We're fighting for you here on the East Coast.

And watching you with admiration and pride.

Thanks for sending me updates.

My Dad told me he wouldn't know I was a dyke if he saw me on the street.

This annoyed me.

I told him he has bad gaydar.

This hurt his feelings.

Times, they are 'a changin.

Today, I trailed behind two 9-ish boys on my way home from the gym. Here is the conversation verbatim:

"I bet you don't even know where Iraq is, dummy."

"Yuh, huh, it's in Iran."

"No, it's not you idiot. They're not even on the same continent."

"Yuh, huh, they are too."

"Nuh, uh. Iraq's bad you idiot."

"Whatever. My Dad's still voting for Obama. I gotta go to flag football."

So, I posted information about my Aunt's Creative Activist Fund in the last blog. It was the only thing I could think of to truly honor my Aunt's radical spirit. As an artist, feminist, and ardent peace-activist, she was, and continues to be, an inspiration to me. I want to encourage all of you please to either donate to, or apply for, the Annie B. Katz grant to go down to Code Pink's House in DC and learn how to effectively protest government and advocate for our basic civil rights and representation. I am so pleased and honored to imagine all of the creative activism that my Aunt's fund may be able to support. I will personally be making donations on an ongoing basis to support our progressive kick ass base. I will also be down in DC, next, at George W. Bush's farewell party. Hope to see you there!

Thanks for being out there, all of you.

Box Spring in New Orleans

Poor Statue of Liberty

Stuck in all that water

Her head must have drooped in shame

When she heard her President proclaim that

"People in this part of the world are suffering"

and "this part of the world" used to be Her America.

Well, I remember

The bridge, the body, the barge, the body,

the boat, the body,

the breech, the body,

the schoolbus,

the scream, the stench,

the water, the window, the water, the waiting, the water

the crash, the crush, the coast, the crime

I remember the explosion.

The decapitated dog on the post

The dolphin in the pool

The crocodile, the cow, the bloat, the drown

Now, I remember

Seven days of wait on a roof

Seven days of rape on a roof

Seven days of pray on a roof

The helicopter

And how it never came

How they called it catastrophe, calamity, chaos.

But the police gun-pointing our bus seemed organized enough

I remember

The prisoners who were people  

In wheelchairs in handcuffs

In the basement

And wondering how long

I remember the Convention Center

The Superdome

Pissing on the floor of our new home

I Remember

St. Thomas

The Desire

The Fisher

B.W. Cooper

The Lower Ninth Ward

Jefferson Parish

Sam Jackson

But mostly I remember

Balancing my baby

On a box spring

And sending her towards goodbye

I am now

Cold lunches

The National Guard

Charter schools

Subcontractors

Detention centers

insurance adjustors

Blackwater

Formaldehyde

FEMA

Trailers in rows like tombstones

Toxic graveyards

Demolition

Bull dozers

Donald trump

Decaying lots

Disintegration

Closed day cares and clinics

Commissions

E coli

Conflictions

Condominiums

Corporations

Well-connected elections

Voodoo tunes jazz gumbo blues 

And I am wondering, Red Cross, where the money went

Because I am now

No playground

No recess

Black children

Criminal trespass

No gangs

No loiter

Because I am now

A ten year old daughter with a sign:

"missing parents plus two brothers"

I am now searching through the rubble for my grandmother

I am now

"Teachers, this is just a reminder that today's PTSD workshop is in the library."

I am now

Your poems

Your pictures

Your politics

Your thesis

Your CNN segment

Your cause

Your conspiracy

Your songs

Your sympathy

But I am still

In Baton Rouge

Houston

Salt Lake City

Little Rock

In Denver

In Dallas

Holding a sign "In Desperate Need of Assistance

I am still a refugee in my own damn country"

And I am waiting for America

To get my ass home."