where's the f*cking portal?

 

September 12 • 2025

For the record, I'm coming off a minute of frothing over posts on Instagram about the murder of a racist purveyor of hate who is now the latest martyr for the cult. While doing laundry and emailing students, I'm intermittently scrolling and posting poems about guns in America and how maybe children should be honored for laying down their lives to protect the 2nd amendment. Emails about marches and protests and pleas for donations to fight fascism keep rolling in and then I remember I forgot to put fresh water in the dog's dish. Which is outside because that's the only place she'll drink water. I get it. 

Follow your weird, Daisy the dog.

I'm wondering where the f*ck is the portal which was all the rage this past Tuesday, September 9, which just happened to be my birthday. It was a 999 day with 2025 adding up to the final 9. Numerology is a thing in my family. It's how we deal with aging. I turned four this birthday which feels about right. I spent hours in the sandbox, spaced out, making roads for our collection of matchbox cars and giving zero thought to my thighs. It's feeling like a portal. 

 My four-year old sandbox self. 

Maybe the portal was me and Daisy walking on Topanga Boulevard this morning. Waiting for the light, I saw a West Hills Towing truck across the street. The driver was gazing at me. Yes, it was a gaze. In this tiny pocket of time, we had a gaze-fest, which prompted us to smile at each other which prompted him to open his window which prompted me to shout, "Have a great day," as the light turned green. He gave me a peace sign and drove away. 

Portal-like, right?

Bring on the portals. They're everywhere.

A doorway, a gate? A way in, way out? 

An entrance to more gazing and waving, more peace signs. 

 love, b xo

Note: Could be a portal in my back pocket where the very cool blue photo at the top of this page was taken. 🌀

we will not break

 

April 2 • 2025

At the end of last summer, it was discovered that my heart was broken. Meaning I had aortic stenosis and no way around it, would need to replace the valve. Or, in another year, maybe two tops, I'd die from heart failure. I had little to no symptoms, except for a slowing down of my usual energy, and sometimes shortness of breath when hoofing it up the hill with Daisy the dog. The steep hill that previously had been no big deal.

Fast forward to last Wednesday when I had what's called a TAVR, replacing the tired, constricted valve with a new one by snaking it up through my groin. Ten years ago, I'd have gone under the knife (or saw?) through open-heart surgery. Instead I came home the next day, resting and reading and a few days later walking Daisy. 

This is the miracle of science and medicine and research. 

Another heartbreak is where we are right now.

Every day, it gets worse and I wonder, how can we be here. 

A month ago, I hammered out a rough draft called: 

I ended up not sharing because of technical difficulties + also because the more I wrote, the more I wanted to break something. We are living in the middle of an active coup.  The current "administration" is dismantling every good thing.  MAGA foreheads remain on the floor, boot licking continues. It's shocking. The very people who get lifetime health benefits paid for by the American people are set on destroying our very way of life, as long as it's not theirs. 

This is not hyperbole. They are trying to break us.

But you know this. It's the cruelty that is killing me. Us. 

But we are not broken. And today, for the first time since I came home last week, I feel a sliver of hope. Besides the people protesting, marching, shutting down Tesla dealerships, I'm feeling the light from the amazing 25 hour and 4 minute filibuster by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. I am buoyed by his integrity, stamina, intellect, and huge heart. Compassionate heart. As my husband said this morning, Senator Booker put a boot on the neck of segregationists like the racist Strom Thurmond, who filibustered in 1957 trying to defeat the Civil Rights Act and "held the record" at 24 hours and 18 minutes. Thurmond had a bathroom break and read the encyclopedia.

Senator Booker never left the podium, never sat down. He read letters from Americans imploring him to bring the fight. One letter from a Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin voter.

Which brings me to Wisconsin. Despite spending millions of dollars and buying people off, and looking like the ignorant fool that he is, Elon Musk in a cheese head, Wisconsin voters did not bend the knee. The Honorable Susan Crawford will be seated on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This matters. 

Every ray, every sliver of light that we can bring to this fight, we must. 

After last week's procedure and all my fear around it, I thought I'd feel chipper, upbeat. But I felt low. Nervous with this new thing in my body, scared that I was going to break somehow. But I woke this morning and felt lifted. We will not break. 

all my love,

B 🐝