"healthy wealthy & wise"

 

Grit, a novel

ch 11 "Velocity"

For every 3-4 "up critiques" like these, the editor sends 20 suggestions for improvement, mostly having to do with my tendency to write very densely. Sometimes I do get tangled up in claws/clauses. And then it makes suggestions for where the plot might go next that I never take, and in fact I rule them out. There is no plot. I just write and rewrite until the changes I make add up to a pattern that is recognizeable so that I myself can see what/how I am thinking. 

not true, there is just some truth in it; we forged a ride-or-die pact of recovery, that is why not "want"; that ride had ejector seats 🤷🏻‍♀️

I hear that. But. Even if true, no.
  I own me. That is what "she" has to live out. You cannot separate a person from their core selves by asserting a law or principle (or cultural norm or expectation or any fucking thing). But that is what keeps happening to everyone in real life, as far as my eye can see 👁. So that is why this is fiction, because I have to figure out what does not yet exist. I have to imagine a she who has figured out how to live out what her reality actually is. And how she did so joyfully, because in real life that is what I require. It doesn't have to be pure joy all the time, obviously. But like a really beautiful lie has to have some truth in it, this shit has to have some joy in it. And the darker the time, the sharper that joy has to become.

It's a beautiful day. I was going to go outside and play, but it's still so cold 🥶. So I collaged the Empress card, then let this chapter bubble up into its words. Full on Virgo, all I did was make sense (art) today.

You’re in full-on Virgo mode this weekend. (uh oh). You're thankful to be out of survival mode, but the lessons you learned there still apply, and you can conjure the vibe when you need to. (on a dime) You focus intently on what matters. All else shrinks to its proper size.

no springtime - allison russel ft joy oladokun & julie williams 

"...when the Empress card appears, it is an invitation to take care of what is most important to you in a joyful loving way."

her name is Blanche

they took 6k off and threw in a towhitch and took the wrangler back as-is, and I still needed to pick up summer overtime (while at the dealership) to bridge the over budget I went (it is nice to have bosses who love me at the moment, I even got an uncomplicated straight-up "I love you" over the phone to boot), but the important part is it's over 

"pants off ft it's spring"

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUwdQHYDpvP/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

lit another one "Exceed Expectation Harder (Please)"

my bed is so full of kids and dogs right now that a cal king be too small lol, one dog and one kid take turns using my ass as a pillow

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Relationships bring out your creativity, and that's why people find you so fetching. You don't just show up hoping to fill the role; you show up with the burgeoning creative energy to make it your own.

What the fuck have I been saying all along? This is the apocalypse, both personal and global. The only good thing about an apocalypse is nothing has to be anything it has been before. It doesn't even have to be called a word that already exists. And that's not just for romance (the most annoying of categories), it goes for every kind of relationship. I always thought that way, inclined that way, but now it's a belief. 

There is no part of me that wants to go back to the past anywhere in it. I look back and pull out of the rubble the memory diamonds that got created in the pressures, that's all. 

I want to look ahead of me the same way my mom would look at a blank wall. Excited for the possibilities of a million little choices of beauty. Mulling where she'll put the first stroke. And then the second. When she does that, everybody comes running to watch or to pick up a paintbrush, and she's universally enthusiastic about folding in what shows up and letting it change what becomes. 

training season - dua lipa

the girliest pickup I have ever seen in real life 🤣 I had only ever seen them online 🤣 I could also try out the honda ridgeline, but because of the chevy silverado song, I thought that might be too nate-adjacent existentially. and I have to give them credit for listening to me about my mom and bringing me the one with the step ups already installed. I do like it a lot when people are just plain ol nice

Limited: 2.5L Turbocharged engine, Standard AWD, 5,000 lbs towing (reading about it 🧐)

Grit, a novel

ch 10 "Testing a Theory" 

Grit, a novel

ch 9 "Not Even Nate"

my inner butterknife! she who weilds words like God's kind-ish cleaver, may I grow up to be more like 🙏

He has asked me to stop giving a shit. That is what blocking only me can only mean. And I can only do what I've always done in the face of that ask. Go to space. 

I realized I was in space again when we googled his name for an obit on Monday, something I used to do all the time but haven't done in years. I haven't had to assume that's the only way I would find out. But it is again now. 

I really hated that obit search. #trigger

"I love you never doubt that."

>something is missing here<

"If I die, the newspaper will let you know eventually."

I do not doubt the love, actually, as uhhm amorphous as it is. But see how the space between those two sentences is a wtf lacuna? What can any sane person do with that space? I tried filling it with a novel of options, vixen to cousin to fucking auntie, because what do I have but words? That's why I have to mean things. Try hard to find the right words. Why I spill so many, trying.

But the space between those two sentences is a void. And I spin off into it, as requested, every time, sending smoke signals back. All The Verities of Nothing, A Thorough Study of Emptinesses.

In space, words don't matter as much as grit.

her: well hello

me: it's her candle (cocking my head in Sunshine's direction)

her: she didn't even pray

me: she has no faith left, that seems like a you problem

her: and you're just all good?

me: yup. I'm grateful everybody is still breathing, that's all. everybody who is still breathing. say hi to my dad 😪 if that's allowed. 

her: your dad, wow

me: hahahaha I'll bet, it's almost scary to imagine him with wings now on top of everything else, I'm sure he's workin' it 

her: he stays awful close to you...and you know it, and you armed him

me: yes. and yes, I did. both my parents love me a LOT, even though they did it in batshit ways I am very grateful, but my dad....

her: loves you most, maybe loves you only 

me: yes 😪, and for my sister and mother, well (siiiiiiiigh), but it doesn't matter anymore, there's no point arguing with angels. my dad was an excellent hunter, I trusted him to make the shot if a shot needed to be made

her: that logic makes sense only in this one particular. generally, I see a lot of same same same, but not too often do I see a woman asking to be shot by her dead father for the sake of her lover who isn't her lover

me: yea hahahaha welp I feel like at this point I really just need to accept and lean in to the whatever - you can see everything so look behind my eyes, what do you see there?

her: I see only a candle flame 

me: yep.

Then I stood up and strode back through the church the same way I came in, stomping, the noise of my boots on marble ringing off the walls, all eyes watching me but I did.not.give.a.fuck, I liked the way it sounded and stomped harder, dragging Sunshine and her tears out of there, back to the living by her hair, stomping down the street with my skirt whipping around me in the cold, her squealing ok ok slow down... 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Today's quick fix only really works if it makes sense for tomorrow, too. You're looking ahead to make your future life sweeter. The long line of tomorrows that will be impacted by today's decision are worth heavier consideration. 

I dunno what to do with that. #playmeasong 

#playmeasonggame aint no love in oklahoma - luke combs welp, there ain't no love in Nebraska either brother

What exceeded my expectations today was getting a personal phone call from some v p and ending up with one of these little pickup trucks being delivered to my driveway on Thursday just for me to try it out. And if I want it, I can have it, and they're gonna take the wrangler, and that'll be that. I don't want to count my chickens and I wish it were blue, but I would be satisfied with that outcome. They were certainly exceedingly nice to me, that dude and then the director of sales for the district so I can have any one of them I want, whatever I want. And that is my favorite thing. I love getting what I want. And I really am into it when everyone seems happy with the outcome that I want also, which they certainly seem to be happy about it and I am very happy about it. We were all great friends by the end of those phone calls. That probably means I could have been a much bigger cunt. But I didn't want to be a cunt. I just wanted a little pickup truck. Now please. I had to ask a bunch of times and be very, very patient and not lose my temper and get only a tiny bit cunty finally (fairly so). That's the upside of the constance thing. I'll just stand there all fucking day forever (armscrossy). I was always like that but now I just do. not. give. a. fuck. I do not want to be made to feel any shitty thing I don't want to feel unless there is a very fucking good reason (like you're fucking dying), so I was a constant pain in the legal ass. Until finally "Justin" (nate adjacent) felt my pain. He got to feel good about having the power to write my lease problems away. And I got to feel gushingly grateful. 

All gushing is good. 

Then Sunshine and I hit the basilica. She is still cryyyying. For mannnnnny months. And I get it. Very much. But. No. I dunno, I just. No. When you're standing in shit, don't sit down. So. I let her have my candle (gave her my wish). Then we shook it off getting wings. Loganberry, who knew? 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You've been disappointed in the past and you know how to soften the social tension when that happens. But have you learned what you do when relationships exceed your expectations? (no) You'll figure that one out today.

When Ears was here last night, we ran through the options and agreed that the best case scenario is he's being an asshole. We're hoping for asshole. 

So I don't know what this horoscope is talking about, but my bar is set at being able to be an asshole (breathing). Loooots of room to exceed my expectations.

"truth or dare" - I can do both, can you do either?

update: Someone just taught me how to do a check, so I now know he's not dead, just being an asshole (to me specifically). Bar met. For his sake I am very relieved. But. "If you call twice in a row, I will always pick up" is the last promise.

section next: living fully broken

Today is the end of lent. I wanted to quit blah blahing here because it's a one way street, and talking to yourself is either fiction or psychosis, so I decided on fiction for a spell. 

I spent the better part of a month privately writing my way around corners. I thought up new solutions from which to choose. #shareyourgrit 

But.

For much of 2024-25   it's over. 

In the face of increased helplessness, the disempowered turn to magic. They always have.  

Libation, a large bottle of benedictine, a prayer candle lighted and melted into it, poured at the feet of Mary. Prayer. What is prayer if not an attempt at magic? 

TJ says that if I had a nickname, it would be Constancy. 

I make The Dip.

I write and I think, and I teach, and I make the dip, and I never change my phone number. And I'll always keep doing that shit.

Word lent taught me a new definition for love: being okay with never being okay. To live that out and make some new wild beauty of it. As long as everybody keeps breathing. (Are you breathing??)

brave - ruston kelly

This photograph has nothing to do with anyone but me.