… one more before i go walking…

Study Shows Correlation Between Number of Confederate Monuments and Lynchings

… via Hyperallergic… the title says it all, but the article backs it up…

Frieze Festival, London, via AnOther

… the artists i like…

Deborah Roberts

Deborah Roberts ‘Laying my burdens down’, 2021 Mixed media collage on canvas 177.8 x 177.8cm(70 x 70in). Copyright Deborah Roberts. Photo by Paul Bardargjy.

… the artist is African American, well known in this country… her work depicts:

_ Black children, beautifully composed, in collage form, from found imagery and hand-painted details. Each one features an array of skin tones, hairstyles, facial features and clothing in a powerful exploration of what the gallery terms “the challenges encountered by Black children as they respond to social constructs perpetuated by the white gaze and western visual culture”._¹

… i like the image above… i like its photo collage quality, i like its minimalism… i find it pleasing to look at, mildly challenging… the direct gaze of the subject… the averted gaze also… it is art with a social purpose… it is the white patriarchy absorbing the critique in a way deemed acceptable…

Do Ho Suh

Do Ho Suh, Doorknobs on Backplates: Providence Home and New York Homes, 2021

… i like the whimsy…

Mary Beth Edelson

Mary Beth Edelson

… American feminist art pioneer, nudes on the beach striking Egyptian statuary poses… she died this past April… i am interested in women in photography, especially nudes where i find very interesting crosscurrents of the male gaze, female gaze, feminist statements…

… a pivotal moment?… the Freedom to Vote Act will be voted on by the Senate… this is the measure Manchin says he can get ten republican senators to vote for, thus passing the legislation without tanking the filibuster… there is no sign those ten votes will materialize…

… HCR tells us the fate of democracy hangs in the balance… either some form of voting rights legislation passes, or there will be, effectively, a one party system “that, at best, will look much like the American South did between 1876 and 1964”¹…

… that we are here at all is amazing to me… if we don’t get voting rights legislation, if we become a minority ruled oligarchy or authoritarian country, i will have no desire to live here but may not have much choice… i also think our retired life might be threatened as there were rumblings of doing away with Social Security entirely at the end of 45’s administration…

… we’d be in a pickle, though, hopefully, by then, our mortgage will be paid off…

… DJ is recovering from his illness… i am amazed that he has so many friends stopping by, bringing him flowers, taking care of him, Tilda Swinton almost a daily presence… i look up Tilda Swinton’s Wikipedia page and surprisingly little mention is made of Derek Jarman, despite having starred in a number of his films… two of which are talked about a great deal in Modern Nature…

… i discover that TS is a kind of actress i like a great deal, not mainstream Hollywood, taking roles in independent films… an actress with courage and a career… Michele Williams is another one…

… got lost down the rabbit hole of looking for my ex… she seems to live in Manhattan… not much more to know… she also wen’t by Salmon-Kriegh somewhere along the line… i don’t think it was while we were married… strange… relatively little else to know… seems she may have remarried…

… Joris Ivens is mentioned again, film on the wind… it’s available to watch on Youtube…

… can it be that there are only ten weeks left in the year?… they are rushing past… which reminds me we need to solidify plans for Christmas… make some reservations…

… the weather has been very warm… dry… that will change today… rain, cooler afterwards…

… made two of H’s favorite dishes last night… eggplant parmigiana and spaghetti with clams… the eggplant parmigiana was a Jamie Oliver recipe that roasts the eggplant unbranded rather than frying breaded… not as full of oil… the clams were amazing, plump and juicy…

… bought some hard (coping) alcohol… sigh… had a couple of martinis and a glass of wine… not too bad this morning… slept the night through…

… no HCR this AM… she must have forgotten to hit send… that’s what it usually is…

… yard work and exterior stairs work… need to finish them, install a railing… winter is coming…

… our program of getting help in the garden is working out… it’s in the best shape it has ever been heading into the winter…

… H had a telavisit with her doctor… more appointments to line up, including diagnostics for the bleeding anomaly… hopefully nothing… tense nervous days and/or weeks…

… strong undertow of worry about H… it’s as if it were happening to me… is that surprising?… after 22+ years of being together we are as one organism… more than the sum of our individual selves… a variety of fantasies… but the same sick worried feeling at the beginning of each day… after a night of oblivion the cosmos marches us forward towards whatever is waiting… hopefully a nothing burger… how do we teach ourselves to let go and live in the present which, without future located worries is a beautiful place…

… there was inertia this morning, as dawn approached… i shouldn’t walk… i shouldn’t walk so far… no, stay with the routines… they will keep you planted on the ground… oriented…

… H texting me about cash for K… a good sign… hopefully no more blood… feeling a little relieved…

… the emotional heaviness… sadness, depression, mostly because of future thinking… my fantasy mind going all sorts of places… i remember what i told M, emotions are neither good or bad, they just are… the same holds true for random thoughts… they come and go like clouds in the landscape… just let them flow through…

… M and i exchanging texts… S had six teeth extracted… not being very friendly…

… [Jackie Nickerson](https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/13652/the-story-behind-jackie-nickerson-s-salvage-portraits?utm_source=Link&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=RSSFeed&utm_term=the-story-behind-jackie-nickerson-s-arresting-salvage-portraits “Stansfield, Ted, The Story Behind Jackie Nickerson’s Arresting ‘Salvage” Portraits")

Photography by Jackie Nickerson

… as i look at the images i try to decide between gimmick and serious art work… i like the images, like the concept, but am i being seduced by something which really only has surface attraction?… she is described as a “world-class” photographer… she has earned her reputation in the fashion industry… interesting that these art/fashion photographs are about identity through, essentially, hats…

… the photography is from Salvage, her latest photobook… it explores the relationship between people and consumption in formal portraits… but what exactly does it say about that?… that we throw away some beautiful things that make cool face and head props in a photo project?…

… i look at the images… first take, cool… second take, what’s the message?… should we be forced to wear the wages of our sins?…

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.¹

… as i think the words “wages of our sin” onto the computer screen, i look up the reference… a bible passage… and so, my thoughts about the photographs move to the objects plastered onto the heads of the models as some kind of cancerous growth… but not grotesque… somewhat disturbing but also beautiful… cleaned up, sanitized, cancerous growth…

… the pictures are compelling… would be easy to hang on the wall of ones living room… but… is the message lost in the glamour of the photography and art direction?…

… Ann Barngrover, Taking Flight

… the author discusses the work of another author… Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights… i have, but have not yet read, H is for Hawk… Vesper Flights is a collection of essays… as i read the descriptions of the books, i am thinking they would make good Christmas gifts for my sister…

… i learn about the German concept of wunderkammer, “cabinet of wonders.”…

Originally depicting rooms rather than pieces of furniture, wunderkammers were most popular in Victorian times as enclosed spaces that held collections of rare or unexpected finds. Instead of functioning as museums, “It was expected that people should pick up and handle the objects in these cases; feel their textures, their weights, their particular strangenesses.” You could touch and hold mollusk shells and chinaware, pressed feathers and butterfly wings, beaded stones and the fragile candelabras of fish bones, things both natural and forged. “Nothing was kept behind glass,” Macdonald notes.²

… as i read about the concept of wunderkammer… i think, i have a wunderkammer… my studio is a wonderkammer in a way… i have lots of natural objects i have collected… a bag of such objects from Block Island, sitting on my bed right now… a windowsill full of them… i think, this could be an art project… a photo project…

… the author moves on to talk about a college course on Star Wars that she and her colleague designed and gave… she talks about the feminism in Star Wars… she talks about the male know-it-alls who claim exclusive dominion over Star Wars interpretation…

Indeed, wondering comes at a price. As Macdonald reminds us, “Increasingly, knowing your surroundings, recognising the species of animals and plants around you, means opening yourself to constant grief.” This is the sobering reversal of slowing down and rejoicing in complexity and nuance, beauty and depth. The more you slow down, the more you will find. The more you find, the more you will connect. The more you connect, the more you will love. The more you love, the more you will lose—maybe not today, but one day, one day soon.³

… a good essay… worth reading…

… Reese Herrington, “Girl Talk”

Girl Talk, Photography by Reese Herrington

… a young woman photographer photographs the women around her in appreciative, sensual and sexual ways… in the bedroom, the bathroom, the boudoir… if its women photographing women, is it objectification?… their Instagram site is more balanced…

… hopeful signs?…

… the appearance, at least, that nooses are tightening… Bannon being held in contempt of congress… 45 wanting to challenge January 6 select committee authority but struggling to lawyer up… bad reputation on several fronts appears to be dogging him… courts siding with opponents of 45 and 45 administration…

… this morning’s post allows me to hope that the whole gang can be brought down before the 2022 election cycle which might minimize ability of Republicans to make gains…

… oddly, conservatives battering Biden/Harris with supply chain paranoia, claiming Christmas will see package delays of epic proportions… i remember last year… packages did not arrive on time… arrived weeks late…

… rough afternoon yesterday… H with health worries… dr. visit lined up… hoping it’s nothing… worried as if it was me… trying to be reassuring… trying to keep them from falling down the rabbit hole of worse case scenarios…

… alcoholed up… fortunately nothing in the house harder than hard cider… not too bad this AM…

… we are tired of worry… would be happy to go through a long stretch without it… is old age the worry age, or are old bodies less able to cope with worry?…

… messing around with Setapp, downloaded a duplicate file finder utility… running now… apparently 1.2 GB of duplicate files have been found already… looks like mostly photographs…

… read that Safari now the fastest browser in the world… opening it up to see if there is reason to switch away from Mozilla Firefox… it does seem to be faster… hmmm…

… time to move on to the HCR Meter…

Jeff Koons

… an article on Shine, an exhibition of his sculptures and paintings… i look at the work thinking i won’t like it, and interestingly, i do… though it seems thoroughly capitalist to me…

Jeff Koons ShineBalloon Dog (Red), 1994-2000. Private collection. © Jeff Koons, Photo: Mike Bruce, Gate Studios, London

… objects of popular culture, rendered in plastic, metal, polished… he likes the metaphysics of the mirror… everywo/man reflected in artifacts of their popular culture…

… Koons talks about wanting the work to be objective, not subjective, not a rendering of his psyche… i am not sure how any art work made by an individual can free itself from being a rendering of that individual… but the reflective nature of his work perhaps accomplishes that… you see, it’s you too, not just me… you see yourself in this world that is the world of Koons but it’s the world of you too!…

… i read what Koons has to say about mirrors and it makes no sense to me…

… things aren’t all bad…

… some things the Biden/Harris admin has accomplished that have flown under the radar:

• 130 nations have agreed to a minimum global tax rate of 15% for companies with an annual income of $866 million… this will move a good deal of money into the coffers of governments around the world…
• The Biden/Harris admin has also struck a deal with various players in private industry to relive the supply chain slowdowns…
• Vaccine mandates appear to be working… more people are getting vaccinated, rate of infection is down, COVID19 deaths are down…
• Border restrictions have been lifted for the vaccinated at the Mexican and Canadian borders…

… D and E came for dinner… drank alcohol… a little too much, but not as bad as often happens… we had a good time solving the world’s problems and our own… always a good time with them…

… dogs got me up at the usual 4 AM hour… i had hoped to sleep in a bit… went to bed late… no such luck…

… messing around with Feedbin… adding feeds to Feedbin… one at a time… not adding everything that is in Feedly… purchased a subscription… Feedly will soon be a service of the past… slowly removing Google tentacles…

… messing around with Micro.blog… haven’t made any changes but researching the changes (refinements) i might make…

… today will be a me day… yesterday was a clean the house, shop and cook day… plan to review and edit photos… continue adding feeds to Feedbin…

… a gray, peaceful morning… decided on the abandoned bridge route… i haven’t done it since August… Ida rearranged some things as i expected…

… a flock of crows/ravens flies by as i leave the house… heading north with purpose… not milling about and squawking at one another as they did the other day…

… i pass a gay couple on the street out for their morning constitutional… they look through me as we pass… recently arrived from NYC?…

… K is out walking their dog, we wave hi from across the street… later we pass on the same side and wish each other good morning…

… as i pass through neighborhoods, political signs give me the lay of the land… conservative, liberal, not willing to proclaim in public…

… i am thinking a lot about radical conservatives and their commitment to making themselves the boss of us all in perpetuity… it’s existential for them… their way of life is on the ropes… they are trying to force us to their way of looking at the world… it’s not clear to me that they will fail… i have no desire to live in the world they propose… wondering what i can, what i will do to be part of stopping it… too many days the HCR meter points towards civil war… some comfort in reviewing the events of 1963… that was a tumultuous year…

… i pass a construction site where an Hasidic Jewish man supervises… mom’s waiting for the school-bus with their children… bus comes, children board, mom’s disperse…

… i am now walking through the valley of car dealerships towards the walk of sorrows…

… i was getting very disappointed with Feedbin… I thought it wasn’t functioning properly… no new articles coming in… this morning decided to poke through settings and it turns out i was filtered to an item i had starred… once filtered to “unread” i am back in business…

… what catches my attention:

• Myths, Dreams and Erotica: The Zine Celebrating Latin America’s Outsiders, AnOther Magazine… i am drawn in by the lead photograph of a heterosexual couple in the midst of having sex… by the word Erotica in the title, by Latin America’s Outsiders, also in the title… i discover that the article is about a zine published digitally and in print, focused mostly on LGBTQ+ life… there are 25 images accompanying the article… most are about LGBTQ+ life… clearly AnOther thinks their readership is heterosexual…
• Photographer Lea Colombo’s Searing Ode to Colour and the Nude, AnOther Magazine… i am again drawn in with the promise of sex… an article with the words Searing and Nude in the title… yes please!… yes, sex sells to me and i am not ashamed of that… i like well done portraits of naked women and even men sometimes… however, i am also aware of the ways in which heteronormative society objectifies women… when i review the photographs accompanying the article, i see there is something more to the set than sexuality and i like it on a more platonic level… i see echoes of Roger Ballen (fellow South African Photographer) and Boris Mikhailov in her images…

From Colours of My Body (2021) Lea Colombo, via AnOther Magazine

From Structures of Madness, or Why Shephards Often Go Crazy Living in the Mountains, Boris Mikhailov

… the artist focuses on her use of color as a principal factor of the work:

I am attracted to colour’s vibration and energy, the frequency that it gives off and has, or holds. It allows a deeper expression. Colour is the living touchstone of reality. Everything that we see and experience is made up of a spectrum of colours – it’s how we relate to the world and ourselves. As such, it is a pivotal component of my artistic and photographic expression. It is how I render my relationship to subject and self.¹

… there is a gallery exhibit of the work in two places, South Africa and Los Angelas… there is a book coming… six hundred plus pages… i really like the work but wonder if it would sustain me through 600 pages…

… that the nudes are all of the artist’s own body frees it from questions of exploitation of the model… it is a self exploitation… i also think that the work frees itself from questions of objectification of the female body as intent… though, as with all such images, how the image is interpreted by the viewer can be pure objectification…

… DJ being told about the abuse he suffered from his father when a toddler… echoes of D… DJ’s abuse was both physical and mental… mine only mental… yes… i can say that now… i was abused by D much of my life…

… DJ says we can’t write of the past accurately… any attempt to do so is self portraiture… i suppose that is true… one views the past through the lens that accommodates it to the present in the desired ways… often as justification for our infirmities, insecurities…

… DJ and his sister appear to have had a poor relationship with their dad… he outlived their mother… it’s not clear the relationship was much better with the mother… my nightmare would have been D outliving M…

… day after day of illness, then diagnosis, TB of the stomach… there is such a thing?… medicine… feeling better… optimism…

… i close the book on a Sunday in April… nearing the end, but time to move on…

… up on the early side… crickets chirping away…

… i am empty in the thoughts department…

… D and E coming to diner tonight… will spend much of the day cleaning, shopping and cooking… don’t know that there will be much help from H…

… my photographs received well at Salon last night… somewhat the response i was looking for… i think they will be useful in constructing a narrative… now i have to figure out what that narrative is… it might be a BI but not BI narrative… that is, only photos from BI, but i will construct a narrative aimed at a mythical island presence…

… to me, the photographs depict a harsh desert like landscape… of course, turn 180 degrees and there is the sea… perhaps that is part of it… desert island in the middle of the ocean… the landscapes are lonely, forbidding, primal…

… i mentioned they were all taken with iPhone… the iPhone camera is revolutionizing my photography work i told them… i think it probably more accurate to say it is revolutionizing my equipment bag… one can do a lot with an iPhone and consequently travel light… it has been the only camera i have brought with me to BI for several trips now… and the technology updates and improves continuously… every two years new and better…

… multi-tone train horn in the distance… freight train moving down the western side of the Hudson…

… i have a bunch of camera equipment that was D’s… i wanted it… some of it is film… i have an idea about making pictures with it that are somehow nostalgic in nature… playing with them for specific effects… i need to get them up and running and see what i have… they are mostly dinosaurs in the photographic equipment cosmos… i am expecting each one to have particular image characteristics that can be deployed for particular effects…

… while reviewing and editing photographs, these two from yesterday:

… i was outside fussing with the installation of a roof rack on our new car when i heard a bunch of distant squawking overhead… i looked up and there were all these birds milling about squawking at each other… ravens i think…

… i was eight years old when this cornerstone was laid… i was curious about what happened during that year… it turns out, quite a lot:

• The March on Washington for civil rights. Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech.
• US involvement in Vietnam escalates
• There is a coup in Iraq bringing the Ba’ath party to power.
• Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly into space.
• Thich Quang Duc self immolated on the streets of Saigon to protest the treatment of Buddhists in South Vietnam.
• Vivian Malone and James Hood are enrolled at the University of Alabama after a standoff with then Governor George Wallace.
• Medgar Evers was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson Mississippi by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council.
• An explosion struck the 16th street Baptist Church, killing four girls and injuring 22 others, in Birmingham, Alabama.
• John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

… there is more in this Atlantic Magazine Article…

… not feeling great today… no good reason for that… no alcohol last night… an unusual blend of radish and celery greens for dinner…

… foggy morning…

… things are a bit sleepy…

… plant species identified this AM:

• stiff dogwood
• catalpa tree
• Winterberry
• Catnip
• ragweed
• evening primrose
• white fringetree

… this article by Lucie Elven caught my attention… the basic premise is that most writers of fiction, and any writer of facts that deal with self (hello memoirists), are writing about what they experience/d in family… families don’t often like this so it’s a risk to do it…

… the problem is that if one is to write well and meaningfully, one needs to write out of their own experience…

… i often talk about family and friends in these notes on attention paid… a little more liberally now that one family member has passed away… i shield everyone behind their first initial and use gender neutral pronouns to refer to them so gender is not apparent… of course, anyone who reads these musings regularly will come to know that father, mother, brother, sister, wife and friends are all mentioned…

… i try not to write unflatteringly about anyone unless it is important to my understanding and processing what is going on in my life… even so, it happens… fortunately, nobody i am related to reads this blog so it all flies under the radar… in fact, nobody in general reads this blog, so it really flies under the radar… i am happy to keep it that way… i don’t need to be read, unless you are really interested, then, if you know me, be prepared for the occasional unflattering mention born of my frustration in dealing with you… most likely we will get beyond whatever it is, just remember that… and remember, only you, or someone close to us both will know who you are…

… about two op-eds by Republicans or former Republicans… all sensible Republicans should vote Democrat until the existential crisis is over… Bill Maher aired a monologue¹ in which he says bluntly, 45 will run and will be nominated by the Republican Party in 2024 which will lead to a constitutional crisis of epic proportions… it’s worth finding and watching… we, apparently, faced a similar threat leading up to the civil war… something happening here, what it is is pretty clear… to paraphrase a CSNY song…

… i went to bed typing out a few words about 45, who is all over the news… the alarm bells are ringing louder and louder… we have a problem… it’s been clear for a while that we have a problem… that 45 is a growing and festering threat to democracy in the country… i am not clear that democrats will be able to rise to the occasion… they don’t seem to be doing so right now…

… my final words effort is struggling… as i sit here i think that when i retire to bed, i should sit at my desktop computer and spend five, ten, fifteen minutes composing my thoughts… will keep trying…

… my hope (against hope) is that radical conservative republicans are so overreaching at the present moment, that 45 is such a significant threat, there will be a tidal wave against them at the polls and it will put them down for good… it would help to have some voting rights legislation…

… photography salon tonight… i need to put together some photos to share… i have them, just haven’t finished editing and cataloging and not sure what i want to share…

… no alcohol last night… and it wasn’t hard… will repeat tonight, but then there is tomorrow when there will be friends and dinner and wine and laughter and, quite likely, drinking too much… unless… unless i map out a strategy and stick to it…

… i slept in until 5 AM… i have been doing that more lately…

… crickets still chirping, windows still open– winter still coming

… the thing about existential threats… they have to be met…

… perfume and the perfume industry catches my attention this morning… it is one of the first few articles i come across in my Feedbin aggregator… part of my effort to leave Google behind…

… Mr. Malle is being rendered as the renegade from within the industry… one wonders if there can ever be a renegade from within an industrial complex… i suspect it has more to do with building an image…

… there is conversation about the difficulties of international distribution, countries with different objections to different ingredients… how does one make something satisfying in and of itself but legal in all the potential markets?…

… Synthetic Jungle, a new fragrance, is described this way:

A vibrant green juice brimming with leafy basil and the off-kilter metallic green tang of styrallyl acetate, its freshness is imperceptibly undercut by white flowers – “that horse shit type of smell” – via hyacinth and lily of the valley accords, Egyptian jasmine oil and ylang ylang, a synthetic blackcurrant brings a touch of kitsch, while resinous galbanum and smoky patchouli oil earth the scent, rooting it to the skin. All at once “stylized, hyper-real and fantastical”, as the accompanying mini brochure reads, it is also a wry middle-finger to traditional conceptions of perfumery. Malle is by all accounts an iconoclast.¹

… i look up iconoclast… i know the word but not the meaning… an attacker of cherished beliefs and institutions; a destroyer of religious artifacts… i wonder if 45 fits the definition of an iconoclast… in some regards, though something even more pernicious there…

… i learn that Halston Z14, Original Denim, L’air du Temps and Light Blue are all important perfumes in the history of perfumes…

… i reminisce about a period of time when i experimented with scents… when i was married to M…

… i reminisce about P, a friend of ours… troubled person… traumatized, somewhat agoraphobic… they told us they worked for a long time in the French perfume industry… very creative person, very sad person… they died a number of years ago… we think they took their own life, but there was never official confirmation of that…

… a discussion of the impact of corporate consolidation of the perfume industry and selling to mass markets…

Even (the aromatic, woody perfume) French Lover has a lot of naturals in it, although I never say it because I don’t want to comfort people and make them think that natural is best. It’s one of the biggest fake news stories in our industry and it sort of feeds into this new paganism where nature is best and we have to save nature, hence everything that was man-made is to be trashed.²

… by the end, i realize the whole piece is an advert for Synthetic Jungle, Malle’s newest fragrance…

… DJ hospitalized with mysterious illness, not confirmed to be HIV, but he and we suspect that it is, though i think he hopes it is something exotic he picked up in Poland… exotic and treatable… fevers, sweats, no appetite… i am reminded years ago of Fleet… of working in an office where we were asked if it would be a concern if there were a co-worker with AIDS… i said no… what i knew of the disease at that point was that it was transmitted through sexual intercourse or blood transfusion, otherwise, not easy to catch…

… DJ’s descriptions of hospital life are deadpan and sometimes funny… he writes more than when not in the hospital… possibly because he has lots of time on his hands when symptoms are not washing through him… he describes himself as having the classic symptoms of HIV…

… i get to the place where the doctors say it isn’t HIV related… but nobody knows what it is… of course, i know how the story ends… he dies of HIV related causes eventually… his was in the early rounds of dealing with the virus, before they developed treatments that managed it… people live long and normal lives while carrying it now… there is not, to my knowledge, a cure, just management…

… not smoke, fire…

… about the debt ceiling fight, 45’s control of the Republican Party, the efforts of a hyper-radicalized minority to seize control of the country…

… we are heading towards a full bore constitutional crisis that will play out in the next two election cycles… 2022 will give us a good idea of where the country stands…

… Democrats have the power to reign it in, if they become willing to alter, limit or abolish the filibuster… so far they have not been willing to do that, but the debt ceiling will present itself as a continued battle in December that may require it… will Senators Sinema and Manchin get on board?… or will they go down in history as the two senators that could have stopped authoritarian rule but didn’t?…

… the country has been to this kind of precipice before… the last time a civil war broke out…

… it seems we come to the precipice periodically and manage to preserve democracy, albeit at great cost… will it be preserved now?… hard to know…

… an awkward moment yesterday on Zoom with M, J and R… discussion of tree planting for D… J talks about sending M money to help with expenses… we are all expected to… R says nothing, i say nothing… i am ambivalent about it… it’s more for M than D, i know… but i don’t have the money right now and memorializing D is not at the top of my list of priorities… complex and uncomfortable feelings…

… a solid day of work yesterday… writing, photowalk, farmer’s market, cooking… made a very nice dinner… whole red snapper baked in salt, oven roasted potatoes, salad of radicchio, arugula and leek with a mustard vinaigrette dressing… also made pumpkin soup for later in the week…

… could not resist the urge to have alcohol… it was in the house, i had it… opened a bottle of hard cider telling H that such a fabulous meal should not be without alcohol… that is, of course, ridiculous, it can be without alcohol, i just don’t want it to be…

… i sometimes wonder if one can think of themselves as alcoholic if their issue is not that they drink all day, but that they can’t let the sun go down without having a drink and tend to drink a little too much when they do… is this functional alcoholism?… what if i went to an AA meeting to help me stop it?… would i be laughed at?… the truth, i am pretty sure, is that i am not an alcoholic, i just drink a little more than is good for me and find it very hard to resist having alcohol in the evening… i write about it here in the hopes of making it a conscious choice by recognizing it and trying to understand my motivations… in this way i hope to begin saying not tonight…

… H barely did anything to help acknowledge our anniversary beyond a loving post on FB… to be fair, it’s in keeping with her family’s Calvinist approach to birthdays and anniversaries, which is not to do much… it’s a little disappointing for me… i am not Calvinist… the celebration, such as it was, was what i planned… we did go see the koi… H seemed to agree we should make it an annual thing… maybe twice a year… i will go visit on my birthday too… something about rituals with spiritual content for me…

… Fiona is supposed to have neutering surgery this week… i think… except, the vet has not reminded us of that and i did not get it onto the calendar… i need to call to verify… hoping they did not drop the ball as they did before…