Such wonderful fruits can grow in the desert. The apricots were so ripe, we ate them right away off the tree. The few we bought turned to mush in the bag. The peaches are delicious to the point of religious experience. The long plums aren't ready yet. We found just a few of those trees while wandering the rows.
We saw the honey bees sign then saw the bee boxes, which are my favorite thing.
Bee box selfie for Mom.
"Let's pick four peaches, five tomatoes, and three cucumbers," said on the way there turned into wandering the orchard for an hour, first searching for unadvertised magical green pluots, then eating ripe apricots blushed with red, then marveling at all the beautiful peaches.
As for the tomatoes, I was skilled at seeing a good red one nestled in the greenery. I was getting too much sun and we skipped the cukes, quitting while we were ahead.
My joke was: "Let's go to the free all-you-can-eat fruit bar--I mean Gilcrease." I believe you're allowed to munch fruits as you pick. But I was afraid there was a pluot cam and an alarm would go off.
Beep, beep! You have eaten your fifth pluot. You will now be ejected from the orchard.
Then a big trebuchet robot would gently lift me up and catapult me across the street and into the parking lot. I would land safely on a deep pile of soft feathers and wake up, asking, "Where am I?" with the perfume of magical green pluot on my breath and pluot skin stuck in my teeth, my fingers sticky with the juice of stone fruits, and farm dust on my feet.
I was reading about Turkish towels. I hear they're excellent because they're thinner, dry faster, stay cleaner. Sounds great.
But then I saw the tassels. I'm anti-tassel. I think I got that from my mom, who is also anti-tassel. She makes tons of scarves, and never with tassels or fringe.
True confession: I once ruined a mala by cutting off the tassel. It fell apart.
I just think tassels distract from the actual thing. I over-focus on the tassel(s) and it drives me crazy--petting a tassel, untangling its threads, worrying it will clump. Delicateness of tassels. I see a lot of goodness in simplicity. I'm thinking a tassel changes the chi or something.
Oh, but I went through a phase of making bookmarks for a while. And I actually made tassels for those. And it was my mom who taught me how. I think she knows how from doing macrame in the 1970s.
I guess the moral of this story is that life is confusing.
I like the way modern cameras can handle a glowy window. I wanted to photograph my bee brooch in action, but my arms aren't long enough or something. Then it fell off. I guess I was asking too much. I need a stronger brooch.
My clear plastic dollar store wallet got a hole on an edge. Previously I would fix that with gorilla tape. But it was dirty also, inside, so I switched to this pretty new tiger wallet with vivid orange lining.
me: What will you say, when people ask you where I am?
Ming: I'll say you're not feeling well.
me: You should tell them something funny. You could say I ran away and joined the circus.
Ming: No, I'm not going to tell them that!
me: How about, I ran away to Tahini?
Ming: tahini?
[laughter]
me: Yeah, Tahini!
Ming: I'm not going to tell them anything that makes it sound like you did something bad.
me: I could run away to the circus--that's not bad. Then I can run back. You should ask them, Where do you think she is? Then they could give you an answer more funny than anything we could ever think of.
vacation bible school day two: real pipecleaners, dissociation, gender anarchy
I was sitting in this crafts class, on an undersized plastic chair, doing the thing where I don't really talk, and I'm there, but I'm kind of in another dimension. I could say something, but it's hard. Nobody needs to know my name. It's nearing the end of the day. I want to blend in or melt. I don't really want to be there, but technically, I am there, and could help if I needed to.
Kids were making bracelets by stringing plastic beads on pipecleaners. I had a burning question. Are pipecleaners ever used to clean pipes, anymore?
Two little boys with the same name were being praised over and over again by the teacher for working quickly. The result was that they worked faster, making even more beaded pipecleaner bracelets, until they had around five each. It was bothering me because...
1. quality over quantity
2. who cares how fast they can make bracelets? seems there are better things to talk about, in this world
3. those two kids were the oldest in the class, probably, so why the surprise?
4. the bracelets will probably end up in the trash--what a waste
5. just seemed lazy
6. what did this have to do with the lesson of the day, the theme of the week, or the day's verse?
I believed it was inappropriate to bring up actual pipes in front of preschoolers, since pipes are to be smoked, and smoking is bad, right? So I didn't ask my burning question, so it kept circling around in my mind.
Then I had a vivid memory. It was of this small packet of pipe cleaners I found one time in a cupboard at my parents' house, when I was a kid. The pipecleaners were all white and shorthaired. The packet seemed old. I think they were real pipecleaners, made to clean pipes, not for children's disposable crafts. I think the cardstock packet had words on it that implied such. Maybe even instructions.
Lately I've been thinking how some feelings from childhood don't even have names, these weird strong feelings that are so powerful, I almost fall over. I guess they could have names, but others would not understand my personal "real pipecleaner feeling."
Just like I kind of feel like there are tons of genders, like seven billion. Some people are working hard at performing a particular gender. But still, I think most people are their own gender. I would like if we were all allowed to be our own nameless gender, no pressure. Gender anarchy.
Here we are after dancing for two hours. It was really good for me. The radical mental health collective collaborates with Kimberly, the lady in green shorts, who is a dance master facilitator. Does Happy Earth Market have amazing light? Are modern phone cameras wonderful? Because I think we look really beautiful.
I was sitting outside, last week, at the Worker. I was at the picnic table, enjoying life, looking at the plants mostly--herbs, mint, the bush with purple flowers J likes, the trees, including the huge conifer.
I didn't have my keys, so I couldn't get into 502. My friend was making breakfast, and I heard the crunch crunch as he walked on the gravel, back and forth between 502 and 500, getting ingredients, his slow, steady way.
I thought maybe I should help him. But I was taking a moment to rest and just be. I was also looking for Ming to see if he would pass by.
Suddenly, the sprinklers came on. What do you think happened then? I saw water come out of the little black plastic sprinkler heads in small streams.
Then the birds came. There were many grackles, and they all seemed female. There were some Little Brown Jobs also (LBJs).
They hopped to the sprinkler heads, their drinking fountains. It was cute to see them.
Also there was a big baby. It was the same size as its mom but opened its mouth to beg and fluttered its wings in that juvenile way. I liked that too. Once, the baby was begging from its mom, and the mom flew away. The baby looked awkward for a moment and then flew after her. I enjoyed watching this.
Another drama was grackles trying to get the strawberries. They would grasp the fine black netting with their beaks and pull. I thought about trying to shoo them, but I just watched. I thought maybe I should be pro human consumption of strawberries as opposed to bird consumption. But I just let it all unfold.
It was like a multiple-ring circus in the sense of different scenes to watch at different sprinkler heads. I thought soon the water would turn off and the birds would leave. But the water stayed on a while. Birds drank, birds bathed. The grackles were at a few sprinkler heads, and I think the LBJs were at just one.
One of the grackles was bigger than the others. I thought maybe she was their queen. She was trying to remove the strawberry netting with a friend. They gave up.
I decided to go inside, can't remember why. I ended up helping my friend by making and buttering all that toast.
Being in the kitchen with him, I felt he was doing something sacred. He was in his element, wearing an apron like he often does, with his long hair tied back.
I was thinking how he learned to cook for his kids, long ago. It was a meditative, beautiful thing he often did alone, I think. It involves certain movements made many times. He had probably made fried potatoes a hundred times, at least. So he probably had certain ways he liked to do it. A way of looking at the potatoes, evaluating them, their doneness, how to season them, how much salt, how much oil.
He would cover the pan with foil sometimes. The pan was huge, and he was using foil as a lid. I felt honored to see him do his thing, as it's great to see anyone truly good at something do their thing.
I think that was the same day we had our friend visit and give the talk on tiny house villages. Or maybe I'm mixing up days. Sleep deprivation is bad for my memory. Please pray for me that I can sleep ok.
We are working on a few zines being processed concurrently. The Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective zine is currently printed but not assembled nor bound yet. Journaling Journey being published for Lili's writing workshops is at the stage of a zine proof produced for approval and next in the queue to be copied. Two perzines of our hero were bound with the help of friends who came over last evening. Thank you. Some of my With Intention zines that had been lying around unbound got bound too yesterday. Thank you very much.
Can't believe this finally came together. Two years in the making! Great art, many ideas, info, feelings. What radical mental health is, the history of our collective, building community, poems, an interview, Las Vegas Street Medics. It's worth a read. $2 donation suggested, all funds going to recoup the printing, then support the collective's projects. Half-size, 32 pages.
I keep hoping if I work hard enough, I'll get down to a lower strata of desk stuff and find some things I've been idly looking for. But more gets piled on top. Sometimes I think I'm not making any progress.
I make to do lists and half-ignore them. I think of ways to help myself and have no energy to implement the plans.
People give me stuff I don't know what to do with.
Time passes super fast, a lot of the time.
My good intentions are jumbled up and many are forgotten. Can't remember what I was going to do with this cool paper that depicts beautiful insects.
Can't decide whether to write to the prisoner penpal I don't really like but feel bad for. Meanwhile, his address is sitting here on my desk.
I prioritize, then do random things that aren't in keeping with my vision.
Life is weird. Last night I felt intense anguish. I have some tricks for keeping my mind in a good place, but all that was failing.
Then I slept around 11 hours, and I'm hoping things will be easier now.
"Hey, why do you cut the ends off the banana when you're making banana tea?" I asked Ming.
Lately he's been making banana tea. They say the peel has more magnesium and other nutrients than the actual tender fruit.
"Cause they're yuckie," he said.
"Why are they yuckie?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"Like are there bugs in it?"
"No," he said.
"What is yuckie?" I asked. "Yuckie is bugs. Or slimy, like a slug."
"Maybe spider webs," said Ming, mumbling.
There was a thick spider web by the swamp cooler and water heater. When my arm touched it, it felt rubbery and disgusting, though I have nothing against spiders.
Sleeping is terrible. I slept around 9:30 to 11. Then 2:30-4. Hmm, that's not really enough. I said I would take a nap later.
Eating is confusing. Life is weird.
I think of stunts as dangerous and dramatic. They can get a point across, like performance art. I don't really want to be involved. But I was thinking of a small-scale poetry stunt.
Maybe stunt isn't the right word. Maybe more of a project.
Maybe project is too grand. More of an..instance.
I have a lot of project ideas. Time, energy, and ideas work together to push life forward. They are a cool cohort.
I was up at 4:30am with pain from my pinched nerve. Did some good writing for a new zine. Said things I really wanted to say, that I never said before.
Went at 6:10am to the Catholic Worker to pray then serve the hungry. I did bread. My back didn't hurt to speak of. I didn't have any good conversations. Gave bread as quickly as possible. Sometimes the line was a bit long. Sometimes people huddled instead of queuing, but not too bad.
Some people came back over and over again. Many wanted the soft, white french bread. Yeah, I know about them. Their teeth are bad.
I made up an aphorism. "Once the donuts come out, no one wants the bread anymore." But it's not really true. There are still a few bread-takers.
Then I helped a friend make breakfast. When properly buttered, even the cheapest bread makes nice toast! I was the toastmaster. We were using individually wrapped butter pats in the bumpy golden foil. They must have been donated.
Then we had a meeting. Then our friend did a presentation on tiny house villages. Wow, he knows his stuff. He was comparing seven different villages. I went upstairs to the prayer room, cried, and wrote two letters. The letters were real, heartfelt, and articulate--but very sad. I hope it's ok.
I have a new shirt. I don't like it, but Ming does. I like the rusty orange color, but it's super long and hangs funny.
The worker at the Jolt seemed to be having a quiet crisis and / or need coffee. Ming's expensive coffee drink was almost all ice. I just asked for my water bottle to be refilled, considered free books and didn't take any, and used the bathroom.
There was a mental health textbook in Arabic I considered grabbing for a friend. But it's probably all mainstream claptrap.
The long list of bathroom prohibitions made me sad. You can wash your hands there--that's it! No washing your feet. No brushing your teeth. Can't do anything lewd.
I thought, Can you look in the mirror? I considered writing that on the paper sign, but there were probably cameras. They'd kick me out. I never could return again. That means I'd have to miss the zine fest.
I did look in the mirror. My hair is a little grayer on the edges. But I'm still me.
Then we made some copies.
my conclusions:
Summer is a pain in the ass.
No good books at the gay center.
A sad letter is better than nothing at all.
I got a new phone--I haven't transferred the contacts. It's challenging since it's iphone to android.
My iphone's battery was so bad for so long. It could be eaten up in five minutes. It could turn off for no reason, at any time. So this functional phone feels pretty amazing. But I don't know how to do a lot of things on it.
I'm very tired. I wanted to blog a particular photo, but I emailed it to myself from my phone, and it never came thru. Lotsa mysteries.
Well, I'm going to bed. Let's meet in a dream. By the fireplace, with a hard-boiled egg, missing the wedding photographer. Yeah.
Is it just me, or are we some remarkably good looking radical mental health collectivers? Sometimes it brings a tear to my eye, that I really wanted this, and here it is.
I got this inexpensive blue cart. Ming helped me put some stationery on it this morning. All that stationery was weirdly kinda stacked by my desk. Now it's neatly, beautifully contained. Yay! Progress. I love it. Thank you, Ming! You're kind and giving. I appreciate you.
accommodations, disability, capitalism, service animals, emotional support animals, waiting for the bus
I made beautiful sandwiches for dinner. They had baba ganoush, cucumber, avocado, tomato, provolone cheese, and mayo, all on pita bread. Lovely special sandwiches. Ming liked his too.
I was lying in bed and got this idea: a cross between Hungarian mushroom soup and lobster bisque. It made me laugh. Basically like Hungarian mushroom soup made with lobster broth maybe. I dunno, sounds really funny to me. Maybe because they're a similar color.
The other day we were at San Miguel Community Garden. I saw some huge cabbage plants. For some reason, they looked funny to me. I was laughing. Cabbages are weird. Kind of excessive.
Yesterday we went to Albertson's. We paid our bill three different ways. I felt a twinge of sorry for the lady behind us. But sometimes, you gotta be time consuming.
In front of Whole Foods, Ming paused to let me out of the minivan. The person behind us beeped impatiently.
I'm noticing these signs about service dogs, saying service dogs are welcome but emotional support dogs aren't service dogs. I find the signs threatening and creepy. A sign like this was at Gilcrease Farms yesterday morning.
I was just reading the ADA rules about service animals. They have to be trained to do a specific helpful thing. They can be a service animal if they're trained to remind a depressed person to take a medication, but not if they're just going to keep the person well by being there.
Seems sick to me that medication is valid, but comfort isn't! Medication is a measurable product and part of capitalism. Comfort can't be measured, bought, or sold. So I guess it's not real. Or not important.
It reminds me how, when I was in the hospital, they kicked out Ming but offered me a sedative, for night anxiety. I didn't want a pill, to knock me out or mask my pain--I wanted the actual helpful thing. My spouse. I wanted to be actually well.
God forbid a person should be actually well. In a hospital!
I was researching accommodations for psychiatric disabilities for riding the bus, here in Las Vegas--there are none. People can get accommodations for physical disabilities, and if they're too mentally challenged. But for anything emotional, you're shit out of luck.
Doesn't matter that the federal government considers me disabled--I have to go before a transit system evaluator to prove I can't ride the regular bus, to get an accommodation.
Riding a regular bus, if it got crowded and I was getting bumped, I would panic. They don't care. Buses are stressful and confusing. Too many people in a small space, the need to rush, to understand routes and make connections. Also, they can be late and break down. Also there can be weird drunk/high people riding the bus who you want to get away from, but you can't get away because you're stuck.
Add to that summer heat, highs of 115 degrees for a month straight? Really, in the summer, everyone in Las Vegas needs an accommodation! Maybe they think if they started caring about one person's feelings, they'd have to care about everyone's.
It's capitalism. Feelings don't matter. Your actual wellbeing doesn't matter. All that matters is money.
Well, I sound extra-anarchist tonight. Maybe I should go back to bed.
Here's a link to the ADA service animal document. Pretty fascinating.
I found a website where you pay $125 and a therapist writes a letter certifying your animal as an emotional support animal for airlines and landlords. I think it's sad. Capitalism strikes again. You have to pay someone to write this letter, who paid a lot of money to go to school to get the credential to write the letter. It's only real if there's a financial transaction involved.
I really don't like proving things because the proof is usually really fake. Like grades.
I don't even like dogs, or pets in general, but disabled people don't need to get screwed more. Gnight.
This morning I woke up. Always a good thing. I lay there for a little while. Ming was already up. I needed to take a shower and get dressed--we planned to pick apriums at the orchard at 7 with friends, so we needed to leave home by 6:30.
I put my bare feet on the floor, which is wood. I stood there. I walked to the door to go to the bathroom.
For some reason, walking felt like a beautiful pleasure. The sensation of my feet on the floor, the contact, movement. I felt a deep gratefulness that I can walk. But mostly it was a physical pleasure, like my feet were holy and sacred, glowing with some pleasure-light. Just standing, just walking.
Maybe everything was a nice temperature, and I wasn't feeling pain. Not sure why this morning felt so different.
It reminds me of how I felt when I could eat again, at the hospital. I didn't have food for four days, and then I could eat. It was amazing.
Picking apriums and apricots with friends was great fun, and some secret green pluots we happened upon were a miracle. We did that a previous year also, stumbled upon the amazing, sweet green pluots that weren't advertised or mentioned anywhere. Wow, what luck.
Doing free yoga on Tuesday, I was looking at my feet, at one point, and I loved them so much, I could cry. They're calloused and dry. The nails are getting too long. Bit battered by life. My 42 year old feet have been through a lot. But they're still going. My heros. Thanks, feet.
Well, I got some good news today. Someone at a courthouse told me I could send a letter and supporting documents to try to clear something off my record that was put there mistakenly. Before, I'd been told I had to show up.
So I wrote the letter, and Ming photocopied all the documents. I packaged everything up, and Ming sent the large envelope in the mail. Wish me luck for more good newses.
Here's my emotional first aid kit. I pretty much finished it. I made three others also. One for Happy Earth Market, one for the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective, and one for a relative.
I like the jellyfishy quality of the plastic. And I love the see-thru-ness.
I want luggage tags for the other ones, saying what they are and how to use them.
I want a cart to organize some deskside stationery. But the blue cart I have my eye on, though made of steel, only holds 6.6 pounds per shelf. Hmm. I think paper is heavy.
This morning my friend is taking me to therapy. I have too many half-finished projects, and they're all over my desk. So many people I want to write letters to. Well, I guess I better get started.
Yesterday was so weird. I got really angry in the morning. I found out there was a mistake with some bureaucratic crap.
Basically, someone else screwed up on some paperwork, so I have to spend hours taking care of it, trying to clear up their errors. I was on the phone for hours, mostly on hold. Finally found someone who would help me. But she never called back yesterday afternoon to say it was resolved. I hope she calls this morning.
It made me feel vulnerable. How could this happen, just out of nowhere?
Fantasies of running away. Going off grid--no ID, no health insurance, no credit card, no cell phone. Another country, another name.
We live with a guy who's like that. He doesn't get any mail. No driver's license, no nothing. It's like he's invisible.
"Do we really want to aspire to that?" Ming asked.
I feel like there are happy ways to do it. Huge garden, maybe chickens, collecting rainwater, solar panels on the roof. It doesn't have to have a sneaking around attitude. It could have a joyful attitude.
I mentioned running away to a friend. She told me there's nowhere to go--she's tried.
But maybe that's the kind of thing I would need to experience for myself. I used to have those fantasies about taking over an abandoned cocoa farm in Mexico.
Then I was remembering how much earlier, 20 years ago, I used to want to move to Baja. I read The People's Guide to Mexico and was charmed.
It's starting to get hot, but I have a positive attitude about June still. We can do this.
Yesterday at the garden, I had a blissful time. The temperature was just right, in the garden, under this huge wooden shelter. The facilitator provided prompts that encouraged me to write things I loved, very insightful stuff. The company was good--I was with my friend, and the strangers were nice also. Sunflowers were blooming, so tall and gorgeous.
We didn't share what we wrote, which was nice because there was no need to decide what to share. I could just focus on what I was doing.
Afterward the facilitator took us to her plot, where she picked fresh bell peppers for me. Then this garden guy gave me and my friend a tour. We went into a huge chicken coop with a low roof. I saw some little city kids hold chickens for the first time. The garden guy gathered an egg.
I remember when I had a chicken, a brown chicken named Judy, when I was a kid. I would gather her eggs, and she laid them in her house sometimes, but sometimes we found one by the fence. If you gather eggs, I think you learn to think like a chicken--where is a good place to lay an egg.
That garden! There are a ton of fruit trees. It's huge. It seems like such a vibrant place. A living place.
Then my friend and I got lunch. It was great. It was my first time as her passenger. She's a good driver. I really enjoyed my veggie combo, eating slowly and savoring. I forgot how good that restaurant is.
Later we saw another friend. She gave me a small angel made of rose quartz. It has a bald head that looks like a Buddha head. I let Ming hold it. I said the angel was a Buddha Bird.
The friend gave Ming a tiny beautiful feather. I gave Ming a small clear plastic jar to put the feather in.
A big challenge in my life is figuring out what I need to change vs what's ok to be me. When I was young, I thought I was all wrong and needed to change everything. Now I know mostly I'm fine.
People said I needed to speak my truth more, that I was having an energy blockage in my throat chakra from not speaking my truth. I had a cough that lasted most of a year, and someone blamed the cough on that.
And it's true--I'm quiet. But are they just uncomfortable that I'm quiet, or am I really having an energy blockage?
I guess I'm the one who needs to know that. A few years ago I spent an entire year focused on speaking my truth. That was my year's project.
I made some progress, but I still clam up a lot, not feeling safe enough to say what I'm thinking, defend myself, defend others, share an idea that might help or offend.
But is that ok? I think silence is a valid option. I'm an introvert, after all. Silence is vilified sometimes--people needing constant stimulation, people who turn the tv on right when they get home, people who need the radio on to fall asleep.
A long time ago I had a year or two when I was going to Death Valley a lot. I learned about huge expanses and desert quiet. My mom told me, "You must be really comfortable with yourself." I was surprised she said that, and I live in the desert now.
I think silence is great. Do I really need to say something? My energy is there whether I say the thing or not. My reaction, judgment, or idea is there, whether I say it out loud or not. It's in the room. Maybe if I spoke it, I wouldn't be heard anyway.
But I do think words are magical. That's probably why I'm a writer. Someone can tell you something that changes your whole life. Someone can tell you something that sticks in your head and you don't understand till years later. A word can be a blessing.
Sometimes I feel like growing up is a process of accepting myself. Maybe by the time I'm old, I'll decide I'm entirely ok.
Some moments, I do feel ok. I enjoy my senses. I stop thinking and worrying and just feel who I am in a world that seems like a good place.
Something that surprised me yesterday--we were at Ikea for lunch. Ming's GP's office is right by Ikea. They have those 75 cent vegan hotdogs.
Ming is a fiend for marshmallows and is vegetarian except for seafood and marshmallows. So he bought these chocolate covered marshmallows at Ikea. It bothered him that the chocolate coating was cracking on some of them. I comforted him, "They probably still taste good," twice.
He ate one, after his vegan hotdogs, and didn't really like it. He complained the marshmallow was too squishy.
I read the ingredients on the box and was amazed to see--they were vegetarian marshmallows! They were made with agar agar instead of gelatin.
So I ate a chocolate covered marshmallow, and it was amazing! I never ate one before! Wow! How delicious.
For a time in my life, I thought the world was bad. It's easy to hate the world when you're feeling trapped and stuck.
It took years for me to change into a person who feels good about the world. When I look at the clouds, it helps a lot. They come and go, but I trust there will be new ones. The sky is always there for me, the sun.
Ming just made us breakfast. I think he was overtaken by some creativity. He served it with a strawberry on the side. My strawberry was sweet and delicious.
I've been thinking that life is like the weather. If you don't like it, just wait a while. It will change. Life changes a lot, and I used to hate that, but I'm liking it more and more.
May I become at all times,
both now and forever,
A protector for those without protection,
A guide for those who have lost their way,
A ship for those with oceans to cross,
A sanctuary for those in danger,
A lamp for those in need of light,
A refuge for those in need of shelter,
And a servant to all those in need.
- Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from Ethics for a New Millennium
I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.
--Howard Zinn
