fuzzilla

The chicken flock waits beneath the porch to say goodbye to me when I trudge off to the office because I always give them tasty tortilla treats.

Only yesterday, when I went out, there were only three of them instead of four.

I went back inside and asked Icky, "Do you know where the other black chicken is?"

Icky shrugged, unconcerned. "She probably wandered off somewhere on her own."

When Icky is in residence, I leave the chicken wrangling to him. They are his chickens after all.

Still, this was weird. The chickens travel in their flock of four. Icky had only let them out of their coop about an hour earlier when presumably, there had been four. I hadn't noticed any feathers around, as one might have had a predator grabbed the other black chicken.

###

I went off to the Montgomery Schlock office where I literally spent three hours gabbing to Gary, my 350-pound coworker, and doing absolutely nothing else because there were no clients. Gary showed me the journal in which he chronicles his weight-loss journey and his financial transactions. He is 29 years old and has already accumulated $40,000 in investments, working Schlock and another job as a residential counselor at a home for adults with developmental disabilities. Gary is very, very smart—and very, very sweet.

"By the time you're 35, you'll have your life entirely where you want it to be!" I told him. "You'll have lost the rest of that weight, and you'll have someone who loves you and a house—"

###

Back at the casa, I puttered. And when twilight came around, I looked out the window and thought I espied all four chickens pecking for insects just outside their coop.

Icky was out.

So, I waited another 15 minutes and then went outside myself to shut the chickens up for the night—

Except there were no chickens at all in the coop.

I left the coop door open, ran back to the house, and began one of my weird, atavistic prayer rituals: Please, Universe, please! Make the chickens be okay!!!

How could this be?

Where could they have gone?

Frantically, I texted Icky.

When he got back an hour later, I accosted him equally frantically: "Did you get my text?"

"No. What?"

"The chickens!"

He went back outside, returning five minutes later, frowning. "Only two are in the coop."

Two?

But that was two more than had been there when I'd checked.

So maybe the other two were still around somewhere? Nesting on a brood of eggs they'd laid in some underbrush?

###

I spent the night reading up on Reddit on True Tales of Amazing Poultry Runaways & Returns. There are a lot of them.

Molly ran away for an entire month shortly after you moved here, I reminded myself. And you didn't see any evidence that a predator got the chickens.

Still, my heart feels broken this morning.

I don't hold up The Umbrella of Protection very well.

I can't take sufficient care of innocent little creatures that depend upon me.

I can barely take care of myself.

Why can't I live in a Universe where innocence & a pure soul are valued? Surely, in an infinity of parallel universes, such a Universe exists! Why am I trapped here in a world where competitiveness is baked into the evolutionary process so that only implacable indifference and occasional cruelty prosper?

###

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Sara Crewe is my spirit animal at the Middletown Schlock office.

Yesterday, one of my clients, an incredibly handsome man—another prison guard!—wanted his 2024 taxes done, but nobody told me he wanted his 2024 taxes done; in fact, Leslie, the dour & humorless assistant manager, actually scanned his tax documents into the 2025 folder.

I started a 2025 return.

And it wasn't until I picked up his W2 and noted that it had been issued in 2024 that I realized the mistake.

I abandoned the 2025 return and completed the 2024 return.

But there was no way for me to delete the 2025 return.

And Leslie made an error and processed his payment for the 2025 return.

Somehow this became my mistake!

Oh, the Leslie grumbles & side-eye!

Means to an end! Means to an end! I kept reminding myself.

I mean, who gives a shit what these people think? It's not as though they impinge upon my real life in the slightest. Schlock is not going to fire me; they need the asses in the seats. And I want the $$$$$!

T-34 days.

###

Also yesterday I had this muy disturbing neurological symptom.

My hands began to shake as soon as I arrived at that office.

I have what neurologists describe as an idiopathic tremor. My mother had it, too. Much of the time, my hands shake a little. Generally, the mild tremor does not interfere with anything else I'm doing (like typing or keying in data), but yesterday my hands were actually fluttering as though I was conducting an invisible orchestra.

I actually had to turn my first client of the day over to one of the other preparers and race off to the closest cannabis dispensary. Cannabis calms tremors. I prefer not to use it if I have to do mental acrobatics, but you know, you gotta do what you gotta do, and it worked to steady my hands so I could do my four other clients of the day.

But clearly, my body does not like going into that office.

###

The last few days have been an eerie faux spring. On Tuesday, temps actually hit 80!

I had the day partly off because I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon. My doctor is still across the river because who wants to deal with finding a new primary care physician, right? So, I drove over to Hyde Park and after the appointment, I took off for my old tromping grounds, the Vanderbilt gardens:







Felt strange to see all those bare trees & fallow flower beds when the temperature and humidity were signaling high summer.

Plus, the Goddess of the Cell Phone was still surrounded by snow:



I came across four women sitting on a bench in the woods. And they were such a charming sight, I asked to take their portrait:





We all ended up chatting for half an hour. My new best friends!

And honestly, we could have been best friends.

Except we're not.

I have to do nothing a certain number of hours each day.

I mean that quite literally. I essentially sit with my eyes unfocused. Sometimes, there's a book on my lap; sometimes, there's a yellow legal pad and a pen on a desk in front of me. But those are props. Really, I am just sitting there, & my mind is a complete blank.

Is this laziness? Is this some metabolic form of meditation? Who knows? But this is what I have to do to stay sane, & just because I'm toiling in the tax mines 10 hours a day, doesn't mean I can stop.

This cuts down on the number of hours I have available for Useful Work since added to the tax mine & the hours I sit with my eyes unfocused is the time I must spend on distraction. Books & movies! ("Movies" there is an umbrella term that includes television shows.) Dangling strands of narrative. Stories!

Long way of saying the Patrizia-torium is an absolute mess, and I've had the same basket of laundry waiting to be folded sitting in my bedroom for four days now. Though I did remember to get my Synthroid prescription refilled.

What I'm hoping is that I can fill the coffers high enough to buy me four uninterrupted weeks of work on the Work In Progress.

Three thousand extra dollars is not gonna float down in small, easily negotiable bills from the sky! Manifesting does not work for me.

No, I'm gonna have to sweat for it.

###

Shortly, I will be going into the Montgomery Schlock office to sit down with a client who somehow thinks it's my fault that he owes $2,000 on his federal income taxes.

He wants to ream me a new asshole.

Hey! I wasn't the one making out the W4 that only takes out 8% for federal taxes when he's clearly in the 12% bracket!

But like most people, he thinks tax refunds are a type of Lotto. And that I have cheated him out of his golden ticket.

The Montgomery office is far more tolerable than the Middletown office. I actually like the people who work there. Yesterday, I learned the entire life history of the office's manager, a pugnacious 74-year old, born & raised in Newburgh during its tenure as the murder capital of the U.S. The high point of her life? In 1981, she was Miss Ramada Inn!

Stories! I do love stories.

The day before, I studied up on Gary (not his real name), a sweet & super-smart guy who plays D&D, smokes lots of dope, & weighs 350 pounds—down from 550 pounds three years ago.

When people are seriously obese, of course, that is the primary thing you notice about them—though political correctness dictates you pretend otherwise.

Eventually, the conversation grew real enough so that Gary began talking to me about his weight, why it happened. Though I think the real reason was that when everything else in your life is starving you, you nurture yourself the best way you can.

"Here's an interesting factoid," I said. "Do you know the only food in nature that contains sugars and fats in the same proportions that they're found in processed cakes and candies and ice cream?"

"Honey?" guessed Gary.

"Human breast milk," I told him.

His mouth fell open. And I could actually see the light bulb forming over his head.

I slept eight hours last night.

Eight hours!

Now I'm thinking the shoulder pain that was keeping me awake was not a statin side effect at all, but some kind of reaction to hyperextension that happened when I tried to grab something at a weird angle while I was lying down.

Anyway, it's resolving.

###

And I wrote 500 words on the opening of Chapter 7.

Five hundred words!

I'm thinking the deal with Daria is that she deliberately mistranslates testimony in a court trial, although her exact motivation and the details of that court trial are hazy at the moment.

The voice that's emerging is quite distinct from Grazia's voice. More formal and reflective. Cooler. More analytical.

So, that's a good thing, too.

###

Meanwhile, we are back at war with Eastasia.

What am I talking about?

We have always been at war with Eastasia!

It is impossible to have any sympathy for a murderous mullah who executed anywhere between 7,000 to 40,000 Iranian protesters between January 8th and January 10th of this year.

Nevertheless, I am completely opposed to American interference in what's essentially another sovereign nation's civil war, and I don't want to spend $5 for a gallon of gas.

Plus, of course, the Iran War is a classic wag-the-dog maneuver designed to distract the American public from the fact that the Department of Justice redacted all mentions of Trump's name from the Epstein files.

Disinformation aplenty is aflowin'. But my favorite factoid is that the Trump administration, despite telling Americans stranded in Dubai and Bahrain, Get out, get out, get out! Get out NOW, is refusing to provide them with any State Separtment-mediated assistance. That's my boy, The Donald!

I can't wait for the flood of influencer TikToks: Here's how to escape from Dubai! It's eZeeee! And you can do it, too!

It was snowing this morning—of course, it was!—while I reviewed my heating expenses for February: $440 for heating oil and $153 to Central Hudson.

That's only half the heating bill for the house.

Fuckin' insane.

Central Hudson needs to be taken over by the State of New York. But I don't know what one can do about the heating oil. Except move to a warmer place.

###

My good deed for yesterday:

One of my clients was a very feisty 87-year old. She appeared primordial to me, like an ancient Baba Yaga, which may have been the racial disparity—she was Black, and I am white—or may have been due to the fact that she'd neglected to put in her dentures.

Anyway, this lady had a Cadillac healthcare plan through the City of New York, her former employer, but Medicare was still taking out $220 a month from her Social Security.

"You might want to look into that," I told her granddaughter. "I mean, it's possible each healthcare provider is providing a different set of services, and she uses both. But it's also possible you're looking at redundant costs and can get an extra $220 a month by getting rid of that Medicare payment."

She's been going to Schlock for 20 years, and I was the first one to point this out to her.

###

In other news, I will be interviewing real-life Daria today after I scamper home from the tax trenches. Here are the questions I've prepared:

1. Can you tell me your five most vivid memories of Mexico?

2. What did it feel like in your body the first weeks after moving from Mexico City to the U.S.—were you more numb, anxious, exhilarated, something else?

3. Is there a specific moment from that first year—at school, in the street, at home—when you realized, “I am not in Mexico anymore,” and what happened?

4. When you think back to meeting Brian in the PD’s office, what are the first three sensory details that come up—what you saw, heard, or felt in your body?

5. What did you think Brian saw in you, and how did that perception change over the years you knew him?

6. How did the relationship move between friendship, mentorship, and sexuality over time, and did those roles ever feel like they were in conflict?

7. Were there specific conversations or arguments with Brian that you feel “made” you—changed how you think about law, justice, or yourself?

8. Did you ever feel a power imbalance because of age, profession, or life experience, and if so, how did you navigate or rationalize it at the time?

9. When you look back now, what do you wish your younger self had known about him—or about you?

10. How did being with Brian interact with your romantic life outside him—did he complicate other relationships, or make them easier to understand?

11. After Brian died, what was the strangest or most unexpected way your grief showed up (a habit, a dream, a physical sensation, a decision you made)?

12. If you had to describe your emotional “role” in Brian’s life in one sentence—as he might have described it—what would that sentence be?

13. When you first realized you were sexually attracted to Brian, what surprised you most about that feeling—his age, his role, your own response, something else?

14. Can you describe your very first sexual encounter with him in terms of mood and pacing—was it slow and negotiated, impulsive, awkward, inevitable?

15. What did Brian do in bed that made you feel particularly seen or desired—not just physically, but as a person?

16. Were there things you only did sexually with Brian and never with anyone else, and what about him made those feel possible or safe?

17. Did the fact that you worked in the same universe (courts, law, defendants) bleed into your erotic life together—role‑play, gallows humor, power dynamics?

18. How did sex with him feel in your body—grounding, explosive, dissociative, comforting, like coming home, like leaving?

19. Was there ever a moment during sex or after where you suddenly felt your age difference very sharply—either in a good way or as a jolt of discomfort?

20. How did your conversations immediately after sex usually go—jokey debrief, political talk, silence, tenderness, scheduling the next time?

21. Did you ever feel like his other lovers were in the bed with you emotionally—comparing, competing, imagining his history—and how did you manage that?

22. Was there ever a specific fight or rupture around sex—jealousy, boundaries, pregnancy scares, STI scares—that you remember as a turning point?

23. When you think of his body now, what are the 2–3 details that come back first (not necessarily erotic—could be scars, smells, textures, nervous habits)?

24. Did you ever notice a difference between “grief sex,” “reassurance sex,” and “just because” sex with him—and if so, how could you tell from the inside?

25. How did your bilingual/trilingual brain show up during sex—were there certain words or dirty talk that had to be in Spanish or French, and if so, why?

26. Did you two have any long‑running sexual jokes or coded phrases—things that would sound innocuous to others but were charged for you?

27. How did you end things physically—was there a clear “last time” you slept together, and did you know it was the last time while it was happening?

28. Looking back, is there anything you regret not doing with him sexually or emotionally—something you were curious about but held back from?

29. Has your body ever surprised you with a grief reaction—arousal at an unexpected reminder of him, or the opposite, sudden numbness with someone new?

30. In your fantasy life now, does he still appear, and if so, does he show up more as a lover, a friend, a ghost, a critic, or something stranger?

31. Imagine you are trying to explain the sexual part of the relationship to a skeptical friend—what is the one argument or image you would use to say, “This wasn’t just another older guy using me; it was this”?

32. How did your relationship to Spanish change after the move—did it feel like a refuge, a secret, a source of shame, a weapon?

33. When did English start to feel like something you could think and feel in, not just translate into, and was there a particular event that marked that shift?

34. Do you experience different “selves” in Spanish, English, and French—if so, how would you describe the personality or emotional color of each language?

35. In simultaneous translation, what does it feel like inside your head—are you ahead of the speaker, chasing them, or hovering in parallel?

36. Can you describe a moment on the job when the emotional weight of what you were translating nearly broke your professional neutrality? What did you do with that feeling?

37. Have you ever made a deliberate choice to soften, sharpen, or slightly alter someone’s words while interpreting because the literal translation felt emotionally or ethically wrong?

38. What does fatigue feel like for you after a long day of simultaneous interpreting—mental fog, physical tension, emotional overload—and how do you come down from that state?

39. Do you ever carry other people’s stories and emotions home with you through their words, and if so, how do you protect or “clean” your own inner voice?