Closet Cases

Everybody in DC knows this: There is this closeted gay mafia, largely Republican, that exists in Washington, and everybody knows every single one of them, who's gay.
~ Hunter Biden

The Pentagon issued new “guidance” late last week. There’s going to be mandatory testosterone deficiency screenings for male active-duty and reserve service members over the age of 30. Man, Kegseth sure is extra special concerned that all his G.I. Joe action heroes have the correct chemical and biologic makeup

“The Defense Health Agency (DHA) said the provider will document the presence or absence of each of the symptoms, along with risk factors. 

Symptoms include erectile dysfunction, reduced sexual desire, unexplained loss of muscle mass or gain in fat, depressed mood, low motivation, disturbed sleep, impaired concentration or memory, diminished physical performance or endurance not correlated with injury and loss of spontaneous morning erections.” (source) 

Loss of morning wood is a top Pentagon concern, yes sir! NOW we're talkin' 'bout serious matters!

Secretary of War Crimes is freakishly concerned about service member’s willies isn’t he? Next thing you know he’ll be breaking out tape measures. If your hard-on's under 6” there's a dishonorable discharge waiting for you, soldier!

Then there’s his whole waist-to-height ratio mandate fetish.

The Pentagon is reportedly requiring troops to meet waist-to-height requirements and exhibit “impeccable” grooming standards to attend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “State of the Force” address later this month.

The Wall Street Journal published a report Tuesday, quoting emails from the Pentagon to Army commanders…(source) 

Dude has some serious kinks that he either needs to work out, inpatient, with a team of qualified professionals (who were NOT appointed or selected by Trump) OR he needs to just give it all up, go wild and become the naughty rent boy he’s clearly always wanted to be.

Another thought – perhaps Petey had a truly empty, unloved, and/or traumatic childhood. He may be horrifically and misguidedly attempting to recreate a childhood he never had. He sees the military as a combination of a Build-A-Bear Workshop, G.I. Joe plastic toy soldiers, the board game Battleship. 

Drydrunk Petey doesn’t give a fuck about the health of women in the military. Considering his weird, sexualized attention to men, being ignored is a good thing, eh? To Kegger’s warped and closeted mind women shouldn’t exist except on barstools, hotel rooms or in brothels where he’s only vaguely aware of them through his bleary vodka martini haze.

Speaking of naughty … or maybe I mean sleazy.

Lauren Handsy Boebert (R-the stupid part of CO) engaged in sexual relationships with three of her Congressional staffers. She broke two workplace generally accepted smart practices THREE times (that we know of).

1. Don’t date your co-workers.
2. Do NOT EVER date someone who works for you!

Okay, we’ve probably all violated that first one. Hell, The Amazing Bob was a co-worker and then I poached him to work in my department. So yeah, I’m guilty as the dickens. I dated a couple other co-workers too. I suppose you could say I learn by making mistakes.

The thing about Handsy Lauren that’s new is that two of her three playmates were women. The three with bad taste in affair partners are former District Director Clarice Navarro Ratzlaff, District Chief of Staff Raven Finegan and former Chief of Staff Jeffrey Small. 

Word is, she paid Clarice, who was fired without being given reason why, $200Gs to keep quiet about their affair. Well now, that didn’t work so well, did it?

I wonder how Raven and Clarice feel about Boebert’s very public history of opposing LBGTQ+ rights and spreading ridiculous lies and Republican scare tactics like “drag events “sexualize” children.” I wonder what they think of Handsy’s hilarious (to me) and hysterical denials. The woman lies like a toddler – mouth smeared with chocolate, crumbs dropping of her chin. She's claiming "no mum, I haven't eaten any of the cake you made for the neighbors!"

"Well, I'm not a lesbian or bisexual, and I have never, ever been in any inappropriate relationship, nor have I ever been sexually involved with any staff," Boebert told Brufke, a former Daily Beast reporter. (source) 

We all know Handsy, like her hero Prez Pedo, has a Godzilla-esque struggles with the truth but that’s par for the course in the closeted GOP.

The Land of Nod

Do not … lemme just repeat that for everyone, DO NOT schedule your COVID and flu shots for the same day! 

Ten and I felt fine immediately afterward. By Tuesday evening we were beginning to feel a bit fatigued. Wednesday? Forgetaboutit! We slept most of the day yesterday and I slept TWELVE straight hours last night. I feel mostly better this morning (though I haven’t attempted intense ablutions or exercise yet so who knows) but Ten still feels like refried crap. He, however, had a third shot so he’s probably a day behind me in terms of recovery.

This will all be worth it when we don’t catch COVID or the flu from some brainless, Republican, anti-vaxxer moron. YES, they exist here in Massachusetts too. Sadly.

I learned a few things in my brief episodes of wakefulness yesterday.

One – Krazy Kash is down with bestiality. He want sheep and cow fuckers as FBI agents and he’s gonna do everything he can to make that happen. He performed Olympic level linguistic acrobatics, saying “did not want to punish victims of bestiality” by denying them entry to the FBI. 

Ummmmmm, someone who’s raped a sheep, dog, cow or whatever is MOST DEF NOT the victim, you disingenuous little puke!

Even Republican Senator John Kennedy (AKA Foghorn Leghorn) astoundedly asked, “What planet did you parachute in from?”

Two – ALL Ed Sheeran’s opening acts dropped out in solidarity with the rapper Macklemore and the people of Palestine. On top of that, Sheeran’s backing band, Beoga, has also quit. 

OUCH! That’s gotta hurt.

Also you’d think young Ed would’ve seen this coming. Beoga are founding members of Irish Artists for Palestine. But no. He’s sided with Robert fucking Kraft and the rest of the NFL owning oligarchs.

Three – Kegseth seems to actually be on the ropes which is why vacation-happy Mike Johnson called another House recess until the midterm elections. This one will be seven weeks long, running from yesterday, September 16, until November 9. Must be ultra sweet to have a gig with a base pay (for regular Joe house reps) of $174,000 and only work 119 days (projected – so far it’s just 72 days) out of the year. Us normal U.S. type folk? We work somewhere around 230 days if we’re lucky. 

Why did Mini-dick Mikey call the recess? Because GOP Rep. Thomas Massie introduced a privileged resolution (“privileged” means it’s designed to bypass leadership and compel a floor vote) to impeach Secretary of War Crimes Hegseth over the utterly fucked up war in Iran and his other heinous actions.

So, what have I learned after, essentially, sleeping for 24 hours?

• Someone, at some point should honestly check Krazy Kash’s hard drive. That man must have some insane porn in a, probably, not well hidden folder.

• Rich people stick together at the expense of the poor (ESPECIALLY if the poor rock a darker skin tone) but I knew that already. Yes Eddy, I’m talkin about you and your buddy Bob Kraft.

• It’s amazing that Mike Johnson is able to walk given that he had his spine surgically removed. Maybe he never had one to begin with?

I think I’m gonna go back to Snooze Land for another 24. Ya know, just to be safe.

Stuck In My Head

Okay, four days later and I’m still on this song. I’ve got bones to pick with those first two lines though.

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why
~ The Youngbloods, Get Together 

Love is but a song we sing

I don’t know what Chet Powers (AKA Dino Valenti) meant when he wrote this line but, to me, it comes off like he’s saying love is some ephemeral wisp of a thing. No, no man. I got to disagree. Love is some heavy duty, bullet proof, muscular shit. Sure, sure, there’s the hearts, flowers, and dreamy frosting-like delirium but that’s really the least of it. Honest!

 Love is The Amazing Bob, Jen, Celeste, and Oni sitting with me in the pre-op cubby before I was wheeled down to one of my big-ass brain surgeries. We were laughing, cracking wise with the dark humor. TAB was stashing boxes of rubber(?) gloves into his backpack for me for later (I was the glaze chemist and mixer at a group ceramics studio back then. Gotta glove up before handling that toxic shit and it costs!) He (57) and I (40) were giggling like little rugrats over what us sneaky kids were getting away with.

It was 6AM and surgery would last at least 12 hours. Coming out with hearing was unlikely (but, that one last time, I beat the odds).

Love is sitting with TAB in his hospital room during the last couple days of his life, talking baseball, with a boombox playing Monk and Miles in the background. TAB was hallucinating that he was on a pitcher's mound. I followed his focus to the far side of the room where the batter was prepping at home plate waiting for the next pitch. I asked TAB if he was going for his knuckleball or if he was just gonna throw heat. We talked about the batter – what they might expect. In hospital room world, TAB was nearing the end. On TAB's baseball field though, he was still in the game and the very least I could do was stay with him until the last out.

Love is Ten being here for me every damn day, helping me walk up the stairs, get into the car, changing the sheets on the bed twice a day when poor Cake had a UTI, doing endless laundry, and, worst of all, driving me to all my doctor appointments through always awful Boston traffic. Ten makes me laugh and laughs when I crack wise. The man’s a fucking saint, I tell you! Also, he knows a lot about rocks, geologic shit, and climate stuff – I like that in a man.

Love isn’t all great sex and the completeness you feel when that person's near. It’s handling what life throws you with your best friend(s) by your side.

The song’s next line:

Fear's the way we die

Much more than that – caving to fear is the way we die.

When I’m afraid, (which, let’s face it, is a daily happening) I think, what’s the worst possible outcome. Is there anything I can do to prevent or mitigate this worst thing from happening? If yes, what’s that look like and let’s be creative, fer fuck's sake. If no, I figure I’ll just have to see how things roll out and go from there. Scary but I don't see a lot of other options on the damn menu.

Certainly my surgeries scare me. I try not to live in the fear zone. It doesn’t help — anxiety serves no purpose so I stuff it away somewhere, somehow. I suppose it leaks out in other places — being short tempered, hyper critical, easily fatigued, excessively snackish. 

//shrugs// Chips, guac, grilled brussels sprouts, salsa, cake, and cookies were invented for a damn good reason, ya know! If I believed in gods, I would consider carrot cake from Fratelli's bakery proof thereof. (Yes, I just had some leftover birthday cake for breakfast!)

Life is scary. It's also relentlessly pissing me clean off. This whole planet is just plain nuts. I’m talking about people – they’re strange and frightening.

People are strange
When you're a stranger
Faces look ugly
When you're alone
~ The Doors, People Are Strange 

Caving to fear is how we begin to die.

Ten Years After

TAB in his current incarnation*

It was 10 years ago this evening — 6:15 to be precise — that The Amazing Bob shuffled off this mortal coil. He had been in a second battle with cancer — mantle cell lymphoma — and the forecast was not looking bright at all, when acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) opportunistically came in and cut him off at the … well … lungs.

Me and TAB on his last birthday

When we was young

 As I wrote two weeks afterwards, I am and was so damn lucky. Jen, Oni and Celeste (my sister) were with me on TAB’s last afternoon. Jen and I had actually gone in at zero dark 30. The nurses had called her (couldn’t phone me because I’m all deaf and shit … remember?) saying that TAB was spiraling down and might only have a few hours left. We zoomed in.

Later, all together, after he was no longer conscious, we watched TAB’s life signs on the monitor like it was the Green Monster scoreboard at Fenway.

I’m stunned that 10 years have passed. So much has happened in this decade.

I met Ten through this here blog. He helped me, supported and consoled me in my grief. He did this from 3,000 miles away. We fell in love. Seven years later we’re still in love. Neat, huh?

I find this pretty amazing actually. Even when I’m healthy I’m a goddamn handful and I haven't been in the general neighborhood of good health in over six years.

I mean, look at this — over the past six-seven years I’ve had three brain surgeries (one which robbed me of the use of my left leg but, HAH, I stole it back!), three spine surgeries, proton radiation, some vision threatening eye issues, a metric fuck-ton of rehab (both in and outpatient), and I’m still getting used to having to use a rollator to get around. Also, compression socks. WHAT the fucking fuck!

Welcome to Valhalla, grab a hard hat and some steel toe boots!

Other big events over the past 10 years? My MOST awesome father checked out of the Hotel Life five years after TAB. Fellow NF2 warrior Felicity Lingle lost her battle and, just this past September, so did Michie O’Day. Grief and survivor guilt much?

As you all know, and as my dearly departed father accurately but unintentionally offensively called it, I have the soul of a fucking cheerleader. That is, I seem to always be looking for an upside, a glimmer of light in the gloaming, an excuse to feel hopeful or at peace. 

            //shrugs// Go me, eh?

The down side of TAB dying is that TAB fucking died! He was in a lot of pain; in just awful, uncomfortable shape, and he knew his prognosis was shit. Of course that’s the downside! Motherfucking cancer was on him hard. The docs said he had, at most, six months left. ARDS just got to him first. 

The “upsides” of TAB checking out are:

• He was done with all that unavoidable pain, misery, and wild discomfort.
• He didn’t have to see our former feral rescue Rocco (at left) die, the year after him.
• He didn’t have to see our sweet baby Coco (at right) succumb to cancer just a couple of years after him.
• He never had to see Trump elected or inaugurated or the Republican Party’s destruction of this country.

Grief isn’t linear. It doesn’t have a fixed progression and end point. Life — humans — don’t generally work that way. Today I’m going to attempt to feel all the feels. If I don’t greet and experience them now they’ll just come out later in some unfortunate way. e.g. me snapping at a loved one for no good reason or me biting the head off an innocent stranger for the crime of, dunno, not reading my mind OR me not paying enough attention to where I'm walking (because I’m cranky and unhappy) and reinjuring my foot.

I believe this day of self reflection and care  might require ice cream, margaritas, and snacks that are not necessarily healthy and that’s okay. Possibly I’ll need to add in an episode of Buffy and a few chapters of the latest Murderbot.

You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp. 
~ Anne Lamott

* We mixed TAB's ashes into the roots of the cherry tree we planted in his memory. The idea was that, as in life, he would continue to feed the neighborhood birds and other passing wildlife.

Wildlife

Unelected billionaire real estate rip-off artists Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are on their way to Pakistan ‘negotiate” an end to the war. It’s unclear whether Iran will even be there – I mean, why would they bother? Pedo changes his mind every other minute. Top of the hour he’s proclaiming that he alone has secured a glorious peace deal (including loads of unagreed upon horseshit) and then, at half past, when called out on said smelly horse piles, he bangs on about how he’ll rain down terror and destruction the likes Iran has never seen before and blah, blah, blah…again, ad infinitum.

His script is old and hackneyed. He needs fresh writers. Or to just go the fuck away. Yeah, I like that option best.

‘Diplomacy is not closed’ between Iran and US: Al Jazeera’s Almigdad Alruhaid reports from Tehran said that no talks are planned in Islamabad for now, though diplomatic efforts continue, with Araghchi touring regional capitals as Pakistan mediates. (source) 

Good news – one of those idiot, dickless wonder, millionaires who gets his rocks off by killing animals and hanging their heads on his wall has died a horrifying (for him) and painful death. He was trampled while on the hunt. The herd that mowed him down included five female elephants and a calf. Score one for the matriarchy.

The NOT dearly departed predator's sick hobby was gutless, primitive, and disgusting. It totally gives severe, small schwanzed, deep-seated insecurity that, I'd think, would necessitate intensive inpatient psychotherapy.

Ernie Dosio, a 75-year-old vineyard owner from California, was killed while hunting in Gabon’s Lope-Okanda rainforest, according to reports. Dosio had reportedly been stalking a yellow-backed duiker, a small forest antelope, when the group came across the elephants. (source) 

The question we all have is, are the elephants feet okay? I mean, they stepped in some seriously toxic shit. I hope they were able to wash it off quickly.

Bird of the day

The Secretarybird was Sex in the City WAY before that was a thing. This ultra chic bird looks like they could have been strutting down 5th Avenue in the mid ‘60s making everyone ooh and ahh. Okay, they probably don’t get to Manhattan too often – their scene is mostly Senegal and Somalia. Better weather there and shit. 

Like any New Yorker though, Secretarybirds have NO problems getting their steps in. They walk anywhere from 12 to 18 miles every damn day! Another New Yorker similarity, they enjoy a wide variety of fine dining options. These raptors are culinary adventurers.

…the Secretarybird will eat just about anything it can catch. It preys on small- to medium-sized mammals such as mice, hedgehogs and hares. It eats other birds and their eggs, too! It will catch amphibians and various invertebrates, including insects, scorpions, millipedes, and crabs. Secretarybirds also eat snakes, including several venomous species, such as puff adders and cobras, and other reptiles, such as lizards and small tortoises. (source) 

In ya win some, ya lose some news :

Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed that he received successful treatment for early-stage prostate cancer, without specifying when the treatment took place. (source) 

I’m only asking – why don’t these hateful, destructive, genocidal, old men fucking die? The Amazing Bob was only 74 when he clocked out and he was a spectacularly good human.

Another interesting bird – the guineafowl. They’re also walkers and get in about six miles a day. Yes, these birds are now my role models. Apparently they make good alarm systems for the home as, when disturbed, they make quite the big-ass loud fuss.

Also, they look like they were headmistresses of very strict Victorian era girls boarding schools. Intimidating yet stunning.

Escape

As you may recall, I’m not much of a teevee watcher BUT I’m utterly hooked on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and I'm wicked sad that we only have four episodes left until the end 😢. The last time I was this obsessed with a show was when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on.

I mean, please recall: it was the late ‘90s, I was being wheeled away to spine surgery – the one where I was given 50/50 odds of coming out with zero use of or feeling in any part of my body from the tits down. I knew this was going to be an epic, marathon operation. I was sedated but still awake enough to speak. Before the orderlies rolled me out, I turned my head to The Amazing Bob and Jen and said, “don’t forget to tape Buffy.”

First words to Jen on coming out of anesthesia in recovery? “Did you tape Buffy?” I had my priorities in order and shit!

Nicholas Brendon, the actor who played Xander on Buffy, died on March 20th in Greencastle, Indiana. I only just found out. He was 54. Practically a kid. Brendon had a heart defect and spine issues (cauda equina syndrome – necessitating several surgeries), but mostly his body was damaged from years of heavy alcohol and drug abuse.

Apparently, unlike his goofy but caring, stalwart, supportive, good guy Xander character on Buffy, Brendon was a violent, abusive twat. He was busted in 2015 for strangling his girlfriend in a Saratoga Springs, New York hotel room. He was arrested two years later for assaulting another girlfriend at a hotel bar in Palm Springs, California. 

There’s also the little matter of his grand theft, criminal mischief, robbery, and other assorted charges.

I wonder why he chose to move to Putnam County, Indiana of all places. He was born and raised in Southern California. What’s the draw of Indiana? I mean, I lived in the state for a couple of years as a kid (HATED it). We were only there because Daddy was getting his doctorate at the university in Bloomington.

Supposedly Brendon wanted to get away from the Hollywood grind to focus on his mental health. That line sounds like it covers lots of subtext, as in I’ve burned my very last bridge in California and I’ve got to get to a place where no one knows who I really am and what I've done.

Reports also say that he wanted to get away to paint. You can’t do that in LA? His family claims he was selling his art online but there are more than a few people who claim to have never received the paintings they paid for. Eh, who knows.

It came out at some point that, when he was 10-years-old, he’d been sexually abused by a teacher.

"I think about it every day of my life and I wonder how it affected me. Did I stop growing emotionally?" he added. "When you're molested for a couple years and you're blamed for it by the people who are supposed to be your protectors, there's going to be a lot of confusion and a lot of sadness.” (source) 

Jesus. Child abusers and their enablers really need to be exposed, harassed, stripped of all their assets, and unmercifully put down. 

What an awful, ugly mess.

Caturday

First – It's Caturday. All hail our feline overlords.

Second – I found a white hair on my head yesterday. Huh. This is a first. Sure, I’m an old broad and a bit slow to the realm of silver manes. //shrugs// What can I say, I got a genetic package deal from mia madre – big boobs, small waist, very late greying, and a brain and spine full of tumors. Lucky me, eh? Also, at the rate I’m going, I’ll be fish food before I’ve attained a proper white crown.  *sigh*

Third – If The Amazing Bob had survived the slings and arrows of outrageous health, he would be turning 83 years-old today. I raise my glass to TAB’s amused, absurdist, untamed, accepting, supportive, free-range soul.

Fourth – While you can’t necessarily believe everything you see on the internet (DUH!), it would be reckless (wouldn't it?) to fail to consider all possibilities. Right?!

I mean, just yesterday I read that Renee Good’s murderer, Jonathan Ross had a Grindr page – deleted just a couple days ago. You know Grindr? It’s the gay dating app that crashes whenever a lot of Republicans are in town. The app itself referred to the Republican National Convention as the Grindr Super Bowl.

US Republicans with headless and blank profile images are crashing Grindr as they look to hook up! Yes, despite the obvious jokes and that the behaviour is totally at odds with the Republican anti-queer agenda, attendees seem to love spending their time at conventions looking for a bit of fun.
~~~
Data showed that there was a 166% increase in Grindr activity during the US Republican National Convention, underscoring the contradiction between the RNC’s public anti-LGBTQ+ stance and the private behaviours of attendees.
~~~
Reports of the Grindr app crashing increased by more than 90% during republican events, according to Downdetector, a digital platform that tracks service issues among apps. (source)

Unsurprisingly, Grindr also went down during Charlie Kirk’s Memorial extravaganza in Phoenix.

The murderer’s wife is a Filipino immigrant. This Daily Mail article says that both her parents are doctors so she wasn't some poor, desperate mail-order bride type who only hooked up with Ross to get out of the depths of poverty. Who knows what her situation is/was though. Maybe she’s self-hating and has no self-identity OR maybe she’s just a fellow asshole like Melania and Usha? I wonder if he threatens to deport her every time they have an argument.

The post dispassionately describes Ross as a solid red MAGAt, which will come as a revelation to absolutely no one. This is the violent, orange pedophile worshipping, willfully ignorant, entitled motherfucker who coldly, inhumanly shot a fellow human three times, IN THE FACE for no fucking reason. He blew her brains out, called her dying body a “fucking bitch” and calmly walked away. 

Noem. Vance, and Trump  continue to spout ridiculous lies and there’s precious little, if any, pushback, from the mainstream media. WE’VE ALL SEEN THE VIDEOS! There’s nothing there to absolve him. He’s a stone cold murderer and our government is protecting him. 

The murderer Jonathan Ross and his family are now in a safe house somewhere. It’s a jail of his own making. I hope he's in it for the rest of his damned life.

Rebecca Good, meanwhile, published a statement saying: “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns. We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine.

“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.” (source) 

Random Bits

I only mention it but our lovely ancestors, the Stegosaurus, died off 150 million years ago. They went extinct 84 million years before Tyrannosaurus even began hangin' 'round down the local pub.

Our buddies, the Tyrannosaurus rex, as a species, took the last train for the coast a measly 66 million years ago. 

What am I saying here? You and me? We’re closer in time to the T-Rex than the T-Rex were to the Stegosaurus. Huh.

There ya go, something you may not have known unless you have dino obsessed kindergarteners.
~~~
Six of the nine Allston Car Wash workers who were kidnapped by ICE thugs earlier this month, have been granted bail. A Chelmsford, MA immigration judge ordered three more workers to be freed at a hearing on Thursday. 

At least one of the arrested workers is a U.S. citizen and all had proper work permits too. ICE isn’t what anyone would consider diligently accurate, exact or in any way competent in their work habits. Fuckers. They’re all low watt, violence prone, racist, failures who’d only benefit this world by leaving it.

What’s up up with the the profoundly asinine, head-up-his-ass, loser who thought he would be hailed as a real MAGA hero for repeatedly calling the ICE tip line on brown car wash workers? Anchor baby Zac Segal (supposedly born in Florida to British parents and raised in England) is still enrolled at Boston University and still president of their little College Republicans club. He’s not terribly popular though – not even with his fellow Republicans.

The women of the Boston University College Republicans have since condemned Segal’s actions and called for his removal from office.

“We will no longer affiliate with BUCR until an apology is issued and new leadership is provided,” they wrote in a statement obtained by student newspaper The Daily Free Press. (source) 

I don’t think little Zac’s gonna be getting lucky anytime soon – at least not in Boston. Maybe he’d have better luck in Florida, Utah, or Texas. The universities aren’t as good but the politics would be more in line with his microscopic, bigoted brain.

~~~
Did you know – Michael Douglas is still around. He’s still hot too. Yes, I know, I know…he’s 81 years old now. He’s old but I’m not so much younger  (ok, 14 years. For perspective, The Amazing Bob was 17 years older than me and he was a flat out stunning motherfucker to the very end). 

ANYWAY, Jen, Oni and I have just started watching the show The Kominsky Method.

Acting coach Sandy Kominsky and best friend Norman Newlander keep each other laughing as they navigate the ups and downs of getting older. (source) 

Douglas plays Kominsky, the acting coach and Alan Arkin plays his agent, Norman Newlander. I absolutely LOVE their relationship. It reminds me so much of me and Jen.

When Norman tells Sandy he didn’t get a sitcom part he went for, “but they say they’ll keep you in mind for a recurring role or a cameo”, Sandy tells him not to sugarcoat things. “I’m not sugarcoating,” Norman says. “I’m lying.” (source) 

Yes, this is how we communicate. Also with sign language – i.e., we flip each other the bird on the regular.

Hey, if you can’t tell your bestie to fuck off (with a smile, dammit), what is life REALLY all about? I’m asking you!

A Puzzling Old Coot

I often have dreams about a friend with whom I’d once been very close. He died about six and a half years ago from cancer. He was 67 years old.

Why am I dreaming about Tom now?

Grief √
There’s no set time frame to being sad about a loved one dying. Grief doesn’t happen in discrete units. It comes and goes like the tides only maybe not so regular. I miss him.
 
Coping with memories √

Processing unresolved, complicated emotions √
Oh yeah, babies!

Tom and I had been tight for years – from my early 20s until the year I turned 40. He moved in with his new girlfriend that year and, afterward, I rarely saw him. We began traveling in very different circles and no longer frequented the same bars, clubs, parties or meet once a week for a pint and check-in. Life shifted.

Tom had been like a brother to me. He’s dead and I miss him. I missed him when he disappeared into his girlfriend’s world. Okay, he didn’t really disappear – I just didn’t fit into his new galaxy. It’s complicated and I suppose this is part of why I still have dreams about him. My mind continues to puzzle out what went wrong, why I didn't fit, why we didn’t remain close anyway. I want to turn back time and make everything all better.

Naturally, I’ve completely blamed myself – assumed all fault, figured that it’s my job to repair anything that’s possibly gone wrong. This, by the by, is a deeply ingrained bad habit and is absolute, total bullshit. Where’s it come from? Mia madre. I was the “responsible” child, the stable one. I was expected to step in when mother couldn’t cope or didn’t want to. She seemed to regard me as the family fixer.

OF COURSE I grew up thinking that if I just tried hard enough I could make any situation better. And if I couldn’t? The mess would def be my fault.

One good thing about getting old, I can usually recognize when I’m falling into this self-blame trap and logic myself back to reality.

Bad things about getting old? 

• Compression socks
• There’s too many damn meds to take every damn day
• My friends keep dying
• Reading glasses
• Like Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck 
• My hair was already thin – now, after eight brain surgeries and attaining old coot-dom, I’m THIS close to just shaving my head and painting it purple (with scars in metallic silver).
• My feet seem to have gotten bigger or fatter or something. Goodbye fashionable Vans and slick Vionics. I just bought my first pair of Birkenstocks.

I’m thinking about mourning customs in the Victorian era. For women, the recommended, structured mourning time for a husband was two years, a parent or child – one year, and six months for a sibling. Men were less restricted – widowers mourned for six months or less. They were expected to get back to work to provide for their children and marry, presumably, for the same reason.

Two years after The Amazing Bob shuffled off this mortal coil, I was obscenely lucky enough to meet and spark with Ten. I wonder if Tom’s wife has remarried. No matter what, I hope she’s happy or at the very least secure and content.

Día de los Muertos

Today is the first day of the two day Día de los Muertos holiday. This is a Mexican festivity on which deceased loved ones are honored and remembered. It’s a celebration of life.

Supposedly, if you believe in spirit beings (which I may or may not, depending on my mood, the weather, the state of my chakras, and whether my avocados are ripe on that particular day), the border between the spirit world and our physical world is thin from November first through the second. The souls of the dead come home at this time for a big-ass party. Us oxygen-sucking types honor our temporarily undead, beloved guests by putting out their favorite foods and other offerings at gravesites or on ofrendas – altars set up in our homes.

On my altar this morning? In place of pan de muerto and calavera we have doughnuts because, c’mon, who doesn’t love doughnuts! 

I’m remembering all the times in college when Kevin and I walked down the hill from the art building to the doughnut shop to get Bavarian Cream Donuts (or Cum Buns as he called them. Hey, we were 19. Our senses of humor weren’t exactly evolved at the time! Cut us some slack here). I’m thinking of the frosted and plain old-fashioned I’d get with The Amazing Bob.

The Aztecs and other Nahua peoples living in what is now central Mexico held a cyclical view of the universe and saw death as an integral, ever-present part of life.

Upon dying, a person was believed to travel to Chicunamictlán, the Land of the Dead. Only after getting through nine challenging levels, a journey of several years, could the person’s soul finally reach Mictlán, the final resting place. (source) 

…and, presumably, pick up a dozen fresh doughnuts.

This is also Samhain, which is pronounced “sow-win.” I never would’ve guessed – I will never, ever be able to remember how to properly pronounce Gaelic words. On top of being about the dead coming back for a visit, Samhain is a harvest festival and a welcoming of the darker part of the year. I’m not so sure that I welcome the increased darkness. With my rat bastard NF2 and advanced bloody age, I’m a hell of a fall risk.

Early texts describe Samhain as a mandatory three-day, three-night festival during which people were required to appear before local kings or chieftains. Those who failed to participate risked punishment from the gods, often in the form of illness or death. (source) 

A party that my king says I HAVE to go to? How fucking insecure were these dudes? This is on the same level as Kegseth making all the generals fly in for his inane, weirdo, damaged-dick swinging speech and Trump’s clap or I’ll demote you shtick.  

WHAT were these Celts required to do in their compulsory appearances before their midget dicked rulers?

If I was fabulously wealthy, I believe I would spend Día de los Muertos until April each year in the Southern Hemisphere – specifically, in Uruguay. It’s an ultra civilized country (weed and abortion are legal, marriage equality is law, and they’re a founding member of the UN) and, unlike the US, they’re an actual, solid democracy. Also, they have art, art, and more of it. I’ve never been there before but I’m game for a stay. 

Well, if I had the bucks, that is.

Let's Talk About This Rapture Thing

Gustav Doré, The Last Judgement

So, we’re supposed to have a Rapture this Tuesday or that’s what the Jesus screamers are oh so boldly claiming. One of these god grifters pops up with a predicted all-us-REALLY-special-folk-are-goin'-to-heaven-and-leaving-you-dirtbags-behind date about once a year.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 
~ 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17

So, the dead are the first to go flying? Isn’t that gonna be kind of gross and messy? I mean, for those who’ve been buried, that’s a lot of bones, dried skin, hair, time-shredded clothing, and miscellaneous coffin crap zooming upward. 

What if you’ve had an ugly death? Car crash? Violent murder? Fell off a mountain? Perished from something horrid like necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), neurosyphilis, or leprosy? Wouldn't that be kind of a nasty way to live out forever, even though you'll be in the mega awesome digs of Heaven? I mean, nose falling off, constantly leaking blood and pus? Ewwwww!

What about all the folks who were cremated? If their ashes were scattered or buried, what happens? Take The Amazing Bob fer instance – some of his ashes were scattered and some were buried within the roots of a cheery tree in our yard. He’s part of the tree now and, presumably, the fruit of the tree. Those cherries have been eaten by birdies, squirrels, bunnies and what have you. So, if TAB were to be raptured (and, if this fairy tale comes to pass, why the fuck wouldn’t he be?!) would the cherry tree and a bunch off random wildlife go too? I mean, seems logical, right?

How about folks who’ve been buried at sea? Dead humans in the ocean are just fuel for the ecosystem. Crabs, lobsters, and shrimp usually show up to the banquet early. Hagfish and tiger sharks will join in. Will the Rapturing sky look like an after Sunday church Red Lobster lunch-fest?

I’m not expecting to look like Gina Lollobrigida in the after life but, c’mon, I don’t want to be a talking pile of ash or a shrimp munched pile of animated body parts either.

With all the Rapture scares I’ve lived through, you’d think I’d have won some kind of a prize by now. I mean, fer reals and shit. A set of cookware maybe? Frankly, I don’t even know what that might be. Pots and pans? I don’t cook so that’d be useless. A set of encyclopedias? Naw, I’ve got internet access and the Britannica site isn’t paywalled. Round trip tickets and endless spa days and nights at the Silica Hotel in Iceland? NOW we’re talkin’ baby!

Gotta say, you’d think these christians would know what what their very own sacred book states about this Rapturing business.

Fer instance, in their New Testament book, Matthew 24:36: 

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

But, HEY, why let theological consistency get in the way of a slick scam, eh?

Take a tour through the sewer
Don’t strain your brain
Paint a train
You’ll be singin’ in the rain
I said “Don’t stop, do punk rock”
Rapture – Blondie

Michie O’Day

I signed on to Facebook last night and got some tremendously unhappy news. My friend Michie O’Day has died. She took the last train to the coast on September first.

I suppose this didn’t come as too much of an enormous shock. I hadn’t seen any posts from her since July and, in general, her posts had been pretty sparse over the past few months. I suspected something was up. Still, reading the news was startling and I'm, of fucking course, wicked sad.

Michie and I had an enormous amount in common. We were both painters (Her, traditional landscape. Me, figurative along a German/Austrian expressionist line). We were both wild about recumbent triking. We loved to travel and solo travel was definitely a thing. We were around the same age – just one year apart. 

Into the Wild, Michie O'Day

We both have/had neurofibromatosis type 2 and our manifestations of this rat bastard disease were remarkably similar. In fact, our symptoms, experiences, and surgical histories were more alike than they were with our respective NF2er family members.

In the face of adversity (and Michie and I had/have plenty of that), we were/are obstinately upbeat. Well, she was bright, sunny, and determined to persevere. Me? I’d get pissed – you know, “NO fuckin’ disease is gonna take ME down. FUCK THIS SHIT! I will SO walk again!” Etc. etc. ad nauseam. Point is, we were both persistent bitches.

I think she stopped triking before me. Though her legs still worked, her balance had degraded too much to manage getting up and down from the recumbent trike. Solo triking would have been daunting if not full on impossible.

Why did I stop? The Amazing Bob had just died and I knew that I was too down and distracted to pay proper attention to the road and traffic. I didn’t trust my deaf self OR the careless drivers in their giant SUVs.

I believe Michie and I lost the ability to paint (as we once had anyway) at around the same time. For me, it was primarily due to my essential tremors – I just shake, rattle, and roll too damn much. For her, I believe it was her failing eyesight and the muscle weakness in her hands. She could no longer wield a paintbrush.

Michie at the Portland Museum of Art

Michie was a huge inspiration to me. She was deaf, losing her sight in one eye, and in a wheelchair but was able to thrive while living alone. WOW! I don’t know the specifics of her home arrangements but I know she had a caregiver coming in (medical check-ins? physical therapy? dunno), as well as a house cleaner, and grocery delivery. She had an active social life with dinner parties and days out at museums and restaurants.

She also contributed to this here blog, Tell Me A Story.

In May of 2022 she wrote Living With NF2 where she spoke of our special talent for growing benign tumors in our brain and spinal cord. 

Rather than talk about the surgeries, treatments and medical consequences, I want to share some of what I’ve learned over the past 39 years since diagnosis

Michie and I were/are especially talented tumor growers. Until September first we were both quite good at survival too.

In 2015 she wrote of a solo trip (while deaf and in a wheelchair – Jesus, overachiever much?) that she took to a rocky island off the coast of Newfoundland. While there she painted, did chair yoga, drank gin and tonics, and stared out to sea. I'm just surprised she didn't solve some international crisis while there too. You know, all while sipping her gin and putting the final touch on her latest seascape.

In 2016 she wrote about her beloved hearing service dog, Doc. That year, she also wrote about transitioning to a wheelchair and, generally, needing more daily help.

Michie O’Day was a hero.