witchwalking 🕯

 

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. 

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

I already deleted the mornings's blabla blogging. I had a whole long series of thoughts about what it might mean, could mean, that court-vigil day got cancelled like a snow day. 

My boss just called, my program got cancelled today too, filled with students. I am back to maybe fired again. Always trying to outrun that ball. 

Except I am not trying to do that anymore. 

I'd rather a dodgeball get thrown at my head.

I didn't ask for anything. It's a different kind of spellwork that I'm working on. Closer to sex magic. New moon in Scorpio today. Deliberately uncontained, a kind of tension. Intentionally alter the way I feel. Not like candle work. More like lighting a fire. Which I also do, too. Pulling warmth into me. I am the caldron type deal. The brew is whatever cooks up.

All day long, I am thinking about that chocolate, the YES coin from Trader Joes from that spell cast back in the spring. I fed a chunk to my mother, which might help explain "Sweetie Pie". Since then, it's been turning pale in the fridge, I am sick of looking at it, I am going to transmute it. I am going to break it, subdue it, fold it into More and bake it into lava then eat all of it. I poured myself a hot hot bath, took the gooey thing into the tub on a plate, I am swallowing the first huge hot mouthful of it as I am settling into the steam and my ass is still stinging. Yea I am thinking about him, that I ain't his Mama whatsoever. (Jackie is better!) Then the phone rings, he is ❤️‍🔥 with wins.

His mama. Jeezus fucking christ. What the actual hell. 🤏 close to another parent death spiral?! 😳

Talk about something I never thought I'd have on my bingo card: I fervently want Low Cunning to be fine. For them to be fine, and to look at each other and wonder how each of them went through what probably was one of the worst month(s) of their lives this last month + and did not talk to each other about it really. They fought around it is how they "talked".  👀 Polish still eludes me a lot. 

Lay down, I wanna talk to ya? 

Welp, there is one thing that we certainly agree on and that is we can't have our littles exposed to senselessness / life must be sense-made. And for me, that means my own life must be sense-made. 

I looked at myself just before I climbed into that bath with lots of my hair grown back in soft curls, I thought what a privilege it is to be healthy 👁 

"mecorating" (sense making)

I give my mother when my back is against the wall. Today, for instance, my son-in-law is picking her up after his Dr appointment. I am not bringing her, she will instead ride alone with him to their place. Whatever she will ask about how he is feeling, I would be afraid to ask. And whatever he says would be something he wouldn't say to me. I love them both, so I won't be in the car. And then my daughter will have Ma alone for a spell, and whatever she would say to her grandmother is not something that she would say to me, and whatever help my mother offers her is not something that she could take from me. 

Sometimes not-me is the best thing I can give. 

Tomorrow I have blocked my calendar with "in court". I'll be just here. Quietly alone. 

I am going to bake a cake.

"jon hamm"

lover please - melissa ethridge 

I mean, yea. I made jerk chicken, a little spicy but good. More painting prep, endless prep, endless water stains and problems found along the way, but I have a groove going, a friend showing up 2 days a week, Ears whenever he's needed. It's becoming a nest like only I would make a little more each day. Mostly still just fixing shit, but Couch comes home tomorrow. Comes home. I have been homesick nearly to death. This place is falling apart / seems like a good match.

  

Today, "keep doing it", the "it" of we're doing it. How I feel, aside from physically healthy and mentally appropriate (responses match reality, no catrophizing), is beside the point. For now. 

I stacked the wood. 

good intentions

"Sweetie Pie" is what she called him in her phone contacts. I dunno what she sent him, but I know he didn't respond to her either. 

I downplayed it. That's just modern life, Ma. You wait for people to text you back. Be grateful nobody died today, far as we know. "That is so depressing." It is not a thrill a minute. That is why joy is the most rebellious thing, if you can pull it off. 

I think of that as what it looks like but maybe it's just a stick

But truth is, I thruppled my worry, and it now includes her hurt feelings as well doing what she hasn't learned yet, ie worrying if it's something I said. I am 🤏 close to calling him right now to make sure he is alive...

 

what gave me a happy heart this week (aside from the obvious nobody died) = the legos. I got that right. it was just enough, not too much, not nothing, tangible

I'll drive - bros landreth

"needs happy fat"

VIRGO 

Your liver performs countless functions, including storing vitamins, synthesizing proteins, regulating blood sugar, filtering 1.5 quarts of blood per minute, and detoxifying metabolic wastes. It can regenerate itself from as little as 25 percent of its original tissue. It’s your internal resurrection machine: proof that some damage is reversible, and some second chances come built-in. Many cultures have regarded the liver not just as an organ, but as the seat of the soul and the source of passions. Some practice ritual purification ceremonies that honor the liver’s pivotal role. In accordance with astrological omens, Virgo, I invite you to celebrate this central repository of your life energy. Regard it as an inspiring symbol of your ability to revitalize yourself.

"what you want is attracted to your nonchalance"

🤔

ok there is a difference between NEH grants and milk sales. The former means you have nothing left to prove. 

 

doing it 

If he could go back to being 28 years old, something he has mentioned a couple of times. Welp winning two NEH grants felt no bigger of a WIN than when strawberry milk went on sale. Both were aimed at the same thing, making life sweet while living with caregiving. Not one or the other. Always one or the other. (No.)

Here is what would not have changed, no matter what: the burdens of illness(es) and caregiving would have increased, and both our feet would be nailed to the floor around that and kids even more.  Because, as my mother would put it, "that's the kind of hairpins we are".  Have always been. Will always be. 

We just know now which kids we have (so far) as it turns out, a couple more blondes a clutch more mochas and fucking break-up cats galore 🙄 + and radically increased expertise(s) around the same shit: illness and caregiving. Our increased expertise includes the emotional intelligence that comes from living in the shadow of child-death cz it'd have been Nova or Piper either way if we had known about either. 

Feet. Nailed.  

🤷🏻‍♀️ Welp, we both got better looking if you ask me. No, 🤔 he did. I look as peculiar as I feel, for better to some eyes (maybe).  

I am trying to be better not just flirt better (omg so rusty lol 🤦🏻‍♀️). He didn't go upstairs for the reason I thought and celebrated, to take a relaxed shit. (I'm sorry.) 

And son-in-law did get kicked to the curb out of a hob-ital today. As has happened every few months since the cf baby born in 2020, mid pandemic, when first responders were having their benefits withheld after risking their lives. Good times. 

Seems just inevitable that every round of this leaves him closer to dead, me closer to banktuptcy and raising 3 half-orphaned children that I rarely get to SEE around all this effort to keep them alive. Relentless. But today, somebody at Mercy gave a shit about it. For the very first time in 5 years. It ain't the lottery, but I am stupified grateful. 

So again, strawberry milk. It's the little (big) things. 

SUCH AS, I have recovered my ability to find (or make) something hilarious in every day. Today included the endo. Most patients seek this care for shit like ED or vaginal atrophy. Here starts the hilarious part - explaining vaginal atrophy to The Knife. "Every single day the Lord gives me something to be grateful for!" 🤭😅 

Momism of the day (so far): "Time will tell. On just about everything." 

At a certain point you can't do this by case study, and that's why you assign novels to medical students, healthcare students, because you need density of perspectives. But they can't read more than 250 words without losing patients/patience. They never have any time. So you have to cram everything in to have a page at most. So how do you cram it in? 

There are two mothers in the room, let's just try to take one. The one was born to a woman who had munchousins by proxy because of untreated traumatic stress around the near stillborn birth of a baby boy the year prior. The "near" means heart wrenching gasping attempts to cry. As a result, that woman's earliest memories are all of hospitals and procedures that were unnecessary, and injections of antibiotics that she became subsequently allergic to nearly to death, and her baby teeth rotted out of her head before anybody thought to maybe treat the mother, The Knife. And so a medical humanist was born and grew up in the seventies when secondary sex characteristics were valued prominantly.

That is just one character, and not the important one, in the room.

Everybody's backstory is more important than that one's. Her only importance is she's wallpaper 👁

The guy in the bed who could have died and left a family completely unprotected and unprovided for is most essential to this story. But he could easily be occluded by an entire floor of patients, all black, all who are very similar to him. So similar it's hard to see them as individuals for many of the people who keep them alive. And unbelievably, the people who keep him alive are often threatened with death of the same kind that he's threatened with: bad health insurance; bad debt to income ratio; bad work/life balance - suffering and gritting their teeth and grinding through, same same same. 

The wallpaper has given her entire life to this. She has been a patient as long as she can remember. She has been a parent almost as long as she can remember. She has been hellbent to be a storytelling-teacher for healers for almost as long as she's been a parent. All the lives in the room circle her like pesky cats trying to dominate the narrative. 

She knows what she wants right now, but she can't have it even if she could figure out how to give everybody else what it is they need. So what's the point of all this trying?, she often laments, as she keeps it up.

This was an utterly typical day. It just showed for a minute. Blink and you'd miss it. 

first lake effect snow day

welp, horoscope sure panned out, the honeymoon was brief, as it should be #reallife

At some point, Daughter 1 calls, son-in-law has been taken by ambulance to Mercy. She has no idea why or where their car is. I gotta think a minute. I call him, just I dunno, it seems a his wheelhouse thing (?). It has the word mercy in it.

We have been through this countless times, some version of it, with him or one of the girls, not to mention the extended clan, which if you count them then it's chronic. And lately, both my parents, one never to return. I passed Patti's house, looking for a place to park and think/talk it through again with him. He understands, the "intersectionality of social determinants of health" playing out in K's body, by extension rippling through my family, by extension the obligations that it has exacted from me and always will. 

That's a lot. 

Ok, we have a plan. He takes my mom for the evening. I grab Ears and extra car and head to Irving. Then snow slams that plan, the same fucking storm the son-in-law was plowing when he could no longer breathe earlier in the day. 

Plan B, hunker down, eat whatever he is making for my mom, I haven't eaten anything, and now tomorrow still has this logistical nightmare to figure out with meetings I can't miss too, so calories would be good. But plan B is out of the blue, and he doesn't love getting nzl'd when he is girding his loins for battle(s) grim. I'm not taking that personally at all. Well, maybe as a personal challenge, all in good time. Today I feel warm and grateful. That sausage, it tasted so good it kinda almost hurt.

There is no way to get around it that I can see. Life's a losing battle if you love anything. What's the fucking remedy for that again? 

first snow

I was 💯 convinced before I laid eyes on him that has gonna look half dead, or worse that he wouldn't show at all, leaving his near-death level to be guessed at ahhhhhhhh 😱. My mother was on search and rescue.

And then he kissed me. 

I need skirt that flairs easily. I want him kiss me again where I can straddle him, wherever he is completely relaxed sitting. Could I do it again/still? Soak his lap with all our clothes still on? The tops of my thighs were damp with my feet bare on the freezing concrete.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Everything has a price — dollars, energy, emotion. Something must be exchanged. Today, you will linger in the innocent moment before you learn the cost of a thing. For that childlike bubble of time, life feels wild and free.

relax - freeland

"not everything's worth a candle" 🤣
I fed a chunk of the YES chocolate to my mother, the candle just smells nice

"he makes me more delightfull"

looking at the world from the bottom of a well - mike doughty

I am not, but I have. From playlist "Shit's Been Worse" 

you can leave your hat on

Dball is a sensualist lol

 

full moon 🙏

all the contents are still in plastic, the case itself is pretty cool #slowburn

They told us a LOT about holsters in the class. So many opinions! But those guys don't wear skirts.

VIRGO There's something you're trying to express, heal or understand. 👁 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Not everyone needs the same kind of love. What feels good to one feels smothering or awkward to another. Your empathy is flexible. You sense what people need, or you ask them so you can love the way they'll actually feel it.

(Consider yourself asked. My witchguess is "loved by my mom" no matter whom I'm askin.) 

wait no more - scott helman

"Couch"

collage in process (5 of Cups reimagined)

you never can tell - elise legrow (chuck berry cover)

The entire little house has become an art therapy project. It took several weeks to nail the sink and dishwasher, not just the plumbing with the usual headaches like where the hell are the shut offs, but the carpentry to retrofit into old wooden cabinets. Almost every day now, we work on something. Today, I went to get another specialty piece of wood, and we got it working! So satisfying, like a puzzle. 

While I was out, I quickly perused the post halloween sales, scoring a crescent moon wreath of black and purple plumage, there is some little plastic spiders and whatnot hidden in there, to which we added Christmas glitter florals. We spread a sheet out on the floor in front of the fire to catch the glitter, cutting and weaving the wires together. Our first Cheektovegas xmas decor, darkly enchanting motif. And we laughed. We laughed so hard, we were all crying dying laughing gasping. You'd be suprised what can break loose like that. When is the last time you giggled madly until you had to catch your breath? If not lately, it might be trapped just beneath the surface. Right there. 

I'm okay. I'm not healed, that takes time, but I am playing my way back to sound of mind and body, at least. Reminding myself why I want to be alive in the first place. Because a lot of things are very funny, for one. And little pleasures are great. 

And now the tables turn a bit. My mother wants to tat worries. I have not found that to be a worthwhile activity much. Unless there is an action step, maybe glitter in it, I DUNNO. It's not that I disagree with her approach, far from it. Most of the time, what people need is someone to listen and to not try to solve anything or do anything at all. I suck not-doing. (And it is less likely to be what I need as well, perhaps.) That's why, for the most part, everybody needs/wants my mom.

("I ain't everybody's cup of tea." lol)

"Be Like That" - Kane Brown with Swae Lee and Khalid

 

I don't need to read my horoscope. I don't need to pull a tarot card. 👁 I can see.

I can see clearly now - bobby mcfarland live, demonstrating what you can do with just your body if you know the words (which I sure do)

And my mother can both hear and listen🦻(if she cares to).

Funny story: She can barely handle listening to music yet. She confessed that Chris Stapleton has sounded to her like 'a big black lady belting something out', and now her brain has to get used to the fact that he is not Mavis Staples. 

how many times - mavis ft the math 

Samhain is like the ok corral of the year, a with-me or against-me type deal. 

Like magic. I restored my mother's hearing. She was stone deaf in one ear, almost deaf in the other, using $50 bullshit hearing boosters from amazon that I could sometimes hear squealing but she couldn't hear shit. My sister is 🤯 over her getting demented, that is what we fought about. My mother's mind is fine, she was selectively increasingly deliberately deaf. She herself wasn't aware of it anymore, it had become her way of life.

I thought, No. These ways of life that cost brain function or that of any other vital appendage can fuck all the way off. 

3 hours with an audiologist and $2k, that's all it took + No, the secret ingredient. Now she is struggling. She really was DEAF this morning, and now she can hear FINE. And she misses being deaf. There is a whole body of scholarship about grieving that loss when it's cured. She has cried over it a couple times today, not sure how to feel. (Welcome back to the land of the living, Ma.)

Like magic. Then I scored the black Italian leather couch. Like a really great bed fucked a hot leather boot and its demi-god child is this couch. (The whole safe thing taught me: ask to buy the display. #workthetariffs)

"things around you are not what you think"

has nothing to do with Halloween and it's some kind of true 👁

It comes across my mind like a memo: Whatever you are taking for granted / as a given / in the bag, don't.