Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

All Effin' Fronts

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The angelic hosts would weep in divine despair if they had an inkling of how motherfucking behind my earthly ass is right now. We're talking on all effin' fronts: journal writing, photo editing, replying to emails, responding to comments, answering direct messages, sending snail mail, fulfilling promises, working on trades, finishing projects, decorating gifts, bone working, gardening, performing funerary rites, baking homemade offerings and observing my personal Harvest festivities'n'rites.

Fuck, I'm even behind on foraging despite putting in full-time hours every effin' day of every effin' week since mid-July. It's not that shit isn't getting done, because I've never been so goddamn productive in all my motherlovin' life. It's that I'm attempting to give a billion things my undivided attention, and anyone with a rudimentary understanding of mathematics will see that my attempts to force division and fractions to ignore basic Universal rules just isn't working. (Ah, well, back to my areas of expertise: sex, death and perfectly boiled rice.)

Usually when one aspect of work slips I throw more fuel on the fire to help raise an extra dose of energy. It's a panic move, but it shocks my ass to the next level and I find I can close the distance between myself and the belated deadlines that are tormenting me. There's a cost for that expedition, though. Dipping into emergency reserves usually means I experience a burnout period that lasts anywhere from two or three days to two or three weeks. It's a tradeoff I'm more than willing to make (and often do), but one I can't afford to exercise during Harvest since my priorities are solely focused on my sovereign duties.

Normally I don't labor this shit, but recently quite a few folks have dropped my ass a friendly email and most haven't gotten a reply (yet). And because I'm of the pessimistic persuasion I've convinced myself that every-effin'-one of them has come to the very wrong conclusion that I'm deliberately ignoring them. (I'm not. Honest to all that is motherfucking holy, I'm not.) So I'm taking a quick second - er, eight paragraphs - to assure anyone who's still waiting for a reply that 1.) I'm totally not avoiding you, 2.) I'm really sorry I haven't been able to find time to respond to your email and 3.) I really fucking appreciate that you took the time to contact me because receiving a friendly email is like getting a giant fucking internet hug whenever I feel down and unmotivated.

I knew that 2011 was going to be a challenging year because it was the year that we decided to finally go pro. ("We" because I couldn't do this shit entirely by myself. Italics has funded all of my projects, kept me company during foraging sessions/roadkill sweeps, helped pick, process and prepare the majority of the non-gross shit I do, acted like a 24/7 springboard for all of my half-baked ideas and, most importantly, kept me going with regular offerings of support, serenity-inducing shots of sativa and cup after motherfucking cup of freshly prepared calming tea.) What I didn't know, though, was how those challenges would manifest because neither of us have any experience with opening a business.

We're aiming for our first post-Harvest/pre-Midwinter sale in November (save those pennies, guys, and be sure to join the announcement-only mailing list so you don't miss the event!), and I'm on the verge of being able to provide private roadkill services for people interested in adopting one of my resurrected animals. I try to promptly answer any questions regarding my work (i.e., rescued roadkill, Hedgerow Hooch, wild Scottish mushrooms and/or any items featured in Second Hand Sundays), but, right now, I can't afford investing time into journal entry-sized responses, so don't take it personally if my reply lacks its usual epicness.

So, in conclusion: it's totally cool to email my ass and say hi, I absolutely love getting email and I'm sincerely fucking sorry I'm so work-focused right now that I can't find the time to reply to personal correspondence (I'm working on that, though).

Pictured above: fresh toadstools (Amanita muscaria), a partially eaten pomegranate surrounded by more fresh toadstools, dried toadstools just out of the dehydrator, a homemade oil made from edible plants (chives and a single dandelion) growing out of #01's buried remains, two bottles containing the recently strained Simple Strawberry Wine and, lurking to the very right of the picture, the dehydrator that's dried more than 100 toadstools just this year alone (and that's only the agarics; I'm still weighing all of our dried boletes and chanterelles to get an idea of how much we've managed to find and preserve.)

One Goddamn Picture

Two days ago I: made an edible anointing oil from herbs growing out of the garden container with #01's remains, used one of my in-laws' crystal vases to macerate some pheasant bones (if you don't tell them they'll never notice), finally pulled out all the motherfucking fireweed and ragwort that's been driving Italics's allergies in-fucking-sane, made an executive decision to prune all the effing patio shrubs Mr. Awesome's been ignoring, tackled five years worth of invasive ivy that's slowly destroyed our fucking fence, seriously contemplated the possibility of pulling Mr. Awesome's non-hedge hedge out and planting something actually useful (i.e., elder), recklessly bounced way too enthusiastically for far too long on an epic mountain of garden debris (to compact the shit into a bag...well, mostly to compact the shit into a bag), freed one of the plum trees from being completely swallowed by a neighbor's tall line of monster fucking cedars and then watched the setting sun illuminate portions of the backyard for the first time in fucking years.

And I didn't take one goddamn picture.

Yesterday I: dragged my sore fucking ass outside to examine and flesh the heads of #08, #09 and #10, shallowly buried the decomposing remains I removed from their skulls so our fox(es) have access to a quick meal, packed the three flayed deer heads into my upgraded roadkill altar to begin the process of rot, checked on the assorted pieces of #01, #02, #03, #04 and #05 macerating in one of the outside rooms, potted on some home-fucking-grown comfrey seedlings, excavated the skeletal remains of Love & Sorrow's mature rabbit from one of my gardening pots, transplanted one of my container lavenders using some of the decayed rabbit dirt, dressed my sage, bay tree and tiny little gooseberry plant with leftover rabbit dirt, paid a visit to the roadkill graveyard situated beneath our office window (where fleshy remains are buried until they become bone), clipped small coniferous tufts from huge motherfucking juniper branches (pruning casualty; why let good magic shit go to waste?) and spent the next eight motherfucking hours in the fucking kitchen rubbing my hands raw by squeezing juice out of seven motherfucking pounds of wild necro-gooseberries - by fucking hand - to make four different motherfucking types of Hedgerow Hooch.

And I didn't take one goddamn picture.

Today I: swore my supremely sore fucking ass that I'd take the day off until I remembered the last time I performed any sort of mushroom sweep was last Friday (work is work, Internet), cackled madly - and even paused to call Italics mid-picking - at the completely unexpected porcini harvest, stumbled across a new bolete-tastic hot spot situated between two other bolete-tastic hot spots, indulgently savored the first mothereffin' brambles of the season, paused to admire the late evening sun reflecting across the ripe blackberries' latex shine, briefly returned home for Italics so we could toadstool hunt together near the banks of the Black Laird's loch, crawled through low-hanging boughs of birch and pine, and scrambled over crumbling, lichen-encrusted walls filling a second magic wooden basket with cherry-red agarics, a birch bolete explosion of massive fucking proportions and the incomplete remains of a carrion crow, single-handledly cleaned - and processed! - 1085 grams of porcini, 1194 grams of mixed boletes and 8 effing toadstools for dehydration, stirred every fucking 2011 Hedgerow Hooch (all (lucky) 13 of them), made a helluva meal which included homemade holubsti (Ukrainian stuffed cabbage) inexcusably smothered with leftover Poulet Marengo sauce and a quick chorizo-smoked pancetta-homegrown sage chicken thing, prepped #11's body for its future funeral and watery interment, and preened vainly in the mirror all evil sorceress-style when I caught the secondhand stains of midnight sex smeared garishly across my lower face.

And I didn't take one goddamn picture.

Finding Perspective

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What the fuck do you do when your computer's so fucking screwed that it won't even start up? You hand your baby - and years of unsaved mothereffin' work (look, I always MEANT to back the shit up, okay?) - over to very capable hands, and force yourself to get lost in the woods for an hour (or three) to find some fucking perspective.

By the time I returned home with a basket full of birch boletes, chanterelles, penny buns and toadstools? Italics had worked his Mercury-ruled magic. When I heard the good effin' news I swore with a hand on my magic motherfucking basket that I'd make that savior-king of mine something truly fucking special for his trouble: a recreation of the first dinner I ever made him* using homegrown garlic, humanely reared and slaughtered guinea fowl, two types of fancy pants booze and a huge selection of wild mushrooms found when my ass was lost in the woods looking for some perspective.

* Poulet Marengo; we were both just 17, and it was my first attempt at right-proper cooking.

Medusa

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A Year Since

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Has it really almost been a year? A year since I last wove a trail through the long grasses that grow between the mottled birches and brittle shrubs with my magic wooden baskets in hand? A year since I last crawled on my belly beneath majestic boughs of larch and fir in the search for gold (fungi gold), a year since a multitude of tequila sunrises were seen blazing Tropicana orange-yellow against Scotland's purple-tinged heather, a year since we rolled over musty leaves, arched against crumbling bark and lost ourselves in that seemingly eternal September?

Here's to replacing really fucking good memories with even greater ones, two-party entheogen-blessed mushroom hunting expeditions and the endless bitching that inevitably comes with pulling ticks out of my motherfucking ass after woodland fucking.

Wild American Roses

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At 12 I picked pale pink petals from wild shrubs growing where the fox roamed, took the flowers home and made a dog rose sugar syrup (which I ate with frozen waffles).

At 17 I took a 17-year-old Scottish boy to the wild roses, showed him how they towered beneath rustling cottonwood trees and told him, after zippering up my pants, how, at age 12, I had made a pancake syrup out of the delicate petals.

At 30 I stood, just yesterday, at the mouth of a golden grain field, a roadkill pheasant in one hand, a basket of ripe wild rose hips in another, remembering the 12-year-old girl and 17-year-old girl that eventually made this 30-year-old woman (now married to that Scottish boy who was especially interested in wild American roses 13 years ago).

And, Also

I LOVE HOW YOU DON'T REACT BADLY WHEN I DELIBERATELY PISS ON YOU DURING SEX. (AND, ALSO, HOW YOU LAUGHED WHEN I THREATENED TO ADD MY URINE TO THE BATH I JUST DREW YOU.)(I DID, BUT I KNEW YOU'D KNOW I'D DO IT.)

Ring My Bell

You bought it for me; a gift (you know how much I love cheap novelty underwear). It was the morning after the winter solstice, the morning after the Aberdeen Travelodge curse was broken. (At first I was worried. I swung from not wanting to go to wanting to go but wanting it to be over with already. But by the time we were at the steps - already late for dinner at Rendezvous - I wanted more; just an extra ten minutes - remember?)

It was December 22nd, three days until show time, and everything Christmas related was on clearance. They were heaped into dissolving piles in front of the store, hundreds of thin, flimsy bells tinkling while enthusiastic shoppers foraged. (Who would've thought that something that cost £0.50 could eventually, secretly, become a token of devoted and unconditional love.)

When I rediscovered the Christmas thong last month it still had its price tag. After pulling on the festive panties I shook my ass, jingling the tiny, golden bell against my hidden cunt to draw your attention. You smiled, I think, when I said it was like putting on a dainty version of my collar. You laughed, I remember, when I said I felt like a goat following her shepherd into town, my camouflaged bell chiming ownership with every step I took.

It was a special day for no reason. I put up my hair. I wore lipstick. I pulled on panties. (I almost never wear make-up, and I almost never wear underwear. The last time - before GOAT'S DAY OUT- was Christmas Eve, and my dirty make-up brushes were still sitting in a glass tumbler to prove it.) Pure gold mingled with fake gold, and tied around my perfumed neck Santa Muerte and Catholicism merged until two separate roads became one in the valley of my breasts.

I fell asleep crying that night as the washing machine rattled in the kitchen. (I don't know if you remember, but we had a fight after we came home. I couldn't read you and thought you were upset with me.) I cried most of my make-up off, and wiped away your red lipstick. I cried taking the pins out of my hair, and while rolling off your camouflaged bell. (It wasn't exactly how I imagined the day would end.)

I felt stupid. I felt naive and ordinary and just as fucking retarded as any other woman in the history of the world for thinking that if I made an effort, if I dressed nice for you, things would be better between us. That maybe you'd be happy, that maybe all it'd take to make things okay again was me trying a little harder at something that once was so effortlessly present.

That time - that period - was the closest I ever got to wondering "is this the end?". I didn't think it was possible, at least not for us. But then I lost you, and when I lost you I became a fading ghost, haunted by a different life, because there's no me without you.

(How can I be me without you? You define me, you make me whole. I exalt you in unspoken hymns sung from my heart when I'm doing the laundry. I build you empires, erect monuments, and construct temples Ebay item by Ebay item to glorify and materialize my love for you. Every laugh, every kiss, every embrace, every cookie I bake are songs of love pulsing through my heart that I know you'll never hear.)

I fell asleep crying that night as the washing machine rattled in the kitchen, a goat without a shepherd, a wife losing her husband, a person without definition or purpose. And while I cried and slept, and while the washing machine rattled, the goat and bell were severed leaving a Christmas mouse will no bell to ring. When I was in bed and sleeping, you were awake with needle and thread.

You hung my thong on the chipboard separating the dressers from the bookshelves, and I found them the next morning, the abrasive elastic band tarnished but still flashing gold-green in the light. The bell had come off in the wash, you said, and without any provocation you located your mother's sewing box and hand-stitched that tiny, chiming bell back onto the novelty thong you bought me so many months prior while I laid in bed, crying, wondering if it really was the beginning of the end.

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You don't know this, but I deliberately let the underwear hang on the chipboard for days and weeks and nearly a month. It was a reminder, a token of devoted and unconditional love. When I was curled up assuming the worst, you were here, where we work, where we love, where we live, fixing clearance underwear. When I thought you didn't want me anymore you were stringing a bell to a broken collar, ensuring that the shepherd would never lose his goat.

Cakepants

You called me "cakepants" at the bong bucket tonight and I thought it was the funniest, sexiest thing. (I still don't know how the cake got there, but it knew where it needed to be.)

I Ruin Moments

One of these days I'll be able to tell you how much I love you without the safety net of work doing it for me. One of these days I'll be able to tell you that I don't care if you want the Bride or the Whore as long as you'll let me continue loving and worshiping you as the King. One of these days I'll be able to tell you how much I selfishly hope that I'll go first because, like V$, I don't know how I'd survive being without you.

(In the off chance you DO go first, please be sure to leave a list of your preferred 6 or 7 "life force" friends in an easy-to-find place.)

(LOL, I RUIN MOMENTS. <- I NEED TO GET THAT ON A BUMPER STICKER.)

("I'LL DO IT LIVE!")