Welcome to July

I haven't posted in a while because I've been content with reading digging in the dirt playing my violin and for the most part staying off line I am not used to happiness I am not used to this lack of stress and worry I keep waiting for that other shoe the anvil shaped shoe to drop on my head

it took me six months to move my body out of my bedroom and into the living room to watch some movies so far I watched two I Am Not Your Negro a documentary about James Baldwin which was incredible (I own and have read and studied the book) and La La Land

I Am Not Your Negro brought hot ancient tears I remember asking my darling brother how our mother became so racist in her elderly and he said that she was always that way but we didn't have any context as children with which to recognize it and he was right as he always is because now that I have some distance from her corporeal being I am remembering things she said jokes she made nasty comments what you would expect from her and her general ugliness as a person please watch this movie with your children

which brings me to La La Land which was hugely problematic for me the biggest problem being that the only people of color in the movie were entertainers hmmmm... and a white boy wanted to bring jazz back to popular culture HELLO? with no mention as to the African roots of jazz there is that -- a feeling of unbalance of racism that made me uncomfortable and I've never been a fan of Ryan "I took three months of piano lessons so I could play a musician in a movie" Gosling I think his face lacks character he reminds me of a tall thin rat and always has of course there are no actual musicians in Holyrood who could have done justice to the part hmmmmmmmm...also when Gosling sang he was so off key so consistently flat that I kept correcting him in my head sometimes screaming the correct note out to the telly which is a thing I do yes and yes I have absolute pitch I just do I was born with it I suppose and I have a lot of attitude about actors faking being musicians to her credit Emma Stone an actor I like could sing on key she had a surprisingly sweet untrained soprano voice surprising because her speaking voice is so deep I loved the dances the dresses and the scene at the Griffith Observatory which was enchanting and the catchy theme song which rolled around in my head hours after watching the movie

I drove to the market the other day because I was out of flour and even though my car is over a year old it still has New Car Smell and only 5,000 miles on the odometer even with two trips to the central Oregon coast and 496,900 trips from Seattle to the north while I was house hunting my car sits gathering pine needles which I occasionally sweep out with a wide black paint brush because I am so happy to just be here to be in my body which is behaving perfectly (no nausea etc) to put together my library which is coming along except for boxes of my son's crap which magically appear in there soon after I make a new space then when he leaves I move them back to his room yes his room is small but he is gone  most of the time and if his room is too small I have invited him to move his crap to his father's house or one of his many friends' houses and I'm sticking to my guns I am Annie Oakleying this to the bitter end he can have all the space he wants when I die and leave him the house but for now it's mine and I have dreamed of the library for my entire I tried to make a short video of it but could not get it to post so I will try Vimeo if I can remember my password for now here is a peek

featuring Angela Simione's incredible art

I finally moved into the kitchen as well I mean I have been cooking like a fiend since I moved in even when I couldn't eat but then I would scurry to my room with my food because I have not had a kitchen table in 30 years and I'm used to eating on my lap now I take my meals at the table with napkins and this spectacular view and I've been sitting there to write a habit I had for years that I missed also I have gained 8 pounds since I stopped with all the womit but it's okay my face looks better my skin is glowy and it's nice to be able to keep food inside

every morning I get awakened by Jupiter who has decided that 5:30 is GET UP!!! is morning she meepmeepmeeps at me then jumps on the bed with her kitty-spit-soaked toys and she stretches out beside me and tucks them into my hair and purrs until I wake she is not a lap kitty and probably will never be but she is so danged affectionate that she has enclosed my heart with Animal God love kitty spit and all after I feed the cats I make coffee then I go out and look at my garden I put my face right into the tomatoes oh god they smell so amazing when the sun is high I have radishes and tomatoes (still green) and cucumbers and zucchini which I pick when they are tiny did I tell you a bee stung me on the tip of my right hand ring finger? and now it is infected and it reminds me of being a child when I was a dedicated nail biter and was always getting infected fingers which my mother wrapped in bread soaked in milk -- a milk poultice -- the wet milk would dry and the bread drew out the infection I was not taken to a doctor until I almost died from pneumonia in the third grade of course doctors might have figured out what was going on with me so they were The Enemy and had to be avoided at all costs which brings me to what is happening to my eyebulbs which is KILLER POLLEN

I have always been very allergic to pollen in early and then again in late summer and I get terribly itchy eyes which I soothe by soaking a wash cloth in milk and pressing it against my eyes until they stop itching and I didn't make the connection between my mother's milk poultices and my own milk eyebulb habit which I learned from the hippies on the farm until this week I still refuse to drink the stuff but it works swiftly for itchy eyebulbs and always has

I have recently read two memoirs one by Patricia Lockwood Priestdaddy which is full of funny and brilliant writing as all of Tricia's writing is but also very light and airy with nothing really happening in the book none of life pushing against life nothing hard to rise above if that makes sense and Roxane Gay's Hunger which spoke to me deeply and personally but which lacked finesse and contained some grammatical errors lots of grammatical errors which I tend to circle with a pen as I read and surprised me from a PhD writer but chalk that up to bad editing both books were good and I recommend them both

this is all so boring and it hurts like fuck to type with a bee stung finger and today I'm making marinara with Walla Walla sweet onions and baby zucchini from my garden and basil and parsley from my herb garden and fresh farm corn that I found at the market I was going to start up the grill and cook the corn on the recent war exploding holiday but I discovered it's no fun to grill alone and easier to boil corn then get on with life

tomorrow I have to drive to downtown Seattle to see DOGNURSE which gives me the heebie jeebies and this is my birthday month and I thought I was turning 65 but I'm actually turning 64 and this is the second time in 10 years that I forgot my own damned age even though I'm pretty good at maths

since I can't write for fuck I'll show you some more pix from around the house
here are some weeds flowers in the library my sixth grade teacher once told me that weeds were simply undesirable flowers I have never forgotten and if they're pretty I'll pick them and bring them in

here are some actual flowers I planted in early spring

here is a little terrarium I made for the kitchen table (I still have my giant terrarium of course it is over 20 years old now and it still rains inside)

here is a perfect angel food cake I baked using real angels that I ate with tiny mascerated strawberries from my garden

here is a peach buckle I baked that tasted exactly like a peach pie once I doctored up the recipe and yes the reason I've gained 8 pounds in a month and this isn't even stress baking it's happy baking!

and here is Jupiter busy opening every single cupboard and drawer in the house because she figured out how and it makes makes her happy

if you have read this yawn-ful post this far then you are a better man than I

I just hope my bee stung finger doesn't fall off I'm going to have a piece of French bread dipped in marinara my favorite meal for early dinner hello and love from Summer's End

lastly here is a religious text that I have not touched since I received it from a monk in 1984 raise your had if you know what it is