Obituary

This is the official obituary that I wrote for the newspaper, which has to be taken up to Danville tomorrow. If I have time and energy, I may write something longer and more personal later.

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Blending Flax and Silk

One of my quirks is that I can draw some energy from colors. So a useful coping skill for me is finding colors to look at. I've been playing short YouTube videos of various fibercrafting activities, and I think I'll share a few of my favorites because they're so pretty. This is the kind of stuff I often research for Shiv and some of my other characters who are into such crafts.

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Poem: "Closer to Where You Belong"

This poem came out of the June 1, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from technoshaman and rix_scaedu. It also fills the "Finding home / family" square in my 6-1-21 card for the Cottoncandy Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, ng_moonmoth, janetmiles, and edorfaus. It belongs to the Iron Horses thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes awkward conversation, references to a raid on a sex trafficking ranch, past underage sexual exploitation, past exploitation of a primal soup in a roadside freak show, reference to arguments over body autonomy and prosthetic options, refusal to talk, uncertainty, craving for alcohol, feelings of unbelonging, difficult personal realizations, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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Character notes for "Closer to Where You Belong"

Here are the character notes for "Closer to Where You Belong."

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Content notes for "Closer to Where You Belong"

These are the content notes for "Closer to Where You Belong."

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Monday Update 12-27-21

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Birdfeeding
Poem: "Too Lazy to Hold a Grudge"
Poem: "The Waters of the Beginning and the End"
Poem: "Bane or Meaning"
Poem: "One Evil with Another"
Poem: "Even If I Could Stop It"
Water on Mars
Poem: "My Old Friend"
Poem: "The Endless Reweaving of a Social Fabric"
Poem: "Instinct and Taste"
Poem: "The Source of All Energy"
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Free Will
Lexember Day 25
Poem: "Every Work of Art Is Protest"
Poem: "Tempestry"
Poem: "The Thistledown Drive"
Poem: "A Most Peculiar Circumstance"
Poem: "Those Who Have Nothing"
Poem: "A Tree’s Way Back into the Ground"
Birdfeeding
Lexember Day 24
Poem: "Never Ask You to Change"
Poem: "The Global Gourmet"
Poem: Darrow Poems
Poem: "The Flesh of Many Voices"
Poem: "And Then It Clicked"
Read "The Strange Shapes of Clouds"
Poem: "This That I Love"
Poem: "Sublime Love"
Poem: "A Sky of Marvels"
Lexember Day 21-23
Story Sparks Fest Bingo Card
Bee Messengers
Coping Skills: Catharsis
Birdfeeding
Native American Wisdom
Asking the Right Questions
Problems People Won't Solve
Activating Baking Soda


The Holiday Poetry Sale is closed and was enormously successful. \o/ Thank you all for your enthusiasm and generosity. Have I mentioned lately that you-all are doing more to support poetry than most poetry presses? Because collectively, you're spending more money on it than their budgets run these days. Thus the power of crowdfunding! I still have a large pile of poems to post, so keep an eye on this blog to see them appear.

My mother passed away yesterday. So I'm also spending time on grief work and other activities related to that, which somewhat impacts my ability to do my usual blog work. Thank you for your support and patience.


Poetry in Microfunding:

There is one open epic at present.

"Rainshadow Road" belongs the Daughters of the Apocalypse series. It discusses herbalism.


The weather has been mild here, sometimes blustery. It rained a little last night. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, a flock of house finches, several cardinal, 3 goldfinches, and a fox squirrel.

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy and mild.

I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.

Poem: "On the Backs of All This Unpaid Labor"

This poem came out of the March 2021 crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from ng_moonmoth. It also fills the "Irish" square in my 3-1-21 card for the Celtic Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, ng_moonmoth, janetmiles, and edorfaus. It belongs to the Mercedes and Finn Family threads of the Polychrome Heroics series. It follows "The Responsibility to Care," so read that first or this won't make much sense.

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Notes for "On the Backs of All This Unpaid Labor"

Here are the notes for "On the Backs of All This Unpaid Labor."

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Come and Cry with Me

I'm going to use this as a gathering point for the memorial stuff.

Quiet Passing
Obituary (my post) (funeral home page where you can leave comments or buy memorial trees)
In Lieu of Flowers
My Writings on Death
Poem: "Gone to Seed"
My Mother Read Me The Hobbit When I Was Four
Rose and Bay Awards
Celebration of Life for Shirley Rochat Barrette on March 19 (night before)
Celebration of Life for Shirley Rochat Barrette on March 19 (day of)
Today's Adventures (started going through Mom's clothes 3/25/22)

Supplies for Memorial Scrapbook
Beginning to Work with Pictures
Pictures Scanned
Cropping Scanned Pictures
Trifold Board Arrived
Photo Test Print
Ink and Photo Paper Arrived
Collecting More Pictures
Scanning More Pictures
Starting Mockups
More Mockups
Printing Photos
Memorial Board: Mockups
Memorial Board: Finished Pictures
Memorial Board: Text Blocks and Scanned Text
Beginning Memorial Scrapbook Assembly
Memorial Scrapbook Photos: Memorial Memorabilia
Altair Designs Coloring Pages
Memorial Scrapbook: Altair Pages
Beginning Garden Collage

I wrote about hippies in Three Weeks for Dreamwidth 2022.  The 21 anchor posts spanned hippie culture, hippie foods, and hippie crafts.

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