Girls know vastness, from the very start. Why? Because of their sleeping little wombs, tethered to infinity and holding a host of the rest of us still out there cloud bound.

I just used my Birthday gift card at Samy’s on a little gift I might have otherwise overlooked. And I am loath to miss a good gift. It’s a little external flash for my pixie cam – another unexpected gift, from X-Mas, that’s worked its way quite nicely into my quotidian life. So with the little quick camera on my hip and thus always at the ready and now with this little slaved external light source out at arm’s length, the whole nature of the snapshot is changed to something with a whole lot more teeth. And isn’t that at the heart of what I’m doing? Raising the snap of life up toward the exalted moment, making celebratory and celebrity out of the simple corduroy of my existence. It’s all in the daily business of observing my CHICKS, and paying them homage.

Pops is looking very strong and perhaps more importantly, very happy. His granddaughters come over and he just lets them light him up. He has a newfound lightness about him that is very obviously a big part of his healing. He’s not making much of an effort to find a homeopathic answer to the ills that have beset him – old dog and his old tricks is just more apropos to the comfort of seven decades of being self directed. But I like to think that he’s imbibing freely of this good medicine that are my CHICKS. Mette wouldn’t even eat pancakes from me today, she only wanted to climb up into Pops’ lap and be fed his breakfast, and he so willingly gave it all to her. It was magical. She knows the things she wants and needs and gravitates to them wordlessly, inspired only by the guts. In her presence he is moved by the same intuition. It’s really a blessing to see the strength flooded back into him.

One of the big pulls of having another kid is the sheer curiosity around who they will be. Each is so different from the other. It could easily cause you to have so many. You’re really compelled to see how the next one will be unique. They are made of the same stuff, harbor strapping similarities, but are born of completely different molds.
There is one common thread though that is always so fetching to witness: common fascinations. Especially when they are tied to a certain age or a certain level of burgeoning awareness. The young one comes to something that is brand new to her and wondrous, and you remember how the older one was once taken up in the same enthrall. And you wonder how you ever forgot that touching exhilaration in your own child, and how you never really even noticed that they had grown out of it. That’s another big part of having number two, it returns you to so many precious epochs you’ve ushered into and – by dint of the hurly burly of childrearing – passed right out of without much ado. In this photo Mette, thumb stuck in a lemon, is finding the silly dancing clown in the cardboard music box at Apa Pops’. O! how he used to dance for Bindi, and his limbs are only looser now.

They are freelance and very highly regarded in this business of always looking very chic. Good hair is about effortlessness. Here’s the epitome, eh? Here’s to Rock’n'Roll.

How is one so small, so big? How does the mercury of attitude switch so willy-nilly. This is all in the lay-you-low and humble of beholding daughters. May I wish it on every man.

This here is Bert Leonard. He’s a formidable character. Long time Hollywood producer, several times husband, taciturn if you fuck with him, gentle lamb of his women, father of my proxy sisters. He’s in a bad way just now, eating through a tube, no more larynx, biding cancer’s time. But he’s moved back in with his ex-wife and daughters, sort of a great big complete circle coming round to finality. His hair is kept by his nurse making him look all silvery and groomed. There is a large TV with Andy Griffith near by and the loneliness of old age seems fairly well kept at bay. He has that beatitude of one who does not speak anymore. He transmits all sorts of assurance through he eyes. To sit with him for his portrait was very peaceful. And I think it did everyone a moment of good.

She has begun to be very explicit in her mumblings. Mette is a woman grounded in soil while buena vista eyed.