Happy New Year 2020

In lieu of a Year in Review, here's a Douglas Adams quote. Whole mood, plus brain medicine.

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

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Some Blogs I Didn't Post in 2019 (Happy New Year)

First there's the round-up of "Shittiest Twitter Takes," where I post tweets displaying the dumbest shit I have ever heard in my life. Like when Donald Trump Jr. threw himself into the Pocahontas attack on Elizabeth Warren by feigning wonder (unconvincingly) as to why people aren't protesting Disney, too. He was trying to push the idea that Disney is just as offensive as president Trump because Disney made an animated story of Pocahontas. Then there's world class boneheads Diamond and Silk, defending their idiot president on the matter of racist terms he used. These two clowns are suggesting that the dictionary must also be racist then, as it contains the same words that Trump used, so they'd like to challenge us based on "Is the dictionary racist, too?" There's about ten more of these shitty takes, but five or six of them are related to our embarrassment of a president, and I don't want to waste my time with words about him. So I didn't write that "Twitter Shittiest Takes" blog post.

Another blog post I didn't write is my round-up summary of all the ways people use Facebook and how there's one particular style of Facebooker that I find interesting. It's all the people who rush to write a post every time some little thing goes wrong or is inconvenient, it's like they cannot WAIT to tell us all about their hardship (they got the wrong coffee order, or the car needs a new tire) and these outrages are often marked by an exuberant FML or TFW. Everything else is a piece of news, a sweet photo, an adorable anecdote, or a lovely memory. These are like micro newsletters.Taken all together, their posts comprise an authentic micro-blog. Coming back to Facebook, I see how much I've missed. I didn't know Adam and Maureen got married. I didn't know Brian moved to LA. I didn't know Lisa switched to a new job, or has a podcast. I didn't know Walter has become slim as a blade! Inspirational! I didn't know Max has had poems published, how big Archer has grown, or that Cynthia has a new book out. I didn't know Amy is baking amazing breads. Scrolling back through posts, it's a composite, authentic sketch of how your friend has been doing. It's not practical to sit and write letters back and forth to each other...we are not permitted that kind of time anymore. Facebook posts take the place of correspondence, and I find it a bit nice. So now I'm torn about deleting my account as planned. Fucking Zuckerberg. I'm having a moral dilemma over walking out on this twerp?

I didn't write the blog post about returning to therapy last May and all that entails. As it turns out, I still need help. I'm on a new medication since October, actually on two new ones...three if you count trying out Prazosin. That one's for nightmares. It didn't seem to work for me at all, so I stopped taking it. There's been a lot going on with my mental health this year. I miss my brain. I'm tired. I'm broke. I can't focus, I can't work. I need help.

Finally, I was thinking of writing a blog post about Family. Lack thereof, more specifically. My grandmother Maggie had eleven siblings which would have been my mom's aunts and uncles, and they all had kids who would be my mom's cousins, who have kids who would be my second cousins, who have kids who would be my second cousins once removed if I understand how that works. In theory there's a big rollicking family on my mother's side who don't know who I am or that I even exist. As a child I had met few of them. But as I sit here, I don't know their names or where they live. Why didn't I get to have that family? I don't know the answer to how did that happen? Isolation from the family has never been adequately explained to me. I feel robbed of this thing I never had. In addition to that, then there's the two fathers and their families, these relations I can't even begin to explain. Most I have never met. More recently, there has been Joe's family, who don't really like me all that much, but at least they go through the motions, more than I can say for the vast family who didn't know me, didn't want me, never attempted to even try. Before this expanse of relations, I stand alone and confused and wonder if there's anything I could have done about it, but fret what would that have possibly been? 👪
Image: coloringpagesfortoddlers.com

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Dog Days

*not actual dog

So for two weeks I'm pet-sitting for some oldest/dearest friends. It's one dog and two cats and I'm staying at their house. It's in Brighton, not that far from my house in Allston, so I get the 57 bus and go "visit" Joe every couple of days, making food and hanging out for awhile until it's time to go back to the pack of furfaces currently in my care.

The smoky gray cat has decided he's my bestie. He likes to headbutt me, purr and knead me and then curl up and sleep on me. That's understandable as his usual Humans are both slim, and I am a nice floofy cushion. Cats love to lay on me, that's a fact from previous Cat Situations. The Mary Tiger striped cat hasn't slept on me yet. She lets me chuck her chin and stroke her head, but overall she is not as affectionate, mostly appearing for breakfast and dinner and to give me judgey looks of general disapproval.

The dog is amazing. She's a Pharaoh Hound, not a breed you see very often. She's the color of honey in sunlight, a slim blade of a thing, fleet of foot and playful, playful, PLAYFUL. I got here on Decemer 20th, and that whole first week the dog was in heat, meaning I was reading articles such as "How To Care For A Female Dog In Heat." Let me tell you something: Heat is awful. I know the dog pretty well, it's not my first time caring for her. I know she likes me, but for six days she ran from me, barked at me, paced and whined and whimpered. I had the impossible job of trying to get her into a diaper because of the let's-not-discuss-it, and getting her into her kennel when I leave the house was ridiculous. She didn't seem to have much of an appetite, and she had to pee quite a lot. But YAY, she feels much better now. Last night she curled up against me to sleep and get strokes while I watched a movie (with bestie cat on top of me) and I texted her Humans a photo captioned "Pinned down by furfaces." Today she brought me her red rubber bone and we played Fetch, all tail wags and silliness. She's still a bit whimpering, but getting back to her old self.🐕
* Photo not the actual dog.

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An Uneasy Glance Inside My Fraught Head: Nightmares

Thursday is normally when I see my psychotherapist, but this is a holiday week so instead I'll have to tell you guys about my nightmares. If you hate when people tell you their dreams, please click away. If you love picking part what dreams may mean, then you'll love this; it's about my recurring nightmares evolving and merging into one. I am plagued by two dream "themes." These aren't the only kind of dreams I have, but these two are frequent. When I'm in the nightmare, it's fucking terrifying. I think I need to ask my therapist about a different medication, one that can maybe give me some less terrifying nights.

My Two Recurring Nightmares

One of my recurring nightmare themes involves deadly water. Tidal waves, tsunami, raging floods, hurricanes, rising seas, crashing waves. It takes different forms, but there's one that keeps coming back. There's a shore, with a boardwalk and walkways. There's a sea wall, with a stairway on either side that people use to access the beach. In my nightmare, I'm on the beach when the sea suddenly turns from calm lapping to rising, churning and crashing against the sea wall, and I'm trapped by the rapidly rushing water, unable to clamber up and out because it's too powerful. I am pinned against the sea wall. Waves keep taking me under, and I'm trying to pull myself over to the stairs but finally I see that they've been washed away, leaving just a sandy slope that's being eroded by the pounding surf. It is impossible to get a grip on anything. People are around but they're a faceless, screaming clamor and nobody sees me going under. There have been nights when I'm drowning all night, and I wake up exhausted and tearful.

Another recurring nightmare is that I'm in a room that isn't mine, and it's filled with stuff...racks of clothing packed tight, so tight I can't tell what anything is (a coat? A dress?) until I pry it out from the racks. There's stacks too, and lots of boxes containing even more stuff. Sometimes the room is dark and I can barely see, just the light under the door and lots of voices carrying: I have to get out there but I can't because I don't have anything to wear. My dream-self keeps looking, pulling out item after item trying to find something to wear, and I'm panicked because outside the door there's a whole party of people waiting for me. It's dire that I get dressed and go out the door, but I can't find what I need. Sometimes the thing I'm looking for is my real-life bag and the little red wallet I wear that contains my ID, bank cards, library card etc. I need it or I can't leave the room. I can't find it, nothing fits me and I can't go out there naked. There've been nights when I feel like I'm frantically searching the room all night long, and I wake up exhausted and tearful.

Last Night

I dreamt I was in a room where people have been gathered together for some kind of event, and it's time to take a group photo. I look down and see that I'm wearing an unfamiliar outfit. The skirt is furry like a "fun fur" wardrobe item, and I like the way it looks. I have on some boots and a clingy top and my dream-self wonders where I got these strange items, and then dream-self remembers the dark room with all the clothes. I reason (in the dream) that I found something acceptable to wear even though it's unlike anything I own. Then my mother comes in and a person gathers us all...me, my mother and a bunch of other people...onto a long couch where we are to sit, and I come to realize we're about to get our picture taken. Then the person in charge says in a loud voice, "Not you, Michelle, could you move?" and I am sent from the room. My mother doesn't look at me. I leave the room and go outside, and I'm on the shore where there are walkways. The walkway I take goes over water down below and I think it's a nice place. On the path in front of me I see a dead sea creature of some kind, it's like a cross between a squid and a starfish. I go over to it and see that it's not dead, it's alive but barely. I decide I can save this creature, briefly wonder if it's safe to pick it up, but then I just pick it up. It's heavy, and feels dry to the touch. I need to get this creature back into the water, so I run with it and drop it over the side into the water down below. I keep walking, hoping the creature will be safe now. I find a pathway that leads to a sea wall, and there's a structure built on the ledge that juts out over the water. I enter, and that's when I notice that the water is starting to rise and crash against the structure. It's all glass and I think "Surely it must be strong enough to withstand..." and that's when I see a gargantuan tidal wave coming. There's no time to react before the massive wave overtakes the structure. The water rushes over the structure and for a minute, the windows hold, it's like looking into an aquarium because the structure is fully immersed in sea water. For some reason I look into the inky black water and look for the squid/starfish that I just saved, then all the windows crash through and I'm drowning.🌊

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“It’s hard to fully understand the motivation of the president.”

“It’s hard to fully understand the motivation of the president.” Yeah, I think we can all agree with Tom Kiernan, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association, who told the Washington Post in August that Trump is absolutely full of shit when it comes to his bewildering battle against wind energy. I mean, Ted Kennedy (RIP) hated the offshore wind turbines too and fought against them because they'd "ruin the view" of the sea from the Kennedy compound, a specious argument as most people find the modern design quite beautiful. That was annoying. But this latest Trump rant against wind power is full tilt boogie, mind-bendingly BONKERS. My regular readers will have noticed that I don't write about the motherfucker anymore, in the interest of self-care for my broken brain, but the speech he gave this weekend is a whole new level of astonishing word casserole with a side of WTF pie. The president was speaking to the conservative student group Turning Point USA on Saturday and the transcript is a bizarre tirade even more bonkers than his wild claim that "windmills cause cancer," and then he'd make that weird "WEW WEW WEW" sound with his stupid mouth. This is the lunatic ranting of a bloviating old fool who isn't qualified to run the White House gift shop. I assume there's a gift shop. I've never visited the White House. 🤡

I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know. It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly—very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint—fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything, right? So they make these things and then they put them up. And if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They’re noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go. Take a look. A bird graveyard. Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life. A windmill will kill many bald eagles. After a certain number they make you turn the windmill off, that is true by the way, they make you turn it off. And yet if you killed one, they put you in jail. That is okay. But why is it OK for windmills to destroy the bird population?

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Throwback to that time I put my husband's bare butt on my party invite

Here's a pile of pictures

There's a story behind how I even got this photo. It's from September 2015 after our Mel Torme 90th Birthday party. #AfterTheParty

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That Would Make A Good Band Name (ongoing post)

The Russells Brand
Slow Turkey
Clueless
My Pants Turned Two
Old Men Waiting
The Ones
The Rewarded
Pat the Dog
The Wondering
gNot

Spider Material Scientists

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