy happiness-
is misconstrued.
It buys it repeatedly.
It just never keeps it.

I always look down so our eyes don't meet.
Like guilty pleasures and sinful glances,
I can't see how little you already have.
I wait until it's all gone.

Then I can build from your scratch.

Somewhere in all the gifts,
is a daughters face
and the guilt life has etched on it.

Oh Brother

This is for you.
Because you said I whirl the poetic.

My brother,
I would hope you see me whole.
Not broken.
But in my hopes I know you see me.
Twisted sideways cramming whipped foods into my mouth.

That's not poetry.
Poetry is giving you something to think about.
Not work for.

I feel myself in your new skins.
The way you touch your jeans and hold your arms out,
reminds me of myself in those years.
tight clothes and the urge to be less restricted.


But you will never be who I was.
Broken and stolen.
Cheap and used.
Wild and still able to act pure.

Like a Poem I explain too easily,
when we all know I have riddled you up on purpose.

Thank you then for all your compliments.
You will never know how much they mean to me.

All I Can Afford: Cheap Perfume

Betrayal smells so good on me.
Like the scent was bottled for my body type.
The Fat girl trades her family in for friendship.
So typical.

But, I hate myself in it.
And I shower often with more then soap.
I feel my spoken words as a presence around me.
They make me feel naked,
when all I really like is thick, dark clothes.

And I am so uncomfortable in my skins.
They mark me pale and translucent,
and I see you seeing me,
and I am not that light.

I try to dress it up in my familiar colors
of black on black,
but my words have painted me a chameleon,
and I hate the way I am starting to look like you.
Colorful.

I even smell like you.
Because I have always believed betrayal should leave its mark.
A scent.
That others can follow.

Your Voice I Know Well

Your voice.
It's the thread I hold onto.
Its the tone I know well,
repeated,
then coated.
You find a way to touch me from so far away.

I am quiet.
It's not the silent type, it's the one that beats loud in your heart.
I can't speak,
and then we are speaking.
As if time never passed and we never stood so still.
Apart.

Together.
We are magnified.
I look too big in your lights and you are moving to large.
But, in your voice...
everything falls into place.

Distorting facts I thought were truths.
I love you.
In your silence,
in your speech.
In the way I need to just G-d damn be me.
And you respect it.

I am smiling now.
I forgot how it felt to touch the skies.

Too Honest And Mostly Too Kind

Now I blare angry songs at every red light and people stare at me from neighboring cars, because they sense I have lost something.

Another Accessory

Hate isn't such a big word after all. It's small enough to fit in your purse. To wear it like a satchel over your shoulder. To take it out and use it at family gatherings.
So Handy.
Like when I see you smile and I have to think of a word that does not start with bitch.
I always have hate.
Its comforting. A plaything to toss back and forth in my hands, just to keep me warm and satisfied.
Easier than thinking up new words to disguise my feelings.
"Oh she's Sweet." Or "Isn't her whole family just lovely?"
Sweet, lovely. Makes me want to swing my purse full of hate in her face.
Imagine how she would look with my contents staining her white skirts.
My hate, my angst.
My G-d awful excuses.
"No, I can not watch your son. Your daughter. Your house. Your home. Your life. I'm busy."
Or bored. Maybe even a little bit of sad.
Walking, sometimes even running, anywhere but here...
with a very big word stuffed inside my bag.

Fall Down. Hug Up

I've fallen and I cant get up, sounds so cliched.
But my finger was throbbing and its the finger I usually use to pull up my weight.
all two hundred and forty pounds of me.
So I had to use the other nine.
My brother looked amused.
He had this look on his lips,
like as if... he could not have thrown me down better.
Pursed,
and then paused.
letting the neighbor dust me off.
My coat of snow and shame.

When she hugged me, I felt funny.
"hey, I do this now!" I thought to say.
I give hugs, get hugs,
and when I end up on my butt on a sheet of ice,
I can stand up
and give a good solid hug.

I do that now.
I think my neighbor might wonder,
why I planted such a heavy hug on her?
But I cant shake this feeling...
This happy, go lucky, go drive by and hug...
feeling.

And my brother he smiled.
Laughing at the look of me hugging this woman.
And the way my head must have looked naked
with his hands full of my wig.

I See You, You Don't See Me

Five hours in your house left me dizzy.
Did you spin me silly?
Or do I just like awkward, well planned pronunciations...
of Screw you!
That's what you were saying, weren't you.
Screw you! Screw your friends! Screw your family!
Screw the hand that feeds your fanciful face!
I mean, you flowered it up,
you tied it all with a nice bow-
but your stuff still reeks like jealousy.
and Pent up revenge.
I see you and I see dollar signs.
I see a hunger for a want you cant fill.
And I get so dizzy.
It makes me tired watching you pace and rant.
Like a panting dog.
I am most definitely not scared.
Just amused.
Then dizzy.
You spin me so unbelievable silly-
with your big words and small mind.
So silly.
Little boy? Isn't it past your bedtime?

Lightly Frosted Please

You laugh and it snows.
I try to cry sometimes but it comes out like little gasps.
And you roar with laughter.
I stretch out my hands to throw a snowball and they coil in frost bitten terror.
You aim well.
I brush back pieces of my wig,
wondering how ice melts on these things.
You don't ever have to know,
that I was your friend first.
With greetings and new days,
come the most predictable of goodbyes.
Didn't a great man once say,
each new day brings us one day closer to our death.
Didn't I say something?
oh yes...
I always say something.
Well here's to the first of many snows,
and the friendships of teenagers.

You Fancy Little....

I can not wait to write tonight.
Its excitement is mounting like the words you used.
Well intended, my friend.
Rolled right off your tongue and now they will be splattered on my blog.
...for my brothers to read.
For my mind to wrap itself around.
The written word, we know, is so much more powerful then your voice.
So, I shall get my kids to bed and return to tuck my blog in.