Dear Redacted
(Wednesday, July 25, 2007)


We are home in Arizona as of 1 am July 24. EXACTLY one year after we arrived..to the day...from our terrible war adventure.

It was a long hard trip (redacted). Good and bad...mostly closure of some things. Letting go of the ideal of "expatriatism" for now. It has been my central motivation and I realize now that I must move forward and I must move in this direction and at this pace.

What to do. The Middle East is a downright catastrophe and as… Continue

Irish Muslim Mo'lasses from the Passes

(for Ogden Nash)

I am the blossom of the X Generation
now watch me go to seed.
Not born in the fifties, unable to really read.

This is true blue flag waving
in a yellow polka dot bikini.
This is me who never watched a single flick Fellini.

Here I am Tonto bound
a prize in a box of carmelled corn.

Up on the mantle is Maya Angelou
she's talking to Big Bird
yet her friend Dr. Seuss thinks deterrence an itsy bit absurd.

Here is a train stub from… Continue

What About Mars?
May 11, 2006

No more problems says the package
the cure came in, no more
warning labels and the price tag
no longer legible. It began
with flashy children and fast cars
then people started talking
about the leftover stuff
after the move out,
wondered what would happen
to the crystal ball and Japanese flag.
Where to put Mars now?
Whose house next?


Yesterday it was exactly two years ago that I began my exile in my own hometown. The irony of that nearly drove me ma… Continue

The Departure
July 21, 2006

The last day in our apartment in Beirut was harrowing to say the least. My very large extended family were all still trapped in the South and under heavy, heavy bombardment. Al'ham'dullilah for cell phones and Libancell who managed to keep the system working throughout the entire ordeal or we would have not known anything about them. My husband's sister Ghada was with me and my three children in our apartment in Khaldeh. Her husband (a member of the Shia Am… Continue

Well...I was whining alot during the aggression you know. Pitiful creature but I wasn't whining about the things people usually whine about "over here". I was whining about INJUSTICE. Real injustice not the fake kind that makes people say stupid things that lead me to believe that the average American human being thinks that the resources of other people belong to them! Or the notion that they support the idea that Iran doesn't have the right to produce their own nuclear fuel to combat not on… Continue