these days of leiderhosen

I just wanted to thank you for showing up. My great fortune in all of this is receiving love from every imaginable quarter. It has been breath-taking and humbling. Thank you to my father and brothers who have surprisingly emancipated me, reminding me I am entitled to be as independent cusses as they are. Mark stepped up unexpectedly and proved to be a great friend, acting like the older brother I've always wanted. To my Mum: who proved you can go through unimaginable horror and still continue breathing afterward. She imbued me with her generous heart which has made this easier. And harder. Thank you to El Kay who always takes the late night shift of the heartbroken phone calls. You are so awesome. Thank you to my divorced friends who provide excellent advice, reminding me this is the way OUT, and I will feel better someday. When, exactly? Thank you to my attached/undivorced friends for listening and helping despite not knowing the nature of this sad quagmire, taking me ou...

...there are a lot of Russian bot traffic. Have you found anything interesting yet? Fondly, H.

To the Thief who stole the anti-depressant medication off the porch: I get it, I do. It's rough out there and if you haven't got a job to go to, I reckon this is one way to amuse yourself while we are all at work, paying our taxes. It was a package that could hold anything, anything at all. Something you could sell or ingest, left right out there in the open. Maybe you follow the USPS truck around and "clean up" after them. I was waiting for them, those bicolored capsules. With everything that was going on then I thought I had left plenty of room for the order. Before I ran out. When I ran out, I was fine for one day. On day two, I was tearful. Day three: hysterical. Four? Out of my goddamn mind and frightening all I encountered.  That has never happened before and it never will again. Never has the front of a Richmond-bound express seemed so inviting. This lasted for four days, while I argued with the mail delivery pharmacy and my insurance. No one could tal...

N's husband stopped by work as he had forgotten his lunch. I will miss the opportunity to provide that kind of intimate, loving support to someone. I would like to think that my husband and I were good friends. He was my best friend, certainly. Now that we are separating- and it seems to be taking forever - it's double the loss.  It's radio silence on all fronts. I am so sad sometimes.

“leaving is not enough; you must stay gone. train your heart like a dog. change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. you lucky, lucky girl. you have an apartment just your size. a bathtub full of tea. a heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. you had to have him. and you did. and now you pull down the bridge between your houses. you make him call before he visits. you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. don’t lose too much weight. stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. and you are not stupid. you loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars...

I had a flat tire right there, across the street from my parents' house. There could be no better place for that particular situation.  If anyone had been standing in the dining room, they could have watched and filmed everything. Dad and I changed that tire.  He even gifted me his X-lug wrench as there was none in the car’s trunk and after trying out his, I was sold. In display the rare case of competency, speed and style in the changing of tires and he, heroically, lay down in the street and  handled the jack and I managed the flat, the new tire and the lug nuts. When we reversed into the drive outside his well-stocked garage  (not everyone grew up with a full size air compressor?), he checked all the tire pressures, reloaded the trunk and customized the lug wrench with a bit of paint. After that fascinating interlude, we went to the library. Early in the day, I threw together a free-form meatloaf. He was impressed. It was the first entree I’ve made in th...

I'm deforesting my own treeline. Letters of great length are being writing that will never be sent. They pile up into a flammable heap in the corner of the dining room. Produced but unedited, unrevised and unread. Already a huge stack has been condemned to the recycle can and I'm sure to produce even more useless material. There is no Beloved any longer and I am trying my best to square with that.