Tricksy Hobbitses

As much as I want to be an elf in Lord of the Rings, I have definitely not seen a chubby and short little elf cast and I’m definitely more the energy of a hobbit.

Anyways, look at some of our potato harvest. Gotta go make potato and corn chowder for dinner and will definitely have leftovers for elevenses tomorrow.

Edit: here’s the delicious soup I made (in my new to me thrifted mug) using the potatoes as well as leftover roasted yellow squash from our garden and sweet corn I picked today.

And a gratuitous corn shot. 🙃

Baffling

I’ve lived a relatively sheltered life when it comes to my interactions with cis-het men. While I know that the majority of them are walking conglomerations of red flags and unchecked toxicity, it’s still so shocking whenever I hear the shit that comes out of their mouths.

You see, very early on in life, I fell in love with a boy. He never did any posturing and didn’t have to “announce” to the world just how “good of a man” he was. I watched as he held a deep reverence for woman. This, at the time, 14 year old me saw this boy riding his bike, with a sticker on his helmet that read, “Girls kick ass!” And in the early 2000s, when we were being taught that women were mere playthings and the only importance they held was their physicality for cis-het men to ogle, seeing that sticker felt like a sigh of relief.

That beautiful boy with a deep respect for women grew into a gorgeous man who’s unwavering care and respect for women has just remained constant. And I’ve spent the last 20+ years in a various state of relationship with him and him viewing me as I am a goddess incarnate. Meeting him while going through the toughest time of my life and him just gently taking my hand and walking that journey with me.

So, I am really näive when it comes to navigating the world of the typical cis-het man. And as much and it’s not shocking when I hear misogynistic rhetoric and the emotionally constipated views of those men outside of my little bubble, it still somehow is, because it’s so easy and natural for Joey to be a genuinely amazing example of how cis-het men should be that I don’t understand why so many struggle to be better humans. He also is always baffled by the shit cis-het men feel comfortable saying to him and thoroughly disgusted.

The irony of a cis-het man wanting to have sex with women but are absolutely disgusted by being associated with any perceived “feminine” traits or habits is, I just, it’s absolutely inconceivable. How does someone justify attraction to someone if it’s based purely in a physical realm?

Women are fucking gorgeous. But if your attraction to them stops at the whims of a fluctuating physical appearance, if you don’t always find them to be the prettiest demon you’ve ever seen because of a finicky thing like the physical, then do you actually truly love women? If you make decisions for your life based on not wanting to be seen as “feminine” in any way, do you actually respect women? Or do you just want a place to stick your dick?

It’s interesting to me, how many cis-het men will put women down and treat them less than when they are vulnerable with them. Acting as if it’s weak to share emotions, to feel and work through them, but will shut down and ghost you when the communication gets “too real,” as if that isn’t some bitch baby behavior. I cannot imagine being an adult that can’t have raw and honest conversations, who is still just “looking for a good time” to avoid those moments and conversations, treating those that don’t avoid them as “emotionally unstable.”

Those that have to announce how good of a person they are and that they respect people are rarely the ones that actually do. Words are nice but entirely meaningless when your actions go squarely against what you are saying.

I was really scared on Wednesday. My body was doing and feeling ways it had never felt before. I felt intense chest pain between my breasts and it radiated below them. When I started trying to make lunch for my son and I, it got so much worse and I started having trouble breathing. I told Joey and he is normally the calm one that is reassuring that I am okay. He was instantly concerned and dropped what he was doing and immediately came home from work to rush to me the hospital. I was terrified I was going to die on the way to the hospital and leave Joey with a heartbreakingly heavy dose of trauma. And during that time of not knowing what was happening to my body I didn’t feel one single regret. I didn’t look back on my choices and think I needed to make changes to my life. I didn’t look around and think I needed to let those who have hurt me back in. I am not afraid of death. I don’t know what happens after this but I don’t need to. But even not being afraid of death, which was an odd revelation to have when I didn’t know if I was in it considering the amount of anxiety I have lived with most my life, I still DEEPLY do not want to die. I want to be here and spend many many many more decades, a century even, kissing Joey and holding his hand. I want so many more moments of laughing with my kids and watching them grow more and more into their amazing selves. I want to continue to try to connect with those around me, in spite of the immense pain it has also brought. I want to snuggle kitties forever.

Death is scary to me, not because of the unknown, but because I know just how immense the pain that the death of your loved ones causes to those left. I wish I didn’t know that hurt so well. And they didn’t find anything physically wrong with my heart, they even said my EKG was beautiful even, but my heart knows heartbreak and heartache more than it can bear some days.

So that, that would be the reason I am afraid of death.

Please, please let the people around you know if you care. I know people reaching out and making an effort would do wonders for my weary soul.

Today I was really fucking tired and still feeling in a haze. My eye sight still feels weaker than usual but overall I’m feeling okay. I took it slow. Made some chocolate chip muffins because something warm sounded really comforting today. I went to the garden to check on it, especially this weird mystery squash that we assumed was a summer squash when it first started growing, but it suddenly, in just a couple days, turned into this bulbous pumpkin-like hybrid.

But before I could get much further I found this little guy struggling on the ground. He, very willingly, crawled up into my hand out of the wind and cold grass and has continued to spend the rest of the day with me.

I’m not sure if it’s the cold and/or the wind that he was struggling with, or if he is perhaps at the end of his life, but I think he knew immediately he was safe with me. I gave him some clementine to eat and offered access to a variety of flowers. He was too weak to really hang onto them though, especially in the wind and he always crawled back to me.

He rode in my hair in the car to go pick Penelope up from school.

He continued to hang out in my hair while I played a bit of video games tonight. Sat in the bathroom window while I showered and climbed on the window screen a bit but fell off from being too weak. And after my shower I took him back out and got him to eat some nectar from some phlox. He is spending the night in a box with a bouquet of phlox and some clementine. I’m not sure he’ll make it through the night but I sure hope he knows he’s cared for.

And I hope you are cared for as well.

Loki

You ever wonder what it’s like to be in relationship with the trickster god Loki? Be married to Joey. I love him dearly but goddamn if he doesn’t raise my anxiety levels often with his antics, like watching a family of bears in the yard tonight while NOT walking backwards back towards the house until I told him multiple times on the phone to do so.

God I love him but god he is sometimes very much a white person in his, “I could pet it” attitude.

I need a nap. Maybe a spa day.