The nasty hillbillies were gone (I thought) so I got outside while the going was good, and mowed and cleaned up the yards.  It was nice not to have an ignorant audience, and I got a lot done.

Just as I was finishing up, a different pickup truck full of hillbillies pulled up, roused a guy who it turned out was camped out inside, and turned a herd of kids loose on the place.  I just barely made it upstairs through the mob.  But hey, I got some garden therapy in.

There were even some veggie plants coming up, some from reseeding from last year—tomatoes, peppers, melon or squash, arugula, lettuces, and herbs.  Native perennials like swamp milkweed and coneflowers were about to bloom.  Just think what I could do, left to my own devices in our own place, minus the meth-heads.

I managed to liberate these flowers from the garden, before urchins overran the place.

It turns out there are hundreds of progressive folks flying under the radar in our prospective new red state.  There’s a growing online community that sprang up in response to the distress and outrage caused by the trump fiasco.  People from all walks of life are coming out of the woodwork to express their fears and mutual encouragement and support, and to band together to resist and fight this disturbing trend.  In some ways it’s more proactive than in our current backward state.  It’s a ray of hope in an otherwise uncertain, disheartening picture.  It’s nice to know there are many like-minded people and opportunities where we’re going, if nothing else.

Meanwhile, here are random snapshots from limbo.

My ginger plant, between chives and dill, and my latest experiment–rutabagas:

Herbs and incense:

Our “pets”, and a “creative” centerpiece:

Erev must go on.  Cheers from the Skullies, faithfully holding up boxes:

It’s tense and unnatural being cooped up in the waiting room, with few outlets, and many moving parts.  So we walked around the Fen, which was quite changed from last time, and full of interesting species.

Then we went to Indian Mound and did the same.  Note the damselfly on a leaf.

Two years ago today, we met with the great Dr. Sherman Leis in Philadelphia to walk us through the major life-changing surgeries that were about to commence.  We also met some other pre-and post-op patients staying there, one of whom is a friend to this day.  A lifetime of existing as an imposter, an impersonator, was about to be over for E.  It was scary but liberating, worth the very real risks.  A lie was about to die, and the genuine person could be released to live at last.

Some people can never realize this dream, due to the unimaginable costs, both financial and social.  It’s not a choice, preference, or orientation.  You risk losing everyone and thing in your life.  No one would choose to live this way or wish it upon anyone.  It’s a medical, neurological condition that occurs during pregnancy.  The lucky few are born to open-minded parents who recognize the condition, get informed, and address it early on, ideally pre-puberty, before permanent gender changes set in.  After that, it’s much more difficult, and the emotional and psychological damage of living a lie in a phobic world can be devastating.

I won’t lie, post-op is not a perfect fix, because we live in an imperfect world.  At this moment in history, the US seems to be regressing back to Crusades and Inquisition times.  Almost no one is safe or secure.  It’s not a conducive atmosphere for an older, at-risk community to live an inconspicuous, peaceable life in an increasingly willfully ignorant country.  It will get worse before it gets better.

It’s been a long, strange trip, but one thing is certain–there are no regrets about transitioning.  The struggle to fit in and be accepted isn’t over yet; it’s an ongoing process, but the worst is over.  We can’t change the world much, just live as best we can, and mentor where possible.  If we can even make a small dent, it’s something.

Haha, fooled you!  I’m talking about garden weeds (plus a lot of poison ivy) at Rex’s.  We did another weeding and pruning session.  Lots of gorgeous flowers were in bloom.  I got my kitty fix as well.  Here’s proof:

Having watched many documentaries about extreme poverty in the US and elsewhere, it’s shockingly clear that only certain privileged parts of our country have advanced beyond developing nation status.  I’m from one of those fortunate places, and living here among the midwestern working poor, representative of vast portions of the nation, has been culture shock in itself.

Yet, compared to some of the awful deprivation in cities like south-central L.A., south Bronx, and Flint, I realize how relative poverty is.  I’m reminded of how much I have, even here, and how many of us are just one misfortune away from disaster.  Even under the best of circumstances, we’re balancing precariously on a tightrope over a chasm.  It has little to do with how smart or industrious you are, and more to do with what you look like and where you chanced to be born.  Now under trump, many more of us are at risk.

In some inner cities, citizens are realizing that no one is going to fight for their basic rights and needs, unless they stand up and do it themselves.  They aren’t heroes, just ordinary desperate people, invisible to the outside world until they become suspect, which happens a lot.  It’s the reality they live with.

Many families have never seen or eaten fresh, affordable produce in the food deserts they are forced to live in.  Now some of them are forming neighborhood garden cooperatives and growing their own organic veggies and fruits.  It’s a micro green revolution of sorts.  Sometimes they get in trouble with the law for daring to buck the system, while just a few miles away in a different world, white folks garden with impunity.  The hypocrisy and disparity are starting to give way to desperate necessity.

In a trump world, conditions will only get harder for average Americans, but maybe faced with such extremity, ordinary people with nothing left to lose and no fucks left to give will finally reach the breaking point and refuse to give in.  In every century, it’s under adversity that great things have gotten done.  Necessity can be a Mother!   (Of invention, that is.)

This time it’s our turn to resist, each in our own small way.  Whatever you can do, wherever you are, to stand against trump’s small-minded evil agenda in any way, it will ripple out and benefit us all.

I’m not much good at the chemistry of life, but I know reality has a nasty but necessary habit of burning off impurities and changing your essential composition.  Much as I’m a pyromaniac, this extreme type of fire is not fun or addictive.  It’s painful and leaves you scarred, yet in time you’re purged and better for it–  if you don’t self-combust, or incinerate others with you.

I’m not a cheery flask-half-full kind of person, as I may have hinted a time or two!  It all sucks, and you know it.  I can’t do the façade for appearances.  That was my parents’ generation.  Ours just let it all hang out, all that was wrong with our world, and where they could shove it.  I learned to be highly critical and offended by ignorance.  I still struggle with that.

Here in the waiting room on the other side of the proverbial tracks, it’s kind of like a lab.  Life is a catalyst, doing weird nasty experiments on us, trying to burn away crap, and we are not amused.  Yet I know in the end, the final product will be more refined and functional, if I don’t fight the process.  Resistance is futile in the chem lab of life.

Keeping to our resolve to exercise– or exorcise demons might be more appropriate– we took a stroll through the Narrows.  I say “stroll”, because those extreme stairs wreaked havoc on my bum leg, cutting short our hike.  Hence these few shots.

I can’t even comment on politics anymore, it’s so ghastly and surreal.  All I can say is Please America, wake up and get it together before it’s too late for all of us, and our future generations.  There is no Planet B.   This maniac infant and henchmen need to get exiled to Mars, the war planet.

Tensions can get high in the waiting room, so we decided to air out at Yellow Springs yesterday.  First we walked through Glen Helen, home of the yellow (iron) springs, where the bright red Silene (fire pinks) were in bloom.

Next we ate at one of our favorite haunts, Aleta’s Café, with its laid-back atmosphere and pretty gardens, and hung around YS.  It helped to just get out and away from ourselves, while we’re stuck here.

Well, Shabbat must go on, and the Skullies continue to hold up the boxes.