Worth

Spent a lot of the weekend with Tucker. Around and around and around and the story will always be: we're good when we're together, we can't really sort out the stuff outside that. We can't agree on a set of commitments we can both put our backs into.

I've always bent heaven and earth to make things I want, happen. Over time I've learned that bending people to make things happen is terrible, so I don't do that. I've tried to make people something I do deliberately nonetheless: being up-front with my intentions, with my window of uncertainty, with what I want. I like knowing where I stand.

What I need to accept now is that I do not know where I stand and I won't, with him. I can't bend heaven and earth to make the thing work; that's not in my power. Even if I had access to a couple million dollars (!) to live closer to him and still have access to land it doesn't buy me any certainty because it's not matched on his side. So. Uncertainty.

My energy is an investment. I put it in things I'm working towards, and in things I'm certain of. Tucker doesn't offer a direction to work towards. I'm relatively certain right now that when we're in the same room we're good, and when we're not in the same room there's no certainty. So what I need to do is sever my habits around leaning my heart towards him when he's not around. He needs to be a thing that happens in my life like a rainbow, that's nice when it happens but there's no point chasing it. I need to chase my certainty elsewhere; goodness knows there are plenty of ways to chase security that doesn't involve a known poor likelihood.

At times like this I worry about losing my links to feeling human on any level at all. This isn't my society, it doesn't bring me joy in the general or the specific these days. Hopefully Kelsey coming up, and then Josh (his visit has been moved to right before Christmas, since the highways are all still closed and maybe they'll be open by then?) will both reconnect me a little and reaffirm me in my nonhuman aspects of self. Maybe one of the hardest things about Tucker is how much of dominant society he's internalized: he carries so many "shoulds" and so little softness for what actually is, and what actually can be so beautiful. Both Josh and Kelsey are a good antidote to that. Normally my life is also a haven from tat destructive attitude, and it should remain so.

Anyhow. I've succeeded in this transition with Josh previously, though he's a very different person. I have a roadmap, or maybe a destination anyhow. The journey is begun.

Worth

Spent a lot of the weekend with Tucker. Around and around and around and the story will always be: we're good when we're together, we can't really sort out the stuff outside that. We can't agree on a set of commitments we can both put our backs into.

I've always bent heaven and earth to make things I want, happen. Over time I've learned that bending people to make things happen is terrible, so I don't do that. I've tried to make people something I do deliberately nonetheless: being up-front with my intentions, with my window of uncertainty, with what I want. I like knowing where I stand.

What I need to accept now is that I do not know where I stand and I won't, with him. I can't bend heaven and earth to make the thing work; that's not in my power. Even if I had access to a couple million dollars (!) to live closer to him and still have access to land it doesn't buy me any certainty because it's not matched on his side. So. Uncertainty.

My energy is an investment. I put it in things I'm working towards, and in things I'm certain of. Tucker doesn't offer a direction to work towards. I'm relatively certain right now that when we're in the same room we're good, and when we're not in the same room there's no certainty. So what I need to do is sever my habits around leaning my heart towards him when he's not around. He needs to be a thing that happens in my life like a rainbow, that's nice when it happens but there's no point chasing it. I need to chase my certainty elsewhere; goodness knows there are plenty of ways to chase security that doesn't involve a known poor likelihood.

At times like this I worry about losing my links to feeling human on any level at all. This isn't my society, it doesn't bring me joy in the general or the specific these days. Hopefully Kelsey coming up, and then Josh (his visit has been moved to right before Christmas, since the highways are all still closed and maybe they'll be open by then?) will both reconnect me a little and reaffirm me in my nonhuman aspects of self. Maybe one of the hardest things about Tucker is how much of dominant society he's internalized: he carries so many "shoulds" and so little softness for what actually is, and what actually can be so beautiful. Both Josh and Kelsey are a good antidote to that. Normally my life is also a haven from tat destructive attitude, and it should remain so.

Anyhow. I've succeeded in this transition with Josh previously, though he's a very different person. I have a roadmap, or maybe a destination anyhow. The journey is begun.

Blackwater Cathedral

This weekend we managed to get the canopy off my new-to-me truck. It's a huge hi-canopy with screened sliding windows and a nice little internal light; aluminum, so it's moveable, but it's not easy.

We set up 2x4s across the bed under the canopy, then from one side of the bed to the immediately-adjacent strawpile so we never had to take its full weight. We then sort of worked it along the 2x4s till it was on the strawpile. The whole thing is complicated by the vertical doors that fill the tailgate space; it can't just be set on the ground.

All in all the project was a success; my landscaper project self is satisfied because none of us had to use 100% of our strength at any time, so if something had gone sideways there was soak room to fix it, and the weight was never in uncontrolled movement.

Plus I was able to go get feed with the pulley-and-rail system, which requires an open-topped vehicle to drop into. The truck and I floated back with two 1100lb bags of feed in the 8-foot box; I still barely had to throttle and she didn't even blink at 100km/h up the hills. This is why I got her and she's done good with it. Bonus is that I didn't need to use 4x4 in the driveway on the way home with the feed because there was actual weight over the friction-producing wheels. Extra bonus is that it used less fuel than the 4runner pulling the brick of a trailer to get the same amount of feed.

Not a bonus: now I need to shovel it out of the bags because I have neither a tractor nor a hardpoint and pulley to get it off the truck. Sigh.

Blackwater Cathedral

This weekend we managed to get the canopy off my new-to-me truck. It's a huge hi-canopy with screened sliding windows and a nice little internal light; aluminum, so it's moveable, but it's not easy.

We set up 2x4s across the bed under the canopy, then from one side of the bed to the immediately-adjacent strawpile so we never had to take its full weight. We then sort of worked it along the 2x4s till it was on the strawpile. The whole thing is complicated by the vertical doors that fill the tailgate space; it can't just be set on the ground.

All in all the project was a success; my landscaper project self is satisfied because none of us had to use 100% of our strength at any time, so if something had gone sideways there was soak room to fix it, and the weight was never in uncontrolled movement.

Plus I was able to go get feed with the pulley-and-rail system, which requires an open-topped vehicle to drop into. The truck and I floated back with two 1100lb bags of feed in the 8-foot box; I still barely had to throttle and she didn't even blink at 100km/h up the hills. This is why I got her and she's done good with it. Bonus is that I didn't need to use 4x4 in the driveway on the way home with the feed because there was actual weight over the friction-producing wheels. Extra bonus is that it used less fuel than the 4runner pulling the brick of a trailer to get the same amount of feed.

Not a bonus: now I need to shovel it out of the bags because I have neither a tractor nor a hardpoint and pulley to get it off the truck. Sigh.

(no subject)

I'm not writing a eulogy yet.

I'm not writing an end to the parts of me sad and lonely and wanting either.

I'm murmuring the first four lines of Li-Young Lee's This Room and Everything In It in my mind.

I'm remembering three touches, the first three touches, under a table: an accidental brush-and-recoil, a reassurance, a welcome.

I'm remembering hanging shirts backwards on hangers, collarfront-to-collarfront, as a spell to bring him back.

I'm remembering the first times we sang in the car together, when I'd drive him back across the whole length of the sleeping city to the train, and more recently when we were driving together and I'd thought that closeness was lost.

I'm remembering his wrists tattooed with yin and yang.

I'm remembering-