143 day

I went to a masquerade gala two weeks ago with a friend who helped sponsor the event. I glued paper flowers to a mask I had and ordered a wristlet and boutonniere for my date and I. The florist asked which high school, and I clarified it wasn't for a prom though I did dance like I was at one and introduce myself by a different name. I made it to the farmers' market opening the next morning. I bought coffee, dog cookies, soap, and a bundle of mountain mint that I used to make tea after a bath after church on Sunday. I put the folk show on the radio and considered how in casting off Christian theology and politics I overlooked how much Christian culture shapes my life. I thought Gay Man and Florida Man were my main influences but while masking Friday's excess with Saturday's temperance I saw my relation to Christian the Christian. Maybe my denomination is identified not by answers to questions of the Eucharist, confession, or baptism, but by its polytheist, anti-monarchist, materialist quaint-core, which the ecumenical patriarchs can sort out. Excommunicate me, daddy.

Meanwhile the catmint and roses donned their own flowers. I lost most of the rosemary during the Christmas freeze, but some bounced back and is looking happy. I targeted native, drought tolerant herbs when I first planted, many of which wound up being members of the mint family with a reputation for spreading. Grass gets a pass in this regard so that we have something to mow. The lemon balm has been the first to travel, now pulling weeds is a citrus affair.

Last week while walking around the boro a dog I could have mistaken for Teemo's little brother slipped out his front door and sauntered up to us followed by a Laestrygonian calling out to Moose to return. The decoy treats were wrapped up tight in the cookie bag so I stood awkwardly against a bush instead of throwing them. I prayed to the old gods for a steadier hand when I packed them. I had in mind Dale Gribble and Napoleon Dynamite forgetting that the old, old gods are violent, sex-crazed alcoholics who'd send a friendly chihuahua to terrorize an entire neurotic island into laboring in their name. The rhododendrons are doing well at least and their signal was a call to arms against the ivy, which launched a sneaky return.

I flew to California for a wedding this weekend. TSA had their own hounds terrorizing the security line. We queued up to walk in pairs by the dogs because the whole ordeal wasn't depressing enough to begin with and we'd heard Little Red had been snatched on her own. Just beyond the checkpoint was an advertisement for pre-check suggesting I could pay money not to be tortured and a billboard encouraging me to grin and bear the abuse for family. If we have to spend all the time and money then we could at least refactor the experience to be more like a Double Dare physical challenge or replace the dogs with shots of tequila or morphine. Over our continental breakfast Sunday morning we talked about holding discount economy flights to the same standard as private jets, which I thought was an expectation set back when air travel was perceived as so desirable as not to require mantras to remember why we fly, when fear was still outsourced to the Red Russian scare but not yet to Islamism. Now the fear has been moved in house and we control the stream of tantrums and violence that justifies the blame that excuses social mitosis in support of isolated insular individualism. Sometimes I agree splitting up is the right thing to do. Sometimes I think the urge manifests when resistance to the grueling divisiveness of capitalism yields to the flood waters released at the bursting of the repressive denial of its heartbreaking pain.

I was hungry and bitter when I landed and my attention was focused on asphalt, chain link fences, and the spirit of Levittown haunting the neighborhoods carved into the sides of the mountains. I arrived early and walked to and through a strip mall that felt like a Scooby-Doo set, an endless background of shops apparently thriving while the Montgomery and Plymouth Meeting malls struggle to breathe. I thought a little more about a return to work and how the language of having to work more than one job to survive is difficult because of the fluid definition of what one job is. I think we could all work one small fraction of what's currently considered a job and still produce enough to support all the life that currently is plus a little extra to support what will be so that we might all be paid and insured and secure and happy simply for showing up and tending the gardens we've already planted.

I filled up on hummus and took a nap and felt less antisocial for the ceremony itself, which fully revived me. The family hosting lived in a house backed up to a vineyard, the beer was home brewed, I caught up with family I haven't seen since 2019, and I connected with the now extended family. The couple arranged a party bus to shuttle us back to the hotel, with about 15 of us on the last trip of the night. Nobody could find an AUX cord to play music, but we did listen to pulses of radio static as somebody scanned for a hit of Contemporary Hits. There was space for a pole but without a pole or music there was only space for dancing. I thought about us dancing in a circle around the bride and groom, transient membrane around a budding eukaryote, and about the ways my philosophy and politics formed a barrier across my connection to family. I wondered how much of this we might excise and conserve in a more egalitarian world, and Gay Man worried who on the bus might blame me for having willed the world to change. I accused a distant aunt's boyfriend of masking projection with blame and thought I'd fallen for the same, that the challenging part of seeing family isn't seeing them but my reflection in them.

I spent some of my recovery time scrolling through Tinder. I had run out of people to match but more have manifested. I wondered how many might be generated by a computer measuring my heart by swipes like an optometrist measuring my eyes by ones and twos. Eventually you fail to notice and fall in love with the prescription. Everyday for a week you call each other after dinner and talk for hours. You think about the future. Early one Saturday her smile is the first thing you see when you text her good morning. She replies ":)" and after ten loud heart beats continues, "The pig go. Go is to the fountain. The pig put foot. Grunt. Foot in what? ketchup." Suddenly you're at Wendy's picking up $25 worth of food with no recollection of leaving bed. Your phone dings to inform you Amazon has delivered five gallons of root beer syrup, a spiralizer, and one packet of dried bread yeast to your door. When you go to tell her what a strange day you're having she's gone and so are all your cryptocoins. Your phone rings. It's Monday already and you didn't show up for work.

I spent most of my time before traveling soaking up home. I walked with the dogs and we napped around the backyard then I went to a local bar Friday night to drink local beers and listen to a local duo sing. I haven't yet bought the new Breath of the Wild, but I did finish a play through of God of War. Last night I was playing and thought that the spiky death wheels sounded like koroks, the tatzelwurms like lizalfos, the Niflheim background theme Hylian, and that my 143 Day wish would be to let the lotus eaters stay and be happy. The flight home itself was uneventful but the parking garage exit only had five of about 25 kiosks open. I argued with the closed signs that these are self-service machines. I thought about when I moved to Pennsylvania and the first attempt to transfer my license failed. The clerk called me back later and explained that Florida shutdown their backend when their offices were closed so I still had to abide their physical working hours. The kiosk I picked wasn't working and a backlog of headlights built up behind me until some guy came out to man the station. Today we walked around Ft. Washington and washed it all down the Wissahickon.