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I’m Trying, Mom

 Oh this business with death… I don’t feel like writing. And I don’t feel like crying. But somehow I more able to summon the strength to write. As if it was that hard. It’s just the regurgitation of my thoughts. I wrote a piece called “This Business With the Birds,” and I put it on Substack, because I wanted to publish it but I didn’t want my mom to read it on the blog. Now, I really like to keep all my work on this blog, because I am very proud of it, and I think I have built something meaningful.  Mom read almost all my posts. She encouraged me to write (“Don’t give up on your writing!”). Hell, she encouraged me to write for the newspaper, even though I thought it was a far fetched idea. She adamantly  told me to stop smoking. I talked to her every day, always with a smoke in my hands, and there was always something to say, some shared feelings about our lives and the people we knew and the things we did or didn’t do and what the cats were doing (sometimes I put the pho...
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Can’t Fight This Feeling?

 Time for dysfunction… Hello, my name is Celeste, and I am addicted to caffeine and nicotine, and there isn’t a word for that yet.  We are really lacking in terminology for all kinds of disorders, yet there’s a word for every phobia that may or may not exist, because mental health is a precious thing, a precarious balance of this and that chemical, inherited or store bought, highly underrated, and explored as much and as little as the depths of our oceans. I’m just realizing how much i rely on my coffee and smokes to get through the day, even here in Virginia. Luckily, my brother bought me some instant (which I can make as strong  as my heart desires) , since there is NO coffee maker (ugh); and without my own car I am still able to get to the store everyday to get these wonderful Montegos (god bless the manufacturer devoted solely to my pleasure. Or demise). I use my brothers Subaru. I think it’s a reasonable cause. I fought and won a battle with alcohol, because addictio...
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Back in the Virginia Groove

 Post coming soon…Or never :/ Okay, so I was typing outside in the good old Virginia sunshine and the iPad over heated.  I took it inside to cool down…and it deleted my writing!!! (This calls for three exclamation points like dad would do). I’m not kidding. This has never happened to me before! All I could do was shake my fist at the sky (dammit!). And start over… Anyways. How long can you live in a trailer? Until they condemn it, or the thing burns down. In my experience, trailers are tough old birds. And the people who live in them are, well…it’s not a judgement I’m willing to make.  We moved into our trailer in oh 1998. So it’s withstood a good almost thirty years of our abuse. Wind, rain, and snow, and one unlikely hurricane. So when I come home, this is where I stay. I’m appreciating the beauty of old comforts more. Quilts on the couch. Birds that eat birdseed. A microwave. Instant coffee. Smoking outside, like a good girl.  Yet this time I arrived as a writer w...
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The Flight from Hell: Blues Traveling

 Well, I hope that got your attention.  I took a Frontier airline flight from Orlando International to Dulles airport in Virginia. I’m not the flying type (unless you mean flying by the seat of the my pants): I’m not trendy, I’m not modern, and I’m not a “traveler.” I like to believe these things, but maybe you don’t, since I am a millennial after all. To be honest, flying scares the FUG out of me. But I did it anyway.  Flying was the alternative to a looong car ride up the good old I95, which also scares the fug out of me. Maybe I’m just a scaredy cat. Or maybe I have just become more acutely aware of how dangerous these modes of transportation are. Speeding down asphalt at 70 plus miles per hour…hovering above earth at thousands of feet…does it really make sense to do these things, and can we even prove they’re safe at all? What it is,  is normal. It’s a casual risk. It’s a dumbed down danger. People are copycats and anything through repeated repetition can be norm...
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You’ve Come a Long Way Baby

“ It’s been a long time since I rock and roll…” And by that I mean take a drink. It’s been two and a half years (sometimes it is quantity over quality), I will proudly  admit at the cost of sinning — if you can’t celebrate your own sobriety, who will? I prefer it over my birthday, it means much more, though I guess if I hadn’t been born I wouldn’t have been an alcoholic who got sober and bragged about it…ah, coming full circle.  This is what I love about writing. The death of one thing leading to the birth of another: trading addiction for the creative arts (which is still technically an addiction). Can you do that? Can you bargain with the devil? (Bob Dylan said all these years he’s been holding up his end of the deal) Can something good bloom from the seeds of the worst things? (Im ripping off a quote I read years ago, can’t take credit for that line). Jesus said you will know a tree by its fruit… Ive come to this conclusion: God is  listening (and angels ARE among us...
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I Can’t Get Drunk On a Riverboat

 It’s true. I can’t get drunk anywhere.  Ah, the complacency of sobriety. Giving up the ghost at last.  John surprised me by booking us a dinner date on the riverboat the Lady Dolphin of Daytona (I think it looks prettier in italics). All he told me was “we’re leaving at quarter to five. Dinner is at six. Wear something warm.” I just figured we were going out to eat like normal. But I had to ask “are we going someplace ‘nice?’ I’m only asking because I want to know if I need to dress up.” And that’s my logic. Any reason to wear a dress is a worthy cause to me, because they hang in the closet so desperate and full of potential. Just like the alcoholic raging inside of me, let me out! (I’m sorry ma’am but you’re doomed to hang in that closet indefinitely, and hopefully perish).   So to my dismay, most of the women waiting in line were clad in their best summer dress, and here I was in bell bottoms. John thinks dressing up is overrated, which is why he habitually wears...
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Bilingual…Sort Of

 I have a memory of being very young and speaking gibberish to my grandparents. I told them I was “speaking Spanish” (hablando espanol would be the proper term). I’m sure they thought it was cute and funny. That was my attempt early on to fit in with the half of my family that hailed from Argentina. My grandparents immigrated from Buenos Aires in the late fifties and they made a comfortable life for themselves and raised three boys (my dad is their middle child). They’re not of typical “Spanish” blood: my Papu is Danish, while my Nana is full blooded Italian.  Argentina is a melting pot like America, mostly infused with European heritage and culture (Argentina has its own unique culture, and it’s romantic and beautiful). My grandparents looked “white” by all means, but they speak the language, so to me they are “Spanish” people.  This means that, yes, they danced the Tango, listened to Tango music, drank mate, and ate homemade milanessa with chimichurri made from scratch....
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