Two Months Down...

One step closer to those yearly goals!

Good month as far as numbers go. 

Read the bio/auto bio, read the self help, read the Stranglings' book, read a couple extra, cleared another book off the Kindle. The biography was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which is a little different than a standard biography, super interesting and eye opening for sure. The Stranglings' book I just finished this morning after a concentrated push yesterday and today. See, I normally get those from the library and I didn't notice at first that it was not only Jenny's pick for Stranglings it was also the GMA book club pick, so the wait list was INCREDIBLY long. When I checked in last week to see how close I was I was still an estimated 4 months out...whoops! Then realized that February is still only 28 days long so I had better get a move on in buying it and reading it. 

I get most of my books from the library now. Because I read most everything digitally I don't have the need for pristine beautiful hardcovers lining my bookshelves. So I use the library. In my mind it's actually a double good thing. The library is buying the books so the author is selling books, and I make a donation to our local library of what I would spend on books so the library gets funds as well. But because I get the books from the library I have to watch those wait lists if I set up arbitrary deadlines.

Workouts were consistent this month. Better than last month. I hit Monday-Friday every week. I tried that 3 mph 12% incline for 30 minutes thing I told you about last month. I did it on Wednesday every week. It was hard, not going to lie, it seems really simple but that incline is a challenge. Got my heart rate up for sure. But it was also pretty boring so I'm not doing it again in March. Switching back to lifting weights 3 days a week and doing some sort of cardio five. 

Still not going to pick up the Picture of the Day. The list was still uninspiring to me. Keeping Selfie Saturday, even if it became Make Up Monday this week. The snow at the end of last week kind of tossed my schedule out of my head. The days all sort of froze together. It wasn't horrible though, I had just gone grocery shopping and even though I thought I'd be out of the house running errands by Friday the only thing we got a little tight on was eggs. We get our eggs delivered from a local farm and they couldn't get out and do deliveries on Friday like they normally would. The roads were still too bad. We finally got them yesterday. But I got some extra on Sunday with the week's groceries so crisis averted! 

Still keeping up with the extra fiction to Dana as well as the four blogs a week here. Though every week I'm pretty sure it's going to be the week I don't hit those numbers. But so far so good. I'm still questioning my sanity at setting those numbers so high, but apparently it's doable, just not doable and slackable at the same time. Which is probably a good thing.

This month the extras will revolve around the house. I need to get it inspected and have things taken care of while still under the first year warranty. Mostly cosmetic things I think, but it's all going to take time to handle.

So 1/6 of the year down, so far so good!

Should Be Easy...

So I started The Road To Recovery Part 3 with Tommy Rivs on iFit today. The first two parts have been really lovely. I've talked about it a bit before, he got very ill in 2020, thought it was a bad case of  Covid, ended up being cancer. He was in a medically induced coma for awhile, basically spent a year getting treatment. He was a marathon runner and a pretty famous one at that and after all of this he needed to learn to walk again let alone run. 

So before this I hadn't been able to do full series of Tommy Rivs' workouts because they have all been running programs and I don't run, I did a few stand alone pieces of what would be recovery day walks in his longer series but not the full meal deal. But with the Road to Recovery I've had the chance to work out "with" him and even did the Boston Marathon series with him. Broken out to 7 hours instead of his normal time, so it was great. 

He's a really interesting trainer. I've enjoyed the times I've gotten to do a one off with him on his recovery days, and the three post cancer series I've done have been really nice. Easy, slow pace, a lot of pondering and sightseeing type walks. He's very informative about the places he's walking, some trainers are like, Oh look, there's a building that looks cool, he's more Remember how we discussed the difference in architecture styles from when an area was under Roman control versus when it was under the Turkish empire? Just a little different level of information. I really dig it.

But for this one he is setting it up as a chance to work on something yourself. Not just use the walks as recovery walks, or getting back into working out walks, but actual "hey, let's ponder a problem and make it better" walks. Sounds good. So today I'm supposed to think of something in my life that I have control over that I'm not really happy with and I want to make better. 

And that is totally what I do. All the time. I'm always looking at goals and schedules and what is bringing me joy and what I want to accomplish and...yeah. Totally drawing a blank for this. 

Because I'm not really unhappy with the way my life is going. I just like to play around with what I'm doing. So I'm kind of stuck on what exactly I want to make my focus "issue" during this series. 

Do I want to focus on being more productive with my time? Like, turn it into the Leaving Facebook workout series? But is that really a problem that I don't know how to tackle? I mean I know what I need to do, it's just doing it that needs to happen.

Do I want to focus on the creativity push I'm doing this year? Though it's hard to listen to what he's talking about and also plan a blog or story in my head so maybe not.

Do I want to focus on the house? Is that really a me problem to fix or is it just a things that need to be done? I'm not sure if that's really something I'm unhappy with, I mean I am unhappy with it, but not in a deep way.

I think I'm probably just overthinking it all. 

Maybe that should be the issue I tackle. Not overthinking what my issues are. That might actually work well. 

Like as I'm doing the walks if he's got prompts on things to think about or work through maybe I just focus on whatever pops into my head that day. Instead of trying to find a problem to fix just let them be "let them be" workouts. 

Hmm...That might work. 

Or I might be trying to skate out of my homework assignment for the evening because I have a lot to do today and don't really want to spend it trying to focus on what isn't working in my life instead of the work I need to do. 

I guess I'll see tomorrow when I do the second part. 

Talk, Talk...

Katie calls me once a week and we catch up on what's going on. It started when she was in college; we negotiated. I would have been happy with her checking in via text or Facebook or a call once a day and settled for once a week. She's kept up the weekly call since then. 

Right now it's a Sunday call. That's the easiest to fit into schedules. Sometimes it moves if she's doing something with friends or we have a game but for the most part some time on Sunday it is. 

I know that I am lucky that she still does this. And I can see a time where she won't. She's got her own family starting right now with her girlfriend and her roommates. They already take more of her time and energy. Which is totally normal.  And it's all part of her now becoming who she was meant to be. The comfort in her own skin that she lacked her whole life. That comfort with herself translating to being more comfortable with others. So I imagine at some point the calls will get less frequent. 

Just like we have been preparing ourselves for less frequent visits home, and shorter visits when she does come. It's the way it goes. I tell my friends all the time that parenting is the only job you steadily work yourself out of. We just got an extension on our contract for awhile.

I used to talk to my mother a couple times a month for a few years, then once a month, then once every few months, then once in awhile when I could either catch her randomly or would give up and text my sister and have her tell Mom to call me.

It was really bad when the cancer gave her dementia like symptoms. She got really angry with me because I never ever called her when I had just spoken to her a few days earlier but she didn't remember. And after that, even though the treatment saved her life and cleared most of the dementia symptoms away, it still took a lot out of her. She didn't check her voice mail, she often forgot to charge her phone or just wouldn't even dig it out of her purse to check it. That was when I would have to text my sister to have my mother call knowing full well that my mother might or might not depending on her mood. The last year of her life she just didn't like talking on the phone at all. Not in the way that I don't but will, but just didn't want to. She couldn't hear well enough, she couldn't focus well enough, and she was bored with all of us. 

That's what it felt like. She was bored with the living and was ready to go meet her dead that she missed so much. And it's hard to carry on a phone conversation with someone who doesn't want to be there. 

So I know I'm lucky I still get Katie once a week. We still talk about politics, shared TV shows, current events and the weather. We talk about what she's doing at work. How her friends are doing. I share if I've done anything cool. Which most of the time I haven't to be honest. My life is pretty routine. Which I like, do not get me wrong, but it doesn't make for a really exciting phone call. It's similar to when Brent asks me how my day was when we are having dinner. Same as yesterday, did some chores, wrote, played with the cats. Rinse and repeat. 

I know this is reading kind of melancholy, but it's not. I really am glad. I'm glad that we have that relationship. I'm glad that she still calls. I'm glad that she still shares as much of her life as she does. I'm glad that she doesn't sigh too loudly when I share the boring details of mine. I really am. 

Parenting is a tough job. I'm glad I am at the rewards portion of the work. 

Satisfying...

Earlier this week I was doing the evening chores. Yeah, I know that makes me sound like I live in a Little House on the Prairie book, but that's how I always think of the daily list of things we do. Morning chores, afternoon chores, evening chores.  As I was grabbing the litter scoop I was going over in my head what all I still needed to do for the day; scoop the litter, run the sweeper, put away the clean clothes, cook dinner. All of them things I would need to do again if not the very next day then the day after. I might skip laundry one day...

It just never ends. And it never seems done. Like this chore is done. Laundry always reappears. I might get all the baskets cleared for a day but as soon as we get ready for bed, more laundry. I might get the litter all cleaned out but most likely in the time it takes me to drop the bag in the trash outside one of the cats has used the box again. Vacuuming and dusting are both losing battles. As soon as one area is clean a ball of fur from somewhere is rolling out to cover it back up. 

Mopped the floors yesterday and Tig proceeded to roll all over them to get the clean smell off and his smell back on. 

It never ends.

And that's just with me and Brent and the cats. I thought about my friends with kids still in the house and realized how easy I have it. Even more laundry, homework, dishes, more cooking, always something sticky...

When Katie was born I was a stay at home mom. I did that until she was almost three. But those early toddler years were a never ending cycle of things that needed to be done. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, entertaining and teaching. Every night after we put her to bed we'd tidy up the house. Move the toys back into their places, wipe counters, wash dishes. Get ready to start it all over again. When I went back to work in an office those things still needed done but now we crammed them in around the edges of work. Weekends were a blur of DOING.

But even with how easy I have it now, and compared to my friends, it's still frustrating. It's just never done. There is always something waiting on the to do list. Not just the daily chores that keep the place running, but then there are weekly chores, and semi monthly chores, and home improvement chores, and seasonal chores...and and and...

And very rarely do you finish something and think, yeah. That's done. 

Except...

We had a ton of snow on Thursday. Went to bed Wednesday night with the weather people all saying it should be done soon and instead it snowed all night. Our second snowiest day since they started keeping records. Over ten inches measured at the airport. Just a lot of snow. And it was going to be cold for the next few days. But sunny. So what would happen is that top layer of snow was going to melt from the sun, and then freeze from the cold and make it an icy mess. So I shoveled. 

It was a cardio day anyway.

I shoveled our front porch where it had blown under the cover. I shoveled one side of our driveway. I shoveled the sidewalk in front of our house and our neighbor's house. I shoveled a path from the back yard to the front to take our trash bin out. (Which the trash people are not picking up until next week so that wasn't necessary after all) And while I shoveled the wind blew and covered part of what I had done. But only partly. And only one place where it blew enough I had to shovel it twice. 

And once I was done I looked out and could see what I had done. And the sun has kept it clear for the past few days while everyone who didn't shovel now has ice slicks instead of sidewalks. (Don't do that, really, if someone slips and breaks a leg in front of your house and you haven't shoveled you are responsible and they can sue you) Today when I look outside I see a dry driveway and clear pathways. It's very satisfying. 

It's like painting. That is a chore that when you are done you can look at and think, that is finished. That looks different than when I started. I accomplished that. 

It's very satisfying. 

Now if you'll excuse me I need to toss a load of clothes in the wash...

Last Display...

 Art
The Crypt Keeper
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
First Thursday

Tabby sat on the floor of the vault with the collection of her nightmares around her. After her conversation on First Thursday she knew, or at least has a strong suspicion that every piece Ian painted was someone's nightmare. Actual nightmare. 

What she didn't really understand is how he did it. She had thought of a number of logical ways. He could be a therapist and he painted what patients told him in session. He could be a bartender and painted what the stressed out drinker at the end of the bar shared. He could be someone's brother, or uncle or friend and he painted what they had shared. He would have to be the linchpin person for a dozen or so of her patrons and herself. 

It could happen. Portland was a decent sized city but it wasn't massive. And there would be a lot of overlap between her patrons on where they went and who they knew. All of that was plausible. 

Except she had never shared her nightmares with anyone. Had never told anyone about the yellow car that had followed her her entire life. Dreams that are terrifying to you are never that scary to other people. And, honestly, nobody wanted to hear about your stress dreams. You just had to mention you were having them and people's eyes would glaze over. Oh please, don't share the details of your dreams...

But here they were. Five paintings now. All nightmares she had had. Nightmares that she had more than once. Her recurring stress dreams. The ones that had started when she was a child, had kept up through school, through disastrous relationships, through economic downturns when she thought she might lose the gallery. Always the yellow car. The crash. The various ways it was going to go out of control. And here they were. 

And they were beautiful. 

Terrifying, but beautiful. 

She had decided that she was going to display them. They would be a series running along one wall. And she was going to really look at his other pieces and see if she could tell if they were related. Those would go up together as a series as well. Then the rest would hang by themselves. This was going to be the next theme night for First Thursday. She was going to call it Nightmares; One Night Only and hang them all. 

The idea thrilled her and filled her with terror at the same time. How many patrons would recognize their own panic on the walls? How would she explain that they were seeing what they really thought they were seeing? How would they react? And should she let them take their own nightmares home? She had never sold art off her walls, but really didn't people deserve to own their own fears? 

"Tabby? We need you to sign off on the inventory."

"Be right there." She took a deep breath and shook off her own unease. 

"...and you really can't read it at all?"

"What can't you read?"

Their new bartender looked a little embarassed. "I can read. I just can't always read cursive."

"Really?"

"Yeah, we didn't learn it when I was in school. We used tablets and keyboards from kindergarten on so I've never had to."

"But I've seen you read order notes left that were written in cursive?" 

"I can sometimes figure it out. Like some of the letters are really similar, so if I can get enough of those I can just sort of fill in the rest. When it gets tricky is when someone has really ornate cursive. The more flourishes, the harder it is to read."

"Hunh, what do you do about signing things?"

"I write my name. Just print it out. I mean for most things they make you print your name anyway since nobody can read someone else's signature. Most of the time they just look like one capital letter and a squiggle."

Tabby laughed, "That's true."

"And like you, you do this sort of mix of print and cursive when you write anyway so it makes it pretty easy to figure out."

"That's true, I do. Mostly kind of linked printing at this point."

"That's where it's the trickiest to figure out. The linking. Like some letters look the same if they are standing alone, but when they are linked in a word they get odd. And then some letters are just hard. Like r looks like n, n and m look similar but n looks like m sometimes and m looks like you just forgot to stop making the letter..."

"So you just figure out what all the other letters are and hope you have it right?"

"Yeah, usually, it's like sounding things out when you are learning how to read in the first place. But if it's a lot of cursive I just ask someone to read it for me. It's faster that way. And sometimes I am just glad that I didn't say what I thought something was until I hear someone else say it."

"You mean like words you've only read but never said out loud? We all have that, cursive or print. Like segue. The first time I realized that was how you pronounced it I was was shocked."

"No, not like that, like when you get the letters crossed. Here, like this..."

He walked over to one of the pieces on the wall and pointed at the signature. "I didn't know this was Ian until I heard you talking about it. N in cursive is the same as M in print, right? And he does the same print and cursive mix you do, Tabby. So I thought it was I am. Not Ian."

Tabby stared at the signature. I am. 

I am U

.........

"Tabby had always wanted to own and display art that spoke to her. That moved her. That made her feel something. She just didn't realize what it meant to open the gallery of your dreams....In the Twilight Zone."

When We Were Young...

I have been doing a quick trip down memory lane on a friend's post and thought I'd share the story here as well. Because it's got me thinking about how much of our lives we just forget. I mean, it has to be that way, we experience so many things and remembering them all, all of the time would take a lot. But it's funny how things just fade away until something triggers you to remember them. Then they flood back and suddenly you are 16 again...

My friend posted about watching Red Dawn and how it just didn't hold up. How watching it as an adult it was clearly just a propaganda film. Now I didn't see it when it came out. It wasn't anything I was interested in at the time so I didn't have anything to add to the conversation about the movie exactly, but it did bring up a memory that I hadn't thought about in years.

My friends Cinnamon, Ralph and I were at Coronado Mall one Saturday hanging out, shopping, going to the arcade, doing whatever it was that we did at the mall so very often in the 80s. Hard to imagine now, but we all really did just go to the mall to hang out. So we were leaving the arcade on the lower level heading up the escalators and there was a group of boys coming down the other side. One of them was really cute. He and I made eye contact and held it until we hit the midpoint and then both spun to watch each other the rest of the way up for me and down for him. Smiles the whole way. Waved as we reached the end and walked on with our friends.

At the top of the escalator as we started to go our own way Cinnamon (have to imagine it was accompanied by a smack in the arm) let me know who that boy I was just flirting with was, C. Thomas Howell. You know, PONYBOY. Oh...yeah, that's why he looked so familiar. She was like, Ponyboy thought you were hot! We laughed, made jokes and headed on our way with a cute story to share later. 

That night we all went dancing at The Safari, the under 21 dance club. Again, something that people today would be like what? But it was huge. Just going out dancing was a thing we did. Under 21 dance clubs were great. It made our parents feel a little better about us going clubbing. At least I imagine it must have though to be really honest we all had such little supervision that who knows what they actually thought. 

So we end up at The Safari and...he and his friends were there. Boom! Eye contact, smile, head nod toward the dance floor translation in 80s speak to "May I have this dance?" He introduced himself as Tommy and said he was in town visiting friends. We talked a little while we danced, but mostly just danced and rated the songs. It was a very promising start to...nothing. A crowd started to gather as people figured out who he was and they had to leave. I want to say that the club asked him to or told him he should because they just didn't have security to handle the crowd that was starting to gather. I can remember it getting close on the floor right before he left, not like woo woo close, but close like people trying to crowd in to get near him and to push me out of the way. 

I cannot even imagine what it is like for celebrities now. This was before we were all online, before cell phones, before anyone but doctors or drug dealers even carried beepers. And still the word was getting out that he was there. It would have been a mad rush now if a teen star was hanging out in a local dance club. But the 80s were easier. 

Not completely easy because he still got whisked out of there by his friends. 

Cinnamon and Ralph were like, DUDE! and I was like, Yeah, I'm pissed. We were having fun. But their Dude was more that he was there dancing with me at all. I was just bummed because he seemed like a good guy, he was fun, and did I mention he was really cute? 

I'm sure he still thinks about that really cute girl he danced with in Albuquerque that one time. Or like me he had totally forgotten about it and unlike me will never remember. But it was a sweet memory to come back up.

My friend Michelle remembered the name of the club, which I had forgotten the original name, and mentioned it was where she had her first date. Which then brought up another memory for me. 

The Safari was where Brent and I got together as an official couple. We had gone out a couple of times the end of October (would have been after C Thomas Howell and I danced, just think, if he had stayed longer I might have been too busy dating a celebrity to date my husband! Ha!) but that was it. By Thanksgiving I realized I wanted to date him again and pursued him until he caught me. That weekend at the club he did. By Monday morning at school we were officially a thing and that was that. 

I can also remember taking Rhiannon out dancing when she was visiting her grandparents and needed a break from her family. Her uncle was one of the main missionaries for our church, her grandparents were one of the founders of our church. Our families went back to the 60s tied together. She and I weren't exactly as pious as the rest. But she got a pass to go out with me because her grandparents didn't realize it. We had a great time. It was the holiday season 83 to 84 and there was a world premier video from Van Halen we had to be home to watch before leaving for the club. Yes, that was a thing we did too. Watch World Premier Videos like it deserved all caps like that. She was just so excited to find another Van Halen fan, and then we were both so confused by the level of keyboards in the song. Okay... We could agree that David Lee Roth looked fine, it was kind of fun, but it was not at all what we were expecting. But on to the club for the night!

Another night there I can remember dancing with Chad to 1999 and making plans for how our New Year's Eve was going to go when it actually was 1999 to 2000. We would be in our early 30s and would throw a massive party. He was going to live someplace close to Brent and me or would fly in for the party because we would for sure be celebrating such a massive thing together. When 12/31/99 rolled around and I was laying in bed with Katie and Brent watching Dick Clark's Rockin New Year's Eve deciding if I would wake them up when it became midnight in our time zone I thought of that and smiled. Massive party indeed. We had watching it turn to 2000 all over the world from our house. Waiting to see if the Y2K virus was going to cause any issues at all. No dancing. No big party. Just the three of us snugged up together. It was perfect. 

A lot happened on those nights dancing at The Safari/The Big Apple. Plans were made. Friendships started and ended. Just a lot of fun was had. The story of the night Brent and I got together isn't a smooth love story, it's one that could have all been derailed by a misunderstanding like you see in romance novels...but it didn't. It all worked out the way it was supposed to. Good memories all the way around, when you remember them that is! 

House Stuff...

It's been awhile since I talked about the house. Can you believe we are coming up on a year since we moved in? Okay, we are still a couple months out (I think it's actually two months from today that we got the keys) but still coming up on a year.

I think last time I wrote was in the Fall and we were putting everything on hold to let our finances take a bit of a breather. We are still hoping to catch our breath there, but have decided to try and finish out a few more things. Just a few...

We still need to get the back area finished with some outdoor furniture, we are thinking a few seats for the covered porch area and maybe a table and umbrella set up for the yard itself. Right now we have our little cafe set from the townhouse and Tux thinks that's just fine. Whenever he gets to go out to the covered area he jumps right into the chair and surveys the world from that perch. All that time seeing us sitting on them in the townhouse now he can finally claim them.

We still need to figure out the extra cabinet situation in the dining room. I thought I had it set up with the company who did the original cabinets. It took MONTHS to get anyone to even answer me, finally got someone to take measurements, told me it would be January when they could do them and that they'd get back to me with the contract. And... yeah. That was that. I reached out a few times and then finally just gave up. We are going back and forth now on just doing it ourselves (Brent's idea), maybe buying a sideboard instead of cabinets (we just can't find one we like) or me starting the process of calling cabinet companies again and seeing if anyone is will to do such a small job. 

The living room still needs something for the big empty wall. A display cabinet maybe? But we did buy a new couch set today. The big couch and loveseat we have in there that were in the basement at the townhouse fit the room nicely and the color looks good but they were bought to be giant squishy pieces. Daily wear on them is making them look pretty worn and sloppy. It makes the room look messy even when it's not. Which is driving both of us bonkers. We found a set today that is a little firmer, a little more structured, but still comfy. Hopefully that will solve the issue. It's going to be about 6 weeks before they are ready since we customized the material, but since it wasn't urgent that's okay.

Of course now we have to figure out what to do with the little couch that is in the media room. I think I'm going to give the desk in Katie's/The guest bedroom away and put it in there. We kept the desk from the old office just in case Katie needed to move up here she would have a space to work, but I don't think she's going to be doing that at any point in the near future. She and her roommates are looking for a bigger place in Bend to settle so I think we will be lucky to have her visit, though I see that becoming rarer and rarer. She's got her own family away from her OG family now that she wants to spend time with. We get it, we got her for longer than we could have ever hoped for honestly. Byt our 30s we weren't visiting home much at all. 

We still need to figure out what to do with the entry hallway. It's huge. I mean it, just this grand hallway that is totally empty. I joked to Brent about putting the little couch in it and turning it into a reading room instead of just a hallway. It's big enough I could totally do it. But it needs something. And the practical parts too, we need a shoe drop zone for the front door, the coat closet is down the hall from the entrance so you have to carry your shoes to the closet, which isn't that big of a deal, but it's weird. So some sort of drop area there. 

And art. We still need art on the wall. High ceilings and big walls means all of our art was the wrong size but we haven't replaced any of it yet. And rugs. We needs some runners for the hallways and entry rugs that actually fit the doors, and a rug for the covered porch, and one for the dining room, and maybe a new one for the living room. And while we are on the topic of floor coverings how long do you think I'm going to make it before I replace the eh I guess it's fine carpets in the bedrooms with the lush and squishy carpets I had in the townhouse? 

So you can see why we have to keep taking breaks to let the finances breathe. And let us catch our own breath. And stop the panic attack when the list keeps growing, oh yeah and we need this and this and we should probably replace this...and to keep from throwing Tig to the wolves when he claws up the brand new bar stools or window sheers! I swear to god that cat is just this side of feral. It's a darn good thing he's the sweetest thing when he's being sweet. Balances out the fact that he's a destructive terror the rest of the time.

So basically we are exactly where we were last Fall, but with a new couch on order.

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Opinions Are Like...

And yet another blog on a subject I've written about before. 

I am sorry for all of you that have to listen/read these things over and over. Now at least you have some sort of insight into how difficult Brent's life is as I chew over the same lawn again and again and again...

Today is National Random Acts of Kindness Day. Two years ago Rush Limbaugh did what could be the only act of kindness he ever achieved and died. 

Harsh?

Eh, maybe. 

On the day he actually died I posted:

"All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike someone they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction." - Clarence Darrow

(Often shortened and misattributed to Mark Twain as "I've never wished a man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great satisfaction.")

Also, my own version, I'm sure his family will miss him.

Which led to some pearl clutching from a few people on my list.

One did the arguing and one did the little likes to show support but never put themselves in the line of fire. 

Two things in the arguing stuck with me. The first was the insistence that I shouldn't have posted something so mean and petty about someone dying just because we only had a difference in opinion. No matter how many times I pointed out that it wasn't a difference in opinion that was the issue it was that I believed he had done evil during his life. True evil. He coarsened the discourse. He belittled people and ideas. He made racist and misogynistic comments about people. He damaged the very fabric of America. This wasn't a difference in opinions, this was a vile human being who I wasn't (and still am not) going to grieve. 

You see this over and over again. Where people say "it's just a difference of opinion" and think that shuts down a discussion. Or that it's okay somehow. The whole we are all allowed to have our own opinions. Well sure, you can have your own opinion but don't expect me to accept it quietly. Don't expect me to let you make laws based on your opinions. And for sure don't expect me to take your opinion as valid over provable facts. 

And when your opinion is in opposition to my morals? Well you can fuck right off. 

The other part that stuck with me was that I said just because my post offended them didn't mean I was wrong. They came back to assure me they weren't offended. Well, you felt the need to tell me how disappointed you were, how I was mean and petty, I'd say that was offended. But being offended is such a buzz word phrase to the conservosphere that they cannot ever admit to being offended. They trot it out to belittle and demean progressives, "Oh they are so easily offended!" "Oh we can't offend the snowflakes!" So they cannot ever admit to being offended, even if they are posting to tell you what you did was offensive to them. 

The conservosphere is constantly offended. That's pretty much their thing. But they cannot admit it. Because then they'd be snowflakes who are easily offended. So they have to find other words to describe being offended without ever admitting to being offended. It's so weird. 

While we were arguing they also let me know that they never posted anything offensive so they weren't worried about offending people. 

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. See, offense is in the eye of the offended. You can purposely try to give offense sure, but it only works if the person actually takes offense and is offended. But you can also give offense without meaning to. You can be super offensive without ever even realizing it. Because offense is decided by the offended. And you don't have to apologize, or be upset that you offended someone. You can argue that wasn't your intent. You can even try and say that there is no way that was offensive. But it was. To that person who is offended it was. It's just up to you to decide if you care.

I don't care if someone is offended that I speak ill of Limbaugh even though he is dead. If you don't want to be spoken ill of after you die don't do ill while you are alive. 

I have, will and do say a lot of offensive things. Things that I know are going to offend people. Sometimes that's the point. I want to offend you. I want to knock you out of your comfort zone and make you think. And sometimes it's just because what someone thinks is so fucking horrible they deserve to be offended. And spoken ill of. And made jokes about that will cause people to clutch their pearls.

Rush Limbaugh was a vile human being who made the world worse by his presence. I don't believe in hell but if I did I would imagine he was there with Roger Ailes comparing notes and warming up spots for a few others to join them. 

At times I wish I did believe in it. It would be nice to think he paid some sort of price for being as vile as he was.

Instead we all do.

And that's the part that is truly offensive. 

First Thursday

 Art
The Crypt Keeper
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Tabby smiled at the group of patrons waiting by the locked door and pointed at her watch. It was only 3 PM and they wouldn't open the gallery for First Thursday until 4, but they wanted to be the first ones to get a good look at the new offerings. She already opened an hour ahead of everyone else, but give them an hour and they will hope for two.

She dropped a curtain over the window and could hear the small crowd outside groan. But she wanted to hang the last few pieces without an audience. If you could see all the new work from the street why come inside? Though that wasn't exactly accurate, she knew that group would come inside even if they watched the artist paint the pieces she was going to hang. This was her core group. The ones that kept The Crypt open. 

For First Thursday she had more pieces set up than was typical. She didn't spill out onto the sidewalk like some other galleries but she did set up a few easels for smaller works. They weren't lit as dramatically but at least they got to be seen. Those pieces were usually reserved for artists she knew were hoping for commissions. She wanted her patrons to see how easily they could be displayed anywhere. She would make sure her crew knew all of the contact information for those artists and knew what they looked like just in case any stopped by to visit with crowds. She didn't have a featured artist this month, but all of her regular artists knew they were welcome anytime. 

"Tabby? We just got a delivery, were you expecting anything for tonight or should we store it for later?"

"I wasn't expecting anything. Just put it in the vault and I'll look at it tomorrow."

She had a lot to do to finish setting up for the evening and knew she'd be busy from the moment they unlocked the doors until they gently pushed the last of the revelers out at 9 when they closed. She knew this, knew she didn't have time to look, knew that storing the new pieces in the vault was the right call. She knew all of this but still found herself walking to the storage area.

"Are they Ian's?"

"I didn't look so I can't say for sure, but they did just show up without any notes, so I would say yes? Do you want to take a quick peek and see if they should go out?"

"You know what? No. Let's just get through tonight and maybe I'll look before I head home. Everything is already laid out for the evening, it's too close to open to rearrange. For sure, let's put them away."

She forced herself back out on the gallery floor. And that's how she spent the evening. Forcing herself to go through the motions. Showing pieces, discussing lighting and composition. Giving out information on artists who took commissions. Fielding questions about Ian U and how she really didn't know who he was. But part of her mind stayed in the vault. With the first piece she had received with the yellow car in the corner. And the second piece which was a dark ocean scape with just the barest swirl of yellow in a vortex in the center. Her staff thought it might be the reflection from the moon on the water, but she knew it was the car sinking after crashing off of the bridge you could only just see in the corner of the painting. And the third piece that showed the train crossing. The train a dark blur and swirl of paint. You could feel how fast it was moving. How powerful it was. And there flying to the side of it what might be a bird, or a piece of trash but what she knew was the bumper of the yellow car. Smashed on the crossing by the freight train that didn't even slow down when it hit. 

She stopped to visit with one of her regulars. "How does he do it?" he asked her.

"Do what?"

"How does he capture what is inside my head?"

"That's art, isn't it? Finding the way we are all connected and being able to put it on canvas. It's a gift."

"Is this universal though?" He pointed at the Ian U canvas he was studying. It was one of Tabby's favorites. One of the first ones he had ever sent her. The one that let her know he would always have space in her gallery. She had rotated it back out for this evening after over a year in the vault. 

It was that Ian style that she could now recognize. The reality but not really. The swirls and colors suggesting things more than being accurate representations. This was a house and a yard, children playing out front. In someone else's hands it would be a suburban idyll. But with the waves of colors, with the swirls of paint, with just the way he depicted it the scene was unsettling. There wasn't anything you could point at to say, this is wrong, but it was. It was wrong in some way. 

"I think we all know scenes like this one, even if you grew up in a city you've been to the suburbs, or at least seen them on sitcoms."

He turned and looked at her, slightly horrified. "This is normal to you?"

"Well, not normal, but..."

He then pointed at a spot on the canvas she hadn't paid much attention to before. Near the children was what was that? A swirl of silver? Then he pointed to one of the children's hands, holding a red blossom.

"He was playing. Just playing, tea party or cards or marbles, and then suddenly the toy became a knife and he cut his fingers off. Every time that's what happens. He cuts his own fingers off. The psychiatrist says it's the pressure of perfectionism. That my stress manifests itself in these dreams of childhood because that's where I started thinking I had to be perfect. And if I'm not perfect what am I? And as a surgeon the worst thing that could happen is losing my hands."

She looked closer at the canvas, at the swirl of silver and the red blossom. Now clearly a knife and the bloody remains of a terrible accident.

"How does he do it? Who is he?"

"I wish I knew. I really do."

The Last Display

I Don't Know...

I've talked about this before and I am sure I'll talk about it again as it comes up A LOT.

Why do people think they hit you with a killing blow in an argument when you say, "I don't know?"

The amount of things that I don't know is massive and grows larger every day. There are things being discovered right now that are upending decades of work in fields that I didn't even know the first thing about to start with let alone how monumentally everything is shifting RIGHT NOW. 

I don't know a lot of stuff.

I do know a few things. And I know about a few more. And even with that a lot of what I know could change based on new information. What I know right now is (hopefully) not the same as what I will know in five or ten years. Even things I'm really solid in my understanding of right now could change as new information comes to light. 

It's okay not to know things. And it's okay to admit you don't know things. But not knowing something doesn't mean you are wrong about what you do know. 

I know that's confusing. As is the abundance of the word know in this piece. I know that too. 

But here's the latest example that has me writing this piece. It's actually a two parter. One is from a good conversation. One is from a discussion that turned into a fuck you.

So I was talking to a friend of mine who also has trans kids. They are in a different space because their kid is still a kid whereas mine is an adult. It's a different experience. I am not trying to fight school administrations while paying attention to the ever shifting legality of getting my child the treatment they need. But I can be an ear. And an if I had to deal with that I would do this. And this is what I think, and where I am sort of thing. In part of the discussion I said, "I will never fully understand what Katie is going through. I'm not trans. I just can't." And they agreed. We aren't trans. We can be supportive of them, and what they are dealing without ever fully understanding what that is like. That's actually the easy part.

Now parallel conversation and I had someone ask me what I would do if in a few years Katie changed her mind. If she decided to detransition. I said that I would do the exact same thing that I did when she told me she was trans, I'd support her in any way she needed me to. And so they followed up with their gotcha moment. So what I was saying was that I didn't know for sure that Katie was a woman! I said that wasn't what they asked me. They asked me what I would do if she decided to detransition and I answered that. As far as the other I know what Katie knows. She knows who she is and she has told me that. I believe she knows herself better than anyone else can. So they followed up with but you never thought of her as a woman before. Right. I didn't, I didn't know she was trans. And they pounced. YOU DIDN'T KNOW! So you can't know now! 

To which I replied, If you want to have a real discussion on this, I'm here. If you are just looking to make weird gotcha points because I didn't know something that I know now then we're done.

They tried again to point out that because I didn't know she was trans, and she didn't know she was trans, and if she decided she wasn't trans anymore I would follow her lead, that that meant she isn't trans at all. I pointed out that their argument was a hypothetical. If she decided to detransition. Which she hasn't done, nor has she made any sort of move that would make me think she would. They weren't asking about the nature of being trans even, the questions were all about supporting your child, even if you didn't fully understand what they were going through. I don't know what it's like to be trans. I do know what it means to be a supportive parent.

I know a lot of things. But what I don't know is so much vaster than that. 

But you don't have to know everything to be supportive. 

You don't have to know everything to move forward in life. 

And it's okay not to know things. And to say I don't know. 

Only people who aren't interested in ever learning something new think it's a gotcha moment to get someone to admit they don't know something. 

I do know I'll never have to have that discussion with that person ever again. That's a thing I do know. I also know that they will somehow feel like they won some sort of argument by me sending them to the cornfield. And that's okay, they can think that if they like. It's okay to be wrong. I know that too. 

 

Gametime Decision...

So we did what I thought we would do. We had the game on in the background and paid about half attention to it at best. The Puppy Bowl was on before the game this year so I had it on while I did other morning chores. Super cute. There was one little guy named Moocow who was just too adorable. 

The Super Bowl itself was...fine? Nothing super exciting about the game really. Nothing that made us put down our books and really pay attention. Just sort of followed along with it. The Chiefs found their offense the second half and that was that. There was a penalty called on the last drive that will leave Eagles fans salty, but as we always say, if you don't want the refs to decide the game, don't give them the chance. 

Some of the commercials were also...fine. Nothing really groundbreaking there. We all remember when Super Bowl commercials were a really big deal. Creative and fun and expensive. And they just got more and more expensive. And nothing scares a brand away from risky creativity like expense. If you are paying millions for a spot you don't want creative that will either hit big or completely flop, you'd rather have some sort of guarantee. So we get fine spots. Or oh that was kind of cute spots. But not a lot of WOW that was new spots.

The Halftime show was also...fine. I gave it a B on the Halftime Show grading scale, Brent gave it a B- or C+. Now a lot of halftime show grading comes down to how familiar you are with the artist. We were more familiar with Rihanna's catalog than either of us expected to be. Most of that though was from hockey games. They play a lot of Ri Ri at hockey for some reason. I actually liked the simplicity of her show. No guests (except for the one she brought with her), no costume changes, just her and her sea of puffy coat wearing dancers. I liked it. I'm also impressed she did it all while pregnant. I know you see more and more women active and doing a ton while pregnant but I was not that pregnant lady. My ankles rolled, my finger joints froze, my hips wiggled in ways they aren't supposed to wiggle, Katie would stomp on my sciatic nerve and send me plunging to the ground at random intervals. I would not have strapped myself to a flying platform and soared above a stadium. I liked it. Just didn't love it. 

When the game was over we watched a preview for the newest season of Tournament of Champions on Food Network and I realized I'm much more excited about that than I ever mustered at any point in time for the Super Bowl. Even though they won't have a halftime spectacle or super expensive star studded commercials.

It was about what I expected going in though so that was...fine. 

And honestly there is nothing wrong with fine. But the Fine Bowl, or Fine Bowl Sunday or Fine FootBall For Your Half Viewing Pleasure just doesn't have the same ring to it as SUPER Bowl Sunday!

But it was fine. 

The BIG Game!

Sunday is the Super Bowl. I know this because I Googled "When is the Super Bowl" to make sure. I knew it had to be soon, after all there was a TV show on this week about the best Super Bowl commercials of all time. And I was pretty sure when Katie and I talked last week she said it was this Sunday. And because my grocery store pushed a bunch of specials on chips. So yeah, Super Bowl time!

People who have known me for a long time would have been shocked 5 or 10 years ago to ever imagine that I wouldn't know for sure when the game was. Or who was playing. I had to Google that too. Especially since the 49ers got so close to going. To say I was a massive 49ers fan for the majority of my life would not be an exaggeration. 

Massive. 

And then...

I wasn't. 

It took a few things. Then a few more. Then finally I reached the point where the things that made me angry about the team and the way it was managed out weighed the joy I got watching the games. I did get a lot of joy out it for a long time. Then shortly after I stopped being a fan of the 49ers the whole Kaepernick situation happened. And that was that for me and professional football at all.

Not that Kaepernick didn't stand, I was fine with that choice. In fact I never cared for him as a player, thought he was selfish and childish. The kneeling? Which came after it was explained to him by a vet on his team that sitting was disrespectful, by the way. The kneeling actually was the most other centered thing I'd ever seen him do. I respected his choice. But the reaction from the owners? Nah.

Now, I get it. I really do. Bringing him on to your team was inviting the wrath of the sitting president and all of his MAGAheads. It would have meant dealing with the pretend disrespecting the troops controversy and possibly having to deal with actual police violence issues. Owners just want to make money. That's their whole objective. That could have cost them money. They didn't want that. So I get it. They hung him out to dry and pretended that he wasn't a good quarterback because they didn't want to risk losing money.

Just because I understand the reasoning doesn't mean I agree with it. 

But it pretty much kept me from forming a bond with any other team. 

Since then when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around we talk about if we are going to watch or not. Typically the game is on in the background. We read, we do chores, we eat junk food, we switch off and watch the Puppy Bowl and reminisce about how when it started it was just puppies playing without all the extra stuff they've added. We watch the halftime show, at least for a little bit if it's interesting. But we don't really pay attention to the game. 

It's weird in a way. To have been so enamored with something and now just not. And we still watch college football. We still enjoy those games and are deeply invested in how Michigan does every year. Just not the NFL. 

Which, I have to say, freed up a lot of time in the Fall. Sundays are all much more relaxed now. Don't care what time the games are on or who is playing. 

The same thing happened with the NHL but for different reasons. We've been Avs fans and Blackhawks fans and we talked about picking up the Golden Knights just to be with a team from the very start. But the problem we had was that we were bigger Winterhawks fans than anything else and the boys get drafted and scattered all across the NHL. So how are you going to root against Adin Hill or Cody Glass or Seth Jones or or or? I mean, they are all "ours" so... So we started just paying attention to the games over all. And we will still watch one here and there, but without one team to really pull for it's less important to really watch everything. We check in. Until the Stanley Cup, then we watch. 

Usually. At least some of it. 

I could see it happening with all of the sports we follow, eventually. The letting go. For various reasons. Even things you think are really part of who you are can become things you used to like. Things you used to do. Things you used to care about. And it's okay to let them go. To not care anymore. Even if you were passionate about them. You are constantly changing so it makes sense that the things you enjoy change as well. That what is a priority shifts. 

Now if you'll excuse me I need to run to the store to pick up some stuff for Sunday. The Puppy Bowl is on, and we need snacks...

(I haven't completely changed, afterall!)

Preview...

Last night was the State of the Union address and the republican response. As is typical two years into the first term of a presidency the SotU also marks the start of the election season. Which sucks. I mean so much. It sucks because it's two years away and it's too much. I wish we had a really limited campaign time period. Like three months maybe. But the toe in the water starts to the primaries then the general it's all so much. 

It also sucks because we got the preview last night of how the campaigning from the two sides will at least start. 

And it's going to be ugly. Just like 2016 and 2020. We thought 2008 and 2012 were ugly but they were sweetness and light comparatively. This is not going to be sweetness and light. 

And it sucks because it's all so predictable, at least from the republican side. See they are doing this thing they do, and have always done, where the take the talking points of the democrats or the progressives and warp them around into something else. 

Feminism. It's not actually the desire for equality among men and women it's actually something designed by ugly women to emasculate men and denigrate mothers. Then when just saying feminist stopped having the same scare Limbaugh changed it to Feminazi and made even more brazen claims about how bad it was. Generations of women don't call themselves feminists because they have been steeped in this negativity around the word their whole lives. I used to be one of them. That shit is constant.

Political correctness used to be a positive thing. It was a way of making sure you didn't say things that were impolitic. Not a word you get much these days but it basically means don't be an asshole. That what you are about to say is likely to be offensive to the person you are saying it to. PC, practicing courtesy, but instead it became shorthand for a bad thing. Oh everyone is so PC these days! Which always seemed to boil down to I can't tell racist jokes anymore without people telling me they aren't funny.

Antifa. Is antifa in the room with us right now? Well, yeah, okay it is. Because I'm Antifa. Anti fascist. That's antifa. Always has been. It's not an organization. People identify themselves as being antifa, but it's not a group. Like Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer... Shall I go on? Blaming Antifa is still used by a certain circle but it got harder to do once the other groups stormed the capitol on live television. I mean they still tried their hardest to say it was Antifa setting them up but when the leaders of those other groups start getting convicted it's hard to keep it up. 

So they moved to WOKE MOB!  Being woke isn't a new thing. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned that people needed to stay awake, to be aware, to not get complacent. To not sleep through the chance for revolution. It got turned to shorthand, someone was woke when they became more aware of the systems around them. Then it made the jump from the black community into the progressive community as a whole and a bit of the nuance was lost, but still not a bad thing to be woke. To be aware. To not ignore things just because they aren't comfortable to you.

But the woke mob is super scary. They insist on being PC! Calling people by their names! Studying history! CRT!! Oh no! Not that! I mean, if you ask them what exactly CRT is they often don't really know. As evidenced by the fact that they ban teaching it in elementary school and it's a college level class. But critical race theory is their catch all phrase for anything they think is critical to the white race. You can't make white kids feel badly about being white. That's their rallying cry. Well nobody wants to make white kids feed badly about being white. What people want is all kids to understand the full depth and breadth of our country's history and what we still are working on correcting to ensure that we live up to that everybody is created equal premise. 

And then last night we saw Governor Huckabee hit "normal vs. crazy" a few times. This election is about normal vs. crazy. Does that sound familiar? That was exactly what democrats ran on in 2020. A return to normal, boring, steady politics after the unhinged four years of Trumpism. But now, it seems that Biden is the unhinged one. Beholden to the woke mob. Which she's not sure he actually believes in all of that, but he is still beholden to it. The nod to that even they know casting Biden as some sort of freewheeling progressive isn't going to stick in 2024 any more than it did in 2020.

So for the next two years we are going to get a whole barrage of how republicans are the normal ones. How it's just crazy to want equality for everyone. Which is the foundation of the culture wars they insist they don't want to fight. I don't want to fight a culture war. I don't know why they are even considered culture wars. I just don't want you to be able to discriminate against people. You can go to your church and pray to your god and raise your kids to follow a set of rules laid out by your holy books. I'm fine with that. But I don't think you should get to apply those rules to those of use who don't agree with either your interpretation of that book, for those that read the same book but take away different lessons, or the fact that some of us don't believe in that book at all. 

I refuse to think it's normal to be okay with a kid committing suicide but not with calling them by a different name. 

I refuse to think it's normal to ignore our history and insist that it has nothing to do with our present. 

I refuse to think it's normal to ban books that talk about ideas you don't like and couch it in protecting the children when it's really you that you are protecting. You having to explain to your kids that not everyone lives the same way you do.

I refuse to think it's normal to brag about the statues of the Little Rock 9 while also preventing kids from learning why there are statues. What they went through. Why it was significant that the doors were held open for them in the dedication ceremony. You have to learn about them being barred shut before them being open means anything.

I refuse to think it's normal to be terrified of Drag Queens. 

I refuse to accept that "define a woman" rhetoric is anything other than transphobia. 

This is the vicious last gasp of an ideology that is cornered. They have seen with gay rights that once the needle starts moving, once people come out of the closet and live openly, once you get to know that nice couple down the street, that it become unpalatable to discriminate against them. So they have to stop that from continuing to happen. They want to force people back into the closet. They want to make sure you don't get to know any trans people because then they become people not scapegoats. They want to make you go back to blaming someone else for your problems, LGBTQIA+, women, black, brown, immigrant, whoever they can pin it on so you don't look at the accumulation of wealth upwardly that had happened. The hoarding of resources UP, not the sharing of them down that has made your life harder. 

If they can keep the culture wars humming (Steve Bannon talked about this as a strategy back in 2016) then they think they can win. Fear is a motivator. Fear isn't rational. Fear is all passion and energy and can move on to hate very quickly and that can also be aimed and used. 

We got our preview for the next election cycle last night. 

Buckle up. 

Help Yourself #2...

Finished my Self Help book for February. This one was Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith. It was promoted as a practical self help book with tools that you could use to improve your mental health. 

Full disclosure I used to read psychology books for fun. I entertained the idea of going back to school and becoming a psychologist for a long time. My mother in law did do that and worked as a counselor. She also shared books with me that she thought I'd find interesting. Or that she thought I might figure out what was wrong with me and fix it, I was never exactly sure which one. Probably a little of both. 

Anyway...

A review I saw of this was one sentence, "Somebody has." And that sort of fit my take away. There wasn't anything new for me. But there was A LOT in there. It was sort of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies. Really simplified chapters with overviews of fairly complex issues. But with actual things you can do to help yourself as well. It was kind of like being hit with a firehose of information, but the soaking came from a LOT of mist instead of a blast of water. If that makes sense to you.

There were a lot of chapters and subchapters around different issues, which would be handy if say you were looking for help with anxiety but didn't have issues with your relationships. But the chapters and information built on each other and referenced each other so you couldn't really skip around. So you were left reading a lot of information that might or might not be useful to you.

In my 20s I would have found it all pretty interesting because it would have been the first time I was introduced to concepts like your breathing is tied to your emotional state and because I wouldn't have been reading it to help me with an actual problem I was having taking in all of that information would have been good. The sampler platter of cognitive health practices. 

However if you are someone who wanted help with something, some specific issue you were having, it would be a lot to try and wade through. I especially felt badly for anyone with anxiety reading the book. Reading all of the other issues and trying to absorb all of the information she was continually pushing out would have made it so much worse I would think. It would have been really overwhelming around chapter 30 if not before that.

The only thing that kept it from being a DNF was my personal goal challenge. And trying to keep in mind that I was trying to compare what 20 something me would get out of it vs. 54 year old me. I didn't feel like saying 20 something me would find it fascinating I think but 54 year old me found something else to do. Though that's pretty accurate. Instead I powered through. 

It wasn't a bad book, and if you are interested in how CBT works it might be a good choice. But if you are looking for actual help with an issue I would suggest finding an actual CBT therapist and going that route. Even with a few weeks of visits it would probably be quicker than powering through the book. 

Hopefully next month's choice will be more interesting to me. Or if not more interesting than at least shorter? 

You'd Never Believe It...

When you are writing characters one of the harder things to do is creating personalities. It's really easy to fall into the trap of making someone a caricature instead of fleshing them out a bit more. We use shorthand in fiction a lot to let you know who you are dealing with. Who is the good witch and who is the bad witch. But it's easy to get sloppy and go over the top. 

Reading about a slew of things former President Trump did over the years this morning and was reminded of the number of times I would preface a news article that I linked with, "You wouldn't believe me if I wrote him this way."

Because that's the biggest part of fiction, right? You know I'm making it up. You know I'm lying to you the whole way. BUT you have to believe it for it to work. You have to agree to suspend disbelief and act like I'm telling you something that happened. And as soon as my character becomes a caricature you're out of there. 

It's a struggle. Because it's just easier to give you all the short hand clues as to who someone is. To get around it I generally paint really light strokes of personality on my people. You get flashes of who they are with what they are doing. But they tend to talk a lot and do less. (Hmm...I wonder why?)

I also like to tell stories that don't go the way you expect them to all of the time. For that I have to really be careful not to give too big of a tell in my character's personality. I can't pull the twist ending out of thin air though either. There has to be something there that when you go back and re-read it (if you go back and re-read) you will see, oh there it is. I see now... If I just write a straight up story then take a left turn it doesn't work. You don't believe me. 

Talking to Dana about some research she was doing into the science for a story she's working on and told her that was our biggest difference, she researches and I just "sounds about right" it. She does the science research for the same reasons I was talking about characters. If the science is wrong, and you know it's wrong, you are pulled out of the story and that's that. You have to trust the story, the science, and the path to keep agreeing to believe the lies you are being told. 

It's all a bargain we make. Reader and author. You believe me. I will try not to make the lie really obvious.

And people who read, watch, consume in any way fiction all make that deal. And we are all really willing to go far to make it. I go to musicals. I like musicals. I am fully willing to believe that people break out in song and dance routines to express how much they hate the traffic on the 405. Yup. I'll buy it. I watch some science fiction. I am fully willing to believe that the majority of alien races speak English and are bipedal. Okay. Works for me. I mean, I might just make the excuse that there is a universal translator involved but that actually gets more murky for me when those are introduced. Like how would you get a universal translator that works with an alien race you've never encountered before? That doesn't make sense...and I am out of the story for a moment. Best to not address it and let it just wash over me to not think about until later. 

Because that's the other piece. I can think about something later and still have enjoyed the story while I was in it. 

SPOILER ALERT FOR WAKANDA FOREVER:

The princess goes to the underwater kingdom. She is told she's the first outsider they have ever let be there. So why did they have a dive suit for her? 

It pulled me out of it when Katie and I saw it in the theater and again when Brent and I watched this weekend. But there were other things that didn't bug me at the time that after watching it I thought about and thought, well that doesn't make sense.  But they didn't pull me out of the story at the time. 

BACK OUT OF SPOILER ALERT

You have to be careful with the agreement. 

And that means writing realistic characters. 

What I really need is the republicans to get better at it.

The Tucker Carlsons and Donald Trumps and George Santoses are pulling me out of their story and I just can't buy into the lie they are trying to sell me. 

Not that I have ever agreed to buying in to it, but come on...at least try. 

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder...

 Art

The Crypt Keeper

"Tabby? We got a delivery last night."

"Good timing. I was just making my final notes on what to rotate on to display. Let's see if any of these need to take priority. Who is the artist?"

"Ian."

Tabby smiled. There would almost definitely be a reshuffling of pieces. Ian's things were almost always pushed to the forefront of displays. 

She and her assistant unwrapped the pieces and propped them against the walls to get a first read. He had sent over three paintings this time. If all of them went on display this month she'd have to redo her notes as to which pieces to take down. She had been going to keep one of his older pieces that seemed to be drawing a large crowd, but maybe it was time to rotate that one out? Or maybe one of the 6 new pieces she already had on her list would be bumped to next month. 

"What do you think inspires him? I mean, they are all clearly his work, but they are all so different from each other."

Tabby nodded. That was the essence of Ian's work. Clearly his. Clearly different. Clearly off. Just a touch. There was always something in them that didn't sit right when you looked at it. And it was almost impossible to say why. His work left her patrons off kilter, but fascinated and ready to come back for more. 

"I don't know. I'd like to feature him on a First Thursday sometime. Get him to come talk with his fans. But..."

She trailed off. Since they had no idea who he was, or how to contact him that was an impossible dream. She could feature him all she liked, but actually getting him in the gallery? Not likely. 

She took in the new pieces. Her normal way of viewing a new piece was to take it in as a whole. Just let the art loom large. Not focus on any one piece, just the overall feeling. Then she would go back and look at the details. It was the way she had judged what hung on the walls of her gallery since they opened the doors. The initial feeling always let her know if it was going up or going back to the artist, or into the vault waiting to be claimed. It didn't mean she particularly liked the piece or not, it just meant she knew what moved her would move others. And that's what she felt art should be. Does it speak to you in some way? Does it make you feel something? 

It might not be as good of a system as judging the styles, the influences, the line weights or composition or any other long list of things she'd heard art majors talk about in her gallery and in lectures. But it was her system and it was a good one for The Crypt. And she consistently stuck to it. 

Until now. 

The third piece that was propped against her wall was impossible to judge in that way. 

She tried. She stepped back and tried to take in the whole piece but she kept staring at the details. 

She tried to get a feel for the overall piece and how her patrons would react but she couldn't.

Her heart was pounding and her breath was starting to get short. She was hyperventilating. 

"Tabby? Tabby? Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

She knelt down in front of the picture and put her hand on it. Feeling the paint under her fingers. It was real. This piece was here. 

She took a slow breath and tried to clear her head. Rocking back on to her ass. Sitting and staring at the painting. "What do you see here?"

Her assistant was used to Tabby asking her opinion on works, but never like this. 

"Umm, it's...well is it a car crash? I'm not sure. There isn't another car, just this one in the corner that is wrecked, but the swirls of dark and red, maybe they are the crash?"

"Tell me about the car. What do you see?"

"It's not really distinctive, except for that bright yellow color. I mean, like I couldn't tell you what kind of car it is, just I know it's a car. I know it's yellow. I know it's been in a wreck at some point because it's dented up here, crinkled. I think he chose yellow because it stands out so starkly against the black and red background. It makes it the first thing your eye is drawn to. Like the painting is about the car. But it's also so small compared to the canvas that it can't be about the car. Like the car is there, but it's not the point."

She watched Tabby to see if she passed. Which was dumb because Tabby had never made anyone feel like they had to pass a quiz on art appreciation, or even ever view a painting the way you were "supposed to" art was to be felt. That was Tabby's only lecture. 

Tabby agreed with everything that her assistant had said, the only difference is her eye was drawn to the car not just because of the bright yellow, but because it had been in her dreams for as long as she could remember. It was her stress nightmare. The car she was always in when she drove off the bridge. When the road ended suddenly in an ocean. When she was on railroad tracks and couldn't get off. When she lost control and crashed into...

This was her recurring nightmare. On a canvas. In her gallery. 

First Thursday

Creative...

I've talked about this before but it's been awhile. 

This morning I was talking to a friend about a craft that she does. And it's amazing. I've got another friend who crochets these incredible quilts (you might have seen the one she did with Tig and Tux on it) and they are amazing. I have another friend who paints incredible pictures when she's not too busy with her horse and her dog. I have another friend who is in art school right now and has had multiple showings in galleries and studios not to mention multiple pieces of her various artistic stylings displayed at Mastenbrook Manor. I have other friends who are cartoonists, and book illustrators, and map makers, and clothing designers and...well a lot of creative endeavors.

It's not just my friends either. My family members paint, create stained glass, weave, arrange flowers, decorate cakes, knit and crochet. 

I...

don't. 

I just wasn't born with that particular skill set. Which can be really frustrating because at times I can see what I would make if I could. I can describe it to you. I can picture it in my head. But I cannot get my hands to make what my mind sees. It's just not my skill set. 

For a long time I tried and tried again to find some sort of craft I could do. The last time was knitting then crochet. I made Katie a REALLY long scarf. It was pretty. Ish. Not exactly the neatest thing ever. And like I said really long. Probably way too long to be practical. But I tried. When I taught myself how to knit and then how to crochet I looked at some of the patterned things, and I'm pretty sure Brent could hear the static in my head as it short circuited. I just couldn't make the notations make sense. I watched YouTube videos, I read books, I tried over and over and it just seemed like gibberish. I think it must be what dyslexia feels like. You know you are supposed to be seeing something logical, you know other people are seeing something logical, but you cannot make your head unscramble it. 

Luckily crocheting and knitting aren't as necessary as reading so I could just abandon it. 

And I did. 

I write. I write well. I can describe an art piece in my writing (like the ones hanging in The Crypt) but I cannot physically make them. 

And that used to really bum me out. I would tell people that I'm just not creative. I would focus on all of the things I couldn't do instead of the one I can. I can tell a story. Written or oral. I can weave a picture for you. I can paint a scene. I can color outside the lines and make you see things that don't actually exist. I am creative.

But it took a long time for me to get there. To say those words. Because I had in my head what creative was and it wasn't anything I could do. 

We do that a lot. We focus on the things we are lacking. The pieces we don't have. And then we apply these weird labels to ourselves around those missing pieces. We define ourselves by what we aren't instead of what we are. 

I am not a lot of things. There are so many things that I could be that it makes sense I wouldn't be most of them. 

But I am a lot of things as well. 

I mean, more than one person out there has probably described me as a lot...

One of the Ocean things I want to make sure I'm embracing this year is that feeling of support that I get when I'm floating. I want to wrap myself in the feeling of being enough and the only way to really do that is to not struggle against what I am not. What I am is more important that what I am not. 

It's not always easy to do. The world is constantly banging on about how you need to be something else. Thinner, younger, smarter, prettier, richer, any number of things. But, I kind of like who I am already. Sure I want to be the best version of that. I want to indulge my curiosity. I want to expand my knowledge. I want to embrace my gold stars. But what I choose to do is a reflection of who I already am. Who I am working on being the best version of. 

I'm not creating something new out of whole cloth, but I'm still creating. 

Because I am creative like that. 

(just don't ask me to follow a pattern)

 

Not So Mr. Nice Guy...

Yes, I know, I mine my On This Day for blog ideas A LOT but it's really good for that so I am not sorry...

So anyway, today on my On This Day there were comments from someone who is no longer on my friend list. Honestly they lasted for so much longer than they ever should have because he was an old friend. Like third grade old friend. But he grew up to be an asshole of the highest order. 

There is only so long nostalgia will paper that shit over. 

But seeing that post and discussion and thinking about all of the various ones we'd had before he got tossed got me thinking about our friendship over the years. And I had to say a silent "you were right, thank you" to my teenage self. 

There was a stretch of time my sophomore year where I ate lunch with the chess team. He was on the chess team at the time and so we spent a good amount of time together. I enjoyed my time hanging out with them. They taught me the basics on playing chess and on one memorable occasion with some "creative" help I beat their best player. Technically it was me and the entire rest of the team that beat him, but he couldn't figure out how we were cheating so...

But there was a conversation we had once that really stuck with me. 

He told me that I wouldn't date him because girls never dated nice guys. They only liked the jerks. His example was that I would flirt with one of the guys on the team but not with others. And in a way he was right, but the way this particular guy and I flirted was like 40s movie banter. We quipped at each other. It was fun. And there was no way we were ever going to date because he was a jerk. That was the part that the other boy got wrong. 

I was fine flirting with the jerk, and I know he was able to date a variety of girls (being cute helped) but I wasn't ever going to date him because I knew he was a jerk. But I did have to wonder why I would never considered dating the nice guy. He was also cute, and probably shouldn't have had a hard time getting dates, but...

I didn't like him. Not like that. There was something off with him. That's what I thought. And he pretty much convinced me in that conversation, and others that followed, that it was the fact that he was nice. 

And I am uncomfortable around people who are REALLY nice. I've talked before about meeting Brent's cousin for the first time and not being really sure she wasn't putting us on. Katie had met her first and told her father that she couldn't wait until I met her because Katie was sure I wouldn't know how to handle her. And I totally didn't. She's so nice I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the joke to reveal itself. NOBODY could be that nice. But she is. She is midwest nice. She is practicing her religion the way you are supposed to nice. She is lost her father at a young age and understands that life is short and capricious and you would do well to let the people you love feel all of that love all the time nice. I got used to her, but in the beginning I wasn't sure I trusted that level of nice. 

So he might have been right in a way that I wouldn't date him because he was nice. Maybe that was what was putting me off. That he was just too nice. That I wasn't really nice so it wouldn't be a good fit. 

But that wasn't it. I wasn't comfortable around him. I never felt like I should relax. There was always part of me that was on guard. Now, I don't trust people as a whole, so this is not unusual. But it was there. I just didn't like him like that. Ever. No matter how much he tried to goad me into it by saying that I would never date him because he was nice. Daring me to prove him wrong. 

Looking back now I think it was just good instincts. Because I did date a few really nice guys. But not the type who tell you how nice there are and that they deserve a date because of it. Because that doesn't make you nice at all. I dated my share of jerks as well. But a lot of nice guys. Married a nice guy.  

So to teenage me, who already knew to steer clear of the Not Actually a Nice Guy, thanks. He grew up to be a giant asshole, but I think you knew he already was. 

Oh Stop It...

Last week a friend posted one of those "Which person are you?" things. This one was four pictures of a bed. Fully made with pillows, hospital corners, comforter pulled up but not really straight and completely unmade. It was just a silly little thing. For the record I would be a hospital corners, but Brent hates a tight sheet across his feet so it's a loose sheet tuck with the fully made and pillows. 

It was just that sort of silly thing. Nothing really earth shattering about it. Just a "hey how do you do this thing we all do every day?"

But what I kept seeing is the response from people who don't make the bed that "they are too busy for that" or have "more important things to do with their day" than make their bed. Excuse me? Your life is so busy you can't take five minutes max to make a bed? I mean, how are your teeth doing because that's around 2 -3 minutes out of your apparently jam packed schedule. 

It was just so weird to me. If you don't want to make your bed, don't make your bed. But don't try and act like it makes you a superior person because of it. Like all of the bed makers out there are just frivolous time wasters who couldn't hang with your action packed life. Just say it's not something you care about and move along. No need to try and shame other people because you are sloppy. (I'm kidding, I'm not really shaming you either, it's your bed, do what makes you comfortable)

I see that sort of messaging over and over again. People can't just like something or dislike something without slamming other people's choices. And often it's a sideways slam. A, I see you are doing this but I'm just too busy, wonderful, intelligent for it myself, you simpleton...Okay.

It doesn't make your choice more valid to slam someone else's. Especially when it's pretty clearly a defensive thing. Like those non bed making people. They have spent their lives with someone telling them to make their beds and instead of just saying no, they feel the need to disparage those of us who do. 

And I've fallen into the trap before. The whole, who has time for that? Whatever the that is. Maybe edging a lawn or dusting baseboards every week or whatever task brings them comfort in how nice it looks, that I can recognize, wow that looks nice, but I have no urge to do. So instead of saying, yeah, I don't want to do that, I feel the need to claim it as a waste of time. 

Or I have in the past.

I try really hard not to do that anymore. To make sure I just say, that's not for me. To remind myself how pissed off I get when someone tells me I have too much time on my hands, or I need to get a hobby when I'm talking about something extra that I do. 

I don't watch certain TV shows, but it's not because I'm just too smart for them, it's because I don't prefer them. I don't read certain books, not because they are a waste of time but because I don't like the storylines. (SHE DOESN'T READ, DANA! <though I might be growing to like her more which is pissing me off even more>) I don't go to certain movies, I don't see certain plays, I don't watch certain sports...all of them just because they aren't my cup of tea. Not because I'm just too busy, intelligent, precious to do them. 

Like what you like. Own it. Love it. Share about it. But don't feel like you have to get defensive about it, or about what other people like. It's just not for you. And that's okay. 

Oh, and for sure take the two minutes to brush your teeth. Really. Nobody is that busy.