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| The cat deserves better. And so do I. |
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| meanwhile, time for shots if they work. I know everyone thinks I am a Huge Cunt, indestructible and terrible. I cannot give much of a shit about anything 💔 that much is true. but the cat deserves better even if I never do. |
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| she refuses to look at you (me); there's an interogation light in her eyes like CIA (not a flash) |
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| so she can only give you sideeye |
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| I parked in front of this. |
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| Then I went to my own Mary. |
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| I did this instead. I invented Lady Godiva cookies that taste like those fancy strawberries dipped in chocolate. |
I was having an okay day. planning on a Mary visit, maybe tree shopping, then more cookies...
and now I gave swallowed a brick. Ears' first reaction "maybe I'll move back out" (run)
oversevering - there is no cure
undersevering - botched murder
could I crowdsource a solution to either? with no crowd?
presumed audience: NUR (or Pre-med or PA students) 300 level-ish
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| (citations) |
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.
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).
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.
How can everyday language (fiction and non) tell truths about wound survival that clinical language alone cannot?
or
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.
burn the other end - billy strings
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| 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. |
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| there is a pit in my stomach with his name on it, my body immediately responds to him negatively / distressed, like I swallowed a brick all'asudden. I think exes can be friends, but not that one 👆 |
In the text before this one he said "Well. That was sweet." dissing the yoga, finding ways to meangirl it. So predictable yet still my blood boils for a sec 🤏
Ears had to deal with a money thing today. He has to verify his identity over and over, and I gotta get pushy and blunt, these are huge triggers for him, $anything (to be clear, he was NOT bad at it, not like he FAILED at it, being good enough at it broke him). I know that. So we do one, then take a break for a day or two. This one was the car loan refund. Of course that needs rounds of nagging to actually get done. So breathe, I'll do the talking, you keep telling them I can do the talking, which went from Lady doing a "soft hand off" to Dude (each one explaining to the next this kid went to grippysocks) who heard me out and called the car dealership for me, like spanked the guy a bit, then called me back in 5 min saying "it's taking time, for reasons I didn't get into, but it should move along now". Done ✅️ $5169.90 And Ears stayed with it, saw the bullshit game it all is, and a lot of money 🤨 honestly people buy this crap warranty shit all the time, I tell him he got lucky going bonkers or he'd been stuck paying for it. And remember, fuckface 👆 gave him some $ down on that car so that's his money that I am taking hours to get refunded. Ears can't do this stuff yet, but he can understand it a little more each day. It is a feeling, a terrible being eaten alive feeling, but money is also just paper(work).
He also misplaced about 6k. TIAA. Pattern: he makes sensible choices then blocks them out because they're stressful. We found that $ with the MTS team talking us through it. One thing at a time, fix the thing. But priority is 💯 stay out of the hospital. Ears cannot afford much, his nerves are shot. I understand that vicserally. And my gut reaction to fucktardo 👆 is simply nope. I have been managing him a LOT outa necessity, but now nope. that ain't gonna be a thing. and no it's not best if parents have a 'united front' if one of them is a douchebag so don't even try.
after that queezy 'damn he makes me want a drink' physical reaction to his text thing passes, I decide I'll wait a few days then just reply "is it about the cat?" M will make sure he comes for the cat, I know she will. other than that ..
my point is, Ears is here specifically in part because of my zero tolerance of the devils 👆 presence and wholesale rejection of how he moves through the world. for this event / transition / phase of Ears' life, he's chosen to be behind my barbed wire in pondmaking world, where brownies bearing a full pound of reeces pieces appear continually. I joke but I am not joking. It is a magic place where Ears' father is not legally allowed to set foot. Wherever I am is that magic space, antiandyland antidouchebagzone, for my own sake, but as long as he is here, Ears will enjoy that zoning ordinance as well.
be better if there were a guy around 🤔 gonna text Craig, where's my damn door? (and park your ass here for a spell.)
since all of our life is private, our intent is to restore a trauma-informed home evironment. that isn't done overnight. it took me several years. and sometimes it's missing someone(s), like a tooth gone from a smile makes you apt to smile less. if you're lucky, it's someone you haven't met yet so there's a hopefulness around the air pocket(s). or it's loss more likely. loss maybe of even [part(s) of] your self. but then you need safe habor even more. so either way, grieving or brimming, you build it. and as you do, what is missing is felt more. a set of hands, guiding spirits, whatever the absence.
he wants to build a mancave downstairs that's for playing. gaming obviously but more than that, playing, board games and...
me: and what?, just say it
him: fooseball
me: (virgo response) https://www.instructables.com/Foosball-Table-DIY/ then you'd have to make that first while all that's down there is a complete woodworking shop with saws n shit that you inherited remember?
him: I know, I just kinda don't know one saw from another :/
and my dad is gone, so, the "fix" for that is not obvious to either of us
me: I'll set an alert on craigslist
he builds a fire every day. I read. I am thinking about Books and Islands, which on second read is 💯 a biography of her lover. so much so that his own son's biography now reads like a rebuttal. hers is wholly private. his is a PSA announcement in which she is excised from the record. the woman carried in his mind and visible nowhere else. and she believes she is carried there, inside him, but she can't know that really. she writes it, in a buttzillion ways, men whose love is absolute if nothing else, even if in no way can you see it. read enough of that, you'd believe in that too.
me: do you remember the pond?
him: fuck yeah
me: do you remember me walking out that backdoor with a shovel?
him: who doesn't? and I can see where you're going, and yes.
me: like hand you a shovel and we just..
him: yes.
me: ok.
him: how did you make the waterfall?
me: the dirt from the hole makes a pile..
him: got it.
me: I dont't know how he did the plumbing...
him: we'll cross that bridge.
me: ok.
him: right in the middle of the yard, I can bury the electric from the garage back corner 🤔
me: ok. we'll have to put a low gate around it for the kids
him: we did before. that will always be true, there's always kids
me: somehow I have no people but always tons of kids
him: 🤭 I can see why ya like Mary, soo much immaculate conception
me: shut up
us: 😅😅
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| what's for dinner is a big deal. every small thing is a big deal, it could trigger comfort or safety or grief or love or humor or all that at once. everything that touches a person matters. everything made is by hand and thought about with 💞 |
my day took a shit, an upgrade at work midsemester just wrecked half of every workflow, I can't get into my classes, my boss emailed all my students to come to him today if they need anything from me. that is going to fuck up Wed-Fri royally. but today it means more cookie baking and reading, always reading. even Ears is starting to believe in my following the cat. unless Erdrich knew kwat before 1991, which I have pretty exhaustively proven she could not have based on his and her movements in that timeframe, she summoned him. nobody will believe that, but I am not interested in 'proving' it. Moses Pillager and his island of cats came first, and then came the man who fit his description almost exactly. how she did that is a spell that I got bound by too somehow.
"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."
everything is a strategy game with him. you can't deal straight (why I hate him). so I don't know what happened actually. I dropped Ears off, they did the class, Ears came home directly aferward, smiling. he says they didn't talk afterwards except to discuss the plans for today (pork roast and mintchip brownies). that was it. and Ears is extremely satisfied with the outcome. he also got a massively expensive "Enlightenment" studio memership, which 🤔
you can't deal straight. everything is a zero sum game with him.
my bet on the game: Ears just got his father off his back and made him pay for it and has not much intention of going to yoga more than he was gonna anyway. (I think.) and D-Nozl drove back to CT with swampass finding ways to blame me (🙄). that's my bet on what happened today.
(update:upshot:yup)
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
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| there she is |
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| 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)
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| 2010, they both got cancer |
the better part of bravery - the decemberists released today
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.
"Most of what I wrote about was my all-consuming emotions. I was someone who lived at a very high emotional pitch. "
"A drama queen is outward. I was inward..."
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| every day |
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| 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 😪
update: I didn't intend to take a pic of too-dense Righty, I was going for the dog, but perhaps I will start intending to blog my tits (fair warning!) while we're still together. you don't know how keenly you might miss something and wish you'd taken more photos, ya know? feels like someone cut my strings, could barely move all day, nothing got done, maybe caught something dunno 🛌 all I did was come to long enough to worry I can't be his only thing what if I get sick...  |
| they sneak-attacked - Ears keeping Dball quiet and Janis butt-to-butt - just let her sleep, they all agreed, then we won't have to do any things |
I closed my eyes for 5 more minutes and woke up 5 hours later. I could sleep 5 more. Since I already missed every meeting etc, I might as well sleep and sleep and sleep until need of a taco is overwhelming. "I can't tell you nobody will die if you close your eyes," says shrink, "but you will crash if you don't." A sunwarm rock is the most comforting fantasy I can conjure.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Consider that some people in your life remain dissatisfied because that's the way they prefer it. If they stay displeased, the other person keeps trying to win their approval, which lets them remain the judge and hold the upper hand.
😵💫 too much effort to ponder all those variables - whoever can judge displeasure with whichever hand they use for that 🤷🏻♀️ - I really just want autumn color, a fall walk, to be in nature beauty, to sit on a sunwarmed rock
today, his utilities are turned off. another ✅️ 🤞eating the mountain one elephant a time or whatever
last night, I saw my own shrink. she was alarmed by 🖤, not myself, whatever that even is anymore, I am nothing, I am a walking to-do list, I bought a collander . she says, ummmm how about we up that anti-depressant dosage? I honestly did not know I could do that, yes let's do that
people not-dying is hard to know how to feel about - your mind struggles to feel relieved or good or something 👍, but to do that it has to keep touching the hot stove of the original terror then pulling back pained-again. a loop. 😵💫
we agreed to walk through the big Vegas cemetary today, the birdfeeder has been abandoned. he can't do a lot of assembling small parts atm. his job is subassembly - there is no way in fuck he's gonna be able to go back to work til god knows when.
he wants this
I want to go back to bed
“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)
"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
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