my mother dragged me here, seemed so kinda 🤷🏽‍♀️ at the time, ok ok I easily agreed, instructed me not to let go 

of this day in particular, she was very fond, twas the art of the photos by half I suspect, she is nothing if not a sucker for beauty and joy. but for me, I am more of promises made, she hammered home, that is who I am regardless, with full faith in me 

and then she let go

I didn't understand at all that is what she was doing 😪

and now I think shit like "you can at least deal w the kid's cat, daddy up" and I don't say much 🤷🏽‍♀️

I write. I follow a cat. it leads me where it leads me. now I can only find one very dated article following this trail because it does not want to be "followed" and "liked" very deliberately. of these eruptions of new life/lives, my goddess of authors is cavalier. she rewrites foundational characters "every chance she gets" and she often just "wants to keep going" (with one) and makes changes to do so. loops around in time. it's dizzying to follow this way, to try to make a straight line in retrospect that resists all attempts to do that. life erupted over and over, blasting this one life force, Lulu, all over in bits but also weaving her (slinking) through everything, a side piece and a scrap and a passing thought, but surfacing like a touchstone holding threads together that otherwise have no stable narrative thread through umpteen stories told and yet to be told.

The archive doesn't merely preserve what happened. It remains alive enough to change what the story is. Do you understand how rare of a "problem" that is? it's sooooo nerdy it has a an audience of one who for some reason believes herself to be important lol. 

so okay. it's just a story like any other. I remember bc she made me hang on tight to it again. I look at it objectively and wonder WHY? seriously, what was she was so intent on? I can no longer ask her, and frankly don't want her to recall it. I'd rather see it for myself. 

obviously, right off, we're all still alive. 

younger, but that doesn't seem very relevant (to me). I mean, that doesn't seem like what my mother was pointing at.

we are all SMILING - for what was the first and last time like this (everybody but the kids still unborn). from all over, every friend, every estrangement, every body, all (re)made on one day into a rare pure collective joy that my mother doesn't want to be the only one who remembers.

and when I look again, I understand: I don't want to be the only one carrying this shit either.  

and I know what the standard jaded response is: people always smile at weddings. but no, they really don't. I've been to plenty of weddings that felt like a divorce waiting to happen. Some of them in the courthouses they are going to land back at in a heartbeat lol. Way more weddings are like pre-funerals than not ime. 

I think in part it was because I was the girl least likely to do this, call Everyone to order for it, any of it. I blew glitter out my ass shamelessly ONCE.

and so everyone was happy at least ONCE.

my cat, lol

my dad

in real life, I think my mom wanted to gin me up to blow glitter out my ass like a bubble machine so she could check out. seriously.

in real life, what else fell out of this book, sitting at home next to my bed, is a letter dated a year ago from my psychiatrist that says I can no longer keep working, my ptsd is too severe for my workplace, it is a danger to me. no glitter. best I could do is endure it another whole year, all of it, anyways. 

Augusts, ooooof. they're a lot.

I dunno. Honestly 🤷🏽‍♀️. I am not my mom, so I'm straining to understand why this particular. Best guess: she wanted me to only remember the best parties of life, strenuously desired that outcome

But what I see is me asking: What authority does what happened later have over what was alive then/tomorrow? Like, literally how does that work? 

Sunshine

I still wear this lol, slip dresses are back, w boots of course

 

 

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. 

there she (I) is (am)

spoken of briefly here and there, but she doesn't show up as herself until pg 74, and she will not have the backstory I know of her before she does here/now in 1984.

you have to understand. this character is my shorthand for, shit, well mos def everything re men. and mothering. I know every word of her, including this bit, where she's thinking so hard she winds up fucking him twice by sheer force of wish of it. once in this timeframe (at the end). and once also back in the day - her remembering it hard - just as I did earlier today. If I posted all the pics of every single person that day, the almost insanity of glee, it'd kill ya. so I unblogged it. 

she does not pull the punch. she makes him remember. not by recounting, but by remembering it in front of him. she makes toast/bread and slathers butter and sugar on it, eating it in small decisive bites, licking a crumb of sugar up. while he talks and she remembers everything, and eats sugar. by the time she's done snacking, he's forgotten why he went over there and is following her into the bedroom. 

she's my kinda witch.

she gets me / I love her. hahahaha everything about this character. most of all her fiercely her-ness. there is only one of her, and she knows it. she gets what she wants if she can, and she isn't sorry. why should she be? you wanted to do whatever that was AND prolly wish you could do it some more whatever it is, so wth. I think I have quoted every word she ever says.

But now I know I quoted everything she would eventually say, but she hasn't yet! That won't get into Edrich's brain until...well, I'd have to look at manuscripts to KNOW when/how that happens. 

Meanwhile, not only does she not show up here until she's middle aged - this novel is about the other one, Marie. The dutiful one, the one who "takes in strays" all through this novel, when Erdrich was newly married with adopted kids and more coming. At what point did she start to take her own stray in, Lulu? who by the next edition is fully half the center stage balanced against Marie, both of em fucking the same dude (who somewhat inconveniently loses his damn mind)

fascinating to nobody but me.

fuuuuuck alllll that, nope lol. I didn't even bother with the competing programming of a zoom drop in. I just downloaded her little PowerPoint at 1:00 she can see that I was presently elsewhere, and then I continued to email co-workers about work through her stupid meeting. So probably their phones were going off if they were there just in a running fuuuuuck you from me

welp I tried funny ish. unblogged it. went wayyyyyy down a rabbit hole cz I have 10k magically backing themselves in clouds that you can look at, say, all Augusts for the last 15 years 😭 if you need a cry. unblogged it. then already before her stupid meeting she's YELLING AT US that we DONT WANNA GET NEAR HER. has anyone ever successfully nagged and threatened someone else into loving them? the best she can get is fear so she'll take it. 

so far today I learned: I actually cant do meetings without Jeff without crying AND TEXTING HIM I cant..

I was gonna go back tonight. 

I can't make myself do it. 

Tomorrow: Alls there is the lawn to mow (no!, Ears is doing that shit when his ass surfaces back from offgrid) and a "listening session" w the president. So I decided to have a "listening session" here (but I'd actually listen) same time as hers. I have it planned out in front of my fire, feet up, fireside chat zoom drop-in for students in any of my classes. I'm not just not-going, I'm creating an on-the-spot (isn't there a contemporary term for that?)  competing event (optional v compulsary is a really important distinction [to me]).

Will spend the morning making sure zoom works - they took away the obvious button to "personal meeting room" and moved it somewhere under "schedule meeting" so they can track my time LIKE I WORK FOR BURGERKING + THEY ARE SOCIOPATHS 👀 fine, track my using it right then (I am sure I've got liptint around here somewhere)

Storms tomorrow. If the power goes out, fuckergpt will have to talk me through the know-how of using Fancyass Phone as a hot spot. 

I am not opening my email tomorrow til noon, by which point it'll be too late. Meeting starts at 1. I am too far (gone).

of that 15 are dean, my chair ("boss), and 2 co-chairs - 26% of persons attending are paid at gunpoint, the rest are terrified); Union is the one red X. I wanted an "Other" button, maybe purple.

AND I coteach with my boss, so he'll know I just pulled a 🖕 in his name too. 

(Say. When.)

I treat my person better here

Sunshine made it. She wants me to go to some mediumship gathering Wed, told her no too (Death can have meetings without me also)

listening to lotsa music here in the rain and I cook and watch birdTV and dance around - hard to pick - I might change this out but currently: 

no springtime - allison russel

stray thoughts 

here, there are more of em 🐈‍⬛️

such as: my next lover(s) will hear about my mother - there's almost no way to get through a day without quoting her or seeing evidence of her in all our lives - but they will never have known her. there are deathspiral conundrums you don't see coming, like that, ya know? how could anyone know me if they never met her? it's too weird to imagine.

moon over Java

infinite love - goldie boutilier

fini

Virgo: you almost punched the dean in the dick yesterday, but didn't, 2 a.m. brainrot not withstanding. #goodenough

sinnerman - nina simone sofi tukker remix

all fall courses opened ✅️

I call him "Trooper"

having opened Monday classes early, I retreated

lawn HERE mowed ✅️

in process, needs touch-ups before the rain ⛈️

a bright blue door facing north "Acts as a welcoming 'Mouth of Chi,' inviting beneficial life-force energy to cross your threshold." my mom didn't even get to see the cottage this year, but I can send her a picture

I used to think that there was an art to everything, any/every waking living moment. #strawberrymilk. and I was much happier, every little minute of my fleeting days. I wanted to fly with those days like a gazelle, fish, raven, water on rock. gone in a blink.

but somewhere along the way, enduring the moment (after moment after moment) became all I was doing and now it's HABITs. living itself can't be just a habit

status: migratin prep -> cottage / sans Labor Day 

off to the picnic ft I could kill you with a thought (with all my heart)

 

with all the care in the world, still, survivor cake just gotta cave in a lil bit 🤏 - fitting offering

I just need you - riley green ft hannah mcfarland from the "I don't need nothin' almost" kitchen playlist

blooming his little head oft

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). What if you lost preconceived notions of what people expect from you? You're a generous giver. Someone wants to love you, not for what you do, but just for the person you are when you're not doing anything at all.

are you 👆 my horoscope or my shrink or my primary or my tarot deck or, uh, God? yaaaaa, so I have been told a GUZZZZZZILION times all summer, and yet 🤔 not much evidence lmao

Janis, be honest, do you love me for  A. who I am? or is it more B. the expensive kibble, sleeping on the silk pillow, my cleaning it up whenever you feel like pissing on the rug?
Is it even a 🤏 column A column B? 

Vegas leans in hard on light pollution - I can see the moon being bitten with my naked eye but hard get the bite in a pic

creatures of the night - all I see all day are webs, I've never met these folks til tnite 😬

 

river flow - dylan I let alexa pick the tunes (#radiogame). I'm calling this batch "Catnip" acknowledging all the 🐈‍⬛️🐈🐈‍⬛️🐈s lately

virgo stomping status (migrated beyond plodding): 

conference funding proposal for Honolulu HI January 7-12th, submitted ✅️

(I delegated the god damn lawn mowing) ✅️

the How to Huckleberry cake, adapted from a "surviving the holocaust" (oral tradition) recipe but using huckleberry honey, kinda caved in - that's why I made it today so I would have time to make another one, knowing survival recipes often need another try

updide: holy hell delicious 
learning oucome: do not try to "fluff it" - fold ingredients in gently - give it no space to collapse and then it won't - it is meant to be dense (like my tits)

grit class assignment (grad level)

doesn't have to be done near a full moon / lunar eclipse, but it doesn't hurt (especially if you're Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces - the signs targeted by this one)

WHAT FAILS THE LOTTO TEST?

A Lunar Eclipse Exercise in Desire, Constraint & Choice

Take the Lotto Test

Imagine you win the lottery—don't quibble about how much that might really be after taxes. Just accept this: you now have enough money that you don't have to work for money.

Now look at the life you are living. If money were no obstacle, what would you keep exactly as it is? What would you change? What would you leave behind? What would you want that even winning the lottery couldn't give you?

Choose four parts of your life that matter to you: school/work, relationships, home, family, friendships, how you spend your time, future plans, etc.

For each, choose:

KEEP — I'd choose this again.
CHANGE — I want it, but differently.
LEAVE — I'd walk away.
CAN'T BUY — I want something that money or freedom can't produce for me.

OPTIONAL: Dogfood the AI

Choose one of your answers and give it to chatgpt or whatever AI. Say:

Don't tell me what to do. Help me test my reasoning. What do I seem to want? What do I think is stopping me? What might I be treating as inevitable that actually isn't? What is genuinely outside my control? Challenge one assumption I'm making, then ask me three questions, one at a time.

Answer its questions.

You get the final word: What fails the Lotto Test? What survives it?

Learning Outcome: 

What's Really in the Way?

Pick one thing you said you would change, leave, or want.

Would winning the lottery actually make that possible?

Now imagine that other people's expectations and your own fear of failure disappeared too. Does your answer change?

What's actually standing between you and what you want: money, fear, expectations, obligation, habit, another person's choices, something else—or some combination?

woops or meant?

full (Sturgeon) moon in virgo, partial lunar eclipse in pisces (my moon sign) - my horoscopes today are elaborate

something does feel like it has shifted/shifting, for sure, since I lit that candle. I mean, it might be partly that a label in Polish I can't read says that vodka was 180 proof, but still, the answer to "could I fall in love with a woman I've known almost 30 years?" was not no 👀. for instance

to be clear, I don't think lighting a witchwish 🕯 DOES a new thing, it's more like - (sigh) how do I explain it (?), something is already there. like any flame, it consumes stuff (02, wax, intention kindling) and gives off stuff (warmth/light). the power of that, the smell of it and duration etc, depends. and any multiplication makes it stronger, the whole "if two people pray in my name" phenom is in every spiritual tradition I can think of, including the bible (matthew 18:19 if ur interested). 3 witches be ideal. I am always solitary, but I know my mother is praying too at the same cluster of wish: for more. (pull pull) so I know at least 2 witches are pulling

This eclipse is the sixth of a total of seven on the Virgo-Pisces axis. The cycle has been underway since September 17, 2024, and will end in February 2027. This makes this full moon less of an isolated event and more like another chapter in a story that’s been unfolding for some time.

ok welp, let's take a peek at Sept 16-18 ish in '24. a lunar eclipse, I watched it rise then kept an eye on it, filling with "fuck no" in every life category, failing my own "if you won the lotto" assignment ; a cat (black, on glider, look close); followed by a signal ("for you version")

my body had decided right then, before I fully knew it. I was leaving (pulling AWAY from) Nebraska. and I pretty explicitly invited Huck-for-Cats towards me to "say something" which by November, he had (the "something" undefined)

by this coming February, what will have happened? no clue. maybe Hawaii, closing a loop. maybe the school will close / go under. either or both, off the top of my head, are entirely possible. but more importantly are the possibilities I can't yet see.

by the end of that month in '24, "she" of a novel I hadn't yet imagined in my wildest dreams had shown up

today is the "fall faculty forum", thankfully on zoom. while I listen with camera off, laptop on the kitchen counter, I am going to bake a How to Huckleberry Honey Cake to bring to Union's picnic tomorrow

when the moon rises later, a new batch of dickbutter 

c'mon Janis, we gotta get up

update - I got the time wrong - got all set up to bake my gunslinger honey cake and ran to Tops quick for a missing ingredient, racing back just in time ...  to have missed the faculty forum by 2 hours. nobody texted "where are you" which is a clear sign: not missed/needed there

instead, I heard a new obscure song on a Canadian station in the truck

youre the kind of trouble - (paul kennerly) the wrights

and got a greeting 

first Vegas lotus
(better late than never)

not there yesterday, not even a bud, but there he is turning his face towards the sun

for a second or two, felt like 👀 

🤔 huh

gettin gone - earnest ft snoop dog

me: I threw out my scale, over it!

her: cover eyes, guess

me: 104 pounds

her: 104.4 - you are back on top of you yes?

me: well, someone has to be on top of me 

us: 🤣🤣

her: (looking me over, reviewing all the tests, listening to me list mountains climbed, weights lifted, etc) everything look excellent, any concerns

me: no, nothing hurts!

her: except 👆 (pointing at her heart)

me: yes 💔 except that 💔

her: (holds out tissues, I wave them off) how old is mama?

me: 83

her: me too, we are sandwich generation, kids old people no life

me: yea my greatest health risks by far are my damn job and social isolation

her: my husband, they say they fire 9. 6 just say no and quit. 3 have to sign the paper (she means the nda, which means we are not supposed to be talking about it, but ya)

me: yes, 9 was our number too. md's can't be in teachers union

her: pharmacist don't need headache

me: my social isolation problem is  those were all my friends, fired over and over, so I don't have many friends left. and as I said, my love life is shit

her: you try apps?

me: fuck. no.

us: 🤣🤣

her: understand, and it will be hard for you so healthy and mountain hobbies. most men your age are, how you say "busted"?

me: 🤣 yes busted - beer bellies and bad attitudes

her: maybe younger but not want babies, men like that (she rolls her eyes)

me: if you know any recently widowed cowboys btw 45-55 years old, keep me in mind 

us: 🤣🤣

her: I like your boots!

me: thanks, I want to be prepared in case line dancing magically appears

her: maybe we go young as 42, yes?

us: 🤣🤣

she didn't even hassle me about the bone density, clearly no longer frail. densetits test will be plenty. with doc's blessing, it's martini club night. ever-nerdy, E has mixology books and a kit and all that jazz. she makes 2 new cocktail recipes, 2 martinis each, plenty to render me talkative af. and I supply weird ingredients like sugar cured spruce buds and/or vodka with no English on the label + charcuterie board, of course.

that's just me - riley green new release - surely he's under the medically suggested 42 years of age, but the mustaches slay me, and he has landed quite a few of my thoughts this last year

virgo plodding staus:

sheduled the cottage closing mid-sept, gonna stay there weekdays until ✅️

March conference proposal submitted ✅️

HAWAII conference proposal pending, but shall be submitted shortly! (and if accepted, I'm fucking GOING)

lawn still needs mowed 🤷🏽‍♀️

card of the day, mos def feelin it

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). With an imagination so creative, optimistic and willfully oblivious to limits, you have no problem building things up in your head to improbable proportions. But improbable things happen every day. You've been lucky before, and it's coming back around.

ADVERTISING

ADVERTISING

watching my mother's candlelight dance

I don't know why grabbing my horoscope today added ADVERTISING! but somehow it seemed funny with my mom's candle, so I left it. Yes, ma, I should join the USO or whatever 👌. She would point out that the neighbors already have xmas lights (as you can see thru the curtain), and that I should "get with the program" of Vegas more (otherwise how's pollacks supposed to know where to find me?) - I continue to pray fervently 🙏 for her to be able to come back and drive me fuckin crazy with that bullshit. 

cigarrete burns - corey kent

"Giorgio and Josie both looked at the people and creatures they encountered and really saw them, if you know what I mean. Do you? Have you ever met a person who, while regarding another, makes them feel absolutely seen? Such people are rare, indeed." (said the dog) ~ A Heartbeat at My Feet, Kirsten Judd

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). If you only knew the depth, breadth and intensity of pure love directed at you on a regular basis, all life's irritations, frustrations and injustices would be swept away by the mighty current of this profound truth. 👀 huh (my dog totally loves me 👆)

I think the horoscope is just referring to my mother, but she would pull a pile of dicks at me 🤣

I wish I was good at anything else. And I'm working on it. But I can't help knowing how it all works. It's like HVAC - if you get it, you can look through walls at it and know stuff. I solved the rogue grit class problem yesterday and several other people are getting the credit and the money. I'll solve several other problems just like that, receeding+usefully. I am not bringing more anger and fear into those rooms, and cried out all sadness before I got there. Did I pass my own asshole test yesterday? Mos def. I am not sure what comes back at me is love, more like profound refief. But that's good. Palliative Care can be my blog nickname this week.

going gone - josiah & the bonnevilles