a day before 50

quickie/ a slow

I like making plans and I’ve done ok in my life partially because I’ve made a lot of them. One year, three year, five year. When you’re told you might not have a future it’s a particular kind of fuck-you spell of defiance to make plans anyway. I’ve thought about what I really really want and done it. I think it was Ariel Gore, in her first how-to writing book, who said “Dreams take work.” I’ve worked my ass off all the while being sick in bed, and I’ve had some real bucket list glory days.

In the weeks ramping up to me turning 40, a decade ago, I was on tour with Bodymap (ten years old, a classic, sorry it’s still backlisted at Bookshop.org bc of the Small Press Distro fiasco but you can be old school and buy it from the publisher or elsewhere!) for six weeks straight, I was falling in love, T. had just died. I was mourning and having the time of my life. I was exhausted and on so many planes. I got to my friend’s land- not land they owned, but a stretch of low-spray vineyard they rented a singlewide on, and ran their herb and candlemaking business out of- the day before. I don’t remember what we did but there was probably river time. The next day a bunch of my friends drove up and we had brunch and cake. I had phone sex with my new lover from where they were waiting for the 7 train when my friend was off picking up something. The friend bought a three pound pack of bacon from Costco that would, famously, be something I stuck in various friends’ freezers I was crashing at over the next few months of me being in the Bay, then in Toronto, then in NYC, then back in the Bay. I offered the remnants to a friend on her birthday, look, there’s so much left do you want it and she was like, no and you are clearly still punk.

I was getting out of being broke as fuck- that had been a winter of barely making it when the three gigs I was going to make stretch to pay for six months of very budget living along with tarot reading for cash on my bedroom floor, cancelled. but I had a ziplock of cash and the small checks from the Grind Hard of six weeks straight of readings were steadily piling up. Soon after my birthday, I would meet with my friend Damien in the backyard patio of a Brooklyn Arab grill joint and earnestly ask her how I could improve my financial situation which at the time was, zero savings, a $1200 limit Capitol One credit card the balance of which was usually at $1145, and tens of thousand dollars of student loans in forebearance.

Over the last decade I made plans and tried things. I got queer partnered, I took a state disabled job (part time) and then quit it to gig again. I started doing “consulting" for money. I did a lot of different things for money- teaching, training, public speaking, writing, Patreon, Substack, writing coaching, performance, curating, editing. I did stuff and people kept asking me to do stuff. I kept writing and co-editing books and some of them became long-legs community bangers. I lived in the same house for six years, I got the first and only big fellowship of my life. Friends died, I survived Trump 1, a pandemic, a big queer breakup divorce. I moved back to MA to be there for my mom’s death, and then I moved the hell out of MA again but stayed in the Northeast.

I have savings now even if they are getting smaller not bigger what with, you know. I got COVID finally last year. I’m in the combination perimenopause demi-long COVID taco bell drive through. I’m in year five/six of a pandemic that is not stopping but is now happening in the continuous backwards world of, what data, what pandemic, what vaccines. I moved to Philly a year and a half ago and got to re-learn how to be part of an in person community, with a lot of people remembering how to do the same.

It’s a day before turning 50 and it’s weird to be marking this “milestone” at a time when it feels impossible to make plans. I mean, everyone I know is making plans- keeping tabs open to what countries might be safer’s visa requirements, stockpiling food and water, learning how to shoot a gun etc. But as a friend said recently, this year feels like a year where the m.o. is, don’t make plans. Stay nimble and be prepared to pivot at any moment. Which is weird after a year last year where I did indeed find myself making plans, after a few years of, just survive all the shit that just keeps being thrown at you. It was nice, to feel some, I’m in a new city, I get to establish routines, I get to hang out with my friends in the park regularly, the sun comes up every morning.

I’m in the combination drive through perimeno demi long COVID apocalypse of mitochondrial tired and it would be nice to like, buy a house on some land I like and slowly enjoy the sunset, but it doesn’t seem likely. Disabled aging and futures are always weird and uncharted, this world is increasingly uncharted. I have faith in us and what we’ve built over our lifetimes as well as in the unexpected but damn I’d still like that rev to show up quick.

An old friend and former lover signalled earlier in the week, our couch is open, don’t wait too long to leave the states! and I appreciated and concurred. but the problem is, shithole country/ government aside, I like it here and I don’t want to abandon everyone I love and the particular vagueries of this place, the particular sweetness of this land that is not just fascists and fuckers but every single person who made something different on it. Including me. Individuals don’t really exist, we all exist in particular contexts, and as low long and slow as our fatigued days are, I can’t help but want to stay in this one.