Rainy Days and Mondays

 That was a song I hated when it came out, but it did make an apt title. Not a cheerful day out there, but at least I don't have to go anywhere. I might resort to music, which I rarely do, but musicians have something I need, I admit. I have to practice all the songs for the Jell-O show, but that's all silly.

 Tom Prasada-Rao I found this on a Facebook friend's post, a friend I made during the pandemic, working on Fair in the Clouds. We know each other in the Facebook way, in the bits and pieces we post, and she posts lovely intimate reflections about loss, which is my current area of study. I expect to be studying it for some time, maybe going for a PhD. There is no way around enrolling in this course.

I go to class with this every day in a new way. Every evening it's different, every morning lying in bed thinking about plans and my lists of tasks and my ambitious plans. Every day another facet of loss appears, shiny at first, then tarnishing as it becomes the same old Loss. I want to revisit the meme world and read a lot of webcomix as that seems to be the place the deepest exploration of this is being done, in the flip bits and pieces that hide how deep the river runs. I need to challenge my intellect and ran out of good books to read, though I have stacks of books. I think the internet is the deep hole I need to fall into as often as possible. And I have always found truth more approachable in comix, which is why I have a big collection of undergrounds from the 70s and 80s. Probably part of Jell-O for me, too, since within jokes and joy there is always something universal we need a soft landing within. So we laugh.

Anticipatory grief is something we are all experiencing, as we watch our planet scream at us to make big changes we hardly have any power to do, and as we feel the push of fascism and racism that just won't get into that grave we've been trying to dig. We're horrified at our fellow citizens, our family members, our Facebook friends, and even our real friends. We're not even sure about ourselves. Self hatred and depression are twins that live in the murder shed out back.

Some things feel so obvious I want to scream every day. Don't buy plastic! Don't you know what vinyl is? Don't you see the connection between sickness and all of those consumer products you are putting into your body and home? The dissonance is so fucking loud that we buy some gelato  that is made from dairy in a plastic container that we (I mean I here) think we need. I'm grateful to Jell-O as I have to keep a super clean diet for the next week and a half or I will be unable to sing. I can indulge in none of the things that cause my respiratory distress. Of course that means I don't have a lot of comfort foods except I did remember fried egg sandwiches, which is something my Mom would make me anytime I flew in late at night or needed something. There are a couple of vegan butters now that are very tasty and I can still eat bread. And eggs. Not the time to be a real vegan. My Mom made me pork chops a lot too. And canned peaches, home canned. I might have one jar of those.

It's raining hard and that's okay, I've given up any more pruning now that all of the trees are budding out and I'm hoping it helps the big maple in the neighbor's yard recover from last summer's drought and do that pink flush it does before it turns bright lime green with new growth. If that tree dies my horizon will leave me bereft as my view from my kitchen window is pivotal to my well-being. It's one of the oldest trees in the neighborhood and for sure no matter what next summer I will make certain it gets watered. Even if I have to buy a new long plastic hose and climb over two fences myself. Nobody on my block gets to be selfish enough to not notice the neglect of that tree just because it is in the middle of the block in the yard of what has become a rental that will remain empty as it is too expensive. Most likely too-expensive rentals get filled with people who go to work all the time and use their backyards for drinking on the weekends to forget work, but we'll see. You never know when your contradictory choices will get worse or easier. Last hose I got I found free down the block and somehow carried/dragged home. It might even be long enough to snake under two fences and leave there since no one will probably notice it either. 

Contradictory choices are a lifestyle so I just cruise from one to another. What is the least-awful choice I can make here? That is an everyday question, and I'm sure not just for me. Since sometimes waiting to choose eliminates some of them, I can get left with more awful ones. I changed a dental appointment that was next week but now it lands on the day before my birthday...but that is not soon so I don't care. Birthdays take care of themselves and I ignore them more and more. Since I quit alcohol and can't eat whipped cream, some of the birthday activities are not as fun now...and it is a Friday, so there won't be any going out on the town, even if I wanted to. I will probably just enjoy my clean teeth on the deck with a book, since by then I will surely have found something I want to read. 

Birthdays are just a march toward more loss, anyway. I might be a little panicky about death these days. I have so much to do, so much important work. I have so many interests, so many curiosities, and I waste so much time. I keep putting off the self-maintenance things I need to do (the dentist being the least of them) and finding excuses for that, even though I know the satisfying feel of doing something virtuous and good for me. Don't I want to live long enough to do all of this work, and learning? 

Well, yes, but...what I want isn't really the most important thing operating, is it? I want a healthy world and a rise in people being unselfish and good to each other. I want the mean people to die off and not the lovely ones. I want the pork chop without the dead pig and the factory farm.

I want to get some tasks done today so I had better attempt that. Next time.