beautiful reprobates

Queer club Halloween party tonight: the blood-red face paint dripping from one of the organizers' foreheads was in fact glittery.

There was also a LARP vampire, a few sets of fairy wings, some witches, somebody wearing a shirt he'd attached forks to and covered in fake blood to make it look like they were stabbing his torso and arms, who only belatedly realized that this meant he couldn't hug anyone, or squeeze as close to anyone else for the group photo as had been encouraged...

...and D and I as sheet ghosts, underneath fitted bedsheets that'd had the elastic taken out and holes cut for our eyes. D insisted on a slot for his mouth too, which he intended as a way to consume snacks, but the slot was too small to fit a cookie through. "I can see the crumbs on the mouth," from it someone later commented when he explained his costume.

V loves sheet ghosts and it was very nice to have costumes that they helped us make.

I woke up and looked at my alarm clock: 8.30. That's early!

Then I looked at my phone which said 7.30 - that's REALLY early!

"Gained an hour," but on the one Sunday in months when I have no plans at all so it doesn't do me any good.

I'm not normally bothered by the clocks changing -- I'm not normally bothered by eight-hour timezone changed -- but today once I got out of an excruciating conversation with my parents (they have their first laptop and they don't know what "browser" means and "the printer is in a file and I can't get it to come out!") all I could think was ah thank god it's bedtime and it was seven forty two pm.

8:42 I could accept as a typical time for me to go upstairs and get ready for bed. But this is silly.

And I was also very hungry and very overwhelmed by the time I ate dinner, because "the same time as usual" was in fact an hour late.

Caught up with my mom today. It'd been an eventful few weeks; I know they were closing on Grandma's house a week ago, and for most of the intervening time my parents had been visiting our Wisconsin family. Now that they're back, today my parents picked up the check for their share of the house, and deposited it, including a big chunk for me.

I tried to refuse it, I really want my parents to have it because they have less money than I do, but they also have a huge aversion to believing themselves to have less money than I do. And I think this might help them pay less taxes, so: fine. (I'm normally in favor of paying taxes but not federally right now! ugh.) And some of it is a little sentimental for my mom. And me too. I miss my grandma.

I'd trade all the money for the lefse spatula and rolling pin that I never got, and I may well have to buy myself another one. Maybe I'll make a batch at Christmas. It won't be the spatula with the blue handle and the hand-painted yellow flowers and the decades of use, but at least I can have some lefse.

Having heard today too that the U.S. government shutdown has reached the point of stopping SNAP (food for poor people) and knowing online a bunch of people who are reliant on that and scared about how they're going to survive, I just want to give all the money away. I feel so uncomfortable that I have this useless money when others could use it so much.

A couple weeks after Gary died, back when I still looked at Facebook (I gave it up early this year), I got a Facebook ad for Borrow My Doggy. I told V it's like tinder for dogs) and they were like "oh that might be a good idea actually" so I've signed up.

Filling in the profile was kinda funny: since I was doing it on behalf of all of us, I felt like I was saying "hey, my metamour and our boyfriend and I saw you from across the dog park and we like your vibe..."

Like I understand dating apps for humans to work, results have varied. One person ghosted on us once we got to the details of where we live and stuff, one person's timing wasn't good (my professed ability to host was stymied by the request coming only a couple weeks after Mr. Smith joined the household which was deemed too much for the little blind cat so soon after his second move this year).

Someone great got in touch -- a couple that were moving to the area and both they and their dogs needed friends; they described the dogs as possibly a little bit of a handful but it sounded like, uh, a walk in the park after the intensity we'd gone through in the last couple years of being Gary's humans. Still I much prefer owners who go "my dog(s) can be a lot, it's fine if you don't want that inflicted on you!" and it ends up feeling like a little bit of an exaggeration...rather than vice versa: the ones who tell you "my dog is so perfect and he's never misbehaved" and then the dog is an ill-trained nightmare.

I assured them that we'd be there whenever they'd gotten moved and settled in and whatnot. And then I didn't hear for a few months and I forgot. Until the other day, the person got back in touch full of apologies for how long it had taken. Which is fine of course, we're still here and life is a lot and I was still delighted to meet her and her dogs.

And we arranged a date! Today after work V and I met her and her dogs at the park nearest us and it was brilliant. The dogs, standard wire-haired dachshunds Rufus and Coco, were so fun and their human was full of the kind of details I'd have offered so of course I think this is what conscientious owners should do, heh: how to manage their weaknesses (they get very excited about squirrels) and enjoy their strengths (Rufus loves everyone and he also loves treats). Coco isn't allowed off-lead right now because of recent Naughtiness; Rufus is better from an operation on his spine but not as spritely as he was before. She and her partner haven't been going out a lot since they moved here because they don't like to leave the dogs on their own for that long even though she knows the dogs are fine and I could tell her I was exactly the same with Gary. (There was a lot of "we were like that with Gary" -- but not as much as there was "oh Gary was way worse.")

We had a great time, and I'm sad D wasn't well enough to join us but I want there to be more visits. It made my heart feel full in a way I haven't been able to access in the last ten months. Dogs are so good.

By the time we got home, I already had a new message:

Hey thanks so much for coming to meet us. You were a big hit! Just message me if you want to meet again. As I said though, no pressure whatsoever.

Bless her, we were so effusive with praise for her and both dogs, and she's still like "it's fine if you cannot face these nightmares again."