Y’all, my dad calls me all the time now to explain gay people to me and how you can go to church and be gay and have a happy life. We are through the looking glass here.

I was supposed to be working on my marketing materials for Dynamite Nashville this weekend. Well, phrasing it that way makes it sound like I didn’t work on it. I did. I just don’t have three blurbers to say nice things about me.

And I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with who would be just the right name to pull eyes to the book. And I just don’t know.

I also have been tromping all over trying to find old Benevolent Society cemeteries. I’m looking for Edmondson grave markers and a thing I’ve realized is that this is the missing component in the Venn diagram of where to find his stuff–black cemetery, dead person is someone from his neighborhood or worked in his neighborhood or worked with him at the hospital, and it’s a Benevolent Society cemetery.

This does make the Mt. Pisgah cemetery the anomaly, though, since none of his markers in there are for folks from his neighborhood. I’d like to know how he knew those folks.

Today I’m getting a fish-tank heater for the indigo vat. Who would have ever imagined a summer in Tennessee where you weren’t sitting in the high 80s all day?

Friday night, I dreamed about Rufus. There was some commotion in the back yard and I got up to shut the door to the garage so he wouldn’t get out, but he was too fast and he slipped through the door, even as I felt it shutting on him.

The play reading went great! My parents even listened in and were supportive. I was confused and suspicious, but I tried to just enjoy it.

Last night my dad told me that, even though he has a daughter who is way out in the atmosphere, he still thought women’s rights and gay rights are a distraction from the anti-racism work that needs to be done.

And, y’all, I did not give a shit.

I don’t think that’s progress or anything. I mean, I suspect I’ll be back in a deep funk at some point and the shit he says to me will hurt me.

But not today. Because I am also trying to be anti-racist. I can try to be better about all the things!

My Covid test was negative! And whatever was going on with my eye seems to have calmed down.

I wrote this thing for work and it seems to be generating a lot of good discussion.

But most importantly! The Queer Soup folks are doing a reading of my play tonight! Details are at this website. It’s a Zoom thing so you can watch and join us.

A lot is happening. I went and got tested for Covid on Friday. My parents came back through this weekend. The Butcher may be leaving Arizona.

And I finished my afghan.

I got too far in my own head to remember to show you all what I’ve been working on.

Here’s the scrap afghan I just finished:

And here’s the afghan I’m trying to finish now:

I lived through my parents’ visit. My therapist said I should not try to think like someone I don’t want to be like.

Well, there goes that pastime.

I’m still working on collecting enough urine for my indigo vat. But I have many deep feelings about the idea of creating the thing that will dye the wool, like using my body as the medium for dye delivery.

There’s a kind of physicality that I find really satisfying.

I was looking for the source for my belief that sleeping under an indigo blanket grants you prophetic dreams, but the main source for that on the internet now is Tiny Cat Pants.

But when you get what’s involved with dying something indigo–at least traditionally–every step does feel like magic. You make this liquid that, as it ferments, is perfect for indigo dying. You spin the fiber you’re going to dye. You do the dyeing. Then you sleep under the blanket.

It feels like a circle, like you put out all this stuff that results in a blanket that, when you wear it, dumps stuff back into you.

Also, the occasions when I feel like this body is perfectly suited to do the things I want to do with it are very rare. I don’t need to improve anything or alter anything or suffer in any way.

It just does the thing I want it to do.

It’s weird. Nice, but weird.

I got the phone call yesterday that Rufus was ready to come home. I went and got him and he came in this flowery box. Which is still sitting in my car, along with his leash, because I both can’t bear to not have him near and can’t bear the thought of bringing him in the house.

I don’t really see how I can bury him in a box that pretty. But, at least, I don’t have to make that decision yet. There’s no timetable.

I’m making a sig vat in my garage, which, basically, amounts to filling a bucket with pee and hoping it ferments. It smells remarkably bad, which is saying something, since it’s fermenting pee. I expected it to smell bad.

This is worse.

My dad sent me a dollar for my birthday. In a card. He asked me to open it on FaceTime so he could see my face. He was disappointed that I wasn’t more disappointed.

I don’t even know what to say about it, really. Like, apparently they’re also going to pay for me to get a new kitchen floor, though I’m going to ask them to help me pay for this air conditioner repair that I have to get done instead.

So, they’re not being dicks? They’re just pretending real hard to be dicks in a way that lets them enjoy hurting me, but they get to feel cool about it because they know they’re also doing this other thing?

Yesterday they called to say that they would be in town at the end of the week. I was worried about what folks would think of a vat of fermenting piss in my garage, but now?

Now I don’t really give a shit. I hope they think I have lost my mind.

I feel okay. Sad but okay. I’ve been working on a new afghan. I’ve been busy at work.

Friday’s my birthday. It’s become a source of annoyance. My parents asked me what I wanted and I told them I thought they weren’t doing birthdays anymore, since they didn’t get me anything last year.

Which, I mean, they didn’t. And I don’t mind. Well, that’s not quite right. I don’t need anything, but it did and does hurt my feelings when they call to tell me all the ways they’re helping my brothers and yet I don’t even get a birthday present.

But also, whatever. I’ve accepted that as long as they think I’m fine, they don’t think much about me.

But now it’s turned into this whole big to-do where they insist they did too get me a birthday present last year. And finally, I was like, folks, check your bank records.

So, last night they called to say that they had, indeed, apparently forgotten my birthday last year, but it’s because they were so busy with the Butcher and helping him get out to Arizona.

And, honestly, the conversations about this have been much more painful than them just forgetting.

Because, of course, I was wrong, then when I wasn’t wrong, well, it was understandable, because some other person needed their attention more.

And no apology.

Though, clearly, from all the phone calls, they do feel bad. But instead of just saying they’re sorry, their coping mechanism appears to be to try to make me feel bad instead.

But whatever. I don’t have the bandwidth to feel bad. I just worked on my granny squares and “uh-huh”ed them until the conversation was over.

I think Saturday was the hardest. Usually, we did something just for fun on Saturdays. Went for a long walk or a drive or to the park or something.

And this Saturday, I finished an afghan and was sad all day.

Yesterday I went for a walk and now my house and walking pants are full of ticks. Serves me right, I guess, for going outside.

I have been hatewatching abstract artists on YouTube. I was hoping they could help me with color theory, but really, just getting into Adobe Color has helped with that.

There are two things I dislike about these artists–the reason I hatewatch. One is that I want them to explain how and why they decide to keep going. Because I have watched a lot of videos where the artist had a really nice painting and decided it needed more layers. And then had an ugly painting.

And, like, sure, maybe we’re having an aesthetic disagreement on what is lovely or when something is finished, but since they don’t (or can’t) articulate why they’re keeping on keeping on, it’s hard to say.

Yesterday, I saw a woman painting on these two olive green abstract pieces. They were ugly. Like so ugly you couldn’t look away. But she was talking through her process of deciding when and how to add more green (no!!!!!) and as much as I didn’t like the paintings, I think I got what she liked about them, what was pleasing her. And at that point, I wasn’t hatewatching anymore. I was just watching the interesting process of a person making some painting I didn’t like. I still don’t get why she liked them, but I trusted that she did and that they were doing for her exactly what she wanted them to do.

So, that was nice.

But the other thing I dislike about these abstract paintings is that a lot of these artists seem to think that “abstract” and “unintentional” mean the same thing. Like, if your painting starts to mean anything, then you’ve failed.

And I think you should have reasons for what you do. And with something like abstract painting, I don’t need for you to be trying to capture, say, the essence of a soul in distress. But “I’m doing this because it’s fun.” or “because I like it.” is good enough for me.

But, like, you must have some reason for doing the thing. And it irritates me to watch so many videos where art seems to happen solely by accident, without any reason from the artist.

I just feel adrift without the dog. It’s so quiet in the house. Walking without a dog sucks and is stupid.

I don’t know. I feel like I should have more to say, but I just don’t. It’s ludicrous that he’s dead. It’s just an affront to me.

Right up until the end, he was happy, leaning his head out the car window on the way up to the vet. Barking at the baby goats in the parking lot. He even jumped when he heard we were going for a car ride.

At the vet, he managed to snag himself some cat treats and then they fed him a chocolate cupcake. It was as wonderful as he had suspected.

And then we killed him. He went very peacefully.

I went and sat on a friend’s couch and got drunk and cried and then he brought me home because he was afraid if he went to bed, I would get up in the middle of the night and try to drive home. Sounds like something dumb I would do.

The house is so empty it’s hard to bear.

He was a wonderful dog.

The dog is dying. I want to say more than that, but I also don’t have it in me.

The vet cried when she told me. I have all this medicine he’s supposed to take, but he doesn’t want to eat. I’m getting as much down him as I can and hoping the steroids will increase his appetite.

They think it’s lymphoma. We’ll know when we get the tests back.

I guess they think he has at least a month, because they gave me a month’s worth of pills.

But it’s been so sudden and so devastating. The difference between him this Friday and last Friday is… it’s just so much. All of a sudden, like overnight, he’s frail and old.

My Looby talk went great. Even over Zoom. I felt super interesting and like I had things people wanted to hear to say. It’s really gratifying and I’m maybe feeling a little hope that the book might make a difference.

Ha ha ha. We’ll see how long my optimism can be sustained.

I’m reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo for work. It’s not great. I was telling the Professor that 75% of it is fine, if sometimes a little too simple, 20% of it reads as if the author didn’t read the book–like claiming that white people don’t think about whiteness and then saying that she knew from the time she was very little that it was better to be white.

The last 5% is just wrong. Like, deeply, wrong. Even in the wake of us electing a white supremacist to the Presidency, she still downplays the importance of white nationalism in understanding white people’s racism.

It’s really something to be reading a book about how the biggest racial problem we face is white people’s inability to acknowledge their whiteness when white people are showing up with guns at statehouses. Like, maybe rethink your thesis?

But also, it super annoys me how many of her anecdotes are about her shitty friends and their racist ways or her shitty colleagues and their racist ways and yet, unless it’s in some part of the book I haven’t gotten to yet, there’s nothing about how she confronts her asshole colleagues or how she drops her shitty racist friends.

She’s a diversity trainer–that’s her job–and an anti-racist activist and she wrote this book that’s being used by workplaces around the nation to foster discussions of racism–including mine. AND SHE CAN’T DO THE NECESSARY WORK.

And if she can’t do it, and this is her job and passion, isn’t that a problem for the teaching of her book?

Also, she takes white people’s thoughts about racism at face value and I just don’t understand how anyone in this culture who pays attention doesn’t realize white people lie about race all the time–even if only to ourselves.

I’m just irritated. So many people of color have written so many books about whiteness and its problems. We couldn’t throw a little book money their way instead?

I said I was back, but now I realize I don’t really have anything to say. The dog is so slow and the pain medication I got for him that worked great I’m out of and the online pharmacy is backed up.

I fought with everyone yesterday and mostly felt like I lost.

Tomorrow morning I’m giving a Zoom presentation about the Looby bombing. I feel both super prepared and not prepared at all.

I know we’ll all miss me writing in some strange accent, but my new computer is here and the caps lock appears to work like normal.

I THINK my game has bEEN chanGED. wOW. sO, i SOAKED IT IN abOUT A QUart of vinEGAR TOPPED OFF WITH WATER, Becuase I knEW IT WOULDN’t get very hot. Then i TOOK IT OUTSIDE ANd painTED ANd squirted anD SPRINkled dye on IT. tHEN I covered it with anOTHER Black garbAGE Bag anD LET IT SIT IN the suN all afternOON.

I love it. I can’T Believe how good it turnED OUT. eVEN the bACK IS AMAZINg.

i wonDER IF i COULD USE GUAR GUM TO THIcken THE DYE JUST A LITTLE TO GET SHARPER LINes or discernABle drops?

I also wonDER WHERE i can PICK UP A cheap stock pot, a deep onE, Because i WOULD LOVE TO TRY DIP-dyeinG AN afghan.

tHE nashville ScenE IS RUNNInG an EXceRPT FRoM The BOOk! Please check it out anD TELL ME i DON’t sound TOO MUCH LIKE A DOOFUS.

i WANted to see if a bLACK GARBage bAG WOULD BE ENOUgH HEAT TO SET DYE. aNd it is! I mean, thERE’S ALSO A TON of acid in THAT SQUARE. iT HAD A LONg bATH IN vinEGAR. but MY IDEA WORKS. now I just nEEd to GET the afghan CROCHETED ANd ready for a good warm day.

Also, my nEW COMPUTER IS ORDEReD. tHIS WILL ENd.

My poet frienD, C (OKAY, LISTEN, my computer is dyinG ANd the death spasm it’s IN right noW IS TO RANdomly capitalize words like I’m writinG SOME WEIRD RANsom noTE, LIKE THE CAPS LOCK IS possessed. Please just roll with it.).

Where were we?

Right. My poet frienD, C, HAS AN artist sister in tEXAS ANd she takes her canVASSES OUTSIDE ANd painTS THEM OUT THERE. i GUess SHe Stretches anD MOUnTS THEM LaTER? i DON’t knoW. but watchinG HER WORK MADE ME WANt to try somethinG LIKE THAT WITH AN afghan.

lIKE, MAKE THE AFGHAN as the canVAS ANd take it ouTSIDE ANd dye it in SOME ABstract way onCE IT WAS A WHOLE THINg.

So, i’m makinG SOME YARN to serve as an INterestinG Backdrop for this abSTRACT DyeinG PROJECT.

i’M ALSO ORDERINg a nEW COMPUter today. I hate to spenD THE MONey, bUT LOOK AT THIS.

The Butcher lost his job.

What is there to say? I feel helpless and angry and afraid. The idea of this tiny family full of people I love not having health insurance in the middle of all this makes me want to vomit.

Before all this, they had found some old Nazi here in the U.S. and shipped him back to Germany and a friend of mine was mulling over whether it does any good at this late date to be prosecuting old men for things they did as young men.

And, in the time before, that seemed like a reasonable existential question. Something you might mull over. Can a person change? Is it justice if it comes at the end of a bad person’s life? Etc. Etc.

Now?

The feeling I have toward the people who are doing this to us has clarified things for me. I want them to never rest entirely easy, to always fear that, no matter how they try to make themselves safe, someday they may have to answer for what they’ve done.

And I will cheer loudly, every time they pull a 90 year old Nazi out of whatever life he’s been hiding in.

Because fuck those people.

What is there to say? Republicans make choices that cost us our best people. Grandmas and cousins and the guy down the block who always said “Hey,” and John Fucking Prine.

The deaths in New York are a blood red thorn on the front of the New York Times.

And people are still claiming its nothing or that its almost over. Get back to work.

I’m still here! I’ve just been doing other things. Like this:

I love how this turned out so much. It’s called “Jazz Bird.”

I also dyed some fiber with highlighters.

It spun up pretty cool.

I tried to make some masks, but it basically just resulted in me getting hugely pissed at my sewing machine and ruining a lot of fabric.

The dog and I took long walks.

I keep trying to remember that the world is always ending and always beginning anew.

Under normal circumstances, I would be pissed about the amount of applique I’m ending up doing. But in these times, it feels more like creative problem-solving than tedious sewing.

I spent time this weekend looking at friends’ faces. That boosted my spirits a lot and I need to remember that when things get rough.

The weather is gorgeous. I’m trying to decide if I should work on the porch this morning. I probably will.

My therapist wonders if this crisis is showing me that I would like some companionship. I laughed at that, because it would be just like me to decide now, during an apocalypse, is the time for love.