This is My Body

My hair is short and going grey in places. Not in the "cool" way I would like, I want that dramatic pronounced silver streak, but whatever. I get the scattered thing.
My hairline is very slowly edging back, though the rest remains full with no signs of balding.
My forehead is gaining more lines, and I'm okay with that. I like them.
My eyes have become less bright over the years (I think) and my eyesight -while remaining at the same prescription since I was 20- has become worse at night.
There are what seem to be permanent darker circles around them.
There are definitely longer eyebrow hairs and crow's feet.
On my left cheekbone there is a small white patch of skin the size of a dime. I had it checked for skin cancer, but it was only where an ingrown hair had altered the pigmentation.
I finally can grow somewhat of a beard at the age of 43. I actually don't want a beard -I find them itchy- but am frequently too lazy to shave so I end up with one.
More lines appear around my mouth and neck.
I'm kind of okay with these. Sometimes less than others.
My skin in general seems looser, somehow.
My chest is as it has always been.
You can see my collar bones, and depending on how I move my ribs may appear.
I've been self-conscious about my ribs, how thin I appear.
I remain so.
My collar bones I like.
Inside my chest, my heart has begun to behave erratically. I can see and feel it pulsating at times in an odd manner. It feels... interesting, kind of pleasant, but it scares me. I go to the cardiologist in 4 days.
While hair finally grew on my face, it never did on my chest. A few stragglers here and there, circling my nipples, and that's about it.
There's one hair on my left bicep that always grows much longer than the rest.
I take a weird pleasure in plucking it out, even though I know it will regrow.
My stomach is no longer flat and six-packy the way it used to be.
The tattoo upon it has gone purple and ill-defined. Good thing it was abstract to begin with.
I love my hip bones, much like I do my collar bones. I like the way both look and feel. Almost alien. I think they're hot, not just on myself.
My belly button remains unchanged after all these years. Appropriate, I suppose.
There's the same thin, sparse line of hair that's always been there that traces down from my belly button to my crotch.
From here down I get hairy. It would seem my hair allotment was saved for the waist down.
My pubes are out of control. Baby got bush.
My penis hasn't changed a whole lot.  Do they?  Guess I'll find out. It still works, it still annoys me at times by working, but I still like it. Apparently, according to others, above average size or something. I dunno. It's just my penis. It has a small scar on the shaft that I don't know where it came from. Maybe it was almost always there?
My balls are slightly saggier, but they've always been hangers. Just a bit more nowadays.
I'm okay with that, except when it's hot or I sit on them.
My ass?
That's another story altogether. While I was never "gifted" in that area, what little I had has become even more flat. I try not to be sensitive about it, but compare myself to others regardless.
I want a hairy bubble butt. Always have.
But I'm stuck with this smooth white thing, lacking any hair.
My legs are thin and white and hairy. Sometimes I'm amazed at how long the hair on my legs gets. It seems abnormal. I wish my legs were thicker, but since they've been this way all my life it's unlikely they'll change.
I'm not going to a gym. I can run fast and bike and use them to lift heavy things, so they work for me. They're not weak. Much like my arms. (but we'll get to those in a bit)
My feet are becoming old people feet.
My toenails are *thick*. Like, maybe I have raptor DNA mixed in.
They're not pretty either... but I think feet in general are ugly weird things, so I'm biased.
Jumping back up the body.
My arms are also like my legs. Thin and pretty white. Much less hairy, though.
I have very prominent veins. People who draw blood always exclaim and go on about them.
Apparently it makes their job easier.
Vampires.
My musculature is such that I think I would be described as "ropey."
They have more strength than they appear to, though (again) I wish the strength they have was reflected externally.
Though (again) I'm not going to a gym.
Mostly, they look as they did 20 year ago.... until you get to my hands.
My hands definitely show my age. Or possibly my life.
They are more wrinkly than one would think for 43, more beaten and scarred.
On my right hand there are two brown spots right across from each other that make me want to draw a smiley face around them.
My fingers are not delicate.
My nails are not pretty, much like my toenails.
I bite them and pick at them all the time.
I can't help it, but again... not worried about it.
It brings me weird pleasure.
My underarms are only moderately hairy.
There's a skin tag on the right one that I always think is a tick. Even though it has been there for years.
I've been told that my body scent is present but not unpleasant.
I totally like my body scent. I can tell what's happening internally by it, actually.
What hormones are firing, what my balances are.
Sometimes it can change by the hour.
That's my body.
It's much like all the other bodies out there, but completely unique.
What's your body like?

Queue "Ride of the Valkyries"

Operation: "Kill the Bindweed" commenced today. Basically, I'm sacrificing about a 40ft by 15ft bed. Dug up the assorted plants I want to save ---mostly hostas, ferns, trillium, sedum and a few others-- and condensed them into 3 separate beds that are about 5 to 10 feet in size, then heavily "mulched" them with slate and other rocks. I think this will allow me to keep up with it in the beds themselves a lot easier, and as they're separated by a good expanse of lawn, I can mow between them and keep it in check. In theory. We'll see.

In other news.... Into the Woods. Hmn. Can't say as I hated it, but I didn't complain when it was over, either. I liked Little Red Riding Hood.  There's some feminism going on elsewhere, but some weird aspects to it. (Don't break your vows or you'll fall of a cliff, people.) As always, I kinda identified mostly with the witch.

Tonight is Reheat the Indian night. I made WAY too much last week, so we froze the leftovers... and of course now I'm thinking "but don't we need some dal to go with it??"  (short answer: No, we don't. There's plenty already. But I'm going to make some anyways.)

Got a library card today for the local branch, mostly for movies. Ok, entirely for movies, as I literally have several hundred yet-to-be-read books waiting on my own shelves. They actually have a pretty good variety there, for a small town library.... picked up Capote and Altered States. Bonus points for the fact that I can donate my old movies to them! For a while there, I was just buying them at the junk ...errrr, I mean "antique"  store for a dollar, as that was cheaper than getting them from Redbox, and we're not really ones to rewatch most movies.

Hapi-Hapi Progress

Haven't posted in a bit since we've been busting as on the construction.

The last week we got the roof on and 99% of the sheathing done, windows cut out, etc. Still a bit panicked about finances (under $2k left) but whatever. We'll get done what we get done. If the rest has to happen in stages over the coming seasons, so be it.

As of today wiring is 90% done! Only 90% because I ran out of 12/2 wire and both auger bits were dull (is auger bits the right term?)... of course, I had gone to Ace to get some other stuff and some new ones, but since they weren't on my list -of all of three things- I completely spaced on them.

That's okay, my arms are jiggly-feeling from drilling/pulling wire through the holes, so I was ready to be done anyways.

Thankful for leftover Indian from saturday, so no cooking need happen tonight, just some reheating and some movie-watching.

Thankful that the movie we're watching won't be Annabelle. Started that one last night and turned it off halfway through. Thankful that it was free, so I didn't resent it as much as I would have if I'd payed for it.

Of course, we have all the leftover Indian, but a friend had to go and post about pesto, and I had just been eyeing all the chickweed  going crazy in the garden and thinking how c'weed pesto sounded really yummy and now I want chickweed pesto!

Some progress pics and a random hellebore.

Turtle dilemma

Salli Minelli has been *so* active the last few days, after months of near torpor. Even with regulated temp and lights, she went into shut-down mode. Today it's all about doing laps around her enclosure and hanging out in her pond....making a muddy mess of it. Chowing down on mealworms.

I go back and forth on releasing her, honestly. I'm not a fan of keeping wild animals, but I fear for her survival with just the one eye/deformed face. I know that's just how nature is, but... well, I've grown attached to her! (I know better but I'm human... mostly)

I keep eyeing the 70 gallon aquarium that I plan on turning into a terrarium and thinking "well, she could be happy in there..."


(and yeah, I know this is a completely random post out of nowhere)

Mnemovore: Once We Are Diamond

I miss the feel of the night at times. Walking into spaces and possessing them. Lights flashing, the stink of bodies and potential, insects of chaos crawling and twitching beneath our skins. Keeping a tally of how many bars we could get thrown out of in each city we visited simply by challenging their norms. Adorning ourselves in war colors and battle garb.

We were angry and vivid and loving and joyous. Ready to tear it all down with love, burn it to the ground in a celebration of self. Smashing bottles and fighting with cops all for the sake of love. All for love.

I miss the chemical burn of alterations inhaled, injected and ingested. The willingness to self-destruct in the pursuit of honesty. Dirty bathrooms, pounding on the stall doors as we laughed and fucked like our lives depended on grasping every shining thing.  Each thrust a declaration of ownership of self, a denial of condemnation. Unknown faces we would immediately and organically bond with, sensing a similar feral-minded soul. One second connections. Sometimes these led to momentary physical and spiritual bondings, sometimes they led to years-long friendships, sometimes to relationships still ongoing.

I want to relive it, if only in my mind. Sniffing out the underground spaces, the illegal parties, slinking down back alleys to the hidden doorways. The smell of waste and the inevitable homeless person paid to keep watch for authority figures, to give warning. How the pressure would change the moment the doors were opened. Eyes would turn, not always in a pleasant way. Pushing our way through those little oceans of flesh --being a smoker came in handy then, nothing like a burning cherry in the arm to clear a path- and finding the dance floor. That most sacred of spots, where the dragons flow and weave and demons are loosed to wreak their havoc and change. The nearly-naked writhers cutting loose those ties that had bound them (or, on a good night, the fully-naked ones) or finding the ties to bind them. That space where I myself could lose my own timidity, find grace in the movement of my body, and allow my grace to be accepted. Akimbo.


There we would hold space for hours. Five....ten... daybreak.... All the while pulling in those things we needed, casting out those we didn't. Sharing our wealth with our fellow demons. Working our muscles to their limits. Pushing until we had to stop, panting and covered in sweat...collapsing in relief on the outside of the circle.

I miss the Walk of Shame the next day (though we had no shame) passing people on their way to work while the trees were still melting. I miss the feeling like I wanted to die (or, less dramatically, at least to stay hidden in the dark room for just one more day), I miss the cuddling piles on the floor of the darkened room as no one could speak and our muscles twitched and contracted (imagine involuntary twerking before twerking was a thing) and we all wondered how long it was until we could go again. Get back on the ride. When that next bag would open. Back out into that crystaline night, our eyes thankful for the relief from day.


But now...

"Now" I treasure as well, though I long for the "days of old" at times. Now we gather in small groups. Now I sit with fellow demons, and we cuddle and talk and eat and imbibe. We lounge. Good god, we lounge. Those burning days are gone for us, and we are left with embers. Embers that burn and keep warmth going, occasionally giving flame to new wood.  Perhaps that's the lesson, I don't know.

All I know is that once we shone like diamonds against the grit, and that one day we will be diamond again.

Mnemovore: The Bombs

Age: Somewhere around 10.

If you wandered through the woods surrounding our home, jumping barbed-wire fences, evading angry bulls and scrambling through cedar scrub, you would come to this strange dumping ground of large mechanical objects. Not a scrapyard, really, but just this half-acre field in the middle of nowhere, filled with not your run-of-the-mill "mechanical objects" but these strange devices that to this day I have no idea what they could be. Large rectangular things easily 5 feet wide by 3 feet deep and 8 feet tall, covered in buttons and dials. Levers and knobs. Reading devices, gauges. Lots and lots of gauges.

There were probably 10-15 of them, this weird, button-filled metal Stonehenge, and they hadn't previously been in the field --which we had trespassed through on numerous occasions-- when Jimmy and I discovered them. Actually, that's not true. I discovered them first, as this was my regular stomping ground, while Jimmy lived in town and only came out for sleepovers every few weeks, and we didn't always go this route through the woods during our explorations... so I had already found them and become excited about the possibilities of what they were before showing them to him.

Bombs, obviously. Possibly alien transport devices, but probably bombs. This made the most sense to my brain at this point in time, filled as it was with "The Day After" and "V."

I remember when I first found them. I roamed among them, touching their scorching-hot sides with my fingertips, tentative about the buttons. Who knew what the would do? Perhaps a wrong touch would send my brains scattering across the prickly pear around me, splashing them with grey matter and gore, bits of flesh hanging on their thorns, leaving my body this twitching thing, baking in the sun, pecked at by vultures.

Or -more appealing but still frightening- I could get snagged up into outer space via some teleportation device. Yes, I knew what teleportation was at that age.... I read the X-Men.

While the idea of getting whisked away to some civilization across the galaxy had a tremendous amount of draw, I came back to the bomb idea.

So it was that when I first brought Jimmy out to see them, I felt completely, 100%,  assured in myself when I told him they were bombs, and we had to let someone know about them.

Cue Goonies music. Off we go, racing back through the woods to my house, where we grab our bikes and head for the highway... to a coworker of my mothers house. I have NO idea why we decided on her, this person whose name I can't recall when I can recall so many other trivial names from that time. She was a lifeguard at the pool my mother supervised, but beyond that I recall nothing.

But she was going to figure it all out. Somehow help us save the world from.... ummmm.... big metal cabinets dumped in the woods. That could be bombs. SHE would know what to do.

About 4 miles down the highway (okay, it may have been about a half-mile) the south Texas sun is doing its mid-summer asphalt-melting finest to drain every ounce of strength from our bodies, to divert us from our task of saving humanity. Or we may just have been easily distracted. Probably the latter. Whatever the reason, we're done. It's no longer important.

We pull off to the side of the road, toss our bikes in the ditch (it was rural Texas, no one was going to steal them) and scramble over the tangled barbed-wire fence that runs alongside the road, heading on to discover our next world-saving adventure.

Or possible bombs/teleportation devices.

I Felt the Earth Move...

Day three of kooky sleep patterns... not cool. Been falling asleep easily and soundly, then waking up about 2-3am and tossing/turning for hours.... usually falling back into real sleep right around sunrise. You know, about when it's time to get up. Not sure if it's because of the crazy-bright moon, some anxiety about the house, or some residual soreness in the arms... or a combo of all three. I'm guessing the latter.

Regardless of the cause, today is going to be Self Care Day for me. Charlie's headed to Missouri for the weekend with his mom to see his uncle(s)... I think I'm going to run a load in to the scrap metal place in Murf, pick up a few comic books w/the scrap metal money (yay, getting rid of junk *and* getting comics in return!), do a bit of grocery shopping... then call it a day on anything productive. Except maybe sew a bit/get some faces ready.

But hey, look! Bulldozing is done! (I don't know why I call it "bulldozing" when it's "backhoe-ing" but whatever) Now it's all about figuring out where the pylons are going to go and digging the holes for them... and pouring the concrete into them... and building the subfloor.... and.... putting up the walls.... and... andddd. (did I mention I'm having house-building anxiety?)

I need to try and remember to share more of the items in our "benefit" Etsy shop here... I forget to do that a lot. What can I say? I'm horrible at promotion. So, on that note....

This is "Grain of Fabric" a mixed-media piece that I did over the winter. It can be found here: Grain of Fabric