Here is your I am guessing "seventh" annual run of Mi Mamacita Communista, or Things My Mother Taught Me, which I first wrote for May Day 2008, when I was editor in chief of alt-weekly LACityBeat for five minutes, and three cover stories in a row had fallen through. That year, we'd go on to elect Obama, and think our country had finally rid itself of rule-by-loons. The future's a fucking trip huh?

We all are exhausted; we all are fried; we all have been running sprints AND marathons for two and a half years now. We didn't know electing an erudite black man would bring back the actual nazis.

We need each other. The analogy I like, from my secret group of middle-aged and elderly women bitching about media and Hillary, is a choir holding a note. When you need to take a moment to sip a quick breath, your brothers and sisters hold the note around you. It's okay if you need to stop watching news for a minute to fill your lungs. We'll be here when you get back. And you always lift us up too, with love notes and health care and bail money.

When I was 15, my mother took me to the Mother's Day protest at the Nevada Test Site and then WOULDN'T LET ME GET ARRESTED. Instead, she and I just made sandwiches for the hippies who did, getting off the bus in their sheriff-provided zip tie handcuffs. She wouldn't let me get arrested with her at Diablo Canyon either, under the nom de activism Emma Goldman. BOYCOTT MOM! UNFAIR TO TEENS!

I don't have much more in the way of intro: Thanks to you, who hired Robyn for me part-time, I take my little sip of breath every weekend, except for some bookkeeping and belated thank you notes. Just breathe where you have to, and cuddle and snuggle with us in our arms. Because FUCKIN RIGHT WE ARE MOM OF YOU. Or something like that. We love you.