Out of Touch, Out of Time

Passing the days between fear and fury

I looked again at my poetry binder today (after some months of not looking nor writing any), and damn, I write real good. Don’t tell anyone—humility is a blessing and pride is a sin¹.

Note to self: Write poems again, soon.
Self: So noted!

I keep my eyes off the prize but one ear open, one eyebrow raised, ready to hear or to look, to know just enough—just the tip of the capillary action necessary to dampen the full page, the entire book. The tiniest drop of knowledge will do, because it’s a tsunami of too much information and all of it worse than bad, so the tiniest butterfly sip, a grain of information, is all I want, thank you. I can easily imagine the rest.

I read other people’s work constantly and it flattens me in all the best ways, and then that crouching miser, Jealousy, points her crooked nose and mutters something insecure and full of loathing, and is it performative to tell you I am petty and envious of others’ success, and that my little dribs and drabs of achievement are like a taste of heroin to me? Just a crumb. I must have more! I keep writing, wresting plot and story from character and scenery, and no, none of those things are easy but are they fun? Also no, not fun, but fulfilling? In the manner of a deep orgasm, in the style of a perfectly creamy tiramisu, in the memory of my slender ankles, my own neck when I was twenty, yes, god, so fulfilling.

After it’s written. Not during.

But yeah.

I’ve been frugaling, and brooding, and planting, and protesting. I fell into my own garbage can² on Tuesday, if you want a metaphor that is as literal as it gets.

So to make it easy to keep track, I’ve made another list. Do not be swayed nor impressed by reading a list. I am no better than anyone else. It’s just how I cope with <gestures> all of this. Consider it what it actually is: Ways I Dissociate to Survive It All

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1. We were gone over last weekend and I took flowers from my own yard to my sister as a thank you for letting us stay there. She fed us dinner and breakfast and off we went. On that trip I got a Meyer lemon tree gifted from a new friend who no longer wanted the variety, and she also gave me a cold-weather-tolerant olive sapling. We made new friends and got two trees.

2. We took snacks along on the trip and ended up buying a really nice dinner out because we had scrimped on our lunches. Driving home, I ate the remains of our amazing charcuterie board pickings as I drove. Yes. Yes, I did that.

3. My seeds are sprouting and nothing just now gives me greater pleasure than strolling around my garden in the mornings with my hot coffee, looking at my little seedlings.

4. I did not destroy democracy in America with a cabal of like-minded villains. I wish I thought this was funny but it actually makes me want to cry.

5. Made pudding out of milk that was at the end of its lifespan. Chocolate pudding mix will cover a multitude of sins.

6. Went to a book club event and had juice and a cupcake, then came home and had cereal for dinner. My husband fed himself from the pantry (canned soup). Who says adulting is hard?

7. I was feeling very stressed out so I had a couple of mini chocolate bars that I got on markdown after a holiday, took a nap with my cat and felt better.

8. Built a new garden bed out of old lumber.

9. Washed some large-sized soup cans to use as scoops for bird seed and chicken feed.

10. Pulled weeds and gave them to my chickens to eat. They love dandelions.

11. Saving banana peels, coffee grounds, and eggshells in different jars to use in my garden.

12. I didn’t get scolded by the Pope at Easter because I’m not a cruel, capricious idiot.

13. I made a sign for my new chicken coop (thanks to my brother) out of leftover lumber and spray paint I already have. I hung it from a scrap of wire.

    

14. I picked clover and native lettuce leaves³ from my yard for the hens to eat.

15. Washing clothes at night to save on energy bill and hung the clothes to solar-dry first thing.

16. Trash picked a large plastic coffee canister with lid for storage.

17. Used second-hand packaging material for two eBay items.

18. Will not burn in hell for eternity for insulting the pope with my idiocy, and then him dying before I could apologize. (Did JD Vance kill him? Blow Russian toxins in his face?)

19. I sold something on Poshmark, on Etsy, on ThredUp, and on eBay in the past week. It’s the EGOT of reselling (the PETE?). All packaged and sent in reused materials.

20. I finished writing my voter postcards and sent them off, and it made me want to send additional letters. I have one to my daughter, another to a friend, in progress. It’s the cost of a stamp⁴ and my very inexpensive secondhand stationery from Goodwill.

21. I will be volunteering at the upcoming KMVR Celtic Festival May 3-4 for two days beforehand (12 hours), so I will get tickets to see the bands all weekend. I love an Irish fiddle and Scottish bagpipes, and some friends who are performing.

22. Our daughter got engaged this month and is happy in her new status. We are delighted with their plans. Standing back and letting it unfold as they wish, because Monster In Law is a real thing, and I do not want to be one. <3

And I love you, Dear Reader-Subscriber. How grows your Resistance Garden and how fare you these days?

Remember, dissociation is free. Go for it.

1. Sounds like Easter Week, doesn’t it?

2. The really big one. The 96-gallon green-waste can. Outside in the front yard. It says very clearly do not move while the lid is open but do I listen? No, sir, I do not.

3. We used to call that miner’s lettuce but we don’t do that anymore because it’s insulting to the indigenous who were eating it for 10,000 years before the Goldminers arrived. So stop it.

4. Which is rising this summer—get your postage at this rate while you can. It’s not a tariff. It’s the stupidity.