Megan

Today during therapy, while discussing the choice to withdraw from political awareness for awhile and try to concentrate on joy, I got a text message. After therapy I opened it to find the message was from Megan, a friend I had lost contact with in the last year or two telling me she's in hospice, dying from ALS. She's reaching out before she passes.

Carolyn gets the results from the PET Scan on Thursday. Hoping it isn't lung cancer.

I was holding it together. I really was. I leave for Japan at the end of next week and I just needed to make it and so of course, I got a mouth/tooth infection. Horrific post nasal drip. 

Did I mention the fire Thanksgiving night when the apartment directly below me had flames leaping from the window and I woke up to black smoke and sparks?

This is life. Life is what happens when you're making other plans. My plans were to try and stay out of survival mode and enjoy life. To do more than survive. To live in joy.

Existing is an act of rebellion. Joy is controversy. Carolyn's paintings are on the wall above the couch. Megan was with me when I found Murder. She helped me start on my healing journey.

This is disjointed and I apologize. I didn't cry. I ate an entire bag of potato chips while flipping through funny videos on You Tube. I took one of my carefully guarded narcotics because the mouth pain was unbearable (I'm on antibiotics). It was horrible.

Then I texted Mollie and I started to cry. Megan is only about 40 years old. She's neurospicy, carries a lot of childhood trauma. She had muscle pain. Our conversations were free flowing, lots of "me too!" moments. She's artistic and smart. She's too fucking young to die. 

I don't know how to do this. How do you say goodbye to someone who shouldn't be dying? How do you forgive yourself for not cherishing someone who deserved to be cherished?

How do we find joy in life when life keeps tearing at our souls? I really don't know how to do this. Survival isn't just rebellion. Sometimes it's a gift we did nothing to deserve.

A Shooter, A Dilemma, What is Morality?

 The death penalty should be abolished. Murder is a sin. Health insurance for profit should be abolished. Health insurance for profit is a sin.

So the CEO of United Healthcare was murdered as he was walking into a meeting where he was going to brag about the billions of dollars in profit that was made by denying people life saving care. Murder is a sin. The shooter committed a sin. The CEO and their board/shareholders committed a sin.

Blue Cross decided to limit the amount of anesthesia available to patients having surgery so they wouldn't have to cover the costs of life saving care. A Shooter killed the CEO of UHC. The BC CEO said "hey, we were just kidding. Have all the anesthesia you need."

Deny. Defend. Depose.

Online the conversation around the assassination is a general lauding of the shooter as a modern day Robin Hood. He's Batman with a gun. Except that the 8am meeting the CEO was going to still took place at 8am. His job was posted the very next day. People who deny life saving drugs aren't really going to give a shit over a man bleeding out in the streets. The internet is giddy but nothing has changed.

United Healthcare will not be changing its practices. Blue Cross will provide your surgical anesthesia but no doubt will raise the cost of cancer drugs and deny MRIs. The new Trump administration will find a way to gut Medicare and roll back the $35 insulin to the astronomical previous prices.

What did he accomplish? There were a few more Eat the Rich memes. People celebrated a bad man having a bad end. But all that really happened is that as a society we sink a little further down into the murkiness of the least common denominator. We become a little more unfeeling, a little less empathetic. The divide between us grows stronger.

Billionaires are societal scourges. They're in it for the money. Some give back but the Musks and Zuckerberg s and CEOs of billion dollar profit organizations; they are in it for themselves. But does that mean we should shoot them as a protest?

What did this accomplish? Because I enjoy the memes but I also worry that I don't give a shit that a bad man was killed in a bad way. I worry that as politeness becomes a thing of the past, as aggression and anger become louder and more actionable that we won't see a new French Revolution but rather the end of our society and the beginning of our end.

I Predict

 My prediction with a Republican government with no oversight:

1. Trump will hand over Ukraine to Putin. He will withdraw all humanitarian support to Palestine and help Israel wipe out the Palestinian people.

2. Trump will die in his sleep after a year or two. JD Vance will take the presidency. There will never again be another honest election. Possibly never again any election at all.

3. They will gut all healthcare (Medicaid gone, Medicare too expensive with no benefits). Pharmaceutical and insurance companies will make healthcare decisions. 

4. No more Dept. of Education. No EPA. Our preserved lands will be drilled. We'll speed up the process of destroying the planet.

5. Women will go 4B hard in America and and things will get dangerous as fuck. Police will have no oversight and rapists will see no punishment. Women will be jailed for "false reporting" men. 

I feel, in my gut, this election was rigged. It just makes no sense. How did Kamala have such a perfect campaign and so much support? How did she get a billion in donations? How did so many Republicans say they were voting for Kamala and she couldn't hit Biden's margins?

I know Americans hate women and more than that, they hate black women. I mean, they HATE black women. Maybe she never stood a chance and we were too blind to what America really is.

A little advice: get a passport. Make sure you have available cash. Make sure you have your documents available. Don't trust white people. (I mean that, as a white person, just don't.) America is going to get a lot more dangerous and it isn't hyperbole to say that we have to be prepared.

And if you know someone who might face "special treatment" (deportation, loss of rights, unsafe living conditions), be prepared to help. There is no looking away. We didn't do enough to keep our country safe. We need to do all we can to keep our most vulnerable safe.

My Writing Assignment

I could tell you everything in my kitchen cupboards and refrigerator in less than five minutes. From the bags of frozen chicken, the popsicles to the refried beans in the cupboard and 5 cans of Star Kist tuna, I am a savant of food. I know how much mayonnaise is left in the jar and that there are only 2 hot chocolate K cups in the drawer.

There is the plastic container with the expired cottage cheese and single Key Lime Yogurt I never ate. The strawberries still in the container that aren't washed or cut.

The sour cream is watery and the roast chicken is bland.

And I'm starving.

I eat. Chicken and potatoes. A diet Coke. I think about cookies. Popcorn. I'm full but I crave more. I want sweet. I want salty. Maybe juice. Maybe a cookie. Maybe any of the endless cans of fruit or instant puddings or what else there can be.

I'm 66 years old and still standing in the same Seattle kitchen that I stood in at age 15. The summer I could no longer hold in the pain. The summer a part of me died that little bit and I did anything I could to not let it be all of me.

I was she and she stood in that kitchen with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a knife. How many peanut butter sandwiches were made and consumed during that time? How many times did that knife smear peanut butter across bread as a way to keep it from knicking against an artery and ending all the sorrow?

41 years later and still living the same hunger. The same need. I'm an actress trapped in a role where the curtain never goes down.

I'm as bound to this moment as a hostage trapped in a basement wrapped in rope and duct tape and no chance of escape.

This hunger defines me. As happy as I am, as happy as I can be and yet the yawning emptiness always is there.

I'm not alone this time. At 15 there was me and I had to survive with just myself and my strength. I had to be a loving parent, a best friend, a rock in the chaos and pain. Nobody would do it for me.

Carolyn and Lea, Mollie and Lori are here now. My family grows with women who understand how hard it is and who remind me that I am not 15 years old. I am not doing this by myself. I am bound to others with the ties of love and found family.

Survival was peanut butter and wonder bread back when I was unmoored. Right now my belly is full and the dishes are washed. My brain thinks of the strawberries and Icees but I don't move. My cat sits next to me and winds her tail around my arm. She reminds me that I'm tethered to this life, this moment and we will survive.

Cravings bind me to the past. Joy allows me to live in this moment instead. I'm grateful to both because I've survived. Peanut butter sandwiches saved my life a long time ago. Now the women who love me keep me safe.

Peace and Compassion Through Kamala

 Over on Threads (my social media platform of choice) everybody is gearing into the last few days before election and trying to help/encourage people over the finish line. And I asked the witches and spellcasters, what are you doing in these last few crucial days?

So there isn't one definitive answer. But as a baby witch/crone, I believe that everything we do is marked by intention. 

Someone suggested writing Twitler's name on toilet paper and wiping one's ass and chanting "flush away" when flushing. Someone suggested burning sage daily to burn out the patriarchy (which I am doing). 

But I believe for my own practice, I want my intentions to be helpful. I want to send love out, not negativity. And therefore I am also burning lavender and orange and sending my intention thus: Peace and compassion through Kamala. 

If white women don't fuck it up (like they did for Hillary) we might finally have one of the best of us as leader. It's what we've missed. And I have great like for Joe Biden and admiration but another old, white guy was never the answer. We need a country running on feminine energy and fuel. We need a person whose compassion was created by the circumstances of an immigrant, single mother creating opportunities for her daughters. 

Female rage and female love are powerful. Women are powerhouses. The patriarchy needs to be dead and buried. Let women do the job now.

Did You Vote Yet?

 I dropped my ballot off at the Office of Elections last week. This week I have the usual writing class, physical therapy appointments and a probable dinner date with my brother and his wife.

I love my brother but politics has done a huge number on our relationship. It isn't the absolute horror of his supporting racist, misogynist policies but the lack of moral character he's shown himself to have. 

My very, most basic belief is that children should not go hungry and children should not get shot in the schools. That's my bottom of bottom lines. I don't believe anyone should go hungry, be homeless or get get shot. But the most bottom of my beliefs is children should be protected. And to say that to another human being and have that other person argue with you on those two issues: it ended something inside me. If your right to own a gun supersedes a child's right to stay alive during the school day, there's just something fundamentally wrong with you. If you can argue that some kids deserve hunger (no free school lunches, no free assistance) then there's something inhumane in you.

At this point, in this election, people are getting down to basics. It's no longer policies or budgets (although they matter), it's the basic moral fiber of America and how we see ourselves.

I don't want Kamala Harris to win because she's a democrat. I want her to win because she is what America stands for. She is born from immigrants, she was primarily raised by her mother post divorce (when she was 5) and she fought for every step she took. She was never a DEI candidate, she was simply the best candidate. 

Anyway, I have an assignment due for class tomorrow that I haven't finished and I want to take a nap. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Life Changing or Changing Lives?

 I've finished my postcards to Ohio and mailed them out. I've filled in my own ballot and will drop it off at the Office of Elections on Monday. I have donated. I wear my Cat Ladies for Kamala shirt when I'm going out where people will be.

I am, essentially, now done with the election. I have no more to give emotionally or financially. I'll repost from KamalaHQ on TikTok and Threads and of course, I'm speaking out. But it's only 2 weeks basically and I'm just going to plan my Nov 5 election watch party. I have physical therapy in the morning and I think a fruit tray and Cheetos is what I'll need. 

I've been going to a writing class on Mondays. It's at the senior center so it's focused on memoirs and I'm focused on fiction but I'm appreciating the experience. I'm the youngest in the class (huh) and it's all women. Some of these women have amazing life experiences: one was married to a diplomat, one was an AP journalist, one lived in Paris for years. I appreciate just hearing their stories.

I also appreciate the understanding that certain experiences have a lot to give, some a little and some none at all. The class has been a contrast: one day I walked out with my mind blown, the amount of knowledge that had been passed on was life changing. The very next week was dull, nothing to spark my interest, nothing to learn. Yet even realizing that some days you just show up is fine. 

One nugget of wisdom I received from the class: Write from the scar, not from the wound. (I'll let you take what you will from that. It blew my mind.)

Still and all, right now I'm completing obligations so that I can concentrate on what I want my life to feel like. I've spent so long trying to fit into structures where I didn't belong, now I get to rewrite these years to be my most happy, creative self and I'm starting to open the door to the possibilities of what that means.

I'm revisiting things that have worked for me in the past, trying to drop those things that don't fit. Press-on nails, caramel protein shakes and K-Dramas work. Cooking extravagantly, fast food and appointments don't work. Spending money is not good. Planning a vacation with my daughter is very good.

I'm learning my bliss. Life is seriously good.