June Boom!

And June is done and dusted. Or it will be in about 12 hours, but close enough!

Halfway through the year so a really good time to take stock of it all and see what's working and what isn't. 

Writing goal is on track. Still a bit ahead, this will be the 123 blog of the year (ONE TWO THREE!) with 27 being fiction and 96 non fiction. Puts me ahead on fiction by one (plus the banked pieces I wrote for Dana that I can choose to publish later) and ahead on non-fiction by 18. Which is great. We are planning on a little vacation in August and I won't write during that so being ahead works there, and then I often slow down a little toward the end of the year. But what I really need to watch out for is knowing I am ahead and taking off more days on writing than I should, I'd still like to write more days a week than not. It can be stuff to be published here or working on Dana's pieces, but I need to sit down and write most days a week.

Reading I'm ahead by 9 books according to Goodreads and the number I set there. Again, that's nice. Sometimes you end up with a really long book without realizing it and it slows downs the works. I picked up a 700 pager this month, the last half of the month, that needed to be done by the 30th to get a gold star in the Kindle app. I mean, I made it, but it was a bit of a shock when what I thought was going to be a quick read ended up taking so much time! The bio/memoir/autobiography part is still good. Read Kal Penn's book this month. Super interesting look at his acting career and his time in the White House. Also counted it as a good Pride read since he's gay. We've talked about the self help. I'm going to finish it out, I mean it's only 6 more books, but I think I'm about ready to call that part of my challenges a bust. 

Maybe. I mean I've gotten some good things out of them but I think the time it takes to read them, I read nonfiction much slower than fiction for some reason, just hasn't been worth the information. We will see what the second half of the year brings. Maybe I just REALLY need to look deeper at my choices. No books that make you a better worker bee. No books that are geared toward the woman who wants to have it all. 

The Fantastic Stranglings this month was another hit. Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens. I haven't loved a western this much since the first time I read Lonesome Dove. 

I mentioned last month that I was just really bored working out. Not with the routine but with the whole thing. That did not change so I am taking a month off. Not off, off. I can't do that. My arthritis and my mental health would both lock up if I did that. But I'm not going to lift for July. I'm just going to do cardio. Walking or dancing. Just easy work for the month. See if I can zap myself out of my ennui about it all. I also mentioned I needed to do something about my size and I did lose about 2 pounds by cutting back on sugar again, not out, I still haven't been able to convince myself to just cut it out, but I did cut it back. And it did make a difference. 

So the year is going well. The things I wanted to work on are going well for the most part. I still haven't started pulling the photos off of Facebook, I think it's doable but it seems so fucking daunting that it's hard to actually sit down and start. 

And that brings us to July. Second half of the year! I'm waiting to see what comes available from the library for the self help book. Planning on it being Existential Kink, but we will see if it happens. I'm torn between two autobiography choices, I own both so I have time to decide there. I don't know yet what she chose for the Fantastic Stranglings book, hoping she announces today so I can get a hold on it at the library in time. 

I mentioned the month off from lifting weights. I will keep cutting back on sugar and I am going to do dry July. It's not like I drink a lot, but I get a cider at games and we had a lot of games last month. Still only like 3 drinks a week but I'm teetering on that line of going teetotal again. No matter how much or how little you drink your body processes alcohol into a poison. It's weird that we voluntarily drink poison, but we do. At different times that bugs me more or bugs me less. Right now I'm in a bugs me more zone so I'm going to take the month off. I'm not doing it in August because we are visiting family in August. (kidding! It's Brent's family not mine so it is never as hard)

And then the social media diet that I was talking myself into earlier. For July I'm not going to post status updates on Facebook. I will go and look at other people's posts, mainly to see travel pictures. I have one friend traveling the whole month, another set the first part of the month and yet another the last part. I LOVE looking at travel photos (and really LOVE my friends who give me an actual itinerary of what they did that day. I cannot even tell you how much I love that) and I'm not willing to give it up for the ones that aren't on Instagram. 

Speaking of Instagram, for July I will still be posting photos there. I am going to turn off cross posting to Facebook though, so if you aren't on Insta you won't see them. I'm less engaged there so I it works for the taper down month. And I will be posting links to the blog on the Facebook page for July. 

August might be a bigger cut back, might not, it really depends on how I feel about it at the end of July. Then of course I will decide at the end of August if I come back to Facebook or not. Again, depends entirely on how I feel. 

And that's really it. The overarching goal of 2023 was to figure out what made me feel my best and do more of that and less of what doesn't. It's not always easy to actually figure that out. Which is weird. You would think it would be the easiest thing in the world to figure out what makes you feel good, but we sometimes get in such a routine of just doing we stop paying attention to feeling. 

Even navel gazers like myself. 

So that's that. Half the year is gone. 

Here's to the down hill part!

Gay it Up a Bit...

The kids I went to school with knew before I did. Or before I really understood it anyway. They picked up some sort of vibe off of me from kindergarten on. 

"I bet you like BOYS." And the giggles. "Oh, you have boy cooties! Don't touch me!" And they'd run off. 

It got worse as we all got older. And when I realized there was something wrong with me. I wasn't like them. Middle school was almost impossible. Between the jokes that people made that I didn't find funny but couldn't dare not laugh at them to the times when they'd make the joke and then make sure to seek out my face. To watch me to see if I'd react. 

Getting bumped in the hallway and having someone hiss at me..."Watch it breeder!"

Or having a boy compliment me and then making sure to add, "No hetero!" on the end in a panic. Just incase one of his buddies might have heard him and started to wonder if he was like me too. 

The teachers weren't any better.  A lot of them would tease me just like the kids. Giving permission to single me out. To bully me. But I couldn't complain without admitting something about myself that it was better to not talk about so I just took it. 

Even some of them who seemed helpful, really weren't. 

My English teacher in 9th grade was always kind to me. Seemed to know when to step in to a situation before it got ugly. She had me stay after school one day and told me she had noticed I was having some social issues. Then she asked me if I could try to act a little queer. At least a little. Maybe flirt with Jenny or one of the other girls. I didn't have to ask anyone out, or accept any dates, I could beg off as shy or say my parents wouldn't allow me to date until I was out of school. But just try and fit in a little. Then she whispered that college could be better for me. She had a friend in college who was "like me" and she had a fine time there. Of course, as soon as they graduated she had put "all of that aside" and found a nice girl to settle down with. 

There were others who did smaller things. Opening their classrooms at lunch time so the different kids, the ones who were singled out for sport for whatever reason, could seek refuge. Eating with the rejects we called it. But at least we had each other. Until one of them would get their braces with the massive head gear removed, or the speech therapy would kick in and the stutter would go away, or the hormones would surge and they'd find themselves gorgeous instead of awkward and then they'd be out of the rejects and into the main. And hopefully you hadn't shared anything with them they could now use to target you. 

I didn't dare tell my family. At night I'd lie awake and pray to become gay. Please let me wake up in the morning and think boys were fine to hang out with, but that was it. Let me look at Jenny and feel about her the way my brother's friend Gary made me feel. Let me stop being jealous of people who lived openly heterosexual lives. The small handful that said "I was born this way." the ones that even sometimes had children through sex instead of through the lab. Like animals, my dads would say, no better than brood mares!

Just make it all go away. 

Eventually I did end up at college. And it was better. Yes, there were a few false starts with a couple of closeted heteros, but I did meet someone who wanted to at least try a public relationship. Society had progressed enough that even my dads were willing to try and support me by the time I came out. They had met a really lovely straight man through Pop's work. Even though it was awkward at times, when Da got drunk at the Christmas party and said, "Really? Not even a little bit? Like I'm legit handsome and you don't feel even a slight temptation?" But that one friendship started to crack the dam a little. So by the time I told them that I like men. Loved men. Wanted to spend my life with a man. They were more able to accept it. And even said it explained a few things from my childhood. 

My grandmother did ask me if I had maybe just not met the right girl yet, but she eventually came around as well, or at least loved me enough to treat my husband well.

Oh yes, my husband. I know it's not legally recognized, but we are married in our eyes. In the eyes of our friends who were at our ceremony. Even the eyes of his church, which is one of the more progressive ones to be sure, but it was important to him so we had the church wedding. 

We're trying for children right now. We get some push back. How is that going to be for them? Won't they be confused? How will they explain it to their friends? Will you force them to be hetero as well?

No, we will never force our children to be anything other than what they are. Odds are they will be homosexual like the majority of the population. And we will love them and all that they are in the ways we both wished we had been growing up. 

And if they aren't? 

They'll have us. A refuge. A place where nobody will ever ask them to gay it up a bit. To pass. To be something other than what they fully are. 

Someday maybe we can all live that way. 

Heavy Lifting...

Brent told me this weekend, "Only you can decide how much of someone else's heavy you can lift."

It was a great line. And a good reminder.

There is a lot going on the world right now and it all is going to hit us in different ways. 

And only you can decide how much of it to try and take on.

It's part of the social media diet I'm going to try. I need to get a break from the onslaught of ick. Brent dropped Facebook a few years ago for the same reason. It all got to be too ugly for him to want to look at. Katie stopped following some news spaces she had been following because the constant barrage of anti-trans legislation news was starting to drag her mental health down. 

To protect yourself, to practice real self-care as the book I just finished would phrase it, you have to set boundaries. You have to decide what is good for you to take on. 

Because other people will never set them for you. If you are willing to do more, take on more, they will continue to give it to you. To hand you more and more.

And some people are good with that. It works fine for them. They seem to have an unlimited well to tap. 

Some people it works right up until it doesn't. They end up just falling under the weight and hopefully someone notices. 

Me? I learned a long time ago that no is a complete sentence and I use it often. That forcing myself to do things I don't want to leads to me feeling unwell. Physically and mentally. Though sometimes I still get that twinge, that feeling of should I be doing more? 

Brent reminded me that sometimes someone else's heavy is not a load you can carry. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you lending a hand works for both of you. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you trying to help lift that load is just going to get you crushed. And only you can decide which kind of heavy it is. 

And you have to be prepared the first few times you don't pick up that load to be met with the guilt blow back. Either from them or more likely from yourself. If you've been one of those people that does everything for everyone and you start to cut back on that, or stop it altogether? Well nobody is used to that. People will question you, you will question yourself. Brent's cousins use WWDD as their fall back. What Would Denise Do?

It started as a joke when I taught them that no was a complete sentence. That they get to tell people no, I don't want to do that, pick that up, handle that problem, volunteer for that committee. Just no. You don't have to give a reason. It's not anyone's business but your own. 

Same thing for the people you let into your life. Nobody is entitled to your company. 

With Facebook I set up some general rules for myself a long time ago. Like if I am friends with someone and their spouse sends me a friend request I accept it. Not accepting it seems like a drama opportunity that I would like to miss. The flip side of that, of course, is if I find I cannot stand the spouse and need to unfriend them, not just hide them but get them off my list, then I need to unfriend both of them. I've also been surprised a couple of times by who got me in the divorce. 

I also tend to freely hide and clear my lists. I recently unfriended someone who I actually do like in real life, I think they are great, but their tendency to post on horrible websites, even if their reason for posting was to argue with the vile people, meant that those horrible pages kept showing up on mine. I tried a few different things to hide that and it kept showing back up in my feed so I made the choice to clear them off my list. I don't want to see that stuff. Even though I fully appreciated that they believe they are fighting the good fight, I hate seeing the vile shit constantly. 

Only you get to decide what works for you. Only you get to say this is my boundary and you may not cross it. Only you get to say what amount of someone else's heavy you are willing to lift. 

It's okay. You can do it. 

Or not. 

Totally your choice.

Help Yourself #6...

The book with the fun title that Skippy recommended was not available from the library in time to be this month's book so I took the one that was available. Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness by Pooja Lakshmin, MD

The premise of the book is that we all do self-care wrong. We do things like get a massage or a pedicure or take a vacation and call it self-care when real self-care is actually taking care of yourself all the time and making sure what you are doing is lining up with your values.

The book itself was not for me. I feel like it was geared directly at a woman, or type of woman, that I have never been, or at least not been for a very long time. The type that is overscheduled, overburdened, and has bad boundaries. That's not me. 

I also had a hard time because the author herself shared a piece of information that actually made me take what she had to say a little less seriously. Fairly or unfairly. She was a member of a cult and they used her status as a psychologist as a recruitment tool. She lent the cult the air of authenticity and legitimacy. Which she talks about how she had to work through the shame of that when she finally broke free and how that gives her understanding in to how a lot of women feel deep shame over not being able to be everything to everyone.

But she'd bring it up here and there:"as I was recovering," and "believe me I know what it's like to be swept away by something," and things like that. For me it kept making me question what she was saying now. She's telling me that she couldn't trust her own judgement before and she was writing articles and going on TV shows talking about the movement not realizing it was a cult but now I should trust that she knows what's healthy and not healthy. 

Which maybe I should. Maybe being through something like that really did give her great insight into boundaries and true self-care. But I am not the target for her message. I am too cynical to be able to step back and say, okay NOW I trust you. 

I will say that even though the book as a whole didn't work for me, I did get two nuggets out of it that I completely divorced from the context she was writing about and made them resonate for me. 

The first was when she was talking about her time in the cult and how she didn't recognize the cult aspects of it at first because it was serving her needs at the time. And then how she left when she really started to feel like it wasn't. (When she left she didn't leave because she thought it was a cult, that came later, she left because it wasn't serving her anymore)

And the whole thought of what serves your needs hit me. Including what used to serve your needs but just isn't anymore. And that's when I decided to do the summer diet off of social media. See social media has served my needs for a long time. Especially when I was first leaving working in an office. It connected me to people when I was suddenly alone. It still connects me to people. But thinking about it serving needs made me think about how things shift and change, and her leaving the cult never realizing it was a cult made me think about how bad we can be at recognizing when things go from just not serving you anymore to actually being harmful.

When I first went back to work after Katie was born I worked for a car dealership. The woman that ran the office was married to one of the brothers that owned the dealership. We called her the Great Soulless One. That gives you an insight into what she was like. But here is the funny thing, people stayed. None of us were working for fun. We all needed the money. It was the mid 90s and jobs weren't easy to find. And for me it was my first job back into the workforce in almost 4 years. I felt like I wouldn't be able to get another one. I had stumbled into that one through a temp agency.

But then someone would leave; another job would open, or a situation would shift and they'd go. Since we were all very close a month or so later we would all reconnect and the first thing we who stayed would say was how great the person who left looked. 

Every. Time.

It took me way too long to figure out that they didn't look great because I missed them so much but because they left. They weren't stressing out all the time anymore. They were sleeping. They were eating normal meals. They were working normal hours. They were living full lives again. And they looked great. 

The job suited my needs when I went back into the workforce. I was good at it and kept getting promoted which filled that Gold Star space for me. But it stopped serving me when I was leaving the car lot at the end of they day, closing my car door and screaming for the four blocks or so it took to get from the dealership to the onramp of the highway to go home. To release all of the tension in me before I picked up my child from daycare. So I could be a decent human being to that little human instead of the rage monster that I felt like when I got in my car. 

Thinking about it, if that person had found this book it might have been made for her. Might have helped her along a path a little sooner. 

But I'm not that person anymore. 

The other little piece I got out of it was something interesting to me to consider though I don't know if I'll apply it anywhere or not. I'm not sure if it's really an issue or just an issue to her. She talked about how women get too focused on goal setting and not values living. 

Like we set goals and move from goal to goal but what we should be doing is just setting our values and living every day in service to that. That goal setting can end up preventing you from taking care of yourself in the way you should be.

As you all know I love my goals. I'm not sure they are a bad thing, but it's something I'll chew on for a bit. Who knows maybe I'll drop all of my goals and just find some guidelines to live by instead and see how that works out. 

Of course the last time I decided to do a goalless year was 2020 and we all know how that turned out!

The book has a really high rating on Goodreads so it obviously resonates with a lot of people. And even with it not really hitting my sweet spot I still got a couple things (even if they aren't in the context she intended) to think about so it wasn't a total waste. 

Let's see if the Existential Kink one comes available this week so I can use it for July. It's still a great title. 

She's No Buffy...

“I’m still trying to understand why you believe you were justified in doing what you did.”

“Vampire.”

“Well, just because he was a vampire doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good person.”

“The fact that he was a vampire means he wasn’t a person at all.”

“Now, now, that’s just distancing talk. Trying to other someone so you can justify your opinion about them.”

“It’s not an opinion. That’s the science. You know this. Your audience knows this. Just because they look like people does not make them people.”

“My Uncle Joe became a vampire. He is still my Uncle Joe.”

“First off, I am very sorry for your loss…”

“He wasn’t lost, he’s still with us.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss. Your Uncle Joe died the day the parasite invaded his brain and took over his body.”

“Then how come he still remembers everything that my Uncle Joe would have? He is still my Uncle Joe, he just is…”

“Prone to tearing out people’s throats and drinking their blood in a disgusting display of brutality?”

“Well, only a few times, now we have him on a diet of blood from the volunteer brigade and he’s fine.”

“Dependent on the blood of people who are supposedly volunteering for the task, that doesn’t sound fine.”

“You still didn’t answer the question. If he’s not my Uncle Joe, if he’s not a person anymore, how does he still have all of his memories?”

“If I’m using a computer and I walk away from it, if you had the right passwords you could sit down and access all of the files that I stored on it. That’s what they do. They access the files. But they aren’t the person. Not anymore.”

“So you are trying to say that a person’s memories are just stored like files and if you had access you could just what? See them all?”

“Yes, that’s what I am saying. And it’s not just me. There have been multiple studies done about this. This is not some sort of secret information. It’s available, it’s been reported on, it’s not even debatable, it’s settled science.”

“That’s just an opinion.”

“No, it’s not an opinion. An opinion is do you like potatoes or tomatoes. A fact is that they are different.”

“But they are both vegetables!”

“No, they aren’t. A potato is a vegetable, and a tomato is a fruit. Just because we use tomatoes in savory dishes and act like they are vegetables doesn’t make them a vegetable.”

“Culinarily speaking a tomato is the same as a potato. Which shows it’s just an opinion.”

“No, it still doesn’t. It just means people got tired of arguing the fact that you could use fruit in dishes you normally think of as having vegetables. It doesn’t make the tomato a vegetable. Anymore than you wanting to believe that that thing is your Uncle Joe makes him your Uncle Joe.”

“Well…I mean…I… Let’s get away from the personal attacks and back to the purpose of this interview. My audience wants to know who made you judge, jury and executioner? How come you get to decide who lives and who dies?”

“See this badge? Zoom in on it so your viewing audience gets a good look. I’m sanctioned by the Department of Undead Safety Taskforce. I’ve had years of training to identify the parasites and to protect myself and others from them. I am the judge, jury and executioner. That is literally my job.”

“But surely you can see how those of us, those of my viewing audience, could find what you do to be nothing more than murder.”

“Do you, excuse me, does your viewing audience feel the same way when they call an exterminator to get rid of termites in their house? Do they feel the same way when they clean their counters with an antibacterial cleanser to get all of the germs that might infect them and get them sick? Do they feel the same way when they shower and get the filth off of them?”

“I find it offensive that you continue to refer to them as filth and infections and pestilence.”

“I am sure that you do. Deeply. Maybe even personally.”

“Yes, I do take it very personally. My Uncle Joe is a beloved member of the family. And I’m not the only one. Look at the depiction of vampires through history. They are loving members of the community. Angel and Buffy were the first love story for an entire generation. Edward and Bella shaped another.”

“Yes, hundred or more years old man pursues high school girl is always a great romance.”

“Well that’s not exactly…”

“No, that is it exactly. And let’s not forget Spike.”

“Oh we’d never forget Spike, right ladies?”

“Spike who tried to rape Buffy. Then became her second great love interest. Much like Luke and Laura on General Hospital. What great romance doesn’t start with a rape, or attempted rape right?”

“But that was before he found his soul again.”

“So you are saying that before that he was soulless? So not human at all, even though he still had all of the memories from when that body was human?”

“That’s not what I was saying, and besides, that just fiction. “

“Now it’s just fiction. Before you were trying to make it a history lesson.”

“Not exactly a history lesson, just more a popular depiction in fiction. Which is a great way to experience another lifestyle.”

“Sure. And if that popular fiction is being written by a vampire, then it might want to make things like romance between centuries old beings and teenagers normal. Or thinking of most vampires being basically good, just with different dietary needs.”

“Are you saying that Joss Whedon is vampire?”

“No, I’m saying that Joss Whedon and Stephenie Meyer are both vampires.”

“I’m stunned.”

“Are you though?”

“Excuse me?”

“I just don’t think you are. I think you are fully aware of who is and who isn’t infected. Also settled science and not an opinion, you can recognize each other. Pheromones. It’s a good evolutionary tool. That way you don’t ever try to eat or breed with one of your own.”

“I am sure I don’t care for what you are implying.”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it outright. You are a vampire. You’ve been doing a decent job of hiding that fact. But as your show became more and more pro Infectors you caught our eye. At first we weren’t sure if you were just a Renfield, but when a few members of your staff disappeared we were pretty sure you were beyond press agent and into full infection.”

“Turn the cameras off!”

“No, keep them rolling. This is going to be a ratings bonanza. Julie Sinclair, of the Just Jules Show Revealed as Vampire on National Television.”

“If you believe I’m really one of them why aren’t you worried about your own throat?”

“Because I’m not stupid. You’re already dead.”

“We had this discussion earlier, even if I was a vampire, I’m not dead. I’m Julie Sinclair. I’ve always been Julie Sinclair and I am still Julie Sinclair. I am just as alive as you are.”

“No, I mean, I’ve already taken care of you. Camera One? You’re going to want to get a close up start with the right hand then work your way up the arm and on to its face. This isn’t a process a lot of people have ever seen before.”

“What the hell? What is going on?”

“Yeah, that’s the sliver of hawthorn wood making its way through your system. I slid it under the skin of your palm when we shook hands at the beginning of this interview. Everyone always thinks you need a giant stake through the heart, which is almost impossible to do with an adversary that is much stronger and faster than you are.”

“You bitch.”

“Yeah, probably. But at least I’m human. Camera three are you getting the right angle? You should be able to make out the parasite wearing the skin of Julie Sinclair now. Camera Two? I’m going to be talking directly to you now. Control booth? You’ll want to do a split screen with the skin sack and me.

What you are seeing right now is the remains of Julie Sinclair finally being allowed to rest. She passed from this existence around January of last year. Her “Uncle Joe” infected her with his parasite while she slept. This is how they breed. She didn’t notice the bite mark, we’ve all been conditioned to think of fang marks on a neck, but in reality, it’s as small as a mosquito bite, and it could be anywhere on the body. It took a few months for the parasite to gain full control of her and at that point the spark that was Julie Sinclair was extinguished.

There, you’ll see the proboscis now clearly showing under where Julie’s nose and mouth used to be. The stinger is not yet fully developed, and it would not have been ready to breed for quite a while. They are slow to mature. A vampire only splits its parasitic infection once every 50 years or so. Thankfully. We would have been completely overrun by now if it were more frequent. Though of course that’s part of the design, it wouldn’t do any good for the parasite to completely overtake it’s host community.

And believe what you are seeing. This is not Julie Sinclair. This is a parasite wearing a Julie Sinclair skin suit. This is a body snatcher. This is an invader. Some of you still won’t believe what you are seeing, but some of you will. And that’s all I can hope for. My job is to keep you, and me, and our future safe.

This will be the last Just Jules Show but has not been Just Jules for a long time now. There is a number on your screen you can dial to get help processing everything you’ve just seen. And if you believe that someone you know has been infected do not try to handle it yourself. I cannot stress how dangerous that would be. If I had not had the opportunity to take it by surprise it could have quickly over powered me and you would have seen a very different display of vampirism today.

Leave the vampire hunting to the Department of Undead Safety Taskforce. Thank you and goodnight.

Can somebody bring me a broom? I’ll clean the rest of this up before I go.”

 

Last Anniversary...

Whew, we made it. 

Or we will have by the end of today. 

Today is the 12th anniversary of my father's funeral.

Facebook, for a long time, stopped showing me 2011 memories starting the beginning of June through about mid August. I didn't ask them to hide those posts, which is a thing you can do. Just something in the algorithm decided that I wouldn't want the reminders of that time. 

Which made it so much worse. It was like a reinforcement of the hole that was left when he died. Ignoring something doesn't make it go away. 

But they've finally started showing those memories again. 

And today's were of the funeral. 

Which was honestly the best part of the whole experience in a weird way. The shock was worn off a bit, but still enough of a buffer that it wasn't devastating when people would sort of forget why we were home and say things like, "It's so good to see you!" then realize in that split second that the reason why they were seeing me was because we were at my dad's funeral and the horror would flash across their faces and I would end up comforting them instead of them comforting me. It wasn't devastating because of the shock, and it was amusing because of the shock and the exhaustion. 

And then spending time with the family after the funeral. Playing games like we've done at so many other family gatherings. Just blowing off steam. Adult beverages included. Reading to my grand nephew. Watching Brent play with him. Knowing that it would probably be years before we would see any of them again. And, for once, instead of arguing about the things we all didn't agree on, we were united in the one thing we did. That we missed Dad. 

As far as funerals and funeral days go, it was actually lovely. 

And I'm glad that I'm getting the memories from that time period again. 

We live in a world that pushes everyone to quickly move on from uncomfortable feelings. To zoom past pain and sorrow. Smile. Be positive. It's okay. It will all be okay. And sometimes that's not what you need. You need to deal with whatever it is that's causing you the discomfort. Because just ignoring it doesn't work.

Now that being said, for those of you that know me you know I'm not a real fan of wallowing either. There is a line for me. Deal with what you need to to move forward and then move. Knowing that sometimes you move forward with the sorrow or grief or discomfort. You learn how to manage your life with that pain in it now. And eventually you either do get over the pain, or you learn how to carry it with you. 

But you can't just ignore it, or pretend it's not there. 

It's like that leftover container in the back of the fridge. You can forget about it for awhile but eventually something is going to happen that reminds you and that problem has now grown fur and possibly teeth...

It's better to deal with the feelings and learn how to live with them, or move past them in a healthy manner than to wait for them to bite you in the ass.

So as we reach the last of the grief anniversaries until August I'm grateful that I can see those memories again. To smile at the adorable picture I took of my Grand Nephew at the funeral reception. To laugh at the Catch Phrase game memory "It's also something dirty" to see my dad's face smiling at me from the picture of the "I've Moved" program from the service. And to cry just a little bit when the Moth Story of the day was from a woman talking about losing her father and how she and her sisters moved through the grief. 

 Grief is just love with no place to go. -Jamie Anderson

Summer Diet...

No, not calories, social media. 

I think I'm going to go on a social media diet for July and August. I was thinking about it earlier today, it sort of dovetails with the self help book I'm reading for June. I thought about just dropping off completely but I have a friend traveling in July and I would miss her pictures and they are always so cool and colorful and I'd regret not seeing them and she's going to be gone the whole month so I'd just miss her period. So I thought maybe I'd just be a stalker with no interactions. But that seems weird. 

So instead I'm working out a taper in July and then I think maybe a full break in August . Summer vacation. Summer diet. 

Not sure exactly what I'm going to set for parameters, but I've got a few days to lock it down. Right now I'm thinking for July, at least, I will post links to the blog on my Facebook blog page and I will post photos on Instagram. I won't post new content except for the photo links on Facebook, but I will comment on things I'm looking at. Then in August I'm thinking I'll just shut down both programs altogether. I'll keep writing blogs and posting them but you'll have to go to the blog page itself to see new content. Or maybe I'll just repeat the lighter posting from July. 

That's the thought right now anyway. Who knows if I'll follow through or not. 

But I think it feels right to do it. 

I actually thought about just starting right now, but I'm not done with the Pride posts and you know how I am about being a completist. (I've just recently gotten to the point where I can put a fiction book down if it's not enjoyable, and even then I feel a little weird about it.) Especially since it's Pride posting and I also feel like if you know something you should share it. And with all of the bullshit around the LGBTQIA+ community right now I feel an even bigger drive to post something interesting, positive, helpful, supportive, informative, or at least a scream into the void about it this year. 

So instead I'll ruminate for the next ten days, or completely forget until sometime mid July where I'll go...oh that's right I was going to do...

Which is why I'm doing this blog. Write it down, make it stick. Get prepared. All that jazz.

And also because I didn't write yesterday and needed to get something up today, that whole completist thing again. 

So, anyway...I'm thinking about a diet. Seems like a good idea today. But who knows by tomorrow social media might all look like chocolate cake.