lunch time thrift break. my favourite thrift shop is right around the corner from my work and i find myself there often over lunch break, visiting with the older ladies who run the shop. 

the shop is my favourite because everything is pretty cheap and the finds are pretty good. i can find antiques and old bones and fully beaded moccasins and belts and my favourite vintage dress. ive found leather and crystals and a frame someone made in 1881. 

restless and troubled, as i often am, i peruse racks and listen to music. i find a cool kleenex box cover for my work and some shells.  i visit with the older ladies and page through books and listen to old imchibeat tracks and i think about death and then i see a brand new rack of clothes and there they are. the perfect pair of jeans. 

high waisted and pleated, cut for a smaller waist and a big juicy ass, i know they will fit me. i try them on under my skirt as an older lady watches me and i cant tell if shes eyeing my tattoos or hairy legs but i dont give a fuck. the jeans fit perfect and i am in awe that i wont even have to hem them to fit my short little legs. i feel like i should buy a lottery ticket. all women know the infinite sisyphean struggle to find jeans that fit and i find my perfect pair for $6 on a random lunch break like magic. 

the last time i found jeans like this i shared a photo online with my now dead friend and she called me a babe and laughed about my struggle to find jeans that can accommodate an ass like mine. she had real big boobs and had the same problem just in a different location i guess. the joys of trying to fit a beautiful wild body into off the rack garments. fuck that noise. 

i buy some antique jewelry at the thrift shop too, a tiny gold cross and this antique edwardian sun brooch. i think of my dead friend and hold the sun in a sweaty palm. thrifted jeans and thrifted gold. 

i wash the jeans and research the brand and it says pairs online start at $170 a pair. that’s a lot of cash for jeans i guess so i feel pretty lucky. i wear them the next day and lots of girls compliment my jeans and my outfit. a guy yells “nice ass” from his car as i walk to work. 

i’m all pumped up sitting at my desk typing reports, my fingers tracing the thrift store gold cross from time to time. 

a little piece of faith, but fuck the wood and the blood, i want it in gold wearing nice ass thrift shop jeans. 

i look just like the pretty downtown girls but for a fraction of the cost. bargain basement. 

a shapeshifter in thrift store gold, thrift store jeans. 

a shapeshifter with a nice ass. 

big teeth dripping blood under my vintage cowboy hat. 

everybody wants my attention

everybody’s got something to sell

a religious song written by bob dylan but i prefer the 16 horsepower version. its how i feel currently about so much. 

i grew up on the internet and ive been on it for more years now than i havent been and over the past few years ive began the difficult process of leaving a lot of it behind. im far from some kind of neo luddite but i dislike the hold the internet has on me.  i dislike social media and the need to perform for it. hot take culture, memes, boobs and butt, fitness this, fitness that, healing always healing, healing from healing, and it’s all this ego driven hell. do i look hot, who watched my story, is my work worth anything, maybe i should livestream, maybe i should post more, maybe i should post less, maybe i should get a green juice or join a fitness club or book club or hate follow that group of girls i cant stand. 

everybody wants my attention

everybody’s got something to sell

there’s that guy i used to like and oh what’s he posted now some stupid ass selfie and he’s shirtless again surprise and i used to think maybe he got it but now his whole vibe seems cheap and commercialized and was it always that way or was i just blind. 

i haven’t been posting and i don’t know if i like it or not, does it feel foreign or not, do i feel better or not?  

i sit and do my beadwork and drink my tea and i can’t regulate my grief stricken heart so i just keep sewing, bead by bead. 

women’s work, women’s grief. 

i am not cut out for the algorithm. 

at least this beadwork hat is gonna look pretty cool. 

forever, i am adrift in this endless river, the river of mothers. rendered clean by the hands of matriarchs in long skirts, callused hands, faces marked by hardship. this endless froth of those souls who came before and gave, gave and gave.

they gave life and they gave blood.

they were not perfect, this i know.

we live in a world that asks its bloodiest givers of life to also be mild, to obey.

this is not in the nature of mothers,

this is not in the nature of rivers,

my mothers hands, that soothed my fevers and pulled my hair are small and tipped in nicotine stained nails, and she is beautiful and imperfect, in her skirts and her silver.

she’s a mean bitch and i am too and i love her as i love myself as both fire and flame.

this endless river of mothers that sweeps me under with stories of borscht and blood, and madness, and love, this wild and unfettered love of children and men and small animals and the smoke we inhale along the way through girlhoods to womanhoods.

my mother, my first champion, my first terror, my first friend, my true friend.

i used to say i never wanted to be anything like her, because she did not understand me, and i felt offended by this. selfishly, i believed, she was my mother, it is in her job to understand. but i didn’t understand her, either. age gave me this knowledge. you should pray you also receive this truth in your life.

i didn’t understand her hands or sensitive nature, or her yearning spirit.

now, i wish more than anything else to be as my mother.

unwaveringly kind even in the face of betrayal.

but a mean fucking bitch who won’t let you forget what you fucking did and if you feel guilty for it, you fucking should. how dare you ask me about my mother. you hated her and were cruel to her and you stand here in this godforsaken gas station and ask after her like i should give you updates like a living twitter account for a grieving widow. leave my mother alone.

i would die for my mother, kill for her, make my blood into healing soup for her, this mother, this river. i would give her everything, and so i make brunch and give her roses and i wonder if that’s enough.

she is funny and wild, this mother, this river, in her skirts, and her rings.

so sweep me under, mother river, river mother.

sweep me under,

sweep me under

adrift

in this endless river

this endless river of mothers

happy mother’s day, to all mothers, all who had to be their own mothers, all who mother this world and their communities. may we all one day be as you, and may we all kneel inside this sacred river.

greeting card to sweden

sent may 4, 2026

funeral notice

found in thrift shop

found with a stack of antique and vintage photos

kamloops bc

may 2026