A CRATE OF TARANTULAS

🔸Clay hedgehog-shaped vessel, attributed to the Neolithic Xiaoheyan culture, Nambaoligatu type, dated between 3000-2000 BC. Unearthed at the Nambaoligatu site in Zhalute Banner, Tongliao, Inner Mongolia.

 8 November

Breathing full breaths is a little harder today. Breathing in and feeling all the corners of your body makes you feel even more vulnerable, more places to feel the pain. As the shock and numbness wear off a bit, consciousness and the ache of reality set in.

This November day in California is beautiful, brightly, softly sunny and just barely cool. Just the kind of day to go out and get some things done that prefer clement weather: gardening, patio cleaning, garage cleaning, ... even a walk. Covers over the head and/or eating a box of Cheezits so that I can feel even worse is more appealing. 

I woke up early, at a very reasonable time, but succumbed, to no one's surprise, to staying curled up with Vera and the down pillows. As it is getting on toward 10:30, the moment for waking Janet draws nearer. I thought her senility was increasing along with dementia. It turns out that senility is an outdated/moded term. So, her dementia is increasing. Her memory shortens. She barely turned an ear when I reminded her yesterday that Trump was back in full power. Sigh. 

We know where this is going.

It might or might not be a Republican conspiracy, but my glasses need to be cleaned about every hour. Anyone else notice a change? My friend Carol had a morning habit that always charmed me. Her first action was to grab a soft dishtowel and clean her glasses before she started her day. This seemed like a gesture of hope and focus, determined to see things as clearly as possible.

My old friend Terry Lee responded to my post thusly:

My dear old friend, good to see you writing again. I did not vote for The Orange Jesus, but all of my living lower working class relatives did. The ones still alive and not dead of the diseases of poverty and overdose (as Clyde died). I spent a lot of time thinking about what was to come, as I knew The Orange Jesus would win. The Democratic party should take a good long look at itself and not blame the 52% of the American people who they are silo-ed from. This is a class divide, not an issue of race or gender or the idiocy of the American people or abortion or even immigration. It's a finger pointed at the American ruling class, it's coalition and it's institutions who openly express contempt for my "deplorable" relatives and the erosion of their jobs, families and communities. Flag, faith and family. These elements never expire no matter how many trans flags fly from the houses of the affluent here in Seattle. We can talk about the issues on a policy level I am sure from left and right vantages. I am worried about Ukraine, where I lived and worked and The Orange Jesus abandoning the struggle for freedom there. Not so much about Iran, as they, the sponsors of death and instability will get what the woman hating theocrats deserve at the hands of OUR proxies finally - and I hope a minimal amount of civilian death. Hopefully. “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed...” (Mark 13:7) 

I think he is making some good points here (former Marxist). Not so sure I agree with all of it, but it is good to read even a light analysis that brings up class. That's another topic this country does not like to address and rarely makes it into political discourse that I run across. Sadly and painfully ironic that they chose a demagogue who could not care one atom less about them. Indeed his plans are to hurt and damage their ways of life, however tenuous and marginal. 

My friend Louise thinks that this constituency will turn against this scorched Earth politician when it really begins to hurt them (and I don't doubt that this will be long in arriving), but given that I don't anticipate the Right from ceding control of the government for the rest of my natural life, that is of little encouragement or comfort. 

I would really like to know the thoughts and feelings of more left-leaning Germans in the days of Hitler's rise to power. From our vantage points of years, we can imagine the horror, day by day, hour by hour, but up until now that is nothing more than imagining and here we all are, lobsters or frogs in our own heating water. Now we are going to really feel it.

(And this is where I miss Kathleen, as she would have studied this and have some insights and reading recommendations. No replacing her. If any one out there has reading suggestions, give me a shout out.)

A BIT MOODY

I wanna chuck a picture window

    off a skyscraper and hear it hit a car roof

I wanna fell a tree on a house

I wanna swing two bottles of wine

around a nail salon

   until the merlot melts the mirror shards

I wanna break the SuperBowl

I wanna drive my truck into a concrete

abutment

   and see who wins

I wanna open a crate of tarantulas in the pit

   of the Metropolitan Opera House

I wanna ride a toboggan down the NJ

Palisades

I wanna stab purple studs in Putin's bald

head.

A girl's gotta dream.

—Kathleen Hulser (1953 - 2024)