The thing about making an impression is that it's seldom done in any way proper, usual or typical. What imprints on the mind is emotional, messy and one of a kind. The lunar oppositions are thick now, first with Venus and then Saturn emphasizing the need to, as Charli XCX suggests, "keep it sticky-icky like lip gloss." Not my horoscope, just general advice today. 

But okay.

From your skin, everywhere I touched, every inch of you, will come the sticky scent of a snake, reppelent to all but its own kind, and only larger stronger more dangerous snakes will come closer to you, so that you will be ever surrounded only by vipers that you cannot best or beat or outrun, for the rest of your life and the next, and anything you do to hurt or manipulate me further, where I can see it or where I cannot, will feed this spell to tighten and thicken, until your reek is as loud as a rattle. Until a cowboy shows up to put you out of your misery, so mote it be

How's that? To him, all I say is "enjoy!", "sounds nice!" - all I say is his own words, like cover songs, so that I am neither silent nor saying anything at all. But. I mean. I deeply loved the last man I cursed, as truly as I knew how - I am in no mood to pull a punch for this one, or any one, any more, obviously. I am 100% fed the fuck up with being jerked around. 

I wonder who Charli XCX is (?) not a cowboy, obviously, hahaha 

'Adventuhre' ahead. Have faith. (And prepare as if you're a virgo.)

In this unusual lunar week, the moon shifts from a wolf to a cat to the maiden who can take care of them both. Virgo's capable energy makes quick work of what needs doing and leaves no detail untended. The grounded precision inspires confidence, making it a time of quiet but potent action. Execute tasks. The emotions will catch up. (Not my horoscope, just general advice for all signs today.)

Execute tasks. The emotions will catch up. 

Such as,

Sign up for new credit cards, better and more specific rewards (nerd wallet), transfer any balances, cancel the old ones, re-look through every kind of recurring payment you have and transfer those onto the new cards (get your $ separated out, points yours). Do you really watch all those cable stations? Consolidate all that shit to be as cheap as you can get away with - an adult child is great help with this in exchange for them having the passwords too, but probably any autistic bro or techy friend would do same. All self-care stays on the expenses list; your body will fall apart if you don't keep it up, think of yourself as a mint condition vintage Fiat, more valuable, so keep it mint. Get access to your retirement funds, 401 whatever it is, especially if you've been sticking $5/week in it for umpteen years and have no clue (turns out I have an annuity) (I have zero idea what that is). Once you see it, and realize your degree isn't going to help you understand $ any better than the blue collar brain you grew up with, hand it over to someone else. (3 someones in my case: first my own assigned TIAA person, then a teams call with sister and her Fidelis dude.) You might feel young, rocking your decades old jeans will sure do that!, but if you aren't feeling anymore (if you ever did) "this is the last person I will ever make love to", then you have to face some hard facts, which means you need to deal with money in that light, even if you hate it (which I do). Basically, get your shit together to "go", whatever that will wind up looking like. Take a trip, it's good practice, not one of those all inclusive things, I mean a head out to somewhere ALONE and think on your feet and have all your $ where you can see it and pay bills by phone etc., and find out where you're actually welcome while you're at it. All very illuminating. 

SELF RELIANCE isn't (alas) raising a chicken and getting a gun (which wouldn't help you much, since you're not allowed a pistol, can't find bullets for a shotgun bc all the bad guys already have all the bullets, and nobody will teach a woman to hunt, so that might be fun someday or whatever but isn't really a Thing 🤨. AND besides, did you know that microsoft bought Three Mile Island?, and that AI companies are quickly doing the same, self powered no infrastructure investment for your sorry 'just trying to get to work on time' ass, and Elon [let's give him a blog name 🤔 what word in English means your tshirt doesn't fit over your middleaged manbelly you douchebag- ? Douchebag, let's just go with that] DOUCHEBAG is in charge of NUKES worldwide by Starlink, so what the fuck do you think you're gonna do with a gun in an age wherein an AR15 is laughably analog anyways? shoot your neighbor or maybe your lying lover, whom I'm telling you not to trust NOW vs shoot later); self-reliance is being alone with only yourself to rely on today, simple as that. Because more than likely, you're already more alone than you think.

As terribly painful as it has been to have to rely on knowing REALITY on my own like the goddamn Matrix, it was good practice, a good muscle to build back up because almost everyone will lie to you. Don't even think about tv or talk radio (GET OFF, take your mind back, you're strong enough, BE strong enough), let alone your partner in your bed (almost a given that person is lying to you), and be a bit dubious of "friends" whose main interest seems to be getting you to verify their beliefs. Think about corporate retreats, inherently full of utter shit that you are to cheerfully embrace 🤢 -  then stand back and put strong boundaries between yourself and everything that is any personal life version of that - you will need to do this to withstand all the stupid advice and thoughtless comments you WILL get once it's known that 'happily ever after' isn't what you're living. My therapist's favorite was "I wouldn't worry about growing old alone, AIDS is rampant in nursing homes" - she's a professional but that broke her, "as if you'll need to wait til you're 80 to get laid, but hey AIDS isn't really that bad 🤣". Especially when you might as well just die anyway, you old cunt. "Right!🤣🤣"

All of this sucks. Really really sucks and hurts. But I'll repeat, like a mantra, what my doctors said, and my oldest friend, and my sister, in almost the exact same wording within days of each other: There are adventures ahead for you.

Choose your adventuhre (that's how Bug pronounces it) playlist: 

against the grain - juliana riolino for belting it out (upbeat)

against the grain - city and colour for having to follow your heart (downtempo)

Bonus track- I didn't say close your heart, just care selectively and then do a better job by those select few

Tomorrow they would see beyond the bend in the road. They would know what lay before them...~The Familiar

There are many ways to discuss problems, including the option of not discussing and hoping it goes away. This is a day to avoid that style and opt for clearing the air with something brave and proactive. The lunar opposition to Mars in domestic Cancer throws an adage into the mix: "Tell me early, I'm your friend. Tell me late, I'm your critic."

No.

Yesterday I typed out a long bit of authenticity and sent to my sister instead of the target audience - sis is my conciliari going forward in these matters. For now, as advised, I'm holding my tongue. I've never actually played Texas Hold Em, but I can infer.

texas hold em - james otto (queen bee cover) come pour some sugar on me honey tooo lalalaaa - ya can't really COVER Beyoncè, cmon, but Globug objects to the nakedness in the original video. Note, she does not object to her Yaya teaching her "don't be a bitch, boy" is an oft-useful phrase in life.

"VIRGO You're magnetic because you're honest, unfiltered and unapologetic. Just watch how it draws the right energy to you. Exciting love prospects align with the truth of who you are, proving that honesty is your most attractive quality."  Soon.

Thinking while driving while music while snow and snow and snow. 

I think about dying. I want to die in a really funny way. But I can't just wish for that, I have to think of examples so the universe gets the idea. There was this one guy who came into a bar and my friend said he should be more interesting because he takes people up in hot balloons for a living, but he's dull, and also not hot, BUT death by crashing a balloon because you were blowing the hot hot balloon guy would be pretty funny. Especially in, like, Iowa. I should keep my eyes peeled for hot hot balloonists (starting when I'm 70, no rush!) whenever I'm in the midwest, I concluded.

meaning well - mia kelly

She didn’t weep, though she wished she could. Instead, she looked into the darkness, unable to fathom what she had done. It was as if she were standing at the base of a wall, looking up and up. She had no way of knowing how tall the wall might be or how wide or what shape the building might have. Was she looking at a palace or a prison? It’s over, she told herself. It’s done. ~ The Familiar, L Bardugo

nature - the culls 

Oh wait, forgot:  "VIRGO You're magnetic because you're honest, unfiltered and unapologetic. Just watch how it draws the right energy to you. Exciting love prospects align with the truth of who you are, proving that honesty is your most attractive quality." 

🤣 

odd funny ft Eli

Single moments, split decisions, random lucky breaks, it's dizzying to contemplate. My oldest friend said offhandedly yesterday that her whole life could have been awful when her mom married someone just 4 years older than we are, but he was a really good guy, loving step-dad. Random lucky break. 

In all the years I've known her, since 6th grade, I never once thought of her stepdad (Mike) as any younger than her mom, I didn't know that fact until now -  grown ups were grown ups, either good or bad, and I still see that way instictively, knee-jerk. Maybe Mike wiped out any inclination I had to sort adults by age instead, with huge consequences in my own life. I spent as much time as I could at their house growing up, mine being so relentlessly unhappy and chaotic, and every memory I have of Mike is as a source of kindness. My friend's mom died young, like Mark, life cut off halfway lived. From all that, eventually came the son my friend is now raising, her younger sister's baby that she adopted the same year that I miscarried mine, a loss of my life as I knew and loved it, layers of me scorched off that knitted themselves back together in a full-body scar-casement. Always stiff.

It's funny, odd funny, how much LOSS is LIFE defining. Here this kid is, sitting next to me in the backseat, loudly quiet - I know that sound, the inner choppy water of feeling loved and lost at the same time. I hold memory of just about everyone who went into the making of this kid - his birthmother (in the wind) obsessively loved professional wrestling as a teenager; his grandmother (gone) cut her own hair at the kitchen table, laughing easily; and now, the serious look on his father's familar face beams determined care-love at him in the rear view mirror, and I remember that face in his wedding photo 35 years ago to the day, a kid himself with eyes WIDE ("wtf just happened"). 

Already this child is in motion toward decisions with lifelong consequences, which he might well start making in that very same high school hallway. 

back in the blue - lucette ft mariel buckley I'm fucked up but so what lalalaaa

Oh, I forgot, in WI I'm a 10. My looks aren't what ails me, but still, it doesn't hurt my feelings to get upgraded. By the end of the night I'd settled on the drummer (Waylon) just for fun (talent is sexy) and/or dating the nice man (Michael) who sat next to me at the bar, both of whom were also sober. I did neither, of course, I was very happy to get back to my dog. But it's the principle: here I'd have the pick of (human) litters. And as I am unbearably lonely anymore, that's a worthwhile factor to consider...

I look better, I think, a little healthier (?)

where I was standing when Mark first made contact, outside the bio lab where I didn't want to dissect a frog - from that one refusal to murder an amphibian, three little girls eventually manifested on this earth, in Buffalo, where they have colds and are waiting for me to come back 💗

I didn't smoke weed or eat a gummy, I didn't have sex with myself or anyone else, I didn't take a sleeping pill, I didn't eat a big meal (I rarely eat anymore, cannot make myself want what I do not), the only exercise I got was cleaning (I'm always cleaning).

The only thing different was the thing I've been longing longing longing to do: talk to a friend. Someone who just REALLY knows me 😪

first deep sleep cycle I've had since I got this tracker last spring

Maybe I'm not coming back. I will, I mean I have to, my kids are there (but don't own anything) and my doctors (can be replaced) and my current paycheck (remote and those fuckers raped that school)...  .. I dunno  .... I mean, what would you do? 

tell me how - loryn taggart👁

"VIRGO You're magnetic because you're honest, unfiltered and unapologetic. Just watch how it draws the right energy to you. Exciting love prospects align with the truth of who you are, proving that honesty is your most attractive quality." 

Dball in the Treehouse

 

Mom: Horses should really fly, I mean they're good but they could be even better.

(Her mind never ceases to out-weird me.)

life advice wise, McBurgandys is solid, a lot better than a fucking gratitude journal 🤨 

hey Everyone, stop giving life advice to people getting divorced or who got fired or sick etc, just shut the fuck up unless you've got McBurgandy up your sleeve or some shit 🤨

I emptied my dad's apartment, 8 bags of garbage just off the floor and out the fridge. My oldest friend came to help, (re)confirming: one of the things I'm missing in the life I have now is FRIENDS, not warm acquaintances or coworkers, I mean A COMMUNITY. I don't have that and it's a hurty hole in my heart.

his breakfast, I shit you not

look, it's THE FLOOR

You're not thinking about this the right way but I get it, when it became obvious that I was never going to get credit due EVER, it was devastating because once you know it's EVER then the whole work harder thing fuck that and at first I couldn't get out of bed but then I gave myself permission to let him worry about it (but) no I know you're not married and you can't stand being in someone else's hands fatewise, but when you see that it's EVER then you know it's already in someone else's hands, it always has been (I can't breathe) just breathe and listen to me, wait back up tell me about your retirement savings (uhhh tiaa-cref?) like a 401k or whatever is that what that is nevermind I'm googling it, that's fine, here's what you do, you get these people on the phone and get them to move all that to where you get a planner dude from Charles Schwabb, Fidelis, doesn't matter, then sell your house (but) fuck it you know you're going to anyway so sell the fucking thing (I have all this stuff) oh my god have you never watched storage wars (like the pawn people?) just store it all in temp control (but where will I be?) WITH HIM let his ass pay the bills you go to a yoga class or whatever (but health insurance) I didn't say quit your job, keep it, stay at a hotel when you go to Buffalo to work (gross, no) you've got a cottage April-October that's a solid half year, then 6 weeks off for the holiday break when you'll go on vacation with sisters and girlfriends (lol) seriously stop having him plan your trips do it yourself and put it on his credit card (I have no access to his credit card) 😳🤯🤨 when did you get retarded (you can't say) shut up Jesus GET HIS FUCKING CREDIT CARD AND BOOK YOURSELF A TRIP and if he balks after all you've gone through well then I'd say you're right it's time to give up on him but um let me talk to him first ok? (LOL ok) you're going to call Fidelity or Vanguard and you're gonna move most of your 401k over to be managed with all the cash you get from that house until you're sitting on a million dollars and you're going to do what I did in that moment you're going to see it, you're going to CRY, ball your eyes out, all that work you did, it didn't earn you respect because that's not something we can ever get, but you can still reap value, and you're gonna get it sitting in his house which he pays for obviously it's his fucking house while you're deciding what he should bring home for dinner (but what if he like wants to split all that?) HA then charge him for 5 years back rent for staying with you all those times and stop sucking his dick EVER that'll shut that stupid shit down and you go back to building that nestegg with your financial adviser that's YOURS, you save every fucking dime you make at that job until the place goes under, all the more reason to move your 401 (can I do that?) oh my fucking IT'S YOUR MONEY I get it Gin, you have been wrung out bad, but it's still there, all you worked for and saved and scrimped and walls you patched and painted, and your health you clawed back from the brink, all that is yours, salvageable in the form of some cash and some freedom (😭) big sister I say this with all love, it's time to grow the fuck up everyone will always take whatever they can from you and leave you when there's nothing more they can get (😪) look, PhD in ENGLISH = you have an unique valuation system (sigh) but think of it this way, even if you don't trust him and have quite a few decent reasons to choke him out, what do you have to lose? 

Nobody in my world really gets what an NEH grant is, or how impossible it is to get 2 of them in different categories entirely, for work that straddles multiple national priorities, at a little bullshit private school in one of the poorest cities, and then HAVE IT ALL STOLEN, no $, no credit, no good bye cake 🖕. One of my mentees got on the national achievement award task force to right it, try too, appalled for me and mortified for us. I'm grieving. 

But grief aside, my sister is dead right.

Interlude: I drive to Tbone's (toxin shedding), the first major destination of this Fear and Loathing late-life bildungsroam: the dogs PLAYING TOGETHER. He's been obsessed with having this play date since I got him that dog, Benjamin the son he never had (seriously, and we are not even Jewish wtf), and whom he's never trained in any way, but fuck it, you have to love something or you can't go on (smoke em if you got em!), so now he has this shitty dog (whom I shall inherit and/or be wiping both their asses, some kind of you really whizzed that thing coming fur suuuure) with whom he eats every meal from McDonald's while letting the ripped apart packaging pile up around his recliner. 

Aging: A Cautionary Tale

Later I call Nebraska and relate all this and that my sister is right and that if this is an *extremely elaborate * booty call, it's about time he called it that and stop being FULL OF SHIT. 

"Fair," he says. 

😳

He might have no idea how much BAD BLOOD he's brewing in me. Even if he isn't totally full of shit and some of this becomes workable, a deep grudge is drilling into me. I Did The Suitable Thing, for which I would be rewarded with correspondingly suitable things, at the very least not a life kick to the twat and my "partner" barely blinks and keeps on drinking prosecco 🖕. We had an understanding motherfucker🌪. But what leverage do I have?, now that dyc fucked me over royally?? (a: none), and Nebraska knows that, helped it become that way (cornering me), and my sister's words ring like a bell everyone will always take whatever they can from you and ditch when there's nothing left to get

Wait, is this a novel? Are umpteen women driving everywhere and nowhere in a frazzled sometimes sexually agitated URGE (not unlike a T-Rex), Wild but more limited mobility / likely to be murdered (statisically) when mobile? Gen X women, 💣, we all snapped and are now out driving through climate events, toxin shedding to chris stapleton radio and ducks on our dashboards? 🐤

Which just reminded me of a good rule of thumb I applied when Andrew tried to opine me to death: "I care what you think/feel *exactly as much* as you care what I think/feel. On any and all subjects." Got real quiet after that. 

Maybe that's why it's quiet now too.

 👁

another day down - jesse roper (love that siiiighh at hello)

Armscrossy P.S."VIRGO You're magnetic because you're honest, unfiltered and unapologetic. Just watch how it draws the right energy to you. Exciting love prospects align with the truth of who you are, proving that honesty is your most attractive quality." 

 

Now that I know the phrase "dry gangrene", it occurs to me at inconvenient times just to scare me, as if frigid temperatures and expansive grimy landscapes might cause my arms to turn to black stumps not covered by insurance. But this is a 'live and learn' type trip so fyi: Don't get snowed stuck in Toledo if you can help it and don't try the beet reuben. 

Why?

The value in life comes from its fragility- the knowing that it could all be lost at any moment. Bet on yourself. Buy the ticket, take the ride.~ Cormac McCarthy