Bernard Black screaming

My Truth

Or my perception of events. But it’s true for me.

Life this year has had highs and deep lows. I’m writing this to try to set some of it in context, mostly for myself.

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Our personal life was a trifle complicated at that time. I had spent most of the fortnight leading up to the Queen’s death living in an Oxford college doing in-person readings with a group of academic friends of the complete works of Christopher Marlowe and plays influenced by or influencing his work. (The day after the accession of King Charles III, as it happened, we read Edward III and Richard III.) My mobility was very poor – I found it impossible to walk as far as a supermarket, so lived on sandwiches and salads bought for me by Dave – so I was pretty much permanently exhausted.

We finished on the Friday and spent the weekend packing, leaving the country for our first holiday on the continent since the pandemic started. For three weeks we were out of the country, travelling or staying in rented holiday apartments. Both of us had health problems during this period; physical and emotional in each case. This may in part explain what happened, though I do not offer it as an excuse.

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The next day I had an email from one of the team saying she was “there for me” – it felt like arrant hypocrisy. It may simply have been tone-deafness in an emotional sense.

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And on that point, I really don’t see the value of that site continuing. It was founded, as I understood it, with the primary purpose of being supportive, forgiving, helpful – above all, safe. It’s turned out to be none of the above.

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So, it's a fandom kerfuffle. They used to be two a penny. Fewer now, as there are fewer in the fandom. A good sign? Great.

If you've read this far, thanks. Once more, I am very much not asking anyone to act or speak up on my behalf. But it's affected me deeply and will take a fair bit of getting over, so I thought I would share it here, so people understand where I'm coming from.
Sympathy flowers

In memoriam

ETA: I am making this open to everyone, not just my flist, so if you know someone who was a friend of hers, feel free to point them here. The same will apply to FB people.

This was published on FB by Lisa McLeod, and I share it here with her permission. tx_cronopio was a lovely human being, vibrant, caring, intelligent. All of us who knew her have lost someone special.

This is long.
My friend Pat died on December 11, 2021 … I knew her almost entirely from online communities, and we bonded over academia, fandom, and political orientation. For years, I have been so angry about how the world treated her – she was brilliant and had a huge heart. She was a natural teacher – I mean, her online handles often included “Cronopio”, which turned out to be a sort of human/being in the writing of Julio Cortázar, an Argentinian who moved to France. Pat was a Texan, a committed Texan, like Ann Richards. She traveled! I don’t even know where all she traveled – I know she spent several months in India, probably as part of administration for a study abroad trip. She was fluent in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. She loved music – Lyle Lovett and Willie Nelson, of course, but also all kinds of 70s singer-songwriter stuff that we both loved from our childhood/youth. She loved dogs, so much, and always wanted to adopt the ones that no one else would take. She didn’t regret this policy, although she had a lot of heartbreak for the elderly ones, the troublesome ones. She got to know them and did what she could to see that they got to enjoy the time they had with her. I’ll just name Zelda and Zeke here, as they were the last two. I won’t recount the heartbreaking story of how she lost them, as I don’t know all the details and that’s not what this is about. I will say they were very lucky to have been plucked from the shelter by such a big-hearted dog lady.

She should have had a long and happy career in university teaching. However, very smart women who speak their minds don’t always get that opportunity. I don’t know all of these details, either, but I am certain she deserved that long career at least as much, and even more than many of the white men I know who have screwed up and screwed up and not even known it, or considered it a funny little foible, and kept their job and their retirement and even family around to make their last days comfortable. But that’s another story.

Pat loved camping, real camping, in a tent; it was hard for her to find folks to camp in TX with who understood what camping really meant – it doesn’t mean sleeping in an RV, for example. We had such plans for a camping trip that got scuttled, by her father’s health problems, then depression – first me, then her, then me again, then money problems. Then COVID. Fuck COVID.

She loved reading, obviously. She loved watching the LOTR movies. I loved Pat so much I would have even watched them with her. I was counting the weeks until March or April so I could make a trip out to TX and we could go camping – real camping! Hoping COVID and workloads would cooperate.

Last spring and summer she got sick and finally figured out it was COVID and then long COVID; she would get out of the hospital and then had to go back in. She fell and hurt herself, then had to go back in. She hated it. She lived by herself, was as bad as I am about understanding the stupid world of smart phones and so getting information was hard. Finally we heard that she’d gone into hospice care.

When I had finally given my last grades I made a last-minute decision to go sit with her in hospice. Because her family was more or less estranged and her friends were scattered to the four corners, etc. I just wanted her to have a friendly presence, even if she was non-responsive. She died the day before I would have gotten there. Probably a kindness, really, but I’m so sorry to have missed that chance.

Her dying and her death left me so sad and angry. But I’m almost ready to focus on the happy memories, the rich lives and friendships. The good times and great dogs and the jokes that had me laughing out loud, really, in front of my computer.

We had plans to be irritating crones together on yearly occasions; to take trips with Road Scholar and make life hard for mansplainers and bigots. I miss her online, I miss having plans. I am so sorry not to have been a better friend, but mainly I want to hold her up and say, Pat was so great.


She was indeed.

Magdalen reading

Sad news signal boost

Mutual friends of tx_cronopio will be sad to hear that she is very unwell. One of her personal (RL) friends on FB posted:

Patricia's brother contacted me on Saturday. She is in a hospice in Arlington, with weeks to a month to live.
I am beyond devastated, as I am sure you all are.
Here is her information. I don't think calling is an option, but if you can send flowers or well wishes ASAP, it would be appreciated.

If anyone would like the (snail) address, please PM me.

If you know anybody who would like to know more, please signal-boost or direct them here - I will make this post open to anyone, which is why I am not putting the address in plain view.
reclining

Fic: Oldest Profession

It's my day at seasonal_spuffy today, and this is my entry. It's distinctly more explicit than I'm used to writing, so be warned if that's not quite your thing.

Buffy had a serious cash crisis in early S6, which didn't seem to be a problem by the time she had to cope with the crises during the last part of the season. Did she find an alternative source of finance?

Not quite PWP, but not so very far off.

1. Title: Oldest Profession
2. Author/creator: gillo
3. Era/season/setting: Mid-Season 6
4. Rating: NC-17


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As always, comments and feedback make me very happy.