#she’s been posting bts pics of filming things for awhile

[petrovna-zamo]

Katya will be featured in the documentary series Raw & Real: The Truth Be Told

[chainofclovers]

It’s been awhile since my brain insisted on a Life In a Bulleted List post! (Please forgive any odd emotional leaps bullet to bullet.)

During the middle part of this week, my wife is going to travel for a work thing for the first time since February 2020. We’re both fully vaccinated, in a spot with low COVID numbers, and she’s going to a spot with low COVID numbers, and honestly, it feels weird to be the amount of worried I am, which is not very worried! Obviously COVID is still a massive problem worldwide, and of course we live in a country whose greed and foreign policies actively make things worse for other places, and of course it’s still very important to take every precaution here (we’re still wearing masks in stores/public places, for instance). But I’ve spent the last fifteen months with pretty painful anxiety, worry, and anger as my near-constant companions, and it is wild to think about my wife going off to a different area and to feel...pretty much OK with that. 

This will, however, be my first (and second and third) night spent without her since, yes, February 2020. And honestly, while it might be kind of a novelty this week to, like, eat something I like that my wife doesn’t, or to stay up writing until a not-very-sensible hour...all this time together has been great. Didn’t get tired of her once. (At least not anything a solo walk around the neighborhood or a solo trip to pick up groceries couldn’t fix.) We are very lucky. Understatement.

I am becoming a person who doesn’t kill every plant. And our yard is closer to “done” which is very exciting. And I’m finally getting to the point with container gardening where our food is semi-regularly seasoned with things I’ve grown. I’ve got a lot to learn but for awhile I was worried I would never be even partially successful.

Last week we found two young opossums dead in the backyard, quite far apart from each other. We couldn’t figure out what happened, but it’s possible they got into some poison elsewhere and ventured into our yard? I said some words over them (it’s not like we knew them but I suppose everything deserves to hear “you are loved and will be remembered” even if the people promising to remember you are just two random women) and we buried them and it was really sad. I love opossums, and I wish I knew what happened so I could try to prevent it in the future.

My writing brain continues to be entirely focused on fiction (well, fiction and my professional genre). I’m almost certain I’m currently setting a record for Longest Time Without Poetry since my childhood, maybe. It’s weird. But fiction! I’m having so much fun and feel so connected to everything I’m writing and thinking about, both in terms of orignal stuff and fic. I love the feeling of being out in the world doing mundane little things but in a good mood because of fiction. :) :) :) 

I haven’t watched all of this past Friday’s Fire Drill Friday yet, but I think Jane Fonda’s hair is getting more Grace Hanson-shaped as the G&F season 7 filming gets closer to resuming. I feel very convinced this is true, whether intentional or subconscious, and I hope it means they’re gonna let Grace’s hair go grey this season. I know there’s at least one interview in which she said that’s what she wanted to happen, plus the Grace wig visible in S7 BTS pics (since they started filming after she’d already changed her real hair) seems to have grey roots?!

Speaking of FDF, the guest was Demi Lovato and it is pretty wild how many people on the Instagram event announcement, people who claim to be a Jane Fonda fan or a fan of the environment or social justice or whatever could absolutely Not Handle It to see someone respectfully yet nonchalantly use the correct pronouns for a non-binary person? The sanctity of grammar argument is EMBARRASSING. The phrase “attention addict” is EMBARRASSING. Especially since judging someone for seeming like an attention addict seems like a slippery slope on Judgment Mountain to judging someone for their actual addictions, past or present. And since we as a society love to punish people for their addictions and weaknesses instead of celebrating the way that self-discovery and honesty and self-actualization give people the tools to be stronger and cope with their “weaknesses” more effectively. And I’m sorry, Gail, but if you aren’t thinking maybe it’s a little weird that an 83-year-old can use they/them pronouns in a sentence while you’re on her page performatively misgendering someone, then you aren’t embarrassed enough but I will feel embarrassed on your behalf. 

On a much, much, much happier note, baking with weed for older relatives is a love language. <3

And finally, on a very related note, I leave you with One Weird Trick your doctor won’t tell you for how to make sure you don’t forget which brownies are the special ones:

(Image ID: a white saucer containing two brownies. One is plain on top and the other is covered with a variety of rainbow sprinkles and colorful sugar.)