February Recap!

After a stellar start to the year's goals in January how did February go? Did I put even more distance between me and the starting gate? Did I smoke all of my monthly numbers?

Well...

February is a short month.

We were on vacation for 10 days of it.

I hurt my hand while we were in Hawaii.

We came home to snow and ice and...

Yeah, so...

Reading! According to Goodreads I've read 12 of 80 so I'm on track! Yay! The Discworld series? Funny story, not the series though that is funny as well but..last I checked in with you I was waiting for Small Gods to come available. And two weeks later I was STILL waiting so I decided to skip to Lords and Ladies. The books are tied but pretty much all stand alone stories so I don't really need to read them in order. Get Lords and Ladies and it has an opening that basically says, "Hey, most of the Discworld books are stand alones BUT...." I laughed so loud I scared the neighbors. But it turns out I didn't need to read Small Gods but I really should have read all of the Witches subseries books first, which I had so I was good. So far Lords and Ladies is my favorite of the whole series. I really liked it. And Small Gods FINALLY came available so I'm reading it right now. Still a little behind in the goal for 15 but I should catch up here soon. Depending on availability...

Writing! With this blog that puts me at 9 for the month and 27 for the year so I went from ahead to one behind. I can make that up. No problem. Right? Sure... I have 11 fiction pieces done for the year so I'm still doing well on hitting that goal. I think a little ahead. AND I submitted a piece for a contest so I've got my first quarter submission done. Three more to go there. But I'm in the goal zone with that.

Monthly Museum/Attraction! We went to The Baldwin House Museum while we were in Hawaii. It was...well, it counted toward my goal. I don't really recommend it. It was slightly interesting but very small and very overpriced for what it was. So it counts, but it wasn't great. 

Fitness/Weight! I did not gain back everything I lost in January so that's nice. Guys, I really enjoyed my time in Hawaii and did I mention the snow and ice and hurt hand when we came back? Basically the last time I set foot in a gym was Valentine's Day so...hopefully back at it at least limited gym time tomorrow and hopefully able to lift weights next week, though it might be another week or two before I am there. So I'm still down overall for the year in weight and I am hopeful that the rest that I gained in Hawaii goes away and takes some friends. But it was a yummy good trip with dessert and drinks and Loco Moco. :-)

MasterClass! Guys, wow...So you know how I said the Malcolm Gladwell one was interesting? It was sort of like a lot of little mini Ted Talks by him. I really liked it. Well, Gaiman's was like a condensed version of his class he teaches at Bard. It was AMAZING. I so enjoyed it. In fact I enjoyed it so much I'm worried that there is no way I'll enjoy whoever I choose for March. If you are a fan of his, if you are a writer, if you are interested in any of the other instructors let me know. I have a code for you to use to sign up that will get you free months added on to your subscription. I think it's three free for you and one more month free for me. So win win!

Long term stuff! I picked a couch. We should go buy it this weekend. I would have gone last Sunday when we got home but I was too tired. That red eye flight kills me. It was really nice to have that full extra day in Hawaii but man Sunday was a bust and Monday was a little rough as well. ANYway...I picked a couch. That was my long term goal for the month and I hit that.

So really for a short month and being gone or sidelined by weather and injury for half of it, I didn't do too terribly. 

March! What's on the plate? Buying that couch, and a rug, and probably a few other pieces, basically getting the basement set up. Losing the weight I put back on in Hawaii and hopefully a little more. Letting my hand fully heal before I stress it too much. This is a goal because I'm really lousy at this. I want it to be better now not later, but it's not better now and if I don't let it get better it's just going to linger. So it's now a goal...Also get back ahead of the curve with writing, reading, and look for my next submission. 

How are you doing? Lent is coming up if you want a refresher time for goal setting, that's always a good one. :-)

I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy...

Things that are bugging me right now.

The preview of the 2020 election. It's going to be all abortion all the time. And when it's all about abortion it's almost always not right. Not like morally right, but not factually right. For instance there is no medical term called "late term abortion" there isn't. It's a made up phrase to make you think horrible thoughts. Like live birth abortion. That's not a thing either. There is abortion and there is live birth. If a baby is born alive it's not an abortion. But that doesn't stop the right from using these terms.

Take the Ben Sasse (and now you know why I said I still would never vote for him) bill they forced a vote on yesterday. The one that said doctors would have to provide medical care to babies born from failed abortions. It was a stunt vote. It was a way to get people on record in a way that the right could use against them. There are already laws on the books about this. Did you know that? That a doctor would already have to provide medical care to an infant who was born alive even if it was during an abortion attempt. Yep. Passed in the early 2000s. Bipartisan support. (The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act)

So why not pass another one?

Well because this one was vague enough that if a doctor was performing an abortion they could be charged with a crime if they didn't take heroic measures to save it. It was designed to make doctors potentially criminally liable for performing abortions. That's the end game you see. Make physicians too scared to perform them and then it doesn't matter if it's legal or not. That's what the bombings were all about. This is just a legal bombing.

I've stated my position on abortion multiple times. I'm against it. For me. Even at 50 years old and in the midst of menopause and 20 years after shutting my baby making factory down and being too tired to even imagine having a puppy let alone a baby IF I became pregnant I wouldn't have an abortion. It's just not what I would choose to do. For me. BUT I am pro-choice. Because that's not the choice I want to foist on other people. My body my choice. Your body your choice. I have no business telling you what to do in a medical decision. I didn't go to medical school. I don't know what is going on in your body. I don't get a say.

I'm also pro-education. Stop with the abstinence only bullshit. Make birth control easy to get and affordable. Give people options that are easy to obtain before pregnancy ever happens. Safe, rare and legal. That's my stance.

So the 2020 all abortion buy in to get Trump elected again is bugging me. Because you and I both know that's why he's going to hit it and hit it hard. He doesn't really care. He just knows some of you care about that one issue to the point you ignore everything else.

What else?

Robert Kraft and the prostitution charges. Now I don't like him anyway and the public shaming is fine for him, in my opinion. I think he should be the butt of jokes and given a ton of side eye and made to feel like he's less than. But there is a reason why I think it should happen and it's not because I have a problem with the idea of prostitution. I don't. If it were voluntary. If a woman (usually it's women) or a man wanted to voluntarily work in the sex industry I don't have a problem with that at all. I think it should be legal and regulated and licensed. If I can provide a service, and I want to provide that service and nobody gets hurt in the exchange of goods for money then that should be legal.

HOWEVER...what we are looking at in Florida is sex trafficking. Women brought here illegally and forced to work in a brothel with no rights, no resources and no chance for help. They aren't deciding to be sex workers they are being forced in to it. And we have problems with that in the world. Women, often underage girls, underage boys, forced in to sex work. Being raped multiple times a day. Because that's what it is. Robert Kraft and the others being charged paid a fee to someone to rape someone else.

You don't want to think of it that way, we visualize rape as this violent thing and not a hand job in a seedy massage parlor, but if you are not free to choose what you are doing and you have to give that old man a hand job it's rape.

He paid a fee to rape someone. More than once.

So yeah, he deserves every bit of ridicule and shame he gets. But don't ever forget he raped someone. Don't ever forget that he supported sex trafficking. Don't ever forget that this is a thing that we have in the United States and we need to not brush it off as no big deal.

And then what else...

Trump and his vanity project wall. National Emergency my dying ass...I've written about that before so I won't do it again. But it's still not an emergency. It's still an overreach that could very well bite him in the ass. ANd it's still another point of reference that republicans don't give a fuck about anything other than the R, and abortion.

Oh! And Cohen testifies in open session tomorrow. I'm not sure what to think about that. He's supposedly going to land a few bombshells, but he's already lied under oath once so... I mean I still think Trump is dirty. I think he's a con artist. I think he broke the law to get in to office (campaign finance violation, it's a law). But I don't trust Cohen anymore than I ever have so...we'll see.

And Trump's in Vietnam. Only a few decades too late, but he finally made it, hopefully the meetings will be close by so he won't aggravate his bone spurs walking to them.

Letter From an Aging Black Sheep...

Dear Flock,

I wanted to write to you today to say I get it now. I understand a few things. I've figured it out. See I've spent my whole life thinking you hated me. That my very existence was a problem. That what you would like to do more than anything in the world was to shear my coat and make me look just like the rest of you. And that because, even under my coat, I was different you hated me.

Now that I'm older. And I'd like to think wiser I see that it was never me that you hated. Sure you hated that I was there. Yes, you hated that I was so unwilling to be shorn. And when shorn I was unwilling to wear your coat. But you didn't really hate me.

You hated that I showed you a different possibility.

Without me you could say, "It's just the way I was raised." or "We are who we are. That's all that we can be." But then I came along and I was raised the same way. I was taught the same things. I was steeped in the same life. And yet...

Without me you had the comfort of everything being the same. There were no jagged edges that didn't quite fit. Everything was smooth because no one thought it could be another way. No one ever thought to turn left down the road you always turned right on. No one ever even considered there was another way to go. Because everyone was raised the same. Everyone was the same. And yet...

When I wasn't the same you took comfort in the fact that eventually I would be. Everyone comes back to the same flock. There is comfort in ritual. In the collective. In knowing that every where you turned, everyone you talked to would tell you the same thing. That you were right. And yet...

When I would say, "But what about..." I was shut down. "You don't know everything so stop." When I would argue, "I know! I know I don't know everything, I want to know more!" You would say, "Stop. You know what you need to know." And yet...

So now I look back and I realize that you acted like you hated me because it was easier than hating yourself.  It was easier to say that I was a know it all instead of wondering why you weren't more curious. It was easier to dismiss me as wrong than to consider I was right. Because I made a different choice I showed you that you could have as well. I showed you that it didn't matter how you were raised, what everyone else said, what the expectations were, you could turn left instead of right. And you didn't like that.

It was easier to say, "She's the black sheep of the family" instead of saying, "Maybe we don't all have to be the same."

And I think the most unforgivable part to you is that I'm not sorry. You wish for contrite when I give you confident. You want me to miss the shearing and I revel in my skin. You want me to admit it was a mistake because then you would have been right all along. And yet...

So now I understand. I'm the black sheep. I'm the problem. I'm the issue. Because if I wasn't then it would have to be you.

And yet...

I'm happy.
And I wish you were too.

Signed,
The Black Sheep

Not Happy...

The president isn't happy with the proposed funding bill coming from Congress.

Good.

Republicans don't think they got enough of the things they wanted.

Good.

Democrats are pretty sure they got screwed as well.

Good.

Good. This is supposed to be a compromise bill. Nobody is supposed to be totally happy. That's what compromise is. What is the thing you need to make this palatable for you? What is the thing you are willing to give up? What is the thing you are willing to allow from them? What is the thing you absolutely aren't? Compromise. Work toward an agreement where nobody is totally happy but everyone is okay with it.

Right now Mitch McConnell is setting up a vote in the Senate on the Green New Deal. Which isn't really a set of legislation goals, just a road map for "What if we..." He's doing it because the things on the list are pretty out there for a lot of people. Big steps. Moon shots. And he wants the Republicans to have bludgeons to hit the Democrats with in the next election cycle if they vote for it, or infighting in the Democratic Party if they don't. It's ridiculous.

And it's just like the people who don't want to ever compromise on things. What should be happening is that people should be looking at the list of things on Green New Deal and taking what looks promising and developing those ideas. And looking at things that seem out of reach and exploring if they are out of reach or if they are just new and unfamiliar. And allowing that things that aren't going to work, ever, aren't going to work, ever. But some of them will.

If you try to climb the mountain and you don't make it to the top you've still elevated your view.

But we don't allow for this anymore. I've written about it before. We are just too concerned with sticking it to the other side to take that step back and look to see that we are all supposed to be on the same side. We are all supposed to want to make things better. We might have different ideas on how to get there, but better should be the goal.

So we should have bipartisan agreements that nobody is completely happy about.

We should have big dream plans that will never be passed but can be mined for good ideas and expanded on.

We should be able to admit when what we are working on isn't working and be able to change.

We should be working together to make it better.

Whatever that it is.

For me I'll keep talking about what I think is important. Science. Respect. Love. And I'll keep railing against things I don't think are helpful. Lies. Bullying. Lies. Did I mention lies?

Don't dismiss things because they are different. Don't ignore things just because the other side came up with them. Don't put up with the constant lying. Correct things that are wrong. Admit when you are. Move forward. Make it better.

And in the end if you aren't completely happy with the results but you find something you can live with?

Good.

Smells...

Scented kitty litter.

That's the thought that kept playing over and over in her head as she walked down the hallway.

Scented kitty litter.

It was a good idea, in theory. Cat piss and shit smells awful. So companies made scented kitty litter. To cover up the smell.

Brilliant.

Now instead of smelling like cat piss and shit your house could smell like a cloying artificial rose with hints of cat piss and shit. And because their noses are so sensitive and that artificial scent is so strong your cats will hate it and start using your potted plants instead.

Scented kitty litter.

Cold scented kitty litter though.

That was the difference.

She wasn't sure how it was possible for something to smell cold, but it did. She always felt like it smelled cold. It didn't feel cold. Not necessarily. Though sometimes. But her nose would tell her it was cold.

Cold scented kitty litter.

She stopped outside the closed door and tried to relax her face. She could tell she was making a face that said she was thinking about cold scented kitty litter and that wasn't a great face to be making.

Relax.

Look normal.

Pleasant.

Stop thinking about cold scented kitty litter.

She took a deep breath.

Mistake.

The smell flooded her nose. That extremely clean smell that barely covered the smells of bodily functions and worse, bodies that no longer functioned. The disinfectant smell that seeped in to every surface. The constant onslaught smell that she could never get used to, no matter how many times she came here.

Cold scented kitty litter. That's what it was like.

She opened the door to the hospital room and did her best to look pleasant.

The oxygen tube in his nose made his upper lip crinkle in an odd way when he smiled at her.

"Have you ever noticed that this place smells like an old closed up refrigerator?"

"Does it? I hadn't noticed."

Confession Time...

This month's MasterClass is Neil Gaiman. You all know how much I LOVE Neil Gaiman. He is the whole reason why I signed up to do these MasterClass things in the first place. I love his writing, I love hearing him read his writing, I love listening to him talk about writing. All of it.

But...

It turns out that he is not very good for my writing.

Let me be clear, the class is amazing. He is actually teaching things. Good solid writerly type things. The workbook that goes along with the class has all of these exercises that will make you a better writer. Questions about character motivation, conflict, depth. Worksheets to help you map out your novel. Really brilliant things.

Which always leave me a little flummoxed.

I write for fun. I write for mental health. I write to amuse myself and hopefully amuse you all as well.

I accepted a long time ago that I will never write for money. That the odds of anything of mine being published are slim to none. Even with submitting for contests (I sent in something for the first quarter today, by the way, go me!). I know that a novel length story is out of my grasp. Yet I still write. I still have worlds and people and things to share. I'm just not ever going to make a living at this.

A big part of that are the things in the course from Neil Gaiman that I am taking right now.

I am not a craft person. I'm just not. And because I don't have to be I can ignore it all. The outlines, the questions, the paths, all of that stops writing from being a fun thing I like to do. It becomes homework. And worse than that it becomes a bore. So I tend to skip it. And because I am just writing and posting I don't even feel badly about it.

Usually.

Except while I am taking this course and listening to him and looking at what he does to make the beautiful worlds that he makes and then looking at my stuff and thinking... eh. I should probably try harder at what I do. I should probably take it a little more seriously. I should probably actually have an idea about what I want to say before I start typing. I should probably join one of those writer group things where you exchange work and critique it and become better at what you do. Just so many things that I probably should be doing. Motivation type things, right?

Which should, in theory, lead itself to beautifully crafted worlds inhabited by three dimensional people who have needs and desires but instead leads to this being only the 4th blog I've written all month and the fiction I've written was a story at the beginning of the month before I started the course and three 53 word stories (yes, 53 words) for a contest. That's it. Because I sit and stare at the blank page and think "I should..."

So....

Next month when I can process everything he tried to teach me and just take the fun parts out I will apply them to what I do. I hope. Or I will fret about every word I put out and give myself the first case of writer's block with Neil Gaiman's accent...

What is that Worth?

I got a pair of shorts today that I ordered from Amazon. I don't wear shorts a lot. I tend to wear skirts. It's just easier to fit my thighs comfortably in skirts than shorts. Which is always a little weird to me, since I can wear pants. But something about when they cut off the pants to make shorts I seem to lose about a half inch in circumference that I need.

Anyway..I got a pair of shorts that I ordered. They looked really cute online and the legs looked really relaxed and roomy. As coincidence would have it I also tried on a pair of shorts that came yesterday from White House Black Market. I bought a dress and a pair of pants from them and had added the shorts as a wishful these will never work moment.

So I tried those on this morning. The WHBM ones. And they fit. And look really cute. AND they have pockets. Now all of the pockets are sewn shut so if I want to use them I'm going to have to take that stitch out, but there are there if I want them. And the shorts are really cute. I was pleased.

The shorts from Amazon? Not so much. Now, the legs were roomy and did fit so that was a plus. But they were odd. A lot of extra material which didn't really drape or fall but just sort of poofed out. Not a great look.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Because my reaction to the shorts from Amazon was to look to see how much I paid for them to see if I was going to keep them anyway. I had a price in my head and if they were below that I would keep them and if they were above I would return.

How weird is that? I had already decided the only way they were getting worn was as a swimsuit bottom cover up to walk to the pool and only if all we were doing was going directly swimming. Not if we decided to shop or site see or anything else. They would strictly be cover ups for a hotel lobby. But I already have a cover up that I like so why would I wear them? Odds are I wouldn't. They would get packed and brought on vacation and then repacked to come home. But if the price was right I was going to do that.

The price was above that so they are going back.

Which should have always been the decision. I don't want them. I don't need them. I don't like them. I won't wear them. I can get the money I paid for them back. The UPS guy was even nice to me yesterday so maybe he will be again today. But I was going to keep them.

Why?

We look at the world in weird ways sometimes. Thinking we are going to do the easy thing when it really doesn't make sense. Or isn't even the easy thing after all.

Opposite money situation yesterday. We needed to fill the tank before the weekend. I was going to go to the grocery store yesterday or today which would push us over the gas discount level. Our store gives a .10 a gallon discount for every $100 you spend. So anyway, my first thought was to go to the store first then go get gas so I could get my discount. And I had convinced myself that was the best option. Then I remembered that getting gas in the afternoon means waiting in line. Getting gas right after the gym there is rarely a line. So was it worth it to me to get my discount and wait? The wait can be around 15 minutes. Not terribly long, but when you are waiting it seems that way. And I debated it for awhile until the logical part of me pointed out that the discount would save me .80. And if I didn't use it that day I would still get my .80 the next time I filled up.

Eighty cents.

I put more thought process in to that than less than a buck was worth for sure. But I was really concerned about saving my .80. Though today I was willing to keep a pair of shorts I would never wear if they cost $10 or less.

We get (or at least I get) really odd with money sometimes. Not spending on one thing, over spending on another. It's just so weird.

What do we think is worth money and what do we think isn't? And what is our time worth? Apparently I will not wait in line for gas for 15 minutes to save .80 and I also won't take an extra trip to the UPS store for less than $10.  So I'm not sure how that balances out...

I don't really have anything wise to say about this right now. Just pondering more than anything else but I will leave you with this link, because it's pretty much me. 

So...Are We Really Ready for This?

First off I want to be clear that I think the Governor of Virginia should resign.
Second I want to be clear that black face is not okay.
Third I want to be clear that I wasn't an adult in 1984 and I still knew it then.

Okay?

Now, on to the next part of the discussion.

Are we ready? I mean really ready for what is coming? Because this is just the taste of what we can expect in the 2020 election cycle. That picture had been floating around for months before they trotted it out. And it was used, have no doubt, because of the abortion laws debate. There are, right this very moment, people pouring over yearbooks from every prominent politician out there. And not just yearbooks but school papers, archives of blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, MySpace Top Eights. You name it, someone is looking for a gotcha post in it.

Are we ready?

And I mean really ready because so far we haven't been. Or let me take that back, liberals haven't been. Conservatives have. Why the difference? Because liberals demand that something is done about it, right now! Conservatives brush it off. Or what about it. Or just say it doesn't matter.

I'll give you a what about right now. Northam's yearbook photo was found and every prominent Democrat out there has called for his resignation.

Kavanaugh's yearbook was quoted and Republicans said, "It's a yearbook from when he was a teenager! Who cares?"

And remember the difference. Kavanaugh was accused of committing a crime as a teenager and his yearbook gives you insight into who he was at the time. It's relevant. And then he lied about what was written there (don't tell me he didn't, you know he did) which tells me who is he now, again relevant.

Northam wasn't accused of a crime. But that picture shows who he was at that time.

The other difference. Kavanaugh sits on the Supreme Court, with full Republican support. Not just support but they are AGHAST at how he was treated. Northam will end up resigning. He has no Democrats backing him to stay. And not only no backing but actual calls for him to leave.

Are liberals ready? Because conservatives are.

We (speaking to liberals here) need to be ready to look at each story that comes out and weigh what we know about who the person is now, and if we believe in the possibility of change and redemption. In Northam's case if he had stuck with the apology on Friday and followed it up on Saturday with more on who he was, who he is now, and what happened that brought him to the change I think he could have been saved. But he didn't. He went to the Shaggy playbook of changing the story and claiming that after thinking about it more it wasn't him.

We also need to be willing to withhold judgment until facts are out. Or at least as many facts as you can get. Right now the same group that published the picture of Northam is claiming that the Lt. Governor (you know, the democrat that would replace Northam) sexually abused someone. This story has been looked at by other news agencies who were unable to verify the claims so they didn't publish. Do we wait and see if there are more facts or do we call for his head as well? Me? I'm waiting. I think the woman should be heard and once I hear more from her I will make up my mind. But, honestly, right now I am full of skepticism. Because of the source. Because it wasn't verified by other sources. Because of the timing. But if I hear from her and she's as credible as Dr. Ford was then I will change my mind.

But this is what is coming. There will be accusations. There will be old ideas trotted out as if they have never changed their minds. There will be out of context quotes used to drum up indignation. There will be all of the nastiness of 2016 with even more awful thrown in. We need to be on our guards for fake and altered news. We need to not get caught up in a mob mentality, especially when what we should have learned from 2016 is that the mob is often artificially started by foreign governments trying to foment chaos.

So try, really try, not to rush to judgement.
Try, really try, not to be swayed by a multitude of spammer posters posting the same thing.
Try, really try, to believe that people can change and give them the opportunity to do so.

We need to be ready for this, because it's going to be ugly and hard.

Working the System...

She tried not to roll her eyes. One, she knew that he was only there to help her and two, the shard of glass in her right eye made rolling it very difficult.

"You will find this easier if you listen to what I am telling you."

"I am listening. I just don't agree with you."

"You don't have to agree with me, you just have to listen and understand that I know what I'm talking about. This is my job. It's been my job for a thousand years. I have some experience here."

She sighed. "Fine, go over that last part again."

He moved his notes around going back a few pages to where he thought he had lost her. "The panel will ask you a series of questions. I don't know what exact questions they will be, but I have some examples of past questions we can practice with. You will want to avoid violent language..."

And this is where she tried again and failed again not to roll her eyes. Eye? Eye.

"I have this," she gestured toward her head, "that they will be staring at but a little violent language they can't handle?"

"They have seen worse. And yes. They prefer to only hear positive things. Violent language is not positive."

"But it can be," she had tried to make this point before when he had given her a sample question and then stopped her as soon as she started to answer. "It's figurative not literal."

"Well they literally do not want to hear figurative violent language."

"Then I don't know how to describe my best day."

Now it was his turn to sigh. "Okay, you tell me, again, about your best day and I will help you change the wording."

"It was my first time killing it on stage. I had bombed hard the week before. Really tanked. But for whatever reason that night everything was firing. I was slaying the material. Every punchline hit them square between the eyes, bam! Solid knockouts. They were dying. I walked off stage knowing I had killed it and knowing I could keep killing it and hadn't flamed out."

"How about, your best day was the day you realized that comedy could be a career for you. You had struggled in the past but this day you made everyone laugh and you felt that you could continue to do so. It was a turning point for you in the pursuit of your dreams."

"Maybe. But that doesn't sound like me. Who actually talks that way?"

"People who want to make it past the panel and on to the next stage of their time here."

"Okay, but why? They have my files. They know who I am and what I did. Why pretend now? Why try and polish it up and make it fit what they want now? Isn't it a little late for that?"

"Because this is the way it's done. You have to work with the system we have if you want to make progress. They are looking for unfinished business. For ways you might still need to grow. Progress can be shown in a lot of ways."

And she really did want to make progress. The others she was waiting with had told her in the next step she would get to fix her face. And her arm, which honestly was a mess as well. She wasn't sure how she was able to move it with it facing that direction. Her leg wasn't much to look at either, but you for sure would notice her face first, the glass shard was kind of amazing in its own way. And he was right, there were worse. She was amazed at all of the ways people ended up here. Her first day she had thought she would never get used to sight of the catastrophic injuries, but then she realized it was much worse when you couldn't see what had happened. The ones who had looked normal. Just fine. But still here. She shuddered a little.

"The whole reason I went in to comedy was to avoid boardrooms and panels."

He shrugged, "You are not the first person to be disappointed in the glorious beyond."

She laughed, "Now you have jokes?"

He looked puzzled, "No. That wasn't a joke."

She laughed even harder.

He frowned a little, "Let's get back to your preparations. I do not want you to feel disappointed if you don't pass the panel the first time. Not everyone does. You have three chances before, well before you don't have anymore chances let's leave it at that for now. So don't get too nervous on this first time in, you will either do fine or you will have another opportunity."

They spent the next bit of time studying and practicing her answers so she could describe her life in only positive terms. No figurative violent language. No negative things at all. Relentlessly positive. She hoped that she wasn't making a huge mistake. What if getting past this panel not only got her a new face (and arm, and leg) but got her stuck in Pollyanna town? What if she was never allowed to be snarky or sarcastic ever again?

When her number was called and she was to face the panel he clapped her on her good shoulder and wished her luck. "You'll be fine. Just remember, positive!"

She sat down in front of the panel and waited for her questions. She could do this. She knew she could do this.

"Tell us, what was the last thing to go through your head as you passed; the last thing on your mind?"

"The last thing to go through my mind or my head?"

They looked at each other puzzled. "Are they not the same?"

"Well no, the last thing to go through my mind was, 'what is that idiot in the truck doing?' The last thing to go through my head was this shard of glass."

Fuck it, she had two more chances.