ririri_chan

This post has been floating around in my brain for exactly two months, when I pretty much had decided to bring an end to this mostly regular journaling that went back just under (then) 21 years. It's now more than that, so congratulations, captainsblog, you're old enough to drink- even though I don't anymore.

Two months ago today was the 39th anniversary of my father's death. I don't know why I have that deathday etched so clearly for someone who was emotionally the most distant of any within even three degrees of affinity. Maybe because it was the first of many I would encounter in my then-young life, now coming via mostly friends at a weekly pace. Those exact dates- including those of Mom, our oldest sister, my in-laws, our departed furbabies- are fuzzier in near-inverse proportion to how much their passings meant and to how much I still miss them.

The end of his life didn't change mine much. The damage had been done, and whatever I hadn't overcome then I think I have gotten over most of since.  The occasion also coincided with two other ends of lines, though, that I will only briefly touch on here.

With rare exceptions, of which I am one of, our generations of DNA Roulette have leaned toward the XX side of things. My paternal grandmother was one of numerous sisters; she produced three boys who survived, an anomaly compared to what would follow. Her oldest son was childless (and probably closeted); the middle one also broke the mold in more ways than one and had two boys, one predeceasing me and one I might still look up after finally tracking him down last year; and Our Father, who if he art in Heaven I won't be meeting where I'm headed, preceded me with my two sisters.  Our late sister Sandy had two girls; Donna had no children; and we produced our one and only daughter.  My older niece had two girls, and the younger one, about a dozen years ago, had the first boy among our immediate relatives since, well, me a half century earlier.  His surname is twice removed from mine, so the only bearers of ours on this planet are a few my longlost cousins in various stages of removal; my sister, who has been struggling with chronic health issues; my own self, whose only chances of reproduction involve copy machines; and our dear Emily, who still retains our surname but who, as of about the date of this post's March origination, was recovering from a procedure that will ensure there will be no grandchildren here, at least not of the genetic variety.  This was by choice, but mostly for unrelated medical reasons, and other options for starting her own family are still open.  I've never been much for "the family name" bullshit. Dear Old Dad dabbled in it sometime in the 70s with some pre-Internet genealogy program that doctored up a supposed family crest for us, but overall I think our family coat of arms probably got smudged during its WET PAINT period and is probably closer to this than whatever crap he paid for-




So goodbye and good riddance to those eight characters that will be no more once the last of us are gone. And the nine that more than half of our friends and my clients misspell it as.

Finally, mostly goodbye, without the good riddance, to the 7,056 posts (counting the LJ imports) that came before this one; to the 30-odd of us who remained mutual friends subscribers in these seeming final months of blogging as an art form; and to the hundreds of others who I either met through those sites or at least stuck a T, an O and an E into trying it at one time or another.  I remain in touch with many of you through the "socials" that have supplanted it, and welcome any friends or follows on the one I devote most time to-

Facebook

- and the Son of Shitter (where I can read but where Elon still has me banned from posting or commenting), the one that I have occasionally used when 300 characters are enough-

Bluesky

All of the latter is public; some of the Faces are, though those tend to get bombed by Russian mail order brides and fake musicians trying to sell me knockoff t-shirts when I do make one public, so friend me there with your handle from here if I won't know it's you.

I am not killing off this site access, and will probably even keep paying for the extra icons after the current "year" expires late next January. All 7,057 of these including this one will be available, and comments will still come through. Hell, I still get LJ birthday reminders for 100 people, half of whom I haven't had contact with in years and some of those I don't even remember who they are.  I may even post significant things or eminently silly ones here if so moved.  Just not much. 

While March 26th was the decision day for this overdue post, January 20 was really its cause. I can't keep my creative spirit up under this regime to post regularly without rage coming out, and I need to devote that energy to more productive ways of helping, resisting, and caring.

And with that, this is Six Two and Even, over and out....