Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
sent some moar words on ‘totally boned’ to mOm, watched SLASH BACK which is an INUIT TEENAGERS VS ALIEN movie and I HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT I loved it to bits and Kristian Bruun’s 30 seconds as ‘the first white guy who dies’ is wonderful.
If you’re into horror YOU MUST SEE IT. It’s also funny and beautiful.
I am pleased. I imagine I’ll get told that my blood sugar could be lower but I’m doing okay.
Peggy, because she is a goddess among women, made PIE yesterday and I got to take some of it home to Jeff.
Paul came to the housefilk and had a wonderful time, sang a few tunes upon request including Willie’s Diamond Joe.
Cindy was in fine form and made me realize that I haven’t memorized ‘Lady of Komarr’ so that kinda STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE ah the joys of middle age.
Then after we had such a great time, getting fed lunch with chicken and taters (Peggy) and kale in bacon fat provided by Joe, and singing and playing and talking, I get home and Mike called and he came over for a big chunk of the evening and we ordered White Spot burgers and club sammies for dinner for delivery and all was as it should be.
It was so wonderful to see him. He was in a reasonably good mood. This was amazing, given that his oppression by all things mechanical and electrical continues. He has in the recent past detailed how everything that can break, arc, spark etc. is likely to just fall apart in his hand, but I got to see it last night and he’s definitely under a curse right now. I wish I could help him break it.
Paul and I had another painful discussion about his condition and I told him it doesn’t really matter how many legitimate grievances he has if his roommates are so done with him that he doesn’t have a place to live. He needs help and I’m going to try to get him some now that the denial has stopped.
I’m very much looking forward to it. My head’s as empty as a recycled can right now. I need to put some positive inputs in my life.
My entire life, the US has been going backwards in terms of human rights. This ruling solidifies the US as a Christofascist state.
Foreshore Restaurant for breakfast w/ Jeff, Foreshore for walkies with Paul, then off to the weed store in New West for YES THEY HAD TRAINWRECK I’M SO HAPPY and also gummies, because I’m out. All in all a very nice day. Woods were full of birdsong and the weather is so splendid (and the sky so beautiful, filled with ripples of clouds) it’s just … lovely.
I complained about Beyoncé’s new video (to my friends on Social Media) having migraine/epilepsy triggering flashies. A technology journalist asked me to comment and I told her that it was my preference that affected Black people comment, I’ve said what I needed to say and don’t need to further grab the mic. Got my own platform (pat pat) right here.
Second last time I spoke to Katie on the phone she said could I please do something about Paul’s feet, so I took him out on the deck (it was GORGEOUS here yesterday, just a hint of the heat that will fell us on Friday) and trimmed his nails. We none of us bend all that well. I can still do my feet but it’s hard and I sort of have to wedge myself into the bathroom in a particular way so that if I have a fainting spell I won’t kill myself falling over.
Beforehand we went for a walk in Hilda “It Says I’m an Avenue but Actually I’m a Street” Park. We listened to the crows and talked to a nice lady and her easily perturbed pooch. And we actually talked about Paul’s medical condition like adults for the first time ever. This probably has something to do with how the kids lowered the boom this week. I told him that for his own longevity, comfort and safety, he should get a diagnosis. He’s unconvinced anything can help him. So I tried to be encouraging.
After the walk, he sat on the deck and I brought him sugar free home made iced tea (using the carton of Splenda I got from Mike) and a nourishing, light lunch. (Smoked salmon, red onion, capers and garlic cream cheese on sourdough muffin with a side of the last of the cole slaw.) THEN I did the feet. Anyway, I try to help look after him as best I can, and it will be easier when he stops pretending everything is fine.
Katie and Alex are going camping Canada Day weekend. Ryker will be with his dad. Ryker’s no longer eating at mom’s (it’s not a problem; there never was a child more interested in solids in the history of getting fed).
There’s other family news too but it’s not for public consumption. Age is reflective and brutal, should we live so long and have the brains to think with.
Got my bloodwork and my meds, thank you Jeff for the boost of energy required to do it. Jeff got us fish and chips for early supper and SO GOOD. I’m going to turn the leftover chips into Really Bad Poutine Imitation. Since I have neither gravy nor cheese curds.
I made minor changes to Extracurricular Incoherence.
Blood work today, probably picking up scrips.
Got the corned beef sandwich from Big Star yesterday. It was fantastic. The woman who delivered it wanted to buy this house. I get asked once a week if I own the house or it’s for sale.
Lovely phone call with Dave yesterday. This was followed by an equally lovely letter from Lois. That woman is a family treasure.
24029. I’m letting the steam build up, more progress is coming.
Perhaps this is the ‘now’ I have attended. Dreams mean nothing when the machine that can record them has settled into rust only imagination and the sun and X-rays can reassemble. I can’t remember my dreams because I am a brkn mchn. Sliver of mercurial glass! slide into my foot! assert yourself, the cold remains of another broken miracle. As a species we taught water and glass and steel to lie flat, hold still and do our will. When mirrors break it always feels like a failure. The mirror is inseparable from the eye. Parasite or epiphyte, the half-mirrored child appeared at a whim, then hardened into quotidian slots AND LONGER, hard seats in the ER smoking outside in the snow as far away as you can so’s not to bother the person you got a smoke from, standing someplace you won’t make shittier by weeping. There was nothing ambiguous about that moment, when I started to loathe flowers. Pretty flowers, death shorn and hacked is what you are – I see you in your unobjectionable patterned paper. What discipline will bring us flowers in the future; where will barley grow for beer? Everything good and decent is far apart and kept that way as fear and boot heels force their alarms into the collective breath. Carbon dioxide ratchets up, with it anxiety; it wasn’t in the syllabus; we’re conspiring in the dragon’s exhalation now – this is a vapour fit to kill.
Yeah, so this is me right now. I have a crown made of pain and iron wrapped around my head and I think I’m going to have a very low key day. Also, expect the aforementioned song to be errywhere this summer, because it will be.
I am annoyed for other reasons this morning but there’s no point memorializing them for a censorious future, plus it could be argued that none of the fucking monkeys currently loose in my brain belong to MY circus. I will say that it has nothing to do with any family members.
Howja like my bling I am August von Mackensen
This is for Alex. He will know
took a day off to let my brain cool from the fiction I’ve been writing.
wrote a poem in response to a poem Dave wrote instead. I’m not posting it because he’ll probably ‘put something in there’ ie edit it (I don’t really think he can help himself) and of course I can’t post what I’m responding to. Anyway his original poem provoked a reaction, which was me riffing on grief and resistance and climate change.
Got a call from Tammy and how good to hear her voice.
I keep forgetting how much I like Burn Notice.
Dr. appointment tomorrow by phone. Prescription renewals.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
23828 is the count.
Yesterday I wrote 870 words ran the dishwasher did my brain exercises got the Wordle in 5 played waffle half the day (it’s a game on the cbc website) watched a Burn Notice (season three summer finale, Michael finally shoots Strickler and joy was unrefined) gave someone 30$ on Paypal to honour my Settler Saturday commitment so she can get away from a bad domestic situation, skritched the cat and talked to Dave on the phone.
He’s got a book coming out and his description of the difficulties involved with punctuation was (probably not to him) quite comical. (Once upon a time I had an Anelia font Brother printer and I helped lay out one of his poems and let’s just say it’s better left to experts. And I don’t think he’s overly fussy about any of it, it’s a component of his greatness as a poet; I’m just not as particular and definitely not as internally consistent, go go Allegra ADD.) I spent rather more of the conversation than I should have telling him WHICH social media platform he should be on, of course twitter, and how he should go about ‘developing content’ for it now that he’s a luminary of Canadian letters. I even told him that if he felt like paying for it I’d jump on a train and come visit him (but he’d also have to pay to get rid of me, ALAS TIS THE ALLEGRAGELD which considering how I eat shouldn’t be too hard a sell) if he wanted to do a reading or (bless) won an award. He even riffed on an account name, which I won’t repeat in case he decides to actually do it, and I nearly laughed my lungs up through my nose.
I got a thousand karma points on reddit yesterday by saying something uplifting about someone’s stepdad for father’s day. Happy father’s day Paul: you were a good one. Things change. We get older and less useful to our children (in some cases) but the gratitude for the experience of having been a ‘working parent’ remains.
Happy father’s day pOp, you are one of the sweetest men ever. You were a little crusty when I was growing up and Liz was scared of you remember when I told you she said of you “King Fear gripped my heart with icy fingers” which is (truth be told) a quote from a Lobsang Rampa book (and DID YOU KNOW that after being hounded out of England as a goddamned phoney he moved to Calgary and died there in the 80s?, I mean what would an Allegra father’s day greeting be without a completely parenthetical comment?) but honestly, with mOm’s help you were the best dad out of all of the dads of all the kids I knew. I did have a few minutes when I thought you and mOm must have adopted me because you – ¿ARE YOU KIDDING? – set reasonable limits on my movements and what you spent money on for me but other than that, it was pretty clear you were . the . best . dad, and your continuing kindness and support for everyone in your family, is but one external token of how wonderful you are.
Did you know that there isn’t a single googleable picture of him on the internet? if I post pics of him I don’t put his name in the alt or the metadata
ALL PRAISE THE MASTER OF NOT CARING WHAT THE WORLD THINKS.
I’ve been laying off posting about Ukraine, but check this out, open in new page if you can’t read it:
armed fucking standoffs between officers and troops on the white blue and red side? g’damn.
