After yesterday, I dressed as if for work to visit him, suit jacket and all. Will do from now on. And I go early so they can't "have me down" for a time that is already past (they change visiting hours at will - today, there are no 5-7 because there's a football game). I am learning all the ways in which the rights and privileges are completely arbitrary. And we are powerless. And they really get off on stressing that point, our powerlessness, like fetish-level. Just take it. "And be grateful," adds Ears. Yeup, smart boy. 

Dressed like a professor, they don't swing the door back in my face irritated to have to monitor the visiting room. The situation remains, but the microagressions are less.

Mean sheeple are very simple beings. One note instruments.

Overnight and all morning, from other (former) coworkers, other friends in other hospital systems, I get the information that I need and was legally supposed to be given when he was moved out of CPEP. I understand what 2pc'd means and would adjust my questions accordingly (such as who is the assigned legal advocate?), but I won't bother. I've learned my lessons from ecmc. 

I do not want him just set loose like this was "nothing", I want him to be safe, I want him protected by fmla, I want for him all the care and protections he is entitled to, that he's been paying for, all time-sensitive paperwork out the wazoo. It would be good if he got THERAPY, I'm advocating MORE not less mental health treatment. But that ship sailed. Now that they have him, that's all there is, the fact that they can do whatever the fuck they want and really dig that.

To Ears, I say be patient, we don't want you to to be unsafe, we want the doctor to be honestly comfortable that you are not in danger. You made a noose dude, the diagnosis (now that I know it) ain't wrong, it's just that you need to get outa here to get BETTERbetter cz this place is not built to provide that. So. Keep your area tidy, keep your clothes folded, make sure to shower every day, go to the rec room and watch the stupid football game so that you're not considered antisocial, etc. This isn't forever. He should be himself, an utter sweetheart, nice to everyone. Say you're "feeling better, but it's really more important what the doctor thinks" because he's the expert. Memorize that response. "And be grateful," he adds again. Yes.

I am colder than I have ever been, The Wall to The North 💯

(Who would say to a mom who could have just lost her kid last week and who took him in that she's a neglectful lousy parent? Then yell a detailed rant about his suicide plan as if I didn't know it and didn't just live that? I silently let that nurse unload on me. It's the primary who just turned him away, not me. But twatever. I can take it.) 

Ears needs someone they can't just treat like utter shit for asking any question (like, what is his diagnosis? that shouldn't stump ya). So before I call a family meeting, if I must, I have to hire someone to speak for us in their language and who isn't just a piece of shit(ty mother) to them.

It isn't about me. It just continues to kinda smack me in the face that I have spent so much of my life being a mental wellbeing advocate for providers. I am on their fucking side. 

Was.

2026 the year healthcare work(ers) and I broke up forever finally over umpteen trips to grippysock jail, none of them mine. No more grit class(es), no more me for them. 

in my time of dying - dylan

in Sunset Bay this morning - pretty but means nothing

my sister said at lunch yesterday that there's gotta be a screenplay at least outa this. he and I talking about Kafka and "Waiting for Godot" and Erdrich tricksters (Nanapush medicine is what we need now, how to slip the noose), as wailing continues around us, retraint gurneys carried in and out, staff glaring at us because glaring is all they do, ready to pounce and restrain while we do nothing but eat lunch. they seem increasingly annoyed that he doesn't act nuts, like why the fuck are you here, and we wonder that as well but not out loud. shrinking into ourselves. appear defeated. the screenplay for that has been written a million times. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You don't expect things you want to come to come to you easily. You'll do the work that's uncomfortable, but not unsafe. Avoiding some kinds of pain keeps life good, while avoiding other kinds keeps it small. You know the difference.

now it's today, and that 👆 is what I thought overnight 👇. this pain means stay small. stay quiet. stay safe. 

like a prey animal, be still as a stone. 

until he gets out, there is nothing else. I do nothing else but orbit this. he does nothing but wait in mounting fear. our lives are held captive. it is illegal (unsafe) to ask for this kind of help. and once you've made that ask, you are a goner caught in legal hell, going dead behind your eyes, submitted to whatever. I am watching that dead hopelessness sink in behind eyes in the waiting room; behind the eyes of the visted it's usually already there. behind Huckforcat's eyes when I signed over the guns, I saw an exhausted wary worn similar. 

do not make eye contact; if you must, smile (lie).

🫩 

exhausted always on alert -_0 

not fight, flight flight flight flight against the trap around snapped shut on my ankle, my mind flailing not fighting

remember how you get out of a violent situation. silent, agree with whatever, go ice cold until it's not you (dissociate), leave just enough awareness to be ready to run as soon as there is opportunity. that's what you have to do when you are small and they are big and you are terrified. bide time.

like that. and that, over time, fills you with a snarling distrust of anyone getting anywhere near you. that's just a fact. it hardens your heart to stone. and I gotta get to stoney faster, my mind working nonstop 

🫩

update: theyre shortstaffed today so it a new nurse from the chronic ward was hall monitor for lunch. and she told me more about my rights and what I can ask when I call and that I can request a family meeting..."I understand, I just unfortunately work here." I tried one thing at her suggestion, calling the nurse's desk to get an update on diagnosis and if there is any discharge planning occuring at all, which was a mistake, that just pissed her off. she called me nonchalant about my son's safety by asking anything. I can see through the door a hallway full of screaming, rocking, frantic mumbling - it's a fucking zoo he hides from in his room, but that might mean he's antisocial so go to the rec room and play airhockey with a nutjob. the doctor told him that suicide attempts that fail leave you worse off - soooo next time do it right? etc. my sister is gone now. I am alone now. and my son is in jail for having admitted he was depressed. any question asked of any of it will only result in more of it. which, I can see on his face today, is returning him to the hopeless that made him seek care in the first place. somehow, I have to "buck up" and stay silent both, and coach him to do so as well, the opposite of what we both assumed. he must fake fine til he makes it to always fine, and agree to anything to get the fuck outa there. straight up. 

act very sane.

and 🤔 I do not want to teacher-help anyone to become a nurse or doctor; that was a great career and now it can be over by my own choice. 

I don't want to get any harder hearted than I am at this moment.  

🙏🕯

-_0 ugh it can't be today yet. my brain feels sandblasted

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You are like the universal key that can, with a certain amount of jiggling, fit into a lot of different situations today, so you can afford to be choosy. There's that one that will click like it's made for you.

bullshit 🫩 like me and security guards really hit it oft 🫩

VIRGO September 12, 2026 Conversations about money go surprisingly well this weekend.

ok that made me laugh 🤏 - highly doubtful - I haven't even gotten to the money parts except finding and paying his car payment - good thing I used to own his building so I know my way around it to fetch stuff out today (ugh) - I am not paying the rent cz he's not going back. in his case, I will catch all the fallout of this mess in the short term. the medical debt itself, no idea but it can't be good. and if I weren't ON THEM LIKE STINK ON SHIT his employer would surely prefer not to deal with fmla and he'd be uninsured then, really hard to get a FUCKING THERAPIST if that happened. I knew all this, I teach all this shit, how illness has to be contextualized in LIFE or you could easily MAKE IT WORSE, which is what they are doing and I am the body in the way of that like a speed hump. they wreck the person's outside-of-there life = a huge part of our homelessness population, leading people right back to ecmc but this time on medicaid / nowhere to go. 

and they very very very very much do not give the slightest shit. that's the part I didn't fully grasp until I was on this side of it. "educating" anybody about all this was a giant waste of my time. everyone knows and nobody cares.

upside: knowing that makes losing the teaching vocation easier. now I just want to get as far from all this as humanly possible. scrubs are the new police uniform (run)

color: bruised

update: finished every "step" before reaching fed the fuck up, then called the patient advocate that helped navigate the cf clinic (recap: constantly threatening incarceration until I got the patient advocate) - she doesn't live here anymore (of course, who does?) but at wits end, I called her, she made a few calls, an HOUR later the pissy little shit of a social worker called me and faxed the required fmla motherfucking forms (no proof of her actually doing that but said she did) and she talked to Ears FOR THE FIRST TIME. she's going on vaca Monday, so, doesn't much matter. he's okay, reading a lot, as of today getting motherfucking Ensure also suddenly. He still cannot get out. I still have no idea what the criteria is, the diagnoses, nothing. What they said to him was this was an "unual excelleration of care" as in you don't normally wind up in ecmc as a prisoner cz you tell your primary you wanna hang yourself with shoe laces despite access to both guns and rolls of electrical cord. Maybe a solid therapist referal woulda been good, eh? Or better yet, I shouldn't have told him to be expressive and honest. 

Sometimes less hitting home is more. Sadly for all of us who can articulate. This was one of those times.

So it'll start all over Monday w a new social worker who has to be also the discharge planner, she'll prolly sound just like the other one (overworked and resentful). Normally I wouldn't blame her. Normally I'd be helping credential community health workers with giant grants. Normally, there would be some semblance of nonshitty normal (?)

One call and something moves. It has nothing to do with Ears. Nothing. Today is the first time he has ever met his case worker despite all law of 72 or 72+72 whatever hours, under ANY circumstance, even if he were a homicidal maniac, he had a right to advocacy by now. No. Such. Thing. 

I should have taken him to the cottage that night, that would have calmed him down as much as the one night he needed from BestSelf and got thrown in jail instead.

He's fine. I bring him lunch every day. I can't visit twice so one scarfed meal. Sis and I shoulda divided it, lunch and dinner, but we were too exhausted to even think of it till today. But also now suddenly Ensure is in his diet, which makes him much less dazed deadish fishwhite starved seeming. 

He literally needed one safe night, sugar, and a THERAPIST. 

It takes a lot to find a therapist. His doc certainly don't give a shit enough to put in that effort etc, so I arranged his discharge receiving end plan to Evergreen (puck in front of the net) for them. Evergreen lady says, "this happens all the time, somebody asks for help voluntarily, and then they find they can't get out. That is what e c m c does." 

And the worst thing you can do is say you feel better, because they'll assume you're lying. And. You also can't leave until you feel better. Indefinitely. 

I just got to wonder how many thousands of dollars they're making a day off me by doing this. They won't tell me that either.

So the one phone call today somehow shook loose the elusive social worker who is no longer working as of Monday and informed me that no discharges happen on the weekend because there are no discharge planners on the weekend. Very odd cz you'd think they would need the beds. But maybe they don't want to be able to take any more. Ears is very easy company. And again, I normally wouldn't blame them. I would just make a case study out of it. 

But this is my kid. 

I think it'll be at least Monday. Maybe a week from Monday till I see that kid walking out that door and every day, thank God I have the privilege it takes to have lunch hour of my choosing and length every single day. 

His roommate, the one who cried all over his mother because she's some kinda lowlevel (prolly healthcare) 12 hour shift worker (ie can't get there every day), it's been 3 weeks, not one call not one word, nothing.  I got A call and only cz I had one string to pull. The waiting room sagas - if I were in the mood to really write anything - but I am really not in the mood to make this amusing. 

Ears doesn't read my blog. It doesn't matter if there is 💯 lack of trust expressed here.  

He gave us a list of things he wants out of the apartment and we'll go get them tomorrow, all except the big computer that'll go into storage w some boxes of books. I refuse to take any of his furniture or any of TJ's crap stored there, nope. Even the older kid has crap just left there on his hands. All of that, all if this, gonna get goned now. 

update: nothing has changed

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). As for the thing you weren't able to accomplish back there, it just wasn't time yet. Keep at it in whatever small way is currently possible, and more will be possible in the future. The key is simply knowing that this isn't over.

It feels interminably over. 

I just need my kid back.

Friday. A week. I didn't imagine 72 hours of voluntary could become involuntary and indefininate with no explanations and no justifications, no diagnosis, no therapy session. Just fear of asking for any of those things or the "punishment" will be longer. 

I should have imagined that and & trusted noone

They have successfully turned him into someone who will never admit to being anything other than fine to any seemingly nice healthcare anybody, or any anybody, ever again. They are turning him into a me. Always fine. And skinny beyond what a body should ever be. 

Friday. They're too lazy and dontgiveashit to sign any form on any day, so nobody is going to give a shit enough to let him out or step him down or do anything before they get to their weekend. 

Day by day by day, I get better at smiling my way past the security guard(s), handing Ears pens (sharp objects) to sign things, a hippa release today if I break into his email w his swiped phone successfully. And every day I witness to this utter bullshit, my heart fills with black tar. 

Been reading law. To keep him much longer, they should be getting a court order. They might be working on that, but I see little evidence that they give him much thought at all. Change wellbutrin to lexipro, impressive lifesaving technology. They had one "group" occupational therapy session, during which Ears said nothing. And they keep getting paid for a hospital stay. So. Today I get one more form signed so everybody can get eyes on everything. Then I am calling a patient advocate and my lawyer.

If these poor inmates had any kind of life before, had apartments and jobs and cars, that will be taken from them with nobody making sure their bills are paid and living arrangements made. When they are released, it's to a life in tatters like a natural disaster hit a trailer park. Ears is very lucky to have a me and Sis to have been doing all that for him, to keep doing it. The other young men I have seen are being visited by folks who have become jaded and resigned to their kids' lives being over, expecting incarceration like this is now all there is going to be. They break everyone, the inmates and their people. It is sickening to watch, day after day. And I sure as fuck am not joining that collective.

Next, Sis and I will go to the cottage. I will close it soon, and prep it for that tonight, empty the fridge etc. but am very glad I didn't sell it because that is not Erie County. Wyoming county is a healthcare desert, which sounds great. I used to try to solve those; now I want an address in one. Far as I'm concerned- this is the last we'll ever see those motherfuckers asap. 

my patience is molten. I dredge it then it cools into scorched-earth rock. 

when we get out of this, we are going to get a million lightyears away from being "treated" like this by anybody again. 

never again.

live and learn and learn.

I have to keep my temper very under strict control until he is out of there. then I am going to let this lava flow on full spigot, a strong current to ride away 

feels good to be a gangsta - geto boys Office Space was funny

update: he loves the Erdrich novel

update: they took his clothes, no idea way, but I'd had a gut feeling to stop at Target for comfy thoses for in there rt b4 going today. A bag full, so it's not like he doesn't have plenty to dress like a regular person (not a 98 lbs prisoner in xxxl scrubs).

update: I needed his phone to get into his email, there's a form the nurse and he are supposed to sign, the nurse tells the security guard just to slip it to me on the way out, she doesn't have time for that shit. I have Ears sign the insurance release form for me. I leave the insurance forms that need signed by ecmc, knowing they never will be. 

update: I got to UPS to fax the hippa form. I am so overtired that I don't notice the person in line in front of me is a years-long coworker (still working). she looks agressively great, has lost at least 50 pounds etcetc - one of those, motherfucking fine types.

I am fucking fine. And I will not let up. I don't care how much everybody there sucks. It's, how you say?, busted. Not even bothering to be mad. Only stay angry at what you hope might change, otherwise why bother? Nothing will fix our healthcare system. It needs 💣💣💣. I am going to bomb-ard it with fucking forms.

card of the day, yep

The word "efficiency" comes from the Latin "efficere," meaning "to bring about" or "to make happen." Then came the Industrial Revolution with stopwatches, timed workers and the search for the one best way to perform every task. This Virgo new moon suggests a return to the word's original spirit with one beautifully efficient question: What do you really want to make happen?

update: last night Janis ate the Popeyes biscuits, which wouldn't have been so bad except she ate the box as well. so I didn't get a lot of sleep. I had to go back to bed for a couple of hours and so NOW it's today. Virgo new moon, perfect, I know exactly what I want to make happen. And I will. No more waiting for shit to "get better" in any life category 💣

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). This is your moment to be new in whatever way you wish. You can start the things you think will make a difference. You can end the things that were dragging you down. You're in complete control.

Yes. (except for what belongs to Mary)

I don't want it to be today yet, but I guess it is.

My sister is staying on till Saturday. Mostly because she just can't imagine a project team of one (me) for allllll this. And because my last nerve quit a while ago and all of my patience has blown away like dirt in Oklahoma.

One grippysockjails too many. I didn't know I had a grippysockjail tolerance to "build up" so I wasn't prepared for my heart having to orbit that shit repeatly indefinitely. 

My sister's tolerance for this is higher because she's already been orbiting things like hospice and my mother's endless care needs, and has much higher tolerance for the absolutely shitty corporate America is, which now includes, of course, healthcare and higher education. I am frequently, no more like constantly, fed up at hello. 

So ecmc will tell me nothing. It isn't a matter of disclosure forms, nothing like that. I have a right to know, Ears WANTS me to know, they just don't give a shit that that's what he wants. Meanwhile, I have to navigate his HR and Metlife and a third party portal whatever the hell managing system called Alite, all of whom need things like the psychiatrist's name. You think that would be easy to get, but even asking the fucker's name - any question at all - will keep him in there longer. He's seen that. If you cannot ask one single question without being punished, that's prison. With lexipro. And surely someone is making a profit off it, it's probably privatized. 

He's dropping weight, currently at ninety eight pounds. That's a lot of weight to lose even for me in a week, although I have done it. That's how I die. 

But my sister is correct. My hsssssssssssssssssssssssssing won't help. Of course I already know that, I'm just not used to not being able to vent how much I hate every fucking thing out loud because I'm usually alone. I can tell ChatGPT or Alexa that I'm sick of fucking everything everything and I haven't gotten laid in a million years and everybody keeps trying to jump off the Earth which I can totally sympathize with, don't get me wrong, it's just that I don't get like that much, certainly my dick does not stop working / my libido for LIFE does not stop or I wouldn't be able to keep going #grit. But that means I get more like I'm gonna beat your printer to death with a baseball bat (which I have done) - if I broke, all the way, I'd go homicidal v suicidal I think 🤔

So I let Sis navigate a lot of this paperwork, and how you talk to people who have put you on hold for forty five minutes nicely so that you can get the number that you call next to be put on hold for forty five minutes. And so on.

The good news is that Ears is so easily bullied, he let his employer talk him into every kind of extra insurance, like the car situation only this time it's a good thing. It will not help with the medical bills (which also no one will talk to me about whatsoever. ecmc is fucking awesome 🖕) But it will mean that he will get more of his salary than he otherwise would. Once he's on temporary disability, which I'm assuming he is, since he's too disabled to sign the power of attorney that would make this a hell of a lot easier. ERGO, if he can't sign that piece of paper, he is by definition unABLE. So I'm gonna take a wild guess that we can get temporary disability since he does not have any ability 👀🙄 And start the processes (many) of that paperwork, which is a holy fucking nightmare. LUCKILY every HR lady and insurance processing lady and other insurance lady are all ladies. Mothers. It is very wise to be very friendly with those folks. No matter how long you've been on hold and also sometimes the call just drops. And you have to start all over again. 

So all of the ladies have sent hippaforms and every other kind of form, which Ears will sign today, that gives them permission to bombard whatever psychiatrist is behind the wizard's curtain with faxed forms demanding information so that I don't have to even try talking to anyone in that zoo - only the nurses are nice and their scope of practice doesn't include paperwork shit.

HR ladies say it's fine that I have guessed at a diagnosis based on the level of incapacity and current medications. In addition, new york state has a law where it demands that you somehow get diability from it as well, which metlife handles. But that still doesn't cover f m l a (federal), and I'm not sure who entirely handles that. Every one of the ladies told us it was one of the other ladies. But we got as far as the needed forms to proceed. And got many case numbers to write down. And then keeled over. 

I wouldn't mind a hopsital stay for him. It's the conditions under which this stay must occur. I just can't imagine that it's good for your nerves to be on a floor where people are screaming pretty much constantly. And no one feeds you hardly. How can a hospital not have heard of Ensure? 

It's fine. The kid lived. Will live. He's so good natured that about the YELLING jezus "I've gor ear plugs." 🤦🏻‍♀️ The wasting away we can turn around. And I will get him some paid leave if I gotta stay on hold summoning patience from the center of the earth like a witch who has none of her own remaining. 

My patience is molten.

So today get lunch with the boy and bring him forms for metlife and the other lady and the other lady and the other lady. And then let the ladies have at it. I took a wild guess of November 2nd as when he might come back to work, which we can get extensions for. I think that is a reasonable ask of the phantom psychiatrist. 

And since I don't trust that a social worker is evvvver gonna fucking call me back ( all of the parents in the waiting room say she doesn't call back ever ), I'm gonna start calling around for therapists who are taking new patients cz he needs one. Start with Evergreen.

Meanwhile, the bed arrives today and we are going to rearrange the upstairs living quarters and then watch the movie where the guy beats the printer to death w a baseball bat because apparently that happens in a movie not just in my life. Then spend tomorrow night at the cottage. 

I have to get a storage unit for his shit. But I can wait a day or two and that can't be that hard. 

I'ma get a hold of the moving dude and ask him if he wants a dresser or two and give him my number.

Then Sis and I are gonna have fun setting up his room nicely. He's very much looking forward to moving home. Very very verrrry much. Huge smile, can't fucking wait. Sometimes you need your mama esp if she's fierce af re blowing up life (if ur gonna do it, DO IT, get it over with). And I'll be happy to have him, because the hard part really isn't blowing it up. The hard part is what comes after that. And you need enough of yourself left to be able to turn around after 💣 and build a life. Until then you're parked on the tracks.

He needs a rest time, his nerves are shot. We were joking around that I could decorate the room like with Toy Story 🤣. Or maybe retro, cowboys! As usual, laughing our asses off. In real life I ordered everything in plain blue, the only color any man can ever remember exists seemingly 🤷🏽‍♀️

And the first thing we are getting is an extra freezer. Loootsa homecooking be going on around here.

very long day

now it will be another week

fine, I'm 💯 limp, I see him every day once so he eats once (my own standard of care enforced), and we are all VERY POLITE or they will never let him out. it is jail. 

he will never do this again. I know if ever this happens again, he will die because he will never do this again

update: scary how quickly a person can accept a new worse normal - it's not a good trait, specieswide, to be so dory-the-fish. I like being adaptive, but getting used to even-shittier all-the-time, not so much. the quest tech who took my blood yesterday has kids these ages too, "the world is trying to kill us now, that's rough on them." I mean, that's been true long as I can remember, but she's right, not like this. what used to be called "launching" is now more like being blown out of a canon to nowhere. def needs a BIG stop-and-think imo. so I guess that is what we are doing on the micro-level, a kid a time, each their own set of experiments at faceplanting. right now, it's all about this kid, Ears, by far the biggest-hearted one of them all.

yesterday in the car dealership when we finally got to the guy who could fix the problem, he told us that he remembered Ears, such a nice guy, his mom is a professor right? (my sister was doing the talking - at that point I just froze in dontcry dontcry dontcry)

it's going to take a minute for I could have lost him stops stopping me like that, coming over me like a wave, my teeth clamped hard against it until it passes

💣sizzle👁💔😭🖕❤️‍🔥 firing all at once, my brain shooting from the hip like a motherfucker 

my sister is already working while I drink coffee and compatmentalize enough to face all the segmental needs of today

today: guns - lunch w Ears - paperwork - grab bills from his apt - 2nd lunch w baby (Sis hasn't met the newest one) - more preparing here for him to live and one more night w my sister

Ears right now how his day goes: breakfast then free time, lunch then rec room free time, dinner then free time til bed. any group therapy?, any kind of therapy?, nope. Just not-offing yourself until you're not gonna, that is all. 

And now he's not gonna, seems calm and very bored, but being ever like himself, he says nothing all day, doesn't ask questions, just politely waits it out. That can't last. I saw a fuller room of inmates yesterday, including his roommate who is bonafide bonkerinos (poor thing), huge young man clinging to his tiny mother, crying like it's the first day of kindergarten. 

they're gonna need Ear's bed in that unit, and will at least move him to a floor, at which point are we back to voluntarily? nobody there but the damn security guards know/say anything, swamped yesterday with mothers. like Ears, I said nothing. why bother? they are not in charge. we are not in charge. Ears is not in charge. nobody seems to be IN CHARGE of the zoo/daycare-from-hell. so we wait and prepare prepare prepare for the eventuality of his release...

when I called to make my daily lunch appointment, they couldn't find him for like 5 minutes. "oh yea he is still here" finally 🤦🏻‍♀️ wtaf

#nervewrackingaf

meanwhile, the conference call re my mother. god she is suuuuch an ASSHOLE just as much as my dad, lies like a rug about EVERYTHING and deflects questions with jokes / without answering at all. it takes over an hour to get her on zoloft and a knee xray ordered. "I'm FINE!" I hear her bullshitting in the background. fine, except for not being to move your leg or think one thought that isn't something to cry about for A FUCKING YEAR, you are driving the rest of us NUTS! "How's Bruno?!" she deflects again, my sister having none of it, he says to take of yourSELF and your ass is going on zoloft god damn it 🤨...

#caregiving 🫩

welp, best I enjoy a shit shave and shower reset before it alllll gets rolling again 

update: VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). One small improvement will make a real difference. For instance, a loved one's tone of voice can give you a new feeling about the relationship, a belief that you're allied and that beautiful things are possible because of this. I dont have time to read that shit in the a.m. anymore atm and it doesn't matter cz rn nothing is about me. But that 👆 is my sister, currently passed out on my couch with her fancy hotel abandoned and a 7 a.m. meeting awaiting her and she goes like that all morning while I skip work and get rid of guns (and take a shower for the first time in days), then Ears for lunch when he will sign papers to refinance his car  which my sister helped me navigate today. "Honey," she kept advising, but I bite mostly, so I let her do the talking.

Context, Ears bought a car a minute ago and agreed to 5k worth of useless shit extended warranty whatever bc, as it turns out, he was out of his mind. He's driven the car once since, to go to his cat. 

It all just swamped him. We are draining the swamp. 

I gave up on ECMC, no social worker is going to fucking call me back, called his HR rep instead, who is new so not yet an asshole, and informed me that the company he works for is FRENCH. Do you have any idea how hard it is to fire someone in France? My sister does. The HR lady is great, though it is also often the case that the frontline workers are overruled by Money Personnel (fuckers), so I hope she can keep the promise to send all the paperwork /every option + process tomorrow a.m. It is all handled through an outsourced process that the French owner corp uses. Sounds like unpaid but insured is easypeasy, paid leave depends (context: he is never going back there - we are milking this cow for all it's worth). If the timing is ideal, all that comes into my inbox to forward to my sister for analysis before lunch. 

Or the HR lady betrays us, he gets shafted, and ECMC kicks him to the curb as "good nough" which they seemed to totally leaned towards today. Wow. Yesterday was a holiday, nobody was there. Today, a total fucking zoo. So it could totally go that way too. Just ✅️ you're not blowing ur brains out currently, so out ya go.

Give me 1 more day and I'll be ready for anything again.

My sister here helps me much more than just logistics and love, both HUGE - but we also understand each other. We know the Thing we both have that makes us uniquely capable in very specific ways. Her boss (remember Dave?) calls it "sizzle" and she makes gobs of money flying all over hell just to be in the same room with people. She is flying to New Zealand (which takes 2 days) to be "in the room" for 7 hours of meetings. And I completely understand what she is talking about, what she does for those engineers, how much she half hates half of them, but. It feels addictively good to be uniquely good at doing it. Especially the almost-transgressive all-the-time humor. We seek and find your spit-take (if you've got one), your giggle, and yank it mostly just because we can. And she is also getting rich with it.

I quit selling that part of me, for now at least, so it revs in a whirl, writing writing writing, chasing my own self (the cat). I would go to North Dakota just because, then Fisher Bay Manitoba for even less reason, Pure BECAUSE. I know I could fill back up my life with shit I am doing because I fucking want to. And if I just do that, actively not just opting out, but do stuff because I want to, everything is generally better for everyone.

I sleep so little that it feels like today all the time. my mind cannot quiet, it just keeps going and going running over thoughts as if it's doing a rosary 🫩

lunch w Ears again at 1

mom at doctor on conference call at 4

both Sis and I work on laptops at opposite ends of the couch, but I am done by 10 a.m. (perks of a blown apart life) 

I ordered a bed for Ears and so needed to get rid of mom's power recliner. I gave it away on craigslist, and the guy showed at 8 a.m. for it. he's probably not yet 42 (I would guess 35), hot as hell. he's deaf, he told me by email, and had a moving company in Alaska for a few years. so I was expecting an older dude. he can read lips and I can read eyes, he has 👁 also, so it was kind of a stare down 👁 - as he was leaving he made a point of getting my name right, pronouncing carefully, asking how it is spelled, I made the sign for G, and he said "you know where to find me if you need anything else 👁" 👀 noted

it's the hair. I look like an exhausted piece of shit. I sweep my hair outa my way every day, but that makes it worse/more bc then everyone can see what I can't, all the saltypepper ringlets on the back of my neck. and for whatever reason, people want to touch it A LOT. the vibe the dude threw at me isn't cz I look "younger" - it's the opposite - I look exactly like what I am and for whatever reason that draws omgIloveyourhair onceovers allllll the fucking time. I've given up trying to complement people back, that'd require too much talking. deaf dude doesn't talk at all 👌 and I will email him for the dresser ... and might lose my chill to fuck that guy if he's got 5 hours (5 min ain't gonna cut it / too far gone).

that's the lust for life thing in me, which I very rarely express/manifest as lust itself, but the revving engine in me simply revs. I bite and I rev. that's it.

Ears does not bite, and his rev is MIA.

after moving dude, I got a blood draw bc I can feel it, the adrenal cortisol freakout that my brain imposes on my body until I am dropping pounds like a motherfucker. I can't stop that, I can treat it, and I will have to for the rest of my life. luckily, I can do that, I know how to live with my brain. 

Ears does not know how to live with his brain yet. And he currently weighs exactly what I do, 104 pounds. 

there's gonna be a lot more cooking going on here. we both need fattening up. I know what to do - yoga, eat, read, write - until the rev is restored. and with Ears to do it for too, I will get better (fatter) too. we just need to get there. before anybody gets a face tattoo 🤦🏻‍♀️

update again: (taking deep breaths) - I brought him charlie the butcher, one of our favorites, and books but they wouldn't let him keep the hardcovers 😪 - the staff were very nice, the look on their faces = I was out of my depth and him out of water CLEARLY and they tried the best they could to be soft a little, give us extra time. the other inmate who got a visit at that time (so he got extra too) was a young man around same age as Ears (maybe even younger) who had every kind of gun I could quickly identify - sarahconnor, AK, etc - very freshly tattooed on his face all over it. he was being visited by his uncle who did not bring him lunch. I'll go back tomorrow hopefully at the same time w Sis in tow bc Ears very much wants to SEE EVERYBODY (!) and hates the food, has to scarf down whatever he can in that 30 min window I can have only one of in a day. 

Tomorrow it's hardcore comfort for lunch: pbj & Intense milk.

Ears hates the life he's living, not his life, and his brain can't find the diff and god I know exactly what that is, how that feels, your own being alive feels like the addiction you have to kick somehow but it's your way of living you gotta blow the fuck up. so that is what we are gonna do 💣. 

and btw, he met a "wise girl" in there, she's been in about a month, he can't quite pronounce her name properly (chalupa is certainly nqr 🤣)

I know how to blow up a life, my sis knows how, you/we/all know about the dynamite set up all around your whole damn life and you press down like roadrunner blowing up the coyote. I will always adore my sister for putting us through a year long excruciating wedding planning - the party WAS great, to be fair - then landing after her honeymoon and fucking my CURRENT brother-in-law almost IMMEDIATELY. it was terrible, of course, but. it had to be done 💣

This continued to be topic of conversation once we are reconvened (i.e. "NO", discuss). My sister cleaned his apartment. My daughter cleaned his bathroom in particular and also delivered his cat to my closest friend, who lovingly took his cat. I told Ears, and it's true, this is the kinda time that women like us do this thing like an inward flocking and clucking in a closed protective circle.

NO continued to be the subject of conversation in the henhouse because my sister is still fully faithful in grit, which she says (with great gravity) that I taught to her (and has made her rich). People are attracted to that and I should monetize it ...

No. 

Just no. 

Grit is not relentlessly open sesame at walls, it is not always just doubling down, it is not autonomic Yes. 

stop and think. #lotto-test

I've changed my mind, not once, but many times and had currently come to the conclusion that 1 too much grit will lead you to suicide 2 there is not much that anyone else can do to stop ya if that's what you're going to do. 

Obviously I'm rethinking conclusion #2. I don't think I come to that same conclusion where a child is concerned. I'm not thrilled maybe but okay non-acute atm is good enuff re the middleaged #doyouboo. But re my kids, I'm gonna try to stop ur suicide all day long relentlessly, snarl at me or not, slow or fast NO!, you can't have cookies before dinner (no dirtnap before you live the whole time allotted 🙏🕯 on this earth). 

And re me no, I am not going to hustle my streetcred in academia again, no to linkedin, fuck all that, I would rather breed axolotls. 

A different grit is required for no-more-hostilities living. It is a reverse fierceness to hold the higher ground (Eggs' instincts were excellent imo, if u feel shitty go to high ground and hissssssss).

preggers w TJ @ Sis first wedding - by the time that kid was born, both our marriages were burnt toast

update: I get to bring him lunch later, so I got dressed ... I didn't plan this, the dog already had his new fall shirt on, I just have very consistent taste in things - the look on my sister's face was priceless

the jail motiff was just absurd enough to cut the gloom

hopelessly early I sit in the hospital parking lot savoring his voice "Hi, I'm calling from the loonie bin." it's hoozgow, I told him, The Knife's word for grippysockjail

my sister has become the type of person too busy to type a text, and so she sends audio texts first thing in the morning with to-do lists

I do really appreciate it, but it's a good thing she's not a virgo on top of that 👀 oof

WARNING serious side effects of only as good as what I provide

Tiz better w my sister her. And kinda everybody converging, leaning in for a piece of the elephant needs chewing. 

I can't go up those stairs and not see the whole plan, and if I do that I know I will get that vasovegal whatever then pass out then wake up barfing. That is not something I can help having; I can avoid triggering it or medicate it.

So it just can't be me who does the apt part. I am trying as much as I can to bounce within what my own brain chemicals are capable of (how badly my own nerves shot). My brain has simply had too many rounds of EMERGENCY MODE and that for me includes people I love even with that circle shrunk down like one of those applehead things and still they are seemingly snipered (how it seems to me). I can't help that. I can manage it but I cannot just decide (use grit) to not be (over)reactive to Death Near. 

I can suspend some of my own medical maintenance, as I am doing now for days, skipping the at-night (as needed) dose of antipanic attack in my sleep meds, which I am skipping again atm because the phone might ring. I have no choice. I often feel like I have no choice, but I do, but with a kid (or mother) I really do not. 

So my sister is here, we do that (use the batphones). She looks at the apt (not as bad as my dad's, can clean it w Daughter 1), Sunshine surfaces for the cat (grateful it got nursing care, as am I), Huckforguns will take guns, by Tues both living spaces secure, cat secure, my sister will find any bills, insurance, carwhatever paperwork trail of mess to begin tackling 😵‍💫 tiz the plan currently.

It'll be okay. Except I am not okay because I simply can't be. No more than an alcoholic can't just be suddenly not that bc they didn't used to be. I didn't used to be dropping 50 pounds and dissociating in a runaway panic attack until I was. I can be fine for an unnaturally long time, and act it longer, I can win most games of chicken. My lust for life is strong. But my brain will always have a groove of trauma. A flight of wine at Olive Garden wouldn't take me down (although the date I was on might 😵‍💫 oof lol bytm). But any loved one's emergency Death Spiral mos def could take me down a dark road if I am not careful. When I say I could be half of a suicide pact 🤏 too easily, it's not funny. So I am slowly stepping back from that edge as if trying not to step on any landmine. I am not running away but I gotta send up flares, get some others to lean in too because I need help now. I am the one who needs help cz Ears needs help more than me. Next 24-48 is secure both abodes, secure cat, get rid of risk factors, try to be ready to catch the kid falling outa the sky cz that is what it feels like: he's on a scary alien spaceship of grippy socks and electroshock and at some point they'll toss him out of that ship 🤲

flashdance ft fat brittney spears 

I dreamt we opened an axolotls store. I didn't want to wake up even more than usual, I wanted to stay there, water gurgling in tanks, kids going crazy for everything axolotls. I fought waking but my mind knew it was today and dragged me already-crying into it 😪

"eventually"
💔

 

published the year that 👆 one was born. I remember writing this down 

how many times have I wasted away under the weight of a heartache and a crying headache while reading these novels for comfort? too many to count. I went upstairs to grab the next one, going in order, trying to do anything. it's where he slept last, we sadly laughed that this place isn't sturdy enough anywhere to hang yourself in here, it still smells like him, I just laid there a long time staring at the row of books coincidentally lined up right where his head last was on a noninstitutional pillow. thought: I need to get rid of the guns

2 years later - 👆 the trail of stories has exploded to track down, he's inching toward criminality-ish in that wording, and there's an neh grant is at the bottom of the cup 

"He was his island, he was me, he was his cats."

terror and grief have shrunken my heart to a stone cold fist

just when I was gonna work on getting a little nicer-feeling-ish, ha. Ears would find that funny 😭

I tried praying but failed. I don't believe in anything I don't give the slightest shit about anything else, I just want my kid back 😭

how did Huckforcats say it? something like what is the point of being sober where is the comfort I am a human being everybody needs warmth, something like that. he was right, there is no point to this, it never gets better, it only ever gets harder and colder 😭

💔 I am heartbroken

half a sandwich yesterday

just the thought of food makes me sick even tho shaking weak from empty now

that is how I die

not gonna move from this bed, gonna read myself to death until my sister gets here 😭

I found him. he is voluntarily in psych jail. and by his own account, the only reason he took that option over a dirtnap is me. I feel almost guilty making him keep living 

(more than almost)

thank christ it is not still today but now 24/7 is the day. however much for however many hours and however whatever

there is no detox, so no defined tour of worstduty

as soon as I knew where he was, I texted whoevever was/is/seeems in the circle of giving a flying fuck then passed out drooling on my phone exhausted af

this is not about me

but it defines every breath I take like busted ribs

how I keep waking up every few hours like this for well over a year, I dunno. at least atm I know WHY - Ears is my kid. mostly the rest of us are just adults and I should have cared less. in this case, I shoulda cared more/better.

futility + eyedrops 🫩
oddly (?), in this era of lighting candles up the wazoo, I have never once prayed to die.
Ears has.

futility

I don't know where he is.

So I am just sitting here. 

My mind is going in two directions: what happens next and what went wrong.

I remember a time when I used to go to bed and be anxious to wake up again because I was looking forward to the next day. I don't mean as an occasional experience, I remember that being the way I used to be. I think it's been about 8 years since that drained away, outa me, a hole in the bottom of my cup. There have been good days and achievements, certainly. Each new little is a blessing. But. My own life has not been a thing I have looked forward to in a long time. And only my mom really knew that.

Now I am the mom that knows that about an adult child. 

Would I at this moment give a long lost lover back to Ears for an autumn-air kiss, even if that were fleeting and doomed? To remind him of what that felt like? To acutely want to live even for just one minute? Yep. Sure would if I could. Now that her mind is half gone, I understand how that mind worked better.

My sister is coming. It'll take her a few days to get here, but I need another pair of adult hands. Hers. Cz I also need a boss of me so I don't follow my kid down that hole vs lift him out of it. I am right there too 🤏 - I only wish not to wake up, but that is too too close to my son's wish to hang himself. The only thing stopping him is what that would do to me, and that is simply not enough. 

And behind her are both my daughters. Both are moving / just moved, and rather than be able to help them, they will arrange to help me in succession. The younger will take on their utterly shitty father; now that she's grown and so strong in her opinions, she is more than willing to punch that son of a bitch in the face. Ears ALWAYS comes back from that man a MESS and blames only HIMSELF evvvvery time for being the failure his father believes him to be. So whatever I need his shitty ass to do, TJ will make him do it. She is furious at him.

What happens next is Ears moves here with me - that is my best guess. With the clothes on his back and a big pile of medical debt for me to sort out. And TJ delivers the cat to Dickhead's front door for safe keeping, like it or not, or she will shove her fist up his ass to the elbow. As soon as I sort his fmla 😵‍💫, Ears quits that job that depresses and exhausts him. And until he gets another one, waterboarding yoga daily / I don't leave him alone ever. I don't go to kalamazoo...

It is killing me not knowing where that child is rn. 

I'm all he's got but I can't remember the last time I woke up to my actual everyday life and wanted to live it. I just have to, so I make my bed etc. I have to believe that deep down, I'd miss life if it were over so I keep going until a taste for it comes back (🙏) He must believe that too 🤏 or he wouldn't be in a psych ward voluntarily right now. He chased me away after the intake, which was excruciating. He's one of the few reasons I still want to live, and he wants to die very much. It was horribly clear that we are both mostly still breathing for the other one, or we'd both have stopped this summer. So much so that they looked at me like you aren't looking too good either and said a lot of borderline "(don't off yourself ft) keep your phone on" things to me. My primary wanted to put me in the hospital he's going to months ago. But. Not wanting to wake up isn't the same as having a detailed plan to off myself. Miserable doesn't qualify, everybody is miserable, that's just breathing these days. Once he moves in here, which seems inevitable now except for the fucking cat, we'll be a suicide pact waiting to happen. 

Something has to very seriously change IMMEDIATELY. But what? HOW?

Someday, I hope the fact that he walked in there, right down the street from where I work, in the only clean tshirt I had, my new union shirt emblazoned with my employer's name and FACULTY written on the back in HUGE letters - someday, I hope that's funny. Sure isn't funny today 😭

I don't want to wake up anymore either.

But I did.

So I snuck up there and stole his boots (laces) then chased the dogs up there to lay on him. 

72 hours is only going to return us to this in 72 hours. There's no detox for not wanting to wake up anymore. 

If it weren't for the fucking cat, I think I'd drive him to WI, or anywhere. Alaska. 

If it weren't for the fucking cat, I might get him a kitten. 

I have no fucking idea what to do.

💔

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Success is no longer doing the job you already know you can do. Now it's doing the job that only you can do. Success is reaching for the impossible and expecting to fail gloriously and often.

Well, I'm all that's here, so only I can do whatever it is but all I do is fail at keeping people breathing, often but I don't see any glory. Like there's no detox there's also no clot to suck, and even if there were, I wouldn't know how. 

How did I keep living this long? I had no choice (kids). And lust, probably, as in lust for life - even when life shattered, under was lust for it still somewhere in me. Now there is just life. I honestly don't blame the kid for wanting out of that. So do I. 

💔

= my sister trying to badger her into living which for Jen means blue frosting vs that's the day dad died but somewhere under there, my mother never forgets that = she doesn't want to keep waking up. why should she? to remember? who the fuck wants to remember what's never coming back? for a while, I was like but I am coming back, I am still alive, remember me? but I learned, spent a year learning, that's not enough. there has to be something to look forward to even if all you can do is look back. and there isn't. except more of this, status:quo.

what was in the kool-aid at Jonestown? did they all just go to sleep? could I put it in blue frosting? 

awake listening to him move like he always has (catprowler quiet), wondering if there is anyway to hand yourself up there

I am going to unravel the rest of the way now. so it's hard to blame anybody for just getting there aheada me

that SWERVED around and in front of me, nearly wound up me causing a pile-up on the 90 getting pic of it but how could I not? 

Ears is here. He is like he usually is after time w his father but it was more time and no TJ, so wayyy worse. scary worse.

like Huck-for-Cats was scary sick over the winter.

💔

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You're so generous, though today you can't seem to give anything away without being gifted with new rewards and resources. Don't worry, you don't need to repay every good thing you're gifted. Just enjoy yourself. 👀

um ok, I promise, I'll enjoy any gift that comes my way tday ...

last night, I took a Lulu bath (formerly known as 'girly'). Oiled my curls, slathered myself in a thick layer of "Catnip" butter, wrapped myself in velvet pjs while it soaked in, did a meditation lying still in savasana (receiving pose, spine relaxed flat and palms up). 

tbh, I feel emptied to the dregs. rather than bemoan that, I decided (logically) that when you're out of gas, ya get more (duh), not stand there crying in the Polish Nook parking lot. if anyone else was stranded in a parking lot, I'd go help them out of it if I could. so I tried "tanking me up" 🤷🏽‍♀️

then I streamed The Boys, trying to drown out the storm b4 Disco threw himself into the sump pump over the rain like a wee lunatic

I was drifting just as Soldier Boy said to Firecracker, "Hey, why the hairless pussy? I mean, what's the point of going down there? You're not gonna get a fat face full of fur" - made me laugh + a furless cat is weird. so with hands still damp with curl oil (same kind/smell as ever), I opened that pretty new Dacks journal and pressed my palms into the middle pages til it soaked in and left pawprints. labeled the pages "Catnip Dickbutter" and dated it now. 

dedicated to the Follow The Cat notes/thoughts ft. smells like my hair

song tbd by the day/horoscope

card of the day (again)

https://wretchedwant.blogspot.com/2006/02/self-help-reading-music_27.html?m=1 first Erdrich quote choice on here was the same one as last posted 👇 - unfuckingcanny - and doubly weird is that I'm reading explicitly as self-help (how to be), from the gecko

update

only prob is all that wet is BETWEEN the storm and window 😅 - I shouldn't laugh but ya put it together w the bush thing and steaming up the place is just fucking funny 🤣 (to me) - my whole dwelling is moist hahahaha

awning guy just got here, last name Ott like my mama so I went w this guy, who 

before

"might kind of slay my bush but it will recover," he just informed me, and to my credit I did not even smirk 😏

I'm one of those - billy strings

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Fix your gaze ever-forward toward plans, hopes and even toward what some might consider an impossible future. Let them apply their rules to their own life while you keep believing in your own idea of what's possible. 👀

obviously. 

Marie

Right now, all I want to do is this. Read. 

 

update: both HI proposals submitted ✅️ 

11th hour effort

card of the day

that was a totally shitty year followed by a cold hard summer with a single sugar cube of a kiss last fall as the only magic mote of sweetness

status: leaving 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). The doubt: I have overlooked the flaw that will undo everything. The remedy: Look for the next necessary correction, rather than every possible thing that can go wrong. Revision and repair belong inside the plan from the beginning.

the beginning of what?

oh, work - yea what I made out of the shit summer (grit redefined, ai steps, mirror assignments) could light me up again. as in attention on me, not lit up from the inside. one of my work survival strategies: be in such plain site, it's hard to justify shooting me or getting away with it quietly 

Trooper is struggling to keep his head above water. I feel ya, bud.

 

 

first cat pg 83 and it's AS LULU, domesticated but wild at heart, and always appraising the situation would I fuck you (= are you interesting, do I wanna closer look, maybe scratch you, hold still 👁...)

so like,

I am looking for 2 things

Lulu accretion: What is present in 1984 what gets added later when can manuscript evidence show Erdrich imagining/writing the additions?

Cat accretion: first appearance p. 83  whose consciousness/description summons cats what cats are doing when they appear whether that changes across revisions and later novels.

And the first data point is cat and Lulu enter together. When cats appear, I prolly won't read that as symbolic, it'll be literally Lulu in catform. Slinking around many minds.

pg 86

I'll be damned. I wanted to reread The Island just cz Lulu is my girl and she went to a strange place filled with cats and I was trying to wrap my head around cat stuff being in my constant periphery now weirdly ... 

but, Lulu came from that island. she is one, and obviously a witch in almost comically fable fashion.