May Days Done...

And that's a wrap on May. 

Writing goals still on target. A little ahead on nonfiction pieces and if I count the banked ones I've been sending to Dana a little ahead on those as well. Which is good. It's becoming harder and harder instead of easier to get these done. I think I'm fighting the "good enough" monster. Like there is a lot of good enough happening right now and not a lot of oh I like that. But that's the point of this BIG challenge. To not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. To just keep things going consistently. 

Reading is plugging along. I wrote about the self help book and that it was another not really applicable book. I think I'm going to pick up the book Skippy recommended just for the title this month. If one of the other ones I have on hold at the library come free today I will change my mind, but I think it's going to be Existential Kink. How funny is that title? 

For the biography/memoir/autobiography I read Ari Shapiro's book. It was so good. Now, I will say I always feel like a sort of Portland tie to him. I mean he's from Beaverton. He sings with Pink Martini. Just because we listen to him on NPR doesn't mean he's not a home town boy. But even without that I think you'd find it enjoyable. He's a good story teller, on the radio and in print. 

The Fantastic Stranglings book was so good. It was like Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen had a literary baby and she wrote a book about hunting serial killers. Just odd, and wonderful, people with really unique characters. Highly recommend it, if you are into that sort of thing.  (Edit: I realized I told you how good it was without telling you the title! It's called Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon)

Working out is fine. I'm bored with it. Not the routine I'm doing but doing it in general. Which isn't a thing I can really be. I have arthritis that gets very painful if I don't keep moving. I know this. Logically I understand that I need to do weight bearing workouts multiple times a week to keep the joints lubricated. I have a history of heart disease. I know I need to do cardio multiple times a week to keep my heart from giving up the ghost. Giving up and making me a ghost? Logically I know this. But it's still so hard when you just don't want to do it. I've been doing it anyway but am trying to figure out if there is a tweak I can do to find, not enjoyment so much, but ditch the complete blah about it. 

I know I've talked about not focusing on weight anymore and just focusing on health but I am going to focus on weight a little bit in June. My wardrobe is designed around me being a certain size and I've been creeping up lately, if I creep much more I'm going to have a packed closet of things I can't fit. Which is no bueno. So I'm hoping to get that number to inch back down. 

It's the sugar. I know it's the sugar. I have not ever been able to convince myself to go back to no added sugar during the week. Even thought LOGICALLY I know how bad excess sugar is for us. I know it negatively affects every single system we have in our bodies. But it just tastes so good. 

Still waiting on a few things to get finished around the house. Really hopeful those will be done by the end of June. 

June is also Pride month and with the new anti LGBTQ+ agenda being pushed by the unholy union of Evangelical and Republican hate mongers it's going to be an ugly one I think. Not going to stop my happy ass from wearing my rainbows and posting my thoughts, but I know it's going to be ugly out there. It's so weird to see that all come surging back so strong. For awhile the bigots went into hiding, now they are all out in force. And joined with the bots and the troll farms and the lolz searchers. It's just really tiresome to see. 

So five months down. Still churning. 

On to June! 

Traces...

She could still smell the lingering odor of cigarettes. It hung thick in the air, like walking through curtains of smoke. Even though she knew he hadn't lit up in her apartment it still permeated every space he had stood in. If it were a cartoon you would be able to see the wavy lines of scent trails where he walked. 

She felt like a bloodhound following the path through her place. A blood hound with a spray bottle of Febreeze. Stopping every once in awhile where he had stopped. The scent thick in those places. A wall of stench. Those spaces got an extra spray from the bottle. 

Soon her place smelled like faded cigarette smoke and almost overwhelming Febreeze scent. She opened the windows and turned on a small fan. 

Soon any trace of the smoke smell would fade away and she could pretend he had never been there. 

She used to tell people when it happened. When he had been there. But she had finally stopped that. There was no point. 

She could remember her sister rushing over when she had called her. Walking through her place (before she had moved out of that one) with her, agreeing that you could smell cigarette smoke. That you could follow it through the apartment. That it was there. 

But wasn't it more likely that a building maintenance person had been through? Maybe even the landlord for an inspection? Maybe she should change her locks?

She had moved instead. 

And moved again when it had happened again. This time coming home with a date and opening the door to that familiar wall of stench. "I didn't know you smoked. I know this is going to sound bad, but I have horrible asthma and cannot step into that apartment if I want to keep my lungs clear. This isn't going to work out." No matter how she tried to explain that she didn't smoke, she couldn't hide the smell.

She moved again.

Finally she had stopped moving every time it happened. Every time she would come home to find that he had been there. Had walked through her place. Had stopped to look through her things. Leaving pockets of smoke smell everywhere he'd been.

She had stopped moving. 

She had stopped telling people.

It hadn't done any good to move.

She just cleared the air and kept it to herself. 

Cleaning up his messes just like she had always done. 

She pulled out the scrap book and read the old newspaper clippings just to prove to herself that it had happened. He had died in that fire. Passing out with a still lit cigarette in his hand falling onto a stack of papers by the couch. Nobody else at home to drag his unconscious body out. That was what the official report said. 

He had passed out. The lit cigarette had hit the pile of papers. He hadn't been home alone. That was the only part they had missed. 

She used to worry that they would figure it out. That she would come home one day to find them waiting for her. To arrest her for his murder. Or at least for negligent homicide if they couldn't prove she had dropped the cigarette. Even all these years later there was still a part of her worried they'd figure it out. 

He obviously had. 

FAFO...

I've talked before about how I believe as we age we distill our personalities down more and more into the pure essence of ourselves. Some people get meaner, some people get nicer. It's just a shedding of the things that don't fit until you get down to the pure you. 

Looking at the progression of posts on my on this day feed on Facebook I told Brent I seem to be distilling down to a little more of what I was like in high school, a little less of what I was like in my 30s and 40s. He disagreed, to a point, he said I was still nowhere near high school. Bad Denise is not running the show.

He's right, she's not. But she's also not been relegated back to the corner of my head where she could just give snarky commentary for amusement purposes only. There are times she gets to crack her knuckles, smile gleefully, and take center stage.

But not always, she doesn't have free reign.

I think my distillation is going to be pure fuck around and find out. 

Who you get is completely determined by who you give me. 

I have no patience left for ignorance, but I don't have the need (like when I was younger) to come at you constantly and battle it out. If you leave me alone, and leave mine alone, I will ignore your ignorance. I will still think you're ignorant, but I won't spend a lot of energy trying to persuade you not to be. I'll put out my beliefs but I don't give a fuck if you agree with me as long as you don't have a position of power over others.

I also will be supportive and solid for those that I feel need it. I don't like the word deserve, because I think it's a need test that certain people and political parties use to justify not helping when they can. They don't deserve help. Who are you to determine who is deserving and who isn't? So I go by need. And more specifically who I feel needs my help specifically. I mean there is a lot of need out there in the world and I cannot even begin to touch it all, but I can help here and there very specifically. 

I'm a happy person at my core. I think in a way I've reclaimed a lot of the happiness I was struggling with for a few years. Giving up the idea that everyone would be decent if they just had the facts helped. I know that seems counterintuitive right? That really grasping that some people are assholes at their center and there is no changing that could make it easier? But it's true. Helped my mental health a lot. 

It's not my job to fix everyone. There are people out there that don't realize they are broken. They have surrounding themselves with others who feel the same way, think the same things, hate the same people, reject the same facts and they are fine with it all. I am not going to change their mind. It doesn't matter how persuasive I am. How passionate I am. How factually backed I am. It's not going to change and continually being disappointed in them is a waste of my time. 

I saw a meditation post the other day that was "let them." People are going to be, do, say whatever. Let them. Stop fighting against it. Brent and I phrase it assholes gonna asshole, but same thing. 

I'm not going to change the current republican party into a caring body who stops targeting the minority group of the moment so they can keep their base angry and not paying attention to the really horrific OTHER shit they are doing. I can't. I can't convince their base that trans people aren't causing any of their problems. But what I can do it talk to other people about voting. About keeping the pressure up to make sure they don't gerrymander us all out of the system. To stop letting them win by setting talking points. 

It's not going to stop them from being horrible people, but maybe it will stop us from having to live under Christian Nationalism. 

Maybe a difference without a distinction in some ways, but it helps me to think about it that way. I'm not fighting them. I don't fucking care about them. If they want to come fight with me, well I will, but I'm not going to seek them out. I don't care about them enough. But I will fight against them winning. I will keep trying to push back against what they are doing. It's not fighting them, but it's fighting against what they want.

That I do care about. 

Fuck around and find out seems to work. You are kind and decent to me and to mine and to others around you, I will be lovely and generous and giving to you. If we disagree and you mind your business I will mind mine. As soon as you think you should dictate other people's lives due to your own narrow-minded, fact free existence, well, then I don't leave you alone. 

Mostly I spend a lot of time smiling at people. And you get to choose which smile you get. 

I Live...

Today's reel prompt is I live...

I thought about doing a funny I live video. You know, like the kids today say, Oh this is blah blah blah I live!

Which means they really like it. 

I live for this! Oh this is giving me life!

But I needed to work on a fiction piece for Dana so I had my computer opened to those files. And I thought, I live here as much as I live out there. Meaning I live in these made up worlds. 

When I'm writing I'm there, I'm living that life. I'm sitting at the table listening the Ellen and Gloria talk (you'll probably eventually meet them). I'm hanging out in the room with the vampire and her husband while she talks about eating leeches as little party snacks. I know who lives there and who is already dead. Though sometimes it's a surprise to even me.

I thought about the other places I live. I live on a horse farm in Australia. I live in a chaotic busy house (though much less so now) in Ohio. I live on a Scottish hiking trail. I live by the ocean. I live in a city. I live in the county. I live in Canada and England and Ireland and India and on safari in Africa. 

I live in Hillsboro. In a quiet suburb. At a soccer stadium. At a hockey barn. At a grocery store, though I'd like to not. 

I live in books. So many books. I just spent two days chasing and being chased by a serial killer in a very funny book. Yeah, I said funny. And now I'm living as a demon trying to get a big soul score to get a promotion in Hell. I expect it to be funny as well.

I've talked before about certain people who like to tell me to get a life. Or get a hobby. They don't agree that I live in all of those places. They have limited themselves to only certain things being real. The real world. The approved of things. That's life. That's real. That's acceptable. That only the part about living in Hillsboro counts. 

How dull.

To only experience as real the things you can put your hands on? Yuck.

I live inside my head. Which means that no matter where I am, no matter what is going on, I'm living. 

And when I'm on my game I can bring you along too. And we all can live in the room with the vampire and her husband...and just hope we know who makes it out alive. 

Diet Plan...

She was looking at her skin in the mirror. "I think I might try that new diet Cassandra is on."

"What's that?"

"I said, I might try that new diet that Cassandra is on."

"No, I heard you. What new diet is that?"

"Oh sorry. She's being doing this vegan diet. Claims that it's helped her skin look better."

"Really?"

"Micro plastics. She says that the micro platistics are the problem. Since going vegan she says her skin has gotten firmer and rosier. She also said it's good for brain health. She's thinking clearer. Like the plastic is a bad conductor of electricity so it slows your thinking."

"Well that sounds like something for sure."

"I know, you think she's all pseudo science mumbo jumbo, but I have been reading a lot about the micro plastic problem and it does seem to concentrate the higher up the food chain you go. Like there might be some in the water, which means a little in the plants, so the animals who eat the plants get some from that, and some from the water. Then the animals that eat those animals get some from the water, some from the plants they eat then the concentration from the animals they eat from the water and plants that they ate as well. See? The higher you go the more you get. It's like the mercury in the fish."

"And this is causing your skin to look bad?"

"Do you think my skin looks bad?"

"No, I don't think your skin looks bad, you said it helped Cassandra's skin look better and you were thinking of trying it so I assumed that you think your skin looks bad."

"I just think it doesn't look as good as it could."

"So you want to change your diet over it?"

"I think it might be worth a try anyway."

"Have you heard about it from anyone but Cassandra?"

"Why don't you like her?"

"I like her fine. But she's just not what I would call a good source of information. She's prone to...trends? You know, she's always chasing that new thing without really looking deeper than she heard it someplace."

"She's not so bad."

"Really? Do you remember the leeches?"

She shuddered, "Okay, the leeches were bad. I mean, I'm not sure why she thought that was a good idea but..."

"But you're willing to trust her on the vegan thing?"

"Okay, maybe a little more research."

"Ask some questions, how long will they have need to be vegan before the micro plastics are cleared from their system? Where do you even find a large enough pool of vegans to cull from without drawing suspicion on you? And will you be able to get enough iron? I hear they are notoriously deficient in iron and protein."

"Oh, that's as big of a myth as vampires can't see their reflection in mirrors."

"See? Just another reason to do more research. I mean you don't want to end up eating leeches as portable snack packets."

"You made your point. I'm not starting today anyway, let's go hunt up some dinner..."

Oh, Honey...

I got pushed a news story yesterday. It was one of those "news" things that aren't news at all. They are opinions, outrage machines, nonsense generators. And I got pushed it because the algorithms told it that I am interested in Pride. 

Except this was anti-pride. Which happens now too much to make it seem like a lazy algorithm and more one that is designed to cause more outrage. Is the person trans? Send them transphobic bullshit! That will get them engaged!

Oh fuck off..

So yesterday I got a little story about how the Alt-Reight is protesting Target and trying to get a boycott going because of their Pride line. There was a video clip of a woman showing how she was just ten feet into the store and BOOM! Pride stuff! She was trying to berate an employee and then a manager for it all. Grooming! Horrible! Where's the straight section? Where's the Christian merchandise? Which, lady, I know it will blow your mind, but there are Christians who will gladly rock the Pride stuff. Because, well, there are LGBTQ+ Christians and LGBTQ+ Christian Allies. Crazy right? They would be more likely to shun you than the Rainbow tribe. 

It's such a weird thing to me. The recording yourself being an asshole to people. I mean, I get that she believes she's being some sort of vigilante hero. Protecting the children from rainbows! Hiding behind her religion to do it. All the while rocking a full sleeve tattoo. (Leviticus 19:28) I have a tattoo myself but it's hidden, I mean, I don't want to be out there shoving my lifestyle choices down people's throats. 

And she's yelling at people who did not make the decision to have a Pride line at Target. I have no idea how those two people felt about any of the merchandise. The decision to carry Pride stuff is made at a level WAY above them. So why go berate people who are just trying to do their jobs? They aren't following you around throwing rainbow glitter on you, they are literally just there at work trying to be helpful to those that need it, and trying to not yell at you for calling them names. 

But in part of the video the person doing the recording, as they chase the manager through the store trying to get him to fight with them, you could see all of the Pride merchandise they had piled into their cart. And right on top were these really cute little flags. Like maybe the size of a index card? So cute. 

So today I went to Target and bought a trans one and a bisexual one. I'm bummed they didn't have just the full Pride in the little size, maybe I'll hit up the Target closer to the house and look for that one. 

Her video, the hundreds of pieces of anti Trans legislation that have already been put forward, the entire retreat back to attaching pedophilia to gay and trans people, the fact that at least one of our Supreme Court Justices believes that Obergefell should be reversed...well, all of that together shows that we need Pride more than normal. We need full rainbows and flags and support every single fucking day. Not just in June but EVERY.SINGLE.FUCKING.DAY.  Don't stay silent when you hear people like her talking. Don't be a bystander. Wave your flag. Stand in front of the camera between the bully and the store manager. They HAVE to be nice, it's their job, you don't. 

Don't let transphobic, homophobic, "reasonable people can agree", name calling just pass you by because it's not your problem. If you do, it is your problem. You are the problem. 

Rock your rainbows. I know where you can get some cute Pride merchandise if you need some...

I guess her little video worked on me. Just not the way she had hoped. 

Help Yourself #5...

May's self help book was Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston and Keith Ferrazzi

So...

Yeah, I don't think he got through to me. 

I am going to have to do a better job of picking these books. Just because the title and the short synopsis sounds interesting I need to look further and see if they are mainly focused on being better worker bees.

There was a little bit in there that was generic listening skills but the majority of it was either boss or staff focused.

Late stage capitalism help...how can you be a better cog in the machine?

Bleh...

Another issue I had with it was it was unrealistic. He would give these "real world" examples. If you need to reach this type of person you say this..and then he'd write out the whole exchange and don't you know it always worked? And people would alway automatically say or do exactly what he wanted them to do? All he needed to do was say something like, "Do you really feel that way?" and BOOM! they would realize that no, no they don't. 

I was telling Brent about it and I said it was lazy writing. Like positive straw man stuff. And I also think it must have been written before the Trump era and the pandemic. If you were talking to someone now and they said something that was totally batshit crazy and you said, "Do you really feel that way?" they would double down on the crazy, accuse you of being a bot or a pawn or a sheep and probably claim they were being persecuted for their beliefs.

A lot of theories sound great when you are reading about them but as soon as you introduced actual people and their reactions to the equation they go kablooey. I mean we've all had experience with that right? Where we practice a hard conversation before we have to have it. But then the person you are talking to goes rogue and does not stick to the script in your head.

Which, ironically, he did have a whole section about how we don't know anyone as well as we think we do and how humans are terrible at guessing what someone else is going to say. But then he'd give these do this examples and everyone always said exactly what he thought they'd say. 

Maybe when I was younger I would have gotten more out of it. When I was a cog in the machine. When I had a boss and a staff, well maybe when I had a boss. By the time I had a staff I already had my own style and I'm not sure his methods would have added much. 

But here is the other piece, I don't think this book was written with women my age in mind. 

A lot of what he wrote about as these sort of breakthrough understandings in listening were taught to us as women in how to be attractive to men. Listen more than you talk. Ask questions that show you are paying attention. Sit this way. Tilt your head that way. Don't listen to interject your own story. A lot of it was that sort of thing.

Which, I will tell you, does work, not just in being attractive to men, but in being a truly good listener. It does make the person you are listening to feel really heard. Do try and make sure you are actually interested in what they are saying and follow up with good questions. But don't expect that to mean you are getting through to them. It just means they will think you're a good listener, not necessarily a good influencer. 

So this one was a maybe I'd have gotten something out of it when I was younger. What I got out of it this time was a lot of  "Sure, Jan" that's exactly what happened...and then everyone slow clapped for you as you left the office....

Next month I'm going to try really hard to get one that isn't a "Be better at work!" book. I thought about picking up A Return to Love since that was one I read in my 20s and thought was really good back then. And since Marianne Williamson keeps running for president it keeps popping back up in to my consciousness. I'm just pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get past all the Christianity based stuff in there. If I get desperate maybe I'll give it a try. 

That's Pathetic Really...

Did you mean for that to be your outside your head voice? 

We all have people in our lives like that. The ones who just talk and you never really know what's going to fall out of their mouths. 

Last night before the Timbers' match the group of us that normally chat at games were well, chatting. There was a young couple there that was dressed for prom. We weren't sure if they were going to watch part of the match then go to prom or if they had decided to go to the game instead. Either way it was kind of cute to see. Which then got everyone talking about proms. Brent and I joked about still being in touch with our prom dates. Then how long we have been married. And how old we were when we got married. 

One of the group said, "Married at 18? Well when you think about it, that's pathetic really."

Now, I'm very used to him saying things that mean I have to use MY inside my head voice and watch my face. Let's just say my politics line up better with the Timbers' Army than they do the Key Bank Club crowd but Brent's bank account and my pampered ass are definitely Key Bank Club. So anyway...I'm used to running on a three second delay at games. And it was such a weird response. I mean, we get a lot of responses when people find out how long we've been married and a lot of them are really inappropriate, but that one was new. 

Pathetic. 

And I sort of get where I think he was coming from. That we missed out on a lot of things and relationships that other people have that they feel define them. The college or university dating. Those first grown up relationships. And we do realize that it's odd for people to marry at 18 and still be together. And I do not recommend it to people. We are the exception, not the rule. 

But still, pathetic? 

I smiled and said, "I don't know. I think it was brilliant. I saw what I wanted and locked it down quick." 

And then we moved on to other discussions about marriages. One of the other people in our group said they probably had the record for most marriages. And we were off on marriage lengths, numbers, kids, and the like. 

But Brent and I still made jokes to each other about our pathetic life choice.

But here's the thing that our friend without a good filter doesn't understand. We didn't miss out on all of those experiences because we got married so young. Okay, yeah, maybe the variety of sexual partners part, but that was our choice as well. Brent went into the military out of high school and I went to work. We didn't do the college route but we wouldn't have done that anyway. 

Or at least I wouldn't have. One of the reasons why it's so hard to break out of poverty is that you don't know how to work the levers in society. I had no idea how to even apply to college. Let alone that I should have done it end of junior year and beginning of senior. We had very little contact with guidance counselors in high school and if you didn't know what you were supposed to do, if your parents weren't there to guide you along, it was very easy to fall between the cracks. That would have been me. 

Instead of college roommates we made friends with the people I worked with in Florida and the people Brent was in school with in the Navy. Kids in their late teens and early 20s. We shared experiences and cheap beer. We took care of each other and hung out all the time. Our apartment was the main space for people to gather because we had off base housing as a young married couple. My workmates shared an apartment so we hung out there as well. Those were our dorm rooms. 

That was our college life. 

But instead of regular classes, Brent and his friends learned nuclear engineering and me and my friends sold electronics to sailors. 

We had the same sorts of experiences, we just had each other while we went through them. 

And we still have each other. And we have all of those memories and history together as well. 

As Brent put it this morning, "If the end goal of all of that experimenting and dating is to find a life partner, and if you find someone you click with early, there really isn't a point in continuing to look."

Pretty pathetic really if you think about it...

Or maybe not. 

Quite Contrary...

When Katie was little every time we would move we would make sure to get a house with a big yard for her to play in. We thought it was bonus that we even found ones that had play structures already built. And then every weekend Brent and I would spend hours on yard work while Katie played video games inside. Sometimes she would venture out to the yard, but only if we forced her or if a friend was over who wanted to play on the cool play structures. But mostly it was Katie inside playing and us outside doing yard work.

I don't take a lot of joy out of yard work. I know a lot of people do. My mother, for instance, always had gorgeous gardens when I was growing up. Even did test roses for Jackson & Perkins. We had rows and rows of gorgeous roses and even got to submit name ideas for the ones she was testing. But those weren't her only flowers, she had all kinds. And they were lovely. She enjoyed the time outside, I think it probably came from growing up farming. She liked the growing of things. Frivolous things that were there just to be pretty instead of having to feed the family. Though she grew a few vegetables as well. 

I didn't like helping in the garden as a kid. HATED those nasty horned tomato worm things. My mother? She'd just pluck them off the plants and squish them in her hand. *shudder*

But for some reason I thought my kid would like having a yard to play in. Nope.

So when we moved back to Oregon the last time we decided to get a townhouse. No yard work. Yay!

But the tradeoff to no yard work was no private yard. We had no space to ourselves. 

Part of what we were looking for when we moved last year was a small yard. Something private just for us. But also not a lot of maintenance. That's why we paved over most of the backyard. We wouldn't have grass out front if it weren't part of the HOA mandates either. The good news is they take care of the grass. But that leaves the side yards and the areas we put in plants. Not a lot. 

Until you are taking care of everything. 

Things still need to be weeded. Plants still need pruned. Flowers still need to be deadheaded. Planters need maintained. Bark dust needs to be refreshed. Clay "soil" needs to be aerated. It's just enough to be tedious without being enough to make it seem worthwhile to hire a gardening service. 

Today was a full meal deal gardening day. It was only a few hours of work with both Brent and I doing parts. But my goodness by the end we were both sweaty messes and my arthritic joints are screaming at me. 

It looks lovely though. And I do love having our private space. And pretty flowers to look at. And the green plants to add some color year round. 

It's all a trade off. 

And figuring out what is important to you.

For years we thought a big yard for Katie was important. Until we finally realized that she was not a play in the yard kid. She was a play video games kid. Which I know a lot of parents fight that, but she didn't grow up to be a landscaper, she grew up to be a videogame designer, so she knew what she was drawn to. 

Then we thought having no yard was what we wanted. And that wasn't it either. 

It's important to us to have space. But not too much. To have plants but not have to spend every weekend taking care of them. 

And maybe to hire a gardener afterall...

Dead Zone...

May is a dead month. 

Not that there isn't anything happening, but that we have a lot of death associated with May. 

Today is the anniversary of my father's birthday. Birth dates of those that are no longer living are always big reminder days. Normally it's a celebration of their life, right? Well the date still comes even when they are gone. Now it's still a reminder of their life. Just past tense. 

Mother's Day just passed. Neither Brent nor I have living mothers anymore so it's always that reminder. And for us it's a really tricky one. Mother's Day 2020 was the last time we spoke to Brent's mother. Working backwards from her phone records today or tomorrow would have been the first day she didn't feel well. She progressed from "I don't feel well" to death in 10 days. And never during that stretch did we even have any idea she was sick, that she had caught Covid. It still does my head in a bit.

Twenty twenty was a shit May all around. We not only lost Ann but two friends as well. One to addiction and one to...well...I still don't know. I assume it was Covid matched with the ravages of alcohol. But I'm not actually sure. Nobody said and I felt like if they didn't want to tell me then that was their business. Either way it didn't matter. He was gone. 

Three people in three weeks. 

Then adding in the aforementioned birthdate and Mother's Day and the icing on the top, Brent's parent's anniversary is the end of the month as well. So another celebratory date with no one left to celebrate it. 

It's all very melancholy sounding, I realize, but I'm not writing this because I'm overly sad right now. It's just the reality of the world. 

Brent asked me the other day if there was another reunion coming, what years did we do those. I really wasn't sure. And I told him I didn't think we were planning on going to another one anyway so I hadn't kept track. It led to the conversation about who we would want to catch up with that never shows up to those things. And we talked about how the In Memorium table went from a few shocking names at the first reunion to a lot more gone to soons at the last one and how each reunion that would be a larger number and it would be more and more expected. It wouldn't be that shock moment of how young they were.

Kind of like how my early onset arthritis turned into perfectly age appropriate arthritis a few years ago. Same disease, but now the doctor's aren't shocked by it. 

A mutual friend of one of the May 2020 losses posted a video that reminded him of them today. We talked a little about it and he said that as we age more and more losses pile up. And I thought how odd it was that this was the same conversation that Brent and I had just had. But then I realized it's not odd at all. It's just what we know about life. 

When we were young it was the odd one out who knew someone who had died. Maybe a grandparent, but rarely someone your own age. There were a few of us who lost peers, but even then it was one or maybe two in the first few decades. As the years pass those numbers go up. Now at almost 55, my peer group doesn't have anyone who has not been touched by death. We are at the age where a lot of us are losing our parents, let alone our grandparents. 

It's the nature of life that it ends. And it's the nature of all life that when it ends you leave people behind. 

My wish for you today is that you are living a life that when it ends leaves the people around you sad and missing you, but so glad they had you for as long as they did. And I hope it's a very long time.

Strident...

"I'm sorry if I sounded like I was lecturing. Though to be fair I was lecturing."

"No worries. I just knew that there wasn't a way to write what I wanted to say and make it sound like what I wanted to say. And I knew if I called you'd be able to have this talk without..."

"Lecturing? Ha!"

She meant without me getting mean and nasty. That I would be able to explain what I needed her to understand without calling her names or making her feel small. The phone conversation ended with declarations of love and more understanding than would have been garnered otherwise. 

But I was lecturing.

And I know I was. 

But the reason for a lecture is to transfer facts from one person to another. And I happen to know a lot about the subject. So yeah, sometimes I'm going to lecture.

I do a lot of it through the blog. Think of them as lecture notes in the syllabus. 

I do some of it through fiction. Those conversations we all have in our heads I just write down and make them a little story. 

I still do some in my head. AND ANOTHER THING!

And yeah, I do it online and in conversations as well. 

There is a picture of me and Katie at Tillamook Cheese Factory. She's a teenager, it was during a visit with my parents, we drove out and did the tour. In the picture it's me, Katie and my brother Jeff in the upstairs viewing area looking down at the factory floor (in the old building). My mouth is open and my hand is palm up like I'm holding something flat in my palm while I talk. 

When I posted it a few of the women I worked with said that they totally recognized that pose. It was the "Denise is holding court" pose. What happened when I was explaining something. I don't know why I do it. Maybe it's a subconscious gesture, Here I'm giving you this. But I thought it was funny that they recognized it. That's what happens when you are 20 years older than everyone you work with; you are the lecturer.

Most of them probably saw it the first time they told me they didn't go to college to make copies and get coffee. Oh yeah, you did, just your instructors forgot to tell you that was part of the job. At least at a small agency it was.

So yeah, I get it. I can be a bit strident. I can tend to lecture. But it's only because I still think you're worth my time and energy. When I stop explaining things to you. When I don't engage at all. When I don't feel compelled to show you why something is important, well that's when you know I've given up on you. I've decided you aren't capable of change and are not worth my resources. 

You can take the lecture as a blessing or a curse depending on how you feel about me. 

Reely?

So I've been doing the Fat Mum Slim challenge this month, but it's not the normal picture of the day challenge, it's a reel a day. First I'm going to give you the whole side eye portion I started with...

Facebook decided a few years ago to really push videos. They told advertiser that they got more reach and more interaction with brands. Then they went about trying to swallow up any competition. TikTok did not bite so they decided to try to replace them. With reels. They started prioritizing reels on Instagram (you were wondering where you lovely photos went right?) and tucking them into Stories on Facebook as well. They REALLY wanted you to like reels. Reely. 

But people don't. Turns out they were lying about the advertising and people hate video ads. They hate video news. People would rather read. You can skim or skip to the highlights or read and reread a portion if you need to or want to. Or if you are fast reader you get the same information in a minute that takes 5 in a video. In an instant world that's an eternity. 

But Facebook has invested a lot into making this a thing. So they had a big "Hey, you're an influencer!" get together and pushed reels. Hard. They taught people how to make them, what to focus on, what to do in them to get people engaged and then sent them off with a mission. You make reels and you get other people to make reels!

So when Chantelle posted about doing this, she was upfront that it was from this influencer meeting, I rolled my eyes. Oh please...

But then I thought, I never use the reels feature myself. I have watched my share of kitten content and comedy bits, but I'm not one to put my face in the screen like that. I know from the number of selfies and makeup free selfies I post you all wouldn't think it would be a challenge, but it is. One of the reasons you get so many, well, not flattering, shots is that I rarely retake a picture. There has to be something really wrong for me to do it again. I take the shot and post it before I can talk myself out of it. 

So reels would be an actual challenge. 

Even if Facebook is trying to manipulate people into using them. 

But honestly I've been Skinner boxed by Facebook for years so why would this be any different?

So I'm 16 reels into the month and...

I've done just me talking to the camera about the prompt for the day.
I've done photo montages with background music.
I've done a little lip syncing.
Today I'm planning on doing an unboxing video. As the youths do...

And it's been interesting. I have to think about the prompts differently. I have to think visually in a different way than a static photo. I wanted to try a few of the features out. The filters, the music, the text over the shots (haven't done that one yet, I still have a few days). 

I wanted to give it the full range before I decided it really wasn't for me. 

And so far that's where I am. I might work a video or two into my month after this, maybe, but probably not. 

Brent said for years I should do something on YouTube. He thinks I'm very clever, you see. But then YouTube started really getting shitty about monetization and hiding gay content and it just lost its sparkle. But he still thinks some sort of Vlog to go with the Blog would be good. He's got a lot of confidence in my ability to capture the imagination of the masses. I remind him that my three blog readers might agree but that makes three...he doesn't read the blog so that's why it's not four. 

I'm still glad I'm trying it, even though it's not captured my interest, or anyone else's for that matter. 

Just 15 more to go...

Spin...

"Our grandmother would be spinning in her grave!"

"What a wasted opportunity."

"What?"

"I mean, if we had known, we could have hooked her up to a turbine sort of thing and generated some energy. Spin, Granny, spin!"

"I cannot believe you said that! You are so disrespectful!"

"I'm disrespectful? You are assuming that our grandmother, the one who was born two years before the women's right to vote was recognized and yet voted in every single election and told us we had to; the woman who was born in a house that had neither indoor plumbing nor electricity but flew to Ireland before she died to see her parent's childhood home, that woman would be incapable of seeing the world changes?"

"That's different."

"How is that different?"

"She was traditional. She had traditional values. She would be horrified by..."

"She wasn't traditional. She was a rule breaker. A path forger. She left home and went to college at a time when most women around her didn't even finish high school before they were married and helping keep the farms. She lived in a city in another state when her sisters all lived within a mile of their childhood home."

"She still went to church on Sunday and was a God fearing woman."

"She went to an Episcopalian church and the rest of the family was Catholic."

"She still would never have approved."

"Maybe. Maybe not. But should we be living our lives based on what someone who was born over 100 years ago thought was right?"

"Those are good solid core values!"

"Are they? For whom? I mean the racism and sexism aside...though you can't really put that aside can you? I mean it was woven into the fabric of those good solid core values."

"You can't judge them for the time they lived in. That's not fair."

"Wait, we can't judge them for the racism and sexism because that was the time they lived in, but we are supposed to still think that somehow what they believed should affect what we do now? How do you hold both of those in your head?"

"It's different. The basics are good. But some of the things they thought were just not what we think today."

"Right. That's what I'm saying. What they used to think isn't what we think. We shouldn't be living our lives based on what they thought."

"You are twisting my words! You know what I mean."

"I do. Sadly. You are pushing your own beliefs off on to our dead grandmother and trying to say that you only believe this because she did. Even though we don't have any idea what she would believe now."

"We do. I do."

"Do you? Really? How?"

"What do you mean how? She was our grandmother that's how!"

"So if I called up Lily and asked her what her grandmother thought about book banning in Florida she'd be able to give me a detailed and nuanced version on your thoughts?"

"She's 5."

"Right. And how old were you when Grandma died?"

"I was 12."

"So by the time she's 12 you'll be talking politics with her? Have you already started with your other grandchildren?"

"No. Some of us don't think that is appropriate for children!"

"And yet you think you know what our grandmother thought about anything other than if your piano recital was the best she'd ever heard?"

"Well she will know that I stood for good wholesome things."

"And I will make sure we get that turbine hooked up to you so when you start spinning we don't waste it."

What Do You Know?

I'm not much of a joiner. I just never have been. It's never appealed to me. The times I've tried it, joining a club or an organization, I remember pretty quickly that I don't care for it. 

I think maybe it goes back to moving during elementary school. We moved halfway through my third grade year. Being the new kid is always tough. Being the new kid halfway through a year is worse. And I dropped in halfway through the year that marks the halfway point of elementary school. And then I left a year later. When I came back to the district for high school I was shocked at how everyone was in different friend groups. Because I missed those years. The middle school years where the other elementary schools join up and the hormones kick in and the self selecting into smaller groups hits. 

What was just whatever grade class you were in you all hung out together becomes the preps and the jocks and the freaks and the geeks and the and the and the...I missed all of that so I had no natural group to go to when I started at Highland. I just floated around between all of them since the people who I still considered my friends were in all of them. 

So I missed my window for group joining I think. And I also find people to be exhausting. Introvert here. People in groups is too much energy coming my way. It wears me out. When I was working and I had to go on marketing trips I'd be "on" for three or four days in a row. Flying out with clients, hanging around events with clients, going out with other agencies and all of our clients, sitting in meetings with clients and agents and corporate, then flying back home with clients. By the time I'd get back I'd just want to sit on my couch and stare at a wall in silence. It was too much. 

So those things together make me not much of a group person.

BUT...I'm also perpetually curious. I want to know everything. I want to know everybody's stories. I want to know what you think, and what she thinks, and what they think, and why? More information is always best for me. Just because I'm not part of your group doesn't mean I don't want to know about your group.

I hate vague posting on social media. 

Any message that gets the "Oh hun what's wrong" followed by "PM me." makes my jaw clench and my eyes roll. Don't fucking put it out there if you aren't going to share with the class. 

It's like "You had to be there" which used to be "I guess you had to be there" the semi apologetic response to when you tell a story about something HILARIOUS or INTERESTING that happened and the person just doesn't get it. They weren't there and something is lost in the retelling. "Oh well I guess you had to be there." But then it became, cryptic post, comment, response "you had to be there." Well I wasn't so tell me. Fill in the details. 

It's frustrating for a story person. I need the story. 

And now we have IYKYK. Oh.my.god. Save me from IYKYK. If you know, you know. Now, again, there are two different ways this gets used. One of them is funny. It presents the information, a picture of a lego with the caption "What's the worst pain you've ever felt?" then IYKYK. Meaning, stepping on a brick in your bare feet. Ouch! And if you don't know then someone will explain it to you. It's a joke tagline. Then there is the other way it's used, the one that makes my face do that my face thing. A random word or phrase is posted then IYKYK. And people react with laughter or anger or another cryptic word. 

Well...I don't know. So tell me. But that gets the "You had to be there" type response and I'm like delete, unfriend, block. 

Because it makes me feel like I'm back in High School with the cliques and the groups and there was always someone who didn't like that you floated who made sure to mention some event that you weren't at. Or being online looking at a Star Wars page and being subjected to a geek test, and no I haven't seen clone wars or ever picked up a paperback Stars Wars book. Or not having encyclopedic knowledge about a sports team you like, and heaven forend you just started watching them play a few years ago.  It's all very gatekeepery. You can't sit with us. You are a fake fan. Poser. 

Oh fuck off. 

Tell me the story. Share the joke. Fill in the details. Or just shut the fuck up about it. 

So...yesterday I found a random word generator and started posting literal random words* with IYKYK. 

And, of course, nobody knew. 

I was going to do it all weekend but gave up when people started reaching out in DMs and in the comments to see what was going on. The first message I got I felt a little badly about because they thought something shitty had happened to me. The others were just like, what the heck? And I couldn't keep it up. I can be an asshole (see doing it in the first place) but I'm not that kind of asshole.f So I shared the website and told them all now they knew. 

I absolutely might not get the joke. I might not understand the reference. I might be totally lost in the details, but if I ask you, I still want to know. If I don't know I want to know. 

*IYKYK

Bulldozing
Expenditure
Volcano
Ancestor

It's Just Basic Biology...

I think maybe it's part of the drive to reproduce. 

Just basic animal biology.

That drive to spread our DNA, keep our genetic lines going. 

No, I'm not talking about having sex. I think that has as much to do with it's just fun than anything else. I'm talking about that thing we do where we look for "ourselves" in the faces of our relatives. 

I posted a picture of my mother this morning with a funny thing about how Facebook was actually the first to see the resemblance between her and my niece. My niece strongly favors her mother so nobody really noticed how much she actually looks like my mother as well. But she really does. 

And the other weird part of that is that I've never had anyone tell me that my niece looks like me when I've posted pictures of her even though I look just like my mother. Hmmm...

ANYWAY...

It's not all that surprising. When Brian had his surgery and the weight loss started one of the first places you could really see it was his face. And one of the things that really started to show was that we have the same chin. I have a really prominent chin. A little pointy. A little like it's an addition to my face that was made when everything else was complete. The better to cosplay Maleficent with than a boring old stubby chin would be. But there it was. My chin on Brian's face. It suits him. And it made me happy. Because there I was!

The thing with Ashley looking so much like her mother and at the same time looking like mine duplicated itself with Katie. Growing up people would always say she looked just like her dad. Even though I have a picture of the two of us as toddlers where we look like carbon copies. Same hairstyle and everything. But the only thing people could see of me in her was my eye color. (Coincidentally, the only thing I have that resembles my father is I am the only one of the kids that got his brown eyes) But now that she's wearing her hair longer more people are noticing our resemblance. Give her long hair and a blocked bang and suddenly there I am!

And of course, as I mentioned, I look like my mother. I have her face shape, including the line between our nose and lips that pulls tight horizontally when we smile. I am shaped like her side of the family. Not a bit of Clifton to me. Except for those brown eyes. And except for when I look like a Clifton. It happens to me as well. I don't look at all like my siblings, except sometimes when my hair is longer and I don't have my bangs I can see a little bit of resemblance to my sister. It's like if you look at us direct on you can't see it, but look out of the corner of your eye and it's there. 

And we all do look. When a baby is born one of the first things we start to try and figure out is who do they look like? Do they look like me? 

I don't think it's just straight up vanity, I think it has to be part of that biological drive. That desire to make sure that we somehow keep going in this world. If not ourselves than at least maybe our chins...

My mother as a young girl. You can see not only her resemblance to Ashley here, but also to Kelsey. 

Me, Katie and Brent all around the same age. See? She's got a lot of me there.

Me and Brian showing off those chins!

My mother a couple of years younger than I am now but about the closest in age photo I could find
(Also my dad and Grandma Beulah {my sister-in-law's mother})

That's One...

Donald J. Trump, former president of the United States of America was just found liable for sexual assault and defamation of character.

And it won't matter one bit. 

I mean, that's crazy right? 

The people who voted for him will vote for him again (if he is still running by 2024, assuming the other cases against him don't land him in jail or in another country hiding out). They will still post about how great he is and how this is all just a set up.

Those of us who didn't vote for him and would never vote for him just have another item on the check list of reasons why. 

Nothing changes. 

It's so weird. 

I don't really have much to say about this. Which is why I wanted to write something really quickly. 

Because it's so weird to me that the former president was just found liable for sexual assault and defamation of character and it won't mean a thing. 

I mean, shouldn't it? Shouldn't it at least be a little shocking? 

We used to say we were at a crossroads in this country. A place where we needed to decide where we were going. I don't think we are anymore. I think we've all picked our roads now. 

Maybe it will change if the other cases against him lead to similar verdicts. 

Maybe. 

But for today, this is one. 

He's a sexual abuser. He defamed her character. He owes her a lot of money. 

And it won't change anything...

Good Dogs...

My sister-in-law posted a picture this morning from 1980-1981. It's me, my mother, my father's mother, my nephew, my sister-in-law and our dog Mitzi. 

Mitzi was my first dog. My family had had dogs before I was born, but up until that point we'd only had fish and a turtle that I could remember. They had a cat when I was born but the cat did not care for me. My sister never forgave them that they kept me over the cat, after all they had the cat first. But even though they had had a lot of dogs before I was born they hadn't had any after. Now I can look back and see that it was because we were living in rental houses and apartments and the house on Burton was probably the first rental that allowed dogs. Also could have been my mom and dad both worked and they wanted to make sure I was old enough to take care of a dog along with my siblings before they got one. 

Either way...Mitzi was my first dog. 

I can remember the day we got her. It was me and my dad. I kept looking at these fluffy, round, playful pups. Spitzapoos. They normally sold cockapoos but somebody's Spitz helped out. This had to have been the start of the whole designer dog craziness. When we stopped calling them mutts and made cute names out of the multiple dog breeds they were that was the end of "Free to a Good Home" and the beginning of $1000 for a mutt. 

Anyway...

I'm in love with these roly poly fluff balls and Dad says..."what about this one?" and reaches into the back of the dog house and pulls out the littlest ball of fluff. The runt of the litter. And she doesn't look like the others. They are peach and white patched dogs with apricot round ears. She was all white with pointed ears. "She's the runt and came out the most Spitz like" the lady who owned the dogs told us. I kept looking at the other dogs for a bit, they were much rowdier and so held my attention and dad kept sort of pushing this little baby forward. 

And then I looked at her and she looked at me and it was all over. This little baby was ours. 

(Now here is where memory is funny, I have two competing memories in my head over that day, the other one is me crawling into the back of the doghouse and pulling out Mitzi. Dad showing me the bigger girls that were a little sturdier and me insisting that the little one was the one we should get. I don't know any more which one is the way it actually happened. But the basics are the same, her sisters were much bigger, but she was ours)

On the drive home we were going over names and dad said, "Mitzi. Mitzi the Witsy Spitzi."  I loved it! 

Found out later that my family had owned a Spitz before I was born that they had named Mitzi. I'm not sure if Dad just loved the word play, loved the name, or thought I've had a lot of kids and a lot of pets and I'm not remembering one more name, but either way the name stuck and she was Mitzi.

And she was the smartest dog I've ever seen. Learned new tricks at record speed. She knew how to whisper. Dad worked nights and if you told her to speak she'd bark (like a normal dog) but if you said, "Shh, Daddy's sleeping" she would whisper woof sort of just blow out air with barely a sound. It was great. She also rang a bell to go outside. Learned that one over Christmas one year. We had bells hanging on the front door handle and they would ring as the door opened. She figured out if she rang them we'd let her out. And then when we got Sunshine she taught Sunshine to ring the bell when she wanted to go out. 

Ah, Sunshine... I am not sure where Susan found her, I think she came home with her from college. But Sunshine was a little black ball of floof who was...well. Not bright. 

Talking to the vet about her and Mitzi and he said, "Dogs are like people. Just like some people aren't very bright, some dogs aren't either." But she was very sweet. 

My folks were never without at least one dog from that point forward. And my brother and sister-in-law always have had dogs. And my niece has had dogs. 

We are cat people. We tried a dog once, it did not work out with the cat we had at the time. We've thought about getting a dog again but always talking ourselves out of it. It rains a lot in Portland and if we could make it past the warm summer months and into the rain of Fall it was easy to think, Yeah, no. We don't need dog. 

And then Katie let us know she does not like dogs (she's been bitten more than once in her life, her dislike comes honestly) and wouldn't be comfortable visiting if we got a dog so...

We'll stick with cats. 

But it was still nice to see the picture of Mitzi the Witsy Spitzi, the world's smartest dog. 

Heartbeats...

Every morning when Lacy woke up, she would put her hand on her heart. She’d count the beats. Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub. She’d follow her heartbeat for ten beats. Then she’d breathe deeply four counts in. Pause for four seconds. Four seconds out. She did this four times in a row. Centering herself before she ever put her feet on the ground.

It was something she had learned from her mother. She wasn’t sure when it started, it could have been from birth. With her mother’s hand over hers counting the heartbeats. Lub dub one, lub dub two, lub dub three… And then following her mother’s breathing pattern. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.

Her mother had suffered from anxiety. Though they didn’t call it that back when she was younger. They just said she was the nervous type. She had taught herself how to remain calm when her brain would start to race. Had taught herself centering tricks. Grounding exercises. Things people spent hundreds to learn from professional therapists.

When her mother was out in public and started to get “that feeling” the one she described as the graying. When the world would start to tunnel in on her. And the static buzz would start in her head she had learned to touch something solid. A wall, a desk, a tree, Lacy's father. She would reach her hand out, palm as flat as she could make it and feel the solid firmness. Then she would breathe. In and out slowly. Staring at her hand. At what she was touching. Focusing only on the connection between the two. She was here. It was fine. Everything was fine.

And the buzzing would recede. And the gray would retreat. And then her mother would continue with her day.

When the world was busy, and she felt like she was getting lost in the shuffle she’d take a day to herself. Go to a museum. Go to a bookstore. Take a bath. Get a massage. Just quiet things for herself. Long before people even knew what a mental health day was, her mother was taking them.

She learned how to navigate a frantic world without becoming frantic herself. Even if she was the nervous type.

And she taught her daughter all of her tricks.

But Lacy had never been the nervous type. Maybe it was because her mother had taught her how to ride the waves instead of being drowned under them. Maybe it was because she had taken after her father and become the solid thing you could count on when the graying started. Maybe it was because she started every day with her hand on her heart counting the beats. Lub dub. Lub dub. Lub dub. But she had never been one to get anxious.

Until yesterday morning when she put her hand on her heart and counted to zero.

Reasonable People Agree...

I've talked about this before. I mean the topic and the title. There is this style of arguing where people frame their argument around "reasonable people can agree" and then fill in the blank. It's a set up. Because as soon as you disagree you are unreasonable. 

Yesterday I read an opinion piece in The Atlantic about the legislation around trans kids. And their "reasonable people" arguments as to where we have to go next. And part of what they were saying was reasonable. They were against all of this anti trans legislation that has and is being passed.

But...

And there's the issue. 

But...

See their main point is that part of why the legislation is wrong is because it hardens the positions on the left. The liberal position gets further entrenched and unmoving. It's what happens when faced with an extreme. And it leaves no room for nuance. Which is correct. It is what happens. And it's also correct that there isn't a lot of room for nuance. Most people don't even grasp how nuanced and varied gender affirming care really is.

Like them. They made sure to include a lot of opinions on why the anti trans legislation is important. Because apparently it's just too easy to get treatment for kids. Doctors are handing out puberty blockers, hormone replacements, and scheduling surgery too easily. Hunh. Okay. As a cis gendered postmenopausal woman who had a bitch of a time getting estrogen replacement I'd like to find the doctors that are handing out medication easy peasy. 

And, you know, there is a lot of worry that all of this trans stuff is being fueled by a social contagion. Kids aren't really trans, you see. They just see how great their trans friends have it, what with the bullying and the restrictions and the entire government lining up to discriminate against them and they are like YEAH! Sign me up for that!

We shouldn't be letting kids get hormones and surgery just because they are part of some social contagion issue. Reasonable people can agree that this is an issue. And if just one kid is prevented from having life altering surgery that they regret isn't that worth it? 

Reasonably I mean. 

Well call me unreasonable because no. That's not how this is supposed to work. 

If your child comes to you and tells you that they are trans then you, you the parent, need to find a good doctor to start that journey with. You should have that option. And the doctor should give you all of the information available. Including side effects of medications. Which, generally speaking, doctors do that. I mean no matter the meds the doctor tells me, hey here is what it's for and what it will treat and what potential side effects there are, and THEN when I go to the pharmacy and fill the prescription for the first time the pharmacist does a quick consult as well. You should know what you are taking and what it involves, or what you are having your kid take. Absolutely. 

But that's between you, your kid and their doctor. 

If they even get medication that is.

Now, I will say because Katie transitioned as an adult all of her medical choices have been hers alone. Because she's an adult. If she had come to us as a teenager we might have taken it a little slowly at first, just to make sure she really grasped everything she was doing. Odds are we would have tried to find the best doctor for her that we could. OHSU has a great program so my guess is that's where we would have gone. And we would have found her a counselor to talk to about transitioning. Not to talk her out of it, but to work through it. When she told us, as an adult, I recommended the same thing. Not to convert her, or convince her not to, but because it's a big deal to transition and there is a lot to work through. Not the least of which is watching as it becomes legal to discriminate against you.

And good parents do know their kids. And they can have discussions with them on what they all can agree on during transitioning. Family counseling could help here too. A friend of mine contacted me a couple of years ago that their daughter told them she was nonbinary and wanted to explore that. (You can tell by my pronoun use where that ended up) My friend was concerned because their daughter has picked up and put down a lot of identities over the years and she was going through a patch at that moment that made my friend think that maybe this was an escapist thing. Like if she could change one thing everything else would fall in line. We talked about it. What all did her daughter want to try? What would be the worst thing that could happen if she did? Basically she wanted to wear a binder for awhile and go by they/them. 

Okay. 

Get her a good binder and watch your pronouns. It's not a big deal. 

And it wasn't. There were a few months where she tried that out. Did it feel right? And it didn't. It wasn't the answer she was looking for afterall. So she ditched the binder and went back to she/her. 

And that's gender affirming care. 

I know you keep hearing all of these scary things, major surgery! HRT! And yes, eventually those things might come in to play. Or they might not. Not all trans people get HRT. And even more never have any surgery. But the start of gender affirming care is just listening to people. Calling them by the pronouns and the name they'd prefer.

Plenty of people have surgeries they regret. Or take medications that they choose to discontinue. Or dress or get their hair cut or chose a lipstick color that they end up not liking. We don't outlaw it for everyone just because one person regrets it. We don't even outlaw it for kids. 

Nose jobs and breast enhancements happen for teenagers. And we say, well that's between them and their parents. 

Giving birth is a life altering change and the same groups that are worried about trans kids and life altering changes want to force that one on kids and adults alike. 

Medical care for anyone else is not your business. Medical care for kids is between them, their parents and their doctors. 

Call me unreasonable but I disagree with anyone who thinks that job belongs to the government or the church or the PTA or the nosy neighbor across the street. 

The world would be better off if people stopped trying to make "reasonable people agree" arguments and just started being reasonable people who minded their own business. 

So Tired...

I thought I hit the wall yesterday. I was that level of tired where anything that might even be tangential to moving I was tearing up. No self regulating of emotions left in the tank. Just beat. At one point Tig crawled into my lap and fell asleep and I couldn't decide if I was sad because I really needed to get the chores on my list knocked out or if I was glad because I might fall asleep too. I landed on mad because no matter that I was exhausted there was no nap in my cards. 

Just hit the wall. 

But I rallied. I geared up all of my energy and broke through!

Only to find out there was another wall behind that wall and because I was running full tilt I really smacked into it today. 

I have always had insomnia. And I normally deal with it just fine. But every once in awhile I'll get a stretch that is brutal. I'm on week two of not getting quite enough sleep. Which is worse, in a way, than when I get no sleep. Because that will only last about three days before everything just shuts down and I sleep. SLEEP. But when I'm getting just the other side of enough it starts to wear on me. Three hours here. Four hours there. One glorious stretch of almost 5. It's enough to keep going but not enough to feel great. 

I feel good... nah nah nah nah nah nah....

Which is where today's reel came from. When I'm this tired my mind starts to loop and get loopy in turn. Things become REALLY funny to me. And I get more obsessive about words or phrases than what is "normal" for me. Which is pretty obsessive anyway. I get a little goofy. Or even goofier than normal. 

I also get a much shorter fuse and my filter falls off. So I get meaner than normal as well. It's a tightrope of emotional responses. 

You pays your money and you takes your chances...

And it's a constant onslaught of randomness. Uncontrolled randomness unlike the normal randomness that my mind usually is. 

What I'm trying to say is that sleep is really important and you should be grateful for every full night of it you get. 

Brent has an early meeting tomorrow so he'll leave for work tonight. The meeting is in California, just to be clear. 

Often when he travels the cats spend the night looking for him. Every few hours they wander through the house crying. It's sweet. And annoying. And I have a feeling if they do it tonight I'll cry with them. 

Wish us all luck....

You Never Can Tell...

I am wearing pink checked tights right now. For people who have known me for a long time the fact that I am wearing pink is weird. I look good in pink. I have the right coloring for pink. Or at least I did before I dyed my hair red, maybe not as much now. But I still don't really wear pink. I have one pink shirt that I like but it's kind of a dusty pink and I really love it for the sparkles. For the most part I don't wear pink. Even on Wednesdays. Though today it is Wednesday and I am wearing pink...

The tights were part of a mystery grab bag from Snag. For the price of one pair of tights they sent you three, but you couldn't choose which ones you got. These were in the "classics" pack that I got. Not exactly what I would call classic, but hey, here they are. And I've been trying to give them a chance to grow on me. I've layered them with other colors to try and mute them out a bit. I've worn them with plain things to try and see if they were the star of the outfit would I like them. And then today the dress I'm wearing has hearts of multiple colors on it so  I wore it to match the pink. Thought with the hearts and the checks the outfit was kind of a "Do you love me? Check Yes" sort of thing.

I still don't love the tights and this will probably be the last time I give them a try. I might keep them just incase I get a wild hair someday and decide to try pink again.

You never can tell.

This morning I had an old post pop up in my on this day feed. At the time one of the things Facebook was trying out was this bar to the side of your feed that let you know what your friends were talking about. And it was telling me that Marcy was talking about alcohol. It made me laugh at the time because Marcy for sure would not be talking about alcohol. Devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (that's too long and they should just go back to saying Mormon). 

Today it made me laugh because we were comparing booze shelves in our pantries last week. 

Things change. 

And you don't know if they will be big things like changing your religious beliefs or small things like giving the color pink another try. 

Our problem is that we never think things are going to change. We live our lives like what we are doing now, who we are right now, is going to be the exact same in ten years. Even though we know we aren't the same as we were ten years ago. It's odd. 

I was never good at the interview question where they would ask where you saw yourself in 5 or 10 years. I had no clue. Which is not the answer they want. People want you to have future plans. And be confident in them. Even though nobody knows what they are going to be doing in 10 years. The world changes every single day and you change with it.

You are shifting constantly. Your world view is changing every time you get exposed to a new idea. Even terrible ones. They still make you rethink your positions. And the people you are interacting with are changing as well. So there is no way to stay the same in your relationships because everyone involved is changing too. 

I mean you can keep the framework. You can keep the basics. Ten years ago Marcy and I might have gone on a hike while her husband did his little sailing thing and she tried to convince me that being a mormon made sense. Now we might still go on a hike but I would imagine we'd talk about the guy she is dating and probably have drinks afterward. Still friends. The framework is still there, but we aren't the same as we were ten years ago so the conversations would be different. The things we connected over would be changed. The beverages would be tastier. 

I probably wouldn't wear pink though. 

Revenge Body...

She would never have guessed she would enjoy this as much as she had.

About six months ago she saw the flyer and had almost ignored it. In fact, the eyerolling had already started before the small voice in the back of her head whispered, “Why not?”

GET YOUR REVENGE BODY!

Give us 6 months and we’ll give you the body of your dreams.

You do the work; we guarantee the rewards!

She had never been a huge fan of the idea. It seemed petty. But honestly at that point in time she was down for some petty.

Just a few months before she had been blissfully unaware of everything that he had been doing. She was happy in her ignorance. She thought they were madly in love. She had been busy planning the wedding, they were going to be happy forever. Then came the day she saw the first text message. “Miss you.” Two words that tore everything apart.

Miss you? Why would you miss him? Who the fuck are you? I don’t know your name. You aren’t someone he ever talks about so how in the world could you know him enough to miss him? And again, why? Why would you miss him? Why would you send him a message like that?

And why would he quickly shove his phone into his pocket and look to see if she had noticed? Why wouldn’t he explain? Why would he hide it? And then excuse himself to the restroom where she saw him texting when someone else opened the door to go in.

Miss you.

She shouldn’t have opened his phone and read the other messages. It was a total invasion of privacy. She understood that even as she was doing it. But…

Miss you, miss her with that shit.

The anger was deep and constant. She couldn’t unsee what she had seen. She couldn’t quite convince herself that it didn’t matter. That nothing had changed, actually. Maybe she could be one of those women who just turned a blind eye to the dalliances. She could be the number one wife and just make sure her position was secure.

But that wasn’t her. She couldn’t do it. She was too angry. She was too hurt. She felt stupid and there was nothing worse to her than feeling stupid.

Then she saw her. And suddenly she didn’t just feel stupid, she felt ugly. She wasn’t as thin. She wasn’t as youthful. She wasn’t as radiant. Her hair wasn’t as lush. Her lips weren’t as full. She just wasn’t as pretty. And now she was stupid and ugly and no wonder he cheated on her. Her anger turned inward.

Thankfully that didn’t last long. But she wasn’t completely over it when the flyer came her way. Get your revenge body.

It was small and petty and really, she should be looking at it like the universe did her a favor by showing who he was before the wedding. It for sure wasn’t very feminist. She wasn’t the revenge body type.

Usually.

But sometimes petty was what you needed.

It wasn’t cheap. It was fully immersive. Six months, you follow the program, we guarantee the results. She committed to it as fully as she had been committed to him.

Multiple days a week. Hard work. Tone here, tighten there, plump this, flatten that.

There was a group of them that started at the same time, they met in a larger group with others who had started before them and eventually those who came after. It was good motivation. You could see what you could accomplish with hard work, and you didn’t want to let down those that were looking up to you. It was a well thought out system.

And she made friends with the others. She had thought going in that it would all be bitter, unhappy women. Women just like her. Women who had been cheated on or left for someone who was frankly, better looking. But it wasn’t just women like her. It wasn’t even just women. There were plenty of men interested in getting their revenge bodies as well.

She discovered that there were women out there being just as big of assholes to their partners as there were men. She confronted the sexism in her beliefs about men and women and moved forward. Better than she was before.

In one of the groups that started after hers there was a nonbinary person working on their revenge body. The perfect blending of who they had always envisioned in their heads. The one their partner had told them was a fantasy and they should just fucking choose a gender already because nobody believed in this nonbinary shit anyway. She confronted her own binary beliefs and heteronormative baseline and moved forward. Better than she was before.

There were also people there who were seeking revenge bodies because of things their parents had done to them. Things bosses had said. Things that they dealt with every day of their lives while society told them they weren’t good enough. She confronted how easy her life had really been and moved forward. Better than she was before.

There were people who had fantasy visions of every single different kind of body out there. Her revenge body was thin, muscled, full lips and hips, her old Barbie image coming to life as close as she could get it. One of the women who signed up with her had a revenge body that could only be described as lush. It was full and juicy and curvaceous. She had worked to add curves where she had lived a life of only angles. So many types and visions of what that perfect revenge body was. She confronted her diet industry instilled body standard bias and moved forward. Better than she was before.

She had done the work. Not just on her new revenge body but also on her belief systems. She knew she was a better person now than she was when she started. She was better off for the hard discussions she had been a part of. More compassionate after hearing some of the horrible things others had dealt with. More at peace with her choices when the others heard her story and agreed she had been done wrong. That yes, reading someone else’s messages wasn’t great, but her reason for doing so was sound and the wrong she had committed wasn’t anywhere near the wrong he had. She felt absolved.

And more than that she felt understood.

If nothing else had happened that would have been worth the price of the program.

But more had. She was almost all the way through, and she had done the work and the results were beyond her expectations. The perfect revenge body.

Today was a fun bonus session. Past alumni of the program were going to come back and speak to them all. What they thought about the program months or years later. What were the long-term benefits they experienced. Or were there drawbacks? Problems? Part of her expected it to all be sunshine and roses but she also knew that they had been honest the whole way through. Sometimes people had regrets. Sometimes it wasn’t worth it. Sometimes people dropped out. They either weren’t willing to do the work, or they weren’t interested anymore. Sometimes when time passed and healing happened through the work, revenge seemed less attractive. One of her cohorts had already stopped calling it his revenge body and now it was just his. He was doing his work. He was still doing his work, but revenge wasn’t part of it anymore. There was no need. He was healed.

She wasn’t quite there.

They met in a hotel ballroom instead of their normal space. A stage had been set up for the past graduates to sit. A dais in the middle for speakers. Such a standard set up. Except for the banner in the background “Revenge Body Inc.” it could have been any number of sales meetings she had been to in her life. Heck, even with the banner, if that’s what they were selling, fit in perfectly.

The speakers were all engaging. Showing off their work. Their gorgeous revenge bodies. There was no shame here, no feelings of maybe you shouldn’t show off. Everyone knew the work involved and was glad to have the opportunity to show their appreciation and, frankly, admiration. Toned, tight, lush, round, every single body exactly perfect in so many different ways.

And then she saw her.

Her.

The her that had sent her careening into the bitter and petty mind set that made a revenge body sound like a good idea.

She sat there on the stage looking just as perfect as she had the first time, she saw her. As lovely in real life as she had been in the photos on his phone.

“I know it sounds petty, but I was ready to be petty. I was planning a life with him, and he was still on dating apps.”

She had met him on a dating app. He had supposedly not dated in years. Just hadn’t had time. But for her he would make the time. For her and for everyone else. All along.

“He told me he loved me and only me, while he was still fucking everyone he could. I was devastated. He cheated on me and didn’t even care. And then Revenge Body Inc. gave me the chance to even the score. Just a little.” She waved toward the stage and her revenge body stood and gave a small twirl. “I made her to his perfect standards. She says the things he likes to hear. She looks the way he wants women to look. He couldn’t resist. And once he was totally committed, she slept with his boss. And told him it was because he was more successful, more attractive, just better and that he had always been just a steppingstone to a better man.”

Wow.

And in that moment, she realized she was totally healed. She didn’t need to find her revenge anymore because someone else had handled it all. She had committed to the program, she had done the work, the results were guaranteed.

Amazing.

Now she just needed to figure out what to do with the extra body.

Pretend It's April...

Okay, so I got distracted being angry yesterday and didn't do the end of the month update so we are pretending that it's still the last day of April and putting it out there now. So act like you are still posting Justin meme's and pictures of ramen and...

How did April go?

Eh. It was a mixed month. 

Hit the writing numbers but there were a couple of times I went more than two days without writing which is not what I want to do. I can hit my numbers doing that, but I don't really want to do it that way. Still counting it as a win that I did hit the numbers, including the extra couple of fiction pieces to Dana. Which is nice because that means those banked fiction pieces are adding up for the just incase I hit a doldrums space. 

Read Pamela Anderson's memoir for that piece. I had a few friends who saw the television companion documentary and enjoyed it, and I always like when someone whose story you THINK you know gets a chance to tell their own version. It was interesting. I can say she has terrible taste in men. Like a red flag means go go go to her terrible. But we pretty much knew that already from her marriage history.

The self help book was one that was off of my Kindle but, funny story, when I picked it up I couldn't remember when I bought it or where the recommendation came from. Last weekend while we were having breakfast Brent said, "I think we're reading the same book. Got to a place in the book and you had told me about it a book you were reading." So it wasn't technically a book on my long TBR pile, it was one out of the shared library! Oh well! I'm still counting it. 

Workouts were good until they weren't. Tweaked my knee and then got busy with contractors so I ended up missing an entire week. Back at it now, but it's so much easier to stop working out than it is to start up again. 

I knew I would be focused on workers in and out of the house last month and I was. I'm still dealing with them this month so it might be June before I feel like we are resettled from the year in the house review. 

Good news we've got like 90% install of those kitchen cabinets done. Funny enough the day the did the base install was the one year anniversary of when we moved into the house. 

So for May I'm looking at trying to instill some of those good habits I read about in my self help book for April. I wrote out a fairly detailed this is how I'm going to get it done schedule over the weekend and of course it all blew up this morning with another contractor being at the house and disrupting the timeline. But I did get the workout in and I'm writing right now and I will go ahead and do the cleaning chores I had scheduled in for this morning after I finish here. Just instead of being done by early afternoon it will be right about the time I need to start cooking dinner that I'm done with those other things. Still counts. Still get that star. 

Also looking at doing the Fat Mum Slim POD again. But this month she's turned it into a reel instead of a picture. I've not been a big Reels user and I don't really get the whole looping and music and jump cuts part of it. But I might do short little videos each day for the prompts. I'm not completely convinced I will, but I did do the first one so I am covered if I want to do it all.

Still plugging along toward that end of  year list. The writing priority is still in place even with the couple day lapses last month. 

I think that covers it for now. 

On we go...no longer is it gonna be May...

Now it is.