Grit Assignment: Reductio ad Absurdum of American Individualism (in situ)

grading papers in my kitchen, 🤏 concerned about Craig (a first), he's never arrived unprepared before (like yesterday) or ghosted. one of my 'characters' is acting
#outofcharacter - these days, I assume all uncharacteristic quiets are potentially deadly, which is fair

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. 

this is it - kenny loggins

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?  

cheeky lil shit

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. 

Jeff, the ersatz bftree
🤔
I think I have the first phallusueous stone burial site, and I have a perfect candidate. To do plantwork is very different than 🕯. And to plant an object, it has to be something you like and want to keep and/but you will give to the tree/spot because here you are.

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.

raisin bran chocolate chip

The Buffalo Miracle 

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.

Not much is up today, unless 💣 of some kind goes off, always possible. Reading/writing, cleaning, yoga, planting the last shrubs, making a new cake or cookies, maybe beef barley soup (dash of Greek nostalgia). Craig is already here, sanding drywall, telling me about South Park  (Ears and I are definitely catching up on that, I gotta see the devil's buttbaby for myself). He didn't bring the right primer, so can't finish today - maybe he likes it here - we all do miss each other still, that didn't magically poof when new troubles overlayed it. Ears is hot for The Fish Place. We decided fish people are one of our kind because their stores don't open til noon (potheads 👍). Ears'll maybe begin this. And/or, today he drives for the first time, to The Fish Place, up Colvin to Robinson, a known route - hunter/gatherer brain chems, harvesting aquarium plants.

oh yeah, and I gotta find where I vote now (here). Ears is currently disenfranchised, I believe 🤔

OH AND how could I forget? The mts therapy team was here today, and the woman, when she heard the "invigorated" thing re D-Nozl, you shoulda seen her face 😳

us:🤣🤣🤣🤣

"so we are going to really need to work on boundary setting skills!" 

update: got a 2nd opinion re electricical. I am stupified by the normalization of greed. at the normalization of Shitty in just about every category of "normal" life. I think what I thunk before: then don't lead a normal life. Lead whatever life (in each category, make a list, stay on task, start with whatever it worst and kill that, just upend it completely, hopelessly wreck it and don't try to fix it) feels healthiest for you. It is an odd thing to have to be at odds with life if you wanna live. I was not gonna lose my shit either way, but this taught me (again) the rules (of no). In addition to disengagement from ways of thinking imposed on me (nothing framed for me, not even npr now), no more dealing with anything but real people. I hate to say it, but I might need to see (other) people Amazon. And mos def nothing but family run businesses, trucks solid but not showy. I did a localvore winter once. I did stuff like that after. Me and the kids would go on little spiritual awareness experiments/staycations. We would try A Thing and see what we got out of it (become wiser together). Bringing this back but updated. We are going try try no AI-assisted purchasing. If it has a helpbot, go further down the list of options until you get the wife who runs the place. That could be funtionally impossible (as is localvorism, no coffee? seriously? chicory root my ass). But ... 🧐 there is a level of optout/intoelse that we either haven't hit yet or we haven't hit enough crucial categories yet 🧐. We need to find it. 

I read that whole thought process out to him. He concurs. 

update: "The Beet Queen"
I am in the "waiting room" (parking lot) of Horizon, working from my phone, juggling electricians, holding my pee for an extra hour because Ears cannot remember any appt time or do ANYTHING requiring deadlines/timethoughts. This appt was supposed to be over now, but nope, another hour, then race to the next one. Not complaining! Cz nobody is in the hospital (far as I know)! And even if they were, lament wouldn't help. Only a book might. maybe 🕯
#keepbreathing

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

the generator is SO LOUD there is no forgetting even for a minute this latest cuff upside the head. if I didn't have to hear it, I could notthink about it. until least Wed. so loud my teeth vibrate. 

-_- nobody is in a hospital = success (repeat the mantra) but man, I am being goaded something fierce. 

I dunno what is pissing in my cheerios more, this motherfucking built like shit house draining me when I'm down again, or D-Nozl telling Ears that talking to me again and moving back here has made him "newly invigorated". I am not losing my shit but white knuckling it barely big time by my own. it makes me sooooo maaaad to mad-cry.  I just can't make any of that funny 💔 esp D-Nozl...yea thats worse than $. I don't feel safe. my heart is beating like a sqirrel. a caged one.

later: the electrician dude I had to call cz my generator came on is gonna be 7k. and D-Nozl doing yoga once was funny, but invading my safe space is very much not okay, even for Ears, to whom I said said no for the first time, in obvious pain that I could not cover up for the first time 😭no

I was very nice, all day, just in case the whole angel in disguise proverb whatever, but it was surprisingly hard to do that, and that showed on me, the hardness of it. I think that's fine, if I can 🌪 nicely 

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

update:

me: (tell him my horoscope)
him: well then the tree stump guy is an angel
me: ya I'm only seeing him and your father today so ..
him: yea, I did that math real quick, def the stump guy is ur only shot 
us: 🤣🤣

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

Don't mind me, I'm just working. It's Fri, so student progress (lack of) reports duly submitted, and EVERYONE has "out of office" on today. So, back to the other work, the paper without a thesis and I don't even want one hahaha (maybe that's how I go rogue, I go to islands and give papers with no theses about islands). 

For the record of the Antelope Wife/Woman trail of revisions, my beloved papargraph does not survive any revision, it exists only once. 

In that, I sorta see a pattern developing. It's not a thesis, it's too nonlinear for that. It's an all-over feel of time passing through the character bodies linked to gender. Woman get less romantic and men get more fragile - for lack of a better way to put it yet. In this particular trail, the revisions get rid of the suicides, everyone lives. But. The woman is more interested in law school than either dude, the suicidal one stays alive but drunk forever, and the baker goes from stolid chocolate to anxiety jelly-filled. 

And then there is Shadow Tag. No sign of any of it being published in short form anywhere, and it was never revised. It has no dedication, no lube at all, just straight to fucked. Both lead characters die by drowning, the worst way in Erdrich's cosmology - there is never rest for the drowned. But the cosmology itself is broken, there only in pieces, both characters are Native but belong to no community but themselves like curated content. They drink too much, but that isn't what kills them - they can't let each other go. It's a divorce that can never get done rather than a marriage actually. One tries to save the other, but with drowning that just hardly ever turns out well. They both go under. And the final voice belongs to the daughter, who is angry at both her parents but her mom more. 

for dad, but he jumped anyway

for mom, who tried to save him

maybe I am trying to be trusted with this narrative 

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).

"Jeff" the pussy willow tree

 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 🙏🕯

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 😵‍💫🤣 

snort 

one should always be in love. ~Oscar Wilde

if a door could be sexy

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 

3 a.m. I don't know why I am awake to feel nothing

 

we went to the hottest hardest yoga shit on the menu, 4:30 to 7:15 straight on through. staring down the barrel of the back-to-work date of monday and all the paperwork, we both felt like we needed it, to go to ground (get on the floor). I am very fortunate that he also needs exertion like that in regular bouts. You can only think about what you feel while you are doing that, pure. And we both need the instructions again for how to get home. example: "You can do anything for 10 seconds" is literally true at that moment, but it also means it won't always be this way. "Thank your self for giving you grace and bringing you here." Go (do where (what) you need to re(learn) feeling after something has become clotted, no bloodflow to it - don't leave the toe of your soul in your shoe. Ears and I agree fundamentally on these ways to see; we are looking at different things. It is precious to me, how we can say these things and come to accords naturally.

An aquarium with one shark in it because they don't like to people either (ie socialize). If fish had cell phones, the shark wouldn't like talking on it. Capeshe? This became clear to him in an AHA moment at hour 2-ish. I do not doubt it. 

(to be clear, I am never rehoming a fucking fish, I swear to God / "you'll strangle me?" / too soon god damn it 🤣🤣)

this guy. I'm pulling for the name 'Meow' based on his original lands. In Thai, the word for "cat" is

แมว (pronounced mæw or maew).

It sounds very similar to the English word "meow"

update: because all my friends are gone, I gotta joke around about AI with fuckergpt during this crapola

I know I gotta go, what kills me is I gotta do it with a straight face. like, if there were any opportunity to take a pic of my painties under the table, ANYTHING!....but no 🫩 I'll just take notes 🫩

$10 says it's gonna come with a DAISY pin, so we can demonstrate our "buy in" - you think it can't happen, but I lived through the PENGIUN PIN year (I ordered mine from ebay w red eyes, just different enough to keep em guessing)

wait, what does "daisy if you do" mean again? - something bad ...

 cedar waxwing 

reading was my writing, Marta once wrote of me

my kids are sooo fucking funny - they just get it 🤣 💞

date he's expected back to work is now the 4th of Dec. 

after these intense rounds of eval and suicide safety planning 😵‍💫 we take a field trip. otherwise, I get him back here and his nerves are shot and he's a lump, so we gotta BALANCE that, I figure. today was Reid's cheeseburgers and Pets Plus in Lockport, both surprisingly delightful dives. so many bad decisions are to be had at the exotic pet store - good thing it's all expensive! even so, if we keep this up there will be fish inevitably. 

weirdest toad ever

it's a rock that's alive

 

softshell Chinese turtle had a big personality