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Archive | Cat Lady Matters

Amplification, Not Fabrication

August 30, 2016 in Cat Lady Matters, Feminist Matters, Listing

58LW3jQQMaude3Maude posthumously financing a LGBT youth shelter makes me cry. Beyonce at the VMAs makes me cry. Huma finally leaving her no-goodnik husband makes me cry. (Writing about) The Light Between the Oceans makes me cry. An elderly woman grasping her husband’s hand makes me cry. Grace delicately extending a striped paw makes me cry. Missing sweet terrier Daisy make me cry. The Dakota Pipeline protesters make me cry. The latest Difficult People episode makes me cry. No Gene Wilder (no Gilda) makes me cry. My friend’s kid going away to school makes me cry. The early sunset makes me cry. My lack of salty snack foods makes me cry. Yes, I have my periodic table. Relevance, please?

Never Say Goodbye: Sweet MJ Forever

August 29, 2016 in Age Matters, Cat Lady Matters, Country Matters, Music Matters

2802ec5b3bdbddd9692c7e0fe4291a7cToday would have been Michael Jackson’s fifty-eighth birthday, and he’s been on my brain since I woke. Diana Ross fell in love with him on first sight and so did I, fell for those big eyes beneath big fros long before either of us hit puberty. I adored him in the Jackson 5, emulated his Thriller moonwalk every day afterschool at my best friend Ansie’s. Listened to Off the Wall a ton when I started to have good sex in my twenties—even more when I learned to love in my thirties. Continue Reading →

Love and Animals

August 24, 2016 in Cat Lady Matters, Country Matters, Essays, Quoth the Raving, Sabboytical, Snapshot, Spirit Matters

ruby redI’m trying to climb back on the grid, I really am. I’ve had my computer back for a few days and have completed all my paid assignments. But a lot has happened this month and it all boils down to my realizing how much more I want, and how much Rilke applies if I’m to achieve it.

You must change your life, said Rilke.

In the first and second and third place, I’ve grown powerfully tired of social media. I know this isn’t fair but after a time away it just seems like the worst of 20th century snail mail: chain letters, clippings from college roommates who assume they’re ranting to the choir, notes from bored aunts about everything they ate and aren’t-they-just-the-cutest kittens and babies.

I want more. I want please and thank-yous. I want diagrammable sentences rather than rebuses; polite declines rather than rebuffs. I want declarations and advance invitations and follow-up questions and direct answers. I’d wanted the Summer of Jane but at this point would settle for Dick and Jane. Or just See Spot Run. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy