Joyful things

I have cried a lot today, but there are joyful things, so that's what I'll focus on.

In no particular order:

• Dodge Poetry Festival is online this year


• Work paid for me to go to Compounded Oppression: Sister’s Circle today


• Takeout Chinese food (we don't eat out much; joy is joy)


• We signed mortgage papers this week. Okay, I signed, but we own the house. Almost*. I am still in shock that I'm a person people will lend six figures to. Of course, I have an inherited house, so this is not purely because my credit, which used to be abysmal, is now what the mortgage person called "a solid B+/A-." It's also because the amount they're lending me is less than half what the house is worth.


• Tomorrow, I'm planning to go pick up the dim sum that we were going to have for my birthday (my mom went into the hospital that day so we postponed it until she could join us and she never came home), take it over to the outside mall near the kid's house, and eat it with her outside. It will be suboptimal, but it will be as great as things can be right now, and that's okay.


• I wrote some poetry and short fiction that I really like this week and last week, and that makes me happy.

* My mom left me the house in trust. I have the option to not include it in community property in my state, but my mom made it as easy as possible for me to deal with the house when she died; I want to do the same for James and the kid. My brother (the trustee/executor) has been really busy, so he hasn't done the paperwork on the property transfer yet, but the mortgage guy is going to help, so that should happen fairly quickly now. We hope.