Yoga. Obama. Rushdie. Gray.

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A friend of mine is a yoga instructor, and on Sunday evenings she leads a Weekend Wind-Down class. It has become the 75 minutes that I look forward to during the week, because it’s 75 minutes of not thinking about work or how messy my house is or how I need to find a therapist or how it’s been months since I’ve had great sleep or how I can never think of the word Exploit. Tonight’s class was especially good because it began when the sun was up and ended when the sun was down and that felt sort of beautiful.

I’ve been working a lot lately, which means I haven’t been leaving the house very often, which means I really don’t have much to write about. Do you want to hear about my spreadsheets? No! Do you want to hear that it was ten years ago this evening that Obama was elected for his second term? Some of you definitely do NOT want to hear that, and to those people I say: Settle down and just think about the fact that 3,652 days and nights have passed since November 6, 2012. Ten years.

Five years ago I dressed like a different author every day during the month of November, and five years ago today I was Salman Rushdie, and now Salman Rushdie has lost an eye and the use of one of his hands because people are monsters.

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(One of my favorites was when I dressed like Spalding Gray.)


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I hope your weekend was a good one. I’ll try to be back tomorrow.

Perhaps I’ll weave a placemat out of human hair.

I’ve been a fan of Erin M. Riley and her tapestries for a few years now. Her weaving is so intricate and the way she is able to weave text feels like magic to me. Everything she does is so beautiful, even when the messages are brutal. Look at this. It is woven. On a loom. With wool and cotton.

This morning my mom and I made a quick visit to the new yarn store and in a little over a month I’ll be spending time with my new little loom.

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It’ll either be great or it won’t, but the fact that I want to learn something new means I’m not ready to die, which sounds a lot darker than I intended.

The funny thing about the song is that I can’t stomach it long enough to make it to the end. Tomorrow is another day. Try harder, fail faster, eat, pray, live, laugh, love.

There’s nothing better than a triple header.

Because I had a lot of work to do today, I jumped onto Facebook to see what’s up with some of the people I like and some of the people I don’t like. (Don’t ever fret. I like you. Obviously.) I’m scrolling, I’m scrolling, I’m scrolling, and then: Holy shit.

For the first time EVER since I’ve been on Facebook, an ad popped up that I didn’t feel the need to report as inappropriate (sportswear!) or uninteresting (weight loss stuff!). AND, as much as I hate it when people say things like “I felt seen”: The ad for the following items made me feel SEEN.


There is a jewelry designer who makes triple-headed baby earrings and triple-headed baby rings, and I can’t remember the last time I was this excited. About anything. (I’m exaggerating a little. The John Irving book pictured in my sidebar? I ordered it something like eight months in advance and it is not disappointing me at all.)

This is exactly what I would look like if I had a pair of triple-headed baby earrings.
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(The drawing also shows me wearing the ring, but I’m hiding it behind my back. I can hide so many things back there.) I mean, does this warrant a GoFundMe campaign?

Cheesecake. Hat. Make-out party. My hair.

A brand new yarn store opened in St. Louis yesterday, so Tempe said, “Let’s go eat cheesecake and shop!”

These are a few of my favorite things:
1. Hanging out with Tempe
2. Eating cheesecake
3. Rubbing yarn against my neck

The grand opening was super crowded and super wonderful and the owner is a gem. I met several people, I recognized a few people from when I worked at a yarn store twelve or so years ago, and have you ever been around a bunch of knitters/crocheters? It’s great because everyone is a fan of everyone and everyone wants everyone to succeed and most people are wearing something they made and they encourage you to touch their stuff (where “their stuff” is what they made). It’s just a big happy fiber make-out party and I Am In.

I fell in love with and purchased a hat kit.

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Before I paid for it, I carried it around the store and at least five people stopped me and told me how beautiful it was and they seemed legitimately happy that I’m going to make this hat. I know it all sounds weird and maybe a few of you are rolling your eyes, but really! That’s how it is with knitters!

I’ll definitely be going back and then back again (and again).

But, come on. We all know why we’re here today. We need to figure out if I should shave my head at Friday’s hair appointment, or continue to let it grow. I never know what to say when people ask my name, and I never know what to do with the top of my head. (Unless it has something to do with a hat made from a hat kit purchased at a brand new yarn store and this is me bringing everything full circle. The end.)

Here. Give me three minutes.

It’s November, which means I need to grow a moustache (I’m 52 and my uterus is gone, so it might not be as crazy as it sounds.) or dust off Fluid Pudding. Can you believe this website turned 21 when we weren’t looking? I can. (Time’s not weird unless you make it weird. Let’s not make it weird.)

I have a friend in Denver who once encouraged me to search for joys. What follows are a few of my joys from the past several weeks.

A friend and I went out for tacos and a Dinosaur Jr. show. I went to the show not knowing much about them, but when I left? I was their biggest fan. (Okay. I may have been under an influence which led me to accuse someone of sex trafficking during the show, but it had nothing to do with the music and it ended up not being true. Lesson Learned: Be careful when you’re accusing someone of sex trafficking.) Look! I got a shirt!

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I’m knitting lace again. I’m hoping to finish it in the next few weeks, so it’s probably safe for you to hold your breath.

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I saw Death Cab for Cutie and they were just what I needed them to be. (Ben Gibbard is a genius and he spends a lot of time running backwards without being scared of falling and their new album is pretty great and I didn’t feel the need to accuse anyone of sex trafficking.) Look! I got a shirt!

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Meredith adopted a cat. His name is Sasuke and he’s the perfect cat son for her. Look at his sweet dopey dog face!

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Finally, I went from this:

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To this:

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There is no shortage of cross tattoos in this world. Perhaps what we really need are a few more cats in spacesuits. Let it begin with me.

I have everything under control.

We moved Meredith into an apartment that she will be sharing with three of her best friends, and because I like to spend money on silly things*, I purchased a beaded bracelet and a labradorite ring before making the drive home.

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According to those who believe, this labradorite ring will help reduce anxiety, strengthen my immune system, and boost metabolism. Specifically, it will aid in the burning of fats and carbs, making it good for weight loss**, but that’s not why I bought it. I bought it because I like blue squares.

I am beguiled by beautifully beaded baubles, so I was behooved to buy the bracelet.*** It holds 2,747 tiny beads, and I know this because I counted them, and for every bead I counted I said a tiny prayer for each of the people in my life whom I have scorned or disappointed, for there is no shortage.****
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*We currently have something like 27 flies in the house, and although this has nothing to do with my inclination to spend money on silly things, it’s something that is driving me bonkers right now. Because I tend to sit by a window, the flies fly full-speed into my head as they try to make their way back outside. I am very cranky, but grateful that I don’t bruise easily.

**I joined Noom. And it probably works, but only if you actually follow the program, which I do not. My relationship with food is complicated, and I’ll never judge anyone for anything having to do with food or weight because everything is so fucked up and all I can do is try to address what my brain holds while being quietly envious of brains that aren’t like mine. Fuckin’ Noom, man. Fuckin’ me.

***I’m not a huge alliteration fan, but I would like to lead you toward an alliterative phrase that has stuck with me for over 20 years. The essay titled “On Talking to Oneself” by William Gass holds the sentence “A thought is peeled and placed upon a plate.” Say it out loud. It’s a tongue flip followed by lips clapping in 5/4 time! (And please read the essay, because it’s wonderful. I think it’s wonderful.)

****I’m lying to you. I didn’t count the beads, nor did I bead-pray for the masses who have suffered because of me. (I have scorned or disappointed exactly 141 people, and that’s a beaded ring at best.)

Motherhood means mental freeze.

My site was down for two weeks and it feels silly to make a big deal out of it because it’s not like I’m changing the world over here. The only thing lost was my most recent post and I can’t even remember what we talked about.

I think it went something like this:

I had COVID and it sucked but now I have taxi yellow shoes and they don’t suck. Not even a little, especially when worn with my Kusama socks.
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Also, Kaida (whose name means Little Dragon) is a Yoshitomo Nara little angry girl who is now tattooed onto my arm and I love her and she’s kind of like me in that she sees how shitty everything is, yet she still shows up with flowers.
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We went to New York and I stood in front of the Strand and I guess maybe yellow shoes are sort of a thing for me these days. (As I’m sitting here on the couch, I’m wondering what the man with the water bottle is doing right now. I spend a lot of time wondering what Michael Stipe is doing right now, and I usually think, “I bet he’s sitting at a table wearing a white linen outfit. Maybe working on a crossword puzzle, and he’s happy enough.”)
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Was that everything? Let’s say that was it, and now we’ll move on to 28 years ago when I took a Greyhound bus to Atlanta, Georgia. I was a 24-year-old invincible girl in tight jeans and a tank top (covered with an oversized plaid flannel shirt), and after I stashed my duffel bag under my seat I was armed with only twenty bucks, a pocket full of AA batteries, and a Sony Walkman that held The Breeders’ Last Splash cassette.

Because of a lot of this and thats, the bus ride ended up being 22 hours long, and at one point a guy sat down next to me and told me to let him borrow my Walkman. I figured neither of us were going anywhere, so I handed it over and he moved to the back of the bus and listened to Last Splash. (In case you’re feeling nervous, know that I tracked him down at the next stop and took the Walkman back. He enjoyed the tape.) In the middle of the night we had to stop at a station somewhere and I was feeling sick and a woman came up to me as I ate toast and asked what my story was and I told her that I get really carsick (still do!), so she gave me some pills and told me that they would help and that she was a nurse. I took those pills because she seemed trustworthy enough, and then I slept the rest of the way to Atlanta while Last Splash played nonstop into my head. (In case you’re feeling nervous, know that IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME and also, I was invincible. Remember?) This paragraph is really long, so we can skip the Atlanta details. Just know that there was a cheeseburger, some pasta salad with apples in it, a day trip to Savannah and Tybee Island, and I heard G. Love & Special Sauce for the first time. Egg salad at a bookstore. A party where I told some guy that I was a DJ, and I think it snowed.

Last Splash has been one of my top ten albums (maybe even top five) since it came out. I know everyone has probably lived in Ohio at some point in their life. I lived in Dayton, Ohio for a few months when I was 3, and that’s when Kim and Kelley Deal were living in Dayton when they were 12, and 49 years later (two nights ago) the three of us found ourselves in the same town again. (They were on an outdoor stage in Columbia, Missouri. I was standing on wood chips just a few feet away.)

The show was perfect and they played all of my favorites, but the one that made me close my eyes was Do You Love Me Now? because that song has always been the one.

It was a good thing happening on a good night with mostly good people (and a good sandwich and some good beer).
I bought a shirt.
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I hope my site doesn’t go down again. I’ve been knitting frogs and I might start knitting a vest and maybe you want to talk about that.

The Bunny, The Beagle, and Timmy.

I can have 17 things circulating in my head before I max out.

For the past several months, Fluid Pudding has fallen to something like maybe 18 (or 23). Ah! But over the weekend a hacker took over my Instagram account and is trying to convince people to do the bitcoin thing and it sucks and it’s horrible and Instagram is not responding to any of my requests for help because I’m like 4,392 on *their* list of 17 and believe me I get that and I just don’t want to talk about it. (I mean, I *do* want to talk about it, but it’s as boring as someone trying to tell you that they took a different route to a place you don’t know because of a thing you don’t care about. Ugh. Stop. Right? It’s just not interesting.) Since Instagram is gone, Fluid Pudding is once again circulating in my head! Aren’t we lucky to be alive?

Something happened today that would normally be Instagram fodder for me but since That’s No Longer An Option, I thought I would head over here and tell you that: Last week I ordered a t-shirt that features a sweet bunny driving a tank and under the tank are the words Arm The Animals. The package was delivered today and I ripped it open and found that instead of Renegade Bunny I received Puppy With Shiv.

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(The company’s official name for the design is Slice And Dice Beagle.) I adore the shirt, so now I’m wondering if The Universe (or this particular company) knows me better than I know myself. (Think about it. I’m much more of a puppy with a shiv than a bunny in a tank.) The final sentence of this story is: I’m keeping the shirt.

I haven’t seen you since last year, so let’s catch up like sporadic friends do.

I’m mostly fine.

I bought a new coat that makes me feel like I want to feel when I’m wearing a new coat. (It’s crafted from the pelts of stuffed toys.)

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I replaced my Billy Pancake ring with a skeleton and if you ask me about it I’ll tell you that the skeleton was my womb twin whom I swallowed as a fetus and now he’s working his way out. I haven’t named him yet, but I’m thinking Timmy. (The cats are a special effect! They don’t exist! Especially not the one in my pants.)

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I’ve been drawing on blank playing cards, putting them in magnetic frames, and leaving them in public places.

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I grew my hair out. (Not really, but if I did it might look something like this.)

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I hope I don’t let another five or so months go by before I write you again. I really can have more than 17 things circulating in my head. Especially on the new meds that I didn’t mention because I was too busy talking about Timmy.

October. Knock sober. Mock crowbar. Make no war.

This morning after writing a song about a porcupine, I went outside with Henry and noticed mushrooms growing on our back deck. I know four people who might tell me that “mushrooms growing on our back deck” is not an event to be celebrated. Those are the four people I pity, because they will never see the emergence of a magical woodland scene right outside their back door. It was foggy, the droplets of water on the pine branches were glowing, and does anyone know how many mushrooms it takes to summon the benevolent fairies?

Meredith moved out on August 18 and is making the most of her time at college.
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Harper had an amazing tennis season that ended with many more wins than losses.
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I grew some facial hair and am knitting a scarf that has dreams of becoming pants. (Knitters are killers of dreams.)
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The internet (Are we still capitalizing that word? I think I just decided to not.) is a horrible beast that ruins the ability to concentrate and makes everyone feel 37% shittier about themselves. Because I don’t want to contribute to that rosy scene, please know that the past few months have also seen us struggling with physical and mental health stuff, we suffered a fruit fly infestation that led to me throwing food across the room, and a mosquito bit me on the chest and created a scar that is not going away. I’m not sleeping well, I don’t drink enough water, and this morning I accidentally stepped on one of the cats and he is still holding a grudge. (Also, we have mushrooms growing on our back deck.) Feel better?

Always end on a good note: Last month saw the arrival of a mysterious bearded chanteuse. (Am I the only person in the world who can say those words and mean them?) The box was addressed to me, I have no idea who sent her, and she is perched on my bookshelf just waiting for the perfect name, which may end up being Joy. She brings it, and it suits her.
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