Be the change you want to see.

Dory was right

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 17:50:05 GMT

Like in finding Nemo? Dory was right.
You've got to just keep swimming swimming swimming...
:)

My leg and hip are hurting a lot less. I think Etty and I are successfully digging into the tight/locked up/atrophied muscles that have been causing me such pain over the last several months. Hip rotational work is good, feels good, and I can feel things releasing bit by bit.

Thank fuck she's patient and gentle, because I still struggle to hold those concepts in mind (and body) simultaneously with "working out". And "me".

She's teaching me to be gentle to myself the way that my cat (who is sometimes a very bitey little calico) has taught me how to be gentle to other people (and critters.)

Slow. Steady. Regular.

And the body is changing.

We're not where we were, my body and me. But nobody's is. We're all figuring out how to care for ourselves and each other in a world 🌍 where Covid is A THING, and it's still causing fear and damage... And I have folks who care. And I care about myself.

A little bit every day. Just a bit. And I can build my wind back by my next birthday (November) because I do well with long distance goals, and I can do a little bit every day that hurts in the good way. Gods know nobody is going to do that FOR me.

Okay. I'm feeling good.

(I learned this week that I'm in menopause. 71 on the FSH blood test. And I'm feeling like, an unchained self, beneath some piles of old chains that I've been moving off me for DECADES. I have other feelings, not yet fully identified yet.)

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Borrowing trouble: borrowing grief.

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 22:16:20 GMT

The short post is: my cat is 16 1/2 years old.

Do you ever grieve something in advance?
Like, you know you're going to lose it, the loss is inevitable, and you FEEL SOME FEELINGS ABOUT THAT.

I didn't do that when dad died, we were too busy living the day to day and caring for him, so the grief just sat on us for like, years, one monolithic lump, until a variety of griefquake episodes of varying intensity and duration broke the monolith into more manageable chunks. The chunks are still pretty much around but after 25 years the edges are worn down and don't cut you when you get too close, they don't fall on you and crush you, you can get around them, they don't prevent you from living your life and getting stuff done. They're kinda inconvenient, they twang on heartstrings, but they're not incapacitating.

When Scotty was diagnosed with cancer (fuck cancer!) He died 8 months later (fuck fatphobia in doctor's, a sudden rapid weightloss is TEXTBOOK for cancer, literally), it was 13 years after dad. I'd been doing therapy and writing as well as ritual work around grief, and about Dad and his varied inabilities "to Dad", as a verb. I was more emotionally healthy. I was in a supportive loving and nondramatic relationship (thank you Jeff) and I processes my own various feelings (anger, shame, disappointment and grief) at ten times the speed as I did with Dad. I almost was able to feel them in real-time, quite an accomplishment.

Years ago I gave myself explicit permission to feel my own feelings,even if I was worried or afraid they would be inconvenient or something to the people around me.

Now I'm fifty. I've lost all four grandparents, many friends my own age, people who stood in as adoptive aunts, uncle's, and grandparents. My dad. My little brother. The cousin who was only six months older than me, six months after Scotty died.

And I spent two years doing detailed medical care for our beloved Big Kitty, Otter. He needed daily subcutaneous (sub-Q) fluids, insulin for almost a year, and eventually, bathroom help.

When it was time for him to go, it was really clear. He stopped eating. He couldn't climb up on the bed anymore. He tried to hide, run away, (to die, I was sure) and that terrified me. I'd been pouring effort and love into him so long and so intensely.

He was my first kitty to go. I didn't get to be there for the kitties I had with my ex, when it was their time.

And now My Nose, my Tribble-cat. She's having bathroom problems, of a different kind than she had when we had to put her on anti-crystal food. She's perky and snuggly and affectionate, doesn't seem to be unhealthy other than yowling a lot, pissing in the living room, and hissing at every damn reflective surface in the damn house.

So yeah. I can imagine the end coming.
I have to admit, that it Must Come. That The End Is Unavoidable.

And the world sucks, and I have incompletely grieved the changes from coronavirus, and the California wildfires (so we get to wear TWO kinds of masks); how I miss my family and my friends and my dance community and my new lover, and Jeff and Tribble and J and D and their kids are what makes all of that remotely bearable, and I don't know what I'm going to do if I, when I, lose Tribble. my First Girl, my sweetheart, the yodeler in the hallway, who curls up over my heart when I am sad, and on my lap when she is lonely.

So today I was scrubbing up a pee-lake, and I blew up at Jeff a little bit. Because between not wanting to do that task, wishing SO HARD it wasn't necessary, actually breaking down the steps needed to do the task without spilling pee across the living room and or the kitchen, and Feeling the FEELINGS ABOUT THAT... And then he asked me ... SOMETHING, I got overwhelmed, and a bit of stuff blew past the gasket I guess I'd sealed over the Everything Going On.

A thing I've been encouraging myself to do is let myself cry whenever I feel the need. Intellectually I have figured out that shedding the salts and chemicals will help balance the stress and the FEELINGS.

So right now I am finishing up this post with her on my lap, the tears are drying up. My floor is clean (or as clean as I personally ever get it, though now I need to do laundry). I have a bowl of strawberries and the new Animal Crossing update waiting for me, and Jeff made us lunch and made sure I ate it.

This equilibrium is not horrible.

And I will continue to try and let out the safety valve on the FEELINGS bottle every so often so I don't hurt myself or anyone else, I hope.

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The law is very powerful...

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 21:03:16 GMT

I must have been 18 years old at least, one of my dad's clients who was also a friend, had been dealing with a long-standing lawsuit against the California banking commission. Deno Evangelista, my adopted Uncle, used to run a student loan business for colleges and he got done dirty by the CBC, which was a regulatory commission, probably still is.

One of the things they did to him was and I don't remember exactly how this fell out or what was the thing that they were accusing him of doing but they sent authorities of some flavor, to his office and they confiscated all of his s*** like all of it: like his own art his own personal possessions the furniture the files everything. In a lot of ways Deno went from being a really rich man to being a man fighting for his own dignity. He was representing himself with my dad's assistance and he did pay my dad for the collaboration/consultation time. But my dad had been working with him for years by the time I was 18. Comes a day when Deno has to actually serve some paperwork on the CBC. And the reason why I know that I was 18 is you have to be a legal adult in order to serve legal paperwork on somebody.

I know he must have driven from Sacramento to San Francisco to do the thing. I don't remember the drive very much, but I expected that he was funny and entertaining, he was always kind and generous and funniest hell, full of stories about being Italian in America and coming over on the boat with his mom. He was probably in his late 60's when I knew him and I discovered later he was dealing with skin cancer the whole time I knew him and when it metastasized he died I think only a couple of years after my dad. My dad died in 1994.

Anyway we went Into in San Francisco. I have this packet of paperwork. I went up to the office (I remember the office pretty distinctly) and I remember the people in the office, largely because once I mentioned that I was there to serve papers it was like... Did you ever move a rock and suddenly you've uncovered an ant hill and everything on the floor is squirming and moving and running away? Because that's basically the impression I had of all of the people in the office. It was as though I, instead of walked in and said I have papers, had walked in and said Oh, I have a bomb.

I have never felt so much like a pariah as that moment.

People were legitimately afraid not of me but what I was holding. Of course I didn't understand the ramifications of what I was doing and I didn't understand the way that people work together in an office and the kind of ways people try to shrug off the responsibility for something even when it is theirs.

I remember saying multiple times I need to give this to somebody. And at one point saying I'm just going to set this on the counter and being told no. And the people they were really afraid! I remember that they told me that I needed to leave it outside the door of the office, which in retrospect is some kind of bullshit and I'm sat here rolling my eyes 32 years later.

The law is powerful. It should be used to go after wrongdoers, it should be used to fix injustices, it should be used to make people do right. I grew up with my dad a lawyer, and I think I always had a sense of he had this ability to shape the world with his words and his actions. And then here's my Uncle Deno, this one person, who doesn't even have the legal training, but who is trying to stand up for himself and for being disenfranchised, and like I said I didn't know it at the time but he did that on top of being pretty sick as well.

The law should be used to set things right. To protect people. And if it's scary to you and you haven't done anything wrong then I feel somebody's using the law unethically. Or else the laws are wrong or unethical, which also has happened frequently through history.

I don't know: I just suddenly thought of that moment and that feeling last night, late last night, remembering Deno. He had this crazy shock of white hair and a bulbous nose and glasses and a big grin and just a big way of talking and storytelling and a booming laugh. He was a good guy and they did him dirty.

I don't think I have a moral for this story, just that I got a chance to be part of something important before I understood what I was actually part of. But sometimes that's part of learning to understand.

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quick tmi observation

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 18:59:37 GMT

as i observed to my trainer today on zoom:

really good sex?
is like REALLY good physical therapy.

my leg is stronger, my balance on that side much easier. it feels like some part of my leg that's always tightly wound has... unspooled a bit. relaxed.

like it rarely relaxes but it has now.

Even beyond my shit not hurting today, that was really good sex.

we're still working on our communication around it, but this is the most hopeful i've been about our sex life in years.

we're doing couples therapy, and it seems to really be working because we both have buy-in.

the sexiest thing?
he SHAVED for me. like it was a real date and all.

happy anniversary, love. sixteen more years please!

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HI friends!

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 06:18:52 GMT

Tonight was my first time back to Monday night dance in a little while, at least a few weeks. Our Thursday night dance got canceled because we didn't have enough attendance, and that is the dance that I have been going to. So tonight was good though, the music was good and that exercise we were doing involved selecting a partner, and practicing dancing at various distances from each other, thinking ourselves about our own boundaries, where our skin holds us, and how it feels at distances of, 12 in 6 in and 2 in the other person. It was a good exercise for thinking about boundaries, how to recognize somebody else's boundaries, and also to check in with your own comfort levels at different distances from other dancers. Of course it matters who it is you're dancing with, I'm more comfortable dancing with some people than others. But yeah good time. And then I came home and Jeff had ordered pizza from a place called my Indian Pizza, so I had a slice of butter chicken pizza and some kind of a roll of stuffed with curry sauce. I needed that I danced a lot tonight! Lol.

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Pagan stuff

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 05:21:04 GMT

Pantheacon weekend impressions:

1. Healing myself heals the ancestors, elevating the ancestors elevates the future. Consciously focusing on ancestor work is not only worthy but can have unexpectedly magnified effects. The networks you build give the deep roots necessary to survive the coming storm. (Both Luna and Orion talked on this theme)
2. Beauty is manufactured, Beauty is within, Beauty is how you live.
3. One water, all waters, flow to heal...
4. Selena Fox is amazing. Circle sanctuary makes sense to me now. Crossroads magic was amazing.
5. Temple of Inanna: I want to have their babies and also dance with them. Temple of Aphrodite (Oakland) ran Mirrors of Truth: powerful stuff, and I want to go to other events they do in future. (Jenn, I'm asking you if you want to come with)
6. We would all do better, as humans and as a society, if we followed the way of being that the speakers in Ask A Native described: reciprocally, in context, in community, humbly.
(Look up and insert the recommended reading references here)
7. Sharon Knight has some good history- badass ladies storytelling songs, check her out.
8. Podcasting? ME? it's more likely than you think. I am tentatively planning on calling it "I am a wypipo but I don't have to be a jerk" and after I get some good basics recorded I want to have conversations with friends, particularly friends of color.
9. Finding your friends randomly is kinda the best thing. you look up and People say your name and are so glad to see you.
10. Brigid loves me and I am Her child, and I don't have to try so fuckin hard all the time to earn Her love. I have it on good authority. (Thank you and bless you, Hufflepuff Bear.)

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pagan foo inclosed

Fri, 14 Sep 2018 20:44:35 GMT

so i know it's been a little while since i wrote here.
sorry not sorry i've been trying to write stories!
which, yay! =) I'm getting better at them, and starting to assemble longer fics more consistently.

Last night I made it back to dance for the first time in like two months? maybe three? because burning man and then burning man prep before that basically ate up all my spare time in my weird ass schedule...

I volunteered to make last night's altar. I like making altars, whether for worship or for meditation. (I'll try to remember to add one of the photos I took of it, I think it turned out real pretty.)

So Thursday night is a meditation focused dance called Refuge. And there were folks there who were familiar to me (C, S, B, A) and several who were not. No worries. It was fun to get out there, and move in all the ways that "normal life" doesn't encourage. I always wind up sore down my ribs and inner thighs and neck, but in the good way. I use dance as a means of embody*ing myself, of exploring the edges of my physical abilities, flexibility, and rhythm.

Dance itself was good. We dance to warm up, then have a short seated silent meditation, a short walking meditation, return to dance. Repeat that silent-walk-dance, and then finish with a final seated meditation and a short check in circle at the end.

My places of unease last night were to do with two other people's behavior. Behavior that I viewed as close to boundary violations?

To start with lemme just say that there's common protocols in most pagan-type spaces I've been in, even public spaces. Nobody would sit on someone else's established meditation space (yoga mat, sitting cushion etc.) And yet that happened, last night. One of the new dancers totally sat on C's rug and cushion, and took C's singing bowl and was rolling the chime from it. C teaches the class.

I breathed and let it happen, because C did, was focused on DJing the dance. Another new dancer spent a lot of time in front of my altar, dancing and shaking his hands over it. I've never seen anything like it.

After three songs or so, fifteen minutes maybe, he moved away and was dancing and shaking his hands over C's station. When he moved to dance elsewhere in the room, I spent a moment or two visualizing a quick plucking away of any unwelcome or not-belonging energies from both places, like I was sweeping up spiderwebs off them, and then quickly grounded the energy from both places. I thought it was a good just-in-case.

Feels like that's something I do now. Protect places. Thank you, Temple Guardians of Galaxia Temple.

Later in the dance, the same dancer who sat on C's rug took one of my roses from home, that I had put on the altar as part of the offering, and came to me, offering it to me to smell.

whew boy, that was uncomfortable. But like before, I breathed through it being uncomfortable, it didn't hurt me or anyone to have her do it, it just felt a little like rudeness?

But you could tell from her whole affect that she didn't mean it to be a boundary incursion or a breach in protocol. She was joyful, offering me something beautiful. So I smelled my own rose and continued dancing. She later restored the rose to where she found it on the altar, which I found reassuring.

Turned out at the end of dance, when we are speaking briefly about our experience of the evening (if we choose to) that both those new dancers were here for the first time, and both had energy-sensing habits that involved shaking their hands at the thing that feels like it's radiating energy.

So the guy who was shaking his hands over my altar, was enjoying? or experiencing, the energy the altar was giving.

Which is actually quite a compliment, as I composed it on the fly out of the elements I brought from home.

I did good.

And again thanks to the Temple Guardians training, which emphasizes that when you observe people's behavior, all you have observed is exactly THAT: BEHAVIOR, and only behavior. The STORIES that we tell ourselves about someone else's behavior, are only that. Stories we are telling.

They tell us not to assume we know what's going on for anyone, and to allow a variety of expressive behavior, as long as it's not, like, harming themselves or someone else.

It was a good practice to remember last night. Because it turned out that basically, the stories I was telling, were far far off of what the folks themselves told us was going on for them.

Compassion is a PRACTICE. I don't get better at compassion without being conscious of it, both for myself and toward others.

I love these dance classes. I keep learning things about myself and others.

I love making altars. Gonna volunteer to do that some more, and I can help pitch sometimes in for assembly and tear down till R and C come back.

I love our open hearted weird wonderful community.

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healing after being sick

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 05:34:51 GMT

getting over a nasty sinus infection that settled in my chest. Again.

it got bad enough this weekend that I couldn't sleep and my abdominal muscles started locking up after the violence of the spasmodic coughing.

never again will I wait so long before seeking help.

One: I have two kinds of bronchial inhalers, I will use BOTH, I will remember that I HAVE both and will use both when I start getting in trouble.

Two: one night of no-sleep is the dealbreaker now. One night, then get the doctor.

Three: try and figure out wtf is the problem with my head (I know, my mom was like this too) that makes it so I'd rather harm myself literally than perceive that I was disappointing other people.

Four: the doctor is there to help preserve your health and life. they're not put out when you go to see them with an actual problem, and if they are, then you need to see another doctor.

Five: crowdsourcing your health advice is a not-horrible option when you have people who actually do give a shit about you and not just posting clever quips. (My friends DO give a shit, I've seen other people get much less helpful comments, the bastards)

Six: saying I CAN'T BREATHE WELL if true, is an excellent way to get taken seriously with my HMO.

Seven: My HMO did good work again, I'm just saying.

Eight: it's time to write down all the meds I'm taking and when, so I can make sure to take ALL OF THEM (I forgot to do the inhalers till well around dinner time and it wasn't very fun.

Nine: More water, more hydration, and I want to go pick up some of that guaifenisin stuff to add to the regimen; and I need to get more sleep.

10: I'll be done with the antibiotics by this time next week but I need to keep using the inhalers through the first week of August (21 days since onset, minimum)

Ten things make a list, ergo a blog post. Sorry this is boring, glad I'm not dead (or suffering like I was before).

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Something I'll never say to the person/people I'm thinking of.

Sat, 24 Jun 2017 08:03:54 GMT

I am sorry that it took me this long to recognize how patient you were with me, and how hard you tried to trust me and to let me be a part of your lives. I'm sorry that it didn't work out for us to continue being friends. Despite the pain we ended up causing each other, there was some good stuff there that I miss. But we really had so many communication problems that I really think it was for the best to end things and cut contact.

I don't want to see you or talk to either of you anymore, because we both broke each other's trust in the process of progressive miscommunication. And I don't spend more time than I have to anymore with people who I can't trust not to hurt me.

I wish you as well with your lives as is possible under the circumstances, and may you not break trust again as you broke mine; may I never break another's trust again as I broke yours.

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Physical Therapy for the hand... New discovery

Sun, 11 Jun 2017 11:55:07 GMT

Having this broken hand , has been a whole exercise in how to put up with doing things imperfectly. (she says as she edits the post)

Dictation at the moment, speech-to-text, it's one of the accommodations I started using pretty early on in the healing process after breaking the base of my pinky and top off of my radius my right hand , on New Year's Eve. Doing things imperfectly doesn't come easy to me. More prone to refusing to try to do something. I'm more likely to give up easy after trying to do something if it doesn't come easy. One positive thing for me about the ADHD: learning that that's a trait! it's a thing about the way that this kind of brain works.

But actually I was swimming (wtf? not even close to what I said) to post about this today because had a lovely visit with Allison and Fritz , including a delicious dinner, a seriously delicious dinner. But something about walking into their house today for some reason gave me an insight into something new that I needed to do for my hand? I suddenly flashed on there was a new place to try to massage and stretch that I hadn't tried before.

Maybe this has to do somehow with Alison being a massage therapist but anyway I found some incredibly painful and Incredibly needed places in between my fingers to massage right at the point where the fingers' flesh joins each other to become the hand and had a breakthrough! (sudden breakup/breakdown of incredibly tight fascia according to Alison.)

I woke up a little while ago or half woke up cuz it's quarter to 5 in the morning right now, full moon is still out and shining through the bedroom window, I woke myself up massaging my hand again and doing Hand Therapy again. It feels different now, than it did yesterday because of the work I was figuring out how to do today and then Allison worked on my hand a little bit too which also helped and she had a heating kind of massage oil which seems to be very effective so high hopes for the flexibility in the healing of my hand and arm to maybe we've turned up what do they call it maybe I've turned a corner? I think that's the right turn of phrase so I just wanted to get up, empty my brain for a minute, and I'm going to have to edit this later because speech to text never works perfectly.

Hopefully I'll be able to go get some more sleep now. And forgive all the weird word choices from this very very stream of consciousness post. And wish me well with my hand? Suddenly feeling much less angra vated (wtf speech to text that's not even a word?) AGGRAVATED with it and the long long time it has been taking to heal.

thanks for listening.

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