Author: Allegra

I am genuinely sick. There’s something seriously wrong – literally minutes after my bloodwork came back the doc wanted to see me. I’m seeing doctors and getting moar tests. With luck, this was all triggered by a treatable infection. Without luck, the next part of my life is going to suck, hoo boy.

Plus pain. That’s never fun.

she has weathered like a mountain he has shrunken like an apple

she has raged against the dimming light he has said o is it getting darker

she has been and gone he is done and dusted

she is a scandalous matriarch in a purple glass throne he is a perpetually surprised jester / major domo

she gets up in the morning he scowls at consciousness with weary contempt

she fills her days with pixels he fills his days with pixels

they fill their days with medical appointments and fixing the past

in the memories of these twitchy people from the future

this little boy

As I pursue a diagnosis, I had to put some poop in a bottle.

which takes me back to the good old days

When I was working reception at Employee Health as a summer job at UH, the dietary department experienced a hepatitis outbreak, which, holy shitbags, you really don’t want in a hospital dietary staff group. So of course in those days (1980 ish) you needed a largish chunk of hinder-end donations to go in a bottle for testing.

The weekend staff left their deposits on the Employee Health main entrance desk, in a large array of paper bags, some of which had definitely experienced a higher degree of structural integrity in the recent past.

My supervisor came in and, glaring fit for the movies said loudly, GET THIS SHIT OFFA MY DESK. Supervisors didn’t swear in those days so it was hella cute.

These days they give you a container about the size of ten stacked bobby pins, tell you DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET URINE OR TOILET WATER ON THIS and then you stab your shit with the spiralized end and get just enough shit on it to say that you did, because they don’t want any more if it than that. None of that shit now.

I have to eat something and then not eat something to go get my helicobacter breath test. blerg.

It’s probably an ulcer. I’ve been diagnosed with IBS as well.

More later.

Today I adulted by getting up and writing a shopping list, since Jeff and I are going shopping.

I worked on ‘the doorbell rang’ chapter and blocked out some stuff, total around 150 words but the wordage doesn’t reflect the work put in, as is often the case.

Sixers can give consent in one language but not another. That sure makes legal questions difficult.

Started The Blacklist on Netflix.

I’m doing an SF AU Destiel fic, and somebody should run me over with a truck.

I have such a craving to see 3 Caballeros.

Well well well, there are civil war re-enactresses.

I’m hoping to write today. Tomorrow I go see the doc about the six weeks of griping abdominal pain and bloating I’ve had.  I suspect incipient hernia, either that or I’m dying of something quite unpleasant. I’m wearing my back brace in the meantime and feel somewhat better.

My bedroom floor is still clean! Still have more sorting and tidying and mostly dejunking but the trend is good.

I’d just like to say FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU  to the fucking doctors who prescribe meds for BPH to MEN I LOVE without telling them that the side effects are COMPLETE PANCAKING OF LIBIDO, MENTAL DULLNESS AND YOU CAN’T GIVE BLOOD UNTIL SIX MONTHS AFTER YOU STOP TAKING IT.

Honestly. Fuck all y’all.

Stanislav Petrov, the Man Who Saved The World, whom I first wrote about here in April 2005, has passed away. I always toast him if there’s vodka about.

Sean Spicer getting a gig at the Emmys must have been like a punt to the grunt for any BIPoCs there. Fuck whoever decided to hire him, hard, with spiky shit.

I have lots to screech about this morning, but I’m going to write instead.

I’m at the Aerie, and the world is a blur of Turneresque clouds with a hint of sun somewhere. Mike took me to Chronic Taco last night and I had the salad bowl with beef and a draft Parallel 49, which was absolutely what I wanted.

I’ve been promised breakfast. I’ve already broken into the Starbucks hot chocolate so I’m ready to wait another couple of hours before Mike achieves consciousness. I’ve been up since 5:30.

Wrote 453 words yesterday and today… who knows!

I need a substitute for awesome right fucking now.

Paul took Jeff and I to breakfast at IHOP, it was delightful.

Writing now. I’ll check back in three hours.  wordcount 453 – working on Harri’s soliloquy

We had a lovely visit to the fOlks’ place. The pterodactyls visited the bird feeder, we went for a lovely walk to the playground by the ocean, we had a meal at Sassy’s and we went to the Butterfly Sanctuary. Little E was not in evidence.

Alex is a really lovely human being, but man, he needs to get enough sleep.

On the cards for today, laundry and getting my desk set up properly for production of WURDZ, unpacking from trip and meal planning.

mOm had ALL OF HER DESCENDENTS in one place, although not at the same time, yesterday.  Jeff headed back yesterday, and we arrived – Paul, me, Katie, Keith and Alex. It was made even more wonderful by the presence of Auntie Mary. The wasband says that he tried six times to use audio search on Google to find something and all six times my aunt started talking before Paul could get it to search

Today we go to Sassy’s, the butterfly house and then the ferry to go home. It was a lovely lovely visit and I’m looking forward to renewing my love affair with Little E the Eclecticus Parrot.

Back’d up ye harde drive.

Cleaning of my room continues.  There’s so much floor the kitties are pacing and mewing their disapproval.

Called friends.

Back to the horrors of cleaning.

Katie phoned in tears the other day. She went through a garbage bag stored in her room and learned to her grief and shock that it was all of John’s old badges and con pins, plus the quilt J. made for him out of a selection of his t-shirts.

Katie could smell him.

It goes to the back of your brain.

I walked over to Planet Bachelor – I suppose I should call it something else now, possibly Bachelor Village since it takes a village to raise a child – and we comforted each other for a while. Alex was at his dad’s.

Alex’s aunt is in a psych ward right now. Poor Suzanne had to take shelter at Bachelor Village for a couple of nights last week.

Over and over again I told the kids when they were little that the fights they got into would all be washed away as adults and they would have an awesome relationship and I’m a little teary at how right I proved to be. Katie and Keith are putting it together, and Keith loves little Alex with externally gentle ferocity. He’s also learning how to discipline a toddler, a worthwhile endeavour.

And I miss John this morning. He would have loved that I bought a dulcimer. I was crying as I practiced earlier. I played louder.

The kitties are running all over the house looking for Jeff and staring angrily at his closed bedroom door. He’s off to the Island, and I hope he’ll have a fair journey.

I’m cleaning my room. It’s a pre-hurricane tornado.

Activist thoughts.

I am now past the shoals of “I don’t see colour”. I understand why it’s a terrible fucking thing when white people say it, or anybody, really, but mostly white people.

I have escaped from the grip of the tone police. When activists are angry and use salty language, I support them by a) listening without judgement b) boosting the signal if what they say (not the tone) is important c) understanding where the anger is coming from and why suppressing it from delicacy is white privilege and d) enjoying the reactions of white people further back the ol’ social justice supply chain. Did I say I was perfect? Enjoying other people being stupider than I was 4 years ago is one of my few thrills.

I am still completely unsure of what to do next, but I know that in the end I must reconcile with the Treaty 6 people, since that’s where my family stole the most land. I don’t wanna. I want to go on pretending that the Queen isn’t a symbol of genocidal colonialism, that she’s a tough old broad with a sense of duty you could use as a heat shield on a fucking spacecraft. I want my comfy lies.

I shall apply Chelsea Vowel’s Indigenous Writes to the burn, and see what happens.