a measure of my emotional strength

i just made it thru Johnny Cash's 'Would You Lay With Me' ALL THE WAY THRU without crying!! Ha! i sang the whole damn song...especially the "...wipe the blood away from my dying hand....."  part and didn't break down like i Always do. which means i can measure just how strong i've gotten in the last three years or so....i gauge my okayness on the eviction date stamp and the restraining order that is about to expire.

NOT too shabby.

On the 4th of July my dear friend Vikki's spirit visited me.

DRUNK. like she always was. Pop-pops & i went to his Favourite Fav. Pizza place. it's the Star Wars arcade game that draws us back - plus they have a legit yum salad bar and i've learned to love beets because of this restaurant/Pizza Parlour....anywhooo  he had his little handful of quarters and here comes the spirit of Vikki in a red white & blue tie dye tank top... asks me if that was my kid...then gives him a big handful of quarters...she gave it to me to give to him. i thought wow(!) how nice,  then she came back and gave me around six dollars more In quarters and a few dimes - she was in a hurry,  drunkenly said she wouldn't be able to use them (???)... then she suddenly left. Vikki totally would have done something like that for my kid. She was kind, generous to a fault, always smiling and always loaded. She  laughed the most out of anybody i've ever known because she genuinely FOUND things to be funny. also she used her laughter to cover her insecurities. Vikki is heavy on my mind and since it was just the 4th of July yesterday and it involves the American Flag: i think it is totally fitting that i should tell you one of the more harrowing yet hilarious stories Vikki ever told me about herself. Not only was Vikki a raging alcholic (since we were sophomores in high school maybe sooner)  she also had wanderlust and a bad drug habit. Whatever drug. She'd tried it, used it then probably abused it....she said the WORST addiction was cigarettes as far as cravings, but i think alcohol was her worst: Magnum Beer/malt liquor, and towards the end Schnapps...Vikki was most tragically a single mother, she had a little boy. And when he was a baby she found herself in Colorado in the winter w/a fucked up boyfriend she needed to get away from so she decided to hitchhike. Big Mistake (duh!) she got in the car with a criminal...he had drugs in the trunk and he raped her. this is the chillingest part of my love and admiration for her: she said,  "it was no big deal, i was just worried about my kid." so she ran from this guy and ended up in a strange town in the freezing cold winter with her baby boy. she broke into a men's club, like the elk's or moose lodge....and since she had nothing on her she had to wrap her little baby boy in their american flag!! later after she had warmed up, her boy snug wrapped up in red white & blue, she walked around the neighborhood and knocked on doors because she neeeeeeded a cigarette (which was why she thought cigarettes were the most addictive things ever)She got herself into some very sketchy situations but she was Street Smart enuf to get herself out of them. Vikki was wildly daredevilish and brave. 
God Love Her! she was my best my most drunk, loveliest friend who died of consumption in her late thirties. 
She was a good mother and an angry daughter and a blast/trip!! Happy Fourth of July Vikki! I love you, girl!! 

all three of my kids sometime this year.

fuck me running!! i CANNOT believe my luck with these offsprings of mine!! they are ( first of all ) - kind hearted and polite (the littlest one needs to work on his wild. we Both do) second of all - all three are verry pretty to look at...Healthy as horses w/their beautifully  healthy bodies that are carrying them thru their sweet happy lives. One of them is off learning languages and travelling the world, one is working hard & makin' Big tips, also: learning she Is where's she's supposed to be. me & Pop-pops are thick as theives right now which is excellent.
  Collectively AWEsome as fuck that they all came outta me!!