who knew - you won't

VIRGO You'll be developing a better way of looking at your life and some more supportive self-talk to go along with that new view. What would you tell a friend to help them if they were your position?

"You are not worthless because no man cares for you. You have taken meanness carelessness hurtfulness self-centeredness in men as natural. They put the cigarettes of their damage out on you. So you're covered in burn marks, tracks down your back you've hidden under pretty colors. Do this: Turn your back on that shit."

Lumineers - Angela

Me: I just thought of something - what if we get shot?
Ears: shit why did you say that?
TJ: why would we?
Me: ya know, lonely nutcases, movie theaters, US gun laws - that is toxic combo on a holiday..
TJ: riiiight
Me: we could go right back home and rent something instead
TJ: I am down for that actually, especially if you will take a nap first cz I have a new steamcard burning a hole in my pocket right now
Me: O hell yea, I am always down for a nap. What are we gonna rent?
Ears: ya know what I haven't seen in a while...
TJ: COCK!
Ears: hahahahaha
Me: hahahaha me either
Us: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
TJ: just google it
Us: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Me: stop! my mascara is running
Ears: I was gonna say a Tarantino movie
Us: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

BROS - Tell Me

VIRGO Making other people happy makes you happy. And then when they're not, you're not. And though you really can't control how other people feel, something about the equation will really work for you today. 

Experience suggests that it helps to start with good raw ingredients for the best outcomes. In pie making, in teaching, in home reno, everything.

In the case of making people happy, which is something that makes me very happy to do, it is vital to begin with people who can be happy. If that is possible, I can usually find a way to make it so. If not, the people are human men.

"There's a lot to be thankful for this season...unless you're a human woman." gigglegiggle

Yea um, what happened to men? I've never been molested but did y'all?? Cuz I have conferred with my ladies and it is the prevalent opinion than men are in two buckets mostly: 1 Bad and 2 Hopeless

Which strongly suggests 1 Abused or 2 Dropped on your heads or some shit

Then again, I have the relationship skill of a cactus, only skill is surviving on 1 Hostility or 2 Nothing, so guess I shouldn't talk as if I am above whatever happened. Maybe Cosby put something in all our pudding :/

Jasper loves my manicures

Fried and undersugared, I am

Vague very slight language thing, I wouldn't even say accent, more like a flavor. Idiot savant style knowledge (of roof materials in this instance). A brother and dad another couple 'like a brother' brothers own the business. He stands in the kitchen looking like he is surprised (and super nice but slightly annoyed) to be there once he has told me all that. I can't help it. I think: I like you. Not like he was hot kinda thing, just the particularity of that kind of odd is charming to me.

When he sends me the written estimate (which I accepted) (staying for the winter at least) (and I'm overcompensating for cheating on my house in my head), it has his name on it. Seriously? I had to ask. Greek via Ukraine, he is surprised I noticed, doesn't really remember, grew up here but in an immigrant family blabla.

What is that I like about slightly "off" people who are herdlings belonging to herds *that hate people like me*!? I am wayyy too modern mongrel to be anything but in the wrong. Like how Jasper gets crushed out on cats. I bet Tranwreck's mother prays thank you at every mass to the Polish Jesus that I am no longer in her reality.

Peter Rosenberg re hiphop, "I've always been drawn to loving things that require defense." I totally relate to that sentiment! And I am gonna guess hiphop does not admire you back much for your trouble.

I saw Toni Morrison tonight. 50 years to the day since MLK spoke on that same Klienhans stage..

If, would I want it? As usual I shied away from the question. Answer: Sort of. But I don't really. I like my life. But then again, it feels like it doesn't like me back as much. 

I always think about what it would be like to be haved and held by whatever it is. This is nice. If I took the job probably THEN all of a sudden I would get a much sweeter offer at home. That is the game.

I don't play games very well.

When he is between other women, Trainwreck always thought/thinks the world of me.

While I think that is absurd and frankly awful, to have and to keep shopping instead of to have and hold, I am noting the obvious parallel:

I am channeling the dating that others do (I should be doing?) into house shopping ft nesting instead. That is what I do. I house flirt.

I go out, fall in love for a minute with something new. Then I think about all the effort that anything new always is, I worry there are hidden downsides to the new one for which I will be unprepared (mine isn't perfect but it is KNOWN which I LIKE, I am just not a woohoo new dick/house kinda girl naturally). Then I decide to spend a little more effort on the house I have (paint usually, I like to paint and that doesn't require $$/skill just time/effort and I like chores so). Then I think: I like you after all, House. (I just wish you weren't such a long drive whatever that's bumming me out.)

Then I do suuuuper nerdy shit like look up my home equity and related credit scores lol. Like, looking in the mirror and thinking that I look sexier because my house (dick substitute) loves me.

dammit, I want a perfect 800, so I can win the 'Human Birkenstock Award'

The Hip - Blowing High Dough

More than meets the eye, not a hummingbird. A hummingbird MOTH. Like all moths, driven by pheromones, they fall in love across great difficult distances, flying hard enough to make that bzzbzz wing sound. You know them from hummingbirds by their antennae. And the males are slightly peachfuzzy.

good thing he's so cute cz he hurts like hell, def male

Me (driving too fast to tat from first realtor): Ok life lesson..
Ears: oooookay..?
Me: don't start a tattoo when you have pms
Ears: gigglegiggle - I love how you have SONS to give that to, don't get a tattoo during pms, got it
Me: no no, don't START a tattoo
Ears: hahahahahaha riiiight
Me: riiiiiiight cz now my dumb ass has to get a hummingbird filled in today for what feels like nooooo reason except to torture myself on a random Saturday hahahahahaha
Ears: hahahahahaha your midlife crises are hilarious
Me: right? at least there's that hahahahaha

How do you also sell a house and move and alllll that on top of alllll this already to manage? How did I do it last time?? I wanted the Greek. Desire tipped my scales. This house was both lovable in itself and at that man's feet. And that's how I summoned the oomph. I was fooling myself obviously, but it worked.

There ain't no pheromone pot of gold in Tonawanda to fool myself with. I would get the workbenches he is leaving behind in the basement that smells like sawdust, the quintessential mansmell, another ghost.

VIRGO There's no time to waste on hating the experiences that led you here. That will cause you to fall back. Instead, affirm: Here you are, shaped by what happened and also by what might happen. Fall forward.

Swiped yes today. New directors of teacher training undergrad and grad. That felt better than godfuckingno. Especially the undergrad one, I need to make sure they offer her a living wage (cheap Catholics) with her contract tomorrow. And I like that, being able to get people treated rightly when I can. Then a young man chased me down the street screaming about beauty and trying to start a flash mob but he only got one other guy in a truck to beep. Which was okay, not so much that it scared me, just a Buffalo thing. Buffalo is like that, grungy playful wackadoodle, pro urban farming and beauty and bike lanes.

I asked my tarot deck a question. It said no.

So, back to houses.

I have never had a tinder account or whatever it is the thing where you swipe left or right. But I know about it because everyone at work makes fun of me for doing it. Fall is interview season. I spend whole days saying 'nope'...'nope'....etc. Swipeswipenowayjose

If people were houses I would like more of them. Look at that sweet thing. Somebody built that kitchen (for her) with love in his heart (or pants, whichever finefine)

Dear diary, Today I did nothing except talk to a friend all day about houses.

Where do you want to live and why? Can you? How can you? Why would you or would you not? Pros and cons. That is the kind of shit I want to talk about. I just like to.

Outside my friggin blog, I don't talk about sex and death 24/7. UNDERNEATH, like semiconsciously, everything is really about those essential things - anyone with opposable thumbs knows morality and mortality are the biggies duh right? But that lives INSIDE everyday shit, like granite or butcher block? Pros and cons. Block, is my preference, because it is both bold and warm. But it is harder to care for. And that is just like me, right? To prefer wood for those reasons despite that cost? In these many small choices, we know who we are. So that is why I like to talk about and make such choices.

I think I might buy this. It has been on the market a few minutes. Close to a lot of faculty friends, who are making that area the new 'Phd ghetto', like my big red double used to be in Parkside. The agent sold my last two houses, like a shark that guy is, but he likes me and I like him. His gaymean humor is fantastic. We share aesthetic opinions (Italian aging, the hair, ya gotta invest in your hair). So he texted me right back and I have an appointment to see it next Sat, sooner than the open house and same day I get my tattoo finished colored in. Is that a sign? If it has a clawfoot tub, that is definitely a sign..

There is nothing keeping me here necessarily. Nobody would be sad if I left. What is here is ME, this house, what I made of it, the safespace dog den feel of it. But I make that wherever I go. I am that.

“You are a good man,” she says. “You are beautiful.” She runs the back of her hand over the sparse fur of his chest. She lets a tiny crackle go, a prickle at his hair’s ends, glowing faintly. It feels good. Every line of his body is coming into focus as she touches him, as if he hadn’t really been there at all, before. He wants to be inside her; his body is already telling him what to do, how to move this thing forward, how to take her arms, how to bring her down on to the bed, how to consummate. But the body has contradictory impulses: fear is as significant as lust, physical pain as strong as desire. He holds himself there, wanting and not-wanting. He lets her set the pace. It takes a long while, and it is good. She shows him what to do, with his mouth and with his fingers. By the time she is riding him, sweating and calling out, the sun has risen on a new day in Riyadh. And when she loses control as she finishes she sends a jolt through his buttocks and across his pelvis and he barely feels the pain at all, so great is the delight. ~The Power, Naomi Alder

It is cold and dreary. I don't want to go out. I want to have gotten married at 25 and it worked out and I will have Sunday morning sex with him tomorrow early and ignore him this evening while he is puttering or out with his friends and it never crosses my mind to worry about trusting him while I read this borderline vampire porn with Jasper on my legs until I drift off. So that is exactly what I am doing. I am cuddled in with fuzzy pants on under a fuzzy blankie, drinking pms tea, chuckling at this girly Fight Club novel, listening to drizzle hit the window in a quiet house. It is exactly as it would be if I had lived happily ever after. Except the husband died or something. Saving a baby from a burning house (since I am making him up, why not?). And I am carrying on in a dignified fashion.

The Chainsmokers - (Don't) Let Me Down (Acapella)

VIRGO. Because misinformation runs amok in the world, people you trust could accidentally lead you astray.Your skepticism is healthy. Do your own research.

ddhd

"dreams don't have deadlines" but they do


Late Tragically Hip frontman records vocals for "The North" in clip for posthumous album, 'Introduce Yerself'

VIRGO  It's not like you're searching for tenderness and friendship in this harsh and competitive world, but when you accidentally stumble across it today you'll realize how much you needed it.

Oh I know. I need it like hell. I just know also not to count on any such thing.

And here is a weird thing about adulting: don't break it to others, that they should probably recalibrate their expectations lower. They are still persons of faith in humanity even if you have become cynical, and they might never be disappointed if you yourself do not disappoint them. So keep your burdens to yourself, and espouse faith in people and in God and/or in abstractions of goodness (justice, kindness, etc.). That is the real load to carry as a grown up. It isn't paying the bills or whatever, that you can do or not be able to and then be able again, that is hard but is not the Hard part. The Hard part is faith. Being an adult is acting like you have faith convincingly, even if you've lost it, for the sake of those who have not lost it yet and who have faith in you.

Faculty Council week.

Last text wawawaing at me was 9:54 last night. First one this morning was 4:12 a.m.

TJ at 6:20 a.m.: grunt
Me: grunt
TJ: I am so over high school
Me: I am so over college
TJ: the coffee is already cold..and what the hell are you doing?
Me: making dinner because I know by dinnertime I will be out of energy and if I eat one more slice of pizza I am going to beat somebody to death with a pizza
TJ: what time did you get up?
Me: 4:12, first complaint text came in
TJ: Faculty Council is like your job gets its period
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMGTOTALLY LOLOL if only some chocolate and wine would shut them all the fuck up
TJ: yea man, show them Seinfeld reruns and let em all cuddle shih tzus
Me: HAHAHAHAHA

The current Scorpio sun is conducive to doing things you might not think to do at other times of the year. There's a certain intensity that comes with this soulful passage and a mood that drives people to discovery. So how is the passionate energy of the next four weeks best applied? Consider adding one or two of these ideas to your list:

1. Uncover a family mystery.

2. Go deeper into certain aspects of a religion.

3. Think of the world as it was 100 years before you were born.

4. Dream about what the world will be like 100 years after you die.

5. Write an appreciative love letter to your mother.

6. Change your radio station to absorb a different kind of music than you've ever gotten into before.

7. Solve a crime.

8. Love someone you've known a long time in a new and deeper way. (ha hem)

9. Give up some aspect of media or technology you've become addicted to.

10. Consider different lifestyles and what it would be like to live them.

You don't have to make any changes. Just thinking about them might be enough to broaden your horizons.

LP-Switchblade

VIRGO You care. You try. Whether or not your efforts land as planned, your good intentions will shine through. You'll either get what you set out for or attract the kind of help you need to do it next time.

Good morning Bedhead. We have the day to ourself so ya don't need to brush that mop or bother w liptint etc. What ya wanna do? We could make love to ourself all morning except that we dared ourself not to. Why did we do that? A guy on the radio said it improved intimacy. With whom? Good question. Let's go to yoga, Paul is teaching today. That isn't going to help with the dare at all. Truth, he is so hot he can rock a manbun. And he likes the new tat, always admiring our bow pose. Snort.

Paul (at me during my bow pose): Looking good G.
Me: You're looking good too Paul (everyone in the studio incl him and his wife cracks up)

Okay that felt fantastic, I love to sweat! But. Right, but. The punchline to 'what is bigger than a breadbox?' Is not supposed to be 'my clitoris'. Right, and we are telling ourselves jokes like a lunatic so there's that. Let's go to the juice bar and read that new collection of feminist fairy tales. Yea, what could be less sexy than a spinach smoothie and feminism?! Nothing!!

In the beginning, I know I want him before he does. This isn’t how things are done, but this is how I am going to do them.

I see the muscles of his neck and upper back, how he fairly strains out of his button-down shirts, like a day laborer dressed up for a dance, and I run slick. 

I am a good girl. But he is a little craggy, in that way men sometimes are, and I want. He seems like he could want the same thing. I once heard a story about a girl who requested something so vile from her paramour that he told her family and they had her hauled her off to a sanatorium. I don’t know what deviant pleasure she asked for, though I desperately wish I did. What magical thing could you want so badly they take you away from the known world for wanting it? I have always wanted to choose my moment, and this is the moment I choose.

He is hard and hot and dry and smells like bread, and when he breaks me I scream and cling to him like I am lost at sea. His body locks onto mine and he is pushing, pushing, and before the end he pulls himself out and finishes. I am fascinated and aroused by the rhythm, the concrete sense of his need, the clarity of his release.

I shimmy off my pantyhose, and on my hands and knees offer myself up to him. I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them. I hear the metallic buckle of his pants and the shush as they fall to the ground, and I feel his half hardness against me. I beg him—“No teasing”—and he obliges. I moan and push back, and we rut in that clearing, groans of my pleasure and groans of his good fortune mingling and dissipating into the night. We are learning, he and I.

It is not normal that a girl teaches her boy, but I am only showing him what I want, what plays on the insides of my eyelids as I fall asleep. He comes to know the flicker of my expression as a desire passes through me, and I hold nothing back from him. When he tells me that he wants my mouth, the length of my throat, I teach myself not to gag and take all of him into me, moaning around the saltiness.

Bent over the kitchen table, something old is lit within me, and I remember the way we had desired before, how we had left love streaked on all of the surfaces, how he relished in my darkest spaces. I scream with ferocity, not caring if the neighbors hear, not caring if anyone looks through the window with its undrawn curtains... ~Her Body and Other Parties

What the hell kind of feminism is that? He does take her head off and kill her in the end. Is it worth it? Good question.

The Killers - The Man

Took the day off to go for my annual physical. I am a terrible patient. I never agree to tests, never take anything they give me, never finish it if I do take it, and never answer the questions straight.

Dr: Are you sexually active?
Me: Define active.
Dr: haha I only mean do you have any pain associated with sex?
Me: psychological pain? yes.
Dr: haha
Me: My vagina is fine though, last I knew.
Dr: hahaha

I am in perfect health. Except for my personality.

"On June 2, 2015, my husband, Brooke, and I celebrated our fortieth wedding anniversary. We chose to spend it in Yellowstone. We rose before dawn in the Lamar Valley not far from where wolves were reintroduced twenty years earlier. A silhouette of coyotes feasting on a bison carcass, surrounded by bald eagles and ravens, appeared in our binoculars. As the light grew stronger the coyotes became nervous and left. The eagles flew. The ravens vanished. A large gray wolf entered. Morning light illuminated the bison body, now more bones than flesh. We watched the wolf disappear into a red cavern of ribs. He emerged stained. In the several hours we watched, the wolf’s stomach expanded with each mouthful of bison ripped from the scaffolding of bones until he stopped eating, looked over his shoulder, sniffed, and walked back into the woods. At dusk, we returned to the Lamar Valley. We wondered whether the wolves might be back on the carcass. Instead, two coyotes were picking on bones covered by a buffalo robe. The coyotes disappeared into the shadows with the last light of day. An indigo sky deepened. A mile away, a herd of a hundred bison or more grazed unconcerned. Seven left and walked single file toward the remains of the mother bison. They circled her twice, sniffed her, nudged her body, and tightened their circle as they lowered their heads. They stayed with her until twilight. Then the bison left as they came, walking single file back toward the herd—save one lone bull who stayed behind." The Hour of Land, Terry Tempest Williams

I heard her last night at a distinguished speaker series. I cried.