suzannareads

The smoke from the fires in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario has hit upstate New York.

The rising full moon last night was blood red.

And the sky this morning looks like a diffractionless opal, a whitish translucent wash with the barest undercoat of blue through which the sun just glowers. I'd planned on taking it easy today anyway, because I kinda knocked myself out weeding the New Paltz plot yesterday.

Before:



After:



Doesn't look like I did a lot, does it? But it was four full wheelbarrows of brambles and other assorted weeds.

Harder work than I thought it would be, & I was kinda achey from all that squatting & pulling. So I figured I'd go easy on myself today. Resume weeding tomorrow, but get there while it's still cool out.

And that turns out to be a good decision because today I'm feeling a kind of generalized air hunger, some shortness of breath with exertion. Though whether that's from the smoky air or generalized anxiety I can't quite tell.

###

Said anxiety is due to Icky being even more of a dick than usual.

Last fall, after I closed down my garden in Hyde Park, I brought all my gardening stuff back here & stashed it in the shed because I thought I'd be gardening here this summer.

Then, six weeks or so ago, Icky announced that he didn't want to garden with me. Was it my breath? My ineffective underarm deodorant? My generally displeasing personality? No! It was that Icky does not like to work or play with others.

Fortunately, the good folk at the Hyde Park garden had just written me a love note: We miss you!

So, I decided to go back & garden there again. (And, of course, the New Paltz Community Garden just found some open spots, so now I'm juggling two gardens!) And I transported all my gardening stuff back to Hyde Park.

###

Then yesterday, Icky went on a tear because he decided all the gardening stuff in the shed belonged to him.

All day long, he fusillaged me with text: Those tomato cages are mine. I’ve had them since before I moved here. I put them all back there after the season

I texted back, As I said, I brought the 10 cages I used in my garden last year to your shed in October last year because I thought I was going to be gardening here this year. After you told me you’d prefer to garden alone, I took those same 10 cages—they were stacked on the left side of the shed—back to Hyde Park. That’s all I know, Iggy.

He texted: Where are my cages then? I put all the cages I used all of last summer in that shed. There are no cages now. I never saw yours in there.

###

This is the kind of petty hammering he does relentlessly & he is so fucking relentless that he usually gets his own way—because who in their right mind wants to spend hours texting about fucking tomato cages?

Finally, he called.

"Look," I said. "We're at an impasse. And I'm at a disadvantage in all my transactions with you since you own the house, so you have the power. Are you interested in some kind of compromise or should we just keep up the text chain till I move out?"

This was said with more bravado than I actually have, of course.

Moving out would be difficult at this point.

I'm an elderly cat lady and the rental situation hereabouts is not exactly clamoring for elderly cat ladies.

On the other hand, I'm an excellent tenant, and Icky doesn't want the house sitting empty for the 20 days of each month he's not on the premises.

And I suppose it's possible that I did grab some of Icky's tomato cages without thinking about it—though I'm certainly not going to admit that to him.

The compromise?

I'll bring back any extra tomato cages and check the slag heap at the Hyde Park garden where old tomato cages go to die. Bring him those.

###

The situation is highly anxiety-provoking because it reminds me how little control I have over my life.

Of course, because of the way I was brought up, it never occurred to me that one could control one's life simply by making wise choices. I was a waif bufffeted about by forces I couldn't control! And then as an adult, I kind of mythologized that choicelessness! Turned it into a philosophy. Became fatalistic.

I don't know what the answer is.

I do know many people who have organized their lives around making wise choices, and for many of those people life has worked out well, but for just as many, life hasn't.

The random factor is very, very powerful.

G4 geomagnetic sun storm in effect last night. Very, very, very dimly, my naked eyes espied the Aurora Borealis:



Like I said, I spent five hours yesterday getting my computer to do what it was doing perfectly well at the beginning of the day before I started fucking around with it, so I was in a pettish mood all day.

That mood was exasperated by the fact that I didn't do a good job saving for taxes last year and now am paying off the not-huge-but-still-significant amount I put on a credit card. Disposable income is down this month, in other words. I must ration my little treats!



Antonio Delgado is taking on Kathy Hochul in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Good!

He's a strong progressive candidate who believes in universal child care, expanded rental assistance, stronger investment in community health centers, higher minimum wage, all well and good things in themselves, but he also has the potential to beat Elise Stefanik, the rumored Republican candidate, who is creepy, creepy, creepy in every imaginable way. Delgado could carry New York City; I don't think Hochul could.

Delgado has done his prep work.

I don't think there's a county fair, volunteer fire department celebration, or Lion's Club picnic throughout the entire state—and New York State has some real backwaters—that Delgado hasn't shown up at over the past five years. The picture above of Delgado & io truly was taken at the 2018 Hyde Park Fourth of July parade.

###

Also, I watched the Pee-wee Herman documentary on HBO. It is very sad. It made me cry.

I am more of a fan of Paul Reubens as a conceptual artist than I am of his conceptual art. I prefer my kitsch with a lot of white space—which his didn't have. Pee-wee's Playhouse is a bit too frenetic for me.

But I do think Pee-wee's Playhouse captures two tendencies of childhood extremely well: (1) children's tendency to take metaphors & other figurative constructions very literally, and (2) children's tendency to anthropomorphize. (I well remember Mr. Light whom I got to talk to in the bathroom as a three-year-old whenever I had to have my hair washed.)

Pee-wee Herman is childlike, but he is not childish.

Big distinction.

Woke up yesterday with a throbbing—& slightly swollen (medial collateral ligament)—knee.

This is something that happens from time to time.

I'm fairly certain it's due to an ancient right ankle injury that causes me to pronate overly when I'm wearing the wrong shoes & not paying attention. I really should go to Montano's, which has a pedorthist on staff, to buy a pair of shoes that will correct for the pronation.

Anyway, because my knee was throbbing, I did not go to the gym, which, of course, was the sensible thing not to do. But I put myself through all sorts of mental punishment! Surely, if I were a real trouper, I'd soldier through the discomfort! I was just being lazy! Blah, blah, blah.

Thing is I am very lazy. Left to my own devices, I would lie around on my sofa all day long scarfing chocolate hazelnut truffles and watching Halt and Catch Fire on continuous loop—except for when I was reading some movie star or movie mogul autobiography. And I would thoroughly enjoy myself.

I'm not sure from whence this Calvinist sub-personality emerged that won't let me do what I like best.

###

Also, Mabel the kiska is really pissed off at me.

The enormous mat on her back is responding to the detangler solution, but she hates when it's sprayed on her and has begun running away or lashing out at me when I try to spray it on her. I now have a big scratch on my left arm.

Mabel the kiska is one distrustful cat.

I figure she was severely abused as a kitten. I am fond of her despite her intractable personality; I'm sure—just like the rest of us—she'd rather not be intractable—but she is, it's what her life has taught her to be. I'm one of those people who enter into covenants with companion animals, so however much I would prefer a cat with a more placid, loving personality—oh, Sybyl! I will always miss you!—I would never dump Mabel.

I guess I'm gonna have to end up taking her to the vet to get the mat shaved.

Which does seem like a waste of money—because, honestly, I could take care off it by myself if only she'd let me.

###

Other than that...

It rained all night, but the sky does seem to be lightening.

If it clears up by 2pm, I'll be able to make it over to Hyde Park to put the finishing touches on the self-sustaining garden.

Next week I'll tackle the New Paltz garden!

One of Icky's side hustles is dog-sitting.

He showed up here yesterday with an absolutely adorable spaniel mix, an eager-to-please guy named Tofu.

Pity the poor animal that is abandoned to Icky's care! Think puppy version of Oliver Twist at the orphanage or a canine Jane Eyre at Lowood.

I felt so sorry for poor Tofu that I volunteered to take him for a walk.

We hit the rail trail in a drizzle. But practically the moment we got out of the car, the sun burst from the clouds & within five minutes, the sky was blue & in my red sweater, I was overdressed for the heat!

My mood-o-meter swung from bleak to benificent in a heartbeat.

Which makes me think I do not have Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I have Angst-When-the-Sun-Isn't-Shining Affective Disorder.

I really should move to Nevada or Arizona or something.

###

Otherwise, I spent the day Remunerating & reading Barry Diller's autobiography, which I found quite fascinating.

When Who Knew first came out, it racked up huge amounts of press because Barry Diller is gay but Barry Diller is also Mr. Diane von Fürstenberg. (I must note here that back in the Jurassic when I was modeling, my two DVF wrap-around dresses were my proudest possessions, & I just love Diane von Fürstenberg to death!)

For years, the assumption was that Diane von Fürstenberg was a beard.

But, no, sez Diller in his autobiography. The two met & fell in love back at the dawn of time. They had passionate sex just like any other two people in love. And in between dates, Diller continued to have sex with guys.

Forty years later, they got married.

I don't understand why this is so hard for the maintream media—I am pointing my finger at yew-w-w-w-w, Daily Mail!—to comprehend.

Personally, genitalia has never been the determining factor in who I fall in love with.

I fall in love with men, I fall in love with women. And anyone I fall in love with, I want to have sex with.

(Although it occurs to me that I probably should have written that in the past tense because I doubt very much I am capable of falling in love with anyone anymore.)

Obviously, sexual desire is a spectrum.

But more than that, terms like "gay" and "cis" are essentially marketing categories—"gay" considerably more than "cis" because show me a marginalized group, & I'll show you a business development opportunity!

But anyway, Barry Diller's sexuality & love life don't interest me.

No, Barry Diller's horizontal leap from Hollywood mogul to digital tycoon is what interests me.

Today, Diller owns InterActiveCorps (IAC), a media fleet that used to include Match.com & Tinder, and still owns a lot of B-list cyber-publications. (People! Barry Diller owns People! I used to work there!) Diller also owns Expedia & all its subsidiary vassals like Tracelocity, OrbitZ, Hotwire, etc.

How do you end up owning all these companies?

Well, you start out in the William Morris mailroom, just like everybody else. And you devote the first 10 years of your career swinging from salary-star to higher salary-star, spending relatively little on status details.

And after you accumulate a stake, you start buying the little pieces of the Rube Goldberg machine that the tastemakers ridicule or overlook but that you see potential in because you have vision. Barry Diller bought the decidedly low-rent QVC because when he looked at it, he immediately understood that screens could be used for purposes other than telling stories.

That was genius-level insight.

I was around during the early days of the Internet, too, & I never had that insight! Although, of course, today—a mere 35 years later—it seems so-o-ooo obvious.

Also, Barry Diller refused to feel bad about his own failures. I mean, he registered them and felt disappointment, sure. But he refused to dwell on them. Describing a mega-deal-fallen-through to someone, he commented, They won. We lost. Next.

Which I think is a demonstration of extraordinary emotional intelligence.