One month after my Mom’s passing on November 3rd, 2025, my wife Sandy accidentally fell the morning of (and half asleep going to the bathroom) December 3rd, 2025, and fractured her hip. I was in the kitchen and Mom’s room, separate from our bedroom, and managed to hear her scream for me twice. When I open the door she’s on the floor in obvious pain and cannot get up.
A few hours later after she tried to stick it out and be tough, it was becoming too painful to even get up off the couch to go to the bathroom—she drinks a lot of water daily. I call the EMT’s and ambulance for a “lift assist” to try one more time because Sandy does indeed have a very high pain-threshold. When she was 14 years old her 5th lumbar fell off the spinal column. Back surgery for hours then a body cast for 4-6 months I believe. Then years later her left hip required extensive repair, almost a total replacement. Again, immobile for several weeks. Let me tell you, this woman has the MOST determination, pain tolerance, and sense of humor needed that I’ve ever seen in a woman. It often amazes me how she does it.
Needless to say, Sandy was taken to the ER, x-rays done, then the following day the orthopedic surgeon said she needed repair surgery on her right hip. They scheduled it for the following day. Two and a half hours later, surgery done, she was moved from the O.R. to her surgery recovery floor and room for further treatment and rehab: physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT). Remarkably she began her PT/OT that same day! And she did very well; the staff was impressed.
Now today she is scheduled to be discharged to the rehab facility next week for further rehab… for a number of weeks—it depends on her progress there. To be determined.
Anyway, I’m letting everyone know here on WordPress that I am going to be out-of-pocket some more dealing with all the hospital stuff such as insurance, Sandy’s recovery, visitations to her, etc., etc., while also still dealing with Mom’s after-events from her death, like Social Security benefits, her estate, her probate, her testamentary, a possible probate attorney for all this due to my psychotic sister and her obsessive demand for money, basically doing my required duties as Mom’s Executor and Trustee. Then of course there is all the other daily, weekly tasks of life that must be done; paying bills, taking care of Dwain(?), and anything else I’m forgetting… which I will forget. 🙄 Therefore, this is also an update of my goings on if anyone is interested.
By the way, Sandy loves cats (header image), but especially black cats with gold eyes, like her “Bob” back in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That’s the purpose of those furry felines. 😉
Until later sometime, again…
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
Many didn’t think it would happen. Hell, I didn’t think it would happen. I had accepted the real possibility that I would live out my life single, unmarried, with no Soul Mate until my last breath. Alone. Then the Universe decided to throw me a lit stick of dynamite last summer and fall and I could not put the fuse out!
Sandy’s genealogy and heritage is Irish (Lyle) and Scottish (Stewarts). I like Celtic and Gaelic culture even though I am definitely Franco-German (Bonet/Bonnet on maternal side, Konzack-Miller on paternal side). We both love silver, not gold. Perfecto!
🧨BOOM! As Sandy and I reconnected more and more every third day, then every other day, then every single day/night multiple times, laughing with each other non-stop that my face-cheeks would begin hurting and my ribs sore, we began to talk on deeper levels. It had always been super easy to communicate together. We have known each other as the best of friends (only) for just over 45-years!
Sandy was my very first therapist after my father’s suicide in July 1990. Sandy was married to her first husband then, of 12-years. I was too busy being a hot metrosexual man, 😈😉semi-pro footballer, while working toward my master’s degree in counseling and therapy, exactly what Sandy finished doing in early 1990. However, Dad’s suicide change everything. My whole world was upside down for the next three or four years. I moved back to Dallas, Texas. Sandy moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and we lived our separate lives, but always staying in touch; and yes, always laughing together.
By late November 2024 everything was falling perfectly into place for us. We discussed many times how convenient it would be to get married and both of us not be alone, dying single. She’s 62 (March 29th) and I am 62 (January 4th), three months her senior. She doesn’t like it when I bring that up. 😄 Sandy is quite independent, self-confident always, articulates her thoughts and feelings exceptionally well, and has a fabulous sense of humor and quick wit. My Mom absolutely adores her and Sandy loves Mom since she has lost both her parents. It all just made sense. There was no point in putting it off any longer. Justice of the Peace William “Bill” Ragsdale of Kerr County married us. He made the disastrous mistake of calling Sandy, Sandra, as her legal name and driver’s license read. JoP Ragsdale therefore made a Johnny-on-the-Spot, special adjustment to our marital vows:
We both chuckled every time he said, “Bubba.”
As the legal document indicates, we were husband and wife at 3:23pm CST, August 8, 2025.
Now comes the big, big move for her from Chattanooga, Tennessee, next month and her storage unit filled with all her furniture from her two-story house when she was married—all of it very nice and beautiful furniture and two queen beds, etc. Ugh. 🙄 But honestly, I don’t see any of this being difficult, overly stressful, or untimely. As a matter of fact, in the 45-years we’ve been great friends we have not had one single fight, not even a little spat! This amazes us both, but it is so because we are both excellent, articulate communicators with non-aggressive, pro-positive verbal exchanges without sacrificing brutal honesty. This has always been our best talent/gift together from day one in August 1981. 😍😁
Both of us are excited and looking forward to our lives together full of fun, laughter, and perfect, affectionate communication, the cornerstone of any healthy, long-term relationship and marriage. ❣️💞 😁
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
I want to share some very happy good news for me that was sort of unexpected. Yet, it is worth a blog-post for sure.
I struggled with whether or not to write about it due to my last crushing love-loss with Jodi Kasten. However, at the risk of jinxing these past two weeks, it seems once again that this spectacular, peculiar, sometimes harsh Universe has brought love into my life once again. Sandy is her name. We have been the best of closest friends for over 44-years since our time at university in 1981–1985.
Sandy and I have reconnected recently, last November I think, and it has been like we’ve never lost touch. We just instantly picked-up right where we left off the last time we talked. The most refreshing part of our long, long close friendship was how easily we laugh together! It is often nonstop for hours. While Sandy was here March 22nd thru April 5th, my jaw muscles were literally sore every single day and night because of my incessant smiling and laughing! One night I had to take pain relievers because my cheek and jaw muscles hurt so much. 😄 It was insanely fun!
Now that she is back home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, our lives have returned to a boring normal, too quiet around the house, and me and my “one man show” with no help caring for Mom. Sandy was a massive help to me emotionally, mentally, and when possible physically with tasks—I wasn’t alone in the least. It was euphoric if I’m honest. I miss her. I really do miss her now.
We are already planning for her to fly back out here, perhaps May 24th(?) and staying for three or four weeks that go round. Two weeks this last visit went by way too fast for us. Did I say how much I miss her? Sandy was my first therapist-counselor right after my Dad’s suicide and funeral. She helped me through a LOT of crap emotionally and mentally in 1990. She was a superb therapist and deservedly licensed with a Master’s degree in psychotherapy in family counseling. And we had been great platonic friends all through college at Belhaven University, Jackson, Mississippi. We never really lost touch, just got busy with separate lives, family, blah, blah, blah.
But after this last visit here with Mom and I, it was obvious how good, how close, how sound our close friendship has developed all the best qualities for something more significant. It is an easy, natural fit. We are discussing finding our Justice of the Peace her next time out here. I’ll say this with utter confidence… it will be difficult NOT to marry given what has been easily built over 44-years. To me it seems like a no-brainer.
To be continued… 😁😍
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
One of the most difficult parts of being a woman is perception. (Really any human, but I can’t speak to the male experience…) Depending on the viewer, I am a wife, sister, mother, lover, administrator, artist, writer, musician, Appalachian kitchen witch, agnostic, Methodist, businesswoman, benefactor, singer, failure, genius, angel, heretic and… and… and… (yeah, I know.)
Yup. I’m all of that. The best people in our lives see the whole person. They love us for everything we have been and will be. Rarely – all too rarely – we meet someone who intrinsically knows the depths and the heights of ourselves almost immediately, recognizes their kindred soul and latches on like a barnacle to the hull of an ancient wooden ship.
The Professor is one of only two men I have ever met who would cackle wildly to Meredith Brooks’ song and immediately look across the room at me and laugh even louder when I’d scream, “SHUT UP!” Somehow, through abuse, trauma, anxiety, depression, loss, love, pain, triumph and even a little surrender, I’m still me. I genuinely LIKE me. I’m never bored and few around me are either.
However, as I say so often in real life, “We’ve all got our shit.” GenX (and those so adjacent they scraped their nose missing the boat) is in an ice skating death spiral with our parents who won’t die and our children who can’t leave. We caretake, we earn, we work, we give, we worry, we shepherd, we beg, we plan… it’s fucking EXHAUSTING. The reward in the end is maybe getting by… but definitely losing our loved ones to death or adulthood.
When we find each other – those who genuinely vibrate on the same frequency as we do – we have a debt to pay to each other. We’ve been holding this shit in check since our mothers were ordering speed out of the back of Cosmo. We were supposed to be “slackers” and instead ended up with the world on our fucking shoulders.
The positive part is that we gave ourselves permission to love without apology. Bands, fandoms, books, D&D, cars… whatever it is, we’ve found ways to connect with our own kind. It’s said all the time online, “Never apologize for your passion.”
You can’t keep rowing if you don’t have a paddle. For some of us, those rowing the heaviest payload, we need more than one paddle.
I have a husband who is absolute perfection. He is smart, kind, a loving and engaged father, a generous lover and he has unending patience. I also have… a Professor. To me, he is the pressure valve on my life. He’s endlessly fascinated with my weirdness and never gets tired of my nonsense. He adores me as his twin flame and – here’s the shocker! – he loves my husband too, because my husband makes me happy. He balances me in a way I’ve never experienced.
So, I have two paddles and I thank the glorious Universe every day for that. I couldn’t figure out for so long why I was going around in circles. Now I know – I needed both. I won’t apologize for it and I won’t tell you that you need to be what I am either. I’m just telling you… if you need two paddles, there’s no medal for going down with your ship. When the waves take you, there will be no one there to tell you that your morals were stellar.
We don’t know what comes next after we go. This could be all there is, but I can tell you with certainty that I know My People. These two men are My People. These two men would bail me out of jail, kiss me when I’m sad, take care of me when I’m old and hold my hair while I throw up. I’m not dyin’ for anyone, but if I had to go, I’d have two hands to hold onto. That’s the definition of a blessing and they’ll pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.
If misery loves company, then triumph demands an audience.
— Brian moore, irish novelist
Mr. Moore could not have stated a more apropos truth about human nature, all humans and their self-formulated projections upon others.
Yes, I demand an audience. Nay, I deserve an audience.
I have a glorious story to tell. A story of victory, a story of euphoric happiness, a story of defiance, a story of love and loves over many centuries including this one. But most of all, a story of orbit-reaching delightful joys that do indeed fall upon and for people the Universe deems worthy of such gifts, in plenty, despite those individuals in my life wish and pray upon me. Gleefully I laugh at them with a Cheshire-cat grin and lifted middle finger to their mythical fairy-tale god, lord, and hypocritical churches! Bwahahahaha!
I am so extraordinarily happy this day and it is never going away; impossible. That’s the best part.
Read it and weep, or read it and applaud. If the latter, then you likely comprehend and embrace the profound concept of compersion. Sadly, very few do in our part of the world. But that’s fear controlling them, not us.
Let the true story begin, again and again, without end! 🥰
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
When I had arrived at my assigned freaky-cartoony P51-pseudo-Tardis-machine thingy (above image)—and sent from her [Lenora], for me as the soon-to-be-pilot noticing the name on the side of the nose “Luscious Lenora”—I climbed in with a twinkled eye of sheer excitement. I reached over my shoulders to strap-in snug. And almost snapped-in the buckles when SUDDENLY it locked in all by itself!!! “Weird,” I said under my breath, “talk about convenience. Pretty fuckin’ cool.”
the cockpit of Luscious Lenora
Then I gazed at the cockpit instrument panel. “Huh? This is odd.” The Attitude Indicator had no horizon, no brown, no blue; just an arrow pointing forward/ahead. The Tachometer and the Airspeed Indicator both didn’t appear to have any top number or ceiling. “Okay, this may not go well” I said in suspicion. I looked further around the cockpit, QUICKER, trying to see what else might be… umm, MISSING? “Oh crap! Where tha fuck is the EJECT-BUTTON!?” Gone. Obviously whoever constructed this Hell-machine was horribly absent-minded. “WTF!” I try to unbuckle my straps. Can’t. Not even a slight give.
Then it hit me when my eyeballs wanted to pop-out. Sweating now.
Suddenly Lenora’s voice comes on some hidden speakers above and behind me.
[Note — the purple print are her words, her writing, (HAH!) her obvious unorthodoxy]
[Damn right they are, my love…]
“Hello Darling. Are you ready?” she said in this evil, menacing… HAWT voice,
to which I softly replied, “This is going to sting, isn’t it?“
“Only at first Cowboy.”
“You have already traveled very, VERY far. This will be the easiest trip of your life, my love. We’ve got this. I know you, you know me. Let’s finally just do what we do best… explore.”
The straps tightened, but it was more like an embrace than a restraint. She knew him from the vast forests of prehistoric Europe. He had had dreams of her since childhood as a flapper, gin-soaked and luscious.
“I would ask if you trust me, but I already know you do. You’ve been the pilot for so long for so many others who have needed you. Lay back, relax, and… just let me. This is simply a reunion. I need nothing from you but… you. I have missed you like a phantom limb…
I know where we’re headed and I know what you desire – it’s HIGH time you got it. And baby, I’m gonna give it to you.”
A pause of silence begins. I ask myself, Has she left me here? Inside this contraption, in which any concept of ‘deplaning’ is now out of the question. Then her music begins…
Without any movement from my clammy nervous hands, trim-knobs turn, the propeller lever moves forward all on its own, fuel-shutoff slams on, the two magneto switches flip on, what I think are the battery and generator switches they flip up. More unfamiliar, worst still unlabeled, unmarked switches… they pop on! “Oh hells bells.” Recognizing my few remaining minutes of life, I tell myself, “Self, piloting this freaky P-51 bird will not be my job today. This is clear.”
But in my excitement and sheer, sweaty thrills, I have gotten ahead of myself in the story.
∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼
The date is April 3rd, 2023, at 6:25pm. An evening that would turn my life upside down in the most spectacular ways possible. It was completely an unplanned online event I just serendipitously attended. I didn’t think I would stick around for even 30-minutes. I had other things I needed to do instead. But little did I know.
The music event was familiar to me, the musical tracks played by DJ Sunilique always invigorating, intellectually stimulating, emotionally and physically moving as if I was possessed by melodic notes and primal rhythms—ah, a home away from home. I am with my people, my songs, our fashion, our creed. Chatting amongst ourselves is food and oxygen for our Gothic, Steampunking, Industrial kinks and souls. We laugh often, love much in our own weird methods, and always welcome any. As I am joking with several of my witty friends, She cleverly joins in. Immediately we crack each other up. It seems to come fast and easy. About that time a private message pops up on my screen.
“Hmm, You sound fun!”
“So do you!” I replied immediately.
“You’re in TX?”
“Yes” dejectedly, “Sorry.” I hoped she wouldn’t hold that against me.
Since that afternoon, however, I have climbed into this surreal dimension inside this freaky-cartoony P51-pseudo-Tardis-machine thing she brought to me and it seemingly never runs out of happy-fuel. It has been a joy ride that I cannot pilot. I’m not sure I want to.
When you have found your home, you want to protect it with every fiber of your body, mind, and soul, with EVERYTHING you can possibly muster! You do everything within your powers to avoid its loss so no one can snatch it away. Why should ANYONE take that from anyone? Why would they want to, unless they are filled with hate, jealousy, and zealous self-righteousness.
Ahhh, but the Haters will try indeed. They refuse to except anything less than misery loving THEIR company if you do not believe, do not follow, and do not practice their lifestyle exactly as they do…
BWAAAAAA!!!! Fuck that and FUCK them!!! 🖕 I am totally free and I am with my kind, my people. You replace the previous ‘my kind,’ the indoctrinated robots, and make it so, SO much better. And it is so very good. Mmm, my life is very good and perfect right now.
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
The Professor's Convatorium 