#algeo

[cavenewstimes]

Bill Algeo tells Billy Quarantillo to 'shut the f*ck up': 'We'll fight at some point'

October 9, 2023 7:40 pm ET LAS VEGAS– Costs Algeo sees a battle with Billy Quarantillo taking place, however on his terms. Algeo (18-7 MMA, 5-3 UFC) called out Quarantillo among other names after beating Alexander Hernandez (14-7 MMA, 6-6 UFC) in this previous Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 229 primary card opener at the UFC Apex. Quarantillo (18-5 MMA, 6-3 UFC) was fast to reactrecommending…

[morrasydesign]

by Simon Algeo

[theanticool]

Trying to make this a more consistent thing so here is me talking about my 10 most anticipated fights of the week (7/19/2024-7/21/2024). No particular order.

Chantelle Cameron vs Elhem Mekhaled - Less about it being a competitive match up and more about liking both fighters. I feel a bit for Chantelle Cameron. Beat the P4P best boxer in the sport in her own backyard. Took a rematch for big money and basically got jobbed by the referee (and herself). For Mekhaled, she jumps up two weight classes after the loss to Baumgardner. She's won two since and is now fighting for the interim super lightweight championship. Mekhaled is a fun fighter and I can't imagine she doesn't turn this into a firefight.

Junto Nakatani vs Vincent Astrolabio - Junto Nakatani is now a P4P fighter in the sport. And rightfully so. Fantastic talent. Fun style and one of the more skilled finishers below the featherweight division. Vincent Astrolabio isn't a straight walkover, he fought Jason Moloney to a tight decision, but with some of the talent at the top end of bantamweight atm (and them all being in Japan) you'd hope Nakatani was getting those fights. I believe this is a mandatory though, so what can you do but hope for a good fight. If Nakatani really wants to fight Inoue, the fight he should be chasing is against Takuma Inoue.

Kosei Tanaka vs Jonathan Rodriguez - One of the big fights on the undercard of that Nakatani card. Kosei Tanaka was a hot shot super flyweight prospect that got turned away by grizzled vet and champion Kazuto Ioka. Tanaka has won 5 straight since the loss, capturing the WBO super flyweight title in the process. He is now set to face off with Jonathan Rodriguez, a Mexican boxer that failed to win a world title a while back. Tanaka is a fun fighter and Mexico vs Japan fights tend to be absolute head. Looking forward to it.

Tenshin Nasukawa vs Jonathan Rodriguez - A different Jonathan Rodriguez btw. P4P kickboxing great Tenshin Nasukawa continues on his quick ascent up the rankings in boxing. While Jonathan Rodriguez is coming off a loss to Antonio Vargas, he also had knocked out Khalid Yafai in his previous fight in the 1st round. He's not an easy fight for anyone to have in their 4th professional boxing match. Will be interesting to see how Tenshin manages.

Losene Keita vs Predrag Bogdanović - OKTAGON 59 - Losene Keita is possibly the most interesting prospect in Oktagon MMA atm. Fighting out of Belgium, he's got all the physical tools to be a real killer at featherweight. But he's competing up at lightweight for this big Oktagon LW tournament. He did not look great in his previous fight, getting badly hurt by Sardari in the process. So he'll be looking to reaffirm himself. I haven't seen a anything from Predrag Bogdanović outside of his loss to Will Brooks, but he's apparently a strong grappler. Should be interesting.

Doo Ho Choi vs Bill Algeo - UFC on ESPN 60 - This fight will be good for exactly 4 minutes. Either one of them, probably Choi, scores a KO in that time or Algeo will beat the hell out of Choi as he fades and stops him in the 2nd or 3rd. Choi just isn't a very durable fighter, despite his athletic gifts and I don't trust those gifts to still be there at this point. But it does have me invested. So it's on the list.

Amanda Lemos vs Virna Jandiroba - UFC on ESPN 60 - Of the fights on the list, this is the one I could see sucking. Lemos is a strong fighter but not a strong anti-wrestler. Jandiroba is a small grappler who's extremely skilled on the mat but can be scared off wrestling. Could end up being a tepid kickboxing match or a boring, one sided grappling match.

Petchpanomrung Kiatmoo9 vs Kento Haraguchi 3 - Glory 93 - 2023 was a rough year for Petchpanomrung. He went 2-2. He defended his Glory featherweight title twice but lost his two bouts up at lightweight. First he got stopped by Tyjani Beztati. Then he lost a 5 rounder in December to Chad Collins for the RISE title. So now he's defending that Glory featherweight title again. And against a guy he's 2-0 against - Kento Haraguchi. Kento has won 4 straight since losing to Petchpanomrung in 2022, including 3 stoppage wins.

Tyjani Beztati vs Endy Semeleer - Glory 93 - Endy Semeleer is no longer Glory welterweight champion. His reign cut short by a TKO stoppage where Chico Kwasi dropped him 3 times. Tyjani Beztati is also no longer Glory Lightweight champion. But because Glory decided they no longer wanted the division and cut it loose. So now Beztati is moving up to welterweight, possibly in anticipation of a yet to be announced upcoming Glory Welterweight Grand Prix. A very good fighter. Two former champions squaring off, with a possible shot at the welterweight title on the line.

I was really tempted to pick a random fight off the KSW card or Oktagon card but it felt inauthentic. Just did not have a 10th fight that felt super noteworthy. Maybe Jeong Yeong Lee vs Hyder Amil. So imagine an amazing fight that is happening this weekend and put it here. Maybe the start of the Olympics. Go watch some amateur wrestling or boxing or judo. I'm sure there's some great Muay Thai that I'm missing. IDK. Let me know.

[osphilia-co]

Caroline by Simon Algeo

[imagine-darksiders]

Hi! I've been a reader of your work for a while but I haven't mustered up the courage to send anything till now. I've been suffering from chronic pain for months now, and your work (namely Algeo and CHWH) is a huge comfort to me. What I love is how you strike a perfect balance between the bleak nature of the apocalypse and the humanistic nature of, well, humans. And without your writing, I wouldn't have gotten into Darksiders in the first place, so another thing to thank you for! I hope you keep writing for as long as it makes you happy, and I hope it makes you happy for a long time. ^^!

I'm so sorry to hear you've been suffering :( But I'm pleased my works could help in any small way. Thank you for letting me know your thoughts, I really do appreciate it <3

[1hoverman0k]

my algeo getting symbiotic as fuck lately

[allaboutjoseph]

Lord of Divine Mercy Parish, Mandaluyong

Photos from Algeo Pedigan - Facebook. 

[dankusner]

One of America's First Spectator Sports Was Professional Walking

Just like today's fitness influencers, the celebrities of pedestrianism used their platforms to monetize, popularize and diversify walking.

Edward Payson Weston attempted to walk 500 miles in six days. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper/Public domain

Walking needs no publicist.

The simplest, most accessible form of exercise has been around since humans first foraged and traveled on the ground.

But today, walking seems to have entered its influencer era.

It’s been the subject of countless viral videos, of people doing it silently, collectively, for their mental health, for their physical health, for “hot girl” reasons and, yes, even for their gastrointestinal needs.

There’s something more to these micro-trends, though, than fitness personalities looking to make a quick buck off of brand-name water bottles or $30 socks.

A new wave of fitness personalities—many of them women of color, of a variety of body types—seem to be reaching an audience who, due to numerous factors from safety to layers of systemic discrimination, have historically shied away from the leisure activity.

This is exemplified by the explosion of walking groups in the United States in recent years, with headline after headline chronicling the rise of these meet-ups across the country, which has encouraged hundreds of strangers to come together each week to exercise.

This isn’t the first time a diverse group of influencers has widened the scope for walking.

In the 1870s and 1880s, an unlikely assemblage of Americans became some of the nation’s earliest celebrities with the rise of the pedestrianism movement.

These professional walkers traversed hundreds of miles, around tracks and across state lines, to compete in one of the nation’s first spectator sports.

Though the craze was short-lived, it left behind a legacy that challenges the stereotypical face of fitness to this day.

American pedestrianism began with a fateful bet:

In 1860, the door-to-door bookseller Edward Payson Weston wagered a friend that Abraham Lincoln would lose the upcoming presidential election.

Were Lincoln to win, Weston declared, he would walk the 478 miles from his home in Boston to Washington, D.C. for the inauguration—and he would do so in under ten days.

After Lincoln won, Weston set out to make good on his promise, publicizing his itinerary in local papers along the Eastern Seaboard.

People waited for hours in the cold to watch him pass through their towns.

A run-in with a debt collector left Weston 4 hours and 12 minutes short of his goal;

Lincoln, who was following his progress along with the rest of the country, was still so impressed by the feat that he offered to pay the latecomer’s fare home.

(The press-savvy Weston demurred, seemingly knowing that the refusal would only earn him more coverage.)

Following the Civil War, Weston took his walking show on the road.

Thousands of spectators lined up to buy tickets and place bets on whether he could beat the clock. In a divided country, his walks were a unifying event.

“He’s so apolitical, and I think that helped his popularity,” Matthew Algeo, the author of Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport, told me in an interview.

“He could go anywhere and walk, and people wouldn’t object to it.”

Walking was not a popular form of exercise in the U.S. when Weston began staging his exhibitions, but he and the competitors who rose up to challenge him spread “pedestrian fever” among the public.

“A Plea for Pedestrianism,” published in the New York Times in 1878, was a typical literary endorsement of leisure walking.

The op-ed supplied readers with a sample walk they could take around Staten Island, recommended attire (“easy, yet stout laced boots with broad soles and low heels”), what to eat (“a sandwich and some hard-boiled eggs in your pockets”), and how to prepare (“Those who are not accustomed to much walking ought to practice it moderately during a week before marching a whole day in the country”).

Celebrity, long reserved for royals and political figures, was expanding—allowing pedestrians, or “peds,” to gain real influence as some of the country’s first mass-market stars.

They used their platform to promote not just the sport, but also everything from shoe brands to trading cards.

They even were the first to sell advertising space on their competition outfits.

One of the reasons pedestrianism resonated with so many, Algeo suggested, is that these athletes took an activity that was relatable—an “expression of the everyday”—and pushed it to the extreme.

The result, he said, struck people as “personal,” “genuine” and “real.”

Professional walkers reflected an array of Americans, too.

Because these walking matches were largely unregulated, there were no clear rules excluding certain groups from competition.

One of Weston’s greatest rivals was Daniel O’Leary, an Irish immigrant who became “Champion Pedestrian of the World” in 1875 after defeating Weston in a six-day race.

O’Leary took multiple athletes under his wing, including Frank Hart (born Fred Hichborn), a Haitian immigrant.

Hart became one of the sport’s great stars and winner of the second-ever O’Leary Belt in 1880, where he earned more than $21,000 total, the equivalent of two-thirds of a million in today’s dollars.

Women “pedestriennes” also made a significant impact on the sport.

At a time when conventional science held that strenuous athletic activity did lasting harm to female bodies, wiping them of their “vital energies” and their ability to reproduce, athletes like the Englishwoman Ada Anderson rose up as powerful counterexamples, showing what sportswomen were capable of.

“It is good for women to see how much a woman can endure,” Anderson told the New York Sun in 1878.

But there was a dark side to women’s pedestrianism.

The sport was largely promoted and organized by men (including one of P.T. Barnum’s own public relations people).

A majority of women came to professional walking out of desperation, to escape poverty or abusive relationships.

Then they pushed their bodies to the limit.

They did what men did—24-hour walks, 100-mile walks, six-day walks—but also attempted even more extreme stunts, like walking 3,000 quarter-miles over the course of 3,000 quarter-hours.

“This was a really tough life,” Harry Hall, author of The Pedestriennes, told me.

Women walked in hard-soled shoes, he said, because saboteurs threw rocks, tacks and glass on their track, hoping to fix race outcomes.

The same laissez-faire setup that had allowed the sport to evolve so organically also led to it becoming synonymous with exploitation and scandal.

Pedestrianism saw race fixing, early steroid use and an extortion attempt that ended with a manager’s suicide.

With the rise of bicycle racing in the 1880s, the public moved on, leaving pedestrianism to fade into a historical footnote.

“There was no way pedestrianism was going to last forever,” said Algeo.

“But it’s a shame it kind of killed itself.”

Today’s walking influencers have different aims and goals, not to mention more agency, than the stars of the sport a century and a half ago.

But both walking waves can be seen as promoting “physical activity in spaces where they’re not traditionally or not as easily done in the past,” as Damon Swift, an exercise scholar at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development, told me.

For those who are looking to hop on the trend today but aren’t ready to commit to a 10,000 daily step count—let alone a trek from Boston to Washington—you might find some wisdom in that 1878 Times trend story, which advised readers to “walk as long as [one] likes.”

Do just that, it promised, and you’ll return home “healthier” and “happier.”

[onomastic-dustbin]

Some names created by combining three abbreviations from the names of elements from the periodic table of elements:

Acamba 

Acbiog 

Acceth 

Achgal 

Acirau 

Actare 

Agammo 

Agauna 

Aghera 

Agirin 

Agrage 

Algeos 

Alhoga 

Alpoxe 

Alrane 

Alsio 

Alsmo 

Alybas 

Amallu 

Ambik 

Ameurh 

Amgara 

Amirni 

Amnady 

Arbica 

Arkram 

Arnpir 

Artire 

Artlin 

Arvos 

Arwal 

Arxen 

Aryos 

Asbri 

Ashfir 

Aspros 

Astana 

Ateus 

Atirni 

Atraco 

Atreli 

Augeos 

Auhsin 

Aumdi 

Auptra 

Auracs

Authu 

Badsra 

Bamthe 

Banbir 

Barneu 

Basmar 

Baste 

Bavag 

Becudy 

Behgu 

Beirti 

Belrir 

Benohs 

Beosti 

Besiau 

Besli

Bewac 

Bhagra 

Bhalau 

Bherte 

Bhis 

Bhosir 

Bhuli 

Bibham 

Bilros 

Binpu

Birner 

Birpa 

Bivli 

Blira 

Brasal 

Brata 

Braxe 

Bresne 

Breuth 

Brili 

Brula 

Bryga 

Cageta 

Carau 

Carnog 

Casmir 

Catisc 

Cawla 

Cepora 

Ceprin 

Cerbir 

Ceruno 

Cethu 

Cetlar

Cirru 

Clacca 

Clane 

Clarmo 

Clibi 

Clasra 

Closni 

Clupa 

Clybin 

Cnirba 

Cnofe 

Cnuli 

Cnyho 

Cobral 

Copuir 

Corhag 

Coscy 

Cosira 

Coyac 

Cramna 

Craxe 

Crescu 

Croar 

Cryas 

Csabesi 

Csarga 

Csirmo 

Csuth 

Cubhas 

Cuce 

Cuprir 

Cusega 

Cusial 

Cyblu 

Cyla 

Dycreu 

Dyogar 

Dyptra 

Dyrbas 

Dysrin 

Erkli 

Erluna 

Ernbau 

Ersry 

Ertcas 

Erxeu 

Erznal 

Esagru 

Esgena 

Eshora 

Esmosc 

Espri 

Essek 

Eucfin 

Eugdir 

Eulvo 

Eunody 

Eupter 

Eutai 

Falla 

Faram 

Fasno 

Femnir 

Fenpal 

Feraba 

Feser 

Fesnin 

Fetmar 

Feune 

Firu 

Flesp 

Fleuv 

Flios 

Fliram 

Floshe 

Floxe 

Fluy 

Fraln 

Fralti 

Frasi 

Frauco 

Frun 

Frybu 

Fulu 

Gacela 

Gadyk 

Gamnat 

Garabe 

Gauni 

Gebrin 

Gendu 

Gessi 

Geuli 

Geybir 

Haurg 

Hebal 

Hecsli 

Hehgin 

Hemny 

Herno 

Hesbar 

Hesru 

Hetseu 

Hinog 

Hirfe 

Hirta 

Hixe 

Hlina 

Hoal 

Hocni 

Hogasi 

Hogeu 

Hohek 

Hotlir 

Hsambi 

Hsinti 

Hsirga 

Hsogne 

Hsyra 

Huno 

Hyba 

Hybos 

Ibkir 

Igev 

Imcin 

Imgar 

Incdal 

Increu 

Iniras 

Innac 

Innolu 

Inobi 

Intase 

Intimo 

Inwog 

Inyca 

Ircral 

Irgam 

Irinco 

Irpao 

Irxek 

Ixela 

Kagin 

Kial

Kireu 

Klirh 

Kosno 

Kralce 

Kramli 

Krerbe 

Krids 

Krinth 

Krirho 

Kromn 

Krosta 

Krumo 

Kryti 

Kuar 

Lanik 

Lapurh 

Lasbar 

Lathir 

Lavau 

Lazno 

Lazrog 

Libev 

Lieuga 

Ligdir 

Lihsos 

Likro 

Lirfac 

Litei 

Liznin 

Lualla 

Lufram 

Luhsir 

Lunath 

Luporh 

Lusmi 

Luceru 

Mocuag 

Moesta 

Mofral 

Molvog 

Monpir 

Mopmi 

Mosbar 

Mothas 

Motica 

Moybre 

Nabala 

Nagath 

Nahody 

Narne 

Nasbog 

Natra 

Navni 

Nehsir 

Neiram 

Nelio 

Nemcos 

Nesmog 

Neuv 

Neyti 

Nhasam 

Nhatin 

Nhersi 

Nhila 

Nhyar 

Nihern 

Nimgin 

Nindir 

Nirbe 

Niznir 

Nocaru 

Nocsi 

Noiras 

Nokos 

Nolral 

Nonbar 

Noraga 

Nuho 

Ofne 

Ogaces 

Ogbax 

Oglise 

Ogmora 

Ogragd 

Ohir 

Olvau 

Ombal 

Onpir 

Opody 

Osalo 

Oscos 

Osfrin 

Oshene 

Oshond 

Osras 

Oxees 

Pacsho 

Pacti 

Pakral 

Palla 

Panbir 

Paneti 

Parog 

Pasesc 

Paura 

Photi 

Pires 

Pliti 

Polune 

Pomni 

Pondar 

Posru 

Potik 

Prashe 

Preuna 

Printi 

Prosi 

Pryla 

Puarli 

Pucrin 

Pulurh 

Punoar 

Purnos 

Rafmeu 

Rairni 

Ralvas 

Ramgat 

Raprac 

Rebeli 

Rehfra 

Remdas 

Repros 

Retisc 

Rhacta 

Rhameu 

Rhinds 

Rhiv 

Rhobi 

Rhosse 

Rhyfe 

Rubern 

Rucdag 

Rucsho 

Ruflo 

Rufmes 

Ruhgas 

Rumtir 

Runpam 

Rurhir 

Sauru 

Scaldy 

Scamba 

Schese 

Scirf 

Sclias 

Sclu 

Scuos 

Sebros 

Sekry 

Senarh 

Senpir 

Serahf 

Serges 

Serhuni 

Sesiar 

Sewti 

Seyrb 

Sezno 

Shoxe 

Siclar 

Sibral 

Sicuni 

Sieste 

Sikos 

Sirand 

Sirbes 

Sitham 

Skir 

Smacir 

Sminar 

Smogre 

Smots 

Smues 

Snala 

Snasca 

Snaula 

Snili 

Snoti 

Snuam 

Snyber 

Spoti 

Sraun 

Sroga 

Srosni 

Sruar 

Sryce 

Tacara 

Tadser 

Tanhal 

Tasgar 

Taumo 

Tebros 

Tekrat 

Telvau 

Tepdam

Tepure 

Tesgal 

Texei 

Thamba 

Therhe 

Tholu 

Thosk 

Thrani 

Thruxe 

Thyti 

Tibkir 

Tibri 

Ticsra 

Timoc 

Tinanh 

Tivos 

Tsalcu 

Tsini 

Tsirla 

Tsoni 

Tsosco 

Tsuta 

Ubhir 

Ulrag 

Umcar 

Unak 

Urady 

Utehf 

Uscal 

Valno 

Veuni 

Virn 

Vlios 

Vuth 

Xecoli 

Xefrin 

Xesmo 

Xeteth 

Xeznal 

Walbe 

Waseu 

Werre 

Wesk 

Wrani 

Ybbise 

Ybero 

Yblara 

Yblini 

Yblune 

Ybura 

Ycleu 

Ykal 

Ylvog 

Ymok 

Yneir 

Ypora 

Ytiam 

Yver 

Znalsi 

Znaucu 

Znimo 

Znyk 

Zramat 

Zrasho 

Zrinni 

Zroy 

Zrula 

[musk420]

500 posts! doc gooden is mike algeo

[realfightjunkie]

UPSET ALERT! Doo Ho Choi {+145} DEFEATS Bill Algeo {-175} via 2 round KNOCKOUT on UFC Vegas 94. Won't go 3 rounds {-125} & Choi wins inside the distance {+265} hits!  

[theanticool]

It is fight day everybody. Gonna do this sport by sport. First MMA

UFC Fight Night Dawson vs Green is on tap. It’s a decent card with familiar names. Not crazy about a Grant Dawson 5 rounder but I like Bobby Green. Dober-Glenn, Morono-Buckley, Algeo-Hernandez, Lins-Cutelaba, and De La Rosa-Aldrich are all fun fights. Plus the return of Kanako Murata.

Bellator 300. This might be the last time we see Bellator, as rumors of Viacom cutting ties with the company persist. It’s fitting that it’s headlined by a Russian champion defending the title. Usman Nurmagomedov faces off with Brent Primus in the main event. Plus we have two other title fights, Cyborg vs Zingano at women’s 145 and Liz Carmouche vs Ilima-Lei MacFarlane at 126 catchweight.

We also have Glory 89. At the time of posting, the prelims have already started (and might actually be over). We got a featherweight title fight between champ Petch and challenger Mejia. We also have a couple of big HW fights featuring Badr Hari, Jurjendal, and Levi Ritgers. Plus more.

Over in boxing we got a few big fights. Joe Smith Jr vs Zurdo, Leigh Wood vs Josh Warrington, and Terri Harper vs Cecilia Braekhus

[osphilia-co]

Caroline by Simon Algeo

[imagine-darksiders]

Hello!! Sorry I’m a bit drunk but I had a question about your Reaper fic Alegro I think it’s called? What would happen if Death was able to somehow return to his original form? Would he remember how his Reaper form felt for reader? How would reader react to him now that he could communicate better? Would he stay in the old house or leave to find his siblings? Also would he remember cleaning readers hands off with his tongue cause ew lmao

Ok thank you cxx

Ah~ Algeo, my old passion project.

I never planned on having Death turn back, but if he did, I'd have had him remember everything about Reader, how they met, how Reaper felt for her, etc. But he'd definitely be embarrassed about how he behaved while the Reaper was in control.

Y/n is just as freaked out by Death's sudden appearance and immediately tries to run because she's just seen her spectral friend evaporate and now there's this hulking, terrifying man in its place.

Death's siblings didn't exist in that universe, he was just a cursed shade doomed to haunt Shadowbrook.

[kennak]

超越関数であるsin関数は通常の四則演算では計算できないが、多くのアプリケーションで効率よく精度のよい計算が求められる。たとえばIntelは基本的なアルゴリズムを公開しているが計算に必要な定数は公開していない。https://androidcalculator.com/how-do-calculators-compute-sine/androidcalculator.comHow do calculators compute sine? | Algeo C

新山祐介 (Yusuke Shinyama): "超越関数であるsin関数は通常の四則演算では計算できないが、…" - Mastodon 🐘

[rae-haven-writes]

Addiction is the disease of the lost self…it is in itself an attachment disorder; adiction is the result of having unmet developmental needs. - Shannon Algeo, Disconnected

I’ve been thinking a lot about addiction these past five weeks. When I woke up to that hospital call in February, the past didn’t come roaring in like a flash flood in a summer-dry creek bed. My nervous system, my heart, n’ my memories never fully dried out because the addiction never took a pause, not for a moment. History dripped in like sepsis, until I woke up and the fever was past the point of breaking. A flash of her nodded out on a lawn chair in some stranger’s yard on my walk to school. A tiny memory, like a papercut, popping up as I stand in line at the grocery store - alone in a hotel lobby for hours, lost and forgotten, as she scored (and shot up) in one of the 300 rooms along the hallway. Men leaning down and talking to me, asking my age, I’m seven. When we finally drive home in the early morning, I grip the backseat upholstery, carsick, as she swerves towards and misses the median over and over again.

It’ll stick for a while, this disease of taking inventory, every morning, of what was lost. 

May what was lost be returned, and what was surrendered stay gone. We have to learn the difference at some point.

Lost - Seventeen; visiting her in the hospital after she almost died from a blood infection, and turning my face to the window where the rain fell outside like we were in some fucked-up opioid-crisis soap-opera when she said “I miss you,” the day I vowed to never love anyone or let them love me again. How I knelt in the driveway nine years later, still tied up in my bakery apron covered in sorghum, saying “I miss you, I love you” into the phone to the social worker who was saying “I miss you” back to me on Mom’s behalf since she still couldn’t talk with the trach in. 

Surrendered - How I wished for a decade she would die. I saw a family constellations therapist, once, who guessed this secret with only two sentences on my end about the whole homeless-addicted-psychotic-mama situation, and told me “I know you wish she would just die so this would be over, but even that is the same seeking of control as constantly giving your life up for her. If this is how she wants to die, step out of the way and let her die. And if she wants to live, let her find her own way. Give her that choice.”

Good people don’t give up on the ones they love. ― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

Lost - A woman thought she wanted me for a minute this year, a bodyworker from Israel, goodhearted. She taught me how to have an argument without cutting the relationship into pieces and throwing it in the other person’s face, how to speak to a lover like you love them. Only having known abuse is no excuse after a certain point. I was fed up with my communication style, too, and loved her for being patient with me. Loved her for being a person worth changing in a good way for. It didn’t work out for so many reasons. Still, she texted me yesterday about her dream where I spoke to her fluently in Hebrew, and this morning she told me, in Hebrew, that she loves me. I don't know which language to say it back in.

Surrendered - A few days before we broke up (the third time) we were driving down south together. She was going to drop me off at my mom’s old apartment. I had to get some of her things before it was repossessed and everything in it - furniture, books, TV, fridge, a whole little life - was taken to the dump by the property management company. It was either surrender the apartment, or get served with a lawsuit. At the hospital the day before, Mom wrote a list of the things she needed me to save for her - her dentures, hair dryer, favorite jeans, Tempurpedic pillows. She kept writing down different ideas of how to sell the furniture, but I knew it was too late to do anything about it, so I just nodded and said I would try my best. She gave me the keys to her car, which was now mine to take care of and hopefully sell. 

Lost - I cried on the drive down, feeling deep guilt about not being able to sell the furniture, all of it given over to the assholes who owned the property. Wasted. And my lover said, sternly, “Look, when you make certain choices, there are consequences. You lose things, and you lose people.”

I was my mom’s only “people” left after everyone else had given up. It took a whole long while of being bitter to realize they didn’t give up on her so much as choose themselves. Just like Mom made choices and suffered losses, I had as well; choosing to take care of her, and mother her, instead of myself, had cost me my own ability to survive. It took away from the life I had created for myself, that I'd fought for with my teeth.

At the core of every addiction is an emptiness based in abject fear. The addict dreads and abhors the present moment; she bends feverishly only toward the next time, the moment when her brain, infused with her drug of choice, will briefly experience itself as liberated from the burden of the past and the fear of the future—the two elements that make the present intolerable. - Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

I didn’t ask anybody for help, and I had refused help when it was offered; I didn’t want people I loved going  in there. My lover dropped me off at the apartment and kept driving south. For a little while I just laid on the carpet of her apartment where she had spent the past two years in her psychosis and addiction and cried. The place looked like it had been ransacked, but I knew nobody had been in there but Mom - pill bottles and trash strewn across every surface, blood and a blackened spoon decorating the bathroom sink, every house plant dead and covered in tiny black flies. The floor was littered in pieces of tin foil with the patches of  fentanyl in their centers, burnt into the shapes of listless spirits. There I was, in the realm of hungry ghosts, Gabor be damned. 

I called one of my closest friends when I realized my lover wasn’t going to stick around and kept her on speakerphone as I opened every cabinet in the foul smelling kitchen, sorting through Mom’s medications, finding her dentures (silverware drawer) and birth certificate (under a pile of parking tickets by her Bible). One of the drawers in the kitchen was full of over a hundred little plastic baggies marked with dates in sharpie, filled with her poop; part of the psychosis was believing there was a gang of men out to get her who were putting tracking devices and nanoscopic robots inside of her body. If I ever tried convincing her that if she got clean they would stop torturing her, she flew into a rage. Eventually I stopped trying to convince her it wasn’t real and stopped being so sure of what was real in the first place. 

I disassociated off and on, but my friend kept me centered, asking over the phone what I was grabbing next. I narrated my steps - taking trash bags of clothes down to Mom’s car, stripping the bed, looking through paperwork. 

I drove her silver Toyota southbound through the Santa Ynez mountains, and stopped for fruit a man selling it freshly cut from a cart before the road wove up into Highway 154. I looked at the oak trees that always signify I'm home and smiled at them, wrote a little poem, ate my canteloupe and mango.

I lose and I lose and I lose and I still end up with more than I ever even dreamed to ask for.

The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between…When your parent clocks out before you clock in, you can spend way too much of your life staring into that black hole.― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

In the rare sober spaces there was a mouthful of shame ready to aim at my sexuality, my hair, my partners, spitting on everything I knew I was, and everyone I held dear. 

I finally got to talk to her last week, hear her voice when I’d thought her voice would be gone forever. She said “You cutting your hair short doesn’t mean you’re the boy in your lesbian thing, does it? Because I know that one is usually the girl, and, well…”

I asked her if it mattered and there was silence on the other line. I waited through five weeks of silence to hear her voice, and now I just wanted to hang up as soon as possible. 

Not before she cried, asking “Will this whole thing affect our relationship?” 

Knowing she meant the inventory of her body’s losses, I replied, “Of course not.”

“Even though I’ll be in a wheelchair wearing diapers, just a total loser who lost…lost everything?”

“We can still do everything we love together. Getting lunch, shopping, seeing movies. It’ll be different, but it’ll be okay. What really affected our relationship, Mom, was the addiction.”

She was surprised by that. She halfheartedly told me she wouldn’t use anymore and I could hear the falsity under her tongue like a Suboxone. 

Before we ended the call, she laughed, saying “No matter what I do. I just keep waking up, for some reason, in this broken body, here in this broken life.”

Two nights ago, I dreamt I was painting a mural of an enormous blue sky covered in eagles, the slope of a woman’s body leaning down from above, cradling two of the birds as they crossed in the center of the wall.

I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder as they looked up at what I had painted. “She never really wanted to live, did she,” they whispered.

I woke up mid sentence and heard them finish it in the 5am darkness like they were still there beside me.

The day from there opened up like a canyon in a broken heart and I stepped into it with a hopeful soul and eyes all the way open the way nobody taught me how but me.