Toddler Madness, Music and Poetry

Monday evening and, after consuming nearly a pot of coffee, managed to help with homework, get dinner on and off the table, do dishes and laundry and drag the garbage to the curb. Work today heinous as I had to do an emergency fill in in the toddler room. Dear god, seven babies toddling, biting, shoving each other over and smearing themselves and everything else with ravioli, bananas, ice cream, etc. Not to mention the diapers. I am not cut out for toddler care...they can't be reasoned with and they aren't adoreably immobile like infants. I can't face another day in there. I barely survived my own as toddlers. The higher ups tell me any day now I will begin the administrative work they hired me for. Uh huh.


In other news, my friend Russ Giffen has emailed me to see if I want to collaborate on a project with him. Russ is a musician who creates ambient music and he wants to write some music to go with my poems which would then be recorded by a singer friend of his. I am excited about this and as he is Joyce's ex-husband and still grieving her death (as am I) I wonder if maybe some of my 9/11 stuff would work for us both in this project. A cathartic, healing endeavor. Russ has got a three record deal, and is finishing up the second album now. We would work together on the third record. I am going to see a horror movie with him this Saturday in NYC and assume we'll discuss it further then.

Missing

I miss you like a sister,
Like an arm
Cut off in a freak accident,
Like an amethyst bracelet
Left on the F train,
Or October in the middle of August.
Like the rise of a tower
That used to sit near the river,
Like joy,
Sister, I miss you.


M.J. Tenerelli



Joyce and I, circa 1967