Pilgrim in the Trailer Park

I’m bored, so I’m going to crank out a blog post. So sue me (if you enjoy this you can thank me later). I’ve been working on an art journal for my sister. Its fun. I enjoy art (I didn’t minor in art for nothing. I also majored in English, by the way). I use stuff from magazines, so some of it’s like a collage, but I paint, too. I’m using a lot of black paint, especially for the galactic scenes. I’ve made stars out of tin foil. Some old post cards are coming in handy. Also old LIFE and Mccalls magazines. I have flipped through National Geographic so many times. It’s not done yet because I’m going through a dry spell, but I’m sure inspiration will come soon. I bought myself pumpkin spice coffee and pumpkin spice coffee creamer (both Walmart brand) because I wanted to make myself pumpkin coffees at home, because $7 a drink is getting expensive. They’re not lattes, because I don’t use espresso or milk, but they’re pretty good. Honestly I’m getting burned out on it because I drink one every...

I was feeling like a pumpkin space latte, so I went to Foxtail Coffee to see if they have something cheaper than Starbucks (which costs $7…!). They don’t (but I have a gift card). But what they have tastes better; it has a better pumpkin flavor. It’s like drinking a pumpkin pie. On a positive note: After I got my latte I went to sit outside on the patio to enjoy my drink with a smoke (did you know tobacco compliments pumpkin?). While I was sitting there I thought what a great time this is to be alive (that could be the coffee talking) : in this era, in this country, in this state, in this town (I mean city. Sorry, but where I come from we say town). There is so much beautiful stuff going on; I can’t be specific, but I know it in my heart. For all the terrible, there is good, even if it’s fleeting. Robert Frost said “nothing gold can stay” (in the poem of the same name). If it’s fleeting, it’s fleeting forever, one beautiful moment after another. Why can’t we make it all last? I think b...

I’m not exactly sure what my sister died from. A family friend said she overdosed on fentanyl. Another family member said it was meth. I have yet to read the autopsy report myself. But I do know that she overdosed. And she was actively using drugs for a while. I recently found a website called Lifeline for Loss, which is an organization for those who have lost someone to an overdose. With the numerous deaths recently I thought there might be something like that (it’s just getting crazy). They facilitate support groups. They advocate for Narcan and fentanyl testing strips (I don’t have any drugs to test, and I don’t think I’ll ever need Narcan. Fingers crossed). But it exists because there are so many people dying. And it is a problem.  One of my sister’s drugs of choice was heroin. But I had a friend recently tell me that there is no more real heroin floating around: it is all fentanyl now. Could this be true? Either way, both of those drugs will kill you in the wrong doses. And if...

 It’s gonna get cold, and I’m dreading its approach, if not a little nervous. Every year it gets cold and to me it’s like the first time I’ve ever been cold; as Foreigner says “it feels like the first time.” I have sweaters, jackets, coats, and long pants, and yet…it’s like I’m naked. “How did you ever survive in Virginia?” is the obvious question. And yet I was born in a blizzard, in Maryland in 1993 (I bet you didn’t know that about me). Even an icy Capricorn is not immune to winter’s breath. John and I smoke in the trailer; I’m so glad I don’t have to step outside to puff in the what-would-be snow. I can only imagine: a cigarette trembling between my frozen fingertips, my own breath indistinguishable from wafts of smoke. And people live like that. Thank god the rush from nicotine distracts you from your own shivering misery (misery is a little harsh. I don’t think the weather is any form of punishment). Though I do agree smoking is more deadly than any jaunt in the cold (except ...