8 billion is the one that wakes me up in the middle of the night and draws me to the post-apocalyptic genre. Plus 2 degrees Celsius is another. The 6th mass extinction. 1 percent holding the wealth equivalence of the bottom 50. 306 to 203 somehow trumping 66 million to 63. $450 for insurance that pays for 0.
It's the American Dream as long as you can forget to count.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Too gay to be Texan...
It was all embarrassment until the gratitude I learned when I found out he was gay.
I was 8, and I was in love for the first time. He had these huge blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that I was sure I would never get over. Fact is, I never did.
Every other girl was obviously in love with him too, so I knew I didn't have a chance. But, for the first time in my life, I decided I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.
Speaking to him was way too much to ask of my pathologically shy self. But I could sew.
I drew out several designs, and finally settled on a tiny pillow with an embroidered "B + J" with an arrow-pierced heart.
There are countless moments lost to me, but I will never forget the adrenaline-pumped encounter I somehow gathered the courage to waylay him in the crowded church hallway and thrust my offering into his surprised hand.
We locked eyes for one excruciating glance and then it was past.
Nothing was said and no follow up from either of us was made, but I did hear from my aunt that he displayed the pillow in his room for Christmas.
His room being a shrine I knew I would never approach in my life.
We were in the church puppet team together, and the experience of touring the Navajo reservations with our group was an experience of canyons and unprecedented contact and unprecedented need.
Several years later, we spent a week performing for VBS in Port Arthur and I dressed daily as a mime. One afternoon, I felt a presence behind me and then felt a tug on my tufted costume tail. Looking around, I could only see his smile and sparkling eyes and I tried not to faint.
I thought I had left behind the cosmos he inhabited when I left for college, but a year later he descended upon my claimed city.
Excuses were made and meetings evaded until an afternoon lunch with our various college com-padres that somehow could not be avoided.
One I had considered a best friend since our first pre-college days in the woods, had heard my childhood stories of woe and shameful pillows. Being faced with the unexpected embodiment of my first affections, she took the path of betrayal for the sake of an inside laugh. "How goes the sewing these days, Jess?" And the blood rushing to my cheeks. The blood was in his cheeks too, but his embarrassed smile faded as the silence spread.
My first response when I heard he had come out was relief. The memory of feeling his little sister for so many years when I wanted something completely other settled into a tolerable realm.
It took several more years before I considered that epoch from him perspective. That he accepted my graceless pursuit with kindness for so many years. That he showed me empathy without the usual ulterior of desire.
I have never done this for another or experienced anything like it from anyone else.
Granted, he has left me with a predilection for the unrequited and for the sexually ambiguous. Still, I doubt I will ever experience such kindness as the gentle touch he brought to my young, sheltered love.
I was 8, and I was in love for the first time. He had these huge blue eyes and a cleft in his chin that I was sure I would never get over. Fact is, I never did.
Every other girl was obviously in love with him too, so I knew I didn't have a chance. But, for the first time in my life, I decided I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try.
Speaking to him was way too much to ask of my pathologically shy self. But I could sew.
I drew out several designs, and finally settled on a tiny pillow with an embroidered "B + J" with an arrow-pierced heart.
There are countless moments lost to me, but I will never forget the adrenaline-pumped encounter I somehow gathered the courage to waylay him in the crowded church hallway and thrust my offering into his surprised hand.
We locked eyes for one excruciating glance and then it was past.
Nothing was said and no follow up from either of us was made, but I did hear from my aunt that he displayed the pillow in his room for Christmas.
His room being a shrine I knew I would never approach in my life.
We were in the church puppet team together, and the experience of touring the Navajo reservations with our group was an experience of canyons and unprecedented contact and unprecedented need.
Several years later, we spent a week performing for VBS in Port Arthur and I dressed daily as a mime. One afternoon, I felt a presence behind me and then felt a tug on my tufted costume tail. Looking around, I could only see his smile and sparkling eyes and I tried not to faint.
I thought I had left behind the cosmos he inhabited when I left for college, but a year later he descended upon my claimed city.
Excuses were made and meetings evaded until an afternoon lunch with our various college com-padres that somehow could not be avoided.
One I had considered a best friend since our first pre-college days in the woods, had heard my childhood stories of woe and shameful pillows. Being faced with the unexpected embodiment of my first affections, she took the path of betrayal for the sake of an inside laugh. "How goes the sewing these days, Jess?" And the blood rushing to my cheeks. The blood was in his cheeks too, but his embarrassed smile faded as the silence spread.
My first response when I heard he had come out was relief. The memory of feeling his little sister for so many years when I wanted something completely other settled into a tolerable realm.
It took several more years before I considered that epoch from him perspective. That he accepted my graceless pursuit with kindness for so many years. That he showed me empathy without the usual ulterior of desire.
I have never done this for another or experienced anything like it from anyone else.
Granted, he has left me with a predilection for the unrequited and for the sexually ambiguous. Still, I doubt I will ever experience such kindness as the gentle touch he brought to my young, sheltered love.
Tomorrow
Sunday night is winding down, which means the panic of the week has me in its grasp. I rarely sleep Sunday nights as I loop around the things I spent the weekend trying to forget but now must imminently deal with. Around midnight I will wake up, or half wake up, to agonize about one of the many unsolvables lurking. Not least of which is the question of how Tom and I are actually going to make it this time. Barely three months in and he's already mired in a depression that often looks like rage and resentment. We may have decided to do this together, but the last few weeks have been worse than alone. Especially these Sunday nights as the optimism of Friday fades into the too soon of our Mondays.
There have been times in my life where Mondays ceased to exist and those now fuel my urge for escapism. The electronic-free oasis of the Boundary Waters. Poker House. College (although I didn't realize it was all Fridays at the time of course). It is both true that we were not meant to live in dread of our arbitrary "work" days and that we cannot exist in society if we don't play along. In my current case, actual lives other than my own depend on how well I play it. There is no one for me to call in sick to, and every "off" day bears the risk of threatening my parents' ability to avoid a nursing home at the end. No pressure though.
As bad as my patterns are with this already, I still have some corners of optimism I usually remember around Wednesday or so. I do believe that this mess will one day be relatively manageable and allow certain freedoms I have never known. Europe with money. Mountains and rivers with gear and time. Northern lights in the place my core keeps calling home. It will take a terrifying amount of luck and an undefined span of almost impossible work - but a maybe is better than the other options I've been looking at. Least, that's what I'm going to tell myself as I finish my last glass of wine and settle down to hoping for enough sleep to get through one of my Mondays.
There have been times in my life where Mondays ceased to exist and those now fuel my urge for escapism. The electronic-free oasis of the Boundary Waters. Poker House. College (although I didn't realize it was all Fridays at the time of course). It is both true that we were not meant to live in dread of our arbitrary "work" days and that we cannot exist in society if we don't play along. In my current case, actual lives other than my own depend on how well I play it. There is no one for me to call in sick to, and every "off" day bears the risk of threatening my parents' ability to avoid a nursing home at the end. No pressure though.
As bad as my patterns are with this already, I still have some corners of optimism I usually remember around Wednesday or so. I do believe that this mess will one day be relatively manageable and allow certain freedoms I have never known. Europe with money. Mountains and rivers with gear and time. Northern lights in the place my core keeps calling home. It will take a terrifying amount of luck and an undefined span of almost impossible work - but a maybe is better than the other options I've been looking at. Least, that's what I'm going to tell myself as I finish my last glass of wine and settle down to hoping for enough sleep to get through one of my Mondays.
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