Mallory's Camera

The smoke from the fires in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario has hit upstate New York.

The rising full moon last night was blood red.

And the sky this morning looks like a diffractionless opal, a whitish translucent wash with the barest undercoat of blue through which the sun just glowers. I'd planned on taking it easy today anyway, because I kinda knocked myself out weeding the New Paltz plot yesterday.

Before:



After:



Doesn't look like I did a lot, does it? But it was four full wheelbarrows of brambles and other assorted weeds.

Harder work than I thought it would be, & I was kinda achey from all that squatting & pulling. So I figured I'd go easy on myself today. Resume weeding tomorrow, but get there while it's still cool out.

And that turns out to be a good decision because today I'm feeling a kind of generalized air hunger, some shortness of breath with exertion. Though whether that's from the smoky air or generalized anxiety I can't quite tell.

###

Said anxiety is due to Icky being even more of a dick than usual.

Last fall, after I closed down my garden in Hyde Park, I brought all my gardening stuff back here & stashed it in the shed because I thought I'd be gardening here this summer.

Then, six weeks or so ago, Icky announced that he didn't want to garden with me. Was it my breath? My ineffective underarm deodorant? My generally displeasing personality? No! It was that Icky does not like to work or play with others.

Fortunately, the good folk at the Hyde Park garden had just written me a love note: We miss you!

So, I decided to go back & garden there again. (And, of course, the New Paltz Community Garden just found some open spots, so now I'm juggling two gardens!) And I transported all my gardening stuff back to Hyde Park.

###

Then yesterday, Icky went on a tear because he decided all the gardening stuff in the shed belonged to him.

All day long, he fusillaged me with text: Those tomato cages are mine. I’ve had them since before I moved here. I put them all back there after the season

I texted back, As I said, I brought the 10 cages I used in my garden last year to your shed in October last year because I thought I was going to be gardening here this year. After you told me you’d prefer to garden alone, I took those same 10 cages—they were stacked on the left side of the shed—back to Hyde Park. That’s all I know, Iggy.

He texted: Where are my cages then? I put all the cages I used all of last summer in that shed. There are no cages now. I never saw yours in there.

###

This is the kind of petty hammering he does relentlessly & he is so fucking relentless that he usually gets his own way—because who in their right mind wants to spend hours texting about fucking tomato cages?

Finally, he called.

"Look," I said. "We're at an impasse. And I'm at a disadvantage in all my transactions with you since you own the house, so you have the power. Are you interested in some kind of compromise or should we just keep up the text chain till I move out?"

This was said with more bravado than I actually have, of course.

Moving out would be difficult at this point.

I'm an elderly cat lady and the rental situation hereabouts is not exactly clamoring for elderly cat ladies.

On the other hand, I'm an excellent tenant, and Icky doesn't want the house sitting empty for the 20 days of each month he's not on the premises.

And I suppose it's possible that I did grab some of Icky's tomato cages without thinking about it—though I'm certainly not going to admit that to him.

The compromise?

I'll bring back any extra tomato cages and check the slag heap at the Hyde Park garden where old tomato cages go to die. Bring him those.

###

The situation is highly anxiety-provoking because it reminds me how little control I have over my life.

Of course, because of the way I was brought up, it never occurred to me that one could control one's life simply by making wise choices. I was a waif bufffeted about by forces I couldn't control! And then as an adult, I kind of mythologized that choicelessness! Turned it into a philosophy. Became fatalistic.

I don't know what the answer is.

I do know many people who have organized their lives around making wise choices, and for many of those people life has worked out well, but for just as many, life hasn't.

The random factor is very, very powerful.

The garden has been a bone of contention twixt me & Icky.

Six weeks or so ago, he informed me he did not want to share the garden in back of the house.

"I know myself," he told me. "I want to do things the way I want to do things—not that I couldn't learn from you," he added in a gratuitous attempt to sound gracious. (Gratuitous because nothing can make Icky sound gracious.)

He offered to put in a kind of annex garden where I could putter & grow.

I made inconclusive murmuring noises.

The whole thing was extremely weird, I thought: There's such a lot of work involved in planting and tending a garden, why wouldn't you want to share that with someone?

Then the Hyde Park Community Garden folk emailed me asking me to come back, & I thought, Providence has solved my dilemma!

###

A couple of weeks ago, he was gonna get one of the neighbors over to tractor the garden (much more efficient than rototilling) and asked me how much square footage I would like.

"That won't be necessary," I beamed. "I found another place to garden."

Weirdly, this seemed to upset him!

Where was this place, he wanted to know. He asked four times; I ignored him. But clearly, he was put out.

The day the neighbor was supposed to come over, it rained. And then she didn't come over on any of the subsequent days (Probably because you didn't pay her last year & made no noises about paying her this year either, I thought. I wouldn't think Icky is close enough with the neighbors to get friendship favors.) This put him in a glowery mood, too.

###

Then last night, I got a text from him: Go ahead and plant what you want on the side of the house or the garden fyi. I’m going to be coming up there a lot less I think.

Did something happen? I texted back.

I am not happy coming up there to sit around all week with Gus’ door closed on me. He won’t do anything around the house or with me. I don’t want to be up there under those conditions.

Little Susie Sunshine that I am, I texted back, It’s a difficult situation, yes. But I HAVE seen the two of you bond. I know it’s none of my business but even if he is pushing you away, if you LET yourself be pushed, it’s going to feel like abandonment to him.

I need to protect my mental health, he replied.

What mental health? I wondered.

Of course, I also knew that he was acting out, having the 63-year-old-man version of a temper tantrum, informing as many people as he can about his grievances. I'm 90% certain that he will be back up again next week on the usual date, and it will be as though this text conversation had never happened.

Still. The whole thing made me nervous.

Like am I gonna have to start thinking about filling the propane cannisters, mowing the acreage, making sure Black Chicken is fed & watered? That's a lot more work than I signed up for.

###

He does have a really dreadful relationship with the Spawn, but then I had a dreadful relationship with RTT when he was Gus's age, and today, we are besties, so go figure.

As a parent of teenage children, consistency is the most important thing—consistency & a commitment to far-sightedness, goals in the long term: Gus is incapable of seeing three years ahead because Gus is 15, and three years is one-fifth of his lifespan—figuratively the equivalent of 15 years to me. I can't see 15 years ahead!

Also, Icky has this ridiculous notion that being a parent is kinda like being a super-friend. If I didn't dislike him, I'd almost be touched by the way he begs the Spawn to let him play video games with him—video games? you think that's what fathers do? are you mad?

And then there are all those mornings when Gus refuses to budge from his bed, literally pulls the covers up over his head, while Icky screams, "This is ridiculous! Get the fuck up! You have to go to school!"

Only Gus doesn't get up.

One imagines him beneath his covers with a small, sly grin on his face. Punishing Daddy by punishing himself.

A toxic situation.

But honestly?

The Patrizia-torium (which I like quite well) is sheltered from the rest of the house, the kiskas are happy, and it's none of my business.

###

Anyway, I did get over to the Community Garden on Thursday and weeded happily for an hour before it began to pour. (Not in the forecast.) Got the strawberry patch weeded. Will go back tomorrow to do the rest of the weeding and put in lettuce & beans.

This year, I have the space to attempt germinating my own seedlings, so I have various heirloom tomato varieties percolating in tiny peat pots.

Today, I am running the bounce house at Vision of Wallkill's Duck Derby.

The fun part of the day, the actual race of the rubber duckies down the Wallkill River, has been canceled due to safety issues: The Wallkill River is at flood stage.

And I can't say I am looking forward to chaperoning a bunch of brutish Trumpie tadpoles—'cause that's what the citizenry of Wallkill hamlet are, brutish Trumpies.

But I committed to it and must follow through.

Sigh...

Protective mimicry, I remind myself.

Yesterday was gorgeous.

And I did return to the Walkway, my old tromping ground. Its familiarity was soothing.

The Wallkill, much smaller, is a prettier river.

But the Hudson is majestic.

###

On the Walkway, the Hasidim were out full force with their families. Old mystery solved—they bus them in from the Hasid compounds in Orange & Ulster Counties.

Hasidim roller skate & ride bicycles and scooters just like us! They speak a strange 19th-century variant of Yiddish and wear weird hats and polyester suits & dresses that leave no flesh uncovered, not just like us! They fulfill Elon Musk's commandment: Go Forth & Multiply!

I am philosophically opposed to human insect colonies, so the Hasidim present quite the quandry: On the one hand, they are a rigid, oppressive culture; on the other hand, they don't evangelize or care what I do—in fact, non-Hasidim barely exist to them except as physical objects—and shouldn't people be allowed to live however they want to live?

I thought about taking photographs, but that would have been rude.

###

Also, though I'm toned as shit, all those gym trips don't seem to have enhanced my stamina.

Tromping five miles exhausted me. In particular, I could feel it in my vastis lateralis and other quadriceps.

###

Icky has suddenly begun smoking dope, which has put him in a confiding mood, so on my way out the door, he had to ramble at me for 10 minutes about a hiking trail less than a mile away from the casa where you can find chanterelles & chicken of the woods and ancient apple trees.

The trail sounded kinda cool, actually, so I may check it out next week.

But it was still weird listening to Icky—who'd told me some months back that the only recreational drug he ever does is cocaine (figures), and that he never drinks alcohol or touches marijuana.

After the trail recommendation, he had to tell me how the Eulogy episode of Black Mirror's seventh season made him cry. And this was Definitely Weird because the Eulogy episode of Black Mirror's seventh season is all about how misplaced Pride ruined True Love 4-Ever for Paul Giamatti—and, I mean, c'mon, Icky! Why would you imagine I give a fuck about your emotional problems?

But I tilted my head to the left, turned my palms up, and smiled—that's what they taught us to do in nursing school when you're trying to convey to a patient: I hear what you say!

All the while thinking, However badly Paul Giamatti may have fucked up his love life, I know he didn't make his tenants go wiithout heat for a week in the middle of the winter! Learn from Paul Giamatti!!!!

###

Today is another glorious spring day.

So after I finish my Remuneration allottment, I will figure out a way to get out in it.

It's a good thing I had the happy glow of last weekend's house party to warm me because this week was a hard one, mental health-wise.

There was the news of Annie's death, which broke my heart but which also sucked me straight back through the vortex into the peculiar headspace of the little girl I used to be who knew something was deeply, deeply wrong but was powerless to change it.

At five years old, my mantra became, Survive. DO whatever you need to survive, but hang on—because once you're old enough to get out of it, you'll be out of it, & you'll never, ever have to think about it again.

In that, I was mostly correct—due to my superpower of dissociation.

###

On the day after Annie died, FB hawked up this most peculiar memory:



It is something I wrote on the flyleaf of an ancient children's encyclopedia called The Book of Knowledge that lived in the basement of the House of Usher, a moldy, dark, cavernous space filled with broken furniture & children's books like Elsie Dinsmore and Patty Fairfield, written sometime during the opening years of the 20th century as cautionary guides to the rewards of good behavior. Of course, I devoured them all! I'd actually taught myself to read somewhere around the age of three.

(Many, many years later, RTT discovered the volume among his mother's books—and signed it.)

That same year, I annotated this photograph of myself:



What kind of odd little changeling spends her childhood drafting her own biography?

###

But the mental health crisis also had to do with the presence of Icky, who stayed on three days longer than his usual point of departure because he was trying to bond with the oldest Spawn—who has no use at all for Icky other than as an open wallet.

Thank God the bonding attempt failed. Because otherwise, Icky would have been here through the weekend, and I would be frantically calling my doctor's office for a Lexapro prescription.

I could write a blow-by-blow account of all the pertinent interactions, but what would be the point of that?

What it boils down to is that Icky is a bully—oddly enough, in much the same way my mother was a bully—and like my mother, he enjoys haranguing with long lectures when he is not totally ignoring me.

Icky is self-absorbed and completely unempathetic. That means he lacks the common human decency to coexist with other human beings—and that means I have absolutely no leverage over any of his behavior.

So, this housing situation is a toxic situation.

It would be much better for my mental health if I could get out before November—though I'm not very confident I can due to (a) unavailability of rental housing at my income level and (b) commitments to all sorts of community involvements that last through—yup!—November.

Because when I get out, I won't want to stay here in Trumplandia.

###

Of course, I am furious with myself, too. Why was I such a fucking grasshopper? Why didn't I realize I would spend so much time being old with limited options?

And why didn't I realize the moment Icky hedged about putting in that window air conditioner way back when that he was a person who was not in the slightest bit interested in looking out for my rights & needs as a fellow housemate?

###

One nice thing: I got a sweet email from the Hyde Park Community Garden: Are you sure you don't want to come back this year?

I love gardening, but I sure don't want to garden with Icky! (That's not the proper way to stake cucumbers! I've told you this before—you're spreading the compost wrong. How many times do I have to tell you?)

And I love the Hyde Park Community Garden in particular. It's just a lovely, lovely place.

So, I told them I would come back.

And received the sweetest note from Claude, the garden patriarch & a middlingly famous chef. He is French and though fluent in English conversationally, is functionally illiterate when it comes to writing, so just the fact that he wrote me—he never writes anyone!—warmed my heart.

###

Also, with the thought that it would be prudent to diversify my income stream in the Time of Trump, I took H.R. Block's tax assessment knowledge exam. I scored 74%: 80% is the passing score. But, of course, I didn't study and, furthermore, I know nothing about the tax implications of depreciation—several sections on the test. So, I thought I did pretty well, all things considered.

And I get to take the test again.

###

I also got stalked at the gym yesterday.

Unlike, I guess, the majority of women who dislike sexual objectification, I've always kinda enjoyed it—so long as no hint of physical handling is involved. I liked it when construction workers whistled & cat-called me! I missed that when I aged out.

The guy who was covertly watching me was obviously 30 years younger than me.

Maybe he had a kink for elderly women.

But I prefer to think I just look good.

###

Today, I'm gonna finish a bunch of tax returns for family members & friends, scribble a bit on the (never-ending) Work in Progress, & generally chill.

Shortly, I must venture forth into the tundra (a/k/a my driveway) & see what I can do about the river of ice that made it impossible to park when I got back from the gym yesterday.

I tried!

But car tires have no traction on solid ice.

The river of ice is there because Icky is cheap & doesn’t want to pay for plowing, so consequently, the tracks we make as we run our vehicles through the snow melt & freeze and melt & freeze again.

Icky is not currently not in residence & is not answering any of my texts, & it is supposed to snow again today—anywhere from four to seven inches—so I’m not entirely sure what to do.

I have about 15 pounds of rock salt at my disposal, and there’s a hardware store in town where I will get more when I venture out.

I suppose if I don’t hear from Icky, I will make my own plow arrangements if necessary and simply deduct the cost from next month’s rent.

It is always fuckin’ something.

###

Meanwhile, the sepulchral Snowglobe of Doom is back, so I am feeling angsty.

That’s reassuring in a way. It means my angst is most likely a product of Seasonal Affective Disorder rather than the state of the world.

I mean, the state of the world is massively fucked—but it was massively fucked yesterday, too, when I was in a bubbly, happy mood & the sun was shining.

Connect your own dots!

###

Today’s new state of the world massive fuckage:

JD Vance doesn’t think European civilization is worth saving.

This came out during negotiations around funding the war in Ukraine.

Personally, I think the only reason to fund the war in Ukraine is to save European civilization: I never fell for the “plucky Ukraine” propaganda, & I well remember—back in the days when it had a definitive article!—that country’s collaboration with the Nazis in World War II.

Before that, Ukraine was the site of numerous pogroms during which my non-collateral ancestors were gangbanged & tortured to death.

A few escaped! Hence—me!!!

But I have no great affection for Ukraine or interest in its sovereignty.

I do have enormous love for the countries of western Europe, which would suffer if Putin’s wet dream came true, & the USSR was reassembled in some fashion.

So, I do support continued funding of the war effort in Ukraine. Which is good for the American economy! Cause Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing get somewhere to dump product at inflated prices!

I am around 75% convinced, though, that Trump’s next big shock & awe move—maybe timed for the 2026 midterm elections—will be pulling the U.S. out of NATO.

So, I am hoping western Europe is gearing up its own native defense systems. (I’m sure China would help if they asked nicely!)

This will almost certainly involve cutting back on wonderful social safety nets. But I don’t see how that can possibly be avoided.