https://www.craigslist.org/view/d/buffalo-cool-old-ge-fridge/xj6ZkFvbJXv7ALQuuhqqDZ
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| 👀 |
https://www.craigslist.org/view/d/buffalo-cool-old-ge-fridge/xj6ZkFvbJXv7ALQuuhqqDZ
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| 👀 |
getting into the truck, he turns and says "two hot yoga classes and a fish fry. I'm so lucky. thank you." with 100% sincerity, I shit you not.
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| I like doing this getting better |
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| now it's (long) morning |
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| "pseudospoon" |
update: basement cleaned.
If I just start and steady-on. Start with whatever makes the biggest difference fastest (splash). Seeing is believing. If he can see it, touch it, he finds his own velocity toward it. He just has trouble on steps. Like
him: I want the pc in this corner
(Pause)
me: ok move the boxes of it and monitors all over to that corner.
him: ok
Like that. It's. Everything is a process. I am not used to slowing down or speeding up or any making room for someone else daily, and he doesn't know how to take up any room. But we got it done. Space cleaned, a rug ordered, outlets planned, it'll be pretty nice we think ... by the time we were shutting down for the night, he was happily imagining a 55 gallon fishtank.
He needs to land on wanting something and then be walked through the step by steps towards it. It's a bit exhausting, but it's mostly nesting like an animal's den thing rn. which I can do (make bunker den - verb) to death so fine cool
we had a philosophical discussion about bedding. I insist: make your bed. I always insist that of myself, it's a sane grounding habit. when he makes his bed, it looks like a body is in it shitty. there are choices. my giving up on him making his bed is not one of the choices. so. do we change the man or the bed? if he cannot teach himself to make the bed, he's going to come home and find all his bedding replaced with a hodgepodge of textured throws in wild colors and a bunch of different pillows so that even unmade it looks made, like it's supposed to be that way. I'll make it so that he can't not make the fucking bed even if he tries. I remind him I used to sew all their bedding to be like that when they were little (prolly why they never make a fucking bed now 🤦🏻♀️). his eyes light up, I remember that!, it was and he rubs his fingers together. yours was corduroys. right!! I didn't want to change the kid(s) much, I'd rather sew.
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| we found it down there with other retro everyday shit. he loves it. it's his new (humungo) yoga water bottle, it's hilarious |
update: accomodation letter process via psych started ✅️ I have developed a coping mechanism called 2nd morning: I drag my ass outa bed to drag his ass to wherever then go back home, new pot of coffee, start again on my own day. there's only one horoscope though, so I have to forget it to read it again (it's still stupid). no fish, he's cooled on it because Meow gets too big, so ok
me: how about ___?
him:
me: ok then what about ___?
him:
me: are you hungry?
him: not really
me: (patience/breathe) we are driving by the art museum and we are 🤏 close to that being our day unless you can WANT something else
him: ok then let's work on the mancave / clean the basement
me: ok
we go home via shitty wok (aka tim hortons) cz I need a GALLON more coffee. we pull in the driveway...
him: let's have second morning first
me: (sigh) I do like that. ok. come and get me when you're ready
him: ok! (he's never gonna lol - his BUTTERKNIFE genes are emerging 🤦🏻♀️)
-_0 the thought flitted through my mind of wishing I could drop him off at an excellent pre-k then go slowly grocery shopping alone, slowly anything anywhere alone, knowing he's safe so my arms could be empty for just a min
I blogged and unblogged a pic of what I can't see but felt like my body registering all this by developing outsized shoulders. and it was true. from the back, it looks like I lift and lift and lift weight. not weightS, weight. like a human fulcrum. like a mother
odd how what makes a child relies, at least for a minute, on feeling in your own skin enough to want someone else to touch you. then you might not be able to feel that way again
update: the case worker (Mary) was lovely. Nov 30, we have date to apply for medicaid and all other services (food stamps, cash support, etc.). he was turned down for any more private or NYS disability payments just today, so we are right on schedule for the dregs of that job/life drying up, and now begins his transition to "vulnerable population" status. the social workers all love me, and the feeling is mutual, just because none of us are treating Ears like some kind of bum (seriously). topping my priority list is allowing him TIME, to think to heal to reconsider to want to step back in[else] (not just "get a job").
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Stay open to another round when you’re ready. Meanwhile, striking up a chat with someone outside your usual circle could point you toward an even better solution. (👀 okay)
Today is the case worker. She's new. Ears met her once on intake, but I haven't and he was out of his head. So I am not sure what to expect. I mean, I feel like I am his "case worker" and am trying hard to be qualified, but remembering Betty Crocker recipes for stale raisin bran would be a perfect skillset if we were on WIC and Ears were constipated. Navigating medicaid is a very different animal.
That is the crisis looming just outside the current one. After he goes back to work with an accomodation letter, he'll work into the first week of 2027, but his major medical deduction is renewed on the 1st and I'd have to cough up another 6k for him to keep a job he doesn't want BUT also keep all these caregivers he does want. So how do we get and stay unemployed for a spell (and still get a shrink)? I have been poor af, but always working-poor, and that was back when there was WIC (and pell grants). Today I find out first hand what remains of the social net. For a single able-seeming man 👀 uhmm welp I'm going to need a real case worker.
Can he just be nuts for a while? Until he isn't? Is that allowed? That should be allowed for everyone. We should all get "American nuts vouchers" like people in France get proper vacations. I mean, it's one or the other - we either get saner and get some rest and get laid and eat bread and cheese OR be ignorant and belligerent and monosyllabic and lonely and go fucking insane.
Objectively speaking, based on your own behavior history, what's it (likely) gonna be?
And that is why I vote but don't actually give a shit anymore. No matter what, Americans are going to be lucky if they are still able to jerk off while keeping a roof over their heads. That is what they are doing, how they are living, and I see no light at the end of that tunnel because that is what they want.
Grit assignment: For argument's sake, let's assume free will. And thus, how you are living must be what you want. Write two sentences. 1. sum up how you live - where, with whom, who do you talk to, who hugs you, what do you eat, what/who do you love of any of that? 2. Explain why you want sentence #1.
Ground rule: It's not temporary (!), that can't be the basis of the second sentence, no excuses / means-to-an-end crap, this is it and you want it.
It's just two sentences (armscrossy), that shouldn't be too hard.
After/around work (5 classes now, that's about 2 sentences from me x 150 students today) and the case worker, it will be in the 70s again so I will wear myself out in the yard. Because I want to all that, and more.
I will not do all that I want to do today but I want to do all that I will do. How bout you?
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| mines more |
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| I didn't underline a single sentence in this, not one marginal note - strange |
let your love flow - the belemy bros
I just planted trees and bushes allllll day (+cookies). Got a wee sunburn even. I moved Mary and gave her a new view. Rediverted the front gutter drainage field. Wrapped most of the trees in fiber skirts and mulch, moved all the dirt bare handed...
When I stood back after at the end of the day, I saw: the land / our material context has been completely transformed - without any planning ahead or duscussion - by Ears chopping every fucking thing down to the ground + my taking the bait to replace it all and adding another tree. It looks like a different house almost. All the grim formality of ancient box hedges has been replaced by a fern garden, a hydrangea bush cluster (4 different, 2 oakleaf), daylillies called "blood and tears", forsynthia and a big butterfly bush with dark bluepurple blooms, a columnar juniper.
Then we went to vote - my current events literacy is watching South Park - Ears also, we're pretty checked out - but we'd feel guilty if we didn't at least go vote for the Working Families candidates; we don't know why it was a zoo at both our polling places. I was in line behind my nextdoor neighbor, the single mom w the 2 boys, Rebekkah. I like her, I like her stage of life so I like being near it. One of her kids was with her (18 now). She always calls them "my boys" so I can never remember their damn names. Every other house in our hood has either got ancient elderly folks living there, or people like us who buy houses that need new everything bc the prior owners were ancient. The inground pool in her yard is fucked, oooold, pretty gross but the boys rigged it up with an above ground pool plumbing system, diy brokeart 👍.
I got my first string of xmas lights.
I have an longsliverworry of too quiet. But I am quiet too.
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| raisin bran chocolate chip |
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Relieving someone's suffering or annoyance, making things work better — it's what you're all about today. You'll under-promise and over-deliver.
Sounds like any Tuesday ☝️ might.
VIRGO ..bla bla...Your assignment? Accept a home-cooked meal or a shoulder rub without offering anything in return. from the angel who ghosted me yesterday? I honestly can't remember the last time I was offered either
today: drs, electricians (estimates), social workers. that's it.
unless some new shitty thing happens. it is Monday so odds are on a new shitty thing. I'll take the over on an underdog lotta times, but the odds on a homecooked shoulder rub is a million to one
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| the stump dude dug me an extra huge hole for "Jeff" midlawn. I said thank you thank you with an extra $50, assuming that's what stumpangels prefer |
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You're still wrestling with an issue when an angel steps in and nudges everything in an inspired direction. Give this person plenty of credit and more people will seem to come out of nowhere to help.
🙏
Halloween asks the question: What's your trick? And what makes it a treat? Today we celebrate the thing you do so well and the pleasure people get from being on the receiving end.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Trick: You make 'em laugh. By now it's an instinct. You don't even have to try. A little truth with a twist and they're right there with you. Treat: It's always in good fun, never at their expense. As midnight approaches, the atmosphere shifts into something more mysterious. Shortly after twelve, the moon drifts into Leo and your dreamy twelfth house, turning the late hours into prime time for a deep, unexpected conversation.
Anything could happen. Sometimes that's a catastrophe, but not always.
song(s) tbd
update: we went for our usual yoga hot af fish fry friday night combo, but tacked on an extra 45 min of what they call 'hitt' which stands for I dunno what but think hoooot yoga + free weights + lady gaga on the sountrack and it's hella hard. we did it the other day, stacked 2 classes of 2 types on top of each other, and these were shorter, but this time Ears barfed in the lobby by the front desk into the waste can after the first class. Lisa comes running to get me (I had stuck my head under cold water and was dancing to wham in the studio), he is down to dry heaving so I grabbed a vit water (that shit is koolaid) and got a little blood sugar into him, and he's fine (rub some dirt on it). And we - he, Lisa and I - were laughing our asses off. The last two times we did this (2x classes), both times he left both phone and wallet in the locker room and now this. but the beauty is he's in it, he'll want to go back asap (which is awesome for me, lucky). Ears and I know that if you force yourself down this particular road, you will feel a lot of physical discomfort, but in exchange you relearn how to laugh about/with discomfort. (life is hardcore slapstick.) we bailed on class 2 and ordered Insomnia Cookies
update: I wanted a pussy willow for dyngus day (this is VEGAS), so called around and found one, they held it for me, I'm expecting a bush but got more than I bargained for. fun fact - the fluff balls are called 'catkins' because their fuzzy, soft look resembles the paw or tail of a tiny kitten ("catkin" comes from a Dutch word meaning little kitten).
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| "Jeff" the pussy willow tree |
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| has a bush |
update: real life. hmm 🧐 how is the kid who can't drive yet going to pull that off? or the one with cystic fibrosis who is only 5? see this is why being reputable is all you can do anymore to be gangster because shitty and unreliable is the new good (enough). sigh. welp, I can smell Craig and his tools in the house (window replacements - I am keeping this man indefinitely), time to stop reading and just get to work
Still looking for a Halloween costume? Mercury's square to Mars in playful Leo adds a dare to the game: Tomorrow night, try on a quality that gets little airtime in your daily life. Go glamorous, gory, cuddly, ridiculous or mysterious. The costume can come off at midnight, but first you get to plan an evening as someone you rarely get to be.
-_0 ☕️
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Costume suggestion: Someone disreputable. (shit, how did I become reputable??) A pirate, outlaw, jewel thief or rogue ...
oh, the hair thing, whew, I'm already there. please send more oppotunities to break glass 🙏🕯
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| update: I looked up the rest of the whole Rogue schmole. PLEASE 🙏 let there be a reason to wear that hahaha omg sooo much yoga you have no idea 😵💫🤣 |
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| storytime day @ Silver Creek library |
scratch it back n hold it - junior wells 9:11 a.m. now it's today. I'm already running late -_0
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3 a.m. I don't know why I am awake to feel nothing