I’ve made a few others. You should check them out.

http://jazfusion.tumblr.com <– My random-what-have-you-mostly-pictures blog

http://namejobbye.wordpress.com <– My updated-infrequently-but-still-going-to-try gaming blog

http://www.pathetic.org/library/6751 <– My poetry (mostly recent stuff)

And braver still, his
pagan voodoo and
amber prison;

Fingertips spread wide
as the flames burned.

I’ve dreamed of the quiet
before the fall. Of icy depths
and emerald fire.

Fingertips spread wide
as the waves drown.

Temptation, I know you.
The sea has swallowed my
wings and I am the straw
that lashed the beast’s back -
a whore, a sin,
a
woman.

6/29/10

I like to think I’m a normal and reasonable mother. Let’s face it, in today’s world disposable diapers are the norm. I feel bad for the environment. I really do. Cloth diapers aren’t exactly feasible for me since I don’t have a washer and dryer; I go to the laundromat. There is one on the first floor of my apartment building, but it’s $1.75 per wash and $1.75 per dry. Considering my son urinates just about every hour…well, you can do the math. For the sake of my sanity, I use disposables and I don’t feel (too) much guilt. There; I’ve justified myself to you.

Moving on, I’ve been using Pampers on my son since about day one. I had about a billion and a half of diapers when my son was born. Apparently everyone thinks you need diapers. Lots and lots of diapers. And you do. You really cannot imagine how many diapers one tiny human being can go through in a 24 hour period, unless you’ve witnessed it first hand. Why am I telling you this? Because it still blows me away.

So there I was: this new mother with her motherly scent of sweat, puke and breastmilk, foraging through a sea of diapers. Want to know an interesting fact about babies? Babies can outpiss you. Enroll my son in a pissing contest and he’ll come away with the grand prize. But back to diapers.

So there I was, up to my neck in diapers. The diapers others had so thoughtfully given us. Some bought us Huggies, others store name brands arguing they’re just as good as the name brands, and yet others bought us Pampers. I tried them all. The store brands never stood up to more than an hour’s worth of excrement. Huggies was about the same (remember: my son pissed like a race horse). Luvs gave my son a rather bad rash. But Pampers were the ones that worked best for us. So once my free diaper stash was gone (you didn’t think I’d throw them away, did you?), I bought me some Pampers. Lots and lots of Pampers.

And I happily kept buying them.

It wasn’t until about four months ago that I started noticing a difference in the Pampers Cruisers. The mesh liner was gone. I mean, it was there one week and the next it wasn’t. I checked the Pampers box to see if anything had changed. Nothing on the box indicated so. I wondered to myself why they would get rid of this revolutionary mesh liner that kept my son’s bum so clean and dry. I missed that mesh liner. What the hell, man?!

Replacing this mesh liner was a stiff, purple liner that smelled like my Dad when he went through chemo, but if he were wearing Grandma’s perfume. I shrugged it off and figured it was nothing. I mean, hey, it was purple. It was kind of cute. Maybe they were trying to cut back on costs and that’s why they got rid of the mesh liner.

About a month later my son developed a nasty rash. He had had this rash twice before. Once, when he was a little baby and another time when I tried the Luvs. It was a most horrible rash: big red spots that looked like pimples; dry, scaly skin and his entire bum was just inflamed. He’d cry when I wiped him. Those bumps would fill with puss and ooze and bleed. I felt like the most horrible mother.

At first I thought it was just “diaper rash”. Now, notice that to a mother “diaper rash” can cover a broad range of actual medical terms such as: Allergic Contact Dermatitis and Irritant Contact Dermatitis. Before I enrolled in medical school, I’d zone out to my pediatrician as he spoke of such things; drooling on one side of mouth, eyes glazed over until he said, “Here, I’ll write you a prescription”. Immediately I’d perk up at that, thank him and leave well satisfied that my doctor knows what he’s doing. And he does. Which is why I trust him.

The prescription he had written for my son’s “diaper rash” did the trick. So I figured this “diaper rash” was no different. It turns out, it was. The prescription medicine I immediately reached for didn’t work. The A&D ointment, the Desitin, the Butt Paste, the Lansinoh cream, the Vaseline, the Baby Magic….nothing worked. Still my son would cry and complain about his bum and still, I felt like the most horrid mother in the world. What was I doing to my son?

It never got better. In fact, it got worse. The bumps filled with pus spread down his legs. Now I really started freaking out. My husband had just started a new contracting job after being unemployed for a year. We both lost health insurance, but were able to keep Medicaid for our son. But once my husband started this new job, we lost Medicaid. He works on an “on-call” basis, so we’re never 100% sure he’ll be working a 40-hour week. We can’t afford any health insurance. I toyed with the idea of taking my son to see his doctor, but since we already owe thousands of dollars when my husband went to the ER, I decided I’d wait it out and see.

At first, I though it was some kind of chicken pox. But he never seemed to scratch at the bumps, they just seemed to annoy him. So I started looking into other reasons: maybe it’s his diet? I took out the things that I thought were causing problems. One of them was apple juice. I’d read somewhere that apple juice was acidic and could cause allergy problems. I promptly switched him to white grape juice. It helped the slightest bit, but his rash was still there.

Well, I thought, maybe he’s staying too long in his own filth. I mean, I could only assume how acidic urine is (and again, thanks to medical school, I learned urine is actually pretty neutral when you are well hydrated) so I vowed to change his diaper more often. It got to the point where I was changing his diaper every hour. This was ridiculous. I was going through diapers like crazy and our grocery bill each week was tremendous. I decided to just let him go without a diaper during the day. It helped. A lot. But still the rash persisted.

I gave up at this point. I figured until I got the money to take him to a doctor, I’d never get this rash under control. Besides, I had other roadblocks with my three year old: such as potty training.

Then I read this article spotlighting a Facebook group advocating that Pampers bring back the old Cruisers. Further reading revealed that many parents were having the same issues with their children’s bums. I figured I was reading too much into it. I mean, each kid is different. Then I read that Pampers had changed their diaper “formula” which is what resulted in the stiff, purple diaper I remembered seeing.

Still, I dismissed the article. But as I lay awake at night, wondering if my kid’s butt was ok, it ate at me. Maybe it is the diapers? Maybe I’m just being too neurotic? And still, it ate at me.

One night recently I broke down and said to myself while at the store, “I’m just going to buy some Huggies”. Just to see. It can’t hurt. I mean, worse comes to worse, I spent the same amount of money on diapers and he still has the rash. At this point in time, I must tell you, my son goes pee-pee in the potty during the day. The only time he wears a diaper is at night or when we are out and about. I bring home the diapers and forget about them until last night. I had resolved to use the rest of the Pampers before I used the Huggies because I am frugal like that. But I swallowed my pride and wanted to see what happened.

Here’s the magical part: my son’s rash did a complete one-eighty. He peed through the Huggies (as I expected), but his butt looks so much better.

I correlated my frustrations and came to the conclusion that my son’s rash is due to the new Dry Max formula. Whatever they did to their diapers caused my child to have the worst, and longest running case of “diaper rash” I have ever witnessed him having. I have no scientific evidence to back this claim up. It could just be some cosmic coincidence, and I am the butt of the joke (get it?). But I stand by the claim that whatever they put in that diaper caused my child three months of “diaper rash” hell.

I don’t really intend to boycott Pampers. I don’t ask that you do, either. At least, not in the sense of never buying them again. If Pampers were to admit there is something in their diapers that is causing massive cases of “diaper rash” in children, and were to change their formula, I’d gladly buy a box again.

Until then, my son’s butt comes first.

~JazFusion

I am fortunate enough to be able to stay home with him. And I frequently update my FaceBook with the little things he says during the day. Funny things like, “MOMMY! I NEED SAUSAGES!” and “Ladybug is in my rocket. Space is night-night”. He is also ridiculously good at drawing happy faces on his Magna Doodle, which he does often. But sometimes he draws ladybugs. We also do other geeky crafts, masterpieces that include watercolors and crayons and pipe cleaners and glitter glue and googly eyes, but he only ever creates these masterpieces on his Magna Doodle.

My husband is an artist, and a damn good one, if I do say so myself. My son asks him to draw things daily; all the things he loves: stop signs, train tracks, Sonic the Hedgehog, ladybugs, happy faces, vacuums, fans, our fifteen fishes, Victor our cockatiel, etc. I can only assume that he has picked up some sort of drawing process in watching my husband. I draw and paint, but you know, I kind of suck at it.

Anyway, drawing is his favorite past-time. It’s his standby when we’re doing pretty much anything that doesn’t directly involve his attention. Yesterday I was reading to him aloud as he drew. A few pages into the story, he exclaims, “POOTY!”, which I took to mean he farted. I excused him, and he quickly corrected me, saying, “No, Mommy! POOTY!” and he tapped the magna doodle with his stylus. I looked over his shoulder and saw it was a circle with some dots in the middle. I gave him a puzzled expression, but he looked at me, face beaming, and said again, “Pooty!” and then giggled about it. I then realized what he was trying to tell me: he drew a fart.

And that, dear readers, is why my son is so awesome. He might draw me ladybugs or happy faces, but drawing me farts…well, that’s just the wind beneath my wings.

~JazFusion

I read books. I’m always reading. Sometimes I tear through books, and my husband wonders how I can ever digest the story. Sometimes the 200 or 300 pages I read a day isn’t enough. Sometimes, at around 3 a.m., I’ll hold the book tightly to my chest and think, “I’ve read this before”. Of course, I haven’t. It’s not a defunct form of déjà vu, and I am no prophet. It is not simply that I don’t remember reading the words. In fact, I rather tend to remember in almost explicit detail each book I have read. Even as a child. I frequently scan through book stores for those books I have read. They delighted me so, and I wish to pass that on to my son. No, I think to myself: “I know this”. It’s a feeling I have sometimes. As a writer, I feel a lot. Not to assume one isn’t human; we all are. But as a writer, we give voices to those certain emotions, however subtle they are.

There is one writer in particular that I recently unearthed that has made me feel so. I remember my father speaking of him, once. My father read books, as well. Though not in so much a volume as my mother. It really is from her I found my love of reading. I read like my mother. Sometimes inside on the couch or perhaps outside during the day, when the mockingbirds leave their nests and the neighborhood dogs announce their entrances across the street. You can usually find us absorbed in some page or another, our brows furrowed in concentration, backs hunched beneath a solid oak and possibly twirling our hair.

My father, though. He was a philosopher. He never asked what I read, but why. It was important to him. Why? I like to think the marriage of my mother’s voracious reading and my father’s philosophy helped shaped my writing, even as a young girl. There are some who are drawn to writing, not as a moth to flame, but as a fly to a spider-web. We do not consciously choose to write; it is in our blood. Fate, as you would have it. You see, we writers, we fly. We fly fast and far, and sometimes along the way we hit an invisible thread: a web. Sometimes that web was spun by someone else. Sometimes we ourselves spin the web that will eventually catch other writers in its threads. But we always fly.

When I was two-and-a-half, my parents divorced. I didn’t know it at the time, for I lacked the vocabulary, but it fostered sorrow in me. That is not to say I blame my parents for this. As a mature adult, married and with a son, I readily understand the sacrifices each parent made for my behalf; and theirs, too. But it was a sad thing. My life became the fly that is cocooned in the spider’s trap, waiting to be eaten. Have you ever watched a spider? They do not feast on the prey they catch right away. They wait. Minutes, hours, days. It doesn’t matter to them. And all the while the little fly with the little wings stays wrapped in the spider’s threads, wriggling and writhing, trying to break the threads, but they are as strong as iron to the little fly. It doesn’t die right away. Soon enough, though, the spider will come along and suck the innards of that little fly and that will be the end of that. The little fly will have served a purpose, the spider’s belly will be full, and no one will notice the web along the side of the road by the fence in the garden. No one will ever know of the spider and the little fly. And most likely no one cares.

This is what it felt like to be me as a child. I held sorrow in my heart. I was the spider that cocooned my happiness. I held myself prisoner. I pinned my wings down so that I could not fly, thinking it was for the best. I was always to blame.

I can imagine when they made me: the sperm and the egg meeting for the first time. “Hello”, the sperm will say. But the egg, being rather finicky as there are millions of other sperm swimming nearer and only one of her, she will turn her nose up at the sperm and tell him to politely leave. He won’t, though. Like all XY chromosomes, he is stubborn and won’t take no for an answer. And so they’ll strike a deal. Sometimes, that deal isn’t the best and unfortunate things happen. But, in my case, I imagine the deal went something thus: “Let’s make a beautiful female. She will have dark brown hair and eyes. Puberty will come early to her, and she’ll have an hourglass figure and some of the largest breasts imaginable, but lots of stretch marks. Her hands and feet will be unnaturally large for her small height. She will have only two crooked teeth, and four crooked digits. Depression and anxiety will come as naturally as a smile to her, and her self-doubt won’t make it easy for her to make the best choices. She will cry as easily as she will become angered. She will become proficient in the liberal arts. And she will love horses, cats, chocolate and shoes”. I suppose it was an amusing prospect to the egg, and the deal was struck then and there. The egg swallowed the sperm, and thus I was born in the middle of summer, after roughly nine months of gestation.

Life is funny that way.

here on earth we have fooled
ourselves into believing we are
the pendulum of the universe; the
great axe that departs head from
shoulders in a steaming spray of
red fireworks.

we wage wars for fun, slaughter
innocence and lamb alike with
a cool monochrome demeanor
and let old die too soon.

5/13/10

We were free.

You would act the Robin Hood and
I the Maid Marian, laughing through
Sherwood Forest; the gold slipping
between our fingers as we made love
carelessly beneath the trees.

But you are no hero, and I am no maid.
The mornings hold no stories as we rise
from our bed to start the coffee, make the
breakfast, pack the children off to school
and let Nottingham sleep.

04/25/2010

My eyes paint you as
you undress, trying to fit
which part goes where.

I imagine my hands touching
you in tones of cerulean
or perhaps viridian.

You speak of love, but
charity is a fickle mistress
and we are both for sale.

Abed, we won’t speak as
you press your hips to mine;
and I will wait for you
like stretched canvas.

04/25/2010

Bronze bodies stretched across
the sand. Tight ribs thrust up like
some great Naga; emaciated and
trying to slither free of a three
thousand dollar prison.

Near the shore, sand castles would
rise and fall, as if every child were
a politician and every wave were God;
the tide leaving fish to rot in the sun.

04/25/2010

I didn’t have an answer.

I asked myself the same
once, as I sat and watched
a ladybug drown in my coffee.

She tried to swim and I
imagined her mouth -
gaping and gasping for air.

I didn’t move to help her
as she thrashed for the last time;
her body slowly dragging in spirals.

The ladybug was so
small and red I thought it
looked a little like blood.

I never wept.

Back in his room on the floor,
my son sat looking at me in
all his three year old innocence.

On the carpet her body had
been pulled apart – legs crumpled,
red wings held gingerly in his hands.

I looked at him with all my adult
wisdom, but he only ever asked the
one question: “Mama, is she dead?”

And we both wept.

04/16/2010