Really Cool Beads (and really old, too...!)

Here are some pics for a new piece I'll put out on Etsy later tonight. It's been a good week so far, I sold two pieces over the weekend. 

Frist up: 

 The pics make this two-strand piece look pretty chunky, but this is actually a pretty dainty piece. The real show stopper is the central monochrome silver/white glass beads on the shorter, inner strand. These beads were excavated intact from an archeological dig in Rome; they were originally made as beads, unlike some Roman glass beads -- which are indeed made of shards of ancient Roman glasswork, now repurposed as beads. 

These beads are authentic antiquity artifacts, though unregistered or with any actual provenance speak of. They bear the signs of great age, and some of the beads still show natural iridescence rom having lain buried for so long, and some also have their original inclusions of gold or silver foil. 

These are framed by tiny AAA quality natural aquamarine, mother-o-pearl, and rose quarts. 

The second strand is made of the same gemstones, with Peruvian blue opal and electroplated quarts.    

(Dime for scale.)

I'm really happy with how the Roman glass is selling. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that there's such a huge market for it right now -- I went a little crazy myself a few months ago and got tons of it, and I'm still working with it -- as you can see above. 

There's a lot of variation in what is called "Roman glass" and at some point I'll post about some of those distinctions. But for now I want to point out the wide variety of colors in very old beads that were actually intended as beads. 

Here's one example of variations in size, shape and color of some very old beads that technically fall within the category of "ancient Roman glass." 

This piece is made of very old glass in different colors and shades of green, but also with yellow, orange, blue and beige. I added a few natural ruby chips and one or two pieces of Italian red coral to make it pop. 

These beads are a little larger than in the necklace above, but still to huge like, say, an African Krobo bead. (I love African Krobo beads, I'll post some pics of those one of these days.) 

May add some kind of pendant to one of these strands, but there's already enough going on with all the colors and shapes in it. 

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how these are turning out, and will have some more pics to show soon. Meanwhile, anyone interested can find them in the shop. 

Also, remind me to hire some decent models recruit some of my cuter friends for these Etsy pics. 

I guess Roger Stone & Sydney Powell Weren't Available?

Good on Chuck Todd for calling it out, but seriously fuck NBC.  Like America's political coverage isn't already embarrassing enough, now NBC hires Trump stooge Ronna McDaniel to cover politics. 

Hey NBC, who next? Roger Stone? Sydney fucking Powell? Why not just fucking hire Trump? 

Srsly, someone's head needs to roll for that cosmic cluster. 

Feeding My Bead Need

Awww, one of my favorite pieces sold last week, one of the Roman glass with lamp work beads. I like these and I'm glad they're selling. 

I have a couple others along this line listed in the Etsy shop, and I still have a small stash left over from my Roman glass buying frenzy a few months ago. This is the third or fourth piece I've moved in the last month or two, so I should probably bring more of it out. 

I'm not sure why I became so obsessed with old glass a few months ago, but when I was snapping up all the Roman glass could lay my hands on recently, I came across this exquisite little collection being offered by a lady in Ukraine. 

You can still see some of the precious metals between the layers of ancient glass. 

These beads are excavated intact from archeological sites in Rome and elsewhere. They're estimated to have been made some 2,000 years ago. It's difficult to capture the natural iridescence and color shift of these beads, but here's my attempt: 

Other inclusions in this set include aquamarine, amber quartz, Peruvian opal, mother-of-pearl, and other gemstones. 

I'm liking the look of the tiny little aquamarine with the very old and weathered glass. I'll probably do one more strand in this design and color scheme (since I have another half-strand of the aqua and mother-of-pearl left) and get them listed tomorrow. 

*    *    * 

I'm also happy to say I made it to bead class last week, and managed to make a few beads without burning the place down. I'm loving this class, I feel like I've found my tribe. Below are my first attempts at lamp work: 

The gal sitting next to me was making figurines, little ducks & stuff. I'm very proud of these lumpy orange and blue balls I made. 

I'm also taking wire wrap. I'm not particularly into wire wrap, but when you work in jewelry, wire skill come in handy. Here's a hideous pendant I made from the fragment of a shattered bowling ball that I'm telling people once belonged to Fred Flintstone. 

My Philosophy Of Life Explained (short form)

 

This is actually brilliant writing. Concise, nuanced, and clear.   #ModernHaiku

In Which We Regret Saying Yes, As Always

It just needs a little editing...

Today's Writerly Advice: When a friend asks you to read his manuscript for "honest feedback," do yourself a favor and run the other way. 

This is especially true if they're actually *good* writers. The crappy writers? They're easy, they take your feedback and are like, "Thanks, that makes sense." Good writers? They wanna argue about it. 

Good writers are used to hearing that they're good writers. When you delicately point out that maybe they could rearrange this passage so it flows better, or gently ask about the narrative tone in this or that sequence, they're affronted. 

"But it ties in with the dream sequence in chapter two," they'll respond. "Any idiot can see that." 

And so it goes. 

I feel fortunate as a writer, in that I had all pride of authorship beaten out of me at an early age. When I first started covering labor issues and began writing articles for a union pub (4-color glossy mag with a national distro) my editor was brutal. During my first week on the job I penned a lofty analysis of the dynamics of a local strike that was unfolding in Ohio. I couldn't wait to send it to my editor, certain that he would be wowed with my genius-level writing. When his response came back, I was crushed: 

"We're a union about to go out on strike," he said, "not the fucking Ladies Home Journal. Go back and write it that way." 

Well okee-dokee then. Boss. But in the two years I worked with him, I came to trust his editorial instincts completely. One night things had gone late, the whole team ended up staying after work to put the next issue of the magazine to bed. When it was done, he sat back and waxed philosophical. 

"Anyone can string words together and make them sound cogent," he said. "It doesn't mean you've actually said anything. To make an impact, you gotta write from the balls."

I'm not sure how the women in the room felt about this comment, but it somehow made perfect sense to me.  

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

I like riding at off hours, when normal people are doing whatever it is normal people do when they aren't cluttering up my bike path. At night, after the sunsets, or in the morning before dawn, no one is around. No pedestrians, or cars, or other bikes. Once or twice I've glimpsed other People of Darkness, but we do the only civilized thing, and ignore each other. 

There's something edgy and uncertain about riding at night, the way the streetlights make the night sky seem even darker, the isolated feeling of moving between cones of yellow light from the few lampposts along the path. If you follow the path to the far side of the lake it becomes even darker, more remote. 

It seems illicit; the lake makes the lights of the village seem far away, and the thin line of trees along the path obscure the houses just a few yards away. The remote, woodsy vibe is an illusion, but if a murder were going to be going to be committed in our cozy little neighborhood, I could see it happening here: away from traffic, hidden by trees, a sizable lake literally thirty feet away. The alligators would be an added bonus. 

The new construction in these parts has been relentless for the last few years, particularly after Covid, when all the new building began roaring back into action. There's money to be made here Western reaches of Port St. Lucie, lots of it, and the developers have wasted no time. 

On any given day or night, and depending on which way the wind is blowing (this is not a metaphor, I mean it literally) I will often follow one of these new roads to where the asphalt ends. It used to be that I could find myself abruptly in wilderness, where the concrete and asphalt abruptly ended. There were fields. Trees. Swamps and stuff.

But not anymore. The roads are getting longer now, faster than I can pedal. The trees are getting fewer, and the pigs and bobcats and other critters are disappearing. We've still got our sandhill cranes. 

I'm glad for that. 

  

  

Are Parents Really Okay With This?

Welp, looks like Moms For Threesomes is still choosing which books your kids get to read. Are parents really okay with sex perverts like this choosing what their kids see in the classroom?  

Not a drag queen tho, so there's that. 

Vote for me -- or DIE maddafakkas!!!

Sounds like a winning message: Vote for me, or DIE maddafakkas!

"If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country,"

Anyone else getting tired of this man's threats? Because I'm getting pretty tired of this man's threats. 

But... But Biden is SO OLD!

 Dear Media: I never wanna hear another fucking word about Biden's age. 

Smells like Ben-Gay and fascism.

I'm Speaking To The Superintendent About This.

 ...You just know they had to stand him on a chair for this shot. Mike Johnson always looks like that hall monitor in the 5th grade who's taking your unscheduled bathroom break very, very seriously mister.

Managing My Moods Is A Full Time Job

An action shot of not-me.

Let me just state up front: I am not an athlete. Never have been, not even when I was 16 and had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do (because who doesn't these days?) I think I was the first kid in my school to trot down to the local Y and take an introductory course, and then join an actual dojo to progress further. It was out of character for me at that age (ahem) to bring the necessary focus and discipline to anything long enough to master it -- but I did. I competed in some of the regional championships, brought home my share of trophies. But I was never into it for the sport. 

I did it for survival. I was a scrawny kid. I'd been born two months preemie and underweight, and I really didn't fill out until I was in my twenties. I wasn't much into sports as a kid, didn't run terribly fast, couldn't throw a ball very far. Team sports? Forget it. I was the last one picked. l was an easy target for the jocks and bullies at school, and I was tired of it. So: Karate!

I walked away from in when I turned 18. After that? Meh. I really didn't exercise at all for the next 30 years or so. 

*    *    * 

One day about 3 or 4 years ago, as the first worn threads of my former life began to unravel, and I was still new to sobriety, and was two weeks out of rehab, I was jonesing for a drink, my nerve endings were raw, and the world was still in Covid lockdown, there was nowhere to go, and I wanted nothing more than to climb out of my own skin. 

I was pacing around in the garage when I spotted my old bike, the one I had brought with me to Florida from DC. It was wedged against the wall behind a shelf we'd put up the year before, forgotten. When was the last time I'd ridden it? I pulled it out, checked the tires, the chain. On an impulse, I decided to take it for a ride around the block.

I came home an hour later, winded, exhausted, tired. And something else: Calm. I was at peace. The cravings were gone for the moment, and my body (then 35 pounds heavier) felt light. It took me a minute to recognize what I was feeling: I felt good.

I ride that same bike every single day now, at least once, sometimes twice, in any weather that's safe. I ride 12-15 miles at a go, and I always feel stronger and more balanced in my head afterwards. I miss it if I can't ride. 

Imagine: Me. Missing exercise. The world has gone mad. 

*    *    *   

I mention all of this because this morning, as I awakened to a glorious new day of retired bliss, as I gazed upon this beautiful morning and the rich bounty set before my table, I lifted my face to the sun and thought:   

Meh. 

Yeah, that was it. I mean: here I am, I finally bought my own emancipation, I'm finally empowered to spend my days doing whatever I want, I'm squarely in the "not-rich-but-doing-okay" category, I finally have the opportunity to explore all the things I've never had time for, and that's the best I can do? Meh!? 

Meh.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Dysthymia! I had never heard the term until I started therapy, and now there's no escaping it: I am dysthymic. It's not the end of the world, it's apparently not even full-blown depression, just a vague, below-the-surface simmer point that hovers just below the state called "happy." It's common to addicts people with a genetic predisposition to addiction substance use disorders. 

It's not usually treated with medication. I'm not even sure it's considered a "disorder," so much as a factory preset for a subset of the population. 

Anyway, I didn't feel like doing any of my things today. Things I like, things I enjoy, things I've chosen to pursue. Even the bike had fallen silent to me, inert. Nothing was wrong, necessarily, but nothing appealed either. 

Meh.

*    *    *

I decided to get on the bike and take her for a spin around the neighborhood. I wouldn't go far, just enough to keep the concept of "riding my bike" operationalized in my head. I do this, I "operationalize" -- that is, make a habit of -- things I know need to happen every day, and that I want to happen by reflex, without arguing with myself about it. Sorta like Nike's "Just Do It," but for ADLs and writing and exercise. Things like that. 

So, I let my body put itself on the bike, didn't think about the fact that it was too windy and there were probably a billion people cluttering up the bike lanes. Just got and went, like that first day a few years ago. No goal, no destination, just go through the familiar motions of pedaling. 

As I suspected, the neighborhood was already alive and vibrant with people. The sun was shining, already warm, but the air was still cool. I had just put air in my tires yesterday, and now they glided on the concrete like it was smooth as glass. 

And then the dopamine apparently kicked in, because suddenly I was on the long empty stretch of road several miles away from home, flying, flying like ET on my bike across the moon.

Kinda like...

Or something like that. I think I actually laughed a little. There it was, from out of nowhere, something not to be commanded, but coaxed: 

Joy. 

But I've learned something. I can manage these moods. No, I can't force a feeling. I can't chase what I isn't there. I can't be what I am not. 

A fitness buff, for example. Or a perky optimist. But you know what I can do? I can ride my bike. And you know what I can be? Better. 

Not this happy. This person is on something. 

In Which I Suffer A Crisis of Faith: Specifically, Yours

I've been asked to read a friend's manuscript. I'm flattered, really, but WHY NOW just when I'm finally ass-deep into finally writing a book I've been carrying around in my head for years. Really, dewd, the timing sucks. But he actually is a gifted writer, and he will in all likelihood see publication soon. So, yes. I'll finish reading it tonight. 

Meanwhile, I managed to get another thousand words about that weird period when my mom married my stepdad, Leon. Don't get me wrong, he was a great guy, and it was the right move. But my step dad was already "born again" when we found him, and staunchly enlisted in the Lord's Army. I think it's part of what appealed to Mom. She'd had her share of worldly men by the time Leon came along, and if he was a true believer, then so be it. She went along. But as time went on, her faith strengthened, or so it seemed to me then. 

I realize now the deal she'd been forced to make. She needed a man to help her raise her boys, a good man who didn't drink or chase women. She'd found that in Leon, and if it had been easy to "go along" with his religious convictions early on, eventually "just going along" became more difficult. Over time, the church became more and more central to our lives and livelihoods, touching virtually every aspect of our existence. It became harder to be a fence-sitter, or a once-a-week Christian. The pressure was enormous: You must believe.  

I don't want to imply that there was anything particularly dark or coercive or overtly cult like about our lives. There was no coercion in their faith, at least no more so than in any other congregation or faith community. I tell it now only because it helps explain other key points that happen in the story later. I have miles to go on this, but so far the words are coming. 

*    *    *

Perhaps it's timely that my friend send his manuscript now, as I ponder my parents' faith and the credulity that eventually led to their deaths. I am myself a strident disbeliever in magical beings, and baffled that anyone could literally believe in gods in this day and age. I see religion as a means of self comfort at best -- harmless enough, until it morphs into what seems an insidious form of madness that's hard-wired into our species. I comfort myself that not all of us are so stricken. 

But my friend, who sent me his written words, and which I now hold in trust, is a devout Catholic. I know him through other channels, we were former colleagues in DC. I'd had no idea, until he sent me his draft, that he'd actually gone to seminary. 

What I like about his writing, the bits I'd seen prior to this, is that he's very good at taking traditional christian canon and turning it on its head in such a way that the reader -- devout, or not -- is forced to reexamine his assumptions. What he sent me, an early draft, granted, fails to do this. It reads like a dissertation written by a seminarian, for other seminarians. It's fine as it is, for what it currently is. But it could be so much better with one last rewrite to spotlight the gems this writer is so adept at illuminating. He has a jewel in the rough; with a little more work, it could be the Hope Diamond. 

I'm not sure this feedback will be welcomed, but I feel his work is consistently strong enough that he deserves to be confronted with the fact that he's a bit of a genius, and he can take this good thing, and make it excellent. 

*    *    *

I wrestle with faith. Not my own, since I have none. But other peoples' faith. Where does it come from? Why do we believe these outlandish things, these gods and devils and spirit and saints? I may enjoy that my friend may be good at taking Christian theology and forcing adherents to rethink their interpretations of scripture -- there's something wonderfully subversive about challenging long-held doctrines with the very words from which they're written -- but in the end, he still absolutely, literally, truly believes that Jesus is "up there" somewhere, interceding on our behalf to his sociopathing father-god. I don't get it. I will never get it. He's an otherwise sane man. 

I've never had faith. Never understood why anyone would suspend their disbelief in a world where credulity can get you killed. I know this, because I saw it happen again and again with my own parents, the reflexive willingness to believe whatever is told them, the consistent pattern of acting against (and voting against) their own economic interests in the belief that doing so was somehow helping Jesus complete his mission on Earth. That same credulity led them to believe a clownish buffoon and his media henchmen when he told them that Covid was a hoax, and the vaccine was dangerous. It could be argued that their lifelong pattern of listening to religious nonsense had primed them to listen to political nonsense -- and it killed them. 

*    *    *

I won't say this to my friend. I'll give him editorial feedback, share some thoughts on how I think his project can be made stronger. I'm not interested in shattering anyone's illusions, or telling them how to think, what to believe. I make the point in my book more than once that for my parents, their faith was probably a net gain. It provided them with a community and a framework for living that had never been modeled in their lives before they found the Lord. But they never broke free, and I daresay they never really understood how they'd been used.

  

I blame this on daylight savings time.

 Dragged my fat ass all the way across town yesterday to the St Lucie Rock & Gem club for the first day of class (lamp work!!!), but alas, no one was there. Turns out the sessions don't start until next week. 

Yes. Yes, it was a senior moment. The good news is that no one else was there to see it. Shut up, all of you. 

Halloooo? Where tf is everyone? 

Idle Musings on a Wednesday Afternoon, or: How To Avoid Getting Shit Done

What the hell was I thinking.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and it's shaping up to be a busy week. I should probably point out that I'm also writing a book -- did I mention I'm writing a book? -- and, let's face it, I'm only sharing all of this because posting things on this dumb blog is how I avoid writing this dumb book. Still, I continue to plug away at it, and I'm hoping to cross the 40,000 word mark by end of this week. It's a lift, but there's nothing stopping me, nothing standing in my way but my usual lack of focus, and -- HEY LOOK, A SQUIRREL!!!      

This morning saw me at the Port St Lucie Botanical gardens for tai chi class. A lot of the snowbirds have left for the season now, so the class is a bit smaller and more manageable, and this makes those of us who remain feel special, and clubby, and "insidery." 

Tai chi at the PSL Botanical Gardens

Anyway, I was wearing this necklace I made not too long ago, with this ancient Celtic arrowhead pendant purportedly dating anywhere from 400-200 BC. It was found in Ukraine in 2013. One of the women in class came up to me and asked about it. Turns out she's also into antiquity beads and amulets, and apparently has a fair collection of her own. We both filed this information away, curious about what hard-to-find treasures the other might be hoarding.  

*    *    * 

Tonight I'm moderating a Zoom discussion with the Humanists of the Treasure Coast, a secular organization committed to preventing the religious crazies from taking over the country the separation of church and state. We have regularly scheduled programs on Sunday mornings, with lectures and videos and guest speakers, etc. The Wednesday night Zoom group is "open mic," and the conversation is wide ranging and spirited. 

It's not a Petri dish, it's an orphanage.

Last week we discussed (among other things) why it's suddenly okay to murder IVF zygotes "babies" now that the Alabama legislature has passed a law saying so. They had to, of course, after the state's Supreme Court decided that these cells were children, and a bunch of affluent, white, straight people whose arms ached to hold their own progeny, had to put their plans on hold. Not surpassingly, they raised a stink (and they should have! Those extra leftover IVF babies had already cost a bundle to produce!) And anyway, limits on reproductive freedom are for other people, amiright? 

And all those leftover IVF "babies?" Ah well, it couldn't be helped. Thoughts & prayers. 

*    *    * 

The Port St Lucie Rock & Gem Club, as its name would suggest, is an organization for people obsessed with stones. I stumbled upon it one day as I was out and about I'm not much of a lapidary enthusiast, or at least I haven't been until now. But the club also has classes in bead work, wire wrapping, metal work and other things related to the making of fine bling. 

One of the classes being offered this session that caught my eye is lamp work bead making. This entails melting glass on an intensely hot flame and rolling it into beads on a mandrel. The finished product, in the hands of a skilled glassworker, is beautiful.  I buy a fair number of lamp work beads, and have had opportunity to experiment with making them over the years. I've never mastered it, and most likely won't now, but I'm looking forward to trying again. 

Mine never come out this nice. 

The Real Reason I Retired Early

So, a few months ago, I threw in my chips and retired. Dropped out of polite society, quit the rat race, made a new plan, Stan. I hadn't intended to retire just yet, but things at the former gig had been going from bad to worse with each new day, and I'd finally had enough. I sat down one morning and looked at the 401K for the first time in nearly a decade, gazed at the distant horizon and realized I had enough saved to dispense with all that. 

I gave notice at the job a year ago last January, but I remained for another seven months while I hired and trained my replacement, saw the program through a grueling audit of the program last July, and met with the grant managers to assure funding for 2024. When I left at the end of August, everything was in good shape. We were verbally assured that the grant would be renewed.

That was then. Fast forward to this morning when I found out no one had followed up with the grant application after I left. As a result of this, and other factors, the contract wasn't renewed. They just lost over a quarter of a million dollars in grant funding. Two of my former colleagues abruptly left the program, and our director (my former boss) was fired over the weekend. 

I'm frankly shocked by this development. Why didn't anyone see the grant application through? It was done, all they had to do was hit "send." The very last thing I did as I walked out the door was send a reminder to follow up on the status of the grant. 

No one did. Now the funding is gone, they're all looking for jobs, and somehow I'm still to blame for everything. Why did I retire early, you ask? This is why. This right here. 

Religion is Weird episode 5,206

 Writing today about how when I was a kid in school, our 5th grade teacher explained that the Holocaust happened because when the Jews killed Jesus, they said his blood would be on them and their children. 

And how weird it was, in retrospect, that as Seventh Day Adventists we appropriated so much of Jewish culture and tradition into our own way of life -- keeping the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, our kosher diet -- while also espousing this incredibly vile and antisemitic trope that they deserved persecution because they killed the Christ. 

Weird. Anyway, I've hit my thousand words for today and hoping for another thousand tonight.  

Is It Okay If I Don't Want To Be Your Bestie?

 

It’s pretty clear that over the last six months, since retiring and dropping out of polite society, I’ve been systematically reducing eliminating my 1-to-1 interactions with the outside world. For awhile I thought it was because things there ended so badly -- after I left, they ended up losing about a quarter mil in grant funding, lost about half their program. My former boss was let go. It wasn't pretty.  

But I don't think that's it, not really. It hasn’t been a conscious thing; just an uptick in random cancellations, regrets that I can’t accept this or that invitation (other plans, other plans), the refusal to answer my phone. For the most part, I’ve stopped returning calls that don’t involve someone bleeding out. I take long days to return emails. Phone calls? Ha ha, why is my camera vibrating. You can try texting. Voicemail? Forget it. I’d sooner reply to a fax.

This doesn’t mean I’ve been isolated. Far from it. I have my recovery zoom group on Tuesday evenings, and another zoom group on Wednesday with HUMTC. On Wednesday mornings I have tai chi class, and on Thursday it’s piano; I’m starting a class next week on making lamp work beads, and on Fridays a class in wire-wrap. I get out: I ride my bike an average 12-15 miles a day. I do stuff: I’ve written 20,000 words of my book.  

I’m active, I’m engaged, I’m out there, I’m livin’ my best life. I still like interactions with small groups, if only for limited amounts of time. Say, a tai chi class, or a piano lesson. I’m not overly interested in the details of other peoples’ lives. I’m just not interested in 1-to-1s anymore, sorry. I don’t want to be your bestie. 

*    *    * 

It occurred to me recently that I can’t remember the last time I had a sustained 1-to-1 conversation with anyone. And by “sustained,” I mean for more than about 10 minutes. Anything more than that is a business meeting that should have been scheduled. It should have come with a scope of work. It should state an agenda up front. More than 10 minutes and I want to know my deliverables. 

Is it my time? My attention? My assistance? Do you just need to vent? Fine, call your mother. Call your therapist. Call a friend. 

Have I always been this way? Surely not. No. I’ve had friends, right? Good, close friends, the kind you share your hopes and dreams with, the kind of friends you call when your back is to the wall, the friend your trust your innermost thoughts and feelings and secrets with. Here’s a fact: Those relationships exhausted me. They still exhaust me. People exhaust me. 

* * *

When things on that last shitty job had finally gotten to be too much, when the culmination of the last 3 years of  finally drew to a close, after my stint in rehab, after my parents died, and I walked away from everything and everyone that had been my former life, when all that happened -- I wanted only one thing: to be left alone. 

Now it’s six months later and there is literally no one who calls me anymore because I will not answer. Anyone. Period. I’ve lost interest in other people, all of them. And, blessedly, they’ve mostly gone away.  

It sounds bitter and angry and isolated and sad, but in fact, it’s none of those things. It’s fucking glorious, is what it is. 

For the first time in my life, I am free of other people. Their needs and expectations, their demands, their deliverables. But mostly what I’m free of is their conditions. The emotional bartering. The transaction: “If you fill this need for me, I’ll fill this need for you.” 

Really? Let’s try this instead: I meet my own needs now. 

* * *

Reading these words, I’ll admit, it doesn’t sound particularly healthy. We’re social beings, after all. (See also, “Not Isolated” above.) I’ll surely meet a bitter end. I’ll no doubt end up poor and alone and isolated. No one will care when I get sick with a terminal illness, or when I’m evicted from my home, or when calamity strikes. I’m certain all of the horrors will come true, and I’ll deserve to die broke and alone.

But I’ll let you all in on a little secret: It doesn’t end easily for anyone. We live in a state of existential entropy, and that’s if we’re lucky. I’ve heeded other peoples’ dire warnings all my life, and they’ve been consistently wrong about everything. Meanwhile, I’ve done well enough. I’ve gotten this far. I’ve earned my emancipation. I’ll heed my own counsel from now on, thank you.

Because it's easier than writing.

 Made a thing. 

Tiny Turqs! Natural turquoise, Peruvian Blue Opal, brass findings.

There were a lot more drunks in this group when we started

Pretty sure the love is gone.  

We can still text. 

In Which I Celebrate My Domestic Bliss

I did two loads of laundry today and made a chicken casserole. Apparently I've become my own stay-at-home wife & mother and I am here for it, BABY.  

Retirement is fucking great!

Maybe They Were Out Of Adderall...?

 Hmmm, maybe now we know who left cocaine in the WH.

Just guessing...