#THAN WHATEVER THE WRITER AND ILLUSTRATOR FUCKING CAME UP WITH WITH THAT FRAMING

[gendrsoup]

finished the dbda 2018 run today and

the full panels under the cut:

[incarnateirony]

The butt slap was ad libbed according to the writer. The whole it was the bi bookend to the waitress slap was not a thing. SIGH. This stuff kind of proves how a lot of queer meta is a lot of guesswork that rarely pans out. Posters in the background that must mean a thing, suddenly don't mean that thing. Macho male posturing about triplets suddenly becomes "but who says they were women" like if queer men actually brag the same way straight men do! They don't! Triplets = women. Come on! CRINGES

I’ll take “passive aggressive ‘I’m a tired concerned fan’ masquerade” for exhibit 3, as if anything I’ve talked about was at all contingent on the ass slap, and as if I’ve been engaging at all in that corner, and as if honestly that detail was even marginally relevant beyond something to chuckle at with a smile.

Lmao even the genders of the triplets are literally irrelevant in this conversation, that’s the most hilarious fucking thing. This fandom is so wrapped up in its own hilarious and frankly, half-hysterical dialogue that they get caught in the strangest hair splitting that honestly, when you’ve never plugged into this ridiculous escalation culture? I don’t… think you realize how funny it is to watch.

How Funny-Unfunny. Laugh or you’ll cry. The fact that you even GALAXY BRAINED up this post with those arguments and really thought to bring this to my wall.

Literally guys what kind of ridiculous hetnorm culture have you been not just saturated into but trained into drawing *the most* regressive arguments and giving it platform? I recently just listed a whole assed adventure in literal queer representation history. Like, the way actual cinema history works. And it’s messy, and it’s sloppy, and half of you would flay the content, but it’s us, because people are messy.

Aside from that, whether or not you clearly haven’t watched Oz,as coffeebrainblog has pointed out, or any of the groundbreaking films that DID do the kind of bold representation work this fandom implicitly footstomps for – unless you really watch your share of documentaries – Tongues Untied, even if it’s intersectional with the black community; Learn. Your. LGBT. History. Before. Engaging.

If your entire premise ends up centrally featuring what is, essentially, alt-right viewpoints (eg not gay if the dicks don’t touch because ewww; three+somes in regards to generational closeted queer culture, or certain preformances of affection expected of characters in the show, all kinds of shit the LGBT community has talked to death and explained and featured and held LONG DIALOGUES WITH TREMENDOUS NUANCE) 

And here’s supposedly socially liberal tumblr or whatever with people explicitly going to 1. unearth these mindsets (if not actually having internalized them) 2. Delete content 3. use arguments entirely premised in like, ignorance of how many decades of LGBT discussion because someone literally chooses to elevate alt right thinking as if it’s even an argument angle to bring to the table in the year of our lord 2019.

You REALLY THINK a fucking middle aged LGBT male political rights activist who was writing polemic commentary about LGBT representation via incrementalization BEFORE SUPERNATURAL EVER EXISTED much less before he wrote on it – what, is writing this content for the alt right conservative demographic he drops Trumps America burns on at any time? Or that he has no idea how to arrange queer content, which I’m sure you have other hilariously disconnected-from-the-text-value arguments like this original anon. You know, it’s not a mix tape bro, because anyone in the actual represented character demographic would know what that is, it’s just a tape of songs Dean likes. Yes, literal argument of hilarity heard. No, absolutely not relevant to the discussions of our canon and not whatever the mythical monolithic GA this fandom dreams up yeets themselves to either.

So this shit? Yeah nah. Miss me with that fam. Watching people still trapped in hetnorm ideals and heavy internalized dialogues talk down their own content while disregarding actual lgbt media representative history and the political activist author on deck that has been open about this very same issue is some whole other form of Dumbass Circus people are choosing to perform.

Not to mention this new bizarre purity culture of representation people will only accept now that no actual rep guideline discussions ever came up with, we just want to be “represented” by people who don’t sometimes do bad things. And yes, the nature of conservative representation has also been dogged to death by Bobo, along with packaged heteronormative picture framing of gay men ala Pete Buttigieg. And no, what you think is “conservative representation” (eg, haven’t popped out in a coming out ceremony that was full central text, haven’t been illustrated in bed even if the straight couples don’t anymore, haven’t kissed even though… the straight… pairings… don’t…. ) Conservative means all these fucked up ideas framing this conversations right here and right now officer.

Well that and in the other corner the people that keep trying to bring incest into LGBT discussion. Which IS, according to representation guidelines and again, decades of internal discussion that is already WELL PAST any of the arguments someone with their Ao3 ship has come up with and spun this fandom in circles about – generally, it’s actually conservative rhetoric to try to include that in LGBT discussion too. Which is why it’s banned to begin with. It’s defamatory because it’s literally a slippery slope argument used to strip us of rights. And no, we don’t want it here, and we don’t claim it and we never will and this was settled decades ago kiddos, right alongside pedophilia and beastiality which, surprise, are all summarily forms of rape. No, “consensual incest” got put down like a fucked dog too years ago, don’t. Don’t start.

So even the fandom’s habit of trying to blend “all ships [in fanon] are equal” into “all ships are equal” in the representation field already pitched you more right-of-center than america is with the rest of the world, and then everything after that has been one downhill spiral anchored in a thousand representation activists that don’t know representation history. A lot have come around. Thankfully there’s a very low volume of y’all that haven’t started tuning in to the LGBT middle aged man you’re saying you’re here to represent. There’s poorly-trafficed failed tumblr threads and a handful of anons, and beyond that, a few people mistakenly choosing to cycle this regressive dialogue by what ultimately amounts to social pressures skewing perception. Now just waiting for everyone to catch on to how illusory those social pressures and perceptions are.

Literally ignoring decades of nuanced discussion of LGBT cinema media representation elevating voiceboxes of LGBT men, and the voice of an LGBT male author in the demographic, who was politically active before some people here knew how to read. What a bizarre “representation” discussion.

So before anyone starts talking representation in canon, why not go back and review queer canon. Yes, that big list I posted. That is literally a list of queer representation canon, long before you ever started yelling about a gay angel.

[paradisobound]

World’s Greatest First Love: Chapter 2

Summary: Dan Howell wanted a clean break from his father’s publishing company. It was why he applied for a different company in London: to stop the ridicule of his coworkers for riding on his ‘daddy’s coat tails’. But he wasn’t expecting to suddenly be going from a literature editor, to a graphic novel editor. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to come face first with his first love who broke his heart from when he was a teenager: who just happens to be his new editor-in-chief.

Based on the Anime and Manga “The World’s Greatest First Love: The Case of Ritsu Onodera” aka Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi

Rating: Mature (For Now)

Word Count: 2.7k (this chapter)

Warnings: None for this chapter

Updates Every Saturday at 1pm EST

Read on Ao3 | Read on Wattpad

The tube ride to work always feels different now that Dan has a longer travel to get there. The building is on the other side of London and while the tube ride is only 5 minutes longer, it feels like an eternity. Especially when Dan is exhausted and can barely keep his eyes open.

When the tube doors open, Dan walks out along with everyone else and he shuffles his feet on the pavement down the street until he comes to the automatic glass doors. The doors part for him and he walks inside to the greeting of the secretaries at the desk on the other side.

He goes to the elevator and pushes the button for 3 and just as he does so, a hand stops the doors from shutting and a disheveled Phil rushes onto the elevator. There is a silence between them as the elevator clicks on each floor and as they get out on the third floor, Phil finally turns to him and says, “You’re here early?”

Dan looks down at the watch on his wrist, not accounting for the time the entire morning and grimaces because he is actually really early. He should still be in bed but the boughts of exhaustion are just not being his friend right now.

“Wanted to get here to work on my manuscript,” Dan lies. He actually is here because he wanted to catch up on more graphic novel edits but he wasn’t going to admit to Phil that he was doing more work that was taking away from his actual work.

Phil just nods and Dan notices that he’s holding a thermos of coffee in his hand and he takes it up to his mouth and takes a sip. They walk to their work stations and Dan no longer takes a seat at his desk when he hears a loud groan come from Phil.

“Are you fucking serious!” He exclaims, slamming a pile of paper onto his desk. “My author still doesn’t have their manuscript done yet! I needed it three days ago. This is getting to be bullshit.”

Dan doesn’t think he’s ever heard Phil be so angry before and it catches him off guard as he listens to the string of curses that are exiting his mouth as he rifles through all of the papers on his desk until he finds whatever he is looking for.

“They’re in Victoria,” Phil says. “I have to go pay them a visit at their office.”

“Can you do that?” Dan asks, turning in his chair and facing Phil who is currently stuffing that same pack of paper into his messenger bag.

“Of course!” Phil says, “I’m their editor and I need their manuscript. I can’t wait any longer.”

Dan watches Phil pick up his coffee again, grab his messenger bag and hike it up on his shoulder, and then pull out his cell phone from his pocket and dial a number. He holds it up to his ear and than looks at Dan and says, “Come on. You’re coming with me to see how we do it here at Sapphire.”

Dan doesn’t want to go anywhere. He wants to stay at the office and get some of his work done but it doesn’t look like he’s going to get much of a choice in this say. Plus, it will be good experience for him to see what it’s like to deal with an author that keeps missing deadlines.

They walk back together to the elevator where Dan follows Phil as they head back down to the lobby. He’s speaking on the phone with someone--well, more like arguing. He’s raising his voice slightly and making his point clear and Dan hear’s him say something about noon tomorrow before the elevator doors open and Phil steps out and shuts his phone off, sliding it into his pocket.

Phil has a taxi called for them by the secretary and he pulls out the paper from his bag to give the taxi driver for directions. Before long, they’re on their way back onto the busy London streets as Phil stares down at the paperwork in his lap and Dan stares out the window wondering what he has gotten himself into.

The office is nice, when they get there. It’s clean and well taken care of and it’s nothing like the Sapphire Publishing office in anyway. This is much nicer. They meet the author at the front door and it’s clear already how in shambles she is.

She looks tired, clear bags under her eyes. It was obvious that she was struggling, but Phil was stilling reprimanding her anyway. He was telling her that she missed her deadline and and that they needed the final manuscript by 5pm that night. She looked like she was going to cry when Phil said that.

They followed her to her office space where it was here and another person sitting at desk, vigorously working on finishing the product, “Can you get it done?” Phil asks. “Your work is our next featured publication and we can’t wait any longer.”

The woman nodded her head and immediately went to work at her desk. Dan thought that this had to be the end of it. The women agreed to finish her work so they should be done and able to go back to the office.

But instead, Phil pulls up a seat at an empty desk and motions for Dan to sit across from him and he pulls out the rest of what looks like a heavily corrected unfinished manuscript...upon closer inspection, Dan realized it was this authors.

As this author finished the manuscript, and worked on it tirelessly, Phil worked on fixing what he did have to the best of his ability. Dan didn’t bring anything with him, so he sat in awkward silence as he waited for any progress to be made from either of them.

It was a half an hour later when the author looked at Phil and said, “I don’t think I can finish this by the time you want it.”

Her voice was laced with sadness and Phil’s nostrils flared a bit.

“You’re our featured author,” Phil presses. “We have no one else who can fill your spot.”

She shook her head, “I can’t realistically get this done and feel happy with it.” She says. “Not in the time frame that you’ve given me. I can’t do it.”

Phil stands up and walks over to her desk, looking over her shoulder, “How much more do you have left to do?”

“About 5 pages,” She answers.

In literature, 5 pages wouldn’t be entirely all that bad to try and finish. But for graphic novels, which are filled with illustrations and thought bubbles to progress the action, Dan can imagine how much pressure and work that actually has got to be.

“How did you let yourself get so far behind?” Phil asks, furrowing his brows. “You’ve never missed a deadline before.”

She shrugged and then said, “I lost a lot of confidence in this work when I got stuck with writers block about  a week ago. I didn’t know what direction to go with and I didn’t know what to do for a while. It held me up.”

Phil’s face softened and Dan’s heart began to race as he watched their interaction, “You could have called me,” Phil says. “That’s what I’m here for.”

She nods and Dan can see that her eyes are glossed over, brimming with tears and Dan sighs. He feels terrible, a secondary sadness and guilt that he can feel her radiating from where he’s sitting. He knows how tough it must be to be in that situation. He frankly can’t even imagine the pressure.

“Well,” Phil says, “We don’t actually need the manuscript until tomorrow at noon. I was able to get an extension from the printer.”

It suddenly hits Dan that that was who Phil was talking to on the phone earlier. He may have came off harsh to the author but he was also kind enough to call beforehand and get an extension anyway regardless.

She looked relieved and Phil flashed her a smile before he pat her back in a supportive way and then walked over to the desk and sat back down, working a bit more on the corrections in front of him.

They stayed at the office with the author for a few hours. Dan observed the entire time what was going on and what it was like and by the time that they left, the author had actually finished and given Phil the rest of the manuscript for him to correct and fix before going to the printer the next day.

They caught a taxi back to the office and by the time they walked through the door, Dan was even more exhausted than when he left. Today had been so busy and had already had so much going on that he felt like he needed a break. But yet he also had so much he had to do yet for the manuscript he was given.

He found himself sitting in the lounge, his head in his hands and his body trying so hard to relax. He had an unopened can of coke on the table in front of him and a mound of paperwork to do. He knows he should be working, but he can’t shake off what happened this morning.

Dan had heard a bit about Phil from the week that he’d been in the office so far. He knew that Phil was extremely good at what he does. He was the person who came into the Sapphire branch and brought back the editing department from the ground up. He had done it by his own ommission and his own rules and while some of the editors appeased them, they did respect him for what he was able to do.

As if right on cue, the door to the lounge opened and Phil walked in, carrying a small cup of coffee in his hand with a stirrer sticking out of the hole on the top. He walked over to the couch Dan was sitting on and took a seat beside him, handing him the coffee, “We had a busy morning so I think you deserve this.”

Dan took the coffee from him with a chuckle, “I like my coffee black.”

Phil laughed, “Well, you can deal with three packets of sugar and some cream in it today.”

Dan laughs again and takes a sip, wincing at how sweet it was but it actually tasted pretty good, helping his exhaustion feel not so bad with the warmth that flooded his veins.

“Do you have to do that often?” Dan asks. “Go to authors and get manuscripts from them.”

Phil shrugs, “It depends. Most authors are going to miss their deadlines and really, we expect it. But when the printer needs their graphic novel ready to go, it can be difficult to negotiate with them.”

“Like you did this morning?”

Phil smirks, “I’ve been here for 4 years now. The printer is practically wrapped around my finger.”

“I’m sure that comes in handy then,” Dan teases and Phil nods.

“You’ll get to that one point too eventually.”

They sit in silence and Dan sips his coffee slowly as Phil gets up and gets a coke from the vending machine. He opens the can and sips on it slowly before he turns to Dan and says, “I know you from somewhere.”

Dan furrows his brows and shake his head because Phil must be mistaken. Dan hasn’t ever seen Phil prior to being hired here.

“I’m sorry, I don’t recall knowing you?” Dan says, his voice nervous and a bit shaky.

“You really don’t remember me?” Phil asks. “I mean, I figured maybe you didn’t when you didn’t recognize me when you first were hired but...I recognize you.”

Dan shakes his head again, “I really don’t think we have met. Maybe we just passed by each other on the street and that’s where you know me from?”

Phil gets up from the couch with a shake of his head and lets out a sigh. He walks over to the door of the lounge and slowly opens it, “My name used to be Phil Peterson, but it legally got changed after my parents divorced.”

The door shut behind Phil and Dan sat on the couch, his mouth agape, jaw fallen open as he struggles to control his breathing.

No. There is no way.

Phil Peterson was Dan’s first love as a teenager. He was the one who broke Dan’s heart.

Dan suddenly wanted answers. He stood up from the couch quickly, kicking the coffee table with the toe of his shoe in the process, spilling the remnants of the coffee in his cup onto the wooden surface.

He raced out of the lounge and followed Phil to where he was putting on his coat and going to the elevator. Dan reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him, “That’s impossible! You can’t be him.”

Phil shook his head, “I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“But it’s not possible.”

“It is!” Phil argues. He lets out a loud sigh and looks at Dan. “It must have been nice for you forget about me,” He says softly. “Because I’ve never forgotten about you.”

The elevator doors open and he steps on.

Dan doesn’t have the heart to stop the doors from closing so he lets them shut with a clang and he stands there, watching the numbers on the elevator counting down to the 1.

***

Dan’s mind raced for the rest of the afternoon. He struggled to concentrate on his work and he found himself making more mistakes than actually fixing any. By 4pm, he figured he wasn’t making any progress and he threw his stuff into his bag and walked out, bidding his coworkers a good night.

On the way back to his flat, he stopped at Sainsbury’s and picks himself up a quick meal. He had no food in his flat at the moment, too busy for work to actually finish moving into his new flat.

He’s technically had the keys for it for three weeks, but he moved into it just a week ago, the same day he started his new job. Because apparently Dan has no recollection of time and how to manage it.

So now he’s stuck with a virtually empty flat with boxes thrown everywhere and a bed that consisted of a wooden frame with a cheap mattress, a thin sheet and pillow. He needs to sit down one day and get everything straightened out but he doesn’t have the mental ability to do that at the moment.

He takes the tube back and he hops out at his station and walks the short walk to his building and he walks inside with a slight drag to his step. He can’t wait to get inside and collapse on his sad excuse for a bed and sleep.

Dan takes the elevator up and as he’s getting off, he notices a familiar back to him at the flat next to his. He shakes his head because surely he’s imagining it but as he gets closer, the man turns to him and Dan groans.

“We’re neighbors,” Phil said with a smirk. “Didn’t realize that. How long have you been living here? We can travel to and from work together.”

“I’ve only been here for a week,” Dan says, fishing out his keys and pushing them into the door to unlock it.

“If you ever want to come over and have dinner or anything,” Phil says, “let me know.”

Dan just nods and opens the door and rushes inside, shutting the door behind him.

He sinks to his butt on the wooden floor and lets out an incredulous laugh because life is really testing his right now.

How are the odds that after ten years of forgetting who Phil was and what he looks like, he’s suddenly living next to him and also working under him.

There is no way fate works like this. There is no way.

[sundaywhiskey]

We’ll Always Have Sunsets

It was early 2009, and I did not want to meet my father’s new girlfriend. My parents’ divorce had finalized only a few months earlier. This new woman, I thought, was at best a rebound, at worst a homewrecker. I was twenty and angry.

We shared the same favorite Beatles song, me and the new girlfriend. “Revolution.” I learned that the night we met. She treated me, my father, my sister, and a couple of our friends to see The Fab Faux, a Beatles tribute band that sounds like the real thing. We drove there in a limo. When “Revolution” started—the clanging electric guitar, the racing drum, the background yell—she tapped my shoulder. “This one’s my favorite!” She sang along, smiling, dancing with hands and hips. Dad’s new girlfriend smiled the kind of smile that made everyone around want to smile too. I’m not sure if by that point my father had nicknamed her “Sweet Thang,” but probably. By the end of the show, I knew for certain my father’s new girlfriend—Kim was her name—was impossible to dislike.

*

I stood on the dock, bitching. “I do not do boats.”

Ignoring me, my father loaded the boat with essentials: a cooler, life vests. I went to Key Largo thinking we’d jet ski, not boat. There’s a difference: one I’d done before and decidedly disliked, and the other I hadn’t tried, so my feelings were up in the air. I worried about seasickness. The last time I’d gone boating was a year or so prior in St. Augustine. I had deep sea fished, or rather, I spent the trip curled in a ball, trying not to throw up. But this day, the bay was smooth and notably shallow—imperative differences I chose to avoid.  Kim promised I’d be fine. She talked me on board.

It turns out, I like boats.

Kim teased me for years: when I’d go tubing, when I’d kneeboard, when I learned how to drive the boat, the one afternoon I tried wakeboarding, the vacation in Hawaii I snorkeled. “I thought you didn’t do boats,” she’d say, imitating my whine. “Oh hey, Miss I-Don’t-Do-Boats.” In Canada, we sailed while the sun set—Kim’s favorite time of day. My father played guitar and we sang.

Recently Kim saw a photo of me on the same boat from that first day. My father drove, and I smiled beside him. Kim laughed looking at the photo, said Dad should have that framed and mailed to me. “Remember how Lyndsay doesn’t do boats?”

Kim didn’t know that just after that photo was taken, she was Baker Acted for threatening suicide to her daughter.

*

A month after I moved to New York in 2013, my father called on my lunch break. He worried Kim might have a problem with alcohol. After her father’s funeral, she’d drank so much, she passed out on the toilet, fell off, maybe got a concussion.

I’d drink at least that much after your funeral, I probably said. Or maybe I said, I don’t know—that sounds like a reasonable day to get drunk. Whatever I said that afternoon, sitting at a picnic table in front of a grocery store on Fulton St., too many miles from my family to be of any use, I needed to believe that no, no, Kim was not an alcoholic. Not our Kim.

In hindsight, there were signs. I’d lived with my father and Kim for the six months preceding my New York move, and in the mornings while drinking coffee, Kim sometimes poured herself a glass of vodka before retiring to her bedroom for the day. She worked from home. In the evenings,  her words slurred, her memory like mist. I’d later learn that what I had interpreted as sometimes was frequently, and what I’d interpreted as normal wasn’t.

I returned to my office. Should I confide in someone? Alcoholism wasn’t that serious, was it? I mean, I drink. And sometimes I don’t drink. Kim could do that: control her consumption. I remember thinking, or maybe the right word is hoping: There’s nothing to worry about. But what if there was?

*

Kim passed away January 4, 2017, at 6:36 p.m. from complications of alcoholism, namely cirrhosis of the liver and esophageal varices. She is survived by her husband, four children, two stepdaughters; her mother, and two brothers. Her first grandson was born 36 hours later.

*

I’m not sure which anecdote best illustrates my stepmother’s alcoholism.

Maybe the time she flew to New York for rehab, drank during the flight, forgot why she was on a flight, and tried to check-in to a hotel at which she had no reservation. She slept in the lobby. The police came.

Maybe the time she chased my father with a garden hoe.

Maybe the rumors she circulated about my father—that he was using her for money, he was cheating. She had developed Korsakoff Syndrome (a chronic memory disorder), and in the morning she’d love him but by afternoon she’d forget, rage and call him an asshole. Could he get the fuck out of her house? More than once she demanded her assistant pack my father’s clothes in garbage bags.

Maybe that she said these things and behaved this way while my father put his life on hold to help her. He called every doctor in town. He researched every rehab center. He left her cards on the nightstand—I love you, he’d write, his all-caps handwriting in permanent ink.

Maybe the Christmas she tossed half my presents in our backyard lake. She’d thrown other things in the lake, too: her wedding ring, for one. Once she threatened to drive into the lake.

Maybe the time she lost her car at a hotel. She’d forgotten she drove, took a taxi home, and the next morning she’d forgotten to which hotel she’d gone.

Maybe the time I went to her house and she told me to fucking leave, that I’m not her fucking daughter, and why don’t I tell my father to fuck off, while I was at it. A minute later she emerged on the driveway in tears. She was sorry, she would do anything for my dad’s girls. Amy and I were like daughters to her. I couldn’t stop crying.

*

That was not Kim. Kim was sick.

That was not Kim. Kim was sick.

That was not Kim.

Kim was sick.

*

My father proposed to Kim in bed. They were that way, without frills. The six of us kids took to calling them Tomberly, or sometimes Tim. Their love was that gross gooey shit I didn’t believe existed until it stood before me, arms wrapped around waists and shoulders, smiling and laughing as though the only ones in on a joke. They were happy. My god, they were so happy.

They married November 3, 2012, in an intimate ceremony in Key Largo, FL. My step brother walked his mother down the aisle; my sister and I walked our dad. Kim’s daughter was maid-of-honor, and my Pop Pop was the best man. They married before a dock during sunset. My father’s band played the reception. Kim wore a teal and coral dress.

This year she forgot their anniversary. She was hospitalized, throwing up blood.

*

Alcoholism is a disease. A disease like cancer is a disease like diabetes is a disease like HIV is a disease. Many dispute this, claim people like Kim have a choice in the matter. They’re wrong. Nobody, least of all Kim, would choose this.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Addiction defines alcoholism this way: “An addict’s life is often centered around their drug of choice, which in the case of an alcoholic is alcohol. They spend much of their time figuring out how to obtain it, drinking it, and recovering from its effects. They also do this at the expense of practically everything and everyone around them. Jobs suffer, as do relationships with friends and family members, and often alcoholics are in trouble with the law.”

Alcoholism alone explains the illegal golf cart rides down busy roads to the gas station. Why she lost custody of her youngest sons. The bruised liver, the tar stool, the blown esophagus, the near-dementia. The tubes, the heart monitor, the machines that kept her alive more days than her body would have survived on its own.

*

I last saw Kim not connected to wires and machines in a hospital bed on Christmas Day 2015. (I first saw Kim connected to wires and machines in a hospital bed on Christmas Day 2016.) She was sober and chain-smoking on the porch beneath the tiki hut. It was later in the evening, only a few stragglers from the day remained: me, my father, Kim, and this guy who turned out to be a neighbor, but whom I’d never before met. He argued politics, something about how you just have to work hard to obtain a college education, blahblahblah.

“Look,” I said. Hard work can get you only so far: because of hard work, I honed my talent for writing and obtained a career. But I qualified for said career because of a costly master’s degree, which required a cross-country move. Kim paid for my undergraduate and graduate education. She financially supported my moves to New York and Los Angeles. 

No matter how much hard work, I would not be where I am today without my stepmother’s generosity. 

Kim aww’d, pulled me into her arms. She never did these things for recognition. She’s not that way, helping people to feel better about herself. She paid my tuition because she knew I wanted to be a writer, and she knew I wanted a degree that said so, and she knew she had the means to help me accomplish that.

“That’s so sweet of you to say, little love,” she said. She smiled her Kim-smile, her cheek pressed into mine.

*

At her celebration of life Saturday, I shared many of the above stories. The one’s about Kim. Not the one’s about her disease. No person should be defined or remembered by that which ailed them.

*

The first time I said aloud “Kim is dead,” it tasted badly. It was palpable, the words a weight on my tongue.

Grief is relentless.

Addiction is relentless.

My family, we’ve had practice in grief—we lost our Kim years ago. Interventions. Rehab stints. Marchman Act’s. Doctors and psychiatrists and drugs and memory loss and yelling—my god, there was so much yelling—and legal documents and lakes.

I last heard Kim’s voice on Election Day. She sounded good, sober. I could’ve recognized her voice anywhere. She joked I should run for president. We laughed, and I remembered Revolution, and boats, and the family vacation to Steamboat Springs when like dominoes we all contracted stomach viruses, and Christmas-Day-matching-pajamas and Costco-maxi-dresses, and singing B-b-b-bennie and the Jets!, and the way the sun glowed behind her on her wedding day.