Something happened today.

I was standing in the kitchen pouring a bottle of cherry coke on ice when I thought to myself: I have become my mom. "This is totally something she did a million times." As in, fixing a soda-pop-type drink to go run some errands in the car.

I glanced down at my outfit, and I was basically wearing my mom's uniform of the late 80's and early 90's and basically her whole life that I was a part of.

I am wearing her uniform. But I didn't freak out; I realized shit, mom had great style. 

And continued my cherry coke pour.

Peaceful creatures

What have I been doing?

Organizing shelves


Blanching tomatoes


Hanging out with Bonnie


Going through old treasures


not studying


I got Bonnie this western style collar from a nice lady on Etsy


Perfect for an Arkansas dog!
I don't see the dog collar listing, but I'm sure you can contact her for a custom order, as I sort-of did for the font and colors and such

Curling Irons and Pressed Powder

My blog is a little too bike-y lately. When dudes start commenting about serious bike mechanics, I know I need to throw them off with a seriously girly post. Let's talk curlin' irons!

I let my hair dry air-dry for President's day and it was big and wild, but pretty clean. I didn't want to do much for it Tuesday morning when I had to go to work. I dug out my old curling iron. I sprayed my hair lightly with some Ellnet and did a few curls. I really just corrected pieces that were really sharp at the ends.

I was very pleased. But gosh, I'm shiny.


Speaking of shiny... Here comes a sad story... I'm not kidding, it's sad.... 

Today is the 11th anniversary of my mom's funeral. She died on the 19th and her funeral was on the 21st of 2001.
Whitney Houston's recent death reminded me that one of my sorority sisters came and sang a Whitney song at the funeral. 

My Grandmother wanted some deacon at her church (puke and puke) to sing a song. I had heard him sing before and it was a horror story. I pretty much gave my friend no choice about singing. She had to do it. Luckily, you can't say no to your friend whose mom just died. I'm pretty sure it was her first funeral gig.

So Nakita came and sang "Count on Me" Whitney Houston style. I can't even think of YouTube linking it because I will fall apart if I hear that shit, so sorry, google it yourself if you're curious. Nakita was a sorority sister and almost my whole sorority attended and I am so grateful to them for doing that. Classes were skipped en masse.

Fast forward to recently, I don't know many smells in the world that remind me of my mom, but I know of one. If they ever change the formula, I don't know what I'll do, and this makes me understand people losing their minds over discontinued products. 

I can have a memory of the smell of my mother in Cover Girl Clean Pressed Powder. 

For the first time since she died, I stopped smelling it at the drug store and bought my own.

Heavy Subject Matter - Dreams about my Dead Mother

The amount of visitors to my blog and ease of finding this blog in recent months has caused me to keep subject matter "light" but some of you remember the heavy and I need to put one out there - I feel totally fine, but I had a dream about my dead mother.

She's been gone going on 10 years. I still have this journal that my friends gave me the night she died in a care package they brought me. I think they picked it out jokingly, because it had the jesus footprints on the front, which I collaged over... and put in my art book about the experience of her death The Mama Project.


This morning I woke up and petted my cute dog who was cuddled up next to me and realized I had this dream that my mom was alive and went straight for my journal. I'm not going to put it all here, but sometimes that's what happens. I have a dream that she's alive and I'm trying to figure out how to find here or get any information on her whereabouts and activities. She's always up to something in these dreams - eating at a restaurant, shopping, etc.

The official first dream I had about my newly dead mother was before I made The Mama Project summer 2001, and she was shopping at wal-mart, but skinny and frazzled and dead, but not like Night of the Living Dead - just not her blue-eye-shadowed self. I was less frightened about dreaming of a dead version of my mother than the idea that I now had a dead mother to appear in my dreams for the rest of my life.
I kind of welcome these dreams because it's almost like checking in on her in a way. It's the only way she can pop into my present-day life.

Almost 10 years gone and this still happens. And I keep the details in the journal because I'm superbad at remembering dreams. I'm lucky this one happened on a Sunday so I could write as much down as I could remember.

I've lived 1/3rd of my life with my mother being not-alive, and I fear when I'm 60 I'll have so few memories and so on as the ratio gets even smaller.

One thing I'll tell you about the dream was that I was practically begging people to get photographic evidence of her and I think she didn't show up in the photos. Because she was/is like a ghost and can't be photographed.