I thought I was going to die. I have four different “pre-existing conditions,” maybe five if this new inflammation turns out to be rheumatoid arthritis. None of them is deadly, in itself, but they’re painful and have more or less disabled me. And they’re only going to get worse. Medicine can’t do everything. I’ve also got to eat right, which I do, and exercise, which I do when the fatigue isn’t severe, and take my weird esoteric vitamins that I... Read more
We adore You, O Christ, and we bless, You, because by Your holy cross you have redeemed the world. A great number of people followed Him, including women who kept mourning and wailing for Him. But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that... Read more
I grew up associating Lent with fish sticks and bland, canned-soup casserole on Fridays. My daughter will grow up thinking it has to do with bread and borscht on Wednesdays, and sick bats. My little Byzantine Catholic church always has a soup social on Wednesday nights in Lent. There are big loaves of bread, fruit cups and vegan soups for those who observe the strict fast, and cream soups and macaroni and cheese for those who just go meatless. The soups... Read more
Lately, I’ve begun an exhaustive aesthetic exploration of the B science fiction films of the nineteen fifties, consisting of watching the ones I can find free online while I play computer games. It’s interesting to watch the cheap art of another era like our own, when people were terrified of one another and expected the future to be an unqualified disaster. It helps keep my mind off things. I am currently watching a film called Terror from the Year 5000, in which... Read more
I cannot remember how many times I was told, a thousand years ago in 2016, that the single pro-life issue of our time was electing a Republican to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices. I was told over and over and over again that we absolutely had to vote for TV’s Donald Trump even though he was incompetent, volatile and a disgusting cad, because he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. That was his selling point. The... Read more
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless You, because by Your holy cross, you have redeemed the world. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. He has fallen again. The cross weighs down on Him, smashing... Read more
I had to take the bus downtown to turn in my “interim report,” to prove to Job and Family Services that I haven’t somehow gotten rich in the past six months. If it didn’t go downtown today, I wouldn’t be getting any more food assistance. My name is on our forms, so I did it myself. I drank some coffee to help manage the fibro pain, and caught the 2:15 bus. I almost fled when I saw the shaven head and... Read more
I hadn’t had breakfast yet. I have acute gastritis and IBS; medication keeps much of the stomach pain and swelling under control, as long as I don’t eat anything too spicy or anything with gluten in it. But the medication is supposed to be taken in the morning thirty minutes before breakfast, and that morning I hadn’t had my pills in the house. My husband had taken a bus out to fetch them, but he hadn’t gotten back before noon.... Read more
It’s time to play “Name That Leftist,” the crazy quiz game where you guess the names of wicked anti-capitalists and their bodies of work. See if you can guess all four! Question Number One: Name the commie pinko rat who is responsible for the following quote: Are you not a cheater? taking those things which you received for the sake of stewardship, and making them your very own? Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked... Read more
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless You, because by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. It’s hard for her to say what he... Read more
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