The End of the Line

Watch "Noah Kahan - Call Your Mom (Official Lyric Video)" on YouTube

On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 10:09 AM Annie McDermott <macannie76@gmail.com> wrote:

https://youtu.be/1XowR7Yupdg?is=etZo3FPDfQyYIrf9 

Call Your Mom

On Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 8:35 AM Janice Collins <janice@gmail.com> wrote:

Incredible song. Makes my heart ache for those who have no mother to call. That is truly a sad situation to contemplate. I guess that is what good friends are for. 

Re: Watch "Noah Kahan - Call Your Mom (Official Lyric Video)" on YouTube

On Sun, Jul 19, 2026, 9:32 AM Annie McDermott <macannie76@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, it IS a sad situation to contemplate, but it's sadder and harder to hear when your mommy is older, and you don't want to call all the damn time and annoy her (even though I do), but just the sound of her voice is what calms and reassures you--just the sound. Doesn't have to be words of encouragement or pride (okay, no, I lied, I'll take all the pride stuff you have to give because there ain't much to be proud of), but, really, no particular words at all: any of the many scattered notes that score the music of her mind.

Her voice sounds like it has since your first memories: forever like creamy warm coffee; sometimes gritty as Oklahoma dirt; other times, like her throat was lined with cotton, softening the hard lines; words landed in time with her thoughtful cadence. And knowing it might not be there the next time you need her is--I can't really translate what happens to my body when I stop to think of it, but I'll try:

It's like a sudden loss of gravity, and my body goes weightless and confused, but so do all of my bones and tendons, my blood, everything under the skin, it's also floating and rolling around. Bones unlock from their fitted homes, tongue is silently loosened from groove, and everything...churns? Roils? No, it's slower: All of me is unmoored. My insides are lost; they've forgotten how the body works. What has always run spontaneously, electrically, no longer makes a full circuit.

It isn't physical pain, like I felt when Dad died: It's the weight of the stare of an unseen predator with voracious appetite, tracking and ruthlessly terrorizing you across a tangle of endless forest in the dead of a night black and deep as a grizzly's throat; sends you stumbling through woods wide and wild with yellow-eyed prowlers, kicking through hungry undergrowth, parting cobwebs thick enough to knit, and tripping over erupting tree roots that run longer and stronger than God; it's a stalker randomly firing shotgun blasts into the moonless sky behind you; it's a cloaked hunter, an archer drawing from a bottomless quiver, loosing an arrow close enough to kiss your cheek, just to let you know he's still there. 

On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 10:35 am Janice Collins <janice@gmail.com> wrote:

This is exactly the stuff you could submit to a magazine or other venue and get it printed and reprinted or just put it out on some internet venue. You are beyond a wordsmith. Your words precisely convey feelings like no one else can do.

See? Like creamy warm coffee.

I've Been Writing For An Hour And My Fingers Hurt, First Draft

And how I prayed

As you preyed.

Nowhere to go

But I went.

When you’d show,

It was an event.

You lit up the room

With your gaslight:

Colorful tales bright

Braided by your loom

Charmed me out of fight.

Once upon a universe,

You spun me

Into a planet

Untraversed

Made of granite

Polished

By your tapestry.

Big crash,

Big bust.

No ash,

No dust.

Man, what a star,

Streaking the sky

Forever high

A Peter Pan fly

In the ointment

Of my treatment.

Blow jobs in your car

You’d earned by gender

What a light spectacular

Puking on your fender.

But for the sake of Dorothy,

I won’t gale

All the honesty.

I’ll exhale

Your meteorology,

Tornado hail,

Punching holes in my pale:

Your own rheumatology.

You’re The Great Wizard,

The man behind the curtain,

A man of higher degrees,

Heights meant for a bird.

Nights meant for work

Were a private party

For three.

If I’d had half a mind

I would’ve called you out,

But days after

They took me off the ventilator,

You were about,

I was bipolar;

You went out,

I stayed sober.

You left

I wept

While Death

Swathed himself

Around my neck

But not before a strand

Of his slack noose breath

Slithered into my ear a Blacktooth

Grin:

“It’s a short walk

To the Hangman’s Deck,

Yet

There are no more steps

Taken than those to Neverland.” 

"The Times" First Draft (Annie's Version)

Remember when you were Crazy?

Remember when everyone adored you?

Remember when you told me all women love giving blow jobs?

Remember when you insinuated that you got offers?

Remember when you made me wear a hair-shirt

For a year,

Not wanting you near,

Because I’d been forced

As a matter of medical course,

To terminate what I thought would be

Our Baby:

A family.

Remember how sick I was those six weeks?

No, you don’t.

You weren’t there;

Just like your father,

Left you without a fucking care.

Were you still looking for him

At the 7-11,

Searching for Marlboros,

Only to find a starving uroboros?

And you fed into it.

Remember how my Catholic father,

And how, after you made it clear you couldn’t be bothered,

Had to take me to the hospital and wait

For the grandchild that would arrive late?

Remember not telling me about the naked sexts your best friend’s wife sent you for years?

Remember

Lying

To

Me

Every

Goddamned

Day

About

Every

Goddamned

Thing.

I don’t regret fucking another in my bed

While you melted into your couch.

I don’t regret love at first sight.

I don’t regret the secret messages

You wrote to women on social media,

Telling them we broke up,

Because I was “boring”

Besides, according to

you

i

Was

Old News

Long forgotten,

Nothing in common,

And it was hell.

So.

Here I am, back at the inkwell,

Ready to report just the facts, ma’am;

Ready to give away your tell.

Best fold that losing hand, man.

Add this biography to your exhausting excuses:

It’s all on me, why you refuse to move.

Hot damn, Ace, these circulating presses

Got me in a New York Groove!

Enter Lilith, here to smudge the black

Of your quarter century of lies:

The truth

Of our

Youth.

To Lilith's surprise,

I stole her prize:

Rosemary's Baby.

And, Baby,

He's of the demons that spit back.

This is merely chapter one:

This ain’t your patented one-and-done.

Your silver webs will come unspun

Erasers set to stun.

And,

Maybe,

Finally,

I’ll remember,

What it was like to love the sun. 

A Daisy

Time melts and drips

Like Dali’s clocks,

And watches.

From college greens

And the stairs outside

The English building

To your arms twisted

Around me, in the sheets

And christ, I miss that heat,

The feel of you,

Your desire for me,

Curtailing my prattling

With your kissing

Those lips belong on mine

Like red uncorked from wine

I miss the two of us being

Afraid of Virginia Woolf together

And endlessly seeking Flannery’s Jesus

Jesus

How we clicked and curved and fit

I’ll never remember the story we

Made up at dinner that night 

But I think about it all the time

And how that older couple

Stopped to tell us

How happy we looked.

But two Misfits will never fit. 

Watching you walk away

Through the waist-high rye,

A golden tear of goodbye

Slipped the horizon and

I remembered Dylan

And fought the sunset.

You forgot your mitt,

You couldn't catch them,

At the bottom of the canyon,

But I heard you cry

As they fell one by one,

"Here's lookin' at you, Kid."

Pine Needles

 I’ll bet she makes a beautiful bride,

And brings out all the best in you:

The fooler fooling another fool.

My ruler is crueler, so let's unspool

More than a quarter century defied.

Let's take one last meandering ride

Looking for the crash site:

You're the liar

I'm the writer

Let the professor take you to school.

I hope she ends up your fool

A fool who’ll make a fool of you.

We never said a word about

Your pathology of my doubt:

Your misdiagnosis

Became my prognosis

And I died in the dual.

I’ll always be your ghoul,

Your biggest mistake,

Your deepest regret,

The one you see across

The empty room.

I don’t know

If I want

For you

To move on

or

Pine:

Like the trees

In your backyard

That whispered

Thick secrets

Across the Gulf breeze.

This is fall for a Floridian,

A season my heart pumps

Adrenaline:

Manic fireflies, cool cigarettes,

Just enough chill

To get a guy

To wrap me

In a flannel.

And he will.

He will:

Blow out the gaslight,

Assist in my dual fight,

And pay for my plane flight.

You will:

Never resurface,

Just drift without purpose

And, oh, what a circus

In Sarasota.

There's no cosmic wheedles

Or further cons or tweedles

There's only the way

The pine needles.

A Picture is Worth a Million Wounds

you chose the paintings

your nephew created

over your daughter-- 

because you

"can separate

the art

from the artist"

(he always was the artful dodger)

he gave you two gifts,

decades ago,

before my lips finally let it go.

even after telling you

The Whole Bedside Story, 

you've kept them

as your windows, 

proud to give the artist glory

to the visiting company.

I see him every day because

his creation

is cherished more than

yours.

I let go, but

you keep him

in your sight

and smile at

his handiwork 

come sunlight.

you hold him tight,

like your purse

to your side,

where, tucked in the

hidden compartment

you've secreted the curse.

don't be alarmed by it,

it's just another verse.

Virginia would write you blue

and explode with red rage,

like the Confederate grey POP! of

the backfiring of a car,

furious with you over an

explicit war

that didn't exist,

a chance longtime missed.

you should have shot first

in the heat of a battle:

a bull run

across No Man's Land,

and I'd have bled a river for you,

dug an ocean to reach

you by paddle,

walked through fire

from Tallahassee to Seattle,

all the while

your family

calling me a liar

and you did nothing,

which is nothing new.

he should've lost

and lost to you.

but who's afraid of three guineas?

of a room of my own?

wasn't that the therapuetic goal?

who could be scared of

Virginia and her wolf?

god, the reasons are so many,

but we'll leave it at

control.

Finally, no more eggshells 

Over which to tiptoe.

your egg has finally cracked. 

let us visit Virginia again!

the Potomac beckons

with invisible fingers,

and exhalations of wind.

I think of the plane crash there,

in the eighties,

an infant floated,

with a ticket to Hades.

a frozen, orphaned baby,

rescued.

we never stopped:

we flew over a cemetery

on a day-cruise.

I bit my lip

as we drove

over a sunken ship

with wings

that cannot fly; only carry.

driving over life's excused:

at the dead submerged,

from below, they look

down

down

down upon us,

below what dust

what was once

their bone, blood, skin,

and with us, with our rush,

they are incessantly

amused with us.

let Virginia line my coat pocket

with boulders and questions

and every last fuck it

hanging heavy

sinking me

down,

just another proper noun

left to drown, 

anonymous.

I have been weighed and

measured.

the coat on

my shoulders

led me to water,

but The Lady of the Lake

has no power

because

I'd swim through hellfire

to my father,

clad yourself in armor,

for not one hand

will ever again

harbor

threats of a cutting fuhrer

from a broken mirror.

I would rather

sit at the docket

on judgement day,

in a courtroom up, up, and away,

to where the

alien Good Men go to play:

I would rather die

than subsist on

all your lucky pennies. 

both pieces: two halves of one show.

and you, content with the intermission,

and you, satisfied with your conclusion,

there won't be an intervention,

it's nothing the family wants to mention,

no one took to my father's prescription, 

so send a good intention

but stay in suspended animation.

many pieces: a whole punch,

you can brag how bad I am later

to the Ladies Who Lunch;

those who know

"It's happened before,"

and those who have been caught

here in the motherland

of haves

and the precious few who have not.

acrylic windows to the world

what do you see there, 

on that canvas?

a broken-down sack,

stretched burlap?

but never the attack

on your 11 year old girl,

"Because we can't straighten out

The Facts,

and that's the way of the world."

remember, she can separate the artist

from the entitled act:

"the torn hymen of a child"

no painting speaks to that.

yet protect the robin's eggs

listen for their peep,

and 'neath their mother's wing

they will find a sleep

without having to stay alert

for a creak

or the creep

up the stairs

whose affairs

are simply to fuck me

till it hurts.

so how about fuck you,

woman for whom I'll never weep:

you let your daughter crack.

I wasn't a bird,

I couldn't sing,

but you stand guard at

his shitty painting

unlike the child

you're exhausted of parenting.

you keep them, you said,

because

They Make You Happy. 

they're bright, colorful,

cheerful, thoughtful,

and it's a helluva moment,

learning your mother is cruel.

But those burlap sacks

Spread, open wide,

like my skinny legs

that barely held me up after,

cracked like robin's eggs:

The Play Is The Thing.

art is more

than what it makes up for.

a screaming violent rainbow

painted off a palate thick with

psychosis,

misdiagnosis,

his intentionally missed doses:

the slickest of black.

how easily those hands

of creation

just as deftly wreaked

devastation,

across my body

long gone slack.

and as I stare upon "the art"

i see the fucking artist

every

goddamn

time.

he's hanging in your bedroom,

easy and comfortable,

if I only had a noose,

Dear Dorothy,

I could let my art loose:

Pollock his body with bands

of yellow crime scene tape,

splatter him with

bright red stop signs,

as if "Stop!" ever halted a rape.

i wonder if it makes you feel

as powerful as he did

when he painted my body,

my world,

in hateful hues

of reds and bruise.

that night

a teardrop of blood

wept the length

of my leg

and murdered the sheets of

pink roses stretched across

my daybed,

a bloody bouquet,

while in the downstairs bedroom

he fucked my best friend.

ah, but those hands!

they could paint a chapel!

ah, but those hands,

they can crush an apple,

easier than popping a cherry.

when i see his work

hanging,

framing

my mother's bedroom office,

i wonder if she ever thinks

of him

using those talented digits

to insist,

up to his wrist,

stealing her daughter's innocence

with his fist.

and how, at her insistence, 

there was no justice

because sometimes,

justice is nothing more

than a promising list,

a lullaby,

to pacify

hypnotize

into believing

Their Lie.

and I'll die a victim

at the hands of all like him

my finger on the trigger;

their hands are so much bigger

than even the one ive been dealt.

because no one wants to

stir up Granny's stew,

or upset the Texas crew.

Besides, what's a girl to do?

other than stare

at her office wall,

and the yellow legal pad

that should paper it all.

Or do like y'all,

in order to stall, 

in order to

forget

what feeling like felt:

May the Lord bless you.

What feeling like felt?

I'd rather fold

than play

the hand

that I was dealt.

That I Am Here, Contributing A Verse

Screenshots: An arthritic author's saving...thing. Never could I retype this piece so you will be seeing it in its thesis form. In pictures. From online. Whatever. I'm tired. It's been a long life.

I'm not really grumpy. Actually, I'm smiling and feeling the happiest I have in a long time. In fact, despite a nasty seizure fit, yesterday was purely perfect. (Thank you, My Michael.) Not flawless, mind you. Just perfect.

Then there's this sexual assault horribleness tidal wave crashing over everyone, everywhere, and suddenly I'm your Jewish grandmother with the "Oy vey!" smacks to the head every hour. I'm such a putz. Ah, but a putz with chutzpah! Here's how to order:

1) Be me, which encompasses being a putz.
F) Tell me any female of any age asks for or deserves sexual assault, whether by way of wardrobe or "casting couch" or any other damn thing. Might I mention (I might! I will!), the casting couch is not an institution we should just shrug off and accept because "That's the way it's always been and actresses know to expect it." Or another I've been encountering, "Probably every woman has been sexually harassed. I have. But that's life and these women need to get over it." Because historically, if it was happening in the past, it's legit behavior for today, too. It's been happening since forever, so yeah, it's wrong but it's fine.
THREEVE) Say it to my face after hearing just one of my stories or any story from anyone you love who's been sexually assaulted. Say it to my face after I give you the gory fucking details. Say it to my fucking face.

And... Chutzpah!

So. This memoir essay deal I'm about to post is not about the abuse; rather, what goes on in the mind of a child who only months before had been molested and nearly literally ripped in half by a relative. There are some names in here of people from elementary school--people even I wasn't always kind to or didn't stand up for enough; a few times, when pushed too far by my own bullies, I bullied those who needed a friend more than anyone. Those memories stick to and jut out of my brain like thorns. I'm glad they're there, constant reminders of how cruel I could be, maybe still can be, and how just a little cruelty can go a long life. Anyway, one of those girls is now a dear friend of mine who I think of nearly every day (even though I don't call, yes, I think of you all the time, lady) and who is, unequivocally, one of the strongest women I know. In fact, she's got a little Wonder Woman to her name.

I love you, sweetheart woman.

Now, to enter the mind of a just-turned 8-year-old who had already been molested by a total of 3 people. It's violent. It's unkind. It's unfair to many--most of all, me.

It's the truth.

All Write, All Write, All Write...

"Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?" —Uncle Walt

"I sing the body electric." —Same dude

"And your very flesh shall be a great poem." —Again, same dude

"I sing the body pathetic." —This chick right here



Mike: "You know, a perfect female body, it's not a bad place to start."
Tony: "But with the head of Abraham Lincoln. With the hat and the beard and everything. Well, best not to think too deep on it."
Mike: "Best not." —Dazed and Confused


Dazed and Confused is precisely my current state, and I ain't talkin' post-midterm elections Florida. (Okay, a little, I am.) A flu-sinus-infection-y thing has laid me out for the past week, and I'm still not one-hundred-percent. For me, this is not a good thing, for reasons beyond the obvious.

You cannot start an immunosuppressive drug or biologic such as Enbrel (entanercept) to battle rheumatoid, or any of a multitude of other illnesses, when fighting any kind of sickness, be it a sinus infection-y thing or a nasty blackhead. Here's why:

"On May 2, 2008, the FDA placed a black box warning on etanercept due to a number of serious infections associated with the drug.^[9]

It included required changes to the labeling one of which is "In post-marketing reports, serious infections and sepsis, including fatalities, have been reported with the use of Etanercept. Many of these serious events have occurred in patients with underlying diseases that could predispose them to infections. Rare cases of Tuberculosis (TB) have been observed in patients treated with TNF antagonists, including Etanercept. Patients who develop a new infection while undergoing treatment with Etanercept should be monitored closely. Administration of Etanercept should be discontinued if a patient develops a serious infection or sepsis. Treatment with Etanercept should not be initiated in patients with active infections including chronic or localized infections. Physicians should exercise caution when considering the use of Etanercept in patients with a history of recurring infections or with underlying conditions which may predispose patients to infections..." --Wikipedia, our modern-day abhidhamma pitaka.

Well that's not piss-your-pants terrifying at all!

I've literally (and yes, I'm using "literally" in the most literal sense—figuratively speaking) been counting the days up to my next appointment with the rheumatologist, when she'll show me how to inject myself with the drug. (I asked for heroin, but she wants to wait and see if the Enbrel works before going that route. Either way, I'll know what I'm doing.) Today is November 9th; my appointment is on November 11th. I'm still running a fever.

Wooderson: "Hey man, you got a joint?"

Mitch: "No, not on me, man."

Wooderson: "It'd be a lot cooler if you did..."

I've got more joints than I know what to do with—and all of them hurt.

I'm petrified (both literally and figuratively; rheumatoid arthritis should be renamed Medusa's Disease) that if I don't get the initial shot on Tuesday, the doctor will change her mind and ix-nay the Enbrel, because I've had to fight tooth, nail, and swollen knuckles for half my life to finally get approved for the drug. Every doctor had a different reason to not prescribe it: I was too young; I was of childbearing age and the medication could potentially harm a hypothetical fetus (the hysterectomy surgically removed that reason right quick); I hadn't (yet) been "firmly diagnosed" with rheumatoid—only all of its sisterly sidekick illnesses—and they wanted a positive RA factor in my blood work; I had a headache and a hangnail; the doctor didn't like my haircut and diagnosed me sarcastic, obnoxious, and vulgar. This was after I called him Shemp and told him to go fuck himself, so I'm not sure exactly how he came up with that.

Fact is, I'm scared. Scared and angry and frustrated and sick and tired of being goddamn sick and tired. I'm also sick and tired of saying I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Shavonne: "What in the hell are you talking about, lady?"

*****

Cynthia: "God, don't you ever feel like everything we do and everything we've been taught is just to service the future?"
Tony: "Yeah I know, like it's all preparation."
Cynthia: "Right. But what are we preparing ourselves for?"
Mike: "Death."
Tony: "Life of the party."
Mike: "It's true."
Cynthia: "You know, but that's valid because if we are all gonna die anyway shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor insignificant preamble to something else."

I should be enjoying myself, dammit! We all should! Right the hell now! At 18, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome—all that and a bag of chips called a near-lifetime of agonizing poly-cystic ovarian disease and endometriosis. That's a shit-ton of physical and psychological burden for a kid to handle—and I didn't handle it well for a long, long, long time. Twenty years of not (fully) enjoying myself is too damn long. Coming home from work only to flop into bed, crying and hurting everydamnwhere, only to have to do it all again the next day, is not enjoyable. Entertaining an imaginary (read: web-based) social life is not enjoyable. Not that I don't adore you all, but c'mon, man. I miss going out, interacting with people, coming home in the wee hours slightly buzzed, smiling at the memories just made, but that doesn't happen anymore, ever, because flares randomly occur and negate any potential plans, or if I dare leave the house, I come home in much the same condition I did after an eight (or six or three) hour day on the job: exhausted, hurting, and furious that I can't exist as a normal adult in this world.

Okay, semi-normal. Kinda normal. Shut up, is what I say to you.

Mike: "I'm just trying to be honest about being a misanthrope."

Right on, man. Like, right on.

Slater: "Are you cool, man?"
Mitch: "Like how, man?
Slater: "Oh-kay..."

Some of you who know me best might be freaking out a little at this sudden misanthropic perspective, but really, I am cool.

Slater: "She was a hip, hip lady, man..."

Okay, "cool" in the sense that I am fine emotionally and psychologically. Everyone knows I've never been "cool." You want that definition of cool, look to one Matthew McConaughey.

Mitch's mother: "Are you drunk?"
Mitch: "Pssshht..."

My mom: "Give me back my computer, god dammit! You've had it all frigging day!"

That's all right, all right, all right, pretty Mama, 'cause I've run out of things to say, anyway. All that remains is this, the half-a-dozen things in life I know for sure:

1) I dunno for sure. Never have. Or, as my mom, the self-designated Old Sweaty Woman, just put it, "The more I know, the more I don't know." However...

2) Everything's gonna be all right, all right, all right. Because...

3) "The future is no more uncertain than the present." —A Sweaty-toothed Madman.

4) Mike: "I wanna DANCE!!!"

5) Got damn, I love this life of mine. Sincerely, honestly: I really, really do. 

6)

"L - I - V - I - N!"

Now I gotta score Aerosmith tickets and some drugs. Top priority of November.

To all of my "loser friends": I love the hell outta you. Now go chill with some good buds and, of course, take it easy...

If you live in Denver or Seattle. Obviously.