Finding my inner handypenis

 

I just had to check in and see how everybody's doing. Last week was a big week. Yuge. Nobody's ever seen one this huge. I have to admit I was feeling some PTSD on election Tuesday stemming from the 2016 election night horror show. I was irritable, unfocused, fearful even, after weeks of grinding tension. Like a lot of you, I suspect. 2020 has been unkind and I had no reason to believe it was going to change.

But as the week went by, something happened. The weather changed from chilly and rainy to dry and warm. The autumn trees cast a warm pink and yellow glow over our street. The tide started to turn blue in the days after the election. And Thursday I woke up and felt like a dark cloud had been lifted off my head. A heavy dark cloud. I felt like getting to work.

Toward the end of October I had signed up for a race called Run for Ruth--We Dissent* with my daughter-in-law Dakota. Crazy as it was this close to winter, we committed to riding (running, walking, skating) 87 miles by the end of January, 2021. Coraline and I loaded up our bikes and rode along the Stillwater River Thursday, leaves crunching under our tires, smiling and saying "hi" to the walkers. We weren't the only ones who felt more relaxed. Two weeks ago people walked with their heads down and often didn't make eye contact. Now they seemed eager to greet us as we blew past. We got in 8.5 miles, which isn't far for me, but was a pretty good ride for a 9-year-old.

The next day we went out again with Dakota, my 3-year-old grandson Danger, and Dakota's mom, Red. This time we rode along fields and farms and through a small pretty midwestern town until we got to a park. Dakota stopped there with the kids while Redma and I rode on. About a mile and a half down the path, Redma decided to stop and call a friend. I rode on by myself past large cornfields that had been recently harvested. I passed a few people, mostly walkers. One old man was walking a bike at a jog that was slower than most people walk. I kept my eyes open for deer. The last time we rode that path a buck with an impressive rack ran across the path from out of the woods just 50 yards ahead of us. I have no desire to find out who would survive a collision between my road bike and a deer.

All in all, I got in 16 miles that day, about half of them at a good, hard pace. Not that far compared to how I used to ride, but the longest ride of this year. I'm up to 38.25 miles, and I think I can finish those last 50 miles in plenty of time.

I felt so energized our rides and the results of the election I got busy on several outside projects I've needed to do for months (many months). First I painted our old frame swing grape purple. I've had that swing for at least 15 years and I've moved it twice. The awning it came with rusted off long ago. Coraline uses it for gymnastics and we spend hours sitting out there reading and talking, playing music. It was getting pretty shabby though, the gray metal rusting in places. I've meant to paint it for .... well, longer than I care to admit. Two cans of spray paint later it's finally done and it looks just as quirky and "old hippy lives here" as I hoped it would. 

After that I got up on my big ladder and filled in a long gap between my side porch and the brick wall where a bat likes to roost and poop. Bats have gotten into the house several times over the 7 years I've lived here -- OK, if I'm honest it's probably a dozen times now. The last time my fierce  white cat Gandalf brought the bat down out of the air in the middle of the night and I found myself crawling naked through bat pee in my closet trying to save it. Did I not write about that? I guess not. It's funny now.

I asked several handypenises to help me figure out how the bats were getting in, but none of them could get the job done. What's a vagina to do? Well, find her inner penis, that's what. And I think I finally got that problem licked.

I bought caulk (no pun intended) and some of that ugly foam stuff that turns orange and looks like a disease, hoping to fill the gap with one or both. Turned out the gap was too wide for the caulk (nope, not going there) and the foam stuff wouldn't come out of the can after the first brief spray (nope). Worthless shit. Now what?

I searched my garage for answers. Screen? Couldn't find it, although I know it's there. Chicken wire? The holes are too big and besides that I don't want my house to look like a barn. Just as I was about to give up I noticed an old green eggshell sleeping pad someone had left in my garage. And I thought why not cut that into strips and stuff them into the gap? Sure enough. It worked and it hardly even shows. Fingers crossed the bats stay outside where they belong.

Today after Coraline and I did our writing/schoolwork sessions, I got the wooden steps scrubbed down with some kind of really strong deck cleaner so I can stain and seal them tomorrow. I'm also going to sand down some areas on the porch floors and get them repainted. After that I've got some dry rot to dig out and refill and paint. After that, I'm painting the cellar doors and filling in the gaps in the concrete stairs to the front porch and then .... who knows? Maybe I'll figure out how to put some new siding on my garage. My handypenis is pumped and ready to go!

I'm not dicking around here, people! I was going to pay someone to do most of this work, but I couldn't find anyone to do it and the custody/visitation lawsuit I've mentioned has cost way more than I paid for my Honda Odyssey, so I did what I had to do. I called up my own penis and I got to work.

Yes, I do still have jobs I need to pay a real handypenis to do, but I haven't felt this energized since we shut down for COVID in March. Maybe since the election four years ago. I hope the feeling lasts, because this old house needs some lovin' and it looks like we're going to be sheltering in here for a while.

How about you? How are you doing? Feeling better since the erection election? Dreading winter and wondering how to manage the holiday? Enjoying the last warm days of fall?

* If you're looking for a challenge it's not to late to sign up for Run for Ruth -- We Dissent. Just click on the link. It costs $35, but you get a t-shirt and some other swag. And some exercise. If you want to join my team, send me an email and I'll give you the name. Wearing pearls while you ride or run is optional.

Stay safe, my friends. I don't want to lose any of you.

Love, Coraline

Hope in a time of waiting

 

Apparently I just can't quit this place. I'm at my NaNoWriMo writing space with my notes and my intentions (5585 words so far!), but I have to get something off my chest before I can buckle down. The election is on-going. If we thought we'd have relief after Election Day, we were deluding ourselves.

About midnight, I posted this on my Facebook: "Tonight is one of those nights when it's hard to be alone. So glad Dakota [my daughter-in-law] called me on her way home from work for a long talk. Would be nice to be curled up under a blanket with someone watching a movie. That's election night during a pandemic for you. At least I get to choose the movie." I think this was the first election I spent by myself, which wouldn't have been so bad except the PTSD from the 2016 election was hitting me hard, as it was many of my friends who actually care about other people and the planet. I should have gone to bed early but ...

... I didn't go to bed until 3:00, not because I was watching election results. No, I turned off the movie I was watching about 2:00 because I couldn't focus and I thought I might as well get some sleep, and then, instead of going upstairs to bed I picked up my Kindle and started reading a book started playing Subway Surfers. I fled from a fat police officer, ran over the tops of trains and dodged others, rolled and jumped over blockades, and collected coins for an hour or longer, utterly stupified and disconnected from all things political. This could become an addiction.

As I write this morning, the votes are being tallied. Trump gave what amounted to an acceptance speech in the middle of the night. I wasn't watching him though; I was dodging trains and collecting coins and trying to figure out what it meant when my shoes got bouncy. When I finally thought I could sleep, I went to bed, read my book for a short time and actually did fall asleep to the sound of pink noise, courtesy of Alexa ...

... Only to be awakened yet again by the guy who is living with my next door neighbor, mostly in his garage where he works on a loud motorcycle that he revs and revs and revs at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes he rides it down the sidewalk and leaves it running out there. Did I mention it's loud? Really loud? Fuck that shit.

And then there were the dreams. Jesus, save me from the dreams on election night 2020.

I woke up feeling heavy, sluggish, like my nerves are on the outside of my body and any touch or sound sets off an alarm. I yelled at my 9-year-old granddaughter Coraline for not picking up her dirty socks off the dining room floor. The same socks I told her to pick up yesterday morning. That was well deserved, I think, but she's not whom I really want to yell at.

I need some hope and in spite of the reassurances of the pundits both left and right (et tu, Fox News?) that the election isn't over and Trump isn't winning, hope is hard to find.

And so I look to the children -- or child, in this case -- and I share with you another blog post, one Coraline wrote on her private blog. I hope it gives you hope too. And I hope, like me, you voted for the world she wants to live in, not the one we should leave in the past.

   Dear man in the pickup truck at the food drive who said all lives matter,

So, Hello Mr. Guy at the food drive, how are you?. Never mind. Remember that time when you pulled up in your black pickup truck with fake Trump 2020 money in the front window? And we where in our car, with our masks on, I had om my BLM mask on, my grandma with her purple one on? And you did not have a mask on. You and my grandma talked for a good 5 minutes, and while you where driving away you said,

" All lives matter, honey,"

Good, because this is what I have to say about that.

   First of all, EWW. Don't call a little girl who you know Nothing about honey. Its creepy. Second, if all lives matter, why do you have a problem with Black lives matter? Hmm? Whats' that? You are just saying that because your racist, sexist, homophobic and trying to hide it? I thought so. Herse what your trying to say. All lives matter, but women are nasty. All lives matter, but Black people are dangerous. All lives matter but immigrants are being kept in concentration camps.  All lives matter but being LGBTQIA+ is a sin.  All lives matter but all Muslims are terrorists. All lives matter doesn't mean you can chose when they matter! Third of all, I was sitting there in my BLM mask that my friend Layla gave me. And no, I'm not black. But the reason I'm righting this here at the dining room table, is because none of us are free, until all of us are free. When Layla gave me that mask, I felt like I could speak up for the black community. I want to use my voice. But you did not give me a chance. You said All lives matter and drove away. You are the reason that the black community has to fight for equality that we are suppose to have.  

Thank you for your time,

Coraline.  

Learn from the children.