a.m. blablabla

For many reasons, I need this fucking closing god damn it. Fucking holiday weekend. THIS SHIT IS ENDLESS ARRRRGGH. I need to fetch my dad's car and mother, both and sooner the better. 

Today, we go to Lewiston to fetch the compass and reregister it under his name finally. Ears is going to get a new vehicle in early spring, so we might go to Cecconi while we are up there. They said they would buy out my lease cz they're short on that model AND if I bought something - if they will let me apply that to his deal, I will throw my jeep on top of the compass as a trade-in. Alllll my jeeps, maybe we can magic-hat them into whatever his heart desires ❤️. That would be 🤌muah.

He has been without a car all week. And so I pick him up every day from work, and he helps me do shit around here that needs done and I feed him dinner (Charlie The Butcher, ❤️ new neighborhood fave) and we talk about Faulkner. He is reading As I Lay Dying, something I used to love to assign to my students. And they hated it. Mostly. Except there's always one who understands that sometimes language can't come at a thing straight. Despite the hype, words are not bullets. Ears would be that one student. And he hasn't even gotten to the gap yet, when language fails entirely. Beautifully. 

We have accidentally been honing 'the car ride' as a Thing. Now it's an activity in itself, regardless of destination.

My bro-in-law has already taken my dad's Forester through the mechanic. 2019 with like 10k miles on it, needed mostly "the pandemic repairs", brake pads rusted, hoses brittle etc. It will get fully detailed as soon as I have a fucking closing date. Fly out the next day. Depending on weather, take the slow way home with an overnighter and an artsy outing in a car she doesn't have to climb UP into. 

Once she is here, she is MY truck test - can my mother get in/out of it? The subaru is fine, but even free puppies shit on the floor (I want a truck). Maybe she could hack this. And she is on my side. Everyone else will say no no no, that's stupid, but she had a pick-up for years. Always hauling paints and plants. She loved that fucker and put almost 200k miles on it. Nobody remembers that, but I do. 

My mother and I understand each other, all the ways we like to be free to whatever. I simply never want to need a guy with a truck again. It's laborious enough to need a guy. I want to be able to haul my own arbor vitea.

Then after the Lewiston errands, I am going to get some Sunshine to tide me over.

When my mom gets here, I'm going to probably laugh with her that it was much easier to care for him when he was a pussyhound. I am out of my depth, and now there is a catmoat like a me-specific forcefield besides. She'll probably just call him. She can get away with doing or saying whatever to/with any/everyone, and she just does what she deems necessary for them. And then he can be hers to worry about, and she will do a much better job of it. I'll press the buttons and as it's ringing, I will walk right out the door and go buy a couch while she sorts him out. When she is here, clucking/worrying/fixing everyone is on her, because dingding I did my part(s). We all did. Are doing. My best already, good enough or not.

For the moment (KNOCK WOOD), except for the closing, all the other planes got landed. All have good housing, nobody is sick, everyone has a job that pays enough and isn't torture. The only thing I cannot land is happy enough / emotional recovery, with which everyone still struggles understandably. These hearts didn't all break in a day. It is getting better for sure, but if my tracking ring scored that, the score would be like my sleep score this morning.

"ha ha"

Right now, if she were here, I would just show her that and we'd crack up, ambien ain't that good 🤣. Then she would say "Gin, how about ...." whatever she had decided overnight would improve my life otherwise. And I would/will do/get/buy/make whatever that is.

song tbd, my devices are throwing wildcards like harry fucking styles 🤷🏻‍♀️

"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that" ~ As I Lay Dying

night talking - harry styles 

all my love is coming back to me - sg goodman

pear - serviceberryx2 - elm

This was my first happy night here. 

where it belongs - mumford

very rainy, what do you wanna do today, guys? (wait for the roof to leak?) how about unpack until we find underwear? (or not wear any, works for us) pair the wifi banking thingy and throw $50 at everybody before anyhing gets turned off? (yea, do that, you can do it in bed) it's Ear's bday, uhhh we could uhhh (you ain't making a cake, get real, order from Wegmans) yeup

I am trying to get Alexa to play cottage music at me, but it won't, and I don't want cowboys to make me cry right now. It's a pickle 🤔. So I think it is gonna come down to just forcing myself to get my laptop working / pay bills fractionally across the board. Then reading a novel in bed and until it's time to pick up a kid and feed them, content short of "goosebumps, a sweet or sour taste in your mouth, or an uncanny pull." Like golden olden times.

Maybe a first bubble bath here 🤔

on the blowout sale table - hi Dad, very funny

update, moon set btw 615-630 a.m.

blocking a parking lot light w finger, the moon just above it  

may the children each get what they need for their immediate and greater good, each accordng to their separate dreams - I already have all I need if they have that..

....and this prayer extends to cousins, both biological and chosen - they have all toiled, I have felt it in sobbing hugs enveloping me multple mutiple times over this year. Now it's time for a fair harvest of a simple way forward for all of them🙏for all of them🙏for all of them🙏

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). It's not that you are choosing to take on too much. "Too much" is being foisted upon you. One tactic is to carry around the corner, then ditch and run. Another is to call in support and do it together. The most injurious option would be to stoically continue on.

injurious - I love a well-nailed word

o yea, I have a kitchen herb garden here, marjoram for sausage even, I should plant one in Cheekdavegas too

"hard times for everyone" #fridgeart

one call got rid of everything but the truck, and he will be back to clean and put guard in the gutters soon as he heard PB had fucked off #colonyfriend #javajeff

The pie that I ate alone overnight, after a not unpleasant but ultimately not fully successful attempt at diy lovemaking. In every way in every life category, I am leaning way out from going it alone and from going along, both.

love the hourly changing yellow

shallow - lady gaga 

candle for the needs of others being met by the harvest 

sister golden hair - america 

 best of my love - the eagles

thinking out loud - ed sheeran the music alexa plays at the cottage is a whole different vibe

pie is in the oven, and I'm just breathing green air and letting alexa serenade me

I hear what I think might be the chickens scratching around and I jump up and run to the door. But it's just a man, the one who lives in Cheekdavegas (my neighbor 2x over now) ignoring the burn ban and building a refuse fire, as they all do at the end of the season. On all sides, I am surrounded by pick-up trucks driven by barrel-built pig-headed descendants of the colony founders ..

me: you would think, given these conditions, I could attract something other than a Pussy Bitch

her (daughter 1): 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

me: that is just the right thing to call him, so much trouble caused by just a Pussy Bitch

her: totally

me: which makes me I don't even know what, besides an idiot 

us: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

her: just not a good fit (ha hem, she rephrases politely)

me: these guys around here have no fucks to give about the news either, burn ban their ass, cz NEWSFLASH it's October

her: to tal ly, it's refuse burn time duh

me: yup, and if the dry spells get bad enough with the 0% forethought about land management it's not sustainable. and yet, fuck you

her: yup, fuck you, those are your people 🤣

me: and yours, ms hairy armpits homeschooler

her: yup, I want to be in the country 

me: yup and on my terms, not theirs either, cz FUCK YOU TOO 

us: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

her: you're not a joiner

me: nooooooo obviously epic fail, and yet

her: dudes with pick-up trucks

me: under this feeling like just punched and punched until I flinch at a breeze shaking all the time relearning to eat like I've had a fucking stroke 😭😭😭😭, but under all that

her: past a lot of it

me: god this closing thing and all the drama (shudder), that closing has to go through

her: she hasn't made a sound in like 30 minutes

me: there is nothing like growing up with beach access, nature in general

her: K has an interview for $28/hr here, I don't want to go back

me: I don't want to go back either, the closong has to go through or I will drown

her: well let's each pray for each other to get what they need

me: I think it's a full harvest moon, let's light a candle 

her: does a birthday candle count? alls I got

me: in these trying times, flicking a lighter and holding it up counts

us: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I like to look at the same trees, watching them change in the light. 

ain't no man - avett brothers 

move through the world not by sight alone...direction is olfactory, intuitive, and primal...trust subtle cues—like goosebumps, a sweet or sour taste in your mouth, or an uncanny pull toward or away from things...your body will know the way...

first time

VIRGO - You don't have to be perfect to be lovable. You already are so lovable — in messy moments, and in your brilliance, too. Give yourself the rest you need. It's the act of self-care that will matter most in keeping you healthy and wise.

I wake up, wait for it .... 😪 .... feels like where blankets should be on me, there is a boulder instead, and I gather myself a while then shove it off, face the day. And it mostly feels just hard - it weights a million or a billion or a zillion pounds. But I guess I get stronger with every shoving out from under (?). Like my shrink says, I am doing it, all these sooo many feelings aside.

"transformative toilet seat"
never think you're too small to make a difference 

 

be nice to tuck a hot tub behind the little garage, facing west, hidden everyway else, a privacy fence to hide the buildings but not the horizon

recalling the paradox in responsibility. It seems like the opposite of freedom, but the more we take responsibility for, the more we can control. And that sense of control gives us freedom from helplessness

responsibility is hard helpnessness is hell

we slept in our clothes ft not budging 

"To not fit in is to stand out. While that can feel like something to strive for, it can create profound loneliness for those who traverse the world when no place truly feels like home....Being constantly reminded that you are not enough to meet some quantifiable standard or that you have “too much” of something ambiguous or unidentifiable can pummel your self-esteem and confidence almost to nonexistence. Or worse, you might try to conform and fit in, only to have it backfire entirely and send you into the depths of your shadows." ~Healing the Liminal

#mandown

Speaking of down, the government has fucked off apparently. I got an email from a former student (my congressman) informing me. Except delaying my closing until ??, uhhh, the national news is like hearing about what an ex is up to, only less relevant. 

After all this, from stopping drinking through a hunger strike through hair hurling through the homeless kids crisis through fighting off Dying through my mother shooting through here dropping truth bombs and huckleberry cousins through the selling of my house and now not-selling it also through my oldest friend here dying then my dad dying through moving (and moving and moving) under duress of money and personally hounded, uhhhh my fucks vending machine is pretty                                depleted. And not one single fuck went to the government.

It is done. 

In the Arctic, polar bears move through the world not by sight alone, but through scent trails that stretch miles across the ice. Their sense of direction is olfactory, intuitive, and primal. If I’m reading the omens correctly, Virgo, your navigation system will also be more animal than logical in the coming weeks. I advise you to trust subtle cues—like goosebumps, a sweet or sour taste in your mouth, or an uncanny pull toward or away from things. Your rational mind might not be fully helpful, but your body will know the way. Sniff the trail. Access your instincts.

Nova is sick. Medicaid runs out today. 

Both my daughter and I are already long awake, adulting our asses off while carrying that frightened burden right in the gut punched. She has a partner but he will be at work today. I am alone, with no choice but to finish this. 

It does not matter anymore who believes what about me, about any of this. That will never matter to me again.

this will be done 

by october one 

so mote it be

This seems nigh on impossible, and the roofer made me cry, not because the roof leaks and it's a huge hassle now (it is), but because he used to be a different person, a nicer one that I felt safe with, and like so so so so so many others, that dude is dead, and in his place is mr just making his money (and fuck you) and I had already gotten mad once, he had his shot at pissing me off ONCE (the ones gone mean love that), but not twice. No. Dead to me 😪. Then since that made everything harder, I upped the timeline on the manicure right in the middle of the day between endless rounds of Hauling Shit. I'm really into this plum color. 

I'm sorry, but I feel most alive when I feel alive. I will pile it on more all day if I have to. Big wet warm sloppy life. My feet are covered in blisters. 

skin - hans williams (yep) 😴

me: my horoscope sounds like a five year old running around with their privates out "just to see"

tj: honestly I think that's reasonable

me: 🤣 what stage of grief is 'fuck it'?

tj: acceptance, I think

me: ah, that's probably why I don't know what to do with it, because I've never actually experienced that before. I've just said I was fine. And it's meant the opposite. 

tj: maybe you're fine, or somewhere close?

me: well, if 'fuck a bunch of this' is that, then definitely getting there 🤣

tj: I was sitting at the beach yesterday thinking about how I could be happier and I decided I needed to be more open to the world and other peopple and I thought, Why didn't I just think of this before? 

me: you can definitely blame that on mom in therapy

tj: 🤣

me: 🤣

tj: then on the way home, this guy chased me down the street, yelling how supportive he is of trans people, and asking me if there's any rallies or anything that he could go to, as I'm running away from him

me: 🤣 please tell me I can find this funny

tj: oh yea, and he was a mailman on duty

me: 🤣 priceless

hotter now - lu kala I know no one listens to this shit, but I don't care la la laaaaaaaaaaa 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Sometimes getting perspective isn't just metaphorical. Literally changing your environment, moving your body or taking a trip can help reset your mind and shift perspective. Time to travel.

Funny, I woke up thinking about this again. Not crying. I woke up at the asscrack of dawn, thinking about running downhill, like getting down the mountain after a long-slog hike up. In blinding rain. Which I have done pretty recently, like a mountain goat leaping from rock to rock sure-footed, it felt like flying. 

I have SO much left to do with this move. That last push to the summit is always beastly, but I know it's close.

I am scanning my body, thinking about a pedicure, a haircut, a microderm, au natural pubes but waxed legs - these are not deep thoughts, but they aren't Dying thoughts either. 

What does inclusive / resort mean for the california sober? The 'free' watered down booze no longer desired. There are so many of us now, such resorts are alllll over, many with decent mocktail bars, phony negronis. The US has tons in places like Colorado, but all things considered, a 'let's see other countries' break might be good too, yea? So looking around Jamaica. "For those interested in cannabis and related wellness." That one is $1200 total for a 4-night weekend in early December. Warm CBD oil massages mmmmyessssss, food deliveries to choose from bc you're chillin, presumably....

I know I will probably only make it to my cottage in reality, but in my mind, I am over shooting that goal in order to land at at least as far as Java by week's end. And to resist the urge for a cigarette.

rn listening to Bahamas - Somebody Just Like Me

tentative tipping

So much left to do, holy god whole houses fill with a city block's worth of shit somehow. But I went shopping a little today. I know what instapot I'm getting. I moved gumbo ingredients to the freezer and my last pound of butter. I ordered bedding in exuberient colors that don't match at all. 

I gained another few pounds. 

I don't know if I am ready to feel anything but the mostly numb acceptance that rolled in like a fog with my dad's death on top of everyhing else (broke me more). I take it as it comes. I am almost ready for a manicure, I think. I mean, while I wait to feel better, I could look less frazzzzzzled.

the laundry room - avett brothers la la laaaaaaaaaa 

intense live acoustic version and my goodness the beards (remind me I'm not dead)

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Restrictions will be lifted. Some see it as an invitation to be carefree, but you see it as an opportunity to work without obstacle. You're thinking ahead and eager to build the resources that could help in tougher times.

Yes, but my definition of "tougher times" has totally changed, and that change is deepening daily.

american lonely - marfa

"the couch"

rehomed ❤️ (note to self: I love their yellow)

(do I even want a couch?🤔)

suffering - boy golden  hahahaha ya everything hurts 

The boss who started all of this in terms of the end of my career has been fired, which I should be happy about but I feel nothing about it at all. Instead of interpreting that as despondency, I'm going to choose to interpret it as "I'm over it". OVER IT in the sense of truly gotten past it, not just feeling like I want to put a fork in my eye. 

I am doing my normal drink coffee and cry thing in the mornings as my phone blows up and blows up about work news, about which I feel absolutely nothing. Not about that.  

I don't have any stretch marks that you can see, but I think I have a lot of them that ya can't. They're just signs that something happened and they fade.

I feel a lot. Sometimes, like yesterday, I can't hold it all, my arms don't reach. In a way all of this pain is a good thing, because it clarifies what matters enough to feel about and what does not anymore to try to hold in the first place.

song tbd

update: thank god for Ears 💞 it'll get better now, he stayed at the house after I raged out of there on another repair emergency run saying I didn't want fucking dinner 😭❤️‍🔥 so he moved one set of boxes at the top of the stairs - ONE little pile - and worked up a sweat doing it AND left the dogs out with the gate open, his mind fried tired. And he saw me. Thought holy shit. He ordered dinner and promised to come every day right after work through dinner until it's done. 

Try putting your hand, fingers spread, on your chest / breastbone, push down a bit and take deep breaths. I invented it today, had to cz 🤯, I made a thunder shirt made with my own hand. 

fuuuuuck thiiiiis fuck you horoscope, fuck you moon, fuck you selfhelp books, fuck a bunch of all of this. I even want to slap my mother right now. sure, Mom, I'll just move a 4 story house filled to the brim with "important" things belonging mostly to others  and left in my care, I will just sort and box all of that, and then take all the rest to goodwill packed up nicely, and then move all the small furniture myself and all of the kitchen and all of the dishes amd all the art and all the other zillion categories that movers don't move cz they only move MOTHERFUCKING COUCHES and shit (duh). Oh and all those fucking garden shit you keep harping about like the CONCRETE bench, all by myself, cz movers don't do that either because, as they said, that would "get their pants muddy". I'll just do all of that, so you can pick some motherother fucking wallpaper Ma, that's a great idea❤️‍🔥🤬 

it's a good thing I am ALWAYS FUCKING FINE (a life sentence) 

dedication - julian taylor

"Here’s the thing about withdrawal, from any drug, substance, person, or behavior: The reason it’s so excruciating is that not only do you have to feel the pain of losing access to that thing you desire more than anything else, but you also have to feel the pain of every other loss you have ever experienced along your life’s journey. All the previous failures, all the previous crashes, all the previous disappointments: It’s like a twenty-car pileup of failures on an icy highway—and there’s no way to get away from it. Worst of all, withdrawal forces you to feel your original suffering again—the deepest childhood grief or ancestral wound that started you out on this journey of addiction in the first place. And who wants to feel that? Not me. Not most people, to be honest. My friend the writer and teacher Kemi Nekvapil was once asked by an interviewer, “If you could make everyone on earth do one thing, what would it be?” And Kemi replied, “If there’s one thing I wish everyone would do—one thing that would actually change the world—it would be to heal.”  But healing is hard. Healing is expensive, time-consuming, and painful—whether it’s physical or emotional healing. This is why so many people cannot and will not heal. Instead, they use, in order to not have to feel their suffering. And when using doesn’t work, you can always just blame." ~All the Way to the River

death row

death row metaphors are melodramatic but waking up to another day of this 

I will never do this again like this, alone. not to mention exhausting, there is no fun in it, no shared agony to make it funny

when I moved here, I had my youngest child with me, we still laugh about almost killing each other that one hot day

everyone hated all of this, this time - is hating it 

crescendo-level over-it

and rarely saw each other 

I bet that if we'd all showed up on each a full day with all vehicles and all hands, it all would have been half as bad

we had to admire the heroic efforts of each other from afar, each alone with our own, instead

cool cool, but never will I ever again

chris stapletons beard would have to be between my legs with chickens running around shitting rainbow eggs 

fuck. this. 

I am deciding it's still yeserday, hoping it won't seem like karmic punishment by 8ish 😴 

"Good, bad, right, wrong: Do we even have time for this kind of language—any of us? 

I mean, aren’t we all running out of road here?" ~All the Way to the River

"Can a person survive forever at this pace of weariness and productivity and sorrow?"

update - they lost my bed in transit and refunded it (note: whole new set of difficulties getting shit delivered to what was almost a black neighborhood wtf ) - so I had to order just a quick platform, too high for Fat Janis to make the leap, so I will have to get the sexy ottomon FOR THE DOG 🤣 - that sums it all up so wonderfully 🤣 I couldn't have written it 🤣

... and my pants have been on backwards all day

I don't remember yesterday's list of Things but it ended with getting the child-required vaccines. I figured, eh, I'll be fine. I'll just be a little extra not-fine.

ng

☯️ 

Do you read me? - Rory Gallagher 

It is the fall equinox. Half night half day. "Pause to honor what has ripened, and bless what is yet to come." Trying, but not feeling it. 

I have a month-long crying headache. 

So I am just Doing shit that needs done. It's better than Dying, but it ain't quite Aliving.

king of possibilities - goldie boulitier chosen by TJ as my song of the equinox, logic "good to have those, if you can"

Play me a song? 

one way out - allman brothers ha, hi Dad😒

I rearranged my friends to keep the cottage open and empty for a few last precious days. And I am going to bust my ass to get this behind me by 10/1 so that I can be there for some time 10/2-5. He wished for it (say when), but being realistic, I had to want to go anyway (alone). 

river of tears - wiliiam prince ft serena ryder feels like water

thinking about rugs not lamps - I once had sex in front of a fire, the same woodburner insert that I am having installed again, on a floral wool orange rug, he took pics maybe still on one of zillion SD cards around here... that'd be the comparable location

#daddyissues 

the bedrock - wild river 

wrong wrong wrong - great lakes swimmers

This far gone - marcus king 

I just got shit done allllll day, periodically bursting into tears to clear the pipes and keep going going g....

the real thing - parker milsap

about that gun..

"...the kinds of things that happen when your life is falling apart. Suddenly it’s raining hammers. Everything unravels. You sprain your ankle, your car breaks down, your dog dies. You can’t handle anything. And that’s when the madness really sets in, because it seems like the world itself is a machine of pain that has turned its full force against you." ~All the Way to the River

No more.

"half a bubble off plumb"

potentially

better

in love now (tape redux) - field guide 

'The three men approached. O knelt down on the rug, her green dress in a corolla around her. Her bodice squeezed her; her breasts whose nipples were visible, were at the level of her lover's knees. "A little more light," said one of the men. As they were adjusting the lamp so that the beam of light would fall directly on his sex and on his mistress's face, which was almost touching it, and on her hands which were caressing him from below, Rene suddenly ordered: Say it again: 'I love you.'" O repeated "I love you," with such delight that her lips hardly dared brush the tip of his sex, which was still protected by its sheath of soft flesh. The three men, who were smoking, commented on her gestures, on the movement of her mouth closed and locked on the sex she had seized, as it worked its way up and down, on the way tears streamed down her ravaged face each time the swollen member struck the back of her throat and made her gag, depressing her tongue and causing her to feel nauseous. It was this same mouth which, half gagging on the hardened flesh which filled it, murmured again: "I love you." The two women had taken up positions to the right and left of Rene who had one arm around each of their shoulders. O could hear the comments made by those present, , but through their words she strained to hear her lover's moans, caressing him carefully, slowly , and with infinite respect, the way she knew pleased him. O felt that her mouth was beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it, since he deigned publicly to offer caresses to it, since, finally, he deigned to discharge in it. She received as a god is received, she heard him cry out..' ~Story of O

The offending passage. 

In its stilted old-timey translated way, it's not entirely unlike the good news bible vibe - no? 

Maybe I'm making that up, my sexual being so swamped with sadness on this earthly plane atm that I have to take it on faith that it still exists at all. I did find the 5 of Cups Betty Paige collage photo - the exact image meant to represent that faith, been looking for it for months. That collage is the first thing I am going to make there, sitting at the kitchen table. And wouldntcha know, it's the card of the day (again) 

Ima gonna put a spin on it

I also got a pistol permit, notice of, and the promise of all needed assistance all of which I intend to accept, and that'll take me into pheromone alive land, ie give me something to fucking do with my self besides wallpaper. Aim. Shoot. Bang. Chaperoned and shepherded so I don't gotta chit chat, love that. 

But. I gotta get through this first. There is a rain cloud directly over me every day all day, and I do not want to take that sad monsoon season forward into the new time. I would rather stay in the shitty moment and see the storm through.

he sent one every year, not xmas or bday just a valentine, and I will never get another one 💔

I will finish half of what I need to by end of day in order that tomorrow is the end of packing. So I can stop finding things (hurting myself). 

🤦🏻‍♀️fuck me

what would you do to you? - tucker wetmore decent question, though I would add "for"