"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
As my birthdays go, yesterday was about as good as it ever gets. That makes two pleasant birthdays in a row, and for that I have Spooky to thank. And I am also grateful to everyone who wished me well via Facebook and LiveJournal and Twitter and email yesterday. Spooky cooked a marvelous lasagna, and she game me a cool Deinochierus figurine, a cryptozoology merit badge (!), and what might be the most wonderful Blade Runner-related gift ever (see photo below). And then, last night, we watched John Nguyen's 2016 documentary, David Lynch: The Art Life. If I had to suffer the indignity of turning 53, at least all these things eased the jolt. So, why do I love Kathryn? She makes me birthday lasagna, that's why. Oh, and because she was only ten the first time she read The Haunting of Hill House. That, too.
Unfortunately, today has sucked mightily, pretty much stem to stern, as if the universe feels I was given a little too much slack yesterday and it must now double down and make up for the oversight. And so it goes.
Today is Harlan Ellison's 83rd birthday. My Grandmother Ramey would have been 103 today. And Spooky brother, Fred, turned 39.
I see people online saying shit like "We don't have to accept the presidential line of succession. We could call for new elections. It's not a foregone conclusion." Yes, it is, you stupid, bleating assholes, and yes, we do have to accept the line of succession. That's the law. It's in the Constitution. In the US presidential election, you don't get do-overs. Ever. No, not even when the Republican candidate is guilty of collusion with Putin and Russian hackers and Wikileaks. We have to accept the line of succession, and we have to pray the damage that has been done to the system is not irreparable. You just know these are the assholes who refused to "participate in a corrupt system" and so helped land us in this present shitstorm. The most laughable thing about those fuckers is they believe there can ever be a system free of corruption, though one has never yet existed in all of human history.
Four posts from Facebook yesterday:
~ What is this race to be defined, to be boxed in? I am not defined by my sexuality, or by my gender, or my race, or my mental illness, or by my physical disabilities, or my bad teeth, or my insomnia, or my addiction, or my hillbilly childhood, or my atheism, or my generation, or my belief in the Democratic Party, or the pronouns that are used to describe me. None of these things are sufficient, but only possessed of a certain fluctuating piecemeal relevance. I am not a bisexual writer or a transsexual writer or white writer or a liberal writer or a schizophrenic writer or a Southern writer or a female writer or an atheist writer or a boomer writer or an evolutionist writer or an impoverished writer, though I am, to whatever degree, surely all of those things. But you choose one, and you hang it on me, and you are inevitably telling a lie by omission.
~ A 53rd birthday wish: I sincerely hope to live long enough to see American conservative thought evolve once again into something more sophisticated than "Spank the libtards and make them cry."
~ One of the few upsides to getting older is that I find I care less and less whom I piss off and why. If I am becoming a curmudgeon, so be it. I've damn well earned the epithet.
~ Here on my 53rd birthday, I am profoundly grateful to have been born when I was, in 1964, and to have had the food fortune of a childhood free of computers and the internet and video games and social media, grateful not to be a "digital native," not to have grown up "plugged in." God, I miss that world. Call it nostalgia if you wish, but it's something far deeper.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast
5:28 p.m.
Unfortunately, today has sucked mightily, pretty much stem to stern, as if the universe feels I was given a little too much slack yesterday and it must now double down and make up for the oversight. And so it goes.
Today is Harlan Ellison's 83rd birthday. My Grandmother Ramey would have been 103 today. And Spooky brother, Fred, turned 39.
I see people online saying shit like "We don't have to accept the presidential line of succession. We could call for new elections. It's not a foregone conclusion." Yes, it is, you stupid, bleating assholes, and yes, we do have to accept the line of succession. That's the law. It's in the Constitution. In the US presidential election, you don't get do-overs. Ever. No, not even when the Republican candidate is guilty of collusion with Putin and Russian hackers and Wikileaks. We have to accept the line of succession, and we have to pray the damage that has been done to the system is not irreparable. You just know these are the assholes who refused to "participate in a corrupt system" and so helped land us in this present shitstorm. The most laughable thing about those fuckers is they believe there can ever be a system free of corruption, though one has never yet existed in all of human history.
Four posts from Facebook yesterday:
~ What is this race to be defined, to be boxed in? I am not defined by my sexuality, or by my gender, or my race, or my mental illness, or by my physical disabilities, or my bad teeth, or my insomnia, or my addiction, or my hillbilly childhood, or my atheism, or my generation, or my belief in the Democratic Party, or the pronouns that are used to describe me. None of these things are sufficient, but only possessed of a certain fluctuating piecemeal relevance. I am not a bisexual writer or a transsexual writer or white writer or a liberal writer or a schizophrenic writer or a Southern writer or a female writer or an atheist writer or a boomer writer or an evolutionist writer or an impoverished writer, though I am, to whatever degree, surely all of those things. But you choose one, and you hang it on me, and you are inevitably telling a lie by omission.
~ A 53rd birthday wish: I sincerely hope to live long enough to see American conservative thought evolve once again into something more sophisticated than "Spank the libtards and make them cry."
~ One of the few upsides to getting older is that I find I care less and less whom I piss off and why. If I am becoming a curmudgeon, so be it. I've damn well earned the epithet.
~ Here on my 53rd birthday, I am profoundly grateful to have been born when I was, in 1964, and to have had the food fortune of a childhood free of computers and the internet and video games and social media, grateful not to be a "digital native," not to have grown up "plugged in." God, I miss that world. Call it nostalgia if you wish, but it's something far deeper.
Later Taters,
Aunt Beast
5:28 p.m.