I'm going to noon yoga. Fave teacher and friend. A medical error crippled her husband and rewrote her life completely, brutally and forever. Trauma, all the longest teachers/students, Without Exception, that's what we know/share. All different kinds. So many ways to go through the windshield of life, including literally. All I can do is worry and wait. Or keep throwing as much magic as I can, the way I do, staring my self down in the mirror. Choosing the latter.

https://youtu.be/mU9CkwEbOfA?si=aj0W1LyvEnFJk2zq "Home"

Update: VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Thinkers may linger in doubt, but it's the doer who crosses the finish line. A smart plan is ideal, but any plan — or none at all — will do, because once you're in motion, instinct takes over.

Right. Put down the plan. It was drawn up by an ego anyway (mine, yours, whoever's). The only thing that lies more than booze is the ego. So chase me motherfucker 🖕. Right out into the open where I can get cleaner shots off.  

---------

It was Stacy. Stacey? Jello Shots. I am looking for the photo of him in a hospital bed, heart racing, hands shaking, getting tests. She sent me the photo. It was the look on his face. So purely deeply sad.

"...from many years before, she can map his initial disappearance from her life that time to a question she asked him: “With what are you alone?”  From that moment, he would begin disappearing and reappearing in her life..."

I am not going to link back to where in here that note is exactly, it would only upset him to read it. To read "he's all yours", as if rolling up and dumping him in pieces on my lawn.

And I did approximately what I am doing right now. Putting a stop to it. With the same sense of urgency. Even if I had to befriend the stupid girlfriend and then her stupid boyfriend, hold off mothers-in-law like zombies behind splintering doors, move heaven and earth just to get back to losing him again to it, not understanding, it's ABOUT THE KIDS. 

It's always about the kids. 

I still don't understand it all and probably never will. I know the first groove he can remember is 8 years old, the age our respective little girls are now apx, and I know it stays in there, a crushed puppy or whatever it is, a groove of trauma that loves to eat brains, like a rift opens and into that rifts runs your brain chemicals along with everything you try to fill it. I dunno all he does about the human body, but I know more about trauma brains. His and mine.

How could he be alone with this divorce? It makes no sense. But I am now alone with this. That's another thing we both do. It would be really good if we learned to not do it anymore with each other. (Therapist confirmed.)  In what context did I even ask that first question, still THE question? "With what are you alone?" I don't remember. But essentially, I asked it again. And essentially the question hurt again. 

Thank God my mom left, she'd be demanding to go to Mercy, unafraid utterly to tell the wife and Normandy to go fuck themselves, and why isn't his own mother on his side EVER enough? She'd be losing it. 

There isn't even a damn girlfriend to befriend. Can I have Shotglass's number? Hi, I uh, well ya might know me already sorta, kink as selfhelp ft teacher fetish?, but right now can you go take a pic of him in whatever hospital bed he's in, hopefully just hooked to an ekg thingy? I need to see his face. I'd call Honeybee, but drinking buddy, I was a functional alcoholic recently. The kink was pretty healthy, the drinking was def not. And the 2 don't mix well in a 40+ year old body. By osmosis, the booze would lessen if I could just..

The card of the day is the center of the simple spell to break this cycle (let this house go). 6 of coins. If you need help, take it. If you have help to give, give it. To have more room to do THAT THING, and yes he inspired me to move FAST to do it, I had to let this house go. It's not about $. It's about THAT. 

He would say to be worried about cardiac something whatever - ever trained as they all are to compartmentalize, diagnose, cure, done. But I know better. Even if his heart is what he once called "floppy", it's alone with all this shit that's the root problem. Shotglass for one bit, pass the butter for another part, Honeybee for I'm not sure what part, but scattered like that then nobody SEES IT WHOLLY. So he's alone. His normal. And that could kill him. (I should know.)

Please don't make me grieve you. Ask for anything else. 

I think I might be giving him a wee heart attack and I am truly sorry if so. But we have to feel real things. 

can I call you after rehab - devon cole you can call me needing bail, we've talked about this ...

I don't know why. But from the moment of Yes Please (runner up choices: Help Me, Say When) + I'm Your Huckleberry thrown in, I've had a feeling like he'd be caught. Not cheating (N/A), or even leaving (wait, do his people ever just divorce forever as a way of being married? I hadn't thought of that), but by glee in his voice. 

It would stand out as atypical. 

Get caught by whom in what way, tripped somehow by what cosmic ottomon, to what end ? - no idea. And he might even throttle it himself as unfamiliar anymore, talking god knows what smack at his own self. So before, no during, whatever that fork was/is, I had to outpace it. 

"Loungerie" 

At the last minute, the mortgage dude called me, if I pay off the mortgage in less than a year, he is penalized. Heavily. Nobody knows that, the realtors can't know anything about how he makes a living. Prejudice somesomething. He was just out on leave. I know what that means in any industry. If he processes these mortgages for me, like this, to get free of them NOW, he is fucked. "I won't then. I will wait, hold the funds in a CD, pay it off in one year and one day. Because I need to get freer of the boot on my neck, and help anyone I care for do the same." Loooong pause. So many PAUSES. (Do you trust me, gay man who has no reason to trust anyone?) 
Okay. 

Photo people is how it starts, the glam shots. Final fussing in the yard. I decided to take a TREE with me cz that is the kind of hairpin I am, so I start digging it up. I throw on some music. Let's play the play me a song game, since he's sooo quiet atm, sucking blood globs with eye forks ..

you don't want to love a man like me - big al anderson

(HAHAHAHAHAHA)

That surely cannot possibly be for me. But since I've been up since before dawn, am now just too tired to fuss anymore, might as well sit here and listen to it again. Bemused.

1. Don't tell me what to do. (Unless we are fucking, then I might bow to your greater expertise.)

2. ...well it doesnt matter cz that song wasn't for me and photo dude is here...

I realized something - I don't know what "say when" mean means either. (I don't think you meant arm wrestling rt?)

Today the listing process begins. Photos, foorplan, it'll be a "showcase listing", there will be drones and sq ft lasers, god knows what all. All I have done for days is bust what is left of my ass for this. It will probably be frightening today. I am so small and this is all so big. #LittleSpoon. 

But, it's true, somehow, that if I stop, everyone stays stuck. Yesterday, K got ANOTHER job - 2 years of no call backs and bullshit, then 2 jobs in 1 week. He is going to install and maintain pools, private and municipal, including every YMCA in 3 counties. Just when I am looking at a pool ready expanse of a yard. I can't remember the last time I saw him like that. Spark of hopeful. 

These are small things that are so big actually that they define the horizon. Or forshorten it, choking not in a good way. I am crying a liitle already, knowing how shaken tired I will be by tonight, watching Landman without my mom and busting Boosts just cz I will be out of all effort and maybe heart too.

But it's okay. Tomorrow is Friday. I have a salon appt, girlchatter! while hot oil sinks into my frazzled chorehair, cz that's what salons are for, Barbershops for women. My stylist had Cushings, the first regular person who knew what cortisol was, and where/how it hurts. She washed my hair a curl at a time through all that, trying to save them. She notes each new one growing back now, little streaky corkscrews along the nape of my neck. 

I cannot hope he is on call this weekend cz he hates it. But I will deserve some kinda GOOD GIRL!! after today (no?) - just sayin 🤷🏻‍♀️. 

I'm your huckleberry - mike plume 

VIRGO

Sci-fi author Octavia Butler wrote, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you.” The coming weeks will be prime time for you to honor and celebrate that prayer, Virgo. You won’t be a passive dreamer, gentle traveler, or contemplative wanderer. Rather, I predict you will be a tidal force of metamorphosis. Parts of your world are pliable and ready for reshaping, and you will undertake that reshaping. But it’s important to know that the shift will go both ways. As you sculpt, you will be sculpted. As you bless, you will be blessed. Don’t be shy about riding along on this feedback loop. Do it with reverence and glee. Let the art you make remake you. Let the magic you give become the magic you are.

moon river - audrey hepburn "my huckleberry friend"

 Solo + me rocking a bikini

Only photo I have of him, he didn’t last long obviously 🙄, I knew I'd stumble across it, "Sisters". Probably it's little expectations like that make me brace myself, and THOSE are fair, normal, fine. My brain is doing what it should, more or less, more and more. Is this a knife fight / active shooter situation?, it asks. If no, then 🐐. 

It'll be less tiring once my brain just puts the knives down and shifts to other more appropriate responses. And crucially has other stimuli to which it is responding  👁 ideally ones it wants

I have to stick this landing and make this place ready to seduce someone else. Listing photo shoot got pushed up to Thursday. Sooner this part is over, the better.

Not gonna lie, this isn't one of the fun parts. But this is not my first rodeo, Huckleberry. I know what has to get done, at least about this shit. I'm moving a mountain so the horizon changes = My bloodglobs wheelhouse. I am focused. Intending to win this round.

4 wands

6 pent

= 4 coins 

Stability born of necessity.

I don't want either of us stuck one minute longer than necessary alive in dead bodies, is the main thing 💤

Thru it all, my health tracker finger thingy says I am getting BETTER. My sleep has dreams, like a normal brain. Whatever I am doing, keep up the good work. 

still only a B, but "solid", like a star sticker on my homework

As the first of his Twelve Labors, Hercules strangled the Nemean lion, a beast with skin so impenetrable he could only skin it using its own claw. Hercules then wore the hide as armor — that classic lion-hooded look. So we enter the season of pride, when our confidence cannot be cut down except by the claw of self-criticism. Step into your own legend. Wear what you've survived.

I am unpaused holistically. I am stone cold soberly concluding that at the end(s) of the world(s) we are living in, it is fundamentally life affirming and thus sane to start breaking new fucking and love ground(s) around here. (Recap.) 

I put 10k down on the new utterly unexpected house this afternoon.

I picked the song for the photo

link

Less than an hour later, I looked up and found half dozen cops filling my yard, chasing somebody(s) that had hopped my fence AGAIN. My heart didn't skip one beat. 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). A family situation stirs again. Your role is evolving, and this time, you won't accept the old assignment. You're building a new dynamic one sentence, one choice, one subtle refusal at a time. Keep going. 

Update: can we be still - georgia harmer only song I heard today - no driving, I had to focus, but I said I would listen so. I am letting yes algorithms write themselves on whiteboards in my mind.

It is my father's birthday today.

I had gotten very skilled at throwing some daughter at him, then scoot before the attack(s), for years and years. But I was trapped this last time, no scoot unless I left him to die. Which I chose not to do. So. He reminded me of damage he did to things I loved, how exactly he hurt them, killed them, helpless things that could not defend themselves, demonstrating how small I was. Tinyfeeling. I put a mental belljar over those details long ago. I remember the rage, of course, but specific instances like the puppy I named Solo because it was already all alone, that took my breath away. And I was already barely breathing when I got there. That's why. Because I was small again. 

I will wish him happy birthday because my soul my choice. 

song tbd, I'll listen for it

Reading the Gemini Moonlit Room

Are you skilled in the art of reading the room? The most effective communicators never skip that step. They shape the message to fit the audience — aware that people respond when they feel understood. When options seem disconnected from lived experience, reactions follow. Under the late Cancer sun, the wisdom is in emotional attunement — and offering direction that's truly reachable.

That word again. Attunement. 

It had just started to peep in my own mind, what has been off-limits for and in me. But it shut off like a circuit breaker. He said he wouldn't choke me (off) without warning, but he didn't say anything about cutting the power. I am learning things. 

Such as, I did not write or even think these thoughts at all, no words, until he said "unpause", Simon says pause style. I would call that a witchcommand, delivered with the raw efficacy of No. The 'art of medicine', all those chats about decisiveness as a power that one projects or not. Call it what you want, I S T O P P E D. Respect. One No-slinger to another.

think of one other word that means what you mean by 'unpause'

"Painted turtles can tolerate their body fluids freezing due to adaptations like the production of glucose and glycerol, which act as natural antifreeze. They can survive freezing temperatures and even the formation of ice crystals in their bodies up to a point..." 

Inspection day. 

You know me better than that. George Straight.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Don't punish the version of you who said yes to life, who was warm and a little awkward as they reached out, hoping for connection. These are not mistakes; they are gestures of aliveness.

I am sorry. I didn't mean to cause any pain or harm or anything bad.

"Paused."

Outlaw - Ziggy Alberts 

Update, they couldn't find that kid this morning, she'd snuck off to sleep with my mom, who thought she was a dog and rolled with it 🤷🏻‍♀️. 

 

What will I do ever without this woman? She can never die 💞

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Your job isn't to keep everyone around you in a constant state of approval — it's to model strength, discernment and the truth that you are not an on-demand service. You're a human. A spectacular, devoted, busy and wildly creative human.

That last bit is gratuitous and untrue, my mother is the wild one! 

My mom chose it.

 

what feels like glittered plasterswirls above your bed?

What do my molecules need?

card of the day 

medicine deck version

Our brains treat unresolved tasks like open browser tabs — each consuming a little RAM that when multiplied becomes background stress, even if you're "doing nothing." The Saturn retrograde suggests a restart to help you clear the "tabs," get organized, dump the trash and maybe even close the screen for a minute for the breath you need before reembarking once more — this time backward.

aint it a sin ft the bullets - charles bradley 

 

roll with the punches - d/troit (Reacher soundtrack) 

spirit in the sky - norman greenbaum  

Do it Again - Steely Dan 

"clockwork"

I touched a cold black dark scary place, and I won't forget what that felt like, and that it's waiting if I fall. I have life problems to fix aplenty, but I CAN, and I WILL. Nothing is off limits as long as I don't lose heart 🩺

Yes. 

 

My mother's song choice for the day  . It was her choice yesterday too 😂

Happy International Kissing Day (news to me) - "honoring the versatility of a kiss. It can reanimate the girl asleep for a century, turn the frog to a prince, betray the holy. A kiss can cross into risky territory, seal fate, put the power in a spell, be the heart in a ritual, or the reason for a head cold. The point is, what starts with a kiss rarely ends there." 

real things - joe henry 

"strike a pose"

"Smokahontus" is racist af 🤣 - that's like using the N-word in your business logo and making white customers trip over it all damn day 🤣 kinda brilliant

The 4th at the cottage is Omaha-level fireworks, making dogs and old women hysterical. So I grabbed Gma and bailed back to the city last night before that got going.

To get to Smokahontus is a straight shot from the cottage up 77 to the Darien area, hills getting less as ya go, so you trade valley vistas (#traumabrain likes high ground) for rolling farmland and cute podunk villages. Very pretty ride until ya hit a looming roller coaster.

Then boom, a dispensary so big it's like a Pandora's XXX Box store. (ie, What even is that??) My fave part was when Ma asked about the building labeled "sacred goods." What that could be?? "King Tut's tomb, they own it now." Shit is so craycray generally that she believed me for a minute 🤣🤣. My 2nd favorite part was when, overwhelmed, I said to the nice girl behind the counter "sleeping, laughing, fucking - please" and she filled a bag with what she prefers for those activities and I bought it on faith. 

The kids are talking about moving out there, to Arcade. I dunno much about the Big Beautiful Thingy, I broke up with national news. Doesn't matter which "side", all sides are NOT on my side, so why should I tune in? Here's what I can tell ya about it though: 17 million folks kicked off Medicaid = 17 million poor folks lose any reason to stay in their city/county, where those benefits are assigned and administered, which frees them up to MIGRATE. 

Works for me! Maybe there will be a reverse migration of people like me/mine out into hinterlands 🙏. I've been wanting a chicken and a frequent flyer card at Tractor Supply for forevvvver, so long that I gave up on it deep down 😪, tbh. My "bucket list" has been whittled down to nearly nothing, being realistic.

But.

Patti's dropping dead was the last of the last of the last of the last latest straws that broke my back. If I keep on as I have, that's how I end up: Dying of Death, feeling like I failed to fully Live.

I would prefer to die by being run over by an Amish team of horses while spraypainting a recently blacktopped country road with GILFS RULE in neon paint that could be seen from space.

nice to each other - olivia dean

BOOM - sierra hull   song of the summer

"Falling to the Ceiling"

memory lane - old dominion 

smoking gun

Patti was one of my pistol character witnesses.  That wasn't the worst ah-ha of the day (ya think you know people) but I'd give it most annoying (now what?)

Dropped mom at the cottage puppy pile with the kids for a spell. Went to yoga. In underpants I bought on clearance at Rite-Aid. Then had a double quarter pounder with an Ensure+ drink for dinner.