Sitting at the National Curling Championships at the Denver Collosium Steve (my husband for you new readers) pulled out his hand and showed me his pointer finger. It was white and Steve looked like Madam Tousset’s John Lennon sculpture telling us “it won’t be long.” Steve’s hair was a little moppy that day, he decided that curling- even the national championship- did not require styling paste. It was the fingertip (just the tip) of his right pointer finger that he had fractured playing old man football (he really should have expected some sort of break of some sort of body part it is OLD MAN football and football is not an old man’s game.) We assumed it had something to do with the surgically placed metal pin but over the next few weeks whenever he got cold another fingertip joined the list until it was effecting his entire hand.
Steve went to the doctor who confirmed what I had learned from my doctors Drs Duck and Dr Go (mom, that’s a reference to a Chrome/Google alternative called Duck Duck Go that doesn’t save and sell your search history) that it was Raynaud’s Phenomenon, a syndrome (not some sort of physics discovery) whereby your fingers (just the tips) get pale and waxy. Should have been Toussaud’s syndrome- opportunity lost. You “treat” it by keeping your fingers warm. The doctor told Steve “It’s just a thing you have now.”
The year we moved to Denver there was a moth storm in our house. It was a nightmare Hitchcock nightmares but with smaller winged protagonists. They swarmed light bulbs obviously but these (now I know) Miller Moths would also buzz our faces while sleeping and cram into crevices of doors and behind shower curtains to deliver maximum terror as we move throughout our day. I asked our new neighbors about them. Swatting the flying larvae away from their faces as blasÉ as anything they would say “Oh Miller moths, yeah we have those here, It seems like they are bad this year” Eight years later my Mother in Law visits and tries to shoo them out the door. “We have those here.” I say with a shrug. Whatcanyado? It is simply flying cat toy season so we sweep up the carcasses as well as the shards of glass from where the cats knocked down the wine glass from our open shelves while chasing and maiming a moth.
This attitude of “its a thing we have” reminds me of our annual 30 hour drivee from Denver to Vermont (with “our” being a generous word, last year Steve drove alone, and perhaps this year too? Waxy fingers crossed) with our four pets. One of the gray cats meowed and in an amazing octopussyian feat slithered her chonky body through a cracked window when the car was parked. The dog and mean blue-eyed cat did some low level growling and hissing, were eager to leave the vehicle but stopped short of contortionism to exit. The other gray cat? He was just like “this is where I live now.” I think if we had been able to have a conversation I would say “Hey Alf, you seem remarkably chill about your confinement “ and he would say “sure, things were better in the house, the car is a little cramped, and that other cat is a real bitch, but this is where I live now, whaddya gonna do?” And then lick his butthole.
It’s easier, this attitude. Accept the wax fingers, flying cat toys, and tiny traveling lodging and get on with your life. It’s just how things are now.
Cleaning our house this week I re-discovered the cardboard box that Steve and L had brought me back from their trip to Anna Maria island, Florida this fall. It was filled with white powder sand, small seashells and, oddly, a plastic bobble-head dinosaur. This will probably we the last time I touch that sand because I do not plan to enter the state of Florida for a very very long time. Florida: “we just don’t go there anymore” shrug. Insert screeching tire sound. We had a condo on the gulf of Mexico. Aqua water, white sand in reality devoid of dinosaurs, sunsets. The island is tiny with very few chain stores. We were planning to “winter” there when timing and finances allowed. But now…NO.
We can’t say gay. We can’t see drag shows. The NAACP has issued a travel advisory for BIPOC tourists. Colleges can’t teach what they want. Kids can’t read what they want (or what their teacher’s want them to read.) We can’t go to drag shows. People who “seem” to be transgender can get reported by transphobes and potentially end up in the prison of their ASSIGNED GENDER at birth. Paren’t of kids who require life-saving gender affirming treatment can be arrested. They can be arrested by cops who were recruited with cash incentives from other states. Cops who had previously been fired for sexual misconduct, excessive violence and other offenses.
This list could go on and on and on. I could create a link soup and it would scald your mouth while drinking it. I want to point you towards one more “phenomenon”. Opponents call it the “Let them die act.” The denial of healthcare to transgender individuals includes EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTORS lawfully allowed to refuse immediate life-saving care to children (and adults) in the ER for “moral or ethical reasons” the are NOT REQUIRED to refer these patients to another provider. Truthorfiction.com keeps it simple.
So unlike Steve’s doctor, the citizens of Denver under attack by moths, and my laisse faire cat I will not just accept this. This CANNOT be “just how it is now.”
According to Visit Florida, more than 13.75 million tourists visited Florida spending almost 100 billion dollars. They will have one (and because my family sticks together in this way four(4)) fewer visitors this year. We have gone to Florida once or twice a year every year since 2010. I am not going to Florida. I am asking you to think about vacationing somewhere else. I am going to do some other stuff but I haven’t figured it out yet. There was a time when the danger of visiting Florida was sunburn and alligator attacks. No longer. It may be where “woke goes to die” but people seem to go there to die too. And not just retirees. If you are part of a marginalized group or an ally stay away from America’s penis.
Any vacation ideas outside of Florida? And Mississippi? And Texas, And Tennessee? And…
Stay Away from America's penis
If I was better at Substack, I would throw in that gif of Bugs Bunny with a saw...and Florida floating off into the Atlantic. xo
i can vouch for not bothering with oklahoma.