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Archive for the ‘Biography’ Category

You are now enrolling newborns in a lottery to test a hypothesis.
–  Stig Børsen Hansen

Patrick Stewart gave so many amazing, iconic performances I’m marking his passing in the same way I did that of James Earl Jones and Paul Reubens: by featuring an obscure performance (called to my attention by T. Greg Doucette) you may be unfamiliar with.  The links above it were provided by Nun Ya (x2); Ryan Marino; Mike Masnick; Mike Siegel; Clarissa, Jason Kuznicki, and Ryan Cooper; and Nun Ya again, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #853

My birthday got quieter and smaller after Grace died, and quieter still after Yellowbird’s recent passing.  But Chekhov still insisted on getting me a cake and a gift, and he and Jae and I had pizza and watched Bela Lugosi movies, and he stayed in his cottage overnight.  Though I understand what he’s going through to some degree, he has it worse because in my case, Grace lived in my house and I could simply avoid dealing with her things; they’re still in her room or on her desk, and I don’t touch anything unless I have to.  But in his case, he has to do the difficult work of clearing her house and getting it ready for sale, and regardless of how much friends can help the bulk of the stress will be on him.  So for right now I’m going to try to get him to spend as much time at Sunset as possible so he isn’t surrounded constantly by reminders, while also giving him the space to grieve in whatever way feels right to him.

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When I came out of my mom’s vagina, they put a cowboy hat on me.  –  Clint Patterson

I picked this song as John Anderson’s sendoff because I used to sing a parody of it called “Weeblin'” to amuse Grace after she declared that as she put on weight she felt like a weeble.  The links above the video were provided by Franklin Harris, IncarcerNation (x2), Charles Hill, Mike Masnick, Jesse Walker, and Jessica Pishko, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #852

Our outside cat, Rocky, died early Sunday morning; when I went out the back door about nine he was lying on the mat, and though he was cold he was not stiff.  He’d been very thin for some time, but was still active and happy, and killed at least two rats in the past week that I know of; it’s possible such a fight may have contributed to his demise because there were signs of some kind of scuffle on both his body and in the area.  He was native to Sunset; when we first started moving here in the summer of 2017 he was already here, though fairly young.  And though he wanted more than anything else to be an inside cat (and viewed any open door as an invitation), unfortunately he had never learned to use a litterbox and steadfastly resisted all attempts to train him over the past several years.  At first, that wasn’t really a problem because he simply did his business outside somewhere, but once the atrium roof and walls went up in ’22 he started spending most of his time in the atrium, and over the past two years he started leaving his poop in places I found inconvenient, which meant I had to get toilet paper and pick it up at least twice a day.  And though I swore at him and kept trying (without success) to encourage him to use the litterbox, I wasn’t going to banish him from the atrium because I guess I’m a softie where animals are concerned.  So he’s now buried in our little pet cemetery alongside Annie, Aeryn, and Jae’s cat Max, and I’m going to miss the little guy despite his bad habits.

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Our texts sound like a clan [sic] rally.  –  a cop, of course

Here’a a seasonal “Silly Symphonies” cartoon from 1929; the links above it were provided by Franklin Harris, Nun Ya, IncarcerNation (x3), Tracy Quan, and Reason, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #851

Early Sunday morning, Chekhov’s lady friend Yellowbird passed away in a Seattle hospital; she was 84 and had been suffering from a variety of health problems for the past several years.  Then last year, the problems began to multiply, and by the beginning of this summer they grew beyond the typical problems of age; early last week she was diagnosed with a terminal neurological disorder, and by Saturday morning decided to let nature take its course.  So the hospital increased her pain medication enough to let her sleep more deeply than she’d been able to do in months, and she passed away quietly in her sleep about 3:30 AM Sunday.  Chekhov is taking it as well as can be expected; he had been her primary caregiver for the last few years, so nobody knew better how much pain she had been in, and how much it galled her to be unable to live the active lifestyle, including gardening and creating art, which she had maintained up until quite recently.  So like me with Grace, he is deeply sad at the loss of someone he dearly loved, but also relieved that her suffering is at an end.  He’s already told me plans to move back into his cottage soon; he’s never officially changed his residence, but for several years now has stayed with her.  And I’m glad he’s coming back, because I don’t think he should be alone, and it will be good for both of us to have someone who understands nearby to talk to.

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Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve; they will be squeezed to death.  –  Heinz von Foerster

This week’s video is a British PSA from 1973 (narrated by a voice you should recognize) which was called to my attention a couple of months ago by T. Greg Doucette; I decided to save it until it was seasonally appropriate.  The links above it were provided by Kevin Wilson, Nun Ya, Anarres Ansible, IncarcerNation (x3), and Shiv Ramdas, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #850

Typically, I put the shutters back up around the middle of October, when I can see from the two-week forecast that we’re heading back into the rainy season. The main reason for that is, the rains typically precede the cold here, and I don’t want to try installing the shutters in the rain.  But this is supposed to be a wonky El Niño year, so I’m not surprised to see a very unusual (for us) alternation of cold and warm, rainy and dry, for the rest of this month.  So because the forecast called for light freeze both Saturday and Sunday nights, and rain on both Friday and Saturday, I decided to install them last Thursday.  When I designed these, I could handle them alone with some effort, but since my body has been catching up to its chronological age for the past five years, it now takes a lot of effort.  Taking them down again in April is much easier because gravity is on my side, but we’ll see how I do putting them back up next October.  And I won’t be at all surprised if I start needing help to do it in the next year or two.

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