the streets are paved with diamonds and there's just so much to see...

I've been away. and then back, but very busy getting caught up with work on account of being away, and now I'm about to be away again.

I went to western massachusetts:








and then new york city:







I'm sorry, how much is the chili cheese dog again? three signs are not enough for me!

calendars now



that's the cover image.

here's how to order: send $12 a piece plus $2 for mailing costs to
coleen murphy
PO box 741655
new orleans, LA
70174
or via paypal to coleen at bust dot com

here's when to order: now. the calendars will hit the postal system on thursday, december 29.

happy winter solstice

festivus

we went to "the holiday sale for the rest of us" over a week ago. this is roughly what our experience there looked like.

sunday morning blues

you know, it heals a little and then it gets ripped open and is raw and it hurts and I get angry at everyone, I want everyone to drop whatever they had planned and change their lives because that's what we've had to do. and when I say I want that I'm talking about an emotional response, I'm just emoting all over the place.

nash has this sore throat, his voice is gone right now, but no fever. 40% chance of strep the clinic doctor said. and to me, the herbalist wanted to know, do you have a tendency to swallow a lot of your feelings? and I feel like saying, ask someone else. I don't seem to know myself in that regard. I think I'm putting it all out there, all the time, but then folks often end up mystified.

I just ate some udon noodles in peanut sauce made from the grit recipe except for the ingredients I was missing (sesame oil, green onions) and with the addition of broccoli and I really like it. the kids hate it. this evening I'm going to try to make african peanut stew a la rowe camp. and cookies, loads of cookies. it's time.

words aren't working for me

my weekend in pictures, thursday morning to sunday night.

evil now, scary now

the only bad thing about being deluged with packages from all of y'all well wishers while we were waiting things out in Natchitoches is that the volume of stuff was so huge that I wasn't able to keep track of who sent what. I think it was either cheryl or ivy who sent a copy of jonathon richman's action packed cd, and today I got to listen to it all the way through for the very first time. dude, I hadn't heard little vampire girl in YEARS. a thousand times thank you.

to see what is beautiful

or, a mold-free photo post.


okay, this includes the very sad destruction of my neighbor's house, but it is also beautiful. my Liam, our backyard, that mighty tree that lost a large part of itself and took a fine house (and my back fence) down in the process.


we now take Brenna out for a walk on the levee every morning. and it's beautiful, every time.


Nash, even huddled up and feverish, is so damned beautiful.


what, you find no beauty in the dirty dishes? well, I do. see how they shine.

maybe you'd like to see some mold

step into my office...





behold my former desk.



and my shelves full o' moldy books.




and etc.



this was the nursery. one of the things on the floor is the wooden dollhouse that I put together when Nash was 2.




and then there are the classrooms, full of things that several years worth of children made and used.






so, yeah. that's what I did saturday, for as much as I could stand anyway, taking out two shelves of books and some story baskets that had escaped unscathed, a few odds and ends of art supplies, but not much. it's hard to be there, and I don't plan to go back anytime soon. it's hard to see. and to smell. touching is out of the question.

normal times

Liam says, holding the puppy we adopted nine days ago, "I'm glad we got the puppy. it's like normal times now that we got the puppy. well, it's not really normal times for real but I love the puppy and she loves me, I know it."

I don't make these things up. how could I? hearing that this morning I felt, more than anything, flooded with relief that I had at last made a good decision in all of this and then felt that awareness again of how I keep blaming myself, like I made this disaster my ownself. and I'm not alone in that, I keep hearing others doing it, sitting in a meeting last week, this brilliant woman across the table from me saying, "I just feel like I keep making bad decisions" and it's so, wow, how hard it is for us to get that there are things beyond our control, that we're doing the best we can in an insane situation.

this morning on npr (how I wish I could sleep past 7), the CDC says that half of us living in new orleans right now are in need of counseling. what, only half? I don't know. sometimes it feels like the best thing I can do for myself is to listen to Liam.


the original caretaker named the puppy Brenna, and we've decided to stick with it.

last week

so I was walking across the mississippi river when an overly-coiffed white lady leaned out of her SUV to yell at me(us), "Go home!"
I was like, dude. I am home.

call for submissions - the mama calendar

submissions now sought for the 2006 edition of the mama calendar!
straight outta new orleans,
against all odds, and by the seat of my pants,
the 2006 calendar will hit the presses mid-december.

the mama calendar is a community building-consciousness raising
resource by, of, about and for progressive, feminist, activist mamas
and their families, friends & allies everywhere. it is a celebration
and a call to action, a thing of beauty to last the year.

edited by coleen murphy, the calendar features a blend of
photos of mamas, babies, children, dads, and friends, as well
as a guide to mama-made zines, alternative parenting
resources, recipes, recipes for revolution, great dates in radical mama
herstory, and the work of numerous artist/activist/mamas.
recent editions have featured ayun halliday, victoria law, laurel
dykstra, sonja smith, trula breckenridge and heather cushman-dowdee, among others.

to join the ranks, send your photographs, poems, rants,
reviews, recipes, remarks, scrawls, comics, hopes, dreams and etc.
by November 21 to

coleen murphy
PO box 741655
new orleans, LA
70174
or via email to coleen at bust.com

prints of images are preferred; digital photos must be black
& white and high resolution.

how else can you support the project? beat the mad
holiday rush and ensure the future of the mama calendar
by ordering yours today!
calendars are $12 a piece plus $2 for mailing costs
via the above mailing address or via paypal to coleen at bust.com

the 2006 calendars will be mailed out around december 15;
in the event that insufficient orders come in, all payments
will be refunded at that time.

new orleans lives

say it with pictures...

the new orleans bookfair is ON

The New Orleans Bookfair will go on as scheduled on October 29, 2005
at Barrister's Gallery 1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. From 10am to
6pm. Participating publishers include Fiction Collective II, Verso,
Pelican Publishing, Last Gasp, Soft Skull, AK Press, Left Turn,
Garrett County Press, Get Lost and many more. Free. Open to the
public.
check it out

the "many more" includes me, with copies of my zine & calendar as well as the new mamaphiles, aka the mother of all zines... be there!

what it's like to be home

ah the weird world of wireless. just add it to the list of weird, weird things. and every day I think about how they're becoming normal to those of us who are here. like the helicopters and the red cross food truck, that chugs along with its monotone announcement, like a depressed ice cream truck.

this coffeehouse is the only game in the neighborhood - tout de suite, on alix & verret, come on by.

you know, the thing while living in exile was the endless wall of NOTHING to do; now it is an endless list of chores, I mean really, syssiphian or however it's spelled.

my friend milarsky helped me via cell phone to figure out how to get my wi-fi hookup going and he just called me to see if it was working, saying, isn't wi-fi incredible? well, yeah. and just the fact that I have a laptop is incredible, I mean, I never thought I would, not based on any objections, just, you know, money. money and everything. the generosity of my friends is incredible. and the whole concept of money gets more surreal every day now, kind of like the concept of time, heh.

this morning liam said, it's really not fair for new orleans, right? and even though we're the luckiest people in new orleans it's not even fair for us, right?

his perception is too much for me.

the kids - my kids and my neighbor's kids - the four of them altogether - are so happy to have each other, they'r getting along way better than they ever did before. the other day I had all four for ten hours at my house and it was really fine.

I wake up way too early, though, and can't get back to sleep. anxiety. unfamiliar noises and unfamiliar quiet. my neighbors at the navy base don't play reveille anymore, isn't that weird? more military than ever but they quit with reveille. now it's just helicopters and trucks, all the time. garbage trucks and moving trucks, the moving trucks make me feel so sad.

oh, mail. the mail is so weird. they started delivering mail last thursday but it's old mail, five week old mail, so far just bills. I need to write up a form letter for my creditors. I'm not kidding.

so I am lonely for mail but there's really no solution to that in sight.

you know that whole 12 step "one day at a time" thing. I'm not very 12 step savvy and I have no belief in a higher power but one day at a time is all we can handle down here.

there's no stopping the dyke march

I'm joyously passing this on!

the dyke march is on!!
re-posted, from the dykemarchnola listserv...
hope to see some of you there on saturday.. and if you want to be part of the ongoing discussion about logistics thereof, please join the dykemarchnola yahoo group by sending a blank email to: dykemarchnola-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

and stay tuned to the website, http://www.dykemarchnola.com for updates.

--------------------------------------------------------
DM will go forward in improvised fashion!!

A bunch of us will be in New Orleans on October 8, 2005 and we'll gather at Jackson Square at 7:00 with signs, march around the quarter a bit, then spend some time together somewhere in the quarter (possibly even One Eyed Jacks--Mags says it's open). Jamie will be there with 2005 t-shirts to sell to mark our presence and sheer determination this year.

Although technically there is a 6:00 curfew, it isn't being enforced in the quarter (bars and restaurants are open), so we should be ok. In the true Dyke March tradition, we won't have a permit this year!

Please join us if you're around and bring your own signs or whatever else you'd like to bring to make a showing.