My Dragonfly Year

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A single lacy dragonfly wing shown on a silver background.

A single lacy dragonfly wing shown on a silver background. I found this on the ground in Buffalo Bayou Park this past fall, separated from the dragonfly who owned it. Poor thing.

I don’t know why, but it’s been tough for me to write about this year’s birthday omen. Last birthday, I felt a sense of delight and freedom when writing of my incoming butterfly year. This time, I’ve been sort of blank about the writing, even though I’ve felt that same sense of delight when watching twelve dragonflies dance over a patch of grass, in swoops and curves that look like calligraphic flourishes.

It’s additionally frustrating because unlike last year, where I wasn’t really thinking about it until the monarch showed up, I was actually looking for my animal icon. Normally there are anoles along the path as we walk to the backyard area – not this time. Normally there are grackles in the grassy area – not this time. The dragonflies, doing their swoopy dance, were distinctly the first I saw.

You’d think, based on my reluctance to blog about this one, that I wasn’t happy with the result. But that’s not it at all. I was delighted when I texted Jon that it was a dragonfly year. It promises yet more transformation for me, and I’m happy about that.

So yeah. Not sure where this is coming from, but there ya go.

A note of wonder: Where caterpillars dissolve to become butterflies, dragonflies break out of their old nymph skin to flex their wings. Pretty freaking cool!

 

No Justice For Philando Castile

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I’ve been trying to figure out what to say, here.

The man who shot another man – he shot an innocent man, a man who did *everything* right according to law and public opinion – was acquitted.

It’s not like I’ve seen justice for others. The list of names to say is very long.

The thing that hurts here is that Castile did everything perfectly. There’s nothing to argue with here (though I know tons will try). On the live tape, when his partner asked, in terror, why the officer shot Philando Castile… the officer answered “I don’t know.”

Twice.

I saw that. I saw that on that video. The officer *didn’t know* why he pulled the trigger.

For that to be excused, to be glossed over? That’s nauseating. So any person at any time can be gunned down by a police officer and nothing will happen….

Oh wait. Except for white folks who shoot at people of color. They don’t get gunned down at all. They get taken alive.

Seriously, what the fuck?? There’s no justice here. The system worked the way it is supposed to work but there is no justice. I have believed that for years, but now I really know in a way I didn’t before.

Also, this travesty was just a few days after the shooting of GOP politicians. Those folks are crying and accusing “the left” of causing this.

Oh really? *looks pointedly at the list of acquittals*

Things have GOT to change.

 

Ambivalence

/ killerpuppytails

Earlier this week I tried to get tickets to the women-only showing of Wonder Woman here and it was sold out.

At the time, I was both totally “WAAAH! NOOO!” and “FUCK YEAH SOLD OUT SHOWING.”

Now I’ve seen the movie, and it was SO much fun, and I look at that women-only showing and am both totally “Hmmm *sage nod* what a wise bit of business acumen!” and “WTF WHY NOT MORE! TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS!”

I would like my emotional core to make up its mind, pls.

 

Sand in the Tank

/ killerpuppytails

I feel like hell.

I swear, I think I have been bone-tired for 10 years.

Part of it is, of course, the 5 years of crazily bad health combined with “yes you STILL have mono” in the mid- to late aughts. Not good for a body to go through. But another part of it is emotional, because even when my body was (is?) a wreck, I was able to do a lot more than I do now.

It’s often frustrating – nay, almost infurating – when the articles and thinkpieces and memes on self-care and self-nurturance float through my screen. It’s frustrating because I’ve been struggling with how to refill my waaay depleted well of creative and emotional energy, and I swear I have tried everything that anyone has ever suggested that I had access to. More often than not they backfire on me. I’m left worse off: drained, or hurting, or feeling like something is sorely amiss, or at the worst…some memory resurrected in a really bad way. Even the ones that don’t backfire don’t do anything. Like, nothing.

It has gotten to the point where I really, truly believe there is the equivalent of sand in my mental and emotional gas tank. I don’t know what exactly the “sand” is, but dammit I am GOING to get to the bottom of this.

Uh. Pun not intended.

So I apologize for any weirdness. Chalk it up to the fact that my pistons are skipping.

Things I Miss – “Been a Year In Texas” Edition

/ killerpuppytails

It has been a tough few weeks with loss, over here. Not only in my family, but others close to us as well.  Me being me, a loss in one area of my life will start my brain echoing with other losses. I don’t want to discuss losing people or pets, so I’m going to talk about the things I’ve lost by moving to another climate.

Dark purple lilacs obscuring the face of a white woman with woven beige sunhat and dark sunglasses.

That’s me, white girl w/beige sunhat, freckles and sunglasses, face half obscured while giving some gorgeous purple lilacs a big ol huff.

One of the things I REALLY miss – lilacs. Lilac season in New York is swoonably delicious, in scent, color, and tactile experience. Regular lilacs don’t bloom in Texas, due to the lack of chill*. There are new hybrids that are less fragrant, but they’re not generally accessible to the public. And sure, I could grow some, but I have to have a decent garden and a few years to wait. Which, yeah, I do not as of yet. Additionally, lilacs don’t make for good cut flowers, & they don’t ship well. That didn’t stop me from spending an inordinate amount of time searching, though. No dice – lilac delivery to Texas is expensive, and they don’t guarantee good fragrance. Big sadface for me.

An inset shows an unidentifiable humanoid figure, bundled up for cold weather, tilted as if falling leftward into an angled snowbank almost as tall as the figure. The rest of the photo shows the figure laying at an angle in the snow, arms up in happiness.

Top Left Inset: blurry pic of a bundled-up me throwing myself into a fluffy snowbank. Rest of pic: me laying half-buried in snowbank.

Another thing I really miss – snow. Both Jon and I like fresh snow a LOT. (And Kizu learned to love it WAY fast.) We both traveled enough this past winter to get a weeee tiny bit of cold weather, but not the fluffy drifts and stompy-trompy fun time weather from REAL snow. Even New York City was having a dearth of good snow storms up until the early part of 2016, but those were so gorgeous and so much fun that even despite the slush stage, I now ache when I see pics of other folks in snow. *sends glares to our friends in Canada*

(As a side note to that, while I don’t like the dryness of winter weather, there’s this crisp smell to the air in the latter end of fall I enjoy immensely. I noticed that difference when traveling this yr.)

A third thing I really miss, and this is the one that surprised me – the subtle differences in the stars. I don’t get to see Orion as long, and the humidity makes the stars a little blurrier than New York, particularly in the mild winters.

Those are the climate things I’m missing right now. In the future I’ll do something about what I miss about infrastructure. ;)

 

 

* Yes, this is a real thing. Flower aficionados call it chill hours or chilling units, but I’m just gonna go with TEXAS HAS A LACK OF CHILL.