2023 October, New Orleans

 Well, I'm kind of sad. I sort of use blogging to remember and chronicle my life. I had written out a big long post on another site, it saved a bunch of copies and they disappeared when trying to clear them out. I think that platform might not be overly stable, anymore, and is hardly if at all supported, so I think it's truly time to move things here and use this as my "system of record", as it were. I am going to endeavor to recreate that post. I'm SO GLAD I kept all the pictures I used in a separate folder. Woot!

Here we go....

This is my friend Lisa. She is one of my best friend. I'd never been to New Orleans, but it's been on my list for a long time....

This is us looking cute on the plane in our witches hats. I think we both like to do things to draw attention to ourselves, EVERY day and EVERY event is an opportunity to be unique!

We take a weekly dance class and often attend arts and other events with a wonderful human who has a house in New Orleans, and she let us rent it while we were there. Here's the front door of our cute little NOLA home, and my bed:

We stayed in what is called "Uptown", right off the St. Charles street car line. The neighborhood was adorable and we had SO MUCH FUN walking around! New Orleans sure knows how to do Halloween! I don't have a huge tolerance for drunks or drunk people, and I don't hang out in bars, so it's unlikely I would ever go during Mardi Gras, but I can sure appreciate Halloween time there!

Here's a pic of our cute little neighborhood and some art we saw:

This is one of the houses we passed by the first night. There was SO MUCH of this, throughout New Orleans. Also, so much art honoring the Jazz roots of New Orleans. This was a power box we passed by on one of our walks, the second pic:

On the same street where we stayed, there was this adorable little coffee shop. We never really went inside, but they, too, decorated super cute. It was slightly weird to see such vibrant flowers in October when in Reno, most everything is brown by October LOL:

That first night, we walked to a nearby steak house. We were there at happy hour, and met Tommy, who's been shucking fresh oysters at this restaurant for over 30 years. He was friendly and it was the beginning of many culinary delights.

The first night was just enjoying our space and sort of making plans for the rest of the time, or at least for the next day =) . We got up the second day and went to have beignets. As my friend said, "If you want to go to Cafe Dumonde and have that experience we can do that. They serve A LOT of people, so they make them ahead and they sit under a heat lamp. OR, we can go to this delightful little coffee place near our house and have them made fresh there." I chose option 2, and it was glorious! I didn't know what Cafe Au Lait was, but it was also delightful. I tried chicory for the first time this year and while I am still a huge coffee fan, this, with the steamed milk, is very good. 

(LOVED this art in the coffee shop. We indeed, had a beignet of a day =)

Maybe I was just receptive....of maybe I have been embracing a new era of optimism and even more sickening positivity than normal, but to me, the New Orleans sign game was on point.

Now, just some probably nerdy pictures of things that appealed to me as we started to walk down in the French Quarter.

Amazing art in the Voodoo Two bar as we were            I swear I've heard of this place.

walking down the street.

I was pretty sure I would be in love with this place and this first tasting absolutely confirmed it! I don't care if we only visited the most tourist-trappy places possible, it was still amazing for me. 

We then went to the Vampire Cafe, and then the gift shop. SO COOL!

The food, though, was also delightful, BIG bonus. When we went to the Vampire Cafe shop, I found a series of books that was from directly after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. It was so hard for me to imagine the devastation and all that happened because now, all these years later, you couldn't even tell. Next time I go, I may need to make it a point to do a Katrina tour. I didn't want to be depressed, but I would hope whoever gave it would have pictures. I am sure they are possible to find, and this could be a future endeavor, for sure. The series, again, is about vampires, witches, and supernatural folks, oh my. 

Just sayin'...I knew I'd find kindred spirits here too. LOL

So, while we were walking down the street, near the waterfront, we saw what was clearly, some sort of video shoot happening. This was the dapper scene we saw:

We kept seeing them down in the French Quarter, so I finally stopped and asked what they were filming for because it was such an unusual costume. I was sort of hoping for some low-key awesome super hero thing. No, it was for the NFL and I didn't pay attention to whether or not the footage even got used. Apparently the Saints were playing the Jaguars. LOL This made me laugh a lot. 

We did SEE Cafe DuMonde, we just chose not to eat our beignets there

The mighty Mississippi was majestic and beautiful. Seeing the paddle boats was great. This was something we didn't get to do this time, perhaps another time....

Next is another awesomely decorated house and a very cool map of New Orleans

I am the first person to admit that I am a giant nerd. In the last couple years, I watched "The Originals" which is good, old-fashioned vampire stories. When I went to Texas last year, the person I was there visiting was watching this show and it TOTALLY sucked me in. I don't honestly remember what episodes I saw with her, I kind of blocked it out because I am that weird human who has to watch something beginning to end =) The family featured, called the Michaelson's, are the original vampire family, hence the name of the series. There was a subsequent series called Legacy that was also very good, I thought. At any rate, much of "The Originals" took place in New Orleans and it's one of the things that I most wanted to see. I am also an old-school Anne Rice fan, so I also wanted to see Lestat's house. The "ghost tour" thing seemed a bit creepy to both of us, so instead of that, Lisa and I went on a "True Crime" tour. It was "meh" and I won't do that again. We thought our guide was going to be amazing because he was a professor, but he wasn't all that. At any rate, I present the Michaelson Mansion and Lestat's New Orleans House (the guy with the eye patch in the first photo was our guide):

Then we heard a story about a house where there was a widow who ran the house after her husband died and she was apparently a really awful human. She killed and tortured a lot of slaves and was generally a terrible person. At some point, Nicholas Cage bought the house, but no longer owns it. It was also the place where they filmed American Horror Story: Coven. I haven't watched that. I'm not sure I will....a part of me likes AHS, another part is really freaked out by it. It's called the LaLaurie Mansion and if you want to learn about the heinousness, here's a place to look: LaLaurie Mansion

A perfect New Orleans French Quarter picture....with the moon

So, let's talk a bit about the Street Car. We did have issues one night, the night of the big Halloween Parade. If the next car is coming towards you and it's full, they slow down long enough to tell you you'll have to catch the next car, and they don't stop. This is problematic if you are trying to go somewhere, so that night, we took a Lyft. AND...the street car was still an amazing bargain! We paid $15 for an unlimited 7 day pass, and this pass allowed us to ride all Street Cars, all busses and ferries! We were making money after the second day! The next day, we went to City Park, wanted to see a graveyard, ate more awesome food, bought pralines and snowbliz's, and went back down the Quarter at night. 

Spanish Moss is so pretty! The way it hangs, it's sort of spooky and ethereal!

Here's the very sad story that totally caught my imagination on this headstone, pictured above: "This monument is erected to the memory of James Gallier, architect, of New Orleans, born at Ravensdale, Ireland July 24, 1798.

By his son, as a tribute to his genius, integrity and virtue.

And of Catherine Maria Robinson, born at Barre, Massachusetts, wife of James Gallier. 

They were lost in the steamer Evening Star, which foundered on the voyage from New York to New Orleans, October 3rd, 1866. (I actually thought the lower case d was a weird carved o, meaning it would be the 30th, but when Googling, I saw it was the 3rd.)

After Googling, I discovered there was a horrible hurricane. At the time, it was the worst maritime disaster in America's history. Wow. If you'd like to read more about this shipwreck, you can find stuff here: Freepages - Evening Star Disaster

That night, we found this house we'd seen, that Lisa had been looking for, where there are HUNDREDS of skeletons, and they are SO FUNNY! They all have signs and the puns are SO GOOD. Here's an example

Here are the amazing humans we got Pralines from. We wanted to find the small, out of the way place. Clearly, this place is still way famous, but they were nice and wonderful and the pralines were yummy:

Now, the Snobliz, was truly a unique experience. Apparently, New Orleans is famous for its shaved ice. However, the place we went, Hansen's Snobliz, apparently, the man created a new machine, and held the patent for it, so HIS is unique and man is it delicious! Another thing....I had never thought that one could pair sweetened condensed milk with fruity flavors, but I did and it was amazing. Lisa had chai and some coffee flavor, I had blueberry, I think Strawberry or something pink, I don't actually remember, with the milk. OMG!

And....New Orleans is a perpetual party! Later that night, we went BACK down to the Quarter, and like, this was straight up either a Tuesday or a Wednesday night, and there were tons of people on the streets

The next day is where things took a bit of a challenging turn. We were walking back to the Uptown Coffee place, to have yummy fried dough and coffee again. Let me tell you, New Orleans streets are no joke. Because of all the beautiful trees, those tress have compromised many sidewalks and many are cracked with tree limbs making them uneven and super hazardous. My dumb ass, however, tripped not even on a tree root, but rolled my ankle not paying close enough attention, on a sidewalk just walking down the street. I fell HARD. I didn't hear anything pop or seem like it tore, so I sat there for a minute and then thought "Well, I can let this ruin our time, or I can just get my ass up and make the best of things." We'd been walking a TREMENDOUS amount during this whole week, Lisa and I seem pretty well matched in this way, so I figured it wouldn't be too bad. Not going to lie, there were some uncomfortable moments. We got our coffee, and by the time we hit the Street Car, I knew when we got off, where there was a CVS, I was going to be stopping to get some ibuprofen and an ankle brace. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY!! I looked up CVS and was able to find what was in stock at the store we were going to, so I'd know if we had to travel very far or I could get my needs met relatively easily, right across from the Street Car. 

Also, this day was going to be our BUSIEST DAY because we were headed to the Treme Fall Festival, wanted to participate in the Second Line parade, do way more walking around, and then the parade was that night! I got the brace, took some ibuprofen and walked around for a little while, but before we could make it towards Treme, I was hurting pretty good, so we decided to Pedi Cab! Another adventure! Below is the scantest picture of the slightest bit of carnage that doesn't do justice to how awful I felt for a bit, but there was no way I was going to let this ruin my time in this wonderful place. What does it say about me that when I first fell, one of my first thoughts was "OH NO!!! NOT BY BEE SLEEVE!! NO SCARRING!"

I had been unaware of much of the history of black people and slaves in the Treme district and New Orleans before I went there. Treme' is the oldest African American neighborhood in America. Because Louisiana did not become part of America until the Louisiana Purchase, the black culture is rich and diverse. Additionally, many of the folks who were slaves there were from a particular area in Africa and were able to stay together to a much greater degree than many other places in the South. I loved and hated learning about all that history. It still astounds me that folks ever thought it was okay to treat other humans as property.

Powerful imagery. If you want to know more about Treme', Google it, here's a small place to start. 

There is Jazz history everywhere, this was in a window near the Festival. The Goddess below was dancing in the Second Line. Such beautiful costumes, colors and I'll tell you what. The pure joy on the faces of dancers and celebrants. I really appreciated seeing it and getting to be a very small part of it.  

Later that night was the parade. Just like Burning Man ruins fireworks forever if you encounter them somewhere else, I'm pretty sure I'll never have a parade experience that can ever equal what happens in New Orleans. And these are considered "small" compared to Mardi Gras. It's insane, celebratory, frenetic, frenzied, chaotic, beautiful, bawdy, raunchy, and all the fun!

The bottom picture is one slow, hurt, not very committed to swag person's haul for one tiny parade. These folks are serious about both their partying and their parading. 

The next day was a special quest! Lisa and I had talked about and decided we were going to try to find a place to get matching New Orleans themed, sort of, tattoos! We walked down into the Garden District, another beautiful and captivating area of New Orleans!

Garden District!

I found a familiar! This kitty was a-mazing!       This really says something about the grit of this place! 

The new tattoo!                                                                        I LOVE that we went to New Orleans and                                                                                                    saw a sticker from a Reno store! Junkees!

This was taken the next morning and sent to my coworkers at the school where I work. It was to demonstrate to them that people park bad in places other than Nevada. Please look at ALL that's going on in this picture....and it, also, was coincidentally outside a school hahaha

This is an amazing moon picture that was taken from our bathroom window at our house, by Lisa. I got her and told her about it, but the photo mojo is all her

Monday was all about outlying areas, the swamp, gators, and visiting a plantation. Those air boat drivers are INSANE. I got to hold about a four year old gator. Dude just chased the thing and plucked it right out the swamp. "You gotta have healthy respect for them, but they just big 'ole swamp puppies." Quote of the vacation, likely.

Before we got our van to take us on all these adventures, we had to arrive at the Hilton, where it was to pick us up, but of course we were early, so we were looking for something interesting. Down a literal alley, we found this Antidote juice and coffee place. I LOVE the entire message behind this!! SOBER LIFE!!

This is where we went to catch the air boat, on the way out of the docking area, and more beautiful Spanish Moss. 

Here's my gator picture (look at that smile!) and the other air boat. I think we saw like seven or nine gators, which they said had been a record for the season! Yay us!

We went to Oak Alley. It was impressive. I got different pralines there. We had a mint julep. The tour was fun. I have a hard time with this just because the disparity really gets to me. I had the same experience when I went to the palace of Versailles in France. Meh. It was a nice house. And people were treated brutally to take care of it. I don't have much else to say. 

I might come back and flesh this out later, I might not. What I KNOW is this is the longest thing I've written here in a very, very long time, maybe since I transferred everything. LOL

Peace!

On Generational Trauma…

 There were two children in the photograph, but what’s important is not the pictures of the children, but the rest of the post. This is a blog post by a blogger called “The Pierced Protagonist”. I can’t tell you how much this spoke to me. This could have been me, having felt like an alien, or like I just didn’t “get” social norms, while I was growing up. Apparently, eventually I did “get it” as by all appearances, I am a somewhat “normal”, quasi-functional adult, but this post hit me like a ton of bricks. This is long, but it’s worth it, if you’ve ever wanted to learn about this, or maybe “see” generational trauma from a different place. I’ve read a lot about it, but this one really clicked for me.

There are two children in this photograph.

The boy is 9 today, and the little girl is 7.

They are my two eldest children.

Both of them have been unusual children.

From an early age, whilst they never had delays, their behavior and milestones were unusual.

Neither of them crawled, but went straight into walking.

They were obsessive over their toys – he would play with his trains for hours on end, and she would carry the same doll with her everywhere she went.

Both could speak in full sentences by 18 months old.

Both were potty-trained shortly after their second birthdays – but neither of them seem to easily understand what their body is telling them.

One will go for hours without using the bathroom, the other will wait until bursting and then get hysterical.

Both of them have sensory issues.

He has food and texture phobias, she has obsessive behavior around touch and smell.

Both suffer from anxiety.

His anxiety expresses in his being stubborn. He’ll become fractious and argumentative.

Hers is expressed in a lack of sleep, unexpected tears, micromanaging behavior and physiological symptoms like stomach cramp.

Both do exceptionally well at school and are performing well academically.

They both make friends readily enough, but misunderstandings are common and they can be prone to being manipulated or bullied.

Neither of them deal well with routine changes.

They are both caring, logical people with a very rigid moral compass.

Both of them ‘stim’.

He flaps his hands and makes sound-effects, or chews his clothes.

She taps on things, plays with her hair or lays on the floor.

They are both fluent readers and exceptional speakers.

Yet he’ll be mute in times of severe stress, and she’ll speak in an immature voice.

Whilst rare now, both of them have the potential for horrendous meltdowns; especially if not managed carefully.

They are both incredibly similar yet, despite both being referred, only one of them received an autism diagnosis.

My son.

My daughter, I was told, didn’t have a ‘pervasive’ enough condition to warrant a diagnosis.

When they said it wasn’t pervasive, what they actually meant was that she wasn’t autistic enough at school.

And I cannot tell you how angry that made me.

For years, the autistic community, and some medical professionals, have been screaming out about masking behaviour and about a group of children known as the “Lost Girls”.

Lost Girls, in a nutshell, are autistic girls who fail to fit the male stereotype of autism, so go through life largely undiagnosed.

Many of them don’t even realise themselves until they end up having an autistic child of their own.

Autistic girls are often quiet, studious little girls.

They read well, speak well, write well.

They love animals and make a significant effort with their peers.

They meet, and often exceed, developmental milestones.

So they pass under the radar.

But, the problem with these girls is that they evade discovery by engaging in a behavior known as ‘masking’.

Masking is where someone mimics the behavior of others in order to hide the unusual characteristic of themselves, with autistic girls hiding the outward expression of their autism.

Desperate to fit in, they reduce their stims, hide their interests, change their behavior, and they build an external mask.

However, these masks are heavy, and they cause significant problems in those girls, namely with their mental health.

Authenticity of self is one of the best markers of good mental health.

So, if you compare those two children, my son has the better mental health, because he appears ‘more autistic’.

He does not hide who he is.

His stims are pronounced and obvious.

He’ll talk at length about Warhammer whether someone is listening or not.

If he doesn’t want to do something, if he doesn’t like something, he’ll bloody well say so.

She won’t.

She’s a people-pleaser.

She’ll accept hugs she doesn’t want, just to make someone happy.

She changes how she behaves, what she wears, depending on the company she’s in.

She hides fear.

And, now and again, it wears her down, and she breaks.

She cries, she rages, she thinks everyone hates her.

She thinks she’s useless.

She’ll slam doors and sob into her teddies.

She’ll scream that she hates me.

She’ll have nightmares and upset herself so much that it makes her nauseous.

That’s what masking does.

And I know that because I do it.

I mask.

And that little girl is an almost exact replica of me.

And I look at her, I watch her play the game, and my heart dies a little inside.

I watch her burn out, trying so hard to pretend, and I remember doing it all myself.

I remember trying to be like everyone else, trying to act like they did, dress like they did.

And I watch her do it too.

And I fear for her.

Because, for a masking girl, it just gets worse from here.

As she gets older, the mask gets more complex, it gets harder to wear.

Social structure in secondary school is so much more difficult to understand.

People are manipulative, cruel.

Boys complicate things.

Hormones make everything harder to deal with.

Being a teenage masker is horrific.

And that’s why so many masking girls fall off the wagon in their teens.

It’s why so many of them start to cut themselves, or starve themselves, because the weight of being someone you’re not all of the time is so destructive.

It kills you from the inside out.

You feel like all your relationships are fake, but you daren’t be yourself in case you end up with no friends at all.

And, over time, you forget who you were.

So you get stuck.

The mask you show to other people, this elaborate personality, isn’t truly you.

But the you that was once behind it starts to disappear and fade into the darkness.

Hence, you’re a “Lost Girl”.

You have two personalities, yet are truly neither.

And that’s where the hit to their mental health comes from.

Their identity, their sense of self, their confidence, it’s gone.

I wanted to avoid that for my daughter.

I wanted a diagnosis, I wanted to give her answers, I wanted to get her help, and they closed the door in her face.

They could see my records, the depression, self-harm, eating-disorders, rape-counselling; and they still wouldn’t help her.

She’s not pervasive enough.

So who will help her?

Who will help the masking, struggling, self-hating girls in our midst?

Not the medical professionals.

Not the wider community.

We will.

The Lost Women.

We have to help them.

We need to lead the way.

We are the only ones who can.

There are three women in my life who, like me, fit the stereotype.

They’ve had eating disorders, they’ve had bad relationships, they’ve battled demons and hardships all their lives.

I don’t know if they see themselves, but I do.

I see them.

All three of them are mothers and, rather strangely, all three of them have both a boy and a girl child.

All of them have partners, jobs, lives.

And all three of them find it hard to truly fit in.

All three of them have ended up in situations that hurt them, and damaged them in some way, yet all of them have somehow survived.

But we need to do more than survive.

We need to live.

And we need to save those that follow.

We need to save the girls with the suicide rate 9 times higher than anyone else.

And there is only one way we can do that.

By dropping the mask.

The only way we can save those girls, our girls, is by being ourselves and by paving the way for them to do the same.

We need to stop hiding.

We need to stim, and have special interests, and wear weird things.

We need to eat strange things in strange ways and not be ashamed.

We need tattoos and piercings and anything that makes us happy.

We need to bin off both autistic and female stereotypes. And then, perhaps, we can give others the strength to follow.

It’s going to be hard, but we need to rediscover who we once were, and we need to be that person.

Not the person we think people want to see.

That is the only possible way to start to fix the damage, to fix the wounds of a lifetime.

This world, this society, this culture.

It may have taken us, it may have damaged us.

But we cannot let it have our daughters.

Lost Girls, Lost Women, I see you.

You are not imperfect.

You are not damaged.

You are not broken.

You are not bipolar, or borderline, crazy, or mental.

You are autistic.

And you should be allowed to be yourself.

You don’t need their judgement.

You don’t need their stereotypes.

You need to be free.

I see you.

You are strong, you are beautiful, you are unique.

And it’s time to come home.

And then this came across my feed:

https://www.tiktok.com/@rusty_eyeball/video/7287605093912907039?_r=1&_t=8gLK5zuz0By

So, there’s that.

Here’s to PEACE.

Inner Peace.

 

Empty Nest

Today is October 5th. I have been an empty nester since July 15.

We had an awesome roomie from July 18-October 1. He really was perfect in every way. He was quiet, paid his rent on time. And he’s gone now.

The world has left little time for writing, I’m trying to make time again. I need to, I need this for me.

I’m going to begin an experiment with microdosing, not sure if I will journal here or on paper.

Life since Empty Nest has been filled with home repairs and trying to envision what the future looks like now. I’m still not sure, but it does sure feel good to take control of my physical space again and make and keep it the way I want it.

My daughter really hasn’t spoken to me since she moved. That is her choice, not mine. I have a few things to say to her, and will try to do it with kind ness and love, even though I don’t believe it will be taken that way.

This Summer was full of eventful things.

There were Dragon Lights:

The finding and creation of new space:

Discovering and remembering beautiful outdoor spaces that nourish us, body and soul.

Burning Man happened. I tried to be a workaholic for it again, and I was denied. That could have been the best thing for my soul and spirit and I thank the universe for having my back. It rained out there. The media tried to make things negative about that, but we were born for that sort of scenario. I never met a Burner that didn’t take 3 or 4 times as much stuff as they needed. They told us they were hearing about cannabilism and ebola, what was actually happening was beautiful community, yurt karaoke, community beans and chai, and beautiful new friends.

I’ve said many times this year….I’ve been lugging those boots to the playa for a decade and never needed them. THIS WAS MY YEAR!! It was glorious and mostly DUST FREE, a real revelation if you know anything about this event.

Our camp gave away warm bean soup and fresh masala chai from this cauldron during the event:

At this moment, I am feeling pretty emotionally exhausted, so I will finish catching up later.

Peace.

The final final, one chapter ends, another begins…

 And now for the time being, this chapter is closed.

My son-in-law flew back to Reno yesterday, came back to the house, picked up the rest of their belongings, the dog and cat who had stayed, and his girls, my grand daughters, and left by 5am this morning for their final journey to Kentucky. It’s been fun watching them discover this new place and new things. My grandson, Cylus, has called me each morning since his mom setup Messenger Kids on his tablet. The fact that he thinks of me every day right now fills my heart. Knowing it will not always be so brings a tinge of sadness, but any time you are a caretaker for something, unless it’s something perpetually dependent, like a pet, it will eventually get bigger, go away, and it is in those times that you hope you instilled in them the things needed for them to go forth and do well. I know Cylus has a strong heart, and hope he remembers his granny. 💜

After they left Friday, I got a text from our renter and he asked if he could bring his stuff Monday or Tuesday. HOLY SHIT, that means the room has to be habitable by then! We went in to overdrive, and made it happen. I was so sore and worked so hard to get things as presentable as possible!

When my daughter was first moving back in, she was saying the old 70’s colors were coming back. She chose the most hideous baby shit yellow for the bathroom, that was one of the first things that had to go. hahahaha. Here is a picture of what I am calling baby-shit-be-gone!

There’s so much I hadn’t realized we had never done! There’s a built-in linen closet at the far end of the bathroom, and when I started wiping down walls it occurred to me we’d never painted the sheet rock after the old remodel when all that got put in place, when my mom was still alive. She passed away in 2006. Got all that painted, I think it looks nice:

Then, when I looked at the hardwood floors, I realized the carpet glue had never been sanded off the floors. Our friend we paid to help paint the back porch had said he would loan us his orbital sander, so I spent much of the next day and a half sanding the floor. Of course, he hadn’t left the sawdust collection bag, so there was sawdust EVERYWHERE. That required the walls to be wiped down again, glad I hadn’t gotten far with that, then the floor needed to be cleaned in earnest, so a good damp mopping there with Murphy’s oil soap to get the crud off, washing the curtains, making things as presentable as possible. Then we needed to move the bed in there, and a dresser from one of the other rooms. This is what we ended up with:

It’s not perfect, the floors need to be sanded better and be refinished, but hopefully that’s in the cards soon, too. The take-sway is that we did it! Husband helped a lot, he’s been very sweet through all this.

Progress. As much as I lament the separateness of humanity and American culture, I don’t think my daughter and I collectively and/or individually right now are healthy enough to repair a relationship that was built on generations of dysfunction. I hope we get back there, but right now, we are not in that place. I think and hope this will be good for us, ultimately.

Having them back in the house last night made us realize how much we were looking forward to and have been enjoying the PEACE in our household. It’s nothing against them, they are a young family doing young family things. AND, kids are loud, they are messy, and as we get older, I don’t think it’s wrong to value PEACE and QUIET. At some point, and indeed, in the past, that silence was somewhat deafening and I don’t think I was ready yet, to be alone. I am now. I’ve known for awhile I was my own best friend. I think I had a huge amount of my identity wrapped up in being a caretaker. I thought I had avoided some of the traps of my mom, but I think I just found new and interesting ways to be selfless and self-sacrificing to my own fucking detriment. I can honestly say, now, that I am my own best friend. I have enjoyed my own company for a long time, but now I am at peace. I want nothing but the best for them, and I’m ready to put myself first, work on myself, and enjoy life.

It feels good. After they left, I think I did it Friday evening, I did a cleansing. When you want to rid things or release energy, you walk a circle widdershins, or counter-clockwise. I had learned previously to sweep inward and outward while saying “in with the good, out with the bad, in with the good, out with the bad”. I accentuated that with “I release you. I release you all prior members of this household, this family. I release you Starry’s, Gann’s and anyone who is lingering and searching for peace. Take your energy back. We love you, we love the time and energy you have put here, and shared with us. If you want to check in, feel free to do so, and know you are free to go.”

(volunteer pumpkin flowers from the front yard. The grandkids/their parents let the pumpkins rot in the front yard last Fall. Life finds a way.)

Peace.

 

RIP, My Friend...

Michael Lewis Ritchey, 12-16-1965 to 7-17-2023

Mike was my friend. I found out about his passing last night.

I met him in the mid-90’s, when I was divorced. We dated briefly. I would say, likely between 1997 and maybe 2004 of 2005, we didn’t speak, and then he started messaging me again on Messenger, I think. I think we actually met on AOL, which probably tells you anything you need to know about how old I am.

There’s so much to say about my friend. He mattered, his story mattered. I have so much grief for him. I am so sorry he never had or experienced the sort of all-encompassing, all consuming love that takes ones breath away. He lived a dysfunctional life. His mom died of cancer when he was a teen and I think his dad, a lifelong Boeing worker, didn’t know how to be nurturing. He had a brother that died several years ago suddenly and that shook him mightily, as I think the brother might have been younger, but died of a sudden cardiac event. He was brilliant and wrote books about gambling, odds, and mathematical computation to beat those odds =)

I don’t think I have records anymore of the first time he visited me in Reno again, I think it was early 2000’s. The farthest back I could find was April 2013, when he came to Reno and I took him to Virginia City. He was enchanted. He said the thing that struck him the most about being there is that it’s truly a town that time forgot. While there is electricity in the city, it is almost eerily quiet. Until he said something, I hadn’t noticed that there is no “city noise” there. It’s an isolated, sort of mountain little village/town, and there’s no hustle or bustle there because there is none. We looked across the 600 mile canyon, where, on a clear day (and the day we were there was clear), you can see alll the way to Utah, which is a feat, as VC is in Western Nevada.

He was so sweet. Because I do a ton with events, the arts, and Burning Man in my local community, I know a lot of people. It’s fair to say that we literally almost could not go out to dinner without me seeing someone I knew through the communities I am connect to. He used to tell me I was a minor Reno celebrity. One time, we went to an Italian restaurant downtown and saw the then-Mayor. He knew me from arts work and grant meetings and said “Gemini, so good to see you!” I introduced him, said he was from visiting from Seattle, and the Mayor was very gracious. We saw down and Mike said “I can’t believe we are out to dinner and you just introduced me to the freaking MAYOR of your town!” In may ways, Reno is still very much a small town =)

I had a couple of very bad years where I took a job as a full-time events manager and I hated it. I had entertained the idea of being done with Burning Man. Still being as busy as I ever way, but doing it for just one place, instead of for free for all the places. There was no work/life balance and my boss and I just didn’t communicate well. But one of the highlights of that job is that I got to show Mike through the venue and some of the “secret” things about the venue that not a lot of people get to see. Like the “Metallica Hole” at the top of grid that is above the arena floor that had to be cut for the Metallica Black tour to accommodate their specific stage and setup, and the underground drainage system that keeps water out of the venue, that is built on top of an aquafir =)

We used to sort of play this game in Reno. We were both foodies, and with the exception of very exceptional meals, when he came to visit me, in about 15 or more years of doing so, we never ate at the same restaurant twice. The rules were relatively simple, that we wouldn’t eat at any chains, they would be local eateries. There was never a shortage of unique places to take him in town, as restaurants often have a short life, and are always changing in any town.

He loved baseball, he loved the history of baseball, the history of baseball stadiums, and he was a lifelong and rabid Seattle Mariner’s fan. It didn’t matter how badly the team did, he always rooted for his M’s. Another thing we would do is whenever I had to travel for work or for fun, if there was a historic baseball place where I was, I would go there to be able to take pictures and send to him. I went to New York City and stayed in Brooklyn once, and he sent me to the former Brookly Dodgers home, before they moved to LA, Ebbets Field. It’s now a horrific housing project, like a giant monstrosity of a building, but there’s historical plaque and the portion of one wall there commemorating where it once stood. I went and took a picture for my friend. From what I gather, it was a dangerous part of town and a nice man I met, who I asked to take a picture of me in front of the wall said “Where in the world are you from?! GO HOME, this is not a nice place for you,” as he handed back my digital camera. Thanks, sir. I also went to Minneapolis for a work conference once (June 2019) and went to a Twins game because there was some historical marker or some such there that he wanted me to see, or that I saw for him. And sent him copious pictures.

He loved comic books, and one of his favorite comic book artists was Neal Adams, like old style Batman comics, he had a distinct style. In November of 2014, he came to see me in Reno, one of the few years Reno got to host a ComicCon, and Neal Adams was there. He got to meet his idol, shake his hand, and he bought me a beautiful Norman Reedus print Adams had drawn. It’s still very much HIS style, but the subject matter of a TV show was outside what he usually does. I will cherish it always. Below is a picture he took of me meeting and shaking Neal Adams hand, and below that is the print he got for me. He paid for the framing and everything, and wouldn’t take no for an answer for me to pay a portion of things.

By 2016, his health was beginning to fail. I went to Seattle to visit him and we were supposed to go to another ComicCon, I stayed at a really cool hostel across from Pike Place Market, and when I got there, I didn’t hear from him, which was extremely unusual. It turns out he was in the hospital. He was having trouble with his liver. He was always very vague about his health problems, I think he suffered a lot more than he let on.

We did manage a Mariners game when I was in Seattle in 2016:

This was really the first time I was super concerned for his health. He wanted to hang out and do the things with me so badly, and he just couldn’t. He spent most of his time with me in the area this time in the hospital. I went to visit him there every day that I could, and we did go to a Mariners game. To me, in this picture, he looks sick and jaundiced, which makes sense for liver difficulties. I don’t think he had the wherewithal to advocate for himself, or do the research that was needed to make his life better.

In July, 2019, he came to Reno again, and I was able to share some of my life with him. During that month, there is a month-long arts festival that happens in Reno called Artown. There is an event called “Pops on the River” that is a costume competition and high dollar fundraising event for the local Philharmonic. This year, we got Mike in, and I think he had a great time, I think the theme this year was the 60’s. So, my very talented friend who is a tie dye artist got to sell Mike a shirt and he had a good time. This is a sun drenched picture:

At this point I had hope for him! He seemed to be on better footing with his liver problems, he had lost weight, and was trying to get more active. I just don’t think he had a sense of how sick he was, the entire time he was sick. He looked better than he had in a long time.

Then the pandemic happened. No travel. Work from home. Sickness. Death. I’m pretty sure he had Covid, as he continued to move in and out of hospitals. He came in July 0f 2021, it was during the hottest weather in Nevada, and he was frail. We did manage some good hikes, and even encountered a bear in Galena, a mountain area on the way to larger mountains =)

He looked sick here, and he didn’t have the stamina to really walk around much and his balance was much, much worse for the wear. Every time I saw him the last few years, I wondered if it would be the last time. I’m sorry this time ended up being the last time. I wish I had taken more time. When he was coming every year, I used to sometimes get annoyed, being the social director. Then I’d try to have grace, because he didn’t really have anyone in his life. He had an ex-coworker named Larry and his wife who were probably closest to him. When he died, Larry posted on Facebook under his profile “Hello Mike’s friends. I’m very sorry to tell you all but Mike passed away peacefully Monday evening”. That was it. A lifetime of friendship, memories, good times. Gone. I have been missing my friend lately. Missing the random texts. “The Mariners won today.” Or “The M’s looked awful last night” or “How are you doing?” or even “Hoping to get down again before the end of the year, what’s your schedule looking like?”.

I miss my friend.

I loved him.

I have been composing this entry since he passed in July. I needed to complete it. Here it is. Today is October 5, 2023.

I hope he is at peace.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life…

 I create my life.

That’s SO profound. I am not a victim. I am not a villian. I am not going to cop out or drop out on my past behavior or my actions or any of that.

No one did anything wrong, this is my ego speaking for my animal, and all of this is a lie, the story my animal is telling my ego to process what is happening in my life right now.

Today, my adult daughter and her family left Northern Nevada, headed for Kentucky. We have been co-housing for over five years. The relief, for me, is tangible. I am excited to go home today, for the first time in a really, really long time. It was time for this to happen and part of me is thankful that my daughter had the temerity to be the one to make the decision that led us here, because the way I was, before, I am not sure I would have had the strength to do it. I was so, so hurt at first, and now, I am giddy in anticipation.

I am going to miss my grand kids something fierce. I am NOT going to miss my daughter or her toxic, pop-psychology bullshit. She called me a narcissist, she has said awful, hurtful things to me. I have allowed this. I have felt guilty. I have perpetuated the drama triangle with her. I think in some ways, I have enabled her behavior towards me.

What is it that makes us sacrifice everything for those we love? Society? Familial obligation? What we are taught? Yes, all of those things, but fuck, for reals, that shit is SO toxic! If swearing offends you, I’ll pause here for a moment so you can show yourself out…heh.

I have seriously been pondering this. With this new UpLvl Communication technique, it’s mind boggling how often we listen to these narratives that aren’t ours and that work against our own best interests. I have a lot of processing to do, but I know that this is the way. This is the path. It feels good and authentic to me, and it makes me feel infinitely powerful and like I am, in fact, creating my life. Things are working out. For the first time in a long time, life doesn’t feel like a slog. It feels like it’s flowing in the proper direction, and things are going to work out.

The rift between us is a repeating pattern in my life. In my family of origin, I was the “fixer”, the one that made everything okay. My mom was that way too, and as I got older, I took that role, too. The caretaker, the one who always held everyone else’s stuff, while mine never really got dealt with. This was a HUGE pattern with my sister. Silly me, I had thought that I had learned the lesson because I had established a boundary with my sister at one point and refused to rescue her. Then the universe showed me that I wasn’t done learning that lesson, or taking away what I needed to because it repeated the pattern with my daughter. I thought it was different. Then I went to therapy and it clicked. Exactly. The. Fucking. Same. Holy shit, color me stupid, Batman. I feel like such a fool. I thought it was different because it was my kid and not my sister.

So much time enabling. The beginning was a couple years ago when I realized *I* was the only one sacrificing to give people in my life who I loved the things they wanted. They weren’t and weren’t willing to do the same for me. That hurt me bad, but I kept looking for the lesson. At the time the lesson presented itself, I wanted to be the victim. Poor me. Why won’t anyone take care of me the way I take care of them?! Because it’s not healthy, dumbass. We all create our own lives, and we create our own lessons. I ALLOW or permit people to treat me in certain ways, and if those ways disrespect me, that’s on me, and no one else. Yes, I feel like a dumbass for allowing this. No more. That energy needs to get up out of here. It’s over. Done.

Today, is the first day of the rest of my life.

Thank goodness.

Onward.

Upward.

The lavender is a plant that I pass, on my way from my parking space into my office every day at work. As I walk past it, sometimes I caress it’s little lavender leaves and smell my hand for the calming blast of lavender smell it gives my brain. In the afternoons, like now when it’s near 100 degrees, I tend to not touch it….because the bees swarm it and seem to so much be enjoying it’s pollen and bounty. Thanks, bees.

Happy Friday.

Peace.