then he calls 👋

he's in rehab, but I was right about him not being at St Joes, he's in LEWISTON for fucks sake. that's so funny it hurts or hurts so bad it's funny. I just

(breathe)

that's what is so hard to explain about this. he feels it when I get to omgicantdothisanymorehesbreakingmyheart and signals "hold up!" - he can't read any of this, he is in lockdown w no internet - but it is as if he could read me, anyway. he'd say no it's just the day he got to use the phone, but he's wrong. I keep the record books. I have noted this interwoveness many times, especially when I am at breaking points and he somekinda hold up!'s me.

he's in my head and I am in his head. that's it. and since that just is, uh, we gotta figure out how to manage that in a less harrowing fashion. new rule: I never want to hear about his wife ever again. Just that. One change. I am using capitals. I mean it. My wish for this year rules that one subject out of my conversational limits for a spell.

unless he wants to talk about how I feel about that subject, which he for sure would not like and I would not enjoy that either. she's a sore spot = trigger = no go. that is the inevitable result of my having been pulled back into his orbit much too soon re that "divorce" I think we (incl therapists) would all agree. and inevitable because any physical proximity and physical ability, regardless of circumstances, will result in one of us touching the other. his heart or mine, one of us starts it. that is not your mother. or your cousin. or even Joe with benefits. nope. there is only one of me so use me for what God intended, whatever that is, which can't be Disney-related. I am the anti-Disney. like the antichrist. yea, I can be his antichrist, that works.

so when he gets outa there, he'll have a day to get over here to see Knife and tell her all about that, that's what mothers are for, on his birthday no less, perfect timing for a polish clusterfuss. and Joes, I betcha are great for wife hating. he's got lotsa options. and whether he knows it or not, he needs somewhere/one he goes to for not-that. a respite from her/that. that's what I have to offer by walling that OFF. which might wall him off from me, or might be better for him too. it'll change something. and I think we can agree that something has to change. 

how did Kerri put it? "my soul orbits yours" category. he's one of those, too. he's the unstable volcano soul in my soul's life.

the first thing he said, and repeated it for emphasis, "I'm not dead." he sounded awful. he sounded a lot like I feel: physically fit and emotionally busted. wanting a cigarette, which I finally gave up again or I'd be smoking right now. 

we didn't say I love you at goodbye. we could hear each other silently say I'm not gonna say that like agreeing, let's not keep doing that only under these dire straits, I'd like to be smiling the next time I say I love you to anybody. #livethewish so I let my ma say goodbye real quick instead before I cried my head off in pure relief / release from uncertainty. it upset my mother a lot to see me like that but it felt good, that dam broke finally. 

and it's GOOD for her to see reality, too. stay in the game Ma, I obviously cannot afford to lose more / have more threaten to die on me. even Aaron can hear that from all the way the fuck up in our other backyard 🤦🏻‍♀️. so knock it off 😭🤨😭 or I swear to christ I'm gonna unplug the televisions #rehab 

then I go into the living room

first question, is Aaron still in the hoosgow? far as I know, ma. she will ask that multiple times today. 

I tell her the Janis story to get her mind off it. she says "not-even-Nate gave her trust issues"

how the fuck does she remember aaron's jokes like that but not how many times she's asked about him? 

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

The dogs don't need to be hooked to anything to go outside anymore. I can just open the door. They can just walk through it. 

Dball charged right out there, 11 pounds of GET OFF MY LAWN.

But Janis just sat down, put her head down, ears back, looked like she wanted to cry.

I know how that feels. I walk through that door every day of my life. Let go of.

don't worry, Fatass, you're mine

I don't think Aaron is in rehab, for instance. My therapist says that's "anticipatory grief" exacerbated enormously by my mother. Butterknife is thinking 30 days, then he will be out and feel better and come visit with her. I want that to be true. I wanted it to be true enough to try to make good on my promise to visit him. I called Sisters, they had no idea wtf I was talking about and directed me to St Joes, which has a voicemail box for this info, and nobody ever calls you back, wondering if I should just go over there....until it occured to me: he's not in rehab.

I don't believe it is true because I cannot. The rug has been pulled out from under my mind too many times. It cannot rest.

I think, no feel because I cannot know, that he's somewhere not calling her today, and tomorrow, maybe forever, probably forever. I didn't bother counting 30 days and marking the calendar - she assumed I had, but it didn't even occur to me to count on anything. What occurs to me always, like a dripping faucet inside me plop plop plop plop, is that he's never coming back. Like he's dead. AND he's suffering. An endless despair loop. No matter what, if he's in rehab or not, he's suffering somewhere. And not coming back even if he does turn up. Those kisses last fall, my bare feet on the cold concrete, that was the last of my djinn. 

That is a very hard truth to live with. An acid burn that will not heal. Never healed. I have to learn how to really live with that. Not hide it. Not endure it. Def NOT throw Nebraskas at it. Not numb it in any way. What my therapist calls "acute intimacy malnutrition" is a kind of pica. I eat dirt. 

My mom loooooooves this neighborhood. I never drive home down Harlem, I meander through the side streets, so to her these little houses go on forever. She likes to sit on the patio and say hi to everyone, look at all their front porches and hanging flower baskets. She likes to look at my truck. She says I have the whole world by the balls. 

But a gash opened in me, a wound ripped wider and wider over the long lonely scary af winter. I feel like utter shit a lot of days. Like today. Alive, though, as I wished. Just hurts like hell. Huckleberry. Aaron didn't name himself that, he named my gash where there is no such person. 

The Knife understands, but slowly bc she made a terrible and totally understandable decision over her own dark winter: because she could not stop thinking about my father's death, she chose dementia. The things she does now that make no sense make perfect sense once she told me that. She stopped reading. She stopped knowing what day it is. Stopped getting dressed ever. She watched the same garden show over and over and over until she could mute it and watch it that way (though I can hear it as I write this, Monty Don over and over 🤦🏻‍♀️). She just left her mind as much as she possibly could. 

"But ma, it didn't help."

"No, it didn't help at all. Just made me more annoying."

🤣🤣 so true

Then we sit and look at the truck. 

your heart or mine - jon pardi yup, and both our hearts are ouchy

the wish

pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, touch, joy, reciprocity, pleasure, rest, 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wait - frugit

 

aww ... but wait for it ....

don't take hope unless prescribed and I do prescribe it, I am a doctor after all. 

tomorrow is a long time - bob dylan it's his birthday

hahahahahahahhahaha
she can really nail it 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

When many people reflect on their earlier years, they focus on the alienation and wounds they endured. Few recall, in vivid detail, the moments of joy, triumph, and breakthrough. It’s a symptom, I suppose, of our era’s compulsive cynicism, and not necessarily an accurate account of the past. So many good things happened, too! This isn’t to dismiss the real pain that shaped us. Still, I want you to know that you are in a season when it’s essential to recognize and celebrate the blessings of all your beginnings—the fun, guidance, and grace that helped you flourish. Update your gratitude!

Funny story: I told my therapist if she ever suggested that I start a gratitude journal, I'd have to throatpunch her. "Noted." Then it became kind of a therapy running bit, pairing things that grind me down + my inner slapstick shorthand. Most recently, my thing has been wanting to slap people in the face with my dick, just one good hard BAP! This whooooole situation has finally taught me what penis envy is. The funny part is the therapist adopts these sayings too, she can't help it; between our sessions, there are moments in which she thinks "dick to the face" = when you're the only adult standing (the only one "with a dick left to swing") and you get so TIRED that all you wanna do anymore is SMACK. The therapist deadpan, "It's noteworthy how often your sayings feel apt." 🤣😭🤣😭

teaching Bug STEM the old fashioned way

"Homeschool" dickbutter

genesis - morgan wallen (trap remix) dancing in the kitchen slow, sinuous, spirits swirling around me tickling my skin

last year, my genesis when I started trying to do more than just survive

The Magician shattered 

are you living your life - noah derksen

last year today - a CARROT 

"cat my witness"

“here is the machinery of enchantment itself” in pieces

when I say there is nobody left standing, I mean NO BODY

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Fun doesn't seem to be organically burbling up from the routine. You'll have to create it. [👀 no shit?] Originality will be required. What would you do if your main job was to enjoy yourself? Who is to say that it's not?

Every body.

hide my gun - post mallone ft HARDY (sing along)

"inventing fun" (for them)

Sunshine also, fired despite the massive staff shortage at falls memorial, budget cutting the humans of course. we were supposed to cook today, but she is scattered in the wind to Binghamton on a travel contract, homesick half to death. so Bug is going to learn how to make dickbutter to keep that dream alive for Sunshine.

fence dude is down with gout - I should bitch but don't have the heart to do that - so we pivot, put trees in the ground anywhere / back from the fenceline because they were half dead baking in their black pots - they too need to put a root down Here X or die

I do not want to be nothing but a tether. I increasingly want that to stop. I am a human woman, not a 1000-mile-deep post. endurance is not fulfillment. but what else can I do that is not a moral injury? 

that lump is my mother, with that tv blaring 24/7, up all night (keeping me up all night) crabby all day. and I gotta bully her outa that chair cz carrots don't work - flowers, no. garden, no. going anywhere, no. staying home, lump. she is just waiting. for "always made her laugh" and "so bad, but so good ha ha" etc, a mashup of Tbone and Aaron. what should we call that? let's go with A-Bone. 

for me, there is only enduring that. it's not even funny 🤏. I just have to bear not being able to produce A-Bone out of thin air, relentless failure at an impossibility. #a-post

I am not sure where Aaron is, where he goes after the hospital part that won't let him smoke, he's always been very evasive on specifics - maybe I am looking right at him at St Joes as we plant trees in the cold barren yard. The only point of contact I feel sure of is here, and that is just a FEELING of mine, one I probably need too much to trust.

 👋

But I am leaving him a note here, the only way/where I know: Bru will foster your cats if you want. I did not bring it up. Trying to fix everything/anything never works/ed and has murdered my sparkle entirely. He offered. All I said was that you might never come back. Like he didn't know that already. In which case they'd grow old with him. 

"In her view, human beings resembled peregrine falcons: they had the power and the ability to soar up to the skies, free and ethereal and unrestrained, but sometimes they would also, either under duress or of their own free will, accept captivity. Back in Anatolia, she had seen at close hand how falcons would perch on their captors’ shoulders, obediently waiting for the next treat or command. The falconer’s whistle, the call that ended freedom. She had also observed how a hood would be put on these noble raptors to make sure they would not panic. Seeing was knowing, and knowing was frightening. Every falconer knew that the less it saw the calmer the bird. But underneath that hood where there were no directions, and the sky and the land melted into a swathe of black linen, though comforted, the falcon would still feel nervous, as if in preparation for a blow that could come at any moment. Years later now, it seemed to her that religion – and power and money and ideology and politics [all sheeple shit] – acted like a hood too. All these superstitions and predictions and beliefs deprived human beings of sight, keeping them under control, but deep within weakening their self-esteem to such a point that they now feared anything, everything. Not her though. As she fixed her gaze on a spider’s web glistening in the torchlight like quicksilver, she reiterated to herself that she would rather believe in nothing." 10 Minutes 39 Seconds

correction: all or nothing 

my way - riley green

cottage open finally - view from the turn when you know you're There X