"I think maybe love is about choosing who I want to witness me, who I know watches me in the way I want to be watched". ~Elseship, Tree Abraham

A weekend spent with Bug was a bit of slap upside my head. I don't want to dwell, don't want to wawa, don't want more time on any kinda shitty; I am trying every day to be PRESENT and putting out goodness/healthy. When I look backwards, it is to salvage what can be salvaged.

Power, I believe, is not a thing you HAVE, it's always present and fluid and we merely direct it for good or ill. Or fail to direct it at all (sheeple syndrome).

Bug has her own beliefs. She believes that my power/person has been taken as granted / siphoned. That I have been diminished by evilasses, as the heroine often is in plotlines, before a resurgent deadly comeback. That evil caused me harm, visible to her in the half my weight, half the house, half or less as many words (often dead silent). That something(s) need more than just kicked to the curb. She can't quite articlate all that, but she can by adding these drawings. There are the "kill me, I dare you" types, my fave. And 

some folks deserve
dismemberment

In my lately Irish goodbyes, I dis-member-ed myself. Maybe it is time to reverse blink. Now that I have settled in what looks like a life cut to the size of her ("closests"), the policy going forward: membership limited (!) + dismemberment for cause ☠️! signs (like the "Posted" signs she has seen). 

Fewer candles, more torches.

She does not yet understand the delicate balance of defiance (life supportive) versus bitterness (dis ease). But she is also not entirely wrong.

"Don’t Let ‘Em (Get Inside Of Your Head)" - Julian Taylor ft Jim James

karma - AJR for me from Bug. she is pickin up what I'm puttin  down, unnervingly captured in the sing-song style of children's CGI movies music

hahahahaha ❤️🌪

"The first day of the last week of the year brings a fresh Aries moon and a dare: "Pick a card, any card." The lunar hand features a Jupiter square, a Centaurian conjunction and a Mercury trine. So what do you need most in these final hours of 2025? Closure perhaps? Luck? The boldness to speak up? The humility to stand down? The choice is yours."

guess I'll pull the card of the day..

means CHOICE
"The word "choice" comes from Middle English chois, borrowed from Old French chois (Modern French choix), meaning selection, fact of having a choice"

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Your rational side may take charge for a while, but the emotions don't just disappear, they wait. You may need to compartmentalize a feeling, but make time to return to it later so it doesn't weigh on you.

Yes, I shall be me again today. 

Another card for insight.

 

"puppypile"

I bracketed it (mostly) until all was quiet, them all asleep in a giant pile of childdog.

Today, new day, a cake with secret vegetables in it. We have settled into the new routine - sleepovuhrs (so cute how they say it) start with me then cousins next, so the germs go that way. If I feel hard feelings, I will go ahead and feel em, but later. I will light a candle.

"who is who game", TJ quizzing (they oddly love this game)

who is is your mom's mom?

YAYA! 

who is my mom?

SHE'S WHITE! 

🤣 very nearly 

like hell I do - ken presse (acoustic) - the official vid has the saloon vibe, but I like the gritty-irked solo 

Virgo: Christmas is over. 

Brainfried in a panic I thought "I forgot to call my dad!" and slammed my jaw shut, falling asleep that way, waiting for it to unclench (it didn't).

One more holiday to go. Unless another option (magically) arrives, my current plan for New Years Eve is bourbon. (Kill it.)

At the heart of each lesson plan is defiance, how to in a million forms - defying Death, in this case, "how to" they do.

Reading: Between Two Kingdoms (excerpt)

Media: American Symphony (watch)

Media: Awake My Soul - Mumford w Jon Baptiste (listen)

*Reflection assignment: focus on the lengthy dedicated silence during American Symphony (performance) as starting point. Then tell me about what it means to express dedication.

card of the day - "student of swords" - used to be his. I pulled it after midnight, then worked.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). What if you did what you naturally want to do?

(truth or dare)

2nd day in a row

[daydreams evaporate like vapo rub]

I need my power to laugh fully restored. To that end, I went and got Sunshine for dickbutter making, new batch new intentions new ingredients (stir the cauldron). Bad as I Used To Be came on the radio. I told her I had chosen it in the summer as a theme song for self-restoration. She listened, "Yeah as bad as I used to be!, not the chump! I was last year!" 

🤣 

says the girl who had sex "for like 7 hours" last night w a guy who looks like a young wesley snipes - who is that? - "eh (shrugs) I don't even say his name right, but he's real nice"

🤣 

there is only one HER

from the Grit class reading list:

"To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that details one's failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every screening. (...) To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves." On Self-Respect, Joan Didion

growing orchids in budvases

soltice silent yoga class, 90 min, 105+ degrees, no instructions or more light than the candles after the brief sun set. I was up front and feeling natural (wild animal-y) in teachermode, everyone staying in unison. - high as a kite #endorphins

🙏 all-natural good brain chems - 
 a beanie baby ("Stinky") toy for playful + those chems, a protection candle, a moon candle, and a grave dirt candle for my father in the middle so that he might stick around a while and patrol my vicinity
smib

"joy is rebellion"

play

dont mind if I do - riley green

hold me like you mean it - "Janis Joplin" for me 

I did not get my little wish.

I lasted not even 1 song's worth. It took way longer to find parking than it did to walk the fuck outa there. 5 minutes wasn't much time for even a tiny wish to manifest, but, just No. 

Poor Sunshine in her fishnet and thigh boots wasted on me. Though she had her pal Tabitha (theoretical dd) and could have stayed, she followed me right back out the door. In the freezing cold with no pants and on 4" heels, she trotted after me. The golumpki came in handy yet again to make it up to the girl who grew up down the street from the Polish Nook, and the extra tray I was going to freeze became dinner at midnight. It was lucky food.

While the dd (the only one who drank 🙄) snored on JonHamm, we watched 3000 Years of Longing, which I had never heard of and was dubious but I owed her a good time. And she was right, I loved the film. OMG my mom would loooove love love it. I wish I could rewatch it with her today.

I am not sure that what my little heart desires even exists in this world anymore, Ma. 

wishes - slow leaves for you (maybe you will meet a djinn)

to a child, this looks like an expanse of snow angels
#waiting to happen

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Not only have you survived enormously stressful circumstances, but sometimes you've chosen them on purpose. It was out of duty, or to answer a calling — but now it's because the hard things have taught you that you can do anything.

free - god only knows who from K-Pop Demon Hunters, which I am currently "watching"..

 #(things you do for love 😵‍💫)

#(things you do for love 😵‍💫)

.. while inside my head spin thoughts I would tell no living soul

meanwhile, pancakes, the kids need fuel for the living room dance battle going on hour 2 ....

"human being"

all - grouplove

disco - tiny horse released today.

welp next year is practically here, and meanwhile I got the kids back, my dog fetid pile

a breath of 💞02

(finally)

so despite having to schedule a paw biopsy for Dball (🤯💔) and a brief pointless freak out over nacrotic lungs, I didn't choke anyone out

or demand it

and everyone lived happily ever status quo 

creatures in heaven - glass animals Bug always brings me a song 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Like most smart, thoughtful people, you notice that some of what drifts through your mind is not accurate, helpful... or even yours! Today, there will be some benefit to an action taken unthinkingly. Heed instinct, and even impulse.

Steam just whistled out the top of my head. What if I stopped being so "reasonable"? Acted on my own instincts, maybe even implulses. 

Right now, from just in front of my ear down my jawline is locked (gritted), down my throat (slammed shut, wanting a cigarette). Why am I chock full of restraint? 

Is that locked jaw even mine? I am on my 1st cup of coffee, so why do I feel on my feet and sick of juggling shit already? Whose restraint is this? And if it's not mine, why am I handcuffed by it? (Not in a good way.)

sanity: 100%

status: alive

personality: (fill in the blank as you see fit)

There is a wall of glass in front of me. What is "real" is being curated. I can feel it, somehow someway, it's there. Tap tap, is this shit bulletproof? 

"stretch ft hurty paw" 

it's felt like a call almost twice kinda day, all day, for no reason I can name / put my finger on

I won't call even once, of course, unless I was dying. no, even then, not unless someone else (more important) were dying

why? 

I don't know why. because it's not my line to cross, if I had to say

it was a solid day, for me, objectively. my friend came over, he will build me bookshelves though he doesn't like not tearing down the walls to insulate, so we had to discuss my still often painful existential state, which I argued supercedes any practicality god damn it (if I have to be reasonable one more time so help me) because I need reasons to embrace the day I am in much more than I need lower heat bills, so I need books around me now for one thing, I need it to be now Craig, imperfect is fine, and moreover, I need something for my unspent mental and physical energy before I supernova - do you have any idea how many jokes I have not told in this horrible hamster wheel of sadtime? the loss to my personhood is incalculable - so I need a shed and a fence imminently because none of us are professors as we were, and unlike everybody around me, my professional identity is kinda it cz my personal life is well I. don't. have. one., so I'm  "someone's mom" which is lovely while also setting the bar at being vertical  (insert jerk off italian hand gestures anywhere btw), and I want a fucking shed more than I want insulation twatever, I want to rip a living soul into being or some shit, so let me be of service to pollinators for the love of. Like this. "Oh, I can build that for you no sweat, and could probably do at least a back fence." And that was it. Existential sand in my vagina noted. Answer: woodwork. 

Sometimes men are okay. He sure didn't want me to keep talking hahahaha and he can't just fuck me so thank god there are chores hahahaha.

Then I took Ears to the Misfits Xmas Market and we both went wild. He got this hat that looks like my eyeball and a punisher looking skull mug. I got 2 rare, as in I have never seen the like, spell candles. Gnarly ones. "Fear is excitement without breathing" type shit. And I met this crazy couple who grow/sell chakra oriented weed (comes with tea), and she can add reiki. I am down with alllllll of that. Yes. Feel better. I want it. 

Interesting note: They're out of throat chakra. Sold out all the time. I wonder if people know they're holding feeling with their throat fists? They have wondered the same thing. 

Then Ears 'n I hit The Steer for rib eyes. And continued to talk about how to exist. Of all the "sorts" of people that feel like mine, the self-marginalizing are def some of my folk. And his. And we pay for it, as everyone pays / is paying for something (half to death sometimes). I don't know why I felt 😭 half of today. I saw my therapist during one of my morning cries, when I know something bad but can't say what it is. She wasn't phased. Again, diagnosis: sane. There are guzzillion reasonable reasons to cry. 

What would happen if I couldn't be reasonable, if that broke? Could I break (free of) it?

can you believe that shit? status alive, wow. she gets it already.

Tomorrow, first sleepover. They're getting every present as just stuff here, like xmas installment one. I need more than one this year. I think I'm owed at least 2-3 that aren't 

like this.

prizefighter - mumford & sons February 13th - same date (give or take) - the rest of the LP will drop including a track with Chris, whose gritty growl has sung me through the darkness so many times. Whatever that song is will be the soundtrack for the end of the "whens" I set out to get, what seems like another lifetime ago.

[image removed]

“Fear is excitement without the breath,” ~ Existential Kink 

separate ways (worlds apart)  - journey remix

"kitchenwitchery"

magical artifacts

In the snow, I can see the big red fox tracks standing out clearly. I feel instinctively very protective of it. The world has very little room or tolerance for the wild.

"nervous hands"

Awake at 1 pm like the red fox in my yard.

#grit

come on get happy - the partridge family 

work

After threatening to fire me again passive aggressively by shutting the program and offing a couple other people, they asked me to develop a class on a single word.

"Grit."

I said yes immediately. First of all, my chair is one of mine. So from me, he gets whatever he asks. And this is the part of my job that I always liked the best. When I was free to think about a Thing. 

I am no longer the horse. The "work harder" belief, just No. It's a trap / addiction. You convince yourself that you have to, for some future benefit or to react to some crisis or both. But you'll keep convincing yourself and finding reasons to do so until you work your life to smithereens.

That said, I would be far worse off without my job right now for a lotta reasons beyond just money. 

Grit. More. "Fine." 

I turn inward. But I think as I go, and I get paid for that part.

my mother is growing too weak to paint 😪

so now I draw on walls

working grit unit titles (6 weeks)

1. relax, nothing is under control
2. diy, get used to it
3. diy, fight it
4. cut into it, [aka Knife lessons]
5. more love ft. more constraint(s) [where the concept of "more" is reflected upon using the Thoreau quote]
6. life co-pays 

The wallpaper lady, who in 10 minutes made bestest friends with mom of course (she pantomimed a joke that included crossdressing and buttfucking and politicians to crack her up) described herself as a maximalist, assuming me to be the same based on the visuals. "Ya know like some people are minimalists? No." To her, my flea-ing looks more-ish. 🤔

In philosophy, "more" isn't a single concept but appears in various contexts: as an ineffable reality beyond logical grasp (William James), the idea that wholes exceed their parts (holism), the philosophical study of quantity and measurement (semantics), or as a shorthand for seeking deeper meaning beyond simple existence, contrasting with minimalism or reductionism. Philosophers explore what "more" means in terms of consciousness, the universe's structure, ethics (like "more is better" for meaning), or even the function of language itself. 

Here are key philosophical interpretations of "more":

• Mystical/Religious "More" (William James): A deeper, ineffable reality or "subliminal consciousness" that logical language can't fully capture, suggesting life experiences beyond scientific reductionism.
• Holism ("More Is Different"): The idea that complex systems (like living organisms or ecosystems) have emergent properties that aren't present in their individual parts, making the whole fundamentally "more" than the sum of its components (as in Philip Anderson's physics concept).
• Ethics & Meaning of Life: Questions arise if "more" is inherently better (e.g., an eternal life having "more" meaning than a finite one) or if simplicity ("less is more") leads to greater fulfillment, as seen in minimalism or simple living.
• Philosophy of Language & Logic (Alexis Wellwood): Analyzing how words like "more" function, introducing concepts of "measure functions" to understand how we quantify things (e.g., "more coffee," "more intelligent").
• Metaphysics/Cosmology: Seeking a cosmic perspective to understand humanity's place, exploring if reality itself has a deeper, transcendent "more" beyond our immediate perception. 

Essentially, "more" in philosophy points to what lies beyond the immediately observable, quantifiable, or logically definable, whether in consciousness, the universe, or the pursuit of meaning. 

(back to) "always fine"

I swallow blood globs of feeling and hold them there like an iron throat-fist. 

hammer to fall - queen

I am absorbing Knife wisdom, such as flannel lined long underwear (bc we must be warm) that is leatherette (bc, duh) - then a parade of boots, from which she chose (they need polishing)

"choose life,

choose pie." Says God.

neutron dance - pointer sisters 

Choose wallpaper also, beauty. 

Did you know that when JFK was shot, Jackie O said what the people needed to heal was more beauty? That that was what was wrong with us all, a beauty starvation sickness. That doesn't feel incorrect to me. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You've been an emotional barista lately, serving comfort, pep and reassurance on demand. Slip yourself a refill. A single kind thought toward yourself changes the flavor of your whole day.

DIY: "The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings." she says to herself (via her mother telling her so). 

(Robert Louis Stevenson)

I am about to go out into the cold and move the cars to the street so that more wood can be delivered. And then except for going in and out for 1 log at a time very carefully, I ain't doing shit today but spending the last day I've got with my mom, fussing wallhangings and getting her food (every old person's very favorite parts of the day). 

I will let her say something nice to me without deflecting it for a change, to "flavor my day". Bold is her new fave butterknife word for me. I'll take it as a good thing today. And maybe even wear the stupid boyshorts 🙄. And not choke her out when she says stuff like "you wouldn't be long on the vine if you went to a mixer!" like I'ma gonna join the USO. And we will look at David Harbour allll day, he's grown on her 💘 like a supersized helping of pollack 😂

songs from Stranger Things - I shazam songs constantly watching that show. nostalgia on steroids #og

so far away - carole king

card of the day (again), cardinal earth(y), maybe she likes the new color in her honor

not everything is worth a candle

full moon tonight, the Cold Moon, longest nights of the year moon

🙏

truth or dare?

If I could define the energy shift, I guess I'd settle on "mixed feelings"

 

"blendprocity"

reading Bread of Angels, her new memoir on topic. she has helped me widow before.
"–What is God? –Presence in the face of suffering."

collage pieces, no working title yet, leaning on another guiding spirit - Bettie's trying to figure out how to heal everything and has discarded laces (restraints) 

"Performative morality isn't the same as genuine goodness."

color: "inner thigh" (Bettie's)

 current color: "cadavor testicles"

old friends - chris 

execution is aim

"Our life was obscure, perhaps not so interesting to some, but for us it was a whole life. Sometimes challenging, yet I could feel my own evolution in slow, but real time. It was painful, as though scrubbing centuries of skin, ash, debris, from an unearthed vessel coming at last into its own." ~patti smith

a log rolled off a pile on to the top of my foot, an inevitable consequence of choosing woodburning, I accept responsibility for my trauma(s), but I howled then criiiiiiied, it hurt so bad. my mother, very agitated came running (hobbling) up with a fun size snickers bar to help

"All is but an intermission, of small and tender consequence."

finished "cupid's butt"

[image removed]

"Eventually we must act, set in motion a process that will push us closer to the open wound." smib, patti smith

momisms

"Where would I be without nonsense?" 

"her bed is big enough for a boy band. wouldn't that be fun?"

"I was not the marrying type, I determined."

TJ: do you remember the first time you knew I'd smoked weed

me: no

TJ: you took my face in your hands and said "hi baked brie" 

me: omg I love me in that story! 

TJ: it's a good one 

Today is matriarchal. 💯 

Mom coming back, and she is the Main Attraction, but I am to where everyone returns to find her or to find whatever else they're short on in human nutrients. And that's my logic, under the paying off necssessities for life (shelter), under it all, I want those sensations. And to be freed of the trapped choked not in a good way throttled sensation that exists in its place.

In yoga, I noticed that my jaw was clenched, of course. But also, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth down the back of my throat all the way down to the clavicle or whatever the fuck that is between your collarbones. 

That's the sensation of trapped. 

I really do not like that sensation. It's a problem.

manicure and a preroll #selfcare

My mother has been staying safe from me down in Irving. Another round of firings left me alive for now (again) but in a dark place, 4 others in the woodchipper. And I just felt slapped hard (not in a good way). 

"If you miss a beat, invent another." patti smith, a patron saint

Gonna stop writing like it's talking for a spell. The Piano is my Tombstone. "I'm your Ada-berry", one might say.

The last song posted was for him. I unravel slow. I am just leaving it there for him like a crouton. 

I go down in pieces - patsy joplin reblogging it, twatever

If you reach and they run, you're not in a relationship of reciprocity; you're in a game. It's better to be in a dance than a game. There's no chasing in dance, just maintaining space to avoid stepping on toes.

I don't like games.

Everybody thinks being an asshole is accomplishing something these days for some weird reason. (It is not.) 

Am I fired? No. Then do fuck off. I'm busy writing a novel in which people say things like "I want you to survive this" when they really mean the you/I reversed. #pronouns

As for what this blog was started for and has tried to provide, a safe space for intimate inner life stuff - how-to, who-to, and all the art(s) made to explore how it is to navigate intimacy around such pressing things as work and mortality and children - welp, this is love in the time of cholera, only not much different. If anything, the intensity and stakes both increase, which might be exciting. But some rules of physics apply, like wet is wet. 

oh no - the decemberists

 

I do like cupid's butt

I am calling this color "Cupid's Butt" - we had it matched from a swatch of wallpaper and I bet you anything she will pronounce it fleshy and come up with somethijg funnier and worse 

take the day, eat cake, adjust, nap