Then she kissed him. She ran her tongue over his teeth and his lips. She sucked on his mouth and kissed him harder, and placed his hands in her blouse and then she was pushing herself against him, feeling the solid feeling in his pants right by his zipper, and something was there behind those barriers that was hard and powerful and she pushed against it all, this package she wanted to spring open and unwrap under a tree on a soft bed of duff, and she was pushing him down and trying to open his package, and that heavy belt came first, that impossible bolt and rivet, that zipper with rusted teeth that wouldn’t budge, and there it was, there it was. ~The Portable Veblen

Coleman Hell - Fireproof

VIRGO  Wisdom isn't glamorous. It's typically depicted by an old scribe on a mountain or a short green alien. Ryan Gosling wouldn't play Wisdom in the movies. And yet, "wise" is the most attractive thing you could be today.

Ok but this is the reaction to sanity and wisdom, in my experience. I clean (act like an adult) and Django is here demonstrating the part of henpecked. Hiding, lest I might nab him, like his ass doesn't show.

“Remind me, what is the stoic glacier method?”

“It’s the slow process of shaping someone’s behavior by force of one’s own personal stoicism.” (“If you wish to be loved, love,” said Seneca, a Stoic of note.)

~The Portable Veblen

VIRGO Remember when you felt helpless? If you could have only known that help was on its way, how much easier the moment would have passed. Remember the lesson. Trust that there are forces on your side.

They say that whatever you do during an eclipse is like planting a seed – you’ll get more of it whatever it is.  So I’m trying really hard today to be okay.  I sent my youngest kid into the hinterlands of Germany overnight, by himself, for a ‘save the environment’ mission trip.  A plane, two trains, one bus, all in German.  It is hard to describe how you feel about a youngest child.  It is not that you love them the most, more like you love them the hardest.  They are the most likely to be not-ready when you die, stuff like that occurs to you, and in whatever way you find yourself wanting to protect that one the most.  So, being how I am built, I send him the furthest away so that I know he will be okay.  And, to be honest, I cried most of the night in terror that something might go wrong, and cried most of the morning because nothing did and he doesn’t need me anymore ish.  Once there, he texted that all was well, except he is with 9 other teenagers and none of them speak one another’s languages and it’s super awkward.  “I feel like a newly divorced dad or something, lonely in a new place with nobody and a single bed.”  I snapped a pic of myself where I am sitting at work – all those other teens have mothers too, at work somewhere missing them too right now, and everyone knows how to say “Mom”.  Start there (and then come back Boy…)

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Life is an eclipsing of things, one over another over time.

The elusive camera-hating prince charming. My mother naming him after Idris Elba still cracks me up. For scale reference, that is a 4 inch potted plant he is sitting next to. You'd think, given he is the only pretty prince in my pond, that I would see him ruling the roost at his leisure fairly often, but he almost never lets me get anywhere near him. Wary and ambivalent to the bone. Only Jasper can sit next to him.

upshot

I love my job. Being a teacher is the shit. Even when it's a nightmare.

VIRGO Pleasure can serve as an anchor to the moment. It keeps you from skipping ahead in your mind and missing the good parts. Tune in to your senses. The pleasure is there. All you have to do is take it.


That's a lot. But not enough.

People use their bodies far too lightly for my taste. A tattoo should mean some serious shit. It's forever on the only self you've got.

I have one tattoo of the names of my children written in an alphabet that one of them made - child hieroglyphs, is how I think of it.

I wanted to put an eye tattoo on my back. I kept thinking, "I have to watch my back." Over and over, I thought it, like a trauma mantra. I paid an artist to design something for me. Black/white line drawing I wanted, for emphasis on no bullshit. She never got it right, though. It was either flirty girly looking or evil-eyed ugly. Then I dropped the idea. But all the while the betrayal times were 'over', my gut was telling me different.



I am the only self I've got. If I can't trust it, how do I live?

So then I returned to the idea of the tat, after. But the design(s) I had paid for weren't right. And I felt really shitty for a really long time also, and I didn't want to put shittyfeeling on my body forever. But I am stronger now, so I went to see Sunshine's artist (how does she know evvveryone??). She sees him once a month so that she is 'forever a work in progress'.

Sunshine: A Work in Progress

His waitlist is normally 6 months and he usually only does huge pieces, but she talked him into hearing me out. I told him the whole story, Grandpa Ott and all, even about the sun in the water of the magic pond, the un-inverted feeling. "I want something that watches my back, but more like to TRUST MYSELF than to mistrust others. I need to listen to my own eyes."

He doodled as I talked. He turned tears into a water droplet, a tiny pond just big enough to reflect an Ott flower blooming above it.

Not that they (Ott glories) can't live in harmony, given the right offer. They like to coexist with throrny roses, for instance. And they glow-bloom before dawn, attracting hummingbird moths, not birds at all but butterfly-bees. Both the glories and the moths are more than meets the eye.

Add a discerning eye and ta-da...

While the mentality of our culture is deeply entrenched in competition and the survival of the fittest, such a mindset ultimately leads to a hostile society in which nobody will want to live. Venus and Neptune form a visionary trine. Look for softness, chivalry and compassion. If you don't see it in the world, imagine it and you'll help bring it into being. (Think globally, act locally.) VIRGO weekend love horoscope: It's not just about who they are but about who you are when you're around them. Do they bring out the best in you? Define best: Flourishing/Sexy/On Solid Ground. (Right?) (That what I bring out in you?)

Walt Whitman, "A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books."

Their name is that of my actual grandfather, for whom Ears is named. And as lovely as the tiny blooms are, glowing in the center of deep violet velvet, it is their tendril that makes them special. It is thinner than a standard tendril, more like curly hair than vines. And they will kill any plant that tries to shade them out by wrapping around and squeezing - think strangulation with a piano wire. They look so delicate, and they are, but also damn near impossible to win a fight with let alone to kill. It'd be better to make peace with them, if you can.

I didn't use any kind of filter, I didn't even autocorrect the exposure, this is exactly how it looked. It had just rained heavily. Then the setting sun came out. The reflection hit the glass surface of the pond and rays of the sun rose up out of the water. For all the world, you would swear that the sky was the reflection and the sun lives underwater of that pond in reality.

When I am there, I feel un-inverted just like that. As if the rest of the time, I seem to live in the world more successfully than most people do because it is a trick I have perfected. Like "magic". But the real magic hides me Away.

real magic

VIRGO: Life takes courage no matter which choice you make.

Tawista woods - Minerva NY

I remember when I played music a lot. Ya grow out of soundtracking your life after a while. I did anyway. Whenever I hear this cheesy song, I remember exactly where I was and what was going on and how I felt when I first heard it. A childhood memory kinda. (Thank god it wasn't 'Your body is a wonderland')

Karaoke version (an excerpt). Don't judge, it grows on ya.

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my gma's squash blossom, mine now

speaking of magic

VIRGO You'll be asked crazy questions and presented with people's problems as if you were some kind of magic fairy whose job it is to make everyone happy. That's leadership for you!


Uh huh.


Premise: People are lazy a LOT (and tired and discouraged and lame). They want what is easy to get immediately. The less challenging and cheaper the better.  In everything from little stuff like what they are eating for lunch to big ticket items like their work and lovers, they go for whatever happens to be at hand. So. In a world wherein many people can't hold a damn thought, of course it is powerful to hold an intention, and the people who can do so have magic. This American Life - "To Be Real" (armscrossy)

VIRGO You want one thing and you need another. You know a lot about the former and very little about the latter. When a need is filled that you didn't even know you had ... that's magic.

I need to want (for) nothing.

Mapping Transcendentalism to superheroes, it is wild how that is catching on like a wee curriculum fire. The class itself now includes faculty taking the frigging thing plus a waitlist as of this morning. Everyone wants to get out their childhood collection of whatever or brand their own meme T-shirt. And it isn't even a full idea, it's just, 'Ever feel like a secret midcareer moody superhero named, o, something like Vindictive or?' - you ask nearly anyone that and they are like o hell yes then get all happy just to put a name to it. It is the damnest thing. Funny Fuck It versus Status Crapquo. Finally, after struggling to understand the mojo of superheroism for over a decade, like a loop that goes back to Fuck It stronger and stronger, until I can no longer deny what I really am..
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Nuts. That is my superpower.

"When I was little, I wanted to be three things: a cowboy, an artist, and the Incredible Hulk. The funny thing is that all three wishes came true.  I love my horse, I'm a writer, and I have more in common with Bruce Banner's dangerous side than I'd like to admit.  What I wanted so much as a child were power and invincibility, but what I actually found was a hidden core of indestructible rage that made me a better artist, person, and mother." ~Delilah S. Dawson, On the Hulk: You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

I had a little dark moon party over the weekend (pitch sky makes for great yard fires). Vindictive's coming out party of sorts. I made my famous scrumptious pepper dip and poured wine and we built a backyard fire on homemade firestarters. I am still pooped.

The secret superhero identity idea is a strong one, it clearly resonates. One of the librarians admitted that his office chair in the cataloging bowels of the building wears a Batman cape. One of the bio teachers has an alter ego named Supressed who is polite to idiots but who can make your dogs like her better than they like you. Etc. Since most of the people I know are teachers too or work as teaching supporting staff, all this summer thought play is work for me kinda. Come fall, my class on Emerson will have a new unit on DIY superheroes - what could be more Self-Reliant than that?

VIRGO Beauty and pain are often linked. Every rose has its thorns. A good florist will handle the danger. And when there's no one to take away the prickly truth of the matter, go on and assume the role of protector.

 More thunder is rolling in on a darkening afternoon. I got home from work just ahead of the sky cracking apart. Good weather for a nap.

"I'll take Batman.  Golden age Batman or campy Silver Age or grim Batman or the aging Dark Knight of even Batman 2099.  I'll take whoever chooses to answer the Bat-Signal on a given rainy night. I'll take him for all sorts of reasons.  Because he's a weird superhero.  No powers, just his self-discipline and talent and personal hang-ups. Part vicious vigilante, part neurotic warrior saint.  With his private cult of unrelenting mourning, he's the costumed patron of the walking wounded, of simply Not Letting It Go." ~ Austin Grossman, Me and Batman and You, from Last Night a Superhero Saved My Life.

It's a collection of essays not really about the superheroes exactly, but about each famous author's relationship to the preferred hero of their childhood. Why that one?

And what of my heroes? They aren't in the book. I liked Wonder Woman well enough, and did see her film on opening night, but meh. Nothing bad ever happened to her (celibacy is a huge drag but doesn't count as trauma) - daddy issues got added to her plate in this version, that helped a little, but still. I like Storm, throwing thunder like bowling balls in the strike zone. I hated Lois Lane even though she was a writer -  always needing saved and too stupid to see Clark for what he was, dumb bitch..

VIRGO  Your circumstances are where you are, not who you are. Some environments are harder to escape than others. Today you'll have to wriggle and fight to unclench the talons that hold you in a place.

Remember when love had you riding on unicorns? Now when you look down, it's a horse. No, wait — it's a bike. No, wait — you're not riding anything. You're just standing there, going nowhere. No one is to blame for this. It's the natural progression of relationships. Mars enters Leo, infusing our passions with the creativity needed to get back to the magic.

Queen of Cups (reversed)

VIRGO The passive approach would work if you were on a raft floating down a river with its own agenda. But you're not. You're standing on the path that splits into many possible directions, and you have to decide which way to walk. (Ya mean stomp?)


I had a dream that I was throwing knives. I woke up and thought: YES. I googled it. Knife throwing falls into the same category as competitive hot yoga, the difficult and pissed off end of concentration martial arts. I started trying to find lessons locally.

I haven't yet. But what I did find is a place that will organize an axe throwing party for you (with beer). They bill it as a bonding team building thing.

So I sent out a 'would you be interested?' text to all my faculty and friends at work. And 2 funny things:

1. Within minutes, EVERYONE had responded that omg they would like nothing better, especially while drinking beer, to let fly their F-U.

2. They all said something like, This is why we love you, you are a great hater (you are Vindictive)!

I thought I was keeping that kinda well hidden (?), telling jokes all the time, but no, my known quantity is furious. And I thought I would stay quiet on the social down low until I felt all peacenik sweet again. But all the good people I know, they'd all like to hurl a hatchett too, they just don't walk around feeling it all the time.

Soooo, (out)rage(d) is the new nice (?)

The trine of loving Venus and lucky Jupiter invites us to be happy first and let the circumstances catch up to us to support the feeling — or not. Your approach is simple: They treat you well; you'll treat them even better, and this will start a snowball effect of positivity.

That is precisely my approach. Even better better - if you've never had my treating you well treatment, you haven't lived.

I have completely neglected the reverse, however. So. New rule of thumb. Treat me poorly, and I will treat you in kind plus one, an experience you will also not soon shake off. And in this way, perhaps, I will start a snowball effect of watch yourself.

Think of a new X-men character called Vindictive. More than sweet to the good guys, she is the one you call when you're in need of being treated so well that it feels like a balm lightly scratched into the back of each one of your blood cells, wonderfuull washed over and through you. But betray or mistreat or malign or undervalue her, then the balm will be replaced with karmic salt and applied with equal thorough care. The blistering of regret slow and steady and unstoppable. Wouldn't you root for her? I would.

Janis -Ball and Chain 
(turn it up)

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on the waterfront

The Greek poet Hesiod said, "It will not always be summer; build barns." Try to store some emotional warmth up today. Capture it in a pic. Jot a note. Make a list of the things you can do to keep your energy, creativity and playfulness alive when things change, as they inevitably will as Venus squares Neptune and Mars squares Uranus.


Thunder is roaring down the gorge right now. I looove that booming. But the poor dogs are losing their shit. Begging me, as if I summon and control dooms.

Says every woman, sooner or later, seems like :/

VIRGO The same people who bring out the best in you also bring out the stress in you. The grace of the day is that those two things won't happen at the same time. If you keep on the sunny side, so will those around you.

Deeeep breath in....exhaaaaale.....

When Ears was very little, when he would get sick like with a cold or flu, always his body would expell pure fire. The poor little guy's ass would blister from acid shits; his brow and armpits, wherever sweat pools, would blister too. Of all the things I regret, letting him attach his heart to Trainwreck, that is right up there. Regret blisters me where it pools.

He was beautiful, Trainwreck was. Women flutter around him like moths to well-wrought imitation flames. And, he seemed good with kids. Mine loved him.

If you stand back from your romantic partners in retrospect, how much in them do you admire? Respect? Would you emulate? In how they treated you, as a friend or lover, or in any other way toward anyone or anything?

Note to self: assholes are not the same as penises, so don't get wet for them.

A friend of mine recently told me that I was vindictive. It really bothered me, thinking of myself that way, and after all the peacenik yoga shit. What did he know of wronged, anyway? But. He knows enough. And he was, is, right. I work hard, I build this life, I stomp through the halls of it, I never make promises or oaths of allegiance lightly. And the whole time, my idling state now is fuckitfuckitfuckfuckitfuckit like a small outboard boat motor in need of a tune-up it isn't going to get.

"Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. And fuck you." ~You Don't Have To Say You Love Me, Sherman Alexie

The Whites - Keep on the Sunny Side (Charlie Chaplin)

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ain't afraid of no tom cat fill my brains with poison lalala

Cowper's fluid