Work went a little better today, but it's a difficult day.

I spent too much time awake last night (no matter what the Garmin thinks) so the afternoon wall came early and hard.

Today, 75 years ago, at 9am Tokyo time, the Japanese government and military signed the articles of surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri. Marking the end of the most deadly war in the history of the world. Lost lives are estimated to be at least 91,000,000 from all causes, military and civilian. This represents 3-3.7% of the world's population in 1939.

There's a lump in the carpet in the hallway, no bigger than a quarter, that I only find wtih my bare foot once in a strange while. It's an, "A-ha, I remember you," moment that plays in the back of my mind until I reach my destination. I wonder if there's a name for that kind of thing.

Today was fine. I was brittle and awful. Then I was not. 

Then I made a very delicious cornbread for dinner.

I'm struggling with myself over a few things. And I have a few important personal administrative tasks to do this week.

It's Andy's birthday this week. He's been dead (how odd the present perfect continuous tense) for nine months now. Long enough to be born. We had only a few short weeks to grieve together and then it's been this liminal state of living. I guess that's fitting, but it fucks with the process of grief.

Had an in-person conversation today with a friend I've not seen since the funeral. He stopped by to pick up a thing, stood on the sidewalk in front of the house; I stood back on my porch. I forgot to grab a mask on my way out.

I still feel like an asshole.

Here's a heartwarming short story that a friend made, recently. It's less than 4 minutes long. 

The Kindly Nettle 

There are barely two months left before the American election is stolen. The only way for the people to keep the republic from descending into fascism is a mass general strike. And don't bloody wait. Do it now. There's no more time to sit on the sidelines. You have to do it, and hold it, until they crack, and impeach the fucker before the election. Not after.

Fred Hampton "radicalized" me (as much as one can look at me, my life, my beliefs and my actions and consider me "radical")

(which is to say, "not at all") 

My family has been in the City of Chicago since before the Fire. And in my early 30s, I spent a lot of time at Harold Washington Library and the Newberry Library and the Cultural Center, looking at exhibits, listening to lectures, watching documentaries.

Of course, you learn the bare bones. The condensed, tourism-friendly, chamber of commerce endorsed versions. You hear the majority agenda assessment. And usually there is one voice, urging you to consider the deeper story, the more important aspects of the man's life or beliefs.

But from there, I learned about tbe radical mutual aid movements. I learned who the Black Panthers really were and the respect they deserved. I engaged with the story of the MOVE bombing. I had read the Autobiography of Malcolm X more than a decade before, but Fred Hampton's Chicago brought me to a better curiosity about the true progressives--black men and women, Latine men and women, queer and trans men and women--in America. 

I'm a middle-aged white lady. I vote for the most progressive person offered me. In the primaries, I donate to and work for the most progressive option. Then I make my regular phone calls and mail my regular letters to my vaguely conscientious and barely moderately liberal legislators and govermors, telling them I want more. I show up when I can and shout the response to the call.

I know the radical ideas are the ones we need, are the ones that might actually save us. I struggle with whether I have any power to make those ideas catch hold. I don't believe that I do. 

Spouse always wants to go walk for miles along the Lake in the middle of the day when it's hot and crowded. And he always remarks that I seem like I don't want to be there. And I don't. It's hot. And it's crawling with strangers who, for all I know, are eating in restaurants, going to bars, using the gym and recreational shopping in stores. I don't want to be near anyone like that.

Not even in the park.

This makes me think it will be years before I'm really comfortable around strangers at all. And possibly never before I can do crowds again, but I was headed there anyway.

I saw recently a CityLab (I think) blurb, showing how some strategic grocery stores and small commercial could make suburbs actually liveable. I can't leave the city because I do not ever ever ever want to have to drive somewhere if I need milk for my coffee or want to grab a few things at the drugstore. Plunk a grocery down at the top of every cul de sac and a book store or hair salon and I might consider it.

That's the other thing I am increasingly less comfortable with now that I never do it: drive. I drove a 12 mile round trip to buy my sewing machine just before Christmas. And I drove an 8 mile round trip to my office in April. 

During bad times, you think of better times.

music: Led Zeppelin - "Ten Years Gone"

mood: Chicken Lounge waitress/bartender, circa 1996