05 Oct 2023 4 Comments
***
Fall has a thing she does every year called Bring On The Melancholy, and since October 4, 1985, she’s been bringing it with a vengeance. For the first time in 38 years I missed every signal while dancing with them all, so the denial is still strong with this one. Mystery solved. The crushing grief of the past couple of weeks has a direct source, beyond the usual fall mood.
The story is here:
My Brother’s Keeper
The heart always knows.
04 Oct 2023 2 Comments
***
There’s been a strange phenomenon at work for the past week… I get up and all’s well. Then Kim leaves for PickleBall, the house gets totally quiet, and a monster creeps up behind me and crushes the life out of me for about fifteen minutes. Wha… ?? It shocks me that after a lifetime I still have this many tears in reserve. Where are they coming from? And why? I mean, the world is awful, that’s a given now. And we can’t see the future. And there seem to be few viable answers. I have none at all… thus the dilemma. Powerlessness creates frustration, denial, a tug-of-war on the inside, and finally self-criticism. “Why haven’t you fixed this?”
Feeling powerless in any situation makes me angry. I’m not very good at expressing anger in ways that are non-threatening to me or others. Suppressed anger becomes depression. Bingo. Getting somewhere.
National events pertaining directly to the world we live in continue on a perilous track that portends throwing out the baby with the bath water. It’s a massive challenge to stay positive, keep a good thought, hope for the best, in fact that approach feels disingenuous and like quiet quitting. So I stay educated and current, like a good citizen, the major challenge being to keep my psyche out of the fray. This, as far as we know, is the life we get… it makes sense to care what it looks like. Just not too much, apparently.
I’m thinking I can’t be the only one to feel all of the above and more, so if you’re part of my tribe and have found healthy ways of coping with the world as it now stands, please come talk to me in COMMENTS, I’ll wait right here.
Didn’t have to wait long. Visited my friends over on Twitter aka X, and saw this from Barlow Adams, who kicks my butt every day in a good way:
**
Come tell me more, friends.
30 Sep 2023 Leave a comment
***
It’s the weekend again, with another Farmers Market underway by the time I woke up, bringing hearty breakfast aromas to my balcony. The “fallness” in the air made it all even better than usual so I took extra time to appreciate it before the first freeze takes its toll.
We have one remaining Dove chick in residence, but we expect him to take off any time now. After his sister Dinky didn’t survive, all the groceries clearly went to Dante because he’s huge for a fledgling. He sits in the nest like a junior potentate while David and Darleen leave him on his own for long stretches of time. Lately he’s been perching on the balcony rail next to his hideout, looking very ready to get the heck outta Dodge, so our hosting days may ACTUALLY be coming to an end until spring.
As our available daylight shrinks and some of us inevitably turn introspective, I’m resolving to use the resultant melancholy and reflection as building blocks this time around. Feels like a refreshing take on things so I’m here for it and I hope the “sleep and renewal” season will be just as positive for you.
**
NOTE: Kim just checked the nest. Empty. Dante is either out for flying lessons or has said his goodbyes already. Godspeed, tiny Buddha.
27 Sep 2023 Leave a comment
***
It’s a typical HumpDay, a stream-of-consciousness stretch of time. There are days simply made for it, when that spaced-out mindset rolls in like a marine layer, the horizon is smoke-hazed for the nth week in a row, it’s neither hot nor cold outside, you’ve managed to rearrange appointments and commitments in such a way as to free up several days in a row of NO OUTSIDE RESPONSIBILITIES, meaning you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT TO DO, and now you have no clear idea what that is. Or rather, you know exactly what it is but you don’t know where to start. Or let’s be real, you’ve begun, you’re ready to move ahead, but you’re stuck. See, progress already: we’ve exposed the “smoke haze” for the smokescreen it is. You, meaning of course, I, am existentially asleep at the wheel. There, that’s one thing.
So what else might be available for providing clarity and focus since we don’t really function without those things, at least not longterm. Well, first of all this morning, the fog was clearly the fault of our coffee grinder, which growled its dying breath without doing ONE LAST TIME the only task ever asked of it. The ignominy after we’ve provided a comfy home for at least fifteen years, is what I’m thinking! Little ingrate made me add a bra to my morning wardrobe and schlep over to Grounded Coffee, where the incredibly cool young guy behind the counter greeted me with smiles and complimented my sweatshirt. My years-old pink “mom” sweatshirt with the fuzzy white heart, matching my fuzzy white head which I’d tried with only partial success to plaster down a little before showing up in public. Wow, great cold-brew though, and as it turned out a cheery way to say hello to a Wednesday. Whatever gets the molecules moving.
**
You’ll want to carefully consider the source, but I do recommend a few ABCs for getting ducks to line up. You’ll have to name your own ducks, but basic principles apply:
If you’re this far and still envisioning an orderly Duck Line in your near future, follow me for more tips. I promise to keep you posted.
02 Sep 2023 2 Comments
***
On a pristine September morn like this, anything begins to seem possible. It’s a sweet 66°, the sky is blue and cloudless, and Farmers Market is in full swing down the block. Our parking lot is full of #lfk peeps of every age and description, and the sourdough donut kiosk is doin’ tha biz again. They’re excellent, but our loyalties are with the local Muncher’s cheesecake vanilla-frosted rolls. I’ve added one to my birthday wish-list.
Our predicted high temp is 98° with over 70% humidity, so the benign morning will slide us into a grand funk of sweat and steam, but that’s latah today and all week… high 90s. Not a problem, just a challenge, and on we go.
First headline to cross my feed this morning was the news that Jimmy Buffett has left us for that spot where “If there’s a heaven for me, I’m sure it has a beach attached.” He was my precise age and isn’t the first of our boomer rockers to go… I think immediately of Tom Petty, a true “baby” and real heartbreak… as the inevitable future absence of each icon fully registers. They changed an entire era, those people: Queen, The Who, The Stones, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Carlos Santana, Simon and Garfunkel, Carly Simon, Stevie Nicks, a long illustrious list of influencers and sheer joy-bringers too massive to comprehend, including and especially every Black musician who birthed the genre. In a world where we can’t be sure it won’t all crumble to dust tomorrow, the goodbyes are hard. How do we let go of the people who defined our formative years when we don’t know what’s really left to us at this point? We just do. It’s how each generation survives and moves on. We do it as the ground grows spongy under our feet and the markers fade like old newsprint, we do it brokenhearted and afraid, reluctant, dragging our feet, knowing full well that this is OUR generation hanging it up and taking its leave. In a time when life in general has been nearly a bridge too far, the losses extract a toll. However, they also gird us for the road ahead, so buck up lil’ buckaroos and buckarettes, we’re not in this alone and there are miles to go before we sleep.
My somewhat saccharine but genuine ask for all of us…
01 Sep 2023 2 Comments
Darleen, contemplating another sojourn on the Smith balcony.
***
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Dave and Dar are back and have refurbished their safe nest for Round Four, so summer truly isn’t over ’til the hefty girl tunes up. Wednesday night we paid proper attention to the Super Blue Moon while celebrating continuity and prolific breeders. What a joy knowing these peaceable doves have tolerated us enough to hang around all summer, and with their patient response to the cycles of life they remind us every day that we’ve 100% survived everything to this point so we should press on. This morning there’s one egg in the nest and Darleen is apparently out carb-loading for the second, all’s temporarily right with the world, and despite news to the contrary, I’m encouraged. I hope you’re feeling that way, too.
**
After a lifetime of Pollyanna-like hopefulness I’m still at it, still looking for the pony in the manure pile and believing against all odds that life is a GOOD thing.
**
Now we greet September and the season of letting go. Fall is inherently melancholy for its endings, in fact positively maudlin on my part for endless years until I finally grasped that without endings, beginnings become moot… the world, never mind the human heart, can’t contain it all. So we learn and we let go. We forever honor the past but accept its immutable status and embrace the beginnings… all of the incredible do-overs we’re privileged to encounter.
Forgetting. It’s one small grace we’re afforded… a vital ingredient of being human. If we’re lucky we don’t remember every single detail with its accompanying emotions, thus enabling us to go on human-ing until we’re done. There’s a clear way to help our friends and family with the process and that’s to provide them with less to plow through on days when the sun doesn’t shine…
**
Summer officially ends in three weeks, so our supply of sunlight will gradually decrease until spring comes ’round again… and it will. Meanwhile, brighten the corner where you are, your friends and neighbors will benefit.
17 Aug 2023 Leave a comment
***
LIFE IS LIKE A DECK OF CARDS
Hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs.
Hearts = LOVE
Diamonds = WEALTH
Spades = INDUSTRY
Clubs = WAR
**
Most every society known to man has started from LOVE, in the form of an idea, a mutual goal, a dream.
In lucky cases the dream becomes WEALTH.
Wealth propagates greater and better INDUSTRY.
And INDUSTRY eventually, inevitably, turns to WAR for sustenance because there is no WEALTH-provider more generous.
Therefore, WEALTH, INDUSTRY, and WAR have been anointed the great protectors of LOVE, the place where everything originates.
Have we missed the point entirely? Repeatedly, ad infinitum? Is LOVE even still the goal? Is it winning any WARS in this millennium?
LOVE holds layers and implies much: Freedom, first of all. And at the very least, intimacy, passion, and commitment. Without it, humanity is dead in the water, so what’s the point of endless WEALTH, INDUSTRY, and WAR?
As Country Joe and the Fish put it in 1967…
And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.
**
Can someone tell me in what ways the American psyche has changed in the nearly 60 years since those lyrics were written? Nobody? Damn, I was really hoping somebody would be able to point to some positives as a bit of reassurance to all of us that LOVE is indeed still the point.
In an era when the laws of natural selection are playing hell with continued evolution, it becomes ever more crucial to keep the main thing the main thing. And LOVE isn’t just the main thing… it’s the ONLY thing.
**
JSmith 08/17/2023 with thx to Kim Smith for his generous insight during spa time.
30 Jul 2023 5 Comments
***
It’s a summer Sunday morning, only 76° and nothing to whine about. Haha, as if. The humidity is 81%, so welcome to the Eastern Kansas sauna.
My morning routine usually involves getting up by 6:30, waking up by 10:30, and spending the interim cruising through news and the most recent shenanigans. This morning while reading comments on the app formerly known as Twitter, I was struck in a fresh way by how straight and deep the dividing lines are becoming. There’s always been this side and that side, always will be, but the convo about that has become a model for AI chat, with interchangeable words and terms, and the same immutable lines firmly drawn each time. It’s a useless conversation because it changes nothing, but we keep reiterating our personal take on it as the ground under our feet crumbles and drops away.
I look for the good news every day, and it’s out there. I read the stories of people doing good things for other people, cry more often than not, and go into my day knowing there are still people trying to make life better for as many as possible. I’ve stayed in the conversation, with occasional time-outs while everybody starts to forget how annoying I am, but it might be time to simply drop out. My words don’t change anyone’s mind, and fortunately for my ego that isn’t the intention. I write to provide encouragement to people who think “I’m the only one. Nobody else feels this way.” But anyone who’s trying to tell the truth inevitably draws lines in the sand and the accompanying emotion is not one of peacefulness on either side.
I’m sensing that the default choice is to fight amongst ourselves until the lights go out and we all turn into blobs of molten clay, and then to icicles. We’re definitely a cautionary tale, and I sometimes envision the rest of the sentient universe peering at us in brokenhearted wonderment.
On another note, but likely related in some psychic sense, I amaze myself with what I can accomplish while actively avoiding some project that would contribute to the greater good, by which I mean my own peace of mind. Humans are self-sabotaging… look it up.
Once again I’ve sat here and written words and I only hope some of them meant something to somebody out there. As human life continues to decline in value, the connections we make mean everything. After about so much death and disaster, cockamamie crazy, and day after day of the incomprehensible, the planet starts to seem like a fictional place, so all we wanna know is, “Is there anybody out there who gets it? Anybody we can hang with to help make the medicine go down? Anybody still there?”
There is much we have to let go of, starting with this…
**
In a world where existential loneliness is the name of the game, I wish you at least one friend you can count on, one other heart that bonds with yours. Life is both too short and too long to be otherwise.
26 Jul 2023 Leave a comment
Photo Credit: Kim Smith 07/25/2023
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**
Took a little summer hiatus. Didn’t go anywhere except in my mind, but that’s always a bargain because the choices are unlimited. The weather continues to be ridiculous, and today we’ll put our heads down and brace for about ten days of 100+ temps. With that in mind, along with the general global madness…
**
It’s hot, damn hot, and life is tricky. Therefore…
**
Confession: The current flavor of human existence, the atmosphere in which we live and breathe, is a butt-whipping for the Pollyannas of the world. “Can’t we all just get along?” was never more expressive of an era, but as “caring ants” we’re powerless to change the universal bent of humanity. Powerlessness leads to depression, so we have to fight that every day simply out of spite if for no other reason. Why should selfishness, a superiority complex, and a total lack of empathy be allowed to run unchecked in the world if we can stick a foot out every once in a while and upend the process? I’m on it, you can thank me later.
A challenge in this era is that of rejecting cynicism. It would be so much simpler to let our hearts harden and to stop caring about much of anything, but it wouldn’t be any easier. You live with hurt and pain or you don’t live at all.
**
Experience is teaching me to Keep It Simple. (“Stupid” is implied, but redundant by now.)
Stay cool.
18 Jul 2023 Leave a comment
***
Odd summer so far, blowing hot and cold, perpetually cloudy with storm threats, or blazing blue skies hanging in without relief. Which is to say that it’s Kansas in July when all bets are off. It can get very warm here in the summertime, but…
Or Texas, or the Sahara…
Not much shaking here. Still opening a box once in a while and doing the “keep, toss, give” routine. Down to maybe four boxes, so I’m pacing myself now, because you should always keep a little something back for when you feel a need to procrastinate. Things I’ve learned about STUFF:
**
We’ve already passed the middle of July, so yet another Kansas wheat harvest took place without my notice, which means this farm girl is slipping. Slipping the traces and living the life in front of her. I love how we get to live more than one life as we move from birth to death, each one a complete or unfinished package with lessons attached. The pic below was taken in the late 1990s, maybe twenty-five years ago, when a pair of Roper boots, some faded denim, and a tank top would take me through a fifteen-hour day on “my” combine, day after day until everything was in the bin. There are things about it I miss: the productive solitude, the wildlife in the fields and tree lines, the scent of fresh-turned earth, just-harvested grain, rain in the air, being at the center of something vital and needed. There are things I do NOT miss, and some of those would be fifteen-to- eighteen-hour days that started before dawn, never enough sleep, being cook, field hand, parts runner, laundress, bookkeeper, therapist, and a pile of other seed caps that fit from one hour to the next. A lot of the details would slide from conscious memory without a photo now and then…
**
While I was revisiting my farming days, another memory came to mind:
I backed out of the garage one morning to go to work, noticed something large to my immediate left, and found myself making eye contact with a good-sized cougar sitting on his haunches next to the driveway. We looked at each other in wide-eyed wonder for a beat or two before he casually turned and sauntered toward the cattle pens north of the house. I called the farmer on the radio, he slipped out the side door and into the car, and we cruised along the road while Mr. Mountain Lion slowly padded next to the fence line, rarely breaking eye contact, before ducking into high weeds and disappearing. He was likely a bold young turk, looking for a mate far from his Colorado stomping grounds, and was the only one of his kind spotted in my 35 years on that farm. There were herds of deer, coyotes, wild turkeys, abundant rattlesnakes, and a mama bobcat who spent two consecutive winters in our old washhouse raising her kits, but that silky cougar was a one-off and I’ll never forget him.
NOTE: With a less than 15% chance of rain in the forecast for this morning, it’s coming down in buckets, with soft hail mixed in, and the temp is 75°. Enjoy your Tuesday, whatever the weather gods have in store!
12 Jul 2023 Leave a comment
***
How’s your Wednesday going, boys and girls? I’m guessing it’s more productive than mine as I’ve been in neutral since last Friday. It happens. Our minds and bodies let us know when it’s time for a break from the world, and we do well to listen to them.
“The world.” The place where everything that goes on is outside our control; therefore, regular intermissions from the drama and shenanigans are advised. It’s hard for an “I want to know things” citizen to stick her head in the sand, but it finally becomes the only course of action in defending against despair. Look away for a bit, let the experts continue to screw it up without your help, and latch onto something, anything, that’s yours. It’s inside you, not out there with whatever credentials you’ve earned going through life. Maybe you don’t even know it’s there, but you have a core no one else can reach, which means they can’t rob you of it without your permission, so never, ever yield that sacred territory.
Even if we genuinely sleep well, it’s hard to rest in an unsettled environment, with fools on the world stage running the show… it does not lend itself to trust and confidence, and the exhausting process takes a toll as it filters down to where we really live.
**
Among life’s most wearing exercises is this…
Don’t we all long for those compadres who will take us as we are? Tolerate our ridiculous humanity, laugh with us instead of at us, protect us from our own naiveté rather than exploit it, and gently save us from ourselves? Don’t we all want someone to love us that much, and have our backs whether we deserve it or not? We do or we wouldn’t be human. But we also know this: It’s a bigger assignment to BE that person. First things first.
For now, on this steamy summer morning when I could step out and fry breakfast eggs on the balcony railing, I’m choosing peace. It’s always proven to be a good starting place… first do no harm.
**
I wish you true simplicity. The world is a hostile environment in key ways, but it’s the only home we’ll ever remember, so living with it in simplicity of heart is all I know to do. If you’ve discovered another way, please, for the love of whatsoever gods there may be, sit down and talk with me right here, right now. 💙
20 Jun 2023 1 Comment
***
Good morning. Remember my childlike boasts about how much I love getting older? Of course you do. You said at the time, “Who does she think she’s kidding?” There are days when I do sort of hate it, but not as much as I despise the idea of being dead, so when I meet a compadre on the road from here to there, it means everything. I’m letting that fellow pilgrim speak for me this morning:
The other day, a young person asked me: – “What does it feel like to be old?”
I was very surprised by the question, since I did not consider myself old. When he saw my reaction, he was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question. And after reflection, I concluded that getting old is a gift.
Sometimes I am surprised at the person who lives in my mirror. But I don’t worry about those things for long. I wouldn’t trade everything I have for a few less gray hairs and a flat stomach. I don’t scold myself for not making the bed, or for eating a few extra “little things.” I am within my rights to be a little messy, to be extravagant, and to spend hours staring at my flowers.
I have seen some dear friends leave this world before they had enjoyed the freedom that comes with growing old.
Who cares if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 in the morning and then sleep until who knows what time?
I will dance with me to the rhythm of the 50’s and 60’s. And if later I want to cry for some lost love… I will!
I’ll walk down the beach in a swimsuit that stretches over my plump body and dive into the waves, letting myself go, despite the pitying looks of the bikini-wearers. They’ll get old too, if they’re lucky…
It is true that through the years my heart has ached for the loss of a loved one, for the pain of a child, or for seeing a pet die. But it is suffering that gives us strength and makes us grow. An unbroken heart is sterile and will never know the happiness of being imperfect.
I am proud to have lived long enough for my hair to turn gray and to retain the smile of my youth before the deep furrows appeared on my face.
Now, to answer the question honestly, I can say: -I like being old, because old age makes me wiser, freer!
I know I’m not going to live forever, but while I’m here I’m going to live by my own laws, those of my heart.
I’m not going to regret what wasn’t, nor worry about what will be.
In the time that remains, I will simply love life as I did until today, the rest I leave to God.
Dame Judy Dench
***
16 Jun 2023 Leave a comment
***
All week I had the dumb and couldn’t brain, so I took a No-Brainer Day yesterday to reset. Went for a walk around the neighborhood, slept for four hours, then spent the remainder of the day doing mindless things on my computer, by which I mean I cleaned out both of my Messenger apps click by click because I couldn’t force “select all” to function. I was horrified to find in iMessenger that everything sent or received since 2012 was still there! How do these things happen?? Welp, somebody goes mentally AWOL for five or ten years while pain runs the show and it all stacks up, the evidence doesn’t lie. I was born with a Siamese twin named Anxiety so she’s never not been attached to me. An ordered existence goes far in keeping her quiet, but she could tear up an anvil in a heartbeat if I didn’t watch her, so she has to be considered in every equation. She was feeling much better by bedtime last night.
So an intentional Get Yourself Better Day turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered: the brain fog lifted, the thinking processes lined up straighter, and a probable answer broke through. Pretty sure my anti-seizure Rx was working overtime, rendering me near-comatose since sleepiness is a side effect if the drug doesn’t have enough to do. BINGO. I cut yesterday’s doses in half and felt the difference within hours. So. ONWARD. The good news is that the focal seizures have been very much under control lately, so no worries.
**
My secret plan is to go underground for the weekend and show up Monday morning ready to function as a human. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, a few topical memes on our way to doing Friday right, starting with today’s PRIDE MONTH post:
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Topic of the week (read century). Leaving this here for posterity’s sake.
**
And this last one is for all the feelers who water the earth with our tears and drive the macho-macho-race mad with frustration. I encounter something to cry about at every turn in the day so sometimes I try to get that over with first thing in the morning. Just have a good cry about EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY and proceed, Guv’nah. Then later, when touching or infuriating things pop up, I can say “Nope, gave at the office, already cried my quota for the day, c’mon inner peace.” Believe it or not, I am kicking the snot out of it… it actually works. Sometimes.
Why we cry.
It seems happy little Pollyanna’s work here is done for now, so it’s time to toddle off and scrounge up something more nourishing than coffee before I get on with doing as little as possible. You know what feels good and right on a Friday or any other day ending in “y”? Self-care without guilt. Don’t wait ’til you’re past 75 to try it.
Live your story. Right now.
14 Jun 2023 2 Comments
***
A glorious June morning is underway, full of promise if you’re here for it. My self-assigned mission today is two-fold: reading and writing. Reading for fun and profit, interspersed with terrifying moments of writing for angst and amnesty. BOWLING FOR AMNESTY! She has a working title, boys and girls… and, we’re ROLLING!
At more than three-quarters of a century into this preposterous human experiment, I should be able to state one thing with certainty, and it turns out I can: This whole thing is insane. We emerge as the most helpless of creatures on earth, claw our way toward adulthood, gain awareness of our frightening awareness, and scream our way to the grave, because… insanity. I ask you, is there more fun to be had anywhere? We’ll never know.
There are things we CAN know, however, and do. For instance, I know the following to be true:
I read the entire poem knowing I recognized that voice, and when I saw Mary Oliver’s name at the bottom I burst into tears of joy over unexpectedly meeting up with an old friend out here in the wilderness. We crazies find each other, in this life or the next.
The world has never felt more tenuous… more divided… less inclusive. So we must each do our part to counteract that state:
**
Wherever you are as you read this, STOP. Sit very still and let yourself relax from your toenails up. If you’re blessed with quiet right now, relax every cell all the way to the top of your head. Breathe. It feels really good, so do it some more. While you’re letting it all go, have a soft little conversation with yourself: You didn’t make the world the way it is. This brokenness is not your fault. Breathe in. Accept the good and the right and the real. You know how to be kind. Do that. Breathe out. Reject the existential pain that permeates everything now. Let it go. One individual human heart can’t contain what’s out there, so we have to simply lay it down and accept that being here for it is enough. And when we feel somewhat healed and therefore brave… we bear witness.
**
09 Jun 2023 2 Comments
***
So far it’s been a slow month in “paradise” and that’s lovely. The morning temperature was perfect during my stroll and nothing hurt, so I’m two for three at this point.
**
I remember 40. It was just a hint of how shockingly life and death can deal with us. No worries, walk it off.
And so did you. Celebrate!
**
June is PRIDE Month, and with friends and family on every part of the LGBTQ spectrum I’d be an unfeeling idiot not to state my support.
Every LGBTQ human feels all of this and more, every day of their lives.
**
This will feel like a 90° tire-screeching left-hand turn but it’s relevant, so keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times and do not attempt to disembark until the ride comes to a complete stop:
Abject confession, I have been this person.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve never made friends easily and can think of only a few people with whom I’ve felt a true bond, but I attract the needy like flies to honey. Something about that equation makes people want to challenge me in order to back me down on what my personal moral code looks like, and I’ve had to not only unfriend them but block them, because they don’t give up. This is relevant because longtime acquaintances I once thought of as friends have felt compelled to convince me of the errors in my thinking, trying to wear me to a nubbin on the “gay” conversation, among others. Let me just say for the record that persistence does not equal veracity and I won’t be tuning in to the gaslighting and shaming. Ever.
**
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