Erasure

It dawned on me recently that because I am enforcing boundaries and entirely noncompliant for Mom, I’d probably be more useful to her dead than alive. My very existance is a threat to her warped narrative and sense of self. If I died, she could then play the Bereaved Earth Mother with the Ungrateful Dead Daughter. Think of all the sympathy and attention that would generate!

If she ever got the chance to play the “Bereaved Earth Mother,” it would be built on the same hollow stage as everything else she’s performed. It would not be love. It would not be grief. It would be appropriated meaning. My continued existence—quiet, boundaried, and unreachable—is actually the thing she cannot metabolize. Grotesque logic…yes it is indeed that warped.

I asked my therapist in exasperation the other day: “Couldn’t she just accept reality and see me as the good daughter?”

Couldn’t she just see me as the good daughter? It would require a LOT less energy. She wouldn’t have to make shit up and send me pages upon pages of her own distorted version of and events. The fact she didn’t choose this path shows something essential: It was never about the evidence. It was never about my behavior. It was never about goodness. Seeing me as the good daughter would have reduced her cognitive load, which means the distortion serves a psychological function, not a factual one.

If she could be a real parent like my aunt, she could say to herself:

• “My daughter is fundamentally good”
• “She has her own mind”
• “Her boundaries are not attacks”
• “We disagree sometimes, and that’s okay”

Then:

• she wouldn’t need to monitor me constantly
• she wouldn’t need to reinterpret events
• she wouldn’t need allies or triangulation
• she wouldn’t need to rewrite history
• she wouldn’t need to stay emotionally activated

Her nervous system could stand down. Pretty telling that someone who has dabbled in meditation for so long can’t grasp this concept.

I was the truthful kid who questioned things. My brother however massaged her ego, so she favors him. She needs me to be the problem because the alternative would have required her to: tolerate shame or guilt, confront her choices, accept limits to her authority, or revise her internal story about herself and my brother. That was intolerable. So reality had to bend instead.

From my psychology: truth simplifies, goodness is relieving, clarity reduces stress. Admitting fault is uncomfortable but survivable. From hers, acknowledging my goodness would trigger something intolerable: guilt, shame loss of control, collapse of her self-story. So even though distortion costs more energy, it costs less threat to her identity, which is constructed of lies and an inability to love or accept HERSELF.

Being seen accurately was available. Being seen positively was available. It just wasn’t usable to her. It’s a failure of psychological capacity on her part, not mine. My behavior and consistency offers her the simplest, least demanding option, yet she chooses to construct an entirely false one based on lies and distortions. What a waste of energy and what insight into what a cowardly, shitty person she really is (and how little she values me).

Mother Dearest

After months of harassment from my mother through texts and emails, I finally hit my limit and blocked her from everything. Interestingly, she hasn’t called me once since the three-hour phone call two years ago where I refused to fold, challenged her fabrications, confronted her omissions, and refused to accept her manufactured version of reality, something I used to capitulate to just to keep the peace.

Blocking her online didn’t stop anything. Now the tirades show up in my mailbox: pages and pages of confusing, emotional, guilt-soaked monologues. They swing wildly; from long lists of “all she has done for me” paired with “I never expected you to pay me back” (translation: you are ungrateful but I’m going to posture as a selfless martyr)… followed by sudden peculiar bursts of love-bombing where she praises things she admires that have nothing to do with who I actually am. Then come the fabricated events targeting my support system: the Jedi, my uncle — followed by full-on character assassination, like accusing me of manipulating my uncle into changing his will and “causing” the rift with my brother (who now is evidently also a misunderstood martyr and not a criminal con artist who has cost her major financial and legal trouble).

The worst part is how she weaponizes every moment she can remember of me at my most vulnerable — the times I was traumatized, fragile, or breaking — and uses them as proof of her narrative: that I am the feeble, emotional, ungrateful daughter, and she is the heroic, misunderstood Earth Mother. It’s a grotesque reframing of my life, and of her role in it.

It makes me physically sick.
This isn’t mothering, and it isn’t love. I’ve always known that on some instinctive level — I never trusted her, and rightfully so — but it still hits like a shock. There were moments when she showed up for me, and she could be solid and reliable, but I realize now it was only when someone else was clearly the villain and she could cast herself as the savior with me in the role of the wounded child needing rescue. It was always about her narrative.

My therapist insists she sincerely believes every word she writes. I have trouble understanding that — if I lie, I know I’m lying. He says her mind is so fragile that she can’t bear reality when it conflicts with her self-image. So she writes these letters to create a version of events she can tolerate, putting it “in black and white” so it feels more real to her. It’s madness. It’s tragic. Tragic or not, I don’t have to participate in it.

I don’t believe in punishing people for their mental conditions but being expected to interact with this degree of delusion, gaslighting, myth-making, and outright abuse is simply unacceptable. I did nothing to deserve this. That alone feels surreal, because usually family conflict has at least some murky middle ground. Here it doesn’t.

This is the culmination of an entire lifetime inside a deeply dysfunctional family system. The early years were stable enough until the night I walked in on Dad masturbating while drunk, which triggered him to abruptly stop drinking and let his darker personality fully emerge. Overnight, I became responsible for the emotional regulation of two adults, for raising my brother, and for suppressing my own needs and my own self so everyone else could function.

I refuse that role now. Thirty-two years was more than enough. I never should have had that forced on me to begin with and I have spent nearly my entire life fighting to get “me” back.

Despite it all, I have somehow managed to overcome the odds and emerge a sane, mentally healthy person with a happy life and a supportive spouse. Others who have endured this level of trauma have not been so fortunate nor so resilient. I haven’t achieved everything I wanted to and some days the thought of what I could have accomplished had I not had these challenges are haunting but considering the circumstances I performed remarkably well. I beat the odds and stayed true to myself. a real parent would be proud of that.

Mom’s last text to me was accusatory and far-fetched, describing some gushy “reconciliation” between her and my very non-demonstrative uncle and implied that Uncle Roger had told her I was to blame for everything. I didn’t respond, and resisted the immediate urge to defend myself or correct her narrative by contacting him. Weeks went by with no communication from Roger. Then, out of the blue, he sent me an envelope by registered mail containing the keys to all his buildings and detailed instructions for what to do if anything ever happened to him.

I don’t need to redeem my character with him or prove anything. He already knows and trusts who I really am. The Jedi commented, “He has known you and your mom your entire lives. He knows what’s up.”

Blind Spot

My Brother from Another Life is a graphic artist. Love him to death but he is a narcissist (claims he is not) complains about not having enough money or fame and then claims he doesn’t desire those things. I have to be careful to keep him at arms’ length sometimes. He has a tendency to suck the energy out of people (but he admits it). It gets really bad when he is stressed. He is dealing with family betrayal like I am with a younger sociopathic brother, like I am. It’s understandable he wouldn’t be performing at his best right now.

I have been trying to get back into drawing (or anything creative really) to counteract the anhedonia and outright full-fledged depression stemming from effectively ending the toxic relationship with my mother. BFAL had been pusing me to “make art” so after dragging my feet I finally did. After admiring my friend Dave’s collection of Jimi Hendrix art friends had done for him I decided Jimi might be a good subject for me to practice on as well. I found a black and white Gered Mankowitz photo of him and started re-creating it in graphite.

It turned out surprisingly well and I was pretty proud of myself and happy I hadn’t “lost” it as I feared. In fact, I’m much better than I was 20 years ago. There were definitely areas that could use improvement but for the most part I am happy. Anyone can recognize who I was trying to draw. I snapped a photo of it and sent it to my friend, thinking he’d be thrilled for me. Surprisingly, my friend’s reaction caught me completely off guard. Instead of sharing in my excitement, he responded with a kind of brittle defensiveness, as if my drawing threatened some fragile internal narrative about his own identity as an artist. Rather than seeing the piece for what it was: an exercise in technical reconnection and a personal victory over creative (and emotional) paralysis he framed it as a failure of originality, lecturing me about ‘real art’ and even suggesting I had traced it. The tone wasn’t malicious so much as revealing: it carried that familiar mixture of insecurity, competitiveness, and projection that surfaces in him when he feels unstable or overshadowed. It felt less like a critique of my work and more like an involuntary flare of his own anxiety.

The entire reason I drew it in the first place was to test myself to see if I could make something photorealistic. I wasn’t trying to invent anything. He then accused me of “tracing” it which also shocked me because you can’t “trace” shading. Yes, it’s easier to draw something if you have a photo to look at. I wasn’t trying to pass the image off as something original. “This isn’t your own work. I can see through it. I’ve been to art school” he said. That made me laugh to myself but I didn’t say anything. I HAVE been to art school. It was my minor. Either I didn’t tell him or he forgot. Joke’s on him.

It occurred to me that this wasn’t a one-off reaction. I’ve seen him do this with other friends who are actual working artists. Whenever someone else produces something impressive, he gets brittle and competitive, as if their success diminishes him. It’s a status sensitivity that flares up especially when he’s stressed. I just happened to step into the same pattern, even though I’m not competing with him or anyone else. I draw for fun, but he experiences anyone’s artistic skill as a threat, I think. Most of the stuff I have shown him in the past has been decent but not nearly at the same level as the graphite.

I initially did art in my undergrad because my dad had pressured me in high school to illustrate my stepmother’s ghastly children’s book for free and at the time I was trying to do anything to get back in his “good graces”. When I finally realized that the shitty person was him not me and that I was essentially banging my head against a wall, I lost interest in art entirely. Doing art for someone who not only demands it but does so for a mean-spirited project will kill artistic inclination in anyone. Every five years or so I would draw one thing, just to see if I still could. I had to be REALLY motivated to do it.

I attract know-it-all people who try to tell me what to do or give unsolicited advice. I wonder why? My dad certainly thought he was an authority on everything and couldn’t praise people he viewed as peers or competition. Maybe that’s it: I have a “type” who needs to feel superior.

But then, don’t we all have a little of that?

All the Things

I need to get in the habit of writing consistently again. My thoughts are as jumbled as a rat’s nest in a filing cabinet.

We didn’t get antelope tags this year but the Jedi’s nephew did. His abusive father and grandfather took him out to fill his tag last weekend. He shot his antelope but was so upset by the experience he didn’t even want to take a photo with it. According to his mother, when he returned home after hunting he angrily said he would never hunt with them again. “I was taught the right way to hunt, This was NOT it.” Evidently, his father and grandfather drove through fields in their truck to get close to the antelope and then forced him to shoot it from the truck, effectively compromising any notion of “fair chase”. To make matters worse, his father insisted he “toughen up” and take his ear plugs off. He claims his ears are still hurting. The Jedi and I were both disgusted and also entirely unsurprised; both men are total assholes. But the Jedi also glowed with pride; he is the one who taught his nephew to hunt.

I have absolutely zero interest in hunting this year. Frankly, I have zero interest in much of anything lately. I am probably experiencing some depression after the last onslaught of Mother Drama and the ensuing worry about what sort of fuckery my deranged and obsessive brother is going to pull next. One of our freezers died so if we do kill something it will be very challenging to figure out where to put the meat, unless we purchase another appliance. I don’t like stockpiling food but we have to, considering we are in such a remote area and quality food is getting increasingly expensive and scarce. I just learned Italian pasta is likely going to disappear from the US market due to Trump and his bullshit 107% tariffs so am stockpiling that. Italian pasta is the only pasta I can eat without my autoimmune flaring up. I suspect it bothers me less because of their stricter regulations surrounding GMO or agricultural chemicals. I noticed when we were in England I didn’t get sick despite eating ALL THE BAD THINGS. British food must also be less toxic than US food.

In other news I was ruminating about my own behavior and that of my friends who also struggle with toxic relationships with their parents or other family. When I experience mistreatment by other people I try to counteract it by sending out extra good into the world and being extra kind to others and extra (to the point of being aggravating, possibly) positive. Although I have never asked my friends whether they do this as well, I suspect at least some of them do. I also have noticed I am increasingly impatient with pathological behavior and will not suffer fools at all. I am downright rude in my refusal to engage in social behaviors I disapprove of, particularly if similar behaviors have harmed me in the past. One of our friends is constantly gossiping about others and I unapologetically and bluntly shut him down. I feel guilty for being rude about it later. I shouldn’t.

Bonaparte’s March

I woke up this morning with Bonaparte’s March running through my head. Instant homesickness. Incidentally, I was present when this was filmed. I was four years old but still remember it. Most of the people in that video are dead now. My dad (banjo player) is on the left in the photo in this video. I have a banjo. I should try to pck it up agan. Last time I tried it was too painful.

It is an odd feeling to be homesick when there’s no “home” to be sick for anymore. My uncle’s house is the closest to “home” that I have left.

I have been on a huge perfume kick lately due to my inability to smell much of anything after COVID. I bought small vials of all the old perfumes I remember and have started a list of others to try. I get a dopamine hit any time I smell one…except Joy by Jean Patchou, which smells exactly like cat piss. That one was a huge disappointment; Audrey Hepburn used to wear it and it was described as a heavy rose perfume. I detect no rose whatsoever.

After my mom’s abuse and venom and crazy accusations, I am thinking quite fondly of Dad, despite his own many abuses when I was a kid. I don’t know if it is the time that has passed or the fact he is nuttier than squirrel turds and pitiable in his current state. How much mental illness and frailty does one take into consideration when “forgiving” another person of wrongdoing? How much does time and healing factor into the equation? Both of my parents have tried to force me to take responsibility for things I am not responsible for and used me as their personal whipping boy because they are too cowardly to face themselves. Where does accountability come into play when their shortcomings can be explained by mental illness?

Orphan

I should have known my mother would not be satisfied by my response to her text harassment of me regarding my uncle’s will. I “grey rocked” her, which was not the emotional response she was fishing for. She got no “dirt” on him or me. Thus, when I returned home, a letter arrived from her, filled with the most insane ramblings and accusations I have ever received from her (or anyone else, for that matter). It was all about her being the victim (laughable considering all we have done is be kind to her and gone out of our way to be accommodating and tolerate her abuse) and how she had been wronged by the Jedi and me, because I was sick and not a good host the last time she visited us in Missoula and she “didn’t have any fun”. Furthermore, she totally fabricated domestic incidents between the Jedi and me that had not occurred. We were both floored by the venom of her letter and the insane things she claimed we had done.

After reading her letter (in which she mocked me for struggling with suicidal ideation triggered during my brother’s harassment and stalking), I was concerned that she might seriously be losing it; experiencing some sort of psychosis or dementia, but our therapist pointed out the contents of the letter were well organized, strategic and deliberately manipulative. She selectively remembered things, claiming to have no knowledge of significant incidents (all pertaining to my brother’s activities) we had discussed at great length. The suicidal ideation part, for example, had been discussed in person when I explained to her how her and my brother’s behavior had been so traumatic. It was interesting she remembered this tidbit of information yet conveniently forgot the rest of explanation for our decisions to establish boundaries with her. Whatever. There is no point dwelling on how she decided to interpret things the way she chose to. She may have convinced herself she was telling the truth and describing actual events, but that didn’t mean she was hallucinating or there was something wrong with her brain (except for a victim complex and a habit of pathological lying to suit her needs).

I chose to not respond at all. Rather, I assembled all of the documentation I had collected since the incident in 2019, including her latest letter, and sent it all to my uncle to give to his lawyer. The contents of her letter are not evidence of someone who loves me; certainly not evident of a mother. They are abusive, hurtful, manipulative, blaming, and utterly nuts. Being my father’s daughter, if I actually chose to abuse her, I could flatten her. I am much smarter than her (thanks to that psychologist we were court-ordered to be evaluated and the files I came across, I know what my intelligence is, AND hers) being conditioned by a psychopath and a woman with borderline personality disorder!

However, the woman is expecting a reaction; people wired like my brother and her thrive on that and the purpose of her abusive, manipulative letter is to get one from me. She expects me to be direct and truthful with her because I always am. Getting no response or acknowledgement of the letter will bother her much more than even an abusive reaction would. I want to throw all her ludicrous and abusive behavior in her face and chastize her for being a terrible mother (and a terrible person, for that matter) but I won’t. I have grim satisfaction that non-action will frustrate her to no end and she will be left fixating and wondering if the letter even got to me. I sure could return the favor and gaslight her. “What letter? I never received a letter. Perhaps you need to see a therapist”

I predict two weeks will pass before I hear from her again. She won’t be able to stand not getting the reaction that letter was clearly designed to generate, and it is only a matter of time before she prods again. The Jedi and I still have difficulty coming to terms with this bizarre situation. We have done absolutely nothing to warrant the fixation my mother and brother have on us, nor have we done anything to warrant the latest accusations she laid out. She conveniently feigns ignorance of my brother’s actions in the entire thing; the only person, (aside from her doing his dirty work) who has done anything wrong. Generally in relationships all parties share some fault, even minor. Not in this case. It is absolutely mind-boggling., and difficult for others to wrap their heads around.

No relationship is worth being harassed and mistreated to this extent, not even a “unicorns and rainbows” one. I choose the people I surround myself with carefully. I don’t choose to associate with pathological liars and abusers. So, I am deciding as of October 7, the date of her last letter, I am essentially an orphan. I have no parents. The people who were supposed to fill that role failed in their responsibilities.

My uncle said during our last phone conversation, “You’re MY kid.” Crazy how an old bachelor who is likely on the autism specturm and has opposite political ideas to mine knows more about love than my crystal-sucking hippie mother who fills her letters with shallow platitudes about love yet laces them with manipulation, cruelty, and resentment.

In more pleasant news, I am reading through a shoebox of letters my grandmother sent me between 1996 and 2003, the day before she died. There are over 150 of them. I have never read them since I initially opened them when they were sent, decades ago. They don’t contain much, but in every single letter she says how much she loves me and misses me. The Jedi commented, “SHE was your REAL mother”. She was. The contrast between her letters and my mother’s letter is palpable.

My uncle is reluctant to inform his lawyer of my mother’s and brother’s behavior, probably due to some old-fashioned concept of not airing family dirty laundry, but hopefully the packet convinces him otherwise. I am so tired of being the target of my brother’s schemes. He ain’t going to stop. I have had no contact with him for over six years yet he continues to harass me through third parties like my mother. It’s insanity.

The Jedi commented that I am a better mother to his sisters than my own mother is to me. Holy shit, the irony, considering my rejection of all things maternal. But, it’s true.

Jay-sus!

After some digging, I think my cousin is saying Yahuwah. According to Chat GPT it is “most common in “sacred name” circles”, whatever the hell that means.

As crazy as my cousin’s ideas are, she does show a lot of wisdom. She laid it out pretty clearly: “”Good” is speaking the truth and being loving. “Evil”, however, is about hatred, deceipt, lies and manipulation.” “Good does not confuse or hurt”.”

Family Reunion

The Jedi and I drove to the coast last week to meet my cousin once removed (my age) and my cousin (7 years younger than my dad) and my favorite cousin, her younger sister. I had not seen my cousin once removed since I was eight or nine years old. Her mother (my cousin) was close to my dad growing up; they were so close in age, so it was interesting to hear her stories of when he was younger. He would confide in her when he wouldn’t confide in other people. My first and only memory of her was running out to greet her when she arrived for a family reunion at the farm I grew up on and her grabbing me and swinging me around in circles in greeting. I’m a bit too big for that now.

My cousin is an interesting study. She’s a very intense Rapture Christian but does not fit in with the evangelical Bible thumpers; she has created her own faith, combining Judiasm and the bible. Calls Jesus “Ya-hoo-wah,” claiming that God or Jesus corrected her and she begged forgiveness for not knowing his real name. I couldn’t tell if she was speaking figuratively or literally. She told me she has no worldly interests now aside from the love she feels for her family and is essentially waiting for End Times to occur. She is looking forward to it! Difficult to wrap my head around that type of delusion, but whatever floats your boat. She has a good heart, didn’t seem terribly judgmental and is loving and that’s all that matters to me. After having such utter shit for an immediate family, I will take whatever I can get.

Her daughter is a strange combination of introversion and manic tendencies. She has a murky past that ionvolved drug use, abuse, and two miscarriages. She was missing for two years at one point. She slept a lot while we were there. I didn’t connect with her as much as I would have liked or as closely as I did with her mother, despite us being closest in age. I asked her what she does for fun and from the sound of it she is married to her job: a retail position selling high-priced shoe insoles. She spoke quite passionately about it. She engages in some strange thinking; she told us quite matter of factly that “the grays” visited her in her bedroom when the strange lights appeared over Phoenix. Problem is, that occurred in 1997 and she lived in Phoenix when I was in Milwaukee twelve years ago and I haven’t heard of an incident like that in Phoenix since then. Sweet girl, but a bit kooky. Whatever the truth is, I didn’t pick up any deception on her part. She certainly believes what she says, as does her mom.

Some family stories were corrected or cleared up. The relatives I thought had a ranch in Texas evidently are actually located in Colorado and own the Colorado Rockies baseball team. I am related to them through my great aunt (they are my third cousins) and as far as I know the connection with them died with my grandparents. We used to get Christmas cards from the family but the woman who sent them died years ago. There was a story of my grandfather, a farmer, visiting the ranch in the 70s and feeling too uncomfortable to sleep in their guest quarters because the sheets were silk and he was afraid he would “mess them up”. Grandpa, despite being patriotic and a capitalist, always said that there was no justification for the super rich because accumulated wealth was depriving the poor with their greed. Sounds pretty socialist to me. My cousin commented privately to me, “I wonder what his problem with money is?” I don’t see a problem. She is married to a millionaire though, and is my Uncle Bob’s daughter (an egomaniacal capitalist) so that is to be expected, I guess. I agree with Grandpa and am saddened that most of my family are not at all like him or my grandmother.

My family absolutely LOVES the Jedi, as they should. His easygoing and accepting nature relaxes everyone around him and helps offest any insecurities or social anxieties that I may have.

I got a compliment from a stranger for the first time in decades (aside from the time two men stopped me two separate times to tell me I smelled good after I had spilled an entire bottle of perfume on myself at the perfume counter-sure wish I remember what perfume it was). The man at the reception desk at the hotel in Pasco, a heavyset redheaded, red-bearded guy in his 30s with tattoos and rivets in his ears who looked as if he needed to be carrying an axe, first complimented me on my dress and the next morning asked, “Can I give you a compliment?” I figured he was going to comment on my dress again (which I had worn two days in a row). “You are so pretty!” he said. I don’t remember what else he said; I was in so much shock my brain shut off momentarily. I could have hugged him, and told him so. He probably tells everyone that, but I will treasure that compliment regardless. I felt pretty for the rest of the week (until I saw photos of myself that my cousins had taken).

The Jedi drove the entire trip; I felt a bit guilty because we drove back home on his birthday and he spent the entire day driving, which is what he does for work. He knew how important meeting my family was though, so did it without complaining much. I was exhausted simply riding as a passenger so I can’t imagine how he felt. I am incredibly grateful to him because he knows how incredibly important it is for me to connect with family. Met my Mother from Another Life in Pasco on the way to the coast. She and her husband sold their ranch in Dillon and moved out there during COVID. We had not seen each other in six years: WAY too long. We chatered nonstop the entire day; normally a quarter of that amount of interaction would wear me out but we “get” each other so well that it was almost invigorating. There aren’t many people I can be comfortable with like that, particularly for that length of time. She had just had hip surgery and was pretty down in the dumps and I was still reeling from the toxic interactions with my own mother so the visit was therapeutic for both of us.

I sure wish my mom had her head screwed on correctly. My Mother from Another Life could teach her a thing or two. USPS notified me there is a letter coming from my mother in the mail today, in a legal-sized envelope. I am bracing myself for whatever scheme she is brewing now. She has not talked to me since her last (failed) attempt to manipulate me into talking about my uncle’s will. My plan is to ignore it and provide my uncle’s lawyer with a timeline of her and my brother’s harassment. We need to have things documented preemptively in case my brother or my mom try to stir trouble if something happens to my uncle. Mom has certainly proven herself untrustworthy, which is precisely why my uncle changed his will in the first place and made me his executor.

The Jedi commented that when it comes to my mom and brother, keeping them in the dark and not reacting to their games puts me in a more powerful position than being straightforward with them about my feelings, despite it being my nature to be honest and direct with people. At any rate, my “shadow self” takes some satisfaction knowing my silence will frustrate the hell out of them.

The Jedi and I had an interesting and lengthy discussion in the car about what love is and how you define it. “Love requires respect and not wanting harm to come to the other person,” he said. “Your mom doesn’t love you.” I commented that Mom would probably be devestated if I died. Is that evidence of love? She certainly favors my brother over me. I have made my peace with that. I also know that, whatever it is and however you define it, her love toward my brother is just as warped as her love is towards me. Pitiable.

Loved the most

Usually I want the week to go slow so that I can get the most out of every day. This week I have wanted Friday to come as quickly as possible. Our next therapy appointment was scheduled for three weeks from now, but due to the most recent development in the saga of my brother and mother, I contacted our therapist and he was able to squeeze us in at 2:00 on Friday. Not ideal. We leave town Saturday and will be gone a week, but Friday is better than waiting three weeks to tell the Jedi.

I have been drafting a “cease and desist” letter to my mother containing an ultimatum and a threat to seek legal action. It is probably the toughest thing I have ever had to write, even tougher than my thesis, although it certainly did not take as long to write. Reading through it I am still baffled at the circumstances. Usually in conflict there is some misdeed on the part of the victim that makes the actions of the offender justifiable or at least understandable. In our case, there is not. We never even had an interaction with my brother that could be considered negative or charged. Everything was communicated through third parties and everything that people repeated to us were lies.

It has been difficult to wrap my head around, especially with the gaslighting on Mom’s part, after all of the hours my mom and I discussed my brother’s actions and our worry about them. It is enough to drive someone completely insane and if I hadn’t documented so much and had the Jedi to verify events, I might be convinced I am insane at this point. This feeling is old, but all too familiar. My dad and stepmother used to do and say horrible things to me and when I objected told me I was making it all up. Then, I DID think I must be insane.

My friend who just got engaged, and has been bombarding me with excited updates about her wedding planning on a daily basis, mentioned today that she asked a friend whom she has complained about to me a great deal, to stand in as a witness for their ceremony. That came as a shock to me and not only that, my reaction shocked me. I was deeply hurt that she hadn’t asked me. I was surprised that she asked the girl in particular because I rarely hear her say anything positive about her. I found myself wondering what she says about me to others, since that girl was her choice.

I supported my friend through a sexual assualt when she had no one else to go to and supported her through her estrangement with her own mother, who is eerily like mine, through each stalking incident. I was the first person she told when she met her fiance and decided he was “the one”. I consider her almost like family. I would do that for any of my friends and definitely would do it again in a heartbeat, but the fact she chose this person who she complains about so much- and not me- me stung. And it led to me questioning if my feelings for her are stronger than hers for me. I think I am not going to be as available to her as I have been, lest I start feeling taken advantage of.

I actually had a cry over it; also EXTREMELY uncharacteristic of me. My brain doesn’t typically react in that manner, particularly over something so trivial, and I couldn’t figure out where that came from. I typically maintain a state of ambivalence when it comes to what I expect from others; or, more accurately, I try to not expect ANYTHING from others.

I was very perplexed about my unusual emotion until I realized my reaction was likely because of all the dredged-up old feelings of betrayal and abandonment from Mom’s favoritism of my brother, a criminal, and con artist, who has repeatedly hurt Mom and other members of the family, cost Mom tens of thousands in legal and other expenses, and whose love is conditional. I, on the other hand, have engaged in none of those activities, have been considerate of her feelings, even when she did not deserve it and stayed out of the way, yet she chooses to believe his lies over my truth (which is verified by multiple witnesses) seeks ME out and tries to punish me for his behavior.

I’m also emotionally exhausted from processing the family onslaught without being able to tell the Jedi and have his help shouldering the burden. I haven’t slept much nor eaten much and my hormones are out of whack. So, everything is pretty raw, understandably.

I generally have dealt with these feelings by assuming a “so it goes” attitude; why dwell on emotional bullshit that you can’t change? But…I am still human and I still have feelings. These are very, very old feelings, but they are still there. I told my friend I was hurt that she didn’t ask me and then, in typical Stella fashion, tried to make HER feel better because I felt bad for making her feel bad. Ugh.

I have felt bad for sharing the gory details of my latest family drama with my friends, which I am fully aware is old codependent behavior and I should not beat myself up over it. After all, I would not think anything if my friends reached out to me in a similar situation. But, I hate the idea of seeming needy or unable to let go of things…or….whatever other negative dialogue about myself I was trained to nurture by my abusive family.

Tangled Web

My mom’s biggest weakness, aside from insecurity, is impulsivity and obsessive behavior. Her insatiability got the better of her and despite promising my uncle that she would not tell my brother he was written out of my uncle’s will, she told him, exposing both my uncle and me to danger. That wasn’t enough…she then contacted me via a series of emotionally charged, manipulative texts and told me what she had done under the pretense of “having no idea” why my uncle had written him out.

I didn’t take the bait, knowing fully well that my uncle had already told her quite clearly why…and that she had AGREED with him at the time. I then forwarded the entire conversation to my uncle, who repeated the exchange he had had with her. No variation. His consistency is evidence to me that he is not lying or withholding information. Furthermore her behavior is evidence to both of us that she is untrustworthy, which simply validates my uncle’s reasons for removing her as executor to begin with.

Interestingly, he added, my brother recently approached him “to talk” and proceeded to fabricate a story of how I supposedly went around Havre and tried to slander him, resulting in the town running him out on a rail. Ludicrous, considering I didn’t know anyone here TO talk to and wasn’t even living in Havre when he claims these events took place. He didn’t even live in Havre; he lived in Chinook, 20 miles away. He had left Chinook and moved back to Illinois before we even moved here. I strongly suspect this occurred because my mom broke her promise to my uncle and told my brother he had been written out. This was his attempt to malign me and change my uncle’s mind, I suppose. Didn’t work.

He has apparently convinced my mother, however. She is stupider than I thought…or at least feels better believing the truthful person who hasn’t done anything wrong is a bad person instead of the person who actually did do something wrong by engaging in deceitful, threatening and harmful behavior and illegal activities. So be it. It is incredibly hurtful and unfair but life is unfair. I have managed to weather other nightmares in my life.

Anyway, all emotional baggage aside, I have good reason to be very concerned about our safety and my uncle’s safety, as it is evident my brother and my mother are fixated on us and now my brother, feeling entitled to everything that does not belong to him, has plenty reason in his sick and deluded brain to retaliate against us.

I am also concerned about my mother, despite her deserving absolutely no concern at all. It is evident she is screwed in the head.

Bad elk

I am trying to force down some barely-palatable elk that I tried to make palatable by marinating for five days and making a sauerbrauten. It was the worst butcher job I have ever witnessed- congealed globs of blood and hair were stuck on the meat after I unwrapped it. I very nearly threw it away. I am squeamish about eating game that I didn’t butcher to begin with and this was pretty bad.

The elk was shot last year by the Jedi and some of our native friends on the reservation. They took the carcass to Chinook to a meat processer there who charged over $500 to process it. Our suspicion is that the exorbitant price tag and the abysmal butcher job were due to the customers being native American, despite the Jedi being present and paying for it. We always butcher our own meat, but it was early in the season and hot and the people the Jedi was hunting with didn’t have a cold place to hang the meat. I question whether the meat that was returned to us was even from the elk they shot.

Our friend, who frequently borrowed money from the Jedi but used to pay him back, did not pay him back for the meat processor, nor did he pay him back for money he had borrowed to cover a hotel in Billings when his abusive girlfriend was having a brain tumor removed. The Jedi, being who he is, did not ask to be paid back; our friend had promised he would and always had in the past.

Our friend’s girlfriend is an ancestor of a chieftan who was famous for his uncanny ability to predict the future. I haven’t seen any evidence of her ability to do that but she certainly is batshit insane and they have broken up and reconciled more times than I can count. Every time she threw him out of her house he would contact the Jedi and ask to stay at our house; the Jedi always declined. When I finally inquired about this (I didn’t mind having a houseguest) the Jedi replied that he suspected our friend would stay indefinitely and he didn’t want to encourage that.

We noticed the only time we would hear from our friend is when he needed something. He continued to call the Jedi and ask for money and the Jedi repeatedly told him he had given him all he could give him. The Jedi started not answering the phone when he called, which resulted in him calling me. Right before the Jedi had surgery for his cancer I received a text from our friend, asking me if I would buy a gun from him because he desperately needed money. I replied that neither of us had money to spend on a gun and had hefty medical bills to deal with. Our friend made no comment indicating concern for the Jedi’s health. I noted that.

We didn’t hear from him for about six months after that but spotted him with his girlfriend at the spring powwow hosted on campus. Well, that ‘splains why we hadn’t heard from him…they were back together again. Last week, after a lengthy period of radio silence, the Jedi got a call from him and didn’t answer. Our friend then immediately texted me under the pretense of inquiring how we were doing. The Jedi asked me to not respond and I didn’t (he needent have asked; I had no intention of responding at that point). Later we noticed our friend’s truck parked at his brother’s house (his brother lives in our neighborhood). The girlfriend must have kicked him out once again and he was likely calling to get money out of the Jedi.

Our friend owes the Jedi over two thousand dollars, apparently. The Jedi had withheld that tidbit of information from me for quite some time; typical of him; he is private about his money and doesn’t like to talk shit about his friends. He feels taken advantage of and probably feels stupid for having so much faith in his friend.

My Evil Twin commented the other day that she doesn’t have many friends because she won’t tolerate people’s bullshit. People suck. She is correct. Isn’t that what friendship is somewhat though? Tolerating other people’s bullshit? No one is perfect, least of all us. So, unless it’s a dealbreaker like being blatantly taken advantage of or serious philosophical differences I’m okay with tolerating my friends’ flaws and focusing on what is good about them.

What perplexes me though is how seemingly oblivious some people are about how their actions can be interpreted. I guess having that level of awareness is a benefit to being so rigorously criticized in my formative years although I am sure I have blind spots just like anyone else. Sure wouldn’t do what our friend has done, though!

I gave the elk a valiant effort at lunchtime and tossed the remainder of it in the trash, trying to not think too much about the starving people in Gaza.

Instant Karma

It is remarkable how incredibly DUMB the majority of my fellow Americans evidently are. It’s pretty scary if I happen to be smarter than most of them because I ain’t all that bright.

The public reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death has been marked by notable hyperbole and selective outrage. Despite being an overrated podcaster holding no political office, his death has received substantial media attention, arguably surpassing the media coverage and public outrage surrounding the of the assassination of a Democratic Minnesota state representative and the shooting of a senator three months prior. The individual in question was known for advocating violence and exhibiting a lack of empathy toward children affected by gun-related tragedies, among other callous things. Nonetheless, criticism of his actions has been met with feigned moral defensiveness and manufactured shock, reflecting broader societal tensions around accountability and political bias.

A criminal justice professor at Montana State University–Northern (Havre) has recently become the target of conservative doxxing due to a Facebook post she made regarding Charlie Kirk who was fatally shot in Utah. Despite Havre’s small population, there is a university here…and it plays a significant role in the community. I happily had not heard of the guy until he was killed. When I read up about who he was I was disgusted. No one should be killed for their beliefs, no matter how abhorrent…but good riddance regardless. The professor didn’t even say anything I consider that inflammatory; she merely commented that he reaped what he sowed. No exaggeration there.

The United States remains a society where violence is prevalent, and public figures who promote aggression bear a measure of responsibility for the consequences of their advocacy. The professor’s post, which criticized Kirk and his actions, was met with significant backlash. She, a dual citizen of Canada, was subsequently placed on administrative leave, and there have been calls for her deportation. Even our governor publicly expressed regret over signing legislation intended to protect employees from termination based on their social media activity (he had intended to protect MAGA bigots, not liberals). These developments raise legitimate concerns regarding the professor’s personal safety and professional security.

It is important to note that the professor has previously shared politically charged commentary on social media, and included students and colleagues among her connections on Facebook. She has a history of offending students and their parents due to sharing her political views and many complaints have been made against her in the past by the thin-skinned (part of getting educated is being exposed to opinions you might dislike and being offended, dumbasses). While such behavior may raise questions about professional boundaries, the response she has received is disproportionate to the content of her statements.

This highlights broader patterns in contemporary social and political dynamics. Coordinated online campaigns and highly selective outrage function as mechanisms of social conditioning, encouraging reactive behavior among the populace while obscuring underlying power structures. In this context, polarization and strategic manipulation of public sentiment appear to be actively shaping discourse, with significant implications for civil society and democratic norms.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I see some very deliberate social conditioning occurring here and the populace are apparently too stupid to recognize it. We are being played like a fiddle by allowing ourselves to be so reactionary and Trump and his goons are laughing their way to the bank. The current administration would like nothing more than to divide the country further and encourage a civil war or implement martial law.

I am observing the media using language deliberately to minimize, distort, or sanitize wrongdoing of these Trump cronies- even NPR and other “liberal” news organizations are guilty of it. This guy is being dubbed an “activist”. Sure, if an activist is a divisive racist, misogynist, homophobic, provocateur and hatemonger. And the girls who were raped by Trump and Epstein when they were as young as thirteen were “women”. Doublespeak at its finest. Orwell would be proud.

Words cloak bitter crimes,
Innocence erased by speech,
Silence shields the vile.

Finally, I question the story we are being fed by the media about the shooter. I hunt and am a decent shot (you have to be if you are a responsible hunter). I have been killing things since I was eight years old. Despite my familiarity and relative comfort with killing there’s no way I could kill another human being, particularly under the conditions the supposed shooter did. The chances of some snot-nosed Mormon college student possessing the discipline and skill to fatally shoot another human being in the jugular from 250 yards away with a .30 06 bolt-action rifle is not at all plausible. I know the impact of such a weapon, having shot one myself. Why wasn’t the victim’s head blown off? That shot was WAY too precise for that caliber and at that distance. It doesn’t make sense. Everything about this screams sniper. But, how can “they” (who is “they”? Think about who benefits most from Charlie Kirk’s death…what a perfect distraction and tool to further divide the populace and rile it up to a boiling point) spin a story this fantastic and get away with it?

Cry me a river

Some conservative activist I had never heard of was assassinated yesterday at a university in Utah. No one should be killed for their beliefs. I believe strongly in free speech, no matter how revolting. I support his right to spew hate. However, when you spew hate, there are consequences. I hope the shooter is never caught. And, I believe wholeheartedly, after reading up on the “victim” and his ideas, that karmic justice was delivered that day.

Bozeangelas

I accompanied the Jedi to Bozeman this weekend to attend a conference for his work. The town is busier than Missoula and I really disliked it. I had been very excited about the trip, longing to get out of Havre for a bit and enjoy good food and shop. After being exposed to the public, however, all I wanted was to pack up and get the hell out. It did not help matters that the Jedi’s boss, whom we shared a hotel room with and had hurt his eye and had to be shuttled everywhere, has ADD paired with an abandonment complex, clung to us and talked nonstop, putting me in a foul mood from overstimulation. That’s another story, though.

A decade ago Bozeman was a quiet little college town with a slightly blue collar vibe but the pandemic resulted in flocks of city people moving there from other parts of the country. Everything is overpriced and everyone who lives there are assholes (everyone elbows their way around and no one says “excuse me”) and the town is crowded with people doing stupid, entitled, inconsiderate things. It felt like a Sacramento or even LA. (Ironically, Bozeman was called “Bozeangelas” by locals long before it became as gentrified as it is now). Claustrophobic, busy and unfriendly.

Around 6:00 Saturday morning the Jedi and I stopped at a grocery store to grab some coffee (the hotel coffee was terrible and nothing else was open yet) and witnessed an entitled neoliberal male, probably old GenX or young Boomer age wearing a man bun and Orvis fly fishing swag demand to speak to the manager. He proceeded to drag the grocery manager outside to the parking lot and give him suggestions for how the parking lot lines should be painted. Clearly Yuppie Orvis Man Bun has never had to work retail or a blue collar job in his life. Not only does the manager have absolutely zero control over how the lines in the parking lot were painted the idea anyone who makes minimum wage at a grocery would give a flying fuck about something that trivial is absolute insanity. I was disgusted. Stop wasting that man’s time and be respectful. He has much more important shit to worry about than YOU.

The more I am around urbanites the more I despise them and the more I want to keep to myself. It also makes me appreciate Havre more, despite all its flaws and backward inhabitants.

I poked around the thrift stores and was severely disappointed. Everything was terribly picked over and the prices were close to retail prices. Vintage items were outrageously expensive. The prices in the downtown stores were as bad or worse than Jackson Hole or Napa/Sonoma prices (Actually, Napa/Sonoma is more reasonable). A pair of old pawn Zuni earrings similar to a pair I bought a decade ago for $85 at a floofy gallery in Flagstaff (also a gentrified tourist town) were priced at $450. Thinking that perhaps inflation were to blame, I did some digging on the internet. Nope, similar earrings are priced at $125-$150 now.

It was nice to be able to go to a physical store and sniff perfume at the counter and also nice to see the wide selection of things to buy, something nonexistant in Havre. The grocery stores were so amazing (filled with fresh produce and a wide selection of items I struggle to find here) it was overwhelming. I visited a Whole Foods, notorious for being overpriced; “Whole Paycheck”, and was surprised that the prices were lower than Havre groceries AND the groceries I purchase online through Misfits Market.

On our way out of town we drove under an overpass where about half a dozen masked men wearing black had erected a giant sign that read “DEPORT YOURSELF BEFORE ICE DOES”. They gave our car the Nazi salute as we passed underneath. Lovely parting shot.

Keeping Score

Our friend who whines to the Jedi and our other male friends about being mistreated by his wife landed in the ER with stomach pains several weeks ago. Apparently his appendix was inflamed and had to be removed. After surgery, he was not feeling well. According to him, his wife insisted he attend a fishing trip with her family because she had attended his family’s reunion earlier that month (She also attended on her terms and did not attend the entire thing).

During the fishing trip he got very sick and landed in the ER again. When he returned home, he awoke with stomach pains again and back to the ER he went. Evidently he had ripped his sutures during the fishing trip and developed an infection. (Another interesting tidbit: his wife’s father is a retired doctor and pooh-pooed his discomfort on the boat-that entire family seems a tad sociopathic, frankly…or at the very least narcissistic). He was hospitalized for a couple days on heavy antibiotics. We did not see his wife with him once, but did see her heading off to the mountains for a hike by herself while he was hospitalized. The Jedi got a call from him at one point begging for a milkshake. He had asked his wife for one and she brought him yogurt and some very old-looking fruit. We brought him a milkshake (significant for the Jedi because he is a hypochondriac and hates hospitals).

He has recovered and dropped by briefly over the weekend to return a pot I had delivered soup to him in. Apparently when he returned home from the hospital, he discovered his wife had gone through his belongings while he was out of the house and thrown a lot of them away. I can play devil’s advocate for her easily; I might just murder him if I lived with him- he is as disorganized as the Jedi and his hoarding tendencies are just as bad. I have little patience for a whiny, passive aggressive man-if you have a problem with your spouse, you address it or leave-you’re an adult. He doesn’t throw HER stuff away though, and when she was hospitalized he was with her the entire time. I also suspect he exaggerates to let off steam. BUT, her behavior seemed pretty callous even with all of that in consideration. As much as I long to throw away all of the Jedi’s belongings and tidy the house, I respect him enough to restrain myself…and if he were hospitalized I would be there with him as much as I could. Bluebeard’s Chamber and its disarray would be the last thing on my mind.

The Jedi commented that if I were hospitalized he would probably be sleeping in the room with me on a cot. I would never have insisted he attend an event with my family he did not feel like attending, sick or not.

I have overheard her and her sister (the sister-the competitive butt sniffer– treats her own husband similarly) talk about our friend and from the disparaging comments and the disgust in both their voices I am fairly convinced she despises him. But, she also likes having two incomes at her disposal and a nice house. He loves their son. I think he stays with her because of their son and suspect she stays with him because of the money. They are both good people but I think they are stuck in a toxic love relationship rut that has worsened over time because their issues have never been addressed constructively. He has gone to a therapist a couple times but she refuses to go with him. If the Jedi and I did not attend therapy on a consistent basis we would not be together, plain and simple.

In contrast to our friends, my cousin drove her husband to the ER this weekend after he awoke in pain and vomiting and stayed with him all day, returning home for only three hours to try to get some sleep. He had to undergo emergency surgery and now has a colostomy bag. He is struggling to stay in good spirits and she has offered to drive him to watch a shooting competition he was planning to compete in if he is released soon enough, just to give him something to look forward to and help keep his spirits up. If he had asked for a milkshake, I am certain she would drop everything she was doing and get him one.

Observing our friend’s marriages makes me feel better about our own, at least.

Sun-ripened raspberry

I have been on a nostalgic “scent” kick lately, scouring Ebay for old bottles of discontinued fragrances I remember from high school and college. When I was 16 years old and a freshman in college I wore fruity cologne sprays until one day when my boss exclaimed, “Stop wearing that scent. You smell CHEAP.” I was totally humiliated and threw it away immediately when I got home.

Mylinda (yes, Melinda with a y, which she would remind you of if you misspelled it) was my supervisor at the Linen department on campus. She was 55 but looked like she was in her 70s, Mormon, divorced (unusual for Mormons), wore long denim skirts with sneakers, and pulled her long hair out of her face into a massive “hair bump” pinned down with barrettes. She would tell her secretarial staff all sorts of stories about her activities in the church and with her family. She had a daughter in Scottsdale, whom she claimed was married to a very rich man and we were transfixed by her elaborate stories of her adventures with her daughter, their fancy cars and their jet-setting lifestyle. She was very domineering and opinionated woman, was quick to label and judge people and I was afraid of her.

Because I was raised in such a volitale environment in which the question wasn’t “if” I would get punished but “when”, and it was impossible to know what would set my father and stepmother off, I had become a terrible liar in order to protect myself. One winter morning I awoke to a ton of snow outside and did not want to make the trek across campus to work. I called in to work, fabricating an elaborate tale of how I had been visiting my parents over the weekend and we were heading back to Flagstaff that day. I had called in sick a lot- to the point Mylinda had told me I was no longer allowed to call in sick unless I brought a note from a doctor.

The next morning at work, Mylinda inquired how the roads were on our drive to Flagstaff. “Icy in patches, so we had to go slow, but we made it!” “Oh, that’s interesting,” she said, “The Department of Transportation closed Highway 40 on Monday.” I gulped and stammered some idiotic reply like “well, we made it” but I was caught and we both knew it. I was certain I would be fired or at the very least reprimanded. Oddly, Mylinda didn’t say anything more about it. I never lied to her again. I learned my lesson. However, I always found it peculiar she never punished me and puzzled over it.

Some time later, Mylinda experienced some sort of health scare and left the university abruptly. The other secretary and I assumed her job responsibilities. We got on her computer and accessed her email (in those days nothing was locked down). Reading through her emails we discovered years of correspondence with her daughter. To our shock, her daughter was not living in the manner Mylinda had described, in a gated community in Scottsdale with a pool, a butler and a gardener. Rather, she lived in Phoenix in a house trailer, was struggling with rent and her Corvette-driving rich husband worked at a gas station. They had a car that was barely running they couldn’t afford to repair or replace. Suddenly I understood somewhat why I didn’t get in trouble with her for my elaborate lie.

Mylinda hadn’t crossed my mind in years…until I sniffed the “sun-ripened raspberry” body splash she had shamed me so harshly for wearing. It transported me back to that day at the Linen Department immediately. That was the last pathological lie I ever told. It’s not because I possess some sort of moral superiority. Lying simply requires too much work. It’s much easier and simpler to just tell the truth; less to keep track of, and it doesn’t require any research.

She was also right, by the way. “Sun-ripened raspberry” smells “cheap”, indeed. It was!

Granny Panties

The “gentleman’s chest” latch mechanism works after all. As I was dismantling and cleaning it I discovered an old pair of panties crammed behind the mirrored pull-out drawer that was interfering with the latch latching. This is not the first pair of granny panties I have discovered after a used furniture purchase.

No Weekend

Despite being much healthier than I used to be and thus more equipped to withstand human interaction, I still get overstimulated. Today, I am exhausted and more irritable than normal because I did not get the precious down time that is typically part of my weekend routine.

Saturday started off by checking out a garage sale which resulted in an impulse purchase of a midcentury Drexel Gentleman’s Chest designed by Kipp Stewart. It required some strategizing and lengthy discussion with the woman selling it and I ended up paying what she asked for it ($200 since the latch mechanism is messed up and doesn’t unlatch when pressed); she is an antique collector and knew exactly how much it is worth. It will replace the dog-eared dresser I have in our bedroom. The Jedi and I agreed to tell our nosy, competitive friend that we paid $20, just to fuck with her for being so rude and nosy about our belongings. It is HEAVY, even with the drawers removed. It required four people to lift it into the Jedi’s truck.

That afternoon we were invited to our friend’s 31st birthday party. She and her boyfriend are delightful to hang out with, but we were at her house for five hours, several of which involved playing games, one of which is Taboo, which I absolutely detest because it highlights the holes in my brain that have never been repaired, causing anxiety and frustration. I managed to get through it as gracefully as I could (despite being unable to hold the corpolalia back) but was miserable and exhausted by six o’clock. We then were invited to an impromptu backyard fire pit hangout with some other laid-back friends I enjoy the company of, but I was already exhausted and the constant chatter, despite pleasant, wore me out even more. Fortunately the Jedi has learned to check in with me during social events and pay attention to non-verbal cues and we were able to leave early.

Next morning a friend invited us mushroom hunting on the ski hill on the reservation, which we can’t visit without a tribal escort, so we jumped at the opportunity. The tribe doesn’t use herbicides and subsequently the mushrooms and other edible plants there are safe to eat, unlike the mushrooms on the “white people” portion of the mountains, the park run by the county. It was a great hike and mushroom hunt, but our friend we carpooled with (and thus were held hostage by) medicates his anxiety and ADD by listening to music. We were therefore stuck listening to unwelcome background noise in the wilderness unless we were out hiking away from people. I took off on my own several times to get away but that was impossible on the hour-long car ride back to town.

The mushroom hunting timing was perfect, at least, and we picked several pounds of aspen boletes that were either just coming up-buttons-the freshest and best form- or gigantic and still worm and bug-free despite the size (this almost never occurs-once they get any size the insects start infesting them). There were too many mushrooms for us to use or give away so I grudgingly stopped picking them after a while. I am not a huge fan of aspen boletes; they are a bit slimy when you cook them and too earthy for my taste, but mushrooms here are hit or miss and this rare opportunity had to be taken advantage of and they are fun mushrooms to hunt, and pretty, with their buff brick red caps and black-speckled stalks. I have never seen so many aspen boletes at one time, nor in such pristine condition as these. Spent the remainder of the evening slicing them and putting them in the dehydrator (dried, they smell like wet dog). Russians adore them; perhaps I will try a Russian recipe or two, although right now the idea of cooking anything makes me feel like either crying or throwing something.

In contrast, the Jedi was invigorated by all the stimulation and socializing and was much less whiny and mopey than he is typically…until one of his manipulative female clients who tries to trick him into breaking rules so she can save money on lab fees started texting him Sunday evening, catapulting him into a foul mood.

Middle Age

You know you have reached middle age when you spend the check your mom sent you for your birthday on a toaster oven because your new oven won’t maintain a steady temperature. I had planned to buy a pretty dress with it but I have plenty of dresses already.

Fingers crossed that this appliance doesn’t go to shit within a year.

Planned obsolescence

The ancient 1990s dishwasher that we kept chugging along finally bit the dust and the Jedi installed the used one we had bought months ago. It is much nicer-looking than what we had in there- stainless steel- but it is CRAP. The old dishwasher weighed at least twice as much as the new one and the drum of the new one is plastic, not metal. It’s loud and the door is not even designed to lock. My one consolation, aside from aesthetics, is it is slightly larger inside and more dishes and larger pans fit in it.

We had no choice when we bought it; all the models in all the stores he visited had been purchased already. There were no dishwashers available within several hundred miles; evidently everyone else had the same thought we did and bought their appliances ahead of time to avoid the tariffs. The Jedi just happened to spot a lone returned dishwasher in a corner on a shelf in Lowe’s, snapped it up and brought it home in his work vehicle.

Definitely noticing a trend here. The beautiful stainless steel Samsung refrigerator the old trapper bought for over $2k and gave us a couple years ago after the company said they couldn’t fix it is brand new but the fan component in that model gets stuck and stops working and the fridge gets to 50 degrees inside. We use the refrigerator part for drinks. The freezer part works, at least. The GE stove I bought two years ago no longer holds a consistent temperature in the oven and I can’t cook pizza in it. I uncharacteristically purchased the extended warranty on it and received a check for $800; I spent a total of almost $1300 on the appliance between the stove and its warranty and after utilizing the warranty ultimately paid $500 for an appliance that does not work.

The brand new washer and dryer we purchased from my former student worker when we moved to Havre are also total crap compared to the ancient bare-bones washer and dryer in our old Missoula rental. I am certain those appliances are still chugging along, whilst our sparkly new replacements can’t even handle a full-sized load of towels.

We have one hideous appliance left: an almond built-in microwave that is installed over the stove. I despise microwaves over the stove-they get in the way of my big pots- and am eagerly anticipating the day it kicks the bucket as well. The microwave is supposed to “vent” but the vent hood goes into a cabinet and does not actually vent outside. Any time I cook in the kitchen it fills up with smoke and I have to use a box fan to get it out. The kitchen, while pleasantly large, was obviously not designed by cooks, but at least the appliances they purchased lasted over 30 years. We will be lucky if we get five years out of these new “improvements”.

Lord knows how much money a microwave and a vent hood are going to set us back, or what annoying “bells and whistles” they will have that make everyday tasks an irritating nightmare. My uncle replaced all his appliances in his cabin and as he says, they “have a mind of their own”, The microwave/vent hood above his stove turns its fan on automatically at any hint of heat and moisture and there is no way to turn it off until it has run its course. It is LOUD and irritates the shit out of me every time I try to cook there. His new washer, like ours, locks itself when it begins to fill up with water and there is no way to unlock it once it starts, so one cannot just casually toss in a forgotten sock mid-cycle. My new stove’s touch screen is so sensitive that if any splatter gets on it whilst cooking it locks and you can’t use it to do simple things like turn the goddamn oven on unless you pull it out from the wall and unplug it.

I want appliances that have no brains and last thirty years. First world problem? Why isn’t there more of an uproar over this issue?