TMi

Summertime in a climate privileged location doesn't mean krayt spit when your house is a godless two-in-one solar convection oven / shack. It’s been consistently about 80(f) and over during the day inside. I try to pretend I am in Miami again. That doesn't help much. Miami is even more godless than this place. And have I been showing signs of the heat stress? Oh, you bet! All the things loose their meaning when the body must focus extensively on maintaining homeostasis. Even grief turns into a distant ooze.  I was going to write about the sudden death of beloved Sir Not-Calling-Himself-Nigel, Sam Neill– the New Zealand actor. He was such a good egg, and a wealth of inspiration. He didn't know me, I didn't know him, but I am grateful for the work he left behind. His Merlin is the bestest Merlin, his several psychotic characters live in my happy place along with Hannibal Lecter because he made them just as memorable. He was always a cozy presence to me; even...

Ah, June a delightful month. Full of birthdays (I know too many Gemini), father’s day, the summer solstice, men's mental health awareness… the celebrating of slaves getting  unslaved  two whole years and a bit after the  unslavatud e oficial ....  It's a whole month for a lot of people to stop concentrating on how awful it is that there are others in the world who are vastly different than they are, and focus on human rights, perhaps? Because what even are human rights anymore? June for the Baja frontier has been, shall we say, Pantone color *Mortally Red #ED1827.5 (*not an actual Pantone color). Very intentional deaths have ramped up to about a murder nearly every single day. I am no social studies genius, but this paroxysm juuuuust might have to do with that upset Mexico experienced way back in February when a cartel leader was taken out. “Power vacuums are awesome!” I declare out of nowhere with both thumbs energetically up and a shit...

I was doing some paper collaging recently and in the moment wondered why it felt so appropriate to have a workspace strewn with paper cuttings. Then I remembered my mom would have a pile of papers at the table. She went through them, carefully select something that was meaningful, and tear or cut it out and place it in another pile of papers to be later traded in for discounts on goods or services. As many others in the US, my mom clipped coupons out of newspapers, flyers, magazines, wherever. This was another activity that became added to the list of things that one did as a good house wife on a tight budget. My mom did this exercise. As if it could save the family… Something. If one put in the time to hunt through advertising for the right scrap of paper and turned it in at the right store, within the right time frame, one could exchange a coupon for something of much greater value. Like magic. Apart from coupon clipping, my mom also made these reinforced, cut out paper dolls for me....

Some very well cared for human beings flew around the moon this month. I was right there with live-stream of the astronauts as much as I could be enjoying the glitchy feeds, relating hard with the cramped living quarters and... waste management issues. When people go camping they don’t think much about where to put all the shit. It’s natural. It can go in the Nature. Or in the vacuum of space. But what do you do when you have limited resources and are camping out in an urban environment that is all pavement, security cameras, limited privacy, and limited toilet usage? And what ever nature that is available is precious and will be protected from being used as a toilet– I should add. This was one of my logistics nightmares when I was one of the unhoused, living in a van in Williamsburg, Brooklyn back in the Hipster days. Solid waste was by far easier to deal with. One can evacuate into a bag and drop that off in a trash can as one does with dog waste. Liquid waste was more interesting to...

[~glitch me daddy eight to the bit\]   Opening a box that’s been shipped to you from the other side of another country and finding it full of objects from your childhood– Objects that made up your immediate world as far back as forty years ago and were part of your day-to-day for years, that you haven't seen for years. And now they are with you again far outside of their initial context. How do you express the meaning of these things when meanings were never defined in words because these objects were with you before you had full grasp of language? Are things only really valuable if you can condemn them to be recreated inside a mesh of language? Then, even then, neither the language nor the things gain much value because they are mine. And what am I? What authority backs my words to give them weight and validation that would convince anyone else agree to give them greater value? Nostalgia has been a hot word these days, but I do not long for my past. Nostalg...

"Great men are not born great, they grow great." - Don Vito Corleon This is some crazy auspicious month this year with so many overlapping holiday observances– and an eclipse– With a sprinkling of social unrest in Mexico. I'm writing from Mexico. When they kind of do hits on cartel bosses it does kind of does ripple out to people who aren't directly involved.  (Fun fact! I used to bank with Wachovia. Look them up. They were accused of money laundering for Mexican drug cartels. So... I have been involved.) Taking it back down from a global scale, the month is dedicated self-love. And nothing says sexy good times more than dental work! We must keep a Cronenberg / Clive Barker perspective on sensuality, no? Ok, if that is too much for you, then just think of it as self-care and maintenance. I continue my healing journey with a discomfiting jaunt to the dentists chair to have cavities addressed, crowns replaced, and best / worst of all three posts inserted int...

  W elpy-welp. I’ve officially arrived at the ass end of the snake year. The boulevard outside my door was soaked in pooling sewer filth from the 27th of December to about January 20th. The snake has incontinence in it’s old age. Or it is terrified of the coming hooves of the next year. I remember once being at a picnic with my family on some bright New England day. I don't know who spotted it, but we– us kids got excited about finding a snake nearby. I believe I was the quickest one and was able to catch the garter snake with my hands. I did not keep hold of it for very long. It was terrified of being snatched up out of the grass by a child and it wet me in defense. And it 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝓀 . I remember the talk turn immediately to best practices for nullifying strong animal odors, skunk smells especially. Tomato juice seemed to be top of the list. We did not have that available– and perhaps orange juice was used instead? I have trouble remembering if it was me who actually caught a wild...