The Voice I Thought I Lost

 

Me, 17 years old

All my childhood and teens I sang, sang all the time. Played guitar. Music was the thing that brought me to life, and I wanted nothing more than to buy a PA system and join a band. The singers I listened to shaped my style. Grace Slick, Tina Turner, Ann Wilson, Janis Joplin, Janis Ian, Joni Mitchell.

My dad always encouraged me in my music, always asked me to play and sing for him, always got happy when I learned a new song or wrote one. He especially loved that. He gifted me my Harmony Sovereign for Christmas when I was twelve and paid for guitar lessons twice a week for several years. He was my biggest fan.

When I was fourteen I won a school wide talent show singing the 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel and accompanying myself on my Harmony Sovereign guitar. That was the kind of kid I was. Music was where I lived.

I would watch the street musicians in Harvard Square, hungering to be playing, but too damn self conscious to even consider it. Then one day I was really high on weed and very relaxed, and I started singing along with a musician who was playing John Prine's Angel From Montgomery. The reaction of the other people listening, and the musician asking me to join him in more songs, opened the floodgates and made me feel like performing publicly would be a fun thing to do.

I set my future ambition to be a professional musician, to sing, to play music, to share the joy of melody with the world.

In my mid teens, I would play music in Harvard Square. I never put my guitar case out for donations because I was too self-conscious about it, I just played for me and my friends. Sometimes, though, somebody would walk up and hand me fifty cents or a dollar. That was coffee money!

Patti and I usually just hung out with our friends, smoking joints behind Out of Town News, getting coffee at the Mug and Muffin, playing music in the Pit, and generally having a good time. Those were the years when I thought music was going to carry me forward forever.

Then came the car wreck when I was seventeen. I went through the windshield and took three hundred stitches to my forehead. My throat slammed into the edge of the dash. Paralyzed one of my vocal cords. I couldn't sing for more than one or two songs after that before my throat would hurt bad, and I would start hitting bad notes. Me, who has perfect pitch. It was devastating. My hoped for future career was up in smoke, I had an immense scar on my forehead, and I had no hopes any more.

Over the years, I gave up singing for the most part. It was too emotionally painful.

As my voice got rougher and weaker, I fell into depression about singing and wouldn't even try, which probably resulted in helping my voice get progressively worse, along with the pack a day habit. Heavy smoking, injury, never using my voice, it went really bad. I was croaking when I sang Happy Birthday or whatever. It was bad. It felt like something that used to be mine had slipped away and I could not get it back.

Well… lately I have been singing along with the radio. I am also singing while I practice ukulele. And my voice is improving. I have my projection back. I am on key. I can sing a little longer every day.

And I am blown away.

I am not going to be a big rock star, not at 61 years old and in poor health, but I have my music back. 

Yesterday, Sam told me I was sounding pretty good. 

My heart soared.

When Bipolar Disorder Takes Another Life, The Stigma Should Be What Dies Next

 

Image courtesy Unsplash.Com - work of Paolo Nicolello

Robert Carradine died by suicide today after a long fight with bipolar disorder. The news hit me harder than I expected. Not because I knew him personally, but because I know the illness that took him. I know what it feels like when your own brain turns into a battlefield. I know what it feels like to lose the fight for a moment and still be here to talk about it. I have been there. I have survived it. And I am tired of pretending that bipolar disorder is anything other than a medical condition that deserves compassion and treatment.

Every time someone with bipolar disorder or another mental illness dies, the world reacts with shock. People ask how it could happen. People whisper. People speculate. But very few people talk about the truth. Bipolar disorder is not a character flaw. It is not a weakness. It is not a failure of willpower. It is a brain chemistry disorder that can be brutal, unpredictable, and exhausting. It deserves the same seriousness and empathy we give to heart disease or cancer or any other life threatening condition.

But that is not how society treats it.

Instead, people with bipolar disorder get labeled as unstable or dramatic or dangerous. We get jokes made at our expense. We get told to calm down or get over it. We get treated like our illness is a personality problem instead of a medical one. And when someone dies, the stigma gets louder instead of quieter.

The truth is simple. People do not die from bipolar disorder because they are weak. They die because the illness is strong. They die because the stigma keeps people silent. They die because too many people are afraid to ask for help or afraid they will be judged if they do. They die because society still treats mental illness like a moral issue instead of a medical one.

I am bipolar. I have attempted suicide in the past. I am not ashamed of that. I am not hiding it. I am not pretending it did not happen. I survived because I got support, treatment, and time. I survived because people showed me empathy instead of fear. I survived because I was lucky. Not everyone gets that chance.

If we want fewer deaths, the stigma has to go. The shame has to go. The silence has to go. We need to talk about bipolar disorder the same way we talk about any other chronic illness. We need to stop treating people like they are broken or dangerous. We need to stop acting like mental illness is a moral failing.

Robert Carradine deserved better. Everyone fighting this illness deserves better. And the only way we get there is by telling the truth. Bipolar disorder is real. It is medical. It is treatable. And the people who live with it deserve compassion, not judgment.

The stigma should be what dies next.

Who has time to be bored? Not me!

Today was not really an art day. I diddled around with the Gimp for about an hour, then my writing muse slapped me upside my head. I have written six articles for my blog today about all kinds of things:

• Impeaching Trump 
• Chicago and Music being in my bones
• A bit about a portmanteued proverb I love 
• One about nicotine addiction
• One about god, or the idea of god, or whatever
• And this one, which only kind of counts

It was a productive day.

I really am an eclectic freak. Playing uke and recorder, doing digital art and zentangle and making jewelry, and writing from my gut. Between all that, I talk to people, make new friends, share a gazillion memes, play computer games, and more. And when I go to bed, I read for at least an hour before turning out the light.

I don't have time to be bored. Considering that I'm basically housebound and can't really leave my bedroom due to the difficulty involved in hauling my carcass from room to room, my life is incredibly rich and full.

I am a very fortunate old crone.

Proverbs and Portmanteaus

 

Years ago, I intentionally combined two sayings into one portmanteau proverb:

If wishes were fishes, then beggars would ride.

A combo of "If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets", and "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride".

I say it a lot, so much so that my kids use it frequently.

Chicago: Where the Music Took Hold - TWICE

I am willing to bet good money that the first music I ever heard was my mother singing to me in Chicago, the city where I was born and where I lived for the first three months of my life before we moved to Boston. 

The year I was eleven, life went pretty cattywumpus. I'd been living with my mother for the previous year, and that pretty much imploded due to my special needs as an undiagnosed bipolar person. I returned to my father's home, and since he was in the middle of relocating across town and setting up housekeeping, he asked his mom, my Gramma Mary, if I could come to Chicago and stay with her for a month or two. Gramma said yes...

The Dogs Who Built My Life - A Poem

Connor in front, Romeo behind

I was raised in a house where dogs

were not pets but storylines.

Flockie, fierce little guardian,

patrolling the borders of childhood.

Ollie, the Wonder Dog,

half giant, half myth,

all heart,

the one who walked beside me

like he had been assigned the job by the universe.

Heidi, wild and bright,

a fugitive with sheep’s wool on her breath

and summers in Nova Scotia in her bones.

Gunther, the one puppy miracle,

proof that even small dogs

can write big legends.

And then came the ones who shaped

the in between years,

the ones who carried me forward

when life shifted under my feet.

Lulu, my heart dog,

the little dachshund who loved me

with a devotion that left a hollow

when she was gone.

Her absence was a wound

I did not know how to close

until Romeo arrived

and stitched it gently,

one heartbeat at a time.

Murphy, the tiny poodle

with the soul of a knight,

who lived twenty one long years

and would have taken a bullet for me

without hesitation.

I loved him,

but not the way he loved me,

and that truth still tugs at me

like a thread I never tied off.

Sid Vicious,

whose name was a lie

and whose only violence

was the ferocity of his fetch obsession.

A dog who believed joy

was something you chased

and brought back proudly

again and again.

And now, the pack that fills my home

and my days

and the spaces I did not know

were still empty.

Romeo, my heart dog,

the one who looks at me

like he remembers every lifetime

we have ever shared.

Cubby, my little buddy,

joy wrapped in fur,

a shadow with a wagging tail.

Connor, my sweet and fragile boy,

who learned safety in my hands

and taught me softness in return.

Rocco, borrowed but belonging,

folded into the pack

as naturally as breath.

These dogs,

past and present,

are the chapters of my life.

They shaped me,

held me,

trusted me,

and taught me what loyalty feels like

when it curls up beside you

and falls asleep.

I did not just grow up with dogs.

I was raised by them.

And I am still being raised

every day

by the ones who walk beside me now.

Not Bob: The Orange Cat Who Thinks He’s a Dog

 

Not Bob isn’t just a cat. He’s a phenomenon in orange fur, a walking burst of confidence and questionable decisions who somehow manages to charm every creature in the house. He talks constantly, a running commentary of meow, meOW, MEOW that sounds less like a request and more like a declaration of his own importance. And the dogs believe him. Romeo drags him across the room by the scruff like a beloved plush toy, and Not Bob just goes limp with the blissful trust of someone who has never once considered the possibility of danger. He lets the dogs groom him, shove him, nudge him, and he returns the favor by inserting himself into every canine moment like he was born into the pack. He isn’t a guest in the dog world. He’s a citizen. Maybe even a diplomat.

The little beast has one, POSSIBLY two, brain cells...

His hobbies include locking himself in the bathroom by pushing the door shut, then immediately complaining at full volume until someone rescues him. He also has a long‑running feud with the floor vents. Not Bob has pulled them up, chewed through tape, defeated glue, and ignored every deterrent except bricks, which he is not yet strong enough to move. He would absolutely appreciate a set of weights for his birthday so he can train for the day he reclaims access to the heat‑duct underworld.

There’s no dignity in him, no hesitation, no fear. Just pure, unfiltered orange cat energy wrapped around a heart that believes every creature is a friend. In a house full of dogs and stories and history, Not Bob has somehow carved out his own legend simply by being exactly who he is: loud, fearless, affectionate, and absolutely convinced he belongs everywhere.

Time for a living wage, dammit!

On July 24, 2009 the federal minimum wage was elevated by congress, raising the rate to $7.25 per hour. This remains the current federal minimum as of early 2026. This is the longest period in U.S. history without a congressional update. This is egregious neglect and abuse of the workers and needs to be addressed.

Key details regarding the federal minimum wage:

* Duration: The $7.25 rate has been in place for over 16 years.

* Purchasing Power: The value of the minimum wage has declined significantly due to inflation, losing roughly 30% or more of its purchasing power since 2009.

* State vs. Federal: While the federal rate is stagnant, many states have implemented higher minimum wages. 

(The previous bullet list was pasted from Google.)

Texas, however does not give a hot fuck. Minimum wage here and in 19 other states is $7.25. And in Texas, if you're a tipped worker, such as a waitress or waiter, you get a whopping $2.13 an hour.

To put that into perspective, in 1982, FORTY-FOUR years ago, I was hired for my first job, waitressing in Massachusetts, where the tipped wage was $2.10 per hour. And it was not enough to live well or comfortably on. Things have NOT improved since then.

Three cents an hour. That's how much more per hour this fucked up state is paying its tipped workers in 2026 than I earned in 1982.

LIVING WAGE NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS!

This Body Is Scaring Me, But I’m Not Done Fighting

There’s a particular kind of fear that comes when your own body starts slipping out from under you. Not the dramatic kind, just the slow, creeping kind that shows up in hospital monitors, new diagnoses, and the way your breath catches wrong or your heart decides to improvise without permission. It’s the kind that makes you realize you’re not invincible, not even close.

I’ve been living in that fear lately...

My Body Is a Dumpster Fire and the World Isn’t Helping

 

I spent four days in the hospital this month. Four days of COPD flare ups, bowel pain that turned out to be colitis, and the constant hum of atrial fibrillation reminding me that my body has its own agenda. Hospitals are supposed to stabilize you, but for me, they do the opposite. Every time I am admitted, they screw up my insulin and my psych meds, and I end up spiraling into a bipolar storm of rage, despair, and hopelessness. I do not start recovering until I am home and can rebuild my psychiatric balance on my own terms.

I have been out for three days now, and instead of relief, it feels like the universe is running a stress test on my soul. Sam and I keep arguing. My Amazon orders are delayed or disappearing into the void. My internet is slower than a tree slug on vacation. My body hurts from sitting in a chair for the first time in a year. And layered on top of all of that is the constant, exhausting noise of the country, the kind of background chaos that seeps into your bones even when you try to tune it out.

It is too much.  

It is all too much.

What I want, what I crave, is peace. Serenity. A moment where my body is not screaming, my mind is not spiraling, and the world is not demanding something from me. I want a life that feels like mine again, not something I am barely surviving.

And maybe that starts with saying it out loud.  

I am tired. I am hurting. I am overwhelmed.  

And I deserve a little damn peace.

Reblogging Marc-Anthony Macon, open letter to conservatives

 

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE 3 OR SO CONSERVATIVES THAT STILL FOLLOW ME 

[TLDR: I am asking if you are lonely and if we can help you a bit with that.]...

Forcing some facts down MAGA throats

 

Look, here's the thing.

There are gay men. They love other men, and they sometimes marry.
There are gay women. They love other women, and THEY sometimes marry.
And there are straight people of both "main" genders, they love the opposite sex, and yep, sometimes they marry.

Some of the aforementioned gay folks are celebrities of one sort or another. Music, acting, writing, etc.

Narrowing down on the writers, many writers today not only publish books, but maintain blogs, Facebook and Xitter accounts, Substacks, and more. When a person begins following that writers page, they have volunteered to be exposed to what that writer puts on that social media account.

So signing up to read posts from "Don'tCrossAGayMan" and then complaining because Misha regularly mentions his husband, and saying he is shoving his lifestyle down the complainant's throat. Because as soon as somebody signs up, Misha hacks their network so that they can ONLY see his homosexual, rainbow tinted, Twinkie posts, most of which are not gay specific, they're about being KIND.

FFS. Nobody dragged these people in. Nobody is sitting on them to keep them in the group. They did this shit THEMSELVES. And the writer isn't describing the blow job he gave his husband the night before. He simply mentioned that he HAS a husband.

I wish I was gay. I would totally shove it down people's throats. I would be the world's butchest Lesbian, wearing the teeshirt with the double female sign and sneering in disgust at every straight person or male person that I see, provided they are also a closed minded asshat MAGA jerk.

That would be loads of fun!

Racism in EVERYONE (especially ourselves), must be stamped out.

I thought I had erased all vestiges of racial prejudice from my brain, but I was wrong. Boy howdy, was I wrong. Turns out that I still have some FILTHY spots in myself that need major scrubbing and purifying.

I was watching Midnight Oil's video for Beds Are Burning. Much of it takes place in a town out in the desert, where the people are out having a good time dancing to the band's music in the street.

And there are these two girls, maybe 16 or 17 years old, absolutely stunningly beautiful in an 80s kind of way, and I said to myself: "I did not know that Indigenous People in Oz could be so attractive."

And I immediately facepalmed in disgust. That came out of fucking NOWHERE and broadsided me.

We may think we are the wokest of the woke, but depending on the culture when we were coming up, we may be carrying some really REALLY deep prejudices that need to be eradicated.

Clickety Clackety!

I have never been good at saving up my money for purchases. But there was one time, when I was about six years old...

Back in the late 60s or early 70s, I collected returnable bottles and turned them in for the 5 cent bounty, and saved my 25 cent a week allowance. I busted tail to buy a pair of clackers, and after several weeks of hard work and no penny candy from Max's Smoke Shop, I had the $1.49 I needed to buy my clackers. I knew which pair I wanted, too, gorgeous royal blue with gold glitter inside the balls.

So I trotted off to Woolworth's to buy my clackers.

And the shelf was filled with Nerf balls.

I asked the clerk where the clackers were, and was told that they had all been recalled, because they would shatter and glass would fly and hurt people.

Man, was I PISSED.

Ever since then, I have wanted a pair of clackers.

Looks like they're back, but with an acrylic ball instead of glass. So I ordered some.

Because the inner child MUST be placated.

Reblogging Michael Jochum: Glory to Ukraine

I struggle to think of any leader in modern history who has carried the agony of an entire nation on his shoulders with such quiet dignity, such relentless resolve, and such unwavering commitment to pulling his people out of darkness and toward a livable future. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has endured not only the brutality of an indicted war criminal bent on his country’s destruction, but the betrayal of the president of the most powerful nation on earth, a man willing to pocket his thirty pieces of silver from the Kremlin while abandoning an ally whose soldiers once stood shoulder to shoulder with American troops on the battlefields of Iraq.

Zelenskyy is not merely a wartime president. He is a leader who will, without question, take his place in the pantheon of history’s greats. You can see it etched into his face, the sleepless nights, the grief, the weight of tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainian lives lost, a pain he carries not as a political burden, but as a moral one. And yet, even as the White House turns its back and aids his country’s suffering through complicity, he stands firm, unbroken, and fiercely devoted to his people.

Glory to Ukraine.

Boy am I triggered

So the death of Dilbert creator and infamous racist pig, Scott Adams, from prostate cancer this week has poked some of my buttons.

My Dad was a good man, but he was a little too damn much of a hippie. When he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, his urologist told him that removal of his bladder would get it all, and he would live a long life. Then the urologist explained that the prostate goes out with the bladder, and that's the end of the sex life.

My father was 38 when he was diagnosed. He had an active social and dating and sex life. Losing the ability to have intercourse would have really been devastating to him. So he told the doctor, let's do mild chemo, and I'm gonna do laetrile and the nothing but wheat grass juice diet, and visualizing the cancer going away and all will be well.

But all was not well. After a couple of years, his cancer was down to a small spot of atypia, due, no doubt, to the mild chemotherapy. So very "intelligently" he stopped the chemo and continued with the quackery.

Seven months later, the cancer had run wild in his body. All of his organs, and his bones.

Scott Adams was told he had early state prostate cancer. He opted for, of all fucking things, ivermectin. He gambled and lost, just like my dad.

And I am reminded once again of how dangerous "alternative/holistic medicine" is.

Folks, laetrile is poison and does nothing. The baked potato diet will bore you to tears. The wheat grass juice only diet will turn you into a skeleton and weaken you so you die faster. Vizualization is soothing and helps the psyche, but it does not cure cancer. And if ANYBODY suggests bloodroot to you, kick them out of the house with prejudice.

And horse wormer will not cure cancer, either.

Got cancer? Go to a DOCTOR!

That closet has several thick oak doors, and it SUCKS!

 I wish my daughter felt safe to be herself, but outside the house, it's rural Texas out there, and it ain't safe. It ain't safe at all in this part of Texas to be visibly trans. If you don't "pass", you best stay presenting what your birth determination says you should dress like. And Lis does not pass. She's beautiful, absolutely beautiful, but even if she dressed as a girl usually dresses, they would spot her and make her life hell. Or make her life... NOT. Texas.

I wish she could afford to move to at least Austin, but on less than $800 a month income (disability) that ain't happening. At least there's liberals there. 😛 But ideally, I would see her in the San Francisco Bay Area, with her unusual sibling, my 34 year old estranged kid. However, I think those two would really be good for each other. And Lis would be a lot safer. Sadly, I can't say "safe". Nowhere seems to be all that safe for trans folks. Some places are better than others, but none of them are wondefully safe.

If you're trans, a lot of the world paints a target on your face and on your heart. And that just sucks so damn hard. If you don't feel safe, then do what you are able to do in order to stay safe. And safe also includes safe within yourself, not hurting yourself by staying hidden, if it's making you absolutely miserable.

It's making Lis miserable, and I want to help her and I don't know what the hell to do. I've told her that if she wants to dress pretty around the house, even if she doesn't want to dress that way in downtown Fort Worth, she is more than welcome to. I've offered to show her ways to braid her long hair. When she came out to me and Sam, I took her to get her ears pierced. I just don't know what the hell to do to be more supportive of her and help her be happier. It hurts, to see her moping and moping and rarely smiling. She was such a happy go lucky kid.

If wishes were fishes, then beggars would ride, as I always told the kids when they wanted the impossible to attain, like the latest most brand new gaming console that can't be had for love nor money, and even if you found one, it would be $750 and you can not spend that on games.

Andrea Yates

I recently read a book by Suzy Spencer, "Breaking Point" about the lead up to, the event of, and the aftermath of Andrea Yates drowning her five children. The book takes you through the years before the event and the Yates family's living situation and family dynamic, the murders, and the trial. It was a really gripping read, and had me in tears at times. If you have Kindle Unlimited, the book is free to read. Otherwise, Kindle is $2, and new copies start at $14 plus shipping, and go up from there...

I Will NOT Go Quietly!

 

This is what they're LEGALLY permitted to do.

But do not be fooled. They do NOT follow the fucking law.

If you are confronted by them, be very aware that they do not give a FUCK about you, the law, being civil, being decent, or anything else.

They're gonna have to shoot me down, because I will not go quietly.

Embarassment at the doctor!

Question on Quora:

I just finished with two different medical events involving mainly female medical personnel. Why do so many men claim they are being humiliated and losing all dignity when I didn't?

My response:

I'm 61 and have had a vagina all my life. What a pain.Dec 28

To those guys, I say: “Welcome to the world of women”. Up until fairly recently, the vast majority of physicians, including OB/GYNs were men.

I am 61, and in the late 70s through early 90s, I only managed to find ONE woman who was a practicing GYN, and that was in 1990. Prior to that, once a year I had to spread my legs so a man could stick things up my vagina and rectum (part of a proper pelvic exam involves one finger in the vag, one in the ass), grope my tits, etc.

And you know what? I’m pretty sure those men just did not get any ya-yas from their work. After a while, all vaginas probably looked basically the same to them. And I have read that gynecologists are pretty lousy in bed, because they see so many twats that they go home and just don’t have an interest in seeing their wife’s.