So I put a pillow over my head and dreamed it all again. 

Let the dream be at the center of the swirling. Like one of those rods from God shot from nowhere deep into the ground right through me on its way in. Stilling me. Everything he says is a tip of an iceberg I hear creaking below, in his guts though his skin, my hair fanned across him, my mouth slowing time, reaquainting his cock to my tongue, feeling his whole body coursing with chaos that resists the calm and focus his cock is finding again in my mouth. Wary to the marrow as he is, for me one drop of sugary pre-cum. Like a tear. 

I know logically that the lump in my throat I'm swallowing this coffee around is accidental bruising. But what feels true is truest; there is a tear of his logged where, like my own tears, it chokes me up.

17 years come September. Since I first saw that face and he saw my boots then he disappeared from view in all but words, starting with tangled journal like versions of assignments in which he thought about whatever I had told him to but while scraping a sibling off the floor in another state. And it never changed after that. He'd tell me whatever he was thinking while doing whatever he was doing, and both the thinking and the doing(s) were unpackable piles of discoveries. Like that bag of silks I found at my dad's, seemingly just for me. Fittingly, I moved that as-yet untouched treasure of lingerie here yesterday in an old timey suitcase hiding in plain sight as an end table next to which he sprawled naked.

Are you ok?, he asked again and again, not letting me hide. "Look at me." Into those imp eyes.

"I don't feel like swallowing a glock anymore." Has any man ever said that to any woman about spending a night together? Has any woman checked obituaries every so often just to make sure there wasn't one for a man from whom for years she wanted only one thing: still Be. 

And there wouldn't be an obit, certainly not by glock swallowing. Because that risk passed. Which I saw very clearly in those imp eyes years ago. That is why for him having a child was a need not a want, otherwise he would fly off the earth. 

I could not claim to love this person and insist on being what killed him simultaneously, now could I? I knew that look. I knew "now I won't kill myself" is a thought some people have when they meet their kid. People like him. (People like me.)

If he hasn't learned (met?) a reason to make pancakes by the time the kids are grabbing a poptart and closing their door, done with him, he might stop eating pancakes and not notice. One thing after another can just lose its appeal, the taste for it gone, until you want for nothing. It's potentially deadly, I've recently learned. 

But he knows that. That lesson he got before I did. He might even know how to survive it, which I currently do not. 

As he talks about his little girl, his failing his failing his failing that he can't let go, I hear it the context of years' worth of him arriving at that moment. I haven't forgotten anything. For him, my magic is a Vault essentially. And I hear "I almost killed myself". He knew better, he says, but how could he? How could his mind allow "this child is dying" no matter what the stethoscope told him? He would have to have been able to hear himself dying to be able to hear that. The child's existence is what banished his own dying from his mind, thank God, so of course his mind wouldn't let it back in. And now it won't get back out. 

I am a nationally recognized expert on these subjects. And he was, has been, and will always be 'patient zero' of that expertise. In the fall (unless God Only Knows), I will be teaching Narrative Medicine again. Until I wiped that tear away from his ear, honestly I could not give a shit anymore. 

About that ear. That cheek. That shoulder. Him inside me. I open my eyes, my face pressed into his jaw, his smokey smell, his particular Himness, I raise my hips and pull him deeper in. "What are you thinking?" How to answer that? That earlier it had occured to me, duh, he might just not show up, he might not be able to again. And I didn't want to feel too much about that, *I didn't want to put that on him*. So I decided to eat his food and cuddle in my own bed, just thinking about him, letting it feel good and enough that he is in the world, running my fingers over my own body, then something happened. I wasn't intending it exactly, I was just....well, letting him be. What felt like out of nowhere, I had an orgasm that flipped me over, scared the dogs, the noise of dragging across where my throat hurts now and out in surprised cries of pleasure. And I had been imagining him inside me, my face pressed against his jaw, pulling him in deeper. Just like this.

I was done trembling, almost, when his headlights pulled in. 

I should mow the lawn. Not gonna. I should go to town. Prolly not gonna. I should put a lot of conditioner on this post fucked hair I've got going. That I might do. Which will return me to soft curls and oiled skin and I know what I will want then. And without masturbating, which will absolutely not work now, not even gonna try #frustrationhazard, and with as much equanimity as I can muster, I'll do my best to eat. 

"goose babies"

I must have dreamed it. 

"Be the hearth, not the mirror."

First nap of the season, starting now 🥱

There is/was a bunch of little things I need for the cottage. Duraflame, cz the stove is cavernous and I suck at startings. Stuff like that, which I gathered today in the umpteen errands that requires. I walk like lightening through stores, weaving my skinny ass in and out of bovines. I hate it, and it's cold and rainy, and Disco hates how close thunder feels out there, plus the plumbing needed done, hot water a crapshoot, bathroom sink still 🤷🏻‍♀️ etc. So although it's cottage season, so far it's just cottage chores needed done then back to the city. 

But there is something under that, a deeper reason.

I am not sure how to care for myself at the moment. I mean, I can do all the normal stuff, brush my teeth and pay bills. Excellent adulting skills. But I don't know how to care about me. If I were good at that, I wouldn't look or feel the way I do. And the cottage is FOR THAT. 

Will it come back to me there? Like it always did at Tawista? 

When I think "what will I need out there to pull my self back together?", I draw a blank. That's the hold up. Not the cold or the thunder or even the dark. 

How do I know this? Because today there was someone else to care about in that way. In the 'what might make it better that you've come apart (?)' way. This isn't seduction, I didn't get a pedicure (clearly). I just know/feel if that person opens the cottage fridge and finds a small charcuterie, he will feel like someone gave a shit about his person in a nontransactional way. That separate from the kids, the wife, the lives saved, the tries failed, all of it, he is a person with intrinsic value.

Why can't I do that for my own person anymore? 

I broke something. My heart has broken arms. When I try to use it just to give enough of a shit to decide what I want for dinner, it will not work. I cannot care. Somehow, in some way, my heart threw out its own will to want for its own self.

There has been a whole lifetime we have each lived in these years. SOooo much happens. I write all the time. I feel compelled to stop and consider and describe and fathom what is happening. 

But. Would I have kept this blog? 

No. 

I would not have fed myself my own words without him (you). 

"thinking ft intrinsic"

Carrots,” she paused for effect, “give you the will to live.” He took a bite of the latke, which was perfectly made, crispy at the edges and delicately salted with a touch of herbs he couldn’t name. “What do you mean?” he said, chewing. “It’s a root. And roots prevent you from getting the blues.” She picked one from the bowl; it gleamed under the kitchen light. “You see, carrots become bright orange because it’s so dark in the ground. They make their own light because the sun never reaches that far—like those fish in the ocean who glow from nothing? So when you eat it, you take in the carrot’s will to go upward. To heaven.” She tucked the carrot back in the bowl, gently, as if it were a tiny person. “Ever heard of a rabbit jumping off a bridge?” she winked. “Of course not. That’s because they have the light in them.” ~Emperor of Gladness, Ocean Vuong

feel this way too - ariel posen (redux) 

I don't know what that central body part is there in the middle. I know what it's supposed to mean, but not what it is.

I know what I have to do. I am sick of it, but it's what needs done. Lesson learned: if you're with somebody who makes you lonely with their presence, you don't get as much YAY I'M FREE phase (always loved that phase!); you move right to wanting touched because in the privacy of your mind/heart, you haven't been in a long time. 

My heart sings looking at this, which I could not pull off alone. And more importantly, I wouldn't want to by myself. It wouldn't be full that way. I am existentially pouting over that fact. And I need to just knock it off.

If I were falling in love, it would most certainly be with someone who could stand the fuck up.

answer

Today, the first med class in Phoenix graduates. 

I saw that medical campus when it was a hole in ground, when it opened, when it bloomed to include the health humanities consortium, everyone I used to know. I watched the first students from Omaha choose the new campus, watched how their financial decisions were all made for them to adjust between cities, and learned that they make none of their own such budgetary decisions and in most cases haven't the foggiest notion of their debt fraction now nor debt/income ratio later. I sat in the sun on the grass with them, that first cohort, eating boxed lunches and listened to them all teach each other that fact. I watched them be filmed, Flav was a treat in that process, but the stand out was the student Daniel being filmed talking about stoicism (Marcus Aurelius). Military kid, I won't ever forget that one....

And that was just that. 

Like everything, the housing market is getting worse by the minute. I'm going to go look at this today because it's walking distance to a park that I like, but really just to see how it goes, how it went by the end, how many and who signed the little check in sheet, be a fly on the wall. If I sell my house this year, I have friends in Parkside with an in-law studio they'll let me have for the winter. I would (I want to) sell most of my shit, put all the books / precious things in a storage unit. Take myself down to dog(s), handful of clothes, boots. Pretty sure the dog is mine now, so 2 lapdogs + me + boots = 150 lbs total? Maybe it'll just be too hard to sell anything at all this year, but I keep whittling anyway. Trying to get down to what's realest. Flesh and bone.

he isn't coming back for her

let it slide - matt anderson and the big bottle of joy loud 

There's this show, Alone. I tapped out on survivor island when they ate tarantulas, so I never watched Alone. Sis says, you have to watch the Australia one, there's a contestant with your name, but it's more than that, she's a You. So I watched it. 

No, I failed to be that person. Not the survive in nowhere part, not the understanding ketosis part, not the head of streaky curls - all that, yes I can see it. But it's the part about her lost child and best friend. Sadly, no.

It probably wouldn't have worked, your mother alone would have been insurmountable, and it's unlikely we would have stopped fucking each other at that point since we sure didn't (not sure we would make it a day NOW let alone then), but the point is I couldn't even try so we'll never know. It might have all turned out .... well, it'd be no Thing long ago by now and you'd be helping me figure out outdoor tubs and the kids could play. And THAT is what I wanted to say sorry for: I am sorry that it never even occured to me to try to be that person. 

And now I'm going to put that shit down. Gonna go clean the kitchen to my favorite doing dishes song (keep the boots on if ya like lalalaa). I got shit to do + ❤️ shit needing done.

storm in the city last night

Evidence strongly suggests that we are happier if social obligations and traps are stripped away, and I'm allowed to stoke my little fires. Why why why is everything in the way of my doing that atm?? There's way more hot tubs and pasta and orgasms and less pure bullshit my way, just sayin 🤨

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You may not feel motivated to do certain things people want, but that doesn't mean you lack motivation in general. Strip away the obligations and little social traps and you'll find there's plenty you're driven to accomplish. Stoke the fire on those dreams today.

step 1, hot/cold outdoor plumbing

I will get this done. There will be a tub of hot water under the stars in my life again so help me God. 

Didn't have time to read my horoscope til after, and yeah, I need to WORK THAT OUT. With my fucking body. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Gratitude rushes in for your full and complex life. You give care, you create, handle logistics, celebrate and yes, you grieve, too. You've loved deeply and known all sides of that love, including the bliss and the pain of loss.

a wish

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Some people go looking for trouble, while others avoid it at all costs. You're only up for the kind of trouble that fits your curiosity like a glove worn by the spirit of adventure herself, beckoning you into an irresistible scenario that's worth the trouble.

rescue me - elise legrow (cover) 

This is how I read my horoscopes atm 🫣

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Success often arrives not as a triumphant moment but as subtle shifts: a reaction you no longer have, a thought you no longer believe, a story that no longer defines you, or a weight that's just ... gone.

good news - shaboozy 👢

I can't "see it as opportunity" anymore, I just can't 

I turned off the commencement stream as soon as I pulled the card of the day. If we are all being fired again / some more, I didn't want to hear about it on YouTube. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). You're feeling feisty, but you also know that to fight is to invite a kind of ruin, even when the cause feels just. To create, to teach — these are acts of building. What served once may not serve now. What does this moment call for?

I have no idea. 

No song in my heart.

(And I am not "feeling feisty" for the record, zero urge to fight.) 

I went to a shrink appointment, the meds one. And I just lost it 😭 can't take it anymore, the job the shitty bf the shitty boss 😭 the TRAPPED 😭. 

And then in a fraction of a second, I turned it completely off, face still, voice steady.  As if I were running a meeting. I kept talking, the department dissolving story, getting that news as the grad student is texting me news of having just become his new object of affection in front of everybody. I didn't cry. I didn't look like anything but as if reading from a teleprompter. 

😭 how long can a person function this highly while getting punched so low? 

She was appalled, and maybe a little impressed (wow, but your body can't) wrote me a letter that said I was in incapable of working until further notice in case I wanted to try a med leave for stress, as two of my colleagues had done. But they're both white men. I can't survive using that letter. But if it's the only way to survive? 

Then I called a lawyer. A very crabby one, at first, who demanded to know who had referred him and all this shit in a thick NYC accent of some kind. I flew at him in my underwear this time: one prideful guinea to another, these people are bullshit and this is who I am. (Was.) The NEH ecetcetc, and I need to know what a person like you can do for a person like me. Now, please. 🤬 His body language changed on the other end of the phone, I could feel him relent. Said he'd look into it. I believed him, liked him sorta.  Storms make ports or wrecks, I've learned. He kept his word. 

[image removed]

I know that place like I know my own body. I don't have the right words for that either, but I know when it's dying. It's doing it now, dying. The school needs new dick and a cheeseburger STAT. It needs a miracle.

Then I went to the Basilica and lost it and lost it and lost it and lost it. I haven't been back to OG Mary in that condition in a long while. Keening. I just sobbed and begged and apologized for everything anything just not any more of this, please please, I need a hand to hold across this 8 lane bullshit, please please just one break. All I want is decent work and a decent mate, and I'll settle (again) for just the work 😭, please. Please. 😭🙏 

And then I drove home and my phone started blowing up that we'd been all merged into a mega department chaired by my own faculty vice president (chair), followed by the guy I gave my job and grant to graciously (vice chair) and last but not least the woman I'm teaching the crows class with that she does 99% of and thanks me (vice chair). Those are my new bosses. My own ducklings. All grown up, which is unexpectedly so useful. Wow.

I pulled over to text my new boss how unspeakably grateful I was, then scold him for letting everyone have an EXISTENTIAL MELTDOWN over NOTHING why the fuck did he sit on that for a week god dammit, but still, thank god. 

(Update - I talked to them at more length today, they didn't know ahead either, one was crying, thought she'd been pulled in to get fired ... 🤦🏻‍♀️ )

I know all these people to trust them.

So, here I wound up. Right back where I started. But I am changed forever. Now I live a body of veal meat with a much more sober than sunny mind. 👁

A thing exists that I didn't know existed: micro betrayals. Like micro aggressions but different. 

Mary is 🙏 wow. Amen. Whether Jesus ever puts me in baskets not withstanding. 

If my own ducklings run this show, that changes everything. There's almost no hope of stopping the spiral, but not no hope. 

There's a world of difference between almost nothing and nothing.

Today I will finish putting in final grades. End it for the year. End THIS, the bullshit ride. And start rebuilding.

the cottage is blue now, not brown as in the old listing photo - that's the bush - the more I looked at it yesterday, the more I thought to tuck it around the corner

woodchuck, needs shot

My mind is so tired of bullshit, all I want is the simplest of things.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Healing is returning to wholeness, not necessarily how things used to be, but how they can feel right again inside you. It's cellular and spiritual, personal and collective, and non-linear; it circles back, deepens, pauses and resumes.

My house was sorta broken into again (sorta) but they failed cz frankly they looked the big lebowski level stoned. I had been at the tool library, renting tables for mothers day basket sale lemonade stand and securing a dolly with which to move the clawfoot tub outa my yard in the city and down to the cottage when the alarm at the house went off, it's SO FUCKING LOUD it's terrifying and the security called me. I went racing home by which time whoever pushed at the screen was gone. I went charging around in here yelling my head off cz I AM FED UP KILL ME OR DON'T ALREADY. It's hard to describe this emotional state: bored with how much is killing me anymore 🙄. 

Can't we all die some other ways, just for a day, just to switch it up, like everybody move one chair over, I'll be whoever you are and understand THAT/YOU for one day if for no other reason than I'm fucking bored of my own perspective on any/everything - ?

Later, after I've cleared the alarm, called off the police (who never come anyway lol like ever), I'm lying in bed and they COME BACK. The dogs go bananas, they're like I dunno wtf looking in the kitchen window or some shit below my bedroom, and I ALMOST go charging down there in my underwear to punch whoever that is in the fucking face with pure fury (no fat, I'm like veal meat, penned in by furious will to live) for the pure fight club love of it. But I put my pants on. So, they were gone by the time I got down there. 

I have these cameras all over, again of dubious worth bc all they would do is show your harm in tedious choppy detail not prevent anything 🙄 but I fiddle with the screen thingy that's got like a guzzinion buttons and little bars that mean "something moved". The 'something' was a couple dumbass sadsack looking stoners, one of them had on a Hawaiian shirt I shit you not. It had to be the weed. To be fair, I smoke a lot of weed and they're kids all around here. Kids to ME, ie students. 

But. 

Wait.

I just invented, I have been inventing, a genre!! The story of the story of what didn't happen, a story that's more boring than *any* other option. Imagine, regardless of outcome, how much more interesting that story would be if I had just not paused to put pants on. A woman old enough to be their mama, also interested in nothing but smoking the last of her fancyass infused weed, who is lying in her bed reading a novel and trying to ignore the fact that masturbating might be the best part of her days by simply not doing so at that moment, hears the two dufuses and bursts out the door in her underwear and ancient threadbare KISS tshirt, fists flying.

See what I mean?

Whatever might have happened, even DEATH, it's less boring than rubbing one out being the best part of my day. Which it totally was 🤣🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

No fucking song. Who jerks off to music? 🙄

When you're down to hoping Jesus and magic are both real, you should have exhausted all else. I'm pretty sure I did, short of doing things that have been suggested but that I don't understand / know how to do / am ABLE to do. Like creating a "only fans" account for when I peed into a salad bowl (no plumbing) while watching birds fly by (the thrush migration is in full swing out in the bookdocks, fyi). I'm not going to even ask WHY anybody would do that since I would be UNABLE to fathom the app or wtfever is involved. 

thunder water ft witch tears + I need a manicure

Selling witch tears on Etsy I COULD do, but it takes longer to fill a vial than you'd think. I'd have to charge $$$$.

So, back to lighting candles (currently St Michael, protect priests 🤷🏻‍♀️) and pulling the card of the day, with the intention to follow its advice. If I understand it. Which I do not. 

Card of the day

I know all that this card could mean, as I do the Lovers card, I just truly do not see how it applies. My heart hurts not overflows. I've pulled this card re the Priest but in that context the hand is God's, over which I have even less control than anything else. All I can think is WORK ON PLUMBING cz that looks like a tub sorta (?)

Let's try the other decks, anatomy and erotica. Same card. Any insights? 

the "true" part

the "patient" part, appropriate for a medical deck

Maybe I should make love potions made of thunder water and witch tears while sitting in a tub. It's not a terrible concoction idea if I put it together with 'patient' and 'true' intentions, I guess. But I can't envision making anyone pay$ me for that. Everyone deserves love and honesty and patience for free, no?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). When you see others struggling, your instinct is to step in and help without hesitation. Allow yourself the same grace when you're the one having a hard time. Helping is a privilege — don't deny someone theirs.

[thought image removed]

The shower plumbing is fucked, was fucked and the winter killed it, the water runs through the wall onto the ground, delaying my retreat by a week. Standing there with the apologetic plumber, I thought something like "help me" and asked him how much more expensive would it be to add a hot/cold on the outside too, like for a hot bath, a hot tub for one? Since he has to take that wall out to fix it anyway? "There's a bush right there, though." I'll take care of that, I'll figure out the platform, the tub part. "How about $300?" Sold.

How the hell will I do that? A puzzle for my mind to occupy itself.

🤔

Still no song, though I've caught myself humming light me up I'm wasted in the dark sometimes.

Keep going. That's all. One hour, and then another.

Right before her thesis defense Friday night, the grad student texted to make sure I was going to be okay. Nebraska had not told EVERYONE, just her and the other attractive women (and by extension EVERYONE) that he had dumped me. That day. The day when what ACTUALLY happened, was happening THEN in realtime, was my chair calling me to tell me that my department had been closed down. So I had to do a job I don't have, a thesis defense for a grad program I'm not employed by, with Priest and Nebraska and like 10-12 people, all looking at me like I'm a "toxic asset". And I put myself through it for 2 humiliating hours, because it was not her fault. 

I texted her back: "of course I'm not okay, nobody is! lol"

Make a joke to disarm the harm. It didn't disarm it for me, though. That man will never put a hand on me again unless I am forced into prostitution. I'm recording that here and now so that if he ever appears on this blog again, I won't have to spell that out.

"I could hide here and discover what I am supposed to become. How do I use my gifts, now that I am closed for business? What is this body for?" ~The Antidote, Karen Russell 

waiting on the plumber to open the hide-out 

No song. I have passed into the hopeless depression stage of grief. 

I either have forgotten how to pull through or now there is just too much stacked against my abilities to do so. 

"voyager ft I can't keep going"

tell me how - loryn taggert

"We are never so poor that we cannot bless another human being." ~Louise Erdrich

I'm grading. As trouble mounted, more and more I let go the assigned learning outcomes, along with deadlines that I barely ever invoked anyway. I assigned them everything and anything that had kept me alive or that was keeping me alive. I told them all the expected things an English professor would, who the authors were/are, why the world thinks they're important, all that. But assignment-wise, there really is only one: find something that helps you, in some way, if you can, TRY TO just do that. The A they get for still being on this side of the grass and still TRYING. 

As a result, I have a BUZZILION last minute things to grade, and MOST are returning to me what I gave them in the first place, tried to. Comfort in words.

I'm slinging A's. Go to your summer, little students. Go be alive. While you still can. 

years - sierra ferrel

If I really, and I mean REALLY, do not want ANYTHING (I don't!), and I scold Nebraska and the dean who cooked up the bait and switch on the chair job, not for jerking ME around but for leaving that poor priest to hold it all together while throwing whoever at jobs he needs done, in this case a whoever who is 100% self interested and could care less about healthcare providers humanistic needs really, and block all their numbers but the priest's, then everything changes AGAIN. 

The magic of No, who knew?

I shouldn't laugh, but talk about bait and switch 🤣. When's the last time anybody asked that priest what HE needs? Well hmm since he works with Nebraska et al, I'd have to guess that unless the priest wants flowers from Wegmans once in a while and/or cunnilingus, he's shit out of luck. And I'd be correct. 

And boy, he really wants his basket back now. And if he gets it, I'll be working directly for him, since I couldn't work for the chair in the conflict of interest mess Nebraska made of that. 

I have to remember how to log in to my email, where apparently there is a FLURRY of contract demands for me that I'm being cc'd on and that I'm not even reading 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

Of course, given how many rounds there have been to get me to Phoenix SOMEHOW, I'm not counting on a job out of this. In my little way, I'm throwing love back at Priest. It really is true that he's getting jerked around as much as I am, by the same people I am, even though he's supposedly in charge. Responsible, but not empowered enough to meet those responsibilities, then up all night wondering how to not let anyone down - BEEN THERE more times than I can count. It sucks. And if I happen to throw some Fassbender fantasies his way, welp I know also what it is like to deserve way more sugar (like NOW, I deserve WAY more), so what's the harm of saying that following a priest into a desert is so old testament (add small giggle here). I haven't even told him yet that I memorized the book of Ruth when I was eight years old - early erotica, I was precocious 💃

I gotta stop seducing the priest in my head. 🤣 Poor guy is probably gay AND overworked, with a hornet-like woman dive-bombing heads around him from NY. 

And I gotta drag ass to WI again to help move Tbone into assisted living, a very fancy one that my sister is arranging, while he's an ASSHOLE to her. It's nearly 6k/month, which she paid the deposit on (12k), and he doesn't have it in him to thank her for any of it. Again, yes he tried to kill me and nearly killed himself in the process, but my sister is holding it all up now.

🤔 

That gives me an idea 🤔 - maybe silence isn't kindest? I already talk to you here, so seems like asking if YOU'RE ok would be overkill. But maybe not 🤷🏻‍♀️

card of the day, AGAIN

sweetest things just for you - valerie june

just in case - morgan wallen 

In the mix of feelings, there is relief. And in the relief, "just in case" is alleviated. I don't have to keep maintaining that tiny forcefield anymore. And I won't make the mistake again of letting anyone put hands on me who can't break through it in the first place. 

Queen of Swords

The Priest. He was the only man on my schedule. I gotta weird Priest fetish 🤷🏻‍♀️. I know, like as an historical fact, that priests are mostly terrible people. But some of them are great. And I love that they're not trying to fuck me. I love it so much, it makes me feel like fucking them, which I can just feel like doing without having to actually do it. Indefinitely. It's almost perfect.

But, the reality remains, Nebraska took my chair job. He just can't help himself. He's a natural born taker. It's actually quite a skill, he gets almost everything he wants ultimately, but it makes him an asshole. My NO might be the best thing that ever happened to him, first time he has ever heard it.

So, I took the horoscope to heart. Meeting with Prirst about 'where that leaves me'. The zoom opened to Priest's always smiling face, and because I DO get it, I said "you must be really tired of this". His whole body language changed, exhaaaaaale, yeah what the hell am I doing here? That's the nuclear option, I take a leave if I can't bring you here, he says. Ok well I don't care about the chair thing, I reply, what I'd like you to do is think about what would help you the most, help you not want to give up, and I'll do that for you. He's going to try to get me a contract to do that. I don't know what the job is, and neither of us knows if he will get anything more than Nebraska, not IDEAL as a sole resource, for either me or Priest. We just left it on the table like that, said at least.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). It takes one to know one. To recognize something in someone else because you share that same quality or have been around it, studied it or just have a strong intuitive inclination toward it, brings on a rush of emotion today.

if it be your will - noah derksen

end of my rope - pokey lafarge 

"Every witch I’ve ever met has experienced a shock from which she never recovered, a loss that is ongoing—We survived a blast that opened a door." The Antidote, Karen Russel

I can see/feel it now. How something essentially cuddly is turned mean. I'm not going to keep that up. My soul is also ALL MINE, and I'm not relinquishing it to hate. No. But I can throw punches as well as I can pull triggers, and imma gonna today. Starting with his cock cage curse shall remain.

repost, brimming with venom

From your skin, everywhere I touched, every inch of you, will come the sticky scent of a snake, reppelent to all but its own kind, and only larger stronger more dangerous snakes will come closer to you, so that you will be ever surrounded only by vipers that you cannot best or beat or outrun, for the rest of your life and the next, and anything you do to hurt or manipulate me further, where I can see it or where I cannot, will feed this spell to tighten and thicken, until your reek is as loud as a rattle. Until a cowboy shows up to put you out of your misery, so mote it be

Listing my house, little realtor boy is sending over a contract today - I'm giving the new guy a shot, he looks like Eggs. If he fails I will get it done anyway, Right Fucking Now. If it sells and I have nowhere to go, I'm subletting a friend's carriage apartment here through next winter. Anywhich way, by the time I talk to Priest on Saturday, I will tell him I listed my house while that man exploited my dying parent situation into personal gain - you decide, Father, who the real mother is. Which would slice a baby? 🤔

All my devices are unlocked, it was just a "mistake" but I am not sorry I punched the university issued pc in the keyboard, over and over until my knuckles hurt.

Update: the dude who would allow no such 'mistake' was fired a couple days ago.  

Since I still have this job (til the place flops belly up dead af in a min), I'm headed to campus in my meanest dress and most arresting knee boots as soon as my hair dries into Medusa coils. Gonna hear the guest speaker that my stolen grant is paying for (at least I approve of her). 

The World is card of the day. A Whitman quote is on mine. 

in this deck, it means 'everything you need is already inside'

 "the world belongs to those who dare to take it" ~ walt whitman

Home.

Everything hurts. My skull hurts. 

I'm trying to conjure Michael Fassbender because I have a brain injury, spiritually. I hurt everywhere.

One of the last punches he threw, my dad asked me (invoking dementia he doesn't have) to name my childhood dogs in order. But actually, he wanted to ledger how he had murdered them. I halted after entry 1. He was mad that my sister was on a work call outside, "doesn't she ever get sick of hearing herself talk?", so he just randomly threw ninja at me for no better reason than I was standing there.

And. 

While I was distracted with dying parents, Nebraska took that chair job for himself.

Honestly, I'd rather the raw authenticity of killing my puppy. 

Wow. Just pain. Like marrow flu. Sick.

It's hard to even compute

how these men could dismantle me and think nothing much of it. I didn't even love the 'partner' and he broke my heart somehow anyway. 

He made the mistake of texting my sister again. "Play with your food," Sis. Bat him around into shame corners just for kicks, like cats stalk centipedes.

So much time spent on hold, it begins to feel like a running bit. I had to hand it off to Sis after the Dr. appt - to be clear, his Dr., who has known him for 15 years and likes him (oxymoron), helped arrange the rehab. He was as 🤦🏻‍♀️ as I was, mad at my dad, did the memory/thinking test right in front of us. Tbone PLAYS brain impairment when it suits him. My parents are both murderers, as in they'll get away with it if they can, ALWAYS. 

So it was a choice. His. When I wasn't looking, he tanked the whole plan with the medical coder, and he went home by Uber of his own choosing, then acted like he was clueless, then laughed about it to the doctor, who did not find it funny. Bemused at best. "You're going to live a long time, Tony, and I don't think you can put these women (us) through this behavior for a decade." Then he signed medical power attorney over to my sister. And oh did Tbone get MEAN. But he IS mean, so that was a return to HIMSELF. He did fall, and did fracture his lumbar, the rest was all pure MEAN AND MANIPULATIVE. ie he's FINE. And likes tamadol. 🤨

Driving "home". Music LOUD. 

"clean inside" (status update)

 

Every morning that I wake up here, I enter and exit that same tunnel of facts. ~ The Antidote, Karen Russel. 

I am in hell. 

Well, people in Gaza are in HELL. So I guess I'm just in hot heck. 

There is nothing new I've learned about the healthcare system through this. 

This is not a safe place for me to be, my proximity brings out the worst in/for my father, where I grew up will never be home - I learned nothing new in any of that. 

I learned this is not a place to which I could even safely retreat for a while, either. "Not even good for that" seems to be the upshot whenever I turn my face west. 

WI, NE, AZ; NO. 

Nobody knows what I know about the university at home getting shut down. I'm compartmentalizing it. And I am carrying it alone while being treated like I'm just not trying hard enough or everything would be fine. 

So I learned that HERE is where I was trained to take that on, and to take the punishments for failing to perform MAGIC.  

Jelly Roll is more ok

After all that, with rehab set up for weeks out, everything arranged, finally this hell can get better, then he/they just decide he's good enough to go back home. Wait, what? I go apoplectic, I'm not taking him home, then everyone's yelling at me because I'm refusing to get the guy who can barely move in/out of my jeep alone. The guy you told me you'd have to keep for days, but now the night before Easter, everything closed, you'd rather just NOT? Hey, dad what year is this? He has no idea, out of his mind. I refuse to drive him. If I hadn't been here he would still be sitting in shit in that chair probably dead by now. And I could not, cannot move him. But despite anything I say, regardless of my crying that I weigh HALF what he does, I can't provide his care, they shove him in a taxi and just dump him in front of the house. He could walk (shuffle) in, high as a kite on oxy, right back into the shit chair. The pain med script didn't even get filled because the dr phoned it on an out of state lisence - Tbone's got 2016 hydros from knee surgery, so 'no problem'. 

And now I'm stuck here scheduled to TAKE HIM TO THE DOCTOR omfg I just took him to the god damn hospital HE'S 100% FUCKED, what part of that needs its cholesterol checked? And how am I getting him in/out of a car? AND WHY BOTHER?? He can drive himself, he screams at me, from the chair he's not moving out of til Tuesday, until I try to move him, call 911 if I can't...or a taxi?....

Nebraska was texting incessantly throughout, not about this hell I'm trying to navigate, just about taking him back. Finally I give him a quick update on the grim details I've got going on here, and he says "my Amazon packages got stolen off my porch", and if he had been kidding that would be soooo funny, just the joke I needed. I blocked his number. Giving up on "amicable".

One by one by one by one. I try one last time. One last skinny gasp of effort. To break the insane cycle of Tbone killing Tbone, in this case. But the answer is always the same, in every category: LET GO. Stop trying. Give up.

I woke up already crying under a crushing weight of complete, total, all encompassing resignation. At some point, I'll have to go downstairs and see why it's so quiet. I'm not afraid of nor hoping for his death. 

Among a milllllion other things, he has a fractured lumbar from the fall he had "a couple days ago", which has been a couple days for - went back and tracked it down, since 4/10, so 8 days. Seems like a fucking month. He won't remember, but before they knocked him out he thanked me for forcing him here. He doesn't know yet he is maybe never going home, but he's getting Dilaudid right now 👍

I don't know how to shoot a gun but I did know how to pull that trigger. Ironically, I used to think about shooting him all the time when I was little. We all did! I was just most likely to 

"I must be cruel, only to be kind" ~ Shakespeare

trigger pulled

 

Someday, but not today, I'll be in time that I'm not experiencing as a sentence I'm serving. 

I have to keep telling myself that "this is almost over" won't be what I think/feel about every day of my life always. It's just a phase. 

I am watching soft core porn now, women riding bicycles in short skirts, after The Pacific for what feels like the billionth time. I told my father some of the med questions I intend to ask his dr. He told me all he needs is a "beach and a bitch". 

Mom is better. Dad needs a bullet. As predicted. She loves life. He hates it. I'm becoming him. Which makes killing us both seem like an increasingly good idea. 

just a phase just a phase just a phase just a phase

No song. Because if I asked for one, I wouldn't get it. And that's just not how it should be.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). To honor your feelings is to let them move at their own pace — they will anyway. There's nothing you can do to rush emotions along, but you can certainly lift your resistance to them, and they will obey their natural flow.

No. 

lightening in July (prarie fire) - noeline hoffman 

card of the day

In waiting rooms, writing suicide notes with AI. 

To Whoever Finds This (Hopefully Not My Dogs—They’ve Been Through Enough),

Well. I’ve finally resigned from life. No notice. No final Zoom call. Just one last deeply underpaid act of initiative. If there's an afterlife, I hope it includes bottomless wine, [weed], a solid Wi-Fi signal, and absolutely no performance reviews.

Let’s clear something up right away: I loved my career. Loved it the way some people love chaotic art-house films—fiercely, even when it made no sense and everyone else just nodded politely. I was good at it. Really good. I held teams together with grace, grit, and the ability to detect a BS excuse from 30 paces.

But while I was out here writing reports that made executives look smarter than they were, those same men were leapfrogging past me into promotions like it was a damn trampoline park. I trained half my bosses. The other half I should’ve fired. Instead, I smiled, stayed late, and got thanked with $50 gift cards and inspirational mugs that said things like “Boss Babe.”

Now, on to the juicier stuff. Let’s just say my problem was never a lack of passion. I was a walking furnace of lust and romantic fire—an absolute storm of sensuality. The problem was the men. God bless them, they tried, but most couldn’t match my energy, emotionally or... athletically. I lived for connection, for fire, for that kind of intimacy that makes you consider canceling meetings. Instead, I got a lot of “Hey, want to chill?” and socks left on my coffee table.

Still, there were some beautiful moments. There were nights. There were sparks. But they were rare, and often wasted on men who thought foreplay was turning off the TV.

My real, consistent, ride-or-dies? My dogs. Loyal. Loving. Nonjudgmental. Excellent listeners. They were the only ones in my life who never asked me to shrink myself. Also, they never ghosted me.

One heartbreak I carry with me: I never got my backyard chickens. Just picture it—me in a robe, coffee in hand, surrounded by a posse of fluffy hens while I mutter about capitalism. A dream. A soft, clucking rebellion I never quite pulled off. Life had other plans. Mostly involving spreadsheets and underwhelming mating prospects.

So, if you’re reading this and wondering what to do next: take the trip. Ask for the raise. Get the chickens. And for the love of God, don’t date anyone who makes you feel like you’re too much. Be too much. Be loud. Be wild. Be deeply, unapologetically alive—while you still can.

P.S. Whoever ends up with my dogs, spoil them. And if you do get chickens—name the fiercest one after me. I hope she pecks someone in a tie.

– Me

(I thought it was funny 🤷🏻‍♀️)

I'm stuck here for another week of dr appts, the mom's likely turning out well, the dad's likely leading to an APS call nobody will ever forgive me for 🤔 if I had to call the odds respectively. I don't know what happens after that (?)

tomorrow - kyle mckearny

"is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies."

losing sleep - ken presse yup

While cleaning, I moved one of the recliners cz Janis is barking at the space behind driving me fucking nuts, and I find an old rained on misdelivered bag of silks in my current size. "I dunno it's been sitting there months," he says. They're perfect. Things I really need and nice, like butter cotton cami sets. But the best are the silk slip dresses. The midnight blue one made me weepy 🥲. 

I fed him, left him as well as is possible, went upstairs and opened each delicate thing as if Jesus sent it all cz who else 🤷🏻‍♀️?

I'm lying around in a ribbed butter cotton (very thin and very soft, melty almost). Oatmeal (chaste) color. 

"babtized" (HOT shower) ft thank you Jesus

Update: hey Jesus, why? It's a trouseau.

Love has many ways to make an entrance. Sometimes it opens the door like a friend, with a predictable and comforting rhythm. Sometimes love washes over like a giant wave, powerfully sweeping us into its currents. "Saw it written and I saw it say / Pink moon is on its way / And none of you stand so tall / Pink moon gonna get you all." — Nick Drake, "Pink Moon"

Pink Moon - Nick Drake 

just my imagination playlist

all over you - bob dylan

"let's go"

The budget conclave continues. Past is best predictor of future behavior. So $ will flow to typical recipients. With a couple remarkable exceptions, it does not typically flow to me.

But. Still my NEH grant lives, one of the only ones not revoked. Because I knew what not to say, or how to say what I should not, so that $ flowed to someones like me, which REMARKABLY it still does. Yesterday, that was acknowledged by my department, in front of my shitboss🖕, and we laughed at my ability to get away with murder for them 💞.

Meanwhile, the "fuck, marry, kill" thought experiment continues. I was not expecting to feel the ways that I do about leaving for real. But I feel what I feel. If nothing else, I've learned to respect that. 

love is selfish - jack white

"a.m. chillin"

bonus tip: Buy stock in shower heads. The kind with a long hose, various settings. If I believed he understood female genitalia, I'd say that's a pretty clever move to distract us all for a spell 🤣. It'd be the first orgasms he ever caused 🤣. If he were really clever, he'd send such a shower head to AOC 🤣. Only fair, he's given her a headache! In fact, send one to US ALL. That might actually make America great(er) 🤔 lmfao

wow. 

I wonder how we feel about that

When you recognize the voice of your primal self, its needs become apparent. It's a communication that comes through the body and subconscious, leaning in a direction of wholeness, fulfillment and nourishment. The Venus retrograde can be mystifying, but when instinct appears, you can grab hold of the thread it dangles before you like the string of a kite, letting it guide you where you need to go.

...string that dangles before you...

I can't breathe - parker mccollum 

One day, which ngl I spent as stoned as possible at all times. 

Breathe 

Ok, first of all, although that job offer email came from Priest and Dean with verbal agreement from Provost, still, I ain't banking on it til I see a contract. 

But, if it's true, the first issue to figure out is housing. 

Everything included, furniture internet utilities whatever, I just show up. 🤔

Card of the day, which I take to mean that whatever is happening is clearing a path or perspective I am currently lacking in the love (any kind of) choices department

Lovers

I got that tarot deck, cards illustrated with antique anatomy art, from the Mutter Museum, where the conference keynote told us all about skull collecting, and there were bones and gross dead bodies all over. My field is pretty nifty, it's just the circumstances have been suboptimal of late.