Death Watch

Being on death watch sucks.

Sam called my friend's husband (I am not giving names because I don't know if they want those spread, but I will call her G) and gave the husband his number for updates.

As of right now, there is no change. She is still comatose, and is likely to stay that way until she leaves us.

Jesus fuck, I miss her already.

G and I met 26 years ago, because we were both part of a rosary maker's guild. We were paired up on a swap to send our partner a kit we had put together to make a rosary (beads, eye pins, cross, centerpiece) and we both went kind of overboard. She sent me four kits, I sent her three. She included her phone number in her package, and I called her to thank her and tell her how much I loved what she'd sent. 

We ended up talking for 2.5 hours that evening, and a friendship was born. We were soul sisters from the get-go. 

Four months later she announced she was coming to visit me. That was the first of four face to face visits we were able to accomplish, every one of them rich and warm and funny. She even came for my son's wedding, and insisted on paying for half of the food for the buffet as her gift.

When my second husband tried to walk away without giving me any closure, she called him and ripped him a new asshole, as did my other bestie, Debb, which prompted him to come to the psych ward I was in after my suicide attempt and work out details of spousal support and what have you. That settled things for me, and I was able then to heal enough to go home. Without Debb and G stepping in, I might still be sitting in the hospital, fingerpainting.

When I moved to Texas and we had NOTHING, G made Christmas happen for our entire family. She sent an artificial tree, ornaments, gifts, and a Walmart gift card so we could buy dinner fixings. For the next 24 years, G sent a huge Christmas box for us, until I finally told her to stop, the kids didn't come home any more for the holidays.

If I needed an ear, G was there. If I wanted to laugh, G had a joke. 

I feel like I am losing one of my anchors, and I am flailing.

G's other best friend, Karen, is going to be a total wreck. From what G has told me over the years, Karen is a wet mess and depends on G to keep her stable and afloat. I don't know what she will do now. I hope she will be okay.

I will be okay, but there will be a big huge hole in my life and heart. This loss is deep and painful, and I'm not coping very well right at the moment, but I am strong, or so they tell me, so I will get through this. I will never get OVER it, but I will get through it.

Sigh. Tonight, I will grab the job's tear rosary that G made for me and pray one for her peaceful passing.

Godforsaken Bastards and Why They Suck Ass

The Opening: A Season in the Shade

We have entered the era of the Godforsaken Bastard. It is a time defined not by leadership, but by the violent curation of chaos. A period where the traditional guardrails of decency haven't just been ignored, they’ve been sold for scrap. This is the portrait of a collective that thrives on the friction of a world in collapse, a rogue’s gallery of the high-born and the low-lived who have mistaken their cruelty for courage and their greed for a mandate. They move through our culture like a virus in a designer suit, insulated by billions and emboldened by a mob that has been taught to love the sound of breaking glass. This zine is the shadow to the saints; it is a jagged, unwashed look at the architects of our current misery, the enforcers of our fear, and the loud-mouthed parasites who provide the soundtrack to the demolition of the common good. Welcome to the wreckage.

Ginger

One of my best friends is currently dying. She could go tonight, she could go in a few days, but she is going. Her husband called me tonight to let me know.

None of you know her, but she would have made one amazing Callahooligan, and fit in well with most of you.

She loved my kids, and they loved her, though they only met twice, since she lives in Philadelphia and we live in Texas.

Tonight I am utterly bereft and falling apart.

May her passing be peaceful. Please, let there be a reward for her after this, whatever reward she wants.

I can't stop crying. When I'm not crying so much, I will write more about her.

Fuck uncontrolled diabetes. Fuck it hard.

The Unwilling Statistic - OR - Fuck That!

I’ve got a list of diagnoses a mile long, including diabetes, afib, and sleep apnea; however, it’s the COPD (which is just a pretty way of saying emphysema) that’s trying to put a timestamp on my life. They say three to five years. That’s the math. The worst part of that math is knowing I wrote the equation myself. Forty-five years of heavy smoking has caught up to me, and now my lungs are paying the debt I racked up. I have nobody to blame but the person in the mirror.

But here’s the thing: I’m not willing to die this young. I’m not done yet. Fuck that!

No, Jesse Welles is NOT pro-Charlie fucking Kirk

Yes, Jesse Welles wrote a song about the killing of Charlie Kirk. NO, it was NOT a pro-gung ho-Charlie is a martyr song.

It was a song about gun violence and freedom of speech...

Tolkein's Vogon Poetry

I've been trying to read Fellowship of the Ring again.

I read the series 35 years ago, and it was like slogging through Boston after the great molasses flood. Just agonizing.

Tolkein couldn't write poetry if a gun was held to his head and he was under threat of death to write a decent poem. And every chapter has one, two, or more of his awful fucking Vogon poetry.

I'll be just getting into the rhythm of the story when fucking JRR decides it's time to pull out his Prostetinic Vogon Jeltz mask and begin:

When I was seven, my family put on an Easter Egg hunt for all the kids on our street. Most of them were 10 and up. My sister and I didn't get baskets that year, because we were having the hunt instead.

I didn't find a single thing until our housemate showed me where he had hidden one hard boiled egg. I remember feeling miserable and watching all the other kids crowing about their loot. I spent most of the afternoon crying in my room. And my Easter consisted of a hard boiled egg, which I didn't even like back then.

I never ever EVER put on a neighborhood hunt for my kids because I'll be damned if one of my kids would ever feel the way I felt that day. 

We did baskets and inside the house egg hunts, just for our kids, and each kid got one room to search, so they would each get a fair share.

The Weight of Forty Years

Forty plus years ago, I spent one spring and summer where I had no job and couldn't find one. I was stripping one night a week and paid $25 for that, plus any tips customers stuffed in my g-string, which was usually about $10-15 a night. So my income was no more than $40 a week. I had to eat, and I needed cigarettes, which I considered a priority.

During that time, I ate nothing but one  $1 hot dog a day, loaded down with ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, and kraut, because toppings were free. I ended up losing over 90 pounds. I was emaciated, I was weak, and jesus FUCK was I hungry.

When I finally got a job, working in a diner/ice cream parlor, with a 50% food discount, I ate everything in sight. I worked 7-2, and would eat breakfast during my 15 minute break, lunch during my half hour, and then another meal after work.

This was all fried food, burgers, fish and chips, fries, chicken fingers, and oh, yeah, frappes and sundaes. Fully half my paycheck was deducted to pay for all this, and I was bringing home $100 or so a week, including tips.

I gained back everything I'd lost. And the weight kept coming. I got bigger and bigger as my eating got out of control.

Bigger and bigger and bigger over the course of forty years. It affected my health, my mobility, my self-esteem, my mental state. Don't let anyone tell you "healthy at any size", because that weight inevitably catches up with you and overwhelms your physical state.

I finally topped out last year at 370 pounds. At that point, I knew shit had to change. I went to my doctor and got on Ozempic.

Since I've been on the full dose, I have lost more than 40 pounds. My goal is to get to at least as low as 250. I think at 250 I'll be able to walk to the damn bathroom again, at least.

I am addressing my very complex and fucked up food issues with my therapist, because it is time. Time to take control and time to put the damn fork down.

Time to reclaim my life.

The Bustiers and Bullshit of the Far Right

The "Freedom for Me, but Not for Thee" crowd is at it again, and the irony is thick enough to choke a horse. Conservative Americans love to wrap themselves in the flag and scream about liberty from the rooftops, but that liberty apparently comes with a "Members Only" sign.

They want the freedom to stockpile enough firepower to arm a small nation, the freedom to vote by mail while simultaneously trying to dismantle the post office for everyone else, and the freedom to indulge in whatever private kinks they fancy behind closed doors. We see the hypocrisy in real-time: a certain president casts his own ballot from the comfort of a gold-plated mailbox while he and his followers scream that mail-in voting is a scam.

If Bryon Noem wants to spend his weekends in a bustier and heels, that’s between him, his mirror, and POSSIBLY his wife, though an argument could be made that it's only her business if he decides that's okay.

David Gerrold says I am a screechweasel :)

He also lies. Says I blocked him, when, in fact, I only unfriended him. HE is the one who did the blocking.

Would somebody who hasn't left his feed point him to my last two blog posts? 

Looks like I totes got into his skull. 🙂

I did not call him a transphobe. I called him a transphobe LOVER, because he believes its okay to hand your money and time to that transphobic cunt, Rowling.

And we proceed:

The Myth of the Neutral Platform

In her own hateful words

There is a common misconception that providing a stage for extremist viewpoints is an act of "objective journalism" or "free speech advocacy." However, when you give a KKK leader, a Nazi, or a bigot a microphone, you aren't just observing them; you are participating in their expansion.

Fuck YOU, David Gerrold

Let me make this infinitely clear.

I have three kids, Lis, Ian, and Ava. They are my pride and my joy. I support them in their identities, their lives, their very beings.

Two of my kids are transgender. I am their number one ally. I will go to the mats against anybody who wants to tell me my kids are mentally ill for that, or that they are the gender that they were assigned at birth, or that they should be forced to use a room full of urinals instead of toilets, or any person who SUPPORTS somebody with those fucking ideas in their head (David Gerrold, I am looking at YOU, motherfucker!)

Ink, Strings, and Serenity OR Happy Little Clouds

There is a specific kind of silence that happens the moment I cap my pen after finishing a Zentangle. My hand is usually a bit cramped from the precision of the patterns, but my mind is finally quiet. To keep that peace from evaporating, I reach for my ukulele. The transition from the visual rhythm of ink on paper to the literal vibration of strings against my fingertips is where I find my center.

It’s a world of tiny, deliberate wonders. One hour I’m watching a Shrinky Dink curl and toughen under the heat, and the next I’m assembling an angel keychain, bead by bead. These aren't just crafts; they are anchors. In a world that feels increasingly loud and disposable, these small acts of creation are how I claim my space.

Marshmallow Peeps Are Proof That God Has Forsaken Us

I don't know about you, but when I look at a Marshmallow Peep I don’t see a treat; I see a chemical glow that has no business existing in nature. It’s a neon warning sign in the shape of a bird. Then comes that first bite - that weird, gritty mouthfeel where the sugar crystals scrape against your teeth like fine-grit sandpaper, followed immediately by the soul-crushing squish of a marshmallow that feels less like food and more like a damp, sugary tire.

Beyond the Lip Service

 

I remember the first time I saw Boy George. It was 1981 or 82, I honestly forget which. I was in a bar with my guy, Scott, having a beer, and they had MTV on. Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me came on, and I saw Boy George and my jaw hit the fucking floor and I started laughing in hysterics.

I was utterly astounded that this queer looking guy had the sheer guts to be on TV dressed like a woman. I was amazed that MTV allowed it on their programming. I was too caught up in staring at him and being half amazed, half grossed out, to notice that that motherfucker could SING. I think back now to how I felt, how I was kind of horrified and freaked out, and I think...

Jumping the Shark: The Fonz’s Funeral and Henry Winkler’s Last Laugh

It's a classic case of a show becoming a victim of its own success. What started as a grounded, nostalgic look at 1950s Milwaukee - centered on the Cunningham family - eventually morphed into the "The Fonzie Show," and that’s where the wheels started to come off.

The Surrenderist Guide to Optimized Existing

 

Lets be honest, the rise and grind culture is exhausting, and most life hacks are designed for people who actually have goals. If I see one more suggestion about waking up at 4 AM to drink goddam lemon water and manifest productivity, I'm going to fucking scream into a pillow until I pass out for another six hours. We do not need to optimize our workflow or shred for summer; we need strategies for when the mere act of perceiving reality feels like a full time job with no benefits. This isn't about winning at life - it's about negotiating a peaceful surrender with the pile of mail on the counter.

The Script Never Changes: War Crimes in the Middle East

The script hasn't changed; only the resolution of the news footage has. We're still watching the same gray dust settle over the same shattered concrete, wondering how strategic interests always seem to require the calculated dismantling of a third grade classroom.

It is the ultimate, horrific groundhog day. We’re told these wars are necessary, but the only measurable output is a growing tally of war crimes and a generation of girls whose only education is learning the difference between the whistle of an incoming shell and the roar of a jet. There is no legal or moral framework that justifies turning a school into a gravesite, regardless of the acronyms used to defend it. It's not a "conflict", it's a fucking WAR! It's a repetitive, illegal slaughter that proves we’ve learned absolutely nothing.

“If This Goes On—”: A Side-by-Side Look at Heinlein’s Warning and the United States Today

I've been working steadily on this article since mid-January. It has been harrowing, absolutely frightening, and just a little bit too close to reality these days for me..

I just reread Robert Heinlein’s “If This Goes On—” for the umpteenth time, and I can’t stop thinking about how quiet it is. Not the writing itself, but the way the collapse happens. No sirens. No big moment where everyone agrees something has gone wrong. Just a series of choices that all seem defensible at the time. That’s what got under my skin.

Power Without Oversight Is Not Law Enforcement

In a constitutional system, enforcement authority is granted with an explicit condition: it must be constrained, reviewable, and accountable. When any agency operates beyond meaningful oversight, power ceases to be lawful in practice even if it remains lawful in name.

This concern is not theoretical. Repeated audits, inspections, and independent reviews have documented systemic failures in immigration enforcement agencies to meet basic standards of transparency, accountability, and humane treatment. These findings come not from advocacy alone, but from inspectors general, federal courts, and oversight bodies tasked with evaluating compliance with the law.