May 24th is the anniversary of my husband’s death, but this year I am in such a manic-panic over getting my son ready to graduate school, I barely remember until afterward. When the hullabaloo dies down, I am emotionally wrung out. I am a moldy, gray dishrag of a human being. But, I am also very relieved it hasn’t gone worse than expected. It did go about as bad as I thought it might, but no worse. And in my son’s world, that is a good outcome.
Continue reading Graduated Expectations
In case a blog can actually expire from lack of writing or visitors, I am writing this placeholder.
I have not fallen off the planet.
I did at least manage to fight against entropy/depression long enough to post today’s accomplishment.
HERE IT IS!!
I finally called a Sprint gift card/rebate credit card company to verify that not only was the account closed…but that there was no balance at the time.
SEVEN YEARS THAT CARD HAS BEEN IN MY WALLET. I FINALLY CUT IT UP TODAY!
This has to be the sign of good things to come, right?
Or possibly it is a sign that avoiding completing the Annual Report of Guardianship for my son– due next week–will motivate me to do just about anything else.
Sigh…back to finding and recording receipts.
Whenever we hold up the critical mirror of consciousness to do a self-check, I sometimes wish it came with a warning sticker to the effect: “The idiot in mirror might be a larger ass than they appear.“
The following post is a painful acknowledgment that I am not as funny as I think I am, and maybe I should seek professional help. As painful as the following confession is to read, I promise you, it was a thousand times harder to write and admit to.
***
Continue reading Attention Whore Seeks Audience…Around this time every year, I go through an annual event which involves dramatics and hysterics in equal measure–negotiating my contract for a better rate on my internet and tv services. Warning, to anyone who does not know me, this story involves cursing–and not just the witch with a cauldron kind.
There’s a lot of swearing. A f*ck-ton, if you will.
Proceed with caution.
Continue reading To Max in Sarasota, Florida at AT&T
My sheets attacked while I was sleeping. I thought we had resolved our difficulties and reached an accord. But, I was wrong. So very, very wrong.
* * *
Continue reading What Happens Among the Sheets…
I’ve been afraid to state an opinion.
Afraid to rock a precariously tiny boat on very troubled seas.
A friend recently suggested I “Woman up” or, in essence, to stop being a coward.
So here goes:
I am truly terrified of COVID-19. Everything I’ve read convinces me this is a plague of biblical proportions. And that’s saying something coming from an agnostic!
But even more than a highly contagious disease, I am afraid to lose friendships because of COVID-19. So afraid, that I have not asked people to wear masks when I’m in close proximity. Even though I have worn mine in my yard…while by myself…while weeding.
I desperately cling to friendships, even when the cling-ee isn’t that keen on tolerating the stranglehold I have on them. I have lost friendships before. I will likely lose friendships again. Possibly over this. And I truly hate the thought.
I have been a coward; and I’m going to try very hard to stop. But even contemplating telling my friends my position, I’m feeling a welling, choking sensation I haven’t felt for years.
TIME TRAVEL SEGUE–NO, NOT THAT KIND OF SEGUE—A BACK TO THE PAST KIND:
I had a job once at a place we’ll aptly refer to as “DeepHell University.” It was in the fundraising department. I had a very challenging boss who, in her defense, had a very weird secretary. Me. I was the secretary.
(TRUE CONFESSION: I accidentally read a highly personal email from one of her friends when the I.T. guys accidentally linked my new email to my boss’s mail system–and I read it…and replied to it…at length…because I literally did not understand what the internet was and how it differed from emails.) This happened the very first day I worked there, but the boss forgave me. Kind of.
We managed a rocky half-year of an increasingly challenging relationship. This boss made me nervous. Like cat-on-a-hot-plate-in-a-room-full-of-rabid-pit-bulls, nervous. I took everything she said as criticism or complaints. I felt stupid, clumsy, and unsuited to the job. Everything I heard sounded like blame and hostility. I became so nervous I would plot a course around the entire department in hopes of avoiding seeing her. (Her office was right next to me, but around a corner.) It got so bad, I started doing a thing. A thing I did NOT know I was doing. I started holding my breath. I passed out several times before finally wising up and seeking professional help. I’m lucky I didn’t give myself permanent brain damage via concussion or oxygen deprivation. I have never been so grateful to be fired from a job in my life.
BACK TO THE FUTURE…MEANING THE CURRENT OR PRESENT DAY:
So, if you see me, and I keep a six foot distance from you while you are unmasked, do not be surprised and try not to take offense. Please understand, I am not judging anyone. I am not trying to make any kind of political statement. I’m just trying to make the best choice I can in a very bad time in our world.
I’m supposed to see family tomorrow. They prefer to go maskless. (Apparently they didn’t have the same fantasies about becoming Zorro I did as a child.) I really want to see them but I’m also a ticking time bomb of terror–albeit one with a love of alliteration. It tears my heart in two when I’m faced with this dilemma. I don’t want to be considered a nagging worrywart. And yet, if the wart fits…
So I’m asking them to move the get together into the backyard. And crossing my fingers that I am not dropped from future invitations of this kind–especially seeing as I organized this one. But my family has forgiven flakier behavior than this. [More on this topic in another blog post. I’ve confessed enough for one day. It’s best to spread the crazy out a little bit at a time.]
I’d like to think someday we’ll be safer and these extreme measures won’t be necessary. But that future isn’t here yet. (I’m feeling an overwhelming need to throw in another Back to the Future reference, but I’m coming up blank. You’ll just have to picture me driving a Deloreann and wearing a white, fright wig.)
And for those of you too young to get that reference, here’s a YouTube clip. (Proving I am slightly more technologically capable than my younger self.)
Back to The Future Present Tense–Plague Edition
Do you hate me now?
If you knew that, by catching COVID-19 there is no one who can watch my son, would that make a difference? Any sign of even a cold nowadays, and I lose all the help that comes into my home throughout the week. Help that keeps me from going bat-guano crazy. If I really caught COVID, I would be on my own, struggling to take care of a special needs child and afraid to ask anyone to help because I just couldn’t risk exposing somebody else to the disease.
So I will wear a mask. I will try to stay a six foot distance away. And I will not hold my breath waiting for others to understand. I am scared. For all of us!
In parting, I ask you, my viewing audience:
What would you do if you had to choose between friends…and safety?
What would you choose?
…a question that tempts me to include the following:
I used to scream bloody murder when I was a child. I would shriek so loud, so long, that eventually I would go hoarse. I even developed nodes–tightened knots on my vocal chords. When I finally figured out screaming wasn’t helping me I stopped. This allowed my vocal chords to relax and I discovered I had a deeper register. (As a result, I sing somewhere between contralto and tenor with a hiccup in my falsetto.)
What I couldn’t have told you, even if you had asked, was why. Why did I devolve into a nightmare child shuddering in hysterics? I couldn’t tell you then, but I might be able to tell you now.
But first, a little back story…
Continue reading I.E.D.s in the Family Tree
Right after finishing GISH, Kiri took a tumble in the hallway. She wrenched her ankle, her knee, and her hip. She cracked her head against the wall. She went camping and got vertigo. Obviously she’s under a curse. (Actually, this might explain more than a few things wrong with her…) Join her internal debate team in figuring out the cure!
Continue reading Think Pink
I have always wanted to be a smart person. Or, at least, to feel like I was a smart person.
I have also been suffering lately from the certainty that I am not getting any smarter. In fact, there is evidence to suggest I may be regressing and losing my faculties altogether.
In other words, I am getting dumber.
How do I know this? I tried recently to be clever and failed.
I attempted to write a post. I wanted to be witty and erudite, to create a mathematical equation quantifying the values of parenting–like something you might see on a white board on The Big Bang Theory set. I wrote for hours. I struggled. I waffled. I flailed in my efforts to write what my brain kept telling me what should be a funny post.
At the same time, I have been trying to research what kind of cell phone or carrier to switch before my iPhone dies for good. The more I read on the topic, the less sure I am that I am capable of making a rational, informed decision.
To stave off complete digital death, I switched off as many features of my ‘smart’ phone so as to conserve the battery life past a nano-second. I turned off so many functions, my phone stopped receiving voicemails and texts. As a result, my ‘smart’ phone is now a dumb phone which is holding my information hostage until I turn my data back on.
Didn’t phones used to just work before ‘data’ was invented?*
Why is a phone designed to use data to send a message anyway?**
*shouts into the abyss*
WHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYY?
In my efforts to keep my phone running while not plugged into a recharger, I even deleted Facebook from my apps.
The entire next day I learned exactly how often I have been checking Facebook. Like, every fricking time I had a break…or had to wait in line…or stopped at a red light for more than two seconds. I wish I were kidding.
So, I’ve learned two things this week: I am not getting smarter and my phone is possibly making me dumber.
In my research for ‘smart’ terminology, I found a physics term that I feel describes my mental state:
En·tro·py, noun
/ˈentrəpē/
PHYSICS
Apparently I am suffering from a terminal case of entropy.***
Let’s just hope it’s not stupidly fatal.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*C’mon conspiracy theory junkies, give me your best explanation for why phones cost ten times as much to do half as well for less years than you’d like. And then tell me why we fall for it?
**GROUP BREAK-OUT SESSION: What exactly is DATA and why is it the new gold standard for the inequalities between the haves and the have-nots? Discuss.
***Additional proof of my stupidification is denoted by the fact that I have to use the second definition of Entropy to understand the meaning of the word.
*—*—*
The Image Stolen for this header comes from a site that did a much better job of actually explaining entropy–in case any of you are smarter and want to read up on it.
In science fiction/fantasy stories, when the heroine has pissed off the gods or broken the ancient talisman of her people, she can go on a quest to redeem her honor. Sure, she may have to crop her hair and dress like a boy to defeat the Hun army…but in the end, it’s worth it.
She returns with the seal of the emperor and is held up as an example of once-in-a-lifetime courage and fortitude. At the very least, she is welcomed back home with cries of “Huzzah” or a marriage proposal.
At what point does our heroine realize that she is in an epic battle for her existence?* Maybe to her it just seemed like a lot of bad luck rolled up on her at once?
I ask this question, in truth, because I think I missed a giant clue along the way.
Or I’ve defiled a temple somewhere and the gods are angry.
I’m not entirely sure when it happened.
But I think it started with the toilet. Continue reading Mulan-ing It Up and Deciphering Pernicious Plumbing Portents
A trip through life with fingers crossed and eternal optimism.
Anna Fonté; the things she writes want you to look at them.
One woman's observations on her way through life
sharing the stories of interconnection
"Nothing that happens to a writer -- however happy, however tragic -- is ever wasted." ~ P.D. James
Financial Services Executive
Erm, what am I doing with my life?
by Peach Berman
A trip through life with fingers crossed and eternal optimism.
Anna Fonté; the things she writes want you to look at them.
One woman's observations on her way through life
sharing the stories of interconnection
"Nothing that happens to a writer -- however happy, however tragic -- is ever wasted." ~ P.D. James
Financial Services Executive
Erm, what am I doing with my life?
by Peach Berman
Like Mother Teresa, only better.
Nature needs Nurture
Happiness is Baseball
Watercolor stories project - Finished 2021
Never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer.
Looking forward...from back here, a journey through the second half
محمد القربي
The Wanderings and wonderings of a sentient cloud.
TheDustSeason 