erstwhiledancefloor

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The Dooce you say

So a weird thing happened on the way to the internet last weekend. I was wondering what happened to a youtuber I used to watch, Smokey Glow, who had recently said she was getting sober. I couldn’t find much since she last disappeared and then for some reason I remembered Dooce. Heather Hamilton, Heather Armstrong, the OG mommy blogger. I started my online journal before 1998 on my own website…

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Those who tread among serpents

and along a tortuous path, must use the cunning of the serpent.” ~Thomas Becket What do you do when what you do is practically meaningless?   I do not in any way, shape or form support this presidency.  Evil, absolute evil is happening to immigrants, gay, transfolk and people of color, pregnant people.  Evil is even happening to the people that voted for this horrible man. I do feel much less…

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Mixtape for a Funeral : Video killed the Radio Radio Star

So the next song I’ve debated. I really came into my passion for music in high school, especially when I met some of my (now)lifelong friends who had the most excellent taste. But right beforehand I had a significant moment with Blue Öyster Cult. Also Vivaldi’s 4 Seasons, but I’d long listened to classical and folk music, so even though that is my most significant makeout music, I don’t think it…

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Mixtape for a Funeral

Introduction. I have had an idea. I don’t seem to have as many of those as I did. So I’m going to try and do this one I am closer to the end of my life than the beginning or even middle, I think.  It sounds extravagant, but I’ve always lived closed to death. Let me explain. My mother and her suicide attempts. My own. My father’s death at a time I was just finding my way. I played in graveyards as…

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The Dark Night of our Nation's Soul

I knew it would be bad. Worse than bad. And it is. All the worst instincts of greed, racism, misogyny, xenophobia…all of it is running roughshod over our country right now. Was Kamala the answer? No but she was a better answer than the Orange Shitgibbon. Maybe now the Dems have realized we need less Pelosi more AOC. Fuck Centrism. Fuck the right wing Nazi Republicans. I guess all the folks that…

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Words about no words

I have spent days crying, grieving, despairing. I have spent days medicated, sleeping, reading, unbathed. I am in despair for our country. I am in fear for the children, for the brightly colored young ones, for the parents and those who long to be parents, for the ones who don’t. I hope they never lose sight of who they are. I pray that they are never made to. I am old now and the torch must be…

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Tis but my name

When I was 16, many thousands of years ago, I changed my name in my head and with any new people I met to Jyllian/Jyll from Jill. I  don’t recall how I told my friends or when they started using it. Some still call me Jyll. baby me I did this change for  a few reasons. That name didn’t fit. I also needed a way to separate myself from being Jackie’s daughter. Somehow, some kind of separation that…

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A woman of seven and twenty

said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.” ~~Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility Far past 27. And though there remains a remnant of desire to be desired, the time for that passed long ago.  Right now I am trying to decide whether I will be more comfortable fading back and fading or continuing my Delia Deetz era And by fading, I mean being blonde…

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Twas the Old Road

With this last birthday the thought I’d been shoving to the very back of my mind became too large to ignore. And it is interesting how it expressed itself. I still mourn the original triumvirate: Hotspur, Mr. Newguise and Miss Ninny. And the following, but no lest majestic quartet: Zachary, Mr Teatime, Bartleby and Haru The loss of Bartleby somewhat recently… (and Babbage the savage cabbage–but…

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If we live long enough

We become caricatures of ourselves ~John Irving And suddenly it happened. I realized I needed to stop completely looking like I did many many years ago. I’ve got a comfort zone in how I present myself to the world. I think we all do. It can be conservative sheath dresses and french manicures or long black skirt and boots with a black cardigan. I tried the former and it felt like a costume, it…

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Washing the sand with my ghostly tears

The Lion and the Cobra by Sinéad O’Conner is being played on my turntable right now. It seems fitting. My second copy, I wore one out the very year it came out. The year that my life imploded, well one of the times. I was young and painfully naive. It was at the beginning of a frightful all consuming relationship that should never have happened. It wouldn’t had I been just a bit older and had…

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Self Medicating

verb self-med· i· cate ?self-?me-di-?k?t self-medicated; self-medicating; self-medicates 1 transitive : to treat (something) by self-medication people who attempt to self-medicate depression 2 intransitive : to treat oneself by self-medication I  ran out of quotes for the time being so  now I’m trying definitions. It started with reading. I always snarked when I heard someone say their self…

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nos·tal·gia

a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. What happens when the song comes up on Spotify. 10th grade- Blue Öyster Cult Tenderloin and Vivaldi’s winter. I wasn’t ready to have sex yet, but I wanted to. He was beautiful. I still kind of regret that when it comes to mind, like it did. 10th? 11th? Tom Lehrer-Masochism…

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The Building's identity

The Building’s identity

resided in the ornament ~ Louis Sullivan Have you ever had one of those moments that made you question just who and how you are. If you are so far outside the norm that you need to perhaps, rein it in? I’ve had those, several of those at different times in my life. When I first went to work in an office and dressed up in a blazer. I was still in college, but thought I needed to look like an…

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Once again, Democracy is on the line

Once again, Democracy is on the line

America is full up with insanity. I’m beyond shocked and disgusted at what was beneath the surface of what I thought was a basically good country, but in reality isn’t. The Tangerine Mussolini allowed the worst to come out of people who used to be at least nominally embarrassed or ashamed of being racist, misogynist, homophobic Anti-Semites. Now they don’t give a shit. When they aren’t belching…

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Some of us think holding on

Some of us think holding on

makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. ~Herman Hesse It’s been, as they say, a journey. And I’m standing in the doorway, crossing from what was to what is becoming. Our daughter moved into her first apartment in September. It was a chaotic move, as these things can be. I am not sure any of us really thought it was actually going to happen. But it did. And it was the right thing and the…

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Everything has been figured out

Everything has been figured out

except how to live–Sartre Loooong time no write. First a dead mother and a last ever visit with the sister. Then a pandemic. Then a burnout. Then a job change. Then catching a bad Covid. Then …we lost Bartleby at 18 to kidney disease, cancer and age. He was just getting so weak and lost interest in eating. We were told we would lose him in September 2020 to cancer. But he was not ready to go…