eli nova rose

the conventions came from somewhere after all…

I loved the part where staff and patients did theater performances together, in which at least symbolically, the staff/patient distinction was abolished. It's strange to project oneself back into this historical moment given the force of deinstitutionalization's subsequent critique of these places.

I also took today off. For the same reason as you. And now the day came and I'm not sure how to find the tiny glimpse of euphoria I thought I would find.

There’s No Escape From the World There’s always an economic transaction underneath. When the business stops working out, the therapy is apt to end.

i wrote a little bit about therapy and emotional capitalism for this forum my partner organized:

www.madinamerica.com/2025/10/ther...

ok tbh I had heard rumors about this but hadn't actually listened to it until today so umm… it is something!

it’s funny how certain femme bodies are sometimes called “willowy” and now i’m wondering if masc bodies are ever likened to tree forms (oaken? piney? walnut?)

does anyone else find that typing on a phone is ok for basic everyday statements like “fml I’m so tired” or simple questions “when will you be home?” but that somehow it’s v. hard to write anything long and thoughtful in this input format?

when i pick up a pen and a paper notebook it’s different.

@rebelgrrlraechel.bsky.social hi I just saw you’re on Bluesky and I just wanted to tell you how much I loved your book! I lived in Cleveland Heights for a little while too (as a transient outsider with a toddler) and it was really good existentially to see how it seemed to you as a social space.

rust belt femmes is one of my favorite ever books. it’s beautiful. it’s kind of everything.

two skeletons in chairs with big hair

my neighbors put this in their front lawn

a thing about caretaking without reciprocity…

“I don’t read them [=stepkids] my own poems or share my own stories. I am realizing that I can go with them into their world without needing them to come into mine.”

(Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life)

whoa

cf gothy music like this tom waits song:

If we are to die tonight
Is there moonlight up ahead
And if we are to die tonight
Another rose will bloom
For a faded rose
Will I be the one that you save
I love when it showers
But no one puts flowers
On a flower's grave

tbh i don't really believe in anything supernatural, but nevertheless, the thought crossed my mind that if i were dead, i would like it if someone still played or sang songs to me.

last year i brought my electric organ outside and played spooky music to the passing trick-or-treaters, and this year it occurred to me that i could repeat the experiment with a more specific theme: lullabies for the dead.

what bands?

I feel like happiness in a society like ours has a lot of material preconditions, and it’s tough no matter how one thinks of it subjectively to feel happy when the situation is precarious. IDK this is kind of my experience of it :/

books on a shelf with The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work in the middle

I’m reading this stretch of bookshelf as meaning that The 7 Principles of Making Marriage Work are Cruel Optimism, Black Trans Feminism, Transgender Marxism, Females, Desire/Love, the Female Complaint and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I mean it's not a world that is reliably kind to almost any kind of attachment or flourishing so I feel like the loss of faith makes sense but… yr post makes me wonder what happiness and stability mean to you currently?

i haven't really written anything in forever, i think i miss it!

now i want to read this

this is very decatur, somehow!

helplessness is key, i think—that feeling of powerlessness.

me: could you please bring your dirty clothes upstairs when you go upstairs?

6yo: no, i don’t want to. i usually don’t have to. i don’t feel like it. no.

me: you’re going upstairs anyway so it isn’t any extra work.

6yo: no, i won’t.

me: ummm ok, fine, forget it.

6yo: loud sulking noises

6yo spent most of the last 12 hours loudly groaning, lamenting, honestly whining, decrying, deploring, and generally being completely against absolutely everything about the world around him. everything bugs him. even things that are arguably going fine.

i am starting to lose my mind.

i woke up today feeling certain that it was a weekend and then realized it was friday, but our kids have a random day off school so idk how i'm going to do 3 hours of meetings…

omg

i really want there to be a community and some days it does feel very real, but often it feels like all there is is networks, intermittent associations, loose ties :/

alexa: "if you want, you can say: i have feedback."

6yo: "alexa, i have feedback."

alexa: "ok, what is your feedback?"

6yo: "alexa, you're stupid."

alexa: (various words)

6yo: "alexa, what's feedback?"

❤️