Broken Thing Redux

Just a few days shy of two months ago I wrote the Broken Things post. At that point it had been two weeks since the lift chair I use to get in and out of the pool broke with me on it. The chair was finally fixed on Friday and I'll be back in the pool on Monday. Why did it take so long? I don't really know. I don't think it can be said that it wasn't fixed because I'm fat but it can absolutely be said that my weight was being blamed and was going to be used to keep me out of the pool. There's a lot of back story to this and some of what I know came to me through back channels. All I knew was that week after week went by with no swimming. Eventually I contacted a disability rights org and a lawyer sent a letter asking them to make sure the chair would be fixed and that I can return to the pool. I don't know if it was that letter or other things that caused the fix to happen. I know it took twenty minutes or so to fix it. My rage about that fact is fairly overwhelming.
The chair is old and covered with rust. There are parts missing, a head rest, foot rest, movable arm and seat belt. The foot rest means that the chair is out of code and should be replaced. The lawyer raised that point and was told by management that it wasn't possible to replace it. I think the implication was that it was too costly. This from a club that recently bragged on Facebook about the money they've spent to improve their two clubs. My friend saw the broken bolts and said they were covered with rust.
In the response letter the management mentioned that I had been dancing when the chair broke and in the letter sent to tell him that I could come back I was admonished to sit still when on the chair. I usually do. The dancing I was doing was not vigorous. I was sort of kicking my feet and moving my shoulders. When I joined the club I asked if the chair could support my weight. I was told it could. Later I saw a sign about the weight minimum on the chair and it was in fact more than enough for my body. I've been using it for around five years. Even if I was dancing that chair broke because of rusted out bolts and age. Not my weight. Not my dancing.
But what if it was?
There was never any concern expressed about me being on the chair when it broke. There is no apology for the time I spent away from the pool. It wasn't fixed by professionals. I can only hope that it is a good enough fix. And that is just wrong. I should have a chair that I can use with confidence. The fact that I don't reflects a willful disregard for my well being and access to the pool. I think at least some of that is because I'm fat. Even if I didn't exit the club had no access for people with disabilities who needed the chair to use the pool. There is at least one other member, a ninety-three year old woman, who uses it. She had been out of the pool but went back recently and (I was told) had to be carried into the pool.
Willful. Disregard.
I don't need the chair because I'm fat. I need the chair because my knees don't bend easily. But again. If I needed it because I was fat ... shouldn't that be reason enough to fix it?
I've written so many times about my love of swimming. I've written that as long as I can swim and read I'll be happy. I have not been happy. I've been extremely unhappy. Unhappy because I couldn't swim and because of the ... willful disregard.
While all this was happening a friend on Facebook was talking about an event in which she felt something that happened was about her being fat. We never really want to think that. Our not fat friends aren't always sure. They don't want to believe it.

Oh.
But there's more.
My eye doctor has seen signs of macular degeneration in my eyes. I wasn't surprised. My dad had it. A few months ago I noticed distortions in my vision. Lines would wobble. I had a blind spot at night. At my last visit I was tested and was told I would need treatment. The treatment is a shot. In my eye. Two actually. One to numb the eye and then the shot to reduce the inflammation. It's not as bad as it sounds but it's not fun. I've already had two shots and will need to get them for the rest of my life. And I may eventually need them in the left eye as well. My eye responded well to the treatment. No more distortions. I still have the blind spot at night. The doctor said it's about night vision. I'm mostly asleep at night so ... but when I get up to use the bathroom and see that hole in my vision it fills me with fear. I could go blind. I probably won't as  long as I'm getting the shots but the possibility is terrifying.
As long as I can swim ... and read.
There have been a few other things happening. I can't explain why but all of it has sucked the life out of me. I've lost confidence and I haven't made a move to publish the book. Right now I'm not sure I ever will. I need to rebuild something that I can't quite name.
Swimming will feel good. Being at the club won't feel good. There's something about two months to do something that took twenty minutes. I am angry. I am hurt. And I'm not even sure the chair won't break again as soon as I sit on it. I should be sure.
All of this personal stuff happens in the context of the larger political nightmare, which is ... not happy.
I don't even care much about happy. I care about fair. I care about truth.

I'm trying to ... reenter? I've been in my little nest for the better part of the last two months. I do my yoga. My bicycle wheels. My weights. I did all of those thing when I was swimming. I don't even get dressed. I take a shower and put my pajamas back on. Why get dressed? Pajama days are fun. Pajama months are dreary. I've been trolling social media. Clicking a like here and there. I'm going to try to be back in it.
I feel old.
And broken.

Broken Things

I have really beautiful shades in my windows. They are purple. I'm not sure what the material is but it looks like linen. They're made of thick honeycombs so they block light and sound. They are motorized. I can move them up and down with any smart devise, which is fun. It's also new technology and is buggy as hell. I had three different sets originally because of a known bug. One of them was eating batteries so, currently, they are all in the shop getting new motors. Which means I haven't had shades for three days.  It also means that the nest is all torn up because the things that are usually in front of the windows are moved away from them and it doesn't make sense to move them back right away. I didn't think it would take this long.
Two weeks ago the lift chair I use to get in and out of the pool broke as I was getting out. Two of the bolts were rusted out. I don't know why it's taking this long to fix it but I am not swimming. Swimming is good for me in so many ways. Physically, emotionally. It gets me out of the nest. Not being able to swim is miserable. The only reason I haven't been on the floor weeping is because I've been working on the book.
I enjoyed the work. I really like a lot of things about the book. I finished yesterday. Time to figure out self publishing.
And then.
Last night.
I had a full blown panic attack.
I can't even detail the things that were biting at me because they were so global and off the rail. I'd talk myself off the ledge and be on the edge of it moments later. Several times I decided I wasn't going to publish the book. I mean I was ... freaking ...out.
This morning two friends asked where they could buy the book. I calmed down a little bit.
I think not swimming and having the nest be all torn up are destabilizing factors. But who knows. Maybe I would have freaked out no matter what.
So today I am looking into self publishing. After I do as many things as I can to avoid it.
Kidding.
Not.
Sigh.
I just need a bunch of people to come here and pat me until I get this done.
 

The Writing

I have gone through the whole book. Picked and deleted and rearranged. I will be going through it again.
At first I printed things out because I was determined to be done. But as I went through I kept making changes. The beginning has been gone over so many times but even there I made changes when I saw that there was a way to link things as I went along. My current plan is to read the printed text. I feel like it might be different than always reading on the screen.
It just amazes me because I always find mistakes. Like once I left the l out of health. Spell check won't save you from something like that. I remember when I was doing the reading at our MFA group read. The text had been edited by me and many class mates and teachers AND STILL ... there were mistakes. Now I always read out loud because I know things pop out when you do that.
Mostly I'm having fun and I like the book. But some days I feel like it's stupid and futile.
What do I mean by that? I'm not really sure.
The purpose of the book is to create a portrait of a life in a fat body that causes people who aren't fat to see being fat differently. It seems so abstract sometimes. I have had the experience of telling a few stories of  the fat related things that have happened in my life to someone and they are shocked. Shocked by the things that have been said to me in public. Shocked by the things medical professionals have said to me. But the shock wears off. I'm hoping for deeper insight.
It feels like swimming against the tide.
The other goal (and maybe this should be first) is that it be a good read. I have a certain amount of confidence in my writing but when someone doesn't respond well to it I tend to be flattened. Intellectually I know that some people just aren't going to like it and that's no big deal. But emotionally I wobble. Right now I feel extremely needy. Like me. Please like me.
It's just a roller coaster.
Right now ... I'm going to clear off the desk and get to work. Unless clearing off the desk takes too long. Or something distracts me. Or I need a nap.
Sheesh!

Little Story #34

I made it through the little story project month with a few little story posts before it started. It's been ... um ... interesting. Much harder than I thought it was going to be and I thought it was going to be hard. There were a few times when I didn't have any ideas. Then somehow ... miraculously ... I'd start typing. That was affirming.
The reason I did this was to get my writer muscles back so I could rewrite my book. I will (theoretically) self publish and hope to sell enough to pay costs. My aspirations are not too high.
Some of the little stories are in the book. The focus of the book is my experience of being fat and deciding at a fairly young age not to diet. I'm always hoping my writing has an impact on how fat people are seen. But I have friends who make fat jokes, body shame children, valorize thinness when I'm sitting there. I don't want people to not say things in front of me if they really feel them but the fact that I  hear so many same old shit things suggests that my message is not getting through.
Still I feel like I need to make this effort. I need to have the book in my hands.
The little story project gave me a sense of timing. In school I wrote in the morning. These days I'm getting ready to swim four days a week so I don't have time. Three mornings a week I can write and I can write in the afternoons. The project helped me get a groove going.
I'm not sure if I'll keep posting on the blog but I hope I do. I'm trying to think up a food blog project.
When I was writing in the MFA program I talked about wanting a therapist on one side and an editor on the other. Most of us did. Writing the little stories has been painful at times. I sort of stirred the soup to find them. My feeling is that you never get over things. You live with them. You don't let them run you around. Sometimes they rise up when you don't expect them and you just have to take the fall. And then. The trees sway in the wind. The first blackberries taste so good. A friend sends a video of her daughter spinning in a new dress. Life calls you back into the moment.
I am so grateful to the friends who read and left comments or likes. It's always fun to get those but during this push it was like vitamins.
So.
Yesterday I opened the book. I was surprised to find that I'd written an introduction a few years ago. I forgot about it and it was pretty good. Then I went through the first two chapters, which are the most rewritten and edited parts of the book because I always start at the beginning to work on it. And then ...there was no more text.
Freak.
Out.
I mean I have hard copies of the book and I thought I had it on some flash drives so I knew all was not lost. Still, it was a moment. I found a flash drive with it. I have no idea if there is more recent work but ... oh well. I worked a little bit.
So....

Little Story #33

I forgot to mention seeing Allen Ginsberg walking across the street in Boulder and Lawrence Ferlinghetti on a corner in SF in my famous people post. If you don't read poetry that might not mean a thing to you. I had been a passionate reader of all Beat related writers so seeing them made me very happy.
And one more famous person story involves my father. He sold cars in Austin Texas. The dealership was owned by the mayor and LBJ bought his cares there. My grandmother (the Democrat) loved LBJ. We went to his house, although he wasn't there at the time. There was a tiny store in the near by town at which you could buy jars of the grass from his lawn. Seriously.
Dad owned a quarter horse ranch for a while. He raced one of the horses. One day we were at the track. I was in full hippie regalia, patched blue jeans, tie-dyed t-shirt, no bra, construction boots, beads. My half sister and step sister were dressed in matching cowgirl outfits. Dad took us over to meet LBJ. He and I shook hands, limply. I resisted the urge to tell him to end the war. It must have been really hard for my dad to own me in that moment. 
Heh.

Little Story #32

I spent so much time in the little bar off the lobby of the hotel that I got phone calls there. John Steinbeck IV spent a lot of time there as well and eventually we became friends. He drank. And drank. And smoked. I could never keep up. I have one vivid memory of him pouring a glass of Whisky (?) Scotch (?) down his throat. It stayed with me because as I watched I knew he drank differently that I did. I loved hanging out with him and listening to his stories.
I also met his brother Thom. On Sundays my friend Cathy bartended. I'd stop at the front desk to buy the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post and the Boulder Daily Camera. Then I'd work my way through the pile while I ate eggs, drank Bloody Mary's and coffee. In the afternoon I'd eat some lunch and switch to Johnny Walker Black. One day Thom walked up to the bar thinking the pile of papers were for everyone. Without looking up I smacked my hand down on top of them. Then I pointed to the pile on a nearby table of what I'd already read. He found it charming.
He gave me some money once to help me with my music career. It wasn't a lot but it felt like a lot. I (of course) celebrated by going out for dinner. He saw me in the restaurant and shook his head.
John kissed me once. He was really drunk. I'm not saying he had to be drunk to want to kiss me but he was married.
There was a shop in Boulder then, Moon Sun Emporium. They had a wall of great soaps, Mason Pearson brushes and shaving supplies, essential oils, trinkets for the hair and beautiful perfume bottles. There was one purple crystal bottle that I really wanted. I'm not sure how but John and I ended up there at the same time. He bought me the bottle and a Kiel's oil that he loved, which he poured into it. I couldn't forget him even if I wanted to because I use that scent. He lives on my skin.

Little Story #31

Famous people have always been in my life. Mostly because I was cooking them food in a restaurant kitchen.
In Boulder I cooked dinner for Joni Mitchel. I wanted to send her desert but the waiter wouldn't carry it. He thought it would bother her. Desert? Bother?
I served Bill Murray breakfast. He wanted pie for desert and had trouble accepting that we didn't have any available. He said - I'm looking into your eyes and I think I see pie.
I made lunch for William Burrows. I'm sure there's a naked joke I could make but I can't think of it. He had a roast beef sandwich.
Carol King was having dinner in a place when I walked through the dining room.
Leonard Nimoy smiled at me from a car.
Maria Muldaur was in the Diner one day. I had seen her the night before in a small club. I started going off about how I didn't think she'd been very good before I realized she was there. I can only hope she didn't hear me being such a dope.
Joe Jackson (Don't You Know That It's Different for Girls) walked out of the hotel in front of me.
I was sitting at a bar one day. Taj Mahal sat down next to me. We chatted a bit and sang a few lines of I Cover the Waterfront together.  One of the thrills of my life.
I was crossing a street in NYC. Tyne Daly was crossing at the same time. When I realized who she was she was smiling and nodding. I'm not sure but I think she may have thought I recognized her (before I did) and was being kind. It felt a little awkward. I loved her.
I cooked dinner for Susan Sontag. I was the only member of the crew who knew who she was.
Gene Shalit held a news paper up at the pass bar of the kitchen because he needed light. I said - movie section? He smiled and nodded.
Kevin Klein and Phobe Cates ate in that same restaurant. As did Garrison Keillor. As did Tom Hulce.
Danny Glover smiled at me as I walked down the street in SF. Smiled and nodded. Swoon.
Nick Nolte had dinner with me once. We weren't at the same table but ... heh.
The weird thing about seeing famous people is they look familiar. You think you know them at first but of course ... you don't.

Little Story #30

Remember the post about me being uncomfortable with dogs? I do have one really sweet dog story. It happened during the time I was living in the rebirthing training center/commune. I could have become one of the people living there for a long time. Run the kitchen. Hung out in the hot springs. But I had gone there for the India training. The non existent India training. I really thought Leonard might pay for me to go. I can't remember how but one day I realized that he wasn't going to do that. I was really sad and probably angry.
There was a dog living there named Billie. She was an English Sheep dog. I've always loved English Sheep dogs. I'm not sure who owned her but people were feeding her and she got lots of love.
On my sad day I walked down the path, found a spot and collapsed in tears. Billie walked with me and sat beside me, leaning on me. This wasn't something she usually did. I cried for a little while. As I calmed down and stopped crying Billie got up and walked away.
Billie walking away made me feel like I was OK. She didn't need to take care of me anymore.

Little Story #29

There is a line in a Joni Mitchell song -(I could probably do a bunch of posts starting like that)- I didn't know I drank such a lot, till I pissed a tequila anaconda the full length of the parking lot.  
Who else could write a line so visual and kind of beautiful about something so transgressive?
I have a few of those kind of stories. A back alley in Georgetown comes to mind. But it isn't the too drunk in the city and too far from a bathroom stories that are my favorite.
During the rebirthing years I lived in a sort of commune in northern California. Leonard Orr owned the property and called it a training center but he had no real plan and no rules. People had landed there and taken over in a way. Some did workshops. Most just sat in the hot springs. I arrived for the India training that Leonard told me was going on. There was no India training. There was a kitchen.
No one was running it and there was contention about who should be able to run it. I don't remember how but I just ... sort of ... kind of ... took over. The first night I found a bag of carrots. I made carrot soup. I think I may have also made biscuits. I sold that soup and used the money to buy food for the next meal. Eventually I had a nice service going on. Two meals a day. I baked bread every morning.
I'd wake up and start the bread dough. While it was rising I'd take a swim. I'd shape the dough into loaves and as they were rising I'd head to the hot springs for a quick soak. By the time every one else was waking up I'd have filled the lodge with the smell of bread baking and I'd be making eggs or fruit salad or whatever. It was nice.
One morning I was in the hot springs and realized I needed to pee. It was a bit of a walk back to the lodge. I wouldn't have time to get there and back before it was time to put the bread into the oven.
I walked a few feet away from the concrete enclosure where the hot spring flowed into concrete tubs. Squatted and peed. I was naked. I was looking out over a beautiful vista as the sun rose. The smell of trees and water filled the air. The sound of birds and squirrels. I felt feral. I'd like to say I remember my own anaconda flowing through the pine needles and dirt but I'd be making that up. I just know I was happy.

Little story #28

As I was writing the post yesterday I realized that I wasn't writing about a specific thing that happened. A thing that was central to my life and my relationship with the mommie. I told the story the way I've always told it. And it was all true. Our relationship was shaped by the divorce, living with the grandparents (particularly Grandmom) all of the changes and moves, the times. I left out the mommie bringing K into our lives.
She met him at work. He was married at the time. He had a car pool and she joined despite the fact that she couldn't drive. I'm not sure how she contributed to the "pool" or if it was K's way of being close to her. I only know the little red Volkswagen would pull up in front of the house and Grandmom would make a face. She never like him.
I spent the night at his house once. Not sure why. He had a daughter my age. It all seemed innocent to me and when I asked the mommie she assured me that they were just friends. At some point he left his wife. That's really their story but I will say he had good reasons. He became a bigger part of our life. He took us on weekend trips. He helped around the house. He carved out pineapples for the orange sherbet punch at the Hawaiian birthday party.  He was so interesting. The mommie and I were able to move into our apartment because he was around to help with things. Our move was not good for the grandparents. I've written about the falling apart of the family, which was about many things but our moving was a big part of it.
And.
My Me-Too story happened in that apartment.
K moved to Virginia so he could get a divorce. I don't know how it is now but divorce laws then were convoluted and different in different states. He'd drive back for the weekend from time to time. He slept on the couch.
I adored him. I loved pushing my nose into his cheek to smell his aftershave. He was the father I'd never had. He pushed the line of appropriate behavior in many ways. The worst of which was coming into my room when the mommie was in the shower to"say goodnight". There were too many kisses and too much rubbing against me causing so much confusion. He sucked on my breast one night and despite my confusion I knew it was too far. I pushed him away. But I didn't say anything.
His divorce came through. He and the mommie got married. We moved to Maryland. I lived with a constant fear of what might happen next. He continued with a thousand little transgressions.
When I wrote the post yesterday I felt stuck in the old way of telling the story. I never told the mommie. She never understood why I wanted to be so far away from her (him).
I didn't include it in the first writing of the book. The book is a memoir focused on my experience of being fat. I didn't want the abuse to take over those ideas.
But there is no doubt that what he did changed me. Hurt me.
There is also no doubt that he and the mommie were a great love story. He was very good to her.
For me it is a complicated story. Now that the mommie is gone I feel free to tell it but I'm not sure how. I've been holding it for so long.

Little Story #27

The mommie and I didn't do well during my teen years. There was the normal stuff that mothers and daughters go through but it happened while so many other changes were shaking us both. I left home when I was 17, a few days after graduation. The mommie said she cried harder than she had ever cried. I cried too.
And.
I was back in a few months.
I registered at the local community college. I got a job at a upscale hamburger place. I found an apartment with a friend. Then my own tiny studio. And then I got hit by the truck,
And.
I was back.
It's funny when I look back at it but it wasn't funny then. I just could not get my adult life going.
Because the dog had caused me to step into the truck we sued the dog owner. They should have had the dog contained. It felt weird but I wasn't actively doing it. The mommie was. I got enough money to get to San Francisco, which was the last time I left home. I still wandered around with no real focus for years.
When the mommie and I talked on the phone it was always tense. She wanted me to go to college and be a more "normal" person. I didn't feel like I wasn't "normal". Years of tension went by.
We both started watching the soap opera, Days of Our Lives. We could talk for hours about it without fighting. There were good guys and bad guys and a few guys you could argue about but it wasn't real so the arguing felt fun. Slowly we repaired our relationship.
And then she started visiting me with out K. We had lots of time to talk. She bummed cigarettes from me. She ate the candy I kept in a jar. I worried that I was giving her lung Cancer and Diabetes. We had the one on one time we had always had when I was a kid. Things got better.
In some ways they never got to where we might have wanted them. She still wanted me to be something that I just wasn't ever going to be. We had been so close when I was a kid and we never got back there.
Once she told me she realized that she and Grandmom's relationship had become so fractured at the end. She didn't want that to happen to us. That relationship fell apart because the mommie wanted to have her own life, much like I did. I appreciated that she wanted to have a better relationship.
The mommie's dementia was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch. But it gave us a gift. We had a lot of time together. We played. We sang songs. I was the adult and she became the child. It was distorted but very sweet.
And.
Then she was gone.

Little Story #26

When I write memoir the mommie is going to be part of that story. She was central in my life. My dad not as much. There isn't much to say. My maternal grandparents are a big part of my story since I lived with them for so long. It's something I worry about to some degree. In telling my story I'm telling theirs. Is that fair? Maybe not and maybe they'd have something to say about the way I'm telling it. Memoirists are thieves. If you are friends with or related to a writer be prepared to see yourself on a page.
I tried to draw a line at the aunts, uncles and cousins but they were also very central when I was young. We all gathered at Grandma's house on Sundays after church, on holidays. One set of cousins lived across the street for awhile. In my early years the family grew as Uncle John began his family. I felt myself to be part of a big extended family.
And then.
Uncle John and family moved to Maryland. The mommie and I moved into a small apartment. Grandmom fell on the stairs. She and Poppop went into the Methodist home. One of my maternal aunts died. The mommie and I moved to Maryland. Poppop died and soon after grandmom died. The big family gathering up stopped. There were a few attempts but it just didn't work. It was part of a list of things that happened during my preteen and teen age years.
After church we stopped at Islay's and bought a bunch of chipped ham. Islay's was famous for their chipped ham. We bought Wise potato chips and hamburger buns. That was Sunday lunch with all the cousins. Years later the mommie and I tried to recreate it when we were in Pittsburgh.
But.
You know.
You really can't go home again.

Little Story #25

When you work in an open kitchen you're kind of - on a stage. Sometimes the work demands your attention and you forget that people can see you. Sometimes (most times) people are eating and not watching you.
One afternoon my friend and I were working the front of the line. We noticed two young women smiling at us. Were they flirting? Were they about to ask for a job? Finally they walked up to the pass bar and one said - it's great to see women in the kitchen. We smiled and said thank you.
They meant a professional kitchen of course. There was a rather extreme irony in the idea though. Women have been trying to get out of the kitchen and into the work place. My work place was a kitchen and it was (is) male dominated.
In one of my early jobs I washed dishes. The chef was upset when I was hired because he swore a lot and didn't want to stop. One day something pissed me off. I don't remember. Probably trying to get baked on egg white off a poach pan. I launched into a string of invective that (as the mommie might say) would make a sailor blush. The chef relaxed. He got me out of the dish room and onto the line. He fed me the first asparagus that didn't make me gag. He taught me all the mother sauces, which I didn't realize were the mother sauces. He taught me how to roll a quiche dough that wouldn't leak.
I've worked in kitchens all around the country. I can swear in five languages including Mayan. There is a way in which my work life was about learning how to make men comfortable. I didn't really think of that way. I liked swearing. I didn't mind licentious jabbering. I never saw direct harassment. I was really lucky. I worked in many restaurants owned by women and, for the most part, I worked with really nice people. And I managed most of the kitchen I worked in. What ever discomfort men may have felt working for me they hid pretty well.
Professional kitchens are rough and tumble. And yet...
In one place we were doing a game menu for the month. We did a roasted boar and fried rabbit. My coworker was really good at butchery. He'd had an uncle who taught him. His job was to cut the whole rabbits into smaller parts, something we did with chicken daily. The rabbit arrived with their little furry feet still attached. This guy was a really large man with tattoos and piercings. He was a very gentle loving soul but to look at him you'd think he was quite rough.
I looked over and realized his head was down and he wasn't cutting up the rabbits. Then I realized he had tears in his eyes. I said - you OK? He looked up - it's the feet. The little furry feet. And then he walked out of the kitchen.
And then he came back and did his job.

Little Story #24 - 65

In the last month of the mommie's pregnancy she saw some spotting. It wouldn't have necessarily been a big deal but she'd had one miscarriage and was nervous. She went to the (Catholic) hospital where the nuns told her the doctor was there so she might as well have her baby. She's not clear about if they induced. She doesn't remember drugs or labor. She just wanted to go back to sleep and then I was born. I was a month early. I weighted five pounds. The doctor said if I gained weight I could go home. If I lost weight I'd need to be in an incubator. I really wanted to go home.
During the rebirthing years I picked my birth story apart. I'd been kicked out of my first home so I had trouble relaxing into any place I ever lived. In the last month of pregnancy a baby gains weight. I hadn't been able to do that so I gained weight. I didn't want to be in the incubator so I gained weight. I hadn't been able to work my way out of the womb so I give up and wait for help. Maybe all this is true and maybe it doesn't matter. I like thinking deeply and I like analyzing. I like inner work. I think it's important to try and understand why you are who you are. And then it's important to learn how to hold that story.
I heard a story on one of the podcasts I listen to about a woman being taken away from her children. It may have been Nazi Germany or Russia, I don't remember. She looked back at them and said - never lose your sense of humor. For me that story holds the idea that terrible things are going to happen. You're going to experience terrible things. You're going to need to grieve them, rage about them and you're going to need to hold them. A sense of humor really helps.
I am 65 years old. How? Did? That? HAPPEN????? I'm on social security and Medicare. I use a walker. My chin looks like my grandmother's chin. I mean. How? Did? This? Bleepin? Happen? To ME!!!!
You really need a sense of humor.
People are going to say happy birthday and I'm going to smile and say thank you. It's hard to be happy right now. The current administration keeps me in a constant rage. The endless wars in Yemen and Syria. Palestinian apartheid. The news last night made me feel like I was going to explode.
For today I'm going to narrow my focus.  I'm going to go swimming with Gayle. I'm going to get a massage from Guy. I'm going to dinner with Mandy, Jane, DeAnna and Gayle. I'm going to have a martini, steak and fries, a glass of red wine and chocolate cake. I'm going to settle into my senior citizenship. I have no idea what I mean by that.
I guess we'll see.

Little Story #23

For a few years I put bands together and tried to find gigs. Musicians always got paid. I never did. Of all the things that happened in my life, this time of trying to do what I didn't believe I could do - be a singer in a band - this time is hardest to remember. I drank too much. I smoked too much. I did known poisonous substances with abandon. Trying to live the rock-n-roll life style when I didn't always have a band felt foolish and desperate. Every time I did get to sing I felt like was all worth it. Those few shiny moments when I sounded OK. When I wasn't too drunk and acting the fool. When the faces in front of me were all smiles. When strangers came up to me and told me they loved me.
I was always battling the feeling of just not being good enough. I think a lot of creative people feel this way.
There are musicians who work. They work at being better. They work at staying actively employed.  I admire them so much.
I went to New York and studied with a teacher. I did a few showcases with him. I never sang that well in them.
I never made a choice to stop singing. I just stopped. And I mean. I stopped. I rarely sing.
When I had that blue record player stacked up with forty-fives I sang. I sang for hours. I closed my eyes and opened my throat and I sang. I did that through my early twenties. It was like my heart needed to feel that sound. But when I couldn't find my footing in the music industry my heart closed.
I know musicians who are so much more talented than I am and they are working away with out recognition or profit. It's a hard life in many respects.  I don't think they love music more than I do/did. I just couldn't find my way.
Recently I've written about being molested, rejected, abandoned. None of it was as much of a struggle or as painful  as writing about this has been. I don't think I knew it would be.

Little Story #22

When I was in high school I had a girl band with four of my friends. We sang Goin to The Chapel and California Dreamin. We did silly little dance moves. I sang in choir and madrigals. I was in the musicals. I played the queen in Once Upon a Mattress. I wanted to sing.
I'm not sure I have the time line of my musical career down. I know the little bit of time on stage with Mark gave me the courage I needed to put together my own band.
There was a band in town called Fat Chance. I asked them if they'd do a gig with me. I'd open for them with a few songs. We would call the gig Two Tons of Fun! There was a place in the mountains, a short drive from Boulder. I wish I could remember more detail. It was kind of a big barn. I rented it, made posters and sold tickets.
My friend Tom Sayers helped me to put together a band. I don't remember if Bradley Kopp was involved. Bradley was one of the first people who supported me. He played guitar in many of my first gigs. I also don't remember who else played, which makes me really sad.
Fat Chance was touring around and they were tired. If I couldn't guarantee a certain amount of money they were not going to show up. I couldn't. Tom paid it.
Looking back I am aware of how many men were involved in getting me on stage. I am grateful.
That gig didn't go particularly well. I think I only sang four or five songs. I still wasn't sure I could really do it. Put together a band. Book a club. Get people to show up.
The next time I tried was my birthday. Again, Poonah helped. He walked me into the office of a club, The Blue Note. My birthday was on a Sunday, a typically slow night in the clubs. We convinced the manager I could draw enough of a crowd it to make it worth being open. I know Bradley was involved in that band I think Lorrie Singer sang back up. Tom Wasinger may have sat in Poonah might have played bass but, again, I don't remember everyone and, again, I feel sad about that.
Musicians weren't that excited about playing in a band that wasn't - cool. I had a lot of friends. Many of which were musicians. But they didn't think of me as talented or - cool. I have a good voice but not a great voice. It's not strong or innovative. I do have fun on stage. I do know how to pick songs and put a show together.
I filled the Blue Note with purple balloons with silver ribbons. I promoted the gig at the Diner. I filled the club. It was successful and confusing. The fellow I wrote about a few posts back showed up with another woman. (I was wearing a real gardenia in my hair. She had a cloth flower in hers.) (I mean.) (Come on.)
It felt like a dream come true but I wasn't sure how it had. I wasn't sure if it was real.

Little Story #21

When I was in India Baba shaved my head. Many people had their head shaved but not many had it done by Baba. Just before I went to India I'd had a perm. I have a lot of hair. It took three hairdressers and hours to get my hair permed. They weren't happy when I came home with it shaved off. Baba asked if there was something in my hair and I told him. He said - don't do that again. HA!

The head shaving thing was about commitment and devotion. I had a scarf that I bought there, which I wore to protect my scalp from the sun. When I came home I wore it to avoid talking about having a bald head. People thought I was making  a fashion statement. 

I wish I had a picture. 

I  was sort of homeless when I came home. I did a lot of couch surfing. I ate breakfast at the Diner. I wandered from cafe to cafe. I babysat and read Tarot cards for what money I did have. I wore a long draw string skirt, a baggy dolman sleeve blouse, Birkenstocks and that scarf. I was a mass of material moving through the world. 

I really wish I had a picture.

I also followed different bands and musicians around from club to club. Mark Hallman had a band at the time. My friend Poonah played in that band. I haven't seen Poonah in a long time. He wants to be called Rob now. And I understand that but then he was Poonah and it was a name that held his personality. He must have told Mark how much I wanted to be in a band because one night Mark called me up on stage. Me with my bald head and layers of material.
He called a few people. We sang on the chorus of a I'm Looking For a Miracle. So ... we sang I'm looking for a miracle three times. It wasn't much but for me it was HUGE! I remember Poonah hugging me after the song. I was shaking from head to toe.
One morning Jimmy Tuttle came into the Diner. He'd been making a poster and saw a font called Fat Shadow. He thought Mark should call the rhythm section FatShadow because a fat rhythm section is a good thing. I begged for the name and I've been using it ever since.
For me it's about my actual shadow, which is fat. And the use of the word in Jungian psychology to describe the unconscious. There are a lot of ways to think about that. Some call it the dark side but it's also where so much of our story lives. I feel like we can sink into it and find a source of empathy, insight, creativity and fun. So I like to think that my shadow is fat. 

Little Story # 20 - Year Five

Every year I wonder if I want to write a post acknowledging the day I moved into the nest. I mean - I live here now. But this year I realized it was the year I finally settled in. The actual first year I could hardly believe that I was going to live in this beautiful place I remember the first time I left to visit the mommie in NC when I came back the nest didn't even smell like me yet. I still felt like it was temporary. Then the mommie arrived and everything became about her. This was the first year in which it was about having an ordinary daily life.
There have been a few small changes in the nest. The driver series is now up. There's a new chair in the library and a matching ottoman. But things are pretty much settled. I experimented with some furniture moving but ... nothing really works as well as the first arrangement.
I am still enamored with the nest. I still sit and look around loving it and feeling gratitude.
I am still ambivalent about Hood River but I still love things about it. I love the way the seasons changing looks outside the window by my desk. I love the places where people remember me. I love the times when it feels like a small town. I don't love the lack of diversity. I don't love the clusters of people who think they're part of an elite. (Oh they are here.) I don't love the way being a small town is used as an excuse to not fix things or provide good service.
I swim four mornings a week, five when I'm lucky. I get a massage twice a month, which might sound luxurious but it's really more like physical therapy. It can be painful but I feel like it helps me to keep moving. I have all the people - a GP who I trust, a hair person, a dentist, an eye doctor, favorite restaurants, a few good friends. All the people you need to take care of yourself.
I don't get out much and that bugs me but I always have a book.
Grief still knocks me down at random weird moments. I miss the mommie. Me living here and the end of her life are eternally wedded.
Living here wasn't an active choice. It just sort of happened. I still squirm from time to time wondering if I should move somewhere else. But where?
It took five years to emotionally inhabit the nest. Five seems like a lot and it also feels like not that long.

Little Story #19

I met my dad when I was 11 or 12. My maternal grandmother used to tell me he was dead. His mother disowned him for awhile. Divorce really wasn't common and it was a big deal in the family. I'll never know exactly what happened among the adults but there I was one day - in a car with my aunt. She was asking if I wanted to meet him. I asked if he was alive, which was me being a smart ass. He was on his way so I didn't really have a choice.
There was a picture on the dresser of a much younger him. He was very handsome. I stared at that picture trying to see myself in him.
I remember him walking in the door. He'd lost some hair and grown a little bit of a belly. But that dude had charm that radiated. It was subtle. He seemed absolutely confident that everyone would love him. I did. We looked through old photo albums. Me desperately trying to show him how cute and lovable I had been. I was like a puppy at his feet. Panting.
We went for a drive around town. People we saw were all happy to see him. They looked at me and said I looked just like him. I still couldn't see it but I smiled a big wide smile. He bought me a blue record player and an album, Meet the Beatles.  He owned me.
I also remember sitting in the back of the car on the way home from the airport with my new record player on the seat next to me. The mommie sat in front. She never said anything negative about him. I can imagine how it felt for her to have worked as hard as she worked to pay the bills and send me to dance class, piano lessons and summer camp for years. All he had to do was buy me a record player and a Beatles album and he won my heart.
I still didn't see him that much. If you added it all up I probably spent less than a year with him. I was never relaxed around him. From time to time my birthday falls on Father's day. Irony. I'd call him to say happy Father's Day and he'd forget to say happy birthday.
So.
You know.
That happened.

Little Story #18

Despite the many many crushes I had there were really only three that I felt were real. The first being in high school when everything and nothing is so real. Might be another story but the one I want to tell today happened during the whole rebirthing/guru time. I first became aware of the guy when I read  something he wrote about rebirthing and felt connected to him. It was a light fun feeling. I met him on the seminar circuit. The first time may have been in San Francisco. He was hella cute.
After my trip to India I went to a rebirther's convention near Aspen. There were a lot of things that happened during the convention and I was overwhelmed. The last night I was sitting beside a small stream. Feeling so many things. I was always sort of praying/talking to Baba in my head.  I had the thought that I was ready for a partner. I heard a whistle. I looked up and there he was. Standing on a bridge that crossed the stream.
Seriously, there were so many cinematic moments in my life at that time. I'm sitting here shoveling left over cauliflower, chicken and farro from a bowl into into my mouth wondering where the cinematic moments went.
Anyway.
We sat there and talked a little. It was months before I saw him again.
I saw him off an on for about a year. I'm not sure I have the time line down. I remember lots of deep conversation in the time I knew him. There was a spiky quality between us. He was always trying to be the enlightened one. He was so funny and interesting. But he wasn't my guru. He played guitar. I can't convey how intense it all was and how connected it felt. He was really funny. We laughed a lot.
One day I came home. I didn't lock my door at that time. His duffel bag was in my apartment.
OK.
I came home a few days later and it was gone.
We had a terse conversation on the phone and I never saw him again.
I called him once. It felt stupid.
Ouija boards, dates and boys on bridges. Romance can be very confusing.

Little Story #17

I had a crush on a guy once.
Well. I had a crush on a guy about eighty gazillion times. But this one was a pretty big crush.
One day we were eating lunch together at the Diner. He said - so Tish, do you wanna go on a date?
Um. A Date?
Yeah. We could go to a movie.
Um. OK.
I went to visit a friend at her hair salon to ask what the heck I should wear. She fluffed me up a bit. I met him at the theater. He brought his brother.
Um.
We were seeing Ran by Kurosawa. I liked to sit in the front of the theater and be overwhelmed by the film. He had a vision problem that required him to sit toward the back. No problem. I'd sit in front and meet he and his brother after the film.
Tish. We're on a date. You have to sit beside me.
Um.
After the movie he said he and his brother were going to a pub to get a beer.
Um.
The next day we laughed and decided that dating was weird and we could just go to movies, or clubs together. That night we went to see Eraserhead. I guess I sat in the back. I don't remember but probably.
We had a sort of spastic relationship. I caught myself sitting by the phone one night (remember sitting by the phone?) and decided I could NOT do that. So I went to a hotel where I often hung out. There was a small bar off the lobby. I went there first. Another in the mezzanine. I stopped there to hear some music. A friend had a samosa shop off the mezzanine. I went into her kitchen to have a snack. Her phone rang. It was my crush. He wanted to hang out. He'd called the little bar, the mezzanine and now her kitchen trying to find me. He didn't want to stay in the mezz to hear the band. He wanted to talk.
As I'm writing this I am aware of how much I had to compromise for a little of his attention. Way too much. And the crush was becoming a deeper and deeper love. I had not believed he would love me and his pursuit of me (albeit weird and passive) was making me think something might happen. We talked about it a few times. He loved me very much but not "that way".
Creepiest thing to hear - ever.
So a few months of this went by. We spent a lot of time together. Drinking, smoking cigarettes, doing lines and talking, talking, talking.
Hard to say what exactly was the last straw for me. I asked him to leave my place one evening. He went to a club and met the woman he married. That was the last time I talked to him. I was shredded. For a long time.
Maybe the worst part was people saying I had to understand his feelings. I could have used a little more - he's an asshat.
What.
Ever.
A mutual friend of ours told me he told her that he didn't know I thought we were dating. I still get mad thinking about that. In fact I thought we were doing something much more real.
Asshat.

Little Story #16

When I was a tween I loved Micky Dolenz of The Monkees.
I mean.
I.
Loved.
Micky.
Dolenz.
Some friends and I did a seance with a Ouija board. The spirits told me I would marry Micky Dolenz.
Swoon.
I kept a scarp book with soooo many pictures of Micky cut from Tiger Beat magazine.
And then. He got married. Not to me.
Snivel. Sob.
I wrote him a letter telling him about the seance and my love. I said I knew I had to let that go. I hoped he'd be happy with his new wife.
Sniff. Choke.
I sent him the (by then) huge scrap book full of pictures.
He wrote me a letter saying thank you and he hoped we could still be friends.
I'd written a few letters before that and always received a post card with a picture of the Monkees and some oblique text. The letter was short but clearly hand written.
HOW COOL WAS THAT????
I don't know what happened to it which makes me so mad at myself! I wonder if he kept the notebook.

Little Story #15

One birthday I had a Hawaiian themed party.  I wish I remembered why. I remember I wore a big woven grass hat and a grass skirt. We all had plastic leis. There were hollowed out pineapples with an orange sherbet punch. I think we bought a coconut and I was sad to discover it didn't taste like the inside of a Mounds bar. I think we had a hula contest. We definitely did hula. Badly.
The mommie said something to be about how I moved when I was doing the hula. Something to the effect that I didn't move like a fat girl. I don't think she said it exactly like that but I do remember wondering what it meant and if it was good or bad. I was fat. I was moving the way I was moving.
Years later I was dancing at a concert and someone told me I danced like a Black person. I don't think they were complimenting me but that's how I took it.
I loved dancing. I went to Wee Teen dances in the big hall at the rec center. Mostly the girls all danced in a mob and the boys stood in the corner trying to look disinterested. We danced until we were drenched in sweat.
If a good song came on the radio when I worked at Dot's I'd dance with stove door, opening and closing it. Not smart because the heat would escape. At the Cafe I had a picture of Don Johnson on the wall (it was the eighties) and when a slow song came on the radio I'd press my cheek against the picture and rock back and forth.
I bought a waterproof IPod last year. I filled it up with bad pop music. I dance at the end of the pool in the shallow water. Even with my bad knees and lack of balance.
I dance.

Little Story #14

When I was a kid my grandmother's gave me the quiz.
What religion are we? That was easy. We were Methodist.
What political party are we? That was harder. I had to remember which grandmother was which. If it was my maternal grandmother we were Republican. If it was my paternal grandmother we were Democrat. I learned early that when it comes to politics you tell people what they want to hear.
Both families had two girls and a boy. In both families my grandmother played the daughters against each other. They told each daughter how much help the other was. I suppose the idea was to spur more help but all it did was cause hurt and resentment. In both families the boys did no wrong.
Cough.
My parents were the babies in both families. When they were married the consensus was that they were too young. I think that was as much about their maturity as it was about their age. I guess it may have been true since they were only married for a few years. In the early fifties being divorced was not as common as it it now. People would tell me I wasn't having a childhood. Clearly I was having a childhood. Just not one with a father present.
My maternal grandmother, Vera, was always on the run. DAR, Eastern Star, WCTU, bridge club. She had emphysema despite the fact that she neither smoked nor allowed smoking in her home. She did live in western Pennsylvania, which at that time had terrible air quality.
My Paternal grandmother, Felice, had glaucoma, diabetes, cataracts. She'd had a stroke. She didn't like to leave her house. She mostly watched soap operas. Her husband had died young. I'm not sure how. Her daughter lived with her.
And,  of course, my mother and I lived with Vera and my Poppop, Jack.
I lived with Vera and Jack until I was 12 (I think) (maybe 13). I visited Felice every summer for a month or more. I loved them all.
Recently I've been remembering Felice bringing my lunch into the living room on a tray. I'm not sure I helped her. I feel like I might not have. I'm just not sure. She was so frail. I hope I did.
I spent a lot of time alone in my childhood. I read books and day dreamed and made little stories with my dolls. Partly because I was raised by older women.
Family structures like mine were not on TV. Really, in those days, not many family structures were represented. We lived in a world of overly simple ideas of normal.

Little Story #13

I feel like when you grow up in certain northern cities in a fairly liberal family Race is about absence. There were no people of color in our neighborhood. The only Asian family ran a laundry. Grandmom took Poppop's shirts to them. I don't remember any attitude from her but she may have just been silent.
I know most of the Black people lived on another side of Pittsburgh but I don't remember what side. I did see them on the bus when we were down town. I remember one time when the only empty seats were beside Black people. The mommie directed me to sit in one and she took the other. I'm not sure if she said it then but I do know she told me that she didn't think there was any difference between us and them. I now think there are important differences in how our lives were shaped and it's important to think and talk about them. But at that time the mommie's attitude set the tone.
Grandmom was a proud member of the DAR. (Daughter's of the American Revolution) I was beginning the process of becoming a member when Uncle John told me he didn't approve because the DAR had refused to allow Marian Anderson to sing in Constitution Hall. Like so many stories that one is complicated. Lots of squirmy white people trying to pretend there was no racism. For me it was the strength of Uncle John's moral authority that turned me away from being the next generation in the DAR. And it was a moment of realizing that there was in fact racism. Some of which was a little too close to my family.
I'm not sure how old I was but one summer my paternal grandmother and I took a bus to St Louis to meet my Aunt. When I got on the bus I headed straight to the back where there were seats and ... it just seemed like a more interesting place to sit. I did not notice that there were all black people sitting back there. My grandmother did.
When we got off the bus she snapped at my aunt - she made us sit in the back with the niggers. I'm not sure I'd ever heard that word before. No one had to tell me that it was hateful. I could feel it like ice water in my blood. I tried to ask my aunt and later the mommie about it but they vacillated. It was a bad word. I should never use it. But Grandma was from a different generation and just didn't understand. I accepted that it was something old people thought until I heard my father say it.
There was a black man who worked my grandmother's garden. She had a very large back yard and more of a garden than she could keep up with. He would show up at the kitchen door with an arm full of tomatoes, corn and cucumbers. Grandma opened the door wide enough to take the vegetables and they chatted amiably but she never let him in.
I've written so much about my maternal grandmother and I hate to leave my paternal grandmother's story in such an ugly place. I'll keep thinking about her.

Little Story #12

So. About that money for India story.
Like so many in my generation I became interested in meditation and (so called) New Age spirituality. I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda and decided that Babaji was my guru. Babaji is the immortal yogi Christ of India. I never thought I'd meet him.
I learned to meditate from a guy. His wife was a Rebirther. I got involved with Rebirthing. A woman in the group of early rebirthers went to India to meet a guru who was thought to be Babaji. She knew how to get to him.
At that time in my life there seemed to be an endless trail of one thing leading to another. Things seemed magical and guided. All I had to do was follow the clues.
For the next year or so I focused on getting the money to go to India and be with Baba. Which really meant following Leonard Orr (the inventor of rebirthing) around trying to "get clear". Leonard implied he would pay my way but Leonard did things like that and rarely followed through.
One day I decided I'd just get a job and work as much as I could to make the money. I was walking along sort of talking to Baba in my head. My "prayer" was that I believed money wouldn't keep me away form him and I needed him to help me figure out what was keeping me away. In the meanwhile I made a list of restaurants I could cook in.
Suddenly I heard someone calling my name and saying - did you get that money?
A few years earlier I'd been living in an apartment in an old house. That house had been moved. The whole house. When it was moved everyone who lived in it had to move out and somehow HUD was involved. I think HUD caused the move of the house because they build a senior facility on the property or something. HUD was supposed to have given us money to move. That money was still available. A woman who had also lived in the house was there telling me about how to get it.
I mean.
The timing was cinematic.
I got enough money to get a plane ticket. I went to India with 35 dollars in my pocket.
Do I think Baba directed that woman to tell me about the money somehow?  Sure. Why not. I did then. Many of the stories from that time are frozen in amber. I don't have the same ... belief ... faith ... sumthin. But the things that happened were so real for me then. I do have an analysis about why I was so open to having a guru and wanting divine intervention. But I am not going to harsh on the many mysterious events of that time.
It was all very sweet.

Little Story #11

The mommie and I moved in with Grandmom and Poppop after she found lipstick on my father's collar. Both of my parents said they thought it was a temporary separation but it turned into divorce. My Uncle John was still living there.
He was waiting at the street car stop for the mommie one evening as she returned from work. He wanted to tell her that he had spanked me because he found me drawing on the wall. The mommie assured him that it was fine. I have a vague memory of the event. It may be more conjured than remembered. It was one of the mommie's favorite stories.
I do remember walking behind him one day. Keeping my eyes on his pant leg. I looked away for a minute and then found a pant leg and followed it. We turned into a bar. It was dark and smokey and filled with men. I turned around and my uncle was standing there looking at me. He asked - did you want a beer? Everyone laughed. Grandmom did not laugh when she heard the story. She was very anti alcohol. And anti smoking but she turned a blind eye to Uncle John's smoking. He was her favorite.
There is a lot of writing about memory. How much of our memory is true? It's interesting when you're trying to write a true account of your life. I know I was very young when I walked into my first bar. The memory feels true. It was another of the mommie's favorites.
I was the flower girl in my Uncle John's wedding. He moved out and began his family. Every year or so there was a new cousin. Four in all.
I loved him so much.

Little Story #10

I don't remember Grandmom being a great cook. I have cousins who would argue with me. They particularly loved her ham loaf. I did not.
But I didn't like meat much at all. Hated fat and gristle. I'd carve out the middle of a pork chop and leave so much wasted on the edge. Not a nice thing to do when she was trying to feed us on such a limited budget.
Nothing that she made stands out except maybe her mac and cheese. She made tuna noodle casserole, which I tried to remake once a few years ago just for fun. I don't think we had salads, except jello salads. Vegetables were frozen or canned. Asparagus came out of a jar. It was years before I tasted properly cooked asparagus and realized that it did not have to be yellow and slimy. I don't think she liked cooking. It was just her job. But, for me, the ham loaf was the worst.
I developed a few ways to get rid of my meat. I'd cough into my napkin, carry it into the kitchen and dump it in the trash. I'd be careful to cover it with other trash. I didn't always get away with it.
There were two shelves under the table that held an extra leaf. Using the cough technique I could take a mouthful of meat and hide it on the shelf at my end of the table. I tried to remember to get the meat out and toss it later but I didn't always have the chance.
One day the mommie was dusting the legs of the table (who does that?!) and she found a bunch of desiccated meat that had been there for who knows how long. After that they watched me to make sure I ate the meat. I had to stay at the table until I finished. The longer it took the colder and grosser it got. One Friday I sat there slowly choking down some kind of meat and I missed Rawhide, my favorite show. I could hear it in the living room. What a misery!
My happy Grandmom food memories are all about snacks. On summer evenings she made rootbeer floats, which she served with pretzels. I'd scope the ice cream up on the salty, crunch pretzels. We sat on the porch with the radio in the window listening to the Pirates play baseball.

Little Story #9

I walked to and from school every day. I used that short cut through over the street car tracks. (shhhh) One afternoon a man called to me from a truck. He was asking what street we were on. He was parked under the street sign. I pointed at it and said - Park Blvd ... politely. Then he said - come closer. I took a step toward him and realized he was holding his erect penis.
I think I was eight, nine, maybe ten at the time. I had never met my father. I grew up with my Poppop and my Uncle and my male cousins but I didn't really know much about male anatomy. I had no idea what was happening. I was someone who was raised to be polite. So I sort of backed away and said something about needing to get home. He asked me if I'd ever seen anything like that. I said I had seen my cousin in the bathtub.
Looking back I am so worried about myself. I was being polite to someone who had nothing badness in mind. I should have just run. I made polite conversation.
He asked if I wanted to touch it. I said - no thank you. No ... thank you.
Sigh.
I kept talking about my grandmother and how she would be watching for me as I backed away. When I was too far away to grab he sped off.
Grandmom was in the tub. In our family many conversations happened in the bathroom while people bathed so I went in, leaned on the sink and said - well, you'll never guess what just happened to me. I wasn't really afraid. I thought the guy was weird. Crazy. I had no idea that I had been in any kind of danger. Grandmom stood up rather quickly and dramatically, which I thought was funny. I imagine she called the mommie at work. The mommie walked me to my Brownie meeting that night. Normally I would have gone alone. It was in a church at the top of our street. She came to walk me home. When I got there a police man was waiting to ask me questions. I remember feeling bewildered. Why was everyone so worked up? I was a little bit embarrassed to describe what happened. I think the cop was very kind but stern.
Apparently the guy had stopped two of my class mates a little farther down the road.
This is one of those stories that doesn't come up very often. I don't think about the impact it had on me. I still feel like I was safe but why do I feel that way? I knew enough to keep my distance but I was being so ... polite. I knew enough to say my grandmother would be watching for me. I like who I was in that moment. I also am now aware of how much worse it could have been.
The adults were just whacked out. They did not have the skills to handle it. I'm sure there was conflict between the mommie and Grandmom about how to handle it. It was like something that was happening around me.
I'm not sure what might have been better. I don't really remember what they did tell me. It was a time when we just didn't talk about things.

Not That It Matters

I just stopped following Roxane Gay on Facebook and Twitter. I doubt she'll notice. And ... it really doesn't matter.
I haven't really enjoyed her much on either format. She mostly does a lot of self promotion, which is exactly what she should be doing I suppose. I was reading an interview she linked when they mentioned she'd had weight loss surgery. There was a link to something she'd written about it. I was furious.
I don't really know why. I've been reserved (or something) about her since I discovered her. I wrote about it. Everything I felt then I feel now. Except then she hadn't had the surgery. She wrote that she knew it was dangerous and it didn't work. And then some asshat yelled something hateful to her in the parking lot of a grocery store and she crumbled.
I get it. Been there. She does get a ridiculous amount of fat hatred aimed at her in really stupid ways on Twitter. Not that there are smart ways. And she gets it in life. I am sympathetic. Or maybe I'm empathetic. I don't really have sympathy about the hate people get for being fat. I have rage. I am empathetic because I share the experience. But she knew the surgery was not going to change anything.
I lost a bunch of weight once. I wasn't trying so it was a shock and also kinda fun. I fit into some old pants and was wearing them one day. Happily walking down the street. Just digging my pants. Some guy yelled something nasty out of a passing car. I remember feeling like it was so unfair. I had lost weight and yet ... it was not enough. I was still a target.
It is a shock when someone says a hateful thing to you. I think it's also a shock when woman who are seen as beautiful walk down the street and get hooted at. Why does anyone feel like they can express their opinion to us, loudly, in public? Step the bleep off.
The column she wrote (I'm not linking it. Use your Google machine if you want to read it.) makes her choice to do the surgery tortured and her post surgery life not much fun. The column does not sell the surgery. She says she does not want praise when she loses weight. But she will get praise. Her writing will be published. Her opinion will be sought out. She will profit.
I seriously and adamantly support people's right to do what ever they need to do to feel good in their bodies. I wish her well. I hope she gets some relief from the struggle she has lived with since she gained weight.
What.
Ever.
I made a choice. A very clear choice when I was still in my teens. I was fat. I was not going to try and lose weight. I was going separate my thoughts and feelings about food from the idea of losing weight. I was going to move my body in ways that made me happy and not because I might lose weight. I was going to ask my doctors to think about my health in the context of my size. I was going to pursue my dreams as if being fat would not make them impossible. It was a political choice. I was choosing to reject all of the nonsense about my fat body.  It was a choice to revolt. It was part of the sixties,  feminist revolution. And ... oh my. It has been a journey.
I don't even feel like most of my friends get it although some of them try. The size acceptance community was disappointing. I feel alone in this battle although I know there are other people fighting the same battle.
It is just not right for an entire body type to be so completely dismissed as a pathology. It is unjust because it impacts EVERY THING. Housing. Jobs. Health care. Relationships. Access. It is a battle. Roxane knows that. She articulates her outrage brilliantly. She is fierce. And in some ways she can be as fierce as is because she doesn't accept her size. She can have the critique of fat hatred and still be a public voice because she is still ashamed.
I don't really know why I'm so angry. I don't know if I'm angry at her or the culture that tortured her to the point where she did what she did. 
I own all but one of her books. I've read them and enjoyed the writing. I haven't checked out her new project. If I see her on TV or hear her on the radio I'll listen. She's brilliant. But I'm not going to put myself on a trajectory to hear or see her. She made a choice that impacts me. She has a right to that choice. I do hope she gets where she wants to go. And I'm not interested in falling on that landmine again. It's hard enough to keep the faith.
And. It doesn't really matter.
It doesn't matter because life is going to go on.
The battle continues.

Little Story #8

I was raised a Methodist but I lived in a Catholic neighborhood. In the morning I went down the hill to go to school and everyone else went up the hill. They had uniforms. I thought Catholics were so much more interesting. They had special beads when they prayed. And they had nuns. I really wanted to be a nun.
After school we played together. One day a girl told me I was going to hell because I wasn't Catholic. I went home crying. When Grandmom found out why I was crying she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the little girl's house. I don't remember what she said or what the little girl's mom said back I know it was a scolding. I remember thinking that if I went to hell my Grandmom would come and drag me outta there.
My cousin and I were nervous kids. I'd say he was worse than I was but ... that would be a lie. I just acted like I wasn't nervous. We didn't like scary movies. There was a double feature at the theater up the street. One was a scary movie and one was not. Grandmom called to make sure the not scary was one was playing first and the sent us to the movie. The scary one was first. We tried to be brave but there were really big spiders. He was hiding his eyes. I said - lets get out of here. We went home in tears. Told Grandmom. She grabbed us both and dragged us to the theater where she got our money back.
It wasn't enough for her to scold someone who had done us wrong. It was important that we see her do it.

Little Story #7

The mommie did a lot of dieting when I was growing up. She drank various liquid diet thing like Metrical while the rest of us ate dinner. My grandmother was not feelin it. She thought dieting was unhealthy. On exercise her ideas were very clear. She'd sit up in bed. Do some arm circles. Sort of touch her toes. I think there might have been one more thing. Then she'd say - that's all you need!
Of course we lived in a house that required steps to get into, steps to get to the bathroom, steps to get to the laundry machines. For some time Grandmom didn't have a drier so she hauled laundry up the steps from the basement and then up more steps to the upper back yard where the lines were. She also gardened and cleaned. Her life had natural exercise.
Grandmom had bridge club once a month. I'd walk in from school and the ladies would discuss my weight. They'd squeeze my arm and say - she's big but she's solid. They'd talk about the possible reasons for my weight. I ate too much. It might be my thyroid. I didn't get enough exercise. Grandmom would smile, give me a kiss and say - she's fine.
When I was eleven or twelve I was inspired by Teen magazine to go on my own diet. I put the page of what to eat every day on the refrigerator. The mommie helped me make Jello for my dessert. Grandmom was not happy.
Grandmom and I were at the bakery where we got our bread and occasional dessert. She decide to buy eclairs. I love eclairs but I told her not to buy me one. I reminded her about my diet. She said it wasn't healthy for me to be on a diet and bought me one anyway.
I sat at one end of the table and my Poppop sat at the other. Grandmom was on one side and the mommie was on the other. Grandmom would pour tea, hand me the cup and I'd pass it to the mommie, she'd pass it to Poppop. And then one more from Grandmom to me to the mommie. That night the eclairs were on the table from the beginning. With each cup of tea she pushed my eclair toward me and I'd push it back. With every serving dish she'd push the eclair toward me and I'd push it back. When I was done eating I asked the mommie if I could be excused and she said yes. I carried my dishes into the kitchen. That eclair sat in our kitchen until it rotted. No one else was allowed to eat it.
I've read a few things lately about the shame that fat women feel. Even women with a strong critique of body politics. I felt that shame from time to time but it was a never a default. My grandmother's strong belief in the idea that my body was OK just the way it was lives in me still.
On my maternal side I am a generationally fat woman. The mommie was taller and fatter than her mom and I am taller and fatter than she was.
If I'm in a bakery and see an eclair I usually buy it. But only really good ones. And only ones with custard.

Little Story #6

Michael Pollan has written a book about the use of psychedelics for the treatment of depression, anxiety, end of life and maybe other things. I haven't read it yet but I did listen to him having a very interesting discussion with Ezra Klein on Ezra's podcast. I listened to it twice.
Being a sixties kid I have great affection for psychedelics. I strongly believe in the positive impact they can have on our inner world. I did them in high school and for years after that I tried to make sure I did them once a year to sort of reboot my perseption.
I went to an experimental high school in Maryland. One of my English teachers did a class called LSD Psychotherapy based on the book of the same name. Rumor was that he came to class tripping and it was probably true. He sat in the front of the room staring at us not saying a word. The strangeness of this was augmented by his extremely thick glasses and wandering eyes. And his enigmatic smile. At some point I stopped going to class. He approached me in the hall and asked why. I said - I expect most of these teachers to fuck with me but I didn't expect it from you. I got an A in the class.
I dropped some acid one day before school. A guy walked up. Asked what I was doing. I said I was tripping. He asked where I got the acid. I told him. He said - oh a bunch of people freaked out on that yesterday.
Uhhhhhh.....
It was really strong Acid. The entire trip was me thinking about what it meant to freak out and trying not to, which was actually quite funny.
I never understood people taking psychedelics and going to a party or a concert.I was such an alienated teenager. I thought I would probably freak out in that kind of situation. Tripping wasn't about fun for me. It was serious inner work. Well. Maybe not serious. There was always giggling.
A few years after high school when I was living in Boulder a friend came to visit and brought something. Maybe mushrooms. Probably mushrooms. We decided to have a "straight" person around while we tripped.  We chose my best friend at the time. She was an extremely abstract thinker. That trip was all about the ludicracy of having her as the "straight" person. 
It's interesting to think about another person as the anchor on those trips. Another thing Michael and Ezra talked about was the nature of consciousness and brain science. Michael said that if they could switch consciousnesses for a minute it would be really disorienting. Our sense of ourselves and the world is based on so many things. Where we were raised, our height and weight, our family, so many things. There are obvious commonalities in the human experience but we experience things differently. 
The last time I remember tripping was on mushrooms. I spent most of the trip laying on a bed staring at  picture of my guru. It was ... a trip. It ended with me sitting on the steps of a porch staring at a very tall tree waving in the wind. Something about that calmed me. It's strong memory that I recall in a very physical way. 
I'm a little bit afraid of psychedelics now. I worry about what chaos may exist in me. There's probably way less chaos than there used to be but I know it's there now. I'm not trying to avoid it. I'm just not sure I wast to immerse myself in it. But ... maybe someday.
Heh.

Little Story #5

On the morning I published little story#4 I was feeling bad. I didn't love the post. I felt like it needed something but I couldn't come up with anything. I also couldn't come up with anything else to write. I didn't think I could keep doing the little stories.

And then a friend (you know who you are) said some extremely cool things to me about my writing. It wasn't just the thing they said. It was the feeling of someone getting what I was trying to do with the writing. Not everybody can do that. They may like the writing but can't articulate why. It's such a balm when they can. 

I did four semester workshops and a summer workshop in my MFA program. I hated most of that experience. It made it hard for me to be open to feedback. We brought copies of our writing for every member of the workshop and discussed the feedback in class. 

Allison Krause was one of the people killed at Kent State. She had graduated from the high school I was newly attending. The hippies in the school wanted the flag lowered to half mast for her. The jocks did not. A fight broke out in the yard around the flag pole. I wrote about it for a workshop. I wrote about a back and forth fight in which each sentence ended with the word fuckin. One of my fellow students gave it back to me with the end of each word circled and a g added. I guarantee no one said fucking on that yard that day. 

I wish I could remember who but I remember reading someone talking about writing feedback. They said that most of it was beside the point. 

The best feed back I ever got was about organization. It came from David Meltzer. He was reading something I wrote. He circled things and drew arrows to where he thought they should go and he was right. It changed the way I edited my own work. I asked JoAnne to read a poem of mine once. She said, take out all the ands then put back the ones you really want. 

These little stories are harder to write than anything I've ever written before. I feel flaccid and lackluster.  I don't really understand why. I got the idea because I was telling so many of my stories to a friend. If anyone talks to me long enough I start telling stories. And I want to hear their stories.
I am editing but I'm trying not to edit too much. For now, it only matters that I get something written. The goal is to write one a day for the month of June.
One of the nicest thing a person ever said to me was after reading set of essays I'd written was - if there were more I'd still be reading.  

Little Story#4

Ripped from the headlines.
I was in a play with Roseanne Barr. When you read that you should call up the way Meryl Streep says - I had a farm in Africa - at the beginning of Out of Africa. I always do.
It was decades ago in Colorado. She was just beginning to be known as a comedian in Denver and I had my little rock-n-roll band in Boulder.  A Denver playwrite had a one act she was entering in a contest the title of which was Hey Hey Big Girl. It was about two sisters who owned a dress shop. I was the very fashionable one and Roseanne was the slob. There were three other women in the play but I don't remember their parts. The sisters fought but I don't remember why. I think there were songs. I don't remember much about the play at all except that I thought it was dumb. So did Roseanne.
We performed at the contest and once more at a friend of mine's dance studio. After the studio performance Roseanne over heard the director being asked what it was like to work with fat woman. She said she had lost weight.
Yep.
I loved Roseanne. She was the first fat woman I'd ever met who wasn't ashamed about being fat. She was direct, smart and so much fun.  I haven't met a lot of fat women without that shame. Even in the size acceptance community. I haven't met many fat women with whom I had such a great connection. We were fat. And that wasn't all we were. We were women with dreams and talents and plans.
I saw her twice after the play. We talked about writing our own play. She told me she was leaving for LA to do the Comedy Store but she would be back. I said she was going to get famous really fast. She assured me she'd stay in touch.
She did get famous really fast.
She did not stay in touch.
I watched her career and always felt like I was on a similar path.
I wasn't.
At some point in life I realized that not getting famous was the best thing that could have happened to me. I don't think I would have done well with fame. I think I would have done a lot of drugs and died. The very limited experience I had with a very little bit of being famous was alienating. I just don't think I would have handled it.
If you told me then that Roseanne would say the kinds of things she's been saying I would have thought you were wrong. There was no evidence then of who she became. And ... I kind of don't care why it happened. Did she have some kind of breakdown? Was it drugs? Was it fame? I have no idea and ...again ... I don't care. I don't care because there's no way for me to really know. And it doesn't matter. She's been saying some really crazy stuff for a long time. I kept thinking there was joke that I wasn't getting. Because none of it was funny. I've always been sad about the loss of her friendship and it's clear to me that we would not have been friends for long.
You can say that racism lives dormant or quietly in white people. I wouldn't argue with you. In America we have all been cooked in it. I can say that I have done a lot of work to uncover my own and I feel like I always will need to do that work.
I don't feel bad about what's happening to her. I have a list of people I'd like to see be held similarly accountable.
I lost a friend years ago.
I've been losing her ever since.

Little Story #3

Oregon is the farthest north I've ever lived. The long summer days are even longer here. In late May it's already getting light by 5AM and stays light till 9 or 10.
Because I worked so many breakfast shifts I've always been aware of the lengthening of days. It's nicer to walk to work in the light.
Walking to work in the morning you see joggers, other workers, sometimes in uniform. You see people coming home from a possibly long ribald evening. Makeup has lost its line. Clothing is rumpled. We pass each other. The workers with a day just beginning and the players with a day finally ending.
In New York I walked with my eyes down, careful to step over the streams of urine flowing from a wall to the curb. Broken vials of powder. Still burning stubs of cigarettes. In some parts of San Francisco it's similar. But New York has 24 hour mess and throb. You need to be alert.
I live above a coffee shop in the middle of a small city downtown area. Oak Street is also highway 30. Semis that look like they might be bigger than my condo go by all the time. The mornings start early with delivery trucks, breakfast smells, mufflers grinding. If I wanted to sleep late it might be a drag but I never do. I wake up earlier in the summer.
I always went into work early. I'd set up and then make my own breakfast, drink coffee and smoke some cigs. I miss the coffee and tobacco combo. The still dreamy drifting minutes before the work begins.
People who are outside a lot love long summer days. I'm not outside but I do love having light late into the evening. But I also enjoy the fall. I like things getting darker and colder. I like tucking in. The dark days last longer here too.

Little Story #2

My parents were together for the first three months of my life. They had a dog named Pride. When they were divorced my dad said the only thing he wanted was the dog. Nice thing for a girl to learn about her dad.
Apparently, Pride sat beside my crib, guarding me. The mommie told me different stories about what happened to him. I think she gave him to a family who owned a farm. Maybe she was being vindictive or maybe she thought Pride would be better off with them. Pride jumped over a fence and was hurt badly enough to die. This is the narrative I grew up with and am not at all sure how much of it is true. Except for the part about Pride sitting by my crib. I want that one.
I was afraid of dogs as a kid and am still uneasy around them. I like them very much. I just feel nervous.
When I was very young Grandmom sent me to the store. I must have been old enough to go but I know I was very young. There was a short cut through the streetcar tracks. It wasn't really dangerous because the streetcars didn't go that fast. It was easy to stand on the side when they went by. (Or stand in the middle when two went by and enjoy the thrill. Probably a bit dangerous.) But she told me to go around the long way. I was walking down the street when a small dog came out from behind his house and began to bark.  I stood very still and began to talk to him. I was terrified. I talked. He barked. Eventually he got bored and went back behind his house and I hurried away. The trip took way longer than it should have (despite me taking the short cut home) and Grandmom was worried and mad when I got home.
Years later, I was living in my first tiny studio and going to a community college. I walked to and from school. I was headed to school one morning when a really big German Shepard came running out from behind his house. I thought I'd walk around him and stepped off the curb. The mirror of a truck hit me in the head and I spun around. My right foot went under the back wheel of the truck.
I had a surgery to close the hole on the side of my ankle. I think it was a four hour surgery. Maybe five. I was in the hospital for a month, home with my leg elevated for a month and on crutches for a month. I have a really big scar. It looks like someone has taken a bite out of my ankle.
If my parents had stayed together and I had grown up with Pride I might not have been afraid of dogs. There's really no way to know. But videos of babies and young children with their dogs put a lump in my throat.
As do videos and pictures of dad's with their daughters.

Little Story #1

Not waiting for June because ... I need to jump in.
The stories are still quiet but for one. And it makes me a bit nervous to tell it because it's about me and God. It is true that I'm thinking a lot about this kind of thing but it isn't true that I'm getting religion. I'm not trying to inspire belief. I have no belief. But (as I mentioned in that post I was whining about not getting any reaction) there is a connection between my feelings about God and my sense that it will take some kind of divine intervention for me to find a partner.
And me and God go way back. My life story has been a religious studies program.
I put a new picture in my FB header. It's a picture of me at about six years old. I'm sitting by a small pond, holding a doll staring at a tree. I have no memory of that moment specifically but that is how childhood felt to me. Alone. Lost in revery. Clutching a simulacrum of a friend. I really used to stare at nature. I remember marveling over leaves and rocks and water. I may have been praying. I was always praying. I did the usual our-father and now-I-lay-me prayers but mostly I had conversations. My dad was absent. I think I re-parented myself with God and I think that was really smart.
But none of that is the story. The story is about a key.
My grandmother had given me a key. I don't remember why. It must have been a key to our house but I don't remember our house being locked. I think I was supposed to give the key to someone. Somehow, I lost the key. I was distraught because I knew my grandmother would be mad. She was never a violent kind of mad. At least not physically. But she could make you feel emotionally smashed. I remember frantically looking around. I was tugging at my pockets. I sat down on a stool and prayed. I begged God to help me find that key. And then I fell off the stool.
The key was under the stool.
Looking back from my current perspective I feel so much tenderness for that little girl. I wish she hadn't been so worried about her grandmother being angry. I sort of love that she believed that a deity would hear her and help her. I'm really happy that it worked out. She lives in me. I am still a little girl beseeching.
I think the re-parenting ended when I went to India to be with Baba.
I actually have a lot of stories about things working out after beseeching God for one thing or an other. There's the how I got the money to go to India story. I'll save that for another day. 

Little Story Project

I really enjoyed the month of poems. Posting something every morning took me back to the days when I used to blog every day. I looked for poems on the interwebs during the day. At night I looked through my books. I woke up every day with a poem at the ready.
I miss blogging. I just don't have the same drive to do it. I don't have much to add to the political conversation. There's so much noise and I don't want to be part of it. My life is fairly boring. When I write a post like the last one I wrote and get no feed back it makes me sad. I always wanted my blogging to be part of a big conversation and it never felt like it was.
My blog-roll is token. I don't really go through it. I scroll through Facebook and Twitter and Instagram but it doesn't feel the same.
Also.
I've been wanting to rewrite my book and ... I just don't do the work.
So.
I had this idea to write little stories every day for a month. Memoir-ettes. I had the idea because I had been telling someone a few of my stories. The minute I decided to do the project all my stories fell silent.
This is going to be a challenge.
I was going to do it for the month of June. Which is a few days away. Which feels like a stall.
I thought about doing as Tweets. I thought the constraint of 280 characters might be cool. Tamp down on my loquacious self. But when the stories fell silent I decided I should just ... do what I can do. Just do it. Just write.
Judging by how long it has taken to write this much ... how many times I stopped to make food, sing along with a song, play Pokeman, any bleeping thing ... I better not try any constraints. Not this time. The goal is just to write. Get that muscle working. I'm not looking for advice. I should (maybe) be better at hearing advice but right now I'm working with a clenched jaw. I'm on my tip toes. I trying to sneak past my ... self.
Which is not to say that comments won't be welcome and they don't all need to be hyper-positive. (Although ... um ... praise is OK.)
(Heh.)
So I'm going to post this.
And then have a panic attack.
Nah. 
I can do this.

Lament

I've been listening to podcasts. It started on the weekends but has been slowly replacing most of my news consumption. I listen to a few that aren't newsy. Ana Marie Cox does With Friends Like These on which she has the kind of conversations I long to have. Recently she had a conversation with Chris Stedman who identifies as a public atheist.
In my life I've participated in a number of different religions and philosophies. I remember deep spiritual feeling from my earliest childhood. These days I say I believe in God but I don't know what I mean by that. There is often an apt distinction made between religious and spiritual. But these days neither of those really fits. I believe in something. I believe that a butterfly flapping its wings may cause a shift in weather patterns. There are forces impacting us all the time. Political, social and probably mysterious. What I'm not sure about is whether I believe in a responsive personal force.
There's a problematic intersection in my feeling about God and my romantic longings. It's one of the saddest things in my identity. I have felt like meeting someone who could love me would require(s) divine intervention. In many ways this is about being fat but I know too many fat women with wonderful loving relationships to truly believe that. I think it has more to do with my absent father and inappropriately affectionate stepfather. Or some combination of difficult psychology and social bad faith.
I've been suffering a crush on a guy. I'm not sure how it happened. It developed slowly and is based on a physical reaction. I don't know him. The very little experience I have of him leads me to believe that we would have very little in common. At first it was just fun to enjoy feeling attracted to someone. Eros. It feels good. And then I started deteriorating. Because I do want a relationship. So I began to wish that he could be someone who he isn't. I began to write dialogue that would result in a surprise happy connection. Oddly, he doesn't seem to have received his script. I'd like to own the hurt that I am feeling because in a very real way it has nothing to do with him.
There is another episode of Friends Like These on which she talks about a column on sex robots and incels. She says something about people not knowing what incels are and ... I didn't. I looked it up. It's about feeling oneself to be an involuntary celibate. At first I thought - oh that's me! But no. It's not me at all. It's about a kind of entitlement that I don't understand at all. It's angry and violent.
Wanting something that isn't available to you is just no fun. It's no fun materially but we sort of have a place for that. Maybe we feel like if we work hard enough we can get things. Or we just feel resentful and we pout. I feel like certain things are a right. Food, education, health care, housing.  And certain things are just about process. We have a process toward realizing what we want.
Love isn't guaranteed. I don't think it should be. I never understand the - you deserve - lines. I don't think we earn or are entitled to love or any expression of feeling from anyone else. We just live in our individual process and sometimes we (pardon the expression) get lucky. Or we don't.
There have been men who loved me. There have been men who brought me roses. Thinking about them makes me sadder than thinking about the men who didn't. Why has it never felt right? Why am I always asking why? I feel like I've worked on this for years and I don't feel like I've gotten very far.
But not long ago I had a strong feeling of ... well ... I'm not sure what. Something like wholeness and peace. I don't know why it happened and I don't know why it eludes me today. It may be in part about this boy drama but ... I'm not sure that's all it is. It may be early birthday blues. Maybe it was too much poetry. It may just be a part of who I am. It certainly has been.
So.
There's no where to go with all this. No easy resolve. I know I'm not alone in these feelings. Not that that helps. I know these feelings will fade. Sort of fall back. Not bite so hard into my day. I am trying to find a way to hold them.
But.
They suck.
I'm not sure I believe in a responsive personal force. Does the butterfly flap its wings and cause the wind or does the wind call to the butterfly, asking for a push?