Floating in the Blue

Great news: she loved it. Super tasty apparently. Great success. Along with the kidney-sensitive treats we found, it was a nice way to supplement her diet. Unforseen long-term consequence though: she loved it so much she began demanding it throughout the day. Like, would come up to us and meow, and meow, and meow, and not stop, until we got up, went to the kitchen, and got her some cat drink.

And by doing so on demand, we have unfortunately created a monster: no matter what we are doing at home, Dozy knows that if she sits next to you and meows, 1) you know what she wants, and 2) you know that she will not stop until you get it for her now. And when you do get it, she gets extremely excited. She will bum rush the kitchen door as you enter. She will run around your feet as you open the can. She will let out the creakiest, crunchiest, most nails-on-the-chalkboard meow you've ever heard if she thinks you're not going fast enough.

I do not begrudge her this. It is gratifying to care for a creature whose most ardent desires are so simple that it is this easy to fulfill them. But I am a little sad, because I know in my heart that I have never loved any comestible as much as she loves this cat drink. She has a pleasure of a purity and intensity that I will never know.

I used to go to this small drama camp as a kid that was entirely run by one nice lady, I believe named Carol. We would put on abridged minimalist versions of popular musicals at a local church with only one week of rehearsal. These weren’t licensable junior versions. Carol created them herself.

She wrote the scripts to include the major plot highlights and famous lines from the various musicals and she arranged and accompanied all of the songs on the piano herself. We did Annie, Mary Poppins, the Wizard of Oz, and, the year before I came, Peter Pan. These shows were definitely illegal, but they were so small that nobody really noticed, and they were a ton of fun. The camp was also extremely affordable, so nobody was getting rich off of it.

But Cinderella, my final production with them, was next-level. When I arrived for the first day of camp, I was curious to see if it would be the Disney version or the Rodgers and Hammerstein version.

It was both. And neither.

Carol somehow wrote an almost entirely original book for Cinderella that used the best songs from both the Disney and R&H versions. That meant that I, as a stepsister, got to sing the “Stepsisters’ Lament,” a peak song if you ask me, but adorable little kids playing mice also got to sing “Cinderelly, Cinderelly.”

The one thing about combining both versions is perhaps an overemphasis on the Fairy Godmother, because the songs “Bibbidy Bobbity Boo” and “Impossible” are both no-brainers to include. But somehow, things worked out perfectly there, too, by splitting the role.

See, we didn’t just have a Fairy Godmother.

We also had a Fairy Godfather.

"Honey I can't tell Cinderella that!"

Video Transcript: Y'all will really tell a child, "Oh, you ain't supposed to congratulate a fish for swimming. You're supposed to keep your room clean. You're supposed to make good grades. You're supposed to do this, you're supposed to do that." Then god forbid someone calls you a bad parent, now all of a sudden it's, "Oh, but I kept food on the table and a roof over your head." Oh, look at Miss Fish!

Also: Alle die Fresse halten.

shapes today. wishing the same

for everyone else

The press, though? They're vultures. And they live off drama. Especially drama they can use to point fingers and tell everyone, "See, this change brings nothing but bad things; better everything stays as it was before." The more hate they can spew, the better.

Scott hasn't been out for a half year yet when the first gossip rag brings a headline about their supposedly oh so messy breakup. Kip and Scott laugh it off; they laugh especially hard over Scott allegedly cheating on Kip. The next time they see one of the headlines (they miss most of them in the beginning), it's Kip who allegedly turned out to be a gold digger just before their wedding, with Scott just so getting away before Kip could steal all his money in a long planned con. They laugh that one off, too.

The gossip rags get more annoying a little later on when, after Ilya and Shane are outed, there is a loud movement among hockey fans--supported by some politicians and, of course, also a not insignificant part of the management higher up in the NHL--who proclaim they need to take hockey back from the queers and "make it a family-friendly sport again". That's when the accusations and made-up stories in the "press" (because Kip has whole lectures prepared about how what those gossip rags do is so, so far away from producing news) get vicious and, at times, allege either of them of actual crimes.

The first time Scott and Kip sue one of the gossip rags is when they claim Kip filed for divorce allegedly because he discovered Scott cheating on him with a young man "who could barely be 18". Scott grits his teeth when it's surprisingly difficult to win that case, and afterwards it just gets worse. Death threats are nothing new for them; they hired a social media manager and lawyers mere weeks after the cup finale in 2017 to deal with that part of social media. But when one of the online portals that happily reports their divorce and their "depravity" every other month lets their comment section run rampant with fantasies about killing them, including not one, not two, but three of their own "reporters" joining into the frenzy, they're in court again. 

It's the beginning of a long list of lawsuits, and Scott is glad he has the money to pay for the lawyers, and that he got a new manager after he came out, who not only didn't care about his sexuality but also got him better endorsement deals. Endorsement deals with labels that even stay at his side through all this uproar. Because he honestly doesn't know if the pay check fromt he NHL alone would've covered his legal matters.

It goes on a couple of years, and it's not always easy for Scott and Kip to navigate it all, not to break apart on it. But they have a support system in Kip's family, in Kip's friends, in Scott's friends. And eventually, after the sixth gossip rag had to not only pay out millions in reparations for defamation--all of which Scott and Kip donate to organisations supporting the LGBTQ+ community--but also post a public apology, they learn their lesson.

She was also raised by what I would politely call “wannabe domestic terrorists.” I’m pretty sure she’s the only one of her siblings to have a healthy relationship with all of her kids. Her side of the family is wildly unhinged in a way that ranges from “nerd autism” to “arrested for several felonies” and it’s entertaining but sometimes a little nerve-wracking so since I was able to recall I’ve been impressed with how stable she is.

She’s also part of the reason I did so well in school. I couldn’t do math to save my life in first grade and my first grade teacher had marked me as the class’s designated Fuckass Loser Pissbaby Idiot Who Is Destined To Eat Shit Forever because she was like 4 years away from retirement and decided to just fully lean into hating non-neurotypical children. My mom recognized this and taught me how to do math on her own. She recognized that I couldn’t write well because of a core tremor and orthographic dysgraphia so she tricked me into doing physical therapy with her through play activities. I just thought we were having fun but we were actually having fun AND preparing me for academic success.

In second grade I was going to be switched out of my favorite teacher’s class into the class of a new teacher and she just calmly walked her way into the principal’s office and calmly read him the riot act until he caved and moved a different kid because she knew if I didn’t have a good time in second grade after having my crappy asshole first grade teacher I would just write school off forever. I loved that class so much it actually made me look forward to school for years afterwards.

When I was going into high school I tried to test into a combined AP English/AP History class called “The Block” and I missed entry to the class by one point. The day I was supposed to start classes I was SO sad about it that my dad noticed it and said “Hey, is this about that stupid class? Listen, I graduated high school with a 3.0 GPA, I got into college on an athletic scholarship. I got into med school. I’m fine. Your mom graduated as her high school and undergraduate class’s valedictorian. She got into a master’s program, she’s fine. Neither of us are upset by this. Go have fun at classes.” A few years later when I was getting ready for college my mom explained her study routine in college, which was “sit and study for 20-30 minutes, then get up and walk a lap around the library, then sit back down.” It was when I realized that my mom had the same ADHD I had AND she was the Valedictorian of her high school AND college class. My dad later told me to study in my room with the door closed and when I said “Oh, mom said to study at the library” he said “Oh, well then fuck what I just said, study at the library. If I give you study tips, and your mom gives you different study tips, ALWAYS do what your mom says.” I studied at the library or in designated study rooms for all of my hardest classes, and I always let myself pace after 30 minutes, and I graduated with a GPA high enough to get admitted into a doctoral program right away. My mom is a goddamn genius AND she did it all with combined-type ADHD, which is like “sit still and learn” kryptonite, PLUS she then got admitted to one of the top 10 physical therapy program in the country on an academic scholarship as a MORMON WOMAN from BYU in the fucking 90s.

When I came out as trans she gave me a huge hug and just BAWLED because she said she knew for years I’d been sad and stressed about something and she just didn’t know what. The next day she entered my room with a REAL serious look on her face and said “Liz we need to go for a walk” so I went with her and she tells me that she knows how Mormons talk about women and she knows how Mormons are about women getting an education and she needed me to know that I could NOT use transitioning as an excuse to drop out of grad school, and I said “Mom, you’re the only Mormon I like, and you’re a woman, and you literally have a Master’s Degree. I couldn’t play that card even if I wanted to.” and she did this BIG exhale and I was like “Omg, the first thing she told me As A Woman was to not let the patriarchy win,” like fr what a fucking icon.

Anyways, I graduated from my doctoral program last week and when I told her I wasn’t able to get the time off to attend my commencement ceremony (due to exigent circumstances, I love my job and don’t blame them tbh) she said “then we’re coming up to celebrate.”

And yesterday was her birthday! So to celebrate my mom and how cool she is her are pictures of us at various points in our lives - my first day back to school after my mission, the day before I started grad school, the end of my second year in grad school (the hardest year of my grad student life), and the day after I graduated 🥹 I couldn’t have made it this far without my mom’s support and strong muscly brain.

Wild to think this is the first artwork I complete and post of Holmes playing the violin. I wonder what he's playing 🫴