Rest In Piece, You Glorious Baritone

 

Please overlook the tears. 

This is Carlos. The baritone of Il Divo, the cheesy showman who honestly twinkled and could sing the panties right off the front row. He was how Carolyn and I met. He was the catalyst in my life from "I'd really like to be a writer" to "I just wrote a 60,000+ word story called The Cheeky Spaniard all about Carlos."

Carlos Marin. The little Caruso. 

I don't even listen to Il Divo anymore. I listen to K-Pop and women singers. The only Il Divo still in my life is Carolyn's ringtone. But I followed on social media. I forwarded occasionally to my friend. And no matter what, it was Carlos who inspired me to write the damned book instead of just wish I could.

He was vaccinated but Covid didn't care. It got into those beautiful lungs and killed him. 

All my love, Carlos. Thank you for the dreams.

New Friends

 I made a new friend yesterday. I've known her my entire life and have had a love/hate relationship, mostly hate. But as I looked at her yesterday, really looked at her, I realized I didn't want to give her anything but love anymore.

Avoiding mirrors is like an Olympic sport for fat girls. Who wants to face the double chin, the belly rolls (sounds like a dance move) (or a pastry: I'll have a belly roll please with strawberry jam). And age makes it even harder because I've avoided really looking at myself so studiously that now my own face is a little bit of a stranger to me.

And yesterday I looked. I really, truly looked. And I talked to her. It was time to treat that woman in the mirror with more love, more acceptance and understanding. Time to stop seeing her as a failure and recognize that she's worked hard her whole life and done her best. She's failed but she's also succeeded. She has resilience out the ass. Life has flattened her multiple times but she's always gotten back up and kept on her way.

And she is well loved. She has had an abundance of love from friends and oh! those friends. We have had some serious laughs and shared some hard tears.(I got my Christmas cards out yesterday and not only did I use the whole box up but it felt so good to reach out to women all over the world and say 'I'm thinking of you'.

What a blessed life me and that lady in the mirror have had. And we had a daughter we would live and die for. And that daughter, that star, that person who radiates from the love she's been given -- she loves me too! We are each other's number ones. I'm so well loved by that girl that I'm humbled and reborn by it.

So that woman I started talking to yesterday, she's all these wonderful things that I admire. She's strong, she's a fighter, she is loved and maybe finally, she's learning her own worth. I might really learn to like that old gal. And if I'm lucky, we might learn to love each other too.

What Comes Up in the Dark

 So I have a confession: I didn't move out of the house because my brother called me "that bitch" and let his love for Trump devalue his relationship with me. I mean, that was certainly a factor but the real story...

Shortly before that night (like one night before) we were talking about some old family shit and my brother referenced the time I was pregnant for the first time at age 39 with twins. I miscarried in the first trimester and was inconsolable. And here's the truth: when I lost those babies I lost a piece of my heart that I never got back.

More truths: when women choose to have babies or not have babies those decisions are fucking huge. It's not like deciding whether to dye your hair blond for the summer: it's deciding whether or not to alter your life for the rest of your life and never be the same. 

It's a decision akin to amputation. You can't walk back from it.

So anyway... my brother said that when I was pregnant he did a little research and saw that first time pregnancies at the age I was and with twins was almost a guarantee for miscarriage. So he figured that I would miscarriage and nothing would affect him(our mother was demanding he pay her back some money because we had babies on the way) so he went along his way and I miscarried and his world was fine.

My world shattered and he was okay because he didn't have to pay our Mom back and the heartbreak that literally stole my life was not a big deal because according to my brother, it was something he was prepared for and it let him off the hook. 

And the thing is that I know my emotional devastation meant nothing to him. It meant nothing to anyone but me. But if you love me, if you like me, if you consider that I have any worth at all, maybe recognizing that something so major to me isn't something to shrug off. Maybe being blasé about someone else's heartbreak isn't something to share at the dinner table.

Anyway, nothing will change with him. As he ages he becomes more like out father and less like someone I want close to me. And the pain in acknowledging that is big. I didn't know this was coming. It hurts. 

Hello Silence My Old Friend

I started writing a post about how much I hate too much noise but as I was writing, I felt like I was copping out from writing something a lot deeper. Saying I dislike extraneous noise isn't what I'm really feeling, not the deep inside feeling. And that isn't what's going on either since I moved. Yes, there is a lot less noise now that I live alone but it isn't really about the noise at all.

It's never really been about the noise. It's about the absence of noise. About the absence of distraction.

When the conversations are done, the TV is off, the K-Pop not playing and a person is alone in their space with themselves. That's when the work is done. When the inner voice isn't hushed and the questions, ideas, emotions are given a playground to come out and frolic. When a person is alone with themselves. 

When you aren't distracted from yourself, what happens? 

I haven't had this sort of silence in a long, long time. It's only been a week so I don't have any great discoveries or break throughs, I just have silence. 

There's dissatisfaction because I'm lacking furniture and enough storage right now. My walls don't have color/decoration and I feel the lack. But there was that moment last night after dinner was eaten and Netflix was turned off when there was just me...

Anyway, I don't have a lot to share about it. I've been craving this and I have it again. I look forward to seeing what comes from it. Will I find my hidden muse and write? Will I paint? Will I bury the past or understand it better? Where will this silence lead?

I'm excited to be back on this path.

RIP Lord Sebastian FishGuard

 Thank you everyone for attending this sad occasion as we lay Lord Sebastian FishGuard to his eternal rest. The reception will be held on the 27th Street Roundabout where we will circle endlessly for an hour and then meet later at Burger King.

Lord Sebastian was known for his flamboyance in his everyday wear. Purple and blue were his go to colors with a bit of red fringe. He was fashionable at a time when men's fashion has hit the dregs of lumberjack flannel shirts and the ubiquitous, romance novel favorite, Henleys.It takes a special man to swim against the current and Lord Sebastian was that man.

His later years were  marred by a series of moves that disrupted his simple pattern of swimming when possible and hiding in the schoolhouse when tired. 

Lord Sebastian is survived by his sad caretaker and those who knew and loved him. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you "just keep swimming" in Sebastian's memory.

My Favorite Season is the Fall of the Patriarchy

 aka: How I Learned to Stop Listening to Others and Let TikTok Change My Life

Things that happened yesterday: I got internet installed and the very nice man who installed it tried to up-sell me (which is his job) but I thought about what he said and recognized the untruths in his words. My daughter told me I should cut my hair and my Sister in Law told me I should tell my daughter to live her own life and stay out of mine.

And I watched TikTok videos and cried because of inclusion.

Quick background: my daughter is 20 years old so she's young. Oh so young. But she's also aware of things I have no clue about and she introduces me to trends and art that I would never have known about. A long while ago she started doing TikTok videos because everyone was and I signed up to give her follows and likes. I didn't care too much about TikTok at the time and didn't hang around.

Later I discovered TikTok again and watched some hysterical videos and loved it. But within the last six months I discovered that TikTok has something I haven't found on any other website: inclusion. 

Not suggesting that trolls don't roam freely and racism and misogyny and transphobia and Islamophobia and Trump loving Republicans aren't there too but... they aren't in my TikTok. Because my TikTok is a combination of humor, mental health, LGBTQIA acceptance (and humor), a butt load of cross dressers and more people stopping to tell me I exist and deserve existence and love and happiness because God doesn't make mistakes and I wasn't a mistake (for you AZ, if you're reading this: the Great Design of Nature, Nurture and DNA made me like I am and I'm perfectly me).

So last night: Mollie told me I should cut my hair and I said no because I love how it looks right now and I'm keeping it this way for me. My SIL told me to put up greater boundaries with Mollie and I said no (because my relationships and boundaries belong to myself and nobody else is invited to tell me how to love).

And I was antsy last night because I'm learning to live alone again so I turned on TikTok and my 'gay auntie' told me I was beautiful and men called out other men for misogyny and Jeffrey Marsh was there and broke my heart open and my favorite influencer told a LOL joke and I felt so good. Because when you realize that TikTok easily lets you create the algorithms for your experience and I watch people who empower others, who love openly, who encourage and step outside boundaries and they open my heart and eyes...

TikTok for me is therapy. It's the place where a gay man in a huge hat in Louisiana tells me he loves me and I feel it. Where black women scold and tell stories and I listen. I admire make-up, I feel people's hearts and I truly, truly believe that these strangers mean every word they're saying.

TikTok is my idea of heaven. You find your people. You find your message. (Even if your message is one of racism or hatred: you do you). It's not about celebrities or blue checkmarks, I don't watch dances or dares: I find the people I need. 

Anyway, I just wanted to share. My heart is breaking open a little right now, living by myself there's a thaw of some colder areas that I wasn't aware of and it's very emotional (in a good way). I'm glad I'm not going through it alone. I have my friends, my daughter and a whole bunch of strangers/family on TikTok supporting me through it all.

You Are All Invited

 to my housewarming party.

There's only two chairs and two ottomans so be prepared to stand. And there's no internet so we ain't checking our smart phones or playing the Roku. But it's my home now and I haven't slept this well in ages.

This is not a joke. I was so worried that moving into an apartment would leave me paralyzed at night listening to every noise, every strange creak and thinking "OMG! It's the serial killer from upstairs come to kill me!" Instead I'm so comfortable on my new mattress with no dogs sharing my space (I love them but I like sleeping alone) and no dog smells on my blanket and I sleep so deeply and wake up amazed.

It isn't perfect but nothing is. It is however, very welcoming and comfortable and I'm so glad I'm here.

This is a short post because I cut up all my moving boxes and I'm trying to decide if I want to run them all to the dump. I mean, I don't. Maybe I should just get them in my car for later.

So come on over. I have a lace we can hang out now.