the stage of grief where I google how to deactivate my facebook account

Ming is heating up some breakfast and peeling a sumo fruit to eat.  I like the way he keeps going.

from yesterday:

"Do you know sand smells?" I asked Ming.

"Do I know how sand stones?"

"Do you know how sand smells?" I asked again, enunciating.

"Yeah," he said.

"Does it smell that way just in California, do you think?"

"No, everywhere," he said.

"Even in Germany?" I asked.

"Rocks have different smells," he said.

"Yeah, maybe sand is made of different rocks, over there," I said.

the stage of grief where I listen to my youtube playlist about my dad

My dad used to sing this song to me sometimes, just the "Ah, Marie!  Ah, Marie!" part. 

He called me Punk mostly, if he called me anything.  But my mom called me Marie, so he would hear that and sing that song.  It never occurred to me to look it up, but I did, the other day.  And I added it to the youtube playlist I have about my dad, that I made right after he died.



My mom would call me Honeybaby, a lot.  When she txted me, she liked to put the bee emoji, the honeypot, and red hearts.  She did the praying one too.  Sometimes a flower.

She called me Sweet Baby a lot, and Punk sometimes, but mostly Marie.  She went through a stage of calling me Mija, when her grandkids were little, but that was only a year or so.

My dad was born in England, you probably know, and he lived in Germany a while as a kid, where he was fluent in German--from playing with German kids at school, I guess?  He and his sister would speak German at the dinner table so their parents wouldn't know what they were saying.  He forgot it all.

Dad could be simplified--I could try to simplify him--but really, a person is full of so much.  Just one day in Germany in the early 1960s, playing on a playground--the sand in a sandbox, swings, jumping off swings, a slide, some green grass and a tree.  King of the hill, pretending to be pirates--who knows.  How did kids play, in Germany in the early 1960s?  Probably like today.  I'm thinking of the smell of sand, and the way my hands would smell from holding the metal of the swing chains.

We're full of so much, and somehow he heard this Italian song enough that it got in his head to sing at his only daughter, many years later.

I had wanted to cut my hair off, when my mom died.  It seemed like good symbolism, but Ming doesn't want me to, and I think it's pretty, lately.  Maybe I'll leave it.  I could get that tattoo I thought about, rosehips.  But I don't have money, and I doubt I'll do that either, though Mama loved roses.  I guess I could write blogposts and make zines.  Hmm, how surprising.  Never what we thought you would do, Laura-Marie.

Ming comes home from being out, and I ask, "How was your time?"  He tells me everything he did, then asks, "What did you do?"

I say, "Oh, you would be shocked.  I did the weirdest things."  Then I tell him how I did the things I always do: wrote a letter, worked on a zine, txted people, read a random article about such and such, ate something.  I'm trying to think the last time I shocked him.  Maybe I should try harder.

Please excuse me as I sleep not enough and feel way too much.  If you need any feelings, I could give you some of mine.  I'm thinking of food banks, or when someone pumps extra breastmilk, she can donate to a breastmilk bank--have you heard of those?  I could donate my excess feelings to a feeling bank.

I'm imagining emotion nurses hooking people up to IVs, so the feelings can flow into their bloodstreams, people who forgot how to feel or need some anguish to finish a breakup poem they got stuck on.  Haha, very silly.

That's a good idea, though.  When I was feeling really happy, I could donate some extra happy so a depressed person could come in for an infusion.  It could save their life.  We would put a bunch of happiness, contentment, and excitement in the emotional emergency room.  I would definitely do that.

Or I could volunteer for a shift holding hands with sad strangers.  That would be cool.  At the emotional emergency room.  Or just listening to sad strangers cry.  I could do that. 

If only the world was like that.  There could be a menu of emotional emergency room activities to choose from.  Someone to hold your hand, someone to listen to you cry, someone to sing to you, someone to wrap you in a blanket and hold you there for a certain number of seconds.  Someone else to hold the stopwatch.

I always think how doctors will give me a pill, but not a hug.  Are pills really better?  The milligrams can be measured, but here I am, right here, a human, and there you are, right there, a human also.  If only that meter between us could be crossed.  It's like a chasm, at times.

the stage of grief where I insult Ming about his taste in stickers

"You're throwing away these stickers?" Ming asked.

"Yeah!  Those are terrible stickers!"

"Get well soon?"

"They have no beauty!  They're boring!  They're terrible quality!  They have that gold edge, like they're trying to be fancy.  They're reprehensible stickers!"

"Ok," Ming said, letting them fall back into the trash.

"You know nothing about stickers!" I told Ming, pointing at him.

I was txting with my friend the other day.  I told her how grief was making me do some weird things.  I thought I would get depressed--how simple that would have been. 

Recently I realized I was doing my usual things, but in a more extreme way.  But now my mind and behaviors seem a bit haywire, generally.

I told my friend I should make a zine Weird stuff I did when I was grieving.  Shit Grieving People Say might be good too.

My feelings are strong, and I'm anxious.  I have erratic energy, at times.  I decided that grieving can be an extreme state.  Weird things about food, movement, memory, restlessness, trouble trying to relate to people.  It takes me 20 times longer to do basic things.  I get stuck in bed.

I went to a meeting last night and felt in another dimension--grief dimension.  I kept wanting to leave.  The room was uncomfortably warm, and I had a hard time caring about what anyone said, especially myself.  Everything seemed petty.

Yeah, grieving can change perspective a lot.  It's stormy today, and the windchimes are jangling like crazy.  The washing machine was just delivered.  I saw the receipt--wow, it was expensive.  You might recall we were going through used washers like crazy.

I want to hide really deeply, hide unfindably, hide so far, I could never ever be found.  Yet my cell phone makes a sound, and I attend to it.  I keep drinking water, eating meals, taking a shower, even going outside at times.

Life is weird.  This morning Ming took the big maroon rug out of our living space.  It looks way different now.  I like changing, especially when I get to choose it.

why I worship goddesses so much

I was listening to a lecture yesterday that was blowing my mind, lying in bed, having some hours mostly alone.  Some brilliant religious scholar in Santa Barbara--I like the way he pronounces stuff.  It was about shakti, which is my favorite, especially lately--oh, believe me.



It was talking about this word that's a synonym for shakti, related to matrix--matrika.  Shakti is energy, pure consciousness energized.  And then the matrikas are representing the Pleiades maybe, originally, but also 50 sounds of Sanskrit--phonemes.

I like how energy can be God, and then language too.  Of course, being a poet, a fiend for language, as you might have noticed...  My favorite verse of "O Come, All Ye Faithful" mentioning Jesus as "word of the father, now in flesh appearing."  God in the Bible speaking everything into creation.

My friend came over on the night my mom died.  They asked where I thought Mom was.  I said I had a lot of ideas, none of which fit together, and none of which I fully believed.  I said I believed about ten contradictory things, a tiny bit each.

But the main idea I had is that there's this primordial shakti energy that created the universe and all things, pure power, vibrant, the most intensely living thing possible.  And my mom was in that, part of it, and then she took human form, being born as a person, to learn human lessons and do human service.  She did all that for 63 years.  Then when she died, she shed the body and returned into that cloud of shakti energy.  No problem, mission accomplished.

Beforehand, I had asked my friend not to laugh at me, but that was what seemed most real to me in that moment.  My friend didn't find it funny at all.

Someone close to me met my mom, when I was in the hospital last year, and told me afterward, "I can see from meeting your mom why you worship goddesses so much."  It was sweet, an idea of my mom's powerfulness and healing nurturing love helping form me as I am, so I would of course need to honor that and worship that.

We saw a friend for dinner last night.  He had never eaten ful before, and I felt happy at how much he loved it, as well as shiro wat.  And his hand was cold, so I had an excuse to hold it, which I love, as you know--hugs and holding hands.

But he brought us a little box of things also--a little book about anxiety, a bumper sticker, a little  vanilla lip balm in a green plastic cube, a little water mister.  A game I'll give to a kid.  The thing I most like is a small canister with two red rubber balls and some jacks in it.  And an instructions paper.

The jacks are shiny gold and duller silver.  When I was little, on the floor in the kitchen, playing jacks, not feeling all that coordinated or skilled, some curious thing from my mom's childhood.  (Kind of like marbles, which I never really understood either, though they were beautiful, the black ones especially.)

I would become distracted seeing how high a rubber ball could bounce.  But mostly the feel of the strangely heavy jacks, their weird shape.  What are these things, why are they like this, am I doing this right, am I really getting this.  Being close to those linoleum squares on the floor.  Kiddish floor feelings.

The jacks are with me on my desk, helping me with their beauty.   I like to touch one jack, or hold them all at once--the way they clump together, the sound they make when I put them back on the desk.

I'm listening to the lecture again.  That temple in Santa Barbara, in the hills, really in Montecito, is gorgeous.  They have that bell, and pretty plants, a little roofed thing with chairs, and the best bookstore, where I was long ago, and got dog dirt on hand from petting a nice dog.  And bought that cute little statue of ganesha holding an umbrella.

I also worship goddesses so much because when I was a kid, I was fed God as a man, so much, so painfully.  Once I could decide, I thought I would try another way, for a while.  But I'm like someone who goes on vacation and never returns home.  Why would I return to that.  Haha!

the stage of grief where I can't eat cookies

I keep thinking I'm doing really great, and I am, compared to how I thought I'd be.  But then I keep doing things I never did before. 

Today, I intended to eat some cookies after breakfast, and I never got around to it.  The whole process of getting a plate, getting a cup and some milk, eating the cookies--it seemed way too hard.  Like, why.

I went to bed instead, to do nothing.  I txted people a bit, but mostly, I was just lying there.  It was kind of good, but as the hours passed, it became less good.

Then I got hungry for lunch, and thought I would get up, but it was too hard.  An hour later, I really needed to pee, so I did get up, and here I am, a person.

I asked Ming, "Is this depression?"  I'm not in a ton of pain, but nothing seems worth doing.  Ming said he'd be patient with me.

I'm having a hard time making decisions, completing anything.  I get distracted easily.  I had some energy early this morning and made some delicious rice.  But problems with follow-through.

Ming did the laundry.  He did the big shop without me.  Going outside seemed impossible, like a hundred things were between me and exiting.

Thank you to Ming and everyone who's helping.

island

Hey, I got through the second night.  I'm not sleeping enough.

Yesterday two friends came to sit with me, afternoon then evening, and both brought food.  I'm kind of confused how I have such nice friends.

One brought candy also, and one brought special rocks they found.  "I keep telling myself not to bring home more rocks, then come home with rocks in my pockets!" they said.  The food was pasta with mushrooms, then a lovely spinach salad.

You know me--I like eating salad with my hands.  I picked up the spinach leaves to eat individually.  Then some carrot shreds, almond bits, olive bits, and quinoa sprinklies, I ate with my fork.  Why am I telling you this?  Salad dressing can be such a problem, and picking up my salad to eat with my hands means I don't have to decide about the dressing--I can sidestep that whole question.

Learning how to be the grieving person.  I was telling Ming and G how having a baby, the baby is public, that strangers come up to you and ask questions that seem weird to me, as if they deserve to know the gender of the baby or how old they are.

I feel a little that way too, getting advised about grief or how the afterlife works, or how Mom was, by people who might not have met her.  I want to be not overly-cranky about it.  I could avoid having a kid, but I couldn't avoid being a grieving person.

I guess I could run away to a beach on some island no one knows about, hang out for six months, and hope when I came back, everyone forgot my mom died.

With someone--who was it?--oh yeah, R.  We were fantasizing about getting me a shirt that said, "Just don't."  People would come up to me and start telling me how cancer such and such, or the embrace of Jesus, and I could point to the shirt.

I'm imagining the shirt yellow, with black print.  Maybe I could wear it all the time.  Any unwanted conversation, I could point to the shirt.  Not just for grieving.

Living on earth is expensive, but includes a free annual trip around the sun--so too, living in society has its challenges, but I need to be a nice grieving person, right?  The price I pay for people caring is people caring.

I'm not talking about you, reader.  I don't want to make you paranoid about comforting me.  The death response sentences are nothing personal.  I know some of them are much older than I am.

good luck, Mama

I've thought for a while that it's part of the parent's job, to prepare the child for the child's departure from home--to help the child learn how to live without the parent.  And also to prepare the child for the departure of the parent to the other world.

I will help you learn how not to need my help.  I will help you be strong and well without regard to me.

Then, if my parents didn't do that, when I got to a certain age, I could parent myself.  Hopefully I took the good parts of how I was parented into myself and learned how to do that on my own.  Even if my litteral parents didn't prepare me to be independent, they prepared me in another way.

I'm thinking about that.  My mom died yesterday morning--Ming and I and R were at the pupusaria yesterday, after the visioning meeting, when I received the call.  We held hands and prayed.  Talked, cried, hugged.  Ming took me home, and I lay in bed resting, feeling tons of feelings pass through me.

I've been preparing for this my whole life.  I was formed inside my mom's body--I was her loved passenger, nine months.   Being born, I had to leave that warm home and be evicted into the world.  So the first thing I ever did was lose her.

In many ways I've lost her, over the years, and this is a really big one, her crossing into death.  But I'm trying to believe I can handle this because I've been practicing.

what motivates me

I made a list of questions to ask my friend.  A main one is--what do you most want; what's motivating you.  So I asked myself this question.

I decided I most want pleasure and meaning.  I mostly get pleasure from touch and connection, and I get meaning from helping people, having a helpful vision I'm working toward. 

I asked Ming what's motivating him.  He couldn't tell me--it was too early.  He'd just stumbled out of bed.

"I think you're motivated by responsibility.  And fun, desire for fun," I ventured.

He told me he thought that was not true, about responsibility.

"Yeah, you take care of me like crazy!  You're always there for me, making sure I'm ok.  You never waver in that.  You're super-responsible!" I said.

He said he didn't want to be remembered for being responsible.  That he's only super-responsible to me.

"Hmm, I'm special," I said.  I decided maybe he's all motivated by fun.  And he has to be responsible to me so he can keep being my family member and keep having fun with me.

"You're a hedonist!"  I said.  "You're like me--just hedonism, tempered by a desire to help people, which keeps it from turning Bacchanalian.  No wonder we like each other so much!  We're the same!"

He wasn't so sure.  He won't commit.  "It's still 4 in the morning, for me," he said.

I told him that even if I'm wrong, it's cool I could use Bacchanalian in a sentence.

Ming said I'm motivated by love.  I said yeah, the pleasure and meaning I want is all love-related.  But that's more vague.

I can tell Ming's not a man because the men I've known were all motivated by work, money, wanting to be a good provider, getting their life meaning by being good at "what they do."

Or maybe he's just an anarchist.  His appetite for pleasure seems endless, but not grabby, and he's totally without worry that he's spending his time the wrong way.  Yeah, he really wants pleasure, but not so badly that it makes him stupid or hurtful.  Sounds perfect.

What motivates you?  What do you most want? 

I used to be motivated by fear, a desire for safety.  Then I learned I was wrong about what safety is.  The more I can change, the safer I am, actually.  Fear has its place, but I want an energy that's reaching out.

When I hide a lot, it's not about fear--it's a desire to conserve my resources so I can do more of what I want, more connecting. 

Well, I guess there's a third thing I really want, which is self-preservation, so I can keep doing what I want.  I hide out to preserve myself.

Maybe there's something about authenticity also--I need a lot of honesty so the connecting is real.

I need to go back to bed.  I keep telling my therapist, every time I see her, "Things are changing."  Sleep, moods, feelings, relationships, tactics, ideas, seasons, plans, resources, perspectives. 

But the motivations are staying the same.  Maybe those are based on deeper values.

The other day I wrote something that said I'm not really strange, if someone actually talks to me and gets to know me.  Ming and I had a conversation about whether that's true. 

He said no, I am strange.  I told him the things I want are totally normal--it's not like I want to make elaborate sculptures out of golf tees every day.  I want for people to be safe from a bomb getting dropped on them, and for people to get the nurturing that we all need.  Those are totally normal desires.

So that's nice, a way I'm not bizarre.  He said I want normal things but can have incomprehensible ways of trying to get them.

modern lace, frog secretions, complaining about complaining in pre-spring

"Would you want to microdose on a frog secretion?" I asked Ming.

"Maybe," he said.

"How about for forty bucks?"

"Maybe," he said.  "Were frogs harmed?"

"Probably," I said.  "Do you think they asked the frog's permission?"  (Two second fantasy of new age frog permission asking ceremony.)

"Do you think they gave the frog forty bucks?" Ming asked.

Scathing, my dear.  Yes.  "Probably a frog doesn't want forty bucks.  Probably they want their habitat back," I said.  (Two second fantasy about what a frog would buy for forty bucks.  How much does land cost, there?)

Ming can get some free health things with this special money, from his health insurance, I guess.  He was having trouble with the app and looked at the paper catalog that came in the mail.  I looked in it too, which was depressing.

The feminine hygiene section has four products, all for yeast issues.  I guess it's for seniors?  I told Ming, the people who made these decisions must not have had those kinds of parts.

The health things I want are not in there, predictably.  Ming and I were talking about sense.  I guess I make as much sense as I make money.  I said, "Sense is overrated.  Sense is for the weak."  It was funny, but that's kind of mean for an aphorism.  I won't adopt it.

I got into our car, and the passenger seat was all the way scooched back.  That exposed a metal thing that had a sharpness to it and hurt my leg.  I was annoyed and looked later how the spot was blue, with blood not quite bleeding out.

Then we walked at the park.  Then I got tired, and I sat on a bench.  You know those weird angular mint green benches at Craig Ranch Park.  I put my leg on the bench, and then I realized maybe the owie I had got bench germs on it.

"I skeeved myself out," I told Ming.  He says the sun was shining on the bench, so maybe that killed the germs.

A lady was complaining for a long time to a golf cart riding park worker, about dogs off leash.  The conversation was annoying me, as Ming and I took pictures of one another.

"I should ask that guy if he's taking more complaints," I told Ming, as the park worker zoomed away on this golf cart.  "I could probably think of some good ones.  Like--there's too much complaining at this park.  No one ate the figs off the fig trees."  We had walked by a mini grove of fig trees, and a lot of withered figs were stuck to the branches.

This red lacy article of clothing is pointless in that it doesn't keep me warm or hide any nudity.  It's purely ornamental.  That doesn't make sense either, but what can we do, being aesthetic creatures who like some beauty.  It makes me happy.  The lace is stretchy and comfortable, modern lace.

Rainbow and me

Hey, did you know Rainbow is the sweetest cat in the world?  Ming was doing a photoshoot with me, for an author photo, and Rainbow jumped up on the bench like the lover she is.  So many people visit our peaceful courtyard, and so many people pet Rainbow and feel happy.

So thank you to Rainbow for the love, to Ming for the photoshoot, and to whoever made the lovely shirt in a kitchen.  And whoever got that bench and put it there, long ago.  And the one who painted the back house Oscar green.

artmeme

I saw a meme about what we learn being artists, and I thought I'd make my own version. 

I'm not a visual artist, but I'm a writer and poet.  I went to grad school and got an MFA so I could teach.  It worked ok for six and a half years.  But a lot of these things, might have been good to know.

Here's the original I was reacting to.

ancestor

There's a zine I helped make, ancestor--I wrote the poems, a friend translated them into Spanish, and another friend did the art.  It's a fundraiser for Immigrant Families Together to help refugees.  The suggested donation is $2 to $10.  I have an email you can paypal.  Let me know if you'd like one and where to send it.  No human being is illegal.

the mysterious roommate

I was hungering for sandwiches, this morning.  I was telling Ming about sandwich ability, how I have a lot of sandwich ability right now, but maybe one day I'll be more disabled and lose my sandwich ability.  For some reason, articulating this was important to me...?

I wanted some special fake meat to make really lovely sandwiches, and that perfect $2 rye bread from WinCo.  Ah, delicious.  

The fake meat is expensive, but wow.  Is it really fake meat?  No, it's real whatever it is.  I don't think meat ever tasted that way.  It's its own thing.  I wanted the tomato flavor and the mushroom flavor also, but they only had tomato kind.

We went also to get some special food for the person we live with who fixed the pipe leak on Friday.  We know a food he likes, so we picked up the meal that cost around $11.  And we bought him a card and wrote something thankful in it.  Ming delivered it, and I guess it was a hit.

Also in the news, our friend helped Ming clean out a cabinet that hadn't been used in a long time, an abandoned cabinet.  Ming knew some pots and pans were there.  But you'll never guess what else they found in there.

Yeah, a gecko--it was molting.  What the heck.  The mysterious roommate who always kept to themself.  

Ming and D put the gecko on an aloe outside.  They like dark places, though.  Before, we saw that one under a pot in the garden.

I wrote a long beautiful letter in a little book I made.  It's about meditation, for a friend who wanted to talk about that.  I wanted to say a lot, and I said a lot, but still feel like I left out something important.  But I guess I could try again another time.

here

"On Tuesday I'm bringing him to a club," she said.

"A club?" I asked.  "Like a bar?  What's a club?"

"Do you live in Las Vegas?" she asked.

"Not really," I said.  "I live here."

Our friend is visiting from upstate New York.  She came to help with the MLK parade.  Today we went to the wetlands.  I used up a lot of energy at the visitors center.

Then I was praying, sitting on this sunny bench.  I was whispering to God.  I was asking for help with certain things, being thankful for certain things.  It felt really good, situating myself within my desires, figuring out what I need.  But I forgot it all.

In our courtyard, a pipe broke, yesterday morning--water was bubbling up, under the picnic table.  So people fixed it.  I think I'm supposed to give them a present, but I don't know what.

This sculpture I took a picture of, you can't tell how big it is--it's big enough that kids can play on it.  I like the expression on the chick's face and this huge egg.

This drawing I took a picture of for Ming because it looked like a trilobite.  What do you think?  Who knows really.  Manhal, maybe.

This one delighted me, the hoow of the wolf?

Dogs are my least-favorite kind of people, for many of their traits, but kids are a favorite kind of people, for their creativity.  Just their bad spellings alone are very beautiful to me.  I want to learn how to spell worse.  I want to not do the expected thing all the time.

love to Mrs Blue, wherever you are

I was telling Ming what I did while he was out, and I listed the usual activities.  "I came to bed and was going to do some planning, but then I just lay here for a while, doing nothing, a fourth asleep.  Then I read my own zine, here--it's pretty good.  Hadn't read it in a while.  Then I txted some people and looked at stuff on my phone.  I wished I was 100% asleep, but I--oh wait, I just mixed a fraction and a percent.  You're not supposed to do that, huh?"

"Yeah, but how often do you do it?" Ming asked.

"Point two of the time?  No, point four?"

"Point four and a half?" he asked.

We were laughing.  "Yeah, I used to do that," I said.  "Pitty my math teachers."

The best math teacher I ever had was Mrs Blue in seventh and eighth grade.  She would stand by my desk and explain stuff.  She had complete faith in my intelligence.  She seemed to enjoy what she did.  I liked her awkwardness, her lovely attitudes.  She could get annoyed, but never really mean.

When we made calculator mistakes, she would blame it on fat fingers.  That always hurt my feelings, even though I wasn't all that fat at the time.

You know I was in math club, which Mrs Blue ran.  My bestie was phenomenal at math.  I was pretty good at math, but not like my bestie.

We went to math contests.  It was lotsa geeky boys, then me and my bestie, and all the teachers.  I'm thinking Mrs Blue was an advanced feminist.  She never made us feel bad for being the only girls.  I think she was proud of us.

My bestie was amazing.  She went to Berkeley on a full ride, as a math major.  I'm thinking how brilliant and shining she was.  Math was a real thing with right and wrong answers--all I could do was poetry, or rile people with weird editorials, or whatever I did--confuse people, give good hugs, play bassoon, make zines.

My bestie was golden and luminous--I always thought she was so great.  But now I think maybe I was great too?  Or kind of great, at least.  I was doing a thing also, but a less recognized thing.  Do you recognize what I'm doing?  I was always the sidekick of my bestie--always the bridesmaid, never the bride?  Oh wait, but I got married, a few times--she never did, to my knowledge.

The neighbors are fighting really loudly tonight.  I don't know how they learned to scream at each other like that.  Who hurt them so badly?

Ming and I were discussing ancestors earlier.  I was saying I thought they were mostly assholes.  At least we have therapy now.  He said there are assholes now and were assholes then, like it isn't getting worse or better.

I told him about old time sacrificing people to ensure good crops, terrible customs, killing disabled people.  Then I was like, well, we let homeless people die on the streets.  It turned into a bummer of a conversation--sorry, sweetheart.  Sorry, reader.

Sometimes Mrs Blue had chalk handprints on her butt.  Yeah, we used real chalkboards back then.  Right?  Do you remember the chalk handprints?  Why did she touch her butt so completely?  Kind of confusing.  I guess that's the mystery of memory, the mystery of Mrs Blue.

no borders

Hey, I wanna be this cranky cook, and if I can't, I'll be the weird-eyed white lady or her sidekick.

Or I could be these inquisitive children, or the happy corn lady, or the dazzled pretty eater in a blue headthing.  What you can't see is what the kids are marveling at--a plate of tamales.  I wanted to get in this picture the strawberry cactus fruit stand, can't remember why.

This kid caught my eye originally, more realistic than the cartoonish people, and the butterflies of freedom, and the local strawberries.

I asked Ming if the blue-haired, half-naked fountain folk were ok, and he said yes.  The clownish elder, not so sure.

Basically this is my favorite mural ever.  Sorry, Diego.  Who ever put lichen into a mural?  My hero!  I got the phone number of the painter and am trying to get the guts to call and ask for zine art.

It's at the Efren's in Santa Maria, California on Blosser and Skyway.

Good Hair by Guest Blogger

Finally the ceiling of the Nevada Desert Experience Office has been repaired. Thank you P.

The NDE book collection is almost finished being catalogued and now looks like a library that is nearing accessibility. Thank you Mr. B.

Yesterday while being in the parking lot of a Panda Express, I was spanged by a woman who was Black. She wanted a dollar for the bus. I gave her $1 while she talked:

"You have beautiful hair. I want to touch it but I don't want you to get pissed off at me as I need the $1" she explained.

I thought during that encounter, that I would never have imagined to reach out to touch someone's hair then recalled from the movie Good Hair that it is a thing not to do to Black people unless invited to touch their hair. Do Black people reach out where as I as an Asian American would not ?

feel so different

My friend likes helping.  They said they wanted to declutter my desk, and I thought about it.  Was I ready?  Yeah, for years, it's bothered me.

Last night, it happened.  They came over, took everything off my desk, into bins and boxes.  My desk had be stacked with so much stuff for so long.  Stationery, zines, half-finished projects, crafty stuff, office supplies, used stamps, rocks and beads.  Dust.

Now it's different--empty except for some piles of sorted stuff--blank postcards, used postcards, little notepads, paper clips, index cards, business cards... 

So it feels way better.  It was dysfunctional, to have the stuff piled up so I couldn't access it.  My desk feels different now, a more living place where better things can happen.

So that's wonderful.  I woke up with pain, my pinched nerve.  I slept less than usual.  Today I don't have much I need to do, till evening.  I want to sing and maybe copy the fundraiser zine, ancestor.  I want to praise God for my life and capabilities.

an idea cannot be destroyed

These wonderful bike stickers arrived today.  They're from https://peacesupplies.org

party person

Last night there was a party--I liked talking to my friend, seeing kids, being supported by Ming.  He was my party-buddy.  He brought me snacks but mostly stayed with me.  What a nice spouse.

I got to see the kid who I'm godmother to and the two siblings of that kid.  I got to feel some family love.  It was really tiring--I was already tired before we went there.  But Ming helped us leave at a good time.

I'm trying to reach out, diversify, ask for help, make plans with people, be as honest as I can.  It takes a lot of energy.  I'm trying to care for me and be here for me.  Some things I need help with, though.

progress

My favorite transition I ever made was at the mess hall (for lack of a better term) of the Mission our friend lives at.  A month ago, that rainy December night.  We were visiting our friend who's a friar.

We walked in, and all the friars were there for the Sunday dinner.  Our friend introduced us, and everyone clapped--it had to do with NDE.  We're trying to keep the world safe from nuclear war.  I was embarrassed and happy.

Then they prayed, including a prayer for us.  Then we sat at this table and talked a while, the four of us, as Ming drank coffee and we ate this sweet made by some cloistered nuns up the street.

My good friend said, "Apparently, such and such..." which was the last sentence of their thing to say.

So then I said, "Speaking of parents..." and then I laughed, since no one had spoken of parents.  See, that's my idea of funny.  I was the only one laughing, which is fine.

Oh, Laura-Marie.  Also, still waiting for the car to get its tire under warranty, Ming keeps calling the tire shop to see if the need is authorized.  They had the wrong VIN, so now they have the right VIN, and it's taking forever.

"Maybe they're getting tired of you calling them," I said.

"Maybe they'll get tires for me calling them," Ming suggested.

"Oh, it's a prepositional problem," I said.

We bought these weird little veggie cakes, and Ming heated too many, so I said I wanted some on my lettuce for salad, and he found some shitake ginger dressing in the fridge.  Wow, what a perfect dinner.

Ming lifted the leaf out of the table we're getting rid of.  It was an intense important moment.  Progress. It was heavy, and there was dust.

I learned how to scroll facebook sort of anesthetizingly.  But I'm so fed up with hearing about people who just died.  My "friends" seem obsessed with saying what celebrity died.  Or what friend died, or relative.

Sometimes I really care, when it's a spouse or parent of someone I love.  But mostly, I think that people are so feeling-starved, anything that makes them feel something is strangely honored, but just for a moment.  The feeling is brief, so the honoring is brief.

I have the opposite problem--I get exhausted from over-feeling.

I'm really proud of Ming for working on the clutter and moving things thru.  "Is it ok if I'm proud of you?" I asked.  He said yes.

I was going to load laundry in the dark again.  I asked Ming if it was ok because he's the laundrymaster around here.  When he hesitated, I asked if he was afraid cucuy would pick up the dropped laundry and run away with it.

"On his head," Ming said.

"Yeah, on his head," I said.  "Dirty underwear on his head.  Yuck."

"Yuck," Ming said.

"But he would probably like that, because he's cucuy.  That's probably his joy."

When I loaded the laundry, there wasn't wind, and I didn't feel afraid, but there's a new washer in there, and R installed it on the left, so what little light there is hits it differently.  I had to use my intuition about whether I'd turned the dial the right amount before pulling on it to start the washer.

We've gone through so many washers lately, it's kind of ridiculous.  Like we're going for the world record of used washers, or doing Las Vegas a favor by going through all the bad used washers so they can be eliminated from the appliance pool.

Ming's unloading the dishwasher now.  Thanks, Ming.  Thanks, technology.  Thanks, time and God for another day. 

My pain is minimal.  I wrote my friend an email this morning and cried at the sad part and at the end when I was telling her how I love her. 

Ming came over to comfort me, and he started crying too.  I guess it's that kind of morning.  Thank you to feelings.  Thank you to water.  Thank you to the mystery of love.

green bus

I was hating this newly-known sheet.  I harm sheets because my feet are all rough with callouses.  So then there gets to be a hole, by my feet.  What a pita.

I was hating this sheet Ming found in the closet, an NDE sheet.  It's polka dots.

"I hate polka dots!  Who ever thought of polka dots?  What a terrible idea!"

Ming was half-asleep.  I had comforted him and tried to help him be the right temperature.

"Whoever thought of polka dots needed to un-think of them!" I added.  "That's hard to do, un-think of something, huh.  I guess that's like anxiety.  I guess that is anxiety."

Earlier he had wanted to go to bed, and I said I was getting up.

"But you are 90% of the fun of bed!" he said.

"Oh, the other 10% of the fun of bed is Bunny, huh," I asked.  We get a lot of mileage out of Bunny.

Speaking of mileage, our car got a flat tire, so Ming had to learn the procedure for how to get a tire fixed in the way that goes with the car's warranty.  Could you believe it could take up to three days to get our tire fixed?

He was trying to explain it to me, and I wasn't getting it--one of the last sentences of his explanation was, "Basically, it's a scam."  Then I understood. 

It's like his new health insurance not wanting to cover his narcolepsy meds.  It's a scam.  It's capitalism.  Hurting people for money.  Oh yeah, I'm familiar with that.  I've experienced that before.  Where was that.  Oh wait--everywhere.

No, not everywhere.  In private, we can throw it out the window.  Or gift economy at the goddess temple.  True love exchanges of love.  That's what I want my life to be like.

Speaking of transitions, I used to be a writing teacher.  Transitions were the a thing I kind of hated, transitions between body paragraphs mostly.

On the other hand.  Considering this, it's surprising to note that.  At the same time, we see that.  A result of this is unexpected.

Most transitions are just stupid.  Another thing to consider is.  An even more important reason for whatever is.  This paragraph will tell you an amazing thing that will make you give me an A.

Since the beginning of time, man has struggled with the need for transitions.  Or with the need to put their essay's idea into the context of all of humanity and all of time.

Since the beginning of time, man has struggled with writing essays.  With boring their composition teacher.  With trying to get a good grade at a class uncared for, while taking other classes too, and having a life, including work, family, relationships, disability, flat tires, and all of the stress-bonuses.

"I got you!" I said to Ming, who is up, at the end of a conversation.

"I got you too!" he said.

"I got your first!  I got you extra!"

"Ok!" he said.  "I feel got."  I was telling him it's not morning, not to take his morning meds.  Sometimes he gets up confused. 

Oh wait, that's an understatement.  He gets up confused--all the time.  Getting up = confusion time.

I'm drinking the tea he made me hours ago, hungry for some unnamed meal of 2am.  This sweet guitary song is in my head.  "And what can I bring you?"

over-sad

How could my day be so bad.  Woke up sad and in pain, crying and scared.  I'm having problems with my neck and shoulders.  I know it's stress, and my phone.  My phone is bad for my body.  I kinda want to throw it in a lake.

I was crying again at the soupline, serving bread.  My friend greeted me so warmly.  It felt so good, I couldn't take it.  I was telling him in my head how nice it is, and I wasn't able to tell him with my words.  Maybe one day.

Then I was checking in and started crying again, at the Friday meeting.  I said I was sorry I can't do much, lately.  I said I feel bad.  People looked at me like they loved me but said nothing.

Ming and I went to the farmers market.  The artist wasn't there--I had brought him a zine.  I was kind of rude to someone selling honey.  I don't need honey.  Ming bought some special bread.  They were doing some loud cooking demonstration, and it was overwhelming.

Lots of other stuff happened.  I freaked out for a while, super angry.  My friend called, and she said it was good I can be angry--she can't be angry.

R walked in while Ming was unloading the dishwasher.  If you know Ming, you know that nothing puts him on edge like dishes, laundry, and trash.  So R left and I walked in, and Ming was on his last nerve.

I tried to calm him down.  I told him it was ok.  I touched his tummy.  I agreed with his sad ideas.  I listened to him cry.  Poor sweetie.  I told him it's a hard day, but there will be better days.

We have a flat tire.  The door is open, and I'm listening to the tow truck driver out front. 

The computer isn't so good for my neck pain either.  It's to the point where nothing I do is right.  Everything hurts me.  I know exercise is about the only good thing.  Sleep can help, since I calm down in my sleep.

I kinda want to give up on this day, but jeeze.  It isn't even 4 yet.

Whatever you came here for, probably you didn't get it.  Sorry about that, reader.  Well, maybe you needed to see a soul sadder than yourself.  There you go--Bob's your uncle.

how to accept a compliment

Lately being complimented, it's pretty exhausting, in person at least.  Hearing the praise, taking it in, feeling my reaction, trying not to be rude to anyone. 

They give the compliment with love, but mostly I feel I don't deserve it, or there are whole aspects of the situation they're not understanding.  I want to accept the compliment for what it is, but I see all this context and usually feel I deserve zero of the compliment.

But I don't have the energy to explain all that--I'm busy doing something else.  I'm supposed to react right, performing gratefulness, but I don't like being expected to feel a thing I don't feel.  I'm supposed to be happy, but not too happy!  Hahahahaha!

Maybe I should get a shirt that says "compliment-free zone."  Or we could have designated compliment moments, where I'm psyched out for it.

Then sometimes the person comments that I didn't react right.  They're misreading my wrong reaction, and it feels way too complicated.  To try to correct that, to try to change my performance.

I did nothing good.  Or I did something good, but it was a tiny thing you don't really know about.  Praise Ming, please.  If I did anything helpful, it's because he held my hand while I cried about it for an hour.

Also, Ming is good at compliments because he's a socially reasonable person.  He doesn't get too changed by that stuff.  He doesn't get all weird inside.  Oh, to be a healthy social animal.

We copied a new zine yesterday--I forgot our copyshop moved.  It was really dark.  Tons of cars of people getting off work, all those headlights.  They close at 6pm, and we showed up around 5:20. 

I saw Bagel Mania, and I said, "Bagel Mania!  That's the kind of mania I want!"

Then we were talking about the sketchness of the parking lot, saying how Einsteins closes at 3, and how silly that is.

"Who stops wanting bagels at 3?  That's when I want bagels the most!" I said.  Three is a special time for me, the height of the afternoon lull.

Then we went to Mt Everest where I stepped over empty liquor bottles in the parking lot, which is also sketch.  Ming and I talked about Hansel and Gretel, for some reason, the chicken bone to trick the low vision witch.  The whole idea of fattening someone up, and pushing a witch in the oven.  Gender in that story, like is it the boy in the cage or the girl, and who is the witch pusher.

I told Ming how it was important to me to have that horrible story, as a kid.  "A little horror can go a long way," I said.  Who was telling me that could happen to me, if I went into the forest?  Yeah, I wasn't supposed to go in the forest, but I went anyway.

We picked up art today from our friend K for the fundraiser ancestor zine.  Here is the new poetry zine, complete with diatoms, which I decided are ok.  I'm binding it in blue for the coldness.

radical mental health is for whoever

We had a radical mental health thing, last night.  Around half the people were new, so it was hard to impart the group's culture because the new people seemed anxious and awkward, so they were creating their own culture of mild fear.

Still, there were some great moments.  I was listening to people talk about their pasts and presents with mental health and felt like I was doing something meaningful--helping them be heard when they otherwise might not be.

Even people who were really upset, I felt I could listen with a good attitude.  When I spoke, I tried to say some stuff I didn't do a good job saying.  But my halfway is better than nothing.

My good friend offered to help me clean my desk.  It's at the worst it's ever been, any desk I've ever had.  It's pretty amazing.  The layers.  So many half-finished projects. 

At first I wavered.  Did I really want someone else helping me with such a personal thing?  Not that I didn't want them to see the stuff--more than it's kind of embarrassing, and I wondered if I would get upset in a way I didn't want anyone to see. 

This friend wants to help.  I thought maybe I want help more on my terms.  But my terms aren't working.

I feel skeptical of this whole anti-cluttering thing.  Minimalism?  I see the appeal, but it seems too faddish.  I'd like a medium amount of stuff.  I know I have too much stuff, but ambition about it scares me.

My good friend said it can be addictive, getting rid of stuff.  Things are always changing.  I don't want any addictions.

They offered to sort my desk papers.  Basically--this is a letter, this is a zine, this is stationery, this is some random scrap of something.  It's a lot of paper, but there are objects also.  Then, putting like with like and categorizing, I could find new places for things and get rid of a lot.

Then I feel maybe it's stupid to involve someone else.  Why can't I do this myself.  But it's not getting done, by myself.

Anyway, I said yes.  Things can't stay as they are.  I want help, and my fears about it seem stupider than inaction.  I mean, I would rather risk action than inaction.

I need to look at the calendar and re-situate myself.  I was looking forward to the meeting a lot, last night.  Now I need to look beyond it.

My new shirt got three compliments.  I think I like it.  Historically, there have been few words I've wanted on me like that.  I was wondering if it would be too much to chew on, but people seemed not disturbed by it.

Love to all the crazy people, sick people, psychonauts, curious people, takers of risks calculated and uncalculated.  People who do fun stuff, new stuff, misunderstood stuff.  People who know we will be misunderstood and do it anyway.

thank you for anger

We got in the mail yesterday these amazing cookies our friends baked us as a winter gift.  They're chocolate and then in the middle is peanut butter stuff.  Wow!  What a present.

I also got this FATTIES AGAINST FASCISM teeshirt I ordered which was printed in a kitchen, so lovely, and these gorgeous prints--I think linoleum block prints.  They depict someone fat floating in water.  And three small zines about being fat and crazy.

I got so irritable yesterday, so hurt and angry, I needed to excuse myself from society for a minute.  It happens.  It reminded me of something that had happened a few days earlier.  My circuits got overloaded?  Do I have circuits?  I'm a human for sure.

You know how a situation is extreme, and you need some relief really bad, and then it gets worse?  I don't want to be blamey.  But yeah, that can happen.  Sorry to vaguebook about that.

I'm listening to this music I loved when I was a teenager.  It really helped me, and I feel grateful to Trent Reznor.  And the friend who gave me a tape of Pretty Hate Machine.  Listening to it again, I like it again.  I heard it so much 25 years ago, it just became part of my mind.  I know every word.

Like the ocean, at the beach--the water is always in motion.  All the work I was doing to keep going, all that striving--I could set it down while I was at the beach, as the water was moving so I didn't have to.  It didn't rest, and then I could rest.

Well, that's how I feel about this music.  I could let Trent hold my pain for half an hour, or let him speak for me?  Also the music helped me admit the anger, a good example.  I could put down my pain for a while and let him feel it.

Some of it's really vulnerable and beautiful, and then some of it seems kind of silly now, simplified-exaggerated.  And some of it maybe the values aren't super on.

But the anger is lovely, and some insight about how love can be that I didn't hear being talked about much then, the dysfunction of messed up, traumatized people going to one another for comfort and hurting each other more.

(Yeah, I put that in blue.  I thought it was important.)

I was getting it out of context--we called it industrial, which may be related to metal?  My friend from LA who gave me this music was so sophisticated.  Two years older maybe, he knew the ways of the world!  Hahahahaha!  He had the right black boots also.  I never really had the right boots.

Hmm, reading the wikipedia article and what Trent Reznor said about it just a couple years later.  I guess it wasn't as popular as I thought it was, but I think it's kind of a masterpiece.  I'm playing it as loud as my computer goes, which isn't loud enough.  I need a louder computer!

language mistakes

"It's important not to mix up the search bar with the post bar," I said absentmindedly, on my phone.

"Yeah, especially if you're stalking someone," Ming added.  We laughed, as he has a reputation for data hoarding, which facebook stalking could be a subset of, maybe.

We're home again.  I'm starting to appreciate this cycle more--the prepare for going away, travel, be elsewhere, travel home, restfully adjust to home, settle in to home, think of when to leave again cycle.  I think this coming and going is actually ok. 

It used to tear me up, honestly.  I would get anxious about leaving then anxious about coming home.  All the transition was too much--upheaval.  I would leave my heart in the wrong place and need to wait a week or two for it to get home.

I guess it was hitchhiking and would get stuck at remote rest stops?  Or somehow my heart would teleport, its particles tiny in the sky over hundreds of miles, taking so long to get here, blowing in a cloud.

All of me is home now.  Life feels pretty good.  Historically the day after travel, I want to rest a lot.  I like it, bonus sabbath.

Oh, I had this dream which I find hilarious.  I was in a room that was covered in cheapass terrible wood paneling, but someone had painted it all silvery white with glitter.  The light was dim, with candles and christmas lights glowing gently.  I was delighted this room had been so bad and was now so good.  A perfect room.

I think it might slightly have to with Voodoo Donuts in Portland, Oregon.  You know waiting in a long line outside, down the street, those bricks in the brick wall--it's all painted glittery.  I always loved that, waiting for my huge vegan cream-filled donut.

Probably you could not understand the hilariousness of the paneling thing in my dream.  This terrible wood paneling I hate, transformed into a beautiful thing I could love, without having to actually rip out the paneling and spend thousands of dollars and many hours on a remodelling job.  Just paint the damn stuff, with glitter.

my favorite things today
trying to remember the forgotten word
people helping me remember, correctly or incorrectly
mistakes
language mistakes
jokes based on language mistakes
god as error
spontaneous spoonerisms--pud muddle
manufactured pretend spoonerisms--funslowers
language-related secret relationship things
pet names of pets
pet names of humans
cats having 20 names
Ming starting to say the things I always say, hearing him say a silly thing I say, feeling how it feels to hear him say it instead of me

how things are vs how I thought they should be

We were undecorating the Christmas tree.  "Should we listen to the muppets Christmas album backwards?" I asked.  Somehow evil puppetry seemed funny to me, undoing Christmas.

Ming was taking direction from Mom about which ornament should go into which little protecting bag or box.  I watched, sometimes unhooking an ornament from my side of the tree, handing it to him.

"Why are Christmas ornaments so fragile?" Ming asked.

"To represent our feelings?" I offered.  I said how plastic was invented a while back but only became common in the 1950s or so?  So a lot of ornamentage is glass, and if that's traditional, that could be perpetuated.

"Maybe the colors stick to glass better," Ming suggested, showing me an ornament bright and glass.

We talked about valuableness, capitalism, the supply and demand curve.  Real value vs falsely manufactured value.  We tried to think of a word for that.

"Ostensible?  Or like fake, but more intentionally fake.  Or pretend.  But made pretend on purpose.  Not counterfeit--more manipulative?"  We couldn't think of the word.

My friend the other day said Christmas is gaslighty.  How many people really feel the way we're supposed to feel?  Like 20% of people?

I realized that my wish for humans not to be so unreliably flakey was kinda stupid.  If intentional weight loss diets fail 95% of the time, so it's diets failing, not fat people...  And 80% of people are mostly flakes, maybe the failure is of me, or my expectation that people should be responsible.  If people are just like that, why do I think they shouldn't be?  I guess I need to get with the program.

Do you think people are flakes?  Are you a flake?  Maybe it's not 80%.  I could search for a scholarly number.

Some people are ok for work, but flakes for everything else.  I think I was hyper-responsible, and now I'm extra-responsible.

hyper-responsible
extra-responsible
very responsible
responsible
mostly responsible
not that responsible
mild flake
flake
megaflake
totally irresponsible mooch who does nothing for another person for any reason

my pet peeves today
1.  the off button is right above the backspace button on this computer
2.  this "search" key I've never intentionally used pops open an unwanted window--it's right next to the "a" key, and I accidentally hit it five times a day, needing to stop what I'm doing and close the unwanted window
3.  people thinking those spikey things to close ace bandages are ok
4.  people thinking I can't handle shit when my whole deal is skillful survival, and I have so much experience with crisis, I could do crisis with half my brain tied behind my back
5.  people expressing anger through their driving, dangerously

Oh wait, maybe that last one is a real problem, not a pet peeve.  Ming was sitting on the bed in his chonies.  His hair was really pretty, and he looked so peaceful and kind.  I told him he looked like a goddess who was going to have a wonderful baby. 

I'm seeing Shakti energy all over the place. Takes one to know one, maybe.

why I love Las Vegas

Hello from the undisclosed location.  We went to the beach, trying to figure out a place our friend could spend some hours, then realized there was no shade, and maybe it was a bad idea.  Our friend had no hat.  It was a longer walk to town than we remembered.

But unexpectedly, we were at this special beach.  I couldn't help but get out of the car and walk to the water.  I was supposed to be with my relatives.  It seemed a bad idea to make them wait, but it also seemed a bad idea to be at the water and ignore god trying to heal me.

I was having memories of that cemetary, that drive, that beach.  When I was 17 and got my mom's Mustang stuck the sand.  My friend who lived in that town and would run to the beach and back for a day's run.  He was a poet and my teacher--the runner part of him I never saw, but knew about.  He moved away.

The waves were crashing a lot, many at the same time.  Some brave surfers risk their lives, but humans being in the water isn't advised.  I think the water gets really deep really fast.

Cute plovers walking very quickly on their tiny legs made me laugh.  The wind blew my hair a lot, but being there was helping me.  I wanted to stay there, but as the moments passed, I was feeling conflict about my responsibilities.

At night, we saw an old friend.  We toured his warehouse then went to this gas stationy Mexican place.  There was a mural on the wall--part of it depicted a beautiful little kid and some monarch butterflies.

I think I know the message of those butterflies--no borders.  I couldn't agree more.  I wanted to take a picture.

Our friend ate tacos.  I've known him around 27 years?  Ming and I shared a breakfast burrito that was delicious.  I asked about our friend's sister, his kids who are now young adults.   His hair used to be brown with a gray spot--now it's grayer everywhere.  But his hugs still feel the same unique squeezy kindness, and he still wears a product with a sharp smell.

We spoke of therapists good and bad.  Dance Safe, some psychedelic support stuff at Burning Man.  The green dot rangers and their ideology.

He found a special place he loves, and so did I, but a different place.  He still thinks I should go to Burning Man--he tried to bring me there many years ago.

He's wildly creative and brilliant with technology, getting tons of machines to do desirable things.  Some special machine he got at an auction for less than $200 that has a laser on it worth $26k.  Did I hear that right?  He would tell me a number that would amaze me, and I would see the number in my mind and make sure I had the decimal point in the right place.

He had these cute pillows that were made to look like tomato slices.  They were part of a strange gift related to a made up holiday.

A long time ago, my friend and I were talking about some drugs.  He was talking about how they should be regulated.  He was a libertarian at the time.  Last night he said something about regulating prostitution.  I said something about being an anarchist.

I don't know how to explain Las Vegas.  People hate it a lot.  Yeah, I noticed the gambling, commodification of sex, racism, exploitation, economic disparities.  The flashing lights, bad music, expensive buffets, ding ding ding of slot machines.

There's stuff to hate.  I see friends bringing their issues to it.  They like to watch a show, and that's it.  I've never been to a show.  The gambling is gross and other aspects, the excess and cheap hedonism, the repulsive contrast between capitalism with its happy face on, and then the other side of it.  Both places, human beings are being used and treated like trash, but in the casinos, they come on purpose and pay hundreds of dollars for it, while the homeless people near where Ming and I live are being treated like trash in another way, dying on the sidewalks.

I can't explain why it's my city now--maybe just that there's a lot to help with.  Or it started being my home kind of on accident, and I want to see it through for a while.

Ming and I drive down these terrible roads in our neighborhood, where the city is too cheap to repaint the lines or fix the bumpy asphalt texture.  The words are peeling off the yellow signs until those black letters are curled up entirely and blow away in the wind.

I tell Ming for the fifth or tenth time how Las Vegas should be rich on all the taxes from the tourists.  Dystopianly, those tax monies are making some rich person richer, rather than paving our streets with gold.  Should I really be surprised by that?

We feed the homeless, protest nuclear war at the test site and drones at the air force base, vigil for peace at the federal building some Thursdays.   We try to build community with the people we're trying to love, helping the helpers.

Las Vegas has segregation, huge wasteful spreadoutness, corruption, the way homeless people are treated, bad cop behaviors.  I have affection for different streets with their different personalities.  McMansions are being built more and more at the edges into creosote land, while my part of town is full of abandoned buildings with boarded up windows.  Broken glass is glitter; dogs run around free.

How can I explain why I love it.  What do you want your city to be like?  I need diversity, good Indian food, some city energy, a lot of choices.  I don't need some fake ass liberal pretending, gentrification so I can go to an overpriced record store to buy things marketed specially for my demographic, some overly artsy downtown boutiques making money off putting a bird on it.

Pigeons are ok with me, and if we're going to do dystopia, let's do it.  I don't want to pretend anything.  Late state capitalism is here.  Las Vegas isn't hiding it.

My good friend who told me about respect being basic, a baseline to require--I'm still trying trying to figure out what they mean.  If Las Vegas has taught me anything, it's that capitalism respects no one, not even the winners.  I guess interpersonally, one on one, I could try to expect respect and ask to speak to the manager, but what would that really accomplish when I'm expendable and considered pretty worthless by the system that's under everything.

If I weigh 340 pounds, do I deserve a chair that will work for me?  What if I weigh 840 pounds?  Or if I need a bunch of accommodations for having sensory sensitivities, or being crazy.  Are they going to turn off the tv for me?  Let alone the music, the kitchen music, or having soap in the bathroom that doesn't make me feel sick with its perfume.  I would never expect any of that.  My weird needs aren't pertinent to most conversations.

Even the regular needs like clean air and water are considered extravagant.  Or to live without violence against me.  Violence is normal, isn't it?  I mean public advertising trying to hurt me so I'll buy something, or breathing the exhaust of the truck in front of me.  The convenience of fast travel is more important than having ok air go into my lungs.  Or weird stuff in the water being perfectly acceptable.

Oops, I guess that was a tangent--I needed to talk about that.  Thanks for listening, reader.  I gotta get up and live tomorrow also, is the idea.

"Ah, you're wearing my clothes!" I told Ming.  He got up half asleep and put on my moon shirt.  "Are you trying to delight me?"

"Mm hmm," he said and went back to bed.

"Well, it worked," I said.  Leaving Las Vegas and coming to the coast a lot, I see how things are different, here and there.  This country is pretty weird.  Canada was weird too, so I'm guessing that's a thing.

we're living

"Ok, I'm going!" I said.  "If I'm not back in ten minutes, the cucuy got me.  Don't go out without a bodyguard."

"Ok!"  Ming said.  "I'll bring Bunny."

It had been a while since I loaded the laundry in the dark.  I had to trust the settings on the washer were right.  I'm in a battle with some unknown community member on the "regular" vs "heavy" load.

I was checking pockets and a little worrying about cucuy, extra aware of what was going on around me, behind me.  The air was cool and moving around with wind.

Then I saw this beautiful cloud, wonderful in the sky south over the city.  I didn't understand how it could be so bright.  The city light was illuminating it?  I lost track of the moon phase, but I don't think it's a full moon.

Sometimes I really want to understand stuff--sometimes I do other things.

pet peeves today
1.  when the link is only on part of the button, so I click the button and it doesn't click, so I then I have the find the link on the button
2.  the way Ming leaves water on the floor
3.  finding an overripe banana in my purple bag from days previous
4.  that feeling when I've been playing phone tag with someone and they call, and it's not a good time for me to answer, but I feel like I need to answer anyway, to stop the phone tag
5.  dust

At winco we saw in the 50% holiday area some chocolates.  It was a box of chocolates for three dollars, which I thought was worth a try.  Of course See's would be better.  But it costs a lot less when a similar size box is $20 at See's.

I opened the box and Ming tried one, but I was waiting till after breakfast.  Later I opened the box again, and I saw a piece of paper in there called Chocolate Guide, so you know what chocolate is what flavor.

"Mm, chocolate guide.  Sounds like a good job for me," I told Ming.

"Job security," he said.

Now we're elsewhere, and I'm disoriented--what day it is, where I am.  I think I know who I am, so that's good.  Lately I want to hear this song a lot.

diatomage, bison bison, drawing all the bunnies, green mischief

Oh hey!  I was going to tell you something.  Can't remember.  Historically, I really like diatoms.

my liked things
1.  specific humans, humans
2.  rocks, plants, animals, fungi, the sky, outer space, Mother Earth and all that entails, including goddess energy, Shakti
3.  pallets
4.  diatoms
5.  poetry and other wordplay
6.  generating ideas--lists, such as this
7.  art, including zines and letters
8.  radical mental health, activism in general
9.  transformation, change
10.  love, respect, justice

I was going to do a zine with a lot of diatoms as the pictures, found public domain diatomage.  They look gorgeous.

But then I was like--diatoms are the skeletons of dead tiny organisms, and maybe I need something warmer and more mammally for my zines, as they're mostly about connection and love.  Diatoms are maximum pretty, but they're cold.

I'd been wanting to draw some bison--you know, bison are really mammally.  Furry nuzzlers.  A baby bison trots to her mama for some milk.  The steamy air is coming from their nostrils rhythmically in the cold morning.  They make some weird animal sounds.  Yeah, I know about them.

A long time ago I was drawing bunnies for an old functionally ill.  I was doing blind drawings, and it was fun to draw the same bunny multiple times and see all the different ways it could turn out.  It's modern times.  We go to google images and can draw all the bunnies, right?

This artist I know did some art based on some drawings of bison in a cave.  I thought I'd like to do that too.  My own bison drawings, but not in a cave.  At first I was going to buy his drawings, but then I thought it might be more fun to do my own.

I bought from him before this gorgeous wooden spoon he carved, and this weird cthulhu painting he did on a broken rock.  He gave me this little stone goddess he carved, as a bonus.  I bought a bracelet from him with yellow beads that look like planets--he lengthened it for me.  I think I lost it...  A wooden goddess carving.  Oh, I bought those little faces from him too, tiny masks made of some silver metal.  I thought I bought two, but now I'm thinking--maybe I only bought one.

I give him zines--he said a zine I gave him was very sad.  I apologized, wondering which zine it was.  He said no, it was good, that he likes to go backpacking by himself in other countries, and he can get very sad, but he likes it.  Productive sad.

"I've got some kind of mischief inside of me today," I told Ming.

"What kind of mischief?" he asked.  "The green kind?"

"Um...productive mischief," I said.  I need to find my magnesium pills--my right upper trapezius muscle hurts so much sometimes, I'm like, dude.  Not cool.  Well, I should load the laundry.

ritual, fluxiness, having a happy life to draw robots in

Hey, perhaps you noticed.  It's a new year.  I can tell because I changed my ribbon.

Also, maybe you know how ritual can be a good way to get parts of yourself on the same page.  A good way to tell yourself stuff.  Intentions, ideas, desires.  It was a pretty way to begin the year.

This morning I had an important txt conversation I hope is helpful and a phone conversation about some life things.  Community, freedom, change.  The vastness of Nevada.  Where I come from.

Also we had tea with the Priestess.  I ate a banana and listened a lot.

Ming says people don't usually talk about their homeland the way I do.  He seemed like he thought it was stupid.  I was like, Hey, are you insulting my homeland?!  Do I need to kick your ass? 

I tried to explain to him how it's amazing there, and you know...he's been there.  A couple times, yeah!

And a whole other conversation about love, power, how we do relationships, gatekeeping, control.  We returned to town easily.

Then we got groceries at winco.  I wanted to ask the checker if she was getting paid doubletime for the holiday.  I hope so.  I decided you aren't supposed to ask that.

When we got home, it was 53 degrees in our house and 53 degrees in the laundry room.  With the space heater going, it's up to 59.

I know I can change my life any time.  And it can get changed for me also, with death and others' decisions.  The things I can control--it's kind of mysterious.  But so far the year is pretty good and fluxy.

"These are good robots," Ming told me.

"Thank you!" I said.  "Thanks for helping me have a happy life where I can drawn funny robots."  He was punching holes in zines.  "Do you hear me?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"Do you really hear me?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.