welcome to June

I'm excited about June.  For some reason, I'm ready for May to be over. 

I don't like summer.  But in the past, I did like summer solstice.

-a special love letter I was given and told to open on summer solstice
-a sun ritual with orange paper
-strange annual parades in Santa Barbara with naked people and confetti eggs, colorful bits of confetti coating the streets and getting into sidewalk cracks to be seen days afterward
-longest day of the year
-the feeling of a turning point
-special things lining up in special ancient places like stonehenge

Tomorrow is a journaling in the garden thing.  I'm looking forward to it.

Some fun facts about me:
I try to eat half an avocado every day.
I try to eat nuts every day.
I try to eat a banana every day.

I really enjoy those foods, so it's a pleasure.

Today I was accidentally rude to Ming at the dollar store.  I was looking for this delicious olive pesto.  They had it!  I got four small bottles. 

When we were checking out, I noticed the worker was using a plastic bag to put the things into.  I told Ming, "If you don't use the bag you brought, you might as well not have brought it."  He had the paper bag he'd brought folded under his arm.

It sounded really mean, but I didn't want it to come out that way.  Oops.  I apologized in the parking lot.  He thought it was funny.

Yoga today, the recovery place messed up and the teacher didn't show.  She moved back to California, they said. 

So we ended up doing chair yoga to some videos this lady had on her phone, downloaded to help her elderly mother.  The new teacher will be there next week.

This participant lady introduced herself to me.  She shook my hand and told me her name, a name I had never heard before.  She looked at me in a surprised way and said, "You are a beautiful woman."

I was shocked.  I said thank you and marveled.

Las Vegas has great clouds.  I've learned a lot here.  Amazing clouds.

when I wanted the salt washed off the cashews

me: Hey, you never washed off the cashews for me.

Ming: You really wanted me to do that?

me: Yeah!

Ming: I thought you were kidding.

me: Why would I be kidding?

Ming:  Because then they would be all wet.

me: Yeah, then I'd dry them off.

Ming: But then they'd be all blotted.

me: Just a little bit.  Not too many.

Ming: Ok!

me: Why do you put them in the bowl I hate?*

Ming: Because I'm going to wash them off.

me: How does that make sense?

Ming: Then I'll put them into a bowl you love!

*I call the small metal mixing bowls "doggie bowls" and don't ever want to eat out of them.

heart warrior

This morning I see my new endocrinologist.  I'm trying not to be anxious.  Either she's good and will listen to me and work with me, or maybe I don't need an endocrinologist?

I'm mostly done with being abused by doctors.  I don't want to stick with anyone who will fat shame me.  Diets don't work, and I'm not getting bariatric surgery, so we need to work with what we have.  I'm willing to make changes, but I'm never going to hop on the weightloss roller coaster.

Yesterday afternoon I took a lyft to a free yoga class.  It was hard for me--recently I've only done All Bodies classes or chair yoga.  I told the teacher it's hard for me to be on my knees, and she suggested putting a folded mat under my knees, which didn't really help, so I tried and stopped.

Also, child's pose used to be nice, but it hurts my lower legs now, the hard contact with the floor.  It's ok.  I relaxed in another pose.

I felt guilty sometimes for making her accommodate me, but there were only two students in the class, and I'm valid.  I also felt guilty sometimes for not being able to do everything, but that doesn't make much sense.

Mostly I had a little smile and it felt good to move and try, the breathing, knowing I was doing something kind for myself. 

I did great at some warrior poses.  I've always liked those.  I'm a heart warrior, a peace warrior.

My first yoga teacher was so good to me.  I went to her classes for long enough that her words are in my mind.  When we did mountain pose, she would say, "Feel your strong mountain energy," and I still hear that when I do mountain pose.

I think with the warrior poses, she said a similar thing--"Feel your strong warrior energy."   I appreciate those ideas inside me.

freedom

I wanted to tell you some things and was writing a blog post in my head while I made pasta and cooked mushrooms and sauce.  Then I forgot all of it.

Last night I was laughing in bed about the idea and phrase "pants substitute."  You know I like to write these little six word poems.  I think that would make a good line.

When I went for my sleep study, it was a surreal experience!  I told Ming, "This is the weirdest hotel I've ever stayed at," which made me laugh also.  So much worse than I expected.  I can't believe that's a normal thing to do to people.

I over-scratched myself on my forehead today, leaving a line.  Not sure how I did that.  We have a "no self-harm" policy in our family, so I apologized to Ming for violating the policy.  We laughed at that too.  It's an old joke between us, seven year old joke.

Some nights are fine.  Some nights, all my skin feels overly sensitive, my legs are restless and achy, can't get comfortable, itchy, going nuts.  Last night was a bad one.  I told Ming, "I'm tortured by physicality."

I also told him, "I want to shed my Earth-suit," and, "I'm done having a body.  I want to have an out of body experience.  Maybe I should try astral projection."

I finally got to sleep, and he woke me up soon after, telling me he couldn't find his phone.  I tried to help him find it.  He called his phone from my phone.  He turned off the fan to carefully listen for his phone's vibration.

Then when he found it, I yelled at him.  "Why did you wake me up for your stupid phone?"  But it was short-lived.  Couldn't stay mad at him.  Fell asleep again.

Then this morning, I thought the sun was shining, but I was mistaken.  It was 4:40am.  But I was awake, so I got up.  Ming was already up.

Ming doesn't like the neighborhood mockingbird.  I told him it's my friend.

A lot of people have been wondering about mockingbirds for a long time.  When do they sleep, why are they singing like that.  Some people hate them and try to spray them with hose water to scare them away.

Recently I told my friend that when I was a little girl, I liked to drink from the hose, outside, summer days.  It tasted like freedom.  It was the best water ever.  But it has lead in it.

I was also telling her I liked to shoot the water gun water into my mouth, those same summer days.  It tasted good too, like cheap water gun plastic, the hard brittle see-thru pastel colored plastic that would splinter if harmed.

Do you remember that?  Do you remember the little white plastic plug that you kept pushed in so the water gun water wouldn't escape?

Ming is at the movies, but the mockingbird is here, singing.

pirate friends

Is it ok to pretend to be pirates?  Pirates are a real thing, right?  I feel like there are real pirates, and then there are the idea of pirates like in Peter Pan.  Hopefully I'm not exploiting anybody by letting my friend put a skull handkerchief on my head.  And letting Ming take a picture.

happy birthday to Vera

It's my friend's birthday today, so I'm wearing the necklace she gave me for my birthday, years ago, and sending her extra love.

I think I have a little more energy, more follow-thru with my intentions.  Things seem more possible.

I survived my sleep study.  It was pretty horrible.  But I washed my hair and got that yucky glue stuff out.

This morning we're going to pick apriums--I hope there are some left for us.  We're waiting for R to get done at the soup line.

Last night I used my emotional first aid kit for the first time.  It only has a few things in it right now.  But I comforted myself as I waited for the tech to hook me up to all the wires.  Ming and I played with the rocks, and I wrote in the little journal. 

I decided that rocks are the original toys.  Who needs a beanie baby.

emotional first aid kit

clear plastic bag to hold everything

noise-canceling headphones
These are too big to go in the kits I'm making now. But if I ever have to spend time in the hospital again, I'd like some noise-canceling headphones so I can take a break from the hospital while in the hospital.


small sketchbook and pen
I'm annoyed by lines, don't need them.


notes / art from loved ones
I have some already or can ask friends to make me something special.


encouraging letter to self
I like to write to myself periodically anyway.


tiny zine of self-care, other-care
I actually made a one-page affirmation zine years ago.


essential oil spray
I can get small empty spray bottles and put a few drops essential oil in there then fill the whole bottle with water. I already have a blend that's supposed to be good for happiness--its main smell is orange. I have a blend for calmness also that I was given by a friend.


rocks / crystals for calming or grounding
Hematite is classic, but lots of rocks could work. Something beautiful and feels good in the hand.


talisman for healing, homemade beforehand


affirmation cards
With blank cards for writing new ones?  I can just cut up index cards.

calming herbal tea
I'm including a bag of lemongrass tea well-sealed in plastic.


oatstraw tea
For anxiety.


magnesium glycinate
For anxiety.


emergency contact numbers
Local warm line.


cute toy?
Haven't figured this one out yet.  Maybe a little beanie baby type toy?


comforting spiritual or religious item
Small book, prayer on a card, or medal.


squeezy thing
Just a stress ball.


palo santo with small lighter

all I need

Ming put some small white beans in the crock pot this morning.  So now I have fresh beans to eat.  Ah.  Delicious.

We went to a magical bookstore today.  I've been looking for rubies for the emotional first aid kits I'm making.  I heard rubies are grounding yet energizing.  Sounds good.  Also they are very pretty.

They were out of rubies, but I got a few other stones.

hematite
jasper--red
jasper--leopard
utakite

Also I bought a card with three rabbits on it making a triangle with their ears.  And a large card with this lovely lady on it who is riding a ram.  There's a volcano erupting in the distance, some trippy flowers in the foreground, and the sun is rising.

This morning I had a mild anxiety attack.  Ming put his hand on my shoulder, which helped.  Then I cried, which really helped.  I told Ming, "Life is a wide path that leads to death."

Freshly boiled beans are just about my favorite food in the world.  With salt and butter.  That's really all I need.

My package is supposed to arrive today.  The zipper pouches, the other zipper pouches I'll make the emotional first aid kits in, and a fabric bag that hopefully is really big.

I met with my friend J this afternoon.  We sat and talked outside.  She took me to the garden to show me all the green tomatoes and held my hand.  The wind was blowing my dress around too much.  Then we went up to the prayer room and talked more.

Thank god for friends, crock pots, beans, beautiful stones that cost one dollar each, Ming, and life.

morning glories, monkeyflowers, dudleyas

A long time ago, when I lived in Sacramento and worked in the gardens at the Vedanta Society there, Swami hated morning glories.

"Take out those morning glories," he'd say when I was weeding.

I felt like they were sweet.  So cute and cheerful.  With their pale round flowers and fine vines.

But I could see his point.  They would act like parasites, twining their vines on the outside of other plants, pushing their flowers up to a prime place for pollinators.  They used the height of other plants as their own height.

To Swami, they were a common weed.  So I would rip them out, as instructed, untangling them from the wanted plants they were twining on.

Driving the foothills near the Undisclosed Location, I saw monkeyflowers.  I think monkeyflowers are the only flowers that annoy me.  Not sure why--their stickiness, their name, the way they have a face?  The way they cling to hillsides?  Their peachy color, like Swami's robes?

They never did anything bad to me, so I'm not sure why I dislike them so.  Not like I'd harm them.  They just bother me.

Oleanders, on the other hand, I kind of hate.  I used to daydream about ripping them out.  We actually have some growing by Freedom House by the gravel driveway.  Those oleanders bloom white.

Recently they had a big bloom and then a lot of blooms fell at the same time when it rained, so there was a white flower carpet.  Even I had to admit, it was kind of pretty.

Ming thought I didn't like cliche flowers.  I said no, I love daisies--very cute.  Roses are great.  I love almost all the flowers.  Carnations look very formal to me, the opposite of wildflowers.  But my mom likes them.  They're ok.

In the foothills I also saw tons of sage blooming pale purple.  Whole hillsides were covered in it.  I wanted to pull over and look closer at them.  Poor Ming.  I think when he was driving, he missed them all.

Also I saw dudleyas, my very favorite plants.  There were some huge ones, I think brittonii.  Dudleyas are the only plants I know the latin of.   That's because there aren't really common names.  Maybe it was pulverulenta.

They were growing on steep rocky hillsides.  I would get excited when I saw them.  But Ming couldn't see them because he was busy driving.

This pic is by Helmy oved I snagged from wikipedia.

sacred

I want to learn how to make paper.  I like to make little books as gifts, and it would be cool if I didn't have to buy the paper.

Going home has a different energy than outgoing trip excitement.  Going home can feel like work.  But the drive is beautiful.  I'm blessed to come from a beautiful homeland.

Some recent revelations:
History is so hard to believe.  I don't know if I trust my guide.  Then the guide is basing it on things other people said longer ago, and I don't know if I trust them either.  I know how "facts" can be created.  Rumor and common knowledge can be wrong.  An anecdote can get blown out of proportion.  An instance can become everyone. 

Well, I sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist.  But I was reading this history of the Chumash people on Sunday at the bookstore in Lompoc.  And I could hear the attitude of the writer--it was published in 1965.  He would say things I totally didn't believe, so then it threw the whole thing into doubt. 

Like he talked about some Chumash people having an easy life, and it just seemed like a lie.  When is life ever easy?  Yeah, many kinds of fish and abundant acorns sounds good, but misfortune is everywhere.

I don't like history in general, and the only exception seems to be the history of my homeland.  I think it's because I love the plants and animals and land here so much--it makes sense I want to know about the people who relied on them and what happened here, to make the holes in the rocks and the art in the cave.  I'm especially intrigued by the people who lived on the islands.  I love the Channel Islands.

I found out my mom's mom was born in New Mexico, probably Corrizozo, and I want to go there now.  There's an old volcano.  I want to learn about that place and hug a tree, if trees grow there.  Kiss the earth.  You probably think I'm crazy.  But what's sacred, in this world? 

When Ming and I traveled to my mom's birthplace, that was one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Well, I gotta make breakfast and do morning things, then get on the road.  Love to all.

special horse day

Today Ming rode a horse for the first time.  I'm feeling like a good spouse for helping him fulfil a lifelong dream.  He wasn't scared and did great.  They rode a trail by a waterfall and could see the ocean at times, from the mountain area.

It's up a canyon I had never been up before, and I loved seeing all the beautiful trees, clouds blowing by, stream, and birds--tons of scrub jays, little woodpeckers, robins gathering nest material.

I sat looking at all the beauty for a while, then went into the lodge where I drank free Lipton tea and worked on a long letter.  Then I went outside again and looked at the beauty more--oaks, sycamores, California poppies.

Then we went to Isla Vista and at the Little Free Library at the co-op I got an art brochure thing for a free exhibit at UCSB of Chicano art.  I want to go this summer.

We ate our picnic lunch and enjoyed life.  Then I visited my bestie and her baby.  We had a good time talking and playing with baby toys.  The baby liked my blue painted toenails and touched them.

Laura-Marie's heros

This starbux has huge windows and all this gorgeous white light pours in on me when I sit here, mornings, doing work and writing while Ming is at yoga class.  It's a free community yoga class today--I hope it's not too crowded.

I read this letter Frida Kahlo wrote to Georgia O'Keeffe when the latter had been hospitalized.  It was amazing because I didn't even know how much English language Frida had.  I didn't know they knew each other.

I understood the feeling of tearing up letters that aren't good enough.  And I wondered what kind of flowers Frida wanted to give Georgia that were hard to find.  Calla lilies?  Sweet peas?

It made me teary, for some reason.  I don't have many heros, but these artists are my heros.

Laura-Marie's hero list

Frida Kahlo -- badass queer disabled Mexican artist
Georgia O'Keeffe -- desert dweller American artist
Cindy Baker -- Canadian fat activist artist
Marilyn Wann -- fat activist author zinester and inventor of Yay Scale
Felice Cohen-Joppa -- amazing peace activist anti-nuclear mama
Chelsea Manning -- whistleblowing transgender freedom fighter

Those women are off the top of my head.  I don't know if hero worship is really a good idea.  I guess I try to keep it to a minimum.

I made a list of people I want to be closer to, who I want to invest in.  I've been feeling spread thin socially.  I wish I had time for everyone, and energy, but I don't.  And rather than blow around like a tumbleweed, I'd rather make choices and be intentional about it.

I showed my list to Ming.  He thought it was sad.  I felt judged by his sad.  I think being intentional and in charge of my life is something to feel happy about.  But whatever.  Feelers gonna feel.

The chairs are loud on the tiles, here, when people drag them around.  A worker is sweeping.

A long time ago, I was a professional sweeper too.  Thank goodness those days are over.  But thank goodness I know what work is.

What Work Is by Philip Levine

We stand in the rain in a long line

waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

You know what work is—if you’re

old enough to read this you know what

work is, although you may not do it.

Forget you. This is about waiting,

shifting from one foot to another.

Feeling the light rain falling like mist

into your hair, blurring your vision

until you think you see your own brother

ahead of you, maybe ten places.

You rub your glasses with your fingers,

and of course it’s someone else’s brother,

narrower across the shoulders than

yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin

that does not hide the stubbornness,

the sad refusal to give in to

rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,

to the knowledge that somewhere ahead

a man is waiting who will say, “No,

we’re not hiring today,” for any

reason he wants. You love your brother,

now suddenly you can hardly stand

the love flooding you for your brother,

who’s not beside you or behind or

ahead because he’s home trying to   

sleep off a miserable night shift

at Cadillac so he can get up

before noon to study his German.

Works eight hours a night so he can sing

Wagner, the opera you hate most,

the worst music ever invented.

How long has it been since you told him

you loved him, held his wide shoulders,

opened your eyes wide and said those words,

and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never

done something so simple, so obvious,

not because you’re too young or too dumb,

not because you’re jealous or even mean

or incapable of crying in

the presence of another man, no,   

just because you don’t know what work is.

Stories Are Magic

My friend interviewed me about my activism, and the interview is published in this zine.  You can order it on her etsy!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/691743730/stories-are-magic-a-zine-of-interviews

Deaf hitchhikers, lost friend, how to get a pretty scrunchie

I woke up from a dream--Ming and I were in the shortbus, and we saw some hitchhikers.  They were two women with short hair, butch-looking, wearing jeans and I'm not sure about their shirts, but they looked similar to one another, white ladies with dark blond hair, probably in their 30s.

I rolled down the window and asked, "Where you headed?" to the nearest lady, and she had a little sticker stuck to her finger.  She handed it to me, and in little handwriting, black ink, someone had written, We are Deaf.

But by then I had noticed the dog, a huge St Bernard, the size of a couch!

I told Ming, "They are Deaf.  But they have a huge dog!"  Ming seemed very positive about giving them a ride.  I was not wanting the huge dog in our vehicle and wanted to ask if the dog was well-behaved, but I didn't have any paper.

It was vivid and seemed realistic, like these people are really out there waiting for a ride, and I can still see the handwriting.

I was remembering a friend.  I used to go to the 99 cent store, and they had scrunchies for a dollar--I thought it was a three-pack, but now I wonder if it was a two-pack.  I got this scrunchie that was stripes of different purples, so pretty.  I love purple.

But it was with other scrunchies that were not to my liking.  I remember one that was gray and black striped, and those aren't my colors.  One was neon orange.  But to get the pretty purple scrunchie, I had to get the ones I didn't like.

So I gave those ones to my friend who also had long hair and used scrunchies, but probably she would have liked the purple one best, like me. 

That friend, I loved her so much.  She was one of my first friends with kids.  I loved her kids also.  It took a lot for me to let them in.

We had some good times--at the park, getting food, by the river.  Bad times too, like at the doctor and when the little one was throwing a fit because she didn't want to leave.

I had a dream about her also.  She was about to take a belly dancing class and was very happy.  I asked how the kids were, and she said they were good, at a birthday party.

I thought she would be my friend all my life.  I miss her.  I was in it for the long haul.  She stopped wanting anything to do with me.  I see bits of her husband's news on facebook and feel voyeuristic.

thoughts from California

"I was surprised, I looked at the weather for Las Vegas, and it's not supposed to be hot.  It's going to be in the 70s half the days we'll be gone.  What the hell?  We could have gone to the hot springs!  I thought we had to wait till fall.  I guess this is normal now.  The time of predictable weather is over."

"Yeah," Ming said.  We looked at each other.

"That's sad," I said.  "Let's swim away from that thought.  Swim swim swim!"  I made swimming motions in the air.

Last night at dinner I was asking Ming a ton of questions.

What do you think happens to us when we die?
Is there just nothing?  Is there heaven or something else?
Ming said he thinks it's just over, and anything else is a bonus.
When people say their relative is still with them despite death,
is that real? 
It's all in their head, Ming said.
What about ghosts?  Why is there something, rather than nothing?
Do you believe in a God who can hear and respond to prayers?
He said he didn't think so.
But you pray anyway, I said, to yourself, or hoping a being hears?
Yes, he said. 
Do you believe these things in your mind or your heart?
Where do you believe them?  Is it logic or just a feeling?
Ming said it was in his chest, a feeling. 
If it was logic, it would come from a book.
What book? I asked.  Like the Torah?
Yeah, he said.
You'd believe a book? I asked.
Do you think people are mostly good or mostly bad?

Then we started talking about climate change.  I saw a photo on facebook of a young person holding a sign.  It said: You'll die of old age, I'll die of climate change. 

I asked Ming if having kids made him more concerned and wanting to do something.  He said no, he felt like that before he had kids. 

I said, So you see all the children of the world as your children?  He said he didn't think it had to be about children.  It could be just for the world.

I asked what he wanted to do about climate change.  He suggested some behaviors, and it sounded futile.  He asked what I thought about stopping climate change.

I said I thought it was too late.  I said that in the industrial revolution, money became more important than anything--trees, love, life itself.  They were like, look at this cool thing I can do, and it didn't matter that they were spewing gray smoke into the air.  Money was more important than being able to breathe.

Ming asked if I thought it was toxic masculinity, and I said maybe, that women might be more likely to notice, Hmm, the air is filled with gray smoke.  I need to breathe, and my kids need to breathe.  Everyone needs to breathe.

I said people could use technology to try to fix the problems caused by technology, like putting the thing in the smokestack to catch the particles.  You can try that--but if it's not profitable, then it's not going to happen.

At some point, money became more important than anything.  I was saying how a tree is sacred, but people would deaden their hearts to that, and then money would be more important than a tree.  But you can't make someone feel that a tree is sacred.

Money became the only sacred thing.

We talked about the invention of cars, horseshit in the streets, how you can't see the distant future result of your actions.  Water, horseshit in the water, what people need to live. Population.

Then I was telling him about tadpoles--when I was a little girl, there was a creek by my house, and people would go see the tadpoles and catch some, bring them home in creek water in a jar.  It was fun and exciting.

But then the next day, they see the tadpoles in the jar--what do you feed them?  How do you keep them alive?  The excited feeling was gone, but the tadpoles were still there.

I can't remember what that was an example of.  Something about responsibility?  Nature is no joke, and a being's life is everything.

I don't know what will happen to all these people.  I guess if there's reincarnation, I have to come back.  I love the world.  But in a way, I feel coldly dismissive.

I love the people who are near and try to help the world in my small way.  I try to help build community by running the radical mental health collective and helping with the Catholic Worker and Nevada Desert Experience.  I want a new world, but I'm weary.  I write letters and try to have an open heart, try to enjoy the moment, but I do see doom.

Well, California is a great state, so diverse and beautiful, and I think no matter where I go and what my driver's license says, California is my home.  So I'll try to enjoy it.

dress weights

I thought of a great bad invention--probably everyone thinks of it--of dress weights.  They are four weights you have attached to clothes pins and you pin them on the hem of your dress before you go out into the wind.  Then no one sees your chonies.

I'm walking through a parking lot, keeping my hands by my sides, trying to keep my dress down so no one sees my chonies, visualizing dress weights.

"You should use bells," Ming said.

"You mean like cow bells?" I asked.

"No, smaller," he said.

"You mean like jingle bells?" I asked.

"No, smaller," he said.

"You mean like...mini-jingle bells?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

I'm thinking those are too light, but it makes sense to him.

We're at the hotel--we can rest now.  We had a whole conversation this morning about pigeons.  He was saying their poo goes into the air and makes people sick.  He sounded anti-pigeon.  I was pro-pigeon.

"The only way a pigeon would make you sick with its poo would be if you actually lived with pigeons, like they were pooing right next to you five times a day," I said.  "And if you lived with pigeons, the pigeons would be the least of your problems."

Then he brought up crows, and I was saying crows were way more loved than pigeons, and he was saying crows are bad too.  I told him lots of people want to be called Crow or Raven, and nobody wants to be called Pigeon.  I was referring to pagans specifically--Moonpigeon doesn't really happen.

This morning I felt really ready for this trip, more ready than usual.  But I realized we take so many roadtrips--we should have a better system for packing.  I was thinking how we could do it better.  I know we packed a bottle of tylenol, but I don't know where it is.

Oh, a public service announcement--saltwater taffy can have gelatin in it.  I was reading ingredients on candy bags at Eddy World and was upset to see the gelatin on the label.

Sumerland

Ming was telling me...someone mentioned to him that Summerlin is actually Sumerland.  Summerlin is the rich part of town, here in Las Vegas.  But someone was saying it was named after ancient Sumer.

"Who was it?" I asked.  He couldn't remember.

"That would actually be cool," I said.  "We could go to Sumerland to worship Inanna, swim in the Tigris and Euphrates, and learn cuneiform.  We could go to the underworld and come back."

A special quirk about Ming is his strange relationship with reality.  "Why did you do such and such?" I'll ask, and rather than remembering and answering the question, he'll come up with some plausible ideas and list them as options with no regard to the actual reason.

It's like he thinks things just happen, and if we want to explain them, your guess is as good as mine.

"Rather than thinking of the real reason for something, you just come up with something plausible," I told him this morning.

"What's the difference?" he asked.

"See, that's the problem," I said.

"I'll work on that," he said.

I'm the kind of person who believes in reality and needs to find it.  Maybe I'm naive.

This morning Ming's cellphone alarm was going off at 4.  I woke up and he was not waking up, so I woke him up to turn it off.  I think it had been going off for a long time.

This morning I was feeling grateful for my body.  It has its problems, but it does many good things.  I was lying in bed, feeling gratefulness, as the sun came up.

C is the Heavenly Option

I joined Coursera and am taking a music theory class.  It's free to audit. 

I've always felt curious about music theory.  They're starting at the beginning--I already knew pitch, notes, staff, octave.  But I think it will get difficult really quick.

And why is an A the same as an A, an octave higher or lower?  How are they both an A?  I can hear that they are, but why?  I kind of wish for more detail or science or something.

I have a lot of questions.

I was telling Ming, they started with A, but in my mind, C is the first note, the God note.  C is very dear to me.  My favorite note.

"Isn't C on a violin?' Ming asked.

"Uh...all the notes are on a violin," I said.

But what is a note.  I know other cultures can have other notes.  Is it ok, to limit our notes?  I guess that's not music theory.  That's something else.  Music philosophy or something.  Music ethics.

I got great news at a doctor's appointment today.  I really needed it.  Almost all the news really couldn't have been better.

But last night I had a small health / anxiety crisis that I got myself through, 11:30pm to 1:30am.  I still feel fragile.  It takes me a day to recover, around 24 hrs.  So I'm not expecting too much from myself right now.

Ming recovers faster.  We need to keep him well.  He needs support so we both don't go down at the same time.  I was looking for an online CBT class.  That's why I went to the Coursera website.  There's edX too.

So much to learn, in this world.

me again

A dress is nice because...
it's cool.
It's comfortable.
It's simple--one piece.
It's flowy.

A dress is a pain because...
the wind could flip it up.
Drunk men react too much.
Too gendery?

queen Laura-Marie

I bought a chair rated to 500lb.  It's a queen's chair, a throne!  I always sat in a camping chair and thought I'd break it.  But this one is sturdy and wide.

I told my skinny friend R, he could sit on my lap, and the chair would be fine.  That I could be Santa.  Ho ho ho.

Last night was the party, the two year anniversary of the radical mental health collective.  We had good music.  My friend gave me a feather.  I was dancing.

Today I have a hangover.  Too bad I don't drink.  A social hangover, I guess.

Toward the end of the party, I told a story about how it's okay to lose your dream, because there will always be more dreams.  And that we can live many lives, in our one life.  It was a hopeful story.

sometimes

Oops--put too much cayenne in the fried rice.

Today I cried in a meeting during my check-in.

I made myself a blueberry smoothie.

Sometimes life seems very hard--sometimes easy.

plant friend

My friend brought me a beautiful plant.

downwinder

This place we're staying, cute little cabin, is very comfortable.  It's close to the freeway but feels nourishingly nature-y.  I like the wild bunnies and cows that roam.  I like the huge trees and birds singing.  The air feels clean.  I love this little patio with picnic table and grape arbor.  Haven't seen a mosquito.

Yesterday we went to St George for lunch.  Then Ming remembered a friend he has there.  So he called her, but she was at work, so we waited till almost 5 to visit with her.  I wasn't planning to spend much of the day in town.  I thought we were going to the city for only a couple hours.

The talk was about death.  The friend is a downwinder.  Several of her relatives have died of cancer as a result of nuclear testing fallout, including her little child.  The talk wasn't negative in a bitter or pointless way, but it was negative.  I had been extremely happy and got very sad real quick.

We returned to the cabin and I was crying.  I'm trying to talk about things.  I have an old habit of mulling things over myself and it can get a bit hamster wheelish.  I like to talk about things to open a window and let some fresh air and light into my mind, in a way.  It can be good to get feedback also.

I told Ming, it seems like for the first half of our lives we're given things, and during the second half of our lives, everything is taken away.

I'd like to return to this place, but it's going to get really hot soon.  Maybe in the fall.

My friend is going away for a ten month trip related to work, going to Iowa.  I wish the friend would return to Las Vegas afterward, but I know things happen, and things change.  Maybe the friend will decide Iowa is great, or find love, or another job.  I was thinking of the famous Robert Frost poem that says "way leads on to way."

I remember once Ming and I went to a small zine fest in Orange County.  We stayed at a Motel 6 and went to the beach in a place, I can't even remember the name.  I realized we didn't have a reason to return there and told Ming, we'll probably never come here again.

It was sad for me, not sure why.  Why couldn't I love a place and let it go?  A favorite quote of mine is "everything I've ever let go of had claw marks on it."

Ming is out hiking, and I'm at the picnic table enjoying morning.  I have a depressed penpal, and I try to measure how sad she is by how many stickers she puts on her letters.  The more stickers, the harder she's trying to cheer herself up.  Sometimes there are about 30 small stickers.

I can judge my mood by how much sugar I consume.  During the Sacred Peace Walk, I stock up on chocolate.

The Road Not Taken--Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

in which Laura-Marie gambles pointlessly

We went to Albertson's for a specific thing and ended up buying other stuff too.  The checker asked us if we played Monopoly.  "Sure," I said.  "There are instant wins, right?"  She said yes.

She was counting a ton of tickets, and I wondered why.  I thought it was an odd time, to make us wait.  Then she handed us 48 tickets, which shocked me.

"It must be the last day," I told Ming.  "Maybe they want to get rid of them."

When I was on my way in, a guy standing by the door asked me a question I couldn't hear.  "What?" I asked, but I kept walking.  He mumbled that I should buy him some fried chicken.

I was really revolted by the idea.  "No," I said.  I guess because I don't eat chicken?  I was surprised by the strength of my reaction.

Ming looked at the receipt and told me 48 tickets was the amount we were supposed to get.

I started ripping open the tickets.  I realized I was gambling.  Normally I'm opposed, but it seemed silly to not get whatever free thing there might be a ticket for.

My fingers turned blue from the blue print on the tickets, but I got through them all.  We won four things, and then there were four tickets that were for two more tickets.

So Ming went to get the free things--crackers, water, candy, and aspirin, all particular brands and sizes.  I stayed in the minivan.

He came back empty-handed.  "What happened?" I asked.

He explained that none of the things we won were in stock.  Some there were empty places on the shelf.

"Did you tell someone?" I asked.

"Yeah, she just looked at me," Ming said.

All that gambling for nothing.  When I washed my hands, the blue mostly came off.

We're leaving for a short trip.  We're staying in a little house by a river.  We bought some mosquito repellent.  Wish us luck.

go fund me for Jonas

My activist friend who was beaten and arrested for eating chips out of his backpack by a North Las Vegas cop has a go fund me, now.  Please read the story in his own words and support him if you can.

https://www.gofundme.com/twz5p-help-needed-with-legal-fees

soup line sutra

This morning I served on the soup line--it had been a while.  It only takes an hour. 

I did sugar and creamer for the coffee.  There's coffee only Saturdays. 

Many of the hungry people take their coffee in disposable plastic water bottles.  The sugar pours okay, but the creamer is a fluffy powder and goes everywhere.  Hard to get it into the small bottle openings.

A hungry person told me I was too slow.  "You're falling behind, boss," he said.

"Sorry about that," I said.  It didn't hurt.  He smiled at me.  I smiled at him.

Later another guy told me I was doing a good job.  I felt comforted. 

I did feel like I was doing a good job--I actually felt like the goddess of sugar and creamer.  I felt like a badass.  I was focused, listened to instructions, communicated well, didn't spill on anyone beyond the inevitable.

I saw some men in the gutter.  They were using the curb as their table, squatting there quietly, eating their breakfast.  It seemed somehow beautiful though sad, poignant.  Something about it made my heart ache.

Very few women today.  I talked to a lady I'd never seen before who seemed to be on speed or having an episode. 

She told me some stuff I didn't believe.  She said she was in training to be Queen Amidala.  "Who would you be, if you could be someone else?" she asked me.

"I would just be myself," I said. 

She asked me my name, and I told her Laura-Marie.  When I asked hers, she paused, and I felt she was choosing from a few options.  She thanked me and said she loved me when she went.

The guy who buys the Bibles was wearing a Kent State sweatshirt, so I was thinking about the Kent State shooting, and I started singing the song.  Then my friend started singing with me.  I enjoyed that moment.

Later I was holding hands with Ming, and then some of us were standing in a circle, and R held hands with the people he was standing by, so we all held hands.  We talked like that, for a while.  I kinda wanted to pray.

Please bless the hungry people we're feeding today.  Please help them have good days, have food to eat, not get beaten, not get arrested.  Thank you for the honor of feeding them.  Please help us be good to them.  May the food nourish their bodies...

The opposition says that by feeding the hungry people, we're enabling them.  Like if nobody fed them, they would get their acts together and get jobs and apartments and become upstanding.  Before you knew it, they would be having retirement plans and driving Priuses.

Hahaha!  Well, if only it worked that way!  If only letting people starve would help them.  Hmm.

There's the rapid response people--they have the job of raiding homeless encampments, destroying them, and stealing everything.  Throwing away countless tents, sleeping bags, possessions.  People's ids, birth certificates, and family photos are in there--everything.

How do those rapid responders live with themselves?  I think they have to psych themselves out really hard.  Like people in war say their enemy is sub-human. They believe the weird ideas.  They believe they're helping.

Yeah, or whoever killed the students at Kent State.  They probably lived with incredible guilt.  Yuck.

Well, that album was really important to me, when I was a teenager.  I wasn't radicalized till later.  But that song planted a seed, one of many.

Des Moines

me:  Hey, you know what's cool about me?

Ming:  What?

me:  I know how to spell Des Moines.  I spelled it the other day without looking.  

Ming:  Hmm.

me:  How do I know that?  Is it the capital or something?  Maybe I learned it when I was a little kid and it stuck in my head.

Ming:  How do you spell capital?

me:  There are two capitals.

Ming:  Two capitals of Iowa?

me:  Two capitals in the English language.  One with an o, one with an a.

when to throw cards away

My friend gave me a shoebox stuffed with greeting cards, the kind charities send free, trying to get you to donate.

I never donate, so I don't get these cards, but I would buy some at thrift stores.  Then I would use them to write letters to friends, or we would use them at political prisoner letter writing night, to write to prisoners.

For a while I had a ton of wolf ones.  The SPCA thrift store in Sacramento has cards, and on a sale day, I'd buy a huge stack of them for ten cents each.

I was looking through the cards my friend gave me.  It was fun to see the different pictures, to read the sappy messages in birthday cards, to evaluate the cheapness of the production, the different shapes--some are long instead of a regular card shape.

I found these cards from a Christian school that teaches Native American kids.  I felt sick because I have the idea, these schools, there's a horrible history.  The Christians would want to "save" the kids, but they would be destroying their culture, taking them from their parents and families and homeland, not letting them speak their own language...  The Christians might have believed they were doing good, but it's evil.

Boarding schools, promise of a better life, but then the kids were abused and traumatized, lost everything.

I was telling Ming, maybe it's not so bad anymore?  He was like, why are you giving them the benefit of the doubt?  I was like, well, how could they live with themselves?

I had a student when I lived in Bishop.  She was really Christian, and she loved kids, a soft-spoken white lady who seemed kind.  But she had a medical condition that gave her a beard, which she shaved off, but I think no one in that small town wanted to be in a relationship with her.  So she didn't have kids, though she wanted some.

She ended up going to teach at one of these schools in Arizona.  She moved there, and it was supposed to be good for her, a job, and she could work with kids.  I remember people being positive about it--she was getting out of Bishop and out of her parents' house.  But I was thinking, uh, this is not good.

This student and I were kind of friends, and for a while, she sent me the update/fundraising letters for the school she was teaching at.  It sounded like a train wreck.  They had trouble retaining students.  They had trouble paying teachers and staff.  They were in a remote area.  It seemed like they were trying really hard to make it work, begging Christians elsewhere to fund them in saving the souls of these kids, but the school was failing.

It reminds me of some pro-lifers--dedication to one ideal at the expense of everything else.  "Killing babies is wrong," so the solution is throwing all women under the bus. 

They want to save the souls of the Native American kids, so the solution is genocide?  It's kind of like the immigrant kids being separated from their parents in detention centers and then adopted out. 

https://theintercept.com/2018/07/01/separated-children-adoption-immigration

So I'm wondering, what do I do with these cards?  I think I need to throw them away.  I can't advertise these schools.  Not like someone I sent a card to would say, oh, what a good idea--I'll give this school money.  But just, how could I advertise evil.

This morning I was telling Ming, some of the cards are really creepy, depicting happy Native American kids in this cartoon way, a stereotype...

Well, sorry, this blog post is depressing me.  I gotta wrap it up.  I think I'm going to keep the envelopes and throw the cards away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools

America

Lately my favorite meal is buttered toast and veggie sausage.  Two pieces of toast, two patties.  Somehow the simplicity and ease.  Ming can make it for me.

Lately I've made some packet meals.  We get them free from the pantry.  You put a cup and a half of water to boil then half a cup of milk and a little butter.  Add the packet contents, simmer for 10 minutes.

This is not cooking.  R came over, asked, what are you making?

I said, I didn't make it.  It's a packet meal.  Fake food.  He thought it was funny.  It's like glorified mac and cheese. 

Tonight, Ming is at the May Day march.  I made a packet but put a bunch of fresh broccoli in it that J gave me yesterday.  So that's an improvement at least.  But it's very salty.

I was talking to my good friend in England.  What's England?  He says he thinks England is real.  What's United States?

"American dream is only a dream."  Sometimes I get the line in my head, "Even though my nose don't work, I smell trouble, I smell trouble."

When I was a teenager, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, listening to "America" the song, with my favorite line, "I said, be careful, his bowtie is really a camera."  Trying to figure out what my country was, woefully unprepared to do so, having grown up in a very strange place in California near the coast, very unrepresentative of my country, having very subtle seasons, no hot or cold, and only white people and Mexican-American people.

I remember, my first move as an adult, to Santa Barbara for school--that place I really love.  It smells like home to me, the ocean and the anise by the road.  It smells like comfort and safety.  Bottlebrush trees, eucalyptus trees, nice parks, easy weather, surfers, meeting a surfer on the trail--he's wearing Tevas and has a dog off-leash.  I always wanted to move back there.

But it's kind of a daydream, to me.  Then Orange County for grad school was confusing to me.  I didn't understand LA or Orange County.  I couldn't make sense of them.  The huge wide freeways, the different cities all smashed together into megacities.  I felt uncomfortable.

Irvine was a weird place.  UC Irvine was also.  It didn't seem organic to me, like a real homeland that grows out of necessity and with grace.  It seemed like a master-planned mistake.  Before, a long time ago, it must have been a real homeland, for some people.  But then, all that was vanished.  It had become a pit stop to get a degree and move on.

I remember in Sacramento finally feeling like I had found a city for me.  There was diversity.  I need to be in a city, and I need all different kinds of people. 

I remember going to the big farmers market under the freeway and feeling deeply nourished to be around all different kinds of people buying their veg.  Different clothes, different languages.  Like I could breathe.  Like it was a real place.

But what's America--what's a border?  A border is an idea.  The butterfly doesn't care what country it's in.  It flies where it needs to.  It's a citizen of the world.