adoptedwriter | Reading

ofearthandstars

From

thefridayfive:

What was the most sick that you've ever been?
It would either be the time I had strep not long after having my Oldest kid, in which case I remember wondering if I might be dying as I couldn't leave the bed and had fever hallucinations, or when I contracted chicken pox as an adult in my late 20s because (surprise!) chicken pox vaccinations were not yet vogue when I was a little kid and I'd never been exposed (because maybe exposing your kid young was still vogue, but we moved around a lot and I was an awkward kid with few friends?). Anyway, if you have ever been covered head to toe in blisters (literally, I can remember crying while trying to find a way to lay my head on a pillow comfortably) while your vaccinated children run around in wildly energetic circles with only a tiny bump or two on their arm from the same illness, you will understand that chicken pox is not benign and actually VACCINES ARE GOOD.
What disease are you afraid of getting?
This has changed over time. Currently I think it's Alzheimer's. I live in my head a lot, and if my head becomes not my head, well then, who am I, exactly?
Are you a big baby when it comes to taking medicine/shots for your illnesses?
LOL, not at all. I give myself 5 shots a month to treat migraines and asthma/allergies. I used to be afraid of it, growing up with a Type 1 diabetic mother who gave herself shots all the time (when auto-injectors and retractable needles were not a thing). But that fear was also probably combined with watching a lot of weird daytime soaps/movies in the 80s in which someone was inevitably killed from an intravenous air bubble introduced by their jealous lover/son/etc. Young me understood that my mom needed the shot to live but also frequently worried if she might accidentally give herself a heart attack.
Is going to the doctor really THAT bad?
Only when they make notes about your dysphoric mood (*grumble grumble*).
Would you have the flu twice a month if you were paid $1,000 for having it?
Nope, nada, nopeapotamus. There's a reason we toast to our health!

mallorys_camera

Went sour cherry picking with the fabulous

rebeccmeister.

rebeccmeister is (as my beloved Marybeth used to say) a real find. Sparkling, intelligent, humorous, plus she is the change she hopes to see in a completely nonperformative way. In a perfect world, she would live two blocks away from me so that on rainy days, I could race over to her house & watch her retool chair splines. Learn from her example how to use tools!

She wore the coolest dress, too. Its pattern was leaf ants!

The morning had gotten off to an inauspicious start on account of the propane running out before it could fuel the flames necessary to heat the water that makes my coffee.

I'd had to drive up to the Farmcart Coffee pop-up in town, where I splurged on a cappuccino & eavesdropped on a conversation between the ridiculously beautiful barista and two ridiculously beautiful young women, all of whom had recently (and most ridiculously of all) emigrated from the Deep South to fuckin' Wallkill, New York.

Why would anyone emigrate for any reason to Wallkill, New York?

"We're Jehovah's Witnesses," the beautiful barista explained with a radiant smile.

Oh, of course.

Wallkill is actually the center of the American Jehovah's Witnesses branch. They publish The Watchtower here! And also 17 million Bibles every year! Old Testament only. The JWs are not big on the New Testament.

The barista was just so lovely! We chattered about the differences between Italian and Spanish, how the two languages had practically identical grammars but differed in the way they were voiced, Spanish using various accent marks to signify pronunciation, while Italian relies on doubling up consonants—

I remembered then that my very favorite TaxBwana client of 2024 had been a Jehovah's Witness preacher. His house had burned down with all his tax documents. I'd used forensic accounting to rectify them. He was very elegant and intelligent, and we'd had a free-ranging conversation about all number of fascinating things, and it wasn't until the very end of our third meeting that he handed me a card with his JW ID.

Why don't I become a Jehovah's Witness? I wondered for 10 minutes or so.

They're not big on Jesus! They recognize that "infinity" is an impossible mathematical concept, not an architectural template for the afterlife: There is only room for 144,000 in the Jehovah's Witness Heaven. Best of all, they seem to take care of each other! Like if I was a Jehovah's Witness, even now 10 Jehovah's Witnesses would be showing up at the casa to swap out that propane tank! And I wouldn't be late for my meetup with Rebecca.

###

I picked six pounds of sour cherries. This is enough for three pies.

Originally, I had planned to pick enough for BB and me. BB was a talented cook & baker, and each year, he baked three special pies for Flavia, his long-term honey. Sour cherry pie was always the first.

This year, I guess, I will bake a sour cherry pie for Flavia. Though I am an indifferent baker; my pie crust in particular has the texture of shoe leather.

But it's the thought that counts, right?

I'll freeze it until I see her again.

###

It was 91° at Samascott by the time Rebecca & I bid adieu and 95° by the time I got back to Wallkill.

I swapped out the propane tank! Pretty easily! So, I no longer have to become a Jehovah's Witness.

I pitted the cherries.

I will bake my pies today.

###

Afterwards, I sat out on the backporch and read The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories. It grew dark. The fireflies came out.

There is a ghost story I'd like to write for BB though I don't think he'd like it very much.

He never even read Elliot Roosevelt's Motor Car, which I actually dedicated to him.

Back in 2018, I did a lot of canvassing and campaigning for a Congressional candidate called Jeff Beals.

Beals lost—but in the tradition of such things, his "victory" party went on, and I somehow managed to talk BB into accompanying me to it. BB absolutely hated parties! I wouldn't say I love them—love or hate depends on my mood—but I am generally pretty good at them since it doesn't trouble me in the least to walk up to perfect strangers & begin chattering away at them.

The party was in Woodstock.

And BB lived ostensibly in Kerhonksen but really in a remote settlement deep within the Catskills Park that was once called Riggsville—presumably after a 19th century tannery owner.

To get from Woodstock to Riggsville, you have to drive across the Ashokan Reservoir, which supplies New York City with its drinking water.

Twelve towns were drowned to create the Ashokan Reservoir!

Cottages, stores, church steeples, everything!

I suppose they relocated the cemeteries—or at least the ones they knew about.

We drove under a full moon. The reservoir tried to drown that, too! But the weirdest thing was the deer that had lined up along practically every section of the road! I kid you not! Like every single deer in the Catskill Mountains. It was like they had all come out to watch us, and, of course, we had to drive very, v-e-r-y slowly in case one came charging across the road.

Anyway, it gave me an idea for a story...

Suppose the deer were the metamorphosed inhabitants of the drowned villages?

And every four years they turn out to exercise their rights as American citizens to vote?

That would be the story backdrop. Not sure what the actual plot would be.

Except that the story would be called Neversink. There is also a Neversink Reservoir that supplies water to NYC, though we didn't drive along it that night, and what could be a better title about the enchanted inhabitants of a drowned village than Neversink?

shirebound

Happy Birthday,

marta_bee!

mallorys_camera

Brian's house was hard.

I brought lunch & bubbles. (Brian was a big fan of blowing bubbles. There's nothing he liked to do more at the end of a day than smoke ganja & sit out on his front porch blowing bubbles.)

But as far as any of the practical tasks that had to get done?

I was useless.

Fortunately Brian's excellent neighbors—an elderly and charmingly licentious gay couple—had already cleaned the kitchen. It was more spotless now than I had ever seen it when Brian was alive. I fed them lunch.

"We will miss Brian," Willie—the elder of the two—remarked. "Do you know how we became friends? Well, one time, we were entertaining a trick—"

"He wasn't really a trick!" interjected Eugene. "We just liked to call him that!"

"—and we ran out of lube. So, I walk across the road, bang on Brian's door, and say, 'Hey, do you happen to have any lube I could borrow?'

"And without missing a beat, he asks, 'Water or silicon-based?'"

###

As soon as I got to Brian's, I felt utterly fatigued. Denatured somehow—like all the protein in my body had turned to jellyfish protoplasm.

All I could do was collapse on Brian's front steps and prattle on & on, hopfully entertainingly—to Brian's gay neighbors (but they had already cleaned the kitchen—and since I was amusing them, that kinda meant that I had cleaned the kitchen, too, right?), to Flavia's friend Betsy who had dropped everything to support Flavia for four days even though she was not the biggest Brian fan. So I sat while Flavia and Mimi did the tour of the house, tackled the stuff in the fridge and the washing machine, went around the cottage unplugging appliances.

Then the four of use went out to the garden.

It was nowhere as big or various as it has been in past years. Which, of course, made me think, Huh! Did he...?

There are a couple of tomato plants and half a dozen chilis I could rehome. But that would mean spending an hour in that garden, and that garden was crawling with tics. Tiny deer tics, the ones that give you Lyme's disease. All but impossible to distinguish from dirt flecks.

Much of my entertaining conversation with Betsy had had to do with her two-year battle with Lyme's disease. It is not a disease I want to contract, so I don't want to be digging in Brian's garden.

I will go up & water it, though. On weeks that don't get much rain. I only live 25 miles away although the drive there takes me on backroads over the Shawanagunk Ridge and through the Catskills, so it's at least an hour's drive.

And I'll sauce the tomatoes when they're ripe.

###

The next day I had to get new tires and rear shocks for my car.

Mavis Automotive told me the work would take four hours at most to complete.

Belinda picked me up, fed me lunch, took me to see a really bad movie: Jurassic World Rebirth.

Dropped me back off at Mavis at the four-hour mark.

Looking up at the little Prius on its hydrolift with its wheels disassembled, was exactly like looking down at a surgical patient on an operating table. And I noticed the customer service people lied just as glibly as medical personnel: Oh, nothing's wrong! It's just taking a little longer than we...

Another hour, I was told. Ninety minutes, tops.

If they'd just fuckin' told me, It will be finished when it's finished. Leave it here. We'll call you tomorrow...

I must say, Belinda despite her Trumpishness was an excellent friend. When I texted her I was on the verge of a massive panic attack, she swooped down & took me to the local Dairy Queen (which she owns) for dinner. The DQ cheeseburger is Not Bad.

Then Belinda took me back to Mavis.

I wandered around to the back of garage and watched the mechanic thrashing about with my car.

The culprit was some sort of nut that could not be dislodged from some sort of bar.

Even with no mechanical aptitude whatsoever, I understood perfectly well that no amount of torque or elbow grease was gonna get that nut off that rod because that nut was stripped. That nut would only be removed with some kind of drill apparatus.

But the mechanic didn't understand this. He was growing more & more desperate to grip as he twisted his clamp round & round that nut.

And I thought, Uh oh. Because I have been a charge nurse, and I know that expression I saw on that mechanic's face! It was that panic that comes when you are trying to cover because you have made a potentially disasterous mistake.

Whenever I saw that expression as a charge nurse, I would try to take that nurse off an assignment as soon as possible—not because he or she was a bad nurse, but because once you get that rattled, you cannot do anything right, you will just keep making horrible mistakes!

By this time, it was 6pm, which is when Mavis officially closes.

They wanted to stay until the whole thing was fixed.

I figured that wouldn't be till midnight. So, I said, "Absolutely not! If you put the car together, will it be driveable?"

Well...yeah... but it will make an awful lot of noise.

And it did make noise. It sounded like the ghost of Keith Moon was beginning his world tour in my trunk.

But I got it back to the casa safely. And back to Mavis at 8 the next morning. Where it took them another two hours to fix it. Different mechanic!

###

Then I went off to the Hyde Park Community Garden, where I knew I'd be able to regroup. Tics are never seen in the Hyde Park Community Garden!

Weeded. Lay more straw.

Despite my massive neglect, tomatoes, cucumbers, & peppers are coming along quite! nicely:

Especially my wonderful volunteer California poppy:

Afterwards, under the cool shade of the Linden tree, I had my first conversation with Claude that was not about gardening.

We talked about growing old. Both of us had expected to die by 30.

And youthful mistakes. You expect to die by 30, if you make a lot of those.

I like Claude. He is very solid.

Thinking is hard.

Feeling is impossible. Except for anxiety.

(Wait! Is anxiety even an emotion?)

I haven't slept more than four hours a night since Brian died.

Sleeping would make me feel a whole lot better.

tonithegreat

She’d been a fool to keep going like nothing was wrong. But for the life of her, she wasn’t sure what the moment should have been to take a stand, or what the stand should have been. Her agency didn’t work on the crazy important things. Did it?

Yes, she’d been part of the dominant culture. Really, she’d been part of the dominant and oppressive culture for her whole life, although it had been hard to see it growing up. Yes, privilege was having two college educated parents that stayed together. That made sense. She had figured that part out as a young teen. But when having that privilege put her in the minority in the tiny town where she was raised, it didn’t feel as much like privilege. It especially didn’t feel like privilege when her parents drove beater cars and stressed about money and didn’t take fancy vacations just like everyone else. But the true privilege had been confidence, she guessed. The confidence and support to go on to bigger ponds. To make her own way. They hated the oppressed that couldn’t make their own way and they also hated her for making it but not being enough of an oppressor, she supposed.

Silva had a weird amount of time for contemplation now. Now that she was in a very strange pond with a very strange assortment of people. There wasn’t much of a common thread among the people held here as far as she could tell. There were a good number of Latino looking people, people whispering in Spanish and English and maybe other languages. It was hard to tell. People kept being hit for whispering in any language at the wrong time.

Her head ached and she felt lightheaded. Twice a day she was lined up with a few others and forced to swallow large sulfuric smelling pills. She guessed they were antibiotics administered for whatever infection had been brewing in her mouth when the cold, impersonal military dentist in the back of an air conditioned semi truck had removed what was left of her broken teeth. She had stopped feeling fevered soon after starting the pills, left only with headaches, sore empty spots in her mouth, an aching jaw and now also the runs. She did not want to be hit hard again. She knew that she could not let herself be the flinching woman here surrounded by these folks. But she took a lot of pains not to be the one sticking out in the guards’ vision. She allowed herself very little communication. Everyone else was miserable also. That made it easier.

When should she have communicated before being picked up? And to whom? Was anyone working on trying to get her out of here? Was there anything she did or anything she could have done to facilitate help coming now? There had been an email window open on her work computer for a few weeks before she was taken- the start of an email to her state representative’s office. If she had finished that email, would that office be more likely to investigate her like the state apparently had, or to rescue her? She had just wanted help getting the federal education department to look seriously at her eligibility for loan forgiveness. It seemed a million miles away from now. Surely as a public servant of twenty years, it hadn’t been bad for her to seek that kind of help. . . But they hated public servants. She shouldn’t have forgotten that.

Her mind drifted. Standing in lines in the sun, with her hands on her head wasn’t too bad as long as she could keep from feeling dizzy. As long as she could keep some kind of equilibrium. She was among the tallest women, so they usually put her in the back row. It wasn’t so claustrophobic as it was for the ladies in the middle. Stand in line. Eyes forward. Hear the whirring of the drones getting pictures of all of them. Video to be run through AI- posted on social media. Hear the guards shouting instructions. Be compliant. Be part of the spectacle, but not the part sticking out the farthest, being beaten. Consider what it used to feel like to have hope spring up.

Behold! Sometimes a word or a phrase would just get stuck in her head. It had been “Behold!” for the last couple of days. She would remember the rush of air, the ability to breathe that came when they had removed the hoods in the back of the truck, and then her vision orienting, seeing that other unexpected prisoner. . . her boss? Behold! It couldn’t be. But it was. It had been. How? Why?

And then, miserable hours later. Hoods removed again. Unloading from the truck. This was a spectacle they were meant to take in. Behold! A blue sign with white letters. Alligator Alcatraz. She was still in her home state. It was not a joke. It was real. Behold! The feeling of sweat pooling. Of dehydration headache coming on. She didn’t typically hate the heat. But her body was always working. It took energy to dissipate the heat. Energy that she supposed she didn’t need for thinking anymore.

The nights were the worst. Not because of tears in the dark, but because the fluorescent lights beat down on all of them and it was always random who was sobbing. Bottom and middle bunks were hotter, but top bunks were right under those awful lights. Behold! Everything was getting so hazy. Silva knew from early motherhood that sleep deprivation could result in a kind of fugue state. Some part of her knew that she needed to try not to slip into that state, but she wasn’t sure why or how. This place made it so easy to dissociate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

This dark little vignette is a companion piece (although I think it also stands alone) to my piece last week for LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos! If you enjoyed this, please vote for me there. I will try to add a link to the voting in a comment below this week (getting more organized? Maybe!) once the poll is live.

Life has been crazy busy of late. I hope you enjoy my efforts here.

flipflop_diva

( Lainey Lynette Lollicutter (not her real name) was a psychic (not a legitimate one) who had no trouble crowing to people (mostly her sister) about her successes )

This was written for the new season of

therealljidol, Wheel of Chaos! If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me or any of the other amazing contestants. You can find all the entries here. Looking for the voting post on Wednesday night!

alycewilson

This is my entry for this week of LJ Idol: Wheel of Chaos. The prompt this week is "Ecco," which is an Italian word defined as, essentially, "presenting a person, thing, or idea and inviting you to perceive it at the very moment it appears," similar to the English word "behold."

Behold

I peer into your dark bronze eyes as you, swaddled
in a panda blanket, gaze back. We are both
enthralled with this novelty: being apart
from one another. Our bodies separate, at last.
Your heart pounding in your own tiny chest, no longer
tapping time with mine. Able, at last, to see
the origin of the voice you've heard
echoing through blood so many months. My own heart

now suffused with warmth and wellbeing
which I feebly label "love." But Valentine sentiment
pales beside this affection, which encapsulates
not just tenderness but a deep
knowing; a twinning of cells.
Your joy, my joy; your pain
mine, as well.

So many years later -- an eon of growth --
you may wonder why I still
beam at you; why I intone
your name so sweetly in the mornings
as I coach you to disentangle your long limbs
from swaddling blankets. Why I still sing
good morning to you, as if the nectar
of each day was worth savoring. Even now,
with your deep voice, your wry humor,
your eyes behind speckled glasses,
I still see you as I saw you then.
In breathless wonder.

- July 9, 2025

Inspired by

eeyore_grrl, I've recorded a video of myself reading this poem.

roina_arwen

Music makes me happy. It always has…or very nearly so. Sadly, I am not talented when it comes to creating music, and have tried my hand at several different instruments over the years. In middle school it was the alto clarinet. I had a brief tryst with a violin during fifth grade, and of course who didn’t make music—and I use that term loosely—on the requisite recorder during our earliest school years?

If you didn’t have that pleasure, I can assure you, you didn’t miss much.

Even so, only one instrument in all my fifty-plus years ever got me into trouble, and made not only myself but my entire family unhappy. You, dear reader, would be hard pressed to guess what item had the dubious honor of causing such a ruckus, so I’ll just tell you. ( Read more... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

oxymoron67

Me1: What is going on here?

Me2: It’s “The Adoration” by Fra Angelico.

Me1: The Blessed Virgin Mary looks bored, like she always does in these things.

Me2: I don’t know. I think she looks irritated. I mean, she JUST gave birth to him a few days ago, and is probably looking for some peace and quiet…

Me1: And a Conga line breaks out….

Me2: Exactly. Especially since this looks like the beginnings of an ancient rave.

Me1: Were the Magi just

Me2: I mean, maybe. We’ve seen it before, though. Remember at the Cloisters?

Me1: Hmmm… oh, yeah, the statues…

Me2: Exactly, they were clearly dancing or at least posing.

Me1: Can you imagine? Like the Archangel Gabriel arrives and says “Behold the Baby Jesus! Now, VOGUE! Strike that pose!”

Me2: So.. SOME kind of party broke at the Adoration of the Magi. The dance off doesn’t seem to appear in the Gospels.

Me1: I mean, they brought gifts. It only makes sense.

Me2: I suppose.
_____

This is for LJ Idol

swirlsofpurple

“Tommy sit down and put your seatbelt on, we’re landing,” Izzy says, checking all of the kids’ belts before sinking into her seat, even after the whole journey she still can’t believe how soft it is. The academy’s space shuttle is far fancier than the ones she can afford.

Her eyes dart between each of her students as they walk through the busy city. Even though they have plenty of attendants, it’s her first school trip and there’s an itch in her brain saying she’s going to lose a kid on another planet. They reach the line for the main event mercifully quickly, and of course are allowed into the express lane designated for prime seating. Nothing but the best for these kids: the progeny of lords, celebrities, and CEOs.

Izzy stands in this most auspicious of places, feeling like a fraud. She’s never really belonged anywhere. Three months ago she was a bus driver and four months before that she was a nurse. She pushes down the bad voice, holds her chin up, takes in the children before her, and starts with an easy question, “Who can tell me why this is so special?”

All hands go up. She points at Crissy, a shy, tiny slip of a girl. “A new Rokurirou is only born every three or four hundred years, so every birth is celebrated world-wide.”

Izzy mentally gives her an extra point for not calling them tree aliens. “Good, that’s correct. How do they sustain themselves with births being so rare?”

“They don’t die.”

“You’ve got the right idea. Can anyone elaborate?”

Tommy jumps in place, hand up like he’s trying to catch a cloud, she nods at him, “They live for a bazillion years.”

“Bazillion isn’t a real number!” Jamie yells.

“Okay, what’s your answer then?”

“They live for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.”

“That’s right, good. And why is there all this yellow?”

Half the hands go up. She points at Alice.

“Their eyes see differently to ours, each different shade of yellow is a completely different colour to them and what we see as yellow are their brightest and most celebratory colours.”

“Well done. Why is there only a birth every few centuries?”

Only three hands go up. She notes this as a topic for them to do more on.

“They have very low fertility.”

“That’s correct. They do have very low fertility, but another thing is they always have had. Though it’s not uncommon to see drop offs in fertility in a species. It’s very rare for a species to thrive while having this throughout. The low fertility also means the majority of people don’t even try to have kids which further reduces the birth-rate. Those who do try generally don’t expect to get pregnant, it’s a bit like when adults play the lottery.”

They reach their room, only a pane of glass between the class and the birthing suite. There are hundreds of little twigs protruding from the mother— Tirtriso’s— back. Izzy can see why they only do this every few centuries. She pushes a button for the shutter to lower. It had been quite a job to convince the organizers, without offending, that they wanted to be part of the before and after celebrations without viewing the actual birth. Izzy steers the kids to the other side of the room, where they can see the parade in full swing. The joyous music sounds so sombre to the human ear, but most of the kids are pressed up to the glass in delight anyway.

Then the messages start coming through. Something’s wrong. Izzy doesn’t think, just barges through the door. The newborn isn’t breathing. The doctors are panicking. This isn’t something they’re prepared for. They are a hardy species, living for many millennia, problems with people under two hundred years old is practically unheard of. Doctors are there to ensure the mother’s health.

“The tube doesn’t fit.”

“It’s the smallest we have. Keep trying.”

“You need something else,” Izzy says quietly. She’s ignored.

The doctor keeps trying to fit the too large tube in.

She has no place here, no knowledge of their physiology, but that’s never stopped her before, “Listen! The baby’s too small, that’s never going to fit!”

They turn to her then. “We have nothing else.”

“Then we make-shift something, put some bits of other equipment together.”

All of their eyes, all of their attention, is on her now. They all know what rests here. “How?”

Izzy steps closer. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Once she sees their equipment it isn’t hard to jerry-rig something, she had to do this a few times when she worked at a hospital in the rougher outskirts.

And the baby is breathing.

It’s a couple of hours later, when the parade is dying down for the day, she lifts the shutter, with Tirtriso’s permission, so the kids can see what they came here for.

“I want to see the baby tree alien!” Tommy says, running into the room before anyone can stop him.

“Sorry,” Izzie says, rushing in behind him, “Tommy, we don’t call the Rokurirou that, and you shouldn’t be in here.”

“It’s fine,” Tirtriso says, “Let the others come in also, come all of you, come, let my baby meet you.”

The kids pour in, clustering around swarm-like. “Careful,” Izzy says. It’s not too late for an inter-stellar incident.

“It’s good. I believe this is the first time a Rokurirou newborn has ever met another child, a moment for our history.”

Izzy watches the children coo and blow raspberries and talk at the baby and wonders what it must be like to be the only child on a planet.

fausts_dream

Aha, Si. Eccolo, eccolo e arrivato.

I'll be honest with you. I fully expected to be dead by now. I remember a scant three Christmases ago making decisions about which Christmas specials to watch on my shitty 2 inch phone screen, since it was going to be my last Christmas. (For the record I decided on Scrooged, Bad Santa, It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th St). It's a good list if you're a peculiar son of a bitch and I certainly am.

My uncle decided to sell the house where I was living and I ran out of couches at one point ended up in a homeless man's rehab. All my worldly possessions stinking and reeking in a black hefty bag.

This place is called The Wheelhouse, and if you call asking for a bed, the answer is always no. What is required is that you go there with clothes and just pull up a spot on one of two vaguely comfortable couches and refuse to leave. Guys will read the AA big book to you and if you refuse them then you'll never get a bed. At 11:00 at night the residents there will make you a pallet on the floor. They will feed you three times a day, the food is donated and can tend toward the weird I remember,in specific, boudin kolaches donated by a local donut shop and one week where we were short on donations we ate turkey neck soup three times a day.

They don't take your cell phone until you're actually admitted into the facility which generally happens at a 7:00 p.m. AA meeting (one of 3 daily mandatory AA meetings)(You are usually admitted anywhere between 2 days and 2 weeks from when you plop down on the couch) But of course if you're spending a lot of time on your cell phone before admission you will never get a bed...see the pattern emerging. You are "chipped in" which is to say you receive an Alcoholics Anonymous newcomers chip. When you get the chip you also get a bed which means you immediately have approximately 70 roommates, many of whom are in various stages of withdrawals from various substances. My drug of choice was booze but if I'm to be honest with myself my real drug of choice was more... Anything that would change the way I feel, be it cocaine, gambling, women, whatever.

One of the more charming attributes of the Wheelhouse, is there are constantly more folks seeking beds than there are beds, so unless you're very strongly motivated to stay they will do their level best to move you along.

One of the techniques is called a "wood ride" where they will punish you as a group for some offense. Other punishments include taking away your toilet seats so you have to hover, because unlike the rest of the world where men are trained to put toilet seats down at the Wheelhouse toilet seats are supposed to be left in the up position. But the wood ride was probably my favorite punishment... You sit at a long table and read the AA Big Book at SCREAMING volume. You read every word as written usually for a couple pages and then it's the next man's turn. I learned early on, not to do anything that would single me out like saying Roman numeral 23 instead of X-X-Eye-Eye-Eye. A well-rounded liberal arts education is just going to mark you as someone who perhaps needs a beating. The idea of the wood ride is to make you so angry you voluntarily leave and give up your bed. The longest wood ride while I was there was 9 hours of reading and screaming.

Chores and reading the Big Book are the only way to spend your days, conversation is limited to the Big Book that first 30 days. I made 60 days sober inside, but they regulate your sleep and limit it fairly strictly and I had enough money to get a hotel room, funny how they'll deliver a bottle straight to a hotel room these days.

I tried to return to the Wheelhouse drunk apparently there was nudity involved I'm not sure I want to know the whole story.

After that I was a rehab hobo for a while including a place called the 24-hour Club which will let you stay for upwards of 10 days... Also you're forced to spend all day in the Big Book there as well.

I eventually found myself in a Christ-based sober living house. Where I paid a program fee of $575 a month. It was not technically rent because renters have rights and we had none. I had a 9:00 p.m. curfew there for over a year which was 2 hours earlier than my very strict mother had placed on me when I was 11.

I managed a year and 8 months sober before a recent relapse, but I am still here I have arrived at this place and this time, I'm not sure what the next step is for me I just know I don't want to face alcohol withdrawals and turkey neck soup on the same day again.

Maybe that's enough.

shirebound

This is the link for the Zoom recording of Ellen's Celebration of Life on the 29th. (Her brother had never done this before, so it's far from a professional recording.) My couple of minutes start at 43:00, if anyone's interested. :)

https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/eMECuAFB2oU9Ax3_SQ-ieRKU6nUrLFU0qkskwpL9JbOd6F5YgAmcLeRyD1O6F3z7.330xtAc884TFqewW

Passcode: q!Nmy09#

eeyore_grrl


ljidol week 3 prompt : ecco (italian: here it is, like right now, being presented)

                              ECCO

         (ECHO ECCo ECho Ecco echo)
i can't see you in this hall of mirrors
i cannot hear you in this empty chamber
i can't feel you on my skin from across the ages
i cannot taste your kisses
         (anymore)

you were my first love
tall, blonde, and naive
you were a best friend
knowing me way back when
you were my everything 
(and my nothing)
you have been a homing point for 33 years
camping in fields of folkies
kissing in basements
sharing stories of next loves 
as we grew into adulthood
what do i do when you move to another
        		hemisphere

         (ECCO ECHo ECco Echo ecco)
the time nigh
and off you go
you will always be my first
			  first love
			  first touch
			  first to know so many of my secrets
and here we are 
		adults in our own right
	spouses and children to love and protect
and you’re leaving me
i can’t say that i blame you
	i don’t know how much you still care
though i’ve kept a chamber of my heart open
just for you
	moving forward and moving on 
do you know 
that you helped create who i am 
today
	(the strength and the love)
		do you know 
that i still care
and these echo chambers will fall silent
	these halls of mirrors will shatter fast
		skin will dry and crack from lack of your hug
and you
        you shall be happy
	building new halls and chambers
	        touching the skin of the one that fits you
		in a land of your choice
			so far away from me
i believe in the choices we have made
	i believe that we have arrived
		   that we are here
             and you will always be 
    an ecco in my heart

Watch on YouTube

gunwithoutmusic

the universe is killing me
“behold! and read the signs”
i’m literate but willfully
ignorant—aquarius vibes

gather up the disparate
cobble together something
resembling the shambling
corpse of your Muse
of what you were before

you said that i was magic
when i thought before i spoke
but when have i ever

chase your dragons
i will chase mine
maybe this time we will find them
maybe this time

a verbal sparring again yesterday
i struggled to explain as usual
my point of view in the moment

“i'm having trouble finding my words”
a chuckle
“you're the writer”
a frown
“exactly”

bleodswean

That shattering glass, not a windshield but a doorway of shock and awe, into another place. As though she had left a place for the sole reason of arriving at another place. No wandering in between. She had never been good at telling a story, not like Daddy could be around a fire, but if she had survived then perhaps, she would have been able to say out loud those moments in a way that would capture the sheer impossibility of a human body in flight. Not falling but flying, the propulsion of her skeleton, all bone projectile, into the headlight lit darkness. The impact of her head with the windscreen was the killing blow, of course it was, yet she traveled onward still alive, through the glass, over the crumpled hood and into the forever night. Leaving both sneakers behind as she went. Did she see the stars in their firmament? In this strange leave-taking she lingered on a while, the air above and surround her insubstantial, the pavement solid beneath her, the summer scorched heat of it a small comfort to her cooling body, the bloody halo of her long blonde hair creating a vision of such suffering, such loss, hers a miraculous martyred death. Our Teenaged Lady of the Automobile Collision. The shattered shoulder bones, the leaking skull. The impossible sense of soaring passing through her nerve endings, dissipating through her pores. Simultaneous departure and arrival and departure. The touch and go of her short life.

The afternoon of the day had grown hot. Morning spent working in Daddy’s garden. It was time for the leafy branches to be snipped off close to the stem to allow the lengthening buds all the sunlight. He didn’t pay her out, they had nothing extra for allowances, but after the harvest late in the fall, just before winter, he could be generous with the crumpled bills that began to stuff his pockets. She’d walk her brothers to the store, cold winds blowing through them, and buy the boys candy bars and herself a fashion magazine.

Daddy had two other daughters before she was born. One lived up in Alaska with her own momma and the other one of them lived in an old camp trailer on Daddy’s property with her baby. She was her momma’s oldest, after her came four more, all boys and of course Daddy was partial to them on account that they were boys, but he was good to all his children and just the day before this day Momma said she was expecting another one come springtime. She whisper prayed that it would be a girl, a sister, another sister.

Now the day was bending open the bars that held her prisoner, soon she would be freed. It was just gone noon. She had made sandwiches for her brothers, cleaned the kitchen and Momma told her she was allowed to walk down the road to the swimming hole. She longed to go on her own and Momma said that was fine, too, but only on account that two of her brothers seemed to be suffering from the heat and Momma wanted to keep a closer eye on them. It was hot and had been hot for going on a week. They’d taken to sleeping out of doors on the wood slatted porch, but the night before a bear had woken them up pawing through garbage and the compost and Daddy said they had to be back inside the house until he either could get a decent shot off or someone else on the hill got him first. Dressed bear in the chest freezer would be a treat.

She was fourteen years old that summer day. Highschool in the fall and she couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Tried and failed. Thought she might be more than what she was, if such a thing was possible and even then, couldn’t tell you accurately what that more looked like. Knew that somewhere out there more was waiting to be had, one just needed to get to where it was at. Arrive with eyes wide opened and announce themselves with attention.

Cut off shorts and a bikini top, knock off Converse low tops, and her waist-length hair swinging over her shoulders, near white it was so light colored, and she swung it back and forth with a practiced toss of her head. Girl we known it was you from way down the road, he said to her when he pulled over. Driving his uncle’s truck leaning out the window at her diesel exhaust smelling so dangerously sweet and another boy she didn’t know jumped out and opened the passenger side door for her like they’d been expecting her and no one but her, and she climbed up into the cab and knew her daddy wouldn’t be at all happy because he said Levi’s family was one to steer clear of whenever mannerly possible. But Levi had his hair shorn short dagger sideburns delineating his jaw line and a swagger in his long-legged stride. On the bus, he sat way at the back while she had to sit in the front with her younger brothers, sometimes holding Caden’s hand to keep him from crying, which he was prone to doing because the only thing he wanted in the wide world was to be home in the kitchen with Momma. The high schoolers got off the bus first stop and when it came springtime, Levi started tapping her on the shoulder as he walked past and then that last week of school he sat himself down right behind her on the way home every day and caught the ends of her hair in his loose-fisted palms. Sometimes his fingers, dirty and sticky with cannabis oil would tap tap the knobs of her spine. You’re real skinny, he would tell her in a voice so quiet and low it could only be meant as a secret of some kind. And the nerves would explode across her shoulders and at night in her bed she would think about the heat of his fingers and roll over onto her stomach believing that wings could be coaxed out of the two thin blades in her back. Those shoulder bones were a storehouse inside her body for all that tingling sensation caused by his fingers on her flesh.

Now she was sitting on the bench seat right up next to him. Don’t be shy girl he laughed. Bet you ain’t brave enough to jump off that high rock. The other boy had his window rolled down open too and he craned his body out of it and whooped loud. Levi gunned the big truck and black exhaust rolled out of the dual pipes and he fishtailed a bit and she gasped but the boys laughed. And soon she was laughing too.

They raced one another down to the swimming hole but the boys veered up the narrow path to the high rock. She kept on down to the rocky beach, looking up. Can you see me from there? He called down to her and she nodded. What? He yelled. I can, I can see you! She visored both hands over her eyes and watched him watching her as he leaped off the rock.

There was no way not to be alive that afternoon.

She felt no pain outside the hurt of leaving. She couldn’t close her eyes as though to sleep; her soul was exiting through her vision itself. What’s the time, she asked. Her world spinning now, the dizziness of the calling fade. No more thought everything a retinal remembering.

That day in the rain when I was almost turned sixteen telling him I had missed that month and he began to speed down and down the winding dirt roads? Or later while we raised up three young’uns and he had a bad spell with liquor and somehow it all came to a screaming head that afternoon in the truck? Or was it only the two of us again, that morning of such sadness, driving in the snow back from the hospital? Or before all that, the first sweltered day of summer when he drove us down to the swimming hole, before ditching his friend because he said he had something he wanted to show me, just him and me, and I knew without knowing how that this was my arriving.

tsuki_no_bara

oh my flist it is so hot out. *ghasp* if i didn't like my sleep so much i would've gone into work today for the a/c. but sleeeep.

so i've been here a week! and have unpacked more of the kitchen (dishes! mixing bowl! pots! misc utensils!) and the bedroom (jeans! t-shirts! the dress i forgot where i packed it!) and realized yesterday there's one more thing i don't miss about living with someone - i don't have to hear anyone rattling around the kitchen on a morning i want to sleep in. which is very exciting. i do have to unpack some more, tho. and, uh, i think i can hear my downstairs neighbor snoring. O.O i really, really hope he lives alone.

a thing i forgot about the tuesday when it was so hot i had to stay over at my sister's - we had a fire alarm at work. >.< i was on a 10a zoom meeting and suddenly alarms started going off everywhere and a recorded voice said basically GO DIRECTLY TO THE STAIRS AND OUTSIDE DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT $200 and when no one else on the zoom had any reaction i just thought oh, so i'm the only one in today. but i went outside and stood in the shade for like ten minutes and then we all went back in. i can't remember what happened but it was something dumb.

anyway. comcast came on thursday so i now have wifi and tv! and have caught up on resident alien. :D i also had to run into harvard square to get my glasses fixed and coincidentally acquire ice cream. orange chocolate chip. DELISH.

for the fourth my sister and i went to a park sort of near her (we went there last year) for fireworks and, uh, ice cream. soft serve. it wasn't crowded when we got there but eventually it filled up and by the time it was dark enough for fireworks there were A LOT of people. fireworks were as usual quite fun and a little kid sitting behind us kept going "wow!" for a couple minutes and then their dad took over and it was INTENSELY cute. i do love a good local fireworks.

saturday i dicked around and went to home sense and home goods and target with my sister for house stuff (got new kitchen towels, did not get a kitchen timer because my stove does not have one, wtf) and then we went out for dinner and saw jurassic park rebirth which overall i think i enjoyed? the story is stupid but let's be honest, you don't watch jurassic movies for the story. you watch for the dinosaurs. and there were some frankly terrifying huge flying ones.

(there were A LOT of previews and most of them were for sequels or remakes except ick (no), bugonia (perhaps), and one battle after another (yes).)

and yesterday because it was hot i zoomed with the mothership, the sister, and cousin pb for iceland and now we are PREPARED. except i need to get a big suitcase because mine broke last year when i went to italy. i even started giving my faculty a heads-up at work and found some admins to look after them in case they need anything. woot.

after that i sat around, met

tamalinn and the tiny dog for ice cream because did i mention it was hot? came home, unpacked some, had dinner, watched andor. it's so good but at the same time i keep expecting people to die.

fifty years ago an exceptionally large time capsule was buried in nebraska. it included letters, photos, art, cassette tapes, and a chevy vega and it was opened on friday. folks traveled even from other states to find the stuff that they or their parents had buried. how cool is that? so cool.

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: resident alien

mallorys_camera

They are dropping like flies!

Got the news through the Well network this morning that Mattu had dropped dead—also unexpectedly, also sitting in his favorite chair. Eerily like Brian.

Mattu was my boyfriend in the late '80s/early '90s.

We lived together for a couple of years in Oakland. The breakup was bitter.

Some years after, by a weird coincidence, he ended up living in Monterey just four blocks away from where I lived in Monterey. I walked Xena the Warrior Russell by his house twice a day; often, he would be sitting outside on his porch, and he would glare at me. I could have walked the dog on a different route, but I kind of enjoyed needling him.

He had married; he had procreated.

And then one day, his house burned down. No shit!

He smoked. And when I was living with him, would occasionally drink till he passed out. A vestige of his Midwestern Bad Boy past.

So, I always kind of assumed he had burned down his house by passing out drunk with a lit cigarette butt in his hand.

Many years later when we'd gotten back on civil terms—who remembers how?—he told me, no, it had been an electrical fire. Mattu was an electronics fanatic. The electrical systems in those old Monterey houses were not built to support three computers, two modems, a monitor, a plug-in boombox, and a printer on a single outlet.

###

Mattu had a habit of dropping in and out of online hangouts. For a month or so, he'd post up a storm & then he'd disappear. He was a really terrific writer. The bio he posted in his kamakazi Internet runs reads thus: Born some time back, dead at some indeterminate point in the future, everything else is now. Which I think is really quite terrific.

Our last exchange:

Mattu: Hey, pdil! I’ve got a question that’s been tormenting me for decades now: remember the Mexican restaurant that we used to eat at in Berkeley, Max’s preschool days? As nearly as I can tell, we were just a few blocks from 924 Gilman, soon-to-be world famous as the launching pad of Fugazi, Operation Ivy, any number of terrific bands. I never once stepped foot in the place, alas. But a few years later, Mike Cowperthwaite was dating Ian MacKaye’s (Fugazi guitarist) sister, and they used to stay at our house in Monterey. Ach, the days.

(What’s the point? I honestly couldn’t say. My mind tends to be more focused at 3am than 10am. Maybe I should email you then,)

Me: Ah, yes, those 3am treasure hunts through ancient memories... I don't remember any Mexican restaurants on Gilman. I DO remember Juan's, which was on Carleton Street in southwest Berkeley (pretty near Max's daycare provider's house.) I had lunch there on a Berkeley trip maybe five years ago, so it may well still be there

Mattu: THAT’S the one. Sam and I went by there in…2015?, when we passed through. Wanted to pick up some coffee at my old place on College, but it had turned over (Coles?), so we went across the street and had some strawberries. Time to go back, I’m losing traction,

I didn't really feel sad when I heard Mattu had died. It was more like when I heard Bradburn had died. This picking off of the old gang just feels so random. Am I next?

###

In other news, I am meeting Flavia & Mimi up at BB's house in a couple of hours to clean the perishables out of the fridge & do whatever else needs to be done to lock the house down till Flavia decides what to do with it.

I am quite numb.

Utterly incapable of anything remotely resembling thought or emotion.

drippedonpaper

(The word "ecco" is an Italian adverb that means "here" or "there." It is used to call attention to something or to announce the presence of someone or something nearby.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Title: "Surprise Starts with the Letter S."
(non-fiction)

Parenting starts with a proclamation. The doctor says, "Here are the results. You're pregnant!" And for the next nine months there is no one closer to you than that new person(-to-be).

I am a mother of three (now young adults), and a step-mother of two (grown adults.)

The journey with my children has been full of unexpected moments, especially with my middle child. My son is the oldest (he is now 24) and then there is S., my daughter.

At that exciting "gender reveal" ultrasound appointment, S. was very active within me, kicking, moving, and ultimately not cooperating. Just because today was a good day for the ultrasound tech, it didn't mean that S. was ready to reveal anything she knew. (I should have realized this was a sign of things to come. I did not.) So the doctor moves the sensor around my belly, and moves it, and tries and tries and finally he says, "I am pretty certain I saw something extra. Congratulations! You're having a second son."

I said, "Yay! Are you sure? You said the baby was active."

He said, "I would say with 70-80% certainty."

We still had picked a name for either gender. The boy name was Adam. When my son tried to jump on my lap, we would say, "Be careful. Be gentle with Baby Adam."

Whenever someone asked what I was having, I would say, "The doctor's pretty sure it's a second boy."

We were excited. There wouldn't be a problem with baby clothes, I would just hand them down. The only one a bit disappointed was my mother-in-law. but she adjusted.

After 26 hours of labor, (14 of those hours without any epidural), and 2 hours of pushing, my first very large child was a c-section. So I then decided to have a second (this time planned) c-section. We promised to call my then mother-in-law as soon as the baby was born.

S. came out. The doctor said, "Congratulations! It's a girl!"

Her dad was flabbergasted. "A girl?"

The doctor said, "See for yourself."

S. was definitely a girl. So her dad called his mom. He said, "You'll never guess, the baby was actually a boy." Mother-in-law said, "Stop kidding me, that's not very nice!" and hung up. So he had to call her again. She was so excited! That very day she took our niece to shop for pink baby dresses. It was that or have S. go home in the clothes I had brought which were very masculine hand-me-downs from her older brother.

The main person confused was my son. For months, he would say, "But where is Baby Adam?"

We said, "Actually we were wrong. See? Here is S, your sister!"

He would always reply, "But where is Baby Adam?"

In my experience, kids are never exactly what you expect. Sometimes, not even close.

I'm a reader. My oldest and youngest children are too. We love fiction, and stories, and TV shows, and movies. S. does not. She reads some, but pretty early one, liked exclusively non-fiction. She never liked TV shows or movies, not even ones like "Dora the Explorer" as a toddler. She liked to be active (not sit and watch or read), and she "didn't like anything that wasn't real." I didn't understand her viewpoint, but I did want her to be herself.

I do feel, looking back, I unfortunately missed some signs that later became evident. My oldest child, a son, is autistic. My first marriage of 17 years ended up very stormy. My son needed a lot of help adjusting to the world, every step of the way. I've realized now, it's pretty likely S. is also on the autism spectrum like her brother. She seemed to manage and move through her developmental stages. Autism presents differently sometimes in different genders. But at the time, that idea didn't even occur to me. I loved all three kids as best I knew, and life went on.

When S. was 11, the divorce was my first husband was final, and we moved across town. I was very busy, always working two jobs (1 full time, 1 part time) and sometimes 3 jobs.

When S. was 12, she had an Emo phase. Not only did she prefer to wear all black, only black all the time, she insisted I needed to get rid of any and all articles of her clothing that were not black. I did try to let her express herself and wear what she chose. Life was busy, her brother had announced he was gay, and was having mental issues including several stays in a psych ward. S. wearing only black clothes felt like the least of my problems.

When S. was 13, she then wanted to wear tye-dyed shirts (and preferably only tye-dyed shirts.) I figured all that black made her miss colors, and now she was almost over-dosing. But, OK, tye-dye it is. That year, she decided to dye her hair purple. I did wonder about that, but my friend pointed out, better now that in her 20s. You don't want her convinced her life sucked because she never got to have purple hair.

So I agreed as long as she paid for the dye herself and dyed it herself. I have never dyed my own hair, so I didn't realize how much the edge of her face and her hands would then be purple for several days. I guess my "maybe she'll only dye it once" plan worked as that was the only time she has ever dyed her hair. There are other ways to try being extreme though. Honestly, at this point in 2025, unusual hair would be the least of my worries.

I guess it's possible her inspiration to have purple hair came from our UU church. I had grown up in a very traditional church. After my divorce, I let my kids decide if and where we went to church. We were (and still are) in a Unitarian Universalist church. I hoped my children would be open-minded people. S. seemed to love the UU church and often called me out on anything she thought seemed too rigid.

When S. was 14, she announced she was gay. I did start to wonder if my divorce and the gender roles my children saw were the reason they didn't want to be anything close to traditional, but, OK. I want my kids to feel free to be themselves. She said C. was her girlfriend. I took them to the Gay Pride Festival in my town (with the permission of C.'s mom.) Again, I had to adjust in my mind who my daughter was, but hey, that's life right?

When S. was 15, she got an extremely short hair cut and began wearing mostly men's clothes. Again, she wanted to purge her closet of anything feminine, and I allowed her too. She wanted to wear a man's button-down shirt and men's plain khaki shorts to my sister's outdoor wedding, and I let her. My kids are themselves. I want them to know it's what's inside that counts. I asked more than once if she were trans. She always claimed not to be, but a couple years later, my youngest child told me, during this time, S. went by a new name at school.

When S. was 16 and 17, she got very involved in politics. She was the President of the High School Democrats for our whole state. We went to many protests. At 17, she announced she wasn't gay. I said, "OK." Her favorite thing to wear were feminist t-shirts. She often announced that the world would be better if women were in charge. I admit, I was proud of her leadership qualities. I hope her generation helps make the world better.

She did develop a crush on a Jewish guy also in HS Democrats in another state, however, but said he was very pro-feminist. Unexpected to me, she did began dressing very conservatively. She began to make Challah bread every Friday. She never did meet the guy, but seemed to be considering becoming Jewish. I was surprised, but maybe ... maybe she felt she needed more order to her understanding of the world than our UU church offered? I was a bit concerned. I really, really tried to be open-minded. Truly being open-minded means one's children can choose to be whoever, even more rigid-minded than I am, right?

S.'s senior year in high school was very rough. She seemed angry a lot, but not inclined to say why. In March, we paid for her to take a trip with her high school band to Washington, DC. I waved the school bus good-bye as she rode away for the airport. Within hours, I got a long text from S. explaining that, actually, she had converted to Islam and was going to start wearing a hijab on this trip.

To be honest, I was worried. My first marriage had been abusive, and her dad justified a lot because "women should be submissive." Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I did try to help her consider if this religion was really what my formerly almost militant feminist daughter wanted. These questions and discussions rarely went very well. She took my questions extremely personally. I asked, "What made you want to become Muslim?" And she said, "I like the hygiene rules." I had expected a story perhaps about praying and feeling a godly presence.

Upon a lot of reflection on her very adamant OCD "rules" which she tries to get all of us to comply with, sometimes I have wondered if she is also on the autistic spectrum like her older brother (he is officially diagnosed, she is not and refuses to try any kind of counseling.) I hate that I somehow "missed" some signs (it seems.) Her brother had had such stormy issues all his life, and it felt like between that and my many jobs, we were just trying to survive.

So this was who she was. A Muslim girl. She doesn't just wear a hijab, she also wears long, flowing "robe" dresses. After the first couple weeks, I stopped trying to change her mind, though she often tries to convince me to try being Muslim. I've put boundaries on how long I am willing to discuss that matter. I don't plan to convert.

Halfway through her soph0more year of college, my son said he needed to tell me something. He confessed that S. had met a Muslim man online and booked herself a ticket to go meet him in Canada.

This concerned me greatly as she was only 19. I did try to talk her out of it. Concerned for her safety, I ended up booking tickets on the same flights and going with her. She was sure they were going to get married. I honestly mostly hoped he was a real person without bad intentions.

The visit went pretty well (to my surprise, honestly. I was so relieved this wasn't some kind of human trafficking situation!) We flew home, and he broke up with her on the phone the day after. She was extremely devastated as apparently they had the marriage contract all worked out.

As the months passed after the break up, I hoped some of the uproar of the young adult years with S. might be calming down. I did tell her she isn't allowed to leave the country without telling me. If she did that again, we wouldn't keep helping her pay for college (I know that seems extreme. Nothing else I said persuaded her though.) For whatever reason, she now wears only all black hijabs and all black robes. She now refuses (again) to wear anything that isn't black except maybe to Muslim weddings.

S. graduated from college the end of May this year, though the official "summer graduation" date is in August for all summer graduates from her university. She hasn't found a job in her field yet, so is living at home and working full time. I had hoped she would have a year or more to do that, and develop as herself.

This week, she announced she is getting married the end of September. I said, "To who?" as I hadn't even heard she met a prospect. They have had 2 dates. He is 27 year old to her 21. She is going to sponsor his US citizenship "but that's not why we are getting married."

I have many mixed feelings. I have asked some questions, trying to just help her consider a few things. She doesn't appreciate "me being against her marriage." I told her I'm not against it necessarily, I just want her to consider this step. It's a big choice. I'm pretty sure Muslims also believe in marriage "until death do us part."

It sounds like I am (still at this point) invited to the wedding. She doesn't like my questions, so I don't know if I or her dad will walk her down an aisle or if Muslims even do that. She did say they are going to slaughter some goats for the wedding feast which has horrified my vegetarian younger daughter, E.

Many thoughts and memories go through my mind these days. My time with my daughter hasn't at all been what I expected or imagined when my doctor said, "It's a girl!"

I like to think I have a good imagination, but my parenting journey hasn't been at all what I expected or how the dozens of parenting books and articles I have read through the years described parenting. Even books on parenting children on the autism spectrum didn't mention many of the adventures I have had with my kids. Life is so full of surprises!

And maybe some surprises still ahead. I try to take deep breathes, tell myself anything can happen between now and September. Love is love, right? I need to be loving whether I am becoming a mother-in-law or if S. goes through another break-up.

Whatever comes next, accept it with love. That is my goal.

Current Mood: worried

mallorys_camera

Grass clippings turn out not to be good weed deterrents.

Here was the Hyde Park garden before I weeded it:

Okay. Ten days of neglect.

Here is the garden after I weeded it. My tomato plants shot up a foot in those 10 days.

I am thinking I will go back today, finish the weeding, & put down straw—which I know from experience is an effective weed deterrent.

###

I don't even want to think about what the New Paltz garden looks like. I may venture out there tomorrow.

Flavia, Mimi, & I are supposed to rendezvous at BB's Monday. I was thinking of rescuing some plants from his enormous garden and transplanting them in New Paltz—that is, if they are at all rescueable. They may not be. Their root systems may be too well established.

But BB has rows & rows of really nice heirloom tomatoes.

And it would be a pity to let them all perish.

###

Other than that... I got an enormous client assignment yesteray. The kiskas are pleased they will not starve.

I sat out on the back porch for a long while last night and watched the fireflies and Black Chicken strutting about. Black Chicken crows! Just like a rooster.

I am brain dead in a peculiar fashion: There is just nothing very much to think about because there is no one to tell what I think about to. Not here, at any rate.

The wedding weekend was very good because I just chattered away through it; there were lots & lots of wonderful conversations. Here, BB was literally the only person I had to talk to. Oh, I have lots of acquaintances! People I don't recognize are constantly coming up to me in supermarkets: "So good to see you again!" I suppose I must have done their taxes.

###

I did everything you're supposed to do to make connections in a new place when I moved here. I'm a member in good standing of all sorts of community organizations. But those community organizations did not yield friends. I met virtually no one I wanted to get to know better. I have no idea whether this is because I am too old to make new friends or whether the people here are shallow, conventional types who don't attract me, but vanity compels me to assume the latter.

So, Bad Fit to my current surroundings. DUH, right?

When I move, it should be a big move.

But I'm too brain dead to think about that very much now.

ofearthandstars

From this week's

thefridayfive:

Who is your best friend? Without a doubt, L., though I suppose this answer is a bit of a cheat. But I like knowing that my partner is my best friend, and I'd like to think that whatever changes come about in our lives, things will always manage to remain that way.
Why did you become friends? We were two awkward ducks in the freshman high school pond. Both unpopular, both entirely too nerdy for our own good, and we shared a lot of common spaces. I have to assume that if someone has seen and stayed with me through my cringey, dramatic, and awkward teen years, they are around for the long haul.
How did you meet? Shared classes in secondary school, but largely because we both rode a "2nd shift" bus home in the afternoons (school district did not have enough buses, so it would conduct one route then return for the second load, leaving a bunch of young people to squander time in the corners of the halls making terrible jokes.) We were among the students whose parents did not pick them up or provide them cars to drive with.
Why have you stayed friends? Ooof, well, as friends, we confided a lot in one another, in ways that are more vulnerable than most. So friendship turned to dating, which, inarguably, was terrible during those years, because of immaturity and selfishness. We broke up when we separated for college, but always kept in touch, because even though there were times we'd hurt each other, we still cared for each other. Later we reconnected, as friends, which eventually turned into a marriage, which is a high stakes way of making sure you stay friends.
How long (realistically) do you think you'll be friends? Oh, I don't know. I can hope for a lifetime, though, can't I?

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July 2025

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ofearthandstars - Friday Five: Ick Edition
mallorys_camera - Neversink
shirebound - It's a birthday!
mallorys_camera - Catch Up
tonithegreat - LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos! Week 3 - ECCO
flipflop_diva - LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos — Prompt 3 — Ecco
alycewilson - Week 3: Ecco
roina_arwen - LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos 3: “Ecco” (Italian for “here I am”)
oxymoron67 - A(nother) gay conversation with myself
swirlsofpurple - Title: Ecco
fausts_dream - LJ Idol Week 3- Ecco
shirebound - For friends of lbilover
eeyore_grrl - ljidol week 3 prompt : ecco (italian: here it is, like right now, being presented)
gunwithoutmusic - III. Ecco
bleodswean - LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 3 - Ecco
tsuki_no_bara - so hot. so, so hot.
mallorys_camera - A Determinate Point In the Future
drippedonpaper - LJ Idol: 3rd Prompt- Ecco
mallorys_camera - Transplanting
ofearthandstars - Friday Five Friend Edition

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