zine fest day

Yesterday afternoon and evening we drove to Needles, California.  What a terrible name!  We talked a lot on the road.  I think I'm getting my energy back.

Turns out I've been to Needles before--when we were in Arizona and I got really sick and Ming drove us home to take me to the emergency room, we got some Indian food in Needles, some spinach.

I told Ming last night how waiting for that Indian food was some of the worst ten minutes of my life.  I was alone in the minivan, fading in and out of consciousness, painfully uncomfortable and afraid I was going to die.  I was like, holy shit, we gotta get out of here.  How could it be taking so long.  Please, god, let's go.

Then when he finally had the food, I couldn't eat it--I couldn't eat, anymore.  He didn't eat it either.  It ended up thrown away, in its sad styrofoam container.

Basically, I don't like Needles too much.  But this Red Roof Inn though creepily under-inhabited for a weekend seems ok.  The little dogs next door haven't made a peep.  The trains come by, but there's no train whistle.

I'm wearing my space dress and ready for a zine fest.  On to Joshua Tree--wish us luck!

I don't know if their safer spaces policy is intense about photos, but I asked Ming to pictures, so hopefully we'll have a lot to show you tomorrow!

how the party was

Last night Ming enjoyed his birthday party.  What an amazing coming-together of people.  All kinds of people.

They played pin the tail on the trilobite.

Friend made a cool peace cake.

Ming wore a funny birthday hat and colorful garden pinwheel and mardi gras beads.

Fun time was had by all, I hope, though I'm not the best host.  Maybe we'll do it again next year.  We love you, Ming.

happy birthday, beautiful

Happy birthday to Ming!  You are a sweet spouse, a hard worker, so kind and good, and you even take beautiful photos.  I like the way you're always learning.  A lot of people seem to stay the same.  But you are always growing and changing.  I like living with you.  Thanks for everything!

1.  supportive
2.  kind
3.  funny in a funny way--so funny!
4.  flexible
5.  patient
6.  hard worker
7.  realistic
8.  appreciative
9.  always learning
10.  changing, growing
11.  fun
12.  willing to try things--a yea-sayer
13.  curious
14.  generous
15.  easy on the eye
16.  good to hug
17.  open
18.  loyal
19.  forgiving
20.  amazing sense of direction
21.  tollarent
22.  good taste (well except for funeral fruit)
23.  good listener
24.  good drawer
25.  good reader
26.  good photographer
27.  good zine organizer--thank you!
28.  good in-law
29.  keep great boundaries when others are in pain
30.  ept
31.  knowledgeable
32.  responsible
33.  respectful
34.  observant
35.  friendly
36.  secure
37.  confident
38.  original
39.  the opposite of boring
40.  intentional
41.  helpful
42.  understanding
43.  smart
44.  able to endure adversity
45.  great vocabulary
46.  fair
47.  good priorities
48.  bring out the best in me
49.  good conversation-sharer
50.  good at letting things go
51.  good at changing the subject
52.  good permaculturist
53.  great spouse

aloe

Isn't this a gorgeous photo, Ming took, of the aloe blooming and Freedom House in the background?  Tree shadow, St Francis statue, birdbath, cactus.

I keep remembering how one year, at our spring council meeting, the aloe near the back house were blooming.  Bees were coming for the flowers.  The bees were bothering H, so he cut off all the flowers and threw them away in the green waste can.

That's how much he loves us.  He was afraid someone would get stung.

Love can be weird, make people do weird things.  Today I bought myself flowers.  They're purple and daisy-like.  I looked at the sticker to see what they're called--they're called Filler.  I laughed in the grocery store.

how to develop as a writer

My friend blogged a brainstormed a list of how to develop as a writer.  I came up with some additional items.

get an MFA
ask God to speak through you
ask your ancestors to speak through you
facebook writers groups
book tours
self-promotion through youtube videos
writing exercises
translate something
teach
antique typewriter

comfort beans

I cooked some black-eyes peas this morning with two small bay leaves and some whole garlic cloves.  It took only a couple hours in the slow cooker--odd.  I didn't soak them.

Maybe they were extra-fresh. They definitely seemed extra-clean, from the bulk bins at WinCo.  No rock or twig or dirt or even dust, when I rinsed them.  No shriveled or ugly bean.  No bonus bean of a different type.

Beans are a miracle.  So delicious, so cheap.  Unsurpassed comfort.  I put in salt and pepper and some butter, mix it up, and chow down.

I got a book in the mail.  I ordered it knowing there was a possible printing error, but my copy looks fine.  Yay!  It's Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing.  I want to learn.

Yesterday I dropped my computer.  Well, I put it on a desk pile and it slid off and hit the floor hard.  I didn't know if it would even be in one piece, let alone functional as a computer.  But it's working fine.  These chomebooks are tougher than they look.

Today a friend is coming over to pay a visit.  Then a different friend is taking me to the doctor at 2:30.  Ming can't take me because he's bringing H to radiation.  Should be a good day.

Time for shorts.  The high is 81.  Wow.

Pretty fruit pic Ming took!

cultural appropriation, what to do when a spirit animal visits you in the night, and how brown my Grandpa was

I was talking to my friend about spirit guides.  Recently on facebook I saw a thing saying how non-Native people can't / don't have spirit guides, ever.

I think about cultural appropriate a lot.  It's not okay to wear a kimono unless you're Japanese, I heard.  But it's okay for anyone to eat Japanese food.  Why is that?  Glad I can eat the food.  I don't need to wear a kimono.  But I wonder who made these rules and whether they're really helpful.

Also I think it's okay for anyone to learn and speak any language--is that true?  Well, it's okay for anyone to learn and speak Japanese.  But maybe not some Native languages?

Once Ming and I were learning about Druids.  We went to a local Druid meeting, curious.  I love the earth and nature.  I love the divinity of trees and water and all life.  So I wanted to learn more.

They were all white people, and I wondered if Ming could be a Druid?  What about me, a person who is half Mexican-American and half white?  Does it makes sense for us?  If we're doing ancestor worship, are our ancestors supposed to be white?

Tried asking about it.  Honestly, didn't like the answers.  It gave me a lot of food for thought.  Should I be looking for Mexican-American religion?  But my dad was white, and I will always be mixed, no matter what.

What about Ming?  He's a Chinese-American pagan Jew who went to Hindu church with me for four years and sang in the choir with me in Sanskrit and Bengali.  I feel like he should get an award for the unlikeliness of that!

I heard an Indian sadhu say--Americans should be Christian, that Americans are all truly Christian, that we should do our Christianity and be satisfied because we'll never understand Hinduism, that we're playing around and should return to our Christian roots.

I felt annoyed by this, but I haven't heard it much.  All the Indian and Nepalese people I met during all my 20 years going to Hindu church were welcoming and kind.  Indians of other sects have all been nice to me too.

I feel like we can do whatever we want, religion-wise, unless non-Native people try to appropriate Native religion.

Back to the spirit guides.  I told my friend over txt that I've heard non-Natives can't have spirit guides.  Then I asked, But what if the Jaguar comes to you?

I was telling Ming, there's what I'm supposed to believe, then what really happens at night.  If a spirit guide speaks to me, and I supposed to tell her to go away?  I don't know if she would listen.

When someone was talking with me about what to name her baby, I remember thinking, it's a modern world.  There's so much communication and interchange.  I think you should name your baby whatever you want.  The language or culture doesn't matter.

But I knew someone white who named her white kid an African word for love, and I did think twice about it.  Not that I decided it was wrong, but I wondered about the kid, how she would be treated at school, would she like her name, would it be a source of grief.

A friend posted on facebook just today about how sad she was these white women are writing children's picture books about Black kids and winning awards.  My friend believes writers of color should be the ones winning awards for writing about kids who are people of color.

But then I'm like, if I'm half white and half Mexican-American, am I supposed to only write books where all the characters are half white and half Mexican-American?  Am I allowed to write about other ethnicities and races of people?  I always thought I could write about whatever I wanted.

I think about how I'm an odd combination of things.  My mixed ethnicity, my severe mental health diagnoses / disabilities, my unusual religious choices, my extreme political views, my living in community, my large size, some unusual life choices like being a vegetarian, not having kids, not driving, not watching TV or movies.  Being kind of educated but living in poverty.  Being part of a movement of Catholic anarchists.  Though I'm not Catholic, I can talk about the Mystical Body of Christ and the Works of Mercy.  On the wall above my desk, I have a poster of the Works of Mercy.  It's my life.

I want to be free, but I need not to hurt people by appropriating their cultures.  I just think the rules are kind of odd.  I guess I want what's really best for people.

Many years ago, I was working on a reservation with kids.  I was teaching, then tutoring, mostly third graders, but also some teenagers, and then adults at the community college.  I would watch kids play at recess, sometimes, and make them snack.  Then I was working with the small library, there, ordering books for them.

I realized with shock that this particular tribe, their language had no dictionary.  I offered my boss I could start working on a dictionary for them.  I could do it as a job, and it would be helpful.

He talked to some people, and they decided no.  They didn't want a non-Native making a dictionary of their language.  I was sad because no one else was doing it and it sounded fun.

I could google right now whether they ever did get a dictionary, but I'm tired.  I feel I've kind of written myself into a corner here.

I think a dictionary would have been a good idea.  I could have worked for a couple years then handed it off to someone else.  But I can see them not wanting an outsider messing with their language.

Being half Mexican-American, well--Mexicans are mixed by nature.  The Spaniards came over and met the Natives.  Through whatever way, something alchemical happened--that's how I think of it, anyway.  My mom has pale skin, so maybe my peeps are more Spaniard than Native?  But her dad was brown.  I'll end with a picture.

my religion is kindness

Dinnertime, dinnertime.
What's so good about dinnertime.
Almost as good as breakfast time.
Dinnertime.

I'm experimenting with having a million things to do and not doing them.

My desk, hmm.  It's like an experiment in piles.  How many piles can be piled.  Piles.

Ming said taking a shower could be a sensory reset.  I have some sensory issues.  I asked him why--is it because I'm crazy?  I said it wasn't fair.

I was telling him how when I was a kid,  I memorized poems.  I was trying to please.  I was a smart kid, a good kid, and that gave me a defined path.  I knew what to do.  Be smart, be good, don't get in trouble. 

But I was also an anxious, shy, bullied kid and a dominated, abused kid.  It's like I was a magnet for assholes.

My friend read the hospital zine and told me I had a unique take on things.  I felt disagreement.  I don't think it's so unique, what I went through. 

I asked for an example.  She said how when I was left alone waiting for my procedure, I called it being in the loneliness bay.  She said the artist shows us reality by using their unique perspective--that's the artist's job.  I like the loneliness bay thing.

I just don't want to be alone.  My friend says on facebook all the time how spiritual people are good and religious people are bad.  Religious people are just in it because they're scared of hell, religious people do what they're told.

I was telling Ming it hurts me because I've very religious.  Contact with the divine is my life.  I asked him if he was religious.  He kind of said no.

I said, "I have like three religions, right?  Isn't that really religious?"  He said the more religions you have, the less religious you are.

I said I would go to church every day, if there was a church for me.  There just is none.

Today there were eight of us at the radical mental health collective event.  I cried in front of everyone.  Ming took a picture.

escape

Yesterday I went to the opthamologist.  I hadn't had my eyes dilated in ten years or something.

For some reason the nurse who helped me first, she was mean!  I went in there feeling sad, and her weirdness didn't help.  It was like she hated us right away.  Maybe she doesn't like long haired Asian guys and beautiful depressed fat women?

She asked me tons of questions then put some numbing drops in my eyes.  They burned.  Then she did a procedure, moving something closer and closer to my open right eye until she hit it, and it hurt.  I was scared and moved away.

"I put numbing drops in your eyes, so you didn't feel that," she said.

I'm thinking it's the years of abuse I lived through that made me doubt my own experience, when she told me that.  It hurt because I felt it, right?  It's like she was messing with my mind, like gaslighting:  I didn't do the thing I just did.

It was too much, the discomfort and meanness.  I was trying not to cry.  Then she put the dilating drops in my eyes and had Ming and me wait in the dilating room.  There was a huge tv playing a nature show with captions.

The show was about glaciers.  Fun fact: I have a weird irrational fear of glaciers.  I asked Ming to talk to me about something inconsequential.  I'd skipped community lunch, so I asked about the food.  I asked what kind of vegetables were in the lasagna.  We talked about the salad and bread.

Then Ming asked me how I was, and I almost started crying again.  I didn't want to cry because I thought the dilating drops might fall out of my eyes and we would have to be there longer with the mean nurse.

"Don't ask me how I am!" I said.  He was holding my hand and standing.  He basically can't sit down in a waiting room or he falls asleep immediately.

The place was fancy.  The show was now about the animals who lived near the glaciers.  There was a mother cat--a leopard--returning to her lair.  She greeted her cub by licking his head.  He was one year old and looked like an adult.

Later there was a giant panda with her baby--she licked her baby also.  It seemed emotional to me.

Then a different nurse retrieved us.  Thank God, different nurse.  This one was very nice and communicated twice as much.  I loved her.

A doctor in training examined the backs of my eyes.  Then my actual doctor came in and did the same.  He found everything was perfect.  So I'm supposed to go back in a year.

Ask me if I've had enough doctors for a while.  My doctor wore a red silk shirt.  I was afraid of him.  In my head I was telling myself, keep breathing.

So many people passing through my life--too many.  I try to be nice and pleasant.  But I feel like buying a one-way ticket to elsewhere.

zine mama

There's my sweet mama binding zines.  That's the apple tasting zine.  If only everyone had such a caring, supportive mom who's willing to help with her child's favorite things. 

I've seen her grow and change over the years, but something that's stayed the same is the helpfulness.  She's been supporting my zine making for almost 30 years, the whole time I've been doing it. 

Thank you, amazing Mama!

pedicure fail, foot trauma, accessible beauty products, grad school hair fear, real problems

I never told you how the pedicure went.  Well, it went pretty bad.  I was so scared, my mom held my hand.  I almost had a panic attack, wanted to get up and leave.  It reminded me of being in the hospital or at the dentist.  Pain, discomfort, fear, trapped feelings.

The lady who did me--I was amazed at how rough she was with me.  I was afraid my left heel would break and bleed, she rubbed off the dead skin so harshly.  Also, she was difficult to communicate with.  I wanted to try to explain some things, but we had a language barrier.

The strangest thing was how they asked my aunt things about me rather than talking to me directly.  I think they believed I was retarded.  I think the way I was so scared and my mom was holding my hand--they didn't understand it.  They thought I was very special needs.  Maybe I am?

Kinda sad how narrow the range of acceptable feelings and behavior is.  Sometimes I feel sad, being so strange.  I wish there were more wiggle room in this world.

By the end, I felt I had been through something traumatic with my pedicurist.  I tipped her ten dollars instead of the five I'd planned.  I felt sorry for her for having to hurt me.  She accepted my tip with two hands.

My aunt had an opposite experience.  She actually paid more for a salt massage on her legs.  She thinks it's fun.  My mom likes it too.  She tried to get me to use the massage function of the chair.  I tried to explain to her how I needed less stimulation, not more.  She pestered me till I pushed the button.

Afterward, my feet felt bad--itchy, sore, like they had ten tiny cuts on them.  They felt like they had been through something horrible.  I decided to just leave them be for a couple days.  Let them heal.  They're feeling mostly better now.

Not sure what to do when I need my toenails cut again.  Sometimes things seem impossible.  My feet look cute, with blue glittery polish on the nails.  I had never had my toenails painted before--they look like someone else's feet.  But being pretty, it's not important.  I would rather feel healthy.

Was she a horrible pedicurist?  Was it normal?  I'd never had one before, so I don't know.

I was on facebook and saw a line of cosmetics is being made for physically disabled people, with adaptations to help them apply the cosmetics better.  The headline said something like beauty was now available to all.

I felt instantly incredulous, that beauty has nothing to do with products or buying things.  I thought: people are beautiful when they're kind and good, not when they wear mascara.

I wanted to say that in the comments.  I don't need to buy a thing to make me beautiful.  And unless they're giving the stuff away for free...it's for sale.  They're making money off disabled people.  It's part of capitalism.  I feel like the disabled people are paying for their own oppression.

But I looked at the comments--there were at least ten people exclaiming ecstatically about the accessible makeup.  They really wanted it.  Someone explained how it was getting hard for her to apply eye liner, which she liked a lot, and she hoped this company would make accessible eye liner.

I felt confused, that again, my feelings and opinions are really weird.  I ended up not commenting at all.  Why shit on the joy of these disabled people who like makeup.  Let them have their makeup, I guess.  I don't want it, but they do.

I remember when I watched tv as a kid and young person, thinking beauty product commercials try to make people feel insecure so they'll want the product.  I remember them playing on people's fears.

There were weird ideas about thinness and gender and ethnicity too.  Like how to be a good woman, and how to be loved--buy the products, be thin, then have confidence and find success and love.  Weird stuff about straightness of hair, desirable shapes of facial features, constant coolness.

I feel like the products are about control.  I remember feeling that way about my own hair and buying things to "tame" it--for years!

I believed my hair was too frizzy.  It was ok for it to be curly, but it had to curl in a specific way.  It had to curl in an acceptable moderate way.  It couldn't fly all over the place, no wildness allowed.

I remember during my first year of grad school, one morning I was on campus before teaching and realized I'd forgotten to put gel in my hair after I took a shower.  I panicked.  I thought my hair would be too frizzy and somehow that was harming my day.  I wanted the gel to help me feel safe, like my hair was okay.  Hair comfort, hair control.

I had bought the idea that frizziness was a problem that needed solving, and the solution was a product.  Now I know what real problems are.

If only we had products for those.  Cancer Be Gone.  Abuser Be Gone.  Narcolepsy Be Gone.  Depression Be Gone.  Magic Minivan Transmission Solution Cream.  Student Loan Vanishing Cream.  Happy Family Salve.

All this makes me sound like I'm anti-beauty product, but I'm really pro-choice about it, the way I'm pro-choice about psych meds, abortion, and how low to eat on the food chain.  Really I think being vegan is best, but I'm not vegan.  There are tons of ways to do good, and we can't all do everything.

I want to help create a world where people have a lot of space to be who we are and express a range of feelings, and we can be honest about what we need.  I want us to be free to be who we are.

The best way I can think of doing that is to go around being who I am.  Also to write about it.  I'm working on all that.

Also, thanks for loving me despite my frizzy hair.  Hahahahaha!

tree collard

Wow, can't believe how healthy and delicious the tree collard Ming planted a year ago at the undisclosed location looks!

avocado fantasy

I got to clean up the avocado plate after taco night.  Yum yum.

"Did you know avocados are my favorite fruit?" I asked Mom.

"No," she said.

"Better than bananas," I said.  "Do you think they count as fruit?"

"Yeah, why not?" Mom asked.

"Because they're not sweet like a fruit!" I said.  "Maybe they should count as veg."  I guess that's my personal fantasy.

It had been years since Mom made tacos.  Maybe before she thought the fried-ness was too fattening?  But now she loses weight too much.  Times have changed.

Earlier I'd told her the joke, "You can't make everyone happy. You're not a taco."  That's what made her think of making tacos.  But she wasn't sure she's have the appetite to eat any.

Then Ming ran into the store for corn tortillas for us.  We sat in Mom's car and she looked at a loquat tree growing in someone's backyard.

My brother requested five tacos.  We thought that was pretty wild.

When I told my niece to have a good day at school, she told me to have a good day too.  I said, "I will.  I don't have to go to school or anything."  Then I felt bad for saying that and added, "Sorry."

"It's ok," she said.  "You did your time."

It's true--I went to school for too many years.  I was impressed by her quick aptness.  Her immediate sharp understanding.  Teenagers are good at that, maybe?  She's 16.  Four tacos.  I had four tacos also.

circle of artichokes

Wow, can you believe how beautiful these purple artichokes are that we bought for Ming at the farmers market?  The good news is that they are as delicious as they are beautiful. he reports.

Guest Blogger at the Undisclosed Location.

Our hero is on a Shabbat break today, taking an intentional break from work and the internet, so I am blogging in her stead.

Yesterday I finished up my RN renewal CEUs requirement. I remain a Nurse in California. Something I am apparently very proud and happy of. Otherwise I remain a person with narcolepsy. I remain a volunteer non-Catholic worker co-Office Manager for the antinuclear nonprofit.

The work we do is increasing as our spring event, the Sacred Peace Walk, is rapidly upcoming and the number of this years participants registering for this peacewalk are at a noticeable high.

That is a lot of support needed for the walkers and a lot of Meals for us to provide.

A lot of work.

war is not the answer

I like how even the Las Vegas Catholic Worker printer up in the prayer room reminds us that war is not the answer.

With Mom, listening to masterpiece Cuban music, writing letters to send along with zines.  Last night we made arroz con gandules and it turned out kinda bland because I left out the cayenne, but not bad.

The water heater is leaking in the garage, so Ming and brother will replace it.  I have my first pedicure this morning.  I don't usually like people messing with my feet, so wish me luck.

deer tracks

My friend txted me this picture.  She sent it a few weeks ago, from Oregon.  I find it beautiful and moving for some reason.

yoga

Little-known facts about Laura-Marie...when I was a teenager, I bought a cardboard box of books from a stranger.  Maybe it was ten dollars.  In the box was a book called Nova Yoga.  It was a yellowing mass-market paperback from the 1970s.

I read the book and started doing yoga in my bedroom on the blue shag carpet before school in the mornings.  I liked how it made me feel.

Then when I was a young adult first moved to Sacramento, I needed to take care of myself more.  I looked up yoga classes and somehow decided on a Dharma Yoga class at the Sierra 2 Center.  It was far from home.

Don't know how I worked up the bravery to walk into my first class.  I weighed at least a hundred pounds more than anyone else there.  The other students were small retired white ladies.  It was a morning class.

Well, it turned out I found the perfect teacher for me.  Patient, caring, compassionate.  She worked with me.  We became friends--I brought her zines.  (Later I found out Ming knew her also, having taken a meditation class from her.)

I ran out of money and stopped going to yoga, but I went for a good couple years.

Years later I did some yoga at Wellspring Women's Center for free.  There was a good teacher there, and then I had a drill sergeant teacher who was terrible for me.

Then I joined this co-op studio called Yoga Seed--I did the 30 days for thirty dollars deal.  They had an All Bodies class I loved.  There was even someone in a wheelchair in that class.  I felt totally welcome.

That was great for me, but again, ran out of money.  I have never been gainfully employed in my life.  Yoga Seed said, pay what you can--if you can't afford it, come anyway.  But in reality it was emotionally weird and of course they wanted you pay--I never went without paying.

A few summers ago, Ming and I were staying with my parents on the coast, back when my dad was still alive.  Ming and I joined a yoga studio with the 30 days for thirty dollars deal.  We went to some good classes there, consistently attending a chair yoga class, and I learned I liked doing yoga with Ming next to me.

Again I had to be brave to walk in, but I've never had a yoga teacher bat an eye at my size.  I don't know if I've lucked out, or if they get trained not to bat their eyes or what.

Since moving to Las Vegas I've attended a chair yoga class geared toward seniors, maybe 50 people in the class?  It was low cost, but I didn't like the teacher at all, and it was maybe 40 minute's drive away in Henderson.

I love yoga for all sorts of reasons.  I like the breathing.  I like how it's meditative and calming yet strengthening.  I like concentrating for an hour or however long, and the process of a class, working from warming up to shivasana.  I like the feeling that I'm doing something good for myself.  I like trusting a teacher.

Most of all, I like being in my body, inhabiting my entire body in a happy way.  Most of the time I go around very cerebral.  Well, I have a lot of feelings too.  But all the work I do is with my mind, you know, being a writer.  It's easy for me to kind of ignore my body.  But when I do yoga, I'm blissfully living in it entirely.  My consciousness fills my body.

The only exercise I like is yoga and dancing.  I used to like walking but not as much anymore.

Except for as a teenager, I've never managed to do yoga at home.  I hope one day I feel the spaciousness.  Our house right now, it's small and has too much stuff in it.  I daydream about clearing out a room to be a yoga room, but it's hard to manage.  With only space heaters in the winter and swamp coolers in the summer, it's seldom a comfortable temperature.  The house is a struggle.

Sometimes I do tadasana, in everyday life, mountain pose, feeling my strong mountain energy.  Well, am I doing it right?  Probably not.  But something like it.

nature wins

It's really windy here.  There is a high wind advisory of 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 65 mph.

The result is really loud like is a tree branch going to smash my minivan, when's the power going out, how am I supposed to sleep.

The result is like thunder.  I'm afraid of thunder--it makes me edgy and scared. 

You probably think I'm exaggerating, but the fact is, I understate things, which gets me in trouble.  I tell people how I feel and they don't get it until I'm incapacitated or can't stop crying.

Also a drunk person was knocking at our door at 12:44am.  You got the wrong room, friend.  Michael is in 105.

So the advisory tells us travel will be difficult for high profile vehicles on the pass we need to travel.  Oops.  The advisory is till 8am so hopefully the wind will die down then.

As for drunk people, they seem to be going strong.  I selfishly kissed Ming and cuddled him, so he's awake now too.

I dreamt of a huge beautiful garden--garden dream.  I used to have them often.  A garden I grew then forgot about, abandoned, and I return to find it's still growing. 

There was a raccoon* that was really important, but I didn't understand why.  I climbed to a high place and didn't know how to get down.

"Do you have any paper you're not using?" Ming asked.

"Yeah, you wanna piece of this?"  I have my list journal.  "You wanna piece of this!?"  I told him to take any sheet that didn't already have words on it.

*For me, raccoons are playful intruders.  I tell Ming, "Shut the door--you're going to let the racoons in."  Also they wash their food in moving water and have freaky pink hands.  Raccoons came into the mudroom through the cat door and ate the cat food.  You don't want them in your house.  They are urban wildlife.  Living wildness.  A reminder that nature wins.

on the road with Ming and Laura-Marie

It's time to start the ordeal of sleep.  A loud train is passing by our hotel room. 

I ate Thai food for dinner for the first time since my illness.  I asked for mild, but it did burn my mouth. 

So, I hope I didn't do something stupid.  Maybe I should wait till they do the next endoscopy for spicy stuff.

Oh ulcer, are you healed?  I love you, tummy.  I love you, fundus.  Some say you let me down, but I love you and always will.  Thanks for working well for 42 years.  We'll be back on track.  Very soon.

sabbath

Where do ideas come from?  Our subconscious, maybe?  I don't know, but I love them.

I came up with the idea that I should observe the sabbath.  Take a day off work.  I would have to decide what I considered work. 

No NDE stuff, no facebook.  No blogging, maybe.  I could schedule something ahead of time, or ask Ming to guestblog.

I could spend time praying, singing, resting.  Self-care, other-care.  Taking it easy.  I could meditate, maybe visit nature.  Cook some nice foods.

But Sundays, lots of people are off work.  Maybe I should do it a weekday when Red Rock and those places are less crowded.

I think it would do a world of good for my health.  What do you think?

I had a lunch idea too.  To heat the leftover lima beans with the leftover rice and put butter and salt on that.  Not bad.

how to make the Bible way funnier

In the minivan, I dropped some pills.  Ming's pill thing was too full.

me:  What are these huge ones?

Ming:  They're cholesterol pills.

me:  You don't need them in your pill thing.  They're not for when you're on the run.

Ming:  You're supposed to take them when you eat a meal with cholesterol in it.

me:  No way!

Ming:  Yeah.

me:  I don't believe you.  Cholesterol pills aren't prn!

Ming:  They aren't exactly prn.  You're supposed to take them with meals.  Cholesterol from trees replaces the cholesterol from animals.

me:  Are you making fun of me?    I wanna read the bottle.

Ming:  Esters and sterols.

me:  Those are queens, and those are when something's really clean.

Ming:  No.

me:  Well, that's what it sounds like.  I liked Esther.  I had a little golden book about her.  Did you like Esther, when you were a kid?

Ming:  Esther sounds like a lot of other names.  Like Ethel, or Amelia.

me:  Amelia Bedelia?

Ming:  Yes.

me:  You think Amelia Bedelia was in the Bible?

[laughter]

me:  That would make the Bible way funnier.  I'm going to draw the drapes.  I'm going to dress the turkey.

Ming:  I loved that book.

me:  She made being a housekeeper seem fun.  I'm not buying it.

how to help a sad person

People ask Ming how I am.  They know I was in the hospital.  They wanna know if I'm better.  They care, for his sake and for mine.

I'm doing much better physically.  When I first came home from the hospital, I was so bad.  I could barely function.  I was at one percent.

There are the reasons you were in the hospital.  Well, you were not looking too living for a minute there.

Then there are the problems the hospital causes.  I had a terrible cough.  From lying down too much, maybe, in a hospital bed?  I was super weak.  Maybe from the same?

Or it could have been other reasons--the anemia, the sadness, how I wasn't eating food for four days, losing weight really fast?

Weird stuff happened to me, in the hospital.  It's not normal to get four bags of other people's blood pumped into you, for example.  That's not part of everyday life.  Or the strong drugs, the thing they put down my throat, what they did to my stomach, etc.

I had to get strength back, to become again capable of walking from a parking lot to a building, of walking through a store.  I took those things for granted, before.

And I thought it would take weeks, for my blood to be good again.  I didn't understand it would take months!  I wish a doctor had told me that.  I wish I'd had a more realistic timeline.

Anyway, my friend asked Ming how I was.  I'm really up and down, emotionally.  Ming said no one knows what to say about that.

I told Ming they could help.  My blood, what could they do?  Buy me a bottle of iron pills?  For my emotional health, there are a hundred things they could do.

Ming was thinking the opposite.  He asked, "What could they do?"

"How do you help someone who's sad?  Have you lived to be 52 years old and never helped a sad person before?"  I didn't ask something so snarky, then, but I've said similar things in the past.  Sorry, honey.

I remember, talking about mental health struggles at Justice for our Desert.  Some people looked away.  Like I was talking about sex or money.  I think they were hurt, about it.

Maybe, well, you never know.  Something happened a long time ago?  Or for whatever reason, they're not ready to go there.   So they wish I'd shut up.

Well,  I make a lot of lists--brainstorming self-care, what is comfort in this world, things I want or need, things a volunteer could do to help with Nevada Desert Experience, different to do lists, questions for doctors, foods I want to eat more of, people I like writing letters to.

Here is a list called how to help a sad person.

1.  listen
2.  offer hugs
3.  offer to hold hands
4.  don't get defensive
5.  ask what you can do for them
6.  write them a love letter
7.  bring them a present that doesn't require anything additional
8.  be very patient with them
9.  hand them tissues if they're crying
10.  help with something on their comfort list
11.  like make them tea
12.  tell them something you like about them
13.  tell them a funny memory of something you did together
14.  say something unrelated really briefly to see if they want to be distracted
15.  take some pressure off them, like see if you can do one of their chores
16.  flowers in vase with water
17.  card with a pretty picture on it
18.  support their main support person
19.  give them a food they like, if they can eat
20.  check up on them often
21.  check up on them after everyone else stops
22.  grocery run, gift card, money, housecleaning
23.  offer rides
24.  offer to bring something needed
25.  offer to go with them to an appt
26.  pray with them, if they like that
27.  offer to sing them a healing song
28.  invite them to something
29.  offer to tell them a story of a predetermined length
30.  cry with them
31.  validate them
32.  give them a cheering zine or book
33.  tell them they can call you day or night
34.  research a local warmline number
35.  give them a small colorful art
36.  say "I love you"
37.  assume they're understating their pain
38.  offer to take them to nature or just a park
39.  offer to braid their hair, paint their nails, hand massage
40.  draw them a picture
41.  write them a poem
42.  bring them a quote about how things change
43.  offer to play a game with them that they like
44.  be realistic about what you can offer
45.  don't over-exert yourself
46.  offer to look together at their postcard collection, stamp collection, scrapbook
47.  ask them to dance with you
48.  offer to make something together: cookies, paper airplanes, jello
49.  offer to collaborate on a project like a zine or garden
50.  offer to play with playdough together or some other toy
51.  offer to blow bubbles
52.  offer to make art together
53.  offer to do a simple healing ritual together
54.  offer to meditate together, if they like that
55.  offer to walk, swim, or exercise together, if they can
56.  get consent, respect boundaries
57.  use your intuition as well as your everyday thinking
58.  get creative
59.  don't blame
60.  offer to gratitude journal together
61.  research signs that someone wants to kill themself and watch for them
62.  offer something you have too much of or don't need anymore
63.  invite them to visit a community you belong to
64.  invite them to volunteer with you
65.  ask them a question you've always wondered about
66.  brainstorm a list of ideas they might like
67.  offer to tell a joke
68.  ask them to help you with something possible and finite
69.  offer to bring over your pet, kid, Mom, or other liked being
70.  offer to read them something they've been wanting to read

bye

I feel overwhelmed with things to do.  I was in a visioning meeting all morning, 8:30 to noon.  I slept in till almost 8, strangely.  So we were almost late to the meeting.  Ming had forgotten about it.

So now I'm supposed to type the notes.  I gave feedback on the second draft of a contract while eating lunch.  I proofread the NDE newsletter four times.  I sent emails, asking questions that are ignored. 

I feel overworked and underappreciated.  Misused, overused, used.  Also there are gender things.

I was crying in the minivan.  Ming says I am super-capable, and the people around me are less capable and can't keep up.  I feel blamed.  I feel hurt and tired.

He's folding the newsletter in the back house with H.  I feel like giving up, or like going on strike.  There aren't enough people to do the work.  I need to say no, I guess.  But then there's nobody else to do it.  Ming is overloaded also.

I want to be happy--it's good to have meaningful work.  But where are the other people to help, and why am I the only woman on the board?

Sometimes I feel there's not enough comfort in this world to comfort where I hurt.  I should be taking it easy--my labs showed I'm still anemic.  The Sacred Peace Walk is next month.

Our friend is coming tomorrow at noon at do some volunteer work.  But sometimes it feels like work to get helped.  I need to think of what to do.  And we're supposed to have breakfast with someone.  And then there's the Saturday meeting.  And radical mental health at 6pm.

Well, I give up.  I can't do all that in one day.  I'm off to Mexico.

washi

I bought some special tape.  It has planets on it.  Gorgeous! 

And then some with golden trains, and some with whales in space, and some with cute little cartoon foxes doing different poses.

There's some good tape, in this world.

new zines

Yesterday I was working working working.  Emailing, msging, making agendas, making phone calls, proofreading the newsletter over and over, every draft.  Eventually it was after 8pm and I was still working.  I realized my brain was fried.

Somehow sleep didn't heal me.  My brain is still not good.  So I'm going to take it easy today.  I want tea, a soft blanket, and to listen to the rain.

Ming bought me these fiber supplements that are chewable.  I ate one last night--it was a lot like eating chalk.  I used to eat chalk, when I was a kid.  Not sure why.

I also ate paper sometimes, not a good idea.  I was telling Ming about it, had the idea it was like self-harm.  I wasn't eating paper because I was happy.

Slowly working on the new zines.  Everything take five times longer than I thought it would, lately.  But this isn't a race.

empty

The largest mesquite tree has been removed from our courtyard.  Life looks so sad and weird now, missing that tree. 

Its roots were harming Freedom House, so it needed to come out.  Those were the wrong trees to plant here. 

But wow, it looks terrible and way too sunny now!

H is in the courtyard watering the cactus.  Maybe he's getting used to it.  Things change. 

We're planning to plant a new tree during the Sacred Peace Walk.  Something to commemorate war victims, maybe.

J suggested an apricot tree.  I said a mesquite, a smaller kind, a kind that's supposed to grow around here.  We could harvest its pods to make flour.

But H wants palo verde, and maybe he'll get his way.  I think you can eat the flowers. And it has a special kind of beetle you can eat too.  But I'm a vegetarian, mostly.

I got so much done this morning, but there's still a million things to do.

I need to learn how to use miso.  I know miso soup and in a dressing.  But maybe there's more.

time

I have some energy.  I made breakfast--sweet potato and eggs.  I'm feeling more capable.

Yesterday Ming went on an amazing hike with new friends.  It was more than eight miles.  He got a scrape on his arm from a rock wall.  It hurts him.

Sometimes I feel it's ridiculous, how much I have to do.  I feel like running away.

Well, it's almost time to go to therapy.

mushroom

This morning, I woke up.  Praise God.  It was 6:48am.  I was amazed.  Usually I wake up every couple hours, but I had slept at least four hours straight.  I was delighted.

"I feel like a million bucks," I told Ming.  It was rainy when we went out for the Saturday meeting.

Later I told my friend in England the same.  I wonder if they feel like a million pounds over there.

During the meeting, I told J, "England has a gland in it, and Germany has a germ in it," apropos to not much.  Something about "mushroom" being a funny word.  Yeah, I guess it is a funny word.

I have alonetime till about 1:30pm.  I was reading about intuition.  I would like to use mine more.

Tis the season of Sacred Peace Walk meetings.  I have a lot to do. 

Yesterday we photocopied zines.  Also we're making postcard reproductions of these pretty handpainted Japanese postcards to use as thank you notes for NDE.  Not too expensive.

stealth

Gmorning.  I like to sleep a few hours then get up in the night to do some stuff, mostly writing.  Then go back to bed.

I was poking around.  Saw this poem I forgot about that my friend published on her blog as a guest post.  I like poems about bumper stickers.

http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2016/04/03/poem-about-stealth-van-living