There is another scar there, though. Not really a scar. Stretches from my elbow to my wrist on the outside of my arm. It is a dappled, patchy area of pale skin. It looks like a rash of Caucasian skin. Or like scar tissue, pink and pale spots over browner skin. Like someone splashed hot oil on me. I always thought that it was because my parents had different skin colors. As I got older people told me no. Skin just blends they told me. That is something else.

Funny. I thought that for so long.

I even told my girlfriend (before she became my wife) that I thought the pigmentation thing on my arm was because I was like the mulatto kids in one of my schools. She told me not to call myself that name or anyone else. Said Mulatto was a bad word. Told me some other things about it. So, I guess I'm not mulatto. And I guess I don't know what's wrong with my arm.

I made a joke the other day in my mother-in-law's kitchen. About that weird rash/scar/pigment thing, said I was scared that I was turning White. Nobody laughed as much as I thought they would. It seemed sort of funny to me. Seems like sometimes people get nervous when I make those types of jokes. It's hard to figure out. I may be making bad jokes. Or maybe it's me that's nervous. But I don't think so. Not right away.

I hate that part of my arm. Someone told me the other day it could be cured by rubbing cortizone on it. I bought some and used it for a couple weeks. But I don't see any difference. I thought I did for a few days. Now, I'm just waiting for the sun.

So my mother is retiring next year, I think it is. She's been working since I was tiny, supported the White Irishman who adopted me when I was 8 as he honed his skillz, as he started his own business, as he got clean, and left her about a decade later. She's always been working and she's the one who saw me get to college and even with the stupid mistakes she made she will always be deepest in my soul, first in my heart. She is having medical problems now. I'm happy she isn't letting this upset her, and she is looking at it as she must. Scaling back her life. She's quite the woman in her line of work, and goes to important meetings, you know. Politicians listen to her opinion on Bird Flu and stuff. I'm very proud of her. I can't believe she is having CAT scans and shit. I mean, they turned out okay.

And my father has white hair now. It's all white. My real father, my blood father, biological father. My legal adopted father, who knows. I don't really talk to him anymore. Though each time I see him the lines multiply, the space on the forehead, the hair retreating. Age, I see the age. I see the days eating him up like an ice cube in the heat. But I still think if I said the wrong thing to him he'd swing on me. So I don't trust the age eating him away. And I never wanted it that way. I wanted it in a big shock, that's why I used to dream of wiring the toaster. I don't want to see time take tiny chips out of his neck, his spine, his cheeks.

Anyway, when I saw the squirrel, I thought of the dead guy on the subway platform in 2000. Or do I call that 2001? On New Year's. Some people in my life, death has touched young, leaving fracture across their sight. Death has trailed me before, never too closely. Not like with those people. It doesn't haunt me, as it does them. At least not in the traditional ways. But it waves. It winks. It reminds me, wearing life, that I am only a guest in this dressing room. I don't mind. It's true.

And if a guy my father's age can wear crazy hats and such, then I'm not worried.

Today is foggy again, cloudy again. But I am grateful for the three days of sun. And for being acquainted with a good bottle of wine as a birthday present. I never realized that spending twenty bucks more on a bottle of wine could make such a huge difference. But that's what happens when you drink too much $5 wine, I guess. The little joys. It was a good day. Eggplant parmesan, my mother's recipe. She didn't make many dishes that I copy. You know, like "Your Mother's Recipe." My mother was not a big domestic cooker type. But that's what happens when you both cook and work, I guess. I really love the eggplant parmesan and I've taken the recipe everywhere. People love it. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Eggplant parmesan. And the classic Tofu dishes I grew up on. Fried Tofu cubes. Mixed with brown rice, of course. Tamari. Broccoli. And then there's Deep Fried Tofu Sticks with ketchup. The vegeterian's Fish Sticks. We loved those. That's the dish even people who "Hate Tofu" love. They have no idea you can make it that way. But tofu is more a texture than a flavor, as I see it. You can do so many things with it. Buy extra firm for the deep fried sticks, of course. See me for the rest.

The garden I dug last summer sat and has sprung clover. It's now a clover bed. I'm going to rip it out and prepare the garden for vegetables, because that's what I planned last year when I tilled it by hand and such. But after a rainy winter of being bare soil, it is the clovers that have taken root. Purple. It's very pretty amidst the lush green of the grass. It was good, hard work. I like that I did such agonizing labor for a bed of tiny violets.

So my hair is getting longer and I usually shave it when summer comes around. But it's getting long, and I might try to grow it long enough to tie back. The long hair pulled back brings out the Indian from my face. And somewhere I've seen that Latinos do this with their hair, so I'm good. I like when I first get up at like four am, though. Sometimes sleeping crazy on my hair with a humidifier especially brings out the Siqueiros from my face, too. The streaks of white that are beginning to appear don't hurt.

Thanks to those who threw in some dinero to halp pave Nez's road. I know I didn't "market" or really talk up the whole "donation week" thing, but that's my aversion to the stuff, money, talking it, thinking on it. Goalwise, I basically hoped to pay for the hosting/website for the year, which you have done for me. I appreciate that a lot, knowing my readers are not necessarily rich folk, and probably struggle with money as much as I do. The show of appreciation and support means a lot, even coming from relatively few people. Also, I may claim that I write "for myself," but I don't do it by myself. (And I don't mean money). And maybe I stress the For Myself too much. Because sometimes I think that could feel alienating if you are not hearing it how I mean it, and I forget that this blog is read by far more people than the ten or fifteen or so who comment regularly, so I have to make a point of saying thank you for the links, and the emails and random questions or statements or clippings. I don't mean to negate anyone's help or presence. It's a good community, this one I tangle with. This one I grow with. And I thank those that interact here for allowing me my growth. Even in the span of this blog, and certainly in this last year of my life, I have grown much. It ain't always easy.

Life's been una aventura, no doubt. For me and my little traveling family. Everything we didn't expect happened. Everything we expected did not. So much in the last year. Put my commuting time in, put my NYC GCS time in, put my blurry sidewalk time in, was making more than I ever had in my life. Moved to Postcard Town. Then, bang. Like a Michael J Fox glimmer on the timeline of your life, shit changed. The publishing company tanked, no more money from them.... Here I was, just getting used to the nice, suburban life (wry smile here). American dream paying off finally and all that. Book signings, even. Radio interviews, posters in the window, book readings fo' tha kidz. It was enough to make you a believer again. Funny how life can change so drastically. One day you're a superstar, the next you are applying for food stamps, or appealing to your family for help. Ja! Ooooh, another bile smoothie, please. No, really, I love these!

But I JEST. I give you drama. Because while it's always blowing my mind, I'm used to it, too. My life has always been like this, it seems. Maybe there's another way? Even if so, I think you can relate. Sometimes, though, people around me get worried and they don't calm down always when I say "it will work out, it always does." But maybe they are right to get uptight? Maybe it won't? Some days it all feels connected, and easy, and sure. And then some days I'm just trying to hold my belly together.

There's a book contract waiting for me, maybe, if this SuperCool Well-Known® talent agency digs the novel that I'm still editing. It's a good hook-up, and all that's left is for me to send it. I've got to get back to that! But.... the need for money ahora immediately overshadows these free creative notions. My mind clamps down when I try to go back to that Writing the Novel World. The land of rising debt and cashlack flings shadows like bats at my creative sphere. It almost lifted the other day. I thought I would get that warehouse shipping and receiving job I interviewed for. Figured it would be a good way to build up the arms and back and get trim for summer and save money to get us out of here all at once. But nah. I'm not getting called on that job. And I don't really blame them. I should have said YEAH! to the fractured time schedule, I should have leapt at it like a street orphan on a slice of boston-style. But I couldn't pull off "overjoyed" to work a 4a-1p/3p-1a shift. He asked me and my true feelings showed on my face, a sort of "WTF?" for a moment, and to think, I was doing real good up until then. He didn't love me anymore after that.

But something will work out. It always does.

A blog I read recently took a stand on "focusing on the important shit" and while they were referring to people who drop in on your comment threads and tell you to do this, it did make me think of a refrain of mine, which is similar in some of my own posts. I think I may pull back a little on that. With declaring what is and what isn't important to write about in a blog. I mean...I will still have my feelings and thoughts on it (as we all do, I imagine), but Chris was right. Throwing that out there is a way of suppressing certain topics that bore me. I don't think I'd do it on someone else's thread, but yet and still...I can't see that it helps anything at all. And that isn't really what I want, anyway. I don't want to instill self-consciousness in anyone, definitely not that kind. Especially because it is true: when people take some of these topics and turn them around, I learn new things. How can I preempt that learning? Preemption is for Deciders. Too much Deciding makes me break out.

So does detoxifying. And sometimes breaking out is part of the process. Like when you detoxify your body or your diet or skin and, well, break out. Some of these speech patterns and thoughts that jump out can feel like remnants; like old, dead veneer buckling up off of a weatherbeaten dresser. Except I'm not weatherbeaten. I'm sexy as hell. And veneer and pimples are not sexy. (Well, it would be a rare combination to prove me wrong, but I guess it could be done.)

I do like that my birthday comes around just as Spring is beginning to show her face. It's a good time to cast off some old ideas. It's a good time to plant a new garden. We soak it all up, Me and Spring. We get happy and spiteful together. Only the good die young, mama, I say to the golden knowing eyes of the sun. Thirty-eight years and dawn's still breakin', she replies. But you're still young to me....

That's as good as it gets, my friends. Dawn's still breaking. The rest, we can get to.