Sunday morning and it’s Mother’s Day again; the third since my own passed away back in 2023. It’s hard to believe sometimes that it’s been that long, and other times it seems like an eternity. In fairness, Mom died right before my health collapsed for several years–there’s been a lot of shit happening since Valentine’s Day in 2023–so it’s not surprising that it can seem so long ago. This one isn’t as hard as the first one was, or even last year, which kind of bugs me a bit, as it seems like (to me anyway) it’s getting easier, and I wasn’t sure if that was actually okay or not. As Dad says, there’s no instruction manual for life to tell you how to behave or how you’re supposed to react to things like this so we all kind of just have to find our own way, I suppose. Dad will never get over it or used to it, and in a perverse kind of way that is a double-edged sword; I knew he loved Mom, and his misery breaks my heart–but at the same time his unhappiness (“I just don’t have fun anymore”) makes me love him all the more for loving Mom so much? Does that even make sense? What does that say about me as a person? Do I even want to know the answer to that question? Probably not. One of the reasons I do all these things with Dad is because I don’t want him to have to do it alone. How can something make you sad but make you love someone more? Someday it will make sense to me, I suppose, but I also know I kind of cling to him now that she’s gone. I mean, he really is all I have left besides my sister and Paul (and Sparky).
Sigh.
It’s sunny outside this morning, so I guess yesterday’s rain has passed. It was lovely yesterday, raining all day and gray and gloomy. I decided going to the library sale to drop off books could be postponed another week–who wants to lug boxes of books through a heavy rain? Not me, certainly. Instead, after getting some things done in the morning, I chose to repair to my easy chair where I stayed and finished reading Carol Goodman’s The Sonnet Lover (which was superb; more to come later), which was a lovely way to spend a rainy day–my chair, a blanket, a purring cat in my lap, and a good book; who could ask for a more relaxing way to spend the day? Not me. Once Paul was home from the gym and his trainer and some errands, we ordered Chinese for dinner and caught up on Euphoria, The Boys, and Hacks. We also started a new Apple series, Widow’s Bay, which has a very interesting tone and is itself actually pretty interesting. I thought it was a thriller series–it stars Matthew Rhys, whom we really enjoyed in The Beast in Me–but it’s about a cursed island with a deadly history and it appears to be waking up primarily because those on the island have seemed to have forgotten its horrible history? It’s also a bit funny, too–but we didn’t quite get it completely; I am intrigued and will continue watching; I am not sure if Paul will, so we may need to find something else to watch this evening.
I think I’m going to cook out today, actually, which means placing an order for delivery–I need meat for the grill, and I also have some chores to do this morning–I need to do the dishes and the kitchen floor–and I am hoping to do some writing and reading today. I’ve picked out my next read from the TBR pile, but I want to finish rereading Listen for the Whisperer and my Rick Brant juvenile series mystery before starting on something new. I have another newsletter to write or two–I am doing one about the cemeteries in Alabama, and another one about The Sonnet Lover–and I definitely want to do some fiction writing today as well. I kind of need to get my mind reset and rebooted to my day-to-day existence, too. I slept late again this morning, which was nice, but I had kind of hoped to wake up earlier than I did. Ah, well, no sense crying over spilt milk.
And now, on that note, I am going to bring this to a close and get some more coffee, make some breakfast, and do come cleaning and organizing and a little bit of reading. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will be back again bright and early tomorrow morning. Till then, au revoir.
Queer and Loathing in America 