A kiss is an efficacious drug. 

Revise.

I went and found Polish Black Mary.

 

she refuses to look at you (me); there's an interogation light in her eyes like CIA (not a flash)

so she can only give you sideeye

I parked in front of this.

Then I went to my own Mary. 

I brought home a candle for Ears to light for Tbone. (Take the shot, Dad.)

Lady Godivas

"Grind" class (grit evolved) assignment

presumed audience: NUR (or Pre-med or PA students) 300 level-ish

READ

(citations)

WATCH 

The Sacred Sundance — 69 minutes

Indigenous-made. Brian J. Francis is a Mi'kmaq filmmaker from Elsipogtog First Nation.

The film follows the transmission of the Sundance from Blackfoot ceremonial knowledge to Mi'kmaq communities. It includes firsthand testimony about fasting, piercing, sacrifice, prayer, illness, addiction, and healing. One participant describes undertaking the Sundance on behalf of two critically ill children.

The ceremony itself is not filmed.

Circle of the Sun — 30 minutes

Actual Sundance footage. Filmed at a 1956 Káínaa (Blood Tribe) gathering in Alberta, with the community's permission.

Features Pete Standing Alone, a Káínaa man who narrates aspects of the experience. It also shows everyday community life and the tension between inherited traditions and changing circumstances.

Directed by a non-Indigenous filmmaker, and its 1960 framing is iffy af.

CLINICALLY TRANSCRIBE AND ILLUSTRATE IT

Write a detailed anatomical description of the Sundance physical process. Include at least one detailed anatomy illustration, parts correctly labeled (see Anatomy: A Coloring Book for examples if you're unfamiliar—just google it).

WRITE IT

To the best of your ability, describe how the process would physically feel. 300 words.

This is not clinical transcription. Use sentences and plain English and feelings.

REREAD

FINAL QUESTION

How can everyday language (fiction and non) tell truths about wound survival that clinical language alone cannot?

or

OPTIONAL REFLECTION

The novel talks a lot about what resonates. What resonates with you differently now, if anything? Do you ever kill yourself a little so you don't kill yourself a lot?*

*Consider the question figuratively, not as an instruction to injure yourself.

I got head-to-toe, then filled it with the kid. Something about that order of operation resonates yes again.

Make ready and make room.

 

burn the other end - billy strings 

2005

in Wab Kinew's book there is that scene, with the skulls, along with very precise anatominal description of how the scalpel makes the cut then the the black hooked pegs are carefully slid under the muscle, then the pull until the hooks come back out by tearing through. and it's presented as the alternative to suicide

thing is, I made those margin marks years ago, long before I read Kinew's book and no place else in Erdrich's writing does that scene happen at all. I just thought "that resonates" to/for me: the alternative to suicide is deeply physical, painful, personal. Yes, I thought.

I imagine he struck her like that.

yea well all I did was send a strawberry candle not move nextdoor to impose my "care" on anyone to DEATH. so, fuck this too.

"The wish I have to make him feel better, which seems so pure, may be selfish." ~The Painted Drum

"I thought and I thought in order to avoid something massive. But whenever I stopped thinking, it lay before me just the same." ~The Painted Drum

I went home, made polish gumbo, went to yoga w Ears, did all the Things, and then ran back to my books (awayawayaway).

Craig will begin wall removal and install starting Monday and will be here most of every day for the following couple few weeks. Then E will have to fix the caved in ceiling for a week or so...

Human shield deployed. 

"feed me"

Bad Thoughts 

halfway through the first episode, Ears said "this is psychologically traumatizing" - we watched 3 episodes laughing our asses off

our people are The People of Bad Funny Thoughts

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Someone may want to spend more time in your home or become more involved with your family. Invite them closer at your own pace. You'll give a warm welcome, not a complete one. Parts of your life are private.

All of my life is private. 

I don't only like books. But I can like them as much as I want. 

maybe I only like books

"He is the kind of wind that blows up your skirt, throws dust in your eyes so it's hard to see, cools you when heat and effort have drained you, warms in pockets between you and a living thing, goes in circles for no apparent reason like a desert genie, disappears suddenly making it hard to breathe, stirs up what's moldering in corners full of waiting. He is the kind of air that smells best and feels kindest blowing across a quiet lake."

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Focus: You can become attached to someone's texts, calls, jokes, opinions or the pleasure of having one particular mind available to yours. Conversation creates its own intimacy. When you miss someone, you also miss the exchange itself.

I do. 

in the [boot] laces

~ Books and Islands

we went to yoga. fri night is cheap if u pay cash. it's very very hot on friday, notoriously brutal with humidifiers full blast all afternoon before hand, the floor is covered in sweat when you get there getting mopped up, the studio feels like the mouth of hell. we love it. Ears says it makes him nauseous and weak in a good way, like throwing up makes you feel better only different. it's always crowded, full of people who feel like that. 

I think a "unique bond" could result in being similarly/simultaneously afflicted, by disease or by whatever if it's bad enough. I think it could cause cancer in someone who has zero cancer in their family. That's entirely plausible to me, that one person could take another into their body, and I think that it happens all the time, we all impact one another all the time and feel it in our bodies. As dread, terror, grief for instance. And anger. That's why you should try not to make people feel lousy things, and if possible do the opposite. Of course other people can give you cancer. And they can heal you too, sometimes. There is no remedy for other people except more people. That is especially difficult to fathom for loners especially if their nerves are shot - they might just have to die over it 🤷🏽‍♀️ And Erdrich taught me much of this "way to think that is useful" as huckforcats put it, which includes sensibilities as beliefs. I realize I think/believe all this mid-class. And it feels like throwing up, or maybe like popping a zit. A stuck thought bobs to the surface.

I actually believe that 👆. I don't believe that is what happened to her. I have no idea. But that doesn't matter. I believe it, is what's important. And I've taught that shit to thousands of other people. I've got 80 people reading The Roundhouse over Thanksgiving so they can feel conflicted about Thanksgiving, which most of them do feel for one reason or another or another or another. It will seem entirely plausible that a feeling could kill you, fast or slowly, if you hang out with me for a spell. 

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.” ~ Louise Erdrich

"I want to take my own life," Tootins said. "But I don't have the heart to shoot myself in the head. So I use this bottle instead." Tobasonakwut never gave up on his brother, despite the fact that he drank until the end of his life. ~The Reason You Walk, Wab Kinew

there she is

the "other" woman

makes sense. if you wanted to bond with such a woman, you'd have to do so uniquely. (and he's no easy walk in the park of a person either)

2010, they both got cancer

the better part of bravery - the decemberists released today

this one is for Ears, so I'll leave it

Ears hasn't spoken to anyone but me or a caregiver since 9/3. 

The compromise to seeing his father, finally, is Ears invited him to take a hot yoga class together for his birthday. 

I want yoga all the time. I am sick nearly to death of putting my self off around what is now a whole life of waiting for life to be able to happen. I am beyond 💔 and I "live" there now.

Nobody gets near me. Ears likes that natural bubble around me (even though I do not), and he stays inside it. I go to yoga, he sets his mat right next to mine. I am not dead (I think), but I am his guarding spirit as if I were already.

And then Ears threw a wrench: come and see me (do things that you cannot do). D-Nozl agreed. This weekend. Now.

I didn't see that coming.

Ears is an injured badass in that scorching room of relentless mirrors. I wonder if this father will have the ability to look at that. If he doesn't, I can tell, it will be a pretty profound reversal for Ears to see himself as the stronger man. It was a pretty profound invitation, from dead silence to that. 

Ears discovered gravity. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You know how a certain person keeps score: Every exchange must end with more on their side. Even if they are the only person around, avoid dealing with them. It takes effort to seek a different scene — worth it.

oof, that is 💯 a description of Andy, he can't even help it, it's just who he is. and ya having HIM be the dude texting me constantly is not the lifestyle shift I wanted at all. makes me feel like "maybe I only like cats" even more 😣

the National Endowment for the Arts bio page has a huge error - they say she lives in MN with 2nd husband and "their" daughter. there is no 2nd husband. there is/was a baby daddy, about whom she writes in Books and Islands. Tobasonakwut Kinew. Father of grandmotherly baby, Azure she's called mostly but she has at least three names. He's dead. Been dead since 2012, though the NEA seemingly mistakes him for alive and married to her as recently as 2018. there's prolly like 2 people left working at the NEA, so can hardly fault them for a shitty citation back to an obscure interview. I remember thinking "that can't be her hair" of the photo but didn't clock the cancer of 2010 intil after the fact cz she never wrote about it. Until now I wasn't in any kinda fangirl mode, I just reread the novels whenever I felt awfulest for 30 years, tattooing my brain. 

She didn't marry baby dady, either ceremonially or any other way. His obit lists someone else as his wife. In Books and Islands, she clearly respects him, he'a some kind of Native badass. Sun dancer. Outlaw. He also seems like a bit of a prick 🤏, or at least Not Around. The baby stays with her. He doesn't. 

He dies in 2012. No cause of death but a request in the obit for donations to a cancer center in Winnepeg. She gets cancer in 2010, recovers, and in 2012 she publishes The Round House and wins the National Book Award. She also revises The Antelope Wife - like Love Medicine, there are 3 of those, and I am missing the 2012 version (ordered it). 

It is possible that they both get cancer at the same time, but he doesn't get better.

It's also possible that they stopped seeing each other long before that, or not, or something. She never writes about him other than in that one little known travel book. She's palbably single mothery after Dorris, never linked w a steady dude publically. The Round House is a political book, and profoundly pointedly unsexy. Kinew was a politician. 

I am not sure what she did to The Wife in 2012. Does my paragraph survive cancer? 

While I wait for that book to get here, I am reading Kinew's son's biography of his father - we was some kind of big deal, a warrior for traditional cultural restoration. Maybe this son never knew about Erdrich at all or maybe I'll run into her here in a very out of the way book about Manitoba politics.

"Most of what I wrote about was my all-consuming emotions. I was someone who lived at a very high emotional pitch. ​"

You were a drama queen?

"A drama queen is outward. I was inward..."

every day

I am reading interviews, trying to find that thing about nurses. that 👆 is 2024, and she is wearing my clothes. like, I wore that yesterday. the harness boots, the wranglers over n slightly bunching at ankle, the black shirt, the silver earrings that follow the jawline. identical until you get to the hair. weird.

Her breast cancer falls almost exactly at the midpoint of what is explicitly called Erdrich's justice trilogy.

The three novels are:

2008 — The Plague of Doves

Wrongful lynching, historical violence, collective memory, and the persistence of injustice across generations.

2012 — The Round House

Sexual violence against an Indigenous woman, the limits of legal jurisdiction, and the consequences of institutional failure.

2016 — LaRose

Accidental killing, responsibility, restitution, grief, and forms of reparation that exceed the legal system.

Three different legal problems, three increasingly complicated questions about what happens after bodily harm. 

I finished Doves before circling the Antelopes. Doves is a fever dream of relationships impacted over time by violence. It is so nearly impossible to make any straight lines that I stopped trying to draw it out; the point is that despite intentions, what happens between people is often not up to them; they inherit conditions that are insurmountable. Reading it, I noticed, made the heavy rubberband ball in my chest squeeze tighter: I'll never get free of this / this is my last chapter and it will only get worse. 

That 👆 is how I feel when I can separate "me" out at all anymore. 

The 3-novel summary leaves out the fact that my paragraph gets stricken in that same timeframe. The Wife becomes the Woman in 2016. And I remember what Erdrich said in an interview (eliding the illness itself) about nurses, that they went about the business of saving her life without the burden(s) of feeling anything at all. I remember thinking it odd that she of all people would conclude that. And now I find it even more iffy - the first horribly unkind scene is in a hospital in The Round House, the nauseating dread that any kinda ER puts in your gut, the desperocity to be anywhere else. Hardly a 'business' devoid of feelings. Erdrich never writes about having breast cancer, but dread and blood and hopelessness seep into the stories. And, of course, everything is still related to everything.

Today, I will cook and clean and do all the needed things, of course as usual. Perhaps, if Ears is in the mood, we'll work on a jack-o-lantern. Current idea: barfing and half buried in stones = Rock-Bottom-o-Lantern. 

I need to get his mind off the cat, which has gone missing with Sunshine 😪

it's Ears' birthday 

breathing frosting

worry: I can't be his only thing what if I get sick...

following leaves, color, is what I want (need) to do. what can he do, I do, to do that? gramercy north, suggests fuckergpt.

The cottage is closed.

"A dog’s-eye view of history, includes certain details that human people might rather skip. I have no illusions. Humans are capable of anything." (and everything) (and nothing)

baby turtle in the garden

 “SO KLAUS, NOT too long ago I overhear these three dogs. A Ho-Chunk dog. A Sioux dog. An Ojibwe dog, too. They’re sitting in the veterinarian’s office waiting room talking about why they’re here. The Ho-Chunk dog says, ‘Well, the other day they were eating that good stew they make, just lapping it up right in front of me. That night they put the cover on the stew pot but they forgot to put the pot away. So I sneaked into the kitchen and I took the top of that pot in my teeth, set it down careful, and ate all the rest of that stew. Then I got in the garbage and ate the bones and the guts of everything that went into that stew. Then I wanted to sleep but oh, by that time I had the worst stomachache. I just had to go. I barked, but the Ho-Chunks, you know they sleep good. They never even stirred in their sleep, so, well, I just went caca all over the house. Now, I guess, they’re so mad they’re going to put me to sleep. I guess I'll go easy anyways. What about you?’ “‘Me,’ said the Dakota Sioux dog, ‘I have a similar story. You ever heard of the stew the Dakotas make with guts? It’s mighty good, and my owner had a big plate of that plus all the makings for Indian tacos in his pickup one day. He was driving home and I was proudly sitting in the cab of the truck when he stopped. He get out, left me sitting there with all that good stuff, and I just couldn’t help it. I wolfed it all down. Every bite. Man, was it ever good! But then I waited and waited and my owner, he was having a good time, and he didn’t come back. I tried to hold it for a long time but finally, well, I just had to go. I went all over that cab of his pickup. Boy, when he came back, was he ever mad! He brought me here. I’m going to be put to sleep too. And you, what about you?’ “‘Well me,’ said the Ojibwe dog, ‘I was sitting on the couch one day just dozing off. I was half asleep and my owner, she likes to vacuum her house in the nude, she was doing her usual housework. She was working on the carpet right in front of me and usually, even though I’m not fixed, I’ve got a fair amount of self-control. But then she bent over right in front of me and I just lost it. I went right for her.’ “‘Sexually?’ asked the others. “‘Yeah,’ the Ojibwe dog admitted. “‘Gee,’ said the other dogs, shaking their heads, ‘that’s too bad. So she’s putting you to sleep too.’ “‘Gawiin,’ said the Ojibwa dog, modestly. ‘You know us Chippewa dogs, we got the love medicine. Me, I’m getting a shampoo and my nails clipped.’” ~ The Antelope Wife and Woman 

(the dogs' sense of humor survives, for what that's worth)

that water temp was prolly 🤏 dangerous, half hour after I got out I kinda warmed up to shivering, took a couple hours to get to just chilled then famished then crashed into the dark

it is very dark. and very quiet. and I am extremely alive, thrumming warm

hungry

"A European publisher once sent me a design for Master Butchers Singing Club that was all huge loops of phallic sausages. They were of every shape and all different textures, colors, sizes. I showed it to my daughter and we looked at it in stunned silence, then we said, Yes! This is a great cover! I have twenty copies left of that edition. Sometimes I’ll show one to a man and ask what he thinks of it. He’ll put it in his lap and stare at it for a while and then an odd expression will cross his face. He’ll look sideways at the women in the room, point the biggest sausage out, and say, I think I see myself in that one." interview, Paris Review

(then what?) 🤔 duh she writes a story, that's what

it moves, along the back, like a cipher (the candle wax remnants)

last swim, that circled nub is me

cold AF but there is nothing else like it

"He used to be ironic and jolly, always with a sly humor and a broad goofiness. But his fear of losing her has made him serious....[she] has no idea he has lost his humor because of her." ~ The Antelope Woman.

Reading, always reading, shrunk down like when I was a kid hiding in closets with a hamster and flashlight. In The Wife, what took his easy-humor away ("he doesn't remember he's funny", that's a thing that happens) is cancer, stage 4 chances, and she stays away, worried at a distance but cursed, she believes, to always lose when the stakes are highest. For the best she stays alone forever, she decides. He survives and talks her out of it. 

Here, in this version, her child doesn't commit suicide (accidentally, she didn't really mean it, but). And he doesn't get cancer. But there is a cost, as always. In this version she has no idea that she is illness - her worry, her grief, her stay-backness, it's withering them all. 

Does Erdrich bring that around? Or is the child kept alive a permanent price paid, repaid forever, by this mother? Does my favorite paragraph (survival ideology) survive, in any form?

[does he ever say anything as weirdly funny as let's "get under the covers with sushi" again?]

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). The unfamiliar situation sends you searching for guidance. When none appears, you study how the place works and choose one small job you can do well. Your competence has a way of settling your nerves. You attract an admirer. 

I don't need more "admirers" 

Prior experience × present danger. If the caregiver already knows what addiction, psychiatric crisis, suicide risk, hospitals, etc. look like, current events aren't experienced in isolation. Present cues can activate old threat-learning. Sometimes experience makes somebody wonderfully competent; sometimes the same experience makes the alarm system exquisitely sensitive. Both can be true simultaneously.

"Here’s the real reason: Getting her children back feels like all the luck in her life is now used up. She doesn’t want to take any more risks. But I could have told her that from a dog’s point of view life is nothing but risks." ~The Antelope Woman 

I wake up already spinning inside what feels like saran wrap, tangling tighter. I keep moving - if you're standing in shit, don't sit down is one of my rules of thumb - but spinning is moving too. I can see already that for his sake and my own bandwidth, my successfully turning down the volume of immediate crisis has a cost - it will fade, has faded already, from the emergency response system in others' nervous systems (their BEMOANING wasn't helpful) - which is quieter but it leaves me alone with this now. I live with an adult (currently) disabled child who needs everything, right down to med reminders and side-effect management (like seraquil brain = halfday zombie, can barely track a thought til noon). He can't drive atm cz of that - can anyone else compute the simple resulting facts, such as no he can't just "pick up the cat today" because you decide not to be functional today(?) I don't get that choice, to just not-be-able. And nobody else has to compute jackshit.

And I am terrified-grateful he's breathing. So even tho I see all that 👆, there's nothing else I can do (feel) about it. 

The bar set at breathin - he's breathing, I'm breathing, you're breathing - it's gotta get raised 🤏 somehow. We can't stay here, can we?

how to not - zach somebody

status: migration/commuting, gotta go close the cottage for the year, cross that "gotta" off my list ft. shrink my world even more. "manageable" is merely breathin for me.

at the duplex - last one my mom could paint - I will walk past it, stuff that down, get the meters read, gas turned off, all the things gotta get done, and never see it again

Bug (lil lifecoach) prescription - we've been trying for a week - so far nobody has gotten much beyond the potato part

my sister (New Zealand)

 

I sent the pic of the dog and a tiny vid of Dball barking his brains loose to seal the deal. We are animal people. M. has been a CatLady always, fosters them, traps ferals and tames them and shit, and thru her/that, they can get their shit together for Ears for the cat - ersatz is one of TJ's fave words, it's like when you can't handle/have the whole/orginal thing, a smaller/lesser version might be for the best. The cat is their best, I'll take it, I will be very relieved for the poor cat who is "scratching himself bald" according to Sunshine, who then went dark. I cannot deal with her too, my patience is worn thin. The cat is a nervous wreck. So is the kid. Somebody deal with ersatz-Ears 🐈‍⬛️ for the love of 🤨. D-Nozl was almost tolerable for several sentences. M. is good for him. I've always been happy about their marriage, I figured she'd have him cleaning 6 litter boxes 🙏 

How is this my life? How does this make sense? I cook and cook and ponder, my mind unable to avoid nor fully comprehend the constants that it moves around and around.

Spiderlily asked me if I remembered this and I don't remember it. but when I looked on ebay, I found it right away / as soon as I saw it, I knew I'd had it, a fucking bunny cup, so I bought it again even though I do not remember it, because I've lost my mind 🤏 so any piece of mind is worth restoring

what happens Janis?

let my hair down and went to the market, wanting sunlight on me and more food to cook, crystal rainbow kisses through the windows. a wee break from pressing.

update: after I walked around soaking up banana peppers and adirondack potatoes, I called the cat's Aunty eM. Eggs will indeed be housing secured in CT shortly 🪄

wondering what happens after Trouble Shooting - I've forgotten

update: like magic 'you're going to have to take this cat' shut D-Nozl right up 🙄 - not gonna change the outcome, that cat is moving to CT the next time he steps foot in NYS. that's it, I am done 🪄

update: just as I think "ok maybe this can be a day off from the melee," Sunshine texts she wants to kill herself ft. can't keep the cat cz he's itchy. (siiiiiiigh) I've become numb to grippysocks nutbaggery, I can't anymore with this shit. why can't anyone just do what they say for more than one damn minute? 

f u n c t i o n (try)

I gotta disappear Eggs 🤦🏻‍♀️(siiiiiiigh) 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Have you ever spent time apart just for the pleasure of reuniting? 👀 A little separation gives each person fresh material so when you come back together you have something new to exchange. 🤠?

The landlady went smoothly.✅️ Ears' friend from work will get first dibs on moving in as-is, furnished with big TV and a cat tower. Or family downstairs wants to rent the whole place. We'll sort which it'll be by early this week and transfer the utililies. Wipe the slate and look at what $ he has left. He said sheepishly last night, it's payday and I think they paid me more than usual - is that possible? Yep, you got NYS disability too for September on top of the disability insurance payment. 

And I have paid for everything for a month + all the medical deductibles. I have been hoping all the paperwork was resulting in some $ kinda paychecks kept coming throughout all this. If possible, I'd like him to start his next chapter with 🤏 nestegg. Enough to feel intact, I guess.

At some point, "whew I survived " has to bloom into "yay I'm alive" - not today but what you've blown up must come down/land. He looked at his bank account, and he ordered himself jeans (bootcut). 

Today, I dunno. We gotta go to the cottage by tomorrow, time to close her up / one last freezing cold swim. But today, with the inlaws settled into wait-mode, we can stop running. 

I think I'll let my hair down and go to the farmers market this morning. Sing in my truck.

proof of life

I am very literal and material and embodied n shit atm. About well being. Does it feel well or not?  

song wanted, but music mostly left my kitchen with the migrating birds and troubles moving through 

buttprint wellness test

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). As Venus slows down, you begin noticing the labor inside affection: who remembers the details, who makes the reservation, who checks that everyone got home. This is useful information that may influence how you distribute your energy going forward.

😵‍💫

welp, that ain't schmitzful for damn sure. all they show up with is worry needing assuaged hourly (note to self: try not to do that) and reminders of it's HIS BIRTHDAY (the 7th) so WHEN IS THE BLUE FROSTING AHHH 🙄 jeezus christ

me: it's your birthday 

him: today? 

me: right? 😵‍💫 no, like in a few days or whatever. uh don't spose we could ask for a few car payments? 

him: oh, they want to know 🫩

me: ya and Bug already claimed your bday as hers remember? 

him: RIGHT so no problem

me: yes but there's no cake, no "party" per se, we were going with putting up a fuckton of holiday lights and a giant bowl of funsize candy bars for the cake

him: but I ate the candy already

me: you did

him: have them send a cake, that one from Wegmans

me: do you have any idea how much more work it is for me to assist them in buying a wegmans cake than it would be just to bake you a cake?

him: you're baking a cake?

me: today? no, I was going with brownies today

him: awesome!

me: you've lost the thread

him: 😅 ya sorry - what's the problem? 

me: pork chops for dinner tonight sound good? 

him: awesome!

it's like that, while I work from home, showing up at meetings w deans this morning (high impact sightings, so fewer needed), taking care of this that and the other thing(s), like spinning plates on (slap)sticks. today on my list is tackling the landlord/lease/utility shutoffs...🫩