Published May 12, 2025
Stirring the food as a gentle breeze blows in. No rush. The seasonings I need are all here.
No cigarette smoke blows in from under my window. The sun is just right.
Mount St. Helens is out today. So is Mount Hood.
Nothing falls from my hands to the floor. I knock nothing off the desk or table or stove. But if I do, I could simply bend to pick it up instead of waiting to figure out a creative way to do so — or hoping a visitor comes. My vertigo and mobility issues must have been my imagination. They don’t seem to exist.
For the first time in many years, the pipes deliver water hot enough to clean and disinfect pots and pans, plates and knives and forks. I am not forced to treat this as an extended-stay hotel and existence. Even neurodivergence has taken the day off, so I can cook.
My body stays still enough that I can type error-free. No new bruises from falling or stumbling into walls or furniture or doorknobs. I feel I could easily walk a few miles, rather than barely making it to the dumpster and back.
Brain’s washed, nice and clean
I’ve forgotten — all of it, somehow, and don’t feel like screaming. There’s just enough money to deal with today and help a friend with the next 30 tomorrows. I have enough.
I am enough.
The car sparkles after a wash.
The rhododendron is transforming itself before my eyes.
Leaves on treetops shimmy in the wind like a synchronized swim team of tiny fish, or one half of an Escher come to life.
Music’s exactly right. I hear no one else’s.
There are no immediate deadlines.
The sun is removing the gas odor from the new shirt hanging outside my apartment window against building regulations.
Voters have given me something approximating hope.
I haven’t thought about the bullies and life-force vampires.
It’s all good
Rent’s paid.
Instead of the candy bar getting stuck in the vending machine, two fall for the price of one.
I brought too many quarters for this light a laundry load and leave a few for the next person.
I don’t miss the month’s worth of food and coffee I gave to neighbors.
There are no missed steps in any of the tasks I attempt, no missing items, no miscues. I could well be making how-to videos.
My body doesn’t hurt. I slept restfully, as if I don’t have sleep apnea or insomnia, or nightmares, and I feel young again. My feet are the size they were eight years and two shoe sizes ago, when a friend saw my latest pedicure and said I could be a foot model.
Heart and gut are at peace. My eyes are normal, corneas perfect, and I see in sharp detail with no floaters and crawling bugs in the way. My vertigo left without a goodbye.
Body’s systems all seem okay.
I walk to the recycling bins pain-free and with happy hip flexors.
All medications taken on time.
The guitar fretboard is not a ladder I work hard to climb but monkey bars for my joyful swinging play.
Do people live like this?
This crept up on me. I’ve never believed in days like this. It’s all effortless.
My hair is pretty. So am I.
No anxiety. No depression.
Zero Catholic guilt. No shame.
Not one thought about whether I’m using AP style or power words or writing a winner. I’m relaxed and letting it all unfold.
Somehow I find the missing letter that came in the mail not long ago to give me the new PIN. I laugh at how little I care if someone says or writes “PIN number” or “ATM machine,” or both, envious of their blissful ignorance about the sin of redundancy.
I’ve let go of all the bullshit that doesn’t matter, and of the horror I’d have felt 10 years ago by doing so.
The friends I interact with today don’t come across as if they are grading my term paper, they’re not offering advice I didn’t ask for, expertly wading into matters they know little about, but instead are gentle, kind, judgment-free and accepting. They are here with me. They simply sit with me.
Mmm. Dinner is tasty.
Key lime pie hits the spot.
Friends say hey. “You look amazing,” one says.
Hugs from two friends in two hours.
Lavender for the win.
Didn’t hear his voice once.
No one showed me her latest vile rant.
Nothing hurts
Don’t look down. This can’t be real.
The anchorman talks about the county fair. How we cleaned up the air. How everybody learned to care.
The Lakers are beating the SuperSonics.
Yeah, hold up.
You caught me. Busted. Did you figure it out before the lyrics of the Anne Murray song, or the Ice Cube song?
This perfect day was a fantasy, a creation of my mind. Didn’t happen.
For five minutes, though, it was some of that, and I imagined the rest.
It took more than a week to write this. In better times, it’s an hour, tops.
I have no frame of reference anymore for smooth sailing. Easy, lazy days. Even my 16-hour sleeps are nightmares and hard work. Restful, they are not.
But five minutes could turn into 10 someday, yes? Maybe? And then who knows.
There’s always tomorrow.
♥
Thank you
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Catching you up
MAGA’s brains are so broken. they speed ran the normal Pope conspiracies, and made the quantum leap to “the Pope is worse than woke, he’s trans!” in less than 12 hours.
— Country Over 🎉 Party 🎉 𓅳 (@itsjoelokay.bsky.social) May 8, 2025 at 9:00 PM
It’s not from a MAGA account, but the far-right people who are unhappy about the elevation of this new pope jumped on this one quickly. They’re steamed.
Naturally, Steve Bannon is disappointed that the new pope is not a supporter of fascism and that he has compassion for the poor and desperate, as Jesus did.
www.bbc.com/news/article…
— Teri Goodson 🇺🇲 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇪🇺 🏳🌈 🏳⚧ (@terigoodson.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 1:14 AM
There are an estimated 1.4 billion Catholics in the world, and somewhere between 65 and 75 million of them are in the United States. Imagine thinking the pope — especially one who spent many years working in Peru — should be “America first.”
The gender-critical people, as someone said, will never be happy with who they are, and all they have is fear and a lust to control others.
There is good news in that realm, though. The Cass Review, which you may have heard invoked by now, is still garbage, and more and more experts are saying so.
The Cass Review gets peer reviewed and absolutely shredded
Cass is the Wakefield of our time. A scandal in broad daylight
— Katy Montgomerie 🦗 (@katymontgomerie.com) May 10, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Meanwhile:
So let me get this straight: masks are bad and un-American if worn to fight a pandemic, but good if worn by people claiming to be government agents when they kidnap people off the street
— Paul Krugman (@pkrugman.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Pandemic masks // Kidnapping masks
— 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝 (@sundaedivine.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Speaking of our ridiculous leader:
Just amazing: Trump grew angry over a Biden-era program with the word “equity” in its name, so he ended it. But a key part of the program was sending money to red states to expand internet access in rural/MAGA country. Now they might not get it.
New piece from me:
newrepublic.com/article/1950…— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 4:04 AM
Sick obsessed racists are running this country, riding a wave of long-choreographed ignorance.
Trump saw the word “equity” in the name of this Biden-era program, so naturally he decided it must be serving undeserving minorities, giving him an opportunity to demagogue about it.
“No more handouts based on race!” Trump raged.
Except for one thing…
newrepublic.com/article/1950…
— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 4:16 AM
I keep finding my people.
The AuDHD experience of trying to make a point in conversation and how it suddenly turns into three other slightly related points which all also have their own little point branches and then you no longer remember what your original point was anymore
— Louise Ting (@neuro-observant.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 7:50 AM
That’s so Carly, except that I usually remember what my original point was. Still, it’s good insight into why I write long. Yes, I write long. Maybe you’ve noticed.
Anyway, yes, I keep finding my people.
What I learned from Prince and Muhammad Ali was that it’s possible to love yourself so much that everybody else does, too.
— Anil Dash (@anildash.com) November 20, 2024 at 12:09 PM
Let me tell ya, it’s worth trying.
And I keep waiting for many of the people I thought were my people to wake the fuck up.
The GOP is threatening Dem representatives with actual violence and arrest, and people are still like “but that’s not allowed!”
— Rev Mother Horton Heat (@alexarrelia.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Things are still bad for trans people, in case you were wondering.
Transgender issues are a strength for Trump, AP-NORC poll finds
apnews.com/article/t…
#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA
— Transgender World (@transgenderreport.com) May 11, 2025 at 1:17 AM
NPR: “A record 575 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in states through April…” (TN among the most)
It’s not Dems that keep making trans rights the focus of every legislative session. It’s Republicans. To distract from the real issues they won’t address.
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) May 10, 2025 at 2:27 PM
I noticed this says it’s “putting Democrats on the spot.” Wait until you hear what it’s doing to trans people.
Good work is being done, though. Here’s one example from Erin Reed, who — like me — is a trans journalist originally from Louisiana. Unlike me, she is doing extraordinary work.
1. I reach a lot of readers from a big variety of political backgrounds… and one of the most common points of contention I see centers around transgender sports bans.
In my latest story, I make the moderate case against such bans.
Subscribe to support my journalism.
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) May 11, 2025 at 10:11 AM
10. Please read the whole story, it’s worth it, especially if you yourself are in that “uneasy middle.”
And please subscribe to support my independent journalism on LGBTQ+ issues. We publish on topics like this every day.
Subscribe at www.erininthemorning.com/subscribe.
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) May 11, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Anyway, good luck teaching young people that it’s wrong for elected officials to take bribes or be grifters. I hear a lot of “there’s no difference between the parties.” Good luck teaching that one too. Gift link to story here.
Breaking News: President Trump plans to accept a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar that he will use as Air Force One and will keep using after he leaves office. The plan — involving possibly the biggest foreign gift ever received by the U.S. government — raises substantial ethical issues.
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) May 11, 2025 at 9:09 AM
That “raises substantial ethical issues,” though. Way to undersell it, NYT.
At least you went that far, unlike NBC.
It’s journalistic malpractice for NBC News to spend 34 words in a headline and subhead about the flying bribe from Qatar and not give any hint of the mind-blowingly corrupt nature of the deal. If you’re afraid to honestly explain why it’s a scandal, at least call it “controversial.”
— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 11:07 AM
I’m worried that the dozens of bugs that Qatar is planting on the plane will interfere with the dozens of bugs Russia has planted on Trump.
— Ali Davis (@alidavis.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 11:19 PM
But we’re all fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
That this is just a story NPR sincerely and correctly thinks is useful and timely information for the public is the most dystopian thing I’ve seen yet
— Deirdre Assenza (@deirdreassenza.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 8:19 PM