Where Does It Come From?

I've had people ask that a lot. Where does the story come from?

Sometimes, okay often, I think it's asked with worry. Considering the number of dead people I write about I can sort of see that.

But sometimes I think it's just genuine curiosity. How do you make up a whole scene out of your head? I used to (and sometimes still will) do it as a party trick. When we were travelling during the summer with the church group I would tell stories on the bus. Just start one and go. Same as writing it down, but there is nothing left at the end except the memory of the story. The way stories used to be told before writing. 

I did it when Katie was growing up. First telling her stories, then telling stories with her. And we had stories we told over and over again. Things we had made up but became just as ingrained as The Birthday Monsters or Goodnight Moon because we told them over and over. But each time just a little differently I'm sure. 

I've done it at lunch with friends. Sometimes they've given me a brief "what about them?" nudge and watched as I spun a whole story about the couple at the next table. Or in New York, about the mafia squirrels in the park. 

I don't always know where the story comes from. It's just there. But sometimes I know what triggered it. What was the pushing off point. 

Today's story Shhh.... was one that started a couple of days ago. I was reading the comments on an ad looking to see if anyone had tried the product. 

It was for nonalcoholic tequila. I've tried the nonalcoholic bourbon from that company and it's pretty good. You wouldn't want to sip it straight but with a mixer? It's close. The challenge with nonalcoholic tequilas is that most companies add some sort of chile to it to get that tequila burn. I can't have nightshades so it takes it right off the list for me. This one doesn't have that so I was wondering if it was any good. 

It never fails that in the comments of any nonalcoholic drink there are people who are mad, like BIG mad that anyone would bother. If you aren't drinking for the alcohol why are you even drinking? Like just liking the taste of it isn't enough. Then there are actual alcoholics who are BIG mad about it because it could be triggering for someone to drink the nonalcoholic version and then just dive right back into a bottle. Both groups think there is no reason for these products. 

And in this comment thread there was a group listing their reasons for not drinking alcohol even though they weren't alcoholics. Family history was a big one. And I get that. I've always watched the amount I drink just because of that reason. Addiction is big in my family. Alcohol, drugs, shopping, food, we like to have those pleasure centers lit up, thank you very much. So over the years I've often just stopped drinking to prove to myself that I can. And then I start again when I feel like I want to. And stop again when I want to as well.

For instance, I haven't had a drink since last June. I did Dry July and never picked it back up again. I started Dry July because I was in one of my phases where the fact that your body processes alcohol as a poison, no matter how much or how little you drink, really bugged me. Like there is no other poison you would willingly ingest. Oh it's just a little poison, no big deal. Ridiculous. So I stopped drinking. Also alcohol makes my night sweats worse. And like I talked about yesterday I have a hard enough time sleeping, I don't need to do something that is going to trigger a heat wave that's going to wake me up. So why in world would I drink poison that is going to make me have a hot flash? Easy to stop. 

But during the times I'm not drinking people have opinions. And they get really mad at me for choosing not to drink. Like my not drinking is some sort of judgment on them. I don't drink. I'm not drinking right now. I might drink some other time but for now the whole hot poison thing is keeping me away from it. You do what you want, I'm fine. 

But if I were an alcoholic then people would be supportive of my not drinking. 

Like it has to be a disease before you are okay to stop. No preventative treatment allowed!

And reading all of the comments from people as to why they didn't drink made me think, what if someone pretended to be an alcoholic so everyone would get off their jock about not drinking? And then this story started in my head. The drunken confession of a nonalcoholic. 

I can't always pinpoint where a story idea comes from, but this time I could.

It was those damn ads again. 

Shhh....

She wasn't the only liar in the room. She believed that she was never the only liar in a room, but at least in this room they all admitted it. Addicts were known liars. To others, to themselves. They lied. But she was pretty sure she was the only one lying about this.

She also wasn't the only person in this room to have had an affair. Or if not an affair, slept with someone they should not have. It was a common part of their rock bottom stories. The affair, the tawdry one night stand, the piece that brought it all crashing down. She'd heard a lot of them. The stories. 

She'd been in AA for five years at this point. She often thought she'd heard all of the stories that there could be. Or at least all of the variations on a theme. 

She had never shared her own story. She'd thought about it in the beginning. But then talked herself out of it. Rightly, she believed. When it became too awkward to attend a meeting without sharing she'd change times or locations. A whole new room full of liars to hide with. 

In vino veritas. 

You are only as sick as your secrets. 

She did not drink and she did not share her secrets. 

So she guessed she remained sick. 

But that was okay to her. She'd rather be sick than spread poison. 

She'd argued once with a group leader working the steps. He believed that often addicts hid behind the second half of the 9th step. The one about making amends but only if doing so wouldn't harm others more. He thought people hid behind the do no harm part to protect themselves. She did not agree. She thought that often people made confessions to make themselves feel better, to stop carrying the weight of the transgression, without ever considering how that would make someone else feel. 

She had been drinking at a conference. That was her last time. She was drinking with a woman who she really believed would be able to make that leap from work colleague, to work friend and eventually to just friend. There had been a real connection. One of those very comfortable things that happens. You just click. And they had spent the past two days going to meetings together and eating meals together and sticking by each other at all of the forced fun events. And actually having fun. 

Then the last night she had more to drink than she should have and said something she shouldn't have. Revealed an level of intimate knowledge about a man that she could not have known if they hadn't slept together. Because they were only work colleagues at the time, because she didn't know her that well yet, her work colleague didn't even realize what had been said, but if the friendship progressed, eventually she would. Eventually she would think about that conversation and the math would not have worked out. And she would have known. 

It wasn't a risk she was willing to take. 

Technically she had not been married at the time. But it was truly a technicality based on legality. She and her wife had been together, had committed to each other, years earlier. And the affair, it was an affair, not a one time drunken accident, had ended not because she had realized she didn't love him, but because she realized she loved her wife more. And she loved how her wife looked at her. And felt about her. And all of that would go away if she found out. 

And all of her wife's friends who had told her that a bisexual could never be faithful would have been right. That she wasn't really one of them. She was just oversexed and couldn't make up her mind. She'd been dabbling but would go back to dick as soon as one came along she liked the look of. Some lesbians could be very unwelcoming to those they felt didn't fit the whole mold. And she didn't really blame them. So many of them had been told their whole lives that they didn't really want a woman, they just hadn't found the right man yet. And here she was sleeping with women when she wanted and men when she wanted. Just making it more difficult for the rest of them to assert that they had no urge to sleep with men.

There had been many late night discussions about monogamy and that it was the same with her as it was with her wife. Just because she was bixsexual didn't matter. Monogamy was monogamy. They were only going to sleep with each other. They promised. 

She had lied.

She didn't realize at the time she was lying. She hadn't meant to lie. And she had been deeply ashamed of herself even while the affair was happening. But she had fallen for him as well. And she had a lot of excuses and reason why it was okay. Why nobody was going to get hurt because nobody ever had to know. And that worked until the first person found out. And she realized it was only a matter of time before her wife did as well. And she did think about it for a moment. What she wanted to do. Maybe she didn't want monogamy. Maybe it had been a mistake to think that it was for her. 

Then she went home and saw her, at the time, eternal fiance, and realized that no, she was her home. She was worth everything and more and that there was no excuse in the world for doing something that could hurt her that deeply. 

So she ended the affair. Messily it turned out. Nobody wants to hear, I love you but I love them more. And no matter how she tried to word it, he had heard that as the truth. I still love you, but you are not enough. She is. She is enough. And you are not her. It had been dicey for awhile. She thought any day she would come home and find he had confessed, he had spilled her secrets. But he didn't. And she didn't. And life moved forward.

Until that night in the bar when she heard the words so casually slip from her mouth and the alarm bells that hadn't been dampened with booze rang. 

She hadn't touched another drop. She couldn't risk it. 

She told her wife she was stopping because her family history was rife with addicts, which was true. And that she was getting too comfortable drinking too much, which wasn't. She rarely drank too much. She could take it or leave it. But if she just left it people would still want her to drink. She didn't want to have that one too many drinks in vino veritas moment to sneak up on her again. So she would just leave it.

But nobody likes a sober person unless they are an alcoholic and then they leave you alone.  

She wasn't the only liar in that room, but she was pretty sure she was the only one lying about being an alcoholic. 

So Many Ads...

I have always had trouble sleeping. If you know me you know that about me. It's so much a part of who I am that I didn't realize it was odd until I was in high school. Like I legit thought that everyone had a hard time falling asleep and that everyone woke up for hours in the middle of the night. When I first heard that there were people that would go right to sleep and not wake up again until morning I was shocked. Thought that there was something wrong with them!

The few times in my life where I've slept well have been amazing. Just often enough for me to chase that high...low? The high of being able to stay low? Something like that...

But yeah, I'd love to sleep better. Though I manage with less sleep than most and I do think that my body is designed that way. And I don't really break down unless I'm in a complete insomnia stretch where there is little (an hour or two a night) to no sleep. I can do that and handle that for about three days. Generally it happens when I'm manic and so it balances out. The manic energy overrides the sleep need and I just keep going. But if it hits when I'm in a "normal" space or heaven forfend a lull it's miserable. By day three I'm in tears over everything. 

But that's rare. Usually it's just I'm a little tired and I would like some more sleep. 

I made a mistake the last time I was in a stretch of not enough sleep. It was one of those bad stretches where I didn't have a false bump of energy coming in to balance out the lack of sleep. I was just exhausted and it was taking its toll. And so the mistake happened. 

I clicked on an ad for a sleep aid. Then clicked through to their website to read what the ingredients were and if it was worth trying. 

I know. But I was tired and not thinking clearly as to the consequences.

So now I have at least a dozen sleep aid ads in all of my feeds. Facebook, Instagram, Google, Threads, over and over and over again. THC gummies, mushroom tea, ashwagandha, valerian root, melatonin, magnesium, tart cherry, over and over and over again. 

And I've tried most of them. Melatonin is no good. (It's actually not really good for anyone in the way that they market it, maybe for jet lag, but otherwise your body makes its own, and you'd be better off heading outside first thing in the morning for a dose of natural light to start your own system up) Valerian is a no way from me. (I get really odd dreams while taking it, and it doesn't work for staying asleep all night, just deep sleep for a few hours with really odd dreams then laying awake for hours wondering what the fuck I just dreamt) Ashwagandha I'm allergic to. I tried CBD drops before and they did nothing and I don't really think adding in the hallucinogenic part is a good idea. (I've never smoked pot or taken pot gummies, it's just not a thing I think is a good idea with the way my brain chemistry is already) I've tried the tart cherry and it did nothing but make my teeth feel fuzzy. So that leaves the mushroom and magnesium. 

And I just don't think that's the answer. But maybe?

If I could find one that didn't have all of the other pieces as well.

Because that's a big thing with sleep aids, they throw it all in there hoping one of them will work for you. 

And do not click through an ad to see if it does have all of those ingredients but then you will be just like me and inundated with nothing but ads for gummies, teas and pill. 

It's exhausting. 

But not in a good way that helps you get to sleep.

So what does work? As odd as it sounds I do have suggestions for anyone who has problems sleeping. 

Get a good sleep routine established and try your best to stick with it. 

We drink some tea an hour or so before bed. A warm cup of tea signals to my body that it's time to head to bed. A warm shower or bath does the same thing if you like doing that in the evening. For me the tea works because a bath takes too long and I don't want to get my hair wet in the shower. 

So a warm cup of tea
Brush teeth, wash face, go pee, all that bedtime maintenance stuff
I read for a bit. I know that a lot of sleep experts will tell you not to read in bed. Or watch TV in bed. That the bed is only for sleep and sex and I've tried that as well, but it doesn't work for me. What works for me is to read a bit to wind down. Usually only for 15 or 20 minutes maximum. 
Then I go to sleep. 

That's the routine. Every night. The only thing that varies is the starting time for the routine. I'd really prefer to be in bed by 9:15 and asleep by 9:45 every night. The hope is that I sleep most of the night and so clock as close to 8 hours of sleep as I can. It doesn't usually happen for me, but Brent gets close that way and he functions best on 7-8 hours so it's a good compromise time. That doesn't always work since we have hockey games and soccer matches and such that keep us out later than that at times, but I function better if I stick with the 9:15 in bed time frame. 

I'm waking up at least 3 times over night. If I'm lucky I get back to sleep right away. If not I pick up my book and read until I'm sleepy again. Again, the experts will tell you to get out of bed, but if I get out of bed it's game over. I am awake for the rest of the night. The idea of getting out of bed and doing some quiet activity until I get sleepy again is foreign to me. Once my feet hit the floor my brain is fully on and engaged and I will read or listen to music or color or whatever quiet activity I am trying out until the sun comes up and Brent starts his day. 

And I've also mastered lying in bed perfect still and almost asleep. It works for me as an almost good enough solution to sleeping. If I can shut everything down, quiet my mind as much as possible, keep my body as still as possible, it's close to sleep. Again, the experts will tell you that you should never do that. That if you cannot sleep you should get up. But if you have chronic insomnia sometimes that's as good as you are going to get so you should take it. Rest if you cannot sleep. 

I never pick up my phone overnight. I have it on do not disturb from 9PM until 7AM (we usually get up at 6 but if we're lucky and can sleep in until 7 I don't want a text ruining that). There are only a few people on my override the DND list and I cut it even further once our parents all died. There are very few problems that cannot wait until the morning to deal with. You'll handle them better with a full night's sleep anyway. If you do pick up your phone just say good morning and get out of bed. 

The blue light tells your brain it's time to be awake. All of your social media accounts give you something to focus on that isn't calming. It's just not a good idea. Leave it on DND, or leave it in another room if you have to. It's just not good for sleeping. 

Comfortable bed, good room temperature (I like it close to chilly without becoming freezing), comfy night clothes or no clothes if that's better for you. White noise or ear plugs if you want. We have blackout curtains (thanks to Dana and honestly I cannot believe we didn't have them before), or an eye mask would work. And no pets. 

Yeah, that last one isn't for us anymore, but it really does help your sleep if you don't have someone waking you up for a walk, or to be let outside, or to be fed, or because they just miss you so much while you are asleep (Tig). 

But handle the things you can. Set yourself up the best way for you to get the best night's sleep.

And NEVER, EVER, no matter how tired you are, click the sleep aid ads. 

Happy Birthday!

It's Dana's birthday today. Skippy requested poetry for her, I KNOW how weird right? I mean Skippy wanting poetry? But in her birthday message to Dana she wrote. "Let me commission Denise to compose an ode to your birthday." I might be paraphrasing a bit but I'm sure that was the gist of it.

So I started thinking about it. At first I was thinking an ode. That's a good birthday poem. An Ode. But then I thought, oh! I could write in iambic pentameter! Because what better way to say happy birthday than to show off a little? And then I realized that Phoenix rhymes with some funny words so a limerick might be fun. There once was a girl from Phoenix...who led Marc around by his...

But wait! Today is National Haiku Day! OF COURSE Dana was born on Haiku day! Haiku is my favorite!

So I give you, by Skippy's request (I KNOW I'm still amazed at how much she is loving National Poetry Month) some birthday Haiku in honor of Dana's birthday.

Darkness creeping in
A cold chill causes shivers
Oh! It's just Dana!

(look, I love her like I made her, but she's creepy as... well...me)

Candles on a cake
Pour more coffee in her cup
Everybody sing!

(cake is all well and good, but the woman really wants coffee)

Superhero stance
Step in front of the grenade
Bad Denise rises

(She literally stepped between an unsuspecting crowd and an about to lose it YOU ARE BREATHING MY AIR me, not all heroes wear capes, some of them wear sweatshirts and are still freezing when it's 65 degrees outside)

Your sun is broken
This will always make me laugh
It's not been tainted

(some jokes are always funny)

Sniff...pause...sniff...concern
What am I smelling right now?
That's outside, sweetheart

(again, some jokes are ALWAYS funny. The difference between living in a hellscape and living someplace where trees grow, flowers bloom and outside spaces smell like both instead of melting tar)

I could write some more
Or I could just wrap it up
Happy Birthday Love!

(Honestly, I could write a dozen more. I love Haiku, and I love Dana, and I love Skippy and want her to feel like she got her wish granted, but I will end here. Happy Birthday, Dana!)

Starting Over...

I lifted weights today. 

It is the first time I've lifted, outside of PT exercises, since like September? October? A long time. 

I barely lifted. I would have mocked myself for even calling the amount of weight I lifted, lifting last year. Do you even lift, bro? Well no...not really.

Using 10 pound weights for everything right now. Very light. But something. And I need to do it this way. And I need to go really slowly as I build back up. I need to pay close attention to how my elbow feels not only while I'm lifting but for the rest of the day and the next as well. 

So far so good.

There was one thing I had to modify, and one I had to drop completely. Though to be fair the one I dropped was because of my toe. I thought maybe I'd be able to do split leg squats since the weight was going to be so light, but even body weight on that toe is never going to work, so I dropped it. 

The one I modified I was supposed to hold a weight on my shoulder, right hand holding on right shoulder, while I raised the right leg, and I cannot keep my arm bent like that for any length of time. I'm guessing the tendon doesn't work like that anymore, or at least not yet. There is a pretty good ridge of scar tissue in there from the tear repair and right now I don't have full range of motion without discomfort. And I'm not sure I ever will. But I modified it and worked it out. 

It was a banner day. 

Now, here is the funny part to me. 

The workout app I use tracks your stats. It knows what you did the last time you did that exercise, for instance. But they pushed an update at some point that resets your stat records after 6 months. So for every single exercise I did I got a Congratulations! Highest 1 rep weight in the past 6 months!

Every. Single. Exercise.

Yay! The shoulder presses that you could do 40 pounds on you did 10! Good for you! Oh, good for you!

It made me laugh. 

Even me, who loves a gold star SO much, thought it was a little silly. 

But maybe not. Maybe it's great. Things happen and you have to start over. And it's nice to get recognition that you are better today than you have been in the past 6 months, even if you aren't where you were. 

And of course, that is going to be the difficult part now (assuming my arm holds up and feels fine tomorrow), not pushing too fast and too hard to get back there. I mean, I will get back there. I know I will. On most everything at least. There might be things I can never do again without modification, but I am pretty sure I'll be able to tackle most everything. I just need to keep reminding myself that I am stronger today than I have been at any other point in the past 6 months. 

I have to remember in December before I had the procedure done lifting 10 pounds was out of the question. I couldn't even put a plate in the cupboard. And right after having the procedure done, and for a few weeks after, I couldn't do ANYTHING with that arm including straightening it. I remember the day I could straighten it without it shaking from the effort and what a big deal that was.

So yeah, I lifted 10 pounds today. Shoulder presses, chest presses, weighted squats, upright rows, deadlifts, I did a plethora (small p) of things today, all with weights. And I broke a bunch of my own 6 month records doing it. 

Go me!

Sunday Haiku...

 Spring sunshine teases
Thoughts of summer days ahead
Frost warning tonight

The flowers planted
Grow, but only what I say
No weeds allowed here

The weeds then come back
I can't stop Mother Nature
Though I keep trying

Colors look lovely
Bright and bold in the sunshine
Candy for the eyes

Trying to find love
By writing garden poems
But it's still just work

Scrabble...

We are irreverent in this house. 

I could add qualifiers as to what we are irreverent about but it's pretty much everything. 

The news was all over the NEW Scrabble this week. Fox thinks they've gone "woke" because official tournament Scrabble and the official Scrabble dictionary have dropped some offensive and derogatory words. Which, I mean if you want to play by the plantation rules, you go on ahead, nobody is in your home making sure you don't say or spell the n word. As you well know, Fox News...

And a lot of people are up in arms over the new version of Scrabble they are releasing that is easier. It's designed more for team corroboration instead of individual competition. It has cards to make it easier to make words. They are trying to bring in more people to play by making the bar lower. 

When I saw the story about the easier I thought of Brent's mother. The woman loved Scrabble. And I could just hear her saying "Instead of making it easier, how about you get smarter?" And then I laughed thinking of the jokes we would make about sending her the easier version because the last time we played I beat her. 

Brent and I were talking about the new easier version this morning and his mother. And he said, "though maybe she needed it since she lost." And then he said, "Too soon?" and I had to tell him what I had thought and laughed about.

Then we talked about how it must make her a restless spirit that the last time we played Scrabble she lost to me. I am not sure but it's quite possible that it was the first time ever that I beat her. Brent thinks I beat her a few times over the years, but I don't know. I am not good at Scrabble. I like words, but I'm not great at spelling. And she (and she taught it to Katie) would do that dirty twisty way of playing that would box off the good letters and spaces on the board. I mean, it's not dirty, it's in the rules, but when the only word you can see you can't play because you've been boxed out it's dirty. 

And the last time we played was when we were home for my mother's funeral so I was out of sorts. I was distracted and sad, of course, and I still won. Which might have been why I won. I wasn't overthinking it. Just relaxed into knowing I was going to lose and it would eat up a few hours in the day and then...

I can still see her face as she went over the board again and again trying really hard to be a good sport about it but...she did not like to lose. She did not like to lose at Scrabble. And she did not like to lose to me most of all. 

So yeah, we would have joked about sending her the easy version, but we never would have. And eventually I would have succumbed to the pressure for a rematch so she could beat me soundly. 

But that's not going to happen. There won't be another game. 

So I will always be the Reigning Mastenbrook Scrabble Champion!