Gigi Hadid wore pearls, a t-shirt and jeans to Paris fashion week. So, our (Lisa, Leeza and my) theme for this New Year’s Eve is “Jeans and pearls.” To be accurate, Gigi’s distressed, slouchy bottom, boyfriend jeans were embroidered with pearls - the pearls weren’t worn as a necklace - but Lisa and I think anything involving embroidery is a trailer-park trend - so we’ll be wearing strings of pearls. If Karen (Lisa and Leeza’s mom) lets us, that is.

Karen has four strings of Tiffany pearls - called Essential, Ziegfeld, Akoya and South Sea Noble. They’re all 16-inch, single strand strings (which we all prefer) and they range in value from $600 (the Akoya) to the expensive (South Sea Noble) string - that she won’t lend anyone. The good news is, if anyone is thinking of buying me a string of pearls, I can’t tell the difference between the cheap string and the expensive string.

Leeza (Lisa’s 13-year-old sister) wants to be included in EVERYTHING this year, which is funny because last year she either attacked us or completely ignored us. This year, Leeza has a thirteen-year-old’s razor-sharp instincts and relentless curiosity.

As we’re Planning New Year’s Eve, Ethan Bortnick’s song, “Engraving” was playing. It’s a crazy song with middle-school, EMO, angsty vibes. One of the lines of the song is “strip for me”. As the song ends, Leeza suddenly asks us, “Have you two ever been to a *******?”
“No”, I answered.
Lisa said, “Once.”
“What?!” I asked.
“Really?” Leeza gasped, “Spill!” She demanded.
“This has random context,” Lisa begins, “I’ve been inside a ******* once in my life.”
Leeza and I tittered nervously. “I’m scared,” Leeza said, as an aside, grinning and rubbing her hands on her knees, clearly more delighted than scared.
“I was attending a middle school, Model UN conference, at Brown University,” Lisa continued, “and they took all the kids to a ******* for their model UN social.”
I gasped and blurted “There’s NO way this happened.”
“Yes,” Lisa insisted, “you can ask my mom.” she said, with a serious look, “And, and obviously, it was rented out for the night, but they didn’t, like, think to take away any of the normal features. There weren’t any strippers, but they didn’t take the poles down and they didn’t turn off the multiple TV screens on all the walls that were playing their normal rotating video content.”
“Wow,” I said, with my hand over my mouth. Meanwhile, Leeza was chortling like a mad woman and rocking back and forth.
“Everyone walked in,” Lisa went on, “and it was just middle schoolers, thirteen years old. There were pictures of the dancers on the poles, and our history teacher came in, and freaked OUT, saying, “Oh, no, No, NO!” Because it was a school event, we had taken school buses there, it was a boondoggle. They turned us all around and hustled us out of there.”
Leeza had stood up and was twirling with glee. Middle schoolers live for chaos.
“Taken out of context,” I said, “It was crazy you went to a ******* in middle school.”
“It was a jump scare, for sure,” Lisa confirmed, “we went from one vibe, a school field trip, to a *******.”

Anyway, for New Year’s, a lot is still up in the air - undecided - but we’re determined that we want to have a blast. We’re young and we want to support bad ***** energy (BBE).
“Oh, I have a BBE song!” Lisa squeals, “Mafiosa!” (by Nathy Peluso) She names it as it begins playing.

The songs in Spanish and when it ended, I’d looked up the lyrics because my 2 years of Spanish weren’t good enough. I tell Leeza the lyrics go: “Let the bad men fear me, when I arrive in my car - they speed off.”
“Yes!” Lisa Laughs, “We don’t drive - but, YES!”
“Emotionally,” I say, laughing too. “But verse two asks the great question, “What the frack is wrong with men when it comes to women?”
“It’s,” Lisa started, looking up and searching for words, “SUCH a timeless question.”
“Why’d you pick that song?” Leeza asked.
Lisa chuckled,” Because you don’t get more BBE than a female Mafiosa killer.”

Update: Karen agreed that as long as Charles is with us (and really, when isn’t he with us?), we can borrow the three inexpensive pearl strings (worth about 5k). So, I’ll be wearing the Akoya pearls, an Anna Molinari white, basic, cotton-shirt, washed denim cropped jeans with white bridal flats and Lisa and Leeza will wear their own, white tops, jeans, flats and pearls and we’ll be on-theme.

Happy New Year’s Everyone!

I was molded by his own hand
sculpted to perfection and eager to please
who else other than my husband
for without Adam, there is no Eve

at least, that was before he slithered into our perfect life
pounding our perfect garden into the ground with his slick feet
conniving and a brute,
he convinced me to take a bite
and share my fruit with man
for what is mine is his
my knowledge is his

I am his

together we ate
snacking and licking our fingers with glee
wiping the secretions of the fruit of mankind
against the tree we tore it from

until our Paradise's pastures declined
the wildflowers overtrodded with weeds
the singing waterfall vanished
only to be replaced by an evil, magmatic spout

and our tree,
our once bountiful, glorious, fruitful tree
decayed from the inside out

Adam's burning glare rotted my fruit and my seeds
until they and I dropped to the burning embers on the ground
like nicks off of a pebble that was thrown too hard
or like hairs from the back of a matted mother cat
that has spent far too many heatless winters hunting
for a different life,
for any life

with no more than a curse from Him,
I became the failed experiment of humanity
tossed into God's own graveyard
left to rot with my stolen seed

All the More Human, for Eve Pandora
by Michael R. Burch

a lullaby for the first human Clone

God provide the soul, and let her sleep
be natural as ours, unplagued by dreams
of being someone else, lost in the deep
wild swells of losing all that "human" means ...

and do not let her come to doubt herself—
that she is as we are, so much alike
in frailty, in the books that line the shelf
that tell us who we are—a rickety ****

against the flood of doubt—that we are more
than cells and chance, that love, perhaps, exists
because of someone else who would endure
such pain because some part of her persists

in us, and calls us blesséd by her bed,
become a saint at last, in whose frail arms
we see ourselves—the gray won out of red,
the ash of blonde—till love is safe from harm

and all that "human" means is that we live
in doubt, and die in doubt, and only love
the more because we only know to strive
against an end we loathe and fear. What of?—

we cannot say, imagining the Night
as some weird darkened structure caving in
to cold enormous pressure. Lacking sight,
we lie unbreathing, thinking breath a sin ...

and that is to be human. You are us—
true mortal, child of doubt, hopeful and curious.

Keywords/Tags: Eve, Pandora, human, clone, humanity, human being, human condition, evolution, birth, death, life and death, soul, soulmate, saint, youth

And a rib was pulled from a side,
Soon was molded to be his Lover:
Tiny whispers calling beautiful bride,
Now with my hand so soft and bare,
I tend to land, 'these grounds of heart.'

Lay down my eyes, hoping now to see,
The widest eyes, lookers of everything:
'O, stop looking for perfect fish of the Sea'
Rubbing salt in a wound, that won't heal.

All we are; are two skies far apart,
Longing to be one being and in flesh,
A piece self trading into your heart:
Love was first made, we came second.

Children all of our Adam and Eve,
The seeds of a garden forgotten:
But even as I don't see my paradise,
Darling you'll always be my Eden.

Surer knowledge by cross examination
of witnesses than belief in imaginations
Will more certainty than mindless chance
Shakespeare was a man rather than monkeys
and Eve than washed up fishes learning to walk

The mother of humanity
Cast aside without a thought.
For what do we owe this calamity?
Man’s wrath is a terrible blot.

I wonder what you were like.
I wonder were you kind?
I wonder did you mean to free the mind?
I wonder could you heal the blind?

Did you dream?
Did you yearn to be free?
Did you want to sail some distant sea?
Did you simply wish to flee?

Can you forgive your children?
Can you absolve our sin?
Can you forget without chagrin?
Can you soothe our burning skin?

Will I win your praise?
Will I make you proud?
Will I meet you in the cloud?
Will I hear your voice aloud?