special alien flower time love

Hey, the special cactus flowers bloomed, night before last.  I was in the bathroom yesterday morning, the window was slightly open, and I heard R outside tell H, "Hey, did you see these?"

And H had seen them, and I got excited because my friend in Henderson, hers bloomed about a week and a half ago, and I thought maybe ours were taking this year off.

When Ming and I went outside for our morning ride, I saw that yes, my hope was confirmed.

Wow, how do they glow like that?  They really are glowing, right?  They seem alien.  So lovely.  They smell amazing too!

I almost want to just sit by them, like this is the sacred time of the special flowers, and I'm just going to worship them while they last, as a sign of God's love.  A very amazing God--she sends us such weird blessings.

Ming said it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinopsis_candicans.  Ours looks lusher, weirder, and lovelier.  Not sure.  Maybe a special version for here.

Or maybe this one?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinopsis_eyriesii

There were several buds, so I think right now a few more are blooming.  I'm so scattered, but I'm glad some things I can pay attention to.

I think it's amazing how dykey I can look in a skirt.  I guess it doesn't look like a skirt in this picture.  I showed Ming, and he was admiring.  He likes my dykiness.  That makes two of us!  Probably my bestie does too.  So there are at least three of us.

Oh yeah, lanyards are historically lesbiany too, right?  Yeah!  I aspire to being a lesbian with a lanyard, super ept, saving the day.

I dreamt before of living in a post-apocalyptic lesbian separatist intentional community.  I had to leave suddenly and scratched a letter to someone I loved into the bark of a tree.  It was an important dream, for me.

I've never really been a lesbian, but never say never, right?  I was telling Ming last night how part of grieving is learning what the world is, without my mom living in it, but learning who I am without her also.  I rattled off ten different aspects of grieving off the top of my head.  I'd thought it was one thing.  How silly I was.

Also I was telling Ming an idea that's really important to me and I think about all the time but never talk about.  My ex was super into science and was an atheist, I think.  Agnostic?  I forget.  Somewhat anti-Christian, at the time.

He said Christianity is a boat, and they throw the smart people off the boat, so the boat gets more and more stupid.  He read the news a lot, and I think he'd just read a thing that demonstrated this idea--a cut in funding for some science thing, maybe.  He could be angry, about the politics of it.

When I did my undergrad, I was in the College of Creative Studies, which is a small college within the university with more freedom and a very different MO and feel.  Also there are no grades, almost no general ed requirements, and the classes are very small.  My years there were amazing.

I heard someone say the brilliant people would leave the regular College of Letters and Science, giving their brilliance to the College of Creative Studies, so the vibrant, inventive, and special all congregate over in this other place, depriving the regular people of their excellence.

The idea is that it's sad the regular people miss out, but also the culture as a whole misses out, as the regular people are surrounded by more regular people, so they reinforce each other.  The brilliant people become more strange, and will have more trouble connecting with the regular people, and maybe trouble getting funding years later or whatever logistical thing.

Then I think about how my neighbors to the west seem horrible and scare me, always screaming at each other, and I don't talk to them, but I wish I could.  Ideally, I would like them and connect with them and love them as myself.

If I say, "You're horrible and I don't like you--I'm going to go hang out with the anarchists," then maybe their lives get boringer, and they don't see there are alternatives to the sad lives they live.  I deprive them of my ideas and values, because I want to protect myself from them or seek fun or people who I can relate to better.

Ideally I wish I could talk to anyone can find common ground with anyone, but it doesn't really work that way.  Riding my trike, I get to wave and smile at many neighbors, who like the sight of a happy fat woman triking by and are delighted by me.  Most of these neighbors are older Black people, and most of my friends are not older Black people.  So it feels extra good to diversify who I'm connecting with, even if it's just a friendly hello.

I see in local organizing--if a group does a wrong thing, they can get blacklisted forever.  Different groups hate each other, someone won't work with someone else, and it starts feeling scary, like no mistake can ever be made.  I get terrified of stepping any direction and just freeze.

Did I just make my life harder or ruin something for an organization I love, by clicking "like" on this other org on facebook?  They did this wonderful thing.  But so and so hates them.  Oh no--should I unlike them?

There needs to be a middle place between requiring perfection and tolerating abuse.  If no one else can be good enough ever, do we want to be an island of perfection?  Ideally it would be--I see you've made mistakes, but we have so much in common, and I will set aside our differences to work with you.

But people who have been marginalized, dismissed, and kicked aside, how can we compromise more?  Yeah, it hurts.  Feelings are involved, and so much trauma from having to accommodate cruelty.  So behaviors can escalate--tensions escalate.

"Screw you guys--I'm going home," doesn't get a lot of organizing done.  I've seen so many activists struggle with it.  Defining what our deal breakers are.  So and so talks to the cops, which is unforgivable, so I will turn my back on them.  Or this group did this bad thing.  This group represents the system.  They cater too much to power.  So they're bad.

I'm about nonviolence, building bridges, listening, caring, nurturing, playfulness, humor, love, consent, touch, finding middle ground.  There are things I won't tolerate either.  I want to be forgiving and say that redemption is often possible.   I'm always learning about that, in my personal relationships but also as an activist.

Alliances can be so strengthening.  When the Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective joined forces with the Happy Earth Market for one of our recurring events, that was so wonderful, to meet these people, share this beautiful space, and intermingle for a specific thing.  It felt enlivening.  What a good idea.

It can be easier to hate people who are more like us.  My friend says, "It's easier to punch left."  The liberals, progressives, and left radicals fight with one another, while the big right does whatever fascism.  It can be easy to get swept up in that.  I guess we have to juggle a lot of projects, and then each project has its aspects too.

When the palo verde tree in the courtyard bloomed its bright yellow flowers a few days ago, H said to me, "Did you see the tree bloomed?"  He likes to point out the flowers to me, and I say thank you, look, and appreciate the flowers.

But afterward I cry because they are so beautiful, and it's his gift to me.  It's so tender, it breaks my heart.  He doesn't buy me flowers from a store, but he gives me flowers, more than anyone else does, by seeing them and drawing my attention to them.

He gets joy from my joy, improving my life with his everyday kindness--caring for the cats, raking the dirt, watering, sweeping the paths, keeping an eye on everything.  That's love, if you ask me.  When he picks up the mat by my front door, sweeps the path there, shakes out the mat, and puts it back, making sure the mat is lined up in front of the door right.

I see that.  I want to hug him and tell him how important he is to me, but I wheel my trike through the gate and cry while I'm triking.

I thank him in his birthday card every year.  I tell him I love him in writing, and feel safer with him here, but I never tell him out loud.  He's a Black man the age my dad would be, if my dad was still alive, and has had a much different life than my dad ever did.

So much keeps us apart, but the small gestures of love between friends and family members and community--it's so beautiful we can do it at all.

shed

I'm not overwhelmed exactly but very scattered.  I do things I didn't mean to, and I don't do things I really needed to.  My follow thru is weird. 

I prefer to be more predictable and make more sense.  But this is a time of newness and change, for me.  I'm going with it.

My memory...is it shoddy because I'm not sleeping enough?  Is my brain getting duller?  Is grief just making everything harder?  I was crying yesterday morning, remembering things my mom called me that no one will ever call me again.  Too much loss.

This color shirt, I don't think I had one ever.  I bought it to wear under a blue dress that's too low cut, but it's not tight enough and bunches up wrongly.

Ming was chatty.  He told me he watched a youtube video about hippies.  It was spoofing hippies.  We discussed how misogynist hippies are.  He seems to think hippies are feminist, or can speak that way at least.  I was like, no, there's a whole contingent of the hicker hippies who are misogynist.  I guess there are all kinds. 

The video depicted three hippie men living together.  I said they were not very successful. 

He also watched something about an alligator attack.  I was like, why were you watching this?  He assured me his nightmares were totally unrelated.

I tend to get sidetracked when I try to sleep, lately.  I have a new plan--I just think about what I want to eat the next day, and what I want to wear the next day.  Pleasant but not overly exciting.  Lately five hours feels like enough.

I had a young friend.  They said I don't need much sleep because I'm older--they knew because we traveled together.  I was like, uh, I'm 43.  I'm not 83.  I have a whole thing with sleep. They saw only a little sliver of it. 

Yesterday someone suggested I go for walks and try to tire out my body.  I said how the trike ride every morning is good for me, and walking can be ok, but I prefer to dance.  I have a reaction to advice and then a second reaction.  Then maybe a third.

Lately our rides are about 40 minutes.  There are all different ways to enjoy them.  The honeysuckle is in bloom here.  We pass two huge bushes of it, on our rides.  Wow, what a treat.  I kind of want to plant some in our garden.

Ming needs a grapevine.  Anything seedless--our old one died.

I made a new zine.  It's called shed--it's a poem about my love for someone, R, and the shed he built.

There was a knock at the door.  Ming was undressing, so I answered it.

"I'm going to the store.  Do you want anything?" R asked, not looking at me.

"What store?" I asked.

"Walmart," he said.

"Uh..." I said, looking at the fruit bowl.  "Do you need anything from the store?" I yelled to Ming.

"No!" he said. 

R was looking at a list he had in his hand.  "No, thank you," I said. 

Maybe he thought if he didn't look at me, my germs couldn't leap on him.  We were definitely not six feet apart.  It can be difficult when I love someone so much.

Why do people do the things we do?  Even if you got up the guts to ask someone, they might not tell you the truth.  They could tell you the surface truth, or the understudy truth, the backup truth, or the plausible untruth.  While the real truth remains inside them, shining and secret.  Right?

I like poetry because it can tell those secrets.  Some secret buried in the obvious.  Or hiding somehow, blended in with mundane.  Like ET in the closet with those stuffed animals.

queer temporary bike gang

I wanted to find online some group of fat women who cycle.  I poked around and found so much hate instead.  Yuck!  Do I live in a bubble of happiness?  People seem so angry and mean.  I couldn't take much of it.

How offensive I am, a fat woman who doesn't give a fuck about being attractive to you.  A woman who decided my existence is about something besides giving you a boner or caring for your boner.  Hmm.

They pretend the fat hate is a concern for health, but then if they wanted me to be healthy, wouldn't they want me to ride a bike?  It's just a ruse.  Donuts have nothing to do with it.

I think they have a lot of loose anger, and a fat woman is an easy target.  Then there's backlash, an argument, and it turns into a thing.

If I'm on a trike, at least I'm a moving target.  I feel less vulnerable--I feel way safer.  I can see why people get really into it.

I don't want certain clothes though, or athleticism.  I want something more like childhood joy, but I'm an adult now and can make better choices.

I don't want to hurt anyone.  Many of my friends talk about punching Nazis.  I don't want to punch anyone.  That's not what my hands are for.  I don't think punching Nazis will help anything, but especially it won't cure them.  I have a lot of ideas about nonviolence and how fighting fire with fire is dangerous.  Inflammatory.  Doesn't even feel good, let alone work.

Mostly I think people are going to do what they're going to do.  If I resist capitalism, that's because it's fun.  If I love everyone, hoping to be a good example or model a sustainable way of being emotionally, probably it won't do jack shit, but if it's fun, I can and will keep doing it.

I think of people I love in other places.  I have a good friend in LA who I met online in 1998 or 1999, my first year of grad school.  She's been important to me ever since.  She struggles with some of the things I struggle with, and she has a joy that I find extremely compelling.  She knows how to have fun, even though she has a lot of experience with pain, and reminds me how to have fun.  Kind of like my mom did.

She and I have only been together in person a handful of times--we've never lived in the same town.  A meal, coffee, a lecture, a trip to the Getty ten years ago.  But we write letters, interact online, talk on the phone once in a blue moon, and have this love that endures.

I have a fantasy about asking her, "Will you ride bikes with me?"  She likes to ride bikes.  She and I somehow would make this happen, and we would be happy together, Ming with us also, and maybe my friend's girlfriend, if she likes riding bikes too, or some other friend or family member, coasting down the street together, free.  Queer temporary bike gang, maybe.

We could navigate space, traffic, road hazards, weather, our feelings, bits of conversation.  And I think I would be so happy I would cry, healing this childhood crap I still feel wounded about, and she does too.  Having her there with me.  This activity I need, with this special person I love.

I didn't know cycling could heal me like that.  I knew about avoiding fossil fuels, making less pollution, personal empowerment, DIY ethics, exercise, movement, being a good example of a better way, taking back the roads.  Warm homegrown people power, fueling it with my breakfast and my own body, as opposed to the coldness of cars and wars about oil.  I knew a style of punk aesthetics and a romanticisation of all of that.

But I had no idea the combination of exercise, sunshine, and joy would be exactly what I needed for my health.  Or that it would touch so many strings inside me.  Multiple needs and ideas surfacing, pains from long ago that get resolved with the awareness.  My mind, body, and spirit all doing the same thing.  Like a ritual, everything aligned for a while, the hum of beauty that hums out of that.  Almost shivering with the aliveness.

I like also how Ming and I have a new thing to do.  I like talking to him about important ideas.  Usually we talk while he drives, but he's distracted.  We talk in bed, but he falls asleep.  We talk in the kitchen a bit.  But bike talking--wow, I had no idea I would love that.

Well, I've raved enough for now.  Thank you for caring, reader.  I love you and thank you for putting up with these notions that mean everything to me.

extreme spouse sweetness ftw

Ming took this picture of me yesterday.  I wasn't feeling pretty, but I think I look adequately pretty.  I don't think how pretty I feel corresponds with how I look.

Behind me is this vacant lot in my neighborhood, and it has that crop circle thing in it from some random driver doing donuts, I think.  I used to be obsessed with crop circles, long ago.  Jeeze.  A lifetime ago.

Yesterday Ming was sitting near me.  He had more energy than usual, which is strange.  He wanted to go out.  I think he was feeling cooped up.  I didn't need to go out.

He told me he found a sewing app.  I was surprised because I didn't know he wanted to sew. 

This chromosome dress I'm wearing in this picture, it has that band of purple that hits me in a place that's unfortunate because sometimes the seam is on my nipples, which is not ok for me, sensory-wise.  That means I have to wear a bra, to keep the seam off my nipples, and wearing a bra I don't like anymore.

So Ming thought he could learn to sew, and sew a cloth into the dress that would keep the seams off my nipples.  He told me this, and it was so sweet, I started to cry.  I couldn't believe the sweetness of this kind, generous person who wanted to help me in this way.  I was amazed that someone could love me that much.

I was crying a little, and Ming started to cry a little too.  Then he told me how the first learning to sew app looked good, but then he saw it cost a certain amount of money per year.  So he looked at other apps and their reviews, and found another one that you have to pay for.  We laughed.  Then he found a free one. 

It felt so good to sit there crying together then laughing together.  I felt so lucky.  What a nice Mixie.

I laid out a new zine, A Special Treehouse for Fat People #2: unconditionally ok.  Hopefully you don't mind naked ladies. 

I realized I could put little bikinis on the drawings for when I want to post the cover on facebook.  I felt a little bitter than facebook wants to protect us from depictions of our own bodies.  Oh, the dangers of having  bodies.  What a dangerous world.

I decided the person on the front cover on the left side looks kinda like me, and the person on the right looks like Ming.  Even though the parts are different.  That calm, generous confident love.  How he can be so crazy and so stable at the same time, I have no idea.  I guess he has a gift.

what I do

"Hey, honey!  Welcome home.  How are you doing?  How was your time?" I ask Ming when he comes home.

"Great!" he'll usually say.  Then he'll tell me the story.

Or else he'll be super sleepy, and I'll comfort him and help him get what he needs to feel better.

"What did you do while I was gone?" Ming asks.

"Oh shocking stuff.  Totally shocking.  You'd be amazed," I said.  This is our joke because I always do the same thing while he's gone.  Write, txt people, lie in bed in the half-dark.  Just living.  Eat a snack, package up some mail.  Blog posts, zines, emails, paper letters.  I'm writing all the time, mostly.

So it's good to have a trike and new things to do with my body that aren't sitting in a chair tap tap tapping words out.  I suppose I'm a word addict.  Addict in the sense of--yeah, this is my life.  It would take a hell of a lot of work to stop.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.  Or take a picture of it.  Or ask Ming to take a picture of you with it.  Yeah, that's right.  Love to all and gmorning.

we belong to the earth

I want to sing this song, lately.

I'm working on poems, all the time.  Love it--hat genius 22 sun pump.

A new issue of functionally ill, number 29.  I have one 28 with totally finished text but waiting on art.  And then 29 that I'm writing.

I have this zine about music I started.  I was messaging a friend about songs as rituals and went off on some ideas that are really important to me that I never talk about.  So that feels good.

I have a fish letters all written, and I even have the art--I just need to find the art.

I have a new special treehouse for fat people.  I have art for that too, already, somewhere.  It's just a bunch of drawings of naked ladies.  I want to do more of them.

I have some projects that are simmering on the back burner.  A book I need, an ocean zine, a second vegan cookzine.  This funny poem Ming said he'd draw funny pictures for, but he hasn't.  A death zine I'm supposed to be writing with Ming.  My safeword was always safeword.  A ritual zine.  A book compilation of some zines.  A new Resisting Capitalism for Fun.  A new Lost Child, honestly.

Yeah, too many zines.  Hmm.  Maybe I should sell a franchise?  Yuck.

I need to ride my trike.  Thanks for being my reader.  Love to everyone, today.

baby got sauce

content warning: discussion of misogyny

"Are you in love with that BBQ sauce?" I asked Ming.

"Yeah," he said.  He'd put some on his rice, the superhot BBQ sauce our friend gave us when he moved away.

I'd told Ming he should give to R across the courtyard.  That sauce is too hot--get it out of your life!

I'd put butter, soy sauce, and green salsa in my rice.  Mine was delicious.  The only thing that would have improved it was nori seaweed ripped up into little pieces.  I was too lazy to find it.

"Should I be worried?" I asked.

"No," he said.  "It turns on me every time."  He was sniffling from the spiciness and seemed disturbed by how hot the BBQ sauce was.

"Oh.  So you'll love it but not marry it?" I asked.

My metaphor was getting confusing.  I've seen men who would want someone and hate them at the same time.  It was always creepy to me, and misogynist, that violence so many men have coursing through their sexualities.

I've heard men complain that women are fakely beautiful to trap men, and it sounds like they see love as extortion.  The man will begrudgingly off and on perform certain things to get access to the sex.  But he's hating that he's chained.  So the mascara and nailpolish and all that is part of the snare they resent.

I'm not pretty enough to snare anyone.  I'm a human.  I'm not an evil banshee.  Are there evil banshees?  I'm thinking those men don't enjoy relationship and should stop.  Well, relationship is my life.

One time Ming and I took R out to Thai food.  He got his hell curry a 10 out of 10 heat.  Then he asked for the spices and added more spice to that.  Ming and I were falling out of the booth.

And once we took R to vegan Mexican food.  I remember it like it was yesterday, but it was for his birthday two years ago.  It's really an honor to live with very good persons who are good examples and model kind brilliance.

Wow, can I change the subject?  I've always hated neighborhood watch signs.  Now I love them and hate that at the same time.  I guess I love to hate them!  Now they're funny to me, a symbol of standard racism and xenophobia.  Almost cartoonish in their ridiculousness.  I laugh so I don't cry.

So I asked Ming to get the picture of me with the sign in the background.  This is my new shirt my friend made for me.  I feel cared for.  It's my introvert agoraphobia covid souvenir.   I never had a shirt with the f word on it or a skull.  The newness is nice.

I'm the shady character you don't want riding her trike in your neighborhood.  I might smile and wave, then swerve to avoid a patch of glass in the street.  Yes, happy fat women are scary.

I mean that if people see me being happy, and they realize they can be happy too, if they're fat or however they are, then capitalism fails.  They don't need to buy anything. 

A lot of people think I don't deserve to be happy, that I should be a better woman than accepting myself for exactly who I am.  Well, you know what I say to them.  I love you--I hope someday you will join us.

please support PM Press

This kickstarter for PM Press is important to me!  I love PM Press for many reasons including helping me know the work of Silvia Federici, who is one of my favorite scholars.  Ah, I love her.  Let's go to the commons and get called witches.  Yay!

http://kck.st/2V6lMos

being my own dog

Wow, guess what happened.  I went to bed and slept seven and a half hours straight.  Wow!!!  Guess when the last time that happened was?  ...a while!

I woke up feeling like fairies visited me in the night and left me a working brain.  Well, it always works.  It's just a matter of how.  Thanks, fairies.

I told my good friend the other day, "I feel like shit's fucked, but I can create a pocket of happiness and live in it."  Does that sound like denial?  I don't think it is.  More of an oasis.  Whether it's denial or an oasis, the coconuts are good.

One of the first things I said to Ming when I woke up today was that yesterday was a train wreck.  "It was like a train wreck, but the train cars are filled with jewels."

Can you imagine it?  Wreckage--metal twisted and torn, train cars on their sides, broken open.  But glimmering glittery jewels are pouring from the wounds of the train cars, out into the dirt and grass and all over the tracks.  It's smoking from the hot impact and the metal breaking apart.  But the jewels pouring out are shining with beauty, all different colors of all different jewels.  A ridiculous amount of riches, too much, on the ground.

Hmm, feels important today.  The mockingbird singing outside never saw a trainwreck like that, but is willing to try.

The jewels are ok, is the thing.  The train is done, but the jewels are just fine.  Willing to be picked up and recontained, blessing someone with wealth, or willing to nestle into the ground beside the wreck and be rocks again.  The jewels are cool with anything.

Yesterday was also Fix the Swamp Coolers Day.  Second spring is here.  I was explaining to Ming about the different springs in this desert.  I guess this is the warmer one.  We were told it was supposed to hit 90 this week.  Yesterday it was 88 when I checked.  Maybe it got to 90.

Things I will not put up with anymore.

1.  altar snobbery

It's ok if my altar is a corner of my desk.  Or if I have multiple informal altars.  Seems like altars kind of just happen, around here.  That's valid.  Please don't come into my house and pretend an altar is not an altar, just because it's messy and in a non-dedicated space.

2.  meanness to myself

I would like to be my own loved dog.  I'll speak nicely to myself, give myself treats, take myself for a walk (or trike ride), pet my beautiful fur, feed myself delicious foods, and let myself sleep a lot or do whatever I need to do.  Yeah.

I wanted to be my own girlfriend for a while, and my own best friend.  But now I'll give myself the life of luxury that is dogness for a rich, loved United Statesian dog.  I'm thinking I'm dark brown, large, healthy, like to run, swim, sniff, dig and have a deep doggish wholeness.  A secure dog with calm energy who doesn't need to bark a lot but can bark if needed.

I like to drink water and smell good smells.  I stick my nose into neighbors' flowers so often, it's yellow with pollen--I'm a pollinator.  I don't have to feel bad that I don't go to work or have kids or do any human things.  I'm just a dog.  Let's do it.

3.  feeling ashamed of stuff that's not my fault

Wow, I could blame myself for anything.  Glad that's over.

Examples of things I won't blame myself for:
needing something different, overripe bananas, that I was abused, Ming's health issues, my religious views, speaking the unspeakable, something stupid I did 27 years ago that only I remember anyway because it involved a person who is no longer living on this earth

Well, thank you for witnessing my resolutions.  Someone kindly offered to proofread my blog.  She has a new proofreading business.  I think my blog posts are kind of like tissues.  So ephemeral.  It would be like proofreading telegrams from 1947.  It could be amusing, but it's not really going to help anyone.

I've blogged almost every day since 2006?  It was a February.  Yeah, maybe 14 years now.  I don't need proofreading, but I could use it transferred to wordpress.  So please let me know if you can do that.

I love you, Mother Earth

Thinking how getting our intentions to match our behavior doesn't always happen.  That's very human, to me.  Being able to want a thing I can't have.  Trying to manage time, energy, other resources, and intention into a life, smiling.   I want to forgive me and everyone for ways we miss the mark.

Thinking how enlightenment isn't a place to arrive, like I will do spiritual practices a ton and hope when I'm 70, a little bell will chime, and I'll be enlightened.  Ding!

More I see it as something we slip in and out of.  I can be present and feel really happy and balanced and well, and that can last a second or three minutes or maybe an afternoon?

Then I'm strifed again.  I can let it come and go.  It's ok.

I made a list of what's most important to me, today.  The top was being who I am.  That's not an evidence-based thing.  I can't measure my Laura-Marieness.  But I can see if I feel happy and well, and slip in and out of that, with some ease and looseness.

That'd be cool if there was a Laura-Marieometer.  We could hook this blog post up to the Laura-Marieometer.  What do you think?  Probably I'd give this a 7.5--rather Laura-Marie, but could be stronger.  More wordplay and poignant humor, please.

The second thing I most want is using my gifts, which are sacred, both self-made and passed to me by my ancestors, for my mission on earth.

The third thing is deep connection with others.  That includes spouse, community, family, and friends, each vital.

Then comes deep connection to the earth, God, mother energy, life force, Shakti.

Then is a good mix of safety and excitement-risk.  I need both.

Then is multiple layers of community.  People I live with, people I don't live with but am doing something longterm with.  Different layers of community around me like...valence shells?

Then is privacy, rest, quiet, aloneness, silence.  So space, maybe.  Fewer connections and responsibilities to other people, which sounds like the opposite of community, maybe, but I need that.

Last on the list (I skipped some confusing stuff that might be repetitive) is keeping sight of what I really want, intentionality, vision, knowing what I want, and a combination of short term work and long term work.  So like doing chores and upkeep, but also visioning.

Well, now you know all my secrets.  That's me, as of 1:22am on 2020 Earth Day.  I made a list like this a couple weeks ago, and it was similar.  Maybe I should look at that one and try to combine the two.

Thank you to Mother Earth, my favorite planet.  I love you.  You were wearing pretty cloud-clothes yesterday.

Red

I wrote all that stuff about relationships and feelings.  I was feeling so frustrated with people not being able to talk about stuff. 

Then I had a conversation with a friend.  She told me she used to be like that.  She was really afraid of people hurting her, she had problems with boundaries, and she would flee.

So then I got compassion, because I remembered telling another friend recently, "If people have hurt you so badly you're too scared to be honest, that's on them, not you."  It all seemed related.

Also I told Ming this story of how a test only tests how well you can take the test.  Say there's a student who takes a test, and fails it, and the teacher thinks the student doesn't know the material.  But the student could know the whole thing, but they didn't read the directions right, they messed up the scantron, they missed breakfast and sleep and couldn't focus? 

If my friend won't talk to me about their inner world, that doesn't mean they don't care or feel--it means they won't talk to me about their inner world.  Maybe I could wait another year?  Who knows.  I feel less hardcore about it.  Thanks for baring with me.  Or bearing with me or whatever. 

I would be a bear with you.  No problem!  Grrrr!

I recorded a song--it's by my friend Robert Majors.  It's my favorite song.   Red.  He sang it at my mom's service, up in the prayer room, which I will be forever grateful to him for.

I like to sing it with him--maybe one day we can record it together.

I like how it's about family.  He explains perfectly something about love, anger, family pain, what we share and don't share.  It even has a dream--my favorite.

Well, Robert is a poet.  Hopefully you can hear it right, sung correctly by him, one day.

what love is

Many people I try to connect with, I think something bad happened to them when they were young where they tried to care for someone, be there for someone, and have their words match their behavior.  Something bad happened, and they got trauma about it?

They tried to love their friend and be there for them, and the friend asked, "Are you trying to love and be here for me?"

They said, "Yes, that's what I'm doing."

Then there was some kind of pain, and their behavior changed.  And the other person said, "What are you doing?  You said you were loving me and being here for me--forever, till the end of time, no matter what.  You are a bad person who doesn't do what they said."

So then they get damaged, and afraid of being held accountable, because it hurt, that one time, when someone tried to trap them.  The other person took the words and used the words against them, to try to control or shame them.  So the result is they do whatever behaviors and don't want to use words, anymore.

I was born to love.  I like all of it--touch, listening, sharing ideas, being there for someone, forming bonds.  We can connect informally for three minutes, like helping a stranded stranger with a dead battery jump their car.  Or like me and Ming, we can form a long partnership of deep trust, vulnerability, and knowing one another.  Building a life together.

There's nothing wrong with the stranger saying "thank you!" and then you go your separate ways, their car now functioning.  I love all the kinds of connection that are consensual and feel good.

But I love words too, and want to know what we're doing, and if someone treats me like I matter to them, I want to know--I need some hints what they feel, what they want, are they building something with me.

I don't need them to only relate to me if they're intending to stay in it for the long haul.  But after sharing tons of resources, experiences, affection, vulnerability, whatever--it feels like time to talk about it, to me.

Many people seem to think words are a net they'll get caught in.  Accountability is really scary to them.  I don't understand why.  That kid who hurt them with accountability, could you do some ritual to let go of that pain, or forgive that person, and heal your accountability trauma to get your behavior and words on the same page?

Or maybe people feel way less than I think they do?  They don't need to have the conversation about how they feel--they don't really feel.  They're just fucking around.

Nothing wrong with fucking around, if that's what you all know you're doing.  I guess the problem is people who are fucking around but pretending like something matters to them, in order to deceive others.

It reminds me of "The dream is gone, but the baby is real."  If you want to be lighthearted and have fun without longterm anything, good for you, but bringing new life into it, you're affecting a lot of people, who will rally to support the kid and try to build something reliable for the kid, hopefully.



I don't understand what's so scary about love.  Or people who want half of it, without responsibility.  I don't understand why responsibility is so painful, for so many people.  I guess they don't enjoy being there for someone?  So it's a chore they want to get out of, like washing the dishes?

It feels so cliche--a man wants sex without responsibility, so he pretends he cares, gets some sex, feels a twinge of boredom, sees another prospect, and departs.  The lover is surprised--I thought he cared.  I guess not.  Oh well.

Is that the big story of life?  Life we live, but life itself.  How people tend to come about.  People being unclear about what they're doing, not communicating or flat out lying.  "This is less fun than before--I will take my leave of you now."  He packs his bag--there you go.

I sound like a republican for a second there.  It's not that I'm against divorce--I love divorce.  If you gotta go, go!

I don't want any contracts signed in blood, personally.  I just think being able to talk about how we feel and what we're doing is part of being an adult, one of the 12 or so things an adult should be able to do.

It scares the hell out of some people.  Like horror movies shouldn't be about murderers, ghosts, or pandemics--I ask someone, "How do you feel about me?  Are we doing something, here?  Because I notice it looks like we're doing something, and I'd like to check in."

The other person flees in terror.   "This conversation is not what I want to do.  I'm going to look over here now."  Then they run.  They say, "No, we're not doing that thing," or won't talk about it at all.  It's like I have a chainsaw in my hand, but all I have is a heart.

I'm like, "Oh, I see--my mistake.  We're not doing that thing.  Strange, felt like that thing, to me.  Oh well.  See ya later."

If I'm smart, I depart.  If I'm not smart, or so far in it I can't help myself, I stick around to get kicked for a while longer.  Saying, "I see what we're doing, and I don't need words."  Or, "I need someone's behavior to match their words, but maybe I could try out not needing words...?"

Or, "Yes, his behavior is bad at times, but nobody is perfect!  I know he's really a good person--I've seen it."  But everybody else is seeing the bad behavior and telling me, Get out right now.

I want to build happy relationships more than anything.  I'm thwarted sometimes, and I don't think my requirements are really weird.  Being honest about what we're doing, checking in a bit so I have a sense of someone's inner world and plans, if any, pertaining to me.  I'm not asking for a kidney--just an honest conversation.  Weird, that's too much.

I have Ming, a distant bestie, a local close friend who's bestie-like, several people I check in with on a daily basis, several friends I talk with less often, community I live with, community that's looser who I don't live with but am trying to form something longterm with.  I have a relative I speak with.  I have tons of penpals.  I have facebook friends, people I email with, people I txt with.

I have a lot going on.  Along with making zines, gardening, riding my trike, blogging, singing, talking to God, cooking delicious veg foods....my life is amazing.  I have resources, so much freedom, meaningful work, time to do what I want to do.

Is that borage magical, or is it just me?

I'm not a drowning suffering person who's trying to trap anyone into being my friend and letting me hurt them.   I have more friends than I want to, really.  Sometimes it feels like I'm spread thin because I'm trying to be there for a lot of people.

And I don't want to hurt anybody.  I want fun, mostly--the different kinds of fun I enjoy.  I'm not looking to marry everyone.  I'm good with Ming, as my spouse.

I'm a happy, fully-formed adult person who feels a lot, thinks a lot, and likes connecting to people.  And I love words.  Yeah, I'm wordy.  Ming has a learning disability pertaining to language.  Trying to communicate with him is a wonderful adventure.  We learn a lot, from one another, and share so many smiles of trying.

When our resources are low, frustrations can come up.  But we make a low stress life and treat one another with kindness.  Extra kindness.  We choose to spend our lives together, so it makes sense to be very kind to one another and help one another be very happy.  We say please, thank you, I'm sorry, excuse me, ask questions, check in a lot.  We enjoy doing things together and talking about it afterward.

He's my partner, my darling, my favorite--something about security also.  Luckily we're nice to one another 99.5% of the time.  We lucked out.

Saturday we made enchiladas.  It was our six year wedding anniversary again--we get two each spring, on the lunar calendar and the regular one.

He helps me have a wonderful home, a good life, a safe place to heal, rest, learn, and grow.  We like changing together.  We change, keeping an eye on one another, changing in a way that works well.

That's what's going on around here.  I hope you have good people you're deeply connected to who are willing to be upfront with you about their feelings and intentions, if that's what you want.  I guess I'm a weird person who likes honesty.  Why is that weird?  Who knows, but whatev.

unicorn chaos

Ming was cleaning the counter so we could make enchiladas.  He was bumping something with the blue sponge, and it was making a clanking noise I didn't like.  "Uh!  Uh!!!" I emoted.  Then the can opener fell on the floor, clattering,  "Do you have to make so much noise?" I asked.

"Yes!" Ming said.  "It's to scare the germs."

I laughed through my fear.  Loud noises can hurt me, depending on how I'm doing, sensory-wise.  It's weird how the pain is physical, but why is that.  Is all pain physical?  I guess so.  I don't understand what feelings are made of.  I guess almost everything is made of matter.

Then I asked him to hug me and apologize for scaring me.  "I'm sorry I scared you," he said.

"Do you know what you are?" I asked, kissing his left arm I always kiss and hugging him.  "Brilliant."

"I scared them silly-uh," he said.

"Do you think most germs have cilia?" I asked.  "I guess--I guess you have to get around somehow.  Unless there's a germ lyft."

We thought germ lyft was funny, like ski lifts for germs.

We were about to go on our bike ride, and I saw a new cat eating cat food on the cat table.  It's black and white.  "Who the hell is that?" I asked Ming.  "Did you see that one before?  I think we should name it Get The Fuck Out of Here.  We could call it Get the Fuck Out of Here--We Don't Need Another Cat for short."

Probably that sounds mean, but we love these cats, really.  It's just we kind of wish they didn't keep getting replaced.  Ming's ocd is not good with cats, believe me.

Then on our bike ride, I spotted a dollar bill in the gutter.  Ming picked it up.

I turned too quickly at the end of a street and caught air unwantedly.  I told Ming, I need not to do that.  "I need these knees," I said.  "I need them to last another 40 years."

I realized this morning that I turned into a Portland cliche without even ever living in Portland.  I wanted to live there, for a while.  I told Ming, "A happy fat lady riding a bike, wearing a cute dress, is such a Portland cliche, to me.  All I need is a zine on my head!"

"A what?" he asked.

"A zine on my head!" I said.  We were biking by this church I like to bike by, with those pretty trees.  "You can take the Portland dream out of the girl, but not the...Portland out of the girl?"

I realized that the less I sleep, the less filter I have on my creativity.  A lot of times some filter makes me think, oh that's a bad idea, or I don't know how to do that, or that won't turn out good.  But the less I sleep, the more likely I am to just do things, thinking about them less or almost not at all.  It's great.

But also, the less I sleep, the more my executive function goes down.  The other day I was typing a message to a friend and forgot who I was talking to mid-message--I started talking about them rather than to them.  Uh oh.  I need some executives functioning in my head.

I was asking Ming if he was an executive.  "Did you wear a suit?" I asked.  He said no, so I said he wasn't an executive.   How strange, that a suit is that powerful a symbol.

healing the world with confusing music: why I love Sufjan Stevens best

excessiveness
A normal person would have ten ideas and choose one or two of them.  A Sufjan Stevens person has ten ideas and chooses 12 of them.  I like the songs that have four endings.  Way to pick d, all of the above!  I think there's something tantric going on, like we push ourselves over the edge of one thing into something else entirely, with the excess.



tender poignancy
Yeah, we put it through the poignancy filter--twice!  "You touched me inside of my cage."



judicious use of noise
I like listening to the noise until it makes sense.  After the thirtieth or so listening, I can see how it's going, and I love it.  Sometime I feel like he's trying to punish us, with the noise, like we contributed to his pain, creating a wrong world, so the noise will teach us to be better people?  But it's all a joke.   The noisy ending of "Pittsfield" seems angry, for sure, but the noisy ending of "The Child with the Star on His Head" just goes into outer space.



healing use of Christianity
I feel grateful Sufjan apparently was abused in the same ways I was?



weirdest most hilariously disturbing music video I ever saw
He disturbs me in the ways I need, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comforter.



flirting with minimalism
I was married to someone who liked minimalists, and when he tried to listen to that music, like Glass maybe, I asked, "Is this music supposed to be torture?" and made him turn it off.  So it makes sense I love Sufjan with his semi-minimalism, like it's the perfect mild dose of minimalism to make me slightly uncomfortable, in a good alert way.



nuance
When I was in the hospital and could only eat broth and juice for four days, I got deliriously obsessed with veggie broth fantasies.  I fantasized about making broth from all the different veggies, individual broths. 

I wanted spinach broth really bad, and carrot broth, which I actually do make, now.  Hahahaha!  I decided cauliflower broth is the most subtle of broths.

Sufjan Stevens could knit a song out of cauliflower broth, moonlight, and the first thin web a baby spider spun out of its baby spider butt.  So gossamer, weightless, and luminous.  What's sound?  It really is vibrations.



humor
I used to think laughs were cheap.  Then I grew up and realized being funny is just the best way to be serious.

most world class use of sleigh bells ever


beautiful poetic images
"You checked your txts while I masturbated," is my favorite sentence in a song in the English language.  I also really like "Why crawl around in the snow when you know I am right here, waiting for you to expect something more?"  (My favorite sentence in the English language, Ming uttered to me a few months ago at an Indian food restaurant, and I knew why I love him.  It was, "You can have all the cheese.")

concentrated queer power
He has the gay really good.



cute cute baseball caps wearing
See "gay."

crazy
He's crazy like me.  How did a celebrity that crazy get to be a celebrity?  His goodness is so good, people got overwhelmed by desire to be near his genius. 

"Tho I play all night with my magical kite, people say I don't exist."  Performance art plus mania plus best possible homemade costuming involving tinsel, neon duct tape, long balloon animal balloons, and unicorn horns for all. 

Overstimulation seems to be the goal.  The yelling lady to simulate the drunk yelling lady you never know will really show up is a really off-putting touch, and I get worried when he jumps off stuff. 

But I like how it falls apart into blissful sublimity.  He's definitely the Jesus of crazy-sin, like I can rest and let him be crazy for me, since he does such a good job.  He has craziness covered!



nostalgic relationship summarizing
The love song of me and Ming is "Too Much."



Go, Sufie, go.  Please continue healing the world with your confusing music.

Sacred Peace Walk 2020

This is about the Sacred Peace Walk.  I do this every year.  It's an important spring ritual for me, a ritual full of rituals.  It heals my soul.  This is my gofundme.  I raised $210 so far and feel glad to help.  I usually help with the food, but I'm happy to help gather funds also.  

This will be my ninth year doing the Sacred Peace Walk.   My first Sacred Peace Walk showed me another world is possible.  When I learned that, I had to change my life so I could work toward making it.  

Walking thru the desert is healing . Walking by the roadside, my body alive to sensations as my heart opened, feeling wind, seeing desert plantlife, staring at those beautiful mountains and sky, getting to know other Walkers whose love helps me, hearing stories that gave me a smile, and doing rituals with people of different faiths opened up the world to me in a new way.  

I help organize the Walk now so other people can have an experience in their own way but somewhat like mine and can see peace is possible.  I love this work.  

Thank you for donating if you can so this event can keep helping people as we build bridges and connect.  We go to the line at the Nevada National Security Site and speak truth to power, recognizing we're all one people, and we have choices--we can choose to put down the sword and pick up compassion, make lives for ourselves and loved ones that are about nurturing connection.  

So thanks for helping by coming to the desert to walk with us, supporting with a donation, prayers, or however you can help make a world that's more joyful and safe for all people and Mother Earth.

Sacred Peace Walk 2020 is scheduled for October 4-8th because we suspect the pandemic will be over.  Hope to see you then!

https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/laura-marie-is-a-sacred-peace-walker/laura-marietaylor

death is real

I can tell how I'm doing by the things I say to myself.  Lately, I've had trouble with food.

I remember last year, when I got out of the hospital, and I started giving myself a really different attitude about eating.  I used to be ravenous.  I would be afraid of getting hungry at the wrong time.

Some food anxiety, I guess.  Eating before I left the house, keeping a snack with me.  Candy in my bag, a banana to go.

After the ulcer bleed, things felt really different.  Eating was difficult.  I had very little energy, so I couldn't cook.  Breakfast was terrible!  Oh, the problem of breakfast!

I tried to be super gentle with myself--about everything, but especially about food.  I'd talk about it to myself like, "It's ok.  You can go slow.  You could eat just a little bit of that.  No rush.  You can set it aside for a while."

It helped that I was a lot less hungry.  I wanted to listen to myself about what I really wanted to eat.  I was trying to eat iron because I was still very anemic.

It took around a year for my blood to get back to normal.  Praise God it finally did.  I thought maybe it took so long because the ulcer never really healed, so it was still bleeding.  It got smaller I'm sure, but who knows what's going on in there.  Their way of looking in there is very difficult!

Anyway, yeah, I can talk nicely to myself at times.  I make an effort.  I was having trouble taking a shower, for a while, and I tried to tell myself I liked it, smile in the shower, find something to appreciate.
<--understatement p="">
It's kind of like brainwashing myself, honestly.  Or like training myself, as if I were my own dog?  Arf arf!

That sounds kinda bad, but if it works--why not?  I was talking about dosing, the other day--dosing on positivity.  I wouldn't try to be positive the whole day long.

But if Ming and I gratitude journal for a few minutes, it's nice.  A dose of happiness that I hope can teach me something that lasts longer term.  Help reverberating out.

1.  Ming tends the garden sweetly.
2.  The check I'm waiting for not coming means I can keep having something to look forward to.
3.  I copied the new zine.
<--understatement p="">

<--understatement p="">
<--understatement p="">
4.  I have ideas and plans, and I love them, even when I can't do them yet, like that album I want to listen to, or looking at old pictures of my mom.
5.  I got these cute tiered skirts that are nice over bike shorts and won't go in my chain.
<--understatement p="">
<--understatement p="">Thank you for helping me be who I am and do what I need to do.
<--understatement p="">
<--understatement p="">

the question is the answer

They say hindsight is 20-20, but I look back on lots and lots of stupid things I've done and can't decide what I should have done differently.

Should I have said goodbye to that asshole after two months?  Four months?  When did the bad behavior get bad enough?  There are a lot of points where I could / should have made a different decision.

Everyone else seems to know what they should have done differently.  But I see everything all connected, like a huge spider web covered in dew, the cranky spider scowling in a corner, saying, "Don't fuck with my web."

How could I change one thing without changing everything?  I know it's a thought experiment.  I'm trying to learn from my mistakes and see what I could have done better, so I can feel ok about the future.  I should forget about the spider.

The good and bad is all mixed together.  I might have a better idea in a few years.  I can curse the day I met someone.  But really, I needed certain things they gave me, which is why I jumped into it in the first place.

I really have no idea, what I should have done differently.  Maybe I need some special past-glasses.  Hindsight seems like I'm legally blind, honestly.

This morning I was lying in bed, crying-scared of my own feelings, the vulnerability and trusting people.  Loving people.  I was touching my own arms and telling myself, "You're ok.  Your feelings are ok.  I trust you.  I trust your feelings--you're good."

I was listening to me say these things to me, and having a hard time believing myself, honestly.  I've led myself down some really shady paths.  I'm talking maximum shady.  I'm telling you--the trees were thick and curved all the way over the path menacingly.  It was a very scary path tunnel in the dark.  The moonlight was not really getting thru.

I want to say my mistakes were learning experiences, I'm glad for what I learned, and I'm stronger now.  Lots of optimistic cliches.

But can I trust myself, with myself?  I guess I don't really have a choice.

I was trying to explain to a stranger on a zoom, the other day, how if you have a fault, you can embrace your fault and it can be your strength.  I'm really into how the problem is the solution.  Two sides of a coin.

If you're really bad at tense, in stories, then write stories where flashbacks and regular time are all mixed together, and make it a lovely feature, rather than a flaw, right?  Become the queen of that.  Be the expert on messing up the tense, until there's a wikipedia article about mixing up tense that cites you.

If I am too emotional and make weird choices and get in to trouble too much, could that be my feature?  Maybe I can say that's me, it's ok, apologize a lot afterward, to everyone who watched me drag myself thru the mud, and start over.

Another strength I have is my resilient naivety.   Or naive resilience.

Well, sorry to everyone who's watched me drag myself thru the mud.  Thank you for forgiving me and smiling appreciatively afterward.

my response to naysayers and other problems

Some people want to say I'm not a competent person, or not capable of competence, or trustworthy competence.  I hear voices, have big moods, and was told most of my life that I was bad and wrong--my feelings, needs, and entire self were bad and wrong.  So I have a lot of work to do, to be well and happy, but so does everyone, right?

Maybe you were teased for being too fat or thin.  Harassed sexually or violated.   Getting racism against you, or being sabotaged because you were queer.  Neglected, abused.   Lots of people being mean to you somehow.

Or maybe it was capitalism, patriarchy, a prison system took away someone you needed, or took away you.  Maybe bad psychiatrists said you would never get better, and you lost faith for a while.  I don't know what specifically happened to hurt you, reader.  But who escapes it?  Nobody!

I lost faith and had some hard times.  I had a lot of work to do, teaching myself I'm ok.  It takes effort to correct all the incorrect. 

When I was little, I couldn't say no very well.  As a fully-grown adult, I have choices about what I believe about myself and the world.  I can throw out my old coping strategies I don't need anymore.

Capitalism still hurts me, and patriarchy, and some racism that lingers, even though I turned out white, that affected my mom and her mom, who were Mexican-American and got really unfortunate doses of pesticides and pollution and were treated as not valuable. 

I have systemic stuff hurting me, but I can make a life where no individual abuses me.  Thank Mother God for that.  And Ming on my side, helping me see the world well and make good choices.

I have a few life missions--one of them is demonstrating that someone who hears voices, has big feelings, and was told longterm that they were bad and wrong can create a happy life and be helpful to the world. 

I like being an example of deep okayness.  I hope I can help anyone see a good life is possible, even if a psychiatrist says you'll never have one--I was told all I could do was take the pills and try to stay out of the hospital, but I found something much better than subsisting.

I'm talking about all this because I can get confused when people portray me as incompetent, stupid, or not worth anything.  For a long time, I took that in and believed it.  So I have to actively tell myself all that's not true, especially when I'm hurting because part of me is still vulnerable.

Anxiety is my old friend, and I have a lot of ways to work with her and calm her down.  I've known depression a long time too, and in order to survive, I learned some tricks.  Mania is a bear, but I love her and all I've learned while awake in the middle of the night, experiencing a different way of being.  Creativity, a looseness, some weird lessons I learned and can take with me wherever I go, to a more stable time.

Some people pay a lot of money for drugs to help them have different interesting experiences, but I get all of that for free.  When I was in the hospital and saw Jaguar when I almost died, that was special to me, and no one can take that away.

I guess what I'm trying to say is--I'm good.  Last summer I was with Ming in Sacramento, passing through while traveling, and I was lying on the couch in my friend's living room, when Mother God came to me to tell me she loved me, was always looking out for me, and would love me wherever I was, on this side and the other.  She said, "I've loved and watched over you your whole life--do you really think I would ever stop?"  I realized death would be ok.  I was really scared of dying then.

I didn't know what to think of that experience--I had spent a lot of time with God in different ways, but she'd never spoken to me in words like that, so clearly.  It didn't feel crazy--it felt regular and super trustworthy.   I can't remember if I blogged about this before.  Maybe it was too personal.

I couldn't think of a better thing for God to tell me--if I had scripted it, I couldn't have chosen something better.  God told me exactly the most comforting possible thing, and she even said it in a way that was easy for me to take in, a caring question.

Well, if you got this far, you deserve an award, reader.  I guess the natural consequence of your reading this far is you get the last paragraph.  I wish I had an Easter egg hidden here for you.  I guess I could say I love you and am always on your side.

so do what you can to anoint my head

Years ago, I was struggling with faith.  I had no faith in God or myself.  What was the bigger problem?  Honestly, they were the same problem.  They looked like two, but they were one.  Or so related, they might as well have been one.

It resolved when I healed myself and got faith in God again and myself.  Wow, feels way better.  How did I even live, without those.

Atheism was so detached, for me.  Rather than risk being poisoned, I wouldn't eat at all.  I was starving myself to keep myself safe.  But there is no safety.

I was a skeleton walking around, with a big thumping heart pushing out against my ribs, glowing inside my withered see-thru body.  Finally I took some little bites of belief, and I started to heal from the fear.  And now I'm fat and happy, the healed lady you see today.

Lately, I have a new problem.  Not sure it's as big--time will tell.  I get really angry, and I hate on whoever pissed me off, or people in general.  I lie in bed crying with anger, and I realize--what I really hate is myself.  I get super anti-humanity.  But we're all one.

I'm like at the end of an episode of Scooby Doo.  I pull the mask off the failed monster villain, asking, "Who really is this monster?"  As the mask comes off, I see the monster is me.  The white cartoon guy pulling off the mask is me, the discouraged chagrined fake monster is me, the overly surprised cartoon spectators are me.  The kid at home sitting on the carpet by herself, watching tv, is me also.

It's like a dream--I'm the guy who's going to swim in too-cold water, I'm the water, I'm the bridge he's going to get stuck under, I'm the lady he tries to kiss before he goes, I'm the kiss that never happened, I'm the one worrying he'll die in the too-cold water, and the bird watching, perched on the street light.  I'm the middle-aged woman in her bed, sleeping beside Ming, who gives a little sleep-murmur.

So I think I have a huge project--I need to stop hating people.  It's like learning to eat again, re-finding Mother God and learning to have faith in myself.  It looks impossible from here.  But probably I could do it.

What do you think?  Maybe I should start by forgiving my dad.

being the Mexican grandma I somehow am

I made some enchiladas yesterday.  It's our new Easter tradition.  I wore an apron so I wouldn't get sauce on my new SQL dress. 

I felt like a Mexican grandma.  I like how I skipped being a mom and went straight to being a grandma, in my imagination.

I think this photo is about olives.  It's called Olives Rule the World.  Olives rules, capers drool!

I told Ming the story of my apron--my mom made it for me many years ago, with some leftover fabric from some other aprons we were making for Christmas.  I guess I have two aprons--this one, and one my friend J gave me which is a bit ruffley and femmey.

Been thinking about grandmaness.  God, I love grandmas.   Been thinking so much about family, chosen family, relationships in general, how to be who I am.  Too muchness.  Laura-Marie's special too muchness.



I told Ming yesterday, that Sufjan Stevens song I posted yesterday, Pittsfield--it was my favorite Sufjan Stevens song for a while.   It's about healing--not being afraid of a relative anymore.  "I never hear anyone talk about being afraid of a relative, besides me and Sufjan Stevens," I said to Ming.

Lotsa things nobody's talking about.  I hear about family love, connection, mild comedic conflict, hatred, hardcore conflict.  But fear, not as much.  And healing from that fear, almost never. 

That noisy part at the end, Ming objected to it yesterday.  I think it annoyed him at a time he didn't want to be annoyed.  He normally doesn't react much to music.  He gave me a look like, You gotta be kidding me. 

"It's how Sufjan expresses his anger," I said to Ming, by way of apology.  "It resolves."  Then it resolved.

we can fix our own meals, we can wash our own hair

I laid out half of my new zine yesterday morning.  It was so emotional.  I was folding.  I was crumbling like an old cookie.  It was six in the morning, and I was running out of spoons.  Bad idea.

I finished laying it out this morning.  Then we went for an Easter bike ride.  We encountered zero bunnies or eggs.  I heard roosters crow. 

We encountered two loose dogs.  At first they ignored us.  Then they faced us and barked, showing us they were boss.  I pedaled away as Ming engaged them.  I thought Ming was saving me.  I wondered what was happening to him.

Then Ming pedaled up behind me, and I realized the dogs were just playin'.  Having dog fun.  We were ok.  Thank god.  But I forgot to eat breakfast, so we didn't ride as long as I wanted to.

I planted a sprig of chocolate mint I filched then put in water until it rooted.  I feel good about it.  I want to plant some seeds too.

I felt guilty for mentioning God.  So many people have been harmed by religion or religious people and/or are smugly atheist.  I don't want to hurt them.

I see God as Mother and haven't done Christianity since I was a kid.  But when I mention God, Christianity is what people go to, especially if they don't know me well.

I would struggle not to mention God, but what if I want to speak from my body, speak my whole truth?  My truth is god.  I was prioritizing what I thought other people wanted to hear over what I need to say.

So I'm going to try mentioning God more.  I hope you don't mind.  I don't think it'll affect my writing much.  I mean more in person.

This dress has SQL on it.  What do you think?  I would do me!  I feel really good being who I am, lately.  Really, really good.  You have no idea.

I filled out a form, and it asked for a title, by where I signed my name.  I didn't know what to put--I considered Mx and "self-healing witch."  I thought they wouldn't appreciate either. 

(Later I realized I wasn't supposed to sign there--the worker was, maybe, who was interviewing me, but it's covid time, so we're using the mail.)

I'm pretty Mx-y for a cis lady.  Hmm.  I didn't even consider Ms.  And you will know her by the honorific she uses.  Not by the breasts she bears.

I was quoting Shakespeare this morning to Ming--why was that.  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and if they prick us, do we not bleed?  They're kind of the same, though very different plays. 

But roses have thorns, which are pricky, and this blog post is getting a little dissolving into noise, like a favorite Sufjan Stevens song.  But then sometimes he returns to clarity at the very end also.



Oh yeah, we were talking about brassicas.  He wanted to know if the brassicas we got from P were kale or what. 

I told him, it doesn't matter what we call them.  They taste cabbage-y and delicious.  Then the Shakespeare.  "Your walking stick kale and tree collards--they were all the same thing.  You were saying they were different, but you were mistaken.  Big time."

"They're a lot more tender than I thought they would be," Ming said.

"Yeah, sounds like P," I said.  "He's way more tender than he looks."