The first piece of makeup I bought that wasn’t from a pharmacy was a medium-fancy eyeshadow palette. (I still have it, six years later. Nowhere near finishing it. I also still have the blush brush that someone’s mom gave me for Christmas in like 2008. I justveryextremelyrecentlybecauseiamfilthpersonified got a new one, but she lives in the same jar as the old one. I know what you’re thinking – WHY, LINDSAY. WHY. ARE YOU SO FUCKING GROSS AND WEIRD. Well, friends. Isn’t it cool how I know what you’re thinking.) I bought it right before I moved to the city and way before I knew sheeeeeit about putting on makeup. (Now you’re thinking, YOU STILL DON’T KNOW ANYTHING and you’re right, but please. Stop interrupting.) So at first, I wanted to wear all of the colors. All of them. At once. And I did. And I looked amazing. Just kidding, I looked like an extra from American Horror Story. Like I got punched in both eyes by a fairy. Like someone who did know how to put on eyeshadow had done my makeup for me, and then I rubbed them with the vigor of a sleepy toddler.

Right. So, I’ve been thinking that boundaries are like that. When we’re excitable or vulnerable or some other –able and we find a new boundary, the brain throws up this massive fortress that requires an even more massive amount of psychic energy to hold up. A lot of our mental energy goes into keeping out whatever we’ve perceived as dangerous, is what I’m saying, is what I was trying to compare to the using of all the new eyeshadows at once. Which I’m now realizing doesn’t really make that much sense. Unless when you stumble upon a new boundary you like to test it out in a whole bunch of crazy ways that end up not being such a good look. So yeah maybe it does make sense. Great. It stays. So anyway, ideally, I guess, that shiny new boundary of yours eventually becomes a part of your emotional landscape and you’re able to go about your life without needing to keep constant vigil beside it. And hopefully if someone crosses it there’s a space to have a conversation about it, for you to say “Hey, this is what I need in order to feel safe” and for the other person to say “Cool man, I respect that, hey also this is what I need” and everyone can just be cool about each other’s boundaries.

But you know what? You don’t HAVE to have that conversation with someone if you don’t want to. I mean don’t like, get offended at Jane in sales because you think she looked at you kind of weird and then snub her then when she asks you if everything’s okay in a totally nice, normal tone say, “NO JANE I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO YOU.” Don’t do that, poor Jane. And poor you, living that way. So exhausting. What I mean is, if someone has made you feel unsafe then you have the right to decide whether or not that person is deserving of calm discourse. You have the right to judge the integrity of the scaffolding of your own relationships, to gauge how they’ll react to a pointing-out of hurt they caused. And sometimes, especially when someone repeatedly crosses lines and disrespects boundaries, the wiser choice may be to disengage. Even if they aren’t doing it intentionally, or with hostility in their heart. Sometimes the best thing to do may be to batten the hatches, assign a sentry, and keep moving forward with or toward people who don’t send you running, feral, for cover.

From the balcony, open to the misty starlight,
A sad wind came, from invisible worlds …
And she, she asked me about things unknowable
And I answered her with unattainable things.
Juan Ramón Jiménez

Yesterday I spent a solid hour reading articles about the stupid Fyre festival. AN HOUR. In my defense, a large chunk of that time was spent working past the debilitating disappointment I felt at learning that the photos were not of cult scenery. (I just listened to like six different podcasts about Jonestown.) Then I thought, who would spend thousands of dollars to watch Blink-182 in a foreign country? My pre-teenage bedrooms were literally wallpapered with Travis Barker & co, yes. But like… Blink-182? Finally I thought, “Wow, I’m embarrassed to have allowed this to take up so much of my brain space” and ordered a copy of War and Peace online. I saw Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet a couple of weeks ago with some work people and it was so good! I followed most of the show without tuning out, which made me pretty confident about my ability to finally finish reading a Russian novel. I’ll let you know how that goes whenever I eventually start. I’m in the middle of The Stand right now, also some other one I forgot the name of that’s on the Kindle that I thought I lost but I didn’t. I am very very very a lot looking forward to the long weekend. We somehow wound up jam-packing all three days with plans despite my staunch refusal to Go Anywhere or Do Anything 98% of the time, but the first part of Sunday at least has been set aside for eating an entirely too-large breakfast and communing with the couch. (So like, what we do every Sunday.) One of the plans is to see this new play about immigration, so maybe after that I’ll order some law books. Or cook books. Who knows what I’ll convince myself I can do, next week on Lindsay’s Nonsense Life.

Where has this got to. What. Wh!

Once like a year ago I gave up reading a blog because the author of it casually mentioned that she thought abortion was “straight-up murder” (plus she was kind of a hate read anyway and like, #GOODVIBESONLY) and for some reason I feel like admitting that I think it’s gross when people say things like “fur babies” and/or “fur mommy” might be equally as divisive a topic as pregnancy termination. At the risk of alienating more people than I usually do in the course of a day, I’m going to say this anyway:  I think it’s weird when people refer to their pets as kids in a way that is even remotely serious. THERE I SAID IT. I think it’s weird. I do. The absolute worst is when people have a human child and then some dogs or something and they call them ALL “the kids.” BLUUUGH. It feels like someone planted feathers in my back and then vigorously rubbed them in the direction directly opposite to the one in which they were planted. BLAGH. BLURG. I just, blachhh, I can’t. It makes me think of a fully-functioning adult in a diaper and a giant baby bonnet. Animals are babies for like two seconds and then they’re adults. 

I’m definitely guilty of saying things like “COME TO MOMMY” to pets, or like “WHAT A CUTE BABY YOU ARE. YOU ARE THE CUTEST BABY. BABYBABYBABY,” etc. You know. As one does. I often greet adult humans in a similar way. But kasd;fbjhyiu  at people suggesting in a tone that even resembles seriousness that they are parenting a cat or a dog or a weasel. You are not. You are categorically NOT. Our relationships with the animals in our lives are their own thing. We can and should serve other living things, including other humans, and be invested in their welfare and love them, but that doesn’t mean we’re parenting that living thing. Of course it doesn’t. That is absurd. 

Don’t mind me, in grief I’m prone to pontification. (Also to being kind of dramatic and rude and making grand, sweeping statements.) (Also to being irritated at/resentful of other people’s behavior.) (Seriously though stop acting like that. It’s really, really terribly terrible.) (Also to eating three cookies before 10AM.) Saying goodbye to Arwen has left a cavernous space in the center my ribcage. We let her go before the worst of it, and she fell asleep for the last time on a sunny morning in front of an open window in our apartment (through which we could hear birds chirping aggressively) (her favorite) and she had her little princess face in the crook of my arm and Diego’s chubby fingers on her back. My baby. My little angel baby. Who actually is not an actual angel. Just so we’re clear. Because there’s no such thing as heaven. (ARE YOU GOING TO STOP READING ME.) 

I had dreams about white cats for days, and the morning after a particularly strange one about teeny tiny kittens under the floorboards I suddenly and powerfully wanted to adopt another cat. And then I showed up at Diego’s workplace with coffee (to draw him out) (it was really hard, he misses our stinky chubby furball) and tricked him into accompanying me to the ASPCA so that we could take home the biggest, bitiest cat they had. I never, ever in a million years thought I’d react that way – I assumed I’d mourn her, petless and tearful, for at least the next decade, until my teenage daughter brought home a scrawny feline that I’d at first mistake for a rat and then fall in love with and thus continue the cycle. Instead, we brought home a giant black and white boxer who was at the shelter for the better part of a year because they “kept having to put him on bite hold.” And he’s adjusting just beautifully. And if Arwen were around she’d think he was really, really handsome. The hoe bag. <3 p="">

But it’s been hard to watch him stalk around corners, smelling Arwen, waiting for her to jump out at him. 

I am too, little buddy. I am too. 

/drama

(but not really, not ever)

Hannibal Buress is presenting in a high school gymnasium. He’s speaking about my “casual attitude.” I’m sitting on the floor. A girl I don’t know raises her hand, she has a dark bob and a question for me. I say something to her that makes everyone laugh. There’s some scattered clapping.

Then I’m sitting in the backseat and we’re driving toward water. It’s blue and bright and my stomach twitches pleasantly. I notice without worrying that we’re rapidly approaching the water and that the person driving does not intend to stop. When the water is up to the windows I calmly think, “This was probably not a good idea,” and then I’m outside of the car. There’s a person still inside. He peers out at me through the window and there is a tiny person-shaped wet thing on what I suppose is the armrest of the car door, but the mechanics of the car door in my dream don’t translate, so. Anyway. It’s a dead fetus and it’s very black and very shiny.

I am especially exhausted today. I’ve been sleeping much, much better since I started visiting the beautiful woman with the needles and the tinctures but there are other side effects. Including, but not limited to, feeling awash. That’s as best as I can describe it. Last night I hid in the bathroom and cried the body-wracking sobs of a very small and very distressed child. Diego wasn’t home, I was only hiding from Arwen. She’s really not doing well and that’s what started the crying and I didn’t want to freak her out. Later we fell asleep together on the living room floor. My poor sweet baby angel. I can’t talk about it, but I also can’t not acknowledge that it’s happening. Death is a part of life and I want to honor hers. Our egos insist that the furry beehives in our laps mean more than that they’ve found a warm place to rest, that the floating saucer-eyes above our faces every morning seek more than sustenance.

But does anything need to mean more than that? Is there anything more to seek, really?
I feel okay calling that love.

"…those winter flies suddenly slow and loud in a house
whose doors and windows have been long closed and locked.
When the owners return, in spring, the small, dark bodies remain – 
evidence that something always happens.
Even when there is nothing, something happens.

As with love. “Not here, not now,” the heart protests.
Then the evidence: irrefutable, the low buzzing."

JANE HIRSHFIELD 

There were orchid blooms on my desk this morning. Some are still holding on, limp purple fairy skirts hung out to dry. Probably they’ll be collected soon, it being May and there being, I imagine, a lot of dancing. I saw the petals on my desk when I came in, I made a mental note of their presence being Something To Attend To. I thought about fairies for a while and I drank coffee and some juice and ate a protein bar and pushed some papers around idly in the name of work and chatted for a long time. One of the people that floated by also saw the petals, and she picked them up with capable fingers and placed them gently into the garbage (don’t say “waste bin,” who says that? Who says “waste bin” out loud in the real world? No you don’t. No, you really don’t) without even pausing in conversation. It’s something I notice in people and admire and wish to be able to do, to just notice a thing and handle it lovingly with slender fingers and no hysteria. To notice a thing, and handle it. To notice a thing.

I couldn’t sleep for a long time so I went to see an acupuncturist. My physical body is sabotaging my attempts at healing my thoughts, I told her. No. Really I just said, Hi I am profoundly tired. And I ought not to be. And she said, well, transition can be exhausting. And I said I don’t live in a war-torn country, I am steps away from water wherever I go. And she sold me a tiny bottle of brandy and poked me in the neck and I’m still tired, but I’m sleeping again. I go back this week.

Mostly I have the resources to grasp, now, is why I have been. I never did quite get the hang of driving an actual car (in spite of that fact not one but two states now have granted me license to drive which lessens my already tenuous belief in the systems supposedly separating us from chaos), but I’m finally comfortable enough driving my metaphorical station wagon to risk taking one hand off the wheel. If I still smoked, now would be when I could smoke on the road instead of pulling into a parking lot to light cigarettes and listen to mix CDs. Which is what I did when I did drive myself places in a real vehicle, about fifteen whole times, many years ago now.

I’ve made it to a place where the baseline isn’t desperate, gasping-like-a-cartoon-fish NEED, where there is more (slightly more) than a missed shift separating me from Have and Have Not. Sometimes it feels like I have crawled to this place, this time of relative safety, dragging with bloodied fingernails my bloated body over a parched earth. And other times I say, Wow Lindsay, you are being really dramatic right now, and you’re making everybody uncomfortable. Please, help yourself to a chill pill. And still other times I feel like I’ve been placed gently here, and I am undeserving of any earthly comforts I have within reach, and soon the gods will hear of this and it will all be taken away.

None of that’s true, really. Except maybe the part about the chill pill. That part probably is true.